ffutures | Imaginary TV series meme

ffutures

The meme goes like this:

Ask and I'll assign you the basis of some show idea.
Create the characters you need, including the actors who'd play them. Photos optional but recommended.
Come up with a general synopsis of the premise.

There have been some wonderful answers, most notably

freifraufischer's Right Place, Wrong Time, in which a time traveller ends up trapped on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall. Includes links to several more of these outlines.
melyanna's No Sheep for You, a New Zealand drama series.
aj's Gotham, basically the Batman saga continuing after Bruce Wayne's death
havocthecat's The Lonely Sky, a space pirate series.

So I thought I'd have a go.

freifraufischer gave me the prompt: Crime Fighting Park Ranger. Setting and time period optional. Since the only Park Ranger I'm even slightly familiar with is the one in Yogi Bear, this has somehow become

Jellystone!

The basic premise for this is a BIG budget live action series suggested very loosely by Yogi Bear. Each episode involves at least one crime, a problem for the team's vet, and some sort of "cute" incident such as a lost child, picnic lunch stolen by bears, etc. However, there is a darker story arc in keeping with modern crime shows such as CSI or Dexter, a conspiracy to destroy the park!

Ranger Smith (Mark Harmon) is a former Navy Seal who has been assigned to the Parks Service to clean up crime-ridden Jellystone, the National Park with the highest crime rate in America; the main crimes he expects to deal with are vehicle thefts, dumping of toxic wastes, and poaching, but several visitors have been raped or murdered by a mysterious group of criminals who seem to be determined to drive visitors from the park. He is always armed, weapons including handguns, knives, TASERs, rifles, etc., and his truck is a travelling armoury, as well as being equipped with state of the art surveillance equipment, night vision goggles, etc. etc.

William Petersen is vet / ecologist Jerry Wolfe, who has a mysterious past and (it is strongly implied) may have been an eco-terrorist in his younger days. Now older and more cynical, he is still passionate about protecting the animals and environment of the Park. He seems to be able to work miracles with the fairly basic veterinary and laboratory equipment supplied by the Parks Service.

Amanda Tapping plays Ranger Jones, a veteran of the Parks Service who is dismayed at the new direction the Rangers are having to take; she is horrified by the violence that has come to the Park, and determined to stamp it out by any means possible. In later episodes, as the threat to the Park becomes clearer and the full extent of the conspiracy becomes apparent, she will start to fight fire with fire, going outside the law to eliminate threats to the park. She's divorced and has two young daughters, who will at various points in the season be endangered by wild animals, forest fire, motorbike gangs, etc. One of them will be kidnapped and buried alive during the February sweeps.

Yogi is the gentle park mascot. He is found killed and brutally mutilated by poachers during the first episode.

Harry Groener is Senator Paul Parton. He pretends to be a "harsh but fair" critic of the Parks Service; however, he is in fact in the pay of the Conspiracy, doing his best to make the park look bad. He will suffer a crisis of conscience but will die in a car bomb explosion before he reveals anything really useful.

Marc Blucas plays billionaire Colin Weber, who wants to harness the immense geothermal energy of the park for pollution-free energy. Since he also owns mining interests etc. and is paranoid about reveling his reasons for being interested in the park he spends much of the first season as the red herring "villain," but becomes Ranger Jones' romantic interest and a staunch ally of the Rangers during the February sweeps.

Matt Frewer and Bruce Campbell play The Caine Brothers, fun-loving sociopaths who are the leaders of the Conspiracy's small army of thugs and poachers. Their mission is to make the park so unpopular that its protected National Park status will be removed. They don't know who they are really working for, all messages are received by untraceable scrambled satellite phone messages with a synthesised voice, but have found ways to profit from the plan by e.g. running drugs and stolen weapons through the park.

Secretary of State Jensen (Kevin Spacey) is head of the Parks Service but also a major stockholder in various mineral companies that would like to strip-mine the park. He's the long term Big Bad, of course, but the Caine Brothers have escalated his scheme much faster than he intended, and are now almost out of control. He needs to cool things in the park, so will appear at first to be an ally of the rangers.

Okay, if anyone wants me to suggest a series please comment below...

later I should maybe mention that I'm generating premise ideas semi-randomly by shutting my eyes and walking towards the book shelves, and seeing which books I touch first.

I've now also seen

irony_rocks seems to have originated this meme with Disavow, a spy series.

djkiwi2576 wrote Lateral Moves, a medical series.

rodlox wrote Time Enough, time travelling cop show.