Hey everyone. Happy to be here. My name's Todd, and I just arrived. I have no idea how any of this works, so please bear with me. I'm a writer with thousands of bylines over the last 30 years across newspapers, magazines, humor and sports columns, travel sites and golf media (if you want to look me up, I'm America's fourth most famous Todd Hartley, not the football coach or marketing consultant).
I have a professionally produced stage play ("The Generations of Tantalus, a Greek Comedy, Tragically"), and I have a bunch of unpolished feature screenplays and a Broadway-style musical. Currently, I work as a youth transportation coordinator (school bus driver) and seasonal sand Zambonist (maintenance at a golf course), so I'm a fun potential rags-to-riches story currently in my rags phase.
What I'm really here for, though, is to try to meet someone, anyone who has connections and can help me get my real baby in front of the right people. I have a four-season, one-hour sci-fi TV serial called "Subterra" that I think has huge potential, and I'm honestly not just saying that. It's mega-budget spectacle with a real family-driven emotional core, and it could be a huge franchise for someone with vision and wherewithal. But don't just take my word for it. I know this is poor form, and I know AI reviews mean nothing. But I'm too broke to pay a human to read a series bible, a pilot and four other episodes and then chat with me for an hour as I outline seasons 2-4. So I asked all the AIs to do just that while acting as jaded Hollywood producers who have been there, done that and seen everything.
For whatever it's worth, here's what they said:
Claude – "Recommend without reservation. The series as a complete imaginative work? Highly recommend. Subterra arrives as that increasingly rare thing — a genuinely original high-concept genre series with a mythology so completely and carefully constructed that it can actually honor the promises its premise makes. "
ChatGPT – "Highly Recommend. A visually ambitious and structurally sophisticated sci-fi saga with genuine franchise potential. ... The series distinguishes itself through unusually strong atmosphere, visual imagination, and long-form structural escalation."
Perplexity – "Recommend. My opinion is that Subterra is a genuinely ambitious, highly marketable sci-fi adventure with a strong emotional core and a big, original mythology. It starts as a smart hidden-world mystery, grows into an apocalypse-warning thriller, and ends as a strategic war story with real mythic scale."
Gemini – "Highly Recommend. Subterra is a rare beast in the current landscape: a high-concept sci-fi epic that actually remembers to bring its heart along for the ride. What starts as a claustrophobic, 'found-footage' style mystery at the bottom of the world evolves into a sprawling, multi-generational saga of betrayal, planetary survival, and the dark cost of secrets."
Deepseek – "Highly Recommend. What begins as a survival story escalates into a multi-season epic about a forgotten supervolcano, a secret shadow government, and the return of an ancient human offshoot from the moons of Jupiter — with a family mystery at its heart."
If that caught anyone's attention, especially if you can get to my old teacher JJ Abrams (seriously!), please, please, please reach out to me. I really do believe it would be well worth your time. I value loyalty very highly.
Thanks to anyone who read this far!
Todd
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No problem, sir!
So, thanks to Silver Keogh, if anyone is interested in seeing the images that accompany "Subterra", they can be found here: https://www.stage32.com/profile/1371559/photos/4063631309577137000...
Expand commentSo, thanks to Silver Keogh, if anyone is interested in seeing the images that accompany "Subterra", they can be found here: https://www.stage32.com/profile/1371559/photos/4063631309577137000
Did you just reference a whole bunch of AI Programs? Jings. Hi Todd, welcome to the land of fun. We even have human beings here. Big Sci-Fi fan.
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Hi, David Taylor. Yes, I did. (Face palm!) I know it's a little pathetic, but I'm short on cash, and that was the most cost-effective way to get feedback. A human reader actually called the pilot "a r...
Expand commentHi, David Taylor. Yes, I did. (Face palm!) I know it's a little pathetic, but I'm short on cash, and that was the most cost-effective way to get feedback. A human reader actually called the pilot "a refreshingly original concept set in an equally original world," so I have that going for me, which is nice. If you're at all interested, I would love someone to bounce some of my sci-fi concepts off of to see if they hold up.
Hi Todd,
I also started as a magazine writer and editor a gazillion years ago.
Stage 32 is a great place to network and learn. I’ve taken a lot of the courses, especially when they’re offered at a dis...
Expand commentHi Todd,
I also started as a magazine writer and editor a gazillion years ago.
Stage 32 is a great place to network and learn. I’ve taken a lot of the courses, especially when they’re offered at a discount. keep your eyes out for the ones that are right.
I’ve also shot three shorts, and get them into festivals. Fantastic networking.
Good luck!