Monday, June 18, 2007

I don't get it. Yet. But I'm willing to invest some time and effort because after all this is David Milch.

Yep, that's how I feel, Jill. Lisa and I watched the JOHN FROM CINCINNATI pilot. Well, I watched all of it. Lisa fell asleep.

I am all in favor of pilots in which a mysterious stranger shows up and supernatural powers manifest. And it's interesting when the mysterious power is not instantly reducible to a canonical character -- vamp, vamp-killer, angel, demon, werewolf, alien, Endless. And I never get tired of hearing portentuous dialog like "The end is near" thrown away with no one really listening.

While dysfunction is the essence of drama, on the other hand, I am not sure I need my tv families to be so heavily dysfunctional that they go around yelling at each other all the time. That's not singing, that's shouting.

I don't know where this is going. I trust that it is going somewhere. I am not sure I will like where it goes -- I'm sure my sensibility and David Milch's are at opposite ends of various spectra. But pay cable is the medium I'm working in, so I will be sure to stick with this show for a bit, at least. And if you're interested in a show that pushes the envelope along various axes, you will too.

Labels: great writers, pilot, watching tv

11:15 AM

4 Comments:

"While dysfunction is the essence of drama, on the other hand, I am not sure I need my tv families to be so heavily dysfunctional that they go around yelling at each other all the time. That's not singing, that's shouting."

That was kind of how I felt about The Riches. While I admired what they accomplished, I still had NO desire to watch it. Just way too f'd up for my tastes.

re: John, I only saw the second half of the episode, so I'm even more confused.

By  Fun Joel, at 12:59 PM  

To be fair, I fell asleep after making a 7-hour drive from New York yesterday. I almost fell asleep earlier watching a Daily Show on TIVO, and that's my fave.

By  Lisa Hunter, at 1:08 PM  

I don't get it. If you don't have the family yelling at each other all the time, how do you know they love each other?????

By  DMc, at 8:18 AM  

Unrelated question:

Conventional wisdom says not to introduce new characters in a spec script. Or does it? Barring the obvious "long lost brother comes for a visit" or "high-school reunion" standbys, and also assuming we're not writing a "murder of the week" show, is it a bad idea to create a new character for a spec script? This is assuming that the character in question actually adds something to the existing story of another character, rather than hijacking the story and making it entirely about the guest star.

By  brenderlin, at 12:31 PM  

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