By Pentadact

I don’t usually do the link-someone-else’s-entry thing, but this is from a blog you probably don’t read, relates to a previous James post, and is easily geeky enough to inspire a response post from me. Venusberg, amused by Grey’s Anatomy’s contrast with its namesake, suggests other possible science-themed series with a keen commercial instinct:

Hooke’s Law: John Hooke is a tough New York detective. To keep the peace, he’s not afraid to stretch the law. Sometimes the strain gets to him… but it’s always proportional to the stress of the job.

I suggest:

Turing’s Test: Alan ‘Jack Johnson’ Turing is a grizzled alcoholic PI in a near-future dystopia. Earth is being taken over by android replicants, but only Alan can tell them from humans. Now he must take his test straight to the top: the President of the United States. Of Robots.

Socrates’ Method: John ‘Jack’ Plato narrates the story of the greatest negotiator who ever lived: Jack ‘John’ Socrates. By a interminable series of increasingly irritating questions, John could talk any hostage-taker, roof-jumper or bomb-wearer out of their intended course of action, and into kicking him in the neck.

Heisenberg’s Principles: Werner ‘Ice’ Heisenberg is a master car thief specialising in locating and obtaining landspeed-record-breaking vehicles for eccentric millionaires. On his last job before retirement to the Bahamas, his best friend (Niels ‘Interesting’ Bohr) turns him in. The arresting officer (Detective ‘Determinist’ Einstein) is derisive of Werner’s maverick methods, but has no choice but to offer him a deal: a dangerous street gang have stolen the five fastest cars in the world, and only Werner can work out where they are. To within (Planck’s constant / 4Ï€) of the standard deviation.

I found Venusberg’s blog when one of my screenshots on Flickr suddenly started getting a lot of hits. I traced them back like some kind of cyber detective, to a Venusberg post questioning the virtue of ragdoll physics when it allows for travesties against man and god such as the one I had created. It was the start of a beautiful friendship.