Rockne S. O'Bannon, best known as the executive producer for the SciFi Channel original series "Farscape," said that his experiences with fans for the show helped form the idea for "Cult," the television pilot he's developing for The WB Network, according to SciFi Wire.

"It's kind of based on my experiences with the 'Farscape' fan community, obviously taken to an extreme," O'Bannon said. "One of the aspects of 'Cult' is the subculture that grows up around a television series. It's kind of a show within a show."

"It's totally based on that experience, but an extreme extrapolation, because the 'Farscape' fans are wonderful, benign people, and not all the fans of 'Cult' are anywhere near as benign," he said. "They're actually quite nasty."

Expected to premiere in the fall of 2006, "Cult" focuses on the experiences of two brothers, one of whom is a member of the fandom (fan community) of a TV show by the same name, "Cult," When that brother disappears, his older sibling searches for him and finds out that the fans may have something to do with what is going on.

"It has to do with a kind of Charles Manson-slash-Hannibal Lecter kind of cult figure," O'Bannon said, describing the fictional series around which "Cult" is based. "The brother would go on the Internet and deal not only with the official 'Cult' network web site and post to that, but there's a whole set of other web sites related to the television series, some of which are very hard to get into. They're somehow related to this Charles Manson/Hannibal Lechter cult figure, who is fictional, but you kind of wonder whether he's fictional or not."

O'Bannon hopes to preview the show before the 2006 Comic-Con International in San Diego, which he considers the series' ideal intended audience.

"It's so perfect for Comic-Con, I can't tell you," he said. "In the pilot, there's a scene that takes place at Comic-Con. Our cast of the fictional television show 'Cult' go to Comic-Con, and the actor who plays the Charles Manson/Hannibal Lecter guy, people in the front row fall to their knees in front of him. He's in his 50s. He used to be in Glen Larson TV shows back in the '80s. So to him it's like, 'Why are these people wearing T-shirts with my face on it, kneeling for me? I'm just an actor in a TV show.'"

"But he plays this cult leader, and suddenly it's blurring the line between the screen and life," O'Bannon said. "It's TV that reaches through the screen."