Would work best as a single season anthology series. It needs to set audience expectations and let everyone get comfortable with the formula. When the audience has been trained to accept the rules, it can start bending the rules, then break them in the last episode or two. By the end he’s moving between episodes we’ve already seen and maybe even running into “future” episodes which will never actually exist.
This also let’s you hint at an actual character and motivation for our narrator. Who would expect the narrator to get an arc?
I think it would be freaking creepy if it started normal and then everything got insane in season 2 and everything went back to normal with like another 2 seasons just with a different narrator but the base show has to be good for this. Also the viewer has to notice how the actions in season 2 influenced the rest of the show.
Sure, if you wanted to carry on the show afterwards you could do it this way…
But if the whole point of the show was to set up this reveal, then a single anthology series like above would be better, as this kind of surprise would only work once.
Yeah, if I was pitching this show, and they were only interested in it if there could be additional seasons, I’d tell them that subsequent seasons would each have a different premise, much like American Horror Story.
Maybe season 2 is a Star Trek style sci fi show, which slowly turns into lovecraftian horror, with madness causing weird 4th wall bending.
Season 3 might have high school kids become power ranger knock offs, only to have things escalate until we’re in a dark story about the horrors of war.
Season 4 is a documentary about the making of season 4, with every episode advancing a meta-narrative that slowly shifts from behind the scenes promo, to reality show, to true crime, to unsolved mysteries, to ancient aliens, to breaking news coverage, and finally a historical documentary.
Season 5 is the story of Old Man Henderson, with perspective switching between the game and the players, and with strange things happening whenever anyone reads from the backstory of doom.
Exactly. The best surprises are the ones set up from the get-go…
You could also pepper in a couple of out of place narrations mid-season as well, things that would only make sense once you’ve made the reveal. People would eat that shit up.
There was a Twilight Zone episode about a guy who could record anything into his tape recorder and it would come true, and he could undo it by throwing the tape into the fire in his fireplace. When Serling finished his closing narration, the guy with the tape recorder said something like, “I’ve had just about enough of you!” and throws a tape into the fire and Serling disappears. I think it’s the only time there was any interaction between him and the characters.
That’s the one. Thanks!
The hudsucker proxy did this a bit
I feel like this needs a lot more full stops.
I’d watch the shit out of this.
That is a horror concept I would watch.
Alan wake sorta has similar vibes with Zane and Wake having control over their world through their writing and using that to twart the antagonist, and with Wake as the narrator. It even has an in-universe expy of the Twilight Zone. It is a video game though, and doesn’t have the comedic aspect.
Did they have a stroke at the end there?
you’re visiting, but he lives here, and now he’s decided that he’s the story he’s narrating is Home Alone
Wut?
Minor editing mistake. Should be “You’re visiting, but he lives here, and now he’s decided that the story he’s narrating is Home Alone.”
Lemmy’s text editor sometimes duplicates part of the text occasionally. It’s a weird bug.
This is pretty similar to the MCU’s What If…? series
came to say the same thing, just finished watching it like yesterday
This is a great concept! I’d love to see it/read more about it!
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I’d definitely watch the S#it out of a Twilight Zone or a Night Gallery remake - since many of the originals were kind of tepid and held back on the horrors. Today I think they could do so much more. NOT a Tales from the Crypt type of grisly, but more of a twisty, scary, atmospheric, maybe a bit gory type of thing. Night Gallery had some corkers and potential - it just needs a good time slot.
I think something like this happened in the Series of Unfortunate Events tv show but it’s been a while since I watched
That was kinda exhausting. Is this a 3 hour movie?
Turns out it’s man
