MZPtv Pitch Competition FINAL ROUND -- The Vote

[Vaughn]

Here we go, folks. 4 full pitches from our lovely community, for your reading pleasure.

-- Everybody gets TWO VOTES
-- How you use those two votes is up to you. You could use one vote for the BEST entry (quality of writing and idea) and one vote for your FAVOURITE entry (the one you'd most like to read a pilot for). Or, you could use both votes on the best 2 or both votes on your favourite 2.
-- I can't stop you voting for yourself, but... well, try not to.
-- The quality of the graphics should not be taken into account. They are window dressing. The only thing that matters is the quality of the writing and the idea.

Voting closes SUNDAY 5TH FEBRUARY at around 8:00pm GMT.

Take your time, you've got 6 whole delicious days to pick your choices! The votes will stay anonymous until the poll has closed.

PLEASE DO NOT REVEAL WHICH IS YOUR ENTRY!!!

The pitches will occupy their own posts below this one, in alphabetical order.

[Vaughn]

In the 23rd century, North America doesn't so much have a 'government' than it does a corporatocracy that the government plays nice with because they've got all the money. Teenagers who show aptitude are 'claimed' by high-paying corporations early on, and spend their entire lives working within the company who claimed them. Those who do not, however... Things are not terribly good for them, stuck in the Outer City. Shops struggling where nobody has the money to buy anything; books for teenagers who have given up on trying to read after 'missing out' on being chosen; indulgences for people who can't afford them.

Vince Clayborn (Idris Elba) is an anomaly. The son of a woman 'chosen' by a tech company at eighteen, seperated from his 'left behind' father, he had access to anything he wanted as a child. He grew up brilliant and spoiled, taught to fear everything about the outside world. Until, as he grew up, he began to hack through the invisible restrictions on the Net, and realised the system he was in was far scarier than the one he had feared for so long. So, as a teenager, he had a plan: perform horribly in school, become 'left behind', find his father, and take down the system from outside where nobody is watching.

Decades later, Vince is a very different man. He's become a Robin Hood of sorts, breaking into the Net from outside to fund his career as an independent inventor and to try to raise the standard of living, quietly, for those he's grown fond of. He could destroy the net, and through it, the system... he just needs the help of five people, all killed by the system. Luckily he's developed a machine that, using DNA/brainscan records from the Net's medical records, he can remake these people as clones... But resurrecting these people. and controlling them, are very different things. And time is running out.

Vince thought he'd defeated the fear that once drove him. Does he have the guts to change the world?



Vince Clayborn lived in the lap of luxury, the son of a single mother with plenty of wealth at her fingertips. He grew up brilliant but spoiled, overconfident, a bully... except when it came to the idea of the outer cities, where the left behind people lived. The idea of being cast out with them terrified him, an easy sore spot for those who wanted to take him down a notch. So he sought out information beyond the allowed boundaries of the Net, and discovered a world crushed under the boot heel of the rich. Now, he lives among them, realising that personal wealth did not give his mother an inch of the power he thought it did, and swears to rip the whole system down. Vince is smart, but not good with people; he's impatient, condescending, and driven by terror of the system catching him. So it's a great thing he now has to cajole people to follow his plan...



Maura McReilly (Emmy Rossum) was killed forty years ago, after being 'selected' by the government to create the new Net that would control information elegantly, so that neither generation would even realise the depths of what was being kept from them. She was the last programmer to even be taught about the workings of the Net, and she was killed immediately after finishing. Once resurrected, this angry young woman is the easiest for Vince to convince to go after the government, but perhaps the hardest to control. Especially as Maura thinks she has a child within the system who knows nothing about where she came from...



Mr. Nightengale (Hiroyuki Sanada) knows everything. Vince doesn't know how, but he does - passwords, schematics of City buildings, even some things about the Net that Maura doesn't know. Dead only two years, he's also fairly current... and hard to control. After all, he died of a heart attack, and has no ill will against the City. And yet, he knows Vince controls his fate, and balances his intent to escape and unmask Vince's plan with the short-term benefits of complying. Strawberries, for one. And a soft bed. Mr. Nightengale does not sleep on anything smaller than a king size bed.



Enoch de Cantor (Timothy Olyphant) was 'selected' much earlier than most youths, because his role was much more important... and required much less smarts, and a lot more training. A hired killer for as long as he could remember, Enoch spent his entire life from the age of ten killing suspected spies and enemies of the City, first with poisons and rigging bombs, then with weapons and his bare hands. Enoch became an artist of violence, fueling his dissatisfaction with his life into his career and becoming the best in the business. By the time he rose to the highest position available to a man like him, he'd become bitter and fatalistic, but talented at not just killing, but seduction, codebreaking, and getting around the City undetected. Which is why, instead of the mild-mannered child he was told to expect, he found himself on the other end of a Government-ordered AK47 a year ago. Now, Vince holds him in captivity until the day he'll agree to help... knowing full well he will, purely because he hasn't escaped yet.



Joan Hamilton (Madeline Stowe) is stately, smart and loyal to a fault. A Vice President of a midlevel company in the City, her life was perfect... Until, after her 20th anniversary to her high-powered husband, she got a bullet in the back of the head from none other than Enoch. And yet, her conversations with Vince from captivity turn him around and wring him out, leaving him confused and exhausted rather than like the hero he sees himself as. Joan is a woman who, despite being killed to protect her husband, will love him until the day she dies... again. And Vince is running out of time to convince her to help him. Especially as the information he needs is so crucial, and would destroy her: the name and location of her child.

These five must learn to work together over the course of the first season. A taste of that...


1.01: When Good Men Do Nothing

In which we meet Vince, and learn the details of the new world. Vince and Maura work together to disrupt a supply line of fresh fruit to cajole crucial passwords out of Nightengale, but once securing them from him, need to convince the only one who knows how to use them to help them - Enoch. It's Vince's first time re-entering the City since he was thrown from it many years ago, and the first time he's gone on a real mission. Will he be strong enough to stomach what needs to be done?


1.02: Assault, Not Leadership

Vince plots to take out a diplomat from another country who may be bringing new Net specs, so that Maura can copy them for her work. With Enoch joining full-time, there's three active players in the gang: he, Vince and Maura. But having three brilliant, stubborn people on the team means jockeying for control of the mission, and the overall plan as well, complications Vince finds himself struggling with. Meanwhile, at the complex, Mr. Nightengale has a lovely dinner with Joan, and both learn plenty about one another... and make a plan to escape Vince's 'team' for good.


1.03: Kill With Grace, Kill With Honour

After being caught by a squad of City police, Vince and Enoch must kill their way out of a holding cell, and Vince learns a lot about violence from the king of it - while Enoch begins to think he might be a better leader for this particular grand plan. Meanwhile, Maura can't help because she's distracted by a virus attacking the security of the complex... which she suspects came from Nightengale, despite his inability to leave his room.

Graphics by Li Robb.

[Vaughn]

In the 22nd Century, communication was free. No matter how far away from someone you were, all you needed to do was press a button on your communication device and you could talk to them for hours. Sites like LifeBook flourished, with groups of friends joining together and catching up on their individual lives, sharing their fondest memories and favourite pictures with each other. However, this would all come to a stop when one day, LifeBook was deleted, replaced by a warning message from the World Government, claiming that the site had breached multiple copyright and privacy laws. But that was only the start.

As chaos and confusion breaks out all over the world and friends try to find an alternative to communicate with one another, the World Government moves forward in taking down more communication networks and entertainment websites, all for the same shallow reasons and without any justifiable argument. The city of New Manchester, California, is no different. Even as anti-Government riots break out across the city, a former conman whose own twin brother works for the apparent enemy creates plans to pull together the ultimate team to put a stop to the Government’s madness.

Both loved and feared by the people they’re trying to aid, the team recruit new members on their journey to the Capital – the location of the World Government.  Forced to travel light and as quietly as possible, their journey is long and treacherous but with every new city visited comes new allies and new motivations to shut down the Government. However, their enemy is keeping busy as Controllers, a military service owned by the Government, are sent out to cities in order to keep the population in check and plans for a take-over of all forms of media begin to take shape. It’s only a matter of time before the Government controls everything in the people’s lives – unless somebody can stop them.

CAST

(Catherine Tate)
If you need a weapon, Ellen Dawson is the person to go to in order to receive the most high-tech version of it possible.  After modifying a knife to twist in mid-air at eight years old, her love of weapons and science was born. Thirty years later and Ellen’s early experiments have landed her a place on the World Government’s official Tech and Weapons Department as one of the lead developers, working on several advanced missiles and guns. However, the Government’s recent restrictions force Ellen to rethink her ideals and whether she really thinks she’s on the right side.


(Colton Haynes)
As both a football player and a member of the science club, America was the biggest anomaly at high school and yet still remained the nicest person in the state. Although he was raised in an anti-Government family, he bore no ill-will towards them until rumours began circulating of communication sites and devices being restricted. Unwilling to live in a town so readily accepting of the Government’s actions, he left his family and friends in search of his father’s business partner, a mysterious man known only to him as Leader. Whilst he isn’t a specialist like the others, his strength as well as his surprisingly vast knowledge help him remain a pivotal member of the crew, even with a self-imposed vow of silence.


(Benedict Cumberbatch)
If any child could come out of the womb reading a book, it would be Brains. With an IQ of 204, Brains is registered as the most intelligent human on the planet and as such, was hired by the World Government at the age of thirteen. Now in his mid-thirties, Brains has a lot of experience under his belt and a lot of it he isn’t sure is good. Secretly plotting against his employers, Brains has been leaking government secrets for the past four years and covering his tracks so expertly that nobody would ever suspect him. However, the time approaches for everybody to make their choice of side known and Brains will have to decide who will cherish his genius more – the ones who fight for what is right or the ones who can help him become even greater.


(Carey Mulligan)
The assassin you’d never see coming, Plain Jane has managed to stay under the radar for the ten years she’s worked as Leader’s right-hand woman. Incredibly secretive about her past and personal life, she lives for her job and uses her plain looks and girlish demeanour to lure victims into a false sense of security. Trained in various martial arts and with hundreds of weapons, Plain Jane is not one to go anywhere unarmed, nor one to be trusted, even by her own team. Despite her career choice and secretive history, she and Leader share a close partnership and she has never questioned his orders before. However, the stress of the Government is bound to test their relationship.


(Samuel L. Jackson)
The twin brother of a World Government Official, Leader quickly left his family in Old Vegas after befriending an orphan and running away with him and refuses to acknowledge any ties he has to them. A former conman and weapons dealer, Leader struggles to live a quiet life and is known by locals for the shady company he keeps. Just one week before the communications outage, his twin brother came to New Manchester for a visit. What happened between them, nobody knows but Leader is by all appearances determined to fight for the freedom of speech.

EPISODES



Chaos breaks out overnight as the world’s largest social communications site, LifeBook, is shut down by the World Government.  In the small Californian city of New Manchester, neighbours turn on one another in distress and shock. However, a menace quickly arises when the Government sends in a team of Controllers, guards sent to monitor the citizens and report back to the Capital. In response, a former conman known only as Leader takes up his gun again and calls in several old allies to help reclaim his city.



New Manchester is torn in half – those who support Leader’s movements and those who want to appease the government for fear that their communications will further be constricted. Word of the action in New Manchester reaches the capital and it becomes a race against time for Leader and his company to evacuate the city before a missile reaches the city. Government officials Ellen and Brains struggle with their decisions to help the Government, but find that there may be a way to fight back against their past sins.



Rising from the ashes of his former home, Leader assembles his new team and organizes an attack on the nearest Government base – the former laboratory of Ellen and Brains. However, violence breaks out across the entire state as the Capital blocks all television for an entire year due to Leader’s actions. Turned on by everybody they know, it’s a race against time for the team to plant their bombs in the base and somehow make it out of the area alive.

[Vaughn]

SYNOPSIS

Kansas Memorial Cemetery has been in the Boglin family for generations, but with no additional ground space to house future caskets, the current owners had to declare bankruptcy. Everything looks to be over for the down-on-its luck property, until one night when a moldy, decomposing hand knocks on the Boglin’s front door. Inexplicably, one of cemetery’s oldest corpses has risen from the dead... and it’s back for a purpose.

When the media hears word of the risen corpse, curious reporter Annabelle Sampson is first on the scene. Unlike the other journalists, Annabelle doesn’t care about the spectacle of the situation, she simply wants to help the corpse fulfill its request and make its return to life worthwhile. Unfortunately, Annabelle’s honorable mission is hindered by the selfish cemetery owners, whom she butts heads with from the moment she arrives.

Womanizer Manny Boglin and his trans-gendered sibling Cambia Boglin care less about what’s caused the dead to rise on their property. They’re only interested in the media attention that’s brought them fame, notoriety... and cash. Their father Gemino Bolin, religious to the extreme, sees the corpse as the wicked work of the devil and believes it must be returned to Hell. Will Annabelle be able to convince the Boglin clan that it’s their destiny to help the corpse? Or will the self-indulgent family sell out and never look back?

CAST


Annabelle Sampson (Kristen Wiig)
Hopeful, caring, kind... these are all words that Annabelle’s fellow reporters have used to describe her. But what they really mean is “naive.” Annabelle’s the sort  of woman who meets a zombie up close and personal and doesn’t care about why it’s there, she just wants to help it find its purpose in life again.


Manny Boglin (Jorge Garcia)
The ultimate ladies man, Manny doesn’t let his big stature stand in his way. In fact, he embraces it. Every woman in Carter, Kansas has either been with Manny or claims she has. Sure, he’s just declared bankruptcy on his family’s cemetery and a corpse has returned from the grave, but Manny has other things on his mind -- two things in fact, and they’re both on Annabelle’s chest.


Cambia Boglin (Sofia Vergara)
Born to this world as a boy named Cambio, this now-voluptuous beauty always saw herself as a woman and sought about to correct God’s mistake. With the sex change a rousing success, Cambia finds herself desperately trying to act like the woman she now is. That means peeing sitting down, walking in high heels, and screaming to high heaven when a corpse comes knocking on her door.


Gemino Boglin (Danny Trejo)
A former priest, Gemino is now retired and living in the attic of the cemetery home with his son and daughter. He’s been known to break into prayer at random moments, which earned him the nickname “Amen” from his church congregants. When a corpse returns to life, Gemino believes that God wants him to send the zombie back to Hell, and he’ll do everything he can to succeed.

EPISODES


#1x01 “R.I.P.”
The media swarms Kansas Memorial Cemetery when one of its corpses returns from the dead with a strange request. Naive reporter Annabelle Sampson tries to help the corpse find a place for itself amongst the madness, but instead finds herself butting heads with the selfish cemetery owners, the Boglin family.


#1x02 “Death Knocks Again”
Just when things begin settling down in Carter, Kansas, there’s another knock on the Boglins’ front door. While Manny and Cambia try to help this new corpse the way Annabelle would, Gemino once again seeks to send the demon back to Hell, and he starts by unearthing a crate of World War II weapons.


#1x03 “The Best Corn in Carter”
The newest corpse to return to life comes with yet another odd request: he wants to taste the best corn in Kansas. While the Boglins set about finding the purest, ripest, most mouth-watering corn in Carter, Annabelle realizes that Gemino might be a bigger problem than she first thought.

[Vaughn]

SYNOPSIS
For over 100 years, human beings have lived in peace and prosperity. World hunger has been eliminated. Crime is a barbaric relic of the past. Science and religion are accepted and embraced equally. Every person and technological enhancement has a purpose to enrich the lives of humanity and Mother Earth.

The price of such a world?

The death of man.

At the beginning of the 22nd century, all men simply died. It is a mystery that has remained unsolved. All of Womankind has moved on... save one. Driven by an unknown force, a woman who can't stop seeing beyond the utopia to the imbalance it hides and the danger that is looming, constructs the means to save it.

She folds time to retrieve 16 wildly different men from the past. One or all of them have the means to save the world. But first they must discover the deadly secret behind the end of "mankind" before history repeats itself.

CAST

Jeminy

A misfit in a time of peace and conformity. Jeminy has lived her entire existence knowing something is missing from her world. More than companionship or nature, she feels in her very soul that man is needed for a danger that threatens all humanity. Driven by instinct, she builds a device that plucks men from various pasts moments before their deaths. She doesn't know why she has chosen these men, nor does she know how to save them. She can only hope that they can save themselves, and then find a way to work with a Womankind who no longer needs them... so they can face the danger on the horizon together.

David Bay

There are few horrors in earth's history as gruesome as World War 3. First Sergeant David Bay was a marine on the frontlines of the world's greatest war. A war that killed millions, rendering any and all sacrifices a chilling, but impersonal statistic. Pulled into the future - a time of peace - David struggles with the quiet. He can't sleep without hearing the screams of dying men, so he simply doesn't. He needs to do more than just wait to die. He might not have the kind of mind that can figure out what killed off the male gender, but he can sure as hell hunt down the threat that brought them to Utopia in the first place.

Lewis Ryan

Comic book artist. Gamer.  Science Fiction nerd. At 17, Lewis Ryan is the youngest male to be brought to Utopia. He believes in heroes. He dreams that good can overcome evil. He'll save the world through pure force of will. But he's also never faced the true horrors of the world. He's never known danger or loss (until now). Hell, he's never even been bullied. But he does have one clear advantage... he can adapt to whatever life throws at him and that might be just what the future needs.

Mack Keyes

A former drug dealer and gang leader, Mack reformed his ways after losing his wife and young daughter in a gang-related hit. He then spent twenty years trying to help kids in rough neighbourhoods stay on the straight and narrow line. But don't mistake him for soft. He can push just as hard as he's pushed. And in a future with 16 scared and frustrated men, there's no lack of walls to push against.

The Regent

The Regent is the elected leader of the North Western Citadel, one of five co-governed super-cities across the globe. Outside of the cities is no-woman's land, a lush landscape given freely to the flora and fauna that now flourish. This Regent is driven by science and the need to understand strange prophetic warnings that have started to appear in every religious epicentre. A fact she is hiding from the other four regents, though it heralds the doom of humankind. 

EPISODES

When a man faces his death, he does not expect to wake up a moment later trapped in glass alongside 15 other sleeping men. This is the fate of a marine violently yanked from the battlefield, into a far future that seems like heaven on earth. But this heaven has a dark secret.


Despite Jeminy's warnings, more men are now awake. The men are all too aware that time is against them, but they must discover answers before the Citadel's Regent returns. But maybe time and the Regent is not their enemy... perhaps the true enemy is among them.