Living Dead TV Series: Your First Episode?

[Cykotic]

Ok, I know that there might never be a TV series based on Romero's films, but if there was, and you had the chance to write the first episode, what would you write? I would set the first episode at the time between DAWN and DAY and show exactly what happens to ordinary people when they are faced with surviving the dead. Imagine LOST.... with zombies

[red max]

Bam! The car explodes. A brown helicopter flies overhead. Cut to a couple of rednecks shooting at three zombies. "Got him!" Bam! "Aaah, missed him!" They get the cowboy-hatted zombie and we take it from there

[Eyebiter]

Spend the entire first 30 minutes setting up the major characters. Get the audience comfortable with a core group of 3 - 5 persons of interest. Then introduce the zombie plague. Over the next few days the world begins to fall apart. The phone service starts to degrade, the grocery stores are cleaned out, police and law enforcement are unable to cope with the situation. Use Romero's theme of humanity failing to work together as a primary cause for the collapse of society. While the police try to cope with zombies, have criminals pull off a bank robbery. A bully picks on a geek, and then is surprised later when the victim returns for revenge. A local gas station attendent tries to reach an isolated school bus full of children surrounded by zombies.

[Cykotic]

Intresting... Like I said in my post, I would set the series up like LOST. Every episode, focus on a specific character and use flashbacks to tell his or her story and how it relates to where he or she is now. Also, throw in some of the characters from the films to interweave with the others. When I get it finished, I will write a script for an episode and post it on here as a PDF

[DjfunkmasterG]

The first episode would have to be a 2 hour pilot to start it off, and basically everything normal for 30 minutes like someone else said, then BOOM! let it hit the story like a $2 hooker getting slapped by her midget pimp.

[Cykotic]

I would just throw viewers in at the deep end and use the flashbacks to explain it

[axlish]

Not to cop DJ but... 2 hour pilot episode to begin with, establishing a wide range of characters across the southeastern United States. 15 minutes in, the plague hits widescale. Nuclear weapons go off, complete chaos by 30 minutes in. The next hour and a half would be the characters getting their $hit together and figuring out what to do, some barricading themselves in, some hitting the open road with supplies. I'd also cast a major star in a male lead role, and have him die a heroic and gruesome death about 20 minutes in. At the end of the pilot, one of the many crew of people documented will cross paths with a crew that is barricaded, and they will unite. Then the show would turn in to one hour shows, sometimes following only one crew per episode, leaving you hanging on the other story arcs. Perhaps a few episodes in, we'll have a plane crash nearby one of the crews carrying some folks from overseas.

[Cykotic]

I like the idea of casting a Major star in a role and having him killed off. Past experience shows that when a major star is cast and then killed off early, it throws the audience off guard. I think we should do something to make this actually happen! I know that everyone does this, but how about a petition to get it done? http://www.petitiononline.com/AB1/petition.html

[DjfunkmasterG]

Because DEADLANDS won't max out past 60 mins run time, I was going to do what Cereval did and make episodes. So maybe this is something I should really look into. Film one episode every 2 years. Mine starts with the outbreak... Maybe it is time to really think about making a series out of it.

[Cykotic]

How about this: If we can't get anyone else to do a zombies series, Then how about a Homepage of the Dead Zombie series! People Like Livingdeadboy, Cereval, DjfunkmasterG, Myself and others could film episodes and set them in their respective locations, but it is all the same plotline in the same "Universe". Whoever is good with DVD making could do the menus and such and we could sell them in the HPOTD shop! Well?

[DjfunkmasterG]

I'm Down as soon as I finish my flick. I could easily produce an episode in the spring of 2007! then do my sequel to Deadlands in 2008. We could do a four episode series, or more if other filmmakers wanna jump on board. You, Me Cereval, Dawg... Whomever. Maybe start at Season #1 and do 2 seasons may 10 episodes a season.

[Svengoolie]

Actually, a bunch of people already have that exact type of project going. I remember reading about it at the old board.

[DaDeadGuy]

I would say a 2 hour pilot, have it start off with the main characters already holding up somewhere (barricaded ie), have each episode so that it tells how each character got up to that point and how they met one another, and of course in doing this it would result in showing how everything started and went downhill. After each character has been shown their *past* up till that moment then the show would carry on to what would in fact be next, leaving their place, getting rsupplies, making a plan of what to do next ie. Of course any other way would still kick some serious a**.

[Deadman_Deluxe]

I am keen to get involved ... but ONLY after i have written proof that there is at least 20 million USD already in the pot Do it right or don't do it at all.

[DjfunkmasterG]

There is no way a Living Dead series would ever get off the ground unless people like us ponied up the dough and filmed episodes to be played on the web, or try to market to showtime or HBO.