The Penthouse
Curved white rooms and a chandelier of glass bubbles. The neural grid hears every thought: “Honesty is not a choice.”
ORVANA
Created, Written and Produced by Jason Boyce
Pilot: “Orth, Not Earth” · Half-hour adult animated ensemble comedy
Adult animated sci-fi comedy
300 years in the future, an L.A. therapist, a British journalist and a children’s magician arrive on the fantastical planet Orvana—where an administrative mistake threatens them with deportation. Between alien housemates, accidental engagements and impossible parenting, they discover a city that would rather edit their memories than tolerate a messy human feeling.
ORVANA is an adult animated comedy about starting over where nobody understands you—including yourself. In a world of all-knowing algorithms, promised happiness and private lives turned into entertainment, the household’s greatest act of rebellion is being gloriously, inconveniently human.
ORVANA is an animated sci-fi ensemble comedy about belonging, honesty and the absurdity of being human.
Orth, Not Earth.
01 The premise
New planet. Familiar problems.
An L.A. therapist, a British journalist and a children’s magician arrive on Orvana for a fresh start. Their biggest challenge is not the aliens. It is living with each other.
An administrative error puts their right to stay in jeopardy. With deportation looming, the new arrivals must prove they have something to offer a world where the food negotiates, the paperwork flirts and a magician can be mistaken for a prophet.
- Jack wants a clean break. Fatherhood has other ideas.
- Emma needs to find David, her missing husband.
- Pete needs to earn money for Claire’s treatment without turning an accidental engagement into another lie.
Adult comedy. A mystery runs through it—not instead of it.
02 The World of Orvana
Welcome to Hellion City
Green sky. Pink ocean. Rainbow beaches. Three moons: Ava, Ryn and Iko. Skyscrapers miles high, floating free.
The View
A five-hundred-foot hologram welcomes the arrivals to Hellion City—and knows rather too much about Jack’s search history.
The City
Hellion City from the penthouse balcony: floating towers, three moons and a very long way down.
The Show’s Engine
Nobody gets away with it
“Pip sneezes at the lies you say.
The beetle says what you don’t.”
Vrax: My mother bit off his antenna. He was a very good sport about it.
Pete: I don’t have antennae.
Vrax: She’ll improvise.
03 Characters
The Humans
Jack Mercer
L.A. psychotherapist
Jack can explain everyone’s emotional avoidance except his own. A fresh start on Orvana becomes a crash course in intimacy, fatherhood and staying put.
Emma Parker
British journalist
Emma came to find her missing husband, David. Following his trail into Torex means asking uncomfortable questions, going on air with Flim and Flam, and learning to trust the household she keeps trying to manage.
Pete Sky
American children’s magician
A children’s magician with a good heart and a gift for making things worse. His tricks earn him an alien fiancé, an accidental church he does not want and attention from precisely the wrong people.
The Alien Ensemble
The residents of Penthouse 240777—and the officials, neighbours and colleagues in their wider orbit.
Krix
Nail bar owner
An exuberant host, devoted friend and enthusiastic student of human culture. When his boyfriend Pello moves in, Krix’s certainty about Earth meets someone who will correct him.
Pello
Krix’s boyfriend
Bookish, precise and newly arrived in Episode 3. Pello becomes Krix’s corrective foil whenever human culture gets enthusiastically misrepresented.
Kirra Varsch
Law firm partner
Unable to lie and unwilling to soften the truth. Mid-season she gains a ditzy Southern girlfriend—and finds a legal path that lets an honest annulment leave residency intact.
Zella
ER chief resident
A capable doctor with two additional mouths that keep undermining her bedside manner—and complicating her attraction to Jack.
Rex
Service droid
Bitter, exacting and quietly indispensable. When his ex returns and the smart toaster demands equal standing, the kitchen becomes a marriage Jack has to mediate.
Pip
Mivvie · household pet
Adorable, affectionate and allergic to lies. His sneezes make discretion almost impossible.
Vrax
Customs officer · Noxilia
A rule-bound customs officer who takes Pete’s accidental proposal seriously. He is not a resident of the penthouse—and he deserves an honest answer, not a visa trick.
Loopa Loo
Quantum physics professor
A quantum physicist who can model thousands of futures—and build a time machine that remembers the life Jack refused. None of it prepares him for fatherhood.
Flim Flam
Two-headed newsreader
Flim delivers the approved version. Flam says the part Torex would rather you did not hear. Together they give Emma a public chair for fighting Voss’s edits.
VERA · Household AI
The apartment’s all-seeing, gossiping interface. When her memory starts to glitch, Emma has reason to ask who has been servicing the system.
04 The Pilot
“Orth, Not Earth”
Orth, Not Earth introduces the household, the administrative error and the engagement nobody planned. The 28-minute animated proof of concept is available below.
- 01
Leaving Earth
Three very different humans commit to a fresh start. The ship immediately tests that optimism.
- 02
Accidental proposal
Pete holds Vrax’s gaze for eighteen seconds. On Orvana, that counts as a commitment.
- 03
Meet the household
A spectacular penthouse comes with alien flatmates, intrusive technology and an ancestral vase Jack should not touch.
- 04
Nothing stays private
A mirror beetle gives Jack’s inner life an audience. The humans’ immigration problem becomes everyone’s problem.
- 05
A temporary reprieve
Pete’s engagement buys time. It also creates obligations a magician cannot simply make disappear.
- 06
A reason to stay
Emma’s search for David points toward Torex. This household has more at stake than its next rent payment.
05 Season One
A family worth remembering
The season’s question
What happens when the things that make life difficult are also the things that make it worth living?
Mother Lord · Wellness
Mother Lord is a benevolent omnipresent AI offering relief through emotional deletion. Jack’s talking trial challenges her idea of care.
Dr. E. Voss · Torex
Dr. E. Voss uses David’s memory to create a TV show. Pete’s performances and Emma’s questions give the Torex executive access to the household.
David · The personal stakes
Emma’s missing husband connects a very private marriage to a very public entertainment machine. Finding him will require more than working alone.
Season One · Eight episodes
Revised Season One plan. Episodes 3–8 are in development; these summaries describe the intended arc, not final scripts.
- 01
Orth, Not Earth (Pilot)
An administrative error puts three new arrivals on Orvana at risk of deportation. Pete’s accidental engagement buys them time to prove they have something to offer.
- 02
The Food Has Concerns
Pete meets Vrax’s family over a dinner that would prefer not to be eaten. Jack faces impending fatherhood, while Emma’s search draws Mother Lord and Voss into the household’s orbit.
- 03
Eleven Thousand Dads
Loopa’s quantum labour delivers adult twins. Pete’s tricks start a church he does not want, Krix’s boyfriend Pello moves in, and the household expands again.
- 04
Mind Games
Telepathic adult twins remake household privacy. Pello’s illness surfaces, Kirra’s girlfriend arrives, and Pete learns that telling the truth can make a cult stronger.
- 05
Species and Purpose
Jack’s choices collide with Loopa’s time machine. Relationship fallout and adult-offspring chaos force him to refuse an easier life—and then choose the harder one again.
- 06
The Husband
A household funeral and Torex’s premiere of David’s memories as television collide. Emma fights the edit on air with Flim and Flam.
- 07
Till Death or Paperwork
Pete and Vrax’s wedding happens; Jack’s disastrous best-man speech enters the record. An annulment follows, while their earned independent right to stay survives.
- 08
Sublevel Forty
The household goes after David. Mother Lord voluntarily hands Pete care of the planet; he makes a mess, Voss’s fake footage turns the world against him, and the stay outlasts the marriage.
Jack · From escape to commitment
Fatherhood, a costly time-machine regret and staying present when leaving would be easier.
Emma · From control to trust
David’s trail pulls her onto the air with Flim and Flam—and into trusting the household.
Pete · From performance to unwanted worship
Accidental divinity, a real wedding and an honest undoing demand more than a magic trick.
The series engine
Each episode begins with something recognisable—dinner, dating, work, parenting, a funeral or a wedding—and lets alien rules make it gloriously unmanageable. The household’s competing needs drive the jokes; Mother Lord and Voss make the consequences harder to ignore.
Trailer
Watch the polished animated trailer
ORVANA · Polished animated trailer · 2:06
Pilot
Watch the animated pilot
ORVANA animated pilot · 28:00 · a proof of concept made with cutting-edge generative AI
08 The creator
Jason Boyce
CEO of Ambella Entertainment and creator, writer and producer of ORVANA.
Jason served as CEO of Ambella Fund Management from 2004 to 2025, specialising in biotechnology investment. He now brings that experience to the development of original, character-driven entertainment.
His investments included Avidity Biosciences, where his wife, Sarah Boyce, served as CEO. Following Avidity’s sale to Novartis, he has been able to devote more time to Ambella Entertainment and ORVANA.
The animated pilot is available to watch here. For scripts, the season plan or a development conversation, contact Jason below.
Thank you.
For the pilot, the scripts, or a conversation, contact Jason Boyce.