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isurrenderedTITLE: Beyond
PROMPT: None. (To tell you the truth, my thought process on this one largely went “Outcasts! So much promise! So much Hermione Norris! And yet... not quite! I FIX NOW. But still with Hermione Norris, because fuck yeah Hermione Norris!” Also it turned into a bit of a Spooks reunion when I wasn’t looking, because I’m predictable like that.)
TYPE: SF drama; 10-episode season on BBC1
TITLE THEME: Brian Jonestown Massacre -- You Look Great When I’m Fucked Up
SUMMARY: A military base on the planet Outbeyond is in the process of adjusting to the arrival of a group of civilian colonists when a bioengineered plague strikes and isolates them from the rest of the galaxy.
It’s been two years since the end of the first great interstellar war, and Churchill Base -- the farthest outpost of the Second British Empire, and the only human civilization on Outbeyond -- is being refitted as a civilian colony. Tensions are immediately apparent between the remaining military personnel and the incoming colonists, but the culture clash quickly becomes a secondary concern as the soldiers begin falling ill with a mysterious plague.
It’s discovered that the plague virus is a bioweapon -- codenamed Abraxas -- released on base by a breakaway faction of the Free Planetary Alliance, one of the losing sides in the war; it has a six-month latency period and is fatal in 75% of cases, with the survivors left as healthy carriers. Outbeyond is immediately placed under quarantine, trapping military and colonists alike with limited resources and slim hopes of finding a cure.
Brigadier Miranda Croft | Hermione Norris
“I’m not an awe-inspiring person, Mr. Tallis. I don’t make a habit of going around reminding people how lucky we all are to be alive and British. What I’m moderately competent at is making sure we’ve got a fighting chance of staying that way.”
Major Saul Keyes | Sean Harris
“Yes, sir! No, sir! Oh, far be it from me to correct you, sir. You’ve made that lovely and clear.”
Lieutenant Alisha Kareem | Archie Panjabi
“I was three months out of New Sandhurst when the war ended, for fuck’s sake. This was my first offworld post! The closest I ever got to the front lines was sending ‘regret to tell you bullets don’t come in till Friday’ notices!”
Sergeant Harry Wainwright | Philip Glenister
“Funny old world, me granddad used to say. And then me other granddad used to ask him how he’d know, life on twenty-eight planets and he’d never been two hours from Urmston High Street. I think that’s what they call a difficult relationship, really.”
Corporal Dean Oni | Alex Lanipekun
“If it helps, I can’t think of a single bloody know-nothing wet-behind-the-ears desk officer I’d rather be serving under at a time like this, sir.”
Private Alice Reynolds | Holliday Grainger
“You think I act like this because I’m little and harmless-looking and I want to impress people, don’t you? Wrong.”
Private Hamid Akhbari | Dev Patel
“Just because there’s absolutely nothing there worth going back to doesn’t mean I didn’t want to go back.”
Private Thom Stephenson | Arthur Darvill
“I never had a choice about shipping out here. It was this or ten years in the correction unit. Shows you what I know, doesn’t it?”
Private Damian Prentiss | Michael Legge
“I never worked out what we were meant to be watching for. Does someone think the not-hedges are going to rise up against the colonial oppressor? Oh, tits, I’m the colonial oppressor. Never mind Abraxas, my auntie Maggie’s going to kill me. Look, do you ever smile?”
Medical Officer Theo Cornish | Paul McGann
“I have no staff, no supplies, no hope, no retirement in sight, and no clue. Other than that, I’m doing nicely, thank you.”
Governor Christopher Tallis | Richard Armitage
“I wouldn’t describe any of our hands as being precisely clean in this. We’re all very good at putting down the rioting natives, aren’t we?”
Lieutenant Governor Seraphine Lee | Naomie Harris
“Oh, look, right on schedule, the part of the conversation where you expect me to tell you you take too much on yourself.”
Doctor Helena Norton | Claire Foy
“I did my thesis on retroviral therapy for complex gene-linked schizophrenia. I’ve spent my life since then decanting pig embryos. There’s not precisely a button I can hit and get up to speed on highly classified bioweapons in fifteen minutes or less.”
Michael Fairchild | David Oyelowo
“If you won’t agree to stop your people carrying live arms in a public thoroughfare filled with civilians, will you at least have dinner with me sometime?”
Caitriona Shinohara | Naoko Mori
“We used to daydream about this in school -- having an entire planet’s worth of resources to cannibalize. If I make it long enough, how do you feel about an inlaid-marble sewage plant?”
Ariane Osborne | Ruth Wilson
“You make a better animal by breeding together the strongest. The hardiest, the most beautiful, the most fit to survive. Have you never stopped to wonder who might be trying to make a better us?”
Tariq St. Vincent | Alexander Siddig
“I’m afraid it took me all of five minutes to work out that I was deeply underprepared for anything more harrowing than a weekend hike through a particularly well-cultivated national forest.”
Ian Brown | Damian Lewis
“We’ve all got the same gun to our heads. It ought to fucking well change something.”
and featuring
Prime Minister Caroline Wynn-Davies | Gillian Anderson
”I am so very, very sorry. But you must understand that none of this can become public.”
Notes:
* It’s my party and I can have a cast! of! thousands! if I want to. Even if this isn’t actually a cast you’d get for anything short of the first adaptation of a freshly-discovered, previously unknown Dickens novel.
* I tried not to use so many ex-Spooks cast. I really did. And then they were just all -- there, being all talented, and really really gorgeous, and *sigh*.
* Ruth Wilson has the scariest eyebrows on the planet.
* Yeah, a few influences besides Outcasts might have snuck in there around the edges somewhere. Just a bit.
* Episode list/summaries and the big long index of who’s in love with whom to follow! (Sadly, I am not actually kidding on the latter.)
PROMPT: None. (To tell you the truth, my thought process on this one largely went “Outcasts! So much promise! So much Hermione Norris! And yet... not quite! I FIX NOW. But still with Hermione Norris, because fuck yeah Hermione Norris!” Also it turned into a bit of a Spooks reunion when I wasn’t looking, because I’m predictable like that.)
TYPE: SF drama; 10-episode season on BBC1
TITLE THEME: Brian Jonestown Massacre -- You Look Great When I’m Fucked Up
SUMMARY: A military base on the planet Outbeyond is in the process of adjusting to the arrival of a group of civilian colonists when a bioengineered plague strikes and isolates them from the rest of the galaxy.
It’s been two years since the end of the first great interstellar war, and Churchill Base -- the farthest outpost of the Second British Empire, and the only human civilization on Outbeyond -- is being refitted as a civilian colony. Tensions are immediately apparent between the remaining military personnel and the incoming colonists, but the culture clash quickly becomes a secondary concern as the soldiers begin falling ill with a mysterious plague.
It’s discovered that the plague virus is a bioweapon -- codenamed Abraxas -- released on base by a breakaway faction of the Free Planetary Alliance, one of the losing sides in the war; it has a six-month latency period and is fatal in 75% of cases, with the survivors left as healthy carriers. Outbeyond is immediately placed under quarantine, trapping military and colonists alike with limited resources and slim hopes of finding a cure.
Brigadier Miranda Croft | Hermione Norris
“I’m not an awe-inspiring person, Mr. Tallis. I don’t make a habit of going around reminding people how lucky we all are to be alive and British. What I’m moderately competent at is making sure we’ve got a fighting chance of staying that way.”
Major Saul Keyes | Sean Harris
“Yes, sir! No, sir! Oh, far be it from me to correct you, sir. You’ve made that lovely and clear.”
Lieutenant Alisha Kareem | Archie Panjabi
“I was three months out of New Sandhurst when the war ended, for fuck’s sake. This was my first offworld post! The closest I ever got to the front lines was sending ‘regret to tell you bullets don’t come in till Friday’ notices!”
Sergeant Harry Wainwright | Philip Glenister
“Funny old world, me granddad used to say. And then me other granddad used to ask him how he’d know, life on twenty-eight planets and he’d never been two hours from Urmston High Street. I think that’s what they call a difficult relationship, really.”
Corporal Dean Oni | Alex Lanipekun
“If it helps, I can’t think of a single bloody know-nothing wet-behind-the-ears desk officer I’d rather be serving under at a time like this, sir.”
Private Alice Reynolds | Holliday Grainger
“You think I act like this because I’m little and harmless-looking and I want to impress people, don’t you? Wrong.”
Private Hamid Akhbari | Dev Patel
“Just because there’s absolutely nothing there worth going back to doesn’t mean I didn’t want to go back.”
Private Thom Stephenson | Arthur Darvill
“I never had a choice about shipping out here. It was this or ten years in the correction unit. Shows you what I know, doesn’t it?”
Private Damian Prentiss | Michael Legge
“I never worked out what we were meant to be watching for. Does someone think the not-hedges are going to rise up against the colonial oppressor? Oh, tits, I’m the colonial oppressor. Never mind Abraxas, my auntie Maggie’s going to kill me. Look, do you ever smile?”
Medical Officer Theo Cornish | Paul McGann
“I have no staff, no supplies, no hope, no retirement in sight, and no clue. Other than that, I’m doing nicely, thank you.”
Governor Christopher Tallis | Richard Armitage
“I wouldn’t describe any of our hands as being precisely clean in this. We’re all very good at putting down the rioting natives, aren’t we?”
Lieutenant Governor Seraphine Lee | Naomie Harris
“Oh, look, right on schedule, the part of the conversation where you expect me to tell you you take too much on yourself.”
Doctor Helena Norton | Claire Foy
“I did my thesis on retroviral therapy for complex gene-linked schizophrenia. I’ve spent my life since then decanting pig embryos. There’s not precisely a button I can hit and get up to speed on highly classified bioweapons in fifteen minutes or less.”
Michael Fairchild | David Oyelowo
“If you won’t agree to stop your people carrying live arms in a public thoroughfare filled with civilians, will you at least have dinner with me sometime?”
Caitriona Shinohara | Naoko Mori
“We used to daydream about this in school -- having an entire planet’s worth of resources to cannibalize. If I make it long enough, how do you feel about an inlaid-marble sewage plant?”
Ariane Osborne | Ruth Wilson
“You make a better animal by breeding together the strongest. The hardiest, the most beautiful, the most fit to survive. Have you never stopped to wonder who might be trying to make a better us?”
Tariq St. Vincent | Alexander Siddig
“I’m afraid it took me all of five minutes to work out that I was deeply underprepared for anything more harrowing than a weekend hike through a particularly well-cultivated national forest.”
Ian Brown | Damian Lewis
“We’ve all got the same gun to our heads. It ought to fucking well change something.”
and featuring
Prime Minister Caroline Wynn-Davies | Gillian Anderson
”I am so very, very sorry. But you must understand that none of this can become public.”
Notes:
* It’s my party and I can have a cast! of! thousands! if I want to. Even if this isn’t actually a cast you’d get for anything short of the first adaptation of a freshly-discovered, previously unknown Dickens novel.
* I tried not to use so many ex-Spooks cast. I really did. And then they were just all -- there, being all talented, and really really gorgeous, and *sigh*.
* Ruth Wilson has the scariest eyebrows on the planet.
* Yeah, a few influences besides Outcasts might have snuck in there around the edges somewhere. Just a bit.
* Episode list/summaries and the big long index of who’s in love with whom to follow! (Sadly, I am not actually kidding on the latter.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-14 03:04 am (UTC)And your set-up hits so many of my narrative kinks - spaaace, military versus civilians in a crisis, beautiful and capable people. *sighs happily*
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-14 03:15 am (UTC)(Really, 50% about doing this kind of sf show in a way that doesn't pull me out of the story with "but... why?" too often, and 50% about Hermione Norris in Brigadier kit, if I'm honest with myself...)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-14 06:56 am (UTC)(is it sad that i know where and when that picture was taken?)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-14 07:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-14 08:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-14 11:40 pm (UTC)(The damn reproduction thing is totally going to be an issue in the second season! Only not in the sense of "we have totally forgotten all this technology that's been around for a couple of centuries by now" and more in the sense of "okay, so we're all carrying the death plague. Babies! How is that going to work?")
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-14 11:42 pm (UTC)(No. It is in fact AWESOME.)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-14 11:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-16 03:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-16 06:32 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-16 06:34 pm (UTC)