Two-time Emmy winner Ken Estin, showrunner of “Taxi” and “Cheers,” is steering “Psychic Predators,” a paranormal dramatic comedy starring mentalist Banachek as himself.
Organic Media Group (OMG) unveiled the series at Taiwan Creative Content Fest (TCCF) in Taipei, and it is also heading to the American Film Market.
Estin, whose resume also takes in “The Tracey Ullman Show,” will run the series alongside Steve Chicorel, who created the show and is executive producing it. Estin signed on after reading Chicorel’s pilot, “The Voice of God,” and will oversee the writing of the rest of the season if the series is commissioned.
Banachek plays a famed mentalist who earns his living deceiving people but always admits his feats are tricks. When a hard-charging TV producer talks executives at TRN, The Reality Network, into backing a show that catches fake psychics red-handed, Banachek goes undercover alongside a magician skilled in disguise and a tough female FBI agent. The producers liken the setup to “Mission Impossible” crossed with “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” transplanted into investigative TV. Behind the scenes, the team must also deal with network executives and their demands, clashing egos and the pull between uncovering the truth and landing an unscripted hit.
“Ken was remarkably young when he showran those legendary series – winning his first Emmy in his twenties – and he’s as sharp and funny as ever,” said Chicorel. “But we didn’t bring him on just for the jokes. His work finds the vulnerability, heartbreak and humanity that give both comedy and drama their power. That balance of humor and pathos is exactly what ‘Psychic Predators’ needs to entertain audiences while exposing uncomfortable truths.”
Estin said comedy needs emotional honesty, while serious drama needs humor to help people face it. “Like ‘MAS*H,’ which illuminated the horrors of war, comedy lets us get past people’s defenses so they can hear important messages – like the ones Steve & Banachek built into ‘Psychic Predators’ to explore the magic of why we believe – and what happens when someone exploits that belief,” he said.
The show draws on Banachek’s own history. He was mentored by the late James “The Amazing” Randi, the famed skeptic, and took part in Project Alpha, among the most famous stings in paranormal research. He was 18 when it began. Passing himself off as a psychic, he used conjuring methods to reveal weaknesses in the researchers’ experimental controls, while Randi showed the overconfident scientists how the same effects could be faked.
Banachek also helped Randi unmask televangelist Peter Popoff, whose supposed messages from God were being relayed to him through a concealed earpiece. The pilot dramatizes a con of that kind. Later episodes will take on pseudoscience, bogus medical treatments, expensive fortune-telling scams, rigged paranormal events and faked alien encounters. The targets run from psychic con artists and exploitative spiritual leaders to doomsday cults.
Chicorel and Banachek also intend to bring in other top magicians who know how apparently impossible feats are pulled off. These would be performers in the vein of Houdini, who debunked mediums preying on the grieving during his own hunt for real contact with the dead. The drama and the reality show inside it share one rule: stay open to extraordinary claims, but insist on solid evidence.
OMG has bases in Los Angeles, Taipei and Brisbane and was co-founded by Chicorel and Kelly Mi Li. Mi Li stars in and executive produces Netflix’s unscripted hit “Bling Empire,” and she hosts and executive produces the celebrity talk show “Stir the Pot.” The pair’s scripted credits include “Cypher,” the first original drama series made exclusively for Roku.
