Given What's Already On TV, Is This Really Worse?
HANSEN'S DISEASE
[TV mystery / drama]
America loves
Monk,
the quirky detective with
obsessive-compulsive behavior.
This just shows the interest in detectives with
unusual and colorful ailments.
HANSEN'S DISEASE features detective Eric Hansen.
Hansen is skilled, insightful, and has a brilliant
mind.
He also has leprosy, contracted during a Peace Corps
stint in Africa right after college.
Educating the audience and de-stigmatizing this
ancient disease, Hansen's disease is well controlled
by medication.
But he does have to exhibit the cautious behavior
of any leprosy patient, constantly checking his
largely numb extremities for minor injuries that
could develop into serious infections.
And more than that, he has to deal with society's
reaction to someone who is, quite literally, a leper.
That's HANSEN'S DISEASE,
featuring America's first leper-detective.
NAPOLEON, P.I.
[TV mystery / drama]
America may now like Monk, the detective with
obsessive-compulsive behavior, but America will
simply love NAPOLEON, P.I.
What can a police chief do when the city's best
detective in its history, perhaps the best in the
country, develops delusional megalomania?
The ailment has severely effected his behavior
but has had no ill effect on his ability
to solve crimes.
Well, as much as possible, you require the rest of
the force to put up with his quirks
and you keep him on the cases.
Even if some of the other officers grate at having to
call him "Sire", "Your eminence", and the like,
only after determining what his current delusion is.
But they realize that whether he thinks he's Napoleon,
one of the Caesars, the Pharoah Ramses II, or whoever,
his warped mind is still the best mind for the case.
STAHGATE ATLANTA [TV science fiction / adventure / spinoff]
Dis heah is de sto'y ob de discubbery ob a large an
mysti'eous ahtifack leff on Erf bah some long depahted
an powahful alien race.
Now in de hands ob the U.S. gub'mint, a skilled team
ob military an scientists uses dis heah ring
foah explo'ashun.
Dis heah lahge ring-shaped objeck has de powah ob
foamin a wuhmhole between de Stahgate base, located
unner Stone Mount'n, an enny udder locashun wiffen
de foamah Confederacy.
Trabbel between dese heah two points is neahly
instantanyus.
Watch as dese heah intrepid esplorers meets colo'ful
charactuhs clad in what suits an streen tahs.
Witness theyah struggle tuh communicate wif de natives
in deah colo'ful diahleks.
Larn wif dem about turdish'nal values lahk Nascah,
distillashun, and seggergashun.
Frahday nahts on de SahFah Channel.
THE CONSOLIDATED RUBBER COMPANY'S HANDBOOK
OF CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS [TV drama]
Riding the coattails of
GREY'S ANATOMY, the weekly drama
THE CONSOLIDATED RUBBER COMPANY'S HANDBOOK
OF CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS
brings us the office romances and sexual adventures
and frustrations of the staff of that
classic reference handbook.
Will a bombastic senator force the editors to delete
fundamental information on organic chemistry
because it could be used by a terrorist?
Will the recent demotion of Pluto to a
"minor planetary body"
force a complete re-organization of the
classic section F-5 on astronomical data?
Given that cold fusion is almost entirely ignored by
the mainstream scientific community, shouldn't the
volume of information on palladium
(atomic weight: 106.4) be cut back?
Or, does one of the senior staff secretly hold vast
amounts of nearly worthless stock in palladium mining
companies, an ill-advised purchase fueled by a
mysterious spam e-mail?
FUNK AND WAGNALL'S DICTIONARY [TV drama]
Ripped from the headlines of riding on the coattails of
classic-reference-work-referencing
GREY'S ANATOMY,
this weekly drama focuses on the romantic adventures
and sexual frustrations of a madcap troupe of
etymologists and semioticians who, between trysts,
work at a dictionary company.
One running joke is the continuing complaint of the most
egg-headed staff member that the classic anatomy text is
spelled "Gray's Anatomy", while the popular television
show is spelled "Grey's".
GRAY ANATOMY AND ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY [TV drama]
Set at the infamous Area 51, which the US government
still insists does not exist, the weekly drama
GRAY ANATOMY AND ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY
follows a brilliant, attractive, and somewhat
sexually-obsessed group of scientists working to
understand alien physiology and reverse-engineer their
technology.
Presumably their goals include better low-level
handling characteristics in desert climates
than the original prototypes....
This screenshot shows some of the earlier work
of this group in the 1940s.
THE LEAGUE OF RIGHTEOUS GENTLEMEN [TV police procedural]
Evil and crime are confronted with a crime-fighting
organization.
Business as usual, right?
Not if the crime fighters are all Amish!
That's right, the League of Righteous Gentlemen fight
21st-century crime while intentionally limiting
themselves to the technological level of 1880!
Their leader, Jeremiah Schmidt, requires that weapons
expert Jacob Graber, forensics guru Ezekial Yoder,
and alchemist Jedediah Graber, investigate the
evil-doers while limiting themselves to
the technology of the age of steam.
What will happen when the gang-bangers unleash their
MAC-10s against our heros? Will Jacob's arguments
that Hiram Maxim's belt-fed machine gun design is
appropriately "period" for the late 1880's be found
adequate for its use against the gangs of
South Central LA?
Will Ezikial's citing of Mark Twain's use of
fingerprints as a plot device in "Pudd'nhead Wilson"
justify their use in a League investigation?
Watch and find out!
THE AX FILES [TV supernatural-themed thriller]
A pair of mid-to-late-1800s government agents
(think Fox Mulder and Dana Scully meet
Jim West and Artemis Gordon) are sent by
President Grant to investigate mysterious events in
Minnesota and the Dakotas, the apparent signs of a
heroic lumberjack and his enormous and oddly
blue-tinted ox.
Are these just mythic folk tales?
Or is there really something out there?
THE L.P. [TV teen sex romp / prime-time soap]
It's 1808. New Orleans. The former capital of French
America du Nord, and now the primary city of America's
newest territory.
The teens are oversexed.
So are their parents.
They're all French, and we know what that means!
Sex!
Even in the early 1800s, THE L.P. means excitement!
THE LAW OF THE RING [legal drama-comedy]
THE LAW OF THE RING is not just another legal drama!
Nor is it just another lawyer-focused show with the
premise that the audience sees the characters' brief
thoughts or fantasies (see "Ally McBeal").
Nor is it just another clone from the
David E Kelley duplication machine.
No, THE LAW OF THE RING is all that PLUS the idea that
all the lawyers in a Los Angeles firm are very recently
retired professional wrestlers!
Imagine the possibilities when, during a difficult
cross-examination, the prosecuting attorney briefly
fantasises about smacking the witness over the head
with a folding chair!
When a brilliant closing argument is followed by a
brief glimpse of the jury waving, hooting, waving
hand-made signs, and holding extra-large Mountain
Dew cups!
When an objection by the opposing lawyer is followed
by a fantasy of a flying leap from atop the judge's
bench, smashing the opposing team's table and crushing
the impertinent advocate!
Original working title:
OFF THE TURNBUCKLES AND ONTO THE BAR
