A regular guy from Earth goes to space to participate in the Intergalactic Gladiating Entertainment (formerly the Intergalactic Gladiating Federation until that lawsuit by the space hippies), sort of a John Chrichton/Buck Rogers type though he does travel back and forth between Earth and planet Hacknor in his trusty ship the Danger Sled. He’s recruited to prevent the Earth from being destroyed even though few humans actually even know or believe it. Along the way he gets an unfunny monkeyboy sidekick, works with the Queen of the Galaxy, and becomes a Multiversal Lynchpin where his very existence helps to tether the many universes together in balance.
Jon can be portrayed as both a stand up, does it right action hero with two pistols as well as the (slightly) goofy fish-out-of-water finding his way type. With this format, different characters from science fiction and other genres can be lampooned and/or homaged like Yoda, the Zerg, Starfleet captains, vampires, and Colonial Marines. Aliens generally look down upon Earth as a backwater, uncivilized, and underevolved planet but respect Jon as a gladiator as he has proven himself in the arena. The monkeyboy does really stupid hijinks and is a send up of those wacky sidekicks that are supposed to be fun but end up kind of lame. At some point it dies when its head is disintegrated and more wacky hilarity ensues.
I would love to see a series ala Rome that as accurately as possible portrayed life when the Aztecs were at the height of their power.
Start with some civic dudes deciding to build Tenochtitlan on top of Lake Texcoco - maybe have the first scene showing them seeing the bird with the snake in its talons.
Show the temples at their glorious peak, everyone speaking Nahuatl and smoking chocolate.
Life at the commoner level - how they traded and lived. Life at the royal level where they had to pull thorny cloth through their tongues. Disagreements with neighboring factions settled with a game at the ball court, replete with accurate detail and of course the losers losing their heads.
It would end with Moctezuma’s reign and Hernan Cortes’ arrival and ultimate conquest.
This is what I came in to say - although any MesoAmerican area/period would do. I just loved Apocalypto and In the Courts of the Sun.
Technically an adaption, but it’s a classic - I don’t think there’s ever been a film or TV version of The Aeneid. It always gets passed over for the more popular Odyssey/Iliad.
I’d love to see a well written time travel series with sharp continuity and easter eggs that makes it through to it’s planned last episode.
I’m a little bit superstitious so I won’t share any of the more thought out ideas I have for series for fear of jinxing them.
You’d have to pitch it to one of the adult channels to do it right, though.
A few weeks ago I asked about what would make Northern Gothic distinct from Southern Gothic. I think I’d like to tackle that too. You know, a little bit of We Have Always Lived in the Castle with the clannishness and distrust of outsiders, a lot of oppressive winter weather, and something subtly supernatural going on.
I’ve joked before about doing a series set at that Alaskan radar base where they send (or threaten to send) all the mavericks, screwups, and people-who-know-too-much we always see in the movies. It must be an interesting place. And especially if you do it as a drama, or at least as a dry, dark comedy, rather than a “Hogan’s Heroes” revival.
Failing that, I was thinking a Cyberpunk series, in a world where the Megacorps are powers unto themselves, and have their own nefarious private security forces.
The show is about the security force.
Kind of like NYPD Blue, only with Blackwater. And working for GENOM (this season—their contract’s almost up, and there’s a bidding war coming).
Pretty much any historical or pre-historical period could work if given the Rome treatment. I’d like to see such a show set in a period that Westerners haven’t had much exposure to; medieval India, China during the Three Kingdoms period, the Mali Empire, etc. . Maybe even centered around nomadic tribes long before civilization existed anywhere.
Whoever she is, she would be somebody VERY famous and appear in the last scene of the last show. Liza Minelli? Lady Gaga?
I would like to see stories from Greek and Roman mythology. I was a total geek for that kind of stuff when I was young, everybody was watching Petticoat Junction and I was reading Bulfinch’s Mythology. Cupid and Psyche. Danae and Theseus. Leda and the swan! Orpheus descending, (with Alan Rickman playing the ruler of Hades). It’s always war, war, war, an army of beefy guys, done to death. There are a lot of other mythology stories. (I was also going to suggest fairy tales, but they’ve been done by Fairytale Theater.)
Jim Henson’s The Storyteller did a few myths as part of a special Greek Mythology series, but they didn’t do that many. Still, their treatment of Perseus and Medusa is the most faithful to the general myth that’s ever been done.
I was thinking of the book, but I don’t think the book went deep enough into the motives of the vampires. I’d also remove the church from the equation. While I, too, liked the movie, I don’t want some toy that will make vampires daywalkers.
I have another one. How about Lives of the Saints? Each week, a historical re-enactment of the life of a Saint. Could be a major one like St. Patrick, or one of the oddball lesser-known. There are some weird stories about some of the early saints, full of sex and violence, I find them fascinating! Here’s Saint Sithney, a mysogynic hermit of the 6th century. God offered him the post of Patron Saint of Girls, and he refused, said he’d rather be Patron Saint of mad dogs. Which he is. Saint Simon of Stylites - lived for 35 years on a tall pillar in the desert. And there is one, forget her name, a patron saint of young girls who was killed in a tussle with a neighbor boy who tried to rape her, in the early 20th century. She was declared a Saint and the murderer and her mother both attended the religious ceremony in the 40’s or 50’s! How strange is that???..Hey, where are you all going?
What? I’ve been pushing my original idea for a movie for ages now but the studios don’t want to do it. They only want to go with things guaranteed to make money so they keep doing remakes. So I think my idea of Vampire Werewolf Dinosaurs From Space! would be perfect for a miniseries.
And especially if you do it as a drama, or at least as a dry, dark comedy, rather than a “Hogan’s Heroes” revival.