Get this: Shakespeare’s beloved character as the focus of a drama incorporating all three of the classic plays in which he appears.
What is it? An eight-episode special television event based on the Falstaff plays of William Shakespeare. The two halves would be derived from Henry IV parts one and two (which run about 3 hours each on stage) while scenes from The Merry Wives of Windsor would be incorporated into both seasons as an over-arcing story for comic relief.
In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m binge-watching Gilligan’s Island. Not only is it a highly influential classic of screwball comedy—despite unfortunate moments of cultural ignorance, due to the era—but it also has some of the most memorable incidental music in television. The main theme is an infamous earworm. I’ll show you: Just sit right back…
(Scooby Doo is also on that incidental music master list. I still hear the fade-ins from these shows in my head when I walk into a room. Read into that what you will.)
I pitched a gender-swapped reboot of the show a few weeks ago. I still think this would be a killer program, but I recently had a second idea.
Get this: A young human boy raised in the city by a family of lycanthropes finds himself hunted by a human-hating weretiger.
What is it? A feature film, urban fantasy adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, using the anthology’s episodic structure in a Tarantino style, letting the setting have a strong presence alongside the main story of Mowgli, using side-tales like that of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Toomai.
Get this: A gender-swapped reboot of Gilligan’s Island.
What is it? A television comedy-drama based on the classic comedy of the same name.
I think a lot about cover tunes, particularly when the musical genre is transposed. Prince was a master of genre-bending, and when he died I immediately started thinking about cool covers I would love to hear by well-known artists. Here is what I came up with, titled in tribute of Prince’s album as TAFKAP.
Note: The sound I envision for the final track is the reggae sound Willie Nelson cultivated on his remarkable Countryman album.
Get this: Three detectives are run out of their hometowns and find themselves stepping on each other’s toes in Westport, California. A wealthy local businessman uncovers the secrets that drove them from their own cities and, for mysterious reasons, blackmails them into working together. The Trace Agency is born.
What is it? A historical television drama set in a fictional city during the 1930s that draws on classic detective fiction to pit different styles of private eye against each other.
Showrunners’ Strategy? The writers should familiarize themselves with the history of the period, with classic hard-boiled fiction, and with the character notes and the secrets that drew them into the agency. From there, they should simply write…
Normally, I post a synopsis of seasons or episodes, but this concept is more mood- and character-driven. Obviously the first season would focus on the circumstances that lead to the creation of the Trace Agency, and the following seasons would reveal each detective’s dirty little secrets, but beyond that it’s the writing team’s creativity that would drive it forward. So, here are the character sketches:
Get this! Three lifelong friends in their thirties decide to get pregnant from the same sperm donor.
What is it? A television comedy-drama. The three “lifelong female friends” (Chelle, Moira, and Tracy) are in their mid-30s and pretty much giving up on getting married. But, they still want children. So, why not, right? It’s 201_! They can raise kids on their own, or with each other’s help, and can use a sperm bank to find fathers.
Then, they have another idea: they all three choose the same donor! After all, the three of them had already worked out all the kinks in their own personality differences, and by narrowing down the genetic influence on their kids’ personalities, it would make it easier to raise their common family. They’d seal their friendship, and the kids would all be half-siblings … a win-win!
Or is it?
Get this: In the final days of World War II, a German Catholic priest uncovers a plan by Bishop Hudal to exploit the Church’s emergency immigration program to sneak Nazis to South America through Spain, and he defects to the Allies to help put an end to the plot.
What is it? A historical spy drama based on conspiracy theories that major fascist figures—including Adolf Hitler—escaped the crumbling Third Reich via the real-world “rat lines” through which thousands of Nazis fled to Argentina.
A special five-member team is organized by the Allies to hunt them down, led by an Anglo-Jewish SBS veteran known as Mr. Spade and consisting of former priest Josua Herz, Spanish Maqui (resistance fighter) Rafaela Basto, Black American pilot Samuel “Diamond Sam” Washington, and Argentine Mapuche actor Eduardo Llancaleo.
Pitch: Nazis are a secure draw for audiences and, as the Amazon series The Man in the High Castle shows, “what if” dramas based on World War 2 multiply that draw.
Get this: A lone vampire wanders into a frontier town and, after killing the most dangerous gunslinger in the territory, offers to take over the overworked sheriff’s law-keeping duties … from sundown to sunup.
What is it? A weekly television drama set in the fictional western town of Naba, a silver-mine boom town where Sheriff Louis Journeyman wears the badge from sunup to sundown and Sheriff Sol Velasco wears it from sundown to sunup. When Velasco first arrives in Nabo, surviving three shots to the gut and taking down a notorious outlaw with his bare hands, the townsfolk are suspicious of this stranger’s unbelievable strength, speed, and stamina. But, the wealth coming out of Naba attracts a steady stream of crooks and gunfighters, and Sheriff Journeyman is more than willing to let someone else handle the town’s rowdy nights.
That steady stream of outlaws, of course, means a steady stream of food for Nabo’s new, undead lawman.
Pitch (Corny Version): It’s undead Dexter meets the Old West.
Working Title: Night Sheriff
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Get this: One game world, dozens of games.
What is it? A single, sandbox virtual setting that is open to third-party developers for developing games, shows, or anything they like.
Working Title: Dove City
Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto franchise has hit a wall. Don’t get me wrong, I love the lavish detail of V‘s fictional state of San Andreas. And, the multi-character gameplay is incredible. And, the Heists are doing fantastically. Adverbially and financially speaking.
But, all of these things are symptoms of the fact that the franchise has hit a wall. That wall is one of scale. The open-world aspect of the game has become so remarkably broad a simulation that it overwhelms even the admittedly engaging story and characters. This is why three playable characters still feel dwarfed by the world in which they live. This is why Heists is necessary. Or … are necessary. Or whatever.
GTA has outgrown its premise for some time now—thus the tradition of extensive downloadable content (DLC)—and so have its clones and many other franchises. Some critics think all of these video game franchises should just be shut down. I’m not quite that pessimistic. I think the standard series like GTA, Assassin’s Creed, and Halo can be salvaged with some core tweaks. I’ve discussed how to save AC‘s seafaring trope before, but I think the satiric, modern-day, urban trope of GTA can be saved as well.
