How to make a show I will love:
1. Take a guy who has alienated everyone he cares about with his lies, who is afraid to even try putting things right so he just shovels more lies on top of them and acts cynical to everyone. He is convinced he can never be more than a total jerk and a failure.
2. Give him a huge falling out with his violence-loving sibling, who responds by joining a six-person team that fights against him. Both he and his sibling should blame him entirely for the falling out, but it should be obvious that some of the problem is his sibling’s refusal to accept any apologies. Oh, and give the sibling lightning powers.
3. Take another guy who was kidnapped by a shadowy government organization and brainwashed for most of his life. Make him radiate toxic optimism as a shield against the obvious guilt and trauma.
4. Force them together to solve mysteries involving time travel, much to the first guy’s annoyance and the second guy’s joy.
5. Make their best friend a woman who can kick anyone’s ass, but who is still allowed to be emotional. She starts the show wanting to be the perfect soldier, but ends up making her own path.
6. The titular character needs a narrative parallel in the form of a feral woman who has been raised entirely outside society. Her only real skillset is killing people, and she has negative social skills. Do not feminize her at all. She is going to be insane, violent, and dangerous. Her biggest dream is to find a new reality where she can just be a happy nobody.
7. Give her that dream, then make her watch it all fall to pieces. Have her blame herself for it, abandon that dream world, and return to the chaos.
8. The first season needs to be about free will vs. determinism, and taking control of your own narrative. The second guy should help the first guy find a way to atone for his past mistakes. It ends on a cliffhanger where the first guy does the hard work to be honest and vulnerable for the first time, but he ends up even worse off than before. He still chooses to commit to doing the right thing in spite of it all.
9. The second season starts with the first guy frantically searching for the second guy. When he finds him, the second guy is having a complete nervous breakdown because his toxic optimism has stopped being effective against the trauma and guilt. Now, the first guy has to turn the tables and be the one to help the second guy come to terms with his own past and take control of his own narrative.
10. Add a frat boy villain who represents the shadowy government organization. He has to be the dumbest human being alive, a total asshole, and have mental breakdowns every episode. He eventually betrays his older mentor for his own self-interest, and begrudgingly helps the protagonists defeat the shadowy government. He is still an asshole.
11. Throw in a lovable, hyperactive tech genius who is more interested in solving the puzzles than in the moral implications of his actions.
And boom! Instant classic.
