OK, that’s good, but I don’t think it could be sustained for a whole spinoff. Maybe just the series finale episode.
No, what you do is follow the Zeroes after the war as they try to cope with their unearned adulation and constantly end up being credited with solving problems in this or that place which they really did nothing to fix but that their mere presence in that place inspired the locals to make the situation better. I know there is a movie that has a theme like that, but it seems to be escaping me.
Yeah, but it doesn’t have the “What will they do (or not do) this time?” dynamic of the original series. Once you see one town clean up and rebuild in anticipation of the Heroes, you’ve seen them all. Plus you’re losing out on the “lots of explosions” demographic.
There are a lot more ways for things to go wrong than to go right.
I was imagining:
- they arrive at a place
- there is an existing problem
- the problem is rectified somehow
- the visiting Zeroes are lavished with unearned praise
And perhaps over the course of the season, members leave the group, either to stay in the place or because they are weary of undeserved accolades.
I’m picturing The A-Team meets Kung Fu. The heroes wander the earth meeting people and getting in adventures.
There are only 3 left at the end. They stand not far from a guard house, looking past it.
“I wonder what Russia is like.”
“Don’t you remember? When the train derailed?”
“Oh, I missed that job. I was, uh, sick.”
“I’ve never been there either.”
They look at each other.
“Let’s go fix Russia!”
Well, you could have the Zeroes travel through Ukraine inspiring the locals to clean things up, only to have the renovations blow up. And slowly the truth emerges.
THE ZEROES ARE SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE THEY’RE JINXED!
And the series focus changes to Zelenskyy. How does he take this group of heroes, honored and beloved by not just Ukrainians but people all over the world, and put them in situations where their ability to wreak havoc (and inability not to wreak havoc) makes everything work out in the end.
I was wondering—is it possible that Ukrainians are aware of this thread and what President Zelensky thinks of this?
10 years later there’s a made-for-TV reunion show. It’s set around the Unit commander finally trying to set the record straight. He’d published his memoirs a few years earlier, in which he was upfront and unflinching in his descriptions of how everything he was praised for accomplishing was entire due to Russian screw-ups. It spent 45 weeks at the top of the bestsellers lists, and was hailed as a modern masterpiece of satire and parody.
Now, in a 2-hour special, we see the commander trying to set the record straight once more. He and some of the other members are determined to make a documentary, showing that his memoirs weren’t satirical fiction, but the absolute truth.
Camera crews follow them as they track down the few Russians still living who witnessed all these events first-hand. We follow them as they return to various battlefields, and the Russians and the Ukrainians both explain exactly how everything really went down.
When it’s finally released, of course, everyone hails it as a masterful mockmentary. Critics use phrases like, “The New Sasha Baron Cohen”, and “Better than Spinal Tap”.
The Russians actually become beloved bumbling idiot characters, and go on to have long careers on a TV show where every week, they’re given a new “military” task to complete, and audiences watch in amusement at how they manage to screw them all up.
No one ever clues into what this really means.
It would be beyond cool to get his feedback, but I suspect he’s got other things to think about right now.
But hey, if after the war he wants to hire some script consultants, I think we’d be cool with that 
My printer is broken. Someone should print this thread up with a prefatory cover page and mail it to Kyiv.
Well…
Zelensky also delivered the lines perfectly, showing off his chops as a former professional comedian.
I hope that one day the man can get back to the funny side of things. Meanwhile, I hope his sense of humor helps him cope with the darkness of war.
I’ve a hunch that, when all this started, he was scared silly, but he knew that his country needed a brave leader. And so he did what any actor does: He acted the part of being brave.
Which, it turns out, is the same thing as actually being brave.
What about that one episode where the Zeroes set out to booby trap the airstrip with bombs that look like clutter on the tarmac and watch with bated breath as the planes come in to land, only to have Russian anti-aircraft defense shoot down their own planes before they get there. Then someone goes and cleans up the runway, and when he dumps the garbage, the explosion knocks out the side of a building, blood pouring out on the ground. A guy in an apron comes running out, shouting “My borscht! My borscht!”
To me, being brave is doing what you need to do even though you are scared silly. The acting part was that of a confident defiant leader. The bravery was not being Sir Robin and running away.
//i\\
Any sane, intelligent person will be afraid of actual war.
Being brave is doing what needs to be done even when you’re afraid.
But yes, being an actor would be an asset when, in front of your people, you wish to project confidence and assurance.
Reagan was an “actor”, and I seriously doubt that his acting skills would have been particularly useful in a crisis. Voldymyr is not al actor by trade, though he has been a performer of various stripes.
The Team is sent to try to disrupt the switch-over of Russian forces in Bakhmut. As they arrive, they notice that a lot of the Wagner vehicles on the roads out of town have already been blown up.
Advance scouts overhear the Wagnar leader ranting about how other Russian forces “planted explosives on route of Wagner’s retreat”. Looking confused, one of the scouts pulls out a map, and starts looking over it frantically. “Hey, wait, aren’t those just the mines the Wagnar group laid last year to keep their convict conscripts from running away?”
“Da, lieutenant, da.”
“Oh, those Russians…”
It’s been a long day, and the Zeros still aren’t sure exactly how they got lost, nor where they are. Well, that place looks like a bar, so scout it out. The bartender says, “you’re in Belarus, you Ukrainian Nazi pig dogs. But you’re not nearly as lost as that jerk over there. He’s American! From Texas, even! Hey… he’s your problem, now! I’m out of here!” And that’s the last they see of the bartender.
The Zeros quickly realize that however much trouble they’re in, they’ll be in even more trouble if anything happens to that guy, especially if the bartender tells anyone that the last time he was seen, he was with a bunch of Ukrainians.
They approach him, friendly-like. “Say, what brings you to this part of the world?” asks the one who speaks English.
He’s pretty drunk of course. “Ah waz hopin’ to find somewhar I could join up with them Wagner guys. Find sum Yoo-krane bastids and take ‘em down, jus’ like our Prez’dent – the real one, not that other bastid – thinks we oughta be doin’. Not in so many words, but ya know that’s what he wants.”
Dayum, as they say in Texas. It still remains the case, though, that they had better get him to safety before he gets somebody hurt. While they’re discussing options, the American notices that one of them has got a laptop out (presumably to find the closest embassy where they can dump this sorry sap). The American says, “Huh, you cavemen even know how to use a computer, huh?” Their translator says offhandedly, “Yes, it’s H__ B__'s laptop.” They see the look of disbelief from the American. Okay, what the hell, go all-in on this hand. “It’s his real laptop, the one he left behind in Ukraine.” They can see that the American so very, very much wants to believe this.
“I… I bet it’s got a chockfull of seekrits on it, huh?”
Well, no, but it will have them very soon. An hour later, the translator says, “It was tough getting past all the security, but I think we got them all. Look, we know that pretty soon you’ll admit that you know that we are in fact Ukrainians, so we might as well surrender to you now. But we’d like to cut a deal in order to postpone our executions: we’ll give you the laptop and drop you off at the local __ embassy, and they’ll soon send you back to Texas as the hero you most certainly are. Deal?”
“Deal.”
So the chief later asks the laptop owner, “Even so, how did you come up with so many ‘secrets’ so quickly?” The laptop owner responds, “one of those AI programs the Americans have come up with.”
And guess where those ‘secrets’ eventually wound up?