Chuck Toedan hosts the most controversial show on TV: Live or Die, where deathrow inmates compete against each other for a chance to beat the executioner. However, when he accidentally kills a mob boss of the most feared mafia in the city, a hit man tries to put an end to him and his show once and for all. As a battle of wits and survival ensues, Chuck is forced to engage in the very tactics he uses on his contestants, or die trying.
Greed, murder, sex - all appear to thrive at the Wilson Emery Institute for Research and Development, aka W.E.I.R.D., where brilliant, young, but emotionally unstable scientific geniuses are recruited to develop cutting-edge projects in such fields as virology, time-travel, rejuvenation and robotics.