The Mercury Men (2011)

Overview

The Mercury Men is a series of web shorts produced for the Syfy network by writer/director Christopher Preksta. It is shot in a retro, 1950s style, in black and white. Though it is set in the mid-1970s, shortly after the Apollo moon landings. The first episode is set explicitly in 1975 and the following eight episodes take place on the same night. The tenth episode is stated as taking place in 1976, but the month and day are unspecified, so it is not clear exactly how much time has lapsed between the ninth and tenth episodes, though it must be significant, as the protagonist somehow travels from Earth to Mercury in that time. Each episode is between 6 and 9 minutes long. The show follows the adventures of a mild-mannered office worker, Edward Borman who is drawn into an adventure when his building is attacked by men from the planet Mercury, who appear to be made of pure light. Their plan is to use the steel framework of the building to enhance their gravity device which will pull down the Moon into the Earth. He meets Jack Yaeger, a member of a secretive group of defenders known as The League. It was shot in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on a budget of under $10,000.