# An ORIGINAL Idea for a TV Show? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 13, 2004, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059 "2004-02-13T16:37:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Q](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/898d66/32.png) [@Johnny\_Q](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Q)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/21 "2014-04-16T20:45:37Z")
A lighthearted mystery program about a professional assassin who solves “impossible” crimes while carrying out his day job. _Our “Hero” is setting up a sniper nest.)_ “Lavrenti Beria is supposed to have said: ‘Any fool can shoot somebody. Any halfway trained operative can stage a convincing suicide. But it takes a true artist to pull off a convincing natural death.’ All respect to Mr. B, but he had no idea how much work it takes to shoot someone _right._” _(takes shot)_ Of course most of the deaths on the show are of the “convincing natural death” type, ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/22 "2014-04-16T20:58:09Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#): > > That show has been made, and it was called _Star Trek: Deep Space Nine_. 🙂 Dammit, you’re right. OK, how about this. It’s like a western, where an intrepid band of explorers gets in adventures in a new place every week. Except it’s in spaaaaaaace! ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/23 "2014-04-16T21:01:38Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > What about a show featuring a message board thread that has been in cryogenic suspension for over ten years, then suddenly revived? What about a whole message board? **The Return of TwoP!** ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/24 "2014-04-16T21:02:00Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Dammit, you’re right. > > OK, how about this. It’s like a western, where an intrepid band of explorers gets in adventures in a new place every week. Except it’s in spaaaaaaace! _Josie And The Pussycats In Outer Space_. ---
**Author:** ![Mislav](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/77aa72/32.png) [@Mislav](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mislav)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/25 "2014-04-16T21:09:43Z")
Show about five ex cons (1-5) who are trying to start a normal life together. Or continue commiting crimes, whatever is more realistic or interesting. Combination of drama, dark comedy, thriller etc. Crimes they are guilty off (ex con one=1, ex con two=2…) 1. rape, theft, bank robbery, arson (that’s a career criminal, that’s what he is) 2. 1st degree murder 3. embezzlement 4. terrorism, 1st degre murder (personal reasons, no political agenda) 5. vehicular manslaughter Sort of like Oz, only it shows their lives after prison, and there are both men and women involved (their genders from 1 to 5: man, woman, man, man, woman). ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/26 "2014-04-16T21:12:56Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > Dammit, you’re right. > > OK, how about this. It’s like a western, where an intrepid band of explorers gets in adventures in a new place every week. Except it’s in spaaaaaaace! Hmmm. The focus groups say they want something the whole family can watch. Can it be a family of intrepid explorers? And maybe to emphasize their dependence on each other as a family, they get lost early on in the series and have to work together to find their way home again? ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/27 "2014-04-16T21:17:47Z")
Young MEN raped, dismembered, murdered, knocked off by a cunning serial killer, kept in dungeons. Detectives are on the case! Just for a change of pace. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/28 "2014-04-16T21:18:13Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > OK, how about this. It’s like a western, where an intrepid band of explorers gets in adventures in a new place every week. Except it’s in spaaaaaaace! Well… they aren’t necessarily explorers, but that’s basically Firefly’s plot, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/29 "2014-04-16T21:22:37Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > It’s been done. Rick Mercer, a Canadian comic, did exactly that on The Mercer Report. Which started the same year as this thread. Coincidence – or alien conspiracy? ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/30 "2014-04-16T21:41:22Z")
Oooooooooooo. “Alien conspiracy.” I like that idea for a TV show! ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/31 "2014-04-16T21:42:34Z")
It’d be like “The Americans”… but aliens! ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/32 "2014-04-16T21:52:13Z")
Could we work in some FBI agents so the viewers have someone to identify with? Maybe a Jack & Jill team, but give them some conflict. Maybe she believes in the conspiracy, but he’s a skeptic? Or the other way around, I don’t know, whatever you think works best. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/33 "2014-04-16T22:14:39Z")
Slightly derivative, but I think it would feel like a pretty different beast, but I’ve been thinking that I’d like a heist TV show that actually took the time that such an operation would take in real life. Like, if you consider The Wire compared to CSI, they show the whole process of staking someone out over the course of a full season, rather than introducing everything and resolving it in the span of a single episode, every episode. With the protracted heist, you would see people casing the joint, building contraptions, using scientific testing to figure out how to defeat security measures, brainstorming problems that could come up dependent on different issues that could come up while the heist is underway, committing smaller heists in preparation, to gather materials and knowledge, etc. The final episode would then have the whole thing play out and you’d get to see how everything and all their plans finally come together (or fail). ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/34 "2014-04-16T22:24:25Z")
How about a team of TV writers trying to come up with original ideas??? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/35 "2014-04-16T22:31:37Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > How about a team of TV writers trying to come up with original ideas??? 😃 Like the Dick Van Dyke show? ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/36 "2014-04-16T22:36:39Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > I had an idea shortly after I took a job that required a lot of travel. A workplace drama set at a big international airport, say JFK. There is ample room for drama: conflict between the grizzled Port Authority police chief and the inept TSA bureaucrats; a ground controller who’s been hitting the sauce, all the social interaction between the various merchants in the terminal, labor issues, and all the weirdness of eleventy-billion people passing through every day. > [@Rodgers01](#): > > I do like that idea…kind of like a dramatic version of “Wings”. Though weren’t there a couple of flight attendant dramas recently? I didn’t watch them, but I wonder if they covered similar ground. Pan Am is the only one I know of. But it quickly changed from a ‘workplace drama’ about sexism and the goings on during the golden age of the air travel industry to a show about cold war espionage. I’m not sure if there was another flight attendant drama recently but this show did but heads and ultimately win against The Playboy Club, which I never saw, but I think it took place during a similar era so if you never saw either it may be easy to assume they were both about the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/37 "2014-04-16T23:02:07Z")
A show about search-and-rescue dogs and their owners/handlers. The episodes could deal with things like kidnappings, runaways, natural disasters, etc. Most of the people involved in this are volunteers, a fact that could be used for interesting plot points and conflicts. Also, the training is quite rigorous - you could have episodes depicting that as well. ---
**Author:** ![Love\_Rhombus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/love_rhombus/32/10694_2.png) [@Love\_Rhombus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Love_Rhombus)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/38 "2014-04-16T23:26:16Z")
Two of the cuff ideas I’ve thought of: A really evil criminal has the cops stumped. To beat him, the government has to bring in the one person who can beat him: his twin from another reality! They’d make it clear this was a very expensive procedure and not easily duplicated to stop all kinds of shenanigans (until sweeps week). I guess that’s not too original. Another: Every week, a look at another department of the government and the challengers it faces: Agriculture, Education, Health, to the United States Women’s Bureau and Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations. Well, I think it would be interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/39 "2014-04-16T23:52:24Z")
> [@Jeff\_Lichtman](#): > > A show about search-and-rescue dogs and their owners/handlers. The episodes could deal with things like kidnappings, runaways, natural disasters, etc. Most of the people involved in this are volunteers, a fact that could be used for interesting plot points and conflicts. Also, the training is quite rigorous - you could have episodes depicting that as well. Now, I like this idea! I’d watch it, as long as it focused on the dog/person relationships. Just don’t give the dogs a voice. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2014, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059/40 "2014-04-16T23:58:09Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > How about a team of TV writers trying to come up with original ideas??? 😃 It’s been done - [Serial Killers](http://www.nzonscreen.com/title/serial-killers-2004/series), and it wasn’t very good. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-original-idea-for-a-tv-show/229059.md?page=3)