Tag Archives: television shows

Who Writes Those TV Shows, Anyway?

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Have you ever wondered what it’s like to actually write a TV show? We have an excellent book on the subject at the library!

Just the Funny Parts by Nell Scovell talks about how the author went from college to a few years in New York and then began a career writing for television in Los Angeles. The highlight of her career (so far!) was being the showrunner (head writer and all around show boss) of Sabrina The Teenage Witch.

It’s not exactly an “anyone can do it” type of story. She went to college at Harvard and freely admits that the connections she made there had a lot to do with her success. I still found it fascinating to read about how writing for a television show actually works and to follow her personal journey, especially since she is a woman in a very male-dominated business.

She says the career of a television writer has four stages:

  1. Who is Nell Scovell?
  2. Get me Nell Scovell!
  3. Get me a younger, cheaper Nell Scovell!
  4. Who is Nell Scovell?

There’s some fun name-dropping in the book as well (she’s been close friends with magicians Penn and Teller since she was young).

Old Dogs New Tricks

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Since the pandemic began, I’ve been watching a lot more television and I’ve been drawn to lighter shows with some comedy. After a year at home, it’s becoming harder and harder to find new TV shows with lots of episodes to watch.

Lately we’ve been watching a British crime series that we’ve been enjoying very much. We discovered it on streaming and I was delighted to notice that we have Season 7 on DVD at the library. It’s called New Tricks and stars four great English actors (Amanda Redman, James Bolam, Alun Armstrong and Dennis Waterman).

Three retired English police officers return to work to hunt bad guys in a new unit called UCOS (Unsolved Crimes and Open Cases squad), reporting to a much younger female officer. They use old-fashioned police work and their decades of contacts to solve cases that defeated other squads. The characters are fantastic:

Jack is the executive, suit-wearing type – who has his beloved late wife buried in his back garden! His nightly talks to his wife (with her headstone surrounded by candles) are intriguing.

Brian has a photographic memory and recalls details of every case and person he’s ever heard of, as well as being the team’s computer guy. He has a hard time socializing with actual people but has a devoted wife.

Jerry has been married and divorced three times and has a daughter with each wife – they have formed a close-knit family unit and all regularly have dinner together. He’s the ladies man of the group and has good contacts on the street.

The tone is light-hearted and loyal – and they always solve the case! There are 12 seasons of the show, but the first 8 seasons are the only ones that contain all of the original cast, and these seasons are by far the best.

Classic TV

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Even as a person who was raised on sixties television, I can be put off by the thought of watching shows produced during that time. Acting styles, writing, pacing and sets were often different from today’s standards. And, hold on to your girdles, programs were sometimes shot in black and white! My brain often decides, on its own, that these shows are inferior, and thus I hesitate to watch them.

But every now and then I’ll talk myself into taking a chance. My latest find is Ironside starring Raymond Burr. Now, I’m a long-time Perry Mason fan, but for some reason Ironside never appealed to my finer senses. Well, let me tell you: It’s fabulous!

Burr plays the San Francisco chief of detectives who, in the show’s first episode, is shot in the spine and rendered unable to walk. Robert T. Ironside is a firecracker of a person, not one to accept physical limitations, and he’s soon working as a special consultant to the SFPD. Along with officers Ed Brown and Eve Whitfield and personal assistant Mark Sanger, Ironside looks to crack a case each episode.

Plots are well-crafted and fascinating, often delving into issues of race and discrimination. At a time when freedoms of Americans are potentially eroding, it’s pretty eye-opening to see a 50-year-old tv show embracing diversity. It’s also educational to see how much the world has changed in those 50 years. One episode features a criminal who steals a machine that issues payroll checks. He uses it to forge checks and then takes them to about 20 grocery stores each day. In San Francisco 2020, I’m guessing you’d be hard pressed to find a grocery store that would cash a payroll check from a stranger.

But perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Ironside is the man himself. If you’ve ever watched Nero Wolfe, you’ve seen a character who is set in his ways, unwilling to bend, brilliant, unpleasant and prone to tirades. There is nothing particularly likable or sympathetic about him. Ironside, on the other hand, has many of the same qualities, but his bluster is tempered with a side of compassion and sarcastic humor. The result is a character who you like and admire, perhaps fear a bit, but definitely respect. I’ve not seen another TV character of this same ilk.

Over the years, I’ve not heard too much buzz about Ironside. But let me tell you uncles and aunties, it’s a cut above most of the crime shows that have been produced for television. Intelligent, often riveting, not too predictable, a breath of fresh air in my TV viewing world. As Bob Ironside himself might say, “What’s your flaming excuse for not watching it?!?”

My Life is Murder

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Whose life is murder? Alexa Crowe, that’s who. Alexa is a retired Australian police detective whose old boss keeps asking for her help with his toughest cases. And Alexa – who planned on spending her retirement baking bread, except that her expensive German bread machine refuses to work (she’s trying to fix it, but always seems to need one more part she doesn’t have), and whose companion on these days is a stray cat who just appears in her kitchen – finds it impossible to refuse the siren song of detective work.

Alexa, charmingly played by actor Lucy Lawless, is the main character in the Australian television crime drama My Life is Murder. I’d been hearing good things about this series from my friends, so I was delighted to discover that the first season is available on Hoopla, one of the library’s free video apps. (Click HERE for information on how to use Hoopla.)

I’ve watched the first two episodes, and I’m enjoying this series very much. It’s a lighthearted series with a lead actor who doesn’t take herself too seriously, perfect for these dark times we’re living in. I’m not interested in watching or reading anything depressing these days – give me pure entertainment to take my mind off the news, please!

The supporting characters are played by terrific actors and I enjoy that it takes place in Australia, a country I’ve never visited. And My Life is Murder is one of the best names I’ve ever heard of for a crime drama – I would have watched the first episode for the name alone!

A Constant Need

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I think I may have discovered another universal constant. Along with gravity and the speed of light there is the constant need for my family unit (consisting of my wife, me and a very grumpy dog) to be watching a science fiction television series of some kind. If we don’t get a weekly dose of a show with at least some type of science fiction hook, we tend to get listless and feel that something is missing in our lives (O.K. the dog probably doesn’t care, but we anthropomorphize big time). Luckily the library has a great selection of DVDs that allow us to feed our addiction. Here are four recent(ish) series that just might be of interest if you suffer from the same malady or just like interesting television that actually has a narrative.

The Expanse

theexpanseBased on a series of novels by James Corey, The Expanse is set in a future where humanity has colonized the solar system but is still plagued by the all too familiar problems of corporate greed, governments on the verge of war and religious fanaticism. The Expanse is a true space opera, in the best sense of the term, with multiple story lines and characters that all converge in the end. The three main plotlines involve a police detective tracking down a lead in the asteroid belt, a ship’s officer and crew trying to find out who destroyed their vessel and a Machiavellian United Nations executive trying to make sure that Earth’s interests come first. The mystery at the center of it all is slowly revealed and appropriately ominous and menacing. The show’s great strength is in how it presents a fully realized future universe that is fun to get lost in.

Humans

humansFor fans of stories dealing with artificial intelligence, the setup for this series will sound familiar. In the near future synths, my favorite name for androids, are an integral part of human society. They do most of the jobs, from gardening to telemarketing, and are designed to be essentially mindless labor. One inventor, however, has created a small family of synths that are sentient and self-aware. When the inventor dies, under mysterious circumstances of course, these ‘human’ synths are forced to split up and go underground to try to survive. What follows, over eight episodes, is a fascinating examination of some of the classic questions arising out of the development of artificial intelligence: What does it mean to be conscious? What happens when humans create a sentient being? Are these creations simple machines or are they individuals? If they are individuals, will they continue to serve us or simply rebel?  Oh and, of course, there are sexbots.

Ascension

ascensionAt first this mini-series seems a bit like Mad Men in space. In 1963, a secret program was set up to send a set of colonists to the nearest star to preserve humanity. Fifty-one years later their descendants are halfway through the journey. The early 1960s culture aboard the ship, complete with beach parties and three martini lunches, is suddenly disturbed by the murder of a young woman. Since this is the first murder of the trip no one is sure quite how to handle it. An investigation is launched and the viewer begins to find out that the society on board is far from ideal with all sorts of nefarious power struggles and a rigid caste system. There is a major plot twist early on that sends the story in a very different direction, but if you roll with it, it makes the story even more compelling.

Wayward Pines

waywardpinesThis is another show based on a series of novels, this time by Blake Crouch, and is produced by M. Night Shyamalan so you know things are going to get a little weird. While investigating the disappearance of two of his fellow U.S. Secret Service agents, Ethan Burke gets into a car accident and wakes up in the seemingly idyllic town of Wayward Pines, Idaho. As the series progresses he is introduced to the, shall we say, quirky residents and quickly finds out that something is really amiss. First of all, it is impossible to leave the place. Also, there is strict set of rules that everyone must follow and repeated violations result in a ‘reckoning’ which isn’t pretty. While the setup is definitely more Twin Peaks than Star Trek, as the series progress you definitely get to more familiar Science Fiction territory. Admittedly, you do have to suspend your disbelief big time to enjoy this one, but as they said on MST3K: ‘It’s just a show, I should really just relax.’