A proof of concept for a TV show I tried to make.

but first a little story about an idea and how it evolves over time.

A long time ago, I was watching an episode of the original Star Trek, where Scotty gets “possessed” and murders a coworker. Watching the episode, all I could think was “how’s the rest of the crew feeling right about now?” I mean Scotty went right back to work, like all he had was a stomach flu. At least one person on the Enterprise had to be thinking, “I get that he’s Kirk’s buddy and he was possessed but that dude killed Karen?! She owed me money from the fantasy pool.”

Watching a lot of those old episodes, it’s hard not to wonder what the rest of the crew thinks about this militarized “peace mission” that seems to mostly consist of the captain hooking up with space ladies, while everyone else dies.

A part of me thought it’d be cool to take old Star Trek episodes and add new footage of these crew members reacting to Kirk’s bad managerial skills. There was an episode of Deep Space Nine that had done a similar thing.

I tried pitching the idea, which at the time was called Redshirts and was told no. Stubbornly, I thought the idea could work and kept trying. The lives of the crew on a starship is an idea that a lot of people have wanted to explore. In the 70’s Buck Henry made Quark. The It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia folks had a pilot called Boldly Going Nowhere. Then John Scalzi wrote a book called Redshirts, which got optioned for a miniseries and I was like “shit, I’ve got to figure out something to make this idea feel different... I know! Puppets.”

Puppets and focusing on what makes the idealized 1960’s future of a Star Trek-like world so ridiculous to me: white supremacy still exists for Earthlings. A white guy with green blood is second in command while Uhura and Sulu just answer the phone and drive the crew around like a fancy space chauffeur. This became Yellowbellies.

Sometimes you have an idea floating in your brain.

And it stays with you.

And stays with you.

until one day, you finally say…

fuck it. I’m gonna try anyway.

That’s what this was.

it was a blast to make and i’m grateful to everyone who helped bring this silly earworm of an idea to life. who knows, maybe one day somebody will ask us to make more… and pay us too.