Lee Goldberg

I Should Have Gone in the Furniture Business

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My late grandfather always thought I was foolish to be a writer. The job market was too uncertain. Furniture, he said, was a safer bet. “Everybody has to sit,” he liked to say. According to an article in Variety about the current TV season, I probably should have listened to his advice. The networks are programming fewer comedies and more reality show…and scrapping the practice of airing primetime repeats (goodbye fat residuals!) on anything that doesn’t have CSI or LAW AND ORDER in the title…

For one thing, replacing repeats with original fare is going to add tens of millions to the nets’ programming budgets. But webheads figure they have no choice: If they don’t do something to stop audience erosion, they’ll ultimately lose far more due to declining ad revenue.

All of this comes as more bad news for TV’s beleaguered scribe tribe, particularly those who toil on sitcoms.

It’s become a cliche to bemoan the fall of the funny, but the numbers tell the story: For the upcoming, the nets have scheduled just 36 sitcoms — down nearly one-third from 50 last fall.

“Comedy is in a challenged state,” admits NBC Entertainment topper Kevin Reilly. “The best way to get comedy on the schedule right now is to keep it off in the short term.”

Combine that with a rise in reality skeins — as well as several new primetime improv laffers — and it’s a safe bet that agents all over town this week will be scrambling to find work for a slew of scribes. By one estimate, there’ll be 100 fewer staff positions available for sitcom writers.

The picture is a little rosier for drama writers… but not by much. Staffs are smaller, and more and more primetime real estate is owned by the same folks… (have I mentioned CSI and LAW AN ORDER?) who hired from within their own camps. The trend in drama is also to recruit the screenwriter of last summers big tentpole movie or cheapo horror film hit and give them a series… and pair the TV newbie with a wizened old timer (someone say in their early 40s) to help them run the show… and deal with the devastating realization there are actually 21 more episodes to write after the pilot.

I’m hedging my bets by writing books as well as TV shows…but books dont pay nearly as well as TV, unless you’re in the Connelly-Grisham-Grafton-Evanovich ballpark.

Maybe I should invest in a furniture store after all….

Flop Pilots

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I’m fascinated by flop pilots…I have been since I was nine, when I started writing my book UNSOLD TELEVISION PILOTS. That fascination hasn’t ended now that I’m an adult and in the business myself. Zap2it was kind enough to do an overview of some of the high-profile unsold pilots this season…

“Jessica” (ABC, comedy): Simpson’s media assault was to have continued in this show, where she would have played a bubble-headed pop star-turned-correspondent for an “Access Hollywood”-like show. Proving that ABC just has issues with that family, the network shunned “Hot Mom,” in which husband Nick Lachey co-starred with Gina Gershon. ABC opted instead to order a few more variety specials featuring Nick and Jessica pretending to be themselves.

“The Catch” (ABC, drama): Greg Grunberg (“Alias”) was to have starred as a bounty hunter in this long-in-development midseason show from J.J. Abrams, with Orlando Jones and Don Rickles co-starring. It sounded like a good idea to us, but the fact that “Alias” got pushed back to January may have something to do with it getting bounced.

“Dark Shadows” (WB, drama): Maybe The WB didn’t want to put another vampire show on the air right after canceling “Angel.” Or maybe it was too expensive. Whatever the reason, it’s a bit of a surprise that this show, produced by “ER” maven John Wells and starring Martin Donovan, Marley Shelton and Blair Brown didn’t make the schedule.

“The Robinsons: Lost in Space” (WB, drama): The WB paid big bucks for the rights to this remake and hired John Woo to help the pilot. Either the pilot didn’t seem to have the young adult male appear the network was craving, or else it looked like a potential franchise bomb in the “Birds of Prey” or “Tarzan” mold.

“Beck and Call” (UPN, drama): Set in the fashion world and starring Vanessa L. Williams, “Beck and Call” was for a time rumored to be in line to get paired with “America’s Next Top Model” on UPN’s schedule. Instead, the network went with “Kevin Hill,” leaving this Lisa Kudrow-produced pilot in the cold.

“Sudbury” (CBS, drama): Kim Delaney and Jeri Ryan play beautiful women who are also witches? It’s like “Passions” for primetime. Or it’s like “Practical Magic” for the small screen (complete with producers Denise DiNovi and Sandra Bullock). Up until the days before the CBS upfront, it was considered at least a favorite for a midseason slot. Instead, Delaney will get the chance to appear on the final season of “NYPD Blue.”

“Untitled Andrew Secunda Project” (UPN, comedy) and “Untitled Tarses/Wrubel Project” (NBC, comedy): We’re not sure that either comedy really sounded like a good idea, but without “Buffy” and “Angel,” we need a dose of actors from the Whedon-verse. However, these two comedies — starring Charisma Carpenter and Alyson Hannigan — failed to make their network cuts.

The fact is, the vast majority of pilots made in any given season are scrapped… never to be broadcast. There were 120 pilots shot this season, of which maybe thirty will get picked up as series. Of those thirty series, maybe five will survive to celebrate their first birthdays…

Even more pilots never make it past the script stage… among those this season were two of ours… “The Cleaner” for NBC and “Proof” for Lifetime. But there’s hope… several of the pilots this season were rejected scripts from last season, including NBC’s “LAX” (which was picked up as a series), Fox’s “Mr. Ed,” ABC’S “Gramercy Park” and CBS’s “Ricki Lake” sitcom.

So there’s hope… today’s flop pilots can become next year’s flop pilots, too.

Crais Pilot a No-Go

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A few months back, author Robert Crais announced that a TV series pilot based on an old script of his was being dusted off and reworked for CBS…

CBS is now filming the pilot WANTED which is based on RC’s original pilot script, DECOY. As conceived by RC, DECOY follows rookie plainclothes officer Jacki Haber, the newest member of LAPD’s elite Fugitive Apprehensive Section, and her struggles to find a place within the dangerous, hyper-male world of professional manhunters.

The cast includes Scott Glenn (SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, URBAN COWBOY), Louise Lombard (HIDALGO), and Jason Gedrick (BACKDRAFT, BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY). The pilot is being helmed by director Gregory Hoblit (NYPD BLUE, HILL STREET BLUES)

It sounded very intriguing… but it was not among the series CBS picked up this week for its fall schedule.

Best Laugh of the Day

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From Sarah Weinman’s wonderful blog, where she does a wrap-up of mystery news across the web…

Dean Koontz, the horror-meister who has never publicly answered for the mysterious reappearance of his hair, answers questions at ABCNews.com.

Speaking of Koontz… when I wrote my novel MY GUN HAS BULLETS, a spoof of network television, one of the fake TV series that figured prominently in the book was FRANKENCOP.. the best parts of a dozen dead cops put together to make one incredible crimefighter.

It was a joke. Silly me, I should have tried to sell it.

Koontz has teamed up with Martin Scorcese to do a cop show for USA Network. The cop is Frankenstein.

Steven Bochco apparently is smarter than me. In his novel, DEATH BY HOLLYWOOD, there’s a fake TV series about a blind cop called (what else?) BLIND JUSTICE that figures prominently in the plot. He must have really liked the idea… because BLIND JUSTICE just made it on ABC’s new fall schedule.

Not Quite Back from the Dead

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Several high-profile, big-buzz revivals of long-dead series failed to make it on the network schedules…among them:

Director John Woo’s LOST IN SPACE. Producer John Wells’ DARK SHADOWS. WB’s MR. ED. And ABC’s new take on CHARLIE’S ANGELS.

Both LOST IN SPACE and DARK SHADOWS were shot… I don’t know if MR. ED and CHARLIES ANGELS got past the script stage.

Fortune Cookie Dreams

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You want to know how desperate people are to break into television? You don’t have to look any further than the fortune cookies at LA’s chinese restaurants.

I’ve gone to three different Chinese restaurants… and one Mongolian Barbeque… that serve fortune cookies with two sided fortunes. One side tells you your fortune (“You are destined for a life of luxury”) and the other side has an advertisement:

Hollywood “Pitch N’ Win” @ TVBuzz.com. Do you have the next “Millionaire” hit? Pitch your TV show idea to 3 TV execs in Hollywood. Enter @ tvbuzz.com…. fortunecookieadvertising.com

Naturally, I checked it out. The contest is over, but the idea was that their two judges (an agent and a manager… they apparently couldn’t find a third sap) would pick the best reality show ideas and a production company would pitch the idea around town. If the show sells, the winner agrees to sign over all rights for a one-time $50,000 payment. What a deal. I’m sure this is how Mark Burnett got his start.

Only in LA would someone think they can get their big TV break by answering an ad in a fortune cookie…

Branding and Franchises

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CBS announced today that it is scheduling CSI: NEW YORK up against NBC’s LAW AND ORDER. I guess it was inevitable, with so much of each network’s schedule given over to branded franchises, that a CSI would go up against a L&O… which is launching a fourth L&O spin-off in January

There’s a lot of talk today about the CSIing of CBS and the LAW AND ORDERing of NBC. But Dick Wolf and Jerry Bruckheimer aren’t the first to discover branding…nor is it the first time networks given huge chunks of their schedules to one franchise… though they weren’t called franchises back then, simply “spin-offs.”

During the 1976-77 season, CBS had MTM’s MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW, PHYLLIS and RHODA….all spin-offs from one show… as well as Norman Lear’s ALL IN THE FAMILY, MAUDE, THE JEFFERSONS, and GOOD TIMES, all spin-offs from one show. (Beyond that, CBS had other shows from the same producers. ALLS FAIR and ONE DAY AT A TIME from Norman Lear, BOB NEWHART from MTM). Two seasons later, ABC had Garry Marshall’s HAPPY DAYS, LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY, MORK AND MINDY and JOANNIE LOVES CHACHI, all spun-off from one show…

The new wrinkle . and Dick Wolf’s brilliant innovation, is tagging on the name of the “birth show” to the spin-off (ie “ALL IN THE FAMILY: THE JEFFERSONS) and using reworkings of the same theme music and main title graphics on each show.

Then again, it’s not so new… Paramount was doing it in syndication with STAR TREK… and STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION, STAR TREK DEEP SPACE NINE, STAR TREK VOYAGER and now, STAR TREK ENTERPRISE.

Note of the Day

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A friend of mine is writing an action movie for a studio. He turned in his first draft and the “big, overall note” from the development exec was: “If all these people are trying to kill the hero, why isn’t he dead? We need to address this.”

It reminds me of a note we got on a script we wrote that took place in a high school. We were going through the notes, page by page, with the studio exec and her minions when, about a third of the way through, she pointed to a page and said: “This would be an excellent spot for a teen suicide.” It almost became an excellent spot for a screenwriter suicide.

Some Things Never Change

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I’m in the midst of writing my fourth DIAGNOSIS MURDER novel, which is based, of course, on the TV series that starred Dick Van Dyke as Dr. Mark Sloan. There were a lot of creative choices made on the show, for the convenience of production, that I’ve carried over into the books (like Mark Sloan and his adult son Steve living together in the same house). I’ve wondered just how much I should begin deviating from the show to accomodate the broader opportunities of a novel.

I’m not fooling myself… most people who are buying my DM book are doing it because they loved the show and want to repeat the experience…not because they are looking for a clever whodunit. The books will always be seen as TV tie-ins, no matter how well-reviewed they might be in their own right. But how much can I tinker with the characters, format and situations without alienating that core audience? And how much should I in order to keep the series fresh and engaging for the readers?

I don’t have answer… but my gut tells me to take the NERO WOLFE approach. Over the decades that Rex Stout wrote the books, virtually nothing changed in the lives of the characters… except, every now and then, he’d shock you with an unexpected situation (Wolfe has left the country!) or revelation (Wolfe has a daughter! A trusted operative is a killer!). But things would always return to the status quo… Wolfe and Archie back in the brownstone, solving crimes.

Maybe I should have Steve move out of Mark’s house… and then move right back in.

Is This How To Sell Books?

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A week or so ago, I posted a note here saying how glad I was that my broken right arm, the one with the titanium elbow, was finally out of a cast and I could more-or-less resume most of my normal activities. Naturally, somebody saw this post as the perfect opportunity to plug his upcoming book.

I am pleased to announce the signing and acceptance of a contract for the publication and upcoming release of “Dreams-The Gateway.” Follow the research professor who dares to venture into a world of dreams. New technology truly becomes a nightmare for those who transverse into “Dreams-The Gateway.” A novel by Louis Poessel.

Curious, I checked out Louis Poessel’s site to see how his book was related to broken arms, casts, titanium elbows, physical therapy or me. There I found a picture of a middle-aged man with a white beard sitting in front of an American flag like Wally George. A few clicks later, I discovered that Louis decided to pursue writing after retiring from a “lengthy career in the agricultural seed industry.”

His unique blend of science fiction combined with snippets from his personal experiences take the reader into a world of fantasy, yet possible scenario. Possessing a broad background in the agric-business industry he often uses it as the backdrop for his vivid imagination.

I also learned his first novel is:

A vivid account of a research professor that has broken the bonds of reality and entered the world of dreams. Follow the professor from his safe and protected college research laboratory to a secret government base where new technology truly becomes a nightmare…

I’m assuming the new technology isn’t titanium elbows. Still, I’m sure everyone interested in my arm will want to buy the book.