Stygian 2022

***CURRENTLY UNDER REVISION***

STYGIAN 2022

An Original TV Series
Overview
Written by J. Phillip Wilkins

SEASON ONE
We get a brief glimpse of a horrific past… a dark cave… a tunnel, and a terror from the darkness that consumes a young girl’s life. All witnessed by the 10-year-old eyes of…
HUGO MARSH arrises, many years later, an old man. Prepares for work at the bar he owns, Ye Olde Stingy Inn. Drives through the small town center of Uniondale, population: 1,300.
Townsfolk wave, greet him with smiles and a “Hey, Hugo!”. Seems like he gets a hero’s welcome every time he travels down main street, but a hero he is not.
What the good people of Uniondale believe is that Hugo, along with his best childhood friends Billy and Hannah, defeated an ancient evil that threatened to destroy the town. Hugo made it out alive to praise and eternal thanks from Uniondale’s inhabitants. Hannah and Billy weren’t so lucky, believed to have been lost in the dark waters of the Black Lake, a flooded rock quarry on the outskirts of town.
Only Hugo knows the truth…
Enter DOMINIQUE DULLON, a journalist and filmmaker fresh off a tragic documentary shoot where her subject committed suicide on-camera.
She assumes her career is over until a large publishing company offers her redemption in a slice-of-life doc about the oldest bars in America. Normally, she wouldn’t take such a puff piece, but a new job as head of non-fiction media is dangled in front of her and she grabs it. First stop, Uniondale and Hugo’s bar.
Season One will be a journey into a man’s haunted memory, an unreliable narrator with endless secrets. A life that’s been the same since he was a kid. There’s comfort in predictability, a comfort Hugo has been more than happy to wallow in since the day he lost his friends.
Dominique creeps into Hugo’s word, upends it as questions begin to surface. Her journalistic sense kicks in and Hugo is under assault from memories he’d thought were buried. She wears him down, gets him to open up, but are these truths or more fictions to keep Hugo’s dark history a secret? Does Hugo even know anymore?
Uniondale and its citizens become a character unto itself. Revelations of a dark past come to light, much to the delight of MONTY MARS, local conspiracy theorist and paranormal researcher. He would love nothing more than to expose the truth about the new research facility taking over the old Uniondale Medical Center, a massive, brutalist building behind a stone wall covered in tangled roses.
What really grabs his attention, is the new owner: MAXAMILLIAN DOLETRAM, CEO of BioLife International. And when he finds out that BioLife owns the publishing company that sent the “nosy reporter woman”, he contacts his fringe news network and gets to work exposing the truth.
A vineyard outside of town run exclusively by women attracts the attention of Dominique. When the matriarch dies, her daughter assumes control. An anonymous tip sends Dominique to uncover the link between BioLife and the vineyard’s power struggle between the new matriarch and her sister who moves back to Uniondale after years away.
Each thread leads Dominique to more revelations about the town and its people.
Season One ends with just such a revelation. Hugo agrees to be interviewed at his home, but on the way, Dominique passes the turn-off and continues toward the town limits toward the old quarry.
Hugo freaks out and falls unconscious in the back seat. He dreams deeply…
In a dark corner of his mind, a terrible memory crawls out. He remembers what happened to Hannah, what happened in that cave. He is shown the truth he always knew and his mind is blasted.
Dominique stops the car at the “You Are Now Leaving Uniondale” sign and they revive Hugo.
He awakens with the nightmare fresh in his mind, sees the city limit sign and begs Dominique to take him back. She relents and they car makes a u-turn, its tire barely crossing the invisible line between Uniondale and the outside world.
Something changes…

SEASON TWO
Dominique continues her documentary, though the subject has changed from oldest bars in America to “What the f*ck is going on in this town”? Hugo begins to trust her, more revelations about the events of his past leak out.
The Uniondale Medical Center is transformed into a secretive research facility.
Monty digs deeper into the mysteries surrounding Maxamillian and BioLife International.
The town prepares for a Winter Festival that honors the darkness that once fell over the town.
Tensions at the vineyard run high as the struggle for power turns to murder.
It becomes clear, the evil has returned. This time, Hugo is reluctant to fight it. The townsfolk are either too old, too scared, or too young to take him seriously. Even Dominique is reluctant to get too involved, until tragedy strikes. While shooting b-roll on the Black Lake, “something” tips the boat over and her cameraman is lost to the depths. The latest in a string of mysterious disappearances and deaths in town.
Monty believes it’s all connected to the research facility and its leader Maxamillian, and he may be right, as we get glimpses of dark rites in the bowels of the hospital and the dark pit within.
All of this turmoil culminates in the yearly festival from which the evil reveals itself to the doomed town.
Dominique finally believes, Hugo has a plan.

SEASON THREE
The battle between good and evil wages within the town. Alliances are formed, sides taken, families torn apart, sacrifices made.
In the end, Hugo finds himself right back in the cave, Dominique walking ahead of him, the darkness all consuming.
Will he save her this time?