Glen Morgan and James Wong weren't necessarily looking to write and executive produce a series about people with paranormal abilities, but then "The Others" was more or less dropped in their laps.
The partners, whose credits include some of the better episodes of "The X-Files," "Space: Above and Beyond" and the second season of "Millennium," were in Canada working on a movie ("Final Destination," due out March 17) when NBC ordered the show, which had been created by executive producers John Brancato and Michael Ferris ("The Game," "The Net"). And Morgan and Wong's other plans sort of fell through.
"We had found out that our pilot for Fox wasn't picked up," Morgan said. "I read it in a Denny's in Vancouver. So maybe it was time to move along from there."
After a call from Steven Spielberg (his DreamWorks produces the show) and a look at the pilot, Morgan and Wong signed on.
"When we saw the pilot and we saw the cast of people we had, I really felt like it was an opportunity to do something fun and do something scary for NBC that they haven't had before," Wong said.
The Others are people with supernatural gifts — the ability to be in contact with the supernatural. Not that they're all real happy about that. The series opens with college student Marian Kitt (Julianne Nicholson) having terrifying encounters with the ghost of a young woman who died in her dorm room a year earlier.
Marian is put in contact with a group of people who have similar abilities. Elmer (Bill Cobbs), the leader, is an 80-year-old medium. Mark (Gabriel Macht) is a medical intern/empath with healing powers. Warren Day (Kevin J. O'Connor) is a seer. Satori (Melissa Crider) is sort of a new-age psychic. Albert (John Aylward), another old-timer — and a particularly crotchety one — is blind but compensates with a heightened sixth sense. And Miles (John Billingsly) is a professor who documents the Others' encounters.
As the pilot demonstrates, the show can be both scary and unpredictable. The main storyline — the one in which Marian has increasingly frightening encounters with that ghost — doesn't end up going where you might expect. And a subplot about an older woman whose recently deceased husband is trying to contact her from beyond the grave, while a great deal more predictable, makes for a nice diversion from the main story.
The second episode involves another message-from-beyond-the-grave story, but it's very different — less frightening, more slow-paced.
"The pilot had a lot of scary stuff, but the second episode is much more emotional," Wong said. "We have episodes in the can right now that are really scary. . . . The great thing about the show is that these characters can see the demons. They can see the ghosts, so we can really take advantage of their ability."
"Well, I like to think of the show as being able to tell a lot of different stories," Morgan said. "And I think the show will explore the paranormal from all sides. . . . I like to think of the show as, at the same time, very spiritual and very scary."
Mick Garris ("The Stand" and "Stephen King's The Shining") directed the pilot. And upcoming episodes are directed by the likes of Oscar-winner Bill Condon ("Gods and Monsters"), Tobe Hooper ("Poltergeist," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre") and William Malone ("The House on Haunted Hill").
Morgan and Wong discourage most of the comparisons between their new show and their old one.
"I hope the people that watch 'The X-Files' will like 'The Others' because, like 'The X-Files,' it's going to be intelligent and scary at times, and a very emotional show," Wong said. "But we didn't plan on the show being sort of like 'The X-Files' in any other way."
"But it's not like 'The X-Files,' " Morgan said. "These are people. They have these abilities. They believe it. Go. You don't have to take time to go, 'Well, maybe it was this, or maybe it was that.' "
The fact that "The Others" bears some resemblance to the hit movie "The Sixth Sense" is both coincidental and not-so-coincidental. The pilot was actually produced before the movie was released, but the success of the movie made NBC executives more interested in the pilot.
Morgan said he saw "The Sixth Sense" about a week before he and Wong began writing episodes of "The Others."
"And when I watched it, I went, 'Oh, no! That's what we wanted,' " he said. "So, yeah, I was a very big fan. It was a great movie."
Whether "The Others" turns out to be a great series remains to be seen. It is, at least, an intriguing one with possibilities.
"(NBC Entertainment president) Garth (Ancier) said what he wanted was a scary show on a Friday or Saturday night where you just kind of turned the lights out and watched this thing. And that was a neat challenge," Morgan said.