This document provides character profiles and plot details for a proposed television show titled "The Chosen". It introduces the main characters including Oleg Sokolov, the 47-year-old protagonist, and his antagonist Valeriy Burtsev, the 69-year-old governor. It also describes Mikhail Vodyanov, the 48-year-old federal inspector who is a main dynamic character. The document then offers two potential solutions for providing cultural context within the show's plot. The first involves a foreign journalist character living in Russia, while the second uses flashbacks told from the perspective of Oleg's daughter many years in the future.

1. The Chosen (“Избранник”)
DreamCast & Solution to Cultural Context
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2. Key Characters*
Character Age Role Occupation Candidate I Candidate II
Oleg Sokolov 47 Protagonist
Business person,
construction
Charlie Hunnum Dougray Scott
Valeriy Burtsev 69 Antagonist Governor Brendan Gleeson Alec Baldwin
Mikhail Vodyanov 48 DC Federal Inspector Lars Mikkelsen Jonathan Banks
Zhanna Parusova 47 Antagonist Wife Claire Danes Evangeline Lilly
Svetlana Sokolova 18 DC Daughter Cara Delevingne Elisabeth Olsen
Andrey Sokolov 22 DC Son Charlie Cox
Roman Tsyolkovsky 35 DC Political advisor Chris Pratt
Benedict
Cumberbatch
Ivan Losev 57 DC Acting mayor Paul Giamatti Dougray Scott
Ivan Maximov 55 DC
High-ranking
friend
Dean Norris Bjarne Henriksen
Mikhail Zhilin 48 Antagonist II Oligarch, Utilities Bob Odenkirk Ole Boisen
Igor Kondratiev 59 Antagonist II City Manager Kelsey Grammer Ray Winstone
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* Each character has two alternatives with names of actors leading to their IMDB pages

3. Oleg Sokolov (47)
Protagonist:
Charlie Hunnum
Dougray Scott
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4. Valery Burtsev (69):
Antagonist:
Alec Baldwin
Brendan Gleeson
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5. Mikhail Vodyanov (48)
Main Dynamic
Character:
Lars Mikkelsen
Jonathan Banks
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6. Cultural Context - Solution 1 - Journalist
Foreign journalist who (sometimes) speaks to camera or in a voice-over.
He lives in Russia because:
a. Leads a corruption scandal investigation in one of the Russian regions (possibly
hired by an investment bank)
b. writes about political events in the regions and be a social science investigator
from a university at the same time
c. Be a staff writer for a paper like The Moscow Times or an analog
In both case he may be a friend with the family of the Main Character (MC) and be
close with MC as a professional.
d. He is in love with a Russian girl who wants to go with him to the West. She might
be a friend of the MC’s wife - this explains why is is allowed in the family.
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7. Cultural Context - Solution 2 - Flashback
All story is one big flashback from Russia in 2030 to the present days.
Someone from the MC’s children (preferably his daughter), who lives now in the
West. Reading through father’s (scanned) papers and digital photographs she
recalls the events in her teenage years (she is 18 when the Season 1 takes place in
2017).
This, on top to the initial solution to the cultural context provides an opportunity to
demonstrate a fictional but probable Russia’s future as something that had already
happened. And why it happened.
This looks a lot like Better Call Saul: the story is told by one of the main characters,
but from the future, which does not look like happy end.
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8. Dimitri Popov
+7 985 418 46 25
+1 510 770 49 95
dimitri.a.popov@gmail.com
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