{"id":773244,"date":"2026-11-09T06:33:18","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T06:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/773244\/"},"modified":"2026-11-09T06:33:18","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T06:33:18","slug":"cheers-showrunner-estin-banachek-take-psychic-predators-to-afm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/773244\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Cheers’ Showrunner Estin, Banachek Take ‘Psychic Predators’ to AFM"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTwo-time Emmy winner Ken Estin<\/a>, showrunner of \u201cTaxi\u201d and \u201cCheers,\u201d is steering \u201cPsychic Predators,\u201d a paranormal dramatic comedy starring mentalist Banachek as himself. <\/p>\n

\n\tOrganic Media Group (OMG) unveiled the series at Taiwan Creative Content Fest<\/a> (TCCF) in Taipei, and it is also heading to the American Film Market<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tEstin, whose resume also takes in \u201cThe Tracey Ullman Show,\u201d will run the series alongside Steve Chicorel, who created the show and is executive producing it. Estin signed on after reading Chicorel\u2019s pilot, \u201cThe Voice of God,\u201d and will oversee the writing of the rest of the season if the series is commissioned.<\/p>\n

\n\tBanachek 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 \u201cMission Impossible\u201d crossed with \u201cCurb Your Enthusiasm,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cKen was remarkably young when he showran those legendary series \u2013 winning his first Emmy in his twenties \u2013 and he\u2019s as sharp and funny as ever,\u201d said Chicorel. \u201cBut we didn\u2019t 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 \u2018Psychic Predators\u2019 needs to entertain audiences while exposing uncomfortable truths.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEstin said comedy needs emotional honesty, while serious drama needs humor to help people face it. \u201cLike \u2018MAS*H,\u2019 which illuminated the horrors of war, comedy lets us get past people\u2019s defenses so they can hear important messages \u2013 like the ones Steve & Banachek built into \u2018Psychic Predators\u2019 to explore the magic of why we believe \u2013 and what happens when someone exploits that belief,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe show draws on Banachek\u2019s own history. He was mentored by the late James \u201cThe Amazing\u201d 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\u2019 experimental controls, while Randi showed the overconfident scientists how the same effects could be faked.<\/p>\n

\n\tBanachek 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tChicorel 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.<\/p>\n

\n\tOMG 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\u2019s unscripted hit \u201cBling Empire,\u201d and she hosts and executive produces the celebrity talk show \u201cStir the Pot.\u201d The pair\u2019s scripted credits include \u201cCypher,\u201d the first original drama series made exclusively for Roku.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two-time Emmy winner Ken Estin, showrunner of \u201cTaxi\u201d and \u201cCheers,\u201d is steering \u201cPsychic Predators,\u201d a paranormal dramatic comedy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[265],"tags":[80216,98972,18,117,19,17,322912,321500,128],"class_list":["post-773244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-afm","tag-american-film-market","tag-eire","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ken-estin","tag-taiwan-creative-content-fest","tag-tv"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117585092115136318","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=773244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773244\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}