Film and Television

It Takes a TV Guide

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Will Smith is out to unseat Owen Wilson (I SPY, STARSKY & HUTCH) and Colin Farrell (SWAT, MIAMI VICE) as the go-to guy for theatrical remake of TV shows. After ruining THE WILD WILD WEST, Smith is tackling IT TAKES A THIEF, which starred Robert Wagner as a convicted thief who is forced into becoming a spy for the government. Variety reports:

Smith and his Overbrook
Entertainment partner James
Lassiter have come aboard to produce the film with Kevin
Misher, John Davis and Joe Singer. "Four Brothers" scribes David
Elliot and Paul Lovett are set to write the script.

Davis and Singer set up the project at Universal nearly a decade ago, when it
was envisioned as a potential starring vehicle for Michael
Douglas. Studio has had Smith in its sights for several years,
but the project just recently gained forward motion with a fresh take and new
writers.

Breaking CHEERS

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Emmy-award winning writer/producer Ken Levine talks about how hard it was breaking stories for CHEERS.

For every story we used there were always twenty or thirty we threw
out. The core of every story had to present a substantial problem for
one or more of the characters. And it had to have some comic spin. When
an idea is on the table and the writers are able to come up with
possible scenes and twists and jokes that’s a pretty good indication
that we may have hit gold. And very often a story will evolve into
something completely different from what you started with. You begin
with Sam has to hire a new bartender and an hour later it somehow
becomes Lilith’s pet rat dies and she keeps it in her purse…

[…] Once we had an area we liked this is how we generally broke the
stories: Our first question was always “what’s the act break?” Then
“what’s the ending?”. Then "when’s lunch?" Once we had the big midpoint
turn and the ultimate conclusion we’d go back and fill in the acts.
Sometimes we would lay out a story and see that two or three characters
would be excluded. So in order to service them we would do a B story
that usually could be told in two or three scenes.

Another Great Way to Procrastinate

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Spenser_credit
AOL is offering a bunch of old TV shows from the Warner Brothers vault for free download…among the offerings is the SPENSER FOR HIRE episode "If You Knew Sammy," guest-starring William H. Macy. This is the episode that launched my TV career. It’s the first  script Bill Rabkin and I ever sold… we wrote it on spec and the folks at SPENSER actually bought it and shot it without changing a word (our first TV experience was blessed in a lot of ways). Among the other offerings on AOL Television are episodes of MAVERICK, BABYLON 5, KUNG FU, THE FBI, and THE FUGITIVE, to name a few.

Not So Wonderful Wonder Woman

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Mark Evanier tells the story behind a five minute WONDER WOMAN demo-pilot that producer William Dozier produced during the 60s heyday of TV’s BATMAN.  You can watch the whole demo on his blog, too.

Why didn’t his version of Wonder Woman sell? Well, watch it and
see. What’s usually the case when a network commissions a brief demo
film instead of a full pilot is either (a) they have so much faith in the premise and creative team that they don’t feel the need to waste the time or money…or (b)they have so little faith in the project that, though they’ve been
pressured into giving it a try before the cameras, they don’t want to
waste the time or money. Guess which was the case this time.

When are they going to do the MANIMAL movie?

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Gabekaplan
First Owen Wilson was in STARSKY AND HUTCH. Then I SPY. Or was it the otherIce
way around? Doesn’t matter. Now his brother Luke Wilson has lined up TV redo of his own. Variety reports Luke is up to play Bobby Ewing in the DALLAS movie. Offers have gone out to John Travolta to play J.R., Jennifer Lopez to play his wife Sue Ellen, and Shirley MacLaine to be Miss Ellie. Meanwhile, Ice Cube is remaking WELCOME BACK KOTTER for the big screen with himself in the title role that was originally played by Gabe Kaplan. Really. I’m not making this stuff up.

The Sopranos Effect

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TV Critic Chuck Barney talks about the impact THE SOPRANOS has had on TV…and he asked me for my take on things.

"The networks used to be so deeply afraid of offending people that what
they typically turned out was tepid and dull," Goldberg says. "’The
Sopranos’ showed that the audience is smarter and more sophisticated
than what they give them credit for. It proved that you can do a crime
show with more nuance than ‘Matlock.’"

[…]But just how "real" is television willing to get? It’s no
coincidence that most of the complex, rough-edged dramas are still
mainly the province of cable channels, which cater to more niche-type
audiences. Yes, the broadcast networks are taking more risks, but
because they’re obligated to aim for larger audiences and please
advertisers, they still tend to hew to the safe side, according to
Goldberg.

"Just look at James Spader’s character on ‘Boston Legal.’ He started
out as a real scummy type of dirty-dealer, but he’s been softened up,
watered down and made more cuddly," he says. "Even Andy Sipowicz on
‘NYPD Blue’ started out as a despicable boozer and a bigot. But over
time, his edges were so sanded down that he became an animated
character. He might as well have been Scooby-Doo."

More on Galactica

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Now Playing Magazine interviewed GALACTICA executive producer Ron Moore about what he has in mind for season three…

“The end of the season is quite a shake-up,” acknowledges Moore. “The
Cylons show up and all hell breaks loose. Essentially, season three is
going to deal with the Cylon occupation of the Colonials on New
Caprica. The sort of archetype that we’re talking about is like Vichy
France: There’s a Colonial government run by President Baltar that is
collaborating with the Cylons, while the humans put together an
insurgent resistance against the occupation. It’s a pretty big twist.”

“Adama and the Galactica and Pegasus are gone, and they’re sort of
trying to get their act together to figure out a way to come back and
rescue [the Colonials],” continues Moore. “And season three will start
off in that world of the Cylon occupation.”

None of which is to say that Battlestar Galactica should be renamed Occupation New Caprica.
No, never fear, for Adama, Roslin, and the rest of the gang will
eventually resume their search for Earth. But the Cylons will continue
to get plenty of screen time as well.

Ruminations on Battlestar Galactica

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Whether or not you agree with the creative choices they make on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, you have to admit they aren’t afraid to take some real chances. The episode two weeks ago that took place on Caprica, from the POV of the Cylons, was terrific and the last twenty minutes of the season finale tonight completely turned the series inside-out, potentially transforming it into an entirely different TV series than it was before. In a sense, executive producer Ron Moore has reimagined BATTLESTAR GALACTICA anew for a second time. I don’t know whether the choices he’s made will be the death knell of the series or another new beginning, but I admire him for taking the risk. I wonder if I would be as brave (or foolhardy?) if I was in his position.

Facing the Firing Squad

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TVSquad, via MediaLife Magazine, has posted a list of shows that media buyers (the folks who purchase advertising time on the networks) believe are facing cancellation. There are a couple of surprises — like the inclusion of LAW AND ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT and GEORGE LOPEZ and the omission of CLOSE TO HOME and INVASION (cable series, like THE DEAD ZONE and MISSING, aren’t covered on the list).

  • Four Kings, NBC
  • Law & Order: Criminal Intent, NBC
  • Joey, NBC
  • E-Ring, NBC
  • Fear Factor, NBC
  • Surface, NBC
  • Scrubs, NBC
  • Stacked, FOX
  • War at
    Home    , FOX
  • Still
    Standing    , CBS
  • Yes, Dear,
    CBS
  • King of Queens, CBS
  • Out of Practice, CBS
  • Courting Alex, CBS
  • Crumbs, ABC
  • Freddie,
    ABC
  • Rodney, ABC
  • According to Jim, ABC
  • Hope & Faith, ABC
  • George Lopez, ABC
  • Commander in Chief, ABC