SIX AND SEVENTH SEASONS WERE GOOD - JUST DIFFERENT FROM THE FIRST FOUR

More video. Just that kinda week I guess.


What they don't mention is that Arnold Vinick was originally supposed to win the election, but it was changed to Santos after the death of John Spencer because the writers felt that killing off McGarry and having Santos lose was too depressing.

So Obama needs to choose a running mate with a heart condition to ensure victory.

I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE

Two days later, I'm still not tired of this.

A DISPATCH FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION

I like mail. All my bills are automatic withdrawal, so I like mail. My Netflix comes in the mail. My Wired comes in the mail. My letter saying that my short script for the Rod Serling Short Feature Scriptwriting Competition made it to the top five came in the mail

By the end of the month, I should know if that can be further defined as 1st, 2nd, 3rd or nothing worth noting.

The final judging is done by Carol Serling. To me, that's just cool anyway.

I do so crave validation.

SILVER-LEAFED TREES AND A BURNT ORANGE SKY

That describes the planet of Gallifrey. The smell of Starbuck's and an intensely-patterned carpet describes the LAX Marriott where the annual Doctor Who convention, Gallifrey is held...and writerly goodness did lie within.

I am absolutely a geek of the uber-variety, as I affirmed to Emily the other day. Some days are geekier than others, but when I stumbled over this con two days ago, I had no intention of going until I noticed two names on the guest list. Paul Cornell and Steven Moffatt. Therein lies my true TV geekiness. When the writers of the three • best • things on TV last year turn up, I must go. And being that they're UK writers, I had to take the opportunity. Throw a discarded WGA picket sign in LA, and you'll hit someone that carried it, but you'll never hit those guys.

Both were the awesome sauce, especially as Cornell is a total fanboy at heart. He also writes for Marvel (wicked good stuff at that, go check out Wisdom (secret agents, winged punk fairies, alien John Lennon and no knowledge of Marvel anything required)).

Even better though, I had two unexpected meetings. One, the Mad Pulp Bastard himself, Bill Cunningham. We've exchanged emails, spoken on the phone even, but it was pleasantly random to just be walking along and there he is.

Two, Javier Grillo-Marxuach turned up, giving me the chance to chat him up about his new ABC Family series, The Middleman.

Disappointment: The dealer's room. Sparse to say the least. At best, I was hoping I might be able to find some British import TV. Even Region 2 (yeah, I hacked my region code), though I prefer R1 where possible. At worst, I was hoping I might be able up one or two of the old Doctor Who's on DVD. Who would have thought that you would scarcely be able to even get a Doctor Who episode at a Doctor Who convention?!?!

None the less, afternoon well-spent.

As was the day before, when I hit the Show Off Your Shorts Film Festival. There was a lot of...ummm...bad...in there, but there was Christopher Stack's An Exercise in Vigilance. Delightfully violent with a twist I wouldn't have seen coming with a pair of X11 Twist-Detecting Goggles. Also, ELI, an awesome and stylish scifi short starring a decidedly unaccented David Anders.

MUNCH ON THIS

There are space aliens in the same universe as Omar Little. The same FBI that wouldn't help McNulty close on 22 bodies, has an office on the basement where there have files on spooky goings-on. Files that start with an X. Let's not even mention what might happen if the Bluths went to B'mo.

There's been lots of cross-referencing between Homicide and The Wire. Some of those references drawing on real life. For instance, on Homicide, there was a character named Junior Bunk. On The Wire, Junior Bunk was mentioned in passing. However, the one referenced on The Wire might have been the real-life Junior Bunk, a figure in the history of Baltimore cri-- well, Baltimore.

Or maybe not.

Now, the biggest crossover you can get. John Munch on The Wire.

John Munch, the most-crossed-over character in all of television. Discounting any other scheme of connecting continuities and universes, he alone ties together a ton of series as happening in the same "world."

He's appeared on:

Homicide: Life on The Street
Law & Order
Law & Order: SVU
Law & Order: Trial By Jury
The X-Files
Arrested Development
The Beat
The Wire
Paris Enquêtes Criminelles

This directly connects him to Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Millennium and The Lone Gunmen. At least.

And I'm not even counting Sesame Street.

I tell you now, if I ever get the chance...if I ever manage to get on the staff of anything anywhere ever, I will do whatever I can in my meager power to get John Munch on that show.

And if he'd turned around in that bar...Meldrick?

FUNK TO FUNKY

Here, I'm going to say a lot of critical, negativish things about Ashes to Ashes, but if you don't make it to the the end, know that I still enjoyed the first episode and will likely enjoy the entire series, which could build into something unique. If it doesn't, big deal. S'fun.

I'd intended to be as objective as I can (though there is no earthly reason why I should have to be) and judge the Life on Mars sequel series, Ashes To Ashes, without comparison to it's predecessor. I was going to do that until the first words spoken in the show was almost, but not quite the preamble spoken by Sam Tyler at the beginning of each Life on Mars.

Where I thought this might just be the same premise and involving Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) and his crew again, but all with the setting of the eighties, and no so much a sequel as a companion, it's totally a sequel. D.I. Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes) has studies Sam Tyler and compares her situation to his repeatedly. Comparison was inevitable, but now it's just full-on invited. And in comparison, Ashes To Ashes is methadone to Life on Mars's heroin.

It's automatically going to suffer by not being the first. Life on Mars was fresh, but we come to Ashes to Ashes knowing, maybe, a little more than the timelost main character.

To a certain degree, it suffers in another way. While Life on Mars was a take on seventies cop shows (specifically The Sweeney, but we Americans have our own touchstones (Kojak, Starsky & Hutch) that aren't so far off), Ashes to Ashes is the same for the eighties. Dempsey and Makepeace is often cited, but again, Americans can find similarities to a bevy of eighties guns and jumping (less Miami Vice, more Hunter) shows. My problem. Looking back on (American) cops shows of the past, the ones from the seventies seem to stand-up a little better than most of the eighties ones. Looking at them as source material, Life on Mars got the better stuff.

Except -hey- not one but two Duran Duran songs and both used in action sequences. Maybe I should have expected them, but they came as a brilliant surprise.

The Pierrot clown, an obvious connection to the "Ashes to Ashes" music video (itself a product of the eighties (the medium, not just the video itself) and, apparently, the single sleeve, just seems a little too...well, a little too. It's a pale echo of the test card girl. And the song itself is a sequel of sorts and so the connective tissue is just too easy, but maybe they're forcing it.

And about Gene. He's still delightfully just wrong, but he's thisclose to being the out and out star of the show, and that's a problem. He's going from being contrast to being the hero. In the action stuff, they're shooting him like he's Sonny Crockett. He's so not. There was some hee-yahness wth a shotgun that even D.I. Drake called him on.

Also, not a huge Keeley Hawes fan. Don't hate her or anything, just...y'know. Would've liked somebody else. In just about everything I've seen her in.

Her character is cool though, a forensic psych type who's a bit cold with her daughter even after she almost saw her mum's brain's splattered from here to Brixton. She spends half the epsisode in undercover hooker gear, but still manages to do the authority thing pretty well. And yes, Hawes deserves some credit there. Still don't like her much.

It's also, for now anyway, trying have it's cake and eat it too. It's very existence rips some of the intentionally left mystery from the end of Life on Mars, but some remarks by Drake about her research on Tyler tries to open a different door entirely while also suggesting that she may be int he same predicament only because she knows about Tyler and his.

Her awareness, and thus easy acceptance, of her situation could grow tiresome if she keeps trying to game the situation as she did through the first episode.

I can't have more Life on Mars (barring the American remake, which has a nearly identical pilot script, but beyond th-- gah - that's a whole other post or six) and I didn't want any. It ended too well. But I'm not going to turn this down. It doesn't suck. It's fun. And the first series should last until we get our American TV back on.

To conclude the hard drug metaphor: It's not sweet lady H, but I'll take what I can get.

PUTTING THE HOUSE UP

Not for sale. No.

I'm letting my House spec out into the wild. Read it. Don't read it. Print it out and use it to make papier mache representations of the Belgian Parliament. Do what you will.

It was a finalist, I'm proud to say, in the Screenwriting Expo competition, landing in the top five one-hour scripts. And if you'd like to look at one of the other one-hour finalists, allow me to point you to Jane and her Ugly Betty script.

So grab it now if you want it. I might change my mind later. There. I gave you one. Got one for me?

HOUSE: "Two Certainties" - The IRS finds that House has been hiding an enormous amount of income and the reason he’s doing it may be the key to figuring out the source of what’s killing an dried-out rock star.

DOWNLOAD:
HOUSE: "Two Certainties"

AREA FIVE - CASTING NOTICE #1

So it begins.

The scripts have been completed for my six-part web series project for a little bit now. The illness and subsequent death of my friend, writing partner and professionally-trained sous chef ate into the production budget with medical bills, but I'm pressing forward. That's why the gods invented credit cards.

Area Five is, to put it simply, a cop show. Every episode is about 10 minutes and takes place entirely in the interrogation room, as seen through the station's video cameras. The main character is Luther Crump, a young African-American detective on the rise in the department with the highest homicide clearance rate in Area Five.* He frequently winds up dealing with the fallout from clashes between black and Hispanic gangs and...he's got a secret.

Area Five is so low budget, I'm calling it sub-budget, fortunately, the conceit of being shot through the room cameras lets me get away with a few things production-wise. The entire project is devised entirely around the use-what-you-have method. What I don't have are actors. Well, I got a couple. I need more.

This is the first of a few casting notices. Here's the deal. Listen up actors or people who know actors in the greater Los Angeles Southland area.

• The pay is a little less than scale. And by that I mean, nothing (save for buying the cast lunch for each shoot and a DVD copy of the completed series).

• Each actor's shoot will be done in one day. That day will be on the weekend.

• Each actor's shoot will be scheduled around them...on a weekend day. Nothing will be scheduled in February.
  

• If you've got some example of your work up on YouTube or something, that'll help, but it's not required.

The roles for this casting notice are:

LIZA CREADY - Female - young, trendy professional from a hip neighborhood, character arrested during a "zombie walk" so will appear in zombie make-up, she's a little drunk and an emotionally vulnerable individual who hides it well, up to a point. Some of the blood on her "costume" might not be fake.

McIRVIN SIMMS - Male - African-American, veteran of the first Gulf War, addicted to painkillers though he might have moved on to something harder. Gang-involved, but not actually a member. He's screwed up just about every opportunity he's ever had and is about to find out he's run out of opportunities altogether. He's got three bodies in his yard.

If interested, email me directly at m at redrighthand dot net.

*Area Five is the five-police-district section of Chicago that covers roughly the north/central part of town.