Idea 1:
Mind Map:
Genre: Crime Drama
Target Audience: 16-30 year olds
Theme: Hacking / Internet / Cyber Crime
Messages: That desperation can send people into a downward spiral of destruction and recklessness, while also giving warning about involving in the dark web and cyber crime.
Representation: The show will represent a range of demographic groups, including upper and lower classes through which the class divide will be represented. The majority of the main characters will be young people, so they will be represented also. The cyber security profession will also be represented as it will play a key part in the show. In terms of gender and race, the characters will lean towards more white men because that would be accurate to the setting, since most of those involved in the IT industry are men and most of the UK populace is white. However, the show would not be without minority representation; there will be female and non-white characters who would be portrayed with no intentional bias.
Storyline:
The main character of the show will be a young man in his 20s who works a junior position at a cyber security company in a UK city. He lives in a small, dank apartment building in a poorer area of the city, surrounded by working class families. He is dissatisfied with his job, frustrated at his employer who refuses to recognise his unused talent.
-Equilibrium: He is working at the company, making just enough money to get by but not enough to move into a better house. He's going out with a girl who lives in a neighbouring apartment, but he is frustrated with how slow the relationship is progressing.
-Disruption: After some time, the frustration eventually boils over into anger directed at his girlfriend, which ends in her wanting nothing to do with him anymore. The next day at work his anger at losing his girlfriend carries over to his boss, resulting in him losing his job as well. He is left without the 2 things fuelling his life.
-Attempt to repair the damage: Back at his apartment, he gathers himself and considers his options, starting by looking for a new job. During this time, he gets the idea to resort to illegal means of making a living, and that idea is solidified after being rejected at an interview. He delves into the dark web and begins to work as a freelance hacker, helping anyone who would pay him.
-New Equilibrium: He has secured a minimum wage job to avoid suspicion while he continues to make a living through the dark web, increasing his fame in the dark web and being commissioned for larger and more serious jobs.
However, as the series progresses and his fame increases, he is pushed into darker and more harmful work, which tests the his morals and conscience. Eventually he decides that he can't bring himself to carry out a job commissioned to him, which results in conflict with the client who is the leader of an online criminal gang. This results in a new cycle of disruption where the main character is now working against the criminal gang who now want to kill him, while still avoiding police detection and continuing to make money from other jobs.
Characters:
Hero - The main character would be the "protagonist" of the series, although he would be more of an antihero due to the harmful nature of his actions. His goal is to restore his personal equilibrium and make enough money to move out to a better house.
Villain - By definition, the villain is the character that the hero works against. In this case, there is no single villain to "defeat", but several characters and organisations who the (anti)hero clashes with. In the beginning, there would be no discernible villain as the hero is not working against anyone in particular. He has nothing against the victims of his hacking activities, and his clients begin as simple small-time criminals. Perhaps there would be minor villains who cross the hero, for example by scamming him out of payment and such. These villains would be resolved over the space of 1-2 episodes. However, a clear villain emerges in the criminal gang that the hero refuses a job from, as they choose to try and hunt the hero down.
Donor - As the hero begins to attain more fame for his expertise, an anonymous party contacts him and warns him about the dangers of what he is doing, and what it could lead to.
Dispatcher - It could be argued that the dispatcher is the hero's need for money, which evolves into a greed fuelled by his desire for recognition of his skills. This is what drives the hero to his actions throughout the series.
Binary Opposition: The hero would be a somewhat middle-ground between other characters that he clashes with. His ex-girlfriend and ex-employer would be on one side of him, who don't recognise his talent and have much more strict views on illegal activity. On the other side of him would be the criminal gang, who are like an extreme version of himself, with no regard for causing massive harm to people and have seemingly no moral boundaries.
This leaves him caught between two opposite sides of life, with him fitting into neither.
Series length:
The series will consist of ~10 episodes, each ~45 minutes long.
Age Rating:
The series would likely be rated 15 due to the harmful nature of some of the hero's actions, as well as heavy use of profanity and threat.
Client Appeal:
I believe that the series would fit BBC3's ethos and style, mostly through the modern theme of technology that the series would be based around. This fits BBC3 because they usually include modern themes that would appeal to the young target audience. The Mostly young main characters also fits BBC3's style since it follows the majority of BBC3's existing content and again appeals to the target audience.
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