On Other Blogs

An Idiosyncratic View of My Book

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Many thanks to Sarah Weinman at Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind for making my new book  THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE a "pick of the week".

This book is getting a ton of
review attention and it’s easy to see why: on the surface, it’s a classic
wish-fulfillment tale, but the substance that lies beneath is what elevates
Goldberg’s novel into a thoughtful, sometimes sweet and always engaging look at
what it takes to grow from a boy to a man. In a way, I see why it took so long
to reach readers: many other writers would need another 100 pages to tell the
same story, but credit to the author for putting it across without a wasted
word.

Take Me To The Pilot

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Paul Guyot talks about why he never leaves behind a "leave behind" when pitching a pilot. I’ve heard both sides of the argument.

LEAVE THEM NOTHING. No treatment, no "Leave behind." I firmly
believe that you greatly reduce your chances of a sale when you leave
them something that they can pick apart and overanalyze.

The idea of leaving them with something is archaic.  That was the
way things were twenty years ago, but not now. And the reason so many
[Aspring Writers] think they should do this is because they’re reading books and
taking classes from writers who haven’t worked in TV in ten or twenty
years. 

Frankly, I’ve always left a leave-behind. I guess that makes me a dinosaur — or it explains why I haven’t sold a pilot yet this season. I’ve got another pitch coming up, maybe I’ll try it Paul’s way this time…

What Sunk SeaQuest?

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Seaquest2032_a_1Media critic Herbie J. Pilato, author of books about the TV series KUNG FU and BEWITCHED,  does a very good job dissecting what went wrong with SEAQUEST. In short, just about everything:

The changes were manic. Too much to swallow. SeaQuest suffocated in a sea of too
many ideas. Too many DeLouises from one Dom. It reached for whatever might keep
it above water. It’s like someone unplugged the cork at the center of the sub.
It sunk. No one paid attention to the simplest, yet most essential answer: they
should have bailed out, as soon as possible.

"SeaQuest will not be remembered as a television classic," Goldberg concludes
" It will be
remembered technically as a ground-breaking show for computer animation, and
creatively as a hugely expensive mistake."

Becoming a TV Writer

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Paul Guyot has an excellent post today about becoming a TV writer and what it takes to stay in the game. Here’s a taste from his very long, very informative post:

Starting out you must have skin like a Rhino. You could get lucky and land on
a show with a very smart, very secure showrunner like I did – one who encouraged
the writer’s original voice, one who liked to teach, one who wanted to get as
much of the writer’s words into the show.

Or you could land where I’ve also been – on a show where you’re seen as a
threat, an outsider, someone who hasn’t proved themselves – and in their eyes
that means someone who didn’t go through the same shit they went through. It can
be like fraternity hell week… only lasting a whole season. You can be writing
your ass off, knowing you’re doing good work – better than others – and still
have your work slammed. Still be completely rewritten. To the point where, when
the show airs, you’re almost embarrassed to have your name on it. Not because
it’s so awful, but because there’s not a single word of yours left.

But you shut up and take it. You do your job.

My friend Paul moans all the time about shutting down his blog, but it’s because of fantastic essays about the biz like this one that I hope he never does. Keep’em coming, Paul!

 

WhyDo So Many Movies Suck Lately?

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…Jim Warren had lunch with a couple of film-makers and left with the answer:

How can these guys expect to make great movies if they’re basically unfamiliar
with what has come before? And it’s not really their fault, either; they’re both
bright and talented young men. They’re victims of a society that does not reward
substance. We’re immersed in a culture that puts a premium on novelty rather
than on creativity, one that places a higher value on the breadth of trivia than
it does on the depth of knowledge, one that prefers spectacle over vision, and
videogame hand-eye coordination over book-perusing eye-brain comprehension.

Clueless Observations

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Dm5_2Chadwick Saxelid is a frequent commentor here and he kindly gives my novel DIAGNOSIS MURDER: THE PAST TENSE a rave review on his new blog "Clueless Observations":

The
Past Tense spends most of its time in the past, with Sloan himself
narrating how he got started on his obsessive hobby (I guess that is what you
could call it) of solving murders.  The story also gives the reader a good
understanding of the pyschological needs that drive Sloan to do so.  Its 1962
portion is a simply wonderful murder mystery, filled with the to be expected,
and delighted in, twists and turns that keep the reader second guessing the
author.  However, the contemporary half of the story is less so.  I guessed the
identity of the killer the moment the character was introduced into the
narrative, but that didn’t make the final confrontation between the killer and
Sloan any less harrowing.  It’s the best in the series to date.  Goldberg also
stages a final reveal that, because it is subtly hidden inside a taunting
statement that the killer makes to Sloan, is utterly bloodcurdling in its
emotional intensity when Sloan later realizes what the killer admitted to
doing.  I really don’t know how Goldberg could top the emotional power of this
entry.

I didn’t, either. That’s why the follow-up, THE DEAD LETTER, is more in keeping with the previous entries in the series. It’s a straight-ahead mystery that’s more about the plot than it is about the emotional lives and psychological underpinnings of the heroes.

But the one I am working on now, THE DOUBLE LIFE, is closer to THE PAST TENSE in terms of exploring Mark Sloan’s inner life, so-to-speak. I’m not writing it in first person, but I am doing some experimenting with structure… you’ll have to tell me when it comes out next fall if I’ve succeeded or not.

Extreme Series Make-overs

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LeeandcastBlogger Brent McKee is talking today about what happens when TV shows undergo a major creative overhaul. One of the examples he uses is MARTIAL LAW:

The first season was brilliant with one
of the few sour notes being the inclusion of Arsenio Hall as a cast member. It
didn’t get good ratings and the show was handed over to Lee Goldberg and William
Rabkin, who were posting on rec.arts.tv at the time. The gutted the show –
tossed out every actor except Sammo Hung, Kelly Hu and Arsenio Hall – and
created a sort of mytharc which was so incredibly stupid that even devoted fans
were sickened. I swear that if Rabkin and/or Goldberg were standing in front of
me at the time I’d have gotten as many good shots as I could and I have the
feeling a lot of fans would have done the same thing.

I won’t waste time defending our creative decisions on MARTIAL LAW (anyone remember Louis Mandylor? I didn’t think so), but I would hardly call the first season "brilliant" by any stretch. By far the biggest problem with the show was that it starred a guy who couldn’t speak English and a talkshow host pretending to be an actor, neither of whom liked each other much and both of whom were very difficult people to work with.

I’ve been integrally involved in the revamping of three shows — THE COSBY MYSTERIES, DIAGNOSIS MURDER, and SEAQUEST — and in each of those cases, I’d argue the shows were greatly improved (of course!). However of the three series, only DIAGNOSIS MURDER enjoyed a big spike in ratings and critical acclaim as a result of our changes.

The truth is that a revamped show rarely survives… and for good reason. A revamp is an act of total desperation. If the show wasn’t already in serious creative or ratings decline, it wouldn’t need an extreme make-over — or, in some cases, two or three  (look how many formats ELLEN went through before it died). But there have been shows that have survived…and even thrived… after radical revamps, MANNIX being one of the best examples.

My favorite extreme TV series make-over revolved around a western called KLONDIKE…about cowboys in Alaska in the 1880s. The ratings sucked. So the show was pulled and it came back two weeks later as ACAPULCO. Same cast, different format, warmer setting. The change didn’t help and the show was cancelled after a few episodes…

Over Directing

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2005_a_history_of_violence_003Director David Cronenberg thought the best way to direct the sex scenes between Viggio Mortensen and Maria Bello’ in A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE was to demonstrate by performing them with his wife:

The director hoped his explicit displays of affection with his wife would help stars VIGGO MORTENSEN and MARIA BELLO, who play man and wife in the film, feel more comfortable during their sex scenes together. But, instead, the Cronenbergs just left everyone on the set stunned.

[Mortensen said:] "The crew and Maria and I just sat and watched while he and his wife
got into something comfortable – nothing – and they started to say, ‘We
want you to (do this).’ Maria and I were both going, ‘OK, we get it. This is a testament to their relationship, they kept going and
they kept going and then we broke for lunch and some time in the
evening Maria and I got to have a crack at it. Instead of putting us at ease, we actually were kind of freaked out… Maybe some things ought to stay private."