Series Logline: A royal-blooded wealth fund manager and her American lover freeze their eggs for future fertilization, but the eggs are switched when the owner of the gene-editing and cryogenics lab hatches his own plan for their genes. This is the story of the unraveling of the lives of three mothers whose children do not know who they really are.

Pilot Logline: Two professional women from diverse backgrounds become entwined with the world’sleading gene editing scientist who is also the leader of an ancient Druid cult. 

SYNOPSIS:

This is a one-hour drama pilot with completely original ideas concerning the theme that genes have no consequence in determining one’s soul. Nature versus Nurture in the 21st century.

The protagonists are two women: There are two strong female leads of opposite pedigree in this script that will resonate with the LGBTQ community. KAYLA HITCH, 20’s, is an environmental lawyer from Florida of mixed race who is all natural, not tech-savvy or good with money, and not well traveled. VICTORIA CROMWELL, 30’s, is lilly white, of royal blood, runs a hedge fund that includes some of the Queen’s wealth, and pilots her own Learjet around the world making blockchain deals. Kayla wants to halt the emergence of red tide on the beach to save the turtles and Victoria wants to halt the security breaches in her accounts and keep and grow the funds she manages. The two women become lovers and, at the end of the pilot, freeze their eggs and have children later in life with surrogate mothers.

The antagonist, PROFESSOR MATTHEWS, 50's, owns the cryogenics lab where the eggs are stored. He hatches a plan to switch Victoria's eggs with Kayla's and use Victoria's eggs and DNA to create his own royal-blooded child.

The show has international feel, bringing the audience into the rarified air of high society with a set up providing for a rich, soapy drama. This series is ultimately the story of the lives of four children, none of whom will know their actual biological parents, and how they relate to each other and their parents and grandparents throughout the years. The first season sets up their planned births, from gene editing to embryo enhancement, creating an engaging journey into a unique world of intriguing characters where multiple layers change meaning to provoke emotion and invite obsession.

In ACT 1 of the pilot, Kayla watches Victoria play polo and then meets her later and shows her turtles laying eggs on the beach at night. This prompts a discussion of children, and they both share the idea that they are too busy with their careers to procreate. They become lovers and, after spending the night together, Victoria awakens early and, without Kayla’s knowledge, digs up one of the turtle eggs to take back to England to a company she invested in which edits genes. This prompts the introduction of the thematic question of whether bloodline determines personality, as Victoria believes, or the environment, which Kayla believes. Kayla is quite upset that Victoria dug up the turtle egg and takes her to the nearby site of Pelican Island, America’s first national preserve to show why she is so obsessed with keeping the environment from being destroyed.

ACT 2 - In Miami, SANTIAGO, 40’s, Victoria’s Argentinian polo captain and famous for his cloned polo ponies, visits the captain of the other polo team, Miami lawyer SIR GEORGE TOWNSEND, 30’s, to introduce him to two cloned girls as well as to PORSHE, the Argentinian granddaughter of Adolf Hitler. Santiago wants to continue Hitler’s bloodline and sell adoptive babies to interested parties in the U.S. with an investment from Sir George.

Victoria flies Kayla to Miami to introduce her to Sir George because she thinks that his law firm could assist Kayla in her quest to save the beaches and the Miccosukee Indians of the Everglades. The tribal shaman, BILLIE OSCEOLA, 40's, hunts pythons, which are taking over the entire area. He gives Victoria python eggs to take back to England for possible gene editing. However, George's firm represents ADOLPHO RODRIGUEZ, 60's, a large sugarcane grower, which makes any collaboration with Kayla impossible because the sugarcane pollution is the basis of her complaint. Because Victoria’s parents had, for years, chosen Sir George as the only appropriate mate for Victoria, Sir George tries to persuade Victoria to create an heir to her fortune and royal lineage with his sperm and a surrogate.

ACT 3: Victoria flies Kayla to England but Kayla is shunned because of her race and because Victoria 's parents want her to marry Sir George and have grandchildren. Victoria then introduces Kayla to PROFESSOR MATTHEWS, 50's, owner of the genetics laboratory where he creates DNA-enhanced human embryos. Professor Matthews is England's Chief Druid in a secret society called the Celtic Company. Victoria and Kayla attend an All-Hallows Eve celebration at Stonehenge and learn the story of Bran The Blessed, whose head is the precursor to the pumpkins displayed today during Halloween. Victoria gives him the python and turtle eggs hoping he might enhance the turtles’ chances for survival and thwart the pythons’ success. The professor has created a rooster three times normal size that flies like an eagle.

During the ceremony at Stonehenge, Victoria and Kayla stare into a crystal tub of water and see themselves with children. Victoria sees a girl on a polo pony. Kayla sees a boy fishing in the Everglades. Affected by their visions, they each freeze their eggs for safe keeping with the professor.

Alone in his study, Professor Matthews unveils the actual skull of Bran the Blessed, passed down through the Chief Druids for fifteen hundred years, and tells it that Bran's legacy will be reborn with Bran's DNA infused with the professor's sperm and one of Victoria’s eggs.

Conceived is a series designed to highlight, for one protagonist, the overloading of Florida’s biggest lake with pollution that threatens red tide and the end of the millions of years of turtles laying their eggs on the beaches. And, in a similar but technical way, for the second protagonist, the overloading of central digital data centers that threatens the bursting of the internet cloud and the easy extraction of data by hackers. In addition, on a human genetic level, the series brings out how recent developments in gene editing and embryo enhancement, as well as cloning, threaten established views of medicine.

Originality makes this series totally distinct. Throughout the pilot, the thematic question of whether nature or nurture derives personality moves the storyline forward and motivates both protagonists as well as the antagonist.

FROM SCREENPLAY CONTEST COVERAGE: “With solid pacing and a plot that constantly keeps the reader on their toes, there’s not one specific aspect that holds the script back. We get the appropriate highs and lows as the right time to build up to a satisfying conclusion. Dialogue is sharp and packed with character that makes it easy to tell who is speaking without reference to the character heading. There’s a solid structure in place to keep the narrative running, and the script ends with a hook that has me wanting to read more. If I could get my hands on the next episode, that’s exactly what I’d do.”