Man, pop culture has a thing about putting women astronauts in peril. First, Gravity tells us that you could end up stranded, floating in the vast emptiness of the vacuum while suffering an existential crisis, while the upcoming CBS drama Extant will see Halle Berry return from her mission with… something baby-like inside of her, and it’s probably not the Starchild.

Now USA comes along with Timeline, an hour-long drama they’re developing with producer Elizabeth Guber Stephen and novelist Jennifer Lynn Barnes. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the series would focus on an astronaut who returns to Earth only to find that her entire history has been erased.

Specifically, “someone” is responsible for the character’s temporal crisis, and presumably, our intrepid astronaut will have to find out who, how, and why she was removed from the timeline like a particularly embarrassing Facebook post.

Stephen is the producer of the short-lived crime drama Brotherhood for Fox (where’s she’s also adapting the 2011 film Magic City Memoirs into a TV series).

Novelist Barnes is the interesting choice: I’m not familiar with her Raised by Wolves series of YA novels, but according to their description, they’re a female-driven series about a young woman battling the secret world of werewolves. Timeline would be Barnes’ first TV work, although The Hollywood Reporter piece doesn’t specify if she’ll be sticking around if the pilot goes to series.

The article makes a good point: this is an interesting time for pop culture’s fascination with space. Not only are people tuning in for Cosmos (and will presumably watch Halle Berry carry around an alien seed), but NBC has the half-hour, ’60s-set NASA comedy Mission Control on the way with star Kyrsten Ritter.

HT: The Hollywood Reporter
IMAGE: NASA