PILOT (P)REVIEW: JERICHO

So. Jericho. Not bad.

The logline: A small Kansas town is thrown into chaos after a nuclear disaster cuts off all power and communication with the outside world.

Here's the thing. I wasn't familiar with Stephen Chbosky's writing before this, so I was going entirely off of previews going into this. I didn't expect to like this much. In fact, I expected to just aimlessly click on some bookmarks or start thumbing through some comics while I was watching this and then by the end of act two not even be paying attention anymore.

Didn't happen.

Though there hasn't been much of a show like this on TV, it just felt like an idea I'd seen before. In fact, I'm fair sure two (not one, two) of the Slamdance teleplay finalists touched on this last year, so maybe this is a matter of the idea finally getting to the pint where it has to happen just so the pitches stop. (I call this the vampire western paradigm, based on comments from a producer who was talking about pitches she gets and had mentioned that every other pitch she hears seems to be a vampire western and that it was a good way to get on her bad side. I thought to myself, if this idea is so prevalent, maybe someone should make it...at the very least, it will kill all the other vampire western pitches.).

It starts off a little slow as Jake (Skeet Ulrich), son of the mayor (Gerald McRaney), returns to town for the first time in years. He's our introduction to most of the town. He's also a bit of a screw-up, so you immediately know this will be a tale of his redemption. It was looking bad to me, predictable. And to be honest, some of this is very much by the numbers of what you would expect from the premise, but credit goes to a couple of clever reveals, like the one that indicates the scope of whatever-has-happened.

And that's what it is. Whatever-has-happened. The viewer is in pretty much the same boat as the everybody-knows-everybody townsfolk. Everybody knows everybody except Rod Hawkins (Lennie James), who claims to be a former cop and wants to lend a hand, and he does so effectively. There must be something wrong with him. There's a strong possibility of it in fact, but I think it might be some misdirection. I'm hoping it is.

It seems to me that this is going to explore some of the ideas of the first season of Lost, but in an entirely more reasonable manner. That of redefinition, of the self and of a mini-society. The whatever-has-happened could well be a big reset button for all the citizens of Jericho and not entirely unwelcome to some of them. It's still a world we don't much know (unless you lived though Gulf War III, in which case there may be some familiar things in this for you), but there aren't secret organizations and black cloud monsters.

I'm down for this one until they give me a reason not to be. That could just as easily be episode 2 as episode 22.

The characters all feels like very familiar archetypes and there isn't anything in the pilot to suggest it may go otherwise. The writing doesn't have any particular pop to it or a real sense of voice, so this is clearly going to go from ep to ep in quality, I think. If they don't play dumb, it could really become something.

Will it last? I don't know, it might be a little too sedate to really grab a big crowd, but it's up against Bones, a sitcom block and some reality crap and it leads into Criminal Minds, with which it may be a nice match.

JAMES CAMERON'S AQUAMAN MAY HAVE PULLED IN $116M, BUT STUFF THIS IN YOUR SNORKEL AND...DO SOMETHING WITH IT

Someone is thinking. Someone is using the new media. Someone is realizing that money blown on a pilot doesn't have to be money thrown away when it's not picked up.

The passed-over CW pilot for Aquaman has turned up on iTunes. And not as the (mis-titled) Mercy Reef. It says Aquaman in big blue letters. Does what it says on the tin.

While I think the pilot is intriguing (more than I thought it would be), but somewhat flawed, I think it's a brillant move on the part of Warner Bros. And, objectively speaking, I think that paired with Smallville, this would probably be a solid performer for the network. It's a lot better than most unpicked-up pilots I've seen.

This, I think, has all kinds of implications that should be patently fucking obvious.

Too little, too late for my poor Global Frequency.

PILOT (P)REVIEW: HEROES

A little spoilery, but not much.

You know how Lost spawned all these other series that tried to kinda get the same vibe going on? Large casts, sci-fi elements, big complicated arcs? You know how every single one of them, last year, failed?

This year, there's another one. Heroes. And this pilot blows the ones from last year clean out of the water. The idea here is that certain people around the globe are developing super-powers. Some have likened it to the X-Men. That is an incredibly off base comparison.

Right from the first, you know you're in for something big. A text scroll that ends with..."This is Volume One of their epic tale." This gets me a little concerned, come out of the gate and promising some gigantic arc that you plow right into can lead to heartbreak when it gets totally Reunion-ed. You know, though, you can't hit hard eight if you never throw the dice.

Tim Kring has built a solid pilot that runs a little long (thus, I expect when it airs you might want to make sure you're TiVo is ready to run past the hour), and apparently there's an even longer version. There's a lot of characters to balance, and while it's a little bit uneven on giving each character their due, it's not egregious or anything and it just makes me want to see more of the series. Especially Claire, Hayden Panettiere's weary cheerleader (which she totally nails from her impatient finger snapping to her matter-of-fact manner) and Masi Oka's time and space bending salaryman geek.

Oka's appropriately named Hiro is very much the comedic relief. His fellow wage slave humors his pals insane-sounding claims that he can screw with time and space with challaenges like the one Hiro considers in the photo below. He is also the voice of wonder. Clearly a fan of sci-fi with many allusions to Star Trek, Hiro waxes iconic on the responisibility of a super-hero. One might not be entirely surprised if he took to wearing a cape. It wouldn't last, but he might try it.


Yeah, bending of time and space. You get a nice array of powers going on. You get some basics, like invulnerability and flight, and some interesting ones...like the guy that paints scenes that have yet to happen (and just might only be able to do it when he's hopped up on smack). And Ali Larter's Niki has a power that isn't entirely clear yet.

Like Lost, Heroes features a lot of character's crossing paths without actually being a regular part of each others lives. Clearly, there is something big at work here bringing people together. Questions are raised, but not on the massive scale of Lost. Keeping itself from getting too bogged down in it's own puzzles will be the key to the success of this series, I think. A balance between whatever large arc may be going on and each episode having a clear identity is what I want to see. A focus character in the A-plot and arc winding through the B-plot.

See how I keep mentioning Lost there. So what does it say that former Lost producer Jeph Loeb is over at Heroes now. This is such a good thing, because not only does he have that experience in this peculiar modern TV genre that has emerged, he's also done Smallville and he's a renowned writer of comics, the big guns, Superman and Batman. He knows super-powers inside out and can bring his experience to bear on this exploration of super-powers in something much closer to the real world than you get from an X-Men flick or an episode of Smallville.

Kring, of course, created Crossing Jordan, which has stood the test of several seasons now and is generally a well-written crime and personal relationships show. Loeb, as outlined above, is on board. Also on this program is Bryan Fuller. You know. Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me , Amazing Screw-On Head (which you must absolutely click on that link). He even did some decent Trek.

This pilot deserves your attention, without a doubt, and given the people signed on to this thing after the pilot was shot, you can't not go for a few more episodes just to see how stuff shakes out. I don't see it as a break-out hit, but it does look good.

More pilot (p)reviews to come.

SOUND FAMILIAR?

Vuja De: The feeling that none of this has happened before. -George Carlin

So, network passes on pilot. Pilot escapes into the wilds of the internet and finds its audience. Network realizes mistake and utilizes opportunity. [Nobody's Watching]

Exactly the thing the WB didn't do when this scenario happened a year ago. [Global Frequency]

Still irritates the fuck out of me.

MFE: THE WEST WING: "Pilot"

Most Fucking Expected?

Yes, but also...My Favorite Episodes.

Aaron Sorkin. Oh, yeah. You knew it was probably going to happen, and it's probably going to happen again, but it's appropriate to something that might be seeing an uptick in TV spec'ing.

I'm not going to get into recapping the episode, go HERE for that. Anyone interested in writing good TV needs to look at this episode of the series, at the very least. If you can't separate your politics from your entertainment or whatever other reasons there might be to not watch The West Wing, you must watch this pilot...and all the way through, lest you miss one of the best entrances in TV history.

Here's something that, these days, is very unique in one-hour drama pilots. It's a total day-in-the-life pilot. As we meet the Bartlet Administration, they've already been in office for a year and a half. What's more, there isn't one of those crutch characters (the new guy) who the audience is supposed to identify with and follow through the episode as an introduction to the cast and the premise (and a nod to CSI: Crime Scene Investigation for handling that pilot convention beautifully...and fatally). Many pilots are origin stories (a virtual necessity in the post-24 arc shows) or some kind or mark a significant change in the show's world that becomes our entry point. The Closer, Lost, or Moonlighting (to a large degree) are examples of the former. Gilmore Girls, My Name is Earl, or even Sorkin's upcoming Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (though perhaps arguably) represent the latter.

In this post-24 world, a lot of the hot shows have huge arcs and feature massive changes with some frequency. It's been noted by agents and writers alike that the current landscape is peculiar for specs. The hot shows aren't the most spec friendly. You could write a Lost, but if your main character was Ana-Lucia or Libby or Shannon this year, you got boned. And it'll probably happen again. What can you do for 24? It'll show you can start a story, or end one...or maintain something in progress, but 24's are generally not all that self-contained and the cast can, again, change radically. Desperate Housewives has lost some of it's cache, so now things are starting to spread out some. Is there really a hot spec at the moment? (Criminal Minds seems to be popular, but seriously, I want to know). This may change come fall. I expect Studio 60 will be hot. I imagine something else might emerge.

Because of this, more writers are turning to pilots and so are more readers. It's been building for years, and for many reasons, but a good pilot is something a TV spec'er should have on hand, to compliment your array of specs and to show off your own voice when called upon. There are producers who want to see original work. So, if you pilot-up, you need to decide...what kind of beginning are you going to use?

As I said, arc-ish stuff pretty much demands the "fresh start" approach. You're going to see it Heroes this fall. Similarly, it was in The 4400. My own pilots have an arc in mind, but I tend to go more on the X-Files model, or the Veronica Mars. Stand alones and arcs. Sometimes both in one episode. Probably for the reason, I have been driven to the beginning of the story.

I wrote one day-in-the-life, sort of. It was called The Ice and it's fairly unfilmable, as it is set at McMurdo Station in the Antarctic. I knew that when I wrote it, but I wanted to get it out of my head. It had a crutch character who was coming to work at McMurdo for the first time. She was my way to get some exposition out. My thing with her is that she had problems getting there and never actually set foot in McMurdo until the last page.

It would have been easy for Sorkin to start The West Wing on January 20th and go from there, if you know what I mean, but I think he knew exactly what he was doing (and so should you). With that 18 month buffer, he could build in backstory as needed and it eventually allowed for the right story to be told at the right time. "Debate Camp" showed us the days immediately before and after Bartlet's inauguration. "Access" also went back to the early days of the administration and "In The Shadow of Two Gunmen" went back to the campaign.

Maybe in your pilot you'll want to start from the ground up (though there is always some level of backstory you can mess around with). It's your call. That's the best thing (and most daunting thing) about a pilot. Everything is your call. Everything.

One day, I'm going to write a pilot about an actual pilot. Didn't Flying High do that?

GREG RUCKA AT CBR

Clickedy.

OOH EEE OOH AH AH

Hollywood Reporter, this morning, squared this little nugget away at the back of a general NBC/Universal story.

Sci Fi is developing Witch Doctor, a dramedy from Ben Edlund that mixes the worlds of medicine and the supernatural with "warm human comedy."

This can only rawk. That's Ben Edlund, creator of The Tick, former of Firefly, The Inside and Angel (where he wrote "Smile Time"). He's got a Venture Bros this season, I think. And he's one of the staff of the best series to not happen (and Warner Brothers biggest failure to pick up sure cash for something they spent money on already anyway (by not throwing this thing on a DVD)), Global Frequency.

This is one of those why-didn't-I-think-of-that great ideas and in so the right hands.

THE OTHER EMMY AWARDS NOMINEES

Not so much Emmys as M-ies.

The ones that exist only my little world where my only consideration is that I remember these being really kewl. That's the word we use here. Kewl. Not "important" or "well-crafted" and whatever. Just...kewl. (Spelled that way becuase it's said that way).

So, for Kewlest Writing In Drama...

24
"6:00 A.M. - 7:00 A.M."
Robert Cochran

Battlestar Galactica
"Pegasus"
Anne Coffell Saunders

Doctor Who
"Father's Day"
Paul Cornell

Rescue Me
"Sensitivity"
Denis Leary and Peter Tolan

Veronica Mars
"Donut Run"
Rob Thomas

The West Wing
"The Last Hurrah"
Lawrence O'Donnell, Jr.

There were serious contenders from House, The Shield, and Lost. And there's some stuff I like, but didn't really watch...waiting for DVD's instead, but honestly, I don't think any of those were going to make it. Sopranos was never in it for me.

A note on the Doctor Who selection. I'm adhering to the ATAS rules somewhat (American broadcast, etc), so while I'd be inclined to nominate "The Girl in the Fireplace" (not an episode of Bones) from the current (UK) season, I'm going to go with the season that just aired on Sci-Fi. I think something like this happened with The Office from the BBC.

And my choices for comedy...

Gilmore Girls
"Friday Night's Alright for Fighting"
Amy Sherman-Palladino

My Name is Earl
"Stole Beer From A Golfer"
Michael Pennie

The Office
"Dwight's Speech"
Paul Lieberstein

Scrubs
"My Half-Acre"
Bill Callahan

Scrubs
"My Way Home"
Neil Goldman and Garrett Donovan

Though of the ones actually nominated in those real world Emmys (which I'm only inclined to acknowledge when I like the outcomes, but it's just suck a political, skewed crap-shoot, so...), If it were my pick, I'd go with, for drama, either Six Feet Under or Lost. I'd flip a coin on it. So different. And I'd kinda grown weary on SFU. For comedy, The Office. I just like it. And that's the rules 'round here. The shit I like.

Which of my choices will win? My rules say I don't have to pick one, so...

THIS IS WEEKEND UPDATE, I'M TINA FEY

Not even fucking close.

It is, however, an actual weekend update of sorts. Here's the links to my reports on the Heroes Con comic convention in Charlotte, North Carolina which was...this past weekend.

Yes, I am one of those comic book types, but then so is Law & Order:SVU and Numbers writer Christos Gage, who I had a great conversation with on Friday. Also, Warren Ellis, who has a show in development for AMC and was kind enough chat about TV (over a great meal at The Capital Grille with myself and four friends o' mine (yeah, I keep a few on a payroll (parentheses within paretheses within parentheses)), great food under creepy paintings of old dudes) and to recommend me a show from the UK I hadn't seen yet (which maybe I'll write about here after I watch them).

Anyway, links.

Day One

Day Two

Day Three