Waste of Space
Page 11
Date: February 3, 2016
[It is nighttime. Stars lazily drift by the Windows Window, its meager output the only source of light in the room.]
Source: Camera #8—Bedroom
[All the Spacetronauts are in bed.]
Source: Camera #1—Airlock
[Several shadowy figures bring a large, unwieldy piece of equipment into the airlock, set it on the floor, and get to work.]
[An hour passes.]
Source: Camera #8—Bedroom
[Someone stirs, throws off the blanket, and gets out of bed.]
Source: Camera #4—Lünar Lounge
[Titania walks into the lounge and stands in front of the airlock, frowning, as the noises behind it persist. She knocks quietly on the door. The noises pause, then continue.]
[Nico enters the lounge and walks to her side.]
Titania: [whispering] You heard it too?
Nico: Yeah. I couldn’t sleep anyway.
[They stare at the airlock.]
Nico: What do you think it is?
Titania: I don’t know. Wanna wait to see if anything happens?
Nico: Sure.
[They sit on the frizzy purple rug in front of the airlock. Nico picks at the rug’s fibers before visibly screwing up his courage.]
Nico: Can I ask you something personal?
Titania: Maybe.
Nico: What’s with the scar on your stomach?
[Titania stiffens.]
Titania: Excuse me?
Nico: The scar—
Titania: How did you see that?
Nico: [courage fading] I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. You were changing into your pajamas last night, and I accidentally—I wasn’t watching—
Titania: All right, all right. Relax.
[pause]
Nico: I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.
Titania: No, it’s okay. It’s a . . . puncture wound.
Nico: Oh.
Titania: I was in an accident.
Nico: What kind of accident?
Titania: The kind I don’t want to talk about.
Nico: Okay. Is it the same reason you hate the beeping? [She nods.]
Nico: Okay.
[Nico taps his fingers on his knee.]
Nico: If it makes you feel any better, I have a regrettable puncture wound too.
[He points at his pierced lip. Titania smirks.]
Titania: Why’d you get it?
Nico: Seemed like a good idea at the time.
Titania: And now?
Nico: Now I have to keep the ring in so my face doesn’t spurt like a water gun.
[Titania stares at him—then snorts.]
Titania: You made a joke.
Nico: You almost laughed.
Titania: Almost. [She forces her mouth into a straight line, then lets her shoulders slump.] We are officially the sad sacks of the show, aren’t we.
Nico: Afraid so.
Titania: What do you think America thinks of us?
Nico: I don’t know. I hope we’re the wry, sarcastic ones the audience most relates to. I’d rather that than get lumped in with the nutballs.
Titania: You’re not a nutball?
[pause]
Nico: Honestly, I don’t have the first effing clue who I am.
Titania: Meh. No one does.
[The noises behind the airlock stop. Nico and Titania wait for more, but none come.]
Titania: [softly] Nico? Do you think we’re really in space?
[He looks at her with wide eyes, as if surprised by the insinuation that they might not be. Then, mulling it over, he frowns]
Nico: I don’t know. I hope so. But I don’t know.
[More waiting. More quiet.]
Titania: Guess the show’s over.
[They stand up and walk back into the bedroom together.]
Source: Camera #1—Airlock
[The large piece of equipment is gone. The shadowy figures have left.]
Source: Camera #4—Lünar Lounge
[The next morning, the kids wake up and groggily head into the lounge, none the wiser.]
* * *
Item: Transcript of video broadcast
[continued]
[START OF ACT THREE]
[IMAGE: Chazz, in the studio]
Chazz: Welcome back, America. It’s time for that big surprise I promised!
But first, a small confession. Those of you out there who either visited DV8’s website or used DV8’s app at any point over the past week were given a pop-up survey asking you to vote for your favorite cast member—but what we didn’t tell you is that the results of that vote will have real-life consequences. That’s right: the least-liked cast member will be eliminated from the show—live, on-air, tonight! [to someone offscreen] How are we doing on that satellite feed?
[He presumably gets a thumbs-up, as he gives a thumbs-up back.]
All right, I’m being told we’re good to go! Spacetronauts, hello!
Source: Camera #4—Lünar Lounge
[The cast is gathered in front of the camera as if its elementary school picture day. Their discomfort is evident, except for Jamarkus and Louise.]
Jamarkus: Hi, Chazz!
Louise: Greetings, Earth!
Chazz: Looking good, intrepit explorers! Now, I know you can’t see us, but we can see you—so why don’t you give all of America a big wave?
[The cast gives all of America a tepid wave, except for Jamarkus and Louise, who pump their hands vigorously.]
Chazz: Bitchin’! How’s it going up there?
Louise: Amazing!
Jamarkus: Stellar!
[A graphic accompanied by the words “Brought to you by Stellar Acne Cream!” flashes across the bottom of the screen.]
Hibiscus: Still queasy from the loss of equilibrium.
Matt: And it’s super dry in here from all the recirculated air. Our skin is chapped, and I got a nosebleed—
Chazz: That’s wonderful! All of us back on Earth are so proud of you, and we can’t wait to see what adventures you get up to next. But we’ve got one little piece of business to take care of first. The audience has spoken, and I’m afraid you’re going to lose one of your planemates tonight.
Matt: . . . Lose them? What do you mean?
[Music swells.]
Chazz: The next name that I call will be the cast member with the fewest number of votes.
Snout: Votes? What votes?
[The cast members exchange nervous glances. The music builds to a frenzied climax.]
Chazz: And that name is . . .
[The music drops out.]
Hibiscus. Hibiscus, you are a waste of space.
Hibiscus: [frowning] What?
[The ship’s alarm sounds, filling the air with strident, inescapable beeping. The airlock door opens to reveal a twitchy robotic arm unfolding itself from the wall and clumsily extending all the way into the Lünar Lounge. Its claw clamps around Hibiscus’s waist, then hauls her, kicking and screaming, into the airlock. The door closes with a pneumatic swish, sealing her inside. A few more seconds of her pounding on the door, and then—WHOOOSH]
[CUT TO: Exterior shot of a spacesuited person being expelled from the Laika, bubble helmet gleaming in the glow of the sun, spinning uncontrollably, limbs flailing]
[CUT TO: Interior shot of the Laika, the remaining Spacetronauts frozen in a stunned silence.]
[CUT TO: Chazz, in the studio, beaming.]
Chazz: So long, Hibiscus! Your fedora can’t save you now!
[He laughs heartily as the credits roll.] Well, that wraps it up for tonight. Tune in next week for another thrilling episode of Waste of Space—and until then, be sure to log on to DV8.com or the DV8 app to vote, or your favorite cast member might be ejected next! Catchphrase forever!
[MUSIC CUE: “Blank Space” by Taylor Swift]
[END OF EPISODE]
Acclaim
Item: Online article
Source: ViralLoad
Date: February 5, 2016
It’s off
icial. DV8 has officially lost its mind.
And we are loving every second of it.
Major network executives, I hope you’re paying attention. Drop your lattes and study each frame of what they’re doing over on Waste of Space. THIS is compelling television. THIS is the future of entertainment as we know it.
You want ratings?
Shoot a sixteen-year-old girl out of an airlock.
DV8 has redefined the meaning of unpredictable television. What in the hell is Chazz Young going to do to those poor space kids next?
Let’s be honest—technical glitches aside, what we saw in the premiere episode wasn’t anything new. Sure, blasting a bunch of teenagers into space on live television hadn’t been done before, but the rest of it oozed with reality clichés. The hyperbole. The predictable, stereotypical casting. The tour of the poshly furnished living quarters and its conspicuous product placement. Chazz Young’s freshly frosted tips.
But this week we got a glimpse of something new.
Something spine-tingling.
Uncertainty.
Those kids have no idea what’s going to happen next.
And neither, we’re guessing, does DV8.
Most reality-show cast members are savvy viewers themselves; none of them walk onto sets as innocent bystanders. They know they’re going to be manipulated by producers into predetermined plotlines. They know they’re going to be edited to pieces. But at the end of the day, they know they’re going to leave the set alive.
Yet with one swift swipe of a robotic arm, DV8 has taken away that certainty. What in the name of obligatory hot tubs is going on here? Are Chazz Young and the folks at the renegade network making everything up as they go along?
We’re guessing they are. And it’s BRILLIANT.
These kids don’t know what to expect. They’re literally flying blind. They are scared and confused and isolated in a sealed tin can hundreds of miles from home.
That is raw emotion up there.
It is heartbreaking and poignant and singular and extraordinary.
* * *
Episode #2 reduces the internet to a pile of smoking embers.
DV8.com crashes for more than an hour. #WasteOfSpace remains the number-one trending topic for three straight days. The Enormous Robotic Arm explodes into memes, GIFs, and its own handle (@EnrmsRoboticArm). And Bacardi’s prediction comes true—America ships Nico and Titania hard, in the form of fan fiction, fan art, and the writing of a petition to allow them to get married onboard the International Space Station.
But once again, the show gets its fair share of detractors.
Item: Transcript of video recording
Source: Fakefinders
Date: February 5, 2016
Bigfoot: Oh, Waste of Space. Where do we begin?
With the fact that Hibiscus couldn’t possibly have been shoved into a spacesuit against her will? Or that even if she’d done so willingly, such a thing would have been impossible to accomplish in the span of three seconds?
Or that there’s no way a multimillion-dollar corporation would eject a teenager into the grievous vacuum of space?
Wake. Up. America.
* * *
The multimillion-dollar corporation does not eject a teenager into the grievous vacuum of space, of course.
Item: Transcript of video recording
Source: Dashboard camera, DV8 Company Van
Date: February 4, 2016
[IMAGE: Nighttime. The exterior steel wall of the soundstage is lit by a pair of headlights. Boris, Chazz’s personal courier, exits the soundstage door with the limp body of a teenage girl thrown over his shoulder. He walks out of the frame. The image then shudders as his cargo is deposited roughly into the back of the windowless van.
Eleven hours of driving follow.]
* * *
But America falls for the ruse anyway, especially once Hibiscus makes an appearance—albeit an odd one—on Perky Paisley’s show the following evening.
Item: Transcript of video broadcast
Source: The Perky Paisley Show
Date: February 5, 2016
Perky: So spill, girl. Tell us everything about life onboard the Laika.
[Hibiscus is sitting, unstable, on the lip couch, her eyes focusing and unfocusing as she absent-mindedly strums her mandolin. Her typical angry demeanor is conspicuously absent.]
Hibiscus: Utterly transcendent /
and beautifully resplendent /
flying to the moon /
with a Fjälkinge shelving un . . . it.
Perky: That’s nice. Did you bang anyone?
[Hibiscus’s hands limply fall from the strings of the mandolin, her dreamy gaze drifting to the rafters.]
Hibiscus: Only the drum of freedom, sister.
[Perky, exasperated, looks offstage for help from her producer.]
Perky: Okay, well—tell us about the elimination. What happened after you were grabbed by the Enormous Robotic Arm?
[A cheer erupts at the mention of the Enormous Robotic Arm. The commotion seems to jar Hibiscus into a state of meditative concentration. She hugs the mandolin to her chest, closes her eyes, and speaks in a stream-of-consciousness manner.]
Hibiscus: I was dragged into the airlock and after the door sealed behind me I heard a soft whispery hiss of air and the room went dark. Because if you think about it really think about it the walls had been built up around us to protect us from the vacuum of space but now it was the space that was inside me. It was so . . . so . . .
Perky: Don’t say meta.
Hibiscus: . . . meta . . .
[Perky rubs her temples.]
Perky: Then what happened?
Hibiscus: I don’t know. I guess I was put into a spacesuit and shot out of the airlock, but I can’t remember any of that. [tunelessly strumming the mandolin again] I must have drifted off under the awesome majestic majesty of it all because I woke up in a hospital bed here in Los Angeles /
miraculous /
incredulous /
emerging from a chrysalis.
[Perky stares at her.]
Perky: Well, there it is, folks, straight from the space cadet’s mouth. And don’t forget—every week, I’ll be chatting with the eliminated cast member from Waste of Space, so keep tuning in to your girl Perky. Until next time . . . My eyes are up here!
* * *
This bizarre interview leads some to wonder whether Hibiscus has been forcibly drugged (a muddy prospect, given her own established interest in mind-altering substances) or bribed by Chazz Young’s deep pockets (a more plausible option, given the social media posting she writes soon thereafter about having signed with DV8’s record label).
Or, most come to agree, some combination of the two.
But no one onboard the Laika shares in her breeziness. Hibiscus’s computer-animated body, lifelessly floating through the vacuum of space and across the screens of America, may not be real—but the rest of the cast’s terror is, judging by the footage shot immediately after the elimination.
Item: Transcript of video recording—RAW, UNAIRED FOOTAGE
Source: Camera #4—Lünar Lounge
Date: February 4, 2016
[Cast members are yelling over the beeping alarm.]
Nico: What just happened?
Snout: A robot reached in and threw her off the ship!
Bacardi: It did, right? [grasping at his shirt] It wasn’t just me whosaw that?
Matt: Oh God. Oh God.
Titania: Turn off the beeping.
Jamarkus: Everyone remain calm. There must be some sort of fail-safe built into the system—
Louise: Exactly! Maybe the ship’s artificial intelligence recognizes and eliminates any factors that may compromise our mission, and Hibiscus was identified as a potential threat!
Matt: [pacing back and forth] Oh God.
Snout: [pointing at the Windows Window] There she goes!
[A spinning spacesuited figure drifts into view, across the window, then out again.]<
br />
Matt: Is a shuttle going to pick her up? Or are they going to let her die out there? I don’t see a shuttle!
[They all strain to look out the window—except for Kaoru, who hangs back, arms crossed.]
Kaoru: {I see they did not bother to computer-animate a shuttle.}
* * *
It should be noted that by this point in the show’s run, there appears to be a wide range of skepticism among the cast members. Some, like Kaoru and Titania, seem extremely doubtful that they are in space, while others, like Snout and Bacardi, don’t seem to have any suspicion at all. The rest fall somewhere in the middle, as shown by Nico’s video recording from around this time.
Item: Transcript of video recording
Source: Nico’s camera
Battery charge: 75%
Date: February 5, 2016
[The image is dark; only audio can be heard. Nico is whispering.]
Hi Mom. Hi Dad.
Can’t sleep. Again.
[muffled sounds of rustling bedsheets, then stillness]
Do you hear that? Sounds like voices.
Outside the ship.
[Seven seconds pass.]
They’re gone now. I thought I heard—I don’t know. Never mind.
Sorry for the radio silence, but I’ve been afraid to record anything. Clayton was so mean about it the first time. And, well . . . things are getting tense up here. I’d say this experience has been a roller coaster, but that does a disservice to roller coasters. I don’t know of any roller coasters that have long stretches of boredom punctuated by the most terrifying moments of your life.
I don’t know. Here we are, trapped up here in this claustrophobic keg, at the mercy of television producers who can do whatever they want to us . . .
[Five seconds pass.]
I’m just . . .
I’m starting to wonder.
I wonder why nothing happened when Jamarkus threw the hippo at the wall and that important-looking piece broke off. Louise put it back with duct tape, but shouldn’t something bad have happened? An alarm beeping, or the lights going out, or—I don’t know, something?