Pitching a TV idea....

[Warped9]

Most people have a limited scope of what will interest them on television. No one could possibly like everything and anything... Okay, maybe a few might.

Anyway every season they trot out new shows of which most bomb and fall by the wayside. And we always here of lame ideas that are rarely and not surprisingly picked up for development.

For myself most of this stuff leaves me thinking, "This is the best they can come up with?" And I'm reasonably sure I'm not alone thinking that.

And so I propose a little thought experiment. Name a series pitch you are surprised (and maybe disappointed) wasn't picked and developed, or suggest a (basic) idea you think could work (assuming everything fell into place).


With the current interest in superheroes I've wondered if Batman could return to television in a somewhat more grounded format (in order to make it more cost effective). If they can do Smallville than why not Batman? And I mean Batman and not a young Bruce Wayne concept.


I put this thread in here because the ideas discussed don't have to be genre oriented.

 

[sojourner]

This is just an attempt to steal all my good ideas isn't it?

 

[Warped9]

This is just an attempt to steal all my good ideas isn't it?

That obvious? Like I can't for the life of me think of anything myself.

 

[TheSeeker]

I was disappointed 17th Precinct never got picked up. It sounded interesting.

 

[Warped9]

I was disappointed 17th Precinct never got picked up. It sounded interesting.

What was 17th Precinct? What was interesting about it?

 

[Kirby]

Name a series pitch you are surprised (and maybe disappointed) wasn't picked and developed

Without any inside knowledge, we really wouldn't know what has been pitched and NOT picked up. I listen to some writer's podcasts and read some blogs where writers discuss pitching things that were turned down, but rarely do they discuss details about what the pitch was, probably in hopes of refining it and going back out with it. On his podcast, Adam Carolla talks about pilots that he's made that were turned down, but again, those were pitched and picked up, at least for the pilot.

 

[TheSeeker]

I was disappointed 17th Precinct never got picked up. It sounded interesting.

What was 17th Precinct? What was interesting about it?

It was set in an alternate world where there is no oil or batteries, and everything runs on plants, fire and magic. It's up to the cops to be on top of all the magical happenings.

Here's a more in depth loo at it.

 

[Melakon]

I miss the days when networks used to run unsold pilots as summer fare instead of reruns.

 

[Gaith]

I've already mentioned my most sure-thing idea here before, but here's a Scrubs-style half-hour sitcom for y'all:

Lawyer, Doctor, Cop!

A retired Irish-American firefighter-turned-pub-owner has three sons by three different women: a half-black lawyer, a half-Hispanic doctor and a half-Asian cop. Every week, they just happen to work on multiple angles of the same overall story before repairing to the pub for catching up and a laugh.

Things get spicy when one of the brothers starts an affair with one of the other brothers' mother.

The credits theme goes something like this: "LAWYER... DOCTOR... COP!"
​

Also:

The Gods of Allocation

A Sports Night-esque sitcom about the oft-discussed "suits" who decide what movies/shows live or die, and what sort of budgets they get. Cross The West Wing with Entourage and you're probably on the right track.

​

And:

Filmmaker

A novelistic HBO series chronicling the career of an up-and-coming movie director. Season One sees her graduate from film school, and scrape together the resources for an indie. It's a huge success, so on Season Two she gets to make a megabudget tentpole flick, but that comes with its own challenges. In Season Three, she tries for a prestige picture. Etc.
​

 

[Nerys Myk]

If they can do Smallville than why not Batman? And I mean Batman and not a young Bruce Wayne concept.
.

I thought the original pitch was for a young Bruce Wayne show.

 

[Warped9]

If they can do Smallville than why not Batman? And I mean Batman and not a young Bruce Wayne concept.
.

I thought the original pitch was for a young Bruce Wayne show.

Yeah, it was, and I have no interest in such a thing. I'd like to see the Batman and not some angst ridden youth trying to figure out what to do. There were ten seasons of a young Clark Kent doing that very thing and I've no interest seeing that played out all over again with a pre adult Bruce Wayne.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Nice try Les Moonves! You'll just have to deal with the screenwriter's guild.

Personally I'd like to see more attempts at new space operas. I don't mean bringing back old series, I mean coming up with new ideas along the lines of old series like Star Trek or Babylon 5. Spaceships, aliens, human drama in a futuristic context. But something that grew up with me. You know how in our heads we take the things we love about Star Trek, but selectively, without all the silly things about it and in a darker more adult context? I want that TV show. Like, Battlestar Galactica but without the fate stuff and more lightness to offset the depressing fatalism.

Here's my idea: The premise is that there is a huge galactic Empire, not a good one or an evil one but more one where people have basically free and decent lives so long as they don't threaten anyone's power. Earth is like a third world country in relation, and it takes place in modern day. It starts with a group of people from Earth being kidnapped by slavers. They then escape, but can't get home because nobody has any idea where Earth is. So they have to deal with surviving in this huge capitalist Empire where they're at the very bottom of the social ladder and have no money or anybody to help them. There would be a lot of adventure stories, comedy stories, action stories, etc but basically they'd be looking for in aliens the better qualities of humans to help them out.

Also, early on they run into the daughter of a previous deposed Emperor. She lies about who she is and they don't find out for a while, all they know is she's in danger and she goes with them just because they're the only people in the universe who don't know who she is. The Emperor wants to kill her and the survivors of her army resisting in secret want to prop her up as the icon of their rebellion and she really just wants nothing to do with any of it. And that would also be an excuse to give them a ship.

If the show was cancelled after one season they'd get back to Earth at the end, if not they'd find Earth and decide they like being in space better.

 

[Australis]

There's a couple of ideas I'm working on, one a space opera, one a SF/police procedural, and some movies. But here's two I'm not working on, for various reasons.

Stormfront - came up with this before I'd heard of the neo-Nazi thing of that name, and before the BSG reboot (yep, that long ago) <looks up logline>

Basic premise:
A destructive force called the Storm is sweeping through the Human Union of Worlds, destroying planets and enslaving millions. On one world, a merchant vessel, the Daedalus, escapes just as the Storm arrives. Slow, low on fuel and supplies, the crew and their passengers struggle to stay ahead of the marauders, hoping to reach safety with the Fleet. But they don’t know how far away it is, and they have to fight every step of the way, refugees riding on the Stormfront.

The Storm were basically the Borg with more style, and the imitation of free will, even though they were all slaved to central computers and controlled by drugs, hormones and endorphins (each person has an on-board computer that administers this stuff & reports to base. The Daedalus was carrying a secret back to the regrouped fleet, protected by Marines, a secret that could destroy the Storm, so the Marines stayed with this slow ship and defended it. Interesting feature was the Daedalus was armed by the Marines, but all the guns faced backward - this is a ship that was fleeing. Each week they reach a world about to be crushed, and we'd see the population reacting in different ways, some angry, some hopeless, some eagerly awaiting 'liberation', some very weird ones (I remember a storyline about people playing a life-or-death game on the edge of invasion). That kind of thing. When they did get back and pass the secret on, it all ended in a big space battle. And if they wanted, I made a few notes about a follow up season when the Daedalus goes back through the shattered remains of the Storm, back the the home world and headquarters of this dark force.


Red Moon Rising - This was dropped when Iron Moon and a few similar things came along. I really can't thing of a better way to phrase it that my original notes.

Initial idea: a Sci Fi adventure story set in an alternate universe, where Russia picked up the bulk of the Nazi Space Programme which successfully put men on the Moon during the war. The Russians built a second base on the Moon, then abandoned it. Now the Americans have arrived and are trying to fire up the old base. But something is preventing them, an evil presence that turns out to be Nazi/Red cyborgs, left behind in SA, huge, clanking creatures with hardened flesh and an agenda of conquest.

Follow up idea: from the phrase “Sci FI adventure”: that it’s a fictional TV show based on a book about the US experience on the Moon, a book that no one believes, like UFOs and conspiracies and that kind of thing. But as it gets made, things begin to come to light…

Tertiary idea: that it’s an ‘80s remake of a ‘70s show that was never finished due to it contradicting the official US Govt line, and, some say, the official secrets act.

I didn't want to do just a straight 'Nazis on the Moon' story, so I came up with this, twisting the concept a little tighter each time, as you can see. Each ep would have different scenes set in different eras, in the early eps concentrating mainly on the setup of the 80s/70s shows, and the last eps almost all on the Moon in the 60s, the US fighting RedNazi cyborgs! And I wanted to do it serious, not a pisstake! (by making the cyborgs really creepy in the 60s, compared to 'Red Menace' stuff in the 70s/80s)

Yes, you can point and laugh if you want, but I still think there's a cool idea in there, in both of them.

 

[Warped9]

So far the ideas presented here seem more imaginative and thought out than most of what actually gets on TV.

 

[Australis]

Of course, I came up with them!

Whoops, humble filter on!

Seriously, it comes down to the whole SF fan vs mainstream audience argument. For various reasons, TNG tapped into the mainstream in a way that few SF shows ever did. As an example, Farscape - a lot of SF fans love that show, but the mainstream goes "huh?" It's just a bit too out there.

We might like these ideas here, but they have to have that magic key that makes them accessible to a wider audience than a niche, usually comes down to relatable characters and imaginative stories.

Also, there's a ready-made audience for intense drama of the 'it could be you' variety, which is why we get so many doctor/cop/lawyer/soldier shows. The cutting edge of contemporary human experience that could happen to us at any moment.

 

[doubleohfive]

So far the ideas presented here seem more imaginative and thought out than most of what actually gets on TV.

No. So far, the ideas presented here have just expressed what the minutely tiny sampling of this board's membership would like to see.

Never mind the fact that you're pissing on the people who make these tv shows for you to consume, your approach presents a complete and fundamental lack of understanding or regard for the ridiculous amount of work that goes into developing, writing and producing a pilot and new series (if one is lucky.)

It's like knowing you don't like hummus after trying it a few times but nerd-raging against chick peas because of it. In other words, ridiculous.

 

[Warped9]

So far the ideas presented here seem more imaginative and thought out than most of what actually gets on TV.

No. So far, the ideas presented here have just expressed what the minutely tiny sampling of this board's membership would like to see.

Never mind the fact that you're pissing on the people who make these tv shows for you to consume, your approach presents a complete and fundamental lack of understanding or regard for the ridiculous amount of work that goes into developing, writing and producing a pilot and new series (if one is lucky.)

It's like knowing you don't like hummus after trying it a few times but nerd-raging against chick peas because of it. In other words, ridiculous.

And thank you for your OPINION and dissing someone else's OPINION. I've no doubt a lot of work goes into developing series ideas, but that doesn't change the fact that most of what I see is of no interest to me. And considering how audiences are drifting away in droves it seems I'm not alone in my OPINION.

Besides which when networks and writers and producers and what have you elect to put their work out there for public consumption then it is open for us in the audience to express our OPINION.

 

[Australis]

Hey,, chill, you two, no need to piss on each other.

005, no one is disputing the quality of the finished product. What we're talking about here, I suppose, is the choice of programmes that are made. Why focus on cop/lawyer/doctor shows?

That said, I personally believe TV is going through some kind of golden age, where producers and directors really want to tell longer, deeper stories with deeper characters. Example, I don't think 'Elementary' is really Sherlock Holmes (the BBC version is much closer), but it is nonetheless a good show, based around two solid actors and some smart scripts. Or 'Once Upon A Time' (not my speed, but) a clever retelling of fairy tales given an adult spin with a long arc. Or 'Justified', or 'Breaking Bad', or 'The Blacklist'. And of course, 'Game of Thrones'. We would never have had shows like this back in the 80s or 90s, or even 2000s. What's your take on shows like these, Warped9? They sure aren't run of the mill!

 

[sojourner]

No, no, don't include The Blacklist. It only has one redeeming quality - James Spader. The writing is definitely not up to par.

 

[Warped9]

While I only watch a few of them (Boardwalk Empire, Mad Men and Game Of Thrones) I think in general the fare on specialty channels like HBO is of better quality than most of what's on the familiar networks.

Mind you I'm not fond of everything being serialized or heavily arc based either. There is something to be said for basically episodic shows you can enjoy. The only episodic series I currently watch (and even it has running pot threads) is Murdoch Mysteries.