A Writer's Life

This is Why Ken Levine Wins Emmys

Ken Levine's blog post today isn't just a brilliant satire of Aaron Sorkin's distinct style...it's also great writing. I loved it. Here's a taste:

EXT. KAUFFMAN STADIUM -- NIGHT

THE MANAGER, LEO, TROTS OUT TO THE MOUND TO TALK TO BELEAGURED PITCHER, DANNY (THERE’S ALWAYS A DANNY). THE BASES ARE LOADED. THE CROWD IS GOING NUTS. IT’S GAME SEVEN OF THE WORLD SERIES.

LEO

You can’t get a good lobster in this town.

DANNY

Last I checked we were in Kansas City.

LEO

4.6 billion pork ribs sold every year and 18.9 tons of beef consumed annually since 1997 –

DANNY

They like their beef, what can I tell ya?

LEO

But you’d think just for variety’s sake.

DANNY

I can still throw my curve.

LEO

For strikes?

DANNY

I’m not throwing enough?

LEO

I’ve seen more lobsters.

DANNY WALKS TO THE ROSIN SACK, GIVES IT A SQUEEZE, DECIDES TO KEEP WALKING. HE AND LEO NOW WALK OUT INTO CENTER FIELD.

DANNY

It’s just that… LEO

What? Kathy?

DANNY

No. Cabs. There’s no cohesiveness on this team. After road games, 25 cabs for 25 players. There used to be a thing called “the greater good”, forgoing your needs for the betterment of the team and community who looks to us for their identity and self worth. When I’m trying to save a game I’m really trying to save a factory. If baseball is a metaphor for life, then responsibility is its first cousin simile. And Kathy.

LEO

That’s a “1” on your back and not a “2”.

DANNY

I can’t help it. She knocks my sanitary socks off.

"Before I was a TV writer, I was a street poet..."

Screenwriter, novelist, and teacher William Rabkin reveals the method to his madness, and gives some good career advice to aspiring screenwriters, in an interview at Write On today. Here's an excerpt:

How important is diversification for a writer?

I’m a big advocate of diversification. Right now, all our markets are shrinking—not a great problem if you’re, say, the showrunner of Desperate Housewives. But for the rest of us, we’re watching TV staffs shrinking, original screenplay sales diving, publishing in serious trouble. We can’t know where the next opportunity is going to come from—so it’s best to make yourself available for as many opportunities as possible.

How can a writer best get his or her work noticed?

Write really well. Oh, and if you can show up in a sex tape with a celebrity, that would help, too.

Kicked by an Angel

Here's the trailer for LASKO: FIST OF GOD, the new series from my friends at Action Concept. Imagine Walker if he was a monk instead of a Texas Ranger and you've got the gist of this series...fun stuff!

A TV Truism

Canadian TV writer Denis McGrath posted on his blog a simple TV truism that is nonetheless often taken for granted in this business:

The process of making a Friday Night Lights, or The Wire, or The Shield, is exactly the same process that results in Being Erica. It's just as much work to conceive of, break story for, and execute a little confection like Ugly Betty or Reaper or Cupid as it is to make The West Wing.

No matter what the show is, whether it's winning Emmys or going unnoticed, it still boils down to a showrunner and a bunch of writers in a room, breaking stories that can be told in four acts and shot in X number of days for X amount of money.

Diane Dives Into More Mind Games

I was delighted to see in the trades today that Bruce Evans (MR. BROOKS) will direct DIVER, a thriller written by my friend Diane Ademu-John, with whom I worked on the TV series MISSING. The script is about an ex-cop who enters the minds of dead people to read their final thoughts and use them to solve crimes. Diane is no stranger to these kinds of mind games -- after MISSING, about an FBI agent who has visions of missing persons, she went straight into several seasons on MEDIUM.

Congratulations Diane!

Hat in Hand

The most interesting thing about Ken Follett's THE PILLARS OF EARTH mini-series isn't the international cast (Ian McShane, Donald Sutherland, Rufus Sewell etc) or it's location shoot in Hungary and Austria -- it's the complex financing that had to be put together to get the German/Canadian coproduction made. As the press release notes:

TANDEM COMMUNICATIONS and Muse Entertainment's broadcast and home video partners on The Pillars of the Earth are ProSiebenSat1's German FreeTV Group, Canada's Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, The Movie Network and Movie Central, Spain's Socable, Austria's ORF, Germany's Universum Film Home Entertainment, Hungary's TV2 and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment – to name a few. In addition, the financial entities involved were gap financier FIDEC, Germany's DZ Bank and The National Bank of Canada. Legal counsel for the project was Mathias Schwarz in Germany, Cari Davine in Canada, Randolph M. Paul in the USA and Monika Horvath in Hungary.

Did you notice that it says that those are just a few of the financial partners? And did you see that the deal-making itself is  such a big part of the production, that the producers feel obligated to thank their lawyers in the press release? Incredible. 

The folks at Tandem obviously had to go, hat in hand, all over the world to get the money for this. Even more surprising is that the mini-series doesn't even have a U.S. or U.K. broadcast yet. This illustrates just how difficult it is to raise financing for TV productions these days...and how global the business has become. Tandem's managing director Rola Bauer says in the press release:

"The fact that we have been able to raise the production financing in these economically challenging times is testimony to the enduring strength of fictional television Event programming [...] and could not have been achieved without our international networks as well as our financial and production partners."

Scott Free TV president David Zucker told the Hollywood Reporter that putting together such a complex deal and going into production without a U.S. broadcaster is  "the new world order."

"Yes, there is more risk at the top, but there's more latitude on the creative side. It's not dissimilar to the indie film biz in this respect. Given how difficult the economy became here, we decided to plow ahead and get funding and casting done before trying to do a licensing deal in the States."

Zucker said there was "a lot of interest" among yank broadcasters, cablers and pay cablers but did not specify how close to a deal the producers were.

For what it's worth, the last big mini-series that Munich-based Tandem put together, LOST CITY RAIDERS, ended up on SciFi. 

Living on TV's Death Row

Writer Josh Friedman, the showrunner of TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONCILES, blogs about his final days on the series...and what it's like to be cancelled. 

Everyone says having your show cancelled is like a death but I've been dead before and at least when you're dead you don't get thrown off the Warner Bros. lot for haunting your old parking space. They probably mean it's like the death of a friend or a family member but that shit only hurts when it's YOUR friend or family member and even then it's mitigated by age, lifestyle and whether that person was a Hollywood friend or a real one and whether that family member left you money.

Losing your show is more like a surprise divorce where you get served papers in the morning and your (ex)wife is fucking Human Target by three in the afternoon using the same time slot your child was conceived in and also where she did that one thing that one time on your birthday.

People say the bright side to losing your show is gaining time to spend with your family but I'm pretty sure that waking up next to your ex-showrunner spouse whom you haven't seen for two and a half years is pretty close to waking up next to that special someone you met the night before at Carlos n' Charlie's in Cancun on Spring Break.

His lengthy post is very funny, bitter, and oh-so-true. I've been in his position, feeling many of the same things that he did, more times than I care to remember...and it never gets any easier or less uncomfortable. 

Check Twitter Before Meetings

Last Tuesday, I had a meeting with a showrunner about filling an open writer/producer position on his new series. I learned yesterday, a week later, that he was going with somebody else. That's no big deal, it happens all the time. But here's the twist... it turns out that an hour before my meeting last week, the showrunner tweeted that he'd just made an offer to a guy I'll call "Producer X" and that he was "crossing his fingers" that the offer would be accepted. So when I had my meeting, the showrunner had already decided to go with someone else...and had announced it to the world...but not to me. He was seeing me as, at best, a back-up in the case the other guy passed...which would be fine, if he hadn't already announced publicly that he really wanted somebody else.

But wait, there's more. Last Wednesday morning, the day after our meeting, the showrunner tweeted that he'd just hired Producer X.  But he didn't get around to telling my agent it was a pass until yesterday...a full week later. He couldn't wait to tell the world his decision...but blew off my agent for a week.

The moral of this story? I'll be checking Twitter before and especially after my meetings...and so will my agent. 

Deep Dudu

Let's hope frustrated U.S. writers, producers and actors don't follow Israeli TV star Dudu Topaz's example when it comes to dealing with rejection and bad reviews. The LA Times reports that the once top-rated TV host hired thugs to beat up two network execs who rejected his pitches for new shows and an agent who gave up on his comeback bid.

Topaz is accused of hiring three former security guards involved in the beatings over the last seven months of Shira Margalit, a vice president at Israel's Channel 2 TV; Avi Nir, a Channel 2 director; and talent agent Boaz Ben-Zion in Tel Aviv. Margalit, the most recent victim, was hospitalized a few days last month with a broken nose and fractured bones in her face.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the four suspects, all in custody, were identified through telephone wiretaps, witness testimony and surveillance video.

At least two other media executives were on the entertainer's hit list, police said: a newspaper editor who had turned down his offer to write a regular column and a Channel 2 producer who once worked with Topaz and now produces the unscripted show "Big Brother.[...]He once attacked a TV critic for a scathing review and broke his glasses, famously declaring, "He doesn't understand what he sees anyway."

Seven Weeks

UK-based Writer/producer Stephen Gallagher takes you step-by-step through the seven weeks between the initial conception of an ELEVENTH HOUR episode idea and the start of filming. His experience is typical of American episodic television production...and very, very different from the way things are done in the UK...where the same process can take months, if not longer.

Here's the nub of it. It looks fast and scary. But for the writer, the actual amount of work in turning out an hour-long script for American TV barely differs from that involved in creating script for a UK hour. The difference is that the US system edits out the soul-destroying longueurs between stages, while your script sits on someone's desk or some executive disappears on holiday. It's the same act of writing, but you get to do it in real time; and because of that, you don't run the risk of anyone - you included - falling out of love with what you're doing.

Bend

Writer/producer Lisa Klink, elaborating on Bill Rabkin's great essay on crafting spec scripts, passes along some important advice to aspiring TV writers. Yes, creativity is important. Yes, writing skill is important. Yes, people skills are important. But all of that won't move you forward in the television business unless you possess the most important talent of all: flexibility.

Which isn’t the same as spinelessness. You have to be willing to fight for the key elements which make your script work. You also have to be willing to change or even throw out elements you love if they’re not really crucial. Or affordable. Want to make yourself indispensable to a showrunner? Be the writer who can take any mess of an idea, stupid studio notes or ridiculous budget restrictions and still crank out a gem of a script.

Cool Desperation

I read two interesting takes on the new fall TV season. TV Writer Kay Rendl sees more vertical integration on the business side and the continued pursuit of cool on the creative side. 

Think about it -- what drama do you watch on network TeeVee that features uncool lead characters? Even my favorite network shows featured cool people. The Gilmore girls were cool. The politicians on the West Wing were cool, even when they were policy wonks because they would still sleep with prostitutes. And even Buffy, with her outcast-ness, slayed vampires. Willow became a cool lesbian witch. Xander married an ex-demon and lived in a weird 80s condo.

There are two ways to be an outcast: You either hide your weird qualities (Buffy), or you showcase them (Glee). It wasn't until I watched the Glee pilot that I realized what had been bothering me about the pilots, and it's that cool factor. Even when a pilot tries to make a character less cool, they invariably balance that quality out with a cool element: Mary Sue's a mousy librarian, but she's also a witch who looks GREAT with her hair down and her boobs pushed up. Cool is the safe zone for networks.

Emily Nussbaum of New York Magazines sat through the network upfront presentations and saw something else -- fear and desperation.

With buyers still shaken by the economy, this is the first upfront season in which it’s become impossible to ignore the troubles that riddle the television industry—financial, technological, creative. Automobile ads have dissolved. Cable is ascendant. And none of the default settings are holding: NBC—which skipped the upfronts, giving “infronts” two weeks earlier—has gone rogue, scheduling an hour of Leno every weeknight at ten, touting an “all-year” schedule.

[...]CBS’s “we’re No. 1!” sell is compelling, if in a depressing way: People love our dullest shows! They cheer their purchase of Medium, which NBC dumped. The reality pilot Undercover Boss strikes a chord with this audience of people terrified of being fired.

The after-party—at Terminal 5 instead of CBS’s old venue, Tavern on the Green—is sweaty and miserable, with chocolate fortune cookies containing the unsettlingly fascist message “Only CBS.” It occurs to me that all this branding is itself oddly dated, to viewers if not to marketers—how many television viewers are loyal to one network anymore, now that the very concept of a time slot has nearly dissolved?

The sad truth behind the hype, the booze, and the chilled shrimp fed to the advertising reps who attend these things is that 90% or more of the new fall shows will fail. Miserably. And everybody knows that...but deny it to themselves, something Jimmy Kimmel's comedy schtick at the ABC upfront presentation made perfectly clear. 

"Everything you’ve heard today, everything you’re going to hear this week, is bullshit. [...] Every year we lie to you, and every year you come back for more … You don’t need an upfront, you need therapy. We lied to you, and then you passed those lies along to your clients! Everyone in this room is completely full of shit.” 

Everybody laughed. They should have cried.

Always Change the Names

All writers take some inspiration from their own lives for the stories they tell in their books and screenplays. But it looks like CSI writer/producer Sarah Goldfinger may have gone too far (or, at the very least, was sloppy about it). The Los Angeles Times reports:

When married real estate agents Scott and Melinda Tamkin read about an episode of the hit crime drama "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" that featured dirty-dealing, S&M-loving real estate agents named Scott and Melinda Tamkin, they didn't need to consult a forensic expert for an explanation. A house sale involving the Tamkins and a "CSI" producer had fallen apart four years before, and the producer was listed, in the same online description, as the co-writer of the episode. On Friday the Tamkins filed a $6-million defamation and invasion of privacy suit against the producer, Sarah Goldfinger, saying she humiliated them and cost them potential business...

I don't fault Goldfinger for using the couple as a jumping-off point for her story. There's nothing wrong with that. Series often use real-life events and people as inspiration (that's why they run a legal disclaimer on certain episodes of LAW & ORDER that are obviously "ripped from the headlines"). Goldfinger's mistake was actually using their real names in the script. Although the names of the characters were changed before the script was shot (undoubtedly after the standard legal script clearance process uncovered that there were actually real estate agents with the same name as those in the teleplay), the damage was done. The early draft was used for casting and initial network publicity. 

It's a surprising mistake for someone of Goldfinger's experience to make.  Every TV writer knows better...and probably cringed when they read about this. Look for this lawsuit to be quietly settled before it goes to court.

International TV Buyers Want WalMart Prices

This week is the LA Screenings, when buyers from networks worldwide come to Los Angeles to see pilots and buy the broadcast rights to new series for their countries. These sales are important to the U.S. studios. They help the studios recoup the difference between the network license fees (what CBS, ABC, etc. pay to air the shows) and the actual production costs (which are considerably more). The problem is, networks worldwide are in deep financial trouble. Although it's usually cheaper for foreign networks to buy U.S. stuff rather than produce their own, home-grown fare, they still don't have the cash to spend on a shopping spree. Variety reports:

Twentieth global TV head Marion Edwards said she's concerned that the U.K. market, after years of high spending and bidding wars, is scaling back in a big way, especially after a weak 2008 Screenings.

"Sky buys a lot of shows, as do Channel 4 and Five, but not last year. ITV is the wildcard," she explained. "They've all announced they'll slash programming budgets and won't buy U.S. programming. We'll have to take the temperatures. The market has gotten very tough."

The Los Angeles Times reports that 1400 buyers came this year...one hundred less than last year. And those who've shown up have a lot less money to spend.

Asked where the most challenging markets will be, Jeffrey R. Schlesinger, who oversees international television for the studio, didn't even need a pause. "Unfortunately, the answer is everywhere." The Canadian buyers had already passed through the lot Sunday with much smaller wallets than usual. "Prices were not at the level of the past two years," Schlesinger observed. The United Kingdom and Australia are also challenged. While lots of new buyers have emerged recently most don't have the deep pockets of the entrenched networks.

This is My Life

Getting fired, in the form of a series cancellation, is a fact of life for people working in the TV industry. As an example, The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday on what it's like for the crew of the CBS series THE UNIT to be waiting, and wondering, whether their show is coming back.

If drama is life heightened, then Hollywood's bubble shows mirror much of America right now, where the specter of pay reductions, freezes and immediate unemployment is writ large. In the television industry, the phenomenon is an annual rite as network executives decide which series will be ditched to make room for new projects.

"What the country in general is going through, if you choose to work in Hollywood, you've accepted a life that is constantly like that," said executive producerShawn Ryan, who runs "The Unit" and created the FX cable channel's cop drama "The Shield." 

[...]Executive producer Vahan Moosekian is as familiar with these employment ups and downs as anyone. His four years on "The Unit" is his longest stint on any show during his 33 years in the industry, stability he knows could easily be followed by years of unemployment. With the rise of reality TV and NBC's new 10 p.m. Jay Leno comedy show, there are fewer jobs in scripted television.

I know how Moosekian feels. For years, I used to dream about what it would be like to actually be on a show that came back for a second season. It seems like every show I was on would be canceled during it's first season, or if it came back, I would leave for one reason or another before it happened. It wasn't until DIAGNOSIS MURDER that I discovered what it felt like to be on a show for several years...though we were on the bubble for renewal, not just every season, but every mid-season as well.  

I have never seen things as tough for TV writers as they are now. There are fewer scripted dramas and fewer writer/producer slots on them. Even if you are lucky enough to be on a show that gets renewed, you might not come back with it --- every show is trimming expenses and writers are the first to go when networks and studios look to cut costs. 

Then again, it's tough for everybody in every industry right now.

The Price isn't Right

Lots of scripted shows in recent years have moved their production from Los Angeles to New Mexico, North Carolina, New York, Toronto, Vancouver and even Bogota, Colombia . But you know things are really getting bad when even the cheap, non-scripted shows are fleeing the state. The LA Times reports today that the gameshow "Deal or No Deal" is saying "no deal" to California and high-tailing it to Connecticut.

The syndicated game show, hosted by comedian Howie Mandel, has been based out of the Culver Studios in Culver City for the last 3 1/2 years. But the show, which is produced by Endemol USA and distributed by NBC Universal, will shift production this summer to a studio in Waterford, Conn., to take advantage of that state's film and TV production tax breaks. Most of the 250 people who now work on "Deal or No Deal" will lose their jobs.

Connecticut offers a 30% production tax credit for films and digital media productions. NBC Universal, whose corporate parent General Electric Co. is based in Fairfield, Conn., already has announced plans to move three of its talk shows into a new production facility in Stamford, Conn.: "The Jerry Springer Show," "The Steve Wilkos Show," both from Chicago, and "Maury," from New York.

What's next to go -- "The Price is Right?" "Ellen?" "The Tonight Show?" This is very bad news for all sectors of the entertainment industry in Southern California.

Life on Mars...the Spanish Version

Here's a peak at the Spanish version of the BBC hit LIFE ON MARS...and it has the best main title sequence of the bunch.

People Don't Watch Shows That Suck

You'd think that would be common sense but, apparently it's not. Case in point -- today an Entertainment Weekly article questioned why so many science fiction shows this season are tanking while audiences are still flocking to science fiction movies:

Two weeks ago, Fox aired what was probably the final episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, a pretty solid sci-fi show which nevertheless suffered from guttery ratings. Two weeks from now, Terminator Salvation will premiere in theaters -- where it will likely make somewhere in the vicinity of $90 million in its first weekend, regardless of how "good" it is. Two separate extentions of the same franchise: one will be labeled a failure, the other a ginormous hit. Why? Why don't we want science fiction on television anymore?

I think that the EW article is based on a faulty premise. People do watch science fiction TV shows...when they don't suck (good stuff like THE X-FILES, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, the first season of HEROES, etc). 

Unfortunately, most of them suck. 

People didn't reject TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES because it was science fiction...they stopped watching because it was lousy (and I say that as a guy who, inexplicably, didn't miss an episode). People turned away from HEROES for the same reason. The bottom line for science fiction shows is the same as it is for all shows in any genre:  they gotta be good or they'll die. 

That said, science fiction is a niche genre that has always appealed to a limited number of viewers...perhaps enough eyeballs to make a movie a hit but not enough to sustain a weekly TV show (which is why the SciFi network is so eager to broaden their brand and shed the "scifi" label). 

The other reason that science fiction TV shows haven't worked is that they are inordinately expensive to produce...which means they need to quickly and consistently draw a large audience to justify the expense/continued production. Most shows, sci-fi or not, have a hard time drawing viewers. But the networks understandably don't have the same patience with an expensive show as they do with inexpensive one. So no, it's not science fiction shows that audiences are rejecting...it's poor writing, or a lousy premise/franchise, or bad acting, or the promotion was so weak, nobody ever noticed the show was on the air...or it's a lethal combination of all those elements.

As far as movies go, there is also the event/spectacle factor. A 100-minute movie like TERMINATOR: SALVATION costs as much to produce as 44 episodes of TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES. Of course the movie is going to be more awesome. Plus, you're only asking the viewer to make a two-hour committment rather than a 44-hour one.  It has nothing to do with science fiction as a genre and everything to do with a dozen other factors. 

In other words, EW was asking the wrong question. What they should have been asking is "Why is science fiction TV so bad lately?"

That would be a better question, but not a fair one, because I think science fiction is thriving on TV as never before. STARGATE  just ended it's eight (or was it nine?) year run. It's spin-off ATLANTIS is also ending a long run (five years?). BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, which only ended a few weeks ago, may have been one of the best, and most-acclaimed science fiction TV series ever on television...and it gave SciFi Channel the respect it has sought for so long (which is ironic, considering they are changing their name with the premiere of the BSG spin-off CAPRICA). FRINGE is doing great.  And if you throw fantasy/horror into the mix, it looks even better (SUPERNATURAL, MEDIUM, TRUE BLOOD, GHOST WHISPERER, etc). 

So no, this is not a bad time for science fiction. It's a bad time for shows that suck...or that were once good and have slipped...or ill-conceived shows that take too much time finding their creative footing.

Revised Thinking

I watched the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA finale again tonight. Don't ask me why. Procrastination, maybe? Anway, I liked it much more the second time around. It's a better finale than I initially thought it was.

Huh?

Fox is yanking DOLLHOUSE after episode 12 and will not air the 13th episode. Now, on the surface, that would scream "The Show is Cancelled." But the folks at DOLLHOUSE are spinning this news in a very odd way. See if you can follow this explanation from producer Tim Minnear:

Okay. So maybe I can help clarify this somewhat. Because we scrapped the original pilot — and in fact cannibalized some of its parts for other eps — we really ended up with 12 episodes. But the studio makes DVD and other deals based on the original 13 number. So we created a standalone kind of coda episode. Which is the mythical new episode 13. The network had already paid for 13 episodes, and this included the one they agreed to let us scrap for parts. It does not include the one we made to bring the number back up to 13 for the studio side and its obligations. We always knew it would be for the DVD for sure, but we also think Fox should air it because it's awesome.

If I understand this correctly, and I'm not entirely sure that I do, he's saying that the Fox Network ordered 13 episodes, which included the pilot, which was scrapped and cannibalized in subsequent epoisodes. But the Fox Studios made commitments to networks overseas and to a DVD distributor for thirteen episodes. So, since they were one episode short after dumping the pilot, the studio alone bore the cost of shooting an extra episode that the network doesn't feel like airing.

Keep in mind that the studio and the network are owned by the same people...Fox. They are simply moving cash from one pocket to another.

So here's the bottom line: Fox Studios paid to produce an episode that The Fox Network doesn't want to air (in other words, they don't want to pay a $3 million license fee for a show that's delivering terrible ratings). What does that tell you about the network's confidence in the show? A lot.

Worst Finale Ever?

No, I'm not talking about ER...I am talking about the bland American remake of the UK series LIFE ON MARS. The show was about a cop who is hit by a car...and wakes up in the 1970s. He's not sure whether he has gone back in time, whether he's imagining the whole thing,. or whether he is dead and experiencing the afterlife...or something else altogether. Throughout the series (which only ran 16 episodes in the UK) he is trying to get back to his own time by solving crimes which he believes will eventually lead him to the solution to his own predicament... and the way out.

SPOILER ALERT!

In the British version, the hero discovers that he was in a coma and that his experience in the 1970s was all a dream. He returns to his "real" life in 2007 but just doesn't fit in any more. He has become so emotionally and psychologically attached to the people in his his fantasy life that he ends up committed suicide to return to that make-believe world. It was a dark way to end the show but, at the same time, it actually worked.

In the far inferior American version, the hero discovers that he isn't from 2009 either...he's an astronaut in the future who has spent the last two years in suspended animation on a mission to Mars... and that his experience in 2009 and 1973 was all a dream induced by some haywire computer program. All the "characters" in his dream turn out, Oz-like, to have been his fellow astronauts in different guises. It was inane... and done so cheaply that it looks like an SNL skit. It was probably one of the worst, if not THE worst, series finale I've ever seen.

The Finale That Never Was But Should Have Been

I look at all the hoopla surrounding the final episode of ER, ending a run of 15 years and 331 episodes, and I can't help thinking of GUNSMOKE. 

The legendary CBS western ran for 20 years and 600+ episodes...far more than ER. And unlike ER, most of the principal stars of GUNSMOKE remained to the bitter end... bitter, not because the show was doing poorly creatively or in terms of audience numbers, but because it was cancelled without a final episode, without so much as a thank you to the cast and crew that had labored over the show from 1955-1975.  Everyone on GUNSMOKE thought they'd be coming back for another season. They found out they weren't by reading the bad news in the trades. That would be unthinkable today. Respect would be paid, if not with a final episode, then certainly with the tributes and retrospectives we've seen lavished on shows like BOSTON LEGAL, HILL STREET BLUES, CHEERS, MASH, SEINFELD, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and so many, many others...none of which has matched GUNSMOKE's longevity. 

GUNSMOKE still remains the longest running, scripted drama in U.S. television history. LAW & ORDER is fast approaching the record, but unlike GUNSMOKE, it has experienced a lot of cast-turnover. There's nobody left on L&O who was there in episode one.  The same is true of ER. The ER we were captivated by 15 years ago is not the same show that will be ending this Thursday...that cast, and that show, is long gone. But James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon and Milburn Stone, as Doc, were there from start to finish (Amanda Blake as Kitty stuck with the show for 19 years). They deserved a better send off. 

Pinching Pennies with Trickery

I am so bored now by TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES that all I really notice are all the things they are doing to cut corners on the budget...which mostly involves lots of shooting on the standing sets and the Warner Brothers backlot. 

But they also use some other common TV tricks. In last weeks episode, for example, Sarah and John go to visit a friend who is staying at a house/lighthouse near the ocean. You assumed it was near the water because of the lighthouse and a boat on a trailer parked out front. 

What I suspect is that the lighthouse was a CGI shot, and that the house was nowhere near the water. There was never actually a shot tying the house to the water or the boat dock. What they had was the sound effects of surf and seagulls...and they did a scene with John and another guy working on the parked boat on the trailer. Why wasn't the boat in the water? Because the location was no where near it...at least, that's my guess. Later, there is some action on the boat at the dock, but there are no shots tying the boat, or the dock, to the house. You also never see the boat leave the dock...

I could be wrong, but what I think what I saw was a typical TV illusion, one I have used many times myself.

On DIAGNOSIS MURDER, we did an episode set in a small, seaside village. But we never got anywhere near the water, either. We used stock-footage establishing shots of Mendocino, California, a village on the cliffs above the raging surf, but we shot the episode entirely Moorpark, a farming community at least thirty miles inland from the ocean. We simply dressed the shops with surfing, beach, and fishing props and put lots of people on the street in beachwear...and in post-production, we added the sound of seagulls and crashing surf. We actually got letters from people asking where the town was so they could visit it.

On the first season of BAYWATCH, we shot footage of the Venice beach promenade and then dressed the commissary and garage of the Columbia Studios lot to look like part of it. We shot tight, filled the screen with people in bathing suits, and added the right sound effects. We did it more for convenience than to save money... afterall, we'd dumped a fortune into recreating the entire Santa Monica Lifeguard Headquarters, interior and exterior, on a massive soundstage (as well as an entire house, inside and out, but that's another story). Having a fake stretch of the promenade on our "backlot" saved us the trouble of a location shoot to Venice beach and allowed us some flexibility to complete a day "on stage" even if some exteriors were involved in day's shooting schedule. 

This kind of trickery is done all the time...and when it is done well, you don't notice it. The CSI shows are particularly adept at it...since CSI (LAS VEGAS), CSI: MIAMI, and CSI: NY are mostly shot in Los Angeles and not the cities where they take place. But thanks to the smart use of  establishing shots, some simple trickery, and compelling stories, viewers rarely notice...

The Best Finales

All this talk about the final episode of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA got me thinking about the best, and worst, series finales.  Off the top of my head, the best ones were, in no particular order:

The Fugitive

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Newhart

MASH

Larry Sanders 

The Mary Tyler Moore Show

Boston Legal

The West Wing

Cheers

The Paper Chase

Inspector Morse

Among the worst series enders were:

Magnum PI (both the original, intended finale and the one they did when they unexpectedly returned for one more season)

St. Elsewhere 

Hawaii Five-O (one of the all-time worst)

Miami Vice

Star Trek Enterprise 

Seinfeld

Mad About You

Quantum Leap

Moonlighting

Roseanne

X Files

The Prisoner 

MacGyver

My list of series finales that were simply fine, but not outstanding, would include:

Battlestar Galactica

Hill Street Blues

The Sopranos

The Odd Couple

Star Trek Voyager

L.A. Law

Deep Space Nine

Who's the Boss

Family Ties

Barney Miller

Frasier

Jag

Friends

Thirtysomething

Everybody Loves Raymond

Will & Grace

And finally, my list of the best final episodes that were undone because the series unexpectedly came back for another season...

St. Elsewhere

Crime Story

I haven't seen the final episodes of THE SHIELD or THE WIRE (I am several seasons behind on both of them) or BUFFY (I lost interest in the show after a season or two), though I hear that all three of them were great. And there are a number of other finales I never saw simply because they were series I didn't watch. All that said, I am sure am leaving out a bunch. That said, in my opinion most episodic series aren't really designed to have final episodes and don't really need them. It's shows like GALACTICA, LOST, QUANTUM LEAP, MASH, GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, THE FUGITIVE, THE PRISONER, LOST IN SPACE, etc. that are built around a quest, a pursuit, a war or the solution of a central mystery that merit, if not demand, the closure if a final episode. But I think that for the majority of dramas and sitcoms, it's not necessary to concoct a finale...and perhaps even a mistake. 

On the Tube

I gave in to my curiosity and watched the much-hyped, game-changing, earth-shattering, awe-inspiring sixth episode of DOLLHOUSE written by Joss Whedon. Yes, it was much better than the first two episodes of the series...but it still wasn't very compelling, believable or entertaining. I won't be tuning in to episode seven...and I suspect not many others will, either. MY OWN WORST ENEMY, which was similar thematically, was a lot more clever and engaging than this...and what happened to that show? It didn't survive the season. I suspect the same fate is coming for DOLLHOUSE. 

TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES is winding down for the season...and, if my guess is right, forever. The show has been on a downward spiral creatively this season..it never picked up from the high set by the season one finale (and never again matched the clever moment early this season when a urinal morphed into a Terminator). This episode, besides being dull, struck me as a big F-you to loyal viewers like me. SPOILER ALERT: Supposedly, John Connor knew for the last few episodes that Reilly was from the future and that Reese was sneaking around with the Asian chick, who he also knew was from the future. Yeah, right. If that's true, then none of his behavior this season makes any sense at all. It felt to me like a totally manufactured twist that the showrunners came up with on the spur of the moment. If it wasn't, it sure felt that way, which means they did a lousy job of setting it up. The payoff certainly didn't work. This series deserves to die...and it will.

The final episode of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA was a very satisfying conclusion to the series, even if it didn't quite tie up all the loose ends (who or what was Kara Thrace anyway? They didn't explain how she stumbled upon her corpse on Ancient Earth). No matter. While it wasn't the greatest final episode of all time, as some critics were over-enthusing,  it did the job it set out to do and did it well. They even gave a nod to the original BATTLESTAR theme at the end. This is a series that, as a whole, will go down one of the best scifi shows ever.

DOLLHOUSE UPDATE: New Jersey Star-Ledger critic Alan Sepinwall sums things up nicely.

So, does "Man on the Street" change the way I think about "Dollhouse," about series television, about the classical tenets of storytelling and the merits of Aristophanes versus Brecht? Did it, in fact, cure my lactose intolerance? Well, no[...]But "Man on the Street" was a marked improvement over what's come before.

But he is curious enough now to stick with it. Not me.

BATTLESTAR UPDATE: Sepinwall has a lengthy analysis of the BATTLESTAR finale and the entire series that, on the whole, I agree with. I also agree with much of Jamie Poniewozik's take on it at the Time Magazine blog.

The Canadian Invasion

The attitudes of the major U.S. networks towards Canadian programming has changed dramatically since the success of the CBS import FLASHPOINT and the global economic crisis. Canadian TV distribution exec Noreen Halperin told The Globe & Mail:

"It's an extraordinary change in the lay of the land from even a year ago[...] The shift with some of the network presidents has been exceptional."

Last year's strike by the Writers Guild of America, she says, "paved the way, and allowed a show like Flashpoint to be sold. Once it aired and was a success, it made people take notice. That, coupled with the economic downturn, means all broadcasters are looking for interesting alternatives. The Canadian way is one of these," adds the TV veteran, who says Americans can save up to 50 per cent by splitting costs.

She brought Canadian showrunners Tassie Cameron and Ilana Frank to L.A. to meet with network chiefs to pitch their pilot script COPPER in hope of finding a U.S. home...and co-financing.

A year ago, Halpern adds, it would have been ludicrous to assume that Cameron and Frank - both highly respected on their home turf - would get easy face time with big U.S. players. But times have changed. CBS will make six fewer pilot episodes this year than in 2008, when 15 were produced. And everyone's feeling the pinch from the freefall in advertising.

"The U.S. networks, like the ones in Canada, are clamping down in an enormous way to find cost savings," says one veteran Toronto producer, who asked not to be named. "They're all pulling back on the kinds of salaries that actors, directors and writers are being paid. They're taking a week-by-week approach to green-lighting new shows or renewing old ones.

Canadian shows are continuing to find homes on cable networks like Lifetime, Ion and Oxygen, for whom shopping up north for cheap content is nothing new. But whether the high interest in Canadian programming at the Big Networks will continue probably depends more on economics than content, and whether CBS's second Canadian series, THE BRIDGE, and NBC's midseason pickup THE LISTENER (already an international success) can perform as well as FLASHPOINT. 

(Thanks to Denis McGrath for the tip)

Don't Mess with Perry Mason

PERRY MASON reruns have been playing on a Portland, Oregon TV station every day for 42 years.:

When Patrick McCreery was named general manager at Portland's Fox KPTV six months ago, corporate bosses gave him a free hand as long as he followed an unwritten 42-year-old rule: Don't mess with "Perry Mason."
"It's untouchable," McCreery said. "We can add shows and take others off the air, but 'Perry' is nothing to fool with."
[...]Managers don't know of another U.S. station that's continuously broadcast "Perry Mason" as long as KPTV, where the show debuted 15 days after ending its nine-year run on CBS. It's among the least-expensive shows to buy, even as KPTV has moved from showing it on film reels to 1-inch tapes to digital tapes and now digital with closed captioning.
"Most markets don't want it," Dunevant said. "They figure that with high-definition sets and 5.1 stereo sound, what viewer is going to want to watch an old black-and-white show? We've found very loyal viewers. It's the linchpin of our daytime programming."

No More Life on Mars

ABC has cancelled the US version of LIFE ON MARS. But in an unusual move sure to please fans, they are going to let the producers shoot a final episode that wraps things up. The series only lasted a few episodes longer than the UK original which was, in just about every way, better than the U.S. version, despite the likes of Michael Imperioli and Harvey Keitel in the cast. The question now is...will they use the same ending as the British original or come up with a new fate for time-traveling cop Sam Tyler?

Trust Me, It Gets Better

TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES showrunner Josh Friedman and DOLLHOUSE showrunner Joss Whedon are well aware that viewers haven't been happy with the last three episodes of their respective shows. DOLLHOUSE star Eliza Dushku is urging viewers to stick around until episode six, when the show really gets good:

"[...] Joss is best off left alone to do his thing. That happens around episode six—six through 13 are just extraordinary. I love one, two, three, four, and five, but Joss’ first script that he did after the pilot is number six, which is called “Man On The Street,” and it is just unbelievable. From that point on, the world unfolds in Joss’ way, with Joss’ speed, and it’s really remarkable. "

Only it happens five episodes too late for all but the most rabid Whedon fans. Meanwhile, Friedman acknowledges on his blog that his show, now in the final legs of it's creatively wobbly and ratings-challenged second season, may have gotten bogged down the last few weeks in Sarah Connor navel-gazing, but it's going to rebound:

[...]some months ago I determined to steer the show towards its title, towards Sarah Connor. I wanted to explore not simply the idea of chasing Skynet and all that that entails, but also the psychological effects of doing so. It wasn’t enough to just hunt/fight/protect; I wanted to see what was going on inside her head, especially when those around her doubted her. Now some of you find that interesting, some of you don’t, some of you probably would but don’t think I’ve done a good job depicting it. And most of you are just pissed there’s not enough Cameron. Is it difficult starting up with dark, psychological episodes after being gone for two months? Seems that’s the case. People are worked up about the Friday night thing and the ratings and I probably underestimated that microscope in my desire to explore Sarah and her demons. To be completely honest, the network warned me not to do it but I felt (and still feel) these stories [...]were/are vital parts of the show.

He was even more candid about the short-comings of the last string of episodes in an interview with I09.

He wanted to show the aftermath of terrible things happening, and he was in love with the idea of a whole town that's struck by tragedy. Unfortunately, the execution wasn't as great as it could have been.

"Don't feel bad about not liking 'The Desert Cantos,'" Friedman told me.

Friedman said the writers wrote down all 22 of the season's episodes on a white board, and then went through and erased the weakest episode, and then the next weakest, until they were left with the best, by common consent. "The Desert Cantos" was the first episode to get erased, said Friedman.

The good news is, the remaining six episodes are among the best, according to all the writers. And the last three episodes of the season are all in the top four episodes of the season according to the writers' room consensus, said Friedman.

I admire both of these guys very much as writers and as showrunners, but c'mon, what were they thinking? In this highly competitive primetime environment, no series can afford to have three episodes in a row that suck...especially the first episodes that are intended to be sampled by new viewers. 

It's a lot ask viewers today, especially those sampling a show for the first time, to stick around if the first episode or two that they see doesn't wow them. Or, as New Jersey Star Ledger critic Alan Sepinwall put it:

But this whole "things get better X number of episodes" routine from skiffy showrunners is starting to get annoying. And even if Friedman's right, good lord were these episodes a slog. [...]Some combination of actress, writing and network notes have made Sarah Connor -- a character so iconic she got her name in the title over future messiah John -- into this opaque nothing. [...] Either Friedman's telling the truth and the show is about to take an abrupt turn for the better, or he's not and it'll be canceled soon (and I'll be gone before that happens). This was a bad, bad stretch for the show. End of story.

I've been a TERMINATOR fan since the pilot, so I will probably stick with it until the bitter end, even though it has been very uneven this season...and downright boring for the last three weeks. But DOLLHOUSE lost me after episode two and I can't think of any reason to come back for episode six.

Rehashes, Reworkings and Reimaginings

Once again, there are quite a few British remakes, shows based on movies, and "reimagined" old TV series among the pilots greenlighted to film for the 2009-2010 season.

NBC, burned badly by THE BIONIC WOMAN and KNIGHT RIDER, seems to have sworn off re-imaginings this season, though they are shooting a pilot based on the movie PARENTHOOD, which already inspired a flop 1990 sitcom on the same network.

CBS seems to have lost interest in foreign remakes (after getting burned with ELEVENTH HOUR, WORST WEEK and THE EX-LIST) and reimaginings (though they haven't tried any yet), passing on proposed remakes of HAWAII FIVE-O, LOST IN SPACE, and STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO. That said, their sister netlet the CW is shooting a MELROSE PLACE remake to capitalize on their success with BEVERLY HILLS 90210.  

ABC is shooting pilots based on the movie THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK, the 1983 NBC series V, and a stateside version of the BBC hit sitcom NO HEROICS. 

Fox is shooting a U.S. version of ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS and resurrecting THE HUMAN TARGET, a comicbook franchise that inspired a flop Rick Springfield series on ABC back in 1992. 

To see a complete list of the networks' various pilots, click on the individual network links above.