“CITY”
Genre: One Hour TV Series, set in Big City Hall, Pilot
Logline: Juicy personalities are entwined with the community through the many departments of City Hall, and they face the daunting strain of salvaging a rundown resort city from a plague of scandals and bankruptcy.
Quick Pitch
Episode One (Pilot):
“Dash for the Cash”
Incoming Mayor Leo Fick and his inexperienced staff face the daunting strain of salvaging a major resort city. 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 into the workplace presents an assortment of juicy personalities whose lives and loves are entwined with the community through the various departments of City Hall.
Leads include perky and devious Human Resources Director, Barb Shumway, wielding her insider power with precision stealth, näive Social Services 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, almost everyone in City Hall is opposed by Halsey’s crusading ex-wife, Attorney Joyce Irbè, who is dedicated to throwing out the city’s charter and badly functioning infrastructure in favor of “progressive conservatism.”
The splintering climax occurs when an armored car careens off an elevated freeway ramp, dumping 20 million dollars of cash into the most downtrodden city neighborhood and causing a rampage. Two disabled City Hall workers, blind Jerry and mentally ill Martha, stumble upon bags of large bills and dash off with them, barely reaching their squalid apartment as gangs roam and scattered gunfire pricks the night. Fick and his staff, engaged at the moment in various activities from nightclubbing to sexual fantasies to burning the midnight oil or far off in dreamland, leap into action. Helicopters scour the accident scene with lights and video, promising harsh penalties for looting, and police clash with armed gangs. From the lowest rungs of the city employee ladder on up, the huge crisis could define Fick’s new administration——spiraling fiasco, finest hour, or both.