Pilot Script Review - The Asset

THE ASSET
Network: FOX
Written By: Josh Friedman
Draft Date: January 13, 2012
Pages: 63

Disclaimer!

Spy fare on television has run the gamut over the last decade. We've had twisty spy-fi from Alias, the increasingly unbelievable real-time antics of 24, nerdy rom-com with Chuck, the dark revenge story of Nikita, and the light-hearted naivete of Covert Affairs

The spy series of the moment is Showtime's Homeland. It's startling, in comparison to the above examples, in its attempted realism and its flawed protagonists.

You certainly can't accuse The Asset of shying away from the same. This show is dark, and its lead both complicated and flawed. The lead, Anna King, is the best at what she does, we're told. And she seems very in control, a superb people-reader, capable of lying to anyone and having them believe her. She compartmentalizes, able to betray even those she loves (for instance, a sting operation on her case officer, who she is sleeping with... the script thinks her involvement is veiled but it's really not, at least to this reader). Sex, it turns out, is a lot of what Anna does. She is a spy-hooker and has, apparently, no qualms about it. I'd like to know more about what made her that way, but the pilot gives us little-to-no indication, instead taking us down a mission of the week involving a bomb going off at a hotel in Mexico that serves to introduce us to Anna and the team around her. We see Anna fuck and betray, notice and uncover, and ultimately the case is over.

My issue here is that I'm not sure what I'm coming back for next week. She doesn't seem to have much of a world outside of her job.

Homeland posed a question about Sergeant Brody that seemed like a yes or no (is he a prisoner of war turned terrorist?), but while stringing that answer out and making us wonder what was mislead and what wasn't, it presented a fascinating situation for both him and his family (Jessica's "infidelity" if it can be called that) as well as Carrie Mathison and the whole of the CIA world around her.

I can't even go into what the Alias pilot (which, seriously, go back and rewatch that pilot... it's among the best ever, IMO) served up, the number of balls it tossed in the air. The world fell apart around Sydney Bristow.

24 had its once-fresh-later-gimmicky real-time premise and screamed "there is a terrorist plot!" and didn't wrap things up at all by the end of the first out.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

I'm not sure what about this series makes it different or special besides its darkness. And, again, it does have darkness. I'm intrigued by Anna King, but I don't know how much more, if any, I want. Or need. It's a good script, really it is... but is it enough? That's the question. And I don't have an answer for it... though, in the past when I've had that question and the pilots have turned out well and gone to series, I generally am out by episode four.

Terra Nova Series Premiere Quarter Hour Breakdown

TERRA NOVA

8:00-8:15
- 9.336 million viewers
- 5.7/9 HH
- 3.0/9 A18-49

8:15-8:30
- 9.575 million viewers
- 5.8/9 HH
- 3.1/8 A18-49

8:30-8:45
- 9.550 million viewers
- 5.8/8 HH
- 3.2/8 A18-49

8:45-9:00
- 8.951 million viewers
- 5.3/8 HH
- 3.0/7 A18-49

9:00-9:15
- 9.151 million viewers
- 5.5/8 HH
- 3.1/7 A18-49

9:15-9:30
- 9.078 million viewers
- 5.4/8 HH
- 3.0/7 A18-49

9:30-9:45
- 8.786 million viewers
- 5.3/8 HH
- 3.0/7 A18-49

9:45-10:00
- 9.300 million viewers
- 5.5/8 HH
- 3.3/7 A18-49

Fringe Season Four Premiere Quarter Hour Breakdown

FRINGE

9:00-9:15
- 3.846 million viewers
- 2.3/4 HH
- 1.7/5 A18-49

9:15-9:30
- 3.209 million viewers
- 1.9/3 HH
- 1.4/4 A18-49

9:30-9:45
- 3.373 million viewers
- 2.0/3 HH
- 1.4/4 A18-49

9:45-10:00
- 3.502 million viewers
- 2.1/3 HH
- 1.4/4 A18-49

The X Factor Series Premiere Quarter Hour Breakdown

THE X FACTOR

8:00-8:15
- 10.340 million viewers
- 6.5/11 HH
- 3.5/11 A18-49

8:15-8:30
- 11.388 million viewers
- 6.9/11 HH
- 3.9/12 A18-49

8:30-8:45
- 12.965 million viewers
- 7.7/12 HH
- 4.4/13 A18-49

8:45-9:00
- 13.585 million viewers
- 7.9/12 HH
- 4.8/13 A18-49

9:00-9:15
- 12.787 million viewers
- 7.4/11 HH
- 4.5/12 A18-49

9:15-9:30
- 12.545 million viewers
- 4.5/11 HH
- 4.5/11 A18-49

9:30-9:45
- 12.656 million viewers
- 7.3/11 HH
- 4.4/11 A18-49

9:45-10:00
- 13.685 million viewers
- 8.0/12 HH
- 4.9/12 A18-49

I'm checked out of the audition process for X Factor. Nothing revolutionary or new feeling to it. I will however be back for the "boot camp" section because that's where XF really starts differentiating itself from at least Idol, and really from most other singing competitions.

Glee Season Three Premiere Quarter Hour Breakdown

GLEE (again, the Interwebz request machine wins out over my desire to be lazier this season)

8:00-8:15
- 9.378 million viewers
- 5.8/10 HH
- 4.2/13 A18-49
- 4.5/15 A18-34
- 6.4/20 W18-34

8:15-8:30
- 8.809 million viewers
- 5.2/8 HH
- 3.8/11 A18-49
- 4.2/13 A18-34
- 6.1/18 W18-34

8:30-8:45
- 8.586 million viewers
- 5.1/8 HH
- 3.7/10 A18-49
- 4.1/13 A18-34
- 6.0/17 W18-34

8:45-9:00
- 9.919 million viewers
- 5.7/9 HH
- 4.3/11 A18-49
- 4.6/14 A18-34
- 6.7/18 W18-34

9:00-9:01
- 11.397 million viewers
- 6.7/10 HH
- 5.0/13 A18-49
- 5.3/15 A18-34
- 7.7/20 W18-34

The New Girl Series Premiere Quarter Hour Breakdown

THE NEW GIRL

9:01-9:15
- 10.538 million viewers
- 6.2/9 HH
- 4.9/13 A18-49

9:15-9:30
- 9.992 million viewers
- 5.9/9 HH
- 4.7/12 A18-49

9:30-9:31
- 10.989 million viewers
- 6.4/10 HH
- 5.3/13 A18-49

What can I say, except great premiere results and we'll see how it holds up next week?

Oh, and the final minute of Glee:
- 11.397 million viewers
- 6.7/10 HH
- 5.0/13 A18-49

Those numbers look much more like immediate New Girl pre-tune in (since it was advertised to start at 9pm, not 9:01pm) than the rest of the Glee premiere's numbers and I don't recall the overrun minutes of Glee from last year being quite so starkly higher than the rest of the program (it's 0.7 A18-49 higher than the 8:45-9:00 portion).

Pilot Screener Reviewlets - FOX Dramas

- Alcatraz: it's Fringe, with Jorge Garcia instead of Joshua Jackson (also: the old guy on the team that forms by the end isn't nearly as entertaining as Walter Bishop, and the cases available in series seem, at least on first blush, to be way too "the same old thing")! I kinda wish it had opened in the present day and just started with the weird mystery popping in the middle of nowhere, instead of the blandly atmospheric mystery-tinged horror film stuff that leads to the "all the prisoners and guards at Alcatraz have disappeared, where did they go?" question. It puts us way ahead of the characters... but, hey, it's the hook, so I understand frontloading it. Loved the first act, focusing on the first Alcatraz prisoner who reappears in the present day. Then act two starts on Sarah Jones and the show, depressingly, becomes a straight procedural until she's sucked into the mystery, and all I wanted to was go back to the criminal.

- Exit Strategy: action movie adrenaline junkie procedural? Something goes wrong on a CIA mission and the team is sent in to fix it and help assets escape a bad situation. Stock characters. It's being retooled, so we'll see what they do with it. If it stays mostly the same... why not have just picked up Human Target for another 13 episodes for an action hour (regardless of the ratings not justifying it)?

- Locke & Key: love, want more, I fear it's more of a miniseries than a 22-episode season, multiple season show and probably really expensive, so that's why it didn't go? Definitely has a "something weird is happening and I, as a human being, would be asking questions and demanding everyone pay attention to it, but it's a television show so meh!" to it. Fingers crossed someone swoops in to pick it up as, perhaps, a 6-hour SyFy mini?

Not yet watched: Touch (it hasn't been filmed... quite liked the feeling I got from the script, though I haven't done a review... but also very concerned with the Tim Kring of it all, having been burned on a worldwide-scope, massive ensemble with intersecting lives, heavily serialized show from him in Heroes)

Pilot Script Review - Weekends at Bellevue

WEEKENDS AT BELLEVUE
Network: FOX
Written By: Lisa Zwerling
Draft Date: January 12, 2011
Pages: 63

Apologies, this is the first script review from this season that I read and didn't almost-immediately do a write up. It's been a while, so details are fuzzy and I'm trying to look over the script again to make sure I'm not misrepresenting it.

The short of my opinion is that I just didn't care for it on the page. I know several people who are big fans of this script, so I've been scratching my head thinking "what are they reading/seeing that I'm not?" Part of it might be casting. As I've said before... I try my best to not pay any attention to that until I actually get to see the pilot screener.

This show exists somewhere in between House and Grey's Anatomy. Very much a character piece for the lead, Ellie Harlow, a doctor with a dark past and issues of her own still to deal with (which are vaguely suicidal), and a hospital-set ensemble-soap. The title says what we'll be watching... the weekend shift at Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, replete with hospital bureaucracy and checkered emotional baggage between characters.

From a medical case perspective, the show insists that anything and everything will be fair game. "Mental illness is everywhere, in every specialty. When you’re a psychiatrist, absolutely everyone needs you." People have different tactics, of course, and will butt heads.

At least, here, with (several of) the characters actually being psychiatrists, it won't be so odd to see them psycho-analyze each other on a regular basis (COUGH House COUGH).

There was a very confusing thing the script did in playing with time. Ellie jumps off a moving yacht in the East River in the opening (in the present) and it's kinda-sorta connected to an incident 9 years prior when she fell from a boat in Lake Michigan and almost died in the wake of not being able to deal with the suicide of her mother. It eventually connects, but I swear, when the Lake Michigan / flashback part appeared about 25 pages in, I was thrown and had to look back (several times) to see if I'd missed something.

I think my issue with this show is, simply, that it feels done to death already and I'm not convinced I want to tune back in to see Ellie's misadventures with the rest of the Bellevue gang. The only vaguely new aspect to it, versus Grey's or House (which, despite declines in popularity over time, are still the two biggest medical shows currently on TV), is the focus on psychiatry... but we've seen psychiatrists on TV for a long, long time, both in emergency medicine context and in personal therapy sessions.

So, shrug. Again, this script has fans (at least in my personal circle). So, I reserve the right, as always, to change my opinion when I see how it filmed. As I've said before, I like being the one who had the lack of vision instead of being the one who was right that something wasn't good. I'd rather there be more good television than be right about an old version of a script.

Pilot Script Review - Locke & Key

LOCKE & KEY
Network: FOX
Written By: Josh Friedman
Draft Date: October 18, 2010
Pages: 67

Disclaimer: I have not read the comic books upon which this pilot is based. I have no idea how closely they track together, how faithful the series will be to the comics, where the plots are going should the series be very faithful, etc. There are a few references to the comics for specific visuals, so I assume there's at least some adherence to the source material.

Even though it took me a while to get through this script (67 pages is quite long as hour-long TV scripts go... and you typically need to cut that down to below 55 pages for the shooting version to get a 42-43 minute long pilot), it wasn't a bad long read. I think I was savoring it. Here's a project with a very visual, mythology-laden story about people. About a family. About pain and grief and the different ways we handle it. And it's told in a way that keeps you wanting more as it peels the layers back, eventually exposing the inner demons of its key characters while simultaneously and continuously expanding the world.

It's also a series that, really, rests on finding the right child actor to play the youngest character, Bode Locke, though not quite to the extent that Thomas Wheeler's Captain Cooke's Extraordinary Atlas relied on Jodelle Ferland (and, while I wasn't in love with the script, I thought the pilot as filmed was an improvement, but financial considerations kept it from being picked up). Whereas CCEA was a teenage fantasy world, Locke & Key is pretty much gothic horror (but fear not, there are no vampires). So this is a pilot that I'll need to see filmed before I fully give my blessing.

We start before (literally, there's a subtitle). Before what?

Rendell and Nina Locke are a loving married couple painting the walls of their summer house in the California farmland. Their three children, Ty (16, male), Kinsey (15, female), and Bode (6, male) are playing in the lake, Bode and Kinsey are having a breath-holding contest and Bode wins (though his ability to hold his breath for a long time doesn't come back into play in this pilot, there is a visit to a cave where people have drowned when the tide rolls in, so if this all checks out with the comics, I suspect there may be some important sequence involving Bode, holding his breath, and said cave).

Then everything changes. Before tragedy. Sam Lesser, one of Rendell's students (he is a guidance counselor) and supposedly a friend of Ty's shows up. He says he's there to help. And he has a gun.

After.

Rendell is dead and the teenagers, once carefree, are locked in their grief and guilt as Nina drives them to Rendell's family estate, Keyhouse, in Lovecraft, MA. Here's hoping there's someone in the town named HP. Bode is still somewhat cheery, perhaps masking his inner pain with incessant joke-telling. Nina has changed, too, having lost her husband. They meet Rendell's younger brother, Duncan, at the house and the question "why is it called Keyhouse" becomes readily apparent. There is a clear key motif to the place and, while exploring, Bode finds a peculiar key with a skull carved in it. He tried various locked doors (the mansion is full of them), eventually finding the "right" one.

He walks through and his body drops dead. His spirit rises. He's a ghost.

Don't worry, he's not dead-dead. In fact, he gets to have quite a bit of ghostly fun (including but not limited to popping into the bathroom while Ty is taking a hot shower and causing the water to become freezing cold).

Keyhouse is a place of mystery and Bode has only cracked the surface.

Meanwhile, Ty and Kinsey are headed to their new school for the first time. People are going to be staring at them. Presumably because they're Lockes. The name seems to carry considerable weight and history around Lovecraft. Kinsey was apparently good at track and eventually decides to join the team. She can't hide forever (she hid with Bode as her father was being shot)... but she can run. Ty's issue, which we presume is grief, turns out to be guilt. After a squabble with his father, he flippantly asks Sam to kill Rendell. And he's been carrying that around with him ever since Sam went through with it.

But Sam, not the best-looking kid and clearly the victim of abuse, didn't do it for Ty.

He did it for some woman-creature (sorry, it's the best I can come up with) named Dodge. Dodge is mystically trapped in the wellhouse at Keystone and all she wants is to be set free. She can, apparently use mysterious powers over great distances to pass messages and even objects, but can't physically leave. To leave... she needs Bode's help.

There's a lot of fun and mystery here, and I haven't talked about, pretty much, the back half of the script where the action really amps up. I'm semi-concerned at how much is achieved in the pilot story, not knowing what's to come it feels like a lot, though I'm sure in the grand scheme of the comic book, it's all set-up.

There's a curious mystery set up in the final pages involving a keyhole in the trunk of a special tree. Within the tree there is a set of stairs that leads down to a room where there is a collection of jars or various shapes and sizes that seem to hold... tiny people, small monsters, a tiny Dodge (curious given we do see her in the wellhouse and events transpire from there), and... a tiny, younger Nina with a tiny, younger Rendell. What are these things in the jars? The story barely implies and answer and my best guess is memories... possibly and more specifically stolen memories (Dodge claims to have been best friends with Rendell when he grew up at Keyhouse, but can't remember much of it, and Nina has a familiarity with Keyhouse that strikes her as odd since she's never been there before).

Bottom line: I'm intrigued. I want to know more. I hope it all comes together on screen.

Preston Beckman Knows What He's Doing aka Obligatory FOX Midseason Schedule Analysis Post

C'mon guys, seriously. Is there really *that* much to discuss here and/or gape about?

I love Fringe. Especially this season. But I watch it on Fridays now, anyway. So I'm totally cool with the move to Fridays at 9pm. Taking the Fan Hat off, what does this practically mean? First of all, of course, expect some ratings slippage. But honestly at this point, I don't think there will be a ton (certainly not the ~50% drop that some of my Twitter followers have predicted). The competition isn't there for that. Fringe isn't a casual viewer show. It's viewers seek it out and will continue to do so. Putting it on a night with significantly less competition should help with the Same Day ratings because there will be far less waiting for tomorrow for DVR playback. Fringe does fantastically in Plus Seven DVR increase percentages.

Regardless of how little that figure means to advertisers, here's an instance I think it will actually work to the show's advantage. A portion of those +7 DVR viewers could become Same Day DVR viewers (again, I am one of those, not that I have a Nielsen box for anyone to notice). Even if it's just a couple tenths, that will be enough to counteract any loss the show experiences moving away from the Bones lead-in (the two shows really don't have a lot of crossover audience... Bones is a much older skewing show). Not that I expect Kitchen Nightmares to be a huge lead-in, the Gordon Ramsey shows attract, like Fringe, relatively small viewer numbers when compared to the demo. This could all work to Fringe's advantage. Plus, expectations on Friday are different. The biggest show last week attracted a 1.9 in the demo. Compare that to Fringe's current competition: Grey's around a 4.0, CSI in the low-to-mid 3s, and The Office/Outsourced also in the low-to-mid 3s. Yes, there's less HUTs on Friday nights... but I think it all counterbalances itself nicely to a place where Fringe can be both stable and successful (and depending on budget talks, survive for more seasons).

And between Fringe and Supernatural (sadly, competing against each other), SciFridays are, this Winter/Spring, truly alive and well. Even if SyFy has abandoned the night to the WWE.

As I've stated on Twitter, I find two primary motives for the Idol move to Wednesdays and Thursdays.

The first: protect Glee by letting it remain in a timeslot. Stability is huge in this business, and viewers have clearly found Glee on Tuesdays at 8pm. While I continue to believe that Glee needs fixing, there's no denying the empirical data: it kicks its competition's butt in major sales demographics. Glee and Tuesdays are perfect for each other (as it's music release day).

The second: establish a year-round reality competition wheel. Winter/Spring has Idol. Summer has So You Think You Can Dance (which has traditionally aired Wednesdays and Thursdays, anyway). Fall will have X-Factor. Guess what else this means? More stability. No longer will Fox have to rejigger its schedule every 4 months (i.e. Glee Wednesdays at 9... now Tuesdays at 9... now Tuesdays at 8! Or like House used to be on Tuesdays at 8pm in the Fall then Mondays in the Winter/Spring). Reality competition shows will just give way to each other. Stability.

Okay, three reasons: Thursday ad dollars command a premium. As Idol's ratings slip (and they will continue to do so), FOX can keep charging advertisers exorbitant sums because, hey, it's a major, broad audience pre-weekend platform for advertisements.

A nice side benefit: Bones gets the Idol lead-in it has long deserved but not had since its first season. I'm loving the show, and with Idol leading into it (plus the 9pm hour having higher HUTs, and the show's gore factor lending itself to the 9pm hour more than 8pm anyway), I'm thinking Bones will get a nice boost.

I don't think there's much else to say, as these two are the major moves. We already knew about Lie to Me and Human Target's truncated seasons (and neither has performed at a level that demands renewal... with more stability, Fox will feel free to let both these shows go away, or perhaps ship one to Fridays with Friday in Fall 2011). We already knew about The Chicago Code. House is of course staying put. Raising Hope is doing decent business out of Glee (it's always hard to attract the passionate fanbase of a pop cultural phenomenon to a lead-out... cough, Lost for 6 years, cough) and, like my assertion with Cougar Town benefiting from Off the Map, I think having a lead-out will help... so Raising Hope may improve if Mixed Signals is simply not as big a turnoff as Running Wilde was.

I have no opinion about the Sunday changes except my personal sadness that American Dad, easily the best of Seth MacFarlane's shows, is being relegated to 7:30pm. It is the worst rated, and it's already in syndication, so I get it. And if Bob's Burgers fails, it'll slide nicely in between The Simpsons and Family Guy.