Are these the ultimate BREAKING BAD fans? Better give Walt whatever he wants for Halloween because we know what he’s capable of these days:
Think TV Doesn’t Have a Big Influence on Kids?
Tag: TVWriter™
How “High Concept” Does Your Concept Have to Be?
No point in guessing. Just compare it to the premises for the shows below. Remember, regardless of what their ultimate fates may be, all these shows had premises that got them to the starting line…and scripts that took them beyond:
The Premise-O-Meter: Ranking the New TV Dramas – by Margaret Lyons (Vulture.Com)
Kathy sees CRIMINAL MINDS: “The Silencer” (8.1)
Admittedly showrunner/episode writer Erica Messer had her work cut out for her in the Season 8 opener. In 43 minutes she had to: introduce a new character, give the character some “character,” tie her into two existing characters, write a solvable crime, show what the existing characters did on summer vacay, plant the seed for a series-long criminal arc keep existing viewers happy/interested while intriguing new viewers so the suits upstairs would be, like, WTG Criminal Minds. Yes, that was a ridiculous run-on sentence, which is kinda what this episode felt like–the run-on sentence from hell that would make your high school English teacher break out in hives.
I would love to coherently recap the actual crime our intrepid profilers “solved”, however I’d have to watch it three more times, and this ep doesn’t warrant a repeat viewing. As usual the actors were great–they always are on this show–but from a writing perspective, I found “The Silencer” difficult to follow, full of exposition, way too much dialogue for normal people (unless they have Red Bull intravenously fed through them every half hour) and an ending that was supposed to be creepy, but just wasn’t.
Maybe I’m jaded. Maybe after seven seasons I can’t help but see the formula seeping through the show. Maybe Messer was trying to cram too much into one episode, which ended up dulling the impact of this week’s criminal mind. I don’t know. I’m not ready to give up on this show…but I’m not lowering my expectations, either. And–this is important–neither should you.
Garry Marshall on Rewriting
A big tip of the TVWriter™ hat to screenwriter-blogger Scott Smith for reminding us this great book exists:
Offensive & Defensive Screenwriting (Tip #62) – by Scott W. Smith
“The biggest lesson a screenwriter can learn is how to master a rewrite of his own script, or someone else’s, and make the change a studio wants without destroying the story. It’s like a football game: If you think of writing an original screenplay as ‘offensive’ creativity, then rewriting is all about ‘defensive’ creativity.
What’s Up With Inequality?
Hey! It’s that time of the year again!
You know what time I’m talking about! The week to two weeks that every major organization tracking gender diversity in theatre/television/film creation releases their terrible statistics on how few women and people of color are making their way to the top of their profession so we can write angry blog posts about it for a week and then go back to business as usual!
