No Smoke without a fire

By Caitlin McNamee

A proposal for a teen horror TV series

A group of five young people (ranging in ages from 17 – 23) set out to prevent a pharmaceutical company creating an apocalyptic world. However, the south of England is already in this apocalyptic state so they must fight their way through the chaos and assist small areas into creating some form of order. But can they survive the trials of life on top of the Cotard Race hunting them down?

Plot

Back in the 1990s Artemis Pharmaceuticals released several bad batches of the birth control pill that not only didn’t work as a form of birth control, but caused the foetuses to develop a fault. About 30% of the women who gave birth to their children developed Cotard Syndrome in their post-natal years. Any of the grown children born under this pill began to act out violently as they reached the end of puberty. It was caused by chemical engineering to create a new hormone. The children born with this hormone became crazed and killed people in the most psychotic manner, also finding the urge to spread their disease. It can be spread through bodily fluids however blood is the most effective so the “Cotard Race” (as they were dubbed) would often force their blood into contact with others by bleeding into another’s wound, mouth, or by blood transfusion.

Before the beginning of the apocalypse, an employee at Artemis discovers the truth about some recent peculiar deaths and once the outbreak is in full swing, there is fear of the pharmaceutical company planning more devastation on a worldwide scale; their aim being to, not only make a lot of money from later developing a vaccine, but also kill much of the world’s population on the east side of the Atlantic.

Characters

The Protagonists• Ethan (23)• Lisa (22)• Drake (17)• Pari (17)• Vicki (19)

The Antagonists • Cornelia (29)• Deborah (51)• Felix (31)• Matthias (61)

Ethan is good with guns, he’s from a wealthy family in Oxfordshire and is acquired to the skills of hunting. He’d travelled down to South London to visit an old school friend but got stuck there as his friend (an employee at Artemis) was murdered and the Cotardoutbreak began.

Lisa is a natural born leader as well as trustworthy and intuitive. The small gathering of youths who have become accustomed to her presence follow her command. However she is open minded and takes other’s skills, experiences, and opinions into account.

Drake, who is Lisa’s cousin, practices Wicca and helps the gang by coming up with spells to assist them in situations by blessing things, cursing others, cleansing spells, dispelling, health spells, protection, and other spells. He is also knowledgeable on alternative medical methods.

Before the apocalypse, Pari enjoyed reading and throwing tea parties and dinner parties, cooking everything herself. Now she must put those skills to use by using the knowledge she retained from the many books she covered and being creative with making meals from the little rations and foraged food they have.

Vicki loves science. She is good with technology and she has the same creative mind as many inventors, envisioning everyday objects into life saving contraptions.

Cornelia may appear to just be the secretary for Deborah and Matthias but she is a lot more dangerous than that.Not only is she protecting the company, but she is worming her way into the personal lives of the people at the top. She’s playing for her father’s love after discovering she’s the illegitimate child of Matthias.

Deborah is the director of Biochemistry at Artemis and is far more interested in playing the people around her and doing as she pleases than using her scientific knowledge for any good.

Felix is simply the spoilt son of the CEO. At least that is how he first appears. In actual fact he is very conflicted. He wants the power of taking over the world but is sure the company has gone about it the wrong way. He is also afraid he will lose his right to such a reputable company.

Nothing is enough for Matthias. Everyone disappoints him, even his son, and that was his motive behind it all. To get rid of people and rule the ones who are left, control them. But like everyone who does evil things, he is not inherently evil.

COMPARABLESUtopia:

Much of the plot I created is comparable to Utopia. Both plots are focused around a morally grey plan to lessen the world’s population through medical means. Furthermore many of the characters are also morally grey in that the protagonists are not entirely good and the antagonists are not entirely evil – this being a common factor of both Utopia and No Smoke Without a Fire.

COMPARABLESSupernatural (2.09 “Croatoan”, 5.04 “The End”): These two episodes focus on a demon virus that attacks the blood of it’s victims and causes them thirst for murder. However some of the infected instead go around spreading their infection through blood on blood contact. This virus is of course very similar to the one I created for No Smoke Without a Fire, one of the main differences being how it appeared and then began to spread.

COMPARABLESHannibal (1.10 Buffet Froid):

This episode brings to light a mental illness called Cotard Syndrome. One of the characters believes she is dead and is driven mad by this, therefore she kills out of fear. In No Smoke Without a Fire, I took inspiration from this so that some of the mothers affected by the birth control pill developed this illness because it seemed like an interesting aspect to introduce to the plot.

COMPARABLESIn The Flesh:

This show is comparable to my own in the sense that two key groups are formed. No Smoke Without a Fire has the main protagonists in one group who are fighting against the Cotards; these relate to the Human Volunteer Force from In The Flesh who fight against the “rotters”. However the Human Volunteer Force are the antagonists of In The Flesh.

The antagonists of No Smoke Without a Fire form a small group similar to that of the Undead Liberation Army from In The Flesh. Both of these groups use dangerous forces (Cotards/”Rotters”) to fight their causes.

COMPARABLESOrphan Black:

The similarities between these two shows are more on the scientific side, both of which feature secret biological experiments which may or may not have gone wrong.