Film and Television

Note of the Day

by

A friend of mine is writing an action movie for a studio. He turned in his first draft and the “big, overall note” from the development exec was: “If all these people are trying to kill the hero, why isn’t he dead? We need to address this.”

It reminds me of a note we got on a script we wrote that took place in a high school. We were going through the notes, page by page, with the studio exec and her minions when, about a third of the way through, she pointed to a page and said: “This would be an excellent spot for a teen suicide.” It almost became an excellent spot for a screenwriter suicide.

Final Finale

by

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.

Law & Order: National Broadcasting Company

by

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?

Van Helsing and the Death of American Filmmaking

by

Okay, maybe that headline is extreme, but I left VAN HELSING pondering the current state of American movie-making. Most of the movie… and most of the characters…are CGI. Essentially, they are cartoons… lousy, unconvincing cartoons at that. And the big, climactic confrontation in the movie doesn’t happen between two actors, but between two lousy, unconvincing CGI characters (not to mention the mostly CGI and digital matte locations and backgrounds). In essense, the movie was a bloated cartoon with a few living actors inserted. The live-action characters weren’t much more convincing than their CGI counterparts. I never got invested in the characters, the story, or the big action set pieces. None of it seemed real… because it wasn’t. There was nothing engaging about the movie at all. When did studios start believing audiences were more interested in CGI than characters, story, and genuine emotion? Is this what movie-makers think audiences want? Are they right?

The New Face of James Bond

by

I’ve been reading the James Bond newsgroup, where there’s lots of talk about who will take over the license to kill when Pierce Brosnan turns his in. Hugh Jackman seems to be the big favorite…along with Orlando Bloom, Christian Bale, and Russell Crowe… though I am holding out hope for Clive Owen. He was great in THE CROUPIER and those DRIVER mini-movies from BMW. Perhaps he’ll get noticed in Disney’s KING ARTHUR tentpole this summer.

A friggin great show

by

It’s official…Deadwood is my favorite show on television right now. Unpredictable. Shocking. Offensive. Memorable. Hilarious. Ugly. Unexpectedly moving. The characters are fresh and surprising, the sense of place palpable, and the dialogue utterly original. I don’t think I have ever heard profanity used so effectively or, dare I say it, poetically. Watch this show are your peril…it’s addictive and hard to get out of your head.

Maintaining Integrity

by

Another true TV anecdote…

Bill Rabkin and I were in middle of writing an episode of “Spenser: For Hire,” which was airing at 10 p.m. on Saturday nights. In our episode, Spenser sees a woman jump off the roof of a building, so he begins to investigate why she wanted to commit suicide. He discovers she’s fleeing her brother, with whom she shared an incestous relationship. The network loved the story.

We get a call on a Friday from the network. They had just decided to move “Spenser For Hire” to 8 pm on Sunday, sandwhiched between “The Wonderful World of Disney” and “The Dolly Parton Show.”

Somehow our episode didn’t seem quite right for the Family Hour, unless your idea of family is rather twisted. But the network didn’t think it was quite as big a problem as we did.

“We love everything about the script, so all you need to do is take out the incest,” the network exec said, “but maintain the integrity of the story.”

Simple Notes

by

Another true story…

My writing partner William Rabkin and I had just turned in the seventeenth draft of a screenplay based on a novel I’d written. We were a few weeks away from pre-production on the movie. The producer called us in, saying he only had a few minor notes we could do in a few minutes on our computer.

“I just need a tiny polish,” the producer said. “Just a few little nips and tucks.”

”I’m ready,” I said, having already figured out where I was going to put the framed movie poster on my wall, and how I was going to spend my production bonus.

“I’d like you to flip Act Two and Act Three,” he said.

I laughed. He didn’t. “You are joking, right?”

“No,” he said. “It will be easy with your computer. Just flip the two acts, make Act Three Act Two, and make Act Two Act Three.”

“But you can’t do that,” I said.

“Why not?” He asked, genuinely perplexed.

I walked out and never came back. Bill stuck around and got the notes, though we never did the draft. Other writers came in (including Michael Blake, who would later win an Oscar for “Dancing With Wolves”). Not surprisingly, the movie didn’t get made.

NEW CAST ON “MISSING”

by

Justina Muchado has left our show and Mark Consuelos has stepped in. Production began this week on our second season…and just let me say, Vivica Fox rocks.

Lifetime’s ‘Missing’ finds Fox, Consuelos

FBI skein’s new season premieres in July

By DENISE MARTIN

Former sudser star Mark Consuelos is going primetime, joining the cast of the Lifetime drama “Missing.”
Casting of Consuelos comes in the wake of news that Vivica A. Fox (“Kill Bill”) has also come aboard the skein. Her character replaces that of original star Gloria Reuben in the second season of the show.

“Missing” revolves around FBI investigator Nicole Scott (Fox), who has teamed with a young psychic to help track down missing persons. Consuelos, husband of morning talkshow host Kelly Ripa, will play an FBI agent and former colleague of Fox’s character.

New season premieres in July.

Consuelos is a vet of the ABC soap “All My Children,” in which he starred opposite Ripa. He next appears in Miramax actioner “The Great Raid” with Benjamin Bratt and Joseph Fiennes. More recently, Consuelos did a multi-episode arc on NBC’s “Third Watch.”

“Missing” is produced by Lions Gate TV in association with CHUM TV. Glenn Davis, William Laurin and Debra Martin Chase are exec producers.

It’s a Mystery

by

I was reading the Publishers Weekly close-up on mysteries, which reminded me of a pitch meeting we had a few years ago at a basic cable network, before MONK burst on the scene. I pitched a mystery series, a blend of reality and scripted tv, to the new development exec. He interrupted me in middle of the pitch.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “You want to do a mystery every week?”

“Uh, yes,” I said.

“It can’t be done,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked, genuinely confused.

“I mean, you can’t tell a new mystery every week,” he said. “It’s just not possible.”

“Of course it is,” I replied. “I’ve done it. Diagnosis Murder was a mystery.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yes, it was,” I argued.

“Nobody can do a mystery every week,” he said. “It’s ludicrous.”

“Murder She Wrote, Law and Order, CSI, those are all mysteries,” I said.

“No, they aren’t.”

“Okay,” I said. “What is your idea of a mystery?”

“Scooby-Doo,” he replied.

“That’s an animated Saturday morning cartoon,” I said.

“Exactly,” he said.