My Blog

Maintaining Integrity

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Here are a few more true stories from my experiences in TV land ( I’ve mentioned these here before in the early days of this blog)…

Before starting a pitch,  I like to ask the execs what they are looking for. At a recent meeting at a network, the exec said: 

“We’re
wide open,” she said. “The only things we don’t want to hear are cop
shows, science fiction shows, anything set in the past, military shows,
buddy detectives or stuff with monsters.”

I could think of only one genre she left out. “What about a medical show?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “We don’t want those, either.”

* * * * * *

We were writing our first episode of a detective series. We turned
the script in to the network executive for his notes. The first note
was in scene one, act one.

“The hero doesn’t know what’s going on,” the executive said.

“That’s right,” I replied. “Because it’s a mystery.”

“You can’t do that,” the executive said. “The hero should be ahead of the story.”

“Ahead of the story?” I asked. “What does that mean?”

“The hero should know,” the executive said.

“Know what?” I replied.

“Everything,” The executive said.

“But
he just arrived at the scene,” I said. “He’s taking his first look at
the body… and you want him to already know everything?”

“Is he a
hero or a complete moron?” The executive asked. “Nobody wants to watch
a show about a guy who’s lost, confused, and stupid.”

“It’s a mystery and he’s a detective,” I said. “He’s going to show us how smart he is by solving the crime.”

“If he was smart,” the executive said, “he wouldn’t have to solve it. He’d already know.”

“So what’s the mystery?” I asked.

“There isn’t one,” the executive said.

“So what’s our show about if there’s no mystery to solve?”

“You tell me,” the executive said.  “You’re the writer.”

* * * * * *

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.”

Uh-Oh Seven

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Shortly before the Oscars, screenwriter Paul Haggis talked to MTV’s Kurt Loder about scripting the upcoming 007 film CASINO ROYALE.

Loder: Were you called in to be a script doctor for the upcoming Bond movie, "Casino Royale"?


Haggis: Yeah. They sent me a script, a very good script, and
asked me to think about the character and re-conceive the character of
James Bond. I took 10 weeks on that.


Loder: How is this film going to be different than the 1967 original?


Haggis: It will be completely different, I think. You know, it
takes James Bond from the very first Ian Fleming book, "Casino Royale,"
when he becomes James Bond — when he gets his "Double 0"
status, which means he has two kills, and therefore has his license to
kill. But all the bells and whistles, all the things that Q used to
give him, the gadgets, those are all gone. So you deal with the
character as an assassin and what it feels like to be an assassin. And
I ask the question, "Why does he treat women the way that he treats
them?"

So I’ve either helped to re-energize this series, or I’ve just ruined James Bond for everybody forever.

I don’t want to pre-judge the film, but I’m a major James Bond fan. What’s the point of doing a James Bond movie if the character isn’t James Bond? Isn’t the fun of a James Bond film seeing Bond be  Bond? I hope they don’t screw it up (then again, it couldn’t be any worse than A VIEW TO A KILL, by far the worst 007 movie yet)(then again, look how reimagining BATTLESTAR GALACTICA created something far better)(then again, the original BSG was crap, so it would be hard NOT to improve upon it)

Abbott Not Panicking

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The movie adaptation of Jeff Abbott’s PANIC is moving along at a nice clip.  Richard Regen is writing the script  and Richard Shepard, who helmed the Pierce Brosnan movie THE MATADOR, will direct. I thought MATADOR was great, but all I know about Regen is that he worked on the short-lived UPN series SECRET AGENT MAN.

Lipstick Chronicles Finally Lives Up to Its Name

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Author Sarah Strohmeyer talks about what she used to do for her husband all the time…but isn’t doing much lately.

I am speaking, of course, of that act one does for another in which
most of the sexual gratification goes to one partner. Oh, sure, you can
argue there’s some satisfaction for the provider. But let’s be honest.
One half gets all the treats. That’s why they call it a job.

When my husband and I were dating, I would impulsively perform this
act wherever, partially for the thrill of seeing the pure shock on his
chiseled face. Here he was, Ohio born and raised, an active member of
the Episcopal Church, a graduate of a staid all-boys school, and I was
doing this to him in a parking lot! The woods in broad daylight! On
Shaker Boulevard!

And he never had to ask. It just happened. I was like the magic girlfriend. Yippee!

In fairness, I never promised that this would be a permanent part of
our relationship. But was I going to point this out when he slipped
onto my finger a diamond-and-emerald ring with gold filigree (that he
designed)? Hell no.

This anecdote prompted author Harley Jane Kozak to reveal:

My husband, when we were dating, came to see me in Lincoln, Nebraska,
where I was doing a play one summer. I took him to Lincoln’s landmark
building, the state capitol, AKA "The Penis of the Plains" . . . and in
view of its nickname, and because we found a hallway on a floor that
seemed to have no occupants …

I can’t wait for more blow-by-blow accounts.

Lots of TV News Today

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Variety reports that CBS has given early renewals to GHOST WHISPERER, HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, CRIMINAL MINDS, NCIS, COLD CASE, WITHOUT A TRACE, NUMBERS, TWO AND A HALF MEN, THE AMAZING RACE, SURVIVOR, and all three CSIs for next season. None of those pick-ups are surprises, what’s news is that CBS decided to make those decisions so early. Typically, networks wait another two months before making those announcements. The fates of COURTING ALEX, STILL STANDING, CLOSE TO HOME, KING OF QUEENS, 48 HOURS, and YES DEAR are still up-in-the-air. LOVE MONKEY is a dead monkey and there are a handful of show mid-season shows set to premiere in the coming weeks.

NBC has officially cancelled BOOK OF DANIEL, which they yanked a few months ago after just three episodes. The lesson I’ve learned from this is not to do a series featuring Jesus as a character (thus forcing me to scrub my terrific pitch JESUS P.I.).

TNT has canceled WANTED but picked up SAVED to pair with CLOSER or THIEF. The lesson I’ve learned from this  is that TNT wants more one-word titled shows.  Two other pilots are still in contention: TALK TO ME and GRACE. My money is on GRACE (If I were the producers of TALK TO ME, I’d quickly retitle it TALKER).

HBO has renewed DEADWOOD for a fourth season before the third has even aired. The lesson I’ve learned from this is that the fucking execs at fucking HBO can do whatever the fuck they want and buy the fucking shows that they fucking enjoy (and that I fucking enjoy, too).

UPDATE 3-8-06:  TV Critic Aaron Barnhart reports on his blog that CBS has axed "King of Queens," "Still Standing," and "Yes, Dear" and new shows
"Close To Home" and "Out of Practice."

Boy, the way they’re wrapping up
CBS’s business, you’d think Les Moonves and company had another network
to run.

“Ang Lee also directed The Hulk, which is odd because Ang Lee has never been a green monster…”

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My brother Tod tackles one of the dumbest questions ever posed to Letters to Parade, from Peter Jones of New York City:

"Brokeback Mountain’s Ang Lee is the favorite to win an Oscar for Best
Director. How did a Chinese person gain such an
understanding of homosexual American cowboys?"

Among Tod’s many observations:

1. Ang Lee also directed the Civil War film Ride With The Devil (based
on a great novel by Daniel Woodrell, incidentally), which is pretty
surprising because Ang Lee isn’t a Civil War vet and, in fact, lived
part of his life in Pinko China, and, I’m fairly certain, never once
listened to a 38 Special album and thought about how cool it would be
to grow up in the old South, where he would have been lynched. At any
rate, the pop singer Jewel co-starred in Ride with the Devil and her
longtime beau is cowboy Ty Murray. Perhaps one drunken night on the
range turned into a sexual bacchanal. Perhaps Ty rode Ang like a
bucking steer. Perhaps Ang woke one morning with a longing for the feel
of a rawhide saddle and the touch and feel of a man. Perhaps he read
the fucking short story.

The Oscars

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There was a big article by Patrick Goldstein in yesterday’s LA Times talking about how viewership for the Oscars has dwindled over the years.

The hissing you hear is the air going out of the Oscars’ balloon. The
usual aura of Academy Award anticipation dissipated weeks ago. Wherever
I went last week, the talk was about how bad the ratings would be.

He put the blame on the fragmentation of the viewing audience — distracted by 500 satelite channels, iPods, DVDs, xboxes, the Internet, even books —  and on the poor quality of theatrical movies lately. I have a more radical view. People have stopped watching the Oscars because it’s an incredibly dull show with virtually no entertainment value…even when fast-forwarding through most of it (thank the Lord for Tivo).

The opening skit was fun and it went downhill from there. That said, it was nice to see so many "TV faces" among the winners and nominees. I’m sure Paul Haggis, when he was writing WALKER TEXAS RANGER and DUE SOUTH, never imagined he’d be getting an Oscar for best picture…or that Dan Futterman, while toiling as an actor on JUDGING AMY, envisioned being nominated for an Academy Award for his first screenplay.

CRASH getting best picture was certainly a surprise… as was best song going to "It’s Hard for a Pimp" instead of the safe, middle-of-the-road, crowd-pleaser sung by the robot that vaguely resembled Dolly Parton (Dustin Hoffman looked more like Dolly Parton).

I’ll stop there. If you really want to low-down, check out Ken Levine’s hilarious Oscar wrap-up:

Leave it to a writer to show up in jeans.