After the 1967 Summer of Love, a group of naive, idealistic hippies move to an abandoned farmhouse in rural Northern California to start a commune, clashing with each other, their families, the law, the elements, and the angry locals, as their dreams crash into reality. Can a bunch of really imperfect people create a perfect world?

SYNOPSIS:

Stardust Family’s about a group of people pursuing a dream against all odds and finding themselves.

Pilot: “Welcome to the Family” (60 pgs) Fall 1967.

The Teaser shows how Allie meets the earnest Adam in San Francisco on her summer break as a sophomore art history student at Vassar and takes LSD with him for the first time. The two of them, along with Adam’s three quirky friends—Dakota, Garbo and Jesse—have a drug-induced epiphany about “being stardust in the universe” and opening a commune. In Act I,Adam and Allie, now lovers, and the 3 others, head north in their van to look for a house, picking up two hitchhikers—Hayes and Sunshine—on the way. The van runs out of gas on a back road and they walk to a gas station, meeting Lives in the Woods,a Yurok Indian. In the dark, they return to the van and sleep there. They wake up to see a dilapidated house just outside. Dakota breaks in, and they decide that the house, although a wreck, has “cosmic vibes.” Lives in the Woods calls the owner (in Hawaii), who agrees to let them live there, for free, if they restore it. He tells them that the house is on sacred Yurok burial ground and advises them to prepare it for the fierce winter. They move in and set down the “no rules,” (such as sharing everything, including clothes), and open the Stardust Bank, into which everyone puts whatever he has, their motto: “Forever Change.” The Stardusters go skinny-dipping in the river and are seen by amazed local boys. Allie tells Adam that, although she’s afraid, she has to tell her parents where she is or they’ll think she’s been kidnapped.

In Act II, the men work on the house and land but Hayes and Dakota argue and create mayhem. The men are chauvinistic; the women do all the housework. Garbo barges in while Adam and Allie are making love and tries to join in to Allie’s dismay. The pregnant Sunshine naively envisions a life forever with the Stardusters and the irresponsible but controlling Hayes. The stoned Stardusters sashay around the local store and incur the locals’ wrath. The outraged locals meet and decide to call in the Sheriff.The Stardusters take magic mushrooms, raise the Stardust totem pole (carved with their “spirit animals”), and dance wildly around it as local boys watch aghast. The benevolent spirits of the Yuroks rise from their graves and embrace the Stardusters.

In Act III, Allie receives a letter from her parents saying they’re disowning her. Distraught, she goes to the gas station to call them, but they hang up on her. A mystical moment with a deer helps her reconcile. The Sheriff comes to the house, threatening to shut it down. Garbo has sex with the reluctant Jesse (who doesn’t realize he’s gay yet). The Stardusters hear a blizzard warning on the radio. They’re completely unprepared and are snowed in for Thanksgiving. They share a meager meal and give thanks. The radio dies out and they find themselves “shipwrecked in the cosmos.”

In Act IV, it’s still blizzarding and they’re going crazy. Dakota impulsively burns Allie’s books to start the woodstove fire. Looking for the lantern, Allie goes to Garbo’s room and finds a hidden stash of food. In an argument with Garbo, in which they accuse each other of not being liberated, Allie learns that Garbo had been Adam’s lover in the past. Upset, she confronts Adam and a fight breaks out between Dakota (Garbo’s “old man”) and Adam. Adam, shocked by the violence, reminds them of why they came. As the storm continues, the Stardusters run out of food and grow more hungry and frayed. Hayes sneaks out with the van and crashes in a snowbank, nearly freezing. The men find him, and Garbo, a healer, revives him. Sunshine tells Hayes to feel their unborn baby kicking in her belly. Just as the Stardusters are at their wit’s end, they hear a knock at the door. Thinking it’s the sheriff, they hide the drugs. But, instead, it’s Zane, Indigo and Big Bear, who have come to join the Stardusters, bringing provisions. Allie says that they have to sleep around the stove and Zane replies they’ll keep each other warm, adding their motto “Forever Change.” Allie tells them, “Welcome to the family.”