Damian Johnson's

New Adventures of Captain Chair

Damian's sole policy in the Guild Elections 06 was to get a new Captain Chair TV series broadcast. Funded by the University of Birmingham Guild of Students, the new series would feature a Captain ready to face the ordeals of the 21st Century.

the following contains material from the Damian Johnson's New Adventures of Captain Chair series bible

Background

Since the series will be funded by students, it makes sense that the new series have a university setting. Captain Chair and Bridge Girl will be full-time students, who are faced with not only saving the world, but also getting their essays completed on time.

In keeping with the cross-cultural environment at the university, there will be secondary characters covering areas such as, for example, international students, religious groups, LGBT, disabled, mature students, and people with beards. Episodes will be devoted to everyday student issues such as 'I'm failing my course', 'I think I drank a bit too much at the Guild last night', 'whose bed have I just woken up in?' and 'my boyfriend is an evil supervillian intent on taking over the world'.

The new series will sever all connections with the previous incarnations of Captain Chair, which will allow writers to give an updated and fresh perspective to the world of Captain Chair, and giving easy access to new viewers ignorant of Captain Chair's rich, though admitedly complex, history.

The Characters

note: no casting decisions have been made at this stage - in part because of Chris's refusal to wear a wig and stick balloons down his jumper.

Captain Chair

Captain Chair will be a 1st year PhD student, studying some kind of computational science or science in a computational area. This means all the time Cap is not in the office and out saving the world, his supervisor will think he is 'working from home'. Setting Cap as a 1st year will allow final year undergrads insight into life as a postgraduate, and also enable the series to run for a few years before the writers have to worry about what will happen when he finishes his course.

There will be issues for Cap such as 'argh, it was my birthday yesterday, I'm really hungover, and the boss is picking me up in 5 minutes to go to a conference', 'I can't face another hour demonstrating to all these undergrads who keep trying to kill me', and 'I haven't spoken to my boss in the past 6 months - does he actually still exist?'.

Captain Chair's powers will come from accident involving toxic waste, a chair, and a chicken. The chicken has been changed from the original idea of a rat to prevent students in Selly Oak trying to reenact the accident at home. The relevance of the chicken will become apparent over the course of the first series. The result of this exposure will leave Captain Chair with the power to control all chairs, and superhuman strength. He will be armed with a pollaxe because pollaxes are really cool, and Chair Club would kick up a fuss if he didn't have one.

Bridge Girl

In keeping with the times, it is essential to have one of the lead characters as a woman. Changing Captain Chair's gender would be a very radical change and would possibly alienate exiting fans, however since Bridge Boy has changed numerous times over the years, having a Bridge Girl shouldn't be too hard to accept. A future plotline involving Bridge Girl's transformation into Bridge Boy has been suggested and not ruled out...but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Bridge Girl will be a fresher studying geography. The first story arc will focus on her arrival at university, freshers week, and her making new friends. Later episodes will have her facing bullying from her peers along the lines of 'how is the colouring-in course going?', 'are you managing to keep within the lines?', and 'hey, if you get a 1st you might even be able to work for Burger King!'.

The origin of Bridge Girl comes from her being pushed from a bridge into the canal. Since no one is quite sure what is in the canals around Birmingham, it will be quite believable that a girl could get superpowers from being in it. Reenactment of this origin is not an issue as no one is so stupid as to voluntarily jump in the canals of Birmingham. If anyone is that stupid then the human race is better off without them. Bridge Girl will have superstrength, the ability to create warp bridges (because it sounds cool, even if no one knows exactly what they are), and a desire to work hard at her colouring in studies.

Dr. Sabbath

Dr. Sabbath, as ever, will be the main nemesis of the series. His introduction will take place slowly over the course of the first few episodes. He will begin life as a caring senior lecturer, one of those rare types who care as much about teaching as he does about his research. His main research area will be some kind of genetics/radiation/odd science thing - anything that can result in one day there being an accident in the lab, causing large amounts of scaring on his face and an alien symbiont/similar to attach itself to his body and give him superpowers. His reasoning for destroying bridges and wanting to take over the world can be put down to the fact that he is now insane and evil.

Overnight Dr. Sabbath will turn into the lecturer from Hell/Demon Dimension of your chosing. By day, he will set long and difficult question papers for pupils and by night attempt to take over the world. Since most students already think that 99% of lecturers are pure evil, Dr Sabbath will easily be able to hide his true identity from the public.

Presumably the university will want it made clear in the scripts that Dr. Sabbath is the exception to the rule and that most lecturers are pleasant folk with the students best interests at heart.

Note the origin of Dr. Sabbath's name comes from a play on S.A.B. (the Students Against Bridges) and has nothing to do with any religious meaning - a meaning that in the entire history of Chair Club no one managed to spot til the second day of campaigning when I went to get my fliers approved by the PTB.

Theme Tune

At the heart of every classic television show is a catchy theme tune, it is therefore proposed that Mike Post be hired to write it and then have it performed by university students. As a last resort students could write the theme too, however one cannot underestimate the success Post would bring to the show, placing it on a list alongside The A-Team, Magnum P.I., and Quantum Leap.

Benefits

To Students

As discussed above, the welfare benefits to students of Damian Johnson's New Adventures of Captain Chair are obvious. All the problems and issues faces by students, both under- and postgraduate, are faced by Captain Chair and Bridge Girl in every episode. The series will promote understanding and compassion between differing groups - helping build more bridges and less walls. Students will be able to turn to the show for help with housing, courses, exams, etc.

Then there is the entertainment angle. As well as welfare, there will be a large action aspect to the show, drama, humour, and, best of all, people running about with big axes. Safe use of an axe will of course be integral to the show and involve a subplot on how to fill in a risk assessment. In time, Damian Johnson's New Adventures of Captain Chair will take the place of Neighbours as the students's favourite show. You don't get people with big axes in Neighbours.

Of course the show will require a vast amount of extras, all of which will be University of Birmingham students. This will be a great stepping stone for anyone considering a future acting career, one someone who just fancies being on the TV. There will be behind the scenes roles too - everything from directing, to lighting, to camera operating.

And students will get to boast to their friends and family; 'I go to uni where they film Captain Chair'.

To the Guild

The Guild's aim is to 'enhance the student experience'. What could enhance a student's life more than be associated with a successful TV show? Student involvement will be crucial to the success of the show, and since the show aims to cover every aspect of student life, every student society will have input.

Damian Johnson's New Adventures of Captain Chair will enable the Guild to beam its welfare and student support to the home of every student (who has a TV). With weekly plotlines helping students face their difficulties, in time it may even result in the ARC being unused and facing closure - which will in turn provide money to increase the budget for the show.

The Guild will benefit immensly from things such as product placement and events advertising. National and international sales of the show would far exceed any other form of revenue the Guild currently receives. Then there is the merchandising - from action figures to t-shirts, mugs to stationery - there is a huge market waiting to be exploited.

Each member of the incoming Guild exec will be responsible for ensuring that their particular remit is covered in the show.

To the University

With the university's recent rebranding and 'UB' logo, it has decided - for better or worse - that 'hip and trendy' is the way to attract new students. Damian Johnson's New Adventures of Captain Chair fits nicely into this. People around the world will associate the University of Birmingham as the home of Captain Chair. This will be an initial hook to get people's attention, upon which the univeristy can build it's reputation as a world leader in research.

To Chair Club

With the popularity of Chair Club reaching an all-time high, now is the time to push the recognition of the club into brand new areas and attract new members. Damian Johnson's New Adventures of Captain Chair is the single best way to achieve this.

Financial Issues

'Doesn't a high quality television series cost a lot of money?' you may be asking. Yes, of course it does, but I believe the financial reward from any such endeavour will far exceed any initial expense. Cutbacks in all existing areas of expenditure will be necessary initially. I, as president, would be willingly to take a paycut to help fund the show. Other forms of payment such as a percentage of merchandising sales could be used to alleviate any financial pains. George Lucas accepting a decrease in salary in exchange for taking a percantage of the profits from merchandising when making Star Wars is a good example of how rewarding alternative forms of payment can be. Then there are more areas such as sponsorship that will need to be investigated.

With the introduction of top-up fees, many students are wondering where exactly their money is going. With Damian Johnson's New Adventures of Captain Chair, they will be happy in the knowledge that their money is going to a good cause.

To prevent future rights problems (such as those encountered by Gerry Anderson & George Romero), the series will be entitled 'Damian Johnson's New Adventures of Captain Chair'. No mention will be made of Bridge Girl in the title, simply because no one likes Bridge Girl (or Boy) as much.

And, after having read through all that you can now download and watch the pilot episode...

Captain Chair Main Elections 06 Main