THINGS IN MY BRAIN

• Halfway through a full-on screenplay. Not a teleplay. A screenplay. The management team...Team Sullivan...yeah they don't really say that, but I'm not opposed to it...they want a screenplay to flog. I've been reluctant. I don't think that way. Never quite had the right idea that could be done in that form, but now I do. As for it's marketability...I don't think about the market, but there might be some confusion when it goes into the Hollywood sorting hat. It's weird how sometimes it seems that TV shows can be more difficult to categorize (thought it faces the network brand issue (I'll have a post about that eventually) but films it seems have to fit into more rigidly shaped holes, despite that they exist in and of themselves, not as part of a programming block.

• Rewriting the Fringe spec based on some really awesome notes in the in-between spaces of the screenplay. Though the screenplay is flowing well enough that there haven't been a lot of those. Whatever still needs doing after first draft will be done, to clear the screenplay from my head before a draft review.

• The Area FiveThree Four pilot lies in wait. Not a priority at this time, letting the draft sit for a while.

• Some other pilot season action may be afoot. That's all I'll say of that.

• Hit a lot of TV commentaries of late. The Leverage commentaries work on a number of levels, the writing approach, lots of tech discussion as well, but there's always someone in the commentary who sounds like there weren't enough mics t go around. Dollhouse commentaries are also great, as any with Joss Whedon are. He's entertaining and informative and open about network issues. Wish they'd taken some time to do Torchwood commentaries for Children of Earth. Still on the docket: The Middleman, Mad Men 2, Pushing Daisies 2.

• Came up with a wicked Dollhouse spec idea. That I'll probably never write. I don't think it's a productive use of writing energy to execute a spec that has a low probability of being read. Though it's worth noting that about 75% of execs I met with last staffing season watched it, but there was the Fox one...and the clearly geek one...and the one that revealed herself as closet geek...so probably a spread a bit off the standard deviation. And the thing about Dollhouse is it's such a unique concept, I don't think my idea will ever translate to anything else anywhere else, though it isn't dependent on specific characters.

• Checked out Callan. An ops series from Great Britain circa 1970. Clearly a precursor to the likes of La Femme Nikita or the Sandbaggers. Starring Edward Woodward. Not bad. Drawback, you basically have to start with the third season because most of the first seasons just don't exist anymore. Thanks for the recommendation on that, Mad Pulp Bastard.

• I will admit that I not only watched Defying Gravity, I will continue to watch it for no reasons I can justify. It's Grey's Anatomy in space and I cannot watch Grey's. It has like nine things wrong with it. At best I appreciate it's attempt to hit sci-fi with a different tone for the genre, but the tone is misfiring like big misfirey thing. Mock me in the comments, I can't defend myself. It's open season.

• Still staying open for new venues for Mastermind. Let your stagey theatre friends know. BTW, the Canadian premiere is off the docket for now, as it's producer, Tommy Gushue, got busy in the business of TV manufacturing and he got into the CFC. Good luck to him!