Current Affairs

“BJ Hooker”

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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

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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

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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

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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.

Not Interested

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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.

Insanity Presses

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Writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch talks about tie-in writing and the publishing biz in an interesting interview with SciFi.com. Along the way, she had this to say about self-publishing:

Vanity presses are called "vanity" presses for a reason. They appeal
to the writer’s vanity, not the writer’s sanity. Stay away if you want
to be a serious writer.

Good advice!

Viva LAS VEGAS

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Author Jeff Mariotte talks on his Amazon blog about the unique obstacles he faced writing the first original LAS VEGAS series tie-in novel. He worked up an outline, turned it into the show’s creator/ep Gary Scott Thompson, and went off on a road trip with his family before hunkering down to write:

During that
time, Gary had a new idea.  Since I wasn’t checking e-mail every day on
the road, I missed an e-mail scheduling a new conference call.  Gary
kindly agreed to yet another to make up for the one I missed, and he
told me his new idea.  At the end of Season Two, the Montecito Hotel
and Casino was blown up.  Season Three picked up six months later,
during which time a new one had been built.  All the characters had
been scattered to the winds, relationships had ended or changed, and
one character, Nessa Holt, wasn’t returning.  Gary wanted the show to
pick up with the opening of the new Montecito, and didn’t want to have
to fill in the missing six months on the air.  So he wanted the novel
to do that, to tell fans where Nessa went, what happened between Danny
and Jenny, how the new Montecito was built so quickly, etc.

In many ways, I bet this was a creative blessing for Jeff.  It allowed Jeff to break new ground creatively with the characters and yet, at the same time, still remain true to the show.  It will be a hard act to follow for his second LAS VEGAS book…assuming another calamity doesn’t befall the characters in this season’s finale.

The TV Geek In You Will Never Die, and That’s the Frakkin’ Truth

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You never outgrow being a TV geek. I’m proof of that. But you can’t even shake it off if you become an Emmy-winning producer of a cult hit series like, say, LOST. My friend Javi is proof of that.

it’s no secret that one of my favorite shows is “gilmore girls” (the
third spoke in my triumvirate of televisual greatness along with
galactica and 24) – so imagine my surprise when – during a quick break
from the mountain of work under which i currently find myself (remember
hulk in the secret wars – that’s me right now) – i happened upon an
instance, in a three-week-old episode, of lorelai gilmore saying
“frakking celine dion!”

i must have tivo-d that moment about a dozen times.

seriously,
that may have been the most transcendent vignette of television i have
experienced in recent memory (although the recent actions of secretary
of state james heller on 24 were pretty awesome – and reminiscent of
the famous punchline “you’re not gonna make a canoe out of me!”).  it
is also as decisive an acknowledgment of galactica’s newfound hipness
as you are likely to find. to have a character in a show that is as
relentlessly incompatible with most of the conventions of genre as
“gilmore girls” acknowledge ron moore’s reimagining of glenn larson’s
contribution to the vernacular is – to quote another sci-fi icon
“fantastic.”

I’d pity Javi if I wasn’t just as bad as he is. For me, the high point of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III was hearing musical cues from the TV show in the score.