Jeff Davis forwards:
Destination Mir will Launch on NBC
Mark Burnett, producer of the hit show "Survivor", has sold the rights
to his new show, "Destination Mir" to NBC for $40 million. The show
will follow a group of 13-15 would-be cosmonauts as they train for
a trip to the Mir space station. Each week, a contestant will be
removed by Russian Space Officials until the final winner is launched
into orbit on a special, live broadcast. Half of the money will go to
MirCorp, to help cover the costs of the trip. As part of the deal,
NBC has agreed to run an hour long, Burnett-produced show about Dennis
Tito, the businessman who paid $20 million for the chance to fly on
Mir next year. "Destination Mir" will air in late 2001, early 2002.
Sounds interesting, but they need to come up with a better way of
winnowing the field. Just having some faceless Russian bureaucrats tap
a guy on the shoulder and send him outside won't work. Hmmm, maybe a
Stalinesque approach... it's the middle of the night, the door is thrown
open, our hapless hero throws up his hands against the light as storm
troopers with attack guards hustle him out... and he's never seen again.
Seriously, the most interesting part of the Survivor show was the politics
and strategy involved in seeing who would get voted off. Just having
the space agency officials decide won't work. They need to come up with
some fair but dramatically interesting way to kick people off.
Hal
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