I haven't talked a lot about Jeremiah here because, basically, I haven't had
time to put my thoughts together due to the rigors of actually *making* the
thing. But we're now closing in on the premiere, and I figured this might be a
good time to start laying out some of the information. (This will, however, be
kinda brief because I'm fighting a bit of a fever and intend to go lay down
after this.)

The Showtime series tracks the aftermath of the Big Death, which wiped out
roughly six billion people, anyone over the age of puberty. It's now 15 years
later, and people have been ridinng on the ashes of the old world for the most
part, the available resources slowly declining and running out. It's a moment
of transition: either the decline continues, or now that they are adults,
people start to rebuild a new world out of the ashes of the old one. The
question is what shape will that world take, and who gets to choose?

Our lead character, Jeremiah (Luke Perry) is a wanderer, trying to find out
what happened to his father, who disappeared during the last days of the Big
Death while en route to a locale specified only as Valhalla Sector. He wants
to find out the end of the story. Along the way, he encounters our other lead,
Kurdy (Malcolm Jamal-Warner), also a drifter, and the two are thrown together
by circumstance into a duo. The two-hour premiere follows their lives, the
dangers they encounter, establishes the world of our series, and sets the stage
for a new dawn.

Basically, I wanted to do a post-apocalyptic series that wasn't all darkness
and grimness...I wanted to tell a story about hope, that this isn't about
endings, it's about beginnings. When the Black Death hit, lots of people
thought it was the end of the world. It wasn't. What followed the Black Death
was the Renaissance, a new beginning, as our characters face a new beginning.

Here's the airdate schedule for the first batch of episodes that appear on
Showtime, with writing credits. (se is sam egan, jms is, well, if you don't
know by now....)

3/3 "The Long Road" (two-hour pilot, introducing the world and our
characters, jms)

3/15 "Man of Iron, Woman Under Glass" (a somewhat fanciful tale of a guy who
grew up after the Big Death believing that some day the super heroes he read
about as a kid would come back and fix things...and a tale of a most unusual
romance between another of our main characters -- Marcus Alexander, head of
what was once the NORAD Thunder Mountain complex -- and a woman whose existence
has been kept secret from everyone for years. jms)

3/22 "And the Ground, Sown with Salt" (what happens when, after the Big D, a
group moved into an abandoned Air Force base and decided to use those resources
for their own destructive aims. a very intense episode guest starring Jason
Priestley. jms)

3/29 "To Sail Among the Stars" (a young woman has been stealing whatever gas
can be found here and there because she intends to be the first one to sail
(with backup gas engines) beyond the horizon since the Big D to find out what
happened on the other side of the world. Guest starring Melissa Creider. jms)

4/5 "The Bag" (the son of a medical doctor has set up what may turn out to
be a dubious medical practice of his own, traveling with his brother from town
to town and exploiting people...and finds that his past catches up with him.
Guest starring Jake Busey. se)

4/12 "City of Roses" (jeremiah and kurdy travel in search of more information
on the Big Death and Valhalla Sector, and along the way discover some
potentially dark secrets about the fate of Kurdy's parents in the last days of
the Big D. se)

4/19 "Firewall" (a mid-season turning point for our characters as we learn
something of vital importance about Valhalla Sector, and Markus has to make a
decision that could lead to any number of deaths. Guest starring Michael
Rooker. jms)

The goal is to run the show straight through without reruns. The remaining
titles to this point, not yet organized by airdate, are:

The Red Kiss (se)
Journeys End in Lovers Meeting (jms)
Tripwire (jms)
Thieves Honor (se)
Mother of Invention (sara barnes/al katz)
Ring of Truth (se)
Things Left Unsaid, Part One (jms)*
Things Left Unsaid, Part Two (jms)*

The remaining episodes haven't been titled yet.

(Our two-part season finale which we're shooting early to allow for post work.)

The show is often a bit of a romance, there's lots of humor, lots of action,
there's an overarching mystery and an arc to it...it is, at times, oddly a show
about small victories and gemstones found amid gravel. I can't think of any
other series quite like it in tone and attitude and look and design. It's
allowed me to do some things, and write some stories, I could never get on
broadcast TV in a million years, particularly "And the Ground, Sown with Salt."
I'm quite proud and pleased with it, and I think it's worth checking out.

You can keep up with information at:

www.jeremiah.tv

and at:

http://www.mgm.com/scifi/index2.html

(The latter has the transcript of a relatively nutso appearance done by Luke,
Malcolm and me for the Television Critics Association meeting held in Pasadena
a few weeks back.)

Anyway, that's all for now. More later....

jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2001 by synthetic worlds, ltd.,
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine
and don't send me story ideas)