Triumphs of the Starship Roach

       Triumphs of the Starship Roach

          Outline for a video series

          This is a space epic with a twist; the ship and crew never survive the episode! Both are always destroyed, every single episode; then next episode they reappear, calm and unexplained. Sometimes they refer to their previous ‘successes’.

Or perhaps ship and crew are (unknown to them) replicated anew each show, during the opening credits.

          Each episode is framed by insurance investigators discussing the disaster, seeking blame, always finding it, usually unfairly.

          Sometimes hostile aliens destroy them, sometimes natural forces, plague, malfunction, sabotage, insanity or mutiny; the SS Roach gets it every which way.

          The crew includes: egomaniacal captain; psycho jarhead gunner; creepy headshrinker; mousy navigator; semiautistic engineer; senile drunken doctor; bimbo first mate; needy annoying cadet. Each character is responsible for destroying the ship in at least one episode.

          Some episodes the crew sacrifices themselves in battle or rescue. Sometimes they succeed, and are heroes; sometimes they fail or make things worse.

          Visiting redshirts, old friends of crewmen, guests played by famous actors, etc., are always the sole survivors. “And I alone am escaped to tell you.”

          Sometimes the malfunctioning ship, with all aboard dead, dutifully docks itself at port; then is condemned and towed into the nearest star.