Much weeping and wailing here at Starburst Towers and, presumably, across the entire genre population, with the news that SyFy (formerly The Sci-Fi Channel) has decided to axe its ‘superhero’ series Alphas.

Alphas?? For those not in the know this is the LIDL version of the X-Men created by Zak Penn and Michael Karnow about a bunch of ordinary folk with ‘special abilities’ who, under the guardianship of Professor Xa… sorry, Dr Lee Rosen (David Straithairn) investigate the criminal activity of other rogue ‘alphas’. The ‘good’ alphas – played by Ryan Cartwright, Warren Christie, Azita Ghazandi, Laura Mennell, Malik Yoba and Erin Way (season two only) – are possessed of such interesting abilities as the power to process information as fast as a computer, heightening one of the five senses and deadening the others, mental hypnosis. And so on.

The show, screened initially on SyFy in the UK before its terrestrial debut on 5 last year, ran for two series and despite being a moderate ratings hit, SyFy have decided that Alpha’s second series is, in fact, its ‘omega’ series (does that work?).

Naturally the flags are at half-mast here at Starburst today…

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