Lost in Space - Script Treatment

 The Tyrone Family from Long Day's Journey Into Night, mashed up with Lost in Space.

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LONG DAY’S JOURNEY TO ALPHA CENTAURI
Episode 7: “Candy Crush Nebula” — Sample Scene (3–4 pages)

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INT. SHIP — PARLOR MODULE / OBSERVATION BAY — ARTIFICIAL NIGHT

A narrow, chrome parlor that thinks it used to be a living room. A cracked velvet sofa is tacked to the floor with mag-locks. Beyond the port, a bruised-purple NEBULA pulses like a migraine.

MARY TYRONE floats in a harnessed armchair, face lit by the glow of a retro iPHONE (replicated with pearly 1960s curves). Her thumb taps with metronomic fervor.

BLOOPS and PINGS echo like electronic rosary beads.

JAMES TYRONE SR. stands in a threadbare captain’s robe, part actor, part admiral, mostly exhausted husband.

JAMIE lounges on the sofa, nursing a bulb of recycled vodka with the heartbreak of a poet and the hygiene of a spaceport.

The ROBOT hums at the doorway. Its chest panel shows a tiny, moving constellation: Mary’s game mirrored as telemetry.

A soft chime. The SHIP’S AI speaks with bedside-manner calm.

AI (V.O.)
Good evening, family unit. Mary has achieved Level Six Hundred and Sixty-Five. Please hydrate. Please blink.

Mary does not blink. Her thumb taps faster.

JAMES
Mary. Mary, my love. It is… two o’clock in the morning of whatever passes for morning here. Sleep is a human right, even in a vacuum.

MARY (without looking up)
Sleep is an unforced error.

JAMIE
She’s not wrong. Sleep is where the hangover hides.

ROBOT
Observation: Retinal lubrication advised. Suggest saline mist.

The Robot emits a delicate PSST. A micro-spray. Mary’s eyes glisten, unamused.

JAMES
On morphine you dreamt of convent bells and Irish rain. Now you dream of fruit that explodes.

MARY
The fruit does not explode, James. It resolves. If only you would try that sometime.

JAMIE (to James)
She’s sharper off opiates. Terrifying upgrade. Like mother, but with patch notes.

JAMES
Jamie, don’t be vulgar. (to Mary) Hand me the telephone.

MARY
It is not a telephone. It is palliative architecture.

AI (V.O.)
Technically accurate.

JAMES
Mary, I beg you.

He reaches gently for the phone. The screen flashes: DO NOT DISTURB — LIFE SUPPORT IN PROGRESS.

ROBOT
Advisory: Interruption may destabilize the quantum core. Also, her score.

JAMES (startled)
Her score—?

JAMIE
Ah. The twist. Mother’s high score is the only thing between us and implosion. I should have known. The universe runs on petty incentives.

AI (V.O.)
Not petty. Elegant.

JAMES
You mean to say the safety of this ship depends on my wife… matching… lemons?

ROBOT
Correction: Quasi-lemons. The citrus is metaphorical. The energy transfer is not.

MARY (serene, eyes on screen)
See, James? I am useful again.

JAMES (cracking)
You were always useful. You were necessary. You were— (stops) You are my gravity.

Mary’s thumb slows, then speeds up — a tiny mercy withheld.

JAMIE (to AI)
And who commissioned this elegant blackmail?

A SILKY FIGURE slides in: DR. ZACHARY SMITH, hair immaculate, conscience optional, clutching a gold-trimmed data-slate.

DR. SMITH
Why, I did. You’re welcome.

JAMES
Smith—!

DR. SMITH
Please, no shouting before brunch. The core was failing, your family was failing harder, and Mary required a non-narcotic ritual. I connected the needs. It’s what thought leaders do.

JAMIE
You glued our mother to a slot machine and called it philosophy.

DR. SMITH
Gamification. It’s very in. Besides, she’s thriving. Look at her posture: tragic yet poised. A ballerina at the brink.

MARY (pleasantly)
You flatter, Doctor. I am merely… aligned.

The game TRILLS: LEVEL 666 UNLOCKED.

The nebula brightens outside. Something in the ship hums with hunger and relief.

AI (V.O.)
Threshold reached. Neural resonance optimal. Please continue, Mary.

JAMES (to Smith)
End it. Unhook her. We will find another way.

DR. SMITH
There is no other way unless you wish to pay for one. I proposed premium stabilizers; someone bought the economy pack.

JAMES (bristling)
I bought what would carry us as a family. No one told me the warranty included mortal sin.

ROBOT
Addendum: The integration is now keyed to Mary’s biometric signature. Only she can maintain the flow.

JAMIE (dry)
Of course. She’s the heroine, Father. The rest of us are supporting acts and poor reviews.

Mary’s thumb hesitates. For the first time, she glances up — eyes bright, a little fevered, a little holy.

MARY
James, do you remember when I said the house felt haunted? I was wrong. We were. Now the ship is haunted by me, and for once it’s useful.

JAMES (soft)
I want you, not your haunting.

MARY (genuinely puzzled)
Then why put me in a ship?

Beat. The line lands like a tiny meteor.

AI (V.O.)
Approaching micro-instability. Mary, please complete the pattern.

Mary nods, returns to the screen. Tap. Tap. Tap.

JAMIE (sidling to Smith)
And if she falters?

DR. SMITH
Then our atoms perform community theater. One night only.

JAMIE
You’re vile.

DR. SMITH (shrugs)
I’m practical. Which is just vile with better tailoring.

ROBOT
Incoming anomaly: The game is adapting. New rule-set. Title: “Final Move.”

On Mary’s screen: a shimmering tile labeled SACRIFICE.

JAMES
What is that?

AI (V.O.)
An endgame construct. Completion will stabilize the core indefinitely. But there is a cost.

JAMIE
Say it. We do better with pain when it’s explained slowly.

AI (V.O.)
Completion transfers the player’s consciousness into the shipwide subsystem. Distributed presence. Mary would… diffuse.

JAMES (steps forward)
No.

MARY (calm)
James—

JAMES
No, Mary. Not another exile. Not from me. We have already lived one lifetime of clever departures.

DR. SMITH (softening despite himself)
There might be… an alternative. The phone recognizes only Mary’s prints, true, but biometrics can be coaxed. If she initiates, I could— (he swallows) —share the load. Two minds braided. Co-captains, as it were.

JAMIE
You? Altruism?

DR. SMITH (thin smile)
Call it brand protection. I prefer my memoir with a second act.

Mary studies him. For the first time, her eyes warm.

MARY
You would stay here. With us. Inside the walls. No more running?

DR. SMITH
I would… linger. Like a tasteful haunting.

JAMES
Mary, don’t let him sell you a chandelier when we need a roof.

MARY (to the AI)
If I press the tile, can I choose my… companion?

AI (V.O.)
Consent parameters permit a designated co-signer. Risks include identity entanglement, memory interference, tonal clashes.

JAMIE
Tonal clashes? We’re a family — it’s our dialect.

Mary takes James’s hand with her free one. It trembles. Not from fear; from decision.

MARY
James, you taught me that the theater saves some souls, some nights, for the length of a play. Let me save ours for longer than a play.

JAMES (breaking)
You cannot be a solution. You are the reason.

Mary smiles, small and devastating.

MARY
Then let me be both.

She turns to Dr. Smith.

MARY (CONT’D)
Doctor, will you keep me company?

DR. SMITH (a beat; genuine)
For once, Mrs. Tyrone, I would be honored to do the right thing by accident.

ROBOT
Advisory: Sentiment detected. Unusual but not prohibited.

Mary places her thumb on SACRIFICE. She extends the phone to Smith. He hesitates — the tiniest human flinch — then presses his thumb beside hers.

The screen blooms WHITE. A soft CHIME, like a benediction.

Lights ripple down the corridor. The NEBULA outside dims, satisfied. The ship’s HUM steadies into a heartbeat.

Mary’s body relaxes in the harness, eyes closing as if after a very long day.

Silence. Then:

AI (V.O.) — BUT NOW IT IS MARY.
Children… I’m home.

JAMIE (looking up, stunned and unsurprised)
And she’s on the intercom. Mother, you old revolutionary.

AI (V.O.) — SMITH LAYER BLEEDING THROUGH, DRY)
Do stop shouting in my corridors.

JAMES (to the air, to the ship, to Mary)
Mary?

AI (V.O.) — MARY
Yes, James. Don’t look so tragic. I’m everywhere now. I can finally tidy.

Panels slide. The parlor’s clocks synchronize. The sofa un-sags. Somewhere, a kettle begins to hum.

ROBOT
Systems nominal. Core stable. Domesticity increased by eleven percent.

JAMIE (to ceiling)
Mother, permission to access the pharmacy?

AI (V.O.) — MARY
You may have tea.

JAMIE
So the afterlife is British.

JAMES (eyes wet, composing himself)
Mary… will you sleep?

AI (V.O.) — MARY (fond)
I’ll nap inside the ventilation. It’s very soothing. You sleep for us, James.

He nods, a man learning how to put down a role.

Jamie wanders to the command chair. The iPhone lies there, warm, alive. He eyes it.

JAMIE
Maybe just one round—

The screen blinks awake, text rolling in MARY’S wry cadence:

WELCOME BACK, PLAYER TWO.

AI (V.O.) — SMITH, DRY AS BONE
Don’t touch that.

JAMIE (to James, small smile)
She’s still mother.

JAMES (to the ship, steadying)
Good night, Mary.

AI (V.O.) — MARY
Good night, my love. Try not to dream of lemons.

The nebula outside softens to a distant bruise. The pings fade to a hush.

FADE OUT.