CALIBRATION — An 8-Episode Limited Series

The Pitch

Why This Show. Why Now.

Format: 8-episode limited series. Prestige drama. Complete story, definitive ending.
Tone: Chernobyl meets Watchmen meets First Reformed.
Core question: Can the world tolerate greatness it doesn't control?

The Tragedy Is the Point

Hugo dies because the institution sends a bomb, not because God sends lightning. Not a redemption story. Not a power fantasy. The world builds a weapon, uses it, tries to replicate it, fails, and destroys the original.

One Man, One Camera

No ensemble. No team. One protagonist from birth to death. Every other character exists in relation to Hugo. The audience cannot diffuse attention. They must sit with Hugo and feel what he feels.

Real Science, One Leap

Fourteen CRISPR-modified genes. Named targets. Quantified capabilities. One fictional leap: the cascade. Everything else extrapolated from 2026 gene editing. The modification should feel possible, not magical.

Written in 1930

Philip Wylie wrote the novel that inspired Superman. Ninety-six years later, nobody has adapted the source material. Public domain January 1, 2026. Zero rights cost. Clean chain of title.

What Makes It Different

Other Superhero Shows	CALIBRATION
Powers as spectacle	Powers as restraint — the calibration IS the demonstration
Ensemble teams	One man, one life, one death
Costumes and code names	Jeans, work boots, false names
Villain of the week	One institutional antagonist across eight episodes
Redemption arc	Tragedy — the system wins, the individual dies
Handwaved science	14-gene CRISPR cascade with named targets

The Story

Four Acts. One Life. One Death.

Act I — ModificationEpisodes 1–2

Abednego injects his pregnant wife with a fourteen-gene CRISPR cascade. Hugo is born extraordinary. By ten, he's demolished a bully's fort with his bare hands and been filmed. At CU Boulder, he walks on to the football team, calibrating at 60–65%. Then the USC game — three-tenths of a second, and a quarterback's spine breaks. Hugo runs 180 miles in four hours.

"Will I always have to pretend?"

Act II — WeaponEpisodes 3–4

Two years of exile: oil rigs, fighting rings, pearl diving. Catherine Lyle finds Hugo in Tahiti and recruits him. Fort Bragg. Syria. Twelve kills. The moral weight accumulates. Hugo visits Estes Park — Anna is dead, Abednego is gaunt, the DIA has subpoenaed his journal.

Hugo realizes: someone is trying to do it again.

Act III — PrometheusEpisodes 5–6

PROMETHEUS: $183 million to replicate Hugo in human embryos. Twelve modified. Eight survive. Four deteriorate. Dr. Raya Patel falls in love with Hugo while feeding his data to the program. Hugo discovers the dying children. Raya's dual role is exposed. Hugo is confined.

"These are people. They didn't consent to this. Neither did I."

Act IV — ThresholdEpisodes 7–8

Hugo breaks free, drives to Fort Detrick, destroys PROMETHEUS — servers, samples, data. He shuts down the artificial wombs one at a time with calibrated precision. The government's response: two Black Hawks, a thermobaric bomb. Hugo could fight. He stands still. His refusal to fight is his first fully autonomous act. The meadow becomes glass.

Final image: a fireproof box. A composition notebook. The complete protocol survives.

Episodes

Eight Hours. One Life. No Redemption.

Episode 1

"Modification"

~60 min

A geneticist modifies his unborn son's genome — and spends ten years teaching the child not to destroy everything he touches.

"Will I always have to pretend?" / "We'll figure it out."

Episode 2

"Calibration"

~58 min

Hugo discovers he's bulletproof, goes to college, plays elite football — and destroys a man's spine in three-tenths of a second.

The silence of 53,750 people.

Episode 3

"Drift"

~52 min

Hugo disappears into manual labor, fighting rings, and pearl diving — until a woman who knows his name sits down in a Tahiti bar.

"You're looking for a context where what you are makes sense."

Episode 4

"Weapon"

~60 min

Hugo becomes the most effective soldier in American history — while a program to replicate him takes shape behind the scenes.

Anna is dead. Abednego is gaunt. The DIA has the journal.

Episode 5

"Prometheus"

~60 min

Hugo falls in love with a woman who is secretly feeding his data to the program that wants to copy him.

"Get me the complete protocols. From his son."

Episode 6

"Protocols"

~58 min

Hugo discovers the truth — and the woman he loves is complicit.

"You knew. From the beginning, you knew."

Episode 7

"Escape"

~60 min

Hugo breaks free, destroys PROMETHEUS, and shuts down the dying embryos — one at a time, with the gentleness that defines everything he touches.

"No one will ever do this again."

Episode 8

"Threshold"

~65 min

The world sends a thermobaric bomb for the man it can't contain — and a notebook survives the fire.

The question is still open.

Characters

Four People. One Experiment. No Consent.

Lead — All 8 Episodes

Hugo Danner

Early-mid 20s • 6'2", 265 lbs

The emotional center — a man defined by the gap between what he can do and what the world will let him do. Every institution that encounters him sees capability. None see a person.

Arc: Isolated child → brief normalcy → exile → weapon → prisoner → autonomous man (for five minutes) → death.

He was made without consent. Every institution that followed did the same.

Series Regular — Eps 3–8

Catherine Lyle

Late 40s–early 50s • DIA Officer

The antagonist but not a villain — genuinely believes genetic enhancement is a moral imperative. Competent, patriotic, and wrong. She recruits Hugo, architects PROMETHEUS, orders the strike, and gets promoted.

Arc: Recruiter → architect of PROMETHEUS → the woman who ordered the strike → promoted.

Her father died because human bodies are fragile. She will not let that be the last word.

Series Regular — Eps 5–8

Dr. Raya Patel

Early 30s • Indian-American Geneticist

The moral fulcrum: loves Hugo AND feeds his data to PROMETHEUS. Her scientific curiosity and her love are the same impulse, and they destroyed the same man.

Arc: Curious scientist → conflicted lover → caught spy → exile → witness.

Her scientific curiosity and her love are the same impulse, and they destroyed the same man.

Series Regular — Eps 1–2, 4, 7–8

Abednego Danner

50s–60s • Geneticist & Creator

The creator — brilliant and morally bankrupt. He made his son extraordinary without asking, spent a decade managing the consequences, and died in custody having hidden one last notebook.

Arc: Ambitious creator → guilty father → broken old man → dies in custody, having hidden one last notebook.

"I love you. I love what I made. And I can't separate them."

The World

Science, Institutions & the Calibrated Life

The Modification

14-gene CRISPR-Cas9 cascade. Named targets: MYH6 (cardiac output), MSTN knockout (muscle growth), COL1A1 (connective tissue), SCN9A (pain threshold), and 10 others.
One fictional leap: the cascade effect. Each gene is real; the combination is art.
Performed in a garage lab, alone, at night. No institution. No oversight. One man's ambition and one unborn child's future.

The Calibration

Hugo's central metaphor: the constant, conscious modulation of force. A handshake at 3%. A football tackle at 60%. A fortified compound at 100%.
Everyone calibrates — intelligence, ambition, honesty. Hugo's calibration is literal.
The rare moments he doesn't calibrate are the most devastating scenes in the series.

The Institutions

DIA recruits Hugo (Lyle). PROMETHEUS ($183M, Fort Detrick) tries to replicate him. JSOC deploys him (Syria).
The U.S. government is not evil — it is competent, patriotic, and wrong.
The antagonist is not a person. It is a system that views an extraordinary individual as a capability to be reproduced.

Visual Grammar & Tone

Colorado (Malick): Natural light, meadows, wide lenses. The beauty that Hugo can never fully inhabit.
CU Boulder (Linklater): Warm, collegiate, handheld. The brief window of normalcy.
Exile (Bigelow): Industrial, handheld, desaturated. Oil rigs, fighting rings, open ocean.
Military/DIA (Chernobyl): Institutional, cold, locked-off. The machinery of state power. Score: sparse, textural, never heroic. The thermobaric strike should sound like an industrial accident, not a battle.

Production

Budget & Production Approach

Budget Overview

Estimated total: $64M – $96M ($8–12M per episode). Comparable to Chernobyl (~$15M/ep for 5 eps), significantly cheaper than 3 Body Problem (~$20M/ep). Lower VFX load: no alien worlds, no space, no creature work.

Category	Estimate
Above-the-line (cast, creators, writers, directors)	$16–24M
Below-the-line production (crew, locations, sets, equipment)	$24–36M
VFX (wirework, practical, CG enhancement)	$12–18M
Post-production (editorial, sound, score, color)	$12–18M

What This Project Needs

Showrunner: Someone who has run morally unflinching prestige drama. Comfort with tragedy as the correct ending.
Lead: An actor with genuine physical presence who can make stillness more powerful than violence. 6'2"+, 260+ lbs range.
Pilot Director: Someone who shoots institutional violence with documentary restraint. Reference: Chernobyl, Sicario.
Writers Room: 4–6 writers. Familiarity with genetic ethics and institutional power. Every episode ends worse.
VFX Lead: Practical-first approach. Wirework for strength demonstrations, CG enhancement for impossible physics.

VFX Approach

This is a LOW-VFX prestige drama. No alien worlds. No space. No creature work.

Strategy: Practical first, CG enhance.

Eps 1–2 (Childhood/College): 90% practical. Colorado locations, wirework for feats of strength.
Eps 3–4 (Exile/Military): 80% practical. Real locations (oil rigs, desert, military bases), minimal CG.
Eps 5–6 (PROMETHEUS): 70% practical. Lab sets, embryo VFX, facility interiors.
Eps 7–8 (Escape/Threshold): 60% practical. Fort Detrick breach, thermobaric detonation, glass meadow.
Estimated 80–90 shoot days. Primary locations: Colorado (Estes Park, Boulder), Middle East standing (Jordan/Morocco), Virginia.

Comparable Productions

Title	Per-Episode Cost	VFX Load
Chernobyl	~$15M	Minimal (reactor, hospital)
Watchmen	~$10M	Moderate (powers, period)
The Boys	~$7.5M (S1)	Moderate (powers, gore)
3 Body Problem	~$20M	Heavy (alien tech, space)
CALIBRATION	$8–12M	Low-moderate (wirework, practical)

The Market

The Gap CALIBRATION Fills

Chernobyl Emmy Wins

69M

3 Body Problem Views (Month 1)

1930

Source Novel — Public Domain 2026

Rights Acquisition Cost

Platform Targeting

Platform	Fit	Why
Netflix	Primary	3 Body Problem audience. Global reach for superhuman deconstruction.
HBO / Max	Strong	Chernobyl + Watchmen DNA. Prestige tragedy is their brand.
Apple TV+	Strong	Severance, For All Mankind. Character-driven prestige SF.
Amazon / MGM	Good	The Boys audience. Direct tonal complement (literary vs satirical).

The Gap CALIBRATION Fills

Post-Watchmen Audience

The superhuman deconstruction market has satirical (The Boys) and mythological (Watchmen). CALIBRATION introduces a third mode: literary realism. Chernobyl applied to superhuman biology.

The Anti-Superman

Superman's origin story, told as tragedy. The novel that inspired the character — adapted for the first time, ninety-six years later. Same premise, opposite conclusion.

Prestige Tragedy

Chernobyl proved audiences will watch institutional horror played straight. CALIBRATION applies the same model to genetic modification. No heroes. No salvation. Just the machinery and the man.

Downloads

Full Materials Available

Complete production package: pilot screenplay, series bible, episode guide, character breakdowns, and all eight screenplays.

Production Package

📋 Executive One-Pager 📊 Pitch Deck 🎬 Pilot Screenplay 📜 Series Bible 👤 Character Breakdowns 🎦 Production Bible 📄 Episode Guide

All 8 Screenplays

🎬 Ep 1 — "Modification" 🎬 Ep 2 — "Calibration" 🎬 Ep 3 — "Drift" 🎬 Ep 4 — "Weapon" 🎬 Ep 5 — "Prometheus" 🎬 Ep 6 — "Protocols" 🎬 Ep 7 — "Escape" 🎬 Ep 8 — "Threshold"

Source Novel

📖 Source Novel (EPUB)

For the Science Geek

The Science Behind CALIBRATION

CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing, bone remodeling biology, myostatin pathways, pain threshold genetics — with peer-reviewed citations.

Not required reading. But if you paused Gattaca to check the gene targets — this is for you.

5-Minute Read

The Plain-English Version

Same ideas, no equations. A bridge to the deep dive for the curious but equation-averse.

About the Author

Jeremy Salsburg

Jeremy Salsburg is a systems engineer, hedge fund founder, and software architect whose work spans high-frequency trading infrastructure, precision aerospace optics, and advanced energy research. Trained in mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder and later earning an MBA from Nova Southeastern University, he has built and operated real-world systems where physics, control theory, and failure modes are not abstractions but constraints.

Early in his career, he contributed to beam control optics on the U.S. Air Force’s Airborne Laser program and to optical systems supporting inertial confinement fusion research at the National Ignition Facility. He has also engineered thin-film vacuum deposition systems used in advanced materials fabrication.

Today, he designs large-scale systematic trading platforms while writing hard science fiction grounded in physical law, engineering limits, and the unintended consequences of ambitious technology. A certificated private pilot, he writes at the intersection of aerospace, physics, and disciplined systems thinking.

Ready to Talk?

Pilot screenplay, series bible, and complete production package available for review. Creator available for meetings.

Jeremy Salsburg

Author & Creator

calibration.ThresholdFiction.com | [email protected] | (561) 247-3842