Fox Backs Out On 'Hieroglyph'

Not even done filming a full season and Fox is throwing in the towel on ‘Hieroglyph‘. The show appeared to be a little too big for its britches as the creators tried to bring together political intrigue, seductive concubines, vampires, and magic all in a period piece set in ancient Egypt. Maybe they wanted to throw aliens into the mix and heard that HBO already had that planned with ‘Pharoah‘ or thought that the ‘Stargate‘ movie reboot would just put them to shame?

Shame might be right as even though the network ordered ‘Hieroglyph’ straight to series, the scripts apparently were just not coming together as planned. The show was meant to follow Ambrose (played by Max Brown), a notorious thief who is pulled out of prison to serve the Pharoah (played by Reece Ritchie). From there things just got strange by mixing in magic and vampires. I suspect they were trying to find a way to fill the void that would have been left open by ‘True Blood.’

It looked all set with Travis Beacham trying to pen the series and Anna Fricke set as the series show runner. Set to star past the two leads were Kelsey Chow, Condola Rashad, John Rhys-Davies, Caroline Ford, and Antony Bunsee. Honestly, it had a pretty decent cast lined up.

According to Kevin Reilly who was the Fox Entertainment Chairman when this was ordered, “We wanted to do a show about deceit, sex, intrigue in the court and fantastical goings-on — no better place to set that than ancient Egypt.” Apparently this no brainer lacked a brain with the pilot money being used for increasing effects across multiple episodes that they just couldn’t get to work right on page.

Its always a shame when Fox pulls the plug on science fiction themed shows as they are known to do. At least they had to sense to pull it before it built up a good following this time. I’ve always been a huge fan of Egyptian mythology, so I’m a little annoyed that they couldn’t find a good route to go with this one.

Just in case you missed it, here’s the trailer for the now defunct TV series to give you an idea of what might have been: