CUT THE CURRENT

Synopsis

Owen Vance runs load balancing for a utility that keeps four million people warm. He knows where the slack is. He knows the ninety seconds between a substation dropping and the backup catching, because he wrote the procedure that covers it. In February two men buy him lunch and ask a hypothetical. By March it is not hypothetical, it is a date, a number, and half the number in a bag. They are polite. They do not say what the dark is for. He has six weeks. He can find out, or he can take the second half and never know. Both of those are decisions, and only one of them lets him keep saying he did not.

Who this is about

Owen Vance keeps the power on for four million people. He knows the eleven seconds of slack in the system better than the utility that employs him does.

What goes wrong

Men with money want ninety seconds of darkness on a night they choose. They pay him half up front and will not tell him what the dark is for.

What's at stake

Ninety dark seconds kills people on ventilators and in stairwells whether he means it or not. Refusing after taking the money means they buy someone with less care.

Why it keeps going

Each episode narrows the window. Who benefits, who dies, and how much of the answer he can find before the night they picked arrives, with his hand already on the switch.

Takeaway

Nobody buys a small crime. They buy the corner of a large one and let you imagine the rest.

Shelves

Themes

Story, in the creator's words

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Style

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Characters

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Tech stack

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Schedule

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Production plan

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