skygiants: Autor from Princess Tutu gesturing smugly (let me splain)
[personal profile] skygiants
This past weekend, [personal profile] genarti and [personal profile] saramily and I got to talking about the King Arthur police precedural that Fox is allegedly developing. I only mention this because over the course of this conversation we realized that the ONLY modern-King-Arthur television show that Fox should really be developing is a hilarious reincarnation-based office sitcom, and now I can't stop thinking about it, so I am going to tell you all about this imaginary sitcom in EXCRUCIATING DETAIL.

My imaginary workplace sitcom is about a struggling nonprofit organization and is probably written by the people who wrote Parks and Rec and Brooklyn 99. Accordingly, it stars Retta and Melissa Fumero:




as Alice and Pam, OFFICE NEMESIS battling nonprofit burnout! and each other!

....UNTIL, in the first episode, they start having flashbacks and eventually realize: they are the reincarnations of, respectively, King Arthur and Lancelot, they are destined to fight evil while being devoted to each other in an epic and legendary way, and weekly budget meetings just got really weird!

Every episode alternates between flashbacks to Round Table efforts to fight evil, provide justice, build a better and more stable society, etc., and current-day office hijinks as the nonprofit attempts to do the same, but with much more paperwork.

As a sidenote, all the flashbacks initially have placeholder white guy actors doing ye olde British accents and speaking forsoothly, except for the person having the flashback, who plays themselves. Once Alice and Pam recognize each other at the end of the first episode, however, every flashback features Retta and Melissa Fumero talking exactly like they would in the office while wearing shining armor.

The rest of the placeholder actors gradually get replaced by actual cast members as further reincarnation reveals occur, including:

- Donald Glover as the reincarnation of Sir Gawain, ladies' man and too-cool-for-school tech bro, who's the only person who knows how to keep the website running!



- Rahul Kohli as the noble reincarnation of King Pellinore, the development manager who is constantly questing after very worthy but COMPLETELY UNATTAINABLE grants!



- Yael Grobglas as the reincarnation of Sir Kay, the long-suffering and sarcastic office business manager who must always be the one to point out they don't have enough money for their pet project!



- Sandra Oh as the director's PA, the only person who knows where everything is and keeps the office running and everybody from murdering each other; she of course turns out to be Guinevere!



- and, of course, Jaime Camil as Merlin, the director of the nonprofit, who has been gathering all the Round Table reincarnations together for world-saving purposes all this while!



Merlin is not reincarnated, for the record. Merlin is just Merlin. This is why Merlin is very good at magic and WILDLY INCOMPETENT at being the director of a nonprofit organization.

Sample episodes include:
- the episode where everyone is rushing to meet a grant deadline, with flashbacks to PREPARING FOR BATTLE AGAINST THE ROMANS
- the team retreat episode where Merlin insists everybody do trust falls; in flashbacks, Merlin also insists everybody do trust falls
- the episode in which Donald Glover has to go through ludicrous hoops to install a new open-source software, intercut with the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
- the mid-season love triangle episode, in which a.) the reveal of who is Guinevere, b.) the reveal that Lancelot and Arthur were way more than good buddies, and c.) THE MOST AWKWARD OFFICE MEETINGS YET, FOR EVERYONE

ok so who wants to fund my sitcom now
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Date: 2016-09-09 05:25 am (UTC)
alias_sqbr: the symbol pi on a pretty background (genius!)
From: [personal profile] alias_sqbr
Alas I can't fund it but you got me considering fanart. Being too lazy to do my own research or composition I looked up images and it was all pretty uninspiring, though this is cute is possibly not entirely period accurate.

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Date: 2016-09-09 06:02 am (UTC)
such_heights: amy and rory looking at a pile of post (Default)
From: [personal profile] such_heights
This is MAGICAL. :D

Date: 2016-09-09 11:36 am (UTC)
marginaliana: Buddy the dog carries Bobo the toy (Default)
From: [personal profile] marginaliana
This is amaaaazing!

Date: 2016-09-09 12:11 pm (UTC)
qian: Tiny pink head of a Katamari character (Default)
From: [personal profile] qian
the team retreat episode where Merlin insists everybody do trust falls; in flashbacks, Merlin also insists everybody do trust falls

I LOVE THIS

Date: 2016-09-09 12:59 pm (UTC)
ladymondegreen: (Default)
From: [personal profile] ladymondegreen
As an Arthur enthusiast who has worked for not for profits, I think this is a magic combination. I also have a screenwriting degree and would be happy to help you draft a pilot.

Date: 2016-09-09 02:54 pm (UTC)
misslucyjane: poetry by hafiz (Default)
From: [personal profile] misslucyjane
The is the series I never knew I always wanted. OMG.

Adding: the Sundance Institute recently added tv writing workshops, and I believe the foundation Meryl Streep runs for female screenwriters also includes TV.

Just. Y'know.
Edited Date: 2016-09-09 02:57 pm (UTC)

Date: 2016-09-09 06:29 pm (UTC)
happydork: A graph-theoretic tree in the shape of a dog, with the caption "Tree (with bark)" (Default)
From: [personal profile] happydork
I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS!

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Date: 2016-09-09 08:42 pm (UTC)
rmc28: Rachel in hockey gear on the frozen fen at Upware, near Cambridge (Default)
From: [personal profile] rmc28
I love this idea and everything about it and would love to watch it :-)

Date: 2016-09-09 09:11 pm (UTC)
bookblather: A picture of Yomiko Readman looking at books with the text "bookgasm." (Default)
From: [personal profile] bookblather
I DO I DO I WANT TO FUND THIS SITCOM

Can we have Alfie Enoch and Gina Rodriguez as the reincarnations of Gaharis and Lynet pretty please?

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Date: 2016-09-10 01:52 am (UTC)
aquamirage: Ben Wyatt expressing his displeasure (NOPE)
From: [personal profile] aquamirage
This show is real, it exists just one universe to the left of ours where Mike Schur did it instead of B99 as his post-Parks project. Which is sad I guess, but it all evens out.

Date: 2016-09-10 02:15 am (UTC)
umadoshi: (riceball love (snowgarden))
From: [personal profile] umadoshi
This is GLORIOUS and I want it to be real.

Date: 2016-09-10 05:12 am (UTC)
castiron: cartoony sketch of owl (Default)
From: [personal profile] castiron
Should I ever become ultra-filthy rich, this will be the second media production I fund. (The first will be a Bollywood production of Mansfield Park.)

Date: 2016-09-10 06:52 am (UTC)
obopolsk: (Default)
From: [personal profile] obopolsk
This is brilliant. I hope someone who has the power to make this happen stumbles upon this post and orders a pilot episode immediately.

Date: 2016-09-10 12:34 pm (UTC)
aamcnamara: (Default)
From: [personal profile] aamcnamara
a) this is beautiful and b) ...I swear I saw this on tumblr and I don't follow you on tumblr. Cross-social-media coincidence is so weird.

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Date: 2016-09-10 10:40 pm (UTC)
kiezh: Fragments of different skies stitched together. (stained glass skies)
From: [personal profile] kiezh
This is hilarious and amazing and I am deeply envious of the universe next door where it exists.

...I think possibly what I want most from that universe is the novel-length f/f/f fanfic that resolves the love triangle in polyamory and also has an epic saving-the-world plot. Someone in that universe must have written it. (Maybe, if we are very lucky, someone in THIS universe might be inspired to write it?)

Date: 2016-09-16 01:51 am (UTC)
ellen_fremedon: overlapping pages from Beowulf manuscript, one with a large rubric, on a maroon ground (Default)
From: [personal profile] ellen_fremedon
If anyone wants this badly enough to ask for it for Yuletide, I have nominated it!

Fandom: King Arthur reincarnation office sitcom pitch - Skygiants Dreamwidth post

Characters:
Arthur | Alice (Retta)
Pam | Lancelot (Melissa Fumero)
Director's PA | Guinevere (Sandra Oh)
Nonprofit Director | Merlin (Jaime Camil)

Date: 2016-09-17 01:13 am (UTC)
genarti: ([legend] sujini stamp of approval)
From: [personal profile] genarti
I AM SO PLEASED YOU DID. I went ahead and followed in your wake to nominate the other characters from the original post:

Tech Guy | Gawain (Donald Glover)
Development Manager | Pellinore (Rahul Kolhi)
Business Manager | Kay (Yael Grobglas)

I know other people have made other excellent suggestions in the comments, too, but I figured I'd stick with the ones you don't have to dig through comments to find.

Date: 2016-09-16 03:08 am (UTC)
lannamichaels: Astronaut Dale Gardner holds up For Sale sign after EVA. (Default)
From: [personal profile] lannamichaels
This sounds AMAZING. I wish I could watch it. :D

Date: 2016-09-18 03:27 pm (UTC)
izilen: Yoko Nakajima looking fierce (Default)
From: [personal profile] izilen
You know I don't go here (i.e. King Arthur, or sitcoms) but I feel like this ought to be its own Yuletide fandom.

(no subject)

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