A TV drama that is broadcast on three or more TV channels simultaneously but from different viewpoints. In the UK we have Casualty and Holby City, which are set in different departments of the same hospital and do, occasionally, share some characters but they are shown on the same channel on different nights and have non-intersecting storylines. What I propose is that each channel weaves a storyline of its own but that all the channels in the set share a restricted geographical environment and a common pool of actors. Thus you might be watching BBC1 (in the UK) and a particular actor exits the scene. You can quickly flip to BBC2 and you will see him coming into the next scene, where he might only have an incidental relationship to the storyline. Then again he might get caught up in a whole sub plot that the characters (and the audience) over on BBC1 aren't even aware of.
Obviously digital TV is the only medium likely to offer enough bandwidth to make this possible but in my ideal world all TV shows are linked up into a gigantic TV-space. You might be watching a sitcom on channel 3 and in the background you hear a police siren. Flick to channel 54 and there is the police car in pursuit of a fellon. During the chase, the car forces another car to swerve and crash. Flick to channel 106 to watch the occupants as paramedics arrive on scene to treat them. Then stay with the paramedics on their next emergency or switch to channel 628 to watch the crash victims in hospital. Or to channel 1079 to see the lawyers prepare a law suit for medical malpractise. Or to channel 85731 to see the sister of one of the victims in bed with the victim's spouse when the phone rings to tell them of the accident. Or back to channel 3, where one of the sitcom characters (who drives a tow truck) has to go and remove the wreck from the street - with hilarious consequences.
And before anyone says "Baked: the Tennants Xtravision advert from a few years back", I know, that was my inspiration.-- gravelpit, Aug 07 2001 First Person Multiple http://www.halfbake...20person_20multipleA similar idea for movies. [jutta, Aug 07 2001] Cool. I had a similar idea a while back for doing a tv version of Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius books. The show wouldn't actually have its own slot, but the Cornelius family would move into Albert Square, Frank would show up as a villain on The Bill, Jerry's exploits would lead to all those disasters that produce victims for Casualty, etc., etc.. Gradually, Moorcock's whacked-out vision would subtly permeate all those otherwise-banal (melo)drama shows.
BTW: Isn't this idea baked with Grange Hill and Eastenders (except for the characters changing their names between shows just to confuse us)?-- Guy Fox, Aug 07 2001 This occasionally happens in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel series. They have cross-over episodes where characters from one appear in the other, but there was also an occasion where Buffy's phone rang and no-one was there when she answered it. The following (and contemporary) episode of Angel showed him phoning someone and hanging up when the call was answered.-- angel, Aug 07 2001 Ah, but Buffy and Angel weren't on at the same time so you couldn't directly switch over after seeing Angel dial to seeing Buffy pick up, and then back again to see Angel hang up.
That's probably a good thing actually as they're both great programmes and I wouldn't want to have to miss either of them by them being on at the same time.-- CoolerKing, Aug 07 2001 alan ayckbourn wrote a play called 'house and garden' which takes place on two stages simultaneously with actors exiting the stage and going straight onto the other one (needs a mutli stage theatre of course). The story(ies) are about a village fete with common characters in both: 'house' is about the goings-on in the large manor house, whilst 'garden' is about the minions in the village setting up the fete. This was on at my local theatre and we saw 'house' one weekend and 'garden' the following weekend. recommended-- jades, Aug 07 2001 There was an experimental dutch tv show a few years ago that was a litteral adaptation of your idea, but only on two channels. I'm sorry I can't supply any detail, but I'll try to find out. (Plus I know of a showing of Warhol's movie 'Sleep', where the movie's lenght was cut in half and the 1st and 2nd half where shown simultaniously to save time)-- erwin, Aug 07 2001 random, halfbakery