The meme goes like this:

• Ask and I'll assign you the basis of some show idea.


• Create the characters you need, including the actors who'd play them. Photos optional but recommended.


• Come up with a general synopsis of the premise.

There have been some wonderful answers, most notably
freifraufischer 's Right Place, Wrong Time, in which a time traveller ends up trapped on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. Includes links to several more of these outlines.
melyanna 's No Sheep for You, a New Zealand drama series.
aj 's Gotham, basically the Batman saga continuing after Bruce Wayne's death
havocthecat 's The Lonely Sky, a space pirate series.
ffutures ' Jellystone!,  Crime Fighting Park Ranger

So I asked ffutures  to give a show idea, I got: Supernatural Starship Explorers.
( And now, the new TV Show: Dark Stars! )


The show's general premise is that the crew of the Marie Celeste, are interstellar scouts, exploring new worlds, seeking out sentient life, and dealing with the supernatural horrors that exist in the dark of space. They belong to a shadowy organization only known to as The Bureau. The 6 member Bureau team ply the stars, following the signs and portents of their Teela shaman, Sela. The Bureau's primary mission is to keep the citizens of the Commonwealth ignorant of the supernatural creatures that live along side of them. Which puts the team at odds with local law enforcement of member worlds. The crew of the Marie Celeste are also scouts and explore star systems scheduled for colonization, making sure that they are safe for the colonists.

There are only two known alien races, the small and strong Teela and the tall Shruam at the start of the series. However, evidence for a third, unknown race will surface, ending in a cliff hanger ending episode when they are revealed.

The Marie Celeste is built from modular sections, like all space and star ships, and can be updated or expanded as needed. This is a Hard Science Fiction show, so there is no such thing as artificial gravity, other than provided by counter rotating lifesystem pods of the Marie Celeste. Travel to other star systems is done through wormholes that the ship opens up and drops into and almost instantaneously appearing at their destination. Travel time in system takes weeks if the exit wormhole is formed far out from the target world. Otherwise, it's only a couple of days. Which drives Sela up the wall.

The series opens with the Marie Celeste entering the Fomalhaut system for resupply and repair. There, Captain Granger encounters an old flame in the form of the Station Master Betty Alverez. She's the fourth generation of Alverez's that have run Alverez Station for years. Alverez Station is a large O'Neill style space colony and mining concern in the target rich environment of the Fomalhaut system. They encounter a particularly nasty entity that lives in the Fomalhaut's corona and deal with it with a little damage to the station.

During the course of the first season they will encounter various otherworldly supernatural entities and creatures, along with some good old fashion terrestrial ones as well. Like the lyncanthrope family living on the earth-like exomoon Smith's Hold or the vampire running a numbers game and illegal blood drive. While all this is happening, there will be indications that someone or something is infiltrating Commonwealth space and abducting people. The series cliffhanger provides the big reveal as to who has been spying on humanity. A fellow Terran, but one from the past: Sapient Raptors. They discovered wormholes, but they are using them to find a future that they can conquer with their warships and soldiers.

And it's up to the crew of the Marie Celeste to stop them!


Captain Granger hails from Earth, and has worked for the Bureau for several years before being assigned as the captain of the Marie Celeste. His command style is by the book and while he is willing to ask for opinions, he has the final say in what happens to his ship and crew. But because his crew is a bit on the rebellious side, this almost never happens. Especially when he has to deal with Sela or his second in command, Andrea North. He was recruited by the Bureau after he had an encounter with a nasty urban spirit, a street troll. He takes his responsibilities seriously, but does have a light side, he is an amateur botanist. Once the team has set up camp on some alien world, he'll be out collecting samples and examining the flora of the planet. This has gotten him into trouble more than once.


To say that Sela is impetuous, is like saying a super nova is kind of bright. She is a Teela and hails from the Teela homeworld, Teelaka. It's a super earth and has a surface gravity of 1.5 Gs, so despite being small, Sela is strong and quick. But she's no fighter, she is a magic user and at a drop of a hat, she'll sketch out a magic circle and do magic to solve a problem. Like opening a locked door. Or getting a jar from the top shelf. This wouldn't be a problem, except that her people's magic revolves around summoning spirits and minor demons to do their bidding. Sela pretends that she doesn't care about the others on the team, but in reality is totally dependent on them for their friendship and protection. When caught off guard, her true emotions shine through. But until that happens, she'll treat the rest of them as though they were her none to bright servants when it comes to magic.

Teela are a small race, lime green lizard-like skin, sharp canines, anime elf ears, strong bones, and lighting-like reflexes. They are a pre-technology race, still using animal power and buildings made out of cut stone and mud bricks. When contacted by humanity, the Teela latched onto man like a limpet. On every human or Shruam world, you'll find Teelas. The little green people are hard workers and can more than pull their own weight.


Andrea grew up on the colony world Minerva, and found out about the supernatural when she encountered the Ur-spirits of her world. She befriended them and let them take up residence in her family's homestead. They became a bit like the Shoemaker's Elves, doing chores and good deeds for the family at night, when no one was awake, except for Andrea. For her, they would appear and help her out with her chores. A local Bureau agent discovered her and the spirits and paid for her to go to Mars to study and become a Bureau agent. She has more practical experience with alien supernatural creatures than Captain Granger, and she's not afraid to let him know that.  But don't write her off as a sandal wearing, new age hippie. She grew up with nature spirits and those tend to be excitable and nasty at times. So she has a mouth on her and always has wise-ass comment or comeback ready to go. But she does adhere to the chain of command, even though she likes pulling that chain at times.


René hails from the orbital mining colony of Alverez Station in orbit around the star Fomalhaut. There he learned the ins and outs of space drives and ships, and runs engineering as his own personal domain. He's spends more time in zero g than the rest of crew, so he's the most at risk for bone breakage, despite the medical treatments that he takes. It was in space that he encountered the spirits of deep space. Beings that live in the solar plasma streams and sail the solar wind.  Let him out into space in his space suit, he'll make contact with these beings. How he ended up working for the Bureau, no one knows, but there he is.


Melody is the Marie Celeste's AI, though that's not exactly correct. She's the ghost of a dead Bureau agent that possessed the ship's AI would be more correct. When Melody Fletcher bought the big one, her spirit couldn't rest since her fellow teammates were still in trouble. So she possessed the ship's AI and took over control of Marie Celeste and rescued the crew. She now happily lives in the ship's controls and can operate every remote on the ship, much to René's chagrin. She can manifest using the ship's hologram projector, and does so whenever she can. She has/had a crush on René and keeps a close eye on him. She will send a remote out along with the crew when they are planetside and she has become an ace astrogator, since she's now the ship's pilot and navigator as well.

O'on, otherwise know as "Owen" by the rest of the team, is a Shruam. The Shruam hail from the planet Küla, a smaller planet with only .8 Gs. The Shruam grow big because of the lighter gravity and Owen is a prime example. He's also an empath and can read emotions like a book. As Ship's Purser, he's in charge of outfitting and supplying the ship. Because he is an empath, he is also the ship's "Face" person. Need to smooth some ruffled feathers? Owen smoothes them. Need to interrogate a suspect? Owen makes them feel like his bestest buddy and they talk about old times.

Despite his size, he is a gentle giant, since he can't turn off his empath power, he feels every blow when he beats up a bad guy. And he does beat up the bad guys when he has to, but to him, it's only as a last resort. He prefers living in space, it keeps the noise down in his heart and head.

Shruams are large due to the lower gravity on their world and have a thick skin that is partly radiation resistant as Küla is a tidally locked planet in orbit about an M type star, called locally "Sülü". They have a thicker skull than humans, and skin color varies from light tan to almost mahogany for Shruam that live directly under their sun, in an perpetual noon. Shruam don't sleep, but they do dream, and do so while wide awake and working. It's not unusual to have one space out on you while they experienced a vivid hallucination. When they were encountered by humanity, they were at a mid 21st tech level, and already had space stations in orbit about their world. They learned human technology and set out on their own, forming Shruam colonies.

Recurring Characters:


Space Marshall Warren Oates
Sam Elliott


Bureau Section Chief Aston Shelley
Dennis Waterman (A bit miffed, since the theme music has no lyrics)


Station Master Betty Alverez
Victoria Abril

So if you want me to give you a show idea, let me know and I'll do so!