CW Sundays No More?

Per Joseph Adalian, CW is close to giving Sundays back to the affiliates next season.

Good for them (see Next Season - CW for my proposed schedule that still has CW picking up all new dramas but Light Years, and not scheduling Sundays...)

A couple changes...

- CW will probably keep 90210 at 9pm on Tuesdays and put the new Melrose Place at 8pm on Tuesdays (after all, 90210 needs lead-in support)

- if Privileged airs on Fridays, the five drama pilots can still all be picked up, but CW will have 2 options for midseason replacements... something the network needs to have up its sleeve

Getting rid of Sundays, CW can have Gossip Girl level "success" with all of its new programs and still have massive gains in its average versus year-ago (especially if it can find some degree of success on Fridays).

NBC pickups... first round!

Alright! All four of my Thumbs Up / Jury's Out drama scripts from NBC were announced as pickups today (Parenthood, Trauma, Mercy, and Day One).

The news that Day One will be a "limited" (aka mini-) series actually turns my head on the project. You can pour money into something like that and have a good, entertaining product for however long they're going to do it AND THEN BE DONE WITH IT. But it just wasn't continuing series material.

Very excited to see screeners of all these pickups... my question now is "where's Legally Mad?" Was it so bad that they decided to incur the series penalty? Or just wait to announce it until May 19th when NBC announces its schedule (and say "it's midseason")?

Also no official word on Chuck... until May 19th?

NBC pickups almost here!

Glad the info I was sitting on about the (rumor of the) Chuck 13-episode pickup seems like it's come to pass, as the rumor was it was part of an NBC/WBTV deal that included Southland (picked up for 13). Now that other places are reporting it, I'm sure my source won't mind me chiming in with the info!

Also potentially part of the the deal: Legally Mad (gah!), but we all knew it was getting picked up because of the series penalty...

As we ramp up towards infronts/upfronts, the news usually breaks about 2 days in advance for each network (on pickups, not on scheduling), so with NBC's infront on May 5th... today could be a big news day.

What Did You See?

I was a little underwhelmed by the five "teaser" promos ABC did for Flash Forward during tonight's Lost. Not that I've seen the pilot yet, but those images didn't conjure anything specifically from it... just a kind of general, creepy-ish "passage of life" vibe (unborn fetus --> kids playing --> marriage --> vacation --> funeral). I suppose it does work in an "everyday person" sort of way... you and I may not be connected to the events in the series, but if the event were to happen IRL... what would we see?

Will people be curious? Maybe. Will people be enthralled? Not yet. I was holding out hope for a glimpse of the massive pile-up on the freeway...

Lost.

Good episode.

After a few weeks of putting pieces into place and setting the stage, but ultimately running in place, stuff happened this week. Glad we checked in with Desmond and Penny. It's so weird in this series how certain people, at different points in the story, seem like they're the be-all-end-all, the most important person in the Lost universe. Daniel certainly felt like that tonight (and Desmond, Ben, Jack, and Locke all have in the past)... but then, well, the ending happened.

Which wasn't entirely unexpected given the tone of the 2007 (2008?) Hawking/Widmore conversation... but still it worked incredibly well. I'm glad the twists can be built up to in this show instead of everything having to come out of left field. I was so curious the whole episode what Hawking's true agenda is. She played Daniel, that's for sure. To what end? There obviously has to be some sort of purpose to it otherwise, yeah, you change it (although I suspect the final three episodes of this season are going to be a massive attempt to change fate / the future and it fails and thus Hawking decides to plot the course she takes). On the subject of changing fate, Lost certainly does seem to be inching toward the Greek tragedy quandary about fate. "Ethos anthropos daimon" depending on which of two ways you read it grammatically... does the fate make the man, or does the man make his fate? And, of course, there's the ever-present theme in Greek tragedy that in trying to avoid or avert one's fate, one winds up causing it (i.e. Laius is told that his son will murder him and marry his mother, so Laius gives his son to his servant to have the boy killed, only the boy isn't killed, he grows up not knowing about his true heritage, happens upon Laius on a roadway and kills his father, then goes on to, in fact, marry his mother... whoops!)

Anyway. My own Greek tragedy geekiness aside...

Hawking says (in 2007/8) that she doesn't know what's going to happen next for the first time in ages (whatever it is, can we please leave Desmond and Penny and Little Charlie out of it? No? Dang) and I assume that's because Daniel will be telling his mother everything he knows (perhaps through Miles) so when Hawking leaves the Island in the evacuation, she knows what's to come in the timeline.

We know a "war" is coming to the Island. Who are the big players in this war? The show has had us going that it was Widmore vs. Ben, and even Widmore vs. Hawking... but is there another party (after all, it was the US Army that was on the Island with Jughead and we have never really met anyone affiliated with the US armed forces)? What does ageless Richard have to do with any / all of it? Jacob? Will Aaron come back into play? Claire? Cindy the Flight Attendant?

Pilot Script Review Summary / Links

The below are listed in alphabetical order by category. Remember, categories are broad, and reviews are based on whatever draft of the script I read, not final shooting scripts.

Thumbs Up

- Eastwick (ABC)

- Empire State (ABC)

- Flash Forward (ABC)

- The Good Wife (CBS)

- House Rules (CBS)

- Parenthood (NBC)

- Washington Field (CBS)

Jury's Out

- The Beautiful Life (CW)

- The Body Politic (CW)

- Day One (NBC)

- Eva Adams (FOX)

- Happy Town (ABC)

- Human Target (FOX)

- Inside the Box (ABC)

- Limelight (ABC)

- Maggie Hill (FOX)

- Mercy (NBC)

- See Kate Run (ABC)

- Trauma (NBC)

- US Attorney (CBS)

- V (ABC)

- The Vampire Diaries (CW)

Thumbs Down

- A Marriage (CBS)

- Back (CBS)

- The Eastmans (CBS)

- The Forgotten (ABC)

- I Witness (CBS)

- Legally Mad (NBC)

- Light Years (CW)

- Lost & Found (NBC)

- Masterwork (FOX)

- Miami Trauma (CBS)

- Past-Life (FOX)

- Solving Charlie (ABC)

- Three Rivers (CBS)

Not Reviewed - Not Read / Not Available

- Confessions of a Contractor (CBS)

- Legend aka NCIS Spin Off (CBS)

- Lily aka Gossip Girl Spin Off (CW)

- Melrose Place (CW)

- Untitled Dave Hemingson Lawyer Project (ABC)

Pilot Script Review - Inside the Box

INSIDE THE BOX

Written By: Richard E. Robbins

Draft Date: January 21, 2009

Pages: 65

Network: ABC

Category: Jury's Out

OMFG IT'S THE LAST ONE. Breathe, Travis, breathe!

TV shows (and movies) about journalism are hard. They're about intrepid reporters after a story. After the truth. Uncovering the truth. The audience has to follow an investigative process that, end of the day, is about a scoop. Not necessarily solving a murder or curing a disease. The stakes, general wisdom goes, are just lower when your show is about reporters instead of cops or doctors... and that's a big reason why there aren't any shows right now about reporters.

Inside the Box does an admirable job trying to add that ingredient - stakes - by setting itself firmly in the world of politics and following a set of reporters for the Washington bureau of NNC (gee, what could that possibly be alluding to?) It's a world of scandals, world leaders, and of policy. Of course, it's all fictional but I'm sure that won't stop ItB from doing its own swine flu-esque episode or a story about a Republican senator switching parties, just to pull a couple gems from today's news circuit. The trick, of course, will be to make each story reflective of the personal lives of various members of the news crew.

The main character of ItB is Catharine Powell. She runs things. She is whip-smart and hard-nosed, and has a fantasy of what journalism ought to be able. She cares. And she's passed over for the position of Washington Bureau Chief in favor of Kenneth Donnegan, formerly of the BBC, because he "brings the sizzle." Of course, journalistically, Catherine hates him because he turned Newsnight into Inside Edition, and personally because she's worked too damn hard, dammit! She'll suck it up, though, and be part of his team. It even turns out that Kenneth isn't the soft/junk-news guy she gives him credit for.

Other characters in and around the newsroom.

The main story being broken in the pilot is confirming the appointment of a Republican to the Supreme Court by the President. Turns out the guy as an illegitimate child. Do we break the story (ethically... should we)? Do we use it to our advantage in trying to get statements from various parties to that we can be the first to break the news that he's being confirmed? Or to nail an interview?

That, my readers, is why journalism sometimes doesn't work. The goals aren't always altruistic. It's not necessarily about breaking the story or about the fallout of the story being broken and its affect on people's lives... it's breaking the story first.

Which is why it's so important we feel for these characters and, to that end, I think the script succeeds. I think people will respond to these people, to the internal office politics, friendships, and to the relationships between everyone. We have characters at all levels of the totem pole, from Kenneth as bureau chief to Catherine, a producer, to Sam(antha), a seasoned reporter, Jake, a lower level producer, Kyle, first day on the job as White House correspondent (he's sleeping with the Press Secretary to boot), to a group of four entry-level peons (two of whom, Priya and Molly, prove themselves in the episode). It's a wide cross-section that should allow the news stories to affect multiple characters in vastly different ways.

It's not a home run. But it could be a hit.

Pilot Script Review - Human Target

HUMAN TARGET

Written By: Jon E. Steinberg

Draft Date: December 19, 2008

Pages: 60

Network: FOX

Category: Jury's Out

While time between reading and writing these reviews has affected several scripts detrimentally, I think reading the rest of Fox's scripts and letting this action-hour sit with me has actually helped it.

Human Target is based on a (defunct?) comic book character, Christopher Chance, who would impersonate clients who had threats on their life in order to eliminate said threats. There was a briefly airing series on ABC in the 90s that followed fairly closely to that premise.

Fox's Human Target, on the other hand, does not seem to follow the "impersonation" aspect of the comic or old series. Rather, Christopher Chance acts as a bodyguard to a client and, as in the opening action sequence, will put himself in harm's way in place of the client (the opening features an office hostage situation, and Chance has swapped places with his client / the hostile's target). After the hostages are out of harm's way, Chance has a confrontation with the hostile, eventually shoots him, and in the process blows up the entire office space (woo, explosives).

The opening, though, is just window dressing for a character who seems to have a death wish. Interesting. Chance is human (between the opening and the pilot we get a "four weeks later" title card and Chance is still recovering from wounds inflicted in the explosion). He is very similar, actually, to Burn Notice's Michael Weston in that he thinks on his feet and has a working knowledge of, um, everything (using a thermostat to cause a killer to sweat) and, even though injured, his enemies are no match for him (which, JMHO, gets rid of a sense of drama the script could've employed). So, maybe Chance isn't human...

The pilot's real case of the week is a major letdown. Chance is hired to protect a woman (Stephanie), who is lead-designer of a high-speed train. There's been threats on her life and, wouldn't you know, it's the maiden voyage of the train. Chance goes with Stephanie on the trip and, wouldn't you know, there are killers aboard! Not only that, but there are technical problems (which Stephanie had warned the People In Charge about but they totally didn't listen to her, dammit, or something got changed at the last minute without her knowing... and now the TRAIN CAN'T BRAKE AND IS GOING TO DERAIL IF THERE'S A SLIGHT BEND IN THE TRACK). Anyway, Stephanie's husband did it, thinking she'd die and he'd get money (it was an expensive project, after all, bonuses, yadda yadda).

While Chance is on board with Stephanie, Winston and some people Chance calls on sometimes (I don't know if the Guerrero character who does some of the investigating will be a regular) are investigating the case and providing Chance with information.

I see potential here.

The pilot case pushes too far towards ridiculous. But that's easily fixed in episode two with, um, a better case. I like the Chance character and I found his British partner, Winston, amusing.

Pilot Script Review - Empire State

EMPIRE STATE

Teleplay By: Michael Seitzman

Story By: Michael Seitzman & Jeffrey Reiner

Draft Date: January 22, 2009

Pages: 62

Network: ABC

Category: Thumbs Up

Who is this Michael Seitzman and how did he wind up writing 2 of my 7 "Thumbs Up" pilot scripts? He comes from movies. Maybe that's it. There's a very heady air of intelligence and importance in both Empire State and House Rules. Which naturally means if either/both are picked up, it's far more likely they will be wholeheartedly rejected. Oh well. I still like the script!

Empire State is a 30-something Romeo and Juliet tale told between two NYC families: one headed by a real estate tycoon, the other by the head of an iron-workers union. Our two would-be lovebirds are Sam Cochrane, son of James (union leader), and Annabelle Maddox, daughter of Victor (tycoon). Sam just graduated Queens College (the first in his immediate family to go to / graduate college) and headed to Columbia Law. Annabelle is part of her dad's empire.

This is only a problem because of, well, the whole plot of the pilot, which involves union negotiations and potential striking, faulty construction projects, suspected murder, family betrayals, etc etc etc. Oh, and it turns out Victor Maddox is the father of one of Sam's cousins.

Like, I can't talk about this pilot any more because to talk about it would be to ruin it. This is the kind of ambitious project that really gets my motor going.

Chuck finale ratings

Small consolation, but Chuck stayed even with recent performances while EVERYTHING else at the 8pm hour was lower.

Even to save the show? On it's own, probably not. But, really, it was never going to suddenly get a 3.0 in the demo. So now it's down to the show's producers, WBTV, and NBC to make a deal.

Please make a deal. 13 episodes.

Damn good finale, last night. Though I am worried about the Chuck-as-super-spy, "I know kung fu" of it all. Cool moment... potentially devastating to the show's mix.

Pilot Script Review - Limelight

LIMELIGHT

Written By: KJ Steinberg

Draft Date: January 23, 2009

Pages: 66

Network: ABC

Category: Jury's Out

It's Fame! But in 2009! I'M GONNA LIVE FOREVER, DAMMIT!

Interestingly this pilot episode plays a lot this an audition episode of, say, America's Next Top Model. There are various phases of "the competition" and cuts of would-be stars. We get to know a handful of characters who have gathered in NYC for Callback Weekend at the Paige Academy of Performing Arts: musicians, singers, dancers, actors. 150 callbacks, 45 spots available. Most of them are two-faceted character... they have some semblance of a distinct personality, and they have the field(s) they want to be in (there are also a few people already in the academy that we meet). Given that we only meet, by name, 7 of the potential 150, the fact that only 5 make it into the academy really does feel like a reality show chain jerk.

- Zoe Green: quirky, would be Lucille Ball if she could be, shy actor who is in danger of getting cut until she shows some backbone in an evening karaoke performance

- Eddie Auerbach: the hot guy, actor and singer, has very little idea Zoe harbors a giant crush on him, and sleeps around

- Jazz Barkley: African-American dancer, strong, doesn't make it in, but is okay with it because she got to meet her biological mother through the process (Nina Khari, one of the judges)

- Georgie Peech (snerk...): southern belle, buxom blonde (or, as she says, a "blondgenue"), actress, doesn't get in (but also doesn't take "no" for an answer)

- Xavier Davis: African-American drummer, street performer, has a sob-story but pretends he doesn't because he doesn't want to get where he's going as a charity case

- Kevin Cotton: straight dancer, suffers through an ankle injury but makes it in

- Nanako Kai: quiet, Asian violinist, fakes not being able to speak English so she doesn't have to deal with temporary roommate Georgia

- Romeo: horny male, pianist... make that genius pianist, he's only 14 and he's a 2nd year

- Tatyana Valenko: the "poster child" of PAPA because "yes, I am on poster," a Russian ballerina who Xavier has the hots for

The adults, invariably, are slightly more interesting and allowed to be bigger, more complex characters, but this is a show about the kids. Honestly, Limelight seems like it belongs less on ABC and more on the CW, with its main focus on the teens (PAPA seems to be college-aged kids as the bulk of those auditioning are 18) and a minor focus on "the adults" (the judges during the callbacks and the teachers at the academy).

I'm skeptical of this show getting a shot on the fall schedule, since Fox's (amazing) Glee will be having a special presentation this May and will definitely be on the fall schedule. But you never know... with teen shows it's all about chemistry, and with performance shows, it's all about creating magic. Limelight needs both.

To paraphrase what Vincent tells the lucky few who get into PAPA at the end of the script... "In your time here, you will fall in and out of love, betray each other, inspire each other, need each other more desperately than you ever thought possible. And you will bring it all with you on stage together -- and create something brilliant."

We can only hope. I'll say it again... we'll see.

Pilot Script Review - V

V

Written By: Scott Peters

Draft Date: January 23, 2009

Pages: 60

Network: ABC

Category: Jury's Out

Ah, V. What to say, except that you have, indeed, seen this before?

Playing remarkably close to the characters and themes of the 1980s miniseries, this series update is about what would happen if, one day, alien spaceships showed up. But it's updated with modern references (i.e. to terrorism, and snide, amusing moments like two film students saying that what's happening is just like Independence Day and another saying that ID4 borrowed from prior alien invasion fare... like the original V miniseries).

So we've got aliens. Really human-looking aliens (but, y'know, much prettier on average). Who promise harmony and scientific advancements and so forth. And a lot of people are really, super captivated by them. But some people don't trust them and form an anti-Visitors resistance movement. They insist the Visitors have been here for a while and have spies in human guise pulling strings getting ready for the Visitors' ultimately nefarious end game (a similar infiltration / terrorism allegory that Battlestar Galactica recently used successfully). Then there are Visitors in human form who walk among us and are against their evil Visitor brethren.

The most interesting thing this update does is, actually, with terrorism. Once the Visitors show up, all of the terrorist cells the FBI has been tracking (our lead character, Erica Evans, is FBI Counter Terrorism) have gone quiet... except one. Their activity has spiked and they're trying to get their hands on a ton of C-4. We suspect they're going to try and attack one of the motherships, but when the FBI finds the cell's base, they find the C-4 (but only one body... and not a terrorist... somehow the terrorists knew the FBI was coming), but they also find a ton of fake documents with very Anglo-Saxon names (one character asks "How does an extremist form the Middle East pass himself off as Al Miller?") The FBI investigates the deceased guy's identity, go to his house... again, extremely recently cleared out, they knew the FBI was coming. There's a clue for a meeting to go to for information about "the cell" and it's the start of the resistance movement.

One thing that disappointed me about the pilot was that there was no "rip the human face off and reveal the reptilian creature underneath" moment that gave people nightmares 25 years ago. Maybe they'll fix that (there's reference to a chunk of skin being removed and seeing the reptilian mass underneath).

It bothers / saddens me that Elizabeth Mitchell, Juliet on Lost, plays the lead in this pilot because, um, what does that mean for our Juliet?

Better, in the script, than Day One as far as alien invasion projects go this pilot season, but we'll see with the final products.

Pilot Script Review - Day One

DAY ONE

Written By: Jesse Alexander

Draft Date: December 29, 2008

Pages:

Network: NBC

Category: Jury's Out

Jury's Out on Day One for the simple reason that it's so special-effects driven and special-effect loaded that it really must be seen to be believed or disbelieved in. As a script, I'm not even sure if I'm on the fence about it. It's obtuse in the worst sense (and has your typically stilted B-movie schlock dialogue... from ominous "they're not ready yet" to "the plan is still viable" and more).

The script has a ton of author's notes in it, which is just weird to see (and the notes are about visual and stylistic things... so while I'm glad to know them, it's just more of a reason that I have to wait to see the pilot to make any judgments... at least I know the intention is to often shoot hand held / very much like the Bourne movies, 28 Days Later, Cloverfield, or Friday Night Lights). EVEN WORSE than that, there were, like, image files sprinkled in the script (from things as blase as a photo of a trashy two-story apartment complex with a central pool to an exceptionally cheesy artist rendering of a device that's part of the plot, to a few actually very cool flip book-esque images of the SHEER CRAZY that happens post invasion / whatever).

It's a script. Write the damn script, Mr. Alexander. Kthxbi.

Anyway.

Day One is a story about an apartment complex whose residents don't live there by random chance... not that most of them are aware of this. A woman named Lynne seems to be pulling the strings, who seems to have some idea of what's going on, and believes she's put these people together to save the planet from the alien invasion that happens in the pilot... then again, when the meteor crashes she's completely unprepared and crazy-mutters "no no no no, this isn't day one..." so boo to her for not being more prepared!

Residents of the apartment complex:

- Kelly McGregor, a doctor

- Sam Brody, ex-Marine

- Hunter Christensen (a girl, FYI), book-smart, pretty, school-age

- Johnny Nozawa, dating Hunter, races cars

- Bonnie Cayce and Zack Adamski, resident geek-tech-programmer-hacker types

- Hunter's mom Jennifer (also her dad, Clark, stops by for a visit)

Sam works security at a bank in an indoor shopping mall and it gets robbed before the shit hits the fan... and one of his friends (Bud, an appropriate enough name) is the robbers. Sam is shot and dies. But then Lynne is there, touches Sam's chest, and Sam is alive. Okay...

Anywho, meteors rain down from the heavens. Shit goes crazy. Ancillary characters die. Things blow up. Lynne gets the group together and tells them they are our only shot at saving the planet.

I think you can tell I wasn't the biggest fan of the story. But you never know with a project this special-effects heavy. If could turn out awesome. Then there's the problem of "um... how much money are they going to be spending on an episodic basis?" Because this is alien-invasion, end-of-the-world settings and background etc territory. The horizon is going to be littered with coral/crystal/salt-like, 4600-foot tall alien monolith things. The author notes with a wink that there will be room inside the monoliths for habitation and more, but that's something that is definitely saved for the series.

Pilot Script Review - Parenthood

PARENTHOOD

Written By: Jason Katims

Draft Date: January 23, 2009

Pages: 72 (!!)

Network: NBC

Category: Thumbs Up

Not a remake of the shortlived 1990 sitcom based on the 1989 movie, but an hour-long family drama that shares only its title with the 1989 movie (as opposed to all the characters and the family name... though they are similar archetypes, stories, and themes).

The new Parenthood is not set in the suburbs of St. Louis with the Buckman family, but in and around Philadelphia with the Braverman family (all I could think about for days after reading this pilot was the "Reunion" episode of 30 Rock where Jack adopts the identity of one of Liz Lemon's high school classmates, Larry Braverman... best episode of the season by far... I digress...)

This is a difficult script to comment on because, as I said in my review of The Eastmans, family has to play on screen and you can't fully get whether it works or not from the page. Unlike The Eastmans, Parenthood has a whole slew of different places it's coming from and going all at once... perhaps too many. Between sexagenarians Zeek and Camille, their four kids (Sarah, Adam, Julia, Crosby), spouses/paramours (Kristina, Joel, Katie), and the kids' kids (Drew, Amber, Max, Haddie, Sydney) there are, what, 14 main characters to follow (not to mention the supporting, non-family players in each story)? It's a lot. It's a lot of a lot and the script tries to get it all into 72 pages (which, y'know, it very long for an hour-long pilot) and generally succeeds but there were definitely times in the read that I was wondering where the other characters were and what was going on in their storyline that hadn't been visited in some time. Not all of the characters truly get a chance to shine, and the stories approach rote (but with only a few beats per story because of the sheer number of things going on, that's to be expected).

The centerpiece, for me, of the pilot was Adam coming to terms with his son Max's autism (which, I'm now noticing, is another similarity with The Eastmans).

Julia has a plot about trying to balance her home life (husband Joel is a stay-at-home dad) with her career... just as she's being promoted to partner at her law firm. Sarah is a single mother being set up on a date with an old flame, while moving back with her parents as she searches for a job. Crosby has Peter Pan syndrome and is in the process of moving to the next level with his girlfriend when a random hookup shows up on his doorstep... with his 5-year old illegitimate child. Amber hangs out with Haddie and they're busted for possession of pot, Haddie lets Amber take the blame when it was Haddie and her friends' drugs. And I'm sure there's much, much more.

Financially... 14 main characters is a lot and that's going to make Parenthood an expensive investment for NBC. But, including the younger children, there are just as many regular characters on Desperate Housewives and almost as many on Brothers & Sisters, so this isn't exactly unprecedented in today's TV market.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for a good, thoughtful family / relationship drama...

... although I really do wonder if the scene with the four kids lighting a joint up and passing it around as they converse about their lives is going to get past the censors...

Pilot Script Review - Legally Mad

LEGALLY MAD

Written By: David E. Kelley

Draft Date: January 16, 2009

Pages: 57

Network: NBC

Category: Thumbs Down

I have, yet again, made a mistake in called either Miami Trauma or A Marriage the worst scripts of this pilot season (of those projects picked up shoot pilots, it should be added). I really had tried to put Legally Mad out of my head. I could read it 1000 times and still have no idea what was happening. I don't even think it's a script, it's a jumble of words on a page somehow formatted to confuse network executives into giving it a series penalty (meaning NBC pays a hefty sum if it is not picked up to series).

I hate this script because I don't have the foggiest what is happening (there was certainly talk of divorce in there, of children going off to work on their own instead of at daddy's firm, some friends who slept with friends' wives I believe...) I don't know what the cases are, who the characters are, or what the hell they're saying at any given moment. Hell, I didn't even know that one of the characters, named Brady, was a girl until page 46. Obviously this is something that will be helped on-screen (as will my issues with, y'know, not really knowing who was saying what when or why).

After LA Law, The Practice, Ally McBeal, and Boston Legal (not to mention other less successful series)... what more does David E Kelley really have to say about lawyers?

Again, I haven't the foggiest. This script, what moments I could understand of it, seems to be somewhere between Ally McBeal and Boston Legal, with quirky, fast-talking characters - who are introduced in clumps and never delineated themselves in my eyes - who sing after-hours at a bar (but without the tongue-in-cheek 4th wall references of BL).

The one character who seems to stand out in this din is Kristin Chenoweth's Skippy Pylon (yes, there are plenty of jokes about the name), an effervescent bundle of uncontainable energy.

As above, this is a script that, when filmed, could wind up a helluva lot more clear and just generally better than it is on the page. I really feel like the wool has been pulled over NBC's eyes, and I have half a mind to gouge mine out before watching the screener if/when I get it.

Pilot Script Review - Eva Adams

EVA ADAMS

Written By: Kevin Falls (adapted from the Argentinean format Lalola)

Draft Date: December 31, 2008

Pages: 67

Network: FOX

Category: Jury's Out

Eva Adams is the story of a womanizing sports agent, Adam Evanston, who wakes up to find that he has become a woman. As time goes by, Eva Adams inches closer to "Thumbs Down" for me, but remains "Jury's Out" as some of the sillier elements in the draft I read have been removed (or so I'm told... namely a ton of the voiceovers and Eva seeing Adam in mirrors after the change).

Amusingly enough this happens the night after a sexual harassment seminar at work. Adam was the kind of guy who ran through assistants because he was an ass, and so once he gets his bearings, he poses as his own new assistant, Eva Adams, and tries to maintain his old business as the sharks around the office (including his old friend Connor) try to poach his clientele. When she finds this difficult, she teams up with beta-male sports agent Paul to help him sign a big star.

The only person Adam/Eva tells about his transformation is Grace, a best friend of childhood, who helps Eva out after getting over her skepticism (which takes long enough, but not too long).

I'm surprised that Fox is pursuing the sports agent territory again, even with the added twist of a sexism parable. I liked 2005's busted female sports agent pilot Amy Coyne much more than I liked this (and I was frankly surprised when Amy Coyne wasn't picked up so that the network could make room for, sigh, Headcases). Ironically enough, the actress who nabbed the role of Eva (Rhea Seehorn) was in Headcases.

Then again, Will Arnett is going to play Adam while he's still a man... so the first 10-15 minutes at least should be a good romp!

Pilot Script Review - See Kate Run

SEE KATE RUN (fka I CLAUDIA)

Written By: John Scott Shepherd

Draft Date: December 12, 2008 (still under the title "I Claudia")

Pages: 63

Network: ABC

Category: Jury's Out

See Kate Run is one of ABC's "a bunch of different genre playfully thrown together, let's hope it works!" pilots. It has romantic comedy (between Kate and co-worker, boyfriend of two years Dan). It has politics (in the version I read, we start in 2028 as Kate is on the verge of being elected President of the United States, so the series is supposed to play as a "how she gets there" story... a tactic I disagree with, more on that later). It's a legal show (Kate, Dan, and Katie's BFF Ellie are lawyers at the DA's office in Boston).

Kate is something of an Ally McBeal-styled mess. We meet her (in the present), waking up late, hungover, rushing out the door, and forgetting to take her slippers off and put heels on. A little bit crazy, a little bit unambitious. She accidentally said the word "marriage" to Dan and when he didn't respond with anything committal, she considered the relationship over. A lovable ball of neurosis? That will be up to Amy Smart.

Ellie, Kate's best friend, is more on the ball. She expects to be promoted to ADA that very morning (and Kate expects it for her). So Ellie is pissed off when the DA takes her off a case (against a drug dealer who is a jackass even by drug dealer standards, as Ellie describes him). The DA tells Dan, in confidence, that the reason he took Ellie off and put Kate on is because the case is going to take a sharp turn south.

Meaning, of course, the pilot is about Kate proving herself as a lawyer. Kate gets a great rallying moment on the steps outside of the courthouse (after she breaks a heel...) where she candidly and angrily vows to put the drug dealer scum to justice, a moment that, for some reason, "goes viral" and makes Kate an overnight sensation... drawing the attention of a campaign manager who thinks she has a shot at winning her local district in 8 months against a conservative talk radio host who is, thus far, running unopposed.

There is a lot of maneuvering and posturing and witness scaring, but finally the key witness testifies and Kate wins the day and is made ADA. It's not particularly complicated legalese, but this show really wants to play equal parts rom-com and legal / political show.

I very much like the relationship between Kate and Ellie, which could easily play as backstabbing girlfriends hating on each other, but instead is one where they support each other despite jealousy, hurt feelings, etc.

End of the day, the series rests entirely on Amy Smart as Kate, so I have to wait to see the screener.

Question, though... if the election is in 8 months (end of the season), then does the entire series change in season two when Kate goes to Congress? Or does she lose? I wonder.

One other note... if there's a way to get rid of the flash forward to 2028 with Kate winning the Presidential election... please do it. It only serves as an introduction to the character (and thus the juxtaposition with the completely un-put-together woman we meet in 2009) and never comes back. Will future episodes check in with Future Kate? Should it? It smacks of Jack & Bobby, but on a shorter time span (oh, and Future Kate as a 15 year old daughter... whose is it? the script clearly wants us to ask... but I didn't really).

Pilot Script Review - US Attorney

US ATTORNEY / UNTITLED FRANK MILITARY PROJECT

Written By: Frank Military

Draft Date: January 15, 2009

Pages: 69

Network: CBS

Category: Jury's Out

I recall having neither a good nor bad reaction to this script, and it hasn't left much of an impression in my head. I do remember reading it while Damages was early in its season and thinking "hey, the A-plot of this pilot is the same as this season's main case on Damages" and then I mentally wrote the pilot off for being derivative-but-not-as-smart as Damages (although what a mess this season of Damages turned it...)

The case is that UPP, a petroleum company, has plants that are contaminating the water nearby and the contaminants are causing cancer at a disproportionate rate. The USAs have a study that seems to show that this is the case, but because the researcher had a sexual relationship with one of the victims of the cancer-causing-chemical, her research is thrown out of court (it's more recent research than what the company has). The entire case hinges on this evidence, so the prosecutor (Michael) asks the jury to vote with their heart, regardless of the evidence being thrown out. Oh, and unbeknownst to Michael, his ex-wife-turned-co-worker and second chair on the case (Susan) talks discreetly to a New York Times reporter... so the fact that the evidence was thrown out is all over the place.

There are two other cases, one involving insider trading at a pharma company (the guy under investigation tries to swing Andrew, one the USAs, promising to get him a vastly higher paying job at a private firm for his cooperation... which of course results in an entrapment scenario because you can't just go around bribing federal officials) and another involving a NYC councilman taking brides for prime vendor placement near the new Yankees Stadium. They try to turn the councilman into wearing a wire to nab a higher placed corrupt government official, but the councilman doesn't do a great job... and winds up dead in the end (so there's going to be some kind of on-going investigation element in the series).

A fairly standard crop of lawyer characters, the show certainly doesn't break the mold... but it's not terrible. If CBS is going to go with just one lawyer show, though, it damn well better be The Good Wife...

Pilot Script Review - The Good Wife

THE GOOD WIFE

Written By: Robert King & Michelle King

Draft Date: January 29, 2009

Pages: 64

Network: CBS

Category: Thumbs Up

This was the most surprising script this season, for me. It's very difficult to put a twist on a lawyer show that feels fresh. Not only does The Good Wife put a twist on the traditional lawyer show, it succeeds on just about every level. The characters are believable and relatable (and, make no mistake, this is a character piece and I'm hoping Julianna Margulies makes it work), the legal case is interesting and solving in a modern way. It's just a winning script that put a smile on my face. Which, believe you me, is a very difficult thing to do. At the end of the day, this is a story of a woman, thought defeated, standing up for herself and for others and taking charge.

Chicago DA David Follick resigns amid a sexual scandal as well as abuse of office charges (he insists he's innocent of the latter), but his wife, Alicia, sticks with him even as he heads to jail. She was a lawyer before having kids (13 years ago), and, six months after the scandal breaks, is starting work as a junior associate at a firm. Alicia shares an office with a young, male associate named Cary, and they're supposed to share an assistant (Sonia), but Cary monopolizes her time (oh, and the company really only has room for one associate, so in six months it's either going to be Alicia or it's going to be Cary).

Alicia comes with a lot of baggage... just like Elliot Spitzer, the video where she stands behind her husband in support at his press conference was YouTube gold. As a DA, her husband made enemies (and friends) in the legal system and that rubs off on Alicia in both good and bad ways (and, thankfully, the judge in the case Alicia draws checks this, saying that he didn't see eye to eye with Alicia's husband, but if the prosecution thinks that's going to affect his judgment, they're wrong.. yay, correct usage of the legal system).

Alicia is assigned a pro bono case that a more experienced lawyer (Dawna) can't take on because of some legal jargon about billable hours on the retrial. The case: a woman accused of killing her ex-husband in a faked carjacking (woman's name is Jennifer, and she has a daughter that, because of her incarceration, she has been separated from... sob!) The jury came back deadlocked (six versus six), so Alicia is told to just work the case the same way Dawna did... only the truth of the matter is that the jury was 11-1 and the one person with the innocent vote is a batty old lady who only insisted Jennifer was innocent because she liked the cut of Dawna's jib. The odds are stacked against Alicia and the case is going to retrial in a week.

Without giving the details away, Alicia manages to do the seemingly impossible and win the case (did you have any doubts?)

In addition to her work life, Alicia has an obtrusive mother-in-law, Jackie, to deal with and her two kids, Grace and Zach.

Probably the pilot I'm second most excited about seeing, behind Flash Forward.

Pilot Script Review - Back

BACK

Written By: Dean Widenmann

Draft Date: January 10, 2009

Pages: 67

Network: CBS

Category: Thumbs Down

This script is a conundrum for me. It's a very intriguing concept, one that I definitely think people will be curious about: a man thought to be dead in the 9/11 attacks shows up 8 years later with no idea what happened (his most recent memory is 9/10/01).

That man is Richard Miles and he hasn't aged a day. His wife, Cheryl, has moved on and remarried Tom. His son, Michael, doesn't remember him. His teenage daughter, Shannon, has had some serious issues ever since his death. And his reappearance, wouldn't you know it, rocks everyone to their core.

The script definitely has the air of "something bigger is definitely going on," with just a touch of the mystical, and certainly the conspiratorial. In fact, detectives looking into the "WTF, Richard Miles is alive?" of it all receive a package with photographs of Richard on 9/11 and of some other people who supposedly died. One of whom Richard runs into / sees at the very end of the script. She also hasn't aged a day.

So... I'm intrigued. I really do like the concept. And there are some really good character moments (I'm especially interested in the relationship between Richard, Cheryl, and Tom... that's just a captivating situation).

But I have big problems with the script and the directions it takes, and most of all, the tone. The script is suffused with darkness (not to mention it felt, as I was reading it, that some character kept asking "why are you back" or some variation on that question every other page... hi, monotony!) This is a situation that, for me, should be met by the characters with caution, with brief suspicion, but then with hope. This should be a relationship drama about rebuilding, about the "what's next?" Instead, it's depressing, mired in guilt and sadness, and about the "why?" while investigating, digging deeper, etc. And that is something I don't have a lot of interest in (and something I don't believe would wind up anything but a convoluted mess). I can definitely see plenty of people reading this script and liking it, and I don't fault them that. The tone just didn't work for me.

In the current state of the world, I honestly don't think people are going to have the stomach for something as dark as this project. Kudos to CBS for trying, though.

Pilot Script Review - A Marriage

A MARRIAGE

Written By: Marshall Herskovitz & Edward Zwick

Draft Date: January 29, 2009

Pages: 57

Network: CBS

Category: Thumbs Down

I honestly don't have much to say about this pilot script. When I was reading it, I could barely follow what was happening, which is weird because it's such a simplistic premise. It's about a marriage, about a family. But events would happen that made no sense. Characters would act in ways that made no sense (not even in a human/irrational way). There would be arguments about things I couldn't understand why people were arguing in the first place.

In short, I just didn't get it. Which is really weird because both thirtysomething and My So-Called Life were so very clearly about something and had understandable protagonists and stories. To call A Marriage anything but an undecipherable mess would be to lie. Where it's supposed to be hard hitting (Noah failing to secure a contract and thus plunging his family and business into jeopardy... even Abby's cancer) just fall flat.

The Gabriel family:

- Noah (father), runs a construction company

- Abby (mother), has cancer, is a school district psychologist

- Maddy (teenage daughter), is learning to drive, gets embarrassed when a friend uploads a video of her to teh interwebz

- Jake (college age son), is dropping out of school but has no job and no plan, hey, can my girlfriend you just met move in with me as I move back in with you guys?

- Josh (Noah's brother), Noah's co-worker, young at heart

I may have misspoken when I called Miami Trauma the worst drama script of this pilot season. I obviously had put A Marriage out of my head.