Current Affairs

WGA Reaches Tentative Accord

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The WGA has struck a tentative deal with the networks and studios… which, while giving us gains in our health and pension program, screws writers out of DVD royalties (at a time when the industry is booming and entire seasons of TV shows are being packaged for DVD). The deal also grants networks the right to rebroadcast the first episode of a drama mulitple times without paying residuals. Apparently, no gains were made in the foreign residual pay structure.

Granted, there are big gains in our health plan at a time when we need it… but I think this deal also signals the death of meaningful royalties & residuals for writers in the future from any existing or future means of distribution (DVD, internet, foreign networks, etc.). The networks are airing fewer and fewer reruns, so gains there are really window dressing. Foreign and DVDs, for the moment, are the future for reruns and our portion of those revenues are miniscule. In the long run, I believe the elimination or extreme diminishment of royalties and residuals will have a devastating impact on screenwriters and their ablity to earn a living at their craft.

WRITERS GUILD OF AMERICA REACHES TENTATIVE AGREEMENT WITH THE MAJOR STUDIOS AND NETWORKS

Los Angeles – The Negotiating Committee for the Writers Guild of America, west and East has reached tentative agreement on a new three-year, $58-million contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, ABC, CBS, FBC, and NBC covering writers in the film, broadcast and cable industries.

“It’s been a long five months since we walked away from negotiations without a contract on June 2nd,” said Daniel Petrie Jr., President of the WGAw, “but it has been well worth the wait. This tentative agreement is projected to be worth almost $58 million by the end of its term, nearly double what the producers offered us on the June 1st. The new agreement will fully address the needs of our health plan, ensuring us a six-month reserve at the current level of benefits by the end of the contract in 2007. We consider this a major victory that was critical to protect the health benefits of writers and their families. What’s more, the companies have also agreed to recommend to the pension fund directors that they increase pensions.”

“Looked at purely on dollar terms, the deal is unusually rich, and for that our negotiators should be congratulated. In other ways, the gains fall far short of what we had hoped for and what our members feel we deserve,” said Herb Sargent, President of the Writers Guild of America, East. “The deal ensures that our health plan will remain viable for the length of the contract – no small matter – but the companies have refused to acknowledge the need for an improvement in our “abnormally low” residuals formula for DVDs and home video, and the deal includes some roll backs for TV writers and news writers, and only very minor gains for screenwriters. Nevertheless, our negotiators believe that this was the best deal possible at this time. Now it’s up to our members to decide.”

“The WGA should be commended for their professionalism and resolve that made it possible to reach a fair deal that keeps writers working, keeps the town working, and addresses their most crucial concerns,” said J. Nicholas Counter, III, President, Association of Motion Picture & Television Producers.

Health Plan

Starting at the beginning of the new contract, an increase in the contribution rate from 7.5 percent to 8.5 percent. In the last year of the contract, there is also an option to increase the contribution rate to 9.0 percent, by reducing the percentage increase in minimums by the same half percent. All told, the companies will be putting an additional $37 million over current levels into the health fund.

Pension Plan

Effective January 1, 2004, the contribution limits on writers’ earnings will go up by $35,000 per company, which translates to an annual increase of as much as $1,000 in pension payments for every year the writer earned more than $170,000. The trustees will also raise the payout ceiling by $10,000, so writers can enjoy more of the benefits they have earned.

Minimums

Three percent increase in each year of the contract commencing November 1, 2004. Two and a quarter percent increase for reruns on network primetime and non-primetime serials. Five percent increase for Excerpt fees commencing November 1, 2006.

Term

Three years: November 1, 2004 through October 31, 2007.

Reality TV

We made significant headway developing a mutual understanding with the Companies on reality television, as did the DGA before us. Like the DGA, we expect that these discussions will lead to future gains for writers.

Internet Download Sales

The companies agreed to 1.2 percent of the licensing agreement for internet-download rentals in the 2001 agreement. The guild sought to clarify that the same formula would apply to download sales. Reserving their positions, the guild and AMPTP will form a joint committee to address the problem.

Made-for-Pay TV

The agreement will provide for a 20 percent annual increase in half-hour residuals and a 15 percent increase in one-hour residuals.

Late Pay

Writers have often been unaware of various legal impediments that impact their contract, contributing to the affront of late payment for writing services. To ensure that a writer is aware of any conditions to his/her employment that must be satisfied before commencing services, the company will now outline the conditions precedent (such as securing underlying rights, the execution of the producer’s contract, etc.) when the writer and studio come to terms.

Previously or Currently Employed Writers

The companies will state in the writers’ individual employment agreement the names of all other writers then or previously employed on the same material.

Training Program

The tentative agreement also calls for a producer-funded program to provide training for episodic writers to enable them to develop the skills required to be a successful showrunner/executive producer.

Promotional Launch

To help establish a wide-viewing audience for new one-hour dramatic series, the contract will allow for two of the first three episodes (including the pilot) to be rerun within two months of the launch of the series without residual compensation.

“There is no question that this tentative agreement was heavily influenced by pattern bargaining, for good and ill,” said Petrie. “While we are very pleased with the total dollar amount of the deal, which is equivalent to the DGA’s success, we are disappointed that our deal, like the DGA’s, contains no gains in DVDs. In the end, we felt that protecting the health benefits of writers and their families had to be our top priority, and continuing to pursue a DVD increase would mean putting those gains at risk.”

It’s Not ‘CSI’ or ‘Law & Order’…

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Variety reports that Fox has greenlit a one-hour pilot called PRISON BREAK…

“Prison Break” revolves around a man who robs a bank and waits around for the police to arrive, in order to be arrested and sent to prison. Once there, he relies on one of his tattoos — which doubles as a map of the facility — to escape with his brother, a death-row inmate, in tow.

Eventually, the prisoners break free — and it becomes a story about fugitives on the lam.

“It was one of those things where we heard the pitch and said, ‘God, that’s a great idea,’ ” said Fox execexec VP Craig Erwich. “It just feels like a signature Fox show.”

I don’t know if it will be any good, or if it can sustain itself as a series (without becoming another rehash of “The Fugitive”), but at least it’s not another version of CSI or LAW AND ORDER…or a thinly-veiled ripoff of those shows… or yet another series about cops investigating homicides. You have to applaud Fox for being willing to try unconventional formats for series…even though they often stumble after an intriguing pilot (remember JOHN DOE?)

By the way, I worked with Craig Erwich many years ago when he was a devleopment exec at Cannell Productions and I was toiling on a bad syndicated series for the studio called COBRA.

Chernuchin’s Book & Pilot Deal

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Variety reports that former LAW & ORDER producer Michael Chernuchin has struck an unusual pilot deal at ABC. Not only has he landed a script order for “Expert Witness,” but a publishing contract, too.

“Expert Witness” is a sort of legal “CSI” that revolves around Roger Cleary, a thirtysomething coroner-turned-professional freelance forensic witness who works for both prosecution and defense cases. Cleary’s dad is in jail for killing his mom, and that crime inspires his career.

Interestingly, even before ABC decides whether to greenlightgreenlight the project to pilot, Chernuchin has already sealed a deal with book packager Alloy to write a series of novels based on the lead character in “Expert Witness.” Indeed, the book deal predated the ABC pactpact.

“We sold the project to TV faster than we thought,” he quipped.

This may be the first time where the “TV tie-in” novel was sold before the TV series. Chernuchin is also adapting the hit BBC series “Judge Deed” for NBC.

“Deed” focuses on a federal court justice in Washington, D.C., who is “totally moral in the courtroom by not so moral on the outside,” Chernuchin said.

“We’ve seen legal stories through almost everyone’s point of view but the judge’s,” he said. “When you see a judge on TV they’re usually just saying ‘sustained’ and ‘overruled.’ This gives me a whole different way to think about cases.”

I guess he doesn’t watch JUDGING AMY, either. And he missed THE COURT, FIRST MONDAY, and QUEENS SUPREME… just like most of America.

Clueless Morons

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Yesterday in Variety, a bunch of clueless morons calling themselves The Colonial Fan Force ran a full-page, color advertisement clamoring for a “Battlestar Galactica” movie starring the original cast.

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

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…
Galacticaad
That said, 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 advertising guys at Variety and the Hollywood Reporter must laugh themselves silly with glee every time one of these suckers comes in.

In the case of the “Battlestar Galactica,” 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.

I suppose we have Gene Roddenberry to blame for this, ever since he cleverly engineered the so-called “viewer campaign” to save “Star Trek” from cancellation. So now we get ads demanding the return of dull supporting characters axed from TV shows (the “Save Marina” campaign on “The L Word” comes to mind) and from the millions of fans still crying over the demise of “Manimal.” I’m looking forward to the “Bring Gloria Reuben back to MISSING” ads… maybe the Colonial Fan Force can take up the cause.

I’m sorry, I shouldn’t joke. This “Battlestar Galactica” stuff is serious business, as is clear from the Colonial Fan Force website:

We’ve got to buckle down, and get to work. It’s going to be up to each member of fandom to make sure our efforts come to fruition. The CFF and its leadership will remain active in coordinating fan efforts as much as possible, but everyone reading this page has got to accept individual responsibility for making sure that we, as a group, rise together and speak with one voice. None of us can afford to think that “someone else will do it.” We’ve all got to find some time (and some stamps), and make it happen. We’ve got to make some collective noise.

This would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Think of all the truly worthy causes that could benefit from the same time, effort and money these morons are devoting with such earnestness to this idiotic pursuit…

UPDATE (10-22-04)

As you can see, the above post listed many comments, prompting me to explain the reasoning behind my opinion about the advertisement in more detail. For the benefit of those who don’t feel like slogging through all the comments to find that post, here it is:

You’ll notice that, with the exception of the STAR TREK and NAKED GUN movies, that none of the many other movies-based-on-TV series that have followed have starred the original cast, nor have any that have been announced for development

But that’s not the issue that makes the VARIETY ad so stupid or the people behind it so…how to put this nicely?…naive and wrong-headed.

These theatrical remakings of TV series are basically trading on the name identification of a hit series to create a new movie franchise, which is why they keep the name but cast movie stars in the roles. The original franchise is the selling point, not the actors. (Which is why I SPY didn’t have Bill Cosby, it had Eddie Murphy, and why WILD WILD WEST had Will Smith and not Robert Conrad. And why the new MIAMI VICE isn’t going to star Don Johnson or Philip Michael Thomas…but Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, instead).

These movies are intended to be blockbusters. And the blockbuster imperative doesn’t extend to nostalgia-friendly casting, with the exception of cameos (ie Patrick MacNee as invisible ghost in AVENGERS or Mark Goddard with one line in LOST IN SPACE) as a sop to the fans.

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA has been done…as miniseries. The franchise value is already being mined. And it’s highly doubtful that people will flock to the theatres just to see Richard Hatch, Dirk Benedict and company.

On a whole different level, the ad itself was wronghead, directed at an audience of writers, producers, directors, and studio heads who aren’t about to write letters to Glen Larson or Tom DeSanto.

The fans threw $12,000 away on an ad targeted at the wrong audience for their message (the message itself was wrong-headed, but I will get to that later, too). They humiliated their cause in the eyes of the very Industry that the fans were hoping to impress. Industry professionals who see ads like that in Variety aren’t impressed (any more than they are buy the struggling screenwriter who spends the money on a full-page ad to reprint pages of his unsold screenplay). The ad simply reinforced every preconception Hollywood has about fandom. It certainly did for me.

(On a side note, even if Glen Larson was dying to do a BSG movie, he does not have the clout to get a $100 million feature off the ground. You will notice he is only tangentially involved in the features in works based on his other TV series. So writing letters to him isn’t going to persuade a studio to dump money into the revival of a franchise that is already being mined on television, if in a “re-imagined version).

The ad in Cinescape, however, was also money poorly spent, though less obviously so. I’ll get to the reasons why in a moment.

You want to revive BSG? I think it’s a lost cause, especially since the valuable aspect of the franchise is already being mined on TV, but here’s some constructive advice:

Investing money in trade ads is useless. It’s better to use that money to organize a grass-roots campaign to make people aware of the BSG DVD and get them to buy it. On your website, make it look more businesslike and less fannish.

The trick is not to convince the powers that be that there are 100,000 absolute diehard fans who will do anything to get BSG back as a feature. You need to convince them there are actually tens of millions who have at least a passing interest in seeing BSG brought back. You want to spend money? Spend it on raising awareness among non-devotees of BSG. Get a groundswell of interest in the show itself. Try to push the DVD on people who aren’t familiar with the series. This is how it worked with THE NAKED GUN (on video) and later THE FAMILY GUY and FIREFLY, which were revived after cancellation because a lot of people saw the shows on home video and fell in love with them. Those video sales convinced the studios there was a lucrative market still out there.

The only thing that will convince a studio (or financiers) to make a movie is to be persuaded by hard facts and hard cash that there is still MORE money to be made Slavish devotion by a handful of fans… even if there are 100,000 of them… won’t bring in nearly enough money to justify a film.

Bottom line: Expose people to the show, not to your fandom. Expose studios to sales, not examples that some diehard devotees exist.

Which brings me to the website the advertisement directs readers to. The design and writing on the website only serves to confirm every Industry professional and non-fan’s immediate assumptions from the ad: This isn’t about the quality and merits of a TV show… it’s about a handful of diehard fans who can’t let go and have no real-world perspective.

The more you can do to NOT make this about the fans— and about THE SHOW, the better chance your campaign has of succeeding. But you’ve sabotaged yourself, and your campaign, from the outset… by crafting the wrong message and sending that wrong message to the wrong people. You need to rethink your image (the name “Colonial Fan Force,” for example), your message, and the best way to present it to the people you need to reach…

Which isn’t the studios.

It’s the viewers.

Anonymous Thoughts

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I accidentally stumbled on a fascinating and compelling blog apparently written by a single mother raising two kids. Her entries have simple headings….Honesty. Church. Broke. My Ex. Teenage Daughter. Tears… but are surprisingly candid and powerful. I found myself reading every one…as if she was a character in a novel.

Yesterday was a pretty eventful day in a bad way. I have a 16 year old daughter who recently informed me that she had sex with her boyfried for the first time. I handled the situation fairly well inspite of the dreaded feelings that were inside me. I asked her if she was ok with what happened and explained to her that she should not do it again for awhile as she really needed to let what happen sink in. I told her that sometimes we do things that seem ok at first but then after thinking about it we are sorry. I asked her to give it a month before she does it again. It seems weird to tell her this as it is almost like giving her permission but where there is a will there is a way and I am not stupid enough to believe that she will stop it now. Then I asked her if he wore a condom and explained the health risks to her.

The things that upset me most about what she did is that she didn’t appear to care about what she did. She really had no compassion whatsoever considering the level of intimacy that she allowed herself to experience with this boy. It was like it didn’t even really matter to her that she gave up the one thing she can never get back. Maybe she is to young to understand and she is looking at it as only a physical act.

I have had sex without loving the person I was with but I still hold a very serious level of compassion towards it. Each experience that we have had in our lives is different and when you have sex with someone you learn something and experience something with that person that most people have not. Whether you want that bond or not its there. In most cases if you are not in love the bond is not a strong one but it still remains. I guess it just makes me sad that being her first time she didn’t hold it higher than she did. She will remember that experience for the rest of her life and it makes me sad that she is too young to understand what she did.

Anyway, yesterday I went over to my ex-husbands house and I saw her boyfriends car parked on the side of the street. I looked in the window and I guess she heard my ex coming in the house so when I saw her she was running half naked up to her room. She was caught. I was infuriated. I am not even sure why because I knew she had been doing him already. I guess it was because it was in that house and in my old bed. When I finally got into the house I screamed at her about the disrespect and grounded her. I told her boyfriend to get the fuck out of the house.

Then I went to her job and asked her manager for her work schedule as I want to know where she is at all times now. Then I went to her boyfriends house and bitched him out. I made sure he knew that he was a minor and if he gets her pregnant I will without a doubt sue his parents for child support. He must have called my daughter because later she sent me a text message telling me she hates me because her boyfriend broke up with her because of me. I feel bad but I guess he didn’t really love her like she thought. She knew the rules………..no boys in the house………she got caught………she doesn’t care about anything but him……….I am going to make her live with me full time. She will hate me even more. Am I over reacting?

Follow the Bouncing Bond

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Variety reports that Sony is acquiring MGM/UA… which adds an interesting new twist to the Bond saga.

Years ago, long before DR. NO, writer/producer John McClory collaborated with 007 author Ian Fleming on an original Bond screenplay entitled THUNDERBALL. When the movie went nowhere, Fleming adapted it into a novel of the same name… which eventually became the basis for the fourth 007 movie…and thus began a long legal battle between MGM/UA and McClory, who claimed the right to make his own Bond movies. After decades of wrangling, McClory produced NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN, a remake of THUNDERBALL, for Warner Brothers starring Sean Connery. After that, McClory periodically announced new Bond pictures, none of which ever came to fruition.

A few years ago, McClory struck a deal with Sony, which announced a new, rival series of Bond movies to be produced by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. That sparked a new legal war between MGM/UA and Sony. The conflict was settled when MGM agreed to buy NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN and all rights to the movie from Sony… thus ending any chance of a rival 007 series.

The End is Never The End in this saga (Hey, that sounds like the title of a Bond movie, doesn’t it?) Now Sony not only gets back NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN but, it seems, the entire Bond franchise as well.

Writing Partnerships

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On my website discussion board, someone asked me about the pros-and-cons of writing partnerships…. so I dug up this article I wrote on the subject a decade ago. I thought you might enjoy it:
Lee_and_bill

Screenwriting Partnerships

The meeting with the TV series producer was going very badly. We were going to lose the writing assignment until, as a joke, I suggested we add a dozen scantily clad models and a psycho killer to the plot. Bill grimaced in embarrassment. The producer thought the idea was brilliant. We had a sale.

At that moment, Bill probably was torn he was glad he had a partner… and wished his partner had died in a car crash on the way to the meeting.

Perhaps that is the nature of partnerships. Everything is torn in half: emotions, responsibility credits, and., worst of all, paychecks.

When I was a kid, and dreamed of my name in lights, the name I saw was MINE, and mine alone. I saw it on book jackets, TV screens, movie posters … a “shared credit” never entered my mind.

But now, most of the time, I share the credit with William Rabkin Not just the credit, but the money, the work, and everything that goes along with it.

So I’ve revised my dreams a bit. When I see my name in lights, there’s another right next to it. And that’s okay by me.

It’s not that I don’t like writing alone, I just like writing with Bill better, for some simple reasons. For one, I like the company. I like hashing out the idea, developing the story, and overcoming the obstacles of actually writing the script with someone else. Like sex, writing is a lot more fun with a partner than doing it all alone. It’s also motivating. We nag each other far better than our individual consciences would

Of course, we argue a lot. But out of those fights actually come better ideas. It shakes us out of complacency, out of going the easy way, out of using those same tired cliches. And it scares the hell out of our assistants, who are convinced that we are killing each other behind our closed doors.

After one such row, our assistant came into my office, gravely concerned. He wanted to know if we were “okay.” Sure, I said, we were just brainstorming. He didn’t buy it. So he went into Bill’s office, and asked if him the same question. Bill said, are you kidding? We’re on a roll! The assistant decided we were both in extreme denial and that our partnership was doomed.

Of course, the arguing isn’t restricted to our offices. We were once on a series with a small staff, four writers in all, including us. The executive producer was a kind, fair¬individual who felt everyone had an equal say in the direction of the series so he warned us he didn’t want us to always present a united front, to use our partnership as a blunt instrument to cram ideas down his throat.

We left his office, and thought to ourselves, what a brilliant idea! We had never thought of being a power block before, much less a blunt instrument. So, we decided to give it a try. We would always agree publicly, and argue privately. So the next meeting we went in, I presented a story idea, and Bill promptly said “that is the single dumbest thing I have ever heard in my entire life.” So much for the power block idea. If he hadn’t done it, I probably would have. Such is partnership. It can’t be locked in an office.

I’m also a better writer with Bill than I am on my own. We are hard on each other. We force one another to go beyond “good enough” and to try for something better … and usually harder. And we are good at different things, we compensate for each other’s weaknesses and enhance each other’s strong points. Sometimes it can be confusing.

We work differently on different scripts. For example, on one script we divided acts. I did Act One, he did Act Two, and then we switched. I was enraged to discovered he had created a subplot that didn’t exist before. How could he do that without talking to me first? Probably the same way I added a new character in Act One and forgot to mention it to him. As it turned out, both changes helped the script enormously.

On those occasions when a script is due next week, and I wake up without the creativity to write a grocery list, it’s nice to know Bill is there to pick up the slack. And vice versa. It’s especially nice when one of us has to leave town two days before the deadline we know the other poor schlub will do the work. Of course, the downside is schlub duty is shared, too. It’s also great when it comes to pitching, and later story meetings, too. I tend to dive, roll, and come up firing literally when describing an action sequence. Bill, on the other hand, will discuss the thematic, symbolic, metaphoric and religious implications of a scene, and how it relates to great scenes in film history. We know whatever the sensibility of the executive, one of us can deal with it. On one weird occasion, we were facing producers whose partnership was frighteningly similar to our own. At casual moments, Bill would discuss with one producer how our project evoked Faulkner, while I would debate with the other which actor was the best James Bond.

On another, abortive, project, Bill was so frustrated by a producer’s indecision, that when he tried to tell the guy off, he couldn’t find the words. So, I said, “what Bill wants to say is that you change your mind constantly and have no idea what you want. Call us when you get a clue,” and I walked out. Finding words for one another often extends, we have learned, beyond the keyboard.

We have strong egos, but that doesn’t seem to get in our way, either. We view the finished product as /our/ script not HIS lines and MY lines, but /our/ lines. Our styles are so alike, and we work over the scenes so many times, who did what blurs.

It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m just as proud or our shared credit as I was of my single one.

I just wish he didn’t get half of my money

Book’em, Dano

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stevemcgVariety reports that Warner Brothers has snagged the rights to do a feature film version of Hawaii 5-0.

This is not the first time studios have tried to revive the classic TV series… dozens of feature scripts based on the series have died in development over the years. But before going the feature route, CBS quietly enlisted Stephen J. Cannell and former network president Kim LeMasters to steer a TV revival. A one-hour pilot was shot, with Gary Busey and Russell Wong splitting the McGarrett role…and with several old regulars from the original series making cameo appearances (including James McArthur as Danny Williams, now Governor of Hawaii, and Kam Fong’s Chin Ho character, who was killed off in the last season of the show).

The unsold pilot was dreadful and mercifully never aired…though bootleg copies have been circulating among 5-0 fans for years.

HOLLYWOOD REPORTER on “Best TV Shows That Never Were”

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TV Review: The Best TV Shows That Never Were
Fri Aug 13, 2004 02:06 AM ET

By Marilyn Moss
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – It’s not a new idea, but it’s still a funny one: to sew together a slew of “almost made it” pilots that never hit the air and until now would never have been missed or mourned.

But now, in this hilarious (not to mention educational, in the funniest sense of the word) one-hour compilation of never-was, never-happened pilots, we get a treat. “The Best TV Shows That Never Were” is must-see TV.

The hour is divided by genres, of course, such as the crime show, the sitcom, the drama. We open with detective crime series that never made it, and we see Dennis Franz riding a horse (and not too well at all) in a failed pilot (are you ready?) called “NYPD Mounted.” That one rode off into the sunset really fast. Then we find out that a detective drama called “Bunco” never made it off the assembly line because the network, which like all the others remains nameless, thought its two stars, Robert Urich and Tom Selleck, could not carry a show.

We also find Marilu Henner, post-“Taxi,” starring as a woman just released from a mental institution who ends up running a television station (this one’s a comedy, of course). Let’s not forget John Denver as a singing detective in another lost and sterling television creation. The list goes on, and tuning in is highly recommended.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter