[PTA] Eat at Joe's - Pilot Episode

[Keith Sears]

Scene One

Space.

To the strains of Also Sprach Zarathustra a large, looming object enters from the top of the screen and blacks out the stars. A thrumming sound swells, almost drowinng out the music. The camera pulls away, revealing the object to be a large ship. An air hom blasts and the camera shifts, showing the cab of the interstellar truck.

As the truck passes by a sign floating on a buoy in space, the camera closes in on it,.It says:

EAT AT JOE'S
Cafe        Fuel
Only Apple Pie
In the Sector

The truck flies on, swooping down to the fueling platform of JOE'S. The ATTENDANT waves the truck in using a pair of flashlights to guide the truck in. However, the truck comes in too low, and the ATTENDANT is squished beneath it. After the truck passes, he can be seen spread out like a pancake on the tarmac. He pulls himself off the surface and shakes himself into three-dimensionality again. He goes to the truck's fueling valve and begins to fill it.

Inside the cab, an OLD TRUCKER turns to the HITCHHIKER and says, "Well, young feller, this is where we part ways. I'm on my way to the fringe and that's no place fer someone as young as you." The young HITCHHIKER, clad in a woolen stocking cap and an overcoat, steps out of the cab and onto the tarmac, facing the run-down cafe of JOE'S.

[Keith Sears]

Sorry that I couldn't get more in tonight. More scenes are coming soon!

[Mike Holmes]

Egads, it's Quark, but it doesn't move!

http://www.jumptheshark.com/q/quark.htm

Mike

[Keith Sears]

Scene Two

The Interior of Joes- Night. (Its' always night in space.)

It's the lunchtime rush, and TRACY the waitress is trying to keep up with the demand, but some customers are getting the wrong orders, and others are getting impatient. A tentacle slithers out of one of the enviromental booths and gives her a pinch on the butt. Whats' worse is that it's Review Day for this month, and the MANAGER is there watching the.whole thing. The MANAGER is a hard-looking man with the build of a football player and whose starched white shirt wouldn't dare to wrinkle.

The phone rings and she sweeps over to pick it up, accidentally leaving a large gelatin dessert on the edge of the counter. It begins to fall, but the smelly drunk, OLD BEN gestures toward it. The dessert untips and obediently slides itself safely onto the counter. Strangely, nobody seems to notice this. TRACY picks up the phone, saying "Hello, Joe's. Can you hold, please?" Without waiting for an answer, she puts the phone down on the counter with the Hold light flashing. A faint "Mom?" can be heard before it's swallowed by the din of the lunchtime crowd.

NOTES: Since this was a Pilot Episode and no one was in the spotlight, Gabrielle, who was on my left, was the first one to suggest a scene. Gaby was the HITCHHIKER in the previous scene, and she thought it was best to shift the attention away from herself so that TRACY could be introduced into the story. This was our first real step in an actual scene suggestion, so it was a bit rough, but things became easier as the game progressed.

Crystal brought a Conflict into this scene, between her protagonist TRACY and the MANAGER, an NPC. The stakes were, "To have TRACY rise above the craziness so she can impress the MANAGER." She pulled out two cards for her Screen Presence and made use of her contact, OLD BEN.  I pulled out my free card and spent 2 points of budget so we both had 3 cards apiece. She won the Conflict and the Authority. OLD BEN saved TRACY's hash (gelatin, actually) with a variant on the Jedi Lightsaber Retrieval Trick.

The MANAGER is the type of boss everybody hates - concerned only with the effiency and profit margin of the business, and if he can improve either one by stepping on an employee, he will. Fortunately, we agreed in the series creation that this would be this character's only appearance in the series. The cast is supposed to be the night shift of Joe's, and the MANAGER considers himself too important to keep an eye on them except on Review Day. The character would only appear in Post-it notes later in the series.

The phone on hold was supposed to be a gag that was supposed to run throughout the episode with TRACY remembering the call and then trying to pick it up and then getting distracted by another near-disaster, but the gag was actually dropped until the payoff near the end of the episode. Oh well, dying is easy... comedy is hard.

[Keith Sears]

Egads, it's Quark, but it doesn't move!

http://www.jumptheshark.com/q/quark.htm

I guess you could say that. I remember watching the show's short run back when I was a teenager. However, I'm a bit more influenced by Red Dwarf. Cowboy Be-Bop, and maybe just a touch of Doctor Who.

[Keith Sears]

Scene Three

Location: Interior of Joe's

A close shot of the bottom of the front door as it opens and a pair of boots walk into the room. (Just like how Mad Max is introduced in all of his his movies.) The image is tough, commanding. The moment is lost as one of the boots lifts up and scratches its wearer behind the calf. The camera travels up the policeman's uniform to reveal the bland face of HARVEY PICCOLO, a Sheriff's Deputy that looks like Barney Fife and Enis had a love child.

HARVEY swaggers (at least he thinks he's swaggering) to the kitchen entrance and greets the COOK. The COOK grunts a greeting in turn and HARVEY launches into a long story about a guy that had pulled over for some minor violation and the guy drove off. While he does this, what the COOK is doing to prepare the food is much more interesting. Disgusting-looking things are added to soup. Some of those things try to crawl out of the soup.  He gets a meat cleaver and threatens the things with it. HARRY finishes his story and looks around the diner to see how much attentioin he's garnered from the room. All you can hear is a cricket. He accidently knocks over a cup of coffee on the floor and THEN everybody in the room pays attention, clapping and whistling.

NOTES:

HARVEY's issue is "Respect & Being Taken Seriously." Natually, this scene also involved a Conflict where HARVEY tried to get some attention using his "loveable fumbler" trait. It didn't work, and pricked a hole in the balloon HARVEY tried to bulid with his story.