Mickey Fisher on Writing, Selling, and Producing a TV Pilot Spec Script — Part 7
7-part series on going from original TV pilot script to network series.
7-part series on going from original TV pilot script to network series.
On May 24, 2013, I posted about a TV pilot spec script which had Hollywood all abuzz:
Amidst the hustle and bustle of the Hollywood development world — movies and TV — nothing shifts the tectonic plates of The Biz more than a spec script that gets people salivating over it. It’s also a time when writers can learn an awful lot about the buying pulse of Hollywood.
Such is the case right now as Hollywood froths over a 56-page spec TV pilot “Extant” written by newcomer Mickey Fisher. Background from TheWrap [emphasis added]:
Mickey Fisher, an unknown and unsigned writer until recently, has film studios drooling over his script “Extant” for weeks. There’s just one twist: it’s not a film script.
Fisher wrote “Extant” as a TV pilot. It’s a one-hour sci-fi drama about John and Molly Watts and their son, a human-like robot named Ethan. Molly, the space-traveling wife, is also pregnant with a baby that is part human and part alien. The family intrigue deepens in subsequent episodes.
Multiple agencies sought to sign the writer after reading the script, and WME won out. WME and manager Brooklyn Weaver, who discovered Fisher, sent the script around to the studios who are hot to trot for a high-concept script mixing sci-fi and familial drama.
“Everyone is freaking out about it,” an agent at a rival firm said. “It’s ‘A.I.’ as a TV series.”
— —
Warner Bros. still made an offer to acquire the project and turn it into a movie, according to multiple individuals inside and outside the studio, but now the studio is talking with Fisher about acquiring a different pitch. The studio declined to comment.
WME and Weaver always harbored dreams of turning “Extant” into a TV series with Steven Spielberg producing. They are halfway there: Amblin TV, which produced “ER” and “The Americans,” is developing and packaging it. It remains unclear if Spielberg will take a credit, though his involvement would make it even more attractive to networks.
Here is Mickey Fisher. Apparently he is a Hollywood outsider. He writes a spec TV pilot script. It turns the town on its head. Now he has interest from movie studios. TV networks. Perhaps “acquiring a different pitch.” Steven Freaking Spielberg.
That script turned into a CBS series which ran for two seasons.
In 2016, Mickey Fisher — a long-time fan of the blog — posted this:
It’s a tremendous read with lots of information and insights into the craft, so I reached out to Mickey and he agreed to let me serialize his entire missive. It’s a great story and I’ll use the opportunity to spotlight the many takeaways Mickey touches on in his observations.
Today in Part 7, am posting the original series overview Mickey created for “Extant”.
ENERGY/Brooklyn Weaver DRAFT/041913
EXTANT — Series Overview
by Mickey Fisher
(def: still in existence, surviving)
The Show:
At its core, Extant is an hour long sci-fi/drama about an extraordinary family that changes the course of human history. On a greater level, it’s about how human beings in the not too distant future adapt to the arrival of alien races and the emergence of powerful, lifelike artificial intelligence. It’s an emotionally compelling, highly suspenseful, character driven story that takes place in a grounded sci-fi reality not far removed from our own.
Most popular science fiction franchises take place in an age when human beings live side by side with alien races, or lifelike robots. Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica and Asimov’s Rules of Robotics all take place in this kind of age.
Extant is the origin story of that age.
Who Is It For:
Adults and teens who love smart, sophisticated, exciting genre movies and tv. Fans of shows like Lost, Battlestar Galactica, and The X-Files.
Season 1 Brief Overview:
Astronaut MOLLY WATTS returns home from a yearlong solo mission aboard a space station and discovers that somehow, miraculously, she became pregnant while she was up there. Meanwhile, her inventor husband JOHN is on the verge of a major breakthrough with his greatest creation, their ten-year-old android son, ETHAN.
These two seemingly unrelated events put this extraordinary family at the epicenter of changes that will alter the course of human history forever, including the arrival of two aliens races, the birth of a human/alien hybrid and the rise of “Humanichs”, a powerful line of lifelike androids.
Molly’s boss at the privatized International Space Exploration Administration (The ISEA) and the primary investor in John’s work is KINJI MATSUMO, a mysterious, multi-billionaire tech genius. Matsumo uses the ISEA and a network of intelligence officers for his own purposes, which may or may not be laying the groundwork for the arrival of an alien race, and The Watts family is central to his aims.
The World:
Extant begins approximately 50 years into our own future. The world’s governments have relinquished full control of their space programs to a privatized agency called The International Space Exploration Administration, which is funded by a collective of global companies. The primary source of this funding is MATSUMO CORP, and it’s CEO, Kinji Matsumo, is also the head of the ISEA.
Kinji Matsumo was a wunderkind tech inventor who was thirteen years old when he created VERDISIGN, the “vertically integrated” software and technology that allows people to manage their entire lives via one simple system. Because of its easy use and low cost, Verdisign is ubiquitous the world over, with nearly every human being on Earth relying on it for everything from driving their cars, cooking their meals, answering their phones, communication and entertainment.
It’s your iPhone/iPad/Facebook/doorbell/trash compactor/general doctor checkup/and more, all in one. It’s your life on a cloud.
It’s where we are inevitably headed.
The tech that exists in Extant is a logical extension of what we use now. There won’t be “ray guns”, but there will be drones and nanotechnology. Tablets are everywhere. And, although every family won’t own one, there may be personal, aerial transport vehicles…or put more simply, flying cars.
Setting:
The primary setting of Season 1 is a coastal city on the Atlantic side of Florida, near the base of the ISEA. Since it’s also the home of Matsumo Corp, this city is also ground zero for technological innovation. Much of the action occurs in the public and private spaces of ISEA and Matsumo Corp, and in the Watts family home, as well as locations around the city.
A secondary setting is the Seraph Space Station, a small, orbiting workspace for experiments and exploration, manned by a solo astronaut.
Season 1 Story:
The major storylines in Season 1 are concerned with three overall issues: 1.) Who or what is growing in Molly’s womb, and what does that mean for earth? 2.) Can humans give our own creations a “soul”, or free will rather than subjugating them to our control? And, 3.) How does this family hold itself together when internal and external forces threaten to destroy it?
Molly’s unborn child is the primary focus of the overarching conspiracy that includes Matsumo and members of the ISEA. Molly’s former colleague and the astronaut who manned the Seraph Station before her, HARMON COULTER, was believed to have committed suicide shortly after his return. In reality, he went into hiding to investigate and uncover a conspiracy that he believes could ultimately lead to an alien invasion orchestrated by the ISEA leader Kinji Matsumo. When Molly returns, he is convinced that the secret she’s carrying in her womb has made her a Trojan Horse for the beginning of the end of the human race.
This storyline gives the series most of its action and suspense. As Molly becomes embroiled in the conspiracy, it puts her and her family at risk, and she is forced to make choices that will impact not only them, but the whole world as well. As the season progresses, the consequences of her actions will possibly be that there are two alien species on Earth, and one of them has very bad intentions, and the birth of her human/alien hybrid will be the first of its kind in the universe.
Ethan’s development and John’s efforts to ensure that he is given free will becomes, ultimately, a battle between “good” and “evil”. The question is, do we as humans have a supernatural element that we call a soul? Or, is our soul just the culmination of all of our experiences, our choices and their consequences? If the latter is the case, then it’s not unreasonable to think that you could approximate that in an artificial life form.
This storyline explores greater themes of life and death, religion, faith, and how parents relate to and imprint upon their children. It is, ultimately, a battle for a child’s soul. The ultimate consequences of John’s efforts and Ethan’s actions by the end of the first season will be the forced implementation of something resembling “Asimov’s Rules of Robotics.” The complications that arise from that are ethical, legal and personal as some parents of Humanichs will follow these new laws and others will not.
The family storyline gives the series its emotional core. It is the force exerting a gravitational pull, bringing everything back to the center of these individuals. This is not a broken family. They’re not anti-heroes. John and Molly love each other and want to do right by each other. John genuinely loves Ethan and wants Molly to accept him as her son. Ethan tries to learn how to love the way other children learn. So, it hurts when they have to keep secrets from each other, or when they make sacrifices for the good of the family.
Even though the series deals with big genre elements like aliens and artificial intelligence, it is all grounded in the story of the family.
The Characters:
By and large, the characters that populate Extant are extraordinary individuals. They’re the brightest and the best in their fields, which means they’re incredibly intelligent but doesn’t necessarily mean that they are emotionally well adjusted, good people, or that they make the best choices. They make mistakes and those mistakes have consequences, sometimes tragic.
MOLLY WATTS
(female, mid to late 30's)
In a sea of television anti-heroes, Molly is a genuinely good person trying to do not only the best thing but the right thing for her family. She’s highly intelligent, dedicated, tough, but still possessing a good deal of warmth. Most of the time, Molly is the smartest person in the room. Part of the joy of the series will be seeing her backed into impossible corners and the surprising ways she gets out of them.
Over the course of the first season, she’ll be primarily concerned with the question of what is growing inside of her, and what it will mean for the family. Because it is part of her, she’ll grow connected to it and it will keep her distant from Ethan. Her distance from Ethan will be the reason he acts out, bigger and bigger, until his acting out leads to tragedy. Her unborn child may be taken from her, leading her on a search to recover it later in the season, and the psychological ramifications of that event.
JOHN WATTS
(male, mid to late 30's)
Molly’s inventor husband. Her intellectual equal, but maybe a little more evolved emotionally. Creative, idealistic, and thoughtful.
John has created a “son” with his own two hands. He is that son’s advocate in the world, striving to make him as normal a child as he can possibly be. The more normal Ethan is, the more like a real father and son they are, and the more John’s life’s work is validated. But, when Ethan’s actions cause a tragedy, John’s work is deemed a failure. By the end of the season, he’ll be called on to do the unthinkable to his greatest creation.
ETHAN WATTS
(male, 10)
Their android son. He’s not an ordinary android, he’s incredibly lifelike. If you didn’t access the panel with his power core, you might never know the difference between him and a real boy. He’s inquisitive, insightful and very observant. A sponge. But, because he was created, he’s behind the curve of knowing right from wrong like other kids who started from birth.
Over the course of the first season, Ethan will struggle with good and bad and right and wrong, just like every child. He’ll be subjected to outside influence from other kids at school, and adults who may not have his best interest at heart. But, his primary conflict is with his mother, Molly. The more she pulls away from him, the more he desires contact. The further she is drawn away into her own problems, the more desperate he is to connect with her. This leads to Ethan acting out in ways that put himself and others at risk, and ultimately lead to tragedy. The tragedy leads to an enforced set of protocols for Ethan and all further Humanichs, subjugating them to humans.
KINJI MATSUMO
(male, Japanese. Mid to late 40's)
Multi-billionaire, genius tech inventor. CEO of Matsumo Corp and the head of the ISEA. With the help of his aides and intelligence officers, he’s the guy moving the pawns around the board for his own, mysterious goals.
Matsumo is like “The Man Who Fell to Earth”, ultimately revealed to be an alien life form who has been hiding out on our planet for some time and quietly amassing wealth and power to further his own interests and self-preservation. We won’t know until very late in the season if he’s on humanity’s side or not, and by then it may be too late, anyway.
HARMON COULTER
(male, African-American, 40's)
The Seraph Astronaut who went up before Molly. He had his own unexplainable episode while in orbit. When he returned to Earth, his superiors questioned his mental health and it was believed (incorrectly) that he committed suicide. Since then, he’s been hiding out and on the run, pulling together threads of a conspiracy that he believes will ultimately end in an alien invasion.
Molly is torn between believing his story and the possibility that he might be mentally ill, even dangerous. She knows he’s telling the truth about what happened to him on the Seraph Station, but she can’t be sure about anything else. Harmon is desperate for her to help him uncover this conspiracy, and when she does ally herself with him, his erratic behavior puts her family at risk. Ultimately, if Molly isn’t willing to follow his plan regarding her baby, he will have no problem taking matters into his own hands.
SAM
(female, 30's)
Molly’s best friend, closest confidant, and doctor for the ISEA. Sam has also been romantically involved with the agency’s Deputy Director Kern. Her personal relationships with both put her at the center of the larger mysteries between them, and compromise her professional integrity.
DIRECTOR SPARKS and DEPUTY DIRECTOR KERN
(male, 30’s to 40's)
ISEA directors, and agents of the secret directives issued by Matsumo. Director Sparks is Matsumo’s right hand man, and privy to much of his secret knowledge. Deputy Director Kern is new on the job and therefore not given the same clearance. But, as a bright, enterprising young man in the agency, he’s always on the lookout to climb the ladder. This ambition could either be a help or a threat to Molly.
BRYNN
(female, 12)
A human child, she becomes Ethan’s best friend and romantic interest when he begins attending school. Smart, kind to him but a bit manipulative. A bad influence.
The Future:
At the end of Season 1, the two main storylines will converge as Molly finally takes custody of the human/alien hybrid child she was carrying and Ethan secretly manages to stay exempt of the control protocols for the Humanichs.
In Season 2 and beyond, we’ll explore the dynamic of these two very different siblings, and how their relationships with each other and their parents impact the world at large. We’ll learn who was behind Molly’s miracle birth and what their intentions are on Earth. And we’ll keep exploring how, in the face of these fundamental changes and threats to our existence, we as humans continue to survive. THE END
Without giving away everything in the revised version, here’s the first page after working with Greg and Amblin/Steven:
EXTANT
overview
EXTANT is the story of an extraordinary family at the epicenter of events that alter the course of human history, and their struggle to survive as a unit when those changes threaten to tear them apart. On a larger level, it’s about how the human race survives the rise of powerful artificial intelligence and the arrival of extra-terrestrial life.
Each episode will strike a balance between a family drama grounded in everyday, relatable situations (but featuring our extraordinary family) and a sci-fi event series rich with the mythology, twists and tentpole thrills normally associated with the genre.
THE FAMILY
THE WATTS family is the new nuclear family, living a few decades into our own future. The world they inhabit is a logical evolution of the one we live in now, advanced technologically, but grounded in a familiar reality.
The parents, MOLLY and JOHN, are leading scientists in their respective fields, brilliant and accomplished. She’s an astronaut, part of an experimental biology program, rotating yearlong solo shifts aboard a space station. John is an inventor and pioneer in artificial intelligence and lifelike synthetics.
They’re the ideal match, loving and committed to each other and passionate about their careers, but an inability to conceive a child has left a void at the center of their relationship. To fill that void, John turned to his life’s work, using artificial intelligence and innovations in lifelike synthetics to create for them a child, a ten-year-old android son, ETHAN. For awhile, they wanted (and were able) to have it all. They were happy.
Then Molly went into space.
In her final weeks aboard the Seraph Station, she was impregnated by something not human, and carried the resulting lifeform back to Earth in her womb.
In the pilot, she returns home.
That’s the moment everything changes.
Throughout the series, we’ll see The Watts family tried and tested by internal and external forces brought about by the secret Molly carries in her womb. We’ll see how the challenges they face from the outside world ripple and resonate in the home. Likewise, we’ll see how those core family relationships become a source of strength (and sometimes weakness) in surviving those external challenges.
For Part 1 of this series, go here.
Part 2, here.
Part 3, here.
Part 4, here.
Part 5, here.
Part 6, here.
Mickey is repped by WME and Energy Entertainment.
Twitter: @MickeyFisher73.