UNDERGROUND

When a disgraced ex-police officer is hired to find a billionaire's missing son, she descends into London’s hidden, subterranean labyrinth, only to realise too late that she and her team are traversing the 17th-century network of tunnels, caves and catacombs for a far more sinister reason.

About

UNDERGROUND is a high-concept 8 episode psychological thriller blending modern science fiction with 17th century gothic horror. By subverting a familiar missing person procedural early on, the show instead offers to take viewers on a wild ride through an unmapped, unexplored, untamed city beneath the city. What lurks around a corner in The Underground could be anything from an illegal rave, a criminal syndicate in hiding, a bio-lab with a dangerous beast inside or a feral humanoid that’s only ever known the darkness.

When Emily Dom was ruthlessly fired by the Metropolitan Police Service after she reported her senior for sexual harassment, her life plummeted. Desperate for a lifeline, she takes an off-the-books gig, descending into the subterranean layers of London to recover a wealthy man's runaway son. But as Emily and her crew venture down, they discover that the boy doesn’t exist and the wealthy man hired them on behalf of a security firm with messy, terrifying unfinished business underground.

The series cuts between two distinct eras to show how the past created the present. 

• The A-plot shows Emily Dom, our protagonist, as she and her team navigate the uncharted labyrinth below London, at first searching for a missing boy that doesn’t exist before facing mutations and monsters that grew strong in the darkness. 

• The B-plot, set in the 1600s and seen less frequently through episode top and tail snippets, follows Mabel and the original survivors of the plague pits, tracking how this desperate group managed to not only live but thrive in the dark and build a new world below. 

The show studies what happens to those who we discard - from the needlessly firing of Emily Dom, our modern day protagonist (and what social and financial situations that puts her in) to those thrown and abandoned in the plague pits in the 1600s b-plot (and how they make a new life outside of society). 

It asks a relevant question for today's audience: 

When someone is discarded from society, what happens when they fight back?

Teaser

INT. UNDERGROUND PLAGUE PIT - NIGHT [1627]

A grubby hand BURSTS out from a pile of corpses. The dirty fingers wildly grab for purchase, scratch at bloodied arms, at sunken eye sockets, at those dead and discarded in a pit.

    SUPER: London, 1627

MABEL BAUDE (20s) claws herself out, fights against the weight of the bodies that try to suck her back under, back into the pile of death.

Exhausted, with her dress soiled with dark blood and her face blackened with dirt, Mabel hoists herself atop the pile, frantically looks upward for the way out.

But there's nothing. Only the darkness of the cavern.

MABEL

Mercy! Someone, for the love of God, hear me!

She struggles to stand, unbalanced on the uneven mound.

MABEL

(-shouting)

I am no corpse! The Pestilence hath not taken me!

But no-one above ground answers her desperate pleas.

A fire torch lights in the distance... dancing flames fill a tunnel. Mabel GASPS at the stationary FIGURE.

MABEL

Who bides there? Reveal thyself!

EXT. Graveyard - Day [Modern Day]

400 years later... rain strikes in a relentless blitz upon the crowd of black-clad MOURNERS. But they do not care.

Their attention is given to the flag-draped coffin in the grave and to the PRIEST that delivers his eulogy with practised gravitas.

    SUPER: London, 2026

PRIEST

...and his blue light will shine on, guiding the Metropolitan Police Service for whatever lies ahead.

Many MOURNERS wear badges, collar numbers, medals, uniforms.

PRIEST

Officer May's colleagues, friends and family spoke to me of his

courage, his integrity and his unwavering dedication to duty -

A loud SCOFF. It rattles the PRIEST, cuts him off -

DOM (O.S.)

(-from somewhere)

He was a pervert. A gross, old creep.

Heads whip around!

The Priest locks eyes with a decorated CHIEF CONSTABLE -

DOM CONT'D (O.S.)

And you all knew it!

The Chief Constable pushes through the MOURNERS, searching like a honing missile for the voice.

DOM CONT'D (O.S.)

You all hated May. Standing there like you give a shit now he's dead.

The Chief Constable locates his target, alone, at the back:

-- EMILY DOM (late 30s), an ex-cop, chewing gum, dressed in casual, black clothes. She faces up to the Chief Constable.

DOM

How you doing, Sir?

CHIEF CONSTABLE

You ain't supposed to be here, Dom.

Heads down, the MOURNERS watch out the corners of their eyes.

DOM

Had to make sure the lech was dead.

CHIEF CONSTABLE

Emily. Please. His kids are here.

She catches a glimpse of TWO BOYS. They stare at her, lost behind their red, puffy eyes.

DOM

May's the reason I'm stood on my own, out of uniform,

everyone pretending like I'm not here.

A FEMALE OFFICER catches Dom's eyes.

DOM

Hi Becky! We still on for that skiing trip?

She suddenly seems very interested in her own feet.

CHIEF CONSTABLE

Dom. Things went down one way and we can't change that now.

Dom takes in the upset MOURNERS - not one of them on her side, the TWO BOYS - to whom she is a nuisance and to The Chief Constable - who slowly shakes his head.

It doesn't feel good.

EXT. GRAVEYARD OUTSKIRTS - Day

Dom trudges the paved path of the graveyard, her clothes soaked, her mind still with the service that continues behind her, without her.

An officer breaks away from the funeral, run-walks to Dom:

-- CONSTABLE LEE (50s, male) closes the gap -

CONSTABLE LEE

Emily!

Dom hears him, SCOFFS and marches onwards through the rain.

DOM

What do you want, Lee?

INT. CAFE - DAY

In a greasy spoon café, Dom works on demolishing a full English, bean juice seeping out the corner of her mouth.

Constable Lee sits down opposite with two steaming mugs.

CONSTABLE LEE

Jeez. Remember to breath.

DOM

(-with a mouth of food)

You payin', right?

He nods.

CONSTABLE LEE

Are you doing okay?

DOM

Yeah, great. Still got a week before they turn my power off so...

CONSTABLE LEE

About May and the whole thing. It wasn't your fault.

DOM

I know.

CONSTABLE LEE

I know you know. But I wanted to say it anyway.

DOM

Why?

CONSTABLE LEE

I don't know. To offer some comfort?

DOM

That creep wanting comfort is what got me into trouble.

(-then)

How did I end up fired, Lee?

Constable Lee drinks his tea, thinking...

CONSTABLE LEE

You didn't play the game.

She shovels the last of her food into her mouth, mopping up her plate with bread.

DOM

Fuck the game. Fuck May. And fuck the Metropolitan Police Service.

Constable Lee's eyes dart around the café, he leans in -

CONSTABLE LEE

(-whispers)

You know my cousin Alice?

DOM

Married that posho with the fuck-off mansion?

CONSTABLE LEE

She called me yesterday, asked me to take something on 'off the books'.

Dom LAUGHS.

DOM

You? You don't take a shit without filling out the right paperwork.

CONSTABLE LEE

Well... true. I saw you at the service and it just clicked -

DOM

Does it pay?

CONSTABLE LEE

Yes.

DOM

I'll do it.

CONSTABLE LEE

It's dangerous.

Dom grabs a napkin, slams it down in front of him as she licks her fingers.

DOM

Gimmie the address.

CONSTABLE LEE

Emily. Listen to me. They want a team to go... underground. You've heard the stories. I wouldn't even suggest it but, well to be honest, you look like you need the money.

She breathes in, thinks for all of a nano-second. Then -

DOM

Address.

END OF TEASER