Riverworld is a sci-fi/fantasy feature-length pilot episode for a series that was never produced. It aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in 2003. It was loosely based on the Hugo Award-winning[1] "Riverworld" saga by Philip José Farmer. Production began in 2001. It was rebooted in 2010, under the same title.

 

In the year 2009, a meteor shower above Earth claims the life of American astronaut Jeff Hale (Brad Johnson). He awakens inside a jade-green bubble beneath the surface of a body of water filled with them. A mysterious cloaked figure pierces his bubble with a staff pressing it against his forehead, forcefully filling his mind with images to come. Dazed and in pain, he soon finds himself crawling nude onto a beach littered with metal canisters; the canisters contain unisex outfits of clothing. Soon dozens of people from different lands and historical eras emerge from the water, also nude, and they begin distributing the mysterious canisters. Remarkably, they understand each other's language, all except for a lone Neanderthal man, who lacks the capacity for speech.