Treme proportions in the so-called Ustiug Miscellany, the manu­ script of which once belonged to the Ustiug Archangel Monas­ tery.10 Based upon a different canonical collection, the Scholasticus Nomocanon, the Ustiug Miscellany was supplemented with mate­ rials taken from the Efrem version. Although Pavlov strenuously. Reading Television Scripts – Find a series that is close to what you are writing, find the pilot script for it, and emulate it as much as possible. Perhaps the best place to go is Script City because it offers you a library of pilot and episode scripts for many, many shows.

Wow, thanks for the review. It does sound intense.

Sounds great!Have to say I think the Judge is unappreciated. No, it’s not a great movie. It’s filled with flaws and cheap trickery and plotting that’s a little far fetched. But it pushes emotional buttons effectively.

It deals with a very relevant topic, one that effects many millions now: relations with an aging parent. And it adds in just enough quirkiness and humor to lighten the load. If I had read that as a spec script I would absolutely have said yup, this is a keeper. I think it’s somewhat revealing that too many script reviewers would have laughed and dropkicked it into the trash. The job of a script reader is to weigh a project’s potential value.

Will it appeal to mass audiences? Will it appeal to critics? Will it appeal to A list actors? Will it find a niche audience? All different questions. Unfortunately it seems that script buffs seem to be asking different questions. They have a measuring stick developed from watching their favorite movies, perhaps developed in their training.

And every script gets measured against that same stick. Movie critics are often guilty of the same exact thing. I think to evaluate something you have to first comprehend what it’s actually trying to do.

What audience it is trying to reach. There’s Citizen Kane and there’s Caddyshack. They aren’t measured the same way. I saw it in the theater with someone who isn’t a writer or film guru, and she enjoyed it. I have to say I did too, despite its flaws.

My mother rented it on TV and liked it as well.The most important questions are usually: did we like the characters? Did the events move us emotionally? Did it entertain us?It succeeded enough on those levels.

It was competently done.Let’s compare it to a movie critics loved: Django Unchained. Did anythinganythingin that movie create an emotional reaction? Did any part of it move you?

I’m a QT fan, but that film is certainly as preposterous as anything that happened in the Judge. It has cleverness and entertainment value. Most QT films get better each time you watch them.

Django I couldn’t get through a second sitting, and I tried. But critics loved it.Both Django and the Judge did what the writers set out to do. Both deserve credit. I’ll have to check out the finished product of The Judge one day. I did like the script, and as you said it hits all those checkboxes. With the lukewarm commercial and critical reception, I passed on seeing it.

But I’ll give it a look one day.I’m probably the wrong person to ask about Django lol. Really liked the script, loved the movie. I’m not sure if me being black had anything to do with that. But I do know that slave owners and racist white men getting their comeuppance via the hands of a former slave was entertaining and emotional.

I also thought Sam Jackson’s character was extremely clever. And when Christoph Waltz died, it struck an emotional chord for me. Also, when Django finally won in the end, I was emotional. I’ve watched it maybe 4 or 5 times since then. So yeah, definitely not the right person to ask lol.

I am going to posit something here that might be completely wrong — I think Carson’s brain has been tuned to features because he’s read so many of them. I rewatched BB over the last few weeks. I hadn’t gone back to it since it was on the air.I am once again, just blown away.The creative, amazing choices made throughout the entire show were unbelievable.Constantly surprising, constantly changing it up, doing things you couldn’t guess.Breaking Bad was so well orchestrated, I have to agree, BEST SHOW of all time.Anyone wants to talk about being a writer with skill, needs to look at BB as a master class in creative writing.I keep hoping something else comes close to it, as the TV world seems so empty without it. I think FARGO does a fairly good job, but still isn’t quite as fresh, unique, and surprising as BB was.

I’m with you on this being a better movie than a tv show. I just don’t see where this goes from here.

Is Del going to move to the Ozarks too? What’s going to happen there? Is there some kind of criminal underworld in this place?Also, (SPOILERS AHEAD) this is just like Breaking Bad if Jesse dies in the Pilot. I mean the majority of the main characters bite the bullet, including two of the main conflict-inducing characters.

Bold moves indeed, but now you need brand new characters to stir the pot in a new setting.I still liked the story overall. It needs a few more plot threads to make it a great show. Marty, played by Bateman, isn’t going to die in the pilot? The scene highlighted in the article where Marty begs for his life, would never be suspenseful with a linear approach, adding another layer to the scene is mandatory.The question really is whether or not Marty is a victim, someone who is thrust into extraordinary circumstances or is he someone who chooses to get in over his head.What makes Walter White so appealing is that he is a victim of cancer, but no one forces him to turn into a criminal. I think what he means here is, with a pilot, you want to introduce several different questions that will drive the story for several seasons.So for Breaking Bad, it’s will Walt make enough money to put away for his family? Will he die from cancer?

Will his DEA brother-in-law (and the rest of his family) find out he’s selling drugs? What’s going to happen with the two dead drug dealers in his SUV, surely they have bosses? Is he really going to make this work, chemistry teacher to drug dealer?Whereas with a feature, you want everything wrapped up and resolved by the end. If they audience has all those questions when they leave the theater, a lot of people will be pissed.So in that way, the pilot is kind of anti-movie.

And it takes two different kinds of storytelling to work in their different mediums. This sounds pretty dope and I’m a huge Bateman fan, but I have to say one thing I’ve seen fairly recently and something I believe pilot writers should pay attention to. Pilots that open with a question that seems to have a singular answer (will he get the cash to pay them back?) really don’t go on for very long. How to Get Away With Murder averaged 9.7 million viewers in the initial season (while the question of who murdered Sam was still in the air), only to lose 2.7 million viewers in the season after the reveal.

That should really speak to people, especially writers. When crafting a pilot you have to have multiple layers and questions to characters and plot that go beyond the answering of a single question. If not, mass exodus will ensue. Another dimension to that, is when you only have one question driving the story, you keep having to put red herrings, misleads, and more questions regarding that same thing. With more and more questions and no answers, the audience gets frustrated. I know, because my wife got EXTREMELY frustrated with How To Get Away With Murder.If you’ve got multiple layers and several different questions, you can sprinkle in the answers to those so that the audience feels like we’re making some kind of progress.

I find that the premise is a cliched given the recent trend, beginning with the Sopranos and going through Breaking Bad, of having a protagonist doing bad things (here, money laundering). So, this character is not so much Walter White (who started out as good but emasculated) but an already morally compromised person who has to scramble to stay alive because his ongoing criminality has resulted in a new problem.However good the writing may be, I just don’t want to spend time with that kind of character. I’d much rather see writers return to stories about good people experiencing drama and struggling with stakes-heavy decisions outside of the world of crime and immorality. Scott — thanks for sending! I thought this was very well-written and I could picture Jason Bateman in the part. Not sure I agree that’s it’s 9-dimensional chess or genius.SPOILER:If I read it right, the FBI suspects something’s going on with Marty’s partner Bruce and are bugging his new digs. After Bruce and his girlfriend are KILLED, and Marty’s wife’s boyfriend is KILLED, and Marty takes $7M out of the bank in cash and moves, they would be watching him 24/7.

A triple murder (or two missing persons and a possible suicide) surrounding financial horseplay is a HUGE deal and wold get a lot of attention. What made Breaking Bad so interesting is that Walt was under the radar. I really liked the script but I’m not sure I would’ve been brave enough to compare it to Breaking Bad.

The whole empathy/sympathy difference is colossal. Ozark’s Marty is rich, healthy and already a criminal while Walter White is financially barely getting by, has cancer and is a “good man.”Maybe Marty wasn’t the one doing the stealing but his hands have been dirty for years. Walter only gets his hands dirty to help his struggling family.Plus everyone’s just talking about Marty being a financial genius while Walter shows us in the pilot that he’s a chemistry maestro.Again, really enjoyed the pilot (the writing is excellent) but comparing anything to one of the best dramas ever is. You’ve got to hope that there’s a reason that Marty’s character starts the Pilot as he does. If there is then I hope the show doesn’t resort to lots of flashbacks.If I had to guess, there was a set up/foreshadowing/backshadowing implied with his conversation with the couple RE swimming pools not adding value to a home.Later he traces his foot around a ‘circular impression’ in the garden.

He also pushes down the molehills there.My money’s on there being a connection between that and the reason he agreed to launder money. This was a really good pilot. I’ve been reading a bunch lately (gearing up to write a couple of my own) so it was really refreshing to read something good for a change.

A lot of em were so-so (or WORSE!) and I wonder how in the heck they get picked up and ordered.I didn’t have to wonder about how this one got picked up.I will say, it started off slow for me. But then again, so did Breaking Bad. After the crazy opening, there’s a lot of mundane scenes of Walt’s daily life. It’s similar here, except the opening isn’t nearly as interesting as Breaking Bad’s.Also, the “amateur porn” scene Carson referred to, I knew right away it was his wife. Or someone he knew.

It was 100% going to be someone involved in the story. So I wasn’t surprised at the reveal, I was just waiting for it. I guess that’s just because I’ve read so many scripts, so I’ve seen this trick a million times, but I wasn’t fooled. (Also, Carson: it wasn’t a maid who stole money, it was a cashier at his father’s grocery store).What made the difference for me, after the slow opening, was when Del showed up. He’s going to be an awesome villain. Unpredictable, charismatic, smartThe whole script went up a level when he showed up. And it’s kinda like a Magic Johnson vs.

Larry Bird situation. When Del showed up, Marty raised his game, and vice versa. They are going to make great rivals.I do have one concern though, and it’s pretty major as it’s regarding the series as a whole: where do we go from here?

The family moves to the Ozarks. Are there going to be Mexican Cartel Thugs showing up in town and shootouts on Main St.?

They completely relocated the show at the end of the pilot. So I’m not sure what’s going to happen next. There’s no way they can keep the body count going. And the villain even said HE DOESN’T WANT TO GO to Missouri. So if your bad guy doesn’t show up, who is the bad guy going to be?Which reminds me of the STILLWATER pilot and the “Series Proposal” it had at the end. It explained where each character would go over the course of a season or two, revealed some secrets, etc. Told us how things would go in town.

We don’t have that here. So at the end I was a little lost. We’re going to need brand new characters, a brand new villain, and a brand new setting.

Luckily the overarching goal is clear. Make the money or your family dies. Just not sure how they’ll maintain the momentum from the pilot.All said, great script. A part of me wonders if this would’ve been better as a standalone film (think The Counselor, except a million times better). But I’m hoping they do something great with it. Definitely a good start. This was pretty damn good.

A genuine drama in that the interest is more in the characters than in the plot. At times it got a bit Tarantino-ish with characters rabbiting on about nothing in particular, but there was always a fresh turn in the plot to rescue things and keep it interesting.One thing that really impressed me was the very low character count. It was no problem at all to follow who was who.Another thing I noticed was the mysteries were resolved fairly quickly. Who was the blonde in the porno video? We soon learn it was his wife. Who was the guy? We soon learn it was Gary the lawyer.

What was the money in the cooler box? We soon learn it’s drug money. Amateurs tend to stretch out mysteries too long, hoping they’ll hold our interest. But they don’t. We forget they were there after a while.Do I want to know what happens to the Bird family in redneck Hicksville? And that’s what you want from a pilot. Not to worried about it.

From what I can tell nothing is going to change over at FD, same people, building and so on. Who knows if FD was/is profitable, my guess, it’s not/wasn’t, hence the sale.Boring as it is, I work for a large “logo” company that does this type of thing often. We buy smaller, well loved, companies that aren’t doing so well for two reasons. First, it’s a tax right off, not just once but every year if it under preforms. The company that bought FD will most likely make more money on tax right offs this year then FD made in profits in the last several years combined.Second, it makes the new company look cool.

Helps attract younger, hipper talent and at the same time lets the new company say “yay for us, we saved screenwriting, love us deep. Now buy our other products to prove your love”.Sadly, it works. On the positive side Final Draft should be fine for next couple of years, that is until the new company is sold to an even large company. Felt as if it was WRITTEN for Bateman. He’s one of my favorite actors and has the ability to elicit a sympathetic response by his demeanor alone, which is critical for this story IMO. Without Bateman pictured in my head I couldn’t say I would ever be sympathetic to the character’s plight.The writer is trying to say some interesting things about our relationship with money but it was kind of a yawn fest, seen this before, until I became invested in Martywhich wasn’t right away, even with Bateman driving the story in my head.

His genuine concern for his kids started swaying me his way. His intelligence helped but didn’t seal the deal.

I’ve seen scarier bad guys and smarter con men.And, of course, all the women are sluts, whores, unfaithful wives. Even the daughter wouldn’t take proper care of her gerbils.

Doesn’t feel especially inspired to me, but, whatever. Risking everything in the pursuit of money is a very hard sell to me.

I hate to hijack this chat but I am a UK filmmaker who has been ripped off by a notorious producer / conman named Jonathan Sothcott. I worked on one of his dogshit movies and still haven’t been paid. He owes money to most of the cast and crew and has done this on over a dozen movies and each times winds up his company to hide his fraud.

To all you amazing script writers here – this could be a great investigate thriller in the spirit of All The Presidents Men! (or maybe I am reaching there) But please help.Anyone else ripped off by Jonathan Sothcott please speak up. Until he is in prison he will wreck havoc on our good industry. Yeah I ate at a Hardee’s many moons ago when I lived in Santa Fe, NM. I had no idea what it was, seemed like a low rent cheap-o burger joint. Didn’t know it was a big company.

Literally looked like some crappy place, and the burger was terrible. (of course SF, NM also has a bunch of Blake’s Lotaburger’s, which sounded like a made up company, I ‘d never heard of it. But they do some serious business)Now of course, all the places you list are out of my zone, since I’m a (cover your ears everyone) Vegan and all.But I used to be the worlds biggest fan of In-N-Out when I lived in San Diego. I freaking loved that place. Simple ingredients. Loved it.Never had White Castle, closest I came was these tiny plastic and cardboard sandwiches they microwave when you are going cross country on Amtrak. Talk about disgusting looking.

I think I was somewhere between Chicago and Boston on Amtrak at the time I came across those. Here in the West Amtrak only serves terrible looking plastic hotdogs, or barkdust burgers, microwaved.It is difficult to take a 3 day journey on Amtrak when you eat the way I do, the closest thing to food you can get on the rails is Lays Potato chips, a Pepsi (though I don’t drink Pop either) and maybe a few peanuts (plain).I just wait it out. Eventually I land somewhere I can get a bite, or I have their dinner service if something vegetable-ish is served over rice.FYI: so Chik-fil-A is this big thing for many people, and it seems to have a big presence in So Cal, but it used to be in Oregon. I actually used to get it when I was younger at the Mall, because there was one here. Then it left at some point.

Not sure why. Now people are trying to convince them to come to Portland, like they’ve never been here, but they were here. Strange.Anyhow, this Chef duo has just announced they are launching a restaurant called CHKCHK this friday and giving out free chicken sandwiches. They are these simple bun, simple deep fried chicken (or garbonzo bean) patties with pickles and secret sauce.Oh Portland.

Always so painfully super hip.Here’s the info if you want it:. Lumi, I can’t find your comment, which I tried to reply to earlier, so I’ll reply here. I TOTALLY FORGOT that Dubuque wrote The Accountant, which I absolutely hated. I am so glad I forgot that. I would’ve come into this with such a prejudice.This is shocking. I guess it’s good news though. It shows that writers who write a shitty script are still capable of writing something great.

Each script is its own thing. Some have the potential to shine while others are doomed from the start, regardless of the writer’s ability. Clearly, Dubuque knew he had something special here and really understood the story he wanted to write. “Jonathan Sothcott is revered as one of the UK’s most prolific anddynamic filmmakers, passionately championing homegrown talent andleading a crusade to save Britain’s independent movie industry.In the past five years alone, the multi-award-winning producer andentrepreneur has cemented his position as silverscreen kingpin, makingmore than two dozen feature films starring cinema’s greatest treasures,including Ray Winstone, Richard E Grant, Peter Capaldi, Mark Hamill,Robert Englund, Danny Dyer, Rik Mayall and Steven Berkoff.”— THE HUFFINGTON POSTHe must be paying someone. What you found after a cursory google search is what impressed me too!

However if you dig a little deeper you will find 100’s of complaints on social media like twitter and if you look at his companies – they all collapse with massive debts. In fact he has had 15 companies go bankrupt. I know the UK Police and HMRC (UK version of IRS) are investigating him now and people have given statements – but he is still making micro budget movies that leave so many people unpaid! Until people like him are stopped then sites like this never really have the real value and importance they should. Ozark is American Beauty meets Breaking Bad sans comedy, satire, comprehensible characters or sensible plotting.The first thirty pages make painful reading with nary a single dramatic scene. We are introduced to the protagonist, Marty, via a flashfoward of him hiding out in the Ozark Forest with millions of dollars in cash. We return to the present where Marty works as a financial advisor.

His only appeal to our sympathy is that he is being cuckolded by his wife, Wendy, and his only claim to character is that he thinks a long-winded and trite rant about the nature of money is a effective way to pitch financial services.We are introduced to Marty’s partner, Bruce, who goes into great detail about his sex-life. It later transpires that Bruce stolen 8 million dollars of the money he and Marty had been laundering for a mexian drug cartel. Long story short, Bruce and his co-conspirators end up dead at the hands of Arturo ‘Del’ Del Rio, a diabolical mexican drug lord. Del, the principal antagonist, is so completely deranged and implausibly competent he belongs in a comic book. Marty is the only one spared after Del buys his cockamamie scheme to launder serious amounts of money in the Ozark Lakes.In the most effective part of the pilot, Del gives Marty 48 hours to make him whole the 8 million dollars in cash only – no cheques or wire-transfers accepted.

Marty then has to use his financial chops to muster up the cash from predictably reluctant bankers. Meanwhile Del ransacks Marty’s business and even offers Marty and his wife some sage marriage counselling after having her lover thrown sixty stories to his death. With a few hickups along the way Marty manages to find the cash before his deadline and prepares to move his family (with suprisingly few questions from his teenage kids) to the Ozarks.We are left to believe that after the implosion of a financial firm (the fate of the accounts under management left unexplained), the disappearance of one of the firms partners and his lover and the suspicious death of Wendy’s lover, that the family was just allowed to waltz out of town. If a comparison between Ozark and Breaking Bad can be made at all it’s that the latter dealt with it’s loose ends in ingenious ways (remember Krazy-8 surviving the phospine gas).

Ozark leaves a trail of destruction on a path to nowhere. In Breaking Bad we had a man resigned to life’s beatdowns be reborn.

Ozark gives us an otherwise sensible financial advisor who chooses to launder money for a drug cartel while deriding others for thinking of “Powerball as a viable retirement plan.”x Send this to Belize. Derivative drivel. Opening with a flash forward is owned lock, stock and barrel by Breaking Bad. Anyone who uses it – is a hack. This is why the Golden Age of TV is almost dead. It only lasted 2 generations before Hollywood ruined it with pale knock offs.The hen pecked husband, the cheating wife, the annoying kids, the desire for riches, the fun of dealing with homicidal drug dealersBEEN THERE DONE THAT.This is such a lame ripoff of Breaking Bad it makes me laugh. The fact that so many like it, makes me scared.Enough of JJ Abrams and the Imitators and more originality!.

Gus was like a calm and cool Joker (w/shades of The Riddler) to Walter White/Heisenberg’s Bruce Wayne/Batman. I guess that makes Jesse a kind of stoner with a ‘tude version of Robin. The Thing is, the show was still compelling after the fourth season. So while Gus was one of the high points, he wasn’t the entire show.Either way, Gilligan has likely peaked with BB. Just as Ron Moore peaked with Battlestar Galactica. The stuff they make afterwards will never be able to outrun the shadow of shows like BB or BSG.

The same thing happened to Lucas with Star Wars. The same thing is going to happen with Disney’s Star Wars. The fans want the glory days of the originals. That’s the problem with these things. On one hand it keeps the creators honest and makes them strive for their best. Too much expectation and it is not possible for anyone to live up to the old classics. Ending in a collaborative entity of failure and disappointment between artist and audience.

Both are at fault to some extent. True Detective has a score of 87 on Metacritic and a user score of 9.0. Just because the pilot’s script doesn’t fit into your conventional views of screenwriting theory (“clearly written by someone who was so ignorant to screenwriting that he thought Final Draft had something to do with Vietnam”) doesn’t make your opinion fact. This goes for David Lynch, Shane Carruth and everyone else who operates on a level apart the norm and that you continue to portray as ignorant, rather than understanding that the decisions they make in approaching their story world are completely conscious, as if it’s so hard to read a copy of Save the Cat that they’re just incapable of doing it.

I think you’d do yourself a favor, along with everyone else, if you just stuck to critiquing conventional scripts and films that fell into your wheelhouse rather than slagging off folks who aren’t interested in writing something we’ve seen a million times like “The Equalizer”. I dunno, John. Maybe the main characters show more sides as the season progresses, and certainly there’s naturalistic stuff for the actors to sink their teeth into.But for me, the story’s bog standard and moving at a glacial pace and the atmosphere’s almost comically gloomy.I hear there’s some big revelations in episode three so maybe things will pick up, but you contrast that with the first episode of Breaking Bad, with a gun-toting Walter White standing in the middle of the desert in his underpants as cop cars approach, and Gilligan’s sheer storytelling audaciousness is just not there. Also, remember that most actors approach scripts from a very different perspective than writers. Their priorities tend to focus on THEIR character first and foremost, and secondly whether the thing will really happen or not. Oftentimes they’re at the mercy of the script the same way that writers are at the mercy of directors.I suspect Mcconaughey simply liked the character, maybe for all of his nihilistic ranting, but probably because of things we don’t know about him yet. Harrelson has a more thankless job so far, but maybe there’s a meaty reveal coming for him, too.

Haha it seems like everything Carson has reviewed the last week or so has gotten a worth the read or higher. He is either very lucky to be catching all these gems or he is full of Holiday cheer (note to self, get Carson to review your work this time of year).I’m super stoked for this show. Gilligan’s strong writing had more to do with Breaking Bad’s success than the acting IMO.On the note about Chris Carter, I’m saddened he hasn’t been able to continue his success. The X-Files was my favorite tv show as a youth and really inspired my creative juices as much as anything. I am a huge football fan, and even as a kid always remembered Chris Carter’s name because it’s the same as the Hall of Fame receiver.Another writer I’m bummed about not having a new show is Shawn Ryan.

I loved The Shield, gritty, smart, and original. It blows my mind he hasn’t been able to transfer to something new. As a huge fanboy, this sounds ZZZZZ.I’m tired of cop shows, no matter what the turn is. They are stale.

Why would the FBI set up an office to go after local criminals? Especially in a defunct town known for poverty. I’d assume they had much better things to do.This just doesn’t do it for me.Now Better Call Saul, that is the show I’m looking forward to.Writing a letter to 60 Minutes to provide backdrop on the show is lazy writing.

If an amateur did this, he’d be thrown to the curb in two seconds by this crowd, especially Carson.The thing about Gilligan is he’s better than that. Look at Breaking Bad obviously. Walt wouldn’t write a fucking letter to someone explaining his situation.He just went out and fucking rectified it.This has a lot going against it for me. Hopefully it’s been rewritten or something because this sounds boring. I’m simply saying that people will think it’s great because it’s Gilligan but if an amateur did it, he would be ripped to shreds over it.I guess I’m a hypocrite for the Walter White thing, though I felt it was more organic than this.Maybe I’m just not feeling the story for this one.Another idea that comes to mind is along the lines of the first 10 minutes of Pacific Rim where a voice-over just explains and shows everything.Actually, almost every voice-over, ever.The Jurassic Park video is another one, yes.There are better ways to do these things. Jurassic Park’s tour ride works for me because of how high concept that film is. You can get away with it in that amazing type of setting more than in say, Battle Creek’s small town police procedural setting.Also, the intro ride at Jurassic Park is believable.

If there were a real dinosaur theme park like that, I’d certainly expect that kind of thing to greet new visitors before they went on the ‘real’ ride, which is the tour of the park to see the living breathing dinos. It also lets the audience enjoy the whole concept safely, before the big set pieces of rampaging velociraptors and the car smashing T-Rex.

It helps give some balance instead of launching into the thrills and spills. Deus ex weapon mods. There’s a strong argument for creating stand-alone vehicles (not always a literal vehicle like the amusement park ride) to deliver your exposition, rather than always trying to smuggle it into dialogue or voiceover.No matter how subtle the writing, you can always hear those backstory gears turning in dialogue scenes, and more often than not a writer ends up contaminating good conversations with obligatory information.On some level I think of the JP ride as almost an in-joke about exposition. They know exactly what they’re doing and don’t try to hide it at all. Last night I watched Breaking Bad, season 5 episode 2 (Madrigal). The first part of the show is set up by a V.O., a phone conversation between Walt and Jesse (what happened to the Ricin cigarette). It was 100% Exposition.So maybe Walt wouldn’t write a letter to explain something, but he would have a phone conversation to explain something = like comparing Fuji Apples (letter) to Granny Smith Apples (phone).And is this really going to be considered a Cop drama? It’s not like there’s going to be a new death/case to solve every week (is there?).

I kinda get the impression this more along the lines of Twin Peaks — even the titles sound similar: Twin Peaks / Battle Creek. I believe it is hard to tell what is REALLY going on with this Pilot. Everything I learned about Breaking Bad was: the Writers sat in a room until they came up with a different angle. Until they broke the thing they were trying to fix. Well I am sure a script from him Ten years ago is very different from what he would set out to write after BB.

I hope they tuned this thing up.I do agree though, I have no interest in Cop shows or Procedurals. They just bore me to tears. Maybe some of them are good.

I won’t know, but I hope some are.The difference in this one is, or the Unique thing it has going for it, is it is from the creator of Breaking Bad. I don’t really see anything else unique about it. Yes he wants to beat the perfect other guy. Yes the struggle between the two is what is central, not the mystery to be solved. But all the best TV shows and Cop Shows and Doctor and Lawyer shows are about that: And WE have SEEN IT ALL BEFORE!In Moonlighting everyone cared if the two were ever going to get together.In Boston Legal it was a Bro-mance between the two leads and if Alan was going to get fired or not. It was an US against the WORLD fight from those two. And it took on cases and issues going on literally that same week in the news, which was cool.Not sure what the draw is to almost anything else like ER or Grey’s Anatomy, they are just Night time Soaps.I have never seen a single CSI: Detroit, or SVU or UTI or whatever and have no interest in it ever.

Never seen a Criminal Minds, or Without a Trace, or The Shield or Law and Order: the early days etc, or any other of the billion in the past 5 years.I like Arrested Development, or things a bit wacky. Breaking Bad and Dexter (at least the first 4 seasons) were ILL. Most of the cop shows are just tripe.Cop shows are definitely the worst though, especially Procedurals.

I mean throw something really crazy in there and make it different. But this just doesn’t sound different at the moment.Now POLICE SQUAD! Was awesome though. Detective Frank Drebin and them, I mean it became a bunch of Movies even in The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad. It was damn funny. If anyone has never seen the TV show, they should.check out the Wiki list of cop shows, it goes on FOREVER.

I think I kind of agree about cop shows. I’m probably tired of it too.After decades of “Law and Order” and “CSI” shows, after years of the true crime documentary shows my wife likes, after “NYPD Blue” and “The Wire,” after a million other cop shows, I don’t know if I have too much interest in a serious police show anymore.I do like “Justified” but that’s not quite a standard police show. I like it more for the setting than for the police aspects. And, honestly, if you stretched the season out to 20 episodes and made it like network show and less of a serialized cable show, I probably wouldn’t have liked it anyway.I’ve enjoyed “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” too, I guess, but I like it more for being a Michael Schur comedy than for the police angle.So I agree this show sounds kind of boring. But, then again, if anybody is going to renew my interest in serious police material, why not somebody like Vince Gilligan?

He should have the creativity to make it rise above the genre’s familiarity/limitation. Coming off Breaking Bad’s success, he’s gotta have the muscle to do it his way without making it a boring network show.

So, hopefully he makes it work. What I’ve learned (recently): If you are struggling with a concept, just pick a city in Michigan, make that your title and then create a story. Or, you could also reverse engineer this. Find something going on somewhere in Michigan, make the story be your story and then just title it the city it’s in or closest too. If you want to do “same but different”, I would suggest using a county name (but still make sure it’s in Michigan).My new project:ALPENASynopsis: With the Thunder Bay Film Festival fast approaching, the Downtown Development Authority Director, Lisa Davenport (based on real life DDAD Lesslee Dort), seizes an opportunity to fast track her career by imposing hefty penalties on overtime parking violators.

While Lisa’s plan serves an immediate need, she has no idea the hell she is about to unleash on her hometown. Enter newly hired, Edward Bastow Jr (mid 60’s) and a no nonsense type of guy. Although he’s a just a rookie and new at the parking enforcement game, he’s fresh off burying his father E. Senior just one day prior. Edward Jr is hellbent to make his father proud, even from heaven. Only, once Ed Jr. Starts feeling the burden of the local working man and the in flux of nonsense that film festivals bring, he begins to realize that he may have bitten off more than he can chew.

The locals aren’t having it and they’re starting to rebel. Plus, there is a highly controversial local film called Century in Stone that is going to oust his father’s quarry business. How can this man enforce the very parking rules that are going to encourage attendance to this festival?

Will Lisa Davenport race to reverse the ruling in order to save her town?Alpena, coming nowhere to anywhere near you!!Source material:. Chiming in really late here.I really enjoyed this read. But as has been stated a number of times, this is only on the air because Vince Gilligan has proven himself to make successful tv. Everything about the execution of this concept was well done – including and maybe especially the letter to 60 minutes. It’s not lazy – it plays into the story and likely will keep playing into the series. He’s not just telling one story, he’s setting up for five seasons and you can bet with Gilligan at the helm he has plans for every tiny storyline he brings up.The thing is, everyone is right.

You could come up with this concept and execute it just as well and it wouldn’t be bought. It wasn’t even bought when Vince Gilligan wrote it.

But he’s at the point in his career where he can create shows that we’ve seen before if he chooses. Which I’m guessing he doesn’t choose as he’s not show-running this one.Look, CBS loves these safe bets and if they can pair the safe bet with something that makes them feel like they’re edgy, all the better. But if we’re going to learn something from this, it’s that no matter how great your execution, if your idea doesn’t stand out, it’s not going to get made. Not until you become your own Vince Gilligan. I’ve read until page 21, and I have to say there is a reason why I stopped watching CBS (except for the Big Bang Theory which I love).

I understand that everything’s been done before and you have to flip it, but a few of these scenes that are suppose to create suspense or laughter seems like the writer just wrote the first thing that came to his mind, and didn’t go back to the script to jazz it up.Since this was a draft from 10 years ago, I’m assuming a lot has changed, and working in a writing room for BB, he probably picked up a lot of tips.I’ll give the pilot a chance. Carson, I really wish you give True Detective another chance. I didn’t read the pilot, but the show is so damn good. Yes it’s a little slow, but Matthew McConaughey is doing some of his best work. Anyone looking to study character should watch this show.Look at the differences between McConaughey and Harrelson from the past to the present. Some blatant some subtle.

They are so well done. And tell you so much about how the case has changed them. Every interview scene ads complexity or a reveal to the scenes from the past.

Even smaller character conversations like the one in the second episode between Harrelson and the victims mother or Harrelson and the chick at the Bunny ranch are so well done. It’s smart, the characters are honest and the dialogue is deft. It’s everything I’m sure Kevin Bacon is wishing the Following was. I honestly couldn’t praise this show more.Apparently True Detective is going to have multiple seasons with different story arcs and actors, and I for one can’t wait.