My Blog

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.

Monk Envy

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My latest Natalie Blog is now up at the USA Network’s Monk site:

In some ways, I envy Mr. Monk. He has direction in his life. He
knows who he is, what his talents are, what he was put on this earth to do. He’s
known since he was a kid.

Monk was born to be a detective. And he’s brilliant at it.

I’m not sure what I was born to do, what I’m good at, or where my life is
going. I’m sure there are other people like me, but I still feel like the only
one who didn’t arrive with pre-installed software.

When are they going to do the MANIMAL movie?

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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.

Washington Post on SIMPLIFY

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The Washington Post has reviewed my brother Tod’s short story collection SIMPLIFY. They like it. Sort of.

By contrast, the guys in Tod Goldberg’s Simplify
(OV Books; paperback, $14.99) are too busy reeling from various blows
— terminally ill fathers, suicidal sisters, lost brothers — to
reinvent themselves. Many of these stories slide off in surreal
directions as they map their characters’ psychic turmoil. In "Comeback
Special," a man whose wife has left him for his best friend finds that
a photo of Elvis (from his 1968 comeback concert) cries blood and even
changes costumes. The ensuing media circus helps the story maintain its
amusing tone, but it’s not grounded enough in the man’s life to have
much effect on the reader.

Goldberg takes similar risks in other
stories, with mixed results. The narrator of "The Distance Between Us,"
who slowly reveals that his misunderstood brother was a serial killer,
is genuinely affecting in his grief, but the premise ends up feeling
far-fetched.

Goldberg’s best stories are told in retrospect, as
if the narrators need psychic distance to fashion their memories in the
most potent form. My favorite is "The Living End," a haunting account
of the summer of 1973, when the narrator’s older brother returns from
Vietnam with strange scrapes and bruises; the story becomes a mystery
that involves the abduction of a Native American girl across the
street. This story has a stable nuclear family at its center — not
stable enough, however, to stave off the enormous forces that conspire
to destroy its children.

 

The Storm over Quiet Storm

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Yet another print-on-demand press has abruptly folded. The latest casualty appears to be Quiet Storm which, according to several outraged authors, has suddenly stopped delivering pre-paid orders for books, paying royalties and answering inquiries.

This leaves authors with books in the Quiet Storm pipeline in limbo, unsure if or when they will get the rights to their unpublished manuscripts back. This is an awful situation to be in — sadly, I know from personal experience when, twenty years ago, the original incarnation of Pinnacle Books went under, taking my royalties and one unpublished manuscript down with them.

I feel terrible for these authors, many of whom are friends of mine, but their unfortunate plight should be a warning to anyone still considering getting into business with a so-called P.O.D. "publisher" (especially those that began as a vanity enterprise for the  "editor/publisher" which, in the case of Quiet Storm, was author Clint Gaige). Most of these are shaky operations at best, with little or no retail distribution.

If you’re considering signing with a P.O.D. press:  reconsider.

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.