First Episode

Do you have a year for me to tell you?

Honestly, it's hard to say. The actual real life event was bonkers, and the most fun I've ever had in my life. For about 3 years, an eccentric millionaire created a sort of magical fantasyland hiding in plain sight in San Francisco and Oakland. Subtle clues led you to an office on the 16th floor of the Bank of America building, and for the next 3 years crazy things happened. He and his crew permanently, and discreetly, altered the landscape of the city, and slowly built a sort of narrative that brought hundreds of people together into what was accurately billed as a "recondite family." I'm friends to this day with dozens of people who also became embroiled in the... experience? narrative? game?... and some of us even watched the recent episode "together" over Discord last night.

People have described the Jejune Institute as an "ARG," which it in some ways resembled, but the creator had never heard of an ARG, and the experience only tangentially resembled one. It was in some ways a cult, though a benign one, in some ways an art project, but mostly the desire of one man to create a world where trapdoors in sidewalks and secret passageways, and secret societies, coexist with the "normal" world, unbeknownst to most people.

I could literally go on for hours. In any event, Segal heard about this through a quasi-documentary he saw, and reached out to the creator for permission to loosely base a TV show on the Jejune Institute. So far I'd say it's 30% true to life, 70% Hollywood creative license, but quite entertaining.