Book about reincarnation inspires creator of 'Past Life'

Dallas-bred writer-producer David Hudgins hadn't given the idea of reincarnation much thought when The Reincarnationist, a book by M.J. Rose, crossed his desk. He says he was immediately intrigued, and saw the potential for a TV series.

Then fate sent him a message. Well, Oprah Winfrey did, anyway.

"She was doing a series on [reincarnation], with Dr. Oz and this guy named Brian Weiss, who's probably the foremost expert in past-life regression," Hudgins says. "And she did a couple of shows where she brought people on and regressed them, and the way people responded to it really struck me. [I thought] 'This is absolutely fascinating. I don't know if I believe in it or not, but there is a world here and there are a ton of stories you can tell.'"

That epiphany led to Past Life, a new Fox show about a team of past-life regression investigators who help clients such as, say, a teenage boy whose strange behavior leads to the revelation that he's actually the reincarnation of someone who died before he was born. The team is led by Dr. Kate McGinn (the believer, played by Kelli Giddish) and former New York police detective Price Whatley (the skeptic, played by Nicholas Bishop).

Although the set-up is immediately reminiscent of Fox shows ranging from The X-Files to Bones, Fringe and Lie to Me, Hudgins says he hopes to make the show -- which he calls a very loose adaptation of Rose's book -- more than just a crime-solving procedural.

"We're going to constantly ask the question 'What if?,'" Hudgins says. Regardless of whether you believe in reincarnation, Hudgins' life has plenty of "pasts" in it, in the résumé sense. A look at a few of his "past lives."

Past life No. 1:

Aide to Al Gore

Hudgins, who went to St. Mark's School of Texas in Dallas, became interested in politics while attending Duke University. He headed to Washington, D.C., to look for a job, roaming the halls of Congress and passing out résumés in the pre-9-11 days when people could still do that.

With family in Tennessee, Gore's home state, Hudgins had a connection that helped him get work as an entry-level assistant in the senator's office. "That was in '88, which is when he ran for president, him and Dukakis, and Dukakis wound up getting the [Democratic] nomination," Hudgins says. "So after Gore did not get the nomination in '88, I made a brilliant decision that he wasn't really going to go anywhere," he says with a laugh. "Which turned out, of course, to be wrong. He's vice president four years later."

Past life No. 2:

The law career

While working on Capitol Hill, Hudgins realized that most of the power players were lawyers. He'd always entertained the thought of going to law school, so he returned to Dallas and studied law at Southern Methodist University. He went on to practice law for seven years and says that helped prepare him for the business aspect of being a TV producer.

But he says he still felt unfulfilled, and had long been interested in movies and TV. He had even written one-act plays in high school. A family illness prompted a career switch. "I had an older sister who got cancer," he says. "I remember being with her in New York, where she lived, and she'd undergone some chemo, and I was [kvetching] about the law and complaining.

"She said, 'Well look, what do you want to do?' I said, 'Well, I want to make movies. I want to write for television.' She said, 'Well look at me, I'm the perfect example of you'd better act now, because you never know what can happen.' As corny as that sounds, it was incredibly inspirational to me."

Past life No. 3:

Working for other shows

A month later, Hudgins quit practicing law and moved with his family to Tennessee, where he wrote and eventually sold a screenplay.

"I took that as a sign that somebody might pay for my work, and I moved to L.A. with my family -- wife and three kids and two dogs at the time," he says. "And I came out here, and I just started pounding the pavement all over again."

Hudgins landed a job on Everwood, a critically acclaimed, cult-favorite WB series about a widowed big-city doctor (Treat Williams) who moves his family, including his musically gifted but surly teenage son, to a small Colorado town.

Everwood led to Friday Night Lights, where Hudgins acted as a writer and executive producer for much of the show's four seasons to date (the fourth season, which just concluded on DirecTV, is scheduled to begin April 30 on NBC).

Past life No. 4: The Texan

Although Hudgins has lived in Los Angeles for years -- yet somehow managed to work on three TV series that film in other parts of the country -- he hasn't forgotten his Texas roots. And that shows in Dr. Kate McGinn, Past Life's lead character.

"I made her a Texan on purpose, because I love Texas women," Hudgins says. "I think they're strong, and I think they're smart, and they're very iconoclastic. I came up with this idea of making her a Southerner transplanted to New York, who is completely unabashed about her beliefs." (Giddish, who plays Kate, is from Georgia, where Past Life films.)

The premiere episode also features Bedford-born, Keller-reared Cayden Boyd in a key guest role as the teenager experiencing past-life regression, and Texas native Judith Ivey has a recurring role as Kate's mother.

Present life: Tough time slots

Fox is giving Past Life a "sneak preview" after American Idol on Tuesday night, before the show moves to its regular Thursday time slot. Still, it will be up against Lost and NCIS: Los Angeles, the season's most successful new show. The Thursday slot -- against CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Grey's Anatomy -- isn't likely to be easy either. But Hudgins is optimistic -- and a little unnerved -- about getting a post- Idol debut. "It's a little daunting," he says. "But that means we're going to get a huge sampling on the first night, and that's all you can ask for. ... But I do feel like there's an audience for our show, and hopefully, they'll find us on Thursday."

ROBERT PHILPOT, 817-390-7872