Pilot Script for - "Prison Trek"

[somme]

This is the script for a pilot my writer companion and I finished a month or two ago. It's entitled Prison Trek and we sent a copy to the BBC's "writer's room". Have to wait up to four months for a responce.

 

Let me know what you think:

 

http://pete.headcounter.co.uk/prison_trek_e_version.pdf

[jayseven]

Ok, page 2/28 the hologram says "trying to harm me in any is quite futile" is there a missing 'way' there? I'm guessing/hoping the repetition in the voice-over is on purpose, and that the shot isn't just staring at space for 15 seconds... I loled at "carol vordeman minge-cake"...

 

I like the idea of people like us from our day and age living in some space prison ("Damn you future!").. i must say it does get better as it goes on (fingers). I quite liked Raymond as a complete pleb. Maybe a character who never reverted to normal, forever stuch in cryo-dementia? Maybe they even get a chief-like moment later on where they admit they were faking it all along? Or is that asking for easy laughs? [reads on: a bit like mervin then! *sighs*]

 

There's a few missing apostrophes - p13/28 "another inmates table" should be "another inmate's table" or "inmates'", and it's "shouldn't have" not "shouldn't of" on p.16/28 [raymond]

 

.. It read it as if it was THHGTTG tv-show meeting boosh fans of randomness, meeting red dwarf (of course). I think there needs to be more cultural references; subtle, stolen lines/situations. I didn't get enough of a feel for how each character would've lived in our day and age. Sure they have certain psychological traits that are clear, but not any socio-economic stuff which can actually be portrayed through their cultural references (e.g. the eastenders one as opposed to a reference to an opera or something, and "she ain't heavy, she's my mother"). In a sense, nobody is stereotyped enough yet... I mean I can't extrapolate information about the characters besides what they tell us, which leaves them a bit two-dimensional. There's also very little actual direction for how the characters should say the line, or any advice for how they should be staged. The scenes in my head go from everyone sitting down, to everyone standing up, to everyone sitting down... They might be moving about in the script-maker's mind but in mine they were just sitting there.

 

page 23; "are you referring to the mouth mouth" isn't that meant to be "mother mouth"?

 

Everyone is very egocentric. I keep hearing canned-laughter in my head with half the lines because I know they were written to be funny but often they're not due to the lack of shape to the characters.

 

If I read another script for another episode where the names of the characters were blanked out, how many of the speeches would I be able to say "yup, that's spoken by X"?

 

Well anyway you say this isn't yours so it doesn't matter what I say. I liked some specific lines, but it was a bit see-through. I don't know what else to say. I read it, found some spelling mistakes, perhaps that's all you need to take away from it.

[Ashley]

Right im probably going to end up reading this in segments but as I go;

 

Page 2:

"Try getting out. Trying walking." Surely that should be 'try walking'?

 

middle-class essex. Oxymoron much :p (I kid, just used to mocking my friend from Nazeing)

 

Perhaps a person thing but page 5 Lola's "I've not finished my dinner" sounds too...proper for someone who apparently held up a burger king. Im not saying she needs to swear (which seems to be most people's idea of improper) but I dunno, that line doesn't 'sit' right for me, personally.

 

I do like the Fantasia line.

 

I don't think (again personally) Elanor would cry about her minge being out of action, seems more like she'd get angry and pro-active.

 

Page 12: "I'll kill your family" seems a bit fake, a bit...juvenile. Perhaps back it up with some relation to his actual conviction ("I had no problems killing my family" or something).

 

Page 19: Unless Raymond has some kinda weird accent, I don't think the doughnuts/do nuts line really works.

 

Actually I finished it. Anyway. I feel there should be some sly reference to Australia in the ship, seeing as it is a modern day version of what we did to Australia.

 

Overall alright. Is it going to carry on with what you started, or be random adventures every week? If it is continous then it has more potential, otherwise it just reeks of Mighty Boosh attempt.

[MoogleViper]

SCENE 4 - INT. REFECTORY

THERE ARE FOUR BIG TABLES IN THE ROOM. LOLA AND ELENOR ARE

SITTING AT ONE. SEVERAL PRISONERS ARE AT SITTING AT

OTHERS. ALL PRISONERS ARE CLOTHED IN ORANGE PRISON

UNIFORMS.

 

A HOLE IN THE CENTRE OF THE TABLE OPENS UP AND SUCKS UP

HER DINNER.

Damn you future!

 

This was probably intentional but she wouldn't refer to it as "future". It would be her present. Or am I getting it misunderstood and she is from our present and has been cryogenically frozen?

 

EDIT: I think I understand now. The ship set sail in 2020 but it's now in the future. I think that needs to be made clearer.

 

HOLOGRAM (cont’d)

This ship was the first of seven

to be launched in the 2020’s. To

be the best of my knowledge it is

also the first to have reached

it’s destination.

 

MELVIN

Sit down...or I’ll kill your

family.

PRISONER #2

Too late I already did...and then

I turned them into stroganoff!

 

That would be better without the stroganoff bit.

 

 

OVerall not bad. A little amateur but it's a start. Good luck with it.