“BJ Hooker”

Variety reports that the life of singer/songwriter Billy Joel is being turned into BIG SHOT,  an hour-long episodic drama series for Showtime.  The first season will take place in the 1970s, tracking his career and his first marriage to his then-business manager Elizabeth Weber. The series will incorporate his songs and it’s promised that storylines will deal frankly with his subsequent marriages, car accidents, and alcohol abuse. 

This could be the beginning of a franchise for Showtime. If BIG SHOT works, you can count on seeing the series I WRITE THE SONGS (the Barry Manilow story) and SONG SUNG BLUE (the Neil Diamond story) real soon.

Pilot Pick-Ups

TV Tracker, Variety and Nikki Finke are reporting several drama series pick-ups.

NBC has ordered HEROES (about ordinary people who have super powers), RAINES (Jeff Goldblum as a cop who speaks to the dead) and FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS, based on the movie…

The buzzword at ABC next season is "intertwined." They’ve greenlighted JJ Abram’s SIX DEGREES (about the intertwined lives of several New Yorkers), NINE (about several people whose lives are intertwined after spending 52 hours as hostages in a bank hold-up) and DAYBREAK (about a cop falsely accused of murder who races against time to clear his name and prevent another killing…presumably, he will also become intertwined).

Stargate SG1-3

TV Squad pointed me to this Multichannel News article about the business behind STARGATE SG-1, which is shooting it’s 200th episode…and is the springboard for a LAW & ORDER/CSI/STAR TREK-esque franchise for MGM and SciFi Channel. Already, the studio is planning a second spin-off series (in addition to STARGATE ATLANTIS) and a feature film. What nobody mentions in the article (or anywhere else) is how much of STARGATE’s enormous revenue is going to Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the writer/producers/creators behind the original 1994 movie that inspired the TV series.

Cherry Picking the Truth

Reporter Nikki Finke nails the Los Angeles Times for not revealing key facts in their recent story about Cindy Garvey’s claim against studio chief Ron Meyer, who allegedly hired now-imprisoned celebrity private eye Anthony Pellicano to intimidate her into withdrawing claims of abuse.

Specifically, I have discovered that the newspaper chose not to publish
that Garvey has accused four ex-boyfriends of domestic violence against
her. In each case, her allegations of domestic violence took place
after the men had broken off their romantic relationships with her; her
charges were dismissed or recanted or not pursued by her or authorities.

Finke’s detailed investigation is pretty incendiary stuff. It will be interesting to see how, or even if, the Times responds.

TV Deja Vu…again

Don’t the program execs at ABC talk to one another about their shows?

On BOSTON LEGAL, one of the female lawyers is falling in love with a client who is dying.  At the same time, over on GREY’S ANATOMY, one of the female doctors is falling in love with a patient who is dying.

On BOSTON LEGAL, one of the lawyers is seduced into bed by her ex-husband…0nly to find out the jerk is still married. At the same time, over on DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, one of the housewives is seduced into bed by her ex-husband…only to find out the jerk is still married.

This is the End

Mark Evanier links to two TV critics and their lists of the Top Five Series finales of all time.  For me, the best would include MARY TYLER MOORE, STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, NEWHART, THE FUGITIVE,  LARRY SANDERS,  M*A*S*H, THE PAPER CHASE and CHEERS.

My list of the worst finales would include SEINFELD, MAGNUM PI, MIAMI VICE,  FRIENDS, ST. ELSEWHERE, QUANTUM LEAP, NYPD BLUE and the two that MAGNUM PI had (the original,  which ended with Magnum getting killed… and the second,  after they talked Selleck into doing one more season, which  ended with Magnum getting married).

I’m a big TV geek, and a sucker for finales, but I’m not sure they are a good idea. Sure, you get a ratings pop, and they give audiences a chance to say goodbye to characters they love.  But I think one reason the majority of "final episodes" are mediocre at best is because most TV series, by their very nature, are intentionally conceived to be open-ended and run forever. How do you conclude something that was never designed to be concluded?

It’s one thing for Dr. Richard Kimble to finally be proved innocent, or for the castaways on LOST to finally discover what-the-hell-is-going-on. THE FUGITIVE and LOST are series built on ongoing quests for absolution and answers.  But do we really need to tie things up for private eyes, doctors, and homicide cops who we watch because we enjoy seeing them do their jobs?

In many ways, EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND had the best finale of all — just another great episode.

The Personal Touch

I got this "personal" email today from Matt Burke at Vendorpro:

I’ve been to your Lee Goldberg website and I think your books are perfect for our stores. I especially like "Diagnosis Murder Series". We work hand in hand with the largest stores in the country, plus thousands of small to medium sized specialty businesses stretched across the U.S. If you want the opportunity to sell your books through major retailers like Barnes and Noble, Borders, Amazon.com, Waldens, Target, QVC, HSN, etc …plus the other 51005 gift stores, 16826 bookstores, and over 24000 mail-order catalogs…check us out.

Here’s what I told Matt. I thanked him for the personal email. It gave me a good indication of his honesty, attention to detail and professionalism… because if he’d really been to my site, he’d know my DIAGNOSIS MURDER books are published by Penguin/Putnam, one of the largest publishers in the world, and are already available at major retailers.  Matt needs to work on his pitch (or at least do his homework) before sending out his junk mail — or, at the very least, give up the pretense that he knows anything about me or my books.

Channel Surfing

THE WEST WING seems to be going out with a snore rather than a bang. The second-to-last-episode, which aired Sunday night, was a total snooze. I expected much more of a build-up to the series finale. Instead, this once-great show has just sort of petered out over the last few episodes. It’s sad.

Maybe that’s because a lot of John Wells’ best writers are now working on THE UNIT, my new guilty pleasure. It’s invigorating,  action-adventure silliness, and I’m loving every minute of it. The show is like nothing else on television… except perhaps DEADWOOD, in that it’s one of the few series today where the characters, as a group, have a unique voice, a distinct way of speaking (in this case, you could call it Mamet-speak). It’s the best show CBS has put on the air since the original C.S.I.

Speaking of DEADWOOD, I can’t wait until the third season premiere next month…I think I’ve come to enjoy it even more than THE SOPRANOS (Is it just me, or has THE SOPRANOS become more of a comedy this season than ever before?)

Not Interested

I got this email the other day. Here it is, in its entirety:

For anyone interested.

Real grabber, isn’t it? Who could resist clicking the link after a pitch like that? The link takes you to a blog, where Steve Clackson has posted the first few chapters of SAND STORM, his novel-in-progress, for which he is seeking an agent and publisher. I’m not sure what he hopes to gain by sending me the link. A manuscript critique? A referral to my agent or editor? A TV series option? Whatever it is, I’m not interested. But forget about me…what about the others he’s doubtlessly sent this link to?

Does he really think an agent will stumble on his blog and offer to represent him? Or that a publisher will be so enthralled by his prose that they’ll offer him a book contract? Or that a development exec at some studio will read it and beg to buy the movie rights? Sure, some blogs and websites have led to book and movies deals. But it’s exceedingly rare.

My advice to Steve is to take the chapters down. The book clearly needs lots of work before it’s going to be ready to submit to an agent or publisher. And he isn’t doing himself any favors by posting the rough chapters publicly and — cringe — posting a cheesy, home-made "cover" and — big cringe — linking to a "review" of the pages from some blogger.

Where do people get these really, really bad ideas?

UPDATE 5-26-06:  For reactions and discussions prompted by this post, look here, here, here, here, here and here. The consensus, with a couple of exceptions, seems to be that I’m a bully who reacted too harshly (one blogger, David Thayer,  likened this dust-up to "Godzilla vs. Bambi"). Perhaps that’s true… I was certainly in a sour mood last week.