So the writing kind of ground to a halt, for a variety of reasons. Chief among them being that nothing was quite firing right. I hate getting a block like that. It keeps me from wanting to consume new materials. Like the flood of preairs that hit the illicit distribution systems of late.
This is no longer the case, also for a variety of reasons.
Hellcat has been indefinitely shelved. Still brainstorming on one-act play ideas. Have had several that are perfectly viable, but for one reason or another just don't quite feel like what I want to write...at least right now. And the shooting of another episode of Area Five has been delayed. One I'm especially looking forward to, but it's also a break for the brain.
Then, I came across a challenging opportunity. Something in the realm of horror, which is not something I usually do. I'd like to come up with something classically gothic in nature but with some aspect of modern weirdness. It's a small thing so it's kinda backburnered for now.
In the meantime, I've been giving some thought toward a project I wanted to work on later. After Hellcat. I didn't think it was gonna quite fill the need I have write now for a fresh pilot, but some ideas began coming to me.
So on Saturday, the idea was sit down with some chili and get cracking on something, like a once over of the Dexter spec, making sure I hit the notes the astounding writer's group gave me when they covered it last month, and working on NBC/Universal program application materials. And that was done.
I decided to warm up by doing something uselessly creative, so I grabbed Steiny and fired up Garageband. The result, "Wiresnip" is not safe for human consumption, but then so are cigarettes and thiose make you look cool and all.
Then some more ideas for the next pilot just started showing up, and then...and this is when I knew that the next pilot was going to be the this pilot, more characters started talking to me. Ben Franklin had already been whispering to me. (Yes, thatBen Franklin). Then Sayf started talking to me. Then, the weirdest thing, Danny from Hellcat showed up with a case and a movie (Be Kind, Rewind, I liked it). Before I knew it, she had joined the cast of what I'm calling Black Ops.
It satisfies all my needs: Weirdness, violence, political maneuvering, outright lies, and a really nice house on the east coast.
I'm going to be writing two versions of it, for reasons I'll describe another time.
And somewhere in all that, my Pushing Daisies, I've decided, needs a massive overhaul.
Oh, and maybe some (p)reviews of some of those preairs later on, now that I've burned through them.
OK, totally misleading title, because I am by no means telling you that this is it. It's an impossible proposition. Whatever you say is automatically wrong, no matter what it is.
This is part of a little mini-meme Emily and I cooked up the other day after we went to see the likes of Jane Espenson and Amy Berg being awesome. We were talking about what the boredom-disc is for each of us. The movie that gets thrown in the player when something needs to be thrown in the player. You know the one. The one you can watch and watch and watch and never get tired of. The one you can have on all the damn time, as background or in paying full rapt attention.
To be perfectly honest, I'm more likely to go for a TV disc at any given time, but there are a couple of flicks that do get that dubious honor. One above all.
In her post, you'll see the laundry list of things that she just loves in a movie. Sort of an equation, if you will. And you get her answer. And we find that those things are reflective of the things you find in her writing and that which she likes most to write about.
I find the same reflection in my equation.
mindfucks + violence + social breakdown + delusional goals + a little out-of-the-box terrorism + random weird, but actual facts= Fight Club
THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS BATTLESTAR SPOILERS ONLY INSOFAR AS IT DISCUSSES SOMETHING THAT DID NOT HAPPEN IN "REVELATIONS"
There was a moment, while I was watching the finale that I thought that the Fifth Cylon was actually in this scene.
What's that you say? There are only three people in this scene? Tyrol, Saul and Anders? All of whom are already known as the Frakked Up Four? Yes. That's correct. There are only three people in this scene. And in this screencap. Yet, there was another Cylon there (to my mind). Plain as day.
Then I remembered that scenes in "Rapture," where D'Anna meets the Final Five in relig-o-rama vision (like the one below) render such as assumption as unlikely.
I have long been a fan of Katherine Heigl for, honestly, superficial reasons. I see no reason for that not to continue. I liked her in Roswell, however, as an astute observer may notice from its absence of mention on this website, I'm not a fan of Grey's Anatomy, despite several attempts to watch it. I just don't like it.
I do like Allan Heinbergthough. He of Gilmore Girls, The O.C., Young Avengers and Wonder Woman. It was a few weeks back at the Breaking Into The Box event at the Writer's Guild Foundation that he spoke candidly about some of the behind-the scenes actor/writer struggles on the show. He mentioned, for instance, how ridiculously close Meredith was to actually dying in that episode where she should have died. There was another Grey on hand at the time, so the title would still be fine.
He also expressed frustration with Patrick Dempsey's recent expression of frustration with the writers. I, in my uncalled-for opinion, find that such actorial whinging is unprofessional, especially when you're on a top rated series that has served as a springboard to relaunch your previously unremarkable film career.
Thus, I find Heigl's recent statement to be -- I don't even know what.
"I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination, and in an effort to maintain the integrity of the academy organization, I withdrew my name from contention."
Is there anyone she didn't insult in making this statement. Obviously, it's meant as a swipe at the writers, though I think that releasing the statement was just form. I think it would have been classier and the same message would have gotten out just by not putting forth her name. It would have been noticed and questioned and speculated about in the entertainment press and on the blogs and you know damn well that the same reasoning would have had out.
However, in her statement, she also, intentionally or unintentionally, slammed the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. This bothers me less. In suggesting that she has to "maintain the integrity" of the Academy by withdrawing from contention, she's basically saying that there is a real danger that she could win, despite the lackluster material she'd be FYC'ing. She's essentially saying that the award she already won once is worthless because it's a popularity contest and has nothing to do with talent.
That as may be. I'm happy when someone I like wins something, but for the most part I see the whole process as broken on the conceptual level. It basically asks everyone to compare apples and firetrucks and assumes that they have the knowledge to do so.
Not so much. And for this reason, these are the members of the Academy, people who are ostensibly involved in the making of TV shows and, as JossWhedon once said to me* "you can either watch TV or you can make TV." Really, do these people have the time to be aware and have watched everything worth watching?
Also, she didn't withdraw anything. You have to put your name into contention. So...there's that.
So, given that the writers have diminished her part in the last season and she's got a good movie career underway (no small thanks to the show she just dissed), I wouldn't think the writer's would have any problem continuing to not give her good material until her contract runs out or she quits. Additionally, even if she reversed herself and put something forward and had no competition to speak of (which she does), she's ensured she won't win anyway (because she's right, it is a political thing).
So what has she achieved, other than insulting a bunch of people for no good reason? *No, he really did . I love a good name-drop.
I'm fascinated by the many and varied dynamics of various writer's rooms and this piece runs down a few of them, in particular (for me) the unique facility of the House writer's room.
And if a writer's room actually looked like this one, there'd be work, wouldn't there?
I'm writing this because I just finished watching "Forest of the Dead," which I will not discuss because some people are a few weeks behind on this sort of thing. So in the name of "spoilers" there will be no spoilers. You'll get it when and if you see it.
I've always thought Steven Moffat was quite good. I enjoyed his structural adroitness in Coupling. Once I really got into Jekyll, I found it to be one of the best things I'd seen in all of 2007.
His Doctor Who's have been consistent favorites and he has not let me down, despite the massive anticipation built up when ever I see his name on the roster, and now, with his taking over the showrunnerish duties, there is very much the possibility of the best show I'll ever see in my life being on the horizon.
Well, honestly, there is always something better just beyond the curve of the universe, isn't there? When there isn't at least the possibility, it's time to turn off the lights, and shunt off. So, yeah, I'm overstating, but I like fucking overstating. It's a measure of my enthusiasm.
The cool thing is, there's still a lot of stuff of his I haven't seen. Some of it, I'm not sure I'd like, but I want to give it all a shot. I want to find his episodes of Murder Most Horrid. I think I may well order up the Joking ApartDVDs from Amazon UK. Used though. Ehn.
This man, however, has such a grasp of the amazing things that can be done with popular science fiction. Keep your sodding singularity shit to yourself, hardcore scifi-ists. I'm a character-comes-first guy and the things Moffat can do with the weird and the sublimely frightning is astounding.
If you have even an ounce, a cc, a cubic nanometer of love of scifi, of geekism, or enjoyment of solid TV writing, if you have all three of these in any measure or combination, I cannot stress enough how much you have to be watching this show. It's filled with creeps and joy and it's worth-- so worth slogging through the episodes that maybe don't quite click with you. There are two episodes since the new series began that I absolutely loathe. Go now to your Best Buy, you Netflix, whatever you've got and get that first disc of the first season. Whole different Doctor (Eccleston, you liked him on Heroes, right?) in that first year, but when you hit "Father's Day" and "The Empty Child," you'll start scratching the surface. There WILL probably be episodes you don't like. The show is versatile and can pull of having a massively different identity from one episode to the next, with the only real constant being the Doctor himself and there's even variances in that when a new actor comes in. So much a hero in a world overrun with anti heroes. And with his dark secrets nonetheless.
In fact, while I was writing this, I spoke with a friend in a far-off land and he told me his girlfriend had watched a Doctor Who, randomly, for the first time and didn't like it. Yeah, well if my first Battlestar was "Black Market" or my first Friday Night Lights was "Last Days of Summer," well...I would give it another one or two. Sampling data demands it.
You got a show you're thinking about stopping watching...? Replace it.
UPDATE: It just kinda hit me, about Moffat's sci fi stories. You know how sometimes, when you kill off a major character, that episode can me really strong, powerful...profound sometimes? Maybe it's just the license to break out of things because you're killing off someone. Image if you could get that kind of push from people living, being saved, even just guest characters, and you totally feel it. You just don't get that thrill from Buffy saving somebody from a random vamp or when Claire or Peter or whoever on Heroes-- Well, I don't even get that from Heroes, they seems to be saving or failing to save each other more often than not, but that's what it is. For me.
I'm totally swiping this from Warren Ellis. He got tagged with it by some Kid Shirt guy, but...whatever the fuck. It is as follows:
List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.
Dresden Dolls - "The Jeep Song" Dresden Dolls is the unofficial official band of Hellcat. I dream that when Hellcat is bought and shot as a pilot and picked up to series on Fox, that the Dolls will record the theme.
Portishead - "Silence" Really, the only track on the new album that reminds me of Portishead. Ten years between albums might not have served too well. This one, though, is classic Portishead.
Nine Inch Nails - "Demon Seed" Unexpectedly my favorite track on the new NIN. Some interesting lyrics, an odd mutating structure and an interesting deconstruction toward the end. And some nifty vocal effects. Yeah, I said fuckin' nifty.
Deftones - "The Chauffeur " Lately, the first thing I start playing whenever I pick up my guitar. Prior, it was the Doctor Who theme. Better than the original Duran Duran recording. Though, about even with the live version from Arena that has that rumbling bass piano in the beginning.
Nick Cave - "Dig, Lazarus, Dig" Just cuz it's weird. It's not not like his usual dreary tales of bloodletting. Which isn't to say that I'm not inordinately fond of those, as may well be obvious. This just has some kind of weird alternate version of the 70's vibe going on. It's like a world where Gerald Ford got a second term or something.
Nine Inch Nails - "35 Ghosts IV" There's just something crime-ridden about this. Like some New York cops that jack up a guy and wire him to nail some dealer. Except he's wired with an ocular implant and the the dealer is selling sex slave clones of Eva Mendes. Wait for the cop show guitar solo at the end.
So, I'm just gonna put up a piece of one of the things what I've been writing that's kept me from writing.
INT. INTERVIEW ROOM
There’s a laptop on the table displaying security cam video of the events in the Dunkin Donuts. Danny, however, never takes her eyes off McIRVIN SIMMS, Internal Affairs investigator (30s, rack-bought suit). He pauses the video at the point where we just left off.
SIMMS
You just happened to be wearing your kevlar?
DANNY
I’m a police, Simms, That’s something we do sometimes. Shouldn’t you know that?
SIMMS
A plainclothes? With no bulletins, no departmental order to wear--
DANNY
What’s the big complaint when we get ordered to wear the vests?
SIMMS
No. This is where I ask and you answer--
DANNY
--Just - what is it?
SIMMS
Hot. They’re hot.
DANNY
What’s the temperature outside?
Simms sighs and drops back in his chair.
DANNY
Yeah. January in Boston. I get to be warm, look good and be bulletproof all at the same time. Next question?
SIMMS
I already asked it. What happened to Gavin Hewson?
Danny hits the play button with irritated force.
DANNY
Watch it for the 200th time. He came down with an acute case of fire.
So the writing kind of ground to a halt, for a variety of reasons. Chief among them being that nothing was quite firing right. I hate getting a block like that. It keeps me from wanting to consume new materials. Like the flood of preairs that hit the illicit distribution systems of late.
I have long been a fan of 
Here's a fun thing that was in the NY Times.
I've always thought 
