According to a story on Sci Fi Wire dated Dec 3rd (”Pretender To Pretend Again?“), Michael T. Weiss has been “breakfasting” with the creators of THE PRETENDER regarding reprising his role as Jarod, the genius who got away. Only this time around, the format and the platform of the project will be “digital”. (What that actually means is anyone’s guess: Straight to DVD? Directly downloadable on the Net? Jarod becomes a computer generated character either in a film or a video game voiced by Michael T. Weiss? Hmmmm.)

No word mentioned about any of the other original actors taking part in the new project (Andrea Parker, Patrick Bauchau, Jon Gries, James Denton, Richard Marcus, Harve Presnell). I can’t see a version of THE PRETENDER without most, if not all, of them, though. It’s the chemistry between the ensemble that really made the stories work for me.

Given that the series ended on a whimper when it was canceled, with the networks tossing us 2 small bones, I mean movies (PRETENDER 2001, PRETENDER: ISLAND OF THE HAUNTED) in the 8 years since the show went off the air , fans have been waiting a loooong time for some kind of resolution to the various story lines, including the new ones the movies brought up. It would be wonderful if this turns out to be true. (I’m not holding my breath, though – it HAS been 8 years of promising to give the fans some closure! and instead we got TIN MAN from Craig Van Sickle and Steven Long Mitchell not a bad mini series, just not THE PRETENDER!)

Time to start “agitating” again, eh?

In the meantime, time to go back and rewatch the series and the movies so I’ll be totally up to speed by the time Jarod reappears!