Author: LB

A legendary figure in the television writing and production world with a career going back to the late ’60s, Larry Brody has written and produced hundreds of hours of American and worldwide television and is a consultant to production companies and networks in the U.S. and abroad . Shows written or produced by Brody have won several awards including - yes, it's true - Emmys, Writers Guild Awards, and the Humanitas Award.

Current TV Shows LB is Now Giving Up

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by Larry Brody

The latest list of series I’ve recorded the latest episodes of but know damn well I’m never going to watch:

  • DOCTOR WHO
    When Russell T. Davies brought back DOCTOR WHO 10 years ago the Doctor was a hero who took as much delight in being in danger as he did in extricating himself and others from it. Under Steven the Imposter Moffat the Doctor became, first, a self-doubting human-like fool, and now, a true villain who destroys everyone with whom he comes into contact. I love Peter Capaldi as an actor but won’t watch the show again till the Moff’s been replaced by a real showrunner who knows what the gig’s all about.
  • BONES
    This cute romantic buddy show has aged into one in which star David Boneanaz has aged into a new personification of the role that made him famous. No, I don’t mean Angel from the show of the same name, I mean Angelous, Angel’s dark side. This is what happens to formerly nice people who become producers, whether they start out as actors, writers, or lovers.
  • THE LIBRARIANS
    I tried, really I did, but if I wanted insipid pseudo-science adventures about ancient, magical artifacts, I would have watched WAREHOUSE 13. And THE LIBRARIANS, unfortunately, is an even weaker version of the same premise, proving that TNT makes even worse sci-fi than SyFy.
  •  SCORPION
    The stupidity of this series’ action-packed yet purely technological MacGuffins and the absurdity of its premise that high I.Q.s are what define genius and all geniuses have the most obnoxious forms of Asperger’s Syndrome have combined over the past year and a half to create genius-level boredom. The show has been pure self-parody since halfway through the pilot, and although I wanted to believe that was deliberate, I’m sad to say that I can’t fool myself anymore.
  • NCIS
    I discovered NCIS while recovering from a heart attack and accompanying surgery. Now, after seeing almost 13 full seasons I finally have healed enough to realize that as much fun as this series’ ’70s TV-like presentation can be, its gung-ho chauvinism and repetition of the same 2 plots week after week have severed its spine…which ain’t easy considering that it was made of jello.

And here’s a special bonus disappointment currently on Netflix:

  • LAST TANGO IN HALIFAX
    This BBC loser started off as a serious drama about something to which I totally related: Romance and the rediscovery of what’s important in life at an age when most people are just sitting around and waiting to die. I identified with Derek Jocobi as the male lead, Alan (even though both the actor and the character are substantially older than I am), and my wife felt the same about Anne Reid’s female lead, Celia. But at this moment, with 3 episodes left to watch in the third series, I’ve had it with the weak, self-pitying men and strong but catastrophically rigid women. All the characters keep on making the same mistakes, over and over and over, and I’ve written – and maybe lived – enough soap opera to never be able to put myself in a place where I can enjoy it.

That’s it for now, kids. Off I go to spend a few pleasant moments of pushing, “Delete, delete, delete….” read article

Larry Brody Surfs the Interwebs

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by Larry Brody

 Most people these days haven’t seen much (any?) of my old TV writing or producing oeuvre, but even though TVWriter™’s readers may have missed my old HAWAII FIVE-O or FALL GUY or SILVER SURFER et al episodes, I still get much more eMail than I ever thought I would asking about various aspects of my life.

A common question is, “What on the internet interests you?” I have no idea why that’s such a big question, but there it is. So what better place to reply than here, on the very selfsame internet we all know and love.

Most of my internet time is professional, looking for TV writing related news and events and working on the various aspects of TVWriter™. But the web also works well as a substitute for my morning newspaper, and do a fair share of surfing around on it the same way I used to spend time flipping through pages of newsprint, to which, by the way, I’ve always been highly allergic.

My allergy free online mornings usually start with comic strips I’ve been reading for what seems like centuries. These include Boffo, Dilbert, Zits, Dick Tracy, Non Sequitur, Luann, Drabble, Doonesbury (Sunday only; the other days are re-treads), and the strip that seems to uncannily parallel events in my own life, Ballard Street. read article

TVWriter University November Schedule

No, not really TVWriter U. This is Harvard - which some folks think is almost as good.
Ah, the perfect campus. Too bad it’s not really TVWriter U but Harvard. OTOH, you can attend TVWriter U classes in PJs!

LB here to let everyone know what’s happening this month in TVWriter™’s online workshops.

This will be short, I promise. But it could be important. So:

ADVANCED TV AND FILM WRITING WORKSHOP

The 153rd 4 week online Advanced Workshop ended last week, and most of the happy students will be returning for the next one, which starts a week from today, on November 11, 2015. read article

Larry Brody: Scorsese, Winters et al take on the Golden Age of Rock in HBO’s VINYL

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by Larry Brody

But are they getting it right?

The club stuff looks accurate, but the rest? Feels to me like every other TV attempt to show the “real” music biz. My memory of that era is that everything – and I mean everything – took place in the dark. read article

Larry Brody sees CON MAN

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by Larry Brody

THE GOOD:

Everything

THE BAD: read article