A Writer's Life

Murderous Musings

Author Jean Henry Mead interviewed me for the Murderous Musings blog and got me to blather on and on about myself and my books, something I hardly ever get a chance to do with my blog, my twitter page, my Facebook page, my... well, you get the idea. Here's an excerpt:

Lee, when did you realize you were a writer?

I've always known. When I was ten or eleven, I was already pecking novels out on my Mom's old typewriters. The first one was a futuristic tale about a cop born in an underwater sperm bank. I don't know why the bank was underwater, or how deposits were made, but I thought it was very cool. I followed that up with a series of books about gentleman thief Brian Lockwood, aka "The Perfect Sinner,” a thinly disguised rip-off of Simon Templar, aka "The Saint." I sold these stories for a dime to my friends and even managed to make a dollar or two. In fact, I think my royalties per book were better then than they are now.

My Job is to Write

Writer-producer Diane Ademu-John pointed me to this excellent blog post by author John Scalzi on dealing with strangers who want screenwriters and novelists to read their  work, listen to their pitches, etc. He says, in part:

Dear currently unpublished/newbie writers who spend their time bitching about how published/established writers are mean because they won’t read your work/introduce you to their agent/give your manuscript to their editor/get you a job on their television show/whatever other thing it is you want them to do for you: A few things you should know.

1. The job of a writer is to write. So, I’m looking at one of my book contracts. It says that I need to write a certain type of book (science fiction) of a certain length (100,000 words) by a certain time (er… Hmmm). In return, I get paid a certain amount of money. So that’s the gig.

Here’s what’s not in the contract:

1. That I critique the novels of other people; 

2. That I offer any advice to people on how to get published; 

3. That I arrange introductions to my agent, editor or publisher; 

4. That I do any damn thing, in fact, other than write the book I’ve agreed to write.

The job of a writer is to write.

To which you may say, “Yes, but –” To which I say, you’ve gone one word too far in that sentence.

The rest of the piece is just as brilliant. He's basically saying the same things that Josh Olsen did, only without the anger and profanity that turned off a lot of people.

Farscaping with Carleton

There's a great interview with my buddy Carleton Eastlake over at The Write Blog, talking about his experiences writing & producing shows like BURNING ZONE, SEAQUEST, FARSCAPE, and OUTER LIMITS. He says, in part:

I think good science fiction and fantasy, because they break some or many of the rules of the real world, require that the rules of the imagined world be interesting and consistently applied. So much more attention needs to be paid to the mythology. At the same time, there’s more room, if done in a credible way, to keep things fresh by evolving those rules, making new discoveries…here come The Borg with all sorts of new moral and psychological issues – and very different spacecraft!

On the other hand, it’s a little harder to keep the dramatic, psychological side of a science-fiction show compelling. It’s easier to ignore those concerns or be distracted from them. But if the show is consistent about its rules, then the character side of the show can absolutely work. Crichton and Aeryn on Farscape were very much in love and very much troubled by the moral conflict between running away and having a life, or staying and fighting to save their societies.

It’s also important in a science fiction show that the plot issue of the day be motivated by the implications of the world the show is set in. Attempts to do actual medical or criminal or legal procedural shows in a science fiction setting are very, very hard to pull off – the science fiction side undermines the credibility of the procedural issue, and the procedural issue rarely delivers on the magic and wonder of the setting.

Pondering the Ponderosa and Steve Cannell

I've been reading a bunch of TV and movie reference books lately, most of which have been a disappointment. 

There's a great book to be written about the writing and production of BONANZA, something akin to the brilliant and comprehensive GUNSMOKE: A COMPLETE HISTORY. Sadly, A REFERENCE GUIDE TO BONANZA by Bruce Leiby and Linda F. Lieby, now out in paperback, isn't it. A scant eight pages --- eight pages!-- are given to the creation, writing and production of the show. The bulk of the book is a workman-like episode guide to the 14 seasons and brief synopses of the TV movies, hardly worth the price of purchase. The only thing interesting and worthwhile about the book are the appendices listing various BONANZA merchandise, books, comics, and records. However, I wish the effort the authors put into gathering so much pointless information -- like listing all the shows available on video featuring Tim Matheson -- had been focused instead on giving us the definitive history of the show. Consider this a lost opportunity.

The same can be said of STEPHEN J. CANNELL TELEVISION PRODUCTIONS: A HISTORY OF ALL SERIES & PILOTS by Jon Abbott. While the book is far more substantive and detailed than the BONANZA book, it draws entirely on previously published articles and books. The author, based in the UK, doesn't appear to have actually interviewed anyone himself, either at Cannell or at studios or the networks that Cannell worked for. The one person he should have talked to, and didn't, was Steve Cannell, the subject of his book. That is a glaring and crippling fault, obvious in every chapter. The author tries to make-up for that major weakness by relying heavily on his own ponderous and uinformed commentary (often repetitive, obvious and pointless), his critical overview (often meaningless and ridiculously fannish) and his interpretation of events (often dead wrong). That was a big mistake. What is especially irritating is the author's tendancy to make an assumption, and then afterwards treat it as fact. For example, in the RICHIE BROCKLEMAN chapter, he writes:

"The intention may have originally been to introduce the aggravating Brockleman into THE ROCKFORD FILES as a semi-regular partner for Rockford (to take some of the pressure off Garner's aching back). Fortunately, reason prevailed, and the character was instead written into the 1976 pilot film before surfacing in a double-length 1978 episode of ROCKFORD."

Most of the Cannell series, even from his days at Universal, are given full chapters and sketchy (to the point of almost being useless) episode guides...but after UNSUB, for reasons not explained, only passing reference is given to TOP OF THE HILL, BOOKER, BROKEN BADGES, 100 LIVES OF BLACK JACK SAVAGE, PALACE GUARD, MISSING PERSONS, THE LAST PRECINCT, COBRA, STREET JUSTICE, HAWKEYE, MARKER and three of his all-time biggest hits, RENEGADE, THE COMMISH and SILK STALKINGS. Perhaps the author just wasn't able to get video tapes of those shows from his circle of collectors, who he thanks in his acknowledgments, which noticeably doesn't include the names of any people associated with Stephen J. Cannell Productions or his shows. It begs the question -- why didn't he actually talk to anybody? I know many of these writers, producers and directors, and I can tell you, they aren't hard to find or unwilling to share their experiences. Maybe he couldn't afford the long-distance phone calls. 

All that said, there is a lot of useful information in the book and, since the definitive book on Cannell has yet to be written, this is not a bad place-holder until somebody writes it (hopefully, Cannell himself will do it some day!). 

I Am Looking Forward to "Dexter," the reality series

Variety reports that Showtime is bringing back THE L WORD...this time as a reality series.

Pay cabler has greenlit nine episodes of "The Real L Word: Los Angeles," from "L Word" creator Ilene Chaiken and reality producers Magical Elves ("Top Chef"). Show will follow six lesbians in Los Angeles as they go about their lives -- a lesbian answer to Bravo's "Real Housewives" franchise. Project is dependent on casting, the net said; if all goes as planned, "The Real L Word" would debut sometime next year.

If this works, the reality versions of DEXTER and THE TUDORS should be fun.

I Hate The WGA Elections

I hate it when we're asked to vote for new WGA officers and board members. We get inundated with mails, each side attacking the other, and then we get that bulging election packet, with its candidate statements, candidate rebuttals, rebuttals of rebuttals, rebuttals of rebuttals of rebuttals, the non-candidate statements, the rebuttals of non-candidate statements, and the endorsement ads. Accusations, counter-accusations, and counter-counter-counter accusations.

I don't bother with most of that crap. I read nothing but the candidates statements and make my decisions based on that, my personal knowledge (if any) of the individual candidates, and my own take on where the industry stands and what I believe the direction of the Guild should be. I do not vote according to slates. I vote according to a candidate's principles, experience, ideas, and vision. But most important of all, I vote. 

If you are a WGA member, I urge you to vote as well.

For what it's worth, here is who I voted for:

President: Elias Davis

Vice-President: Tom Schulman

Secretary-Treasurer: Christopher Keyser

Board Members: Patric Verrone, Howard Rodman, Carleton Eastlake, Dan Wilcox, Ian Deitchman, Linda Burstyn, Chip Johannessen, and Luvh Rakhe.

Writing Staffs Shrinking

Variety reports what I've been hearing from TV writer friends for months...writing staffs are shrinking dramatically.

"I definitely feel as if there are (fewer) jobs out there," says Damon Lindelof, exec producer of ABC's LOST. "Whereas new shows from pilots that got picked up used to have 10 to 12 writers -- that was the size of our staff in 2004 -- we're just eight now.

[...]William Rotko, exec producer of the FBI-themed Patrick Swayze starrer THE BEAST, which finished its one-season run for A&E, says a confluence of events has altered the TV dynamic.

"I don't know if it's a combination of the recession and the prior writers' strike," he says. "They kind of landed one after another. After the writers' strike, it seemed this was going to happen anyway, but the recession sped up the process of reducing the size of the writers' room.

There are also fewer scripted shows than there were in the past. The major networks have all given up offering new, scripted fare on Saturdays, there's more reality shows than ever, and NBC has scrapped five hours of prime-time for Jay Leno's new show.

While cable has picked up some of the slack by producing original dramas, they are short orders with small staffs. It all adds up to the worst job market for TV writers than I have ever seen before. It's shocking to me how many of my friends...experienced, successful scribes, some with shelves of Emmy Awards... are out of work right now. 

Who is the Clueless Moron now?

Back in 2004, under the heading "Clueless Morons," I blogged about a group calling themselves the Colonial Fan Force, who took out a full-page ad in Variety clamoring for a BATTLESTAR GALACTICA movie starring the original cast. The ad read, in part: 

Millions of fans still dream of seeing the Battlestar Galactica roam the heavens once more in a big screen continuations of the epic story that began in 1978 with the original cast and characters leading a new generation of warriors

I wrote:

Yeah, right... there are millions, no TENS of millions, of fans clamoring for the return of Herb Jefferson, Laurette Sprang, Dirk Benedict, and Richard Hatch (who is not nearly as powerful an actor as the nude guy of the same name on "Survivor"... nor as successful). I suspect the real audience is about 100 fat guys in their 40s, who at this very moment are busily duping all their Heather Thomas videos onto DVD..

[...]I am always amused by the losers who spend their comic book money on pointless ads like this (or, worse, the ones who publish a synopsis of, or excerpt from, their unsold screenplays)

[...] the folks at "The Colonial Fan Force" urge the readers of Variety (most of whom are entertainment industry professionals) to write writer/producer Glen A. Larson and Tom DeSanto, a guy who once tried to launch a movie version of the TV show. This shows just how little the people who paid for this ad understand about how the business works...and even sillier when you consider the SciFi Channel is already in the midst of shooting a new "Battlestar Galactica" TV series from NBC/Universal Studios with an all-new cast led by Edward James Olmos.

And that was the nicest thing I had to say about the Colonial Fan Force. 

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the joke is on me. Today Variety reported that Universal, Glen A. Larson, Bryan Singer and Tom DeSanto are mounting a feature film version of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA that will be a "complete re-imagining" that is unrelated to the recently wrapped series.

While this isn't the reunion the Colonial Fan Force was clamoring for, and it's happening after the end of the new BATTLESTAR GALACTICA series, and it isn't the result of a letter-writing campaign, it is a feature film and it's likely to be closer to the original series than the SciFi Channel series was.

So who is the clueless moron now? It looks like it is me.

I'm Going Kindle Crazy

I've just posted another old, out-of-print book of mine on the Amazon Kindle Store...my 1991 paperback Unsold TV Pilots: The Greatest Shows You Never Saw, which was the basis for the hour-long ABC special "The Best TV Shows That Never Were" and the hour-long CBS special "The Greatest Shows You Never Saw. It is now available in a special $2.49 Kindle edition. Here's the book jacket copy:

“The Best Bathroom Reading EVER," - San Francisco Chronicle

"A must-browse for media freaks.” —USA Today

“Irresistible and enthralling.” —Hartford Courant

“Full of fool’s gold and genuine TV treasures.” —The New York Post

This lively and entertaining book looks at the three hundred best and worst TV series ideas—known in the industry as "pilots"—that never made it to primetime. From the adventures of a Samurai D.A. to the antics of an invisible alien baby, Lee Goldberg details the greatest shows you never saw.

The paperback was originally published by Carol & Company and was an abridgment of my fat hardcover  "Unsold Television Pilots 1955-1989," which contained over 2000 pilots. Maybe some day I'll get around to making that big book into a Kindle edition, too.

The Show Must Go On

Don't be fooled by the title of Douglas Snauffer's new book, The Show Must Go On: How The Deaths of Lead Actors Have Affected Television Series...this is not a lurid or gossipy book but rather a serious, well-researched, detailed reference work about the business of television.

On the surface, the book is about what happens to a TV show when one of its stars dies, covering the impact of the calamity from every angle. But that death is just one part of the story. Douglas Snauffer, author of the exceptional Crime Television, gives us the full picture of the show, before and after the tragedy that may (or may not) have ultimately defined that series in TV history. Each chapter offers an in-depth look at the creation, development, production, and history of an individual series. It's that detailed examination of each series -- backed by interviews with all the key players in front of, and behind -- the camera that gives this book it's real value.

This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to know how TV series are created, written and produced...and why some succeed while others fail.

ROCKFORD Revived

Variety reports that HOUSE creator/showrunner David Shore has been tapped by NBC/Universal and Steve Carrell's production company to revive Stephen J. Cannell's THE ROCKFORD FILES. It's no surprise that they approached Shore for the coveted gig...he's a TV A-lister who tried to spin-off a Rockf0rd-esque character from HOUSE last season.

"It's one of the shows that made me want to become a writer," Shore said. "I had no interest in adapting any old stuff, but this was the one exception."

Shore's just starting to think about an approach to bring "The Rockford Files" into the present day, but he intends to stick with the basic foundation of a private eye in L.A. just trying to make a living.

"What makes 'Rockford' timeless is that he's vulnerable, he's flawed. He's used to hustling and getting hustled," Shore said. "Sometimes he's a hero and sometimes he runs away."

The hard part won't be getting the script right...it will be finding this generation's equivalent of  James Garner to the play the part. (Is George Clooney still a movie star?) 

My REVIVALS Revived...And Revived Again

My 1993 book TELEVISION SERIES REVIVALS is back... in trade paperback (as I mentioned last week) and now in a Kindle edition. I have no idea if Kindle users are interested in non-fiction, TV references books...but I figured I had nothing to lose by finding out. If it looks like they do, I may make my book UNSOLD TELEVISION PILOTS available for the Kindle, too, though that might actually take some time and effort on my part.

Why I Wrote BEYOND THE BEYOND

This article originally appeared in Mystery Scene Magazine back in 1997. I thought I'd repost it here to mark the publication of the Kindle edition. 

An awful lot of people in the television industry see shrinks. Those who don't, write novels.

Well, that's my theory, any way.

I figured it was either write a book, or go into psychoanalysis. Writing a book seemed like a better alternative, since you can actually make a few bucks while you sit and whine about how crazy the business is and what the craziness does to you.

I wrote my first novel, My Gun Has Bullets, while writing/producing a really terrible, syndicated action show. In that book, a good, decent cop named Charlie Willis is gunned down by a lunatic TV star on her way to a sale at Neiman-Marcus. To cover up the crime, the studio buys him off by making him the star of his own action series. But things go bad when someone loads his prop gun with real bullets and he kills his guest-star. I trashed everything and everyone that drove met nuts about the TV business...and there was a lot, having written and/or produced such series as Hunter, Baywatch, Spenser: For Hire, Cosby Mysteries and Diagnosis Murder, to name a few.

I felt a lot better after I wrote the book.

But I didn't get around to writing the sequel, Beyond the Beyond, until a couple years later, when I became a writer/producer on SeaQuest. Within weeks, I was getting email death threats from deranged fans, including one lady who was enraged weren't consulting her for advice or staying true to the "fanfic" (fan-written, self-published fiction). Another lady, calling herself an "Admiral in the United Earth Oceans," was convinced one of the characters in the show was in love with her.

Of course, it reminded me of what the actors and writers on Star Trek must go through (which I knew well, since many of my friends have worked on the show). And that reminded me that a spin-off of Star Trek was the cornerstone of a new television network. And that made me think about the whole Star Trek phenomenon...and the emergence of new TV networks...and the consolidation of media empires.

Before I was a TV producer, I worked as a reporter covering the entertainment industry beat for Newsweek, Starlog, American Film, Electronic Media, and Los Angeles Times Syndicate, among many others. During that time, I wrote extensively about the birth of the Fox Network and was the first person to break the story that Paramount was reviving Star Trek as an all-new, syndicated series. So I already had a lot of background in both the business of TV and the business of Star Trek and had given this stuff some thought before.

Suddenly, I felt a book taking shape...

What if someone bought a studio decided to use it to launch a new network? And what if the cornerstone of that new network was a revival of cult, 60s science fiction series – with an all-new cast? How would the lunatic fans and original cast react?

There was a story there...and I also had a lot more personal demons to exorcise now, too. And I was fresh from my experience on SeaQuest.

In Beyond the Beyond , Charlie Willis is now a special security officer for Pinnacle Pictures. When the studio revives the cult series Beyond the Beyond as the launching pad for a new network, two forces fight for control of the show, a vicious talent agency that uses blackmail, torture and murder to keep its clients on the A-list, and a homicidal legion of rabid fans led by an insane actor who thinks he's in outer space.

The publisher calls it a dark/comic thriller about TV. But I'll tell you a little secret: most of it is true, drawn either from my own experience or those of my friends in the TV business.

And like the first book, I felt great after I finished it... though somewhere out there a shrink is going hungry because of it.

Beyond the Beyond is back

BEYOND THE BEYOND, the sequel to MY GUN HAS BULLETS, is now available in a Kindle edition!

"The hilarious follow-up to Goldberg's witty debut, My Gun Has Bullets...Beyond the Beyond skewers the entertainment business, which Goldberg knows well," Oline Codgill, Knight-Ridder Newspapers.

"As in his riotous novel My Gun Has Bullets, TV writer/producer Goldberg once again bites the hand that feeds him, laughing all the while. Inspired silliness," Publishers Weekly

Ex-cop Charlie Willis handles "special security" at Pinnacle Pictures. His job: to protect the studio and its stars, to stop scandals before they explode, to keep the peace in the land of make-believe. When Pinnacle revives the cult, 1960s TV series "Beyond the Beyond" as the cornerstone of a fourth network, two powerful forces fight for control of the show-a talent agency that uses blackmail, torture, and murder to keep its clients on the A-list, and a homicidal legion of rabid fans led by an insane actor who thinks he's in outer space.

Editorial Reviews:

"Goldberg uses just about everything he can think of to send up the studio system, fandom, Star Trek, Trekkies, agents, actors... you name it, he'll make you laugh about it." Analog

"An outrageously entertaining take on the loathsome folkways of contemporary showbiz," Kirkus Reviews

"Mr. Goldberg has an observant eye and a wicked pen!" Washington Times

"Beyond the Beyond reads like a modern-day Alice in Wonderland set against the venal world of the TV industry. It's wonderfully revealing and uncannily accurate," Vancouver Sun (Canada)

"Some of the easily recognizable actors, agents and producers who are mercilessly ribbed may find it hard to crack a smile at the author's gag-strewn prose, likewise those seekers after politically correct entertainment. But the rest of us should have no trouble....the novel's satiric slant is strong enough to have an effigy of Goldberg beamed into outer space at the next Star Trek convention," Los Angeles Times

"Pinnacle Pictures has decided to revive a 25-year-old cult sci-fi TV show called Beyond the Beyond, but somebody keeps killing off the new cast. Is it the Hollywood agent who eats human flesh? The aging actor who still thinks he's a starship captain? The fans who live only to attend conventions? This sharp roman a clef goes where no Hollywood satire has gone before-altering just enough facts to avoid the libel courts but still smacking of a certain je ne sais Trek. It probably won't make Goldberg, a television writer and producer (Baywatch, Spenser: For Hire, seaQuest), the most popular boy on the Paramount lot, but it's a stingingly funny novel just the same. " 
-Entertainment Weekly 

"An outrageously entertaining take on the loathsome folkways of contemporary showbiz." 
-Kirkus Reviews

"For the most part, this is a pleasant fantasy and a harmless escape, but there could be a fringe group out there almost exactly as Goldberg describes them in outlandish detail. It all could be true. It works hilariously. Don't miss Lee Goldberg's Beyond the Beyond. It's one to beam up!" Mark Levine, Ventura Star-Telegram

Television Series Revivals...revived

Did Gilligan and his fellow castaways ever get rescued? Is Dr. Marcus Welby still making house calls? Is Marcia Brady single? What kind of father did Beaver Cleaver grow up to be? Those burning questions and many, many more about your favorite TV characters are answered in my book Television Series Revivals:  Sequels and Remakes of Cancelled Series, which examines every TV series remake and sequel produced from 1955-1992.

The book, which was originally published in hardcover in 1993 by McFarland & Co., is now available in a $16.95 trade paperback edition from iUniverse through the Authors Guild's Back-in-Print program (and at no charge to me).

The sequels and remakes of nearly one hundred shows, from ADAM-12 to WKRP IN CINCINNATI, are examined in detail and include airdates,  cast lists and production credits. There's also a special section on animated revivals and sequels, like STAR TREK and GILLIGANS ISLAND. 

Here's what Booklist had to say about the book:

Have you ever wondered what happened to the castaways on "Gilligan's Island"? Many people have, and that is why producers, directors, and actors come together to revive canceled shows for reunion specials, feature films, or whole new series. Television Series Revivals is a compilation of information on the various mutations original series have undergone since cancellation. "Star Trek" is a good example of this phenomenon. It originally aired on network television in the late 1960s. Due to the immense popularity of the show in reruns and its cultlike fan clubs, the series was revived, first as a cartoon series, then as a series of motion pictures, and finally as a new series, "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

Entries are arranged alphabetically by original series title. Each entry follows the same format: the air dates and network of the original series; a plot synopsis for the revived series, film, or special; background information on the show; the title of the new show; its network and broadcast date. Information about each show came from a variety of sources: releases, reviews, and periodical articles. Plot synopses may be a bit confusing as the author combines the plots of all revivals, sequels, or remakes into one narrative. For a series such as "Eight Is Enough," which was followed by "Eight Is Enough: A Family Reunion" and "An Eight Is Enough Wedding," it is difficult to tell where one story line leaves off and another begins.

For a series to be included in this volume it must have featured continuing characters and have been in cancellation for at least one year, not simply on hiatus. Certain kinds of shows are not included: those based on literary characters (e.g., Sherlock Holmes); anthologies (with the exception of "Twilight Zone" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"), variety shows, and game shows.

An appendix listing "Animated Revivals" and a bibliography of related titles round out the work. The index includes show titles, actors, and producers and directors. Black-and-white photos of cast members are provided for some shows.

As long as television viewers express nostalgia for the shows they once watched, producers will continue to revive them. Public library customers and librarians will find Television Series Revivals a useful and entertaining volume.

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.

Hot Dogging

Greetings from Munich. I arrived here on Tuesday night from London, where it was rainy and gray, to weather that felt more like Southern California than Germany. I guzzled Diet Coke on the flight so that I wouldn't fall asleep when I met my friends Daniela & David Tully for drinks at 9 p.m.  Daniela is a top executive at ProSeiben, a major German network, and her American husband David is a screenwriter. It was great to see them again and to get caught up on the state of the German TV market (which is lousy, just like everywhere else).

The next morning I awoke to a beautiful day...clear blue skies, warm weather. It was the nicest weather I've ever had in Munich and I took full advantage of it, walking all over the city and discovering it anew.  The best part was sitting in the Viktualienmarkt, eating a delicious hotdog and butter streusel, sipping Diet Coke, and enjoying the scenery.

I got back to the hotel in mid-afternoon for meetings with my friends at Action Concept, the studio I am working with over here. I ended the day with a nice long dinner at an outside table at an old Bavarian restaurant with Heiko Schmidt, the terrific line producer I worked with on FAST TRACK. I was in bed by midnight...but I awoke at 3:30 in the morning and couldn't get back to sleep. So I got up around 4, called home, answered some emails, and studied my notes for my meetings.

Now it's 7 a.m. I have been up for three-and-a-half hours already, and my meetings start with breakfast at 9. The most important meeting is at 3, when I will have to pitch three projects to a potential international coproduction partner. I hope I don't fall asleep in middle of it.

Tomorrow morning I head back to L.A....and hope to do some serious plotting for my next  MONK book on the plane. On Monday I start jury duty.

I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane...

I am off to Europe  in a few minutes for two and a half days in London and two and a half days in Munich. In London, I'll spend Easter Monday with actor Shaun Prendergast and his family (Shaun was one of the stars of my film FAST TRACK). On Tuesday,  I'll be meeting my UK agent for the first time face-to-face for breakfast and then he's got meetings set up for me with some studios. Then I am jetting off to Munich, where I will be joining my good friends at Action Concept to pitch some projects to broadcasters. It's going to be a whirlwind week but I am really looking forward to it.  It's been a year since I've been to Europe but it feels like much longer, especially after spending so many months working there in 2006 & 2007. 

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...