skygiants | you don't want to know how much time I spent on this

So, that TV meme!

newredshoes gave me a prompt last week, which I have taken forever to do because I could not stop myself from having the BIGGEST CAST IN THE HISTORY OF FAKE TELEVISION.

THE MEME
1. Comment to this post with "I surrender!" and I'll assign you the basis of some TV show idea. (Science fiction show, medical drama, criminal procedure, etc...)
2. Create a cast of characters, including the actors who'd play them
3. Add in any actor photos, character bios and show synopsis that you want.
4. Post to your own journal.

THE PROMPT
A team of thieves who are trying to construct the perfect city! (So, er, yes, apparently they are all Carmen Sandiego.) (Which, uh, not quite where I went with that. *sheepish*)

TYPE:
Hour-long plotty-sff-action drama, USA, with wacky episodic hijinks contrasted against a darker ongoing arc – kind of halfway between Leverage and BSG. 5 episodes in the first miniseries/season; later brought back for another 13-episode series, then ignominiously killed before anything could actually be resolved, or, for that matter, most people could learn the names of a significant proportion of the enormous cast.

RATING:
TV-MA

OPENING CREDITS SONG:
Mole, The Mountain Goats

I am a mole
sticking his head above the surface of the earth

ENDING CREDITS SONG:
We Built This City, The Starship

We just want to dance here
Someone stole the stage

(Yes, the tonal whiplash is deliberate. IT IS A GENIUS EFFECT I AM TELLING YOU.)

SYNOPSIS:

After the war, the only ones left in the city are those who knew the hidden places to hide, those who didn’t have anything to lose or defend and have long experience with going undercover – beggars, thieves and criminals, the inhabitants of the underworld. In the aftermath, they call themselves moles. Now they have to recreate their city from the rubble, and they’re doing it the way they know best . . . by stealing what they need from the enemy that destroyed them.

The show jumps between the new leaders of the city as they attempt to rebuild, and the members of the Job, an assortment of criminals who have gone undercover in the empire that turned on the city. The city and the empire are never named. The general aesthetic cannot be pinned down to a historical period; the world has radio tech, and some motor-driven vehicles, but overall it is clear that the level of available technology is early twentieth-century at best.

in the city

the politician: Adriana Varma (Rekha Sharma)

Adriana was born in the slums, but her marriage to a man who made connections sent her spiraling up among the city’s political elite. When the war came, she used her husband’s relations with the gangs who control the underworld and her own memories of childhood to hide herself and her daughter, and became one of city’s few daylight citizens to survive the destruction. Now she’s the highest-ranking person left, and the political trophy wife is discovering untapped reserves of authority – enough to stand up that first day after the destruction and assume de facto leadership of the moles. Not everyone is happy about having Adriana in charge, and the empire is far from her only enemy, so it’s a good thing she’s got a core of solid steel. (SPOILER: Adriana has long-term plans, and they don’t just involve rebuilding the city – she also wants to make sure that this can never happen to them again. It’s possible that she wants to go so far as turn the empire’s own Ultimate Weapon against itself and destroy the whole place. Moral event horizon ahoy!)

the adorable moppet: Jessie Varma (Shriya Sharma)

Adriana knows the rule: if an eleven-year-old child can poke holes in her plans, then they are doomed to failure from the start! Jessie is the one person Adriana can be herself with, and she tells her daughter just about everything – she’s a precocious kid, and Adriana figures that by this stage there’s not much point in sheltering her daughter from the realities of life. Jessie spends much of her time trying to restore the library, which none of the adults seem to see as a priority. When everyone else’s plans get too convoluted, Jessie is often able to point out the obvious without looking up from whatever book she happens to be reading at the time.

the moral center (sort of): Dorothea “Dee” Kapoor (Anjali Jay)

Dee is Adriana’s younger sister – the one who didn’t leave the slums. Instead, she ran with a gang of petty thieves, stealing small stuff like radios and identity cards and selling them black-market for what was usually just enough to get by . . . and when it didn’t stretch quite far enough, she could always hit up Adriana. Dee never had much ambition, but she has a good heart and is capable of occasional flashes of brilliance – Adriana runs the operation to infiltrate the empire, but it was Dee’s brainchild, and she’s the one who gave it its commonly used nickname of the Job. (Adriana has another name for it: Operation Take Everything.) Dee loves her sister and supports her wholeheartedly, but she’s becoming increasingly concerned by Adriana’s capacity for ruthlessness.

the housebreaker: Bobby Kang (James Kyson Lee)

Bobby is one of Dee’s best friends, a member of her gang before the war. He’s cheerful and happy-go-lucky, and an excellent hand with locks. Now Adriana and Dee have him putting those skills to use – he’s in charge of the group that breaks into abandoned houses to consolidate food and resources in the places where people are actually living now. “Responsibility” and “legitimacy” are a little weird for Bobby, but he does the best he can, and is 100% loyal to Dee and Angie. He also spends a surprising amount of time shirtless. Why? NO REASON. (Picking locks is hard work, okay.)

the killer: Turner (Christopher Eccleston)

Turner is a murderer. Not much else is known about him. He’s a very efficient killer and he’s been on the run for a long, long time. Jessie likes him. Dee doesn’t. He follows Adriana’s orders, working as her watchdog and, occasionally, her executioner. As for his reasons – those are still unclear. Are there hidden reserves of manpain there? MAYBE. Does he stalk around in long swishing leather coats? ABSOLUTELY.

the accountant: Bonita Andino (America Ferrera)

Bonita grew up in a major organized crime family; she kept the books. The rest of her family stayed to fight for their city. Bonita was afraid, and hid. Now, as far as she knows, she’s the only member of her family left. She’s never been by herself before in her life, and she’s still dealing with her guilt about running instead of staying, but Adriana finds her organizational skills and her knowledge of many of the city’s assets invaluable. Bonita is shy but likeable and destroys sets of spectacles at an astounding rate (sooner or later, the city is going to run out, and it will be Bonita’s fault.) Over the course of the first season, she and Adriana develop a mutual attraction; while Adriana is hesitant for a number of reasons, as Bonita grows more confident she becomes increasingly willing to push the boundaries of their relationship. (SPOILER: neither Adriana nor Bonita ends up evil or dead.)

the rival: Gavriel Alvarez (Edward James Olmos)

Gavriel was a major figure in organized crime, and had connections to Adriana’s husband; he helped her gain control in the aftermath of the war, picturing her as a unifying puppet-figure with himself in the background and was somewhat surprised when she turned out to be capable of holding power on her own. Intelligent and ruthless, he is also dedicated to the recreation of the city and capable of pulling people together for a common cause. For the moment, he supports Adriana, believing that unity is better for the rebuilding of the city than dissent. Adriana needs his skills, but if she makes a mistake, he may use his influence to try and bring her down.

on the job

the contact: Oliver Arnold (Jack Davenport)

Oliver is a smuggler and the long-suffering central contact for the Job. He’s from the city, but when the war came he happened to be in the empire arranging for some shipments of black-market whiskey, and he prudently decided to remain and consolidate his position rather than return to be killed. The self-preservation instincts run strong in this one, and every so often he still wishes he’d had the sense to turn his back on Adriana’s wacky proposal and fade himself into life in the empire. This is not helped by the fact that everyone he works with is to some degree or another insane. He rules the radio, but, alas, does not rule any of his teammates. At all.

the con artists: Sherri Sanders and Stacey Sampson (Ashley Crow and Cristine Rose)

Sherri and Stacey have been a partnership as long as anyone can remember. Con artists extraordinaire, they are dazzling and untrustworthy and excellent at what they do. Currently, they are engaged in buying up enormous amounts of supplies for an imaginary coalition, with imaginary money, and having them shipped to the city. Will there be trouble when their deception comes out? Maybe, maybe not; Sherri and Stacy are the best, and somehow they always manage to come out on top. Hopefully this time their luck will extend to the rest of the city, too. When they are not engaged in pulling six or seven deceptions at once on the unwitting citizens of the empire, Sherri and Stacey like to spend time with their other hobby: making Oliver’s life a misery. Note: Sherri is fifty and Stacey is sixty and both of these ladies are mad hot. Everyone better recognize!

the investigator: Angelena Marron (Dana Davis)

Angie is the third surviving member of Dee’s gang, cheerful, reliable and loyal (well – reliable and loyal if you’re Dee or Bobby). She was initially sent in as a support member, pulling small cons and thefts to make sure that Oliver has the funds he need to run the various aspects of the Job, but a chance discovery might expand her role into something much bigger. Because Adriana is starting to suspect that not all of the city’s missing were killed. Some of them may have been taken instead, for purposes unknown – and the most important theft of all might be stealing them back. Note: most of the show’s “previously ons” happen within the context of Dee and Angie talking over the radio to fill each other in on what’s been happening; they are total BFF and have no secrets. (This means they have no secrets from Oliver, either. Although he kind of wishes they did.)

the enigma: Babe (Dante Basco)

Angie found Babe wandering around the streets of the empire –no memory, no identity – and thought he looked weirdly familiar. She nicknamed him “Babe” as a joke, though she’ll never tell him whether it’s because he was helpless like a baby or because she thinks he’s kind of cute. Experienced at passing for a normal law-abiding citizen herself, she’s helped him settle into a relatively normal life and promised to help him find out about his past – after all, he might just hold a clue about what’s happened to the rest of the city’s missing. Babe is a sweetheart with a well-developed sense of humor about his situation. SPOILER: It turns out that Babe is actually Nico Reyes, a cousin of Bonita's who acted as the muscle on a lot of the nastier mob interactions. When he finds out about some of the things he’s done, he’s not so sure he wants to remember.

the streetwise kid: Eun Suk (Shim Eun Kyung)

Eun Suk is a street kid, prone to lying and picking pockets and generally being a brat. She’s also a consummate survivor. Adriana sent her along on the Job to get to know her opposite numbers, the street kids of the empire; she’s well aware that kids on their own often have to be more aware of what’s going on than the law-abiding adults who are supposed to be in charge. Eun Suk has few personal moral strictures, but she does have a strong sense of injustice, and despite her age is good at getting people to follow her (at least, up until they stop and ask themselves what the hell they’re doing.)

the gang leader: Jimmy Varsity (Bobby Edner)

Jimmy leads a gang of street kids in the empire. They’re out for themselves and nothing but – until they meet Eun Suk. After some initial conflict, Eun Suk gets Jimmy and his gang interested in finding out some of the empire’s secrets – not for her sake, but for their own. After all, they’re the unwanted of the empire; if anything shady is going down, they’re at more risk than anyone. Jimmy and Eun Suk are both prone to bossiness and crash heads a lot, especially as Eun Suk gets more integrated with the gang and becomes a kind of de facto rival leader, but when they work together they’re unstoppable. Also, at some point, it is vitally plot-relevant that Jimmy and Babe perform a beatboxing rap together.

the spy: Jun, aka Judith Park (Han Go Eun)

No one knows anything about the weapon that destroyed the city, other than that it exists. Jun’s job – known to Adriana Varma and none other – is to steal it. As glasses-wearing scientist Judith Park, the former assassin has begun infiltrating her way into the infrastructure of the empire’s military. Her task is made more difficult by the fact that she has no connections to the rest of the team working within the empire; she’s a lone agent, and her mission is not to be revealed to anyone. (Note: this role makes excessive use of the trope that someone wearing glasses looks completely harmless and like an entirely different person. Note 2: many of the most tense scenes between Jun and Eric take place while they are out dancing. Why? BECAUSE.)

the chessmaster: Eric Lee (Ryu Jin)

Always calm, mild-mannered and unfailingly polite, everyone knows that Eric Lee is deceptively important to the empire’s army and no one is quite sure what he does. Does he know the secret of the empire’s new weapon? Is he behind the experiments that are driving military expansion? Is he maneuvering his way to power, or are his motives something else entirely? Jun is determined to find out his secrets and bring them back to the city before he realizes hers . . . if he doesn’t know them already. Theirs is a deadly game of deception, seduction, and SWING DANCING.