Film and Television

Gerald So reports on his blog…

In last night’s season finale, the Enterprise destroyed a key sphere, saving the Xindi homeworld in the Expanse while Captain Archer destroyed the Xindi superweapon that threatened Earth. Finally, in a Planet of the Apes-style turn, Enterprise ends up in the midst of WWII, with a badly burned Archer found by Nazi Germany. For the last shot, the camera pans up to a sinister blue-faced alien. Ooh.

Oh, indeed. This entire season has been a desperate effort to save the show itself from a UPN superweapon — cancellation. While the stories were better (its hard not to improve on exciting episodes like… “Capt Archer spends a night in sick bay worried about his dying dog”), most of the plots still felt like re-heated left-overs from previous Star Trek series. The attempts to sex the show up — with backrubs, showers, and a visit by a bisexual alien who “x-rays” humans with heavy petting — seemed to have been written by horny teenagers who’ve never been laid.

But the ratings stayed lousy, and the future must have looked bleak to the producers…why else end the season with a ridiculous nod to Planet of the Apes? My guess, and its strictly a guess,. is that they figured the show was over, anyway… so why not?

That’s why we blew up the hospital in a season finale of “Diagnosis Murder.” We didn’t think the show was coming back… (and if it did, I wanted to shoot new hospital stock footage and this was one way to force the studio to pay for it).

Hell, I would have preferred if all the Nazis *were* apes… at least it would have shown some cheeky humor on the producers’ part.

What’s more amazing is that network execs looked at this episode and said “hey, let’s do more!”

Actually, not really.

The studio that makes the show just happens to own the network.

I sent an email to my editor the other day, listing the events I’ve got scheduled to promote my book and the ones in the works. He wrote me back saying how pleased and impressed he was that I was working so hard to support the book.

I can’t imagine an author who wouldn’t do the same thing… but, apparently, there are.

The way I look at it, writing the book is only half the job… you have to sell it to. Unless you’re already a bestselling author, or can afford a high-powered publicist, you have to go out there and sell yourself.

A lot of people cringe at the idea. Sell myself? How tacky.

The idea of promoting yourself, of actually selling your work, can make some authors hyperventilate.

But if you want your books to sell, you have to write booksellers, call booksellers, go out and meet booksellers… months before your novel actually comes out. You need to convince them, first and foremost, the stock your book… and then, perhaps, invite you in for a signing.

If you’re a new author, or a mid-list author like myself, you probably ask yourself why anyone would bother booking you for a signing. Who the hell is going to come to see me? I’m not Elmore Leonard.

But I learned a valuable lesson years ago… it’s not the books you sell at your signing that counts, but the books that are sold in the days and weeks after you leave. And you can’t beat the advertising a signing gives your books… without an event scheduled, you’re just six copies, spine out, on a shelf among thousands of other titles in the store. If the store is having you for a signing, you get a highly visible display of dozens of books, cover out, for days in advance of your appearannce… as well as days afterward. Think of it as in-store advertising. You will stand out in a way you wouldn’t without booking the event, whether a single person shows up or not. More importantly, you will get to know the bookseller who, if you’re lucky, will like you and your novel enough to recommend it to shoppers ie “hand-sell” it to customers.

I did a signing once where no one showed up… I sat in the store for two hours chatting with the owners and signed all the stock. A month later, they drop-shipped another box of books for me to sign… they’d sold out of their stock. (Of course, you want people to show up… that’s the best thing of all!)

It isn’t enough to simply schedule a signing… you have to let people know it’s happening. You need to promote yourself as well as sell yourself. Especially now, in this rough publishing climate. That means sending out mailings… establishing a website… and sending out press releases.

You also need to just get out there and network… that means going conventions, book festivals, and events in your genre (MWA events if you’re a mystery writer, for example).

Of course, you can go to far… and get the rep as a blatant self promoting whore. It’s a fine line… but one any writer who hopes to stay in print has to walk.

Rob Long is a sitcom writer who also wrote the amusing novel CONVERSATIONS WITH MY AGENT a few years back. Now’s he’s got a radio gig that could be very interesting for folks curious about the TV biz…

New commentators during the NPR’s All Things Considered & Weekend Edition.

June 2nd, meet veteran TV writer Rob Long. Each week he’ll share a behind-the-scenes look at Hollywood life with Martini Shot — a four-minute weekly commentary heard during KCRW’s broadcast of NPR’s All Things Considered. It will air Wednesdays at 6:44 pm, beginning June 2nd. Rob Long’s career began as a writer on the long-running TV sitcom, “Cheers” and he served as co-executive producer in its final season. He production company is currently based at Paramount Studios. He’s a contributing editor of National Review, and Newsweek International and writes occasionally for the Wall Street Journal.

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.

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.

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.

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…

They should stop doing finales for TV series for one, simple reason.

They suck.

Okay, not ALL of them. Just the vast majority. And the fact is, most TV series are created, by design, to be open-ended. They aren’t meant to have finales (with the exception of shows like “Lost in Space” or “Gilligans Island” which, by the way, DIDN’T have finales). For decades, they simply didn’t do them. Did “Gunsmoke” have a finale? Did “The Dick Van Dyke Show”? “All in the Family?” “Bonanza?” “Rockford Files?” “Green Acres?” “Murder She Wrote?” “Wild Wild West?” “Man From UNCLE?” You get the point.

Sure, there have been some great finales… The Fugitive, M*A*S*H, Mary Tyler Moore, Newhart, Star Trek: The Next Generation, St. Elsewhere, Cheers, Barney Miller…to name a few (and there are only a few).

But there have been many, many more finales that were truly awful, well below the quality of the most mediocre episode of the respective shows… Hill Street Blues, Magnum, Dallas, Miami Vice, Quantum Leap, Homicide, Seinfeld, Moonlighting, Roseanne, Mad About You, Murphy Brown, Deep Space Nine…

Couldn’t we have lived without those final episodes? Wouldn’t it have been better to be left with our fond memories? There are fans of “Married With Children” who are still peeved the Bundys didn’t get a finale.
They should consider themselves lucky.

Usually, the finale is the weakest, most melodramatic episode in the series’ entire run. Like the dull finales of “Friends” and “Frasier” (which was, at least, occasionally funny in its final hour).

It’s reached the point that the producers of any series that lasts longer than 13 episodes feel entitled to a finale for “the sake of the fans,” to give the show “closure.” I’m still aching for the “Birds of Prey” finale, aren’t you?

Wouldn’t we rather believe the characters live on forever? Do we really need to “wrap things up?” Why can’t we go on thinking the characters are continuing on their endless, episodic loop… having one adventure or comedic situation after another? We can… and should. For the most part, finales are only a ratings stunts.

The only thing less necessary that the series finale is the reunion. Can you say “Mary & Rhoda?” Or “The Dick Van Dyke Show Reunion?” But that’s another rant for another day.

NBC has struck a rich deal (ching-ching!) with Dick Wolf will keep his three LAW AND ORDER shows on the air for at least two more seasons… and bring a fourth LAW AND ORDER show to the network by midseason. Dick Wolf owns so much NBC real estate, pretty soon the network itself will become part of his franchise (ching-ching!). From www.variety.com:

It didn’t take new conglom NBC Universal long to lock up its most valuable employee: Dick Wolf has sealed a deal that keeps the “Law & Order” bossman firmly entrenched there through June 2008.
As part of the deal, NBC has also picked up Wolf’s “Law & Order,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” through the 2005-06 season. And the fourth installment of the “Law & Order” franchise, “Trial by Jury,” is now officially on the boards and will likely premiere sometime next midseason.

All told, the Wolf pact — which the Peacock had been anxious to finalize prior to next week’s upfront presentations — could be worth well north of $1 billion (Daily Variety, May 4). That includes Wolf’s fees, as well as the license deals for all four shows.

CBS seems headed in the same direction. CSI: CBS has ordered CSI: NEW YORK for next season. The pilot airs next month as an episode of CSI: MIAMI.

Can CSI: YES DEAR be far behind?