THE Syfy Channel sets sail this spring with the 4-hour Sunday night television movie Riverworld, premiering Sunday, April 18th from 7-11:oo p.m. EST. Starring Tahmoh Penikett (Battlestar Galactica/Dollhouse), Laura Vandervoort (V/Smallville) and Alan Cumming (Tin Man), Riverworld is an epic adventure featuring familiar characters in an unfamiliar world and is based on the popular award-winning series of novels by Philip Jose Farmer. The TV miniseries is produced by Reunion Pictures and will be distributed internationally by RHI Entertainment, who teamed up to also bring TV audiences two other Syfy Channel TV events, Tin Man and Earthsea.
Matt Ellman (Penikett) is an American war zone reporter who has witnessed the worst of humanity first-hand, yet still grasps on to an optimistic spirit. When a suicide bomber kills both Matt and his fiance Jessie (Vandervoort), they awaken separated in a mysterious world where everyone who has ever lived on Earth seems to have been "reborn" along the banks of a seemingly endless river. Determined to locate Jessie, Matt joins forces with a 13th century female samurai warrior named Tomoe (Jeanne Goossen) and American novelist Sam "Mark Twain" Clemens (Mark Deklin). Together they sail upriver in search of its source, and to discover where they are and who put them there. Alan Cumming guest-stars as the mysterious "Caretaker."