The Fallen Re-Pitch

[Matthew James]

THE FALLEN

PREMISE

When he has a prophetic dream during a failed suicide attempt, Matt Shephard (Daniel Sharman) wakes up with the belief he and his reluctant sister, Shannon (Lucy Hale) are Fallen angel's, a super powered species born half Angel, half Human. While Matt embraces his destiny and uses his new found abilities to help those around him, Shannon quickly rejects her's and begins to spiral, all the while a powerful arch angel named Amara (Guest Star Hayden Pannettiere) puts into motion a deadly plan to raise Lucifer and start the apocolypse.

Aided by Shannon's best friends, the lovable and goofy, Justin (John Karna) and the condescending and overly honest Emily (Willa Holland), and along with an old friend of there mother's, a priest (Jim Beaver) with a painful past, the small band of friends come together to stop the apocalypse and hopeful save not only their beloved town of Paradise Falls, Maine, but the rest of the world with it. 

STARRING 

DANIEL SHARMAN as Matt Shephard

LUCY HALE as Shannon Shephard

JOHN KARNA as Justin Reed

WILLA HOLLAND as Emily Powell

AND DEBORAH ANN WOLL as Haley Stewart

RECURRING

COLIN FERGUSON as George Shephard

ROBERT PATRICK as Det. Henry Reed 

ALISON SCAGLIOTTI as Grace Thomas

DYLAN MINNETTE as Connor Burke

DEAN NORRIS as Travis Burke

AND JIM BEAVER as Father Aaron Thomas

CHARACTERS

DANIEL SHARMAN

As Matt Shephard

A desperate sixteen year old, Matt and his father have been moving around for the better part of the past year, George Shephard’s odd jobs keep the two from settling down. With nowhere to plant roots, Matt has been stuck in grief unable to move on from his mother’s death. 

After a failed suicide attempt, and a prophetic dream, George is forced to return Matt to his home town of Paradise Falls and live with his Aunt and his estranged sister. Hoping familiarity will help the boy move on, but Matt’s absence has cause a large rift in his relationship with his sister and after a talk with his old priest and friend of his mothers, Matt becomes convinced he is meant for greatness, and draws a reluctant Shannon into a destiny she want’s nothing to do with.

LUCY HALE

As Shannon Shephard

Shannon is seemingly a perfectly normal teenager, a small band of friends, and the loving support of her boyfriend who is captain of the football team, Shannon seems to have it all, until her brother returns after being absent for a year, upsetting her life.

At first, Matt is a chore, a suicidal brother with delusions of grandeur, but after being attacked by a rogue arch angel, Shannon becomes dragged into a whole new world. One where situations of life and death, are regular occurrence’s, and quickly the sweet and caring Shannon, is forced to become a leader, and with Matt at her side, explore the strange new abilities given to the siblings. 

JOHN KARNA

As Justin Reed

Wise cracking and frustratingly annoying, Justin was destined to be best friends with Shannon, his father and her mother, were best friends up until her death, Justin is one of the few who really know Shannon, and one of the first to accept her as a Fallen, always ready to dive in, Justin is constantly at the Shephard’s side, and with no abilities of his own, Justin often aids in research, and is usually the first to come up with solutions to any problem at hand. 

WILLA HOLLAND

As Emily Ashford

Often acting as the bad influence in the group, Emily hides a kind and loving soul behind her constant bitchy attitude, and though she is forever butting heads with Justin, she cares deeply for those few she trusts, she protects the Shephard’s secret, and is always willing to assist. Though she often feels on the outside of things, destiny may have a role instore for the hardened yet.

DEBORAH ANN WOLL

as Haley Stewart

The protective and kind aunt of the Shephard siblings, Haley is Claire’s sister and lacking a family of her own, acts as a parental figure to Matt and Shannon, often offering love and support. Feeling like Haley has too much on her plate, the siblings decide to keep Haley In the dark about their mysterious powers.

RECURRING CAST

DYLAN MINNETTE

As Connor Burke 

Connor is the Paradise Falls High School’s quarter back, and Shannon’s boyfriend. Though Shannon is typically a loving person, Connor desperately tries to help the situation between the two drifting siblings, understanding the importance of a second chance, even going as far as push the reluctant Shannon to invite her brother to a fateful party. 

DEAN NORRIS

As Principal Travis Burke

Travis is the principal of Falls High School, where his son and friends attend, a tough but fair man, Burke keeps an eye on Matt, his knowledge of the truth behind the siblings are unknown, and all though Shannon seems to trust the man, Matt is less than trusting towards him which often causing conflict between the two. 

COLIN FERGUSON

As George Shephard

Matt and Shannon’s flaky father, finding it difficult to hold down a job, and finds it difficult to be in Paradise Falls, after the death of his loving wife, he has kept Matt on the road with him, but after Matt’s suicide attempt, George is forced to bring Matt back to Paradise Falls, George does love his children, and he desperately wants to protect them from what’s to come and teams up with Father Thomas. 

JIM BEAVER 

as Father Aaron Thomas

A mysterious priest working at Paradise Fall’s church, Thomas is mentor figure to the siblings, and an ally to the family, believing that the end is near and that the fate of world rests in the hand of the Shephard siblings, Thomas aides them best he can.

ALLISON SCAGLOITTI 

As Grace Thomas 

The former best friend of Matt, while Matt was away, life only got more difficult for Grace, traveling down a bad road, of drinking and drugs, Matt attempts to reconnect with Grace, and help her. However feeling hurt and abandoned by Matt, Grace keeps him at distance until another tragedy befalls her which drags Grace into his world. 

HAYDEN PANNETTIERE 

As Shelly Hammond/Amara 

A former friend of both Emily and Shannon, Shelly was ousted from the small group after sleeping with Emily’s boyfriend, though still popular, Emily is reluctantly forced to deal with Shelly, but is often snide and short with her. 

Shelly is possessed by Amara, an assassin sent to defeat the Shephard’s though she wears Shelly’s face, Amara is completely different. Vindictive and goal driven, Amara views earth as wasteland, and is determined to complete her goals and return to heaven afterwards. 

ROBERT PATRICK

As Henry Reed 

Justin’s father and a senior detective at the local police station, Henry is often one of the investigating officers caught up in the strange cases that continue to arrive, Henry is a good detective, but less admirable father, he often puts work first, leaving Justin feeling unloved at home. 

EPISODE GUIDE 

1x01 

“Can You Hear Me, god?” 

After a failed suicide attempt, Matt Shephard is forced to return home, in the hopes that familiarity will ground him, and prevent him from a second attempt, but Matt secretly has a vision of a coming doomsday, and becomes obsessed with angel’s and the belief that he and his sister are Fallen angel, though his sister Shannon, just wants to be left alone. Things change when Matt turns out to be right, the siblings and with a few close friends are forced to stop a rogue arch angel from starting the apocalypse. 

1x02 

“What to expect when you’re expecting” 

Still suffering from the events of the premiere, Shannon hopes to put all that has happened behind her and return to a normal life, but Matt and Justin continue to investigate what’s happened, which leads them to a eccentric professor in a nearby town named Arthur Talbot (Guest Star Matthew Gray Gubler), who believes that angels have spoken to him and told him how to stop the coming apocalypse. Shannon’s refusal to accept her role, leads to another death of someone close to her.

1x03

“Goodnight Gracie” 

After Father Thomas convinces Henry to let another of Grace’s mishaps slide, he turns to Matt for help, but Matt discovers that Grace has stolen thousands from a mobster, but when Matt’s life is put in danger after a failed attempt at stopping the mobster, Father Thomas pushes Shannon to use a power only Matt has displayed in hopes of saving him.

1x04

“The Warden” 

Emily’s life is altered after she discovers her part in the coming apocalypse, as Shannon and Justin try and find out what they can about her new role, Matt and Grace try and stop Amara, but end up uncovering her own shocking goals. 

1x05 

“Devil in the details”

Out of time and options, the Shephard’s and their friends decide the only way to stop Amara and save the world is to kill Shelly, using a mystical blade sent to them by an unlikely source. 

1x06

“Aftershocks”

With Matt missing and Shannon in a coma, Justin and Emily come up with plan for Emily to enter Shannon’s dreams in order to reach their defeated friend. 

1x07

“Oh Brother Where Art Thou” 

Having been blasted back into 1995, Matt uncovers truth’s about his family’s role in the coming apocalypse well getting the chance to help Claire and George fall in love, unable to tell his parents who he is Matt turns to a younger Father Thomas, but is shocked to discover that the man doesn’t even believe in god. 

1x08

“As you Were” 

Reunited the group plots to stop Lucifer connecting with his bones, with information given to them by Matt’s journey to the past.

1x09

“Take Me to Church”

Grace is torn when she is given the opportunity to save the world, at the cost of a close friend, as the battle for the fate of the warden begins, details about Father Thomas and the death of his wife, Jackie are revealed. 

1x10

“Sins of the Father”

The showdown between Lucifer and the Shephard siblings begin, with the fate of the devil’s bones, the Warden, and earth’s soul all on the line.




CREATOR'S NOTE: Once again, another pitch for The Fallen, I have tried my best to take all of your comments into consideration, which have brought about several changes, and an attempt to bring it back to it's original form.. After hearing feedback that people wanted to see Daniel Sharman in the lead role for Matt for example, and after receiving feeback that the priest should be kept alive to provide a mentor role for the siblings, Father Thomas's role will be fleshed out and extended at least until the end of season one, but I have been enjoying writing such a tortured character so there is a decent chance it could extend beyond that. 


The pilot is in the works and will be vastly different from the last few.. a big example is the boyfriend will no longer be a villain, but a constant drive for Shannon to give Matt a second chance.. he provides an interesting role, and is the first person in her life to show Shannon how to be a leader. 


And finally for a return to form, Robert Patrick has been written back in, to play Henry Reed, Justin's father of a detective.. replacing Emma Caulfied.. all though I plan to have her return as Cassandra Reed at some point, all though it's a good bet she won't be a detective.. And another returning character is Haley now played by Deborah Ann Woll, who I loved in Daredevil. I though she would be perfect for an Aunt, there is another character I am working on who will be Reed's partner, in the last draft he was played by George Eads. Though I would like to maybe go with either Micheal Raymond James or David Ramsey for the role, I like to think both can play a cop well, and the character will most likely be a love interest to Haley. If anyone would like to see either play the role, let me know below, and whichever has the most votes will land the role. 

The pilot should be available by the end of the week, I'm halfway through a first pass, I'm trying to take my time, rather than rush it. I'm trying to come up with each scene and the dynamic between the characters in, I'm working to make each character sound vastly different. I'm also going to try and do some graphics during the week as well  

[R.A. Picking]

I like the idea as far as angel and spiritual warfare type of stuff. I always thought about doing a 'walking dead' type of show but instead of zombies there are demons infecting people and turning them into monsters and predators of the human race.

[Matthew James]

I think that's definitely something that will be looked into. I had to think of how to do possession early in the pilot. So I had to think up all that stuff, I wanted to keep it fresh and keep it separated from Supernatural. I had to think up how the fallen play into it and it does include death.

[Jack Malone]

I think there's a cleverly thought out contrast between Matt and his sister, Shannon, that would be nice to see how it plays out when you finish and release the pilot.  It's actually the thing I'm most interested in from reading the pilot.  I'm personally a little fatigued from demons, and angels and certain supernatural elements because of all the shows on television right now, and the ones that preceded them, but that doesn't mean what you've got here isn't a great pitch.

I do think the one thing that I'm not too keen on is another "high school" type supernatural series.  I mean, with pitches nowadays, I'm just eager to read a pilot to see what works and what doesn't because so much usually changes from the pitch so I comment when a pilot is up, so take this with a grain of salt.  But I feel like if Matt were this struggling man in his twenties, kind of has this life where discovering he's a fallen angel would give him purpose, while on the other side of the spectrum, it kind of ruins Shannon's world as she already has this life sewn together, and you know...  a steady job, a relationship, a future, etc, then seeing how this concept breathes life to one character whilst derailing the other would be a very interesting thing to read.

But again, the high school concept could work extremely well, and I think you've got the groundwork here for a solid story so I'm eager to read a pilot and I do like the thought that has gone into creating it  

[Matthew James]

Jack, you have given me quite a bit to think about, I've been working all night on trying to put the idea into a grown up setting. I think it frees it up a little, and eliminates the need for parental figures, not that they wouldn't play a role, but letting them be a little older also freed up casting and it's a bigger pool to draw from when they don't have to look like teenagers, but I did run with this idea of having all the main cast have starred as high school students, and have a Shannon, I know you'll love, which I'm highly thinking of Kristen Bell for.

And instead of all going to high school together, I was working on this idea of having them all work in a bar/restaurant together so it's like Waiting meet's Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

[R.A. Picking]

like Waiting meet's Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

That's a cool idea there. You can develop the main characters as far as servers during the day and during the night - BOOM - Awesome idea.

[Brady Brown]

I think it's really hard to accurately comment on a supernatural series anymore without seeing the pilot. A lot of elements get taken from a variety shows in each one of them, and most of the creatures have been numerous times, so it's hard to know how different they'll be. With that being said, I think Matt and Shannon can serve as pretty nice contrasts to one another, much like Jack said. The tropes of the "goofy" and "bitchy" best friends are a little repetitive, but like I mentioned it's hard to properly critique until I've read the entire pilot.

One thing that struct me as odd was that there seems to be no repercussions of Matt attempting to take his own life, nor are there any hints at why he tried to do so in the first place. Suicide is a very serious issue and I'm hope it's not simply used as a plot device in getting this prophetic dream and never to be mentioned again. I mean... his dad just makes him return home? That seems like a bit of a stretch, but hopefully I'm wrong and there will be actions to try and get Matt the help he obviously needs.

That's all I really have to say right now. I do look forward to the pilot, though!

[Matthew James]

Yeah, there are plans to show some of those consequences, I'm working on a recurring character to serve as a psychologist to "help" Matt through everything, and to determine whether or not he is a further danger to himself or others or whether this was just a cry for help. Well Shannon herself suffers through some of those consequences.. in the aspect of kids being mean and all that.