I am – Hercules!!
TickleBiscuit earlier supplied script reviews of Hans Beimler & Robert Hewitt Wolfe’s “Dresden Files” pilot for SciFi and David Goyer and Geoff Johns’ “Blade” pilot for Spike.
He’s back to look at four “outside the box”-ish pilot scripts likely inspired by the ongoing blockbuster success of ABC’s “Lost”:
* “JERICHO” (CBS): A small Kansas town is cut off from the rest of the world when a sudden nuclear war makes all the big towns evaporate.
“HEROES” (ABC): People all over the world begin to discover that they have super-powers.
“A HOUSE DIVIDED” (ABC): A liberal Democrat is elected president (making this the most unlikely of the sci-fi premises discussed here) and a red state (Kansas again!) secedes from the union, precipitating The American Civil War II!
“UNTITLED ZOMBIE PROJECT” (FOX): An apparent “homage” to “Dawn of the Dead” from Kevin Williamson, the “genius” screenwriter who gave us “Dawson’s Creek,” “Glory Days,” “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” the first two “Scream” movies, “Cursed” and “Teaching Mrs. Tingle.”
Here’s TickleBiscuit:
Hey Herc,
Thought I'd drop word on what's worth getting excited about for the next television season. And there are things worth getting excited about. I thought we'd first take a look at the pilot scripts that hit the sci-fi/horror/supernatural vein pretty hard, since we're all geek addicts, and that stuff is our heroin.
Of course the breakout hit two years ago was "Lost". It's about people on and island. Weird stuff happens to them. Maybe you've heard about it. Last year, the rush to copy the breakout hit brought us "Threshold", "Invasion", "Surface", all of which I'm pretty sure are no longer with us. So why did "Lost" work and those shows didn't? They all had spooky stuff. Lost has spooky stuff. Bummer.
So you'd think the networks apparent failure to clone "Lost" would scare them off high-concept genre programming for at least another season. Well, think again. It seems the problem wasn't that the shows were too out there--it's that they weren't Highy-Concepty enough. What trumps "spooky mystery island" in one sentence? How about the END OF THE FUCKIN' WORLD? That's right, each television network is hoping you'll plunk your ass down for an hour this fall and watch their version of the Apocalypse.
Apocalyptic Scenario No 1: Nuclear War
"Jericho" - Network: CBS
Writer: Steven Chbosky (The Perks of Being A
Wallflower)
Odds You'll Be Seeing It On The Air: 50/50
Our young protagonist returns to his incredibly isolated hometown, Jericho, tucked neatly away in Kansas, where he reconciles with his estranged brother, father/town mayor, and the now-engaged-to-someone-else girl he left behind. Life is good in this small, cozy slice-of-Americana.
And then, on the eve of the President's State of the Union address, the country gets blown up. Oops. Mushroom clouds over Boulder, Atlanta (the only two confirmed in the pilot, but things aren't looking good), but Jericho remains. It's citizens, however, are starting to go a little nuts. But, I mean, who wouldn't?
The entire pilot takes place on the first night, and it's jam-packed with end-of-the-world goodness. A bus crash. Missing children. A crazy old coot with a CB radio. A new resident with a secret. Escaped prisoners. Geiger counters. On-screen amateur tracheotomy. All topped off with some solid Lost-style characterization.
Sure it's a nuclear war, but not the messy kind. It might as well have been an alien invasion, or conveniently dispersed asteroids that wiped out America. No skin peeling off or hair falling out of flipper babies here. But who wants to see that anyway? The nukes aren't what's important. What's important is that the people of Jericho are alone, cut off from everything else, and are going to have to learn to survive together. I know, sounds familiar. But it works. My favorite drama pilot of the year.
Apocalyptic Scenario #2: Superhuman Evolution
"Heroes" - Network: NBC
Writer: Tim Kring (Crossing Jordan)
Odds You'll Be Seeing It In The Fall: 100%