Sci-Fi Series Creations – Roundtable

Greetings, my fellow friends of the future. It

is I, one of your hosts for this evening's show.

This is Future Imperfect, a collaborative project

between ThisWeekendGeek .net and, of course,

the Geekcast Radio Network. I am Mike the Birdman

Dodd, and I'm not alone as we trek across space,

time, dimensions, and perhaps something else.

We are here to celebrate... cool things that

we're actually going to be pitching our own sci

-fi shows this evening. These could be ideas

that are a whole cloth that we have created with

our own little hands and minds or they could

be reboots of franchises or shows that maybe

only lasted a season maybe a couple of episodes

in some cases so it's going to be a a variety

of different things you will be experiencing

tonight as a joining us here on Future Imperfect.

But of course, I'm not alone as I walk the decks

and the halls of the USS Future Imperfect. I

am joined with Admiral Stephen Phillips. Welcome,

friendo. Heyo. And of course, we are now joined

with regular. Oh, my God, he's been he's moved

up from guest star. We have writer and now podcaster

Aaron Paulier. Hi, how's it going everybody?

And it is my ever lovable co -host the guy who

tries to rein me in more often than not the man

from Kitchener I was gonna say ring you in Alex.

I Generally used to be you have to rain me and

now I'm like Michael stop it Michael stop it

Is it worth it Yeah, you're like Mike from the

love of God Stop giving your manifesto. So yes

guys. We are here on future imperfect this week

We are gonna be talking about something. Like

I said rather fun We're gonna be pitching our

own original sci -fi ideas to you So this idea

was brought up by Aaron a few weeks ago We have

a kind of group chat that we talk on Facebook

I'm throwing different ideas sharing memes back

and forth and Aaron would have been about two

or three weeks ago Mentioned hey guys, why don't

we do? our own sci -fi show. So that got the

ideas and creative juices kind of flowing between

all of us, because all of us have some background

of creative experience. I myself have been a

role playing game player for many, many, many

years. I've written some short fiction, none

of which exists anymore. It was all written down

in good old line notebooks back in my high school

days. I mean, I have written some blogs online,

but they're lost the time. They're mostly. journalistic

pieces anyway. So this was a fun time to kind

of pull out my creative ideas, to pull out something

kind of neat for this. But I've got, I'd say

about 25 years of creative experience, if you

can really kind of call it that. I'm nowhere

near as cool as Aaron, who actually has published

things that you can buy on store shelves. But

this will be a fun thought experiment between

all of us. So Steve, what kind of experience

do you have kind of bringing to this? Well, I

used to actually write a lot of fan fix back

in the day of just popular series or games. Back

in like, when I was in middle school, my friend

and I wrote a Mega Man X Dragon Ball Z crossover

series, which I still have the word documents

and not very long, but it was quite humorous

to see how that world comes together. And I wrote

a couple of Transformers ones that I kind of

created a whole new I basically retconned all

of Beast Machines and wiped it out and and read

it with my own series and then I In college,

I wrote a screenplay creating my own kind of

sci -fi universe with my own superheroes and

people involved in villains and I kind of came

up with a lot of those ideas while I was taking

some edx .org Smithsonian classes that they had

Michael Uslan and Stan Lee kind of coordinating

and teaching how to you know, basically craft

your own universe And then moving along next,

Aaron is probably our most accomplished person

around the virtual roundtable this evening. Aaron,

I guess, where did you start kind of with the

creative space with you? Well, I started with

art. Believe it or not, I started with a little

bit of computer art, even though I'm kind of

terrible at it, but I had access to a lot of

programs that I could like kind of layer together

and do that. But that got me into the writing

business when I started writing little short

pieces for planets, for Battletech. Wrote a lot

for Battletech, quite a few different pieces

that were fluff, you know, or background information

on planets, some of the wars that occurred in

Battletech. Then I got into Star Trek. Lots of

writing for Star Trek lately, that's for sure.

I've done some work on some novelization type

stuff in the background. I've never really progressed

very far in it because I'm never very happy with

my dialogue, let's put it that way. But I have

a few worlds that I've been kicking around in

the background that I'd like to actually put

out a novel for. I'm just not really confident

enough yet with the dialogue or the plotting

of it. Let's put it that way. I guess I'm very

self -critical. Okay. And then finally we will

bring things to Alex. Where does your creativity

start? Probably if we want to go really far back,

we're talking like kindergarten. Uh, you know,

you'd make your own little fan fiction drawings

and in your, like, we had to have journals, right?

Before each day we bring in dream journals and

different things. So it was all like transformers

and spaceships and whatever weird stories there.

I think I have a couple of stories that we dictated

out to a teacher's helper that they would type

up on the computer and it would print on the

dot matrix printer. I think my mom has them.

Uh, I had one where, uh, an alien ship landed

on, I think it was on or around Frankenstein's

castle. And I'm like six years old and it was

supposed to write a two -page thing. And they

ended up printing me, I think it was 35 pages.

And I was dictating it. I had the whole story

mapped out in my head and I dictated it to the

teachers and they typed it off. They printed

the whole thing and I think I still have it somewhere.

So that's like late 80s, early 90s. And then

in high school, I was taking a bunch of computer

classes, as well as film studies courses. So

I made a bunch of short films that were either

a little avant -garde or usually horror -based.

Did some things that I would get big trouble

for now, like bringing a fake gun to school to

shoot a movie. And taking the fake gun, painting

the tip black so that it didn't look like the

orange fake. Gun, filming a whole thing in school.

And this is after Columbine. Doing the whole

thing and then having the video presented. I

didn't know it was going to be done, but they

presented it to the entire school as a short

film festival. And when looking and seeing when

the vice principal and the principal realized

that I filmed it in the school, the look on their

faces and the look of panic on my film teacher's

face because he didn't see the final cut before

I edited it. And yeah, that would have been interesting.

So I had that background. Luckily, I got away

with it because it was a very avant -garde sort

of film. It was clearly not supposed to be like

a school shooting video or anything. It was just,

we had to film where we were filming. And I also

took some computer programming courses and everybody

had to make Tetris for, I think it was when we

were learning. Pascal or Java or something. And

I said, can I do something different? And they're

like, okay, what do you want to do? So I ended

up making my own RPG engine. It's like I made

my own like simplistic JRPG engine. And I had

a whole binder full of notes where I was going

to make this sort of sci -fi fantasy world. A

little bit of Final Fantasy, a little bit Star

Wars sort of thing involved. I don't know where

that is. I think I trans coded it or transcribed

it from book onto a floppy disk. Lord knows if

I know where the floppy disk is, and I'd have

to buy an external floppy drive controller just

to check the few floppy disks I still have from

back in the day. And if it's on there, cool.

Then there's untapped stories. But that's pretty

much where my background was with them. And other

than I had some friends that were cartoonists,

and I'd help them conceptualize when they were

publishing their own web strips and stuff back

in the day. But that's about it. All right, so

now that we've kind of given everyone's kind

of backgrounds from the creative arts I guess

we're gonna kind of go around the table virtually

to give our ideas and we're gonna start with

me then we're gonna go to Steve then we're gonna

go to Aaron then we'll finally round things out

with Alex so um I guess do you guys want me to

start with these shows I might resurrect or do

that as kind of If we have honorable mentions

or things you'd want to resurrect or remake,

I think those would be first just to get that

out of the, you know, out of the way. Oh, all

right. Cool, then. So the ideas that I had for

shows that could be resurrected or rebooted into

a more current form is during the 90s, there

was a short lived BattleTech animated series,

which was not it was a cool way to introduce

kids to the BattleTech universe for those that

aren't necessarily. I'm familiar with BattleTech.

Imagine giant walking tanks essentially from

the 31st century. And it's basically a bunch

of different houses fighting each other for control

of a area of space known as the Inner Sphere.

And the wars are decades or hundreds of years

long, blood feuds lasting for generations. And

it's a very warlike place. technology is lost

and gained and found again. It's a whole comp

complicated history. So a series in the nineties

was 13 episodes explain a point in history known

as the clan wars, where basically these guys

came from deep outer space who originally were

part of the inner sphere said, you know what

your, your politics suck. We're leaving. And

then they come back to conquer the inner sphere.

And this Unites everybody comes together and

you know, eventually we win at a cost but My

show would be a little bit different. I'd reboot

it into live -action and my pitch would be My

elevator pitch would be Game of Thrones, but

with Max So I'm gonna set this during the third

succession wars, but before the Klan invasion

Each season would be about 13 episodes And how

this would work out is this would lead up to

the big bads of the series being the clans in

seasons six and seven. So establish all the houses,

all the main characters. and kind of get to know

the internal kind of politics. And obviously

there will be some fights with mechs, but there'll

be some land battles, but it's going to be about

people first and foremost to understand why these

people are fighting. One of the things that I

have set up in my show pitch is the clan invasion

is the show's equivalent to the red wedding from

Game of Thrones, basically major characters die,

a major world falls, and you realize things are

very, very bad. And then you follow them to,

I guess, some of the first major clan offensives.

And that's where the series goes from there.

So that's about as far as I thought that out.

The next one that I want to develop was Halo

ODST. So this involves no Spartans. You will

not see a Spartan until the last five minutes

of the series. An ODST trooper is a orbital drop

shock trooper. So basically a soldier wearing

heavy armor. They come in and these pods that

are dropped from a spaceship from orbit. So I

want this to feel like band of brothers focused

on fighting the aliens known as the Covenant.

And I want this to happen before the Battle of

Reach. Reach is a major turning point in the

war where humanity is on the run. Bad things

have happened. Most of the super soldiers are

dead at this point. And I want it to be just.

very warlike, but I want it to have a little

bit of heart too. And the series is going to

end where you see the master chief get loaded

onto the pillar of autumn at the end of halo

reed. So you know where the series will end,

but it's how you get there. So you follow this

ODST team as they battle and then fight. Sorry,

just to comment on that. Wasn't that already

what they were planning on making the TV show

back in the day? I don't know if they ever developed

that far. I know there was a short film that

featured ODST people, but I don't know whether

it was ever gone beyond that five to 10 minute

pilot. But this would be something I'd love to

see. I just don't know if we ever will see it

because the Halo series has been developed by

Showtime for like a million years. It's Microsoft.

Eventually they'll do something. Yeah, if they

are smart, the Master Chief still makes money.

So the next series is animated that I'd love

to do. And it has been shown that this series

can survive in animation, but it's only ever

had one movie. Mass Effect. I'm setting this

post first game. So you establish the world.

You kind of know what's going on. Commander Shepard's

established, but you will never meet Commander

Shepard. Shepard is referenced. Shepard will

also be Canonically, in my world, FemShep, because

FemShep is awesome. I love Jennifer Hale, and

you can use her voice, because I think that'd

be awesome. The series will follow a Salarian

STG team or a Turian SpecOps team, because I

want to focus on the aliens, because Mass Effect,

for the most part, does focus on the Human Alliance

characters. Maybe we see the war from a different

side. And with the freedom of animation, there's

a lot of things you can do. Plus setting it in

this setting gives you the collector threat,

gives you ideas if you want to follow the Reaper

threat. Also allows a lot of the internal politicking

with the Citadel races. whatnot. It gives you

a lot of playground to go into if you want. Plus,

if it's animated, like I said, there's no real

budget limit, so we can do whatever you want.

Maybe do a 26 episode season, see where it goes.

Finally, before I get to my big pitch. Terminator.

That's right. The series that never seems to

friggin die. We tried this before with Terminator,

the Sarah Connor Chronicles, which ended on a

cliffhanger that will never ever get resolved.

So reboot city. Let's go back to a time where

this thing is set entirely during the future

war. In fact, takes place just after judgment

day and follows a family trying to survive in

the first days after the bombs have dropped.

So this would follow the establishment of the

resistance and tech calm. And there's essentially

a road trip from across America, starting in

Boston and presumably ending up in like Wyoming

or something. Um, it's like walking dead, but

yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. It's walking dead

except with endoskeletons. Plus they'd have to

fight with other survivors, other monsters or

things that are out there because things might

mutate. I'm not saying it's like fall out, but

hey, that's another serious day, right? Um, but

yeah, and the idea is there's always, there's

this thing known as the Skynet termination line.

Everything behind that line dies. So my group

of survivors, this family, which includes children

has to stay ahead of that line. Anything behind

that line is dead. So it's always constant pressure

to keep the series going. And obviously we would

find out about the mythical John Connor. Um,

would we ever meet him during the course of the

series? I don't know. Maybe not because you already

know where the series is going to go, but I think

it's getting there. That is the most interesting.

And that would be my pitch for a new Terminator

series. Obviously it's not going to be cheap

because it's live action. But if you do, every

series that's done Future War has always done

just before Kyle Reese jumps back in time. We

never see what happens immediately after the

bombs fall, that chaos. So this would have more

in line with fear, Walking Dead than Walking

Dead, which I think could be really, really,

really fascinating. So before you go into your

main pitch, Mike, it's a lot to take in. We all

comment on the previous show. Yes. Yes. Yes,

please do. I made a note on your first one, the

Mech one. It reminds me of a show. Battle Tech.

Yes, Battle Tech. It reminds me of a show I used

to watch as a kid that ran a couple seasons.

It's called Exo Squad, I think. And that was

a similar because when you said Game of Thrones,

That's what that was. It was like all these different

factions and, and how they were dealing. It was,

it was a really advanced show for a kid's show.

And it wasn't as far as I could tell, like an

anime, it wasn't an actual like American show.

I don't know if it was a base on the same property.

Maybe you're not, but it was, it was similar

to the Super Sentai thing. It was like super

humans, samurai, cyber squad or something like

that. There's an actual show called Exo Squad.

It's like a, it's an animated mech show. Are

you thinking about Robo Tech? Nope. No, there

is an Exo Squad. I vaguely remember this. I'll

end up throwing... It's animated. Yeah, it's

a fully animated show. And I think it ran...

26, 40 episodes? Maybe two seasons? Yeah, two

seasons. I know I had a DVD of the first season

available. And the big deal with that show was

for a cartoon, most of the episodes were four

and five episode arcs. And it would be like,

they would just be to be continued for four or

five episodes straight, telling one story each

time. So that's what made me think of that, Mike,

when you're saying Game of Thrones, like it's

gonna have multiple works. It could be done.

Can I put in one comment on Haleprek? Yes. I'm

sorry. I wanted to make sure I got in before

we moved on to a different... idea, one of your

different ideas. Yeah, I would be I think there

would be a battle tech fan out there that's listening

to that would have an eyebrow raised. I think

instead of third succession where you actually

meant fourth succession. Oh, yeah, sorry. Yeah,

sometimes I was making sure because the third

succession war is a pretty epic time where like

the inner sphere is literally falling back into

Mad Max kind of kind of era but the fourth succession

war is the kind of grand Big you know the it's

it's where Hans devian starts the four succession

war by giving away a rival house as a wedding

gift to his new bride and the actual leader of

that house is sitting there in the audience going

What? You're giving my own realm away as a wedding

gift and they that they timed their invasion

for that wedding gift I mean, it's it's pretty

crazy, but I thought that that's the only thing

I wanted to bring up. I'm sorry No, that's fine.

Yeah, I think that's I said like LinkedIn in

the chat So you guys can check it out, but that

that show it's it's a similar idea I don't it's

not based on the same property, but that shows

that it could be done you know, they did it like

25 years ago and You know, you didn't necessarily

have the legs that it would probably have today

with you know It was an unheard of concept other

than I think some of the was an x -men cartoon

and spider -man had multi -part episodes, but

as far as you know They did it with an animated

thing. So it shows that there's a market. They

could do it live action, especially with, you

know, if it was HBO or somebody. Yeah. Like,

like my show needs a budget. We're talking HBO

money for sure. Yeah. Cause otherwise if it showed

up on the sci -fi network, it would just be cramped

in a room with close up shots of everybody. And

then occasionally graphics that look worse than

Babylon five. So it has to be on, it has to be

Netflix, HBO. or something to that extent, like

Hulu wouldn't put up the money for it. Yeah,

exactly. Like this is a show I'd love to see

done because the Battletech property has such

love behind it. It's not as it's not as well

known as it used to be. But I think with the

popularity of its games over the last couple

of years with, like, pirata games and paradox

interactive, there is love there still because

I don't know anything about like I'm not very

familiar at all. Like It's a different universe

than MechWarrior, right? No, it's the exact same

thing, more or less. Okay. So that was, so that's

part of that. Cause that's, that's my only experience

then with it would be playing MechWarrior two

and three back in the day. Yeah. So that would

be my, if I had to pick out of those four shows

that I pitched, that would be the one I'd put

the most money into and then Terminator probably.

All right. So my next one that I mentioned was

Halo. What do you guys have to say about that?

I think it's going to get done. It's just, I

don't know if it'll be the same timeline. I think

it's going to depend. Like they have been saying

that they hadn't officially canceled that show

that they were planning to do for the Xbox, you

know, live thing. But then they canceled having

Xbox live do live video. So, but I wouldn't be

surprised if they do something with Halo Infinite

coming out with the new generation of systems.

Like, but if they do it, Mike, I don't think

they would put money into it. I think it would

be something where they're like, Hey, let's show

off that we got this new tech. So let's pump.

$10 million and I'm making 10, 10 minute shorts

instead of making it like, you know, $10 to $20

an episode sort of thing. Yeah. Which is unfortunate

because if you could get Disney plus money into

it, you could do it. And that's why I selected

ODST troopers as opposed to like Spartans, because

once you have these costumes, that's it. You

don't have to customize them. They all look the

same. They're basically like stormtrooper uniforms.

Um, you could do like. It would cost a bit to

get the costumes on, but like you said, once

they're done, the advantage they would have is

then Microsoft would have the actual uniforms

and costumes that they could use for promotional

materials for everything they do from then on.

Yeah. Plus, it's still a loved universe. The

franchise still does a lot of things. It's had

two live action series that are very short. There

was Nightfall and Forward Unto Dawn. And then

there was Halo Legends, which was an animated

series of shorts back in 2009. So the franchise

still has legs. And as you mentioned, with the

newest console generation coming up, that's got

to mean something. I can see them as a final

look for me. uh, not doing it live action, Mike,

I could see them using the game engine. To that

would be cool because they're getting so photorealistic

now that if they just said, Hey, it's an animated

series, but it's done in engine using like whatever

unreal five or whatever the heck they're using.

Uh, they could, they could do that. And you know,

it would be very cheap because they have the

engine built and it would just be paying the

programmers to script out the cut scenes. So

instead of costing, you know, $10 million an

episode, they can get that cost down to like.

A hundred grand or whatever. Just paying the

voice actors. Yeah. And if you wanted to bring

in more expensive voice talent, you could. Plus

I really want to have Keith. I want Keith David,

the star in this series. It's cause I love his

voice. Cause he was an amazing spawn back in

1997. So plus. He's Goliath. So anyway. Oh, yeah.

And Mass Effect. Yeah. Speaking of Mass Effect,

that's my next series. What do you guys think?

I'm the weird one that, like, I don't I guess

I don't play a lot of video games. I mean, I've

played the Mass Effect games and I like them,

but I don't think I can speak about them. intelligently.

Does that make sense? Do you think a series set

post first game would work to draw people in?

Do you think you could get 26 episodes out of

this? I think that you can get a solid 10 episodes

out of any decent idea, as long as there's good

writing and good acting. I'd say the Mass Effect

universe has that potential. 26 episodes, you

know. I don't know, it depends on how well it's

played off and the quality of the actors. I think,

Mike, you could get a three to four episode miniseries

as a prequel that leads up where humans make

first contact, and then we have the Turian War.

That's a good one. The first part is humans discovering

the Mass Effect Relay in space. The second is

having the Turian War. And then the third one

is humans being invited over to the Citadel and

you end it with Commander Shepard's flight to

the Citadel to sort of start up the game. And

if you do it animated, I'm not talking 20 minute

episodes, you do three 60 minute specials and

you could do that. So I guess if you're counting

it as animated or as an episode count, you know,

anywhere 8 to 10, 20 minute episodes. I think

the more interesting stories could take place

on the Citadel, but the automatic comparison

would be to Babylon 5. And I think that would

be a disservice to both Babylon 5 and Mass Effect.

Does that make sense? Yeah. Mike, have you ever

actually watched Babylon 5? I've watched the

first two seasons. Because in playing Mass Effect.

They took a lot from Babylon five. Yeah, a lot

from a lot like the main plot is basically battle

on five. And then I guess my final idea is the

Terminator series. What do you guys think? I

love Terminator. I think that the Sarah Connor

Chronicles was cut short far too soon just when

it was really starting to get interesting. I

think a show set directly after Judgment Day

could be good, could be really good if done properly.

I think that's the challenge. I think while the

challenge is doing that properly in a post -nuclear

kind of apocalypse, but also doing a Terminator

well seems to be very difficult. I think it could

be done really well. I'd love to see it. I want

to see more good Terminator. It would be interesting

if they played it like the mini -series for Battle

Circle Actica, where you just take most of the

first season and have most of the first season

happen beforehand. Make it like a family drama.

And it's just, you're focusing on a family or

a couple of families, like one in Hawaii, one

over here, one over there, and you're just seeing

them and they're living out their everyday lives

like normal. And then at the end of the pilot

or at the end of the first two episodes, the

first bombs go off. and then you start to catch

up and you become invested with these multiple

families across the world and how it's affecting

the world differently. And there's all the chaos

that ensues, the people that are closest to it

know what's going on, but the communication lines

are down. You could do a really interesting thing

with it, especially if you set it like, you know,

let's say you set the show and you do it like

24, where each episode for the first, I don't

know, seven episodes is... uh you know a week

before you know judgment day and each day like

each episode starts with a countdown and you

oh i like that so it builds attention and you

could even do it where in the top right corner

of the screen it literally has a timer counting

down the minutes and you then you get to the

you know the last episode of the second last

episode of the season and you see each of the

families as it takes to zero what happens and

then you you set up uh You see the bombs go off

and that's how you cut off the first season.

And then you build a pipe over six months to

go into the second season. Whether or not, that'll

give a time to see whether or not it has enough

hype going into it if people really want to tune

back in and watch. It also could leave it at

a good point that if it got canceled, you're

like, holy shit, we just saw what happened leading

up to Judgment Day. And if it is popular, then

you have multiple seasons you can go with. You

have already established characters. You'd have

to make sure that some of those families are

tied into like Skynet and things like that. So

the fans actually want to keep knowing what happens

to these people. Rather than just random family

drama, you know? What I meant was, yeah, that's

actually where I was going with is, you know,

you don't realize they're tied to it, but they

are tied to it. So, you know, it'll be a family

where it's like a truck driver and his family.

Well, it turns out he works for Cyberdyne. And

some of the stuff he's been transporting, he's

like, oh, I've got a government contract right

now. We're transporting stuff back and forth.

And you start to realize how they're connected.

And I guess you could throw in a family, throw

in the Dyson family or somebody that people would

already know. So you have one person's family

working at the center of it all. And then the

rest of them are tangentially connected. Or you

find out, it's like, oh, there's somebody that

will play a big part in the future. You could

even do something where the opening scenes of

the show are either clips from the different

movies that have been out showing the future.

And you see some of these people when they're

fully part of the resistance. And then it's just

like somebody gets knocked on their head or they're

getting attacked and they just flash back and

it shows how everything began. That's when you

have the countdown happening. I like that. That's

clever. Okay, so now gather round, children.

Sit tight and prepare you as I regale you with

the tale of my main pitch. So this one is going

to be something near and dear to my heart. I

love horror movies. I love scary movies and there

are scary sci -fi movies. One of my favorite

series of all times is Ripley Scott's Aliens.

My favorite movie of all time is James Cameron's

Alien. But... I want to do something a little

bit differently because one of the things that

Hormones have done, to varying degrees of success,

is tackle H .P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos, which

we talked about in the last episode of Future

Imperfect. So I'm doing a mixture of William

Gibson's genre that he more or less created,

cyberpunk, and crossing that with Cthulhu. There

was a role playing game supplement years ago

by Steve Jackson Games called Cthulhu Punk. I'm

taking the basic idea and reworking it into my

own thing. The title of my series is called Wetworked.

The series is set in the year 2170 in... Toronto.

It follows the, uh, two private investigators,

um, known as Warren and Cassandra. Both are cyber

cybernetically augmented humans. Warren is a

street level operator who, uh, befriended Cass

as, as an informant for the police once upon

a time. So the story begins when a family approaches

them to help solve a mystery involving their

murdered daughter and their missing son. The

first season follows the trail of a cult named

the Yellow Faith and the Missing Son. A corporation

named Citadel takes an interest in their investigation

and occasionally helps them or hinders them as

the course of the 10 to 13 episode series plays

out. The antagonists for the first series include

gang members, organ leggers, the cops, the cult

of the Yellow Faith themselves. However, strange

occurrences start to happen and the Cthulhu mythos

elements start to become apparent very early

on when cult members rise from the dead and more

basically weird science stuff like that. They

may warn and cast may pump them full of lead.

They may get up from their wounds and that's

not possible even in the cybernetic future. Uh,

one of the pivotal, pivotal, I can't say that

word. Important moments in the first season involve

a creature servitor known as a baki tearing up

a corporate security force. It's basically a

picture of a flying insect that's giant with

giant gnashing teeth and will rip you apart.

um a mego mining operation so uh in the hp lovecraft

universe there are these weird looking creature

called the fun guy from ugoth and um they're

worn in cast come across a mining operation and

they're human servitors and something goes terribly

terribly wrong and there's also an encounter

with a creature known as a flying polyp who can

generate winds. So intent, it blows the skin

off your very bones. The season ends with a hooded

figure emerging from the shadows, leading the

missing son off to places unknown and warning

cast or critically injured from a fire from a

firefight from corporate security forces and

two of those creatures. The reason I chose the

end. to end the series like this or the season

is in HP Lovecraft stories, sometimes the best

you can hope to do is break even. And sometimes

it doesn't go your way. You are fighting against

cosmic forces and same with cyberpunk. It doesn't

always go right. There's not always a happy ending.

So if the series does get picked up for a season

two. morning casts survive. Maybe they become

more human than human, so to speak, or more machine

-like. We'll have to wait and see. Or maybe one

of them dies. The people that I've cast in this

series is Warren McGrath. And for that, I've

chosen one of my favorite actors of all time,

Ice T. I love his voice. I love his mannerisms.

I love how he extrudes that that exterior of

cool confidence and you don't want to fuck with

this guy if you get into a straight up um knuckle

dust up with him he will mess you up i really

like that um about him the person i chose as

cassandra gibbons is the woman who played judge

anderson from uh from dread back in 2012 and

that's Olivia Thrillby. I just love her look.

Again, just the way she moves. And I think she

would play an interesting contrast to Ice -T

as well. The supporting cast, I would cast as

David. He plays the cult leader of the Yellow

Faith. That is Brad Dorif. You may recognize

him as the voice of Chucky. again, has a certain

presence when he's actually on screen. He was

also famously Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings

as well. And I kind of want that slimy, evil

-looking dude where he looks very, very, very

sickly but has the presence to command a room

when he speaks. The voice of Hastur, who is the

mythos god in the series. I may have got this,

I was watching a video on Splinter Cell, Michael

Ironside, but he's also played the voice of Darkseid

in many DC projects as well. So where we're going

to kind of end things off here is this is my

episode one plot synopsis. So the investigative

team of Warren and Cass are introduced as a pair

of private investigators who operate. within

Toronto mostly dealing with runaways and insurance

fraud. A murder of a local girl draws their attention

when the family approaches them looking for answers

and their missing son. The crime is largely ignored

by the media and the police. The scene of the

crime is of particular note because it took place

within a mega corporation's main office at the

Citadel Corporation. Corporate security is uncooperative

and has little in the way of evidence they will

actually share. Cass and Warren obtain security

footage of the girl being murdered by something,

and the missing son stands by while it happens.

The pair decide to take the case when they see

their inside source who provided them with the

footage is murdered and know something larger

is at hand. Citadel corporate security forces

monitor Cass and Warren under the direction of

a mysterious figure in yellow. The episode ends

in an unknown location with strange chanting

and something monstrous emerging from a circle

drawn on the floor. And that's what I got for

Wetwork aka Cthulhu Punk. Thoughts, opinions?

I can start. I like. I was just waiting for somebody

else to go. Oh, yeah, no, I like. I like both

Cthulhu. I like cyberpunk. Um, I think they can

work very well together. I think that as long

as you, you ground any of the special effects

and the cybernetics and stuff like that, that's

happening in, in sort of a reality that is, you

know, understandable slash, I don't know what,

what's, what am I, uh, what's the one show that

I'm trying, altered carbon. Yeah, I think alter

carbon that that yeah, there's cybernetics There's

weird special effects that happen with people

and they're you know implants and whatnot but

as long as you can understand it and Go with

it. Oh Cuz I think I think cybernetics can really

get crazy Yeah. Basically I'm not going to have

someone have like Cyberpunk 2020 with like a

chain ripper in their arm or something ridiculous

like that. Maybe the idea of wired reflexes,

night vision, stuff like that. Maybe even implanted

weaponry. I'm okay with that, but yeah, I don't

want anything too ridiculous because that would

just take you out of the scary element to the

point where you can pump 30 rounds into that

thing. And if it's not going to die, You can

run as fast as you want. You're just going to

die tired. I mean, go with some body horror cybernetic

kind of things, you know, like, hey, look, here's

somebody's skull that can open up and you can

look into their brain because they have like,

you know, memory slots in there. Some body horror

stuff in a in a in a Cthulhu -esque setting is

completely appropriate. This would not be something

that airs on broadcast TV. Well, maybe the CBC

would do it, Mike, but I don't think it would

air like it wouldn't air. This is not something

you could do. on like CBS or NBC or something.

AMC might pick it up if I had to pick a network.

AMC or HBO would be where I'd go. Yeah, well,

I think it's a given that all of us want our

shows to be on HBO. Yeah, budget, big budget.

It depends on who's producing it. Like would

you, did you have an idea of who you'd like to

produce it? Would it be, cause this isn't something

that would be like a Spielberg thing. Would you

want them to pull in people from like, like different,

would you want it to be like a cavalcade of directors

from like the masters of horror series, those

that are still alive or something? Kind of. Yeah.

I want people who know how to do really good

sci -fi, but I also want people who understand

horror. I mean, I want people who understand

the Cthulhu mythos a little bit better than most.

And the guy who just did a story or he just did

a movie recently, we actually reviewed it on

twig, uh, about a month ago now, color out of

space, Richard Stanley, and not every episode

has to have guns blazing and everything. A part

of the Cthulhu mythos is the mind bending insanity

that you deal with. And as cast investigate things.

So like, uh, I don't know if he would. do it

based on his high, high profile projects right

now. But like Dennis Villeneuve, the Canadian

director that did Enemy. Blade Runner, wasn't

it? The new Blade Runner. He understands all

that. But I was thinking, did you see the new

trailer for the HBO, the new Lovecraft TV show

made by Jordan Peele? Yes, yes. I would love

to get him involved. So maybe Jordan Peele take

control of it because he understands that. that

weird horror thing. It's just, you might need

somebody that understands or does more with,

uh, traditional, uh, like monster makeup involved

too. Yeah. Like my series would be as many practical

effects as possible because as Aaron pointed

out, if it's more grounded and it looks real,

it's going to get you more invested. I'm not

saying it has to go to game of Thrones level

of gore, but you better believe what you're seeing.

What you'd want is for them to have a pilot done

by Kronenberg and then go from there? Yes. Kronenberg

with a budget. King of body horror. Yeah, cool.

I'd be game for that. And the advantage here

is it wouldn't have to be over -the -top jumpscares.

The best part of Lovecraft and stuff, and body

horror, is the slow reveal, where it's like,

oh, there's something in the corner and it's

slowly coming toward you. And you can't make

out what it did. Yeah. Like, or, or, I mean,

that's Hey, that thing touched me. Now my arm

hurts. And then you look and you see it pulsating

and bubbling. Yeah. Cause like, that's why I

only want to deal with certain monsters and mostly

human servitors. That's why the flying creatures,

I'm only dealing with those as big bad, like

big moments, like maybe the flying. Uh, polyp

could be like a mid season episode because they're

like, what the hell is that thing? But they're

not going to run in the show. Goths, which are

basically sentient protoplasm, which eat people.

Yeah. Like, um, like demonic trees and stuff

like that, that, that could play into it or,

uh, play with the shadows, uh, more than anything.

Cause then, you know, do that. Yeah, because

I want it to be scary but not like Buffy the

vampire slayer monster of the week monsters are

there but you don't always see them and sometimes

you are the monster because part of cybernetics

and body horror is You're taking a piece of yourself

and changing it forever that that piece of meat

and that piece of technology even if it's Genetic

if it's cybernetic That comes at a price. So

the more of you replace, the more of your humanity

you eventually give up. You can even run it a

little bit like, um, like Cronenberg's Existence,

where people start implanting themselves with,

uh, with computerized components that allow them

to interface with virtual reality games. And

they stop being able to tell what's real and

it's fake. Yeah. Like I'd love to do an episode

of featured around. Net runners people who plug

their brains into a computer kind of virtually

So I have many cool ideas, um, so yeah that would

be wet worked Steven any comment for you my friend

Being that I'm unfamiliar with a lot of the things

you just discussed It sounds it but it does sound

interesting the way that you've kind of weaved

it together and made it Made it sound with all

the different variations of things going on kind

of making you think more internally with it,

too Yeah, because I don't want to just be like

look blood and gore. That's cool and all but

I guess the ultimate you watch them Yeah, I want

depth to my series and while there's gonna be

big monsters and this is definitely a Cthulhu

show It's not gonna be Cthulhu meets bucket vampire

slayer like because iced tea can act. And there

might be some kind of like, kind of plot lines

there about how he's questioned, man, I've given

up a lot of my body over the years how much of

me is actually left. The other the woman who's

worked for the for the cops for years. Maybe

she asked herself, have I been on the rights

of the law all this time? Maybe maybe it's revealed

over the course of the season. She was former

corporate security. She's been lying to Warren

for years because it was part of her cover or

something. I don't know. I'd make it up. You

know, there actually was a show similar. It's

not with the Cthulhu aspect, but the policing

that came out was three or four years ago, five

years ago, almost human. It was on Fox. I think,

yeah, it had Carl Urban, wasn't it? Carl Urban,

yep. Yeah. And it was, he gets an Android partner.

And then there's a whole bunch of mysterious

techie stuff that starts happening i never did

watch that show but i always wanted it was good

and then it was yeah i watched the first episode

and went fox is going to cancel this it's too

good to be on fox and it did All right, so I

guess those are my ideas Such as they may be

so let's bring things up to the ad role of the

future imperfect and that would be Steve Megatron

Phillips Thrill me baby with your honorable mentions

if you have any my honorable mentions I Came

up with these while you were doing your honorable

mentions While I do enjoy some of the series

and some of the thoughts that you had in some

of those I have a little bit different Scenarios

two of them are very similar. One of them is

not I do like the the aspect of the the mech

warrior Type of series I did used to read those

books But I have galaxy quest as a TV series

interesting because it kind of takes the elements

of what the Orville has that's good, except it's

actors having to actually become this role that

they played. But for real, not just like the

movie, but it's on an extended basis. So the

idea behind that is I not only one, enjoyed the

series, but two, I like the entire premise of

it because they're all basically green. So they

would have to kind of figure it out as they go

So that's one of mine another one's Andromeda

just because I would like to see it with modern

-day special effects and It it's sorely It looks

very dated compared to the Star Trek series that

were even out around that time and previously

Because it was made on sci -fi channel most things

that the sci -fi channel puts out now Koff Koff,

Bigger Queen, Koff Koff, anything they put out

that wasn't dark matter in the last 10 years?

Yeah, but I would like to see whether it be CBS

or something, which is entirely possible because

Roddenberry owns all of that stuff anyway, unless

sci -fi has some kind of a vested interest in

it. I would like to see um cps or somewhere else

or uh really anywhere that has the budget to

actually put into it and remake it and kind of

modernize it a little bit i i get that they would

have the some of the similar cast you know the

the dylan hunt character or the andromeda and

and things like that but i would like to see

like a modern twist to it uh much like how they've

been kind of giving the the shiny aspect to all

of the modern star trek series um give or take

what i like about them or not but Why not HBO

Max? Because they're not doing anything with

Babylon 5, and they own the rights to that. But

I believe didn't Andromeda originally air on

the WB in the States? I think it was on UPN,

right? I don't know if it was UPN. I don't think

it was WB. Yeah, it was probably WB, which was

after UPN. Yeah. But yeah, I would like to see

that series come back because I do enjoy it,

but it's sometimes hard to stomach just because

it feels like a like a cheap 90s knockoff Star

Trek in a lot of aspects. And because it's on

sci fi and I mean, they tried it a couple of

times. You know, they got a third or fourth time's

charm. I guess they tried it with John Saxon

as a TV movie in the 70s. They tried doing it

in the 80s again. I think it got called like.

I forget what they called it. There's two different

movies that Warner Bros. put out with it. And

then they waited like 20 years and then made

that. So my question to you is, since it was

Hercules in space, are they going to cast the

Rocks as he's the last person to play Hercules

as Dylan Hunt? Hey, why not? You get a lot more

fanfare to watch it. Well, and I was thinking

he's also had his show Ballers on HBO for five

years. He's got a relationship with them. That

would be cool to see. It would be interesting

if he was willing to do it. I guess a really

super jacked up captain of a ship that can beat

people. Then again, in that show he had that

staff thing he would use to beat people up. And

it wasn't as believable because Hercules wasn't

as buff by the time he did that show as he was

five years earlier. Yeah, it would be nice to

see this. Like a full blown... would you want

to be full blown action or like the original

one was or a little more political? I think the

action thing would be good as long as they make

it well like the thing is is extreme or anything

yeah the thing is is the way today's culture

is I could definitely see it fitting with the

political aspect as well just because the the

premise of the series was he kind of gets locked

in a black hole and you know stuck there in time

and you know they find him 100 or so couple,

you know hundreds of years later and his entire

world is you know Not what he expects when he

comes out the other side so I I could definitely

see that taking place granted the same concept

is being stolen and used in Discovery season

3 so Because it's one ship thrown into the future

and fall out of what happened. There's only so

many things you can do. It's just about Creating

an interesting bunch of characters and if they

did get somebody like the rock on board You know,

we've got a straight -to -series order if he

was interested. Oh Yeah, totally and I would

what sci -fi movie the rock did doom. I Think

you're so done a lot of world disaster films.

Yeah, he's done disaster movies or like um He's

done fans. Well, okay. Here's a question. Do

you count Jumanji? Where you get sucked into

a movie? I think that's more action fantasy.

Yeah, because you get sucked into a video game,

I guess. I think he's working on something. But

yeah, he hasn't done like a full -blown sci -fi

movie. Sci -fi since Doom. Yeah. He's done like

sci -fi -esque stuff. Just nothing. Or wait,

wasn't he in that movie that was pretty bad?

That's so specific. Which one? Which one? Oh,

why am I drawing a blank on it? Just IMDbium.

Yeah, I'll pull it up in a second here. Skyscraper,

Rampage. I was happy for Skyscraper because he

played an amputee, so go me. And Rampage was

oddly charming. It was better than it had any

right to be, but they were smart to not market

it as a video game movie. Yeah. Even though you

knew what it was. Forgot about San Andreas. Oh

my god. Yeah No, that's just a really bad toy

movie God I see I see on IMDB big trouble in

little China announced He is paying to produce

it himself That's the movie that he did right

after doom and he wasn't and that was Everybody

forgets it because it was terrible, but that

was a sci -fi movie. And he was supposed to do

the spy hunter movie that never got made. But

yeah, he hasn't really, like he played Hercules,

he's done fantasy. It might be something to fill

out his repertoire. That's true. Oh good lord,

he was in Gem and the Holograms? Yeah, he was

in Scorpion King way back when. Yeah, fantasy.

Yeah, that had some awful special effects, I

remember that. That was a terrible movie. It

made the mummy look good. Yeah, it doesn't look

like he's playing... Doc Savage. Black Adam.

That one's been in pre -production for like eight

years. Black Adam, that would be the closest,

right? That he's gonna be doing to... Pretty

much. I mean, he's a superhero. It's still kind

of a fantasy. I think he could do it. He has

the charisma to be a captain of a ship and do

that whole thing. If the whole idea is a leader

of a ship is going to reunite the universe, I'm

sorry, Kevin Sorbo wasn't going to be that guy

to give the right speeches. I could see them

getting people pumped enough to actually join

him. And then he would have the muscle to actually

back it up while he's on his ship defending it

by himself. Well, yeah, at the beginning when

there's that going on. It had one of the best

pilot episodes. of this era. Oh, yeah, totally.

Where, like, you see it freeze, you see all the

time stuff change around him, and then he gets,

you know, pulled out of it, and he's like, all

right, everything falls apart. He's like, basically,

I got to contact the government. They're like,

there's no government. First of all, what are

you talking about? I've never even heard of what

you're talking about. So that's what, like, as

a kid I was watching, I'm like, well, that would

be scary. It's no longer that, hey, oh, that's

the old government that fell apart. It's been

so long that nobody even knows what you're talking

about. That, like, there's no history. of it

at all. And he's like, oh, it's been a long time.

So he's done a sci fi animated movie. Plan is

51. OK, yeah. So let's not talk about that. No.

So those are honorable mentions, right? Or do

you have any others? I have one other one. It's

Continuum. I remember the name of the show, but

I don't remember what it is. It's yeah, it was

Four Seasons and it was it was a Canadian television

show. And it has to do with like these This rogue

organization that causes havoc and they they're

basically trying to put them down in the future

and they escape to the past and To like the year

2005 or something and then they they start influencing

History, but what it doesn't tell you is like

the guy that set it all in motion. He's a teenager

in the past and he basically set the whole thing

in motion in the future. And then they had this

one, like basically a time cop that goes back

in time to round them up. And it's got a lot

of weird sci -fi stuff in it, but it's a lot

of time travel and a lot of like, it kind of

grabs my attention just because it kind of plays

with the paradoxes and the predestination almost

type things. But at the same time, it was still

kind of forging its own different divergent history

out of it. Yeah, it was one of my favorite shows

when it aired. It was like 2012 to 2015. Yeah,

it was it was one of my favorites as well. The

evil, you know, future version of the teenager

that's like the idealistic guy is the cancer

smoking man, Mike. Oh, William B. Davis. Yeah,

yeah. And it's a who's who of Canadian actors

in it that have been in the sci -fi. A whole

thing took place in BC. And the idea is she like,

like Steve said, she's got a implant in her head

that lets her, cause she's a cop from the future

where they have like, you know, they can see

what you're seeing elsewhere. She goes back in

time to the point where this kid is basically

developing that network that is going to be a

big player in the next 50, 60 years. So she,

she like, taps into it and that's how they communicate.

He's like, who the hell are you and what are

you doing on my network? And she's like, who

the hell are you and what are you doing in my

police network in her head? And that's where

you, it's about stopping a terrorist group, but

it's a cyclical thing. Like, you know, what came

first? Did they have to send people in the past

to do this or, you know, is it the future ruined

because people were sent to the past? There's

a lot of stuff that goes on. It was actually

pretty high budget. It was run by I think showcase

up here. I have no idea who aired it in the States.

Um, sci -fi. Okay. Um, and it was, it was really,

really well done and it's worth a watch, Mike.

It's only 42 episodes. Uh, yeah, that's, I would

have said a time travel one, but I think it's

somebody else was going to say that. And this

is one where, uh, they did close the gap. So

like, it has a complete arc, but it changed the

history in the future. Yeah. And it was quite

clear that They got their episodes cut short

for the last two seasons, so I think the last

season was like six or eight episodes long. Yeah,

the last season was six episodes. They were supposed

to have double that, and because it got cancelled,

they were only able to do those last episodes

to wrap it up, and it felt very cut short. They

were originally, I think, 10 or 13 per season,

so it could have gone far, but they were at least

smart enough to... get a storyline out of the

last episode. So they didn't feel like it was

as rushed as it could have been. And again, good

actors, good storyline. We are due for a good

time travel one. And this is, if anybody has

seen or heard of time tracks, this was sort of

a take on that. That was a show that aired on

the P10 network, which became, I think, UPN eventually.

It's the same network that showed Babylon 5 the

first season. And Time Trax is about a cop that

went back in time to stop escape criminals and

send them back. And it ran for two seasons. And

this was, let's take that and make it a good

show. Yeah. Take these mediocre shows and make

them a good show. So yeah, those were my honorable

mentions. The the storyline that I had conjured

up I did it over the course of multiple It took

me about a year like overall that come up with

this because I like I said I took the EDX classes

and the first one I developed one care set of

characters here on a villain and It took place

in a dystopian future with war ravaging everything

corporations owning everything including the

police So basically, one by one, corporations

would take over until they owned the police and

their citizens. And there's an element of some

basically rogue people that are battling against

this big government entity that literally owns

everything. They call the shots, it's just downright

dirty. There's this one character that survives

this onslaught of this bombing on their location

and uses a time travel suit to go back in time

to present day. And unbeknownst to the world,

events take place back when he gets there that

will basically change the face of the planet

until... One particular man digs a little too

closely to the details and discovers the head

of the entire downfall of it. And he's basically

sent to be assassinated during a conference where

he's speaking about something and he's doing

a lot of humanitarian stuff. And they don't realize

that they basically activated a Mutant DNA code

that causes him to heal So he ends up not dead

but nobody knows it yet because he's being secretly

trained by this guy that came back from the future

So it's it's basically the rise of this character

to Basically almost a superhero s role taking

on the original prototype suit that eventually

evolves into the one that the future person has.

And so there's a lot of parallels with some of

the things with Continuum, because I had watched

that around the same time that I wrote this.

And then there's other elements of Batman -esque

type character villains involved in this. But

what you basically end up with is a I plotted

out originally a 13 episode season where there

would be different elements and different heroes

that would come into the fold and different villains,

some from another planet that kind of are what

ends up escalating the future timeline. But yeah,

that's kind of the premise. The show's called

Altered Generations because there's a lot of

time travel -y type stuff that goes back and

forth and that ends up altering history in different

ways. But there's That that's basically the the

start of the premise of what I had I don't really

have anybody cast in it per se but I did like

a lot of the production that was done on Continuum

and so like a lot of that. I would probably take

into consideration as well as Like other other

known sci -fi people such as like a Brandon Braga

or somebody like that to produce it. Thoughts?

I like the idea of the evolving suit becoming

the more advanced one in the future. I think

that's a really neat idea, actually. Yeah, that's

what I was going to say. From a production standpoint,

how I was picturing it in my head was like you

said, the continuum. Also pretty underrated,

I think, at least for the first couple of seasons.

that show on was it TMT falling skies that the

look of that show yeah the it had a very grounded

sort of feel look and I feel like that would

be something interesting yeah and that's and

that's kind of how this would kind of be is that

it would look like kind of a normal modern everyday

life type of show it would be live -action but

it would also Be modern in the sense that you

would have a lot of the different a lot of a

lot of different representations in it there

would be a lot of Peaceful coexistence between

people at least until these Corrupt people get

involved and I also the the the main character

is basically he owns a giant media organization

and so that's Basically, he's he's doing some

news reporting and he gets a little too close

to the information and that's that's why they

hunt him down But it ends up with a onslaught

battle between him and the the the corporation

leader and you find out at the end of the first

episode that He's not really the one pulling

the pulling the the cords on the entire situation

there's he's actually got a mad scientist that's

in the basement of his building. You find out

that this leader of this organization is actually

a clone by the end of the first episode leading

to the fact that he's going to be back just in

a different version. A lot going on, I know,

but it makes sense in the screenplay. I was going

to say maybe something where what's laid out

in the sequence, it would make sense because

it has a lot to process. Yes. And I've described

it before. The first episode takes in a lot of

that all in one, like in the first 60 minute

screenplay. But yeah, so that's what I've got.

All right. So now that we have heard of it reminds

me a little bit of Shadowrun as well. There's

some. Yeah. I like that. I like it. So I guess

if we don't have any more questions and comments

for Steve, like I said, I think it's a neat idea.

It's got that bit of a Shadowrun vibe to it.

I dig it. So I guess moving on to our professional

writer of the group, Aaron, what do you have

for us? You're putting all the pressure on me.

Professional. I have one pitch and it's because

I actually struggled for a while. I did not want

to come up with like repitching a show that's

already been out or reimagining one. I thought

that was kind of me copping out in a way. I'm

not trying to criticize anybody here at all,

because I just wanted to try to do something

fully original. And I was I struggled for a while

because every idea that I did have that was fairly

original, I didn't think I could easily pitch.

It's more of like, hey, I should actually like

write a novel about this or maybe I should actually

finish my novel instead of pitching out on the

show. But I did come up with something and I

call it One Small Step. The concept is it's an

alternate history show where the Apollo program

of manned missions to the moon isn't cancelled.

Because of the politics in the United States,

NASA continues to push outwards through the 1970s

and 80s, capturing near -Earth asteroids for

exploitation. The Soviets actually continue to

do this as well. The Soviet Union never falls

apart because of this, because in 1986 they capture

a near -Earth asteroid that was highly rich in

uranium and other precious metals, so their economy

doesn't collapse like in our timeline. The current

date for the show is actually in 2013, and NASA

has pressed outwards into the solar system along

with SOV Cosmos, and it's basically the greater

Soviet space program, and tensions are high on

Earth. Both programs have had colonies on Mars

since the late 1990s, and each nation, along

with some small groups from allied nations, have

a sizable population there. When I'm saying sizable,

I mean like a couple hundred thousand people

total. A few different conflicts have occurred

differently than in our history, including a

2007 war in Iran and Pakistan, a brief but nuclear

civil war in China, and an Argentinian empire

slowly spreading through South America after

a failed Falkland Islands war with the UK. The

series, actually the first episode... I only

kind of envisioned six episodes for the first

season, about an hour each. And the first episode

is framed as a news channel documentary about

the newest NASA Mars colony group. So this episode's

kind of like the exposition episode, and it tells

about the rise of the main space program and

how it's different from our timeline, right?

It'll give a breakdown of the main personalities

that are in this Mars colony group. It also gives

an opportunity to talk about the challenges and

the breakdown of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967.

And I know that's really pendactic, but it's

a real space treaty that was signed by most nations

in 1967 that basically said, hey, let's not have

wars in space and nations can't actually use

nuclear weapons in space. So the breakdown in

the outer space treaty actually occurred in 2001

between NATO forces and Warsaw Pact forces on

Mars. and there were nuclear weapons used there,

but obviously not everyone was killed. Anyway,

I'm kind of going off topic here, but the series

proper kicks off in season two with a strange

discovery on the far side of the moon by an Indian

minerals team. It's an alien device that turns

on. And throughout the series, these devices,

they're kind of like robots, begin turning on

all over earth, the moon, Mars. The different

nations are able to capture some of them and

they clearly are fairly high tech. Most of them

do not have weapons, but some do and fight back.

The series overall shows that how these two power

blocks are vying for these robotic creatures

across all the worlds that people are on. but

what the gist of these things are is that they've

actually been on Earth for quite a long time

and every so often they wake up to observe humanity

and it just so happens that now is the time that

they're awakening and they finally see that humans

have changed since the last time we saw them

and we're kind of scared about how quickly they

changed and how quickly they spread out into

the solar system. They need to contact their

creators for new orders and hopefully to make

first contact, but On the human side, much of

this is the political intrigue that is occurring

on Mars, on Earth, as the military on both the

big power blocks are trying to deal with the

ramifications of alien robots waking up and kind

of rampaging around, not really destroying things,

but hey, look, there's a car. I'm going to go

take it apart. And then, you know, the police

have to come in and try to stop this thing if

they can. And usually they can't. The governments

on both sides are able to capture some of them,

like I said, but being that both sides actually

understand that the other side is capturing some

of these things. both are worried about the other

side gaining some sort of advantage from whatever

they're capturing. And that's starting to ramp

up tensions. The main characters are all basically

on Mars, but there's lots of scenes that actually

occur on Earth, like back in Moscow or at Houston,

something like that. In the final episode the

robotic things on Mars actually take over a rocket

and launch it at Phobos and it turns out their

big transceiver is there. But at this point throughout

the few episodes we've seen the tensions ramping

up on Earth from brush fire conflicts happening

in some of these weird war zones that have occurred

differently in our timeline all the way to open

conflict between the Warsaw Pact countries and

NATO. There's one one engagement that actually

occurs on the moon between East and West German

forces when they're trying to fight over what

they discover as a big robot manufacturing facility

and they end up using nuclear weapons to fight

each other and they wipe themselves out and this

factory. On Mars when these robots take over

the rocket to get off Mars and get to Phobos

which is where they have equipment to actually

transmit to contact their creators. The Soviets

actually, at this point, think that the NATO

countries are launching a nuclear strike against

them. And the Soviet general throughout this,

who is a main character in the show, is actually

a sympathetic character. He's not a villain.

He actually has to try to take control against

the political officers that are there trying

to force the situation. And he ends up killing

the political officer that's been trying to I

don't know Have this all end in in bloodshed

anyway The missiles are about to go off on Earth

and Phobos kind of opens up into a big transmitter,

a big flower -like device. And the last few moments

on screen for the season is a voice that's heard

deep in Norad Cheyenne Mountain and under the

Kremlin. And it says, hello, can you understand

me? And hopefully they are heard in time to stop

the button from being pressed. So I have like

two groups of main characters. One is... the

NASA characters, NASA slash NATO characters,

and then some characters from the SOV Cosmos

Martian Occupation Force. On NATO, it's Colonel

Amelia Cunningham, USAF, woman in a man's world

combat pilot that served during the Iran -Pakistani

War of 2007. Spent the last seven years studying

for this mission to take command of a terraforming

group that's going to Mars. Highly competent.

has to rely on the advice of the science team

and Dr. Herbert for these strange events. Dr.

Herbert, Dr. Gabriel Herbert is a late 50s male,

seemingly an antagonist to Colonel Cunningham,

but it's only because he doesn't like how the

military has taken over many NASA programs since

the outer space treaty fell apart in 2001, head

of the Mars colony group 2013. And then I have

like a third character that is Dr. Victor Panney,

a French physicist. He's a sci -fi fan and becomes

a facto expert on things happening that are involved

with these aliens. And it's just because he's

the guy that's always been able to think outside

the box. And then the two Soviet main characters

are this general, Vasily Talinov. He's been a

part of the Soviet space program since graduating

college in Russia, married and divorced multiple

times, has one ex -wife on Mars with him. And

he was the one who actually ordered the Soviet

use of nukes on Mars in 2001. Not a villain,

but has his own motivations for things and thus

can work against the point of view characters

from NASA and still be a protagonist. And then

there's the political officer, Colonel Anastasia

Olivia. KGB political officer from the South

Cosmos program, clearly antagonist, works against

General Talinov anytime he seems to stray at

all from the exact wording of orders from Moscow

and her like one line quote that defined her

character is the red planet will stay red. My

six episodes are all named after things that

are associated with the Apollo program. So episode

one is one small step. And it's that documentary.

Episode two is called Whoopi. It's actually a

quote from Apollo 12. Apollo 14 is episode three

and it's We're Here. Episode four is Man Must

Explore. Episode five, Mysterious and Unknown.

And episode six is Destiny of Tomorrow, which

is one of the last things that was said on the

moon during Apollo 17. That's my general pitch.

I know I said a lot there and there's a lot of

ideas that I kind of have written down in this.

But questions, comments. I am down for the Paul

ticking like you wouldn't believe. I love cerebral

shows like this. Hell, you don't even need space

aliens. I bet it for the politics. I just think

it's neat how you've got like that. You had me

hooked when you mentioned the South American

angle. I'm thinking, ooh, nobody ever talks about

that shit. That's cool. You know what? To me,

it sounds like it's an expansion of it, but have

anybody else here seen For All Mankind yet? The

Ronald D. Moore Apple TV show? I have not. Okay.

I'm a space, but I just haven't seen it. Okay.

That show, it takes place, it starts in the 1960s

and then jumps forward multiple years throughout

the season. uh it is what happened what would

have happened if the russians landed on the moon

first and the space race never ended uh and then

you follow this is different than that but yeah

yeah i think it's like to me it's like if you

took that added uh 2001 space odyssey and then

expanded uh the geopolitical aspect of it which

i like it's like pulling from different things

i love so That Ron Moore show is good, but in

watching it, I was like, okay, when are we going

to get like real sci -fi stuff? Because it just,

it's trying to be as grounded as possible. So

when shows like the 1970s or early 80s, they're

like, we're, you know, we're on the moon now

and we have a, you know, we have a colony, but

it's like 20 people and they, they're still relying

on earth for everything. But I, I like where

you're going. I'm thinking of like that sort

of a look almost like. To me it almost sounds

like the West Wing but in space Yeah, a little

bit. I kind of I kind of think of it's more When

I when I thought of a couple shows that I could

compare it to it'd be kind of like the expanse

and West Wing Where there's some sort of weird

alien threat, but it's still the whole world

is very grounded in more meteor regular subjects

where you know Would it be like an Amazon Prime

show then? Like I'm trying, like we're thinking

like what networks could they be on? Amazon Prime

I think would be great. Netflix. I don't think

it would work on, you know, cable TV. It would

be something where it's like Bezos or somebody

high up at one of these companies would be like,

I like that show. So I'm going to order a hundred

episodes of it. You'd be like, yes. Yeah. Yeah.

And you know, as I said, the, since it's kind

of like Yeah, we're in 2020, this show takes

place in 2013, but there's like weird things

that are just different about their time since

technology has progressed differently, that things

can still kind of futuristic and weird. That's

the idea, like even behind that Ron Moore show,

it's, you know, the idea of a military cold war

slash space race never ending would have forced

technology to be, you know, 50 years ahead of

where we are now. If yeah, if the you know the

technology, you know moves forward for a few

different reasons a lot of times it's entertainment

Or like pornography moving technology forward

for whatever reason But nothing moves technology

forward like war or fear of war so And this definitely

would have had that with the Soviets capturing

that near -Earth asteroid. It's why their economy

doesn't implode, is that they suddenly have this

huge influx of raw materials to power their economy.

Yeah. So it wouldn't be anywhere out of the realm

of being like, it's like, oh, that's science

fiction. That's 2013. Yeah, but it's 2013 if

we had another 60 years of technology developed

in a span of 10 years, sort of thing. Yeah, and

then like the the world is is still not well

off just because Conflicts these brushfire conflicts

that happened between the US and the Soviet Union

end up wrecking things even worse I like the

the whole nuclear civil war in China. I kind

of imagined was in the end what like the Soviets

would have absorbed a big chunk of China that

still remained communist and then there would

be kind of a division of China along North -South

lines where there would be you know, nationalist

federalists in the south. And so like in this

vision, the UK never gave up Hong Kong. Yeah,

they have. Yeah. They would have said we have

to protect our interests there and trying to

save face from the losing the Falklands conflict.

Then you have the rest of NATO being involved

like, yeah, there's a lot of geopolitics going

on while there's aliens, too, but it's exploring

this world where Yeah, just things are not a

lot different, but definitely different. They've

taken a strange turn. You need that Amazon money

like now. I'm just saying this will be fucking

so cool. My God. And it's one you could do with

not an like hugely expensive effects budget because

you could be sparing with when you choose to

show certain shots. A lot of it can be told,

you know, just by the people themselves. So I

can see how they could do it on the cheap without

looking cheap. Yeah, yeah. And like the whole

first episode is shot documentary like PBS or,

you know, PBS style. Ken Burns did your first

episode just in picture form. Exactly. Something

like that. And, you know, I don't want. Actors

that are well known for the main characters.

I could totally see somebody that is either well

known Not as an actor No, no like I'm saying

like hey you want Neil deGrasse Tyson to appear

as Neil deGrasse Tyson go ahead He's a communist

or something We're like it would be interesting

because division lines would be different. A

lot of famous scientists that... Never would

have defected, maybe. Well, a lot of scientists

that are either famous now or engineers that

came out of the former Soviet Union would never

have come here. So there would be a lot of tech

that we don't have that they would have. Yeah.

Yeah. And I, I, yeah, I had thought about that.

I had thought about, you know, the, I didn't

want to mention who's president when just the

fact that like Nixon didn't cancel the Apollo

program and, and, and why he didn't might be

a plot point in the first episode when doing

this documentary, like maybe he thought that

losing the Vietnam war was a bad idea. So he

needed like a public relations coup and decide

just throw everything at the space program. That's

exactly what you're saying. That's exactly what

happens. Really, it is. I'm not original. I apologize.

No, no, no. They're great ideas that we had never

seen before. And it would be worth checking out

that show because in the show you hear people

talking about the different presidents that have

come through. And when things aren't going well

in Vietnam, then that's when Nixon decides to

invest a lot of money into it to show, like,

we can't let these commie bastards, it basically

says, you can't let these commie bastards show

us up on everything. They're on the moon first.

You know, Vietnam's not going the way it needs

to go. You need to, you know, make some progress

on your colony on the moon. Like, you just, you

have to, and we're gonna, it's, what does it

cost? $10 billion? Okay, we'll do it. We don't

care because we have to have a win. Yeah, and

mine's mine's more of a break point. That's after

the moon landings at the US still lands on the

moon first the initial Apollo program missions

goal go through through Apollo 17 and Then you

know the missions are continued past that like

there's Apollo 18 through 26 in my notes and

then it turns into a different kind of system

where the shuttles are Developed and used but

something else is used to get back to the moon

that's where the Soviets start doing stuff like

capturing the near -earth asteroids where the

shuttles are building at like a US station in

orbit to transfer stuff to the moon better I

don't know lots of notes here lots of notes but

yeah okay any other further comment from our

committees here I feel like I'm taking council

Frankly sci -fi epic out of the way. We're gonna

finish things off going into Alex. What do you

got for us? I have to follow that Okay, so Mine

are more of the old -school like one -line pitches

and I can sort of elaborate night I thought you

guys might want to like put your own inputs in

it. That's why I didn't want to flush it out

too much But my two very quickly, my, I guess,

reboots or remakes I'd like to see is I've talked

about it before with you guys. I really liked

that show that only ran for like seven episodes

called Mercy Point, which was, I think, a space

station hospital show. I liked the idea of taking

a sci -fi or taking a regular everyday show and

then just making it a sci -fi show. So, you know,

and I... it can be, in this case, it's a hospital

show where you're dealing with different anatomy

and it's like a medical hospital slash school.

I like that idea. It's sort of like what could

have been with if they had done like a Starfleet

Academy show, but this is just a medical show.

So I thought that was neat because it just came

out of the weird time. It was on UPN, ran like

six episodes, got canceled before I think the

seventh or eighth aired. Been forgotten to time,

but it's a neat idea. It's something different

than what's been out there lately. And the other

that I think could use a complete full remake

is the Starlost. I don't know if anybody else

has seen that. Never heard of it, no. Harlan

Ellison made the show after being adversarial

with the Star Trek people back in the day. It

was a Canadian show on CTV, I think. Was it CBS

or somebody was supposed to work with them on

it? And then they pulled out the last minute,

so the budget got slashed to like... a tenth

of what it was going to be, it was being counted

back in the day as the next Star Trek. Not by

the Star Trek people, but as the next new thing.

The full idea for the show eventually was turned

into, I think, a comic book graphic novel series

from IDW. Harlan Ellison put it out years and

years later. But the basic idea for the show

is it starts out... Um, in this Amish community,

Amish Mennonite community, and, uh, a little

bit like the village where it's like, you're

not allowed to leave, you know, the township.

You have to stay within this border and, you

know, it starts out for the first episode being

basically like little house on the prairie. But

at the end of the episode, uh, one of the main

character ventures beyond a certain point and,

um, ends up finding like a door when he opens

the door it goes from being this like Amish paradise

community to being clearly on a spaceship and

he finds out a few people get exiled for finding

out the truth that you know you went beyond where

you're supposed to go and you're banished so

you have to leave with a couple friends and they

end up coming towards a control thing they have

obviously have no idea what technology is they

can't even really read because they can read

what's in the Bible, what they're given. But

they have to try to decipher computer screens

and terminals, and they eventually turn on, I

guess, the computer, which was supposed to be

like a hologram, but it was clearly just a TV

screen in the show where a guy's talking through

it, explaining that you're on basically an Earthship

arc that... was launched hundreds and hundreds

of years ago because the planet was no longer

viable. So they grabbed every community possible

and put them in these domed pods within the giant

arc. We're talking something beyond massive.

Their pod was the size of a town with full farmlands

and everything around them. But the computer

says, you know, you know, there's significant

danger, we're veering off course, and in the

show, they're like, if we don't correct the course,

we're eventually going to be going into the path

of a star. Something happened, the computer doesn't

know. And in the show, I think it only ran 14

episodes. But in the show, they're like, okay,

they're like, so inform the crew, this isn't

like crew, there's no humans, there's nobody,

it's like the ship's been empty. But Each episode

is them trying to find anybody that can help

correct the ship, fix the errors. There's decompressed

areas, there's malfunctioning areas with automated

things that aren't working. And each episode

they went to a different dome and it would be

dealing with a different community. So some would

be like... They were from one that was supposed

to preserve the Amish or Mennonite way of life

and they find one where it's like... It felt

like regular 1970s people because the show came

out in the 70s and the idea is every one of these

cultures, the trip took so much longer than it

was supposed to take that it's now become a multi

-generational ship and people don't even remember

what Earth was. So they're going from different

pods trying to get people to help them or they

even find at one point in the show sleeping chambers

like cryogenic chambers for some of the crew.

And a couple of the crew members revive and they

say, you know, we want to help. But then they

realize they forgot why they were frozen. They

have degenerative disease. And the people in

the regular, you know, the regular pods, they're

fine. It's just these people were exposed to

something. And then there's aliens that come

involved. And I think Chekov from the original

Star Trek is in it too as an evil alien. But

the whole idea is that it's like an art show.

It hasn't been done like this before. We've had

Star Trek Voyager. We haven't done this premise

since the show came out in the 70s. Brilliant

idea. Shoestring budget. We're talking like Doctor

Who levels of budget back then. Actually, it

was probably better looking than Doctor Who.

It was put out on DVD years ago. It's worth watching.

And it's a show that Harlan Ellison had planned

out multiple seasons for. And it got canceled

after one because... back, especially back in

the 70s, CTV could not fund a sci -fi show for

that long. They basically ran out of money. This

show sounds fucking cool. Those are my honorable

mentions. I'll show you guys a trailer for it.

They did a whole, oh, and the main character

for the show, the original version, is the dude

from 2001 Space Odyssey, Keir Dillia, I think

is his name. So they did a whole pitch pitching

the show and how it was going to be this big,

massive production, building these big sets and

all this. And their budget was slashed to like

literally 10 % of what it was because the American

company pulled out. And then Harlan Ellison was,

you know, being grumpy and didn't want to pitch

it to anybody else. So those are my honorable

mentions. And then as far as my pitches for the,

uh, I have three of them and they're, they're

very simple sort of premises. The idea is, uh,

almost like a creative writing experiment. It's

like, what is a basic show premise that I would

like to see done? And then you can work from

it from there. So the first idea I had was a

show about a sort of an interplanetary war. But

it's from the perspective of, you know, regular

people in a town. But the idea is that the government

has known about aliens for years and years, and

the whole Roswell incident was actually an alien

coming to Earth to warn us that a galaxy -spanning

war, the front line was moving towards our galaxy.

And they found us to be the only intelligent

life in the Milky Way. And they knew that we

weren't ready for it. They didn't want us to...

you know, face our fate, you know, alone without

a fighting chance. So what they brought us before

dying was plans to build planetary defense systems.

So for the last 60 years, what the world's been

doing is secretly, they're doing all this construction,

like whenever you see construction, people are

always like, why is the highway have endless

construction? Why does my town have endless construction?

But the reality is, it's all these elaborate

plans to people building little segments here

and there. And what they're actually building

is like ion cannons and defense grids that will

eventually activate like an auto turret or auto

defense when the war finally comes to get us

the the aliens knew that you know we weren't

going to be able to build you know massive ships

to basically vacate the earth because that would

be chaotic the idea was give us a defense so

the show takes place where everything is pretty

normal everything's happening like everyday life

and then you know you There's a news article

showing that, you know, aliens exist. We can

see there's something flying towards us. And

the governments have to do, like they do a full,

like every channel is taken over by your respective

governments. They come out and talk about, yes,

this is something that we've known about, but

we knew would cause a panic. We couldn't till

we were ready. Don't be alarmed. We're activating

our defense mechanisms now. They press a button

and almost like a dome or like a shield of ionic

energy. covers the planet so that nothing can

attack us, nothing can land. It means we can't

leave until this ends, but that we're safe. And

then the show gets into the political aspects

of who knew about this? Why? What are we doing?

What's going to happen? The whole season is a

looming dread of this intergalactic war that

we can't even fathom how large it is with the

front line coming towards us. And then it ends

the first season. with people looking up, they're

feeling rumbles that look up, and they just see

a bombardment of weaponry firing at the planet

that's being protected by the shield, and then

it goes to be continued for the next season.

I like the idea. That's the first one. Again,

it's just a jumping point. You can alter things

here and there for it, but I just like the idea

of, basically, I wanted an explanation for why

is there always construction? And that's why,

is that... Why does the road work take like three

years? It doesn't seem like anybody's doing anything.

Well, it's because they're actually laying the

groundwork for this alien tech. And it looks

mundane to us. It's like, oh, we're laying fiber

optic cabling for this. This is not really fiber

optic cabling. That sort of idea. The second

premise, the short one that I have here was think,

it's basically Star Trek, but flipped around.

The show follows a research ship similar to the

main mission of the Enterprise. But it's all

aliens. There's no humans in the main cast whatsoever,

which people said for years can't be done because

how are you going to relate to them? Well, you

relate to the characters based on the personalities

of who they are. I always thought it was stupid

that we had to have human characters on the cast.

But the idea is they're from a distant part of

the galaxy. you get introduced to all these different

characters, their backgrounds, and you can have,

you know, insert your alien type here, everything

ranging from like the types of aliens of Mass

Effect to Star Trek and so on, you know, they

can all have somewhat relatable things to Earth

as far as their personalities, like how one's

supposed to be representative of this type of

people, that sort of thing. Anyway, take that

into the fact you can write that in later, but

while they're doing their regular mission in

the first episode, what they come across is the

Voyager golden record. You know, it's somehow

maybe like, this is, we don't know what year

this is. It's not explained and you slowly reveal

what's happening, but they come across, you know,

the message we sent in space. Who knows how long

ago it was sent and who knows how far away this

is. They discover it and it's then becomes a

big hubbub that they're... a group of aliens

from a galaxy, and they think, well, clearly

they're smart enough to know something's trying

to make contact with us. And the season is about

trying to mount an investigation, mount an actual

mission to find these aliens, which are us, and

make contact with us. So the goal is basically

first contact from an alien's perspective. And

the real mystery is going to be when they come

and find Earth, what year is it going to be?

Are we there? Have we wiped ourselves out? Are

we no longer there? Or is it like present day?

Is it near future? Is it far future? And it will

lead up to the entire trip as they're getting

out towards Earth. It's going to play out similar

to your Star Trek with your moral quandaries

and your... you know, science fiction escapades,

all with the B thread of being or finding this

planet that, you know, they don't necessarily

know to call it earth, but they've got, you know,

in the ship, they've got the golden record and,

you know, they're, they're looking at it. And

to them, it looks so alien and strange. So that's,

uh, that was the second premise I had there.

The end credits could be a song from the golden

record. I just, I thought it was, it was like

as a kid, that was when I always thought of it.

Like when we sent that out into space and it's

like, well, what if somebody found it, you know,

we could make a show, you can make a story of

what it would be like for first contact, but

from their perspective. And you can, you know,

do that with what you will, when it comes to,

you know, how they would view humanity or, you

know, would they, you know, the question would

be, would they view humanity come to us and see

us all as one species or they see, would they

come to us and just like assume that. dolphins

are the smartest creatures. There could be different

aspects based on what we perceive intelligence

to be. So what if they came to Earth and they

talk to us for a minute, but like, no, no, we're

going to talk to the people that really do things

here. And we're like, what? And they take their

ship and take it underwater. And we're like,

why are you going underwater? There could be

different things to do there, but I thought that

was kind of neat. And the third idea I had, I

actually had a weird dream about a year ago,

maybe six months, a year. uh and this one is

the the one that's a little more out of the box

um it's uh again another one where it's like

there's an alien war going on all in this one

all of the um the men and women that are you

know healthy at a fighting age have gone off

to fight an interstellar war way far away with

an alien that that we barely know uh we've You

know, we don't necessarily even know what's going

on with them. It's just, it's so distant, but

we've been called off. And what we're left with

is the show, the show actually takes place with

the children that are left behind and the elderly.

And they're basically put in charge of planetary

defenses while living the regular lives. So whatever,

let's say a... equivalent of a long range meteor

or mortar shell or a scout ship, a drone comes

by, they have to shoot it down. But the main

show is not really about the aliens whatsoever.

There are parts of every episode where they have

to defend it and shoot them down. But it's actually

these old ladies that... The show focuses on

these old ladies that I dubbed the gun grannies,

and their job is to basically man the turrets

that knock them down and defend everything. All

the while, they're helping raise the kids, tell

them stories of their backgrounds. They're from

Europe or somewhere else, telling them life lessons.

And every single episode, this is where it's

a twist. The show I'm pitching would be on the

Cooking Network. Every single episode, one of

the grannies teaches the kids how to cook something,

a family heirloom dish, some sort of delicacy

from their home, whatever country they're from.

And yes, you have the drama, there's storylines

going on where there's something going on with

his interest in the war, and they have to man

the battle stations, and there can be drama between

the kids and all this. But in every single episode,

somebody ends up cooking and showing a new recipe.

So it's actually an educational show as well

as a drama. And I just thought it would be something

where it's like, what if the cooking channel

did a drama? And they just happened to get away

with it. And it could even go on PBS because

there's educational aspects to it. Or even on

the History Channel where they're telling true

history of certain people from whatever European

country, Africa, South America. But every single

episode, a different dish is cooked with the

kids. And the whole idea is about promoting family

and all this. All the while, it's an interest

of the war. So that's my weird pitch for gun

grannies. And I thought about it more as a graphic

novel and cartoon initially. And then I thought,

well, what about if we do make it a cooking show?

Because has there ever been a sci -fi cooking

show? No. So I feel that's my that's my very

Alex pitch Okay I like your idea of them building

up the defenses because it actually ties into

a conspiracy with the Denver Airport as To why

is it so it doesn't make any sense why it's so

huge and there's been rumors about there's Now

there's like a secret hanger under it and all

this shit. And as you mentioned, there's all,

there's always construction somewhere and all

the budgets people can't explain and all this

crap. So that was one thing I forgot to mention

with that was people are always asking, why is

the hybrid infrastructure so shit? Why they,

they spend so much money on the department of

defense and they spend so much money on this.

Why is, you know, why are our roads and infrastructure

falling apart? The, my idea was, well, the idea

is they're funneling all of the money into these

underground. defense systems. Yeah. I mean, I

think it's a pretty solid idea. I like your second

idea the most though about the idea of the aliens

looking for earth. We don't have any idea how

long it's been. And I like the idea of them coming

to actually how I'd end the series, them coming

to earth and the first person they meets a child

and you don't know what year it is, but they

would come to earth and meet a kid. And the kid,

if you wanted to make it smart so that you couldn't

tell what year it is, the kid's just wearing

swimming trunks there at the beach. Yep. And

the kid just looks up and says, hi. And the aliens

are like, hi. Especially if you make it a really

young child that wouldn't necessarily panic or

freak out. Exactly. Hello. Yeah, I mean, I think

that'd be such a smart way to end a series like

yes, they found us but what happens next is up

to you Yeah, that'd be really really fantastic

and Aaron's idea where each episode ends with

a track from the golden record each episode could

start with a Greeting from the golden record

which gives you a finite number of episodes to

get well to where you need to be And then the

last thing on the ship that becomes obsessed

with you know humans, but whatever, and maybe

they don't even call us humans because they don't

decipher language right away, but they become

obsessed with us. And then you have others that

are like, they don't really exist or they, you

know, not that they're denying our existence,

but they're like, they're probably all dead,

that sort of thing. Like how could something

get this far away? They look at the star patch,

like they're like, oh, this journey with our

speed of travel is going to take us six years

to get there with our technology. The technology

that they could tell that that was launched with,

it shouldn't have been able to get here. So part

of the question becomes, how did the Voyager

just get there as well? And if you meet a child

at the end of the last episode, the last episode

could just end with that quote from the golden

record that says, hello from the children of

planet earth. Yes. Yes. That'd be so sick. My

God, man, this would be a serious pitch. This

would be a wonderful mini series. That was one

that I had thought about doing for quite some

time. Like even in high school was pushing around

ideas in my head. Gun Grannies, I just thought

was funny because I was like, Hey, let's do a

cooking show where a bunch of, you know, old

European grannies teach us how to cook also while

shooting down alien debris. It would make for

a better comic book than a series, but I could

see it being like things like dinner and a movie

only the dinner is the movie. I also, I really

liked the show that you mentioned about that

guy. Find it or the guy that got star loss. That

sounds cool. Yeah, I've got that. I'll say, I'll,

I'll let you borrow it so you can take a look.

It's really, it's, it's worth it because you,

you can, you tolerate Dr. Who from like the pre

2000. Oh yeah. Like I love 1970s Doctor Who.

My God. Okay. This is higher budget than that,

but it's, it was low budget when compared to,

well, actually there wasn't a whole, it's low

budget when compared to space 1999, but that

was also a stupid high budget for the time. Okay.

But yeah, I mean, like, I think there's potential

there. I mean, honestly, I think that show could

get rebooted so easy. Hell, you could even put

that Star Wars show on SyFy network and it really

wouldn't need that much of a budget. You just

need a few futuristic sets. I'm checking. I think

they tried to years ago. Let me double check.

Yeah, like that's got some really neat ideas.

I mean, I don't know, like From short prompts,

you've got some really cool ideas. Gun greenies,

I think would work as a trade paperback or like

a series of comic books. And at the end of each

comic book, and I saw this with the Pathfinder

series of comics, each book tells a story, but

the end of each Pathfinder comic book, you got

a role playing stats, you got a map and you got

a poster. If you did gun grannies as a comic

book, you get the story and at the end you get

a recipe card. Yeah. And that was where it came

into it too. I was like, you could do it as,

you know, a cartoon, you could do it as a live

action, but yeah, as a, as a comic book. And

then, yeah, at the very end, you could even have

it sponsored by like a food company or something,

or, or you could have it sponsored by, I don't

know, um, uh, the Canada food guide or something,

or whatever the equivalent one is. And the whole

idea is I like the idea of a sci -fi show that

has some elements that adults would like to get

interested in. It's like, oh, there's a lore

behind that. What's going on with that? We're

never going to get to that because we're dealing

with these people here. And you could do extended

fiction about what happens there. But the idea

is it's about the old teaching the young values.

At the same time, you get to learn something

about cooking. grandma or Nona Richie's spaghetti

and meatballs recipe. And it's stuff that kids

can learn and do themselves, but it gets, it

no longer becomes like, I don't want to cook

or I don't want to just, it becomes cool because,

hey, it's from a comic book about aliens and

the gun grannies teaching me how to make these.

And then it's like, somebody else comes in and

it's like, and here's how we make. you know,

cabbage rolls and from whatever background you're

from. And so you could do it where like once,

if the comic book came out once a month, it would

be the equivalent. You could tell a whole story,

you know, 12 episode story in the course of a

year. And then you'd have by the end of it a

cookbook. And by the time a kid has like been

reading for a couple of years, they'd have a

whole repertoire of basic, but delicious and

nutritious meals they can make themselves. All

eyes of, of not, not realizing they were being

taught things necessarily when it's like, you

know, geared towards seven, eight year old kids.

I'm not even kidding. Alex, you should seriously

consider developing this idea a little bit further.

It sounded stupid at first, but it sounds really

neat. Actually. It's the one that I had been

mulling around for, you know, I had had a weird

dream where that came into my head last August,

I think. And I. That might be one that I could

pitch because it's one that I could see I could

see getting some government money for yeah, if

there's an educational or a historical background,

especially if you incorporate some things like

if you incorporate like one of the granny's teaching

Canadian history or or different things like

you could I feel like too many shows that are

educational for kids are just purely educational

or dumbed down or made where kids think they're

lame. And this would be a show that doesn't do

the whole like, here, you should be learning

this. It's just during the course of, or even

the issue or the episode during the course of

it, you happen to learn things along the way,

but it's, but the whole narrative is not about,

you know, pushing things down your throat sort

of thing. Yeah. I think it's a really Hmm. Need

idea. I think it's got legs at least as something

anyway. So you guys, this is my ideas. We're

going to be a little different. They most certainly

are. Uh, I guess before we begin to close out

the show, there were some other ideas that I

just thought about, uh, I mentioned before the

show, but I didn't want to develop them. There

were a couple of other movies I thought about

developing in the shows, but I thought Probably

not. Um, although I did think of one, I did think

to bring up, it was a TV show, but it only, but

it only, it lasted less than six episodes and

it was on ABC time cop. Just since you were talking

about that, uh, time track show. That came out

around the same time. Cause we were talking before

about like, uh, uh, the tech war and it came

around around the same time as that. And like,

wasn't there a version of the net that came out

at the same time? Yep, there was so that'd be

like The time cop show I don't think that one's

ever had a DVD release. Whereas all the other

ones. No, it never has I mean, I'm sure if you

went to some like Tape trading forum you could

find it, but I've never seen an episode actually.

I don't know. Maybe I should look on YouTube

Maybe somebody's put up on episode, but that'd

be cool. Um, so I guess I don't know if there's

anything else we could all add to each other.

I think all of us had fantastic ideas. I was

gonna say, the other guys didn't really chime

in on mine because I know they were weird. Yeah,

guys, feedback. Funny thing is you could, I could

see it becoming a series just because it's something

so polarizingly different that it would stand

out. Um, the other thing is, is, uh, you should

try pitching it to Amazon because they actually

have a place where you can do that publicly.

Oh, well, yeah, that's true. Cause I've tried

pitching my script there before, but it was like

years ago and there I found things in it that

I was like, uh, if I fixed these couple of things,

I think it could make it. But I never got to

that point. So I think what I would do is I would

probably write. the first episode of if I was

doing the gun granny's one, I would write the

first episode and then have that thing turned

into a comic book, you know, pay a friend or

an artist to make some to make it. And that would

be the pitch. It's like here it's in the comic

book. This is the idea for the show. And you

pitch that to people. Well, because then they

get the visual with it and then you can have

like an entire like story guide for it. And then

I was laughing myself thinking I can have action

figures of all the old grannies and the whole

idea is it's like picture picture your grandmother

with a with a space army helmet on shooting a

turret and then going over and going oh no I

have to go stir the sauce and then have the kids

stir the sauce with them and then telling them

stories I kind of pictured the golden girls manning

the Death Star the turts from the first movie,

and them making spaghetti and meatballs. That's

what I pictured in my head. In my head, it was,

even though it's like turrets on the ground,

it's literally Golden Girls in that scene from

Star Wars where they're in the Millennium Falcon

shooting things down. Think the same getup that

they're wearing, they're tilting it around, they're

shooting, and then when they're done, they have

to go teach, because all the adults have been

sent off to war, they have to go teach school.

And they learn like whatever lesson and then

they're like, and by the way, it's time for lunch.

We're going to prep it. And then they, they'll

tell a story about their past or, or, you know,

life lessons, whatever your standard drama is

while they're chopping the food, preparing it

with the kids, measuring it out, having the kids

do it with them so that it sort of builds, uh,

showing that making a meal can be like a family

affair. You could even name each episode after

a food and that would make it more. creative

was like maybe cabbage rolls is about fighter

pilots. Spaghetti and meatballs is maybe going

into the trenches. You could call it granny stick.

Chili is about a particularly muddy ground war

or something. Yeah. You've got potential in this

idea. Like, like the story that is tied in, like

they'll teach, they'll tell a life lesson or

a story. Uh, and it's tied into something that's

happening in in the episode, like say they're

under attack for something, they'll be like,

this reminds me of this. And they'll tell a story

from their past or something that's historically

relevant and tie a food in with it, like you

said. So it can be done. Now, I actually do have

to write that down and make it a full -fledged

thing, because I mean, whether it goes somewhere

or not, I just think it's a neat idea that nobody's

really done before, like sci -fi and cooking

show slash educational show that isn't lame.

So I guess any other thoughts on all these things

out of Alex? Going once? Not I not I all right

then all right So I guess we've pretty much run

this train as far as we possibly can obviously

we have explored different creative ideas from

each of our backgrounds from superheroes to Cthulhu

To the far reaches of space and finally grannies

who cook and man turrets We certainly run the

gamut of unique ideas and it's been a fascinating

experience. Definitely a really interesting conversation,

but as always we do want to hear from you. So

Steve, if they want to get a hold of the program,

how would they go about doing so? Feedback at

geekcastradio .com or feedback at thisweekendgeek

.net. Of course guys we do look forward to hearing

from you and we'd love to hear some of your pitches

if you have like a really cool idea give us your

elevator pitch an elevator pitch is if you can

explain it to me in about 30 seconds to one minute

go ahead we will read it on the air critique

and give you our feedback on your really cool

ideas we do look forward to hearing from you

so for future imperfect we have been Steve Megatron

Phillips I'm Aaron Pellier. And Alex, yeah, I

guess we're going by that order again, eh? Yep,

we are gonna stick with that from now on. And

until next time, I've been Mike the Birdman Dodd

saying, live long and prosper.