Archive for June, 2008
Sunday, June 22nd, 2008
This show idea was inspired by what happened with the pilot episode of the TV show “Global Frequency”. According to the comic book’s creator Warren Ellis, the executives at the WB Network were so annoyed over the unauthorized release of the pilot on the Internet that they killed the entire series. [Ref.] Many now see this decision as a mistake. After watching the pilot, the response on the Internet was overwhelmingly positive.
For the benefit of those who don’t know what a pilot is, before a new show receives the green light for a full season, the producers will create a pilot episode — a “demonstrator” of the proposed series — which sets up the major characters and demonstrates visually what the show is all about.
Normally these pilots never make it to air and are often forgotten long after the proposed show has been rejected. But if you have a Canadian pilot on your hands, and you possess all the broadcast rights, instead of having a handful of “suits” be the only ones to watch the show, how about letting us all watch it together and decide for ourselves if it’s worthy or not of a full season’s run? Will the show take off? Or will it crash and burn to the ground?
Unlike the channel’s other show ideas licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada license, this particular show is not a true series on its own. Instead, it’s more of a placeholder for other television shows. As a consequence, the requirement that the show must be distributed on the Internet will not apply since it’s not directly associated with any of the channel’s original show ideas. The choice of distributing your show on the Internet will be entirely up to you.
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Sunday, June 22nd, 2008
A news magazine about people who were once major newsmakers, but whose stories were later “swept under the rug” by the major news outlets when they were no longer newsworthy. This show will find out what happened to these people long after the cameras were turned off.
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Thursday, June 19th, 2008
Yes, this will be a remake of the CTV series from the Seventies. But unlike our other show ideas, this one is not in the public domain or under the protection of a Creative Commons license! So don’t start thinking you can run off and produce an episode of the series just like that. This show will require a negotiation phase with the series creator, Harlan Ellison, and whichever company hold the rights to the existing series.
When faced with the upcoming cataclysmic end of their world, the inhabitants of planet Earth build a giant space Ark, capable of preserving a sample of Earth’s population during their long journey towards a new home in another solar system. The Ark is subdivided into many pressure domes, each inhabited by a subset of Earth’s former population split along racial, geographical, political and religious lines.
Ark vessel art by Scamp
A hundred years into the trip, the Ark itself suffers from a major “incident”. The great ship is crippled, its technical crew either dead or incapacitated, and the domes are sealed tight, effectively isolating the entire population for many years.
Four hundred years and many generations later, the inhabitants of the Ark have forgotten about the world they live in, and are unaware of the final death blow that awaits them.
The Ark’s only hope of survival is a trio of young people from the community of Cypress Corners, a strict and highly religious farming community that has shun most forms of modern technology for generations. Can this unlikely group learn the truth about the world they live in and possibly save it before it’s too late?
The goal of this show is to allow Canadian expatriates from around the world to participate in the filming of a regular Canadian television series. Despite the CTV’s catastrophic rendition of the series back in the seventies, the basic premise of the storyline is still very solid even to this day. And the setting of the series, a ship composed of multiple domes each one representing a different culture from the planet Earth, makes it possible to shoot each episode in a different part of the world, faithfully recreating the world of the Ark for the television series.
We can bring back The Starlost to Canadian television and do it right. Vancouver, B.C. has already been the home of many major science fiction franchises for many years now, clearly demonstrating that Canadians can now produce high quality science fiction television shows, filled with high quality special effects, yet still fulfilling the need for an extremely strong and highly engaging storyline.
If this ambitious Canadian project sees the light of day, we’ll rescue The Starlost from its Canadian made catastrophe, repair the mistakes of the past, and possibly create some great Canadian science fiction television the world might eagerly want to watch.
Posted in Show Ideas | 11 Comments »
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
On May 27, a rally was held on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to demonstrate in favour of Net Neutrality. The complete raw footage of the rally is now available on our YouTube channel in nine parts.
Net Neutrality has become an important issue recently, with Bell Canada now deliberately interfering with the Internet speed of not only its own subscribers, but also of independent ISPs using Bell’s phone lines to reach their subscriber base. This brings a dangerous precedent to Internet access in Canada. With both large cable and telco companies now deliberately interfering with basic Internet access across the country, it may not be long before these large corporations start charging extra to both subscribers and Web site operators for privileged access to the Internet. This will throw access to the Internet completely off-balance, transforming it into a two-tiered system where the information superhighway will be available only to well-off companies and individuals, leaving small Internet operators and users such as yourselves on the information “dirt road”.
More information can be found at SaveOurNet.ca.
Posted in News, Technology | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
Scheduled for Saturday nights, this late night segment will feature horror movies galore. They can be old seventies Canadian horror flicks, or they can be your own creations à la Lloyd Kaufman.
So bring a date! And a chainsaw!
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Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
A variety show individually produced by various production crews across the country. Each crew will be required to record their show in front of a live audience inside an actual local drinking establishment. The guests will be a mixture of local, regional and national celebrities, musical groups, artists and newsmakers from all walks of life.
This will most likely become the channel’s signature show. By handing over the production responsibilities to multiple teams across the country, this show might actually become a regular and highly lucrative weeknight feature. The more consistent production teams will be awarded a specific weeknight for their show’s broadcast.
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Wednesday, June 18th, 2008
This is a fifteen minute to half-hour one-on-one interview format show, where the host and the guest (preferably an outstanding member of the community) are sitting in lawn chairs in someone’s back yard watching the grass grow while the host interviews the guest about their accomplishments. If grass isn’t readily available, or the filming location doesn’t have a ground surface suitable for growing grass, the production team can use a potted plant as a substitute, preferably one seeded with actual grass seeds.
When cutting to a commercial, the camera can pan to individuals performing similar activities such as watching water boil or watching paint dry (that idea was from my sister Jacinthe).
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