A Writer's Life

"That Thing You Did With Your Mouth"

I got a big kick out of GAME OF THRONES last Sunday...when virgin Jon Snow introduced the Wildings to cunnilingus and won the undying devotion of his lover, who was "amazed" at "that thing you did with your mouth." It was hilarious, matched only by the ridiculous moment in Jean Auel's novel VALLEY OF THE HORSES when blond Cro-Magnon cavewoman Ayla gave her astonished Neanderthal lover Jondalar a blowjob, demonstrating one of the ingenious reasons why Cro-Magnons would survive and Neanderthals wouldn't. It was a rare GAME OF THRONES misstep, but entertaining nonetheless.

Coming Next Fall to a TV Near You

It's the time of year when networks start ordering pilots for proposed TV series for next year's fall schedule. The Hollywood Reporter has a wrap-up of what's been ordered so far. It looks like this is the first pilot season in years that doesn't include a "re-imagining" of an old TV show. Thank God. But there are plenty of adaptations of movies in the works (About a Boy, Bad Teacher, Beverly Hills Cop, etc.) and quite a few based on books.

Here are some of the more unusual concepts being considered...

The Returned
Logline: What happens when the people you have mourned and buried suddenly appear on your doorstep as if not a day's gone by? The lives of the people of Aurora are forever changed when their deceased loved ones return.
Cast:
Team: W/EP Aaron Zelman (Criminal Minds)
Studio: ABC Studios, Brillstein Entertainment, Plan B

The Ordained
Logline: The son of a Kennedy-esque family leaves the priesthood and becomes a lawyer to prevent his politician sister from being assassinated.
Cast:
Team: W/EP Lisa Takeuchi Cullen; EP Frank Marshall, Larry Shuman, A.B. Fischer; co-EP Robert Zotnowski
Studio: CBS Television Studios

Delirium
Logline: Based on best-selling trilogy about a world where love is deemed illegal and is able to be eradicated with a special procedure. With 95 days to go until her scheduled treatment, Lena Holoway does the unthinkable: she falls in love.
Cast:
Team: W/EP: Karyn Usher (Prison Break, Bones); EP Peter Chernin, Katherine Pope
Studio: 20th Television, Chernin Entertainment

The List
Logline: When members of the Federal Witness Security Program start getting killed, U.S. Marshal Dan Shaker leads the hunt for the person who stole “the list” – a file with the identities of every member of the program.
Cast:
Team: W/EP: Paul Zbyszewski (Lost, Hawaii Five-0, Daybreak); EP Ruben Fleischer (Gangster Squad)
Studio: 20th Television

Girlfriend in a Coma
Logline: After almost two decades, a 34-year-old woman wakes up from a coma to find out she has a 17-year-old daughter from a pregnancy she was unaware of when her life was put on hold.  (Single)
Cast:
Team: EP/W: Liz Brixius (Nurse Jackie); EP Dick Wolf, Danielle Gelber
Studio: Universal Television, Wolf Films
Format: Single-camera

Bloodline
Logline: A contemporary pulp thriller that revolves around an orphaned young girl named Bird Benson, who because of an accident of birth is caught in the struggle between two warring families of mercenaries and killers. Mentored by a Chinese man, Bird has to accept the quest to find and defeat her mother in mortal combat if she is to ever lead a normal life.
Cast:
Team: W/EP David Granziano (Awake, Terra Nova), EP/D Peter Berg, EP Sarah Aubrey
Studio: Universal, Film 44

 

Transporter: The Series

I saw the first episode of the troubled TRANSPORTER tv series. And it's immediately obvious from the opening scenes why they've blown through two showrunners over just 11 episodes of what ened up being an aborted 22 episode order...and that the studios involved ended up putting their line producer and a director in charge. 

There's lots of European-shot 2nd unit car chases cut into a few scenes of Canadian-shot "drama." But beyond that, it's not a TV series as much as it is a TV adaptation of a co-production contract. Someone along the way forgot there's supposed to be characters and a story in a TV series. There's no creative vision whatsoever to the show, just deal points being honored, ticked off one by one without regard to whether any of it adds up to entertainment.

It doesn't.

 The only thing that's interesting about it, purely from a technical/editing standpoint, is studying how they matched their 2nd unit footage from Europe (which is 60% of the show) with the stuff they shot on streets and stages in Toronto. Sometimes it's very smooth, other times you can really see the rough edges. The actors (namely Chris Vance, stepping in for Jason Statham) clearly spent a lot of time acting with green screens. Watching the show reminded me of how Bill Rabkin and I built episodes of COBRA (syndicated 1993) around Steve Cannell's stock footage library to save money. 

The writing on the series is just atrocious and, since there is no human connection to the action, the stunts/chases lack any visceral impact. You just aren't invested in any of it. The martial arts sequences, though, are  cleverly done and well-staged.

But as Bill and I learned on MARTIAL LAW, that just isn't enough to sustain a series (at least Chris Vance speaks English and doesn't have to work with Arsenio Hall).

Retooling

Macleans Magazine talked to me about retooling TV shows. I said, in part:

Lee Goldberg, a writer-producer for such heavily retooled shows asDiagnosis Murder (and creator of the novel series The Dead Man) says shows are revised for many reasons: “budget concerns, political issues, previous series commitments, lack of enthusiasm or support at the network.” But, he adds, the primary reason for a retool is summed up in two words: “pure desperation.”

[...]But most of the time, a retool changes a show nobody watches into another show nobody watches. “Perhaps the most startling case of retooling was a series called Klondike,” says Goldberg. “The network thought it was a chilly locale. The show went off the air for two weeks. When it came back it was Acapulco. Didn’t fare any better in a warmer climate.”

I also told the author, columnist Jaime Weinman, that often retooling is a desperate attempt to carry on a hit series after most of the cast has left (like MAYBERRY RFD, THE HOGAN FAMILY, GOLDEN PALACE, and SANFORD ARMS).

For other series, retooling was the norm. THE DORIS DAY SHOW was completely retooled every season for five years...on the drama front, OHARA, the show with Pat Morita as a detective, was retooled every season for three years.

Other examples of radical retooling include BURKE'S LAW, which became AMOS BURKE: SECRET AGENT its last year. THE NEW DICK VAN DYKE show entirely changed its cast and concept in year three. FRINGE has to be the most radical retooling ever (if you don't count the DALLAS season that was written off entirely as a dream).

Another, smaller retooling that usually spells the end of a series is when a series drops their opening theme music in favor of something entirely new to refresh the show -- examples include BONANZA, EMERGENCY, KOJAK, SEAQUEST, LOST IN SPACE, CHICAGO HOPE, and 77 SUNSET STRIP. But there are exceptions, too -- MONK, SIMON & SIMON, MAGNUM PI, and CHICAGO HOPE are big ones.

But I would say, by and large, that retooling usually fails. 

Evolution of a TV theme

I've been digitizing a bunch of my old audio cassettes this week and came across a dozen demos by the Canadian group Saga for the theme song to COBRA, the 1993 syndicated TV series starring Michael Dudikoff.  Ultimately, the producers scuttled the song and kept the instrumental.  Here are three of the demos, followed by the final main title sequence.

Germany Finally Gets It's "Hannibal Lector" Series

It was announced today that ProSieben, a big German network, has bought the rights to air Hannibal, the new TV series from NBC, showrunner Brian Fuller, and French studio Gaumont. The series depicts the early relationship between FBI agent Will Graham and Dr. Hannibal Lector, who we all know is a horrific serial killer. 

I wasn't surprised by the news. ProSieben has long been interested in a series built around the concept. In fact, five years ago, they developed a series called Beauty and the Murderer, which was about a Clarice Starling-type homicide detective who discovers that the department's long-time psychiatric consultant is actually a prolific serial killer himself. She puts him away...but is stunned when the department continues to use the killer shrink as a consultant, even secretly bringing him out in chains to crime scenes to offer his insights. 

The network ordered  six scripts, including the pilot, and a twenty minute presentation film from the production company, a prolific supplier of TV movies for them. But early on in the development process, the project ran into trouble and the network brought me to Munich from the U.S. to redevelop the pilot script, set up the writers room, and oversee the writing of the five episodes.

The biggest problem that I saw was that the project was, basically, a beat-for-beat rip-off of Silence of the Lambs.  I knew I couldn't dismantle the concept they bought, so the key for me was to strip it of everything that smacked of that movie, and Hannibal Lector, and focus much more on the characters. So I tried to tone down the serial killer's Lector-like qualities and make the heroine as far removed from Clarice Starling as I could, especially in her relationship to him.  

The project was also unremittingly dark, so the other thing I brought in was some humor, which the network embraced but the German writers had a hard time with it. They didn't see how a show could be dark, but also still have some humor.  So the network asked me to write one of the scripts as an example...which I did.  You can read my first draft here.

All in all, it was a great group of writers, we had a terrific time, and we had a very supportive production company behind us that was eager to sell the project. I remember leaving Munich after a couple of months being very pleased with the six scripts that we developed and feeling good about the show's prospects, since I knew from the network that they liked what they'd read and were very pleased with my work (so much so, that they asked me to rush back and fix another troubled show, an X-Files rip-off, but I declined).  

The fate of Beauty and the Murderer all came down to the pilot presentation. And that's where it all went wrong.

In Germany at the time, they had yet to embrace the showrunner system. Directors were in still charge, and the guy that the studio brought in, someone who had never done a pilot before, didn't like the scenes or the series concept. So he re-wrote everything, taking out the humor and making every scene a horrible, laughable rip-off from Silence of the Lambs...and trashing months of hard work by seven writers. 

It infuriated me. I couldn't understand how the production company, after investing all the time and money in crafting the six scripts and developing a strong franchise, could stand by and let that happen. Why didn't they fire the guy and hire someone who would shoot the show that we developed...and that the network was expecting?

He's the director, they said. You can't tell him what to do.

Needless to say, the network took one look at that presentation and backed away from the project. They hated the demo film but, more importantly,  they lost faith in the production company's ability to ever deliver the show that was promised in those six scripts.

Now, it appears, ProSieben is finally getting the series that they wanted five years ago. 

UPDATE:  The pilot presentation is actually available on YouTube with English subtitles. Here it is:

Me on Me Yet Again

Kings River Life caught up with me at Left Coast Crime last weekend...and the result is this print interview by Deborah Harter Williams and, in addition, this video interview by Lori Ham:

 

The Tired Procedural

Ken Levine reveals on his blog today the tired formula behind  most of today's procedural crime dramas. Here's an excerpt:

[The hero] must have some supernatural power. He or she can read minds, has an amazing photographic memory, can remember every lunch he/she ever had, is a math whiz, or the most common – can see Fairy Tale characters. 

But with this gift must come a curse. They must be tortured emotionally. They must have a dark past. Their wife/sibling/child/imaginary friend has been killed and they’re still haunted by it. 

They’re only helping the police solve crimes as a way to better get in touch with resolving the unsolved circumstances of their dark past. The killer is still out there!  But only week one and the season finale.  Otherwise, it's business as usual.  Solving crimes and tossing off zingers...

 

For the rest, check out his blog.

Boob Tube

Boobs are back on TV...and in a big way...this season with CHARLIE'S ANGELS, PAN-AM, and THE PLAYBOY CLUB, to name a few. As The Wrap reports:

Martha M. Lauzen, Ph.D., the executive director for Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, suggests that, particularly in dour financial times, male viewers -- not to mention the overwhelmingly male decision-makers at the networks -- might be looking to retreat into less complicated, more comforting times.

"In times of economic and social upheaval and difficulty, nostalgia and a longing for an era when life seemed simpler tend to bloom," Lauzen said.

That could be especially true in an era when men -- at least the ones not on TV, anyway -- find themselves losing economic and social ground to the fairer sex.

"As women continue to gain economic, social and political power, there is always some sort of backlash, a desire to put women 'back in their place,'" Lauzen adds.

"These programs may reflect that type of wishful thinking."

Naturally, those involved with the series have a different take on the matter. At the Television Critics' Association press tour earlier this month, "Pan Am" star Christina Ricci dismissed cries of sexism, claiming that her series provides "a really great message for young girls and women ... [Air travel] is something that's exciting for these women. We're as excited as the passengers are."

Never mind that the Pan Am stewardesses were subjected to mandatory girdle-wearing and weigh-ins. Or that the trailer for the series prominently features a clip of one of the stewardesses stripped down to her bra as she frantically changes clothes in the back of a taxi.

I,for one, can't wait for the new take on THREE'S COMPANY as a female-empowered show...with female empowered breasts.

Just One More Thing...

I wrote about Peter Falk, and his portrayal of Lt. Columbo, for the Wall Street Journal today. I said, in part:

Before Peter Falk came along with his iconic portrayal of Lt. Columbo, TV detectives were never people like us. For the most part, they were a smug and self-assured bunch, comfortable in their mental, moral, and physical attributes and their obvious superiority over not only the bad guys, but everybody else, too.

They were smooth and elegant, like Gene Barry’s millionaire homicide cop Amos Burke, or stalwart do-gooders like Jack Webb’s by-the-book Joe Friday, or handsome tough guys like Burt Reynolds’s Dan August. We watched them because they were better versions of ourselves, wish-fulfillment caricatures who didn’t have our imperfections, our doubts, our anxieties. They weren’t so much characters as they were a means of escape from our dreary lives.

But we watched…no, we adored…Peter Falk’s Columbo because he was us:  an everyman, working class, messy, and imperfect, dealing with the physical and domestic woes we know so well, and constantly underestimated by wealthier, better-educated people as a result.

 

 

Take the Money and Run

Back when I was a teenager writing my .357 VIGILANTE books as "Ian Ludlow," my publisher thought it would be nice if I met some of their other writers who lived in my area. One of'em was "Pike Bishop,"  who was writing the DIAMONDBACK westerns.

So they set us up on a lunch.

I was expecting a leather-skinned, laconic cowboy with a boots and a Stetson...and he was expecting a hardened, streetwise tough guy.

Imagine my surprise when "Pike Bishop" turned out to be uniformed cop Paul Bishop...and imagine his surprise when "Ian Ludlow" turned to be, well, me...who was then a very geeky teenager.

But that lunch started a friendship that has endured for nearly thirty years (OH MY GOD, thirty years!?). In that time, Paul has become a highly decorated LAPD detective (twice named homicide detective of the year), nationally acknowledged interrogation expert, an acclaimed crime novelist (CITADEL RUN, TWICE DEAD, etc), and a TV writer (among his credits, three DIAGNOSIS MURDER scripts that he wrote for Bill Rabkin & me).

Now Paul can add another accomplishment to his list: TV STAR.

He's the star of ABC's new summer reality/game TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN, from hitmakers Jerry Bruckheimer & Bertram van Munster, the team behind THE AMAZING RACE. Here's the description from the press release:

"Combining all the elements of an edge-of-your-seat spy thriller with the excitement of rooting for real people in different locales trying to outwit legitimate professionals, "Take the Money and Run" is an exhilarating competition series that will take reality television to a whole new level. The cat and mouse format will pit everyday people against real life law enforcement for a $100,000 prize."

The series premieres on August 2nd...and I, for one, can't wait.

Review: 101 Best TV Crime Series

I'm  a sucker for books about TV, so I couldn't resist nabbing Mark Timlin's 101 BEST TV CRIME SERIES.  Let me state at the outset than I am a fan of Timlin's books, so if I had a bias going in, it was a favorable one. That didn't last long. 

The pluses are that Timlin, a top-notch mystery author himself, is a real fan of the genre and he writes in a casual, easy-going style. As a whole, the book provides a nice overview of a bunch of UK series that are probably obscure and unfamiliar to most U.S. viewers. 

The cons, however, far, far outnumber the pluses. Apparently, Timlin's actual knowledge of the shows he's talking about isn't as strong as his admiration for them...and nobody bothered to fact-check the book, so it is filled with cringe-inducing errors and unfortunate omissions. 

For example: 

1) he refers to the lead of THE FUGITIVE as Dr. David Kimble when, of course, everyone knows it's Dr. RICHARD Kimble. 
2) He says the iconic IRONSIDE theme was composed by Oliver Nelson when it's actually among Quincy Jones' most famous pieces of music (Nelson supplied some of the episodic scores, but didn't compose the theme). 
3) He says that the Quinn Martin shows had a voice over that went "This has been a Quinn Martin Production" when, in fact, each show opened with the narrator announcing the name of the series, followed by the words "A Quinn Martin Production." 
4) He says the UK LIFE ON MARS began with DCI Sam Tyler walking down a Manchester street, listening to David Bowie on his iPod, when he's hit by a car. That is, in fact, totally incorrect, making this reader wonder if Timlin actually saw the show he was writing about. 
5) When discussing HARRY O, he says the hero was an ex-LA cop. He was actually an ex-San Diego cop. 

I could go on and on. Beyond the numerous errors, there's also a lack of detail. For instance, when referring to KOJAK, he mentions the 2005 remake with Ving Rhames but either completely overlooked, or was totally unaware of, the six KOJAK TV movies Savalas did on CBS, and later ABC, a decade after the original series was cancelled. In fact, almost all the entries suffer from a paucity of useful information in favor of irrelevant, personal asides by the author ("Oddly enough, it was 'Hill Street Blues' that got me my first video recorder; back when it started, I was offered a job driving a loser heavy metal band called 720. The show had just started and I took the job o the condition that the manager paid for the hire of a VCR. He agreed. Blimey the thing was the size of a suitcase...") Maybe Timlin is a celebrity in the UK, and the readers there are more interested in his asides than information about TV cop shows, but it doesn't play on this side of the pond. 

One other beef...I found Timlin including his own series, SHARMAN, among the best TV Crime Series to be more than a little self-indulgent (although he didn't write the entry, he had someone else do it, which only makes the inclusion feel even more self-serving). If only he'd given all the other series mentioned in the book the same loving attention as he did his own (he gives THE SOPRANOS three tiny paragraphs, but the short-lived SHARMAN gets four pages!). 

Overall, unless you can get this book at a major discount, I'd skip it.

A&E Loves Casting Australians as Americans

Matt Passmore, the Australian lead of A&E's hit detective series THE GLADES, may soon have some company from down under. The network has cast Aussie Robert Taylor, best known here for his role as Agent Jones in The Matrix, as the lead in LONGMIRE,  the pilot based on my buddy Craig Johnson's terrific series of books about Walt Longmire, the sheriff of Absaroka County, Wyoming (not to be confused with Jim Longworth, the Florida detective in THE GLADES).

Pictured: Taylor starring in the Aussie version of BALLYKISSANGEL.

Take a Hint

The print ads for the awful new TVLand sitcom RETIRED AT 35 feature the three stars of the show under the headline "When Your Career Goes South." I couldn't help noticing what's missing from the picture. See if you can spot it (click on the photo for a larger view):

The show's three stars are pictured, but only two are identified -- George Segal and Jessica Walter. The poor guy who is at the center of the sitcom and the advertisement isn't mentioned at all. Apparently, his career has already gone south. If I was him, whoever the hell he is, I'd start looking for a new agent. 

The Best of the Best

My friend Phoef Sutton's episode of TERRIERS was singled out by The Futon Critic, their staff, and freelancers this week as one of the ten best of hours of television this season.  The acclaim is well-deserved. TERRIERS will go down as one of the best PI shows ever on TV (along with ROCKFORD, HARRY O and THE OUTSIDER)... and Phoef's episode as one of the best of the best.

It's a Matte World

The new Showtime series EPISODES is amazing. I'm not talking about the premise, the writing, or the acting. No, what astonishes me is the digital matte work. The show takes place entirely in Los Angeles... with plenty of blue skies, palm trees, McMansions, and lots of driving through Beverly Hills and Malibu in convertibles. And yet, the show is shot entirely in London.

They pull it off thanks to the green screen magicians at Stargate Studios. There are a few shots where the digital compositing is obvious (in particular, a night-time, outdoor party in the Hollywood hills), but for the most part, the trick photography is entirely invisible and utterly convincing. I constantly found myself wondering "how the hell did they do that?"

But the really, really amazing thing is that it's cheaper to do all those elaborate effects shots than to just shoot the show here. 

 

Who Needs a Writing Staff?

THE WALKING DEAD showrunner Frank Darabont stirred up a lot of talk among TV writers today by firing his writing staff and announcing that he would rely on himself and just a couple of freelancers to write the second season's 13 episodes.

This is not a new idea. In fact, many drama series from the 1950s and into the early 70s relied on a headwriter/freelancer model...at most, there was a head-writer and a story editor. Everything else was freelance. Shows like GUNSMOKE, STAR TREK, CANNON, VEGA$, etc. ran on this model. In those days, journeyman writers like Stephen Kandel, Robert Dennis, Mark Rodgers, Frank Telford and Shimon Wincelberg, to name a few, could make a good living writing two or three episodes for five or six different series each season.

Then again, in those days, the "head writer" concentrated mostly on writing while someone else handled most of the actual producing functions that the "showrunner" does today.

And while most series today rely on writing staffs (though the size of those staffs is shrinking), there have been a few shows that have primarily been written by one writer... Linda Bloodworth's DESIGNING WOMEN, Aaron Sorkin's era of THE WEST WING and Joe Straczynski's BABYLON 5, are a few prominent examples.

 TV writer Kay Reindl does a great job putting the Darabont decision into perspective, and discussing what writing staffs bring to a series,  over on her blog today. She says, in part:

It still astonishes me that people do not understand that the writing of the script comes at the END of the writing process. Just because you are not typing "Fade In," that doesn't mean you are not writing. Writing is preparation. Writing is construction. Destruction. Composition. It's editing. Storytelling visually, emotionally, humorously, logically. Critical thinking. Letting go of great ideas in service of the story. Character arcs, planned over an episode and a season and the life of the show. It's inspiration, the testing of that inspiration, the honing and fine-tuning of that inspiration. It's collaboration, for the love of God. It's a group of experienced brains tackling a blank white board and breaking a fucking story in two days.

[...]you will need to collaborate with your fellow writers. You will be facing that empty white board at least 13 times, and as you face each new episode, you will have previous episodes with story and character development to consider. You will have upcoming episodes as well, especially if your show is serialized. You will have budgets to consider in your story breaks. Actors. Production. Crew. Studio and network executives. You will have to become a serial killer of your story children and let your great ideas go. And all of THAT is before you even get to the script.

[...]A good showrunner depends on his (or rarely her) writing staff. These people have the showrunner's back, and he has theirs. [..]I don't know why Darabont decided this (if he has), or why his experience with his staff was apparently so wretched that he doesn't want anyone around anymore. Sometimes, showrunners are just lousy communicators and aren't able to impart what they want to the writing staff. And sometimes it's just not a good fit. But again, it's up to the showrunner to use his experience and if someone doesn't actually HAVE experience, then THIS happens.

By "this," she means firing your writing staff and deciding to go it alone... with an occasional assist from freelancers. My instinct is that she's probably right. It could also be that he hired the wrong writers, that he didn't know how to staff a room. There could be any number of explanations.

He may not understand that it's part of a showrunner's job to take a final pass at each script -- and he may be deluding himself into believing its the equivalent of writing every script himself, so why not cut out the extra step. If that's the case, he's in for a rude awakening.

I tend to think that shows with writing staffs are better written than those where the showrunner tries to go it alone (I'm talking about series with more than five or six episodes). The stories are more consistent, there's less repetition and cliche, and there's more energy to the story-telling.

It's all about limited resources. A man can only do so much... and do it well...and deliver a new episode every seven or eight days. There's simply too much for a showrunner to do beyond writing the script. It's a taxing job, and something has to give.

If you're trying to run a show, and write every single word, the scripts are bound to suffer. Come to think of it, everything is bound to suffer.

It will be interesting to see how long Darabont sticks to his plan once production begins and he finds himself falling behind...

My Brothers Are Selling TV Shows

Carl Beverly and Sarah Timberman, the producers of JUSTIFIED, have sold a TV series pilot to FX based on my brother Tod Goldberg's short story Mitzvah. Crime writer Joel Goldman is often mistaken for my brother, so I suppose it's only fitting that those same producers just sold CBS a TV series pilot based on Joel's short story Knife Fight. Now if either pilot goes to series, I am expecting my brothers to play the nepotism card and insist that I be brought on staff.

 

Watch THE GLADES Tonight

Yeah, I know BOARDWALK EMPIRE and MAD MEN are on tonight. But please don't forget to set your DVR's for tonight's episode of THE GLADES, which I wrote with William Rabkin.  It's entitled "Booty" and it's all about pirate treasure, murder, and the relationship between Longworth & Callie, which changes significantly before the end credits roll...

It's All About Buzz

If you read the newspapers, the blogs and the trades, there's no question that MAD MEN is a huge critical and popular hit.

But if you look at the numbers, it's a different story.

On Sunday, MAD MEN, drew 2.2 million viewers and scored a 0.8 rating. THE GLADES, which isn't getting nearly the same amount of buzz or adoration, drew 3.1 million and the same rating. THE GLADES also out-performed HBO's HUNG (2.5 million, 1.4) and ENTOURAGE (2.6 million, 1.5) in eyeballs, if not rating.

So THE GLADES has more viewers than ENTOURAGE, HUNG, and MAD MEN... and yet isn't drawing anywhere near the same amount of media attention or adoration. Which, I suppose, may prove it's not how many viewers are actually watching your show that makes you a hit... it's how many people in the media say that you are one.

 

The Glades

Bill Rabkin and I wrote Sunday night's episode of the hit summer series THE GLADES on A&E. Our episode is called "The Girlfriend Experience" and I hope you enjoy it.  Our next episode, "Booty," is shooting now and will air sometime in September.

Glades Kicks Ass... Again

I've been hunkered down the last few days with Bill Rabkin, busily writing our second episode of THE GLADES which, I am pleased to report, dropped a mere 5% from it's stellar debut last week. This bodes very well for the future of the show. Our first episode airs on August 8th...so set your Tivos now.

Bad TV Plotting

William Rabkin tipped me off to a blogger's hilarious example of  bad television plotting. Here's an excerpt:

I think the worst offender here is the History Channel and all their programs on the so-called "World War II"[...] they spend the whole season building up how the Japanese home islands are a fortress, and the Japanese will never surrender, and there's no way to take the Japanese home islands because they're invincible...and then they realize they totally can't have the Americans take the Japanese home islands so they have no way to wrap up the season.

So they invent a completely implausible superweapon that they've never mentioned until now. Apparently the Americans got some scientists together to invent it, only we never heard anything about it because it was "classified". In two years, the scientists manage to invent a weapon a thousand times more powerful than anything anyone's ever seen before - drawing from, of course, ancient mystical texts. Then they use the superweapon, blow up several Japanese cities easily, and the Japanese surrender. Convenient, isn't it?

...and then, in the entire rest of the show, over five or six different big wars, they never use the superweapon again. Seriously.

Great stuff!

Antiques Roadshow - Behind The Scenes

If, like me, you're a fan of the Antiques Roadshow, Marsha Bemko's book provides a fascinating peek behind-the-scenes. And even if you're not a fan, but simply love antiques, Antiques Roadshow: Behind the Scenes is full of great anecdotes and tips that will help you in your collecting. And if you aren't a fan of the show, or an antique collector, but are a student of television, you'll find this book packed with interesting producing info on the making of a reality series. There aren't many books about TV shows that can satisfy on so many levels and also be a pleasure to read -- but this one succeeds.

The book is written by AR's executive producer, who tells you how the series evolved, what you should (or shouldn't) bring to have appraised, how they decide which cities to visit and which appraisals they will put on the show. But that's not all. Bemko gives you deep background on all of the popular appraisers... and, as a bonus, gets them to share some tips on how to hone your own collecting skills. No book about AR would be complete, or satisfying, without a recap of some of their most memorable moments -- fleshing out what happened before, during, and best of all, after the appraisal. This is a breezy, informative and highly entertaining must-read for Antiques Roadshow fans.

Murder on the Boob Tube

 I love TV reference books, but John William Law's MURDER ON THE BOOK TUBE is, to put it bluntly, terrible in every way, factually worthless and devoid of any fresh information or thoughtful insights. The listings are superficial and generic to the point of uselessness and riddled with typographical errors and inept sentence structure.

Here are some examples from his listing for MANNIX. The typos are his, not mine:

"The show started off one one path, but changed courses after the first season and never strayed much after that."

"With less than spectacular ratings in season one, the changes were hoped to bring new live to the fledgling series"

"The showed featured an unsolved MANNIX case and use flashbacks of the original series along with present day Mannix back on the case"

And here's another example of his poor writing and proofing skills from his listing for IRONSIDE. Again, the errors and lack of punctuation are his, not mine:

"While the original series took place in San Francisco, little of the show was actually filmed there with some early location filming of the actors in popular locations and the footage would be intersperse through-out the season."

And, finally, here's an example from his listing for ELLERY QUEEN:

"At one point there were rumor's the younger Hutton might reprise his father's most famous character for a TV movie, but the closest he came was as the star of his own mystery series based on another famous detective when Timothy Hutton starred in A NERO WOLFE MYSTERY in 2001-2002."

The author hasn't done any meaningful research, hasn't interviewed anybody, and the "rare photos" he uses are merely amateurishly cropped, black-and-white scans of TV Guide covers. It's embarrassing and not worth $1, much less $14.95.

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust

 If you can't wait for the third season of ASHES TO ASHES, the sequel series to the worldwide hit LIFE ON MARS, to show up on DVD or come to BBCAmerica, this article from The Guardian newspaper will tell you in detail how it all ends in the final episode. It's a big spoiler, so think twice if you really want to know.

Personally, I thought this season was very weak story-wise, not nearly as compelling or as well plotted as previous seasons of either ASHES or LIFE. The show probably should have ended with a variation on this episode last season instead of limping pointlessly through seven more. 

That said, the final episode tied up the two series in a way the felt right and packed an emotional punch, even if the "reveal" was obvious and strongly telegraphed from the start...and I mean going all the way back to LIFE ON MARS. It was certainly a much better final episode than the atrocious American take, which revealed that all the central characters were astronauts in suspended animation on a journey to Mars to conduct a "gene hunt."   I kid you not.

Pickups and Letdowns

This week, the networks announced their new fall dramas with the usual hype and hoopla. But what has been forgotten in all the attention is that most of the new dramas launched last season bombed, even those that pundits thought would be mega-hits (like FLASH FORWARD).  

The hour-long drama series cancelled this season include FLASH FORWARD, TRAUMA, THREE RIVERS, MIAMI MEDICAL, MERCY, THE FORGOTTEN, EASTWICK, THE DEEP END, HAPPY TOWN, PAST LIFE, MELROSE PLACE, and THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE.

In fact, not only did NBC's Leno experiment fail, but all of their new hour-long dramas tanked, too (along with such venerable dramas as HEROES and LAW AND ORDER).  

The only new dramas that have survived the primetime bloodbath are THE GOOD WIFE, THE HUMAN TARGET, NCIS: LOS ANGELES, LIFE UNEXPECTED, GLEE, VAMPIRE DIARIES and V.

So don't believe all the hype you're hearing about the new crop of pilots and don't get too invested in any of the shows...because it's a safe assumption that most of'em will be gone and forgotten by this time next year.

Freelancing

Screenwriter Denis McGrath talks about his experience freelancing an episode of STARGATE: UNIVERSE.

While I was off over a month trying to generate my story, fixed in stone -- all the other targets were moving, and moving rapidly. Earlier scripts were going through production drafts...characters were changing and evolving. Casting, and then shooting, revealed actors' strengths that meant that they got written to more. I had only the barest, fuzziest hold on some of the secondary characters. In a new show, things change rapidly in production, and when you're in the room you absorb those changes in small increments on a daily basis.

Eventually, I begged for more scripts, and got them, and being able to digest six or seven scripts, and see the characters on the page helped me writing my drafts.

It's hard to believe that freelancing was once the rule in TV, and still is in some places. It just packs more pressure on the one or two people who have to make all the stories line up. As a freelancer, my job with my SGU script was to get it to a point where somebody else could "take it over," and see it through production. The better I did, ideally the less they'd have to rewrite.

Except of course it never works out that way, especially in a show's first season. When you're three thousand miles out of the loop of the show that's developing on those soundstages, you just do the best you can, and hope that you don't cause somebody too much work.

It's always hard freelancing an episode of a brand new series, since nobody is entirely sure what the show is or who the characters are...not the showrunners, the studio, or the network. It's trying to hit a constantly moving target. I've done it a few times... on SLIDERS, PSYCH, and on an upcoming summer series I can't talk about yet. There's no question about it...freelancing is hard, but it's not that much easier writing a script for a show that's been on the air for a season or two. Yes, everyone knows the show (including you!)... but it's harder coming up with a story or character conflict that they haven't already done or have in development.

UPDATE: Here's another view on McGrath's freelance experience from the other side of the desk as SG:U producer Joseph Mallozzi saw it.

Glen A. Larson

My 4 1/2 hour video interview with legendary TV producer Glen A. Larson is now up at the Archive of American Television site. It's also up on YouTube, were I snagged this introductory clip:

The Mail I Get

I need your invaluable expert advice. I'm going to pitch to a network in several weeks. It's my first time doing this so while I have the treatment ready, how would I present and package the actual treatment in terms of putting each copy in binders, have covers on each copy, etc. Thanks Lee.

I never do anything fancy. I just print out the pitch, black-and-white, no fancy graphics or fonts, with a cover page that has the title and byline centered, and the date and my contact info (or agent, or studio, depending on the auspices the meeting was arranged under) in the lower right. I staple the upper, left hand corner of the document and turn it in.

Charles Willeford With A Dolphin

 There's a story behind the shame I share with Jessica Alba... 

My good friend Ernie Wallengren co-created the NEW ADVENTURES OF FLIPPER for Samuel Goldwyn Jr.. Ernie was brought in, if memory serves, to rewrite a previous script/format by another writer that didn't win over Goldwyn. So Ernie wrote the pilot, shot it in Florida, and wanted Bill Rabkin & I to come in as producers for the series. We'd just come off of THE COSBY MYSTERIES and were looking for a job...but we really didn't want to do the show. But we owed Ernie big time, so we went in with him to meet Goldwyn and talk about the show. Goldwyn told us that he wanted the  show to be  "like a Charles Willeford novel, but with a dolphin."  Ernie had no idea who Willeford was, but Bill & I did, so we played along, fighting laughter all the way. After the meeting, Goldwyn told Ernie we were perfect for the show...but by the time they were ready to make a deal with us, we got a gig on SEAQUEST and bowed out. Ernie didn't mind us going to another show, he knew it was better for our careers and our bank accounts, but he insisted we find him someone else to take our place...so we recommended our friend Terry Winter, who we'd worked with on COSBY and who was desperate for a gig. Ernie signed him up right away. 

Flash forward six or eight months. SEAQUEST had been cancelled and I was having a friendly lunch with Ernie, who was miserable. He was complaining about how hard it was to come up with stories for his show. I told him to stop whining, it was easy -- I could come up with three stories for FLIPPER before dessert. So he said "Go ahead, smartass." So, just to be funny, I pitched "Cape Flipper," a dolphin take on Cape Fear.  A killer that Flipper put away comes back to settle the score. Ernie's face lit up. "You've got an assignment. I need it in four days." I laughed, because I was joking. Ernie laughed, because he wasn't. I tried to talk him out of it, but he was quick to remind me how much we owed him. (He'd hired us on staff on two series early in our careers).

I don't remember why Bill wasn't at the lunch, or what his reaction was when I told him we had an assignment to write "Cape Fear with a dolphin," but I do know he took the writing of the script in stride. I struggled with it. It was fun for Bill and hell for me. The only pleasure I got out of the show was that the bad guy is reading my book MY GUN HAS BULLETS in one of the scenes. 

We ended up writing a second episode of FLIPPER that was even worse (it was called "That's A Moray," which should tell you how awful it was), but I don't remember how that one came about.  All I remember is that Lois Chiles, the female lead from the 007 movie MOONRAKER, was the guest star. 

The only thing FLIPPER is memorable for is, of course, Jessica Alba. Ernie discovered her when she was twelve or thirteen and I have to give him credit -- even then, he knew that she was going to be a big star. He must have said it a hundred times. It was hard for me to see her potential from a FLIPPER episode,  but he saw her future very clearly. 

Green Screen is Everywhere

You have to see this eye-opening compilation video that shows how inventively and frequently green screen is being used on TV, and not just for big effects sequences, but simple walk-and-talks down a residential street.

The Man Who Produced UNCLE

My four-and-a-half hour, 1997 video interview with Norman Felton, the producer of THE MAN FROM UNCLE and DR. KILDARE among many other classic shows, is now up in several parts on the Archive of American Television site and on YouTube.  Coming soon: my interviews with Lorenzo Semple, Jr. and Glen A. Larson.

The Mail I Get - Writing the Treatment

Bryon Stedman  asked me this question in a comment to another post:

I have a situation where a broadcast entity claims they want to hear my idea for a boxing series or made for TV movie. The characters belong to my family from a comic drawn by my father.

If a narrative is they way to go, what are the key points to include? Do I go as far as dialog and cameas shots and locations or simply text with main characters CAPITALIZED? Advice requested and appreciated.

A series treatment and a TV movie treatment are very different. A series treatment sells the characters and the franchise of the show...the relationships and format that will generate stories week after week. A TV movie treatment sells a story.

If the studio is already familiar with your Dad's comic, I don't know why they need you to come up with a series treatment...the strip itself sells that or they wouldn't be interested in the first place.

A series treatment isn't about telling a story...it's about describing the characters, how they interact within the unique format of your show. Who are they? What do they do? And how will who they are and what they do generate 100 interesting stories?

For a TV movie treatment, you're selling the characters and their story.  At this point, you're trying to sell the broadstrokes...they can pay you to work out the rest. Write up a punchy over-view of what happens in the story, as if you were writing a review of a great movie (only minus the praise). You want to convey the style and tone of the movie. But don't go into great detail. Keep it short, tight and punchy.And whatever you do, DON'T include camera shots or dialogue.

Don't fixate on treatment format, because there isn't one. Tell your story in the style that works best for you. Don't worry about whether the character names are in capitals or not (it doesn't matter). Concentrate on telling a strong story.

(This is a repost from June 2005...and it was a blog post on this topic from Scott Myers that inspired me to unearth it).

Why Daily Variety is No Longer Relevant

Today, Daily Variety reported that the new version of V not only won wide critical acclaim, but also did great in the ratings. In a brief, separate article, they report that the show shut down for a month, and that a new showrunner has been brought in. Those two articles create an interesting contrast...one Variety doesn't bother to explore because that might actually require the reporter do some work beyond retyping a press release. What's missing here is the context and detail that would make this a meaningful, interesting, and newsworthy story. What went wrong with V? Why did ABC bring in a new showrunner? If ABC had trouble with the creative direction of the show, does the wide critical acclaim and high ratings suggest that the network may have made a mistake by benching the series and retooling it? What were the creative, financial, and strategic reasons behind the network's actions? That's the story that a credible and relevant Daily Variety would be reporting. Instead, we get the straight-forward ratings in one article and a short, rewritten press release in another.

The Writer is God

The Guardian reports that the only way to raise the quality of UK television series is to adopt the showrunner/writing room system prevalent in the U.S. They write, in part:

The only way to produce sophisticated, rich, long-running drama like The Wire or even ER is to use a team of writers who collaborate under a showrunner, a system the US studios has cracked. It's too much for even one great dramatist to write the whole thing, but you can't hire hack writers to work on episodes in isolation. Result: US viewers sit down to an evening of Damages; we get Casualty

The short Guardian piece was in response to a terrific essay by Peter Jukes in Prospect Magazine, where he wrote, in part:

in US television drama “the writer is God.” This is not because of literary cachet—it’s arisen out of aesthetic, technical and commercial need. Drama is incredibly expensive to make and economies of scale kick in when stories are told over 13 or 24 episodes. They cannot be written by one person alone, nor can they be effectively controlled by studio executives, actors or directors, whose talents by definition lie elsewhere. It requires a team of writers willing to develop character and narrative over a long haul, keeping it focused and fresh. It’s not the writer, singular, who is God in US television drama, but the role of the writer, generic, in the process.

 [...]Although we are blessed with a tradition of great television dramatists, there’s no way that Alan Bleasdale, Dennis Potter or Jimmy McGovern could have written a dozen episodes of a show alone. We have recently imported the idea of showrunners for the resurrection of Dr Who and Survivors, but their power is limited, and the principle of collaboration doesn’t penetrate the lower echelons. Script editors and producers take a dim view of you talking to another writer without tight supervision. There is no financial incentive either. Why make someone else’s episode great when it might make yours look less good? Given that the running order can be changed at the last moment by management fiat, those collectively crafted character developments and story arcs will be binned anyway. Just write your own episode and cash that cheque.

I recommend Jukes' article, it's fascinating reading.

Serving the Story, Not You

Here's an excerpt from an excellent blog post from UK TV writer James Moran about abusive fans...a post that preceded Josh Olson's much-discussed, incendiary piece on a similar topic.

I'm a professional writer. That's my job. I write what I write, for whatever the project might be. I have the utmost respect for you, and honestly want you to like my work, but I can't let that affect my story decisions. Everybody wants different things from a story, but this is not a democracy, you do not get to vote. You are free to say what you think of my work, even if you hate it, I honestly don't mind. But the ONLY person I need to please is myself, and the ONLY thing I need to serve is the story. Not you. I will do my work to the very best of my ability, in an attempt to give you the best show, the best movie, the best story, the best entertainment I possibly can. Even if that means that sometimes, I'll do things you won't like. I won't debate it. Either you go along with it, or you don't. None of it is done to hurt you, or to force some agenda down your throat, or anything else. It's all in service of the story.

I urge you to read the whole thing. I can't tell you how many times I've been through the same experience that he suffered through...

The Lee Goldberg Show

If you missed my live, interactive webcast last week, now you can catch the archive version. I've posted the first half of the show, where I talked about MONK with my special guest David Breckman (writer-producer-director of MONK), in three parts on YouTube or you can download it here. Unfortunately, there were technical problems at the studio and the second half of the live show, where I talked about my movie FAST TRACK, wasn't recorded.

The Mail I Get

I get two or three emails a day like this from strangers:

Forgive the intrusion. I want to connect with you and request your expertise as to the best way to pitch a series treatment to the cable and over the air TV networks.

I'm sure you've heard this story before. I have a treatment for a 60 minute scripted, dramatic series. [...]My treatment is registered with the WGA and I have an NDA that I can send to anyone interested in reading it. Do you have any suggestions on who to approach and how? I realize I have no track record, but, I'm certain it will grab someone in the first 30 seconds.

I don't have time to answer the question individually for people, so I usually refer them to my book SUCCESSFUL TELEVISION WRITING and to this old blog post. Afterwards, they either tell me their situation is special because their Really Great Idea for a Television Series is the Best Really Great Idea for a Television Series to come along in decades...or they call me a jerk for not offering to read their Really Great Idea for a Television Series, refer them to my agent, and give them the names of people to contact in the industry.

And so it goes. You've heard it all before from me, again and again, and it's getting as tiresome for you to read about it as it is for me to deal with it. 

But this time I'm leading up to a variation I received on the usual request and I think the exchange is worth sharing with you. I got the following email a few days ago:

I'm writing you because I read your blog and I thought that you would be a great source for information on finding writers. I am currently looking for writers for a couple projects that I'd like to produce and/or pitch and I was wondering if you could give me advice on finding writers for TV and Film. Are there any great messages boards or events to attend? Also, I know you're not a lawyer, but how should I protect my ideas and the writers ideas/work if they were to send me anything. Hope you can help!

That was a new twist on the old question for me. So I replied:

First, let me ask you a couple of blunt questions...with no offense intended (these are questions you need to ask yourself, too, before setting out to work with writers). What does a writer need you for? What is the incentive for a writer work with you developing your ideas into screenplays or pitches...as opposed to just trying to sell his own ideas? You mention that you'd like to produce...but do you have any actual producing experience?

I got a very nice reply, but it was clear that she was still missing the point of my questions:

I appreciate you taking the time to get back to me. I'm actually an actress here in LA and I see so many voids on TV and in Film and it's really been frustrating me lately. I have several projects/ideas that I'd like to put together, not for me to act in, but to produce to fill those voids, specifically, in single camera comedy for TV. I don't have any connections in Hollywood or producing experience, but I have the passion and desire to do what I need to do to make things happen. Also, I know people with producing experience who would be more than willing to help me along the way. The only problem is, I'm not a writer and I feel that writing for TV, especially comedy, requires great skills. If all else fails, I will write. I just thought that in LA there has to be writers that are looking to get their work out there as well and who are trying to target the same audience that I'd like to reach. This is my reason for reaching out to writers.

Here's an excerpt from my response:

Please don't take offense at what I am about to say, I just want to be honest and straight-forward with you, it is not my intent to insult you or hurt your feelings.

In Hollywood, ideas are cheap and execution is everything. What is NYPD BLUE? A bunch of cops in NY solving crimes. ABC didn't buy the idea...they bought Steven Bochco doing cops in NY solving crimes. What is EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND? A married guy with kids whose parents live across the street. CBS didn't buy the idea....they bought popular standup comic Ray Romano and veteran comedy writer/producer Phil Rosenthal executing that idea. What is BOSTON LEGAL? A bunch of lawyers in Boston. ABC didn't buy the idea...they bought David E. Kelley doing lawyers in Boston. The networks buy voice and experience and relationships and proven success. I'm saying all that because what you have are ideas...and you are looking for writers to flesh them out. But since you aren't a writer, and you aren't (as far as I know) an actress who has a huge following or production deals, you don't really bring anything to the party, so-to-speak. You don't have the voice, experience, the relationships, or the proven success.

The best way for you to find writers is to network among your friends. Perhaps you can find a friend of a friend of a friend who has writing talent but lacks inspiration (perhaps a friend of one of those producers you know) You need to find someone who wants to work with you because they like you on a personal level...not because you are offering any real opportunity...because, let's face it, you aren't.

Why not try writing the scripts yourself...why wait until "all else fails?"

I haven't heard back from her yet, but I'll update this post if I do.

My Kind of Show

James Poniewozik at Time Magazine has posted a terrific clip from the new TNT series LAWMAN, based on a character from some Elmore Leonard novels. Now that I've seen the clip, I can't wait for the show.