An Addiction

I'm hoping that, much like getting a song caught in your head, perhaps the best way to get rid of an addiction is to share it with others. Over the last week, I have spent every free moment poring over Shadow Unit, a television show ... well, actually, it's not a television show because there are no actors and there is no filming. It's not really scripts for a television show, either. But it feels like a TV show.

Says the man who does not own a TV.

Let me try again: Shadow Unit is an ongoing series of regularly-released short stories structured in the format of a television show (five acts, continuing characters, self-contained plots plus a seasonal arc) written by Emma Bull, Will Shetterly and Elizabeth Bear. The first season of episodes were released biweekly from February to May last year. I understand that a new season begins next month. There are also "DVD extras" and a novel-length season finale, not to mention character blogs and artwork.

The show follows the members of an elite FBI team who are tasked with protecting the public from the "anomaly", a not-understood mechanism that uses an emotional crisis to take over a human host and turn it into a serial killer – it feeds on pain. To the outside world, these seem like "normal" serial criminals, but the anomaly generally manifests with some extra supernormal skill, like the ability to control radio waves or fire invisible bullets.

It's a bit like a mixture of X-Files and Heroes, with some Dragnet and CSI thrown in for good measure.

I think that one of the fascinating things about this show is the way the team works together and apart. I'm really drawn into the way the team functions as a set of individuals and as a cohesive entity. They are dropped into dangerous situations and rely constantly on each others' special skills and enhance this with strong non-verbal communication during the investigation. The non-verbal communication is a natural manifestation of the training and performance that they've done with each other over and over. They rely and trust each other and know where to turn for what responsibilities, and they know (or are working hard to know) that their skills and actions are understood by their team members. I think I have a little bit of a hero complex that this show feeds, but I want to be on a team of heroes, so I can both rely on someone else's skills to fill the gaps I have and so my ego can be soothed by peers. I want to be on a team like this, don't you?

I'd also like to write stuff like this. Why couldn't we have an entire of network of episodic short fiction? Maybe a couple of westerns, a sit-com or two, a hard-boiled detective show, a quirky British thing. Actually, the options would be limitless without the need for a huge audience or even a technical or acting budget. How would an series about pirates look? Or a regular show about the adventures of a 15th century monk?

What would you want to watch that is never allowed the chance to thrive on "real" TV?