caver.adam wrote:...securing them in a watery tomb."
....hey, this would be fun if it wasn't likely they would really make up stuff like this.
I like where this is going! (the conversation that is)
"Not many dare to enter the world of nightmares that is a cave. Those who do are waking into a labyrinth filled with most extreme phobias known to humanity: darkness, heights, drowning, coldness, coffin-tight passage, creatures of the night, and the ever present knowledge of the thousand tons of rock that block your way to the surface. The cave does not know or care that you exist, and death may come at any moment, with no partiality. Only skill, a level head, luck, and most of all the shear will to live will carry the intrepid caver back to the sun-blessed world from whence they came."
This IS fun!
As for the idea of a TV show, I think a series of internet videos (Youtube, Vimeo, and the like) might be the more proper venue. Certainly, the profit potential is low and the risk is high. However, the initial capital is low and it allows you to get away with appealing to a much more targeted audience. TV shows have to appeal to a massive range to get funded by the major networks, and therefore usually resort to base drama to bring in views. The format I'm suggesting would allow someone to make something that documents the strange and diverse ways of caves and the caving community, without compromising their integrity. That's what's been nice about the internet so far, you can do something off-the-wall, with no promise at all of succeeding on paper, and no one to influence you in "evil" (not as sarcastic as it might seem) ways. If you were to put in the time and effort to do it right: get permissions, do the homework, and don't sacrifice authenticity for shock value (ex. editing conversations to cook drama), I'd be willing to bet you could put together quite the program. Caves are interesting places, and cavers are interesting people. Odds are against a person making bank doing this, but to someone who truly loves and respects caves and cavers, that isn't the point now, is it?