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Murphys Fall_TV Pilot Pitch Packet

Jan 24, 2016

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Brian Martin

TV pitch proposal for "Murphy's Fall" by Brian Michael Martin.
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MURPHY'SF

A

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Murphy's Fall is a half-hour dramedy (Weeds,Hung, Californication, Entourage, Dream On) aboutthe indomitable power of Murphy's Law:Anything that can go wrong, will!

(Although, thanks to Murphy’s Law, that's not actuallyMurphy’s Law.)

written & created by Brian Michael Martin

LOG LINEWhile rollerblading along Venice beach on his 38th birthday, construction risk manager and residentcurmudgeon Gary Murphy, cursed by a decades-long rut of utter mundanity, falls (literally, figuratively andsemi-tragically) for a young, insanely beautiful TV news reporter, setting in motion a cataclysmic series ofevents that will forever alter the lives of not only Gary and his quirky friends and co-workers from BIG(underwriter to LA’s Subway to the Sea), but the entire populace of the City of Angels.

SYNOPSISIn 1949, Captain John Stapp (considered the Fastest Man Alive due to his exploits on the Gee Whiz, anexperimental rocket sled) credited his team’s safety record to their consideration of Murphy’s Law, named afterArmy engineer, Edward Murphy, who after a botched run in which all the sensors were attached backwardsstated, “Whenever something can go wrong, it will go wrong.” Of course, in keeping with the true meaning ofMurphy’s Law, Stapp misquoted Murphy.

While celebrating his 38th birthday rollerblading alone along Venice beach, Gary Murphy knows this better thanmost. Gary works in construction risk management for huge underwriter BIG in downtown Los Angeles, a landfar far away from his Long Island upbringing. Like most NY transplants, Gary has a love/hate relationship withLA. Though mired in the midst of a 4.5 year relationship drought, Gary gets by on his daily routines: readinghis trusty Atlas on the can, springboard diving at the YMCA alongside an elderly water aerobics class, forcedinto singing Let’s GoMets! by Bagel Man in order to get his Friday morning bagel, lunching with his quirky co-workers, eating takeout dinners in his boxers while flipping channels between ESPN, Classic MTV and oldnature documentaries before pleasuring himself to the local news hottie of the day, and the aforementionedrollerblading on weekends.

As the lead account manager for the Mayor's pet project, the $5 billion Subway to the Sea, Gary processes thelong paper trail left behind by Murphy’s Law in action everyday. In fact, his entire office runs a casualty poolwhere they place bets on how many accidents will happen each week. This exciting moment in their mundaneoffice lives is topped only by the much-anticipated arrival and subsequent feeding frenzy over the latestcollection of grisly accident photos. Yes - life truly is morbid and grand.

Unbeknownst to his co-workers, Gary's been mulling over an offer from Rick at BIG’s NY headquarters thatwould end his dismal run in LA, returning him home to a place filled with bittersweet memories, including theloss of his father who died from a heart attack suffered while watching the TV footage of the attack on the towers.But with Rick and his "A-Team" flying out in a couple of months to turn the LA office's annual family-only picnicinto a no-holds barred East vs. West paintball showdown - Gary's grace period for "the decision" (no caps asto not infringe upon LeBron James) is nearing an end.

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SYNOPSIS (cont.)But everything changes for Gary, his co-workers and friends, and ultimately the entire populace of the City ofAngels on that fateful day at the beach, when Gary falls literally and figuratively (and tragically for oneunfortunate chihuahua off his leash) for Lorelei Bella, a young TV reporter for Action 2 News who put the crazyin crazy beautiful. Driven to make a name for herself as the on-the-scene reporter breaking the latest news onthe LA Freeway Shooter - a vigilante Gary will learn firsthand during the action-packed season finale has adeadly habit of shooting motorists who neglect to use their hands-free headsets (it is the law after all!) - Loreleinever sees Gary coming.

What follows is a fiery, hilarious, sad, oftentimes violent and cringe-worthy tri-polar love affair between man,woman and city that is best described by Edward Murphy himself, “If there’s more than one possible outcometo a job (or relationship), and one of those outcomes will result in disaster, somebody will do it that way.”

SERIES FORMATMurphy'sFall is a half-hour dramedy TV pilot formatted for cable. Season One would be a 13-episode arc looselyadapted from my original feature-length screenplay, but with well-defined bookends giving the plot its focusand structure. If the pilot episode (tentative title:Ownerof aLonelyHeart) is a flicker of light shown on the worldof Gary Murphy and his quirky co-workers at BIG (with a hint of the LA Freeway Shooter and a dash of LoreleiBella to bring Gary to life), Episode Two-Love Is A Battlefield is a 3-Alarm Fire!

Called away from a lunch in which Rita makes fun of Gary's old "brick" cellphone and reveals TMI about hercurrent boyfriend's "anal" tendencies, Gary heads to the Beverly Hills sub-station where a small cave-inprovides another PR setback to the Mayor's $5 billion Subway to the Sea extension. While there, Gary spotsLorelei Bella again, this time reporting from the scene. And once again, some unknown force (loneliness?)switches Gary into hunter-mode, and before you know it he has stalked her to an Albertson's Grocery store.

When he witnesses Lorelei in a heated argument with her ex-boyfriend (former All-American USC tight endFernell Matthews), Gary intercedes like a bull seeing red, smashing a bottle of Ragu and waving it around likea madman. Lorelei play-acts like Gary is her new boyfriend defending her honor. The ex-boyfriend leaves, butnot before warning Gary to do himself a favor and slit his own throat now. Gary faints when he sees a shard ofglass sticking out of his hand as Pat Benatar's Love Is A Battlefield plays over the speakers. By the end of theweek, Lorelei's screams of joy provide a fitting end to Gary's 4.5 year drought, but the next streak that comesto an end could be his life!

In the final two episodes of Season One,Episode 12-Total Eclipse of the Heart andEpisode 13-Two Tribes,BIGNY boss Rick finally arrives in town to bring chaos and ruin to the LA office's annual summer picnic. At Rick'sinsistence, Gary and Lorelei attend dinner with Rick and his "A-Team" at Total Eclipse, a trendy new LArestaurant in which the diners eat in complete darkness. When Lorelei learns about Gary's job offer for the firsttime (a big promotion that would return him to New York), she storms out and leaves. When Gary catches upto her, they have a Fatal Attraction-worthy fight back at her apartment in which she threatens him and thenherself with a gun. It's a fake prop gun, but Gary finally accepts once and for all he's in way over his head withLorelei's mental illness and walks out the door, seemingly for good.

The final episode culminates in not one but two wild west shoot-outs. Exhausted from the previous night'sdebacle that left him with a black eye and a broken heart, Gary turns down Rick's offer, admitting he doesn'twant to leave LA. Surprisingly, Rick offers Uncle Bill's job to Gary instead. Angered by what he perceives asracism or East-coast bias (or both), Gary rallies his co-workers to victory and then promptly quits. On the long

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SERIES FORMAT (cont.)drive home, Gary calls Lorelei and leaves her a message that is rudely interrupted when he is shot by thenotorious LA Freeway Shooter because he wasn't using a hands-free headset (it really is the law, you know.)Gary's beloved "brick" phone saves his life, so take that Rita! While unconscious, Gary has an out-of-bodyexperience (as narrated by Sigourney Weaver's voice-over in the Planet Earth series where she talks aboutwhale falls. Gary's the whale.) When he comes to, Gary chases down the Freeway Shooter and shoots him inthe eye with the paintball gun he forgot to return when he stormed off the field. With the aid of severalconstruction workers he's come to know during the project, Gary then corners the Freeway Shooter on foot inthe Beverly Hills sub-station and with a painful roundhouse punch (sans one finger), ends his rein of terror.

InMurphy's Fall Season Two-Wheel in the Sky: LA survived phase one of the Subway to the Sea, but as phasetwo begins and the press coverage finally dies down for local hero, Gary (of the Nine Fingers), BIG hands Garythe reins to another nightmare account in which a movie-mogul's childhood dream becomes a frighteningreality as construction on the tallest Ferris Wheel in human history begins at the Santa Monica Pier.What could possibly go wrong?

SERIES REGULARSGARY MURPHY: The seemingly cursed hero ofMurphy's Fall is a curmudgeonly 38-year old (and same amountoverweight) fish-out-of-water New Yorker who is unaware he's really a powder keg of repression set to explodeafter decades of setbacks both great (broken neck from high diving accident as teen, loss of father on 9/11 dueto heart attack, death of younger brother during routine Army training accident post-9/11) and small (nogirlfriends or sex for 4.5 years, forced to sing "Let's Go Mets!" for morning bagel, daily life suck that is LA traffic,shy bowels due to location of men's bathroom next to Susan's cubicle.) In Gary's hands, anything that can gowrong usually does.

LORELEI BELLA: Like the beautiful and deadly siren of her namesake, this ambitious 24-year old mixed-raceTV news reporter (making a name for herself as the on-the-scene face of the latest LA Freeway Shooter)becomes Gary’s slump-ending, head-scratching, life-threatening love interest and dramatic catalyst thatpropels Season One ofMurphy'sFall. The LA native is book smart but people naïve, crazy beautiful and sexuallyuninhibited but an undiagnosed bipolar ticking time bomb with mommy (jealous), daddy (prison) and Uncle(abuse) issues. Beware the siren song of Lorelei Bella!

TRAVIS: Gary’s wise-cracking ex-roommate (moved out to move in with fiance Caryn) is a stand-up comedianwho uses Gary as his muse, deriving his best material from the odd mix of mundanity and insanity thatperpetually permeate Gary's life. He's Gary’s best and only friend outside the office, and due to their past co-habitation and shared love of Classic MTV and local news hotties, provides a comedic yet poignant perspectiveon Gary’s twisted trials and tribulations. Despite their friendship, Travis thanks Caryn daily for saving him fromAnother Day in Gary-dise! Be careful what you wish for...

CARYN: Travis's fiance is a funny, sexy Australian-transplant working as a reality game show story producer.She and her friend Angie just pitched "the next big thing" to their boss that could make even Mark Burnett wishhe'd thought of that. She can't talk about it for legal reasons, but tell that to Travis. It's calledWalkAbout, andit's a cross between Survivor and...OUCH! For Gary, Caryn is the promise of hope, having saved a wretch likeTravis. Now if only she'd stop trying to set him up. And stop saying things like cod's wallop! It's hard to beatoff to your best friend's fiance if she keeps dropping Aussie phrases like cod's wallop! Throw another shrimpon the barbie and pass the Vegemite sandwich! (What the hell is Vegemite, anyway?!)

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SERIES REGULARS (cont.)"UNCLE BILL" SANDERSON: Gary's late 50's African-American boss runs BIG's LA office with a fur-lined glove.Fur, because no one would ever suspect this conservative family man and his lovely wife Sandy secretly spendtheir vacations at Furry conventions dressed up in animal costumes, though that would certainly explain thestrange fur-covered chachkies he keeps around his office. And yes, the "Uncle Bill" moniker comes from therunaway hit TV series of the late 60's, Family Affair. Other than the whole furry thing, Bill Sanderson really isthe black Brian Keith.

RITA: Look up "worse than a guy" and "you didnot just go there?!" in the urban dictionary, and you'd find Gary'sfire-cracking, whip-smart, unfiltered potty-mouthed co-worker and nemesis mooning her pretty rock-hard bare-ass right back at you. Rita has no boundaries, but considering her mom is a reformed porn-star who recentlyfound Jesus in hubby number four (an ordained minister) at The Grove, things could be worse. Rita lives to pushGary's buttons, but more often than not he gets the last laugh in their continual game of one-upsmanship. It'soften been said (ok, maybe just once) that "Sam" and "Diane" should just get a room and get it over with already.Only, in this case Sam looks like half-a-Norm and Diane looks like Diane but sounds a helluva lot more like Carla.It's a confusing metaphor, hence the one-time usage.

DENNIS: We all know (or knew) a Dennis. He's that one guy left in the world (or at least LA) who, for whateverreason, hasn't come out of the closet. Because let's face the facts. He's gay. We'd bet our life on it. So what'sthe big deal? It's the year friggin' 2012! If the Mayans have their way, we'll all be dead in a few months, so whythe smoke and mirrors? Must be from a religious midwestern family. But how does that explain all those Priceis Right models he runs around with? Must just be "buds", right? So seriously, let's close the book on this andMoveOn.org already, because we all love Dennis and just want him to be happy. And by happy, we mean gay...

DAWNA: BIG's blind Korean receptionist, who along with her seeing eye dog Henry has her nose in everyone'sbusiness. Literally, in the case of Henry, so guard your crotch at all times or expect a wet willy on your...er, willy.Dawna also handles all the mail. "Fondles" is more like it, as she's always feeling around for the envelopesstuffed with the accident photos. Sure - she's blind. But she kinda gets off on the vivid descriptions and audiblegasps of disgust from her co-workers. Neat lobby trick - Dawna can name that bagel in under three seconds.Just don't expect a free pass if you're trying to sneak any food past Henry. Hope Dawna knows the canineheimlich maneuver.

SUSAN: Frumpy but non-descript Susan takes no part in the weekly ghoul pool or the feeding frenzy aroundthe latest accident photos, nor does she ever go to lunch or happy hour with her co-workers (not that she'sinvited). Her main purpose seems to be as a foil to Gary's shy bowels, due to her proximity to the men'sbathroom. But don't let that fool you. Flying under the radar is often the quickest path to the big corner office.Which would be just fine with Gary as long as he could finally take a nice big dump at work in peace.

RICK PANATALONE: The divorced CEO of BIG NY walks and talks like Tony Soprano, only if Tony wore a three-piece suit and worked out five days a week. Thanks to the Feds and a little embezzlement thing, Rick's A-Teamis down a member, so Rick makes Gary an "offer he can't refuse." For some reason, Gary's dragging his feet.Must need time to clear his head from all that sunshine and smog. But Rick knows it's worth the wait as Gary'sa good dog lacking any upward ambition. Perhaps an East Coast can of whoopass at the LA picnic will do thetrick. Let The Paintball Games begin! (with Gary reprising the role of Katniss Everdeen.)

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