The Collector
A weekly one-hour drama-fantasy series about a collector who bottles emotions. Taking the form of a man named Samael A. Thane, the collector’s origin and true nature is unknown, even to himself. All he knows is that this is what he was appointed to do, it is his purpose.
He must collect the emotion in its purest form, directly from the soul, while the human is experiencing it. He chooses people who are already prime examples of an emotion, all he needs to do is push them to the extreme to obtain the desired emotion while it is most potent and intense. After it is extracted, it is taken completely: the person never feels it again. This has never affected him.
He is obsessive, solitary and always rational. A cross between Dexter, Constantine and Dream (also known as Morpheus, from the graphic novel sandman by Neil Gaiman), he is not human, and he does not feel the same things they feel.
He has an apartment in New York, which is frequently visited by Socrates, a stray, untamed tomcat. A street smart, young, Latino boy, Remy, helps him run small errands. Remy’s contract states that he is not allowed to ask questions but his intuitive nature allows him to guess something of what Samael is. Although reluctant at first, their relationship develops such that Remy comes to be his conscience and confidant. There is also Mrs. Stefanov, the 74-year-old landlady with both selective hearing and memory. She always over cooks, loves talking about her past and always asks him about his mother. He never answers. Then, there is Nora, the quiet independent librarian who lives in the apartment next door. He almost took Love from her once.
Each episode begins with the collector extracting the emotion and bottling it. He talks about the emotion (voice over), its word origins, how it affects people and the world. What he does or does not understand about it. He quotes philosophers.
A subject is then introduced, their life revealed through the events that shape their personalities. Through various disguises, dreams and planted thoughts, he manipulates them, pushes them to react, to feel what he needs them to.
The series will have on-going story lines as well as follow a case-by-case structure, like ‘House’ or ‘Supernatural’. Certain emotions may take only one episode. Others, like Love, which has different forms, may take a few. As the series develops, so does Samael’s understanding of the world and of himself. As he discovers fragments of his origins and of those who appointed him his task, he comes to question the collection’s true purpose and what he will do when he completes it. He delves deeper into darker feelings, exploring Anger, Fear, Grief and Hate.
The first season culminates with him having an encounter with War, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
Each episode ends with the Collector leaving the human, releasing him back into the normal time stream and taking the bottle back to his home. He then labels it and shelves it with the rest of his collection.
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