Here’s a very funny story that illustrates why it’s a good idea for screenwriters to be on the sets of the movies they write…
(Thanks to John August for the link).
Film and Television
Big Sunday
Sunday has become a big TV night in the Goldberg household…one terrific series after another to enjoy. There ware two episodes of NIP/TUCK back-to-back on FX, a new season of DEADWOOD on HBO, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES and BOSTON LEGAL on ABC. I can remember the last time we looked forward to a night of TV as opposed to a particular show… it kind of harkens back to the old days, when Saturday was comedy night on CBS… or the heyday of "Must See TV" on NBC. The difference, of course, is that we aren’t just watching one network… we’re channel-surfing between subscription network, basic cable network, and broadcast television, which is probably not what advertisers want to hear.
An Enterprising Director
I wrote ENTERPRISE off a long time ago… so imagine my surprise when I watched Friday’s episode and I was riveted. Not by the plot (which was flat) or the acting (which was flatter), but the inventive, energetic, and fast-moving camera work and creative staging by director David Barrett. I wasn’t familiar with Barrett, but after watching the episode, I immediately looked him up. His credits include WITHOUT A TRACE, COLD CASE, THE OC, and VERONICA MARS. It’s a shame they didn’t bring him in much earlier… he certainly livened things up. I hope Ron Moore was watching…Barrett could do a hell of a job on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA. I’m going to remember this guy.
The C Word on the L Word
In all the press about THE L WORD, Ilene Chaiken is always credited as the creator of the series, and the story of how she fought to get her passion project on the air has been retold many times.
So imagine my surprise when I tuned into the first episode of the second season and found out there are two other writers listed in the "Created By" credits with her: Kathy Greenberg & Michelle Abbott. How come these two writers are never mentioned when she talks about the development of the show? Who are they? How come none of the reporters who interviewed Chaiken never thought to ask her about them? What is the real story behind the creation of the show?
Speaking of THE L WORD, it’s a lot better this season. I sure don’t miss whatshername as whosits.
NYPD BLUE R.I.P.
I watched the final episode of NYPD Blue last night… could the show have gone out with a duller episode? Compare the pilot to the final episode and it’s like two different shows… one that was edgy, risky, and exciting… and one that could have starred Buddy Ebsen.
The highly-touted NYPD Blue finale was everything the series, at its best, never was…ordinary, unremarkable television. The finale was so bland, it could have aired on PAX… unedited.
The Television Event of the Decade
The time has come…the true story behind the making of DIFF’RENT STROKES can finally be told. Variety reports that the stirring drama will unfold as a TV movie that will air as part of NBC’s acclaimed "Behind the Camera" series, which some have already compared to the legendary PLAYHOUSE 90.
Stan Brooks, who produced the "Three’s Company" and upcoming "Mork and Mindy"
editions of the "Behind the Camera" franchise, said "Strokes" promises to be the
most dramatic pic of the series "by far." Other pics, he said, deal with careers falling apart. "With this one, what’s
at stake was people’s lives," Brooks said."The thesis of this movie is, Where were the parents in all this? The
studios, the networks, the managers — all the people benefiting from the
success of this show never looked at the effect it was having (on the young
cast). They stole their childhood."
This is truly a star-making, tiffany project. I think I can safely say the actor lucky enough to portray Conrad Bain will be on the short-list for an Emmy statuette next year. This is actually the second attempt to film this epic story. A few years ago, Fox broadcast AFTER DIFF’RENT STROKES: WHEN THE LAUGHTER STOPPED.
Personally, I’m waiting for somebody to film the shocking true story behind HELLO, LARRY
Keep Your Spock Ears At Home
The instant UPN cancelled the low-rated STAR TREK: ENTERPRISE, the fans immediately began mounting the inevitable campaign to save the show. They’ve raised $35,000 so far and took out a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times. Their goal is to either get the series renewed… or raise the $35 million it will cost to make this dream come true:
I want you to sit down in front of your TV this October. To hear the
rising sounds of instruments beginning to play in harmony. To see the
vibrant colours of scenery fade into life. I want you all to see Enterprise‘s fifth season explode on to your TV screens in a magnificent blaze of sound and passion signifying everything.
Everything? They must have asked the folks at the Colonial Fan Force for help writing up their call-to-arms.
However, there are at least a couple people associated with the campaign who have dipped their toes in the real world: as part of their plans for a Feb. 25th rally outside the Paramount gates, the folks at SaveEnterprise.com are asking Trekkers to leave their Spock ears at home.
Although we think that coming in dress would be great, We also
think this would stereotype us all as "Hardcore" Trekkers and
would hurt more than help. Please wear your daily wear.
The frightening thing is, for some people the Star Trek uniform is their daily wear, like that nutcake who wore her Federation garb, complete with phaser and tricorder, to jury duty (and who still wears her halloween get-up in her day job at — where else?– Kinkos). The folks at Zap2it have another take on it:
People willing to donate $10,000 of their hard-earned money (mostly refundable
if they don’t reach their goals or Paramount shuns their overtures) for a
low-rated series don’t look desperate but, apparently, those same people in
costumes do.
They want to raise $35 million for a fifth season of a crappy TV show… and Trekkers wonder why people ridicule them.
Okay, I’ll tell them.
It was one thing when they were fighting to renew, and then resurrect, the original STAR TREK back in the 60s. It was a campaign that made sense, that people could get behind.
Wake up, Trekkers. It’s not 1969 anymore. You won that battle. STAR TREK isn’t the under-appreciated TV series that was treated so unfairly… it’s a multi-billion dollar industry.
It’s hard to work up any sympathy for your cause, or share your righteous
fury, when there’s so much STAR TREK out there. There have been five STAR TREK TV series, hundreds of novels, a dozen
movies… enough already. There have been 500 episodes of the show. There’s plenty of Star Trek out there. Too much, in fact. And now you want people to get all worked up over the fact that the fifth series is being canceled after their fourth season?
What the hell is the matter with you people?
It’s more obvious now, than ever, that Trekkers have absolutely no perspective. With so many worthy causes out there needing our time, money and attention, seeing people going to all this effort for a fifth season of a TV show in franchise that has already been milked to death for billions of consumer dollars is beyond pathetic, embarassing, and moronic…
It’s wrong.
Battlestar Galactica
I thought Friday night’s episode of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA was great fun…the best yet. The show gets better every week and is evolving, after a rocky start, into an entertaining cross between LOST IN SPACE and the original STAR TREK.
Like LOST IN SPACE, the heroes are wandering through the cosmos without a home and no idea where they’re going. Dr. Baltar has become an insane, less-cartoony, version of Dr. Zachary Smith…injecting some much needed humor (and, in a strange way, humanity) into the show. The robot from the Jupitor II has been updated into the sexy, imaginary Cylon woman who exists only in Dr. Balter’s head…or is she more than that?
Like the original STAR TREK, there’s no preaching, no grand space opera, just action, adventure, fun
and sex. That’s right, sex. This week, we actually saw two characters writhing
around and, get this, having orgasms (though one of the characters
is a Cylon who’s spine glows when she’s climaxing, but let’s not get into that). Capt Kirk used to get laid every episode…but in the
recent incarnations
of STAR TREK, the pompous, aren’t-we-so-noble-you-could-vomit crewmembers have either been celibate… or
dealt with sex like uptight teenagers (when the producers weren’t engaged in cringe-worthy leering… like those ridiculous spongebath scenes in early seasons of ENTERPRISE..or the skin-tight uniform that hugged Seven of Nine’s enormous Borg Breasts on VOYAGER). After watching STAR TREK for
the last 15 years, I was beginning to think "Abstinance" was the new Prime Directive.
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is such a refreshing change from the stilted, self-important, sanitized scifi we’ve been getting over the last few years. Each episode reinforces just how calcified the STAR TREK franchise has become. It’s no coincidence UPN finally mercy-killed ENTERPRISE the same season that BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is injecting new life into the genre. It’s as if showrunner Ron Moore, an ST:NG vet, is intentionally rebelling against all the sanitizing, drama-smothering restrictions and formulas he had to endure while writing for TREK. How anybody could endure ENTERPRISE after watching BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is beyond me.
To be far, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA isn’t the first post-STAR TREK show to re-energize the genre. FARSCAPE managed to muddy space up a bit it’s first season…but then wallowed in melodrama and overly complicated serial storylines, taking all the fun (and almost all of the humor) out of the show, alienating new viewers and some of the old ones, too.
If the writers of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA continue having this much fun with the stories and the characters, the series has the potential to be the next great scifi franchise… and attract more and more new viewers every week.
(This is one time where the revival is infinitely better than the original series that inspired it)
Everyone is Writing a Script
Today, I drove up to San Francisco to speak at a writer’s conference this weekend. There’s a Borders next door to my hotel, so I went over to their coffee house for a cup of tea while I proofed the copyedited manuscript of DIAGNOSIS MURDER: THE PAST TENSE, which I received yesterday and is due back in NY on the 23rd. Talk about "last minute"…
Anyway, I couldn’t help noticing all the folks around me with their laptops… working on their scripts. There I was, 300 miles from Hollywood, and still everybody is toiling on a screenplay. It’s not like I was sitting in Vancouver or Toronto or New York, where there’s lots of production going on. This was San Francisco…
If that wasn’t disconcerting enough, I heard a woman (let’s call her Sally) and her friend (let’s call her Betty) talking over the script on the laptop. Sally was getting Betty’s advice… and the advice was absolutely terrible. Everything out of Betty’s mouth was wrong, lame, and screamed that she was an uneducated, uninformed, unschooled wanna-be. For instance, she advised Sally to add a lot more elaborate and detailed camera moves, angles, and editing suggestions or "the director won’t know what to do." She also kept recommending that Sally add exclamation points to her dialogue to make it "urgent and important."
It took tremendous willpower not to jump out of my seat, scream at Betty that she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about and urge Sally to delete the camera moves and exclamations points and every other stupid thing her friend told her to add to her screenplay.
Instead, I moved to a different table…and silently prayed Sally never sent her script to me.
Extreme Make-Over for Bugs Bunny
Bugs Bunny just isn’t hip anymore. So he’s getting a make-over and becoming Buzz Bunny. The "reimagined" Bugs Bunny will have "laser beam eyes" and incredible martial arts skills… and will star with other "reimagined" cartoon characters
(Daffy Duck will have "built in sonar") in a new series called "Loonatics." The only only Loonatics are the execs at Warner Brothers animation who think anybody is clamoring for this abomination.
"The new series will have the same classic wit and wisdom, but we have
to do it more in line with what kids are talking about today," says
Sander Schwartz, president of Warner Bros. Animation. The plots are
action-oriented, filled with chases and fights. Each character
possesses a special crime-fighting power.
Oh goodie, ’cause that’s what was missing from those classic cartoons. Special crimefighting powers.
What’s next, Minnie Mouse with huge breast
implants and bionic limbs? How about Woody Woodpecker with a Titanium
pecker and incredible mud wrestling skills? Maybe Popeye’s eye could really pop out and maye fly around the room and shoot rockets…and instead of eating Spinach, wouldn’t it be so hip if he snorted coke instead?