So… will a struggling writer and blogger living in Culver City enjoy a show about a struggling writer and blogger living in Culver City? If that show is by the creative team behind My So-Called Life and The Last Samurai? If it features a lot of pretty-but-realistic smart girls?

Are these rhetorical questions?

quarterlife (sic) follows a group of cohabitating artists, one of whom starts video blogging her observations on the personal lives of her friends. Naturally, each comes tearing home to demand to know how she could do such a thing. (This is why ScreenwriterGuy blogs anonymously, people!) We watch subplots in which characters deal with the frustrations of making art into career, and we witness the unfolding of a messy love rectangle (pentagon?) There is promise of character depth and serious interpersonal chemistry, but it is nascent. Still, if the other ingredients are not yet mature, quarterlife does seem to smell of that undefinable, angst-driven component that made shows like Wonderfalls, Freaks & Geeks, and My So-Called Life stand out, in my book.

Of course, I just named three series that lasted less than a season…

When I remember My So-Called Life, I think of a show with a chaotic, angst-driven storyline, the imperfection of which was part of what made it perfect. quarterlife (sic) magnificently offers the same feelings, from a decade further down the road of life. And while we’ve seen a million different combinations of the group of twentysomething bohemians making their way, and while some quarterlife scenes revolving around that premise are as tired as they were a million times before, overall this show gets the tone right.

Read the rest of this entry »

When I leave my apartment in the morning, I will be taking with me food, contracts, a bunch of gear–all the normal videomaking necessities.

I also need to bring with me an 8-foot American flag and a twinkie.

I spent the weekend on a whole heck of a lot of production, and I’m writing this at 2 A.M. With that, and given that the Knight Rider movie is a backdoor pilot instead of a “new show,” I’m going to give myself permission to replace my normal, proper review with this bullet-point response.

• How does one make the new Michael Knight even more shallow than the first one? Ah… have him wake up with two bimbos and then run from loan sharks. That’ll do it.
• I want the Glen A. Larson retirement plan. Just wait for culture to repeat itself every 30 years or so, and then collect new checks for your old work.
• Val Kilmer’s voice completely lacks the character and edge that Will Arnett’s would have had. His voice was actually among my least favorite things about the show.

Read the rest of this entry »

• The Hottie and the Nottie, a vehicle for Paris Hilton, performed horribly last weekend. On Friday they had less than a dozen people per screen for all the showings that entire day. This is proof she’s not a star. Perhaps we will see less of her.
• Barack Obama won everything and finally leads in delegates and superdelegates combined. Pundits have started pointing out that Clinton needs more than 60% of Ohio and Texas to stand a chance. This is proof she’s not a star. Perhaps we will see less of her.
• The WGA seems happy and is claiming victory. Personally, I looked at the contract and still think it kinda sucks. (A writer makes NOTHING on ad revenue if a TV show is repeated on the internet, for the first 17 days. If you miss an episode of Lost, do you usually wait 17 days to catch up with it?) Still, I wasn’t on the lines and it’s not my financial well-being at stake, so if they’re happy, I’m happy.
• To demonstrate to a student the arrangement of bonds in molecules, I brought and orange to draw on, so he could grasp the idea in three dimensions instead of on paper. At one point he ran away saying, “let me go get some push pins!” Hey, it’s a little thing, but enthusiasm for learning from a teenager? You take it when it comes. Below is a molecule of ammonia. That’s an electron pair on top, and two of the three hydrogen bonds visible on the bottom.

  

OK, I know this is an entertainment blog, and I shouldn’t be going on about politics. However, seeing as how–in addition to sweeping four states by wide margins, plus taking all the delegates in the U.S. Virgin Islands–he did just win an EMMY, I have an excuse.

Read the rest of this entry »

The very first hints at what BrevityTV will look like are now up at YouTube. We’re launching reeeeal soon.