So it took maybe one second to realize I was far from the target audience for Lipstick Jungle.  We start with shots of women’s calves as their expensive high heels clack down New York sidewalks.  A newscaster tells us that the sets of legs belong to a trio of the most powerful women in the country.  Then, boom, fashion show.  If not self-mandated to review every new show for this site, I might well have hit the remote right there.

However, I liked the show.  Well… at least I liked the structure on which it was built.  With an ensemble of three, LJ had time to explore each character well.  There was strong conflict in each storyline, and the pacing and development for each woman was compelling.  Less appealing was the fact that this sorority of female power elite featured less power and more sorority.  Good storytelling might get me to overlook the lack of subtlety in visiting feminist themes (Career vs. family, marital doldrums, arrogant suitors, boys’ club co-workers, all in the pilot?  Leave yourself some girl-power territory for later!) but I will never love the conversation if it has to happen while shopping for scarves and coconut body oil.  Perhaps the target audience will find this juxtaposition intriguing, but I thought the tone undermined the premise.  Maybe I’m giving the producers too much credit for wanting to create high-status female characters of depth, but the opportunity is undeniable.  Make-up tips in every commercial break don’t help.

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Lost is a really good TV show. Not phenomenal (most of the time, anyway.) Just really good. A-minus. However, one thing we must give Lost is that it is groundbreakingly original in the way it has unfolded its mysterious, occasionally goofy, always compelling story. If you ask me, Lost was spiraling to its creative doom, with ratings following suit, when the creative team made the decision that saved it: to end it. Season one was fresh and intense stuff, season two struggled with its identity, and the first half of season three further failed to deliver. Season three, recall, suffered from a move by network higher-ups to split it into one barrage of new episodes before Thanksgiving, then another nothing-but-new streak when it returned in Feb. ‘07.* Right about then, executives and producers decided to announce that Lost would end after its fifth season. Suddenly, the rest of season three got really good. It’s no coincidence. Remember, Lost has been experimental and risky from inception. The pilot was the most expensive to produce to date by far. (Copycats burst out the following season, with every network willing to inflate the budgets if it meant their own version of the sensation Lost had become. They pretty much all failed. The pendulum swung the other way, to the point that NBC has recently made statements about not wanting to fund pilots at all any more.) The ensemble cast is huge and therefore expensive. (Evidently, when searching for their original cast, they didn’t cast with regard to race at all. Yunjin Kim auditioned for the role of Kate, and they liked her so much, they created the role of Sun around her. And then added a husband, expanding the cast by yet another, meaning everything cost all the more, before they’d shot a frame.) All told, it was a risky package, but a fantastic concept. And then someone found what is the absolute key of Lost’s success: the flashbacks. Each episode would focus on the backstory of one of the characters, intercut with what happens to that character on the island in the present. As Charlie might have said, bloody brilliant. The show would be able to get us off the island, all the while telling us, nay, showing us the inner workings of the people stuck on it. We, unlike their islandmates, would know their secrets. Mix in an uncanny ability to tease us with tiny hints, then big reveals that only ask more questions, and you have a hit.

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With Weeds and Californication closed for the season, with a strike-prompted end of fresh episodes of The Office, and with Friday Night Lights treading water so far this year, by far my favorite current show is Dexter. Actually, it doesn’t matter what’s up with those other shows. After this week’s episode, Dexter’s gotta be the show whose writing I respect most, period*.

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Asked who I admire in the field of screenwriting, I suppose I’d give many of the standard answers. There’s a reason David Koepp makes the money he does. Charlie Kaufman is a mad genius. William Goldman has a career of mostly masterpieces, and Lawrence Kasdan’s credits include some biggies. Then of course you’ve some of my faves, like Alan Ball, Cameron Crowe, and of course Joss. But I just watched the first episode of the BBC miniseries Jekyll, and I’m thinking that Steven Moffat’s name belongs on the short list.

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Tonight I caught Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, a do-over from attempting to see it on Friday, which outing was ruined by a melted IMAX film. I’m so glad I saw this movie. Enough people have accused me of being unable to suspend disbelief recently, as I’ve vocally expressed my distaste for Transformers. A small corner of my mind was afraid maybe I had, in fact, lost touch with the common audience member. Perhaps I don’t know how to appreciate spectacle, and let myself go, be swallowed up in a movie.

Nope.

It’s just that Transformers sucks. That’s all.  Plenty of stuff blew up in HP5. There was much spectacle to be had (especially for those of us who saw it on the huge screen, with the third reel in 3-D…) And not once did the visual splendor come at the price of sacrificed plot.

[…teeny-tiny spoiler warning…] If you wish to know nothing, turn away now.

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There came a day during college when a friend offered me some very logical advice. He pointed out that I was getting C’s in my engineering classes, but A’s in my film classes. Film seemed to make me happy, but engineering did not. Perhaps, he suggested, I should rethink my focus. Not smart enough to listen to him, I got the engineering degree, the whole time getting bad grades, the whole time not all that enthusiastic about engineering.

Given a second chance, would I do it all differently? It’s hard to say, but probably not entirely. There have been many occasions in my life when I’ve been glad that I think like an engineer. Engineering, to me, is about problem-solving by looking at all the components of a situation, then deciding where to place priority. Do we want this car to be fast, efficient, safe, or inexpensive? In what categories will we compromise a bit in order to gain in other categories? It’s a way of thinking that applies to the entertainment industry, too. Do I want this screenplay to be inexpensive to shoot, to appeal to 18- to 35-year-old males, or to attract a big star? Which of those considerations must I give up in order to get the others?

I’m also glad for my engineering studies because ultimately my computer programming classes taught me a valuable skill when it comes to screenwriting.

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