If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go with ?

[Jetfire]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

The interstellar adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of an exploration vessel of a 23rd century galactic "United Federation of Planets" - the Starship Enterprise.

I call it "Star Trek"!...Wait!?!?

 

[iBender]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

The interstellar adventures of Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of an exploration vessel of a 23rd century galactic "United Federation of Planets" - the Starship Enterprise.

I call it "Star Trek"!...Wait!?!?

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKw6Z0CCNtY[/yt]

 

[BDuncan]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

Bump.

 

[Goliath]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

A Horror Story Idea.

A country elects a group of lieing Satanists who change the country, tales of gross orgies dancing rituals and necrophilia on hallowed grounds everywhere the elite hang out are included! They start to change everything, from national religion (Which is now Evil), flags get altered and anthems changed and eventually the name of the capital city gets changed, to Hell. The Santanist Goverment remain on good terms with other world superpowers because, the only way they could prevent any unwanted interference from the outside world is to trade. So they sell the country out, sell low, who cares, they're evil, and nobody's going to dare harm such a profitable allience. At the end, I figure, The Capital is in ruins, the skies are grey, and the leader looks out the window one last time, to see a broken capital.

The End

And everyone has lots of fun arguing which party it's a metaphor for.

But seriously, a show about Satanists would be cool on premium cable (where the religious types can't touch it). I could definitely see Starz jumping on the idea. They love anything sleazy that gets them attention.

 

[Australis]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

Okay, seeing everyone's complaining there's no space stories any more, here's mine. No pinching it!!

Earth, over some time, sends off a number of multi-generational ships into the galaxy, before society collapses into an almost fatal World War. Many, many decades later, not only have they rebuilt a peaceful society, they now have FTL, and wonder what happened to those ships. Did they find a home? Did they perish? Are they still wandering?

A special ship is built to seek them out. It has a team of cultural engineers and psychologists, to gently recover them if that is what they want, to ease the shock of returning to a world they've never known. And the ship is equipped with an expanding warp field that can bring the original ship home with them, so the culture shock isn't immediate.

Some have survived. Some are wandering. Some have crashed. Every one is different.

 

[iBender]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

The first adult movie filmed in Zero Gravity.


You'd need tickets for this,

and one heck of a production team.

 

[Australis]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

No love for my idea? You're all complaining about 'no space stories' apparently...

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

I think your idea could use a bit more focus. Answer these questions: what's going to convince an audience to sample the first episode and what's going keep them from tuning out 15 minutes into the show?

If you can answer those questions convincingly, you're ahead of 90% of TV.

 

[Australis]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

^ I do believe you're right!

 

[Jadzia]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

No love for my idea? You're all complaining about 'no space stories' apparently...

I don't think others liked my idea either.

I like your idea, but I do feel that the story sounds a bit gloomy: a devastating war, followed by a lonely search for estranged persons, some of whom will be found dead.

To quell the unhappiness, there has to be a potential for action. So finding and catching up with a ship would have to happen relatively swiftly, otherwise viewers will be watching a lot of traveling. Contact would also have to be quite eventful and tense.

 

[Gepard]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

Bump.

That's a terrible idea for a show.

 

[Vendikarr]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

-- imagine a bunch of multigenerational ships were sent out into the galaxy, then the Earth fell into chaos. When it all starts working again, they also have FTL drive. A ship goes out exploring, trying to find the multigen ships and if necessary bring them home.

This one inspires me.

The Earth is on the verge of destruction, and multi-generational ships ("MGS") set out to systems they have determined have planets that should support human life.

While the ships are in transit, the FTL breakthrough is made, and FTL ships set out for the same planets.

One such planet is not as resource rich as anticipated. The FTL people settle the world and prosper.

MGS arrives, and the FTLs tell them to leave. With the resources of the MGS almost depleted, they decide to stay and fight for the world that was supposed to be theirs.

 

[Admiral2]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

No love for my idea? You're all complaining about 'no space stories' apparently...

I loved it, when it was the overall premise of Buck Rogers, Season 2...

 

[Australis]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

Never watched BR. All the "bidibidibidi" got to me.

 

[Broccoli]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

Bump.

That's a terrible idea for a show.

Depends on the kind of bump.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

Now now, let's not descend into porn.

The generational ship idea needs a more compelling what's-at-stake. Why does anyone want to bring the explorers home? After all that time, haven't their nearest relatives died? Does anyone on Earth care all that much? Sure, it would be nice to tell them it's okay to come home, but nice doesn't cut it for drama. There needs to be some overriding need to find them and bring them home that the audience can relate to.

Give it a hook. Someone on the generational ships has something Earth needs, the cure for a plague or some such. Or, the ships need to be warned about some danger - someone is a time bomb of some sort - DNA has been programmed to produce a serial killer after X generations. You could make it personal. The generational ships have been gone 50 years and young lovers were separated. Now in their 70s, they are still in love after all that time and one of them has gone off to look for the other. It could be a parent and child or grandchild as well, as long as there's some intense personal connection.

My hunch is that the best hook is the "Earth needs X" angle. Next best is the "they need to be warned about X" angle (which requires some excuse why they have to be warned in person and not by radio - X is too much of a hot potato, it would cause chaos and panic in the fleet, etc).

Both those angles have the risk of being gimmicky. The personal-quest angle is the least gimmicky but also the riskiest, since it would depend greatly on the actors cast in the roles. We need to believe in this great personal connection they have, even when they aren't on screen together at the beginning, and when they reunite, where does the story go from there?

 

[Australis]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

Hmm, let's see.

Earth brings home its lost children. Chances are very high few found a world they can settle on, so they wander the stars, further and further from home.

And it's still about exploration, as they can go further than those ships ever could.

The idea of the ship arriving at a colonised world, then followed by a FTL colonial ship, leading to conflict is a good idea, but it would be one arc in amongst others.

There are mystery episodes, where a wreck is found but no obvious cause. Aliens? War? Famine? System failure? Genetic failure? There's a few stories in that, especially if the causes are linked.

There are proud people, desperate people, and yes, happy, settled people - a few actually, because it has to be said, space exploration needs to be seen in a positive light. What effect would it have if the ship hauled everyone back?

I'm inclined to build it slowly and clearly, no huge mysteries. Way too many series in the last 5 years have disappointed me by getting over their heads in "The Mystery".

 

[Australis]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

I think your idea could use a bit more focus. Answer these questions: what's going to convince an audience to sample the first episode and what's going keep them from tuning out 15 minutes into the show?

If you can answer those questions convincingly, you're ahead of 90% of TV.

A lot of thought in the first ep. Meet the crew surrounded by a really deep mystery is my first thought. See below.

I don't think others liked my idea either.

I like your idea, but I do feel that the story sounds a bit gloomy: a devastating war, followed by a lonely search for estranged persons, some of whom will be found dead.

To quell the unhappiness, there has to be a potential for action. So finding and catching up with a ship would have to happen relatively swiftly, otherwise viewers will be watching a lot of traveling. Contact would also have to be quite eventful and tense.

The FTL ship can catch a non-FTL ship, but there is a serious needle-in-a-haystack issue. And yeah, contact would be tense. These people have been travelling for generations, and now they can get there in a coule of days? They are going to be pissed! Which is why when I thought about it, the focus wouldn';t be the commnad team of the ship, it would be the contact team, made up of psychologist, doctors and soldiers, and indeed, soldier-doctor-psychologists. Some of these people will have evolved societies quite removed from ours (maybe some of them will be gangsters or Romans ) and these contact teams will have a big job. And that would bring action too, especially, say, if the the MGS crew tries to take over the FTL ship. Yes, 'Space Seed', but done differently.

-- imagine a bunch of multigenerational ships were sent out into the galaxy, then the Earth fell into chaos. When it all starts working again, they also have FTL drive. A ship goes out exploring, trying to find the multigen ships and if necessary bring them home.

This one inspires me.

The Earth is on the verge of destruction, and multi-generational ships ("MGS") set out to systems they have determined have planets that should support human life.

While the ships are in transit, the FTL breakthrough is made, and FTL ships set out for the same planets.

One such planet is not as resource rich as anticipated. The FTL people settle the world and prosper.

MGS arrives, and the FTLs tell them to leave. With the resources of the MGS almost depleted, they decide to stay and fight for the world that was supposed to be theirs.

I confess I hadn't thought of a threat to Earth before the ships left, but that makes a lot more sense, providing the threat is:
a) far enough away they have time to build the ships, and
b) is avoided or minimised.

And as I said, old colonists vs new colonists is sound.

To get abck to the point I wanted to make, on Temis's post.

The original idea was a novel idea I've had on my backburner for a long, long time. Same principle, but only, say, 5 ships left Earth before trouble arose and it was hinky for a while (that's a sociologist term).

Anyway, the FTL ship goes out, on the trail of 2 ships. One had stolen something, and the other was following, seeking revenge. How many years are these guys going to have to follow one another, always in each other's range? The FTL gets to their target weorld in days, amybe weeks. But hwen they get there, the world is impossible to inhabit, and a beacon from one of them says it (the other isn't mentioned) has gone on to another target.

When the FTL ship gets there, both ships are about to meet, after all this time. Vengeance has been bred into the second crew, so much so that they have cryogenically suspended the life of their leader so he can be in at the kill. By the same token, the kleader of the first ship, who was a complete bastard, is long dead, but kept alive through clones, but these clones are physical, not mental, and nothing like the original.

The contact team arrives just in time to stop this turning into battle, ranging from hand to hand to ship to ship. It's a complex situation they have to bring all their skills to... and this is basically their first mission.

Howzat?

 

[iBender]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

In the Future, when Star Travel is a reality, there'll be manned Missions. Each Mission'll last for fourty five days, for each fourty five day Mission; Eight years pass on Earth.
This, of course, is a side effect of Relativity traveling the speeds needed to Star Travel. The Astronunts are fully aware of this, infact, this side effect will be regarded as a hazard of this particular occupation, in the Future. Certain Astronunts, who have Star Traveled to Alpha Centauri, and back; have experienced: Break ups of their Marriages, Grown estranged from their own Children. Saying good bye to loved ones for a month and a half, knowing that, they might not be there when they return; have found it hard re-adjusting to life eight years later, other Astronunts, however, find it easy. Astronunts who lead the Rock Star Traveler lifestyle and age three months every sixteen years, loads of money, no strings, it's a constant party! - Until a group of Astronunts arrive home at the end of their fourty five day mission to find; that everything on Earth, has been destroyed, so they piece together the past eight years, and start mankind again, from scratch.

I call it: Star Travel

I'm thinking, just writing the story shall suffice for me.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Re: If you had to create your own TV show,what concept would you go wi

Anyway, the FTL ship goes out, on the trail of 2 ships. One had stolen something, and the other was following, seeking revenge.

That's the right idea: base the show on some simple, focused concept that involves only a few people. The audience can easily understand that story, and start getting to know the few people who are directly involved.

Then build out from there. You could start with your revenge-chase story which then evolves far beyond that, with many more characters. Take it step by step and don't overwhelm the audience with loads of complication and backstory right away (even if you've already got the backstory worked out, and if you have, it's great to start dropping hints from the start that become meaningful only in retrospect.)