Colonialism for Beginners

Writer / Creator

O-T Fagbenle

Genre

Comedy

Episodes

8 x 30'

Budget

£750K per ep

Studio | Co Pro

N/A

Commissioner

TBC

Status

Attaching a writing partner

Log Line

A crew of Gen X-ers land unexpectedly in the past and struggle to keep their modern values in the brutal battle for subsistence, land and loyalty of 1750’s America.

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Synopsis

It’s 2030. The environmental collapse thingy? Worse than we thought. Nuclear mutually-assured destruction? It’s happening. Covid-39, desertification. Apocalypse Now?Apocalypse yesterday, Francis F-C didn’t even know what he was talking about. The Vietnam War is looking like a nice vacay with your buddies. Basically - it’s the apocalypse. Our world-influential billionaire (Bezos-Musk-Zuck hybrid) comes to the rescue and builds ‘The Ark’; a spaceship to carry a select group to a new planet. With new black hole technology, the crew can reach the nearest habitable planet thirty thousand light years away.Leading the voyage is Captain Karen: a bastion of 21st century social values and idealism. Earnest and indefatigable Karen is ready to lead the best of humanity’s vegans, gender theorists and space-engineers onto a brave new world. Meanwhile, Karen’s appointment chafes third-in-command James to no end. James, who identifies as a middle-class white male despite being mixed race, believes he’s been unfairly passed over. Feeling both maligned and superior, he decides to make an “efficiency tweak” to the spaceship’s course.In a textbook case of mansplaining gone awry, James throws the Ark into a tailspin, inadvertently steering them through a time vortex. They crash-land but miraculously,everyone survives. But, when they peer out of the Ark’s hatch, there’s no rocket launch site. No STARBUCKS, nothing. The key crew take the shuttle down to ground level and, to their astonishment, they’re still on Earth. But the landscape is dotted with ploughs and very little infrastructure. A few clues later and they realise... they’re in 1750’s America.

Script available upon request

Treatment

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