TV Thriller Concept: The Scar
A documentary is aired (in the fictional story and as a teaser to the TV series) about a mysterious facility that has been discovered in Nevada. It is mostly found footage from a documentary maker who has disappeared. The person who edited and produced it has also disappeared.
“The Scar” is an abandoned mine with a strange structure built on top of it. Like a large concrete auditorium or gymnasium, it is featureless on the outside and inside except for four things: a 3-foot high door for entering it, and a massive mural on the ceiling. The mural is of what looks like a cauterised wound, a fissure or a scar. And the roof is painted to match the surrounding desert. From above the structure is perfectly camouflaged. It is in a small low valley, where it is not visible from local known places. The fourth thing is a giant metal trap door in the floor with no visible means of opening it. An esoteric symbol is on the door.
Google Maps clearly shows how well disguised it is, but aerial photos from 1948 show what lies beneath the building, before it was built – a scar in the ground identical in shape and size as the mural.
Local (ranchers?) are interviewed, they all say it used to be a mine (and describe it with the same words, like what they heard came from the same source) and they have all heard various rumours:
It was a retreat for crazy artists
Survivalist bunker
Nuclear test site
Prison for domestic terrorists
Set for a movie about aliens that was never released
Hellmouth
THE TV SERIES
The first four episodes are each about people who saw the documentary and felt compelled to go find The Scar and solve the mystery. We see their background, why it interests them, what they are risking (family, friends, jobs, school) if they get caught or make fools of themselves. And see their visit to The Scar. Each discovers something new about the place, and each doesn’t return.
5. (Earlier) A scientist, high up in the military, decides to blackmail his superiors. He has abandoned his job and taken secret files with him.
6. (Earlier) Military officials decide to call his bluff with a documentary where they control the information – disinformation. At the same time a massive manhunt is under way with orders to shoot to kill.
7. (Earlier) The scientist leaves copies of the files with his cousin, a young woman, asking her to release them if she never hears from him again. She never hears from him again.
And then….