MAIL ORDERED
The Pitch:
What happens when you chase the American Dream but American Dream doesn't actually want you? Mail Ordered follows a woman from a Southeast Asian village who becomes a millionaire after Hollywood turns her life as a former mail ordered bride into a hit TV show.
There's just one problem: the woman playing her is AI, (yes the studio thinks is cheaper that way). When the truth comes out, her perfect life implodes, and suddenly she finds herself losing everything she's built and some very questionable gangsters all want a piece of her.
It's a fish-out of water comedy about thinking you made it in America, losing everything, and starting all over again and doing whatever it takes to survive. Borat meets Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
Mail Ordered
Serialized dark comedy | Proposed hour - long single-camera series | Season One: 13 episodes
Logline
A gifted village fixer becomes the wealthy face of a hit American show based on her life. When fans discover her onscreen counterpart is AI-generated, her dream collapses, forcing her to rebuild while family, gangsters, lovers, and her best friend compete to decide what she owes them.
The Series
Lila Padi has escaped the marriage pressures of her Southeast Asian village for New York, paid her father’s debts, and become a celebrity. Her favorite pastime is watching Mail Ordered in pajamas printed with Nom Nom, her beloved village goat. The show dramatizes her life. The fortune is real. The performance is artificial. Everyone sees an opportunity.
Her ex, aspiring rapper Simon, wants help launching his career. Aidan, a charming music producer, courts her under orders from his gangster father, Krong, who wants her wealth in the family. Andrea, her fiercely protective best friend and a Marine veteran, accepts funding for her secret feminist vigilante group while keeping Lila outside it. Back home, Krong sells village tours while marriage broker Mamasan demands her share of the publicity.
When Lila casually reveals the AI secret, adoration turns into outrage. With her income suspended and her home lost, she takes refuge with Nathan, a young convenience-store employee who gives her his bed and sleeps on the couch. Loyal husbands Jayson and Chris rally around her. Lila has spent her life fixing other people’s problems. Now she must learn to choose which ones are hers.
Tone and Story Engine
Romantic farce, musical performances, crime, and supernatural surprises grow from recognizable desires pushed past reason. Krong interrupts criminal business for a family call; studio staff holding Simon captive rush to take selfies with Lila. The real characters watch and argue with the show inside the show. Each episode turns a date, a job, or a favor into a struggle over money, loyalty, or control. Lila’s practical brilliance and sincerity give the comedy its heart.
Three Season Arc
Season One follows Lila’s fall from fame. Jayson and Chris infiltrate the set and catch her digital double glitching. Her mechanical gifts earn respect at a mob-connected garage, but joining Andrea’s operation gets her kidnapped. Village rebel Bad Girl Kim rides in to save her.
Season Two gives Lila a home and pride in her work as Nom Nom pajamas revive demand for the show. A gunman fires from a passing Lincoln; a clown shields two children. Wounded in the foot and facing the garage’s closure, Lila refuses to leave New York and chooses clown school.
Season Three brings love, betrayal, and the chance to play herself. Lila refuses Mamasan’s demand to abandon clowning, confronts Andrea for hiding the show’s return, and wins her own role. She marries Aidan with a prenup that protects their future from Krong. Her choices finally belong to her.
Written by / Story and Characters by
Shanice Stanislaus & Abdul Stone Jackson
Based on the original stage play "Mail Ordered",
written and created by Shanice Stanislaus.
Trending . . .
Writer/Creator Shanice Stanislaus was featured (and is trending) in the magazine VOYAGE LA.
Click her red nose to read the article!
LIMITED PARTNERSHIP
This project is presented by Group Stone Media Partners and Illusion of Movement Film Works under a limited partnership with the respective intellectual property owner. All copyrights and underlying intellectual property rights remain exclusively with the writer and/or rights holder. Inclusion within our portfolio does not constitute a transfer or assignment of ownership.