Pilot Script Review - House Rules

HOUSE RULES

Written By: Michael Seitzman

Draft Date: January 22, 2009

Pages: 64

Network: CBS

Category: Thumbs Up

Easily my favorite of the "non-CBS" CBS drama pilot scripts, House Rules actually plays very close to CW's The Body Politic, but centered more around 30-somethings (and Congressmen/Congresswomen instead of staffers in / around the Senate). Which, being for CBS instead of CW... makes sense.

House Rules follows Julia Bryce (Dirty Sexy Money's Zoe McLellan), a high school history teacher just elected to the House of Representatives (and a Democrat).

Through Julia, we're introduced to a number of other Congresspeople ("freshmen" and otherwise) and staffers:

- Robin Calhoun, a Democrat from Virginia, daughter of a general, one of Julia's roommates by episode's end

- Kathy McAdams, a Democrat from California and self-described "soccer mom," Julia's other roommate by episode's end

- Alan Levi, a Republican (can't recall what state he's from), who Julia has a confrontation with on her plane to DC in the opening and who eventually helps Julia out with a bill she needs passed urgently. They have across-the-aisle chemistry.

- Cameron Drummer, not yet an actual representative, he is in a recount in his district (and, wouldn't you know it, he wins by the end of the episode... not that we ever meet his opponent so it's hardly shocking)

- Scotty Fisher, aide to the Speaker of the House (Alice Hardy)

- Nate Tiernan, Speaker Hardy's chief of staff and an ex of Julia's from college

- Speaker Alice Hardy, a Democrat from Louisiana, who ultimately proves more an obstacle to what Julia needs to get done than an ally

- John Granger, an experienced Republican Representative who campaigned for the man Julia defeated, but Julia is able to convince him to help her on her issue.

- Peter Chiba, a student of Julia's who ran her campaign for election and is transferring from Harvard to to Georgetown in order to work in Julia's office

House Rules plays much more legal than soap, so there is a tonal difference with The Body Politic, and the pilot of HR presents an interesting, pressing issue (always a problem with shows that aren't "lives in peril!" occupations like cops, doctors, and to some extent lawyers). Two of Julia's constituents' son just died. Their son, Jared, who was a teacher with Julia, was married to a woman named Maria, from Panama, for five years. They filed for residency, but were told it was "in process." Now, with Jared dead, Maria is being threatened with deportation (in two weeks... that's what we call a ticking clock). Oh, and they have a child together. So, mother could be torn from child, or grandparents torn from both.

Julia is not happy with the idea of a family being torn apart because of a technicality (Maria not being married to a US citizen at time of processing, instead of time of filing). But! She's a freshman representative. She doesn't have the clout to get something like this passed in time! So she talks with Speaker Hardy, who offers to support Julia's initiative if Julia changes her position on private school vouchers (Julia claims she is the lone Democrat who is pro-voucher because of her upbringing). But the timetable doesn't for for Julia (yay, ticking clock), so Julia reaches across the aisle, convincing John Granger (who is very anti-immigration) that the issue isn't about jobs or security, it's about family. He falls in line, and Maria isn't deported... and Julia becomes a rising star.

Yeah, the politics and intrigue could either play really well on screen or be dreadfully boring. I'm hoping it plays well! As with The Body Politic, the idea of having a political show back on the air excites me (though the idea of having two, remotely similar ones frightens me as it could potentially lead to a world with neither...) and this is certainly an "if not now, when?" climate. Of course, I have no idea where on CBS's schedule this thing goes, as it's so incredibly off-brand...

Travis Yanan Watches...

... Chuck. Solidarity, ya'll. I may even go to Subway tomorrow (it's either that or Chipotle with a friend of mine who I get together with to watch Gossip Girl, Chuck, and How I Met Your Mother, so why not).

Chuck season finale, Monday 8/7c on NBC!

The regular title of this blog will return on Tuesday :)

Swim, You Fools!

I'm having so much fun watching this swimming / synchronized diving detour on tonight's TAR. I used to swim (back in the day, I swam butterfly...) and having Luke ASL to his mom that he has new respect for Michael Phelps because of the times he swam in Beijing (um, hello, he's an Olympic athlete... THE Olympic athlete...) were half the speed Luke (and Jamie) swam... wow. These people are slow swimmers! And it doesn't take THAT much energy to front crawl your way (not at racing speeds) through 100 meters, take a 90-ish second break, then swim it again. I'm sorry. I have to laugh. I'm horrible. FML.

PS - This does not apply to people, like Jen, who have a fear of water. I'm not that heartless.

Also why would anyone choose synchronized diving!? That shiz is hard!

Also... WOO, SUPER LEG!!!! SO GLAD IT'S BACK! WE MISSED YOU THE LAST COUPLE CYCLES!

Pilot Script Review - The Beautiful Life

THE BEAUTIFUL LIFE

Written By: Adam Giaudrone

Draft Date: February 8, 2009

Pages: 60

Network: CW

Category: Jury's Out

Again, see Pilot Script Review - The Vampire Diaries for disclaimer re placing this and the other CW scripts (besides Light Years) in the Jury's Out category.

The Beautiful Life is probably my least favorite of this group. Vampire Diaries is small town. Body Politic is, well, against the backdrop of politics. Beautiful Life is hot people, backstabbing, models, drugs, and alcohol. It edges a little too close to Gossip Girl in that sense, though Beautiful Life does promise to have significant camp value.

As with Vampire Diaries, there is a feeling of retread material here. There's an up-and-coming female model given her big break (Raina, 15... which becomes a plot point, what with statutory rape laws). There's an out-and-going female model clinging fast and hard to her career even though (gasp!) at the age of 22 and because she's put on a little weight and is now a size 2 (Sonja / Mischa Barton?). Heaven forbid!!! There's a naive, attractive midwesterner who gets "discovered" while on vacation with his family in NYC and stays behind to give modeling a try (Chris). Raina is assigned to help Chris with his look and they shopping together (cue the shopping montage!) and Raina helps him get into the swing of things on a test photo shoot. They discover they have chemistry. The guy who discovered Chris, Simon, wants to use him as arm candy which Chris eventually finds out and does not approve of (good on you, Chris). There's the ex-model turned agent (Claudia / Elle MacPherson), who could take the place of the oh-so-tired antics of Wilhelmina Slater for TV's bitchiest, campiest fashion boss. Then there are a bunch of other models, male and female, as well as designers of various standing (fake and real). There's a drug overdose in there somewhere.

It's sure to be flashy, with hot people and cool costumes... but ultimately it's so shallow that, while it wears its lack of depth on its sleeve and tries to have fun with it, it's still really, really shallow. I'm not sure a campy tone is enough to save it from that truth.

Pilot Script Review - The Body Politic

THE BODY POLITIC

Teleplay By: Jason Rothenberg & Bill Robinson

Story By: Jason Rothenberg & Bill Robinson & Peter Horton

Draft Date: January 30, 2009

Pages: 64

Network: CW

Category: Jury's Out

Please see the first paragraph of Pilot Script Review - The Vampire Diaries for my disclaimer about why this is Jury's Out. Though, as a congressional soap opera, the characters are in their 20s... the same rules apply. I believe that only a presentation is being shot, however.

This is a project that, I'm told, was saved from the brink by casting Minka Kelly in the lead. I agree. Minka is definitely an up-and-coming TV star, and while Friday Night Lights didn't rocket her up in the stratosphere, this starring role could be the ticket.

Please note, all character names subject to change (and I believe they have since the draft I read).

Minka plays Lily Foster, a 25-year old whose mother just passed away. She leaves home, and boyfriend David, and heads to DC in search of... something unspecified (at first) that her mother told her in her "open in case of death" letter. We find out that Republican Senator Robert Webster is Lily's father. Lily, too, is a Republican. Not that I expect the politics of BP to be anything remotely like The West Wing's, but it's refreshing that not all of the characters are Democrats / liberals... and having the lead be a Republican, I think, is rather ballsy on the script's part. In addition, Lily is a moderate Republican... a dying breed!

Lily arrives in DC rather unprepared for the world of staffer-being and without many connections. She also arrives when a Democratic Senator (Adamson) who was going to be made into the Attorney General dies from a heart attack, and the President (not seen, presumed to actually be Obama, though we get info to and from him via Lucky Evans - Brian Austin Green's character and an advisor to the President) needs to tap someone else to be AG. There's a choice, essentially, between Webster and Senator Ellen Buckley, a Democrat. Politics politics politics (if Webster is appointed, the governor of his state will likely pick a Democrat, giving the Democrats a filibuster-proof 60 seats in the Senate). There's also a plot about Buckley killing a foreclosure freeze bill to get back at a Democrat senator endorsing the Republican for Attorney General.

That's all backdrop for the sex lives and romances of our younger characters (who, IIRC, all wind up living together, or at least in the same building as I don't think Jessica would live with her assistant... but such small details escape me).

First, there's Jessica Sharp, a career-minded and rather bitchy legislative aid to Adamson who is having an affair with him. With him dead, (a) she has a problem on her hands because she was "in the act" when he died, and (b) she needs a new job. So she sleeps around (with Lucky, even).

Then there's Charlie Morris, a Washington Post reporter (Jason Dohring). He plays the game, and Lily believes he's betrayed him by using her as a source, though he actually didn't.

Third is Ben McGrath, the heartthrob, ex-Navy officer, currently working for Senator Buckley. He and Lily have bad romantic timing, but clearly are hot for each other.

More minor are Miles, Jessica's assistant, and Eve Cooke... perky.

There's room to grow here. After all, the background for the relationship drama is a world of backstabbing, backroom deals, alliances, etc.

So... enjoyable. My favorite of the three "Jury's Out" CW pilots... on the other hand, politics on youth-oriented network CW could be stretch (vampires and models are an easier sell).

Pilot Script Review - The Vampire Diaries

THE VAMPIRE DIARIES

Written By: Kevin Williamson & Julie Plec

Draft Date: February 4, 2009

Pages: 61

Network: CW

Category: Jury's Out

Sigh. I'm tired of flat out bad reviews. I've decided to whip through the three remaining CW drama scripts that I have (since I don't have either the Gossip Girl spin-off or Melrose Place... both of which are locks for the fall schedule). All three wound up in my Jury's Out category and all for similar reasons... teen dramas are all about casting and chemistry. Sure, you can have a bad script (see: Pilot Script Review - Light Years), but even if you have a good script, the central couples can fail if the actors don't work out (see 90210... not that it was a good script). So, the reason Vampire Diaries, Body Politic, and Beautiful Life are all "Jury's Out" is because I truly believe that in order to judge I need to see them on the screen. None were horrible scripts, none were amazing.

Vampire Diaries, to borrow a term from thefutoncritic's review is pretty boilerplate teen drama / vampire drama stuff. It starts out with a couple pages of "Ooh, isn't this creepy? Oh, noes! Vampire attack!" but doesn't subvert that cliché the way, say, Buffy did by having the blonde school girl turn out to be the vampire.

While I know that the VD (lol, can't wait for the show to be on the air for people to start commenting on its ratings by referring to it as that...) books vastly predate the Twilight series, the fact is Twilight is the current phenomenon and is what today's teens are familiar with and fervent about. So the central romance between troubled teen Elena and wants-to-be-good vampire Stefan plays very "been there, seen that" and likely won't scorch the screen the way Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson did (um, if it did? I wasn't really sold... but then again while I dug the last three books of the Twilight series, the first one didn't do a ton for me and I didn't think the movie was that well done at all). Also, Elena doesn't find out that Stefan is a vampire in the pilot, so... that's something that's going to be dragged out. Yay...

Other characters... Stefan has an evil older brother, Damon. Elena has a prescription pill-dealing younger brother, Jeremy, who had a summer thing with a junkie hot girl, Vicki, but now that school is starting up again, she's back with her lout of a boyfriend, Tyler, and Jeremy isn't pleased with that. Jeremy and Elena have a barely seen grad student guardian cousin in Jenna Moyer. Elena has a good, talkative friend in Bonnie, who might be slightly psychic. Then there's frienemy/hot bitch Caroline, who lusts after Elena's all-American ex-boyfriend, Matt, who is still in love with Elena. I mean, you really could remove the vampires from the story and instead of just have Stefan and Damon be extremely wealthy residents of Mystic Falls and the show would play as a standard teen drama with its relationship dodecahedrons.

As far as vampirism goes, there's nothing new/special about the vampires in VD. They wear sunglasses to prevent immolation from sunlight, they need to be invited into someone's house, they can transform into animals, they have super-strength, can hypnotize / enthrall people, and are, y'know, impossibly attractive.

One thing this series does have that excites me is Ian Somerhalder as Stefan's evil vampire older brother, Damon. Boone Carlyle, we miss you on our TV screens.

Again, this all comes down to execution. I have few doubts this will be on CW's fall schedule... after all, vampires are so in.

Pilot Script Review - Miami Trauma

MIAMI TRAUMA

Written By: Jeffrey Lieber

Draft Date: January 12, 2009

Pages: 60

Network: CBS

Category: Thumbs Down

Guys. I seriously think this might be The Worst (Drama) Script Of Pilot Season.

As such it's either going to take me a long review or a short one to do it justice.

I'm in the mood for a short one.

Big freaking accident off the shore of Miami as a cruise ship and a chemical barge crash into each other.

We meet one of the three teams at the trauma center:

- Dr. Serena Warrer, a first-year resisent who sips coffee, listens to her iPod, and skateboards to work (it would be funny if it weren't on a supposedly dramatic show).

- Dr. Christopher ("Dr. C") Deleo, a trauma surgeon who is described as talking with the slow drawl of someone born in the Florida panhandle (um, stereotype much?) but he also misquotes Yoda so I guess he's supposed to be cool-as-a-cucumber-ish?

- Dr. Marisol Zambrano, another trauma surgeon and second in command of Bravo team, and also hot when she's out of scrubs and lets her hair down (which is not often)

- Dr. William Rayner, the leader of Bravo team, a surgeon who, within the 13-page teaser section of the script, has a freak out while operating, strips himself naked (why is this happening so often to surgeons on TV?) and runs from the triage OR... only instead of any of the characters following after him or even checking back in with him after the disaster is over... he simply disappears from the script never to be seen or heard from again (even though they make a toast to him at a bar at the end). SERIOUSLY!?

- Dr. Thomas Proctor, a guy who was going to working on one of the other trauma teams but now steps in for Rayner (we meet him in bermuda shorts and a Phish T-shirt, he's on vacation)

- Head Nurse Tuck Brody

Amidst the chaos of the victims coming in, Dr. C usurps control from Zambrano despite her having 3 months seniority on him and being Rayner's 2nd, but Zambrano gets her position back in the end by showing Dr. C up (in a good way... they're still friends at the end of the day and have respect for each others' work).

If the characters in Three Rivers were cardboard, these characters are paper thin. The pilot might have the flash of it's big disaster in the opening moments (and the gore... not a show for the squeamish), but... jeez, really?

Pilot Script Review - The Eastmans

THE EASTMANS

Written By: Margaret Nagle

Draft Date: January 9, 2009

Pages: 64

Network: CBS

Category: Thumbs Down

Sigh. I don't really have the energy to review this script. It was just exhausting to read. It's Dirty Sexy Money with scalpels. An entire family of doctors. An. Entire. Family. And they're rich. Very rich (patent money or something from a heart stent technique). And Donald Sutherland plays the patriarch in this series, too. And he's kind of sexist (the children have to scam him at the end to get the two daughters a share of the Eastman Institute's wealth so that the institute will put money into autism research, as one of the daughters' children has autism)... but it's okay because his father and grandfather her sexist, too?

The pilot is centered around the 35th wedding anniversary of Charles and Emma Eastman (even though, IIRC, Emma is sleeping with someone else as Charles and Emma's relationship has been strained for a very long time). Also Charles has a heart attack. And there's a journalist interviewing the family for an article.

The rest of the family are...

- Peter, a cocky vascular surgeon

- Anna, an autism researcher (she has an autistic son, and because she isn't funded with her family's money, she's struggling financially)

- Seth, a chiropractor who was once a transplant doctor, he got his medical license stripped for overprescribing himself drugs (and he's been through rehab)

- James, a heart surgeon who spends far more time with his patients than with his wife Maddie

- Sally, a pathologist

The squabbles of the family, both professional and personal, pretty much all left me cold, except Anna.

Pilot Script Review - Three Rivers

THREE RIVERS

Written By: Carol Barbee

Draft Date: February 2, 2009

Pages: 60

Network: CBS

Category: Thumbs Down

Alex O'Loughlin fans will be pleased to know that, of the three CBS medical shows, I find this the least appalling (see, I told you there were varying degrees within my categories). If CBS must pick up a medical show this season, I would hope it's this one.

That said... I don't think it should be picked up because I found myself incredibly indifferent to it. And for me, the only thing worse than making me indifferent is being vilely bad (I will even tolerate mild suck if I care enough about the characters or situation to see ways it could be improved... or if it fits into a "so bad it's good" category).

Three Rivers is very, very formulaic.

For that to work, the characters need to be very strong, and they just weren't. They were typical TV doctors with three (barely exceptional) exceptions. Dr. Andy Yablonski is a workaholic with marital difficulties. Dr. Miranda Foster is a surgical fellow with something to prove (the transplant wing is in her late father's name). Ryan Romero, not a doctor, is the new "assistant to the transplant coordinator" and has no medical training, but because the transplant coordinator just quit, he has to step it up with no training or experience, and he has a journalism background (news for a radio station) that comes in handy when the team is trying to fly an organ out of an area through / around a hurricane (eh... fake drama). Everyone else... cookie cutter.

The show follows three storylines in its main medical case (which will always be organ transplants... much like with Maggie Hill, I find this potentially limiting and, seriously, how many times do I need to see a doctor convincing someone to let a loved one's organs be donated?) The first is the story of the person who needs the transplant (in the pilot, a college basketball player with NBA hoop dreams who needs a heart transplant). The second is the story of the person who will, sadly, provide the transplant (in the pilot, Kim Mullins, who is shot at her wedding). And the third story, of course, is the doctors at Three Rivers (a hospital in/near Pittsburgh). The only shifting in this formula that I see down the road is when the writing staff of the show decides, "hey, let's not let this patient live for a change." There is also a B-medical case involving a sick, 50-something man getting a new set of lungs.

Pilot Script Review - Maggie Hill

MAGGIE HILL

Written By: Ian Biederman

Draft Date: January 13, 2009

Pages: 65

Network: FOX

Category: Jury's Out

Maggie Hill is a brilliantly gifted cardiothoracic surgeon. So brilliant that in the opening moments of the pilot, she is being streamed out to med schools and hospitals around the world, performing a surgery named after her (some medical jargon about aortic bypasses using the patient's own pericardium that will lead to less wealthy people being able to have bypass surgery). This is the first time it's being done. And in the middle of the surgery, Maggie starts hearing things, then seeing people in the OR who are not there, and finally proceeds to strip and run out of the OR. Maggie, it turns out, is schizophrenic. A few months later, she wants back in the game and wants her old job back (and not just in a teaching capacity, she wants to be able to actually practice). But, as there's always the risk that she'll freak out again in the middle of surgery, there are several hurdles to jump through. Eventually, she does get reinstated... but Maggie is not taking her meds. She hears and sees things that aren't there and even screams at her patient as she performs open heart surgery... but she gets the job done.

Other characters include...

- Caroline, the lawyer sister Maggie has been at odds with for some time (each jealous of something the other has / can do that they can't).

- Dr. Virginia Lerner, the chief of C-T surgery at the hospital

- Dr. Elliot Springer, Maggie's arrogant rival in the C-T department who becomes at odds with her over treatment options in a case when Maggie returns to service

- Dr. Milo Marcus, Maggie's schizophernia doctor

- Dr. Ben Emerson, Maggie's boyfriend and a surgeon (though I couldn't pick out his specialty,but he does weigh in on a case Maggie and Elliot are at odds over, so he might be a C-T surgeon, too)

- Terrence James, Maggie's fling

On the subject of Terrence... in shades-of-Grey's Anatomy, Maggie is sleeping with him, but it turns out only she can see him. He's a figment of her fractured mind (this is definitely one of the reasons I couldn't put Maggie Hill in the Thumbs Up category...) Ultimately she chooses to continue not taking her meds and to have a romantic tryst with this man who she now knows doesn't exist. Yeah...

One other problem I have with Maggie Hill is that it is entirely focused on heart surgery. Unlike a show like House or ER or Grey's Anatomy where doctors have varying specialties... the medical cases on this series are going to be all heart surgery, all the time.

Finally, there's a rather intrusive element in the script in the form of the character Anna Peck, who runs a "pilot program" for NIH that is your typical television/film high-tech/future-medicine stuff. She invites Maggie into the fold with the promise that they may, one day, be able to cure Maggie of her schizophrenia. Maggie eventually accepts, except she's keeping her day job. Not sure how that's going to play out.

Maggie Hill is an interesting combination of things. I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. I'm not sure I love it... but I'm sure I don't hate it. Thus... Jury's Out.

Pilot Script Review - Mercy

MERCY

Written By: Liz Heldens

Draft Date: January 7, 2009

Pages: 62

Network: NBC

Category: Jury's Out

I'm going to start off a series of medical show reviews with what I think is the most promising of the rest of the bunch (the best of the bunch being Trauma, which I've already reviewed), and working my way down to the worst. Unfortunately for Mercy... it's competing with Trauma for time on the schedule.

The show is, essentially, Grey's Anatomy if the younger lead characters were nurses instead of surgical interns/residents. As such, it gets demerits for being derivative. But the show has its own charms and features an interesting lead character in Veronica Callahan, a tough-talking nurse suffering from "a touch of PTSD" after a tour in Iraq (though that could be slightly less interesting now that Grey's Anatomy is dealing with Dr. Owen Hunt's PTSD). The series rests on the shoulders of the actress who plays this role (Taylor Schilling), moreso than Grey's Anatomy does on Ellen Pompeo. And I've heard positive things from NBC sources.

The pilot begins with Veronica and her mother (definitely not Ellis Grey). Veronica saves a guy's life at a Starbucks (responding to the classic "is there a doctor in the house" when the only doctor in the coffee house turns out to be a dermatologist), but when she accompanies the guy and his fiancée to the hospital and starts ordering tests, she is called out for being a nurse and not a doctor and the financée threatens to sue. Wow, thanks, grateful bitch.

Mercy derives its name from the hospital it (mostly) takes place at, in case you were wondering. So unlike Grey's Anatomy, down the line the show could ultimately get rid of lead character Veronica since her name isn't in the title (because, really, Grey's is never going to make Lexie the lead...)

We meet a host of characters at the hospital throughout the day, with a variety of romantic entanglements (some at the hospital, some outside). The main characters are the group of nurses, Veronica, Gianna (beautiful, Latina), and Chloe (fresh out of nursing grad school)... and to a more minor extent, Angel (male nurse). It's an interesting, multi-ethnic mix and definitely plays on the rom-com of it all. The cases don't hit quite so hard on the nose as Grey's Anatomy does, but neither do they metaphorically/thematically reflect on the characters' lives as successfully. This is a show that will come down to have magically the cast congeals.

Tonal Shift

Tonight's episode of Legend of the Seeker has been very much more in line with the campy tone of Xena. It was amusingly silly (even if the beginning was super, super awkward).

Also, there are officially gays in the series! Even if the first one was a D'Haran prison guard who was fireballed to death by Zed...

Pilot Script Review - Past-Life

PAST-LIFE (fka THE REINCARNATIONIST)

Written By: David Hugdins

Draft Date: January 5, 2009

Pages: 61

Network: FOX

Category: Thumbs Down

As so we come to the end of the night of a million Crappy Crime Shows.

Past-Life is about a team of past-life detectives that solve crime (in the pilot, a murder, but that's not a guarantee made... though it probably ought to be) using regression therapy and the theory of reincarnation.

Go ahead. Laugh at the premise. I did. And then I was kind of almost won over by the script... kind of almost. And then I laughed at the premise again and said "oh, hell no" (I mean, are they going to have to explain what they do at the Samuels Center for Consciousness Research and specifically the Special Investigations unit therein to every client who walks in the doors? Because, honestly, I'd be skeptical!)

The two leads of the series are Dr. Kate McGinn, a researcher and psychologist, and Price Whatley, an ex-homicide detective with the NYPD who is starting up as past-life detective for the SCCR. Price, blissfully, is a skeptic, which means he and Kate can bicker all they want while having UST and solving crimes. Oh, and Kate believes that she and Price, in their past-life, were lovers.

The pilot starts innocently enough with a kid (Noah) in a high school basketball game. Ball bounces out of the room, kid goes to get it (it got all the way to the pool...?) and upon seeing the pool water, as a flashback memory. When he snaps out of it he tells his parents (Amanda and Mike) that he "saw the man who killed me." The wha~!? After several (off-screen) doctors, the kid and parents were referred to the SCCR. Noah and Amanda go, Mike is highly skeptical (shock shock shockeroo). Anyway, some regression therapy and detective work (and legalese) later, we have two child abductions / homicides solved. Turns out that Noah's past-life's sister didn't die, she lived, and she gets reunited with her family (who, of course, she doesn't know is her family since the abduction happened years ago... Noah is 14 after-all... and she thinks that her abductor is her father).

Again, the script, at points, made me smile and kind of almost won me over. But... it's just not gonna work. I've also heard that it's been a mess, as far as production has gone. Count this one out.

Pilot Script Review - I Witness

I WITNESS

Written By: Pam Veasey & Trey Callaway

Draft Date: February 5, 2009

Pages: 55

Network: CBS

Category: Thumbs Down

It's so interesting when CBS, the crime network, gets it so shockingly, blandly wrong with a crime show. This one, I'm not even sure why I'm wasting my time reviewing it considering it hasn't been shot because of a cast contingency not getting lifted (here's a thought... don't shoot it!) I guess it's just because it, too, is part of the Crappy Crime Show Gang and it's nice for people to know that CBS doesn't always hit it out of the park with these things.

But, I'll be brief, as this isn't being shot. Obviously, I thought it was bad. The lead character is Erin Bray, a detective at the Chicago PD as well as a professor at Northwestern University. What makes Erin unique as a character and a cop, besides the fact that she's getting a divorce and was a child abductee herself (and wouldn't you know it, the pilot case is a child abduction) is that she has the COMPLETELY UNIQUE ABILITY TO LOOK AT THINGS FROM DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW. WOW! We even get several of them along the way, described in the script as "E-POVs." They aren't like Shawn Spencer's zoom-in/close-up POVs on Psych, it's more that Erin will just, y'know, be somewhere else in a room and be looking at something from a different angle and thus notices things.

In class, she picks out three students who weren't paying attention to help her with her case. They are familiar types - the jock, the nerd, and the popular girl (who happens to be half-Japanese, half-Irish). They wind up playing the role of Foreman, Chase, and Cameron from House.

They eventually figure out who the perp is (note: not the father or the mother) and catch him thanks to the magic of drawbridges.

Yawnsville.

Pilot Script Review - Lost & Found

LOST & FOUND

Written By: Christine Levinson

Draft Date: November 24, 2008 ("production draft")

Pages: 57

Network: NBC

Category: Thumbs Down

Dear fanboys: please don't flame me. I loved Katee Sackhoff as Starbuck as much as the next BSG fanatic (even if I hated the resolution to her story with Lee, along with, well, the entire post-battle section of the finale). Not the time for that rant.

You'll be pleased to know that, as L&F was developed as a star vehicle for Sackhoff, it's very easy to hear her voice in lead character Tessa Cooper. I mean, really, add the word "frak" in a few places and it practically is Starbuck in high heels (that I may have added in my head, as I don't recall the script actually mentioning footwear) and an LAPD uniform.

You'll be displeased to know that L&F sucks (on a different, but not necessarily lower or higher level than The Forgotten, this pilot season's other missing / unidentified persons show). It's another show with pervading voiceovers... only this show has Tessa in a not-nearly-as-Marlowe-as-she-thinks-she-is way providing the VO work. And when I say "pervade" I really do mean it. Remember Veronica Mars? She could get rather VOy, but at least most of that was funny internal dialogue about someone. L&F's VO falls flat.

Tessa Cooper is a hotheaded detective in some LA precinct. The teaser deals with her putting herself in a victim's headspace in order to figure out a crime... apparently a skill of Tessa's. In this case in involves Katee standing on the railing of a 13th floor hotel room near LAX in her underwear (an image I'm shocked hasn't surfaced as a production still). The VO asks "I'm a 22-year old Asian-American pharmaceutical rep. I drive a Ford Focus and have two cats. Why do I jump?" This, apparently, is Tessa's skill. Internally asking herself the obvious questions. Unfortunately for Tessa, results in some woman letting go of her dog as she yells at Tessa to not jump, the dog runs into traffic, and vehicle-on-vehicle action ensues. Whoops. In the best use of the VO in the script, Tessa is called to her lieutenant's office immediately after and thinks "I should have jumped."

Anyway, Tessa is transferred to the Lost and Found division. Which is in a basement. Where there is no cell reception. There's an ancient computer (script says first generation Pentium... wow) and a rotary phone that gets incoming calls but can't place outgoing calls. And Brian Cox lives there! Well, no, his character, Burt Macey, does. Burt is 55 and, in the last five years, has identified 3 unidentified persons. Go, Burt! Apparently UIDs really are low priority. All the more reason to watch this show... right?

So the pilot deals with Tessa not wanting to be part of this crackerjack UID department and eventually deciding "hey, I can do good work here... at least until I'm out of the doghouse and can be transferred back upstairs. In the meantime, she'll be VOing to herself such gems as "I'm a big black man, 18 to 35 years old. I have a class ring on a chair around my neck and a Viking helmet. Who am I?" and "I'm a Latino woman, 40 to 55 years old. I'm wearing a business suit and carrying a leather briefcase full of ping pong balls. Who am I?"

I really do think that a unidentified persons series could work... but neither this nor The Forgotten do it for me.

Pilot Script Review - The Forgotten

THE FORGOTTEN (fka THE UNKNOWN)

Written By: Mark Friedman

Draft Date: January 12, 2009

Pages: 59

Network: ABC

Category: Thumbs Down

Continuing our trip down suckitude lane with The Crappy Crime Show Gang, we have Exhibit B of this season's evidence that ABC can't develop a crime procedural.

The Forgotten / The Unknown is, unlike Brothers & Detectives, a show with a premise that could work. Regular citizens / amateur detectives solving unidentified persons cases. I mean... that could work, right? Do-gooders doing good. I believe there's still a place on TV for that without moral ambiguity and anti-heroes.

Then we get to the execution which - for me - just fails. Did I read this script ages ago? Yes. But it's not that none of the characters stuck with me for months... it's that none of them stuck with me immediately after reading. Which really pissed me off. What a waste of time! Also now I have to comb through the script for review details. SIGH. The amateur team is part of "The Identity Network," which the script describes (in dialogue to a potential new member) as "volunteers across the country, connected on the Internet. We share tips, ideas, we use our own knowledge and expertise... and we're all committed to finding out who these people are." Noble. A tad weird, but, hey, it's apparently a real thing. And they do it from a suburban living room with a billboard and a broadband connection!

The team is led (ish) by Alex Donovan, an ex-cop/detective in the Chicago PD. The rest team is made up, generally, of a bunch of neurotics which, individually, could play as comedy relief but together form an unserious mess. Bones gets the balance right with the squints. This... misses the mark. The team includes new guy / graffiti tagger Tyler, who does facial reconstructions with clay models (IIRC), agoraphobe Linda who (gasp!) can use a computer to post to message boards and read things, Candace, who is the pretty girl (yeah, apparently this group has one of those!), and Walter, a phone company repair tech whose specialty, I believe, was canvassing the community with flyers. There's a female detective character Alex knows and uses to get information, and I kept expecting a flirtationship that never materialized.

The case in the pilot revolves around a Jane Doe who was murdered and dumped into a ditch near a highway. And we voiceovers form and flashbacks of her throughout as the team figures more out (called a "Doe Moment" in the script...) The script thinks these things are awesome. I think they're intrusive. Of course, the more information the team collects, the more we see of her until we eventually see who she is and, voila, missing person's case solved.

Pilot Script Review - Solving Charlie

SOLVING CHARLIE (fka BROTHERS & DETECTIVES)

Written By: Daniel Cerone

Draft Date: January 8, 2009

Pages: 60

Network: ABC

Category: Thumbs Down

Oh, yay! We've reached the point in my Stack of Review Material Process I like to call "The Crappy Crime Show Gang."

Let's start with the most laughable, shall we? And let's start discussion of this saying that, for the love of god, ABC does not know it's way around a crime procedural. I mean, really, it doesn't.

The first 5 pages of this script (by a man who LEFT HIS JOB RUNNING DEXTER TO DEVELOP THIS, DEAR LORD HOW THE HELL DID EVERYTHING TURN OUT SO BADLY) show us the murder.

They also give away the murderer and the motive and that it's set up as a suicide.

This strikes me as a poor decision. I'm not the guy who watches all of the crime shows on CBS, so I may be wrong here... but shouldn't you, like, hide that stuff? So that the audience is figuring it out along with the characters? No?

I've heard that Law & Order: Criminal Intent does, actually tell you who committed the crime from the get-go and then the rest plays out form both sides of the fence (never watched an episode, myself). Which may be why it's the L&O series now relegated to USA?

Anyway. The pilot serves to set Charlie Hudson (mid-30s, let's just call him Hudson) up with guardianship of his estranged-since-the-age-of-five/now-dead father's 11-year old son, Charlie (yeah... inventive man, wasn't he!). Charlie happens to be a genius with a knack for solving puzzles. Hudson is a Property Crime detective with aspirations of being kicked up to the Homicide department. And - yay! - they fight crime together (the pilot case involves a jealous English professor killing a student who gave him a manuscript for a novel to get notes on and the novel was so good that, gosh darn it, the frustrated professor had to kill the student and take the manuscript for his own and finally get published... and he would've gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling brothers and detectives!)

Pass.

Pilot Script Review - Trauma

TRAUMA

Written By: Dario Scardapane

Draft Date: December 17th, 2008

Pages: 65

Network: NBC

Category: Jury's Out

I read a fairly early draft of this script, and I've been told about some changes to it that make me want to elevate it from Jury's Out to Thumbs Up. My rationale for putting Trauma in the Jury's Out category in the first place was that I just wasn't sure the premise was sustainable on the scale presented in the pilot... and I still don't think it is.

The show is about an Emergency Response Team in San Francisco (as well as doctors at hospitals and the patients, but mostly the EMTs). The pilot features a helicopter explosion at an incomplete skyscraper (which takes place a year ago and provides some traumatic / tragic backstory to many of our regular characters... it was an EMT helicopter carrying friends, colleagues, loved ones...) and, in the present, a pileup at the Bay Bridge involving an incredibly-hard-to-miss-with story about a carpool mother and the five kids in the back of her van in the crash. I mean... it's gonna be a tearjerker.

But, jeez, what's next week?

And don't get me wrong... ER pulled it off, to varying degrees of success, for 15 years. It can be done. ER, on the other hand, was pretty much entirely situated in the emergency room. Production-wise, that's a lot easier to deal with on a weekly basis than creating new major disasters for the EMTs to respond to. I mean... we all got really sick of ER's big disaster episodes (hell, Grey's Anatomy only tried to pull it off twice and in the middle of the first story - the Ferry Crash arc - we all got pretty fed up with it so when the fourth season inverted ambulance episodes came around my eyes were already rolling rather swiftly).

Then I remembered that this is mostly about reviewing pilots, and only minorly about assessing series potential. As a pilot (script), Trauma works. It is big, it is bloody, it has a number of haunted lead characters. It's the anti-ER (because it features much more responding to the emergency and bringing the victims to the trauma center than it does of the trauma center itself) even if it tries to take a number of elements that made that series work so effectively in the beginning. We'll see if it works on the screen. I think some levity might need to be injected into the series, because it is very dark. Then again, too much levity and you wind up with a Grey's Anatomy tonal copycat with EMTs instead of surgeons so going for the more ER-esque serious tone may pay off.

Pilot Script Review - Masterwork

MASTERWORK

Written By: Paul T. Scheuring

Draft Date: January 20, 2009

Pages: 65

Network: FOX

Category: Thumbs Down

As we're far more rapidly approaching May upfronts (and NBC's May infront) than I seem to be doing these reviews, I'm going to try to keep more brief when I don't feel like I have anything particularly interesting to say.

Brought to us by the man who created (but doesn't run) Prison Break, Masterwork is the illegitimate clone/bastard-child of The DaVinci Code and National Treasure (which was already a clone of TDVC, itself). World-hopping, art-recovering FBI agent Marcus Vanderwold and his protege Sean Fetters are starting on track of a "whale" in the art-recovery world not because of the particular historical value of the statue they're tasked to recover but because of some Massively Ominously Worded Prophecy Or Some Such that says that "The statue itself is just the beginning. It leads to power. To that thing beneath the Temple of Solomon. Which in turn leads to the Greatest Power" (or, summarized as King Solomon's Treasure, a great, mythical, lost fortune that could turn the economic tides of the world depending on who finds is... yay!)

I don't trust the TV series and its clues to be as impressively researched and enthralling as, say, Angels & Demons (a far better book than TDVC, and I'm eager to see the film which should also be better). But, well, that's the series goal for you.

In the meantime, you have a kind of buddy-cop dramedy being played between Marcus and Fetters (who kind of disappears in the second half of the script when Marcus becomes more entanged with his MI-5 rival, Mo Murphy). The rivalry between Marcus and romantic interest / MI-5 agent also in the art-recovery business, provides some predictable turns and double-crosses that could be masked if we really buy into their love-hate relationship, and it may show up on screen, but it fizzled for me on the page. Of course, there are religious figures involved, and conspiracies aplenty.

I just feel like I've seen it / read it before and seen it / read it done better (and in books and movies where you're allowed to open and shut a story, whereas in TV you have to figure out how to extend it for seasons and seasons without people losing interest... oh, wait, I already have?) It seems like the kind of intrinsically heavily serialized show that the networks are starting to shy away from, except in rare, special cases (i.e. Flash Forward). I'm not excited and I don't hear great buzz on this project, but you never really know until you see the final cut.

Grey's Is Back with Sweet Surrender

Yay! Grey's Anatomy is back after a month-long hiatus that felt like a year.

Never thought I'd be excited about this show again... but here I am. Here we are.

Damn you, Shonda.

Oh, thank god, Owen is getting psychological help. Which means Amy Madigan is back!

Oh, cute awkward meet the father lesbian story replete with "run for your life" warning to George (who, 10 minutes in, has actually been in two scenes... wow!)

I'm kinda over Derek and Mark being manemies over Lexie. Seriously kinda over it.

The pediatric case (seriously, the show has been on such an upswing since Jessica Capshaw's Arizona Robbins was brought in on her roller-sneakers and this field of surgery utilized in stories) has Tay-Sachs, which means... a Jewish story? Oh, it must be the Passover season. PS, Tay-Sachs is fatal in children, and this child has lived one or two years longer than she ought to have... you can't fail to pull at the heartstrings with that kind of story.

... the show has created the adjective "cancery." Kudos.

I love Izzie's wedding den / hospital room. And that she plays a prank on Cristina in order to get Meredith to try on wedding rings (but do I sense the girl who cried wolf coming?)

"Hey! Stop speaking Spanish!" XD

What's with Lexie's eating? Is it to justify Chyler Leigh's pregnancy weight (they are definitely shooting her from the chest up)?

Yeah, Derek... thinking that the Chief could be your best man at your wedding to Meredith... not a good call.

Dude. That guy crashing through the 3rd or 4th story window and onto a car (that was parked curiously close to / inside the ambulance bay...) was kinda awesome. Dude. George has a story this week. Trauma suits him... after all, he did that heart surgery in the elevator that time by himself.

Don't get up off that bed, Izzie Stevens you IDIOT.

I can't even talk about the Callie's father storyline. I refuse to.

That scene with Bailey talking to the father about the terminal child (who is laying in a hospital bed with Bailey) was heartbreaking... if overly whispery. Oh, accepting the inevitable...

GOOD FOR YOU, CALLIE. It's going to feel like crap, but you did the right thing for you.

Don't like Owen using the "jumping in front of a car" metaphor (from his medical case, you know?) for him "wrecking" Cristina by dating her. Too on the nose. Well, Grey's Anatomy in its heyday often was too on the nose... so this really is a return to form!

"You can stop eating now." "Oh, thank god."