Sometimes the best superhero is actually a supervillain.

That’s the premise of an upcoming show, Doom’s Day, produced by Emerson Independent Video and Emerson Channel. Doom’s Day tells the story of a supervillain named Doomination who takes over the United States and discovers that she is exactly the kind of leader that the country needs, according to junior Brad Beideman, the head writer.

He said the show will provide a new perspective on the supervillain-superhero dynamic, accompanied by a lot of humor and some special effects for an added dash of flair. 

“There will be laughs. There will be love. There will be lava burning a man’s face off if necessary,” said Beideman, a visual and media arts major. 

Beideman said he first got the idea for Doom’s Day about a year and a half ago when he jotted down a concept for a new script on his phone. He said he began writing the pilot last spring, and enlisted friend Rachel Crowe, a junior visual and media arts major, to help him edit the episode.

One large change they made in the early stages of editing was turning the main character, who was originally written as a man into a woman. When they were finally satisfied with the script, Beiderman said the two pitched the show to both Emerson Channel and EIV.

“I’ve never done anything in this genre or format, or even anything that requires so much revision before,” said Beideman, “so it’s been fun to edit the script with Rachel and see the horrible mistakes I made with the first draft.”

Beideman and Crowe met working on Breaking News!, a comedy news program produced by Emerson Channel.

Crowe will be playing the “nefarious” character Doomination.

“Doom’s Day reimagines the worst possible outcome in any superhero movie­—that the bad guy wins—and makes it funny and sharp,” she said. “It’s lead along by a bizarre, very strong anti-heroine. It’s about superheroes and villains, and that’s always so much fun.”

Beideman said he and Crowe were surprised, thrilled, and slightly anxious when the show was picked up by both Emerson Channel and EIV.

As the two organizations usually work on completely different projects, Doom’s Day is unfamiliar territory for everyone involved.

“We kind of have a friendly rivalry going on, so this is really the first time we have something with both our names on it,” said junior Matt Prince, director of programming for the Emerson Channel. 

Prince, a visual media and arts major, said both chose to take on the project because they loved the concept of a show about a supervillain, adding that so far, there have been no major conflicts.

Prince received the pitch for Doom’s Day and reviewed it himself. Never having read a pitch for a show about a supervillain before, he said he was immediately interested in the project because it was so unconventional.

“We get a lot of pitches about college kids doing college things, and that’s fine,” Prince said. “But we can handle something bigger, so I think we should do it. My immediate reaction to Doom’s Day was ‘I love it, this is awesome, let’s go.’”

Beideman said the show held interviews for crew positions Sept. 20, and interviews for writers and associate producers on Sept. 21. He said he plans to shoot one episode this semester, hopefully in November.

“We’ll write and shoot two or three next semester if all goes well this first time around,” Beideman. “Expect the pilot by the end of December unless something goes horribly, horribly wrong.”

A promo for the show was released on Sept 10. The three-minute video, which has received over 170 views as of this article’s publication, introduces the character of Doomination and her quest to vanquish her archenemy, Captain Laserpunch. Cutting between clips of everyday life and deliberately glitchy special effects, Doomination commands the people of the country to join her fight.

Senior Myles Kramer, who produced the promo, said although the show is silly, it has its own distinctive style.

“It has a good sense of humor, but is not too ‘in your face’ about its jokes,” said Kramer, a visual and media arts major. “A certain amount of ambition also comes with producing a show about a supervillain, which I think is admirable.”