Category: Opinion

Dennis O’Neil: Legends of All Time!

Featured_LegendsOfTomorrow

by Dennis O’Neil

In this metaphor, time is a liquid and so we find ourselves doing the breaststroke, swimming back, back until we surface until we surface and…

Where might we be? The air is crisp and clean, the ocean before us is deep blue, the whole world seems freshly minted… Oh, of course! We’re somewhere in the region that will come to be called Before the Common Era and we’re watching a group of alpha male-type gentlemen board a sailing ship. Ah, we have it now. The gents are Jason and his pals who will eventually be dubbed The Argonauts, which means that the ship is the Argo, built by a handy chap named Argus and protected by the goddess Hera. They’re preparing to voyage in quest of some golden fleece for reasons with which we need not bother. There we are – everything tied up in a neat package. Don’t you love it when that happens?

But while we were ogling the BCE version of celebrities, the metaphor morphed. What was liquid is now pages, some yellowed and curling, some clean and white and on those rapidly flipping pages… glimpses. There’s King Arthur and the roundtable bunch. (How do we know that this particular king is Arthur? Because we do, that’s how! Now hush.) And there’s Odysseus and his shipmates. And the four musketeers, who, for some reason, are hailed as the three musketeers. (Maybe the seventeenth century French dudes weren’t so good at counting?) And The Shadow with his helpers, and Doc Savage with his and – the pages are crisper and whiter – the Magnificent Seven and the Dirty Dozen and the Justice Society and the Justice League and the X-Men and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow… read article

Peggy Bechko’s Big 5 Writing Distractions

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by Peggy Bechko

Distractions. We writers all have them, right?

Well, of course other people have them as well, but we’re on TVWriter™ after all so we’re going to stick with writers. read article

What do your characters really, really, really want?

A casual but very important lesson in writing for the screen, whether that screen is big, small, or, you know, even smaller, from one of TV’s comedy writing masters:

by Earl Pomerantz

A while back, I mentioned the primary lesson I learned while attending “The Actors’ Workshop”, which I later applied – when I remembered to – to my writing.

The lesson involved the actor’s pre-determination of their character’s “intention.”  Before you begin, if you first identify your character’s – or characters’ if you are writing or playing numerous parts – intention, articulated in a single, declarative sentence, you are productively off to the races – completing the horseracing analogy – right from the starting gate. read article

John Ostrander: TV Superheroes Come and Go

by John Ostrander

Barbara-Gordon-Oracle(SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! Spoiler spoiler spoil spoil spoilery spoilers. I’m chatting this week about the events on some of the superhero TV shows last week. If you recorded them and intend to watch them later, give this a pass. Here endeth the warning.)

It was an interesting week in superhero TVland – specifically, DC superhero TVland. At least for me. I had a personal connection to some of them.

Arrow had a few events, some minor, one major. The character Felicity who is their computer geek expert recently got shot and it appears she has nerve damage to the spine and now has resumed her place with the team in a wheelchair. Sound like anyone we know? Yup – Oracle, whom my late wife and writing partner Kim Yale and I created from the remains of Barbara Gordon. Oh, they’re not calling her that but that’s who she is, wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more. read article

munchman: The Real X-Files Conspiracy

Mulder-and-Scully-the-x-files-79163_430_326by munchman

I love this idea about what was really going on between Mulder and Scully in the original X-FILES. Don’t know why. I just do:

…[T]he the only pseudoscientific conspiracy theory I’m interested in propagating is my longtime conviction that Mulder and Scully started fucking in the very first episode of The X-Files. I have fought about this with so many fellow nerds that I’ve basically adopted a “Don’t @ Me” policy in real life about it, like just accept and respect my beliefs, and I’ll do the same with yours. But. Ok. You know in the pilot episode when Scully thinks she’s been bitten by whatever thing they’re in the middle of nowhere investigating? I could look this up but I’m kind of enjoying doing this by memory. ANYWAY, she thinks she’s been bitten, and she knocks on Mulder’s door, and she’s wearing JUST A TRENCH COAT OVER HER BRA AND UNDERWEAR, and she SHOWS HIM JUST HER SHOULDER, and he TOUCHES THE BITE and SMILES and says “IT’S JUST A MOSQUITO BITE”? Like. I’m wet just remembering this. Are you telling me that they DIDN’T immediately have “wow I’m not going to die and I’m so relieved” sex right then and there?

–Haley Mlotek read article