6. Inception
One of the highest grossing movies of all time, created by Christopher Nolan, the mind behind new-classics such as The Dark Knight trilogy and Memento, Inception came along with a truly unique concept. Well, not completely unique cartoons have been jumping through dreams for decades: Spongebob Squarepants did it DuckTales did it. The difference here was that Inception brought something fresh to the idea: realism. Obviously, the concept of entering somebody elses dream and solving crimes in their brain is not possible, but Inception gave the audience a feeling of suspense based on the feasibility of this crazy idea. So, for the TV show, I could see it as an hour-long, sci-fi thriller where in each episode, the "team" of dream jumpers is given a mission that they must complete. There could be a huge variance of different missions: searching someone's brain for a piece of information to help solve a crime, proving a suspect's innocence (or guilt), or finding an explanation for why a crime was carried out in the first place. It could be a very interesting take on the procedural drama, with fantastic visuals for the different dreams and captivating characters. Obviously it would be tough to get huge stars like Leo DiCaprio and Joe Gordon Levitt to come back to television, but the beauty of this format is that all of the roles could be tweaked to fit another actor. With new actors come new characters, each with their own 'totems' and backstories (possibly told to the audience through flashbacks or actual "dream sequences"), this show would have a lot of room to grow. NBC tried something similar last year with the cop drama, Awake, but it didn't really pan out and was cancelled quickly. I see this show taking some of that darkness with the "team" feeling of Fox's now-cancelled Fringe and creating something great. A first season finale twist? The main character experiences a "kick, waking them up to the idea that the entire first season was all taking place within a level of their dream!