The pitch for Gods of Troy

The events of my life do not seem to be leading to me becoming a major television writer or producer, so I've decided it's safe for me to talk about this idea I've been nurturing for a while. If you are a major television producer, and you'd like to buy my idea, I can be reached via email at my account name (here) at yahoo. :) But really, feel free to use this idea. All I ask is credit for the structural concept and notification that you're doing something with it.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. The pictures below are all, to the best of my knowledge, copyright-free.

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Gods of Troy is a TV series I would love to see. (I'm tempted to write it, since I've got the time on my hands, ...but lets face it, a professional writer would probably do a better job. This is an idea that deserves to be done better than I have the resources to accomplish.)

It would cover the totality of Trojan War myths in 3 seasons. (And I prefer a name like Gods of Illium, or even The Gods of Troad, but I'll concede that the first name I listed is more likely to draw in viewers. Trojan Gods is right out, despite the branding opportunities. *snicker*).

Every major Troy-related myth shows up in the show. This isn't just the Illiad, it's all of the "history" of the Trojan war. Kypria, Illiad, Athiopis, Illiopersis, Odyssey, Telegony, Aeneid, etc.

(Since I've talked about Wilken's before, I should mention this show is in the traditional Greco-inspired mythic setting. It's not about the Celts. The only Wilken's nod would be in making it clear that the Achaeans and Trojans share a common culture and gods.)

The show would be authentic, artsy, and very detailed, in those ways not unlike HBO's Rome. However, in this show, the myths would be reality, or at least have some level of truth, so various creatures and magicks would be shown, and the Gods would play a part. Historically accuracy would be important in as far as costumes, props, and the sort of ways that Peter Jackson's LOTR was "historically" accurate. We show the cultures and the customs accurately and in-depth, but favor myth and drama over exacting realism.

The Gods would be major players. But we'd avoid the cheesy "guy floating in the clouds" and "aged Zeus playing chess with little statues of the heroes" metaphors that were done to death in early films. We want a new angle that sets the show apart. So, the gods are omnipresent, all-pervasive and inscrutable.

The Gods would be shown in every scene. Not every shot, mind you, but their quiet presence would be shown somewhere in every scene. Every act of Heroism or Hubris would have at least one God or Goddess observing it. Unless a character does something to make the gods abandon them, in which case their absence should stand out - so we make the gods a constant presence before that.

The gods are mute. They maneuver against each other, they support various factions, but they do so without spoken words. They stand quietly in shots, observing and silently guiding the action. They kill for their own reasons, which we have to infer from context and action. Despite the major plot points being well-known, this is still a show that requires you to think.

Most mortal characters cannot see them. They do not know if the gods favor them or plan their destruction, but the viewer knows from the Gods silent emoting. Most of the characters must take it on faith. When Aries storms the battlefield, slaughtering soldiers, we learn that a mortal can see the divine in the moment when that God strikes them down.

Near the end of the 3rd season, when Athena appears before Odysseus as a small child, we see the mortal babe walking about lightly and aimlessly. We see Athena come up behind the child. Athena rests a hand on her shoulder, and the child straightens. The child speaks with the voice of the actress playing Athena.

Every episode follows a handful of characters, and the God or Goddess who dictates that portion of their lives and interactions. For the sake of artistic iconography, I'd be tempted to make each episode from the point of view of 2 mortals and 1 divine, but I think that method would sometimes break down. What's important is that the cast be ensemble, with various people getting the spotlight in different episodes. No mortal character appears in every single episode, but a few Gods might.

The stories feature not only established myths, but also new subplots derived from analysis of those myths from the modern lens. For example, if King Priam had 50 sons, what are the implications and impact of that upon Hector and Paris? If Heracles alone had sacked Troy a generation ago, what does this do to the mindset of the Trojans? Exploring such issues allows us to fill out the length of the season, reference lost poems of antiquity, and provide some unexpected turns.

Gods of Troy follows chronological order, more-or-less, but is not a slave to it. Episodes generally espouse a linear chronology, but just because we've seen something that happens in year 9 of the war doesn't mean we can't backtrack for the next episode. This is particularly important because otherwise Odysseus would have too much screen-time in the last half of the last season. Again, this isn't Homer, it's Homer plus all the rest of Trojan Myth.

In my next post I'll detail a brief season synopsis / episode guide.