December Talking #9 (Shush I know it's January let's just pretend...)

[cosmic_llin]

usuallyhats said: If you were given the chance of creating a totally new TV show, and it couldn't be related to any existing one, what would it be like?

Ooh! These sorts of questions are so hard because they call for specificity when it's much easier to make a long list of all the possible things that I'd want to cram in!

Hmm... if I was doing it right now, I'd probably want it to be a space show, because I miss space shows, dammit! All the genre TV right now is urban fantasy or zombies or somesuch, and while that's awesome, space is just really cool. So yes, it would be a space show, but totally different from Star Trek because only Star Trek can be Star Trek.

Tonally I'd want it to have something of Star Trek's optimism though - maybe the future isn't perfect, but everyone tries their best. I'd also want it to have some of the weirdness of Farscape, the dramatic weight of BSG and the mundane ordinary-folk-in-space-ness of Red Dwarf or Futurama or Firefly or Space Precinct.

Obviously the next step is to add lots of ladies. So an ensemble show, with scope for lots of different roles and types of people. I was thinking of making it about a space shipping/delivery business but then I realised that basically is Futurama, so, hmm. But you know what, this is all just imagining right now, so I can fill in those details later. What matters is that there are a bunch of ladies of various ages, appearances and backgrounds hanging out in space together, having friendships and rivalries and professional disagreements and surprise parties and families and sex and book clubs. And it's funny but sometimes it's serious but never too serious and everybody gets an acceptable amount of character development. And then it gets seven seasons and a movie. (Yes, I know it's "six seasons and a movie" but I was raised on Star Trek and Buffy.)

(Ask me again tomorrow and I'll probably have five other totally different ideas.)

Comments

[sophia_gratia]

YES GOOD.

Regarding optimism, that's something I too want so badly, especially from scifi – everything these days is apocalypse and invasion and horrifying aliens. I like all that, too, but god do I want scifi films and TV shows that invest in optimism, beauty, empathy, the way that Trek does. (You could make this argument for W13, for sure, but I guess when I say 'scifi' what I really want is a space show – with the full trappings of hard science fiction: crazy tech and crazy aliens and imaginative new worlds and cultures to explore and overstated moral/political allegories and all the rest. Also ladies with giant guns, because duh.)

[sperrywink]

Space! A positive, forward-looking, optimistic space show would be amazing!

[usuallyhats]

I would watch EVERY SEASON of this, it would be wonderful. :D Space! (Book clubs in spaaaace! :DDD) Optimism! Ladies! I really like the idea of a space shipping service, even if Futurama's already done something like that - it would open up so many story possibilities. You could do alien planet, space station home, AND spaceship based adventures! And also it would allow for a really large cast without having to be always trying to think of a plausible reason why they're not all in every episode, so it would be really easy to keep shifting the focus onto different characters and different combinations.

...and now I'm sad that this isn't actually a thing. :(