New Horizons

And the winner of our Elevator Pitch Contest is: Jason Dick, for New Horizons!

Takes place about a century from now. Humanity has discovered planets around other stars harbor life. We send out a generation ship, where multiple generations of intrepid explorers will be born and die before it reaches its destination. This show follows their journey, where they are faced with mechanical failure, collisions with small dust grains that cause lots of damage, and people who crack under the stress of their situation. Mostly it’d be about a human drama of extremely driven people who are in a difficult situation, and whose children are forced to carry the torch of their parents.

A well-deserved victory, as Jason has long been one of our most intelligent and helpful commenters. And it’s a good show idea, certainly comparable with many things actually appearing on TV. Jason, shoot us your address and a T-shirt will be forthcoming — soonish.

Interestingly, concepts that took the framework of a conventional sitcom or drama (Friends/ER) and made the characters scientists didn’t fare as well with our voters. This might be a reflection of our voting pool, or a real difficulty involved in translating the life of a scientist into compelling narrative.

16 Comments

16 thoughts on “New Horizons”

  1. Congratulations Jason. Now get to work on that 2 hour pilot. Maybe the opening scene is a bay door opens on the ship and a naked body emerges into empty space. A silent scream and then he/she dies within seconds…..

    murder? suicide? mercy killing? resources running low and somebody needs to die for the good of all?

    Anyway good work.

    e.

  2. Low Math, Meekly Interacting

    Congrats! You were my close second choice, and would have been first had I been less prone to puerility and prurience.

  3. What’s the losers’ line again? Oh, right:

    “Really, it was an honor to be nominated among such an outstanding group.”

    Congrats, Jason.

  4. This show could have a great grand finale when they reach the target planet only to find it populated by even more advanced humans who developed relativistic speed travel and passed them en rout!

  5. Thanks K.Pittman, I can’t remember the name of that series that I watched when I was a kid : it’s Starlost! Even as a kid, I thought it sucked though I remember that scene when the heroes talked to a hologram of the dead captain … who suddenly realized that in reality he is dead, was quite poignant.

    Anyway, congrats Jason. Although personally, I am not sure how one can actually “explore” empty space between stars. The “generation ship” idea is a hard one to make interesting. My own favourite idea about “humans facing long term stress” has always been about how astronomers discovered a brown dwarf about to past by our Sun in a thousand years….and completely destabilize the orbits of the planets. I always wondered how humans would react to a thousand year crisis, instead of the standard “asteroid impact” instant-doom scenarios.

  6. Nice one Jason. It was a fun contest, and I’m delighted to get the bronze amongst so many super suggestions.

  7. I’ve read a Sci-Fic like this, the society inevitably mutated and the humans (de)evolved into two different species aboard the ship before it could even reach the halfway point several thousand years after the journey’s start. That “advanced humans with FTL” item came in at the end of the story.

    Good Luck.

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