Current Affairs

The Invasion Continues

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ABC has renewed INVASION for the full season. This means that so far two of the three "alien invastion shows" this season have survived…SURFACE will resurface for a back-nine, but CBS hasn’t decided if they’ve hit their threshold of THRESHOLD though they have ordered three scripts. The script order doesn’t mean much. I’ve been on shows where they’ve ordered more scripts — SEAQUEST and SPENSER FOR HIRE come to mind —  and we still got cancelled. Scripts aren’t that expensive. The alphabet net (that’s Variety-speak for ABC)  hasn’t decided whether it wants more of THE NIGHT STALKER yet.

NBC has ordered three additions scripts for the ratings-challenged E-RING, but hasn’t yet pushed the button on shooting nine more episodes.

Hooray For Gayle

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Variety reports today that CBS is making a mini-series out of  "Robert Ludlum’s Covert One: The Hades
Factor," a book that was co-written by my friend Gayle Lynds. The four-hour miniseries will star
Mira Sorvino, Stephen Dorff and Anjelica Huston.

Larry Sanitsky ("The Last Don") and Paul Sandberg ("The Bourne Supremacy")
are aboard to exec produce the project, which will lense in Toronto, Paris and
Berlin. Project will be available for broadcast later this season, though CBS
has not yet determined an airdate.

Elwood Reid ("Blind Justice") wrote the script for "Covert One: The Hades
Factor," adapting it from the 2000 novel by Ludlum and Gayle Lynds.

Sanitsky and German producer Tandem announced plans for "Hades" in spring at
MIP,  but no network, stars or helmer were attached (Daily Variety, April
12).

Ludlum’s bestselling series of "Covert One" novels revolves around a secret
intelligence agency consisting of political and tech experts who fight
corruption and conspiracy, reporting directly to the U.S. president.

Dorff will play Col. Jonathan Smith, a disease specialist and ex-agent of
Covert One whose fiancee has been killed by an Ebola-like virus spreading around
the world. When it turns out the virus may have been deliberately spread, the
president — played by Huston — orders a cover-up.

Sorvino will play Rachel Russell, a Covert One agent who goes missing after
killing two men.

Colm Meaney ("Star Trek: The Next Generation") will play a former spy and
friend of Smith’s, Blair Underwood ("LAX") the No. 2 official at Covert One.

The Cold Draft

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Yesterday, I shared excerpts from  some of the rejection letters I received for THE MAN WITH THE IRON-ON BADGE during its long journey to publication. Today, novelist Laurie King reflects on the uncertainty and rejection all professional writers face, regardless of their past successes.

There ain’t no guarantees in the writing business. It’s scary even to mention
the possibility, as if failure is a demon summoned by voicing his name, but it’s
very true, it’s waiting just outside. I’ve got sixteen books out there, sold a
couple million copies, had titles on the New York Times list, and still, every
day I feel the cold draft at the bottom of the door. My accountant talks about
SEP accounts, and I think, well, that may be necessary. My husband asks if we’re
going to have the money for some project or another, and I have to tell him I
don’t know.

Extra Features for Novels

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Perfectkillercoverfrontplustext_1DVDs these days come packed with extra features — commentary, documentaries, deleted scenes, bloopers, etc. Now author Lewis Perdue is experimenting with doing the same thing for books, starting with his novel THE PERFECT KILLER. To give his readers a sense of the people, places and details in the story, he’s created a page-specific online index with photos, videos, maps, links, and other information. You could read his book with your laptop open beside you and click along with the story. For instance:

Page 227, coast
snakes northward from the missile gantries of Vandenberg Air Force Base to Big
Sur’s relentlessly beautiful cliffs and surf south

Page 228, Dan
Gabriel jogged along Pecho Valley Road, south of Morro Bay (more pictures
here)

Page 229, He sprinted the dune
trail, south toward Spooner’s Cove, but the past matched his pace

Page 230, sight
of a man and a boy of maybe ten

Page 235, San Luis
Obispo

Page 243, Blackhawk returned and hovered
over the clearing, Armed men hung out the side door

 

It’s a cool idea. Will it catch on? Who knows…buttake a look and  let Lew know what you think.

Coming to a Computer Near You

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Back in 2001, Andre Morgan announced production of a 22-episode, hour-long  TV series shot in Shanghai called FLATLAND, starring Dennis Hopper (what, you thought E-RING was his first TV series? Don’t believe everything you read). Morgan didn’t have a buyer or distributor for the project at the time but claimed to be in discussions with several networks. Now, four years later,  the show may finally be premiering…on a cell phone or computer near you. Variety reports the show is being shopped at Cannes, where it’s being sold in groups of
50 two-minute episodes by Intl. Program Consultants for broadcast on mobile phones and over the Internet.

"Exotic locations, elaborate CGI and high-definition technologies will
generate literally hundreds of … serial episodes," said exec producers Ruddy
and Morgan.

IPC topper
Russell Kagan added: "RMO, a leading independent company in TV and film
ventures, now will be one of the first leaders in mobile and broadband
video."

Taming the Wild Cover

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The Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy NTameovels are at it again with another hilarious critique of horrible book covers…this week, they skewer books with "Tame…" in the title. Here’s one of my favorites:

Candy: Bitch, please. This is the cleanest-cut rebel I’ve ever seen. What’s rebellious about him? His unnatural love of Brylcreem?
His choice to use steroid cream AND shoot it up? His decision to use
SPF15 instead of SPF40 sunscreen? His weirdly offset nipples?

Sarah: Whoo. What a rebel. To throw off the expectations of
society, and insist, visit after visit to the hair salon, on sporting a
mullet. The mullet alone is worth the 300-page effort of taming him.

E-RING Lasts Forever

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Why one critic isn’t watching E-RING any more.

Last Wednesday I performed an experiment. I watched the latest episode of E-Ring
while applying a branding iron directly to my face, just to see which
of these two forms of torture I could stand the longest. I have deduced
that, while eventually the branding iron heat burns through your nerve
endings, the pain of E-Ring lasts forever.

Charles Rocket RIP

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I got the sad news today that Charles Rocket committed suicide. He’s perhaps best known for his short stint on SNL, where he got booted for using an obscenity on live tv. I worked with him on the ill-fated ABC’s series  MURPHY’S LAW, starring George Segal as an insurance investigator. Rocket turned a one-shot  guest-star appearance as Murphy’s scheming rival,  in an episode that Bill & I wrote, into a regular role. He was the best thing about the series and we loved writing for him…as did everyone else on staff.  It’s a shame his career never took off the way it should have– he was a very talented man (he even did a dramatic role in DANCES WITH WOLVES).

Channel Surfing

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Lots of interesting TV news in Variety today…

Steven Bochco replaced COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF creator/exec producer Rod Lurie…and has wasted no time making the show his own. Five of the original eight writer/producers have been booted.  Staying on are Dee Johnson, Scoop Cohen and Stuart
Stevens who will be joined by Bochco veterans Alison Cross and Joel Fields. Variety says Bochco wanted a smaller staff and doesn’t plan to hire any more writers. Reportedly, big staff changes are also in the works at GHOST WHISPERER on CBS. It’s ironic that the two highest rated new series of the season are undergoing such internal turmoil.

Just when you thought it was safe to get back in the water, NBC has picked up SURFACE for the full season.

Cartoon Network has ordered 26 episodes of  a new animated revival of the 60s cult classic GEORGE OF THE JUNGLE.  They haven’t said whether it will be "re-imagined" or not.

And ABC has ordered a pilot called COLE TRACER PI, about the star of a cancelled TV detective series who teams up with the show’s technical advisor to solve crimes. It’s being directed by Joe & Anthony Russo, who are three-for-three when it comes to directing pilots that get series orders (ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, LUCKY, and LAX).