Production is down, down, down - only Richter can save us now
ChatGPT –> Create a pilot episode script for a serial drama like “House” only in an IT setting, and with Richter Dixon as the main guru diagnostician who types faster than he can think, thinks faster than he can talk, and talks faster than you can listen! He spends every episode trying 1 thing after another under increasing pressure and tension… until at the end he turns it off and then on again and that fixes it.
Below is a pilot episode script for a serial tech-drama in the style of House, starring your “guru diagnostician” Richter Dixon—the impossibly fast typer, faster thinker, and even faster talker.
If you’d like a full teleplay format, character sheet, or follow-up episodes, I can expand it!
Serial Tech Drama — Episode 1
INT. TECHOPS WAR ROOM – NIGHT
Rows of monitors glow. Alarms flash red. A dozen engineers scramble.
LEAD ENGINEER (shouting) Production’s collapsing! The customer queue is doubling every thirty seconds!
Everyone freezes when the door SLAMS open.
Enter Richter Dixon (40s)—scruffy hoodie, untied sneakers, fingers drumming an imaginary keyboard midair. He walks fast; talks faster.
RICHTER Alright, who broke what, when, why, and how hard? If the answer’s “we don’t know,” congrats—you’ve achieved total enlightenment.
(beat) Move.
Richter drops into the main chair. The keyboard is a blur.
TITLE SEQUENCE.
INT. IT WAR ROOM – SAME NIGHT
RICHTER We’re losing servers like toddlers lose socks in a dryer. Symptoms?
ENGINEER #1 Random hangs. CPU spikes. Some kind of deadlock?
RICHTER “Some kind of” isn’t a diagnosis. It’s an apology wearing a fake mustache.
He pulls logs faster than humans should be able to read.
ENGINEER #2 Could be a network partition.
RICHTER Could be the ghost of punch cards past. Next!
They volley theories. Richter smashes them down.
ENGINEER #3 Memory leak?
RICHTER Too slow. Spikes are too sharp. Also your face says you don’t believe your own theory.
ENGINEER #3 I—I don’t.
RICHTER Good instincts. Terrible confidence. Work on that.
He pace-types, circling the room like a shark wired on espresso.
INT. SERVER AISLE – LATER
Richter now stalks physical machines, muttering at them.
RICHTER You talk to me. I talk to you. You don’t talk back. It’s how healthy relationships work.
He yanks a panel off; engineers wince.
ENGINEER #1 We shouldn’t touch hardware until—
RICHTER Until what? It asks politely?
He tries a fix. It fails. System worsens. Pressure mounts.
CTO (VIA MONITOR) Richter, the CEO wants an update.
RICHTER Tell them: “Not my fault yet.” Add a smiley.
CTO A smiley?
RICHTER A menacing one.
He tries another fix. Nope. A third. Worse.
ENGINEER #2 Maybe the database cluster—
RICHTER Database cluster is fine. I checked it thirty seconds ago. While talking to you. And eating a donut. A stale one. (beat) Focus!
Servers beep angrily.
INT. WAR ROOM – EVEN LATER
Richter’s typing grows so fast the monitors flicker like they can’t keep up.
ENGINEER #1 We’re out of ideas.
RICHTER Good. Ideas were slowing us down.
He stops. Silence. Removes hands from keyboard. Walks to the whiteboard. Draws increasingly complex diagrams at Mach 2.
RICHTER If it’s not the network… not the DB… not the kernel… not the drivers… what’s left?
He freezes. Eyes narrow.
Richter (softly) Oh. Oh no. Oh yes.
Engineers lean in.
ENGINEER #2 What? What is it?
Richter steps dramatically to the main console. The room holds its breath.
He reaches out, touches a single key…
…and shuts the main system off.
Gasps. Panic.
ENGINEER #1 RICHTER, YOU CAN’T JUST—
He turns it back on.
The entire system stabilizes instantly. Alerts clear. Throughput normalizes.
Everyone stares.
INT. WAR ROOM – CALM AGAIN
Engineers clean up. Richter sips cold coffee with victorious nonchalance.
ENGINEER #3 So… what was the fix?
RICHTER (dry) I turned it off and on again.
Beat.
ENGINEER #1 …Seriously?
RICHTER Everything is complicated. Humans panic. Servers overthink. But the universe? The universe loves simplicity. (beat) See you all tomorrow for more disaster.
Richter walks out, fingers still typing invisible keystrokes.
FADE OUT.
ROLL CREDITS.
If you’d like:
…I can build it!