"City"

SYNOPSIS 

    This is a timely and rich serial drama centered around governing a major resort city, loosely suggested by actual events.  The tone is realism combined with humanity as the lives and loves of an ensemble cast are intertwined with the community through the City Hall workplace, intended leave audiences with consistent emotionally satisfying reactions while being funny, absurd, heartwarming, cruel, violent, and, of course, titillate with sex.
    

    "City" is about the successful and often troubled men and women who want to be together but often they aren't for some reason.  The show allows audiences at home to observe the inner workings in City Hall and administration of Big City services from their seats of virtue, righteousness or apathy without feeling too guilty; it shows them what actually goes on and why.  They may remain righteous or virtuous, but also understand why characters in these positions behave as they do.  Similarly, the show's content does not indict the political system.  It merely shows people in the system pushing the limits of decent behavior—or worse—and people often being pushed to the limits of their own integrity.
 

    This is an ideal setting for a long-running TV series with such a diversified group of characters that virtually any plot or series of situations may be developed. Heroes are born, and fail; good guys become bad guys and vice-versa.  And back again.  Naturally all the characters have the innate potential to behave very well or not, and the antagonists win over the audience's sympathy in certain ways; the protagonists lose our sympathy sometimes.  The cast and setting leave much room for exploring the depths of personality and motivations where there is often a great deal at stake. 
 

SCRIPT SUMMARY TREATMENT

    Besides the normal indictments, corruption and waste problems besetting an average big city, the main conflict is over a referendum to abolish this City as an entity, and incorporate its territory and government with the surrounding County.  This movement is led by an activist named Jacqueline Irbe who opposes and debates the incoming Mayor Leo Fick on the issue.  In his administration the new mayor is ably assisted by his oldest and most trusted friend, City Attorney Louise Echeverri, and by ambitious young City Manager Adam Tillerman, and by appealing but inexperienced Press Secretary Debbie Wills. 

Episode One/Pilot: "Dash For The Cash"

Incoming Mayor Fick and his inexperienced staff face the daunting strain of salvaging a major resort city from a plague of scandals and bankruptcy. Act One rips back the lid as Fick’s appealing press secretary Debbie Wills fends off questions from the media about the citywide garbage crisis when her new lover, a TV news anchor, shoots her live on camera! The domestic violence spilling over into the workplace presents an assortment of juicy personalities whose lives and loves are entwined with the community through various City Hall departments. Leads include perky and devious Human Resources Director Barb Shumway wielding insider power with precision stealth, näive Social Service Director Michelle Dagseth battling on behalf of struggling residents against the likes of callous Commissioner Halsey, known for exercising expert control over his enemies or winning them over to his side! And most everyone in City Hall is opposed by Halsey’s crusading ex-wife Attorney Jackie Irbè, dedicated to throwing out the city’s charter and badly functioning infrastructure in favor of "progressive conservative" government. The splintering climax occurs when an armored car careens off an elevated freeway, dumping 4 million dollars cash into one of the city’s most downtrodden neighborhoods!

    Also taking a new position with the City is the Director of the troubled network of Community Social Service Centers, Michelle Dagseth, who arrives at here new job to find herself embroiled in conflicts with the new Mayor and the "old guard" City Commission over using the centers to advance political agendas, or to dismantle them altogether.

    Rounding out the main cast are Martha Dritchman, mentally ill but borderline genius who works at the City Hall concession/newsstand alongside Jerry Lopez, an older legally blind man.

    Michelle strikes up an immediate friendship with petite Barb Shumway, the city's early-40's Personnel Director.  In the evening they meet at a male strip club and at the same time as they are leaving the club, a special televised debate between Mayor Fick and Jackie Irbe is taking place over the fate of the city, and, also, an armored car is flipping over on a highway ramp near City Hall's poor surrounding neighborhoods, spilling out over four million dollars in cash and food stamps.  In seconds, mobs of people descend on the scene.

    Martha Dritchman and Jerry both residents of the poor, upturned neighborhood are involved immediately:  Martha is almost killed by the armored car crash and in the chaos following the money spill, while legally blind Jerry accidentally stumbles on a sack of money which he takes back to his apartment.  Louise the City Attorney, and Adam the City Manager, react to the emergency by pleading with the mobs to return money, and offering amnesty and compensation.  The debate is stopped midway and the Mayor comes to the scene by helicopter. 

    Jerry, unable to discern the denomination of the bills, goes back out into the street racked by conflict and confusion.  He runs into Martha who reluctantly agrees to go back to his apartment.  When she sees the sack of money she panics as she imagines he will now kill her if she tells him it is a sack full of hundreds.

    After being stuck in the traffic jam caused by the spill on their way home from the male strip club, adventurous Barb and Michelle follow the crowds to the scene on foot.  Barb recognizes Jerry's apartment address from personnel files and she thinks to check in on him.  They come upon the terrified Martha and desperate Jerry while he is resolving whether or not to return the money or use it for an experimental operation to restore his sight.  Through a series of reinforcing incidents between all four of them which cannot be avoided, the natural resolution is reached and Jerry and Martha are hailed as role models and heroes of the City's new administration.

    Additional plot twists, discoveries and relationships to be fully explored in succeeding episodes, are foreshadowed and integrated in this initial episode -- "Dash For The Cash".

Competition

    At present this series idea has no competition in the TV marketplace, and appeals to a majority of the population who may or not care about politics and social issues but do care about relationships between people, even though the backdrops for the relationships and the situations are often borne out of the politics and social issues.  This format follows the successful tradition of "Hill Street Blues." And, with good amounts of provocative sexual content it treads a risque edge.