In the next step of its evolution, the Freeform network is taking what may prove to be an industry changing approach to content delivery with its new show, Beyond.
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Announced at New York Comic Con, the 10-episode event will make its network premiere on January 2, 2017 and then the entire season will be made available for digital consumption immediately after. The digital platforms include the Freeform App, Freeform.com, On Demand and Hulu, simultaneous with the two-hour television premiere event.
Freeform president Tom Ascheim said that the show is an imporatant milestone for the company.
“One of the promises we made to our audience at the time was to create content they love and to make that content easily accessible,” he said “‘Beyond’ helps us live up to both promises. In the same way we modernized our brand, we are modernizing how we bring our shows to our audience. ‘Beyond’ is our first, and definitely not our last, ‘binge-from-the-start’ show.”
Beyond is a one-hour drama about Holden (played by Burkely Duffield), a young man who wakes up from a coma after 12 years and discovers new abilities that propel him into the middle of a dangerous conspiracy. Now Holden must try and figure out what happened to him during those 12 years; how to survive a world that changed while he was gone; and answer the question, why did this happen to him?
The show co-stars Romy Rosemont as Diane Matthews, Michael McGrady as Tom Matthews, Jonathan Whitesell as Luke Matthews, Dilan Gwyn as Willa and Jeff Pierre (“Shameless”) as Jeff McArdle.
From Imperative Entertainment and Automatik, Beyond is created, written and executive produced by Adam Nussdorf who got his start on Once Upon a Time in Wonderland. It also features Tim Kring of Heroes, and David Eick from Battlestar Galactica, as executive producers on the project.
Duffield said that the audience can expect a show that has some of the traditional things they should expect from a superhero show: powers, internal conflicts, and external combat while still staying nearer to things that could, with some suspension of disbelief, happen.
“It’s different, it creates a show about power but it is grounded in this reality,” he said. “It is a teenager trapped in this body, growing up into a man and seeing wat that means.”
He, like many, others is excited to see the two-year project come to fruition and is excited to binge it on his own.
“It is such a cool medium, I know that is how I enjoy watching my shows,” Duffield said. “To be able to keep the momentum going and see the episodes back-to-back.”
The sci-fi saga premiers on January 2, 2017 on Freeform.
