Vince Gilligan is best known for creating the massive hit TV shows Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, but before he struck out on his own, he learned the ropes on the hit series The X-Files, where he wrote 30 episodes and directed two. Now he is leaning back into the sci-fi genre with his next project, an Untitled series which will star Emmy-nominated Better Call Saul star Rhea Seehorn.
In an interview with Variety, Gilligan said now that the WGA strike is over, the writers room for the upcoming series is reopening. He explained:
“When the strike hit, we were very close to the end of breaking the first season. So we’re going to go back and finish the second-to-last episode and then get to work on the last episode … We’re looking forward to getting back to work. We would have been shooting already if it weren’t for the strike. The strike was a sad necessity, and we’re all glad that it’s behind us.”
The show is filming in Gilligan’s TV stomping grounds of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and he describes it as “mild science fiction.”
“I wouldn’t call this heavy science fiction, I would call it mild science fiction. But it does have a sci-fi element to it, at its core. And there’s no crime, and no methamphetamine. It’s going to be fun and different … I know it’s a story that interests me, and Rhea will be playing a very different character than she played on Saul. The weird thing is that it takes place in Albuquerque, except it’s a whole different world. There’s no overlap that I can see.”
He went on to tease that it takes place in “the world we live in,” but a version of it that “changes very abruptly in the first episode, and then it is quite different … and the consequences that that reaps hopefully provide drama for many, many episodes after that.” It sounds reminiscent of The Walking Dead, or another apocalyptic-type story, but with Vince Gilligan at the helm, I know it will be good. I can’t wait to see what he has in store!
