#1 New York Times Bestselling Author & TV Producer
Television Chronicles was a magazine made for TV geeks like me. It was chock full of interviews and episode guides on classic and not-so-class TV series. Sadly, the magazine disappeared from news stands a few years back. But I am very pleased to report that Television Chronicles has returned as an online magazine. The current issue has an indepth look at the making and demise of the Bill Bixby series THE MAGICIAN.
Alex Epstein’s CRAFTY TV WRITING is a terrific new book full of great advice about the craft of episodic writing and insights into the business of television (and I’m not just saying that because he quotes liberally from me and this blog). If I didn’t have a book of my own, SUCCESSFUL TELEVISION WRITING, to recommend, this is the one I’d tell every aspiring TV writer to buy. I’d also strongly recommend WRITING THE TV DRAMA SERIES by Pamela Douglas. Tell you what, buy all three. You’ll thank me later.
I was surprised to discover that the unaired, unsold WB pilot for AQUAMAN is available for download on iTunes. The pilot was from the folks who did SMALLVILLE and was passed over when the WB merged with UPN to become The CW. Being the unsold pilot freak that I am, I immediately downloaded it…but I haven’t watched it yet.
TV Critic Chuck Barney reports that the flop WB sitcom pilot NOBODY’S WATCHING, which got a lot of hype and thousand of hits when it was "mysteriously" posted on YouTube, has received an order for six scripts from NBC. The network will produce some original "webisodes" while they ponder whether or not to order the series. You can expect to see a lot more busted pilots "mysteriously" showing up on YouTube now…
My friend David Breckman wrote and produced a hilarious pilot for USA Network called UNDERFUNDED, about a spy for the Canadian Secret Service (yes, they have one). He’s still waiting to hear if USA is going to pick it up. But in the mean time, the Canadian Broadcasting Company (yes, they have TV networks up there) has announced that production has begun on INTELLIGENCE, a Canadian drama series (yes, they still have a couple shows of their own up there) about, you guessed it, Canadian spies (yes, they have them). The show is from Chris Haddock, the Canadian Steven Bochco, with financial help from every Canadian government entity except, it seems, the Department of Fish & Game.
“Intelligence takes place in the underworld where crime and
government meet. Part mystery, part thriller, all character and
conspiracy,” says Haddock. “It’s a new and volatile mix of gangster and
spy genres that should be pretty addictive. It’s gonna be a lot of fun
to watch.”Intelligence is a Haddock Entertainment production produced with the
financial participation of CBC, Telefilm Canada, the CTF – License Fee
Program, the Canadian Western Independent Program Fund, the Canadian
and British Columbian Production Tax Credit Programs and CBC
International Sales.
Bryce Zabel gives readers an inside look at the development and production of M.A.N.T.I.S., the first TV series about a black superhero.
Anyway, the deal was, "M.A.N.T.I.S."
had started as a two-hour pilot, written by Sam Hamm (“Batman”) and
directed by Sam Raimi (“Spider-Man”). The two Sams had a disagreement
with Fox about how the series should go, and walked away from their own
project. Fox still wanted to do the series, but somebody needed to make
the changes and run the show. Both Hamm and Raimi were extremely
gracious and understanding in the transition, nothing was made
personal, and the series lived.
For me, that’s a pure TV moment. Bryce mentions it casually…but it’s outrageous and insane. And yet, this kind of thing happens so often in TV, we take it as normal. But think about it: Two guys create, produce and direct a pilot, praying that it will sell…and when it does, they end up walking away from the show. And Fox, who ordered the pilot and bought the show based on their vision, lets them go. Now the studio and network have to scramble to find someone else… who wasn’t involved with the show before… to take it over and supply a new, creative vision. Fast. It’s a thankless, no-win situation for the new showrunner but Bryce took it on and made the show his own. Because he’s a pro. I’ve been in a similar position two or three times myself (SHE-WOLF OF LONDON, MARTIAL LAW, etc.) and you just dive in, do your best with as much enthusiasm as possible, and try not to think about all the landmines in your path.
Variety reports that a bootleg video of the unsold NBC/Universal WB sitcom pilot NOBODY’S WATCHING "mysteriously" showed up on YouTube, where it has become a viewer favorite. The studio almost immediately gave YouTube the okay to keep the pilot up and is already considering offering it for sale on iTunes. Meanwhile, the producers are hoping the buzz leads to their sitcom getting a second chance on one of the networks.
Maybe I’m too cynical, and have written too many mysteries, but this whole thing feels very premeditated to me…it wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that the producers or the studio were the ones who "mysteriously" uploaded the bootlegged pilot to YouTube.
YouTube, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to mind being used in this way. The pilot is content, after all, and I suppose YouTube is just glad any time a studio calls with something besides a cease-and-desist order.
My brother Tod has a weekly feature on his blog in which he skewers the "fucktards" who write Letters to Parade seeking answers from the fictional Walter Scott. Well, Tod could probably do the same with some of the people who write to TV Guide.
Take Susan A. Davis of Newport, Vermont for example.
She’s peeved about the season finale of CSI, which showed Grissom and Sara in bed together in the closing moments of the episode. TV Guide called it a shocking season finale. But since I only watched two episodes of CSI this season, I didn’t realize I was supposed to be shocked. I just figured the two characters were doing the nasty monkey together now. I wasn’t shocked. In fact, I didn’t care. But let’s get back to Susan A. Davis of Newport, Vermont. She wrote:
The writers ought to sit in a corner with their faces to the wall and chant the following: Don’t mess with canon. Don’t mess with canon. Don’t mess with canon.
"Canon" is a term that fanfic writers like to use to refer to the backstory established in the TV shows, movies, books and comics that they are ripping off. So what makes Susan A. Davis of Newport, Vermont a raging fucktard is that she doesn’t seem to grasp that she was watching the actual, original, CSI tv show…not reading CSI fanfic or CSI/X-Files cross-over fic or CSI slash fic or even the William Petersen Real Person Slash Fic that she probably loves. Because if she did comprehend that she was watching the actual, original, CSI tv show, then she’d know that canon is whatever the creators of CSI say it is. The writer/producers decide who the characters are and what they are going to do…they create the canon.
You may not like what the writer/producers come up with, you may think they’ve jumped the shark and fucked it, too… but it’s what’s happening on the actual, original, CSI tv show, which is still written and produced by the same folks who did the pilot, and that, Susan A. Davis of Newport Vermont, makes whatever they do "canon."
So, I submit that Susan A. Davis of Newport, Vermont, should sit in a corner with her face to the wall and chant "I am a fucktard, I am a fucktard, I am a fucktard…"
The New York Times reports today that lots of fans are making their own STAR TREK movies and episodes — which I hereby dub fan fliction– and that Paramount has turned a blind corporate eye to it as long as no one tries to make a buck from their work.
Up to two dozen of these fan-made "Star Trek" projects are in
various stages of completion, depending what you count as a
full-fledged production. Dutch and Belgian fans are filming an episode;
there is a Scottish production in the works at www.ussintrepid.org.uk.There is a group in Los Angeles that has filmed more than 40 episodes, according to its Web site, www.hiddenfrontier.com, and has explored gay themes that the original series never imagined. Episodes by a group in Austin, Tex., at www.starshipexeter.com,
feature a ship whose crew had the misfortune of being turned into salt
in an episode of the original "Star Trek," but has now been repopulated
by Texans."I think the networks — Paramount, CBS — I don’t think they’re
giving the fans the ‘Trek’ they’re looking for," said Mr. Sieber, a
40-year-old engineer for a government contractor who likens his "Star
Trek" project, at www.starshipfarragut.com, to "online community theater.""The fans are saying, look, if we can’t get what we want on
television, the technology is out there for us to do it ourselves," he
added.And viewers are responding. One series, at www.newvoyages.com,
and based in Ticonderoga, N.Y., boasts of 30 million downloads. It has
become so popular that Walter Koenig, the actor who played Chekov in
the original "Star Trek," is guest starring in an episode, and George
Takei, who played Sulu, is slated to shoot another one later this year.
D. C. Fontana, a writer from the original "Star Trek" series, has
written a script.
I’ve seen "Star Trek: The New Voyages" and, as I posted here in December, I was very impressed:
The acting and writing are cringe-inducing but everything else is
amazing. I can’t believe what these imaginative and extremely talented
film-makers were able to accomplish on a shoe-string budget (though it
helps to have the FX pros from STAR TREK ENTERPRISE over-seeing the
effects).[…]Watching the first two episodes of NEW VOYAGES makes you realize what
ENTERPRISE should have been: a return to the STAR TREK we all fell in
love with. Note to Paramount: It’s not too late.
God,I love "Deadwood." I liked the season premiere so much, I
immediately watched it again (or I was desperate to avoid getting back
to work on my book). If you ask me, "Deadwood" and "Battlestar
Galactica" …two revisionist "genre" shows…are the best dramas on TV
right now. A close third would be the more conventional but brilliantly
plotted "Law and Order: SVU."
I ran out of steam writing last night around midnight, but I was still too keyed up to go to bed. So I pulled out the second volume, season one boxed set of THE TIME TUNNEL and looked at a few of the extras. I’m not a fan of THE TIME TUNNEL and probably won’t watch the episodes. I bought the set for the two unsold revival pilots that are included — the unaired, 2002 hour-long THE TIME TUNNEL "reimagining" for Fox (which was flawed but interesting nonetheless) and the 1976 two-hour movie TIME TRAVELERS (which was awful in every way). The story for TIME TRAVELERS was written by Rod Serling, but I can’t imagine that any of his work remained in the execrable final product. There wasn’t hint of his intelligence, wit or characterization in the script.
THE TIME TUNNEL has a couple of nice extras but no effort is made to present them in any sort of context or with any kind of flair. The whole set feels perfunctory, slapped together with no imagination, creativity or enthusiasm. Which is, of course, the complete opposite of the DVD sets put together by Paul Brownfield.