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'The Gifted' meshes 'X-Men,' family drama for Marvel-based Fox series

As Fox enters the Marvel television-series sweepstakes, there's a familiar feel to the saga of a family on the run.

Premiering Monday, Oct. 2, “The Gifted” incorporates certain “X-Men” elements as Stephen Moyer and Amy Acker star as the parents of two youngsters (Natalie Alyn Lind, Percy Hynes White) who have mutant powers. Chased by a government agent (Coby Bell, who also worked for “Gifted” developer and executive producer Matt Nix on “Burn Notice”), the relatives seek help from other mutants — played by Jamie Chung, Sean Teale, Emma Dumont and Blair Redford — who are facing threats to their own existence.

The “X-Men” connection is made clearer by certain behind-the-scenes talents on “The Gifted,” including executive producers Bryan Singer, Lauren Shuler Donner and Simon Kinberg — all veterans of that movie franchise.

“I guess I'd say what we started with,” Nix explains, “was what would be an exciting way to set a show in the ‘X-Men' universe that's appropriate for what television does well, where we could focus on this longer-term storytelling. One thing that I think is really exciting about doing an ‘X-Men' show on television is that we really get to explore the relationship of the mutants to the larger world, and not have to deal with a team of superheroes that are wearing uniforms.”

Actor Moyer has a natural fondness for the Marvel universe, but he admits, “I didn't do the ‘X-Men' comic books. I was totally obsessed with Spider-Man. As you get older and you are able to look back at this stuff, it's a way of tapping into that imagination that you had as a kid and what you'd be able to do if you could.”

While the pilot episode of “The Gifted” expectedly has big special effects, those can be challenging to sustain on the budget of a weekly series, though such other Marvel ventures as ABC's “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” have managed it.

“On ‘Burn Notice,'” Nix recalls, “the saying was, ‘What happens when you blow up a car? I don't know. Let's blow a car up and see.' You just sort of film it, and it's awesome, so part of it is those discoveries. Some of the stuff that we're doing is going to be precise and have that sort of cinematic feel, but we've got this cool opportunity to do something that really doesn't happen in superhero shows ... like, ‘Let's get messy.' Let's do something cool and rough and ready, and let's see what happens when the mutants are all using their powers and it's not that coordinated. It's confusing and it's difficult and it feels like combat. Let's do that.”

“The Gifted”

Premieres at 8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 2, on Fox

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