Joseph Mallozzi's Blog, page 415

July 11, 2014: 4 down! 8 to go!

Our writers’ room wrapped up its first week by knocking completing its fourth story in as many days: tease, five acts, and, because you demanded it (and, frankly, I recall how much you wanted them back in the Atlantis days), a tag.  I’m very happy with the first five episodes.  As one nameless writer (let’s call him Ramone Kluegelhopf) put it: “They MOVE!”.  Oh, that they do.  We’ll take the weekend to decompress and then, next week, we’re back at it.  I think we’ll take a few days to look over what we got so far, discuss the various arcs, nail down the remaining premises (making sure each of our characters has their opportunity to shine and suffer) and then we’ll resume spinning again.  We were aiming to have 10 of our 13 episode first season broken by end of July but, at this pace, it’s looking like we’ll have all 13 stories heading into August, a.k.a. Writing Month!

September will also be Writing Month II + a side order of Japan as I pull up my annual culinary pilgrimage to Tokyo to accommodate series prep.  We’ve already started discussions on production design (ships, space stations, etc.), visual effects, and locations (I think we got us a space freighter!) and, by the time we make the move to Toronto on November, constructions will have already begun on our sets.  I will, of course, spend the first two weeks sleeping in the crew’s quarters and eating in the ship’s mess (maybe even performing an EVA to disable the long range sensors) to really get in the mood in the build-up to principal photography.

It also sounds very involved and complicated but, really, a week into The Bridge Studio’s elaborate recycling system, I’m up for anything:

Their plastic bodies are soft but their bottoms and caps are mighty hard.  So where do the empty plastic bottles go?

Trick question!  They go in the bottle bin at the bottom left.    The bin at the right is for cadaver bones.

Oh, and speaking of being up for anything, I came across this interesting option in the cereal aisle of my local supermarket:

I’m going to go ahead and call this one a “niche product”.

July 10, 2014: This year’s Emmy nominations are out! Forget the series and acting awards. What’s in the running for Best Commercial?

Well, I’m glad you asked – and yes, it IS a category.  The nominees are:

Apple – “Misunderstood”

Budweiser – “Heroes Welcome”

Budweiser – “Puppy Love”

General Electric – “Childlike Imagination”

Nike – “Possibilities”

So, which one are you voting for?

July 9, 2014: 2 down! 10 to go!

Whew!  Despite the pessimism of one nameless writer, we managed to finish breaking our second story in as many days, setting a torrid pace that should see us hit the mid-season(ish) mark by week’s end.  Could we actually have all 13 of our stories by end of next week?!

Not a chance.  That opening three-parter has become an action-packed two-parter while one of our off-world stories has been turfed in favor of…well, I’m not sure what at this time.  Hopefully, another off-world story!  But the point is we now have two story holes to fill – which isn’t too bad considering we already have ideas for 8 of the remaining 10 slots.

I’m very happy with the three episodes (one script and two beat outlines) we have in place and have no doubt you’ll love ‘em too.  They’re a lot of fun with plenty of action, adventure, humor, and scfi goodness.  But, above all, it’s all about the characters.  If there’s one thing I learned from Stargate, it’s that audiences may initially tune in for the series, but they keep coming back for the characters.  And, oh, do we have some great characters in this one.  Casting, once we eventually get around to it later this year, is going to be a blast.

In addition to the dark chocolate I brought for the room, we were inspired by a few visitors today: editor Mike Banas (who dropped in for said dark chocolate), his gal Ruby -

And our former Stargate colleague, Kerry McCarthy (formerly Kerry McDowell, formerly Kerri McDowell) who brought along her five month old daughter, Saoirse -

We all took a break to watch the world cup semi-final shootout between Argentina and the Netherlands, then returned to work on our outline.  At which point Saoirse bumped on the third act character motivations and called bullshit on our fourth act break at which point we had to ask her and mom to leave.  But it was nice seeing them nonetheless.

I’m exhausted (Jelly had me up at 5 this morning), so it’s an early night for me. And tomorrow, we’re right back at it.  We’ve got a big two-parter to bang out!

July 8, 2014: And so it begins! Pitching, spinning, breaking, and snacking on familiar ground!

Well, this takes me back.  On Monday, we kicked off the writers’ room for my new scifi series.  Even though the show will be produced in Toronto, most (if not all) of the pitching, spinning, breaking, outlining, writing, and rewriting will be done here in Vancouver.  And I couldn’t think of a better place for us to convene – or in this case, reconvene – than our old Stargate stomping grounds at The Bridge Studios. Alas, our former offices are now occupied by a production called Monster Trucks (sic?), but that’s okay because all we really need is the boardroom – once the scene of all of our Stargate prep meetings, now,  for the month of July, the place where we’ll be coming up with 12 (only 12 because the pilot has already been written) thrilling SF ship-based stories!  Ah, just like old times.

Some photos from our first two days…

Janet’s dog is still coming into work with her at the downstairs Administration Offices.  Stylin’ in in those red booties.  Dogs love ‘em!

Well, if it isn’t Stargate ace editor Mike Banas P.I., working on his own super-secret project, just a couple of doors down.

As is customary whenever one of my writers’ room assembles, I brought chocolate.

Akemi included a few nougats with a very special message for us hardworking writer-producers.

I returned to discover the office had been holding a bunch of boxes for me…for three years!  All free books from publishers and all….

From the same book series which, I believe, is based on a game?  Anyone?

Also awaiting us: a box of office supplies.  But, at the end of the day, all we really needed was a whiteboard, markers (blue is always a favorite!), a dry eraser, and board spray (which wasn’t included so Paul will have to pick some up on his way in tomorrow).

We spent Monday discussing “the big picture”: our world, first season arc, character backstories and arcs, spaceships, transfer stations, faster than light travel,  weaponry, and technology.  Today, we finally started breaking and, by afternoon’s end, had our first (actually second) story.  1 down, 11 to go!

Would love to tell you all about the show (specifically, what it’s about) but I’ll have to defer to our broadcast partners for the official announcement that, if I’m right, will be made to coincide with Comic Con in a couple of weeks.

As we left the offices for the day, one of my fellow writers summed up the experience thusly: “It’s nice to be arguing about robots with you guys again.”

Tagged: scifi television, SF television

July 7, 2014: Our Book of the Month Club reconvenes! Let’s discuss White Fire!

This book is the equivalent of that lamb kebab I ate one hot summer back when I was living in Montreal.  Like the Pendergast series to date, I quite enjoyed Indian food – until that wretched kebab.  It was bad.  So bad that I couldn’t eat Indian food against for years.  And, I suspect, it’ll probably be that long before I pick up another book in the Pendergast series.

White Fire starts off promisingly enough with a mystery set in a Colorado town. Pendergast’s protege, a young idiot named Corrie Swanson, gets into trouble while researching and studying (and breaking and entering) the bodies of some 19th century miners.  She is facing serious jail time until Pendergast shows up and turns the table on the community in spectacularly convenient fashion (locating a descendant of the dead who objects to plans to dig up a local graveyard, something the community failed to do even though, as Pendergast points out, she was remarkably easy to find).  Also coincidentally, wealthy locals start getting knocked off in grisly fashion, their multi-million dollar homes burned to the ground.  Why is this suddenly happening now when Pendergast comes to town?  Good question.  And one that’s never answered.  Who is responsible?  Er, if you guessed the character who doesn’t serve any real purpose in the story, you’d be correct!

As the town is gripped by the murders, someone begins to stalk Corrie: creeping around her place at night, killing her dog, taking a shot at her.  Corrie reacts like any level-headed person in her position would: by not reporting the incidents to the authorities and not telling her mentor (who is an FBI agent by the way) Aloysius Pendergast.  In fact, she seems more annoyed at Pendergast’s concerns for her safety than she is about her dead dog and almost getting shot.  While Corrie runs around town making one dubious decision after another, effectively moving the plot forward, Aloysius looks into the existence of an unpublished Sherlock Holmes story that may shed some light on the mysterious 19th century killings of a group of miners.  Fans of Sherlock scholars and fans have sought this rumoured manuscript for close to a century.  Enter Pendergast who locates it in a matter of days.

Blind luck, coincidences, and convenient developments abound to help a listless and uninspired Pendergast solve the case.  Yes, okay, he’s depressed due to the events in a previous book, but that doesn’t excuse the lazy way by which he works the case.  At one point, he attempts to blackmail an elderly woman to gain access to a property.  At another, he gains access to sensitive documents by barging into a house and setting a fire (which he later puts out with some gravy), causing everyone to conveniently clear out so that he can search.  At still another, he time travels through the power of his mind to listen in on a conversation between Oscar Wilde and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Yes, I know, this means of magical mental transport was set up in Still Life With Crows, but that doesn’t excuse it’s lameness. I hated it then and hated it here.

Ultimately, we learn that the murderer was rendered insane by mercury poisoning, something he was exposed to in the womb.  Oddly enough, we are told about one character who is exposed to the mercury while working the mines and it turned him into a babbling, deranged psycho.  Our murderer, who has been exposed since birth is, in contrast, a calculating serial killer possessed of the intelligence and rationale to hide his crimes.

And, uh, again, why does he just happen to start killing people when Pendergast comes to town?

Oh, almost forgot.  The book almost scored points for me late when it seems Pendergast is too late to save Corrie from being burned alive.  BUT, in yet another ridiculous twist, it is revealed that the charred remains don’t belong to Corrie but some other woman who the serial killer/arsonist happened to burn alive in approximately the save spot a little earlier.

A long way from Relic, the first instalment in the Pendergast series, this book was one bad lamb kebab.

This blog entry is (ironically) dedicated to Birthday Gal Das!

July 6, 2014: Our Star Trek TOS rewatch continues with…Miri!

Cookie Monster and I continue our review of the original Star Trek series…

Me: I remember this one being a lot creepier when I was a kid, like that movie Phantasm and clowns in general.  Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Yeoman Rand, and a couple of redshirts beam down to a planet with an Earth-like atmosphere – and Earth-like studio lot ruins – to investigate a distress signal.  What they discover triggers an adventure part Children of the Corn and part Lord of the Flies with a dash of that episode of the 1967 Spiderman where Spidey gets knocked out in a meat locker and wakes up to a post-apocalyptic Earth where guys sporting football helmets ride around on dinosaurs.

Cookie Monster: Did me miss someting but what happened to de two redshirts who come down to planet wit dem?  Dey just disappear halfway thru episode.  Early on, Kirk try his best to get dem killed off tho.  Notice how everyone stick together EXCEPT redshirt who sent off on his own.  And STILL not manage to get himself killed!

Me: Well, it wasn’t from lack of trying.  Still, a nice twist early on as the redshirt, who we’re assuming will be killed, remains unharmed while McCoy is the one who gets attacked.

Cookie Monster:  The Bonester checking out tricycle and get jumped by zombie boy.  Kirk come to do reskue, punching out zombie boy TREE times before knocking him down.

Me: Wouldn’t it have been more humane to simply stun him with his phaser?

Cookie Monster: Sure, but not as much fun.  Kirk’s knuckles need love too!

Me: This episode does a wonderful job of slow-burning the creepy premise.  The desolation is unsettling enough, but when those unseen children start chanting….yeeeikes.

Cookie Monster: Even Spock is spooked.  At one point, he searching, hear noise, and scream: “Guards!” like my little cousin Demoika dat time spider crawl up her calf.

Me: Kirk makes a startling discovery in a closet.  A young teenager named Miri.

Cookie Monster: Monster not sure what more creepy: kids or Kirk turning on de charm for teenager.  “Pretty name for a pretty girl.  Veeeeer pretty.”  Veeeeery creepy.

You can call me James. Creepster is okay too!

Me: He has no control over his charm powers.  In many ways, it’s a curse.  “She likes you, Jim,”Spock says at one point.  “She’s becoming…a woman!”

Cookie Monster: Just like horrible blue scab Miri notice on his hand.  She be like: “You infekted!”  And he be like: “Hey!  How DAT get dere?!”

Me: Yeah, you’d think he would have been the first one to notice.  Anyway, pretty soon, everyone notices as they all get infected – with the exception of Spock who is, nevertheless, a carrier.

Cookie Monster: Speaking of carriers, monster couldn’t help noticing Yeoman Rand’s wicker basket hairstyle.  What she hiding under dere?

She’s packing a picnic lunch under that do.

Me: Unfortunately for them, NOT her communicator.  In one of the episode’s most puzzling moments, all off the communicators get stolen when everyone – EVERYONE! – leaves them behind to investigate something.  When they come back, they’re gone.  I mean, come on.  Everyone?!  Did they forget that there’s a special place on their belts where they go

Cookie Monster: De Bonester get to work on vaccine for virus – but it frustrating work.  Virus affekt deir minds.  Pretty soon, everybody snapping at each other like dey at an Oscar de Grouch family reunion.

Me: Turns out these “kids” are 300 years old and the infection develops at puberty. But McCoy is close to completing the vaccine.  The only problem is – without their communicators, they can’t contact the Enterprise to test it!  (P.S. After they hadn’t heard back from the Captain for a while, you’d think the Enterprise would send a second party down to check up on him.).  And testing it without the Enterprise could have disastrous consequences.  As Spock points out, it could be a “beaker full of death”!

Cookie Monster: Coinsidentally, Beaker Full of Death be name of old muppet band dat played at Bert and Ernie’s wedding.

Me: Things get desperate for everyone, especially Yeoman Rand who asks Kirk to check out her (now spotty) legs.

Cookie Monster: Finally, Kirk confront plastic bat-wielding kids.  He plead for communikators!  “No blah blah blah!”he scream.  So dey beat him up instead.  In hindsight, he should have stuck wit de blah blah blah.

Creepy kids school Kirk.

Me: But never underestimate Kirk’s powers of persuasion.  If he’s not seducing robots or convincing them to turn against their creators -

Cookie Monster: Or getting teenagers to fall in love wit him.

Me: Or getting teenagers to fall in love with him, he’s convincing a group of kids that their 300 year old lifestyle is wrong and in need of a complete overhaul.  He gets his communicators back just in the nick of time -

Cookie Monster: To find Bonester on de floor, unconscious after taking vaccine.  But it work!  Everyone cured!

Me: Our crew returns to the ship where Yeoman Rand informs Kirk: “Miri.  She really loved you, you know.”  To which Kirk replies: “Yes.  I never get involved with a older women, Yeoman.”  Er, oookay.  Technically she’s 300 years old but physically… Ah, let’s just forget it and move on to the next episode.

July 5, 2014: Our Star Trek TOS re-watch continues with…What Are Little Girls Made Of?

Welcome back to our Star Trek: The Original Series re-watch with your hosts: Me and Cookie Monster…

Me: The Enterprise is enroute to planet Exo-III to check on the health and welfare of researcher Dr. Roger Korby who hasn’t been heard from in five years.  Roger’s fiancee, Nurse Chapel, is on the bridge, hopeful that the love of her life is still alive – despite the planet’s minus 100 degree surface temperatures.  Chapel has confidence in Roger’s ability to persevere.  Kirk, not so much.  As they approach Exo-III, he asks Spock: “Do you think there’s any chance of him still being alive?”. Hey, Capatain Sensitive, the presumed-dead-guy’s girlfriend is standing three feet behind you.  “Uh, Jim.  I can hear you.  I’m standing right here.”  Oh. Right.

Cookie Monster: Dey beam down to entrance of underground cavern and, despite planet’s minus 100 degree temperature, dey nice and toasty warm in deir Alpaca fur-lined Starfleet uniforms.

Me: But Kirk is suspicious and asks for a security detail: two redshirts.  Finally! Actual redshirted redshirts!  One, providing back-up for Kirk and Nurse Chapel, ends up falling off a ledge.  Roger’s assistant informs Kirk that it is a bottomless pit.  “He’s dead, I assure you,”he says.  Whoa, wait a minute.  If it’s an actual bottomless pit, then he’s still alive.  Why not order the Enterprise to lock onto him and beam him back up?  Good idea?  Worth a try?  Yes?  No?

Cookie Monster: Ah, plenty more where dat redshirt came from.

Me: Still, Kirk is even more suspicious now.

Cookie Monster: What tip him off?  De Addams Family butler walking around in his bathrobe?

Which way to the sauna?

Me: Kirk and Chapel are escorted into a room by the assistant.  A door slides open and Roger steps out and his eyes light up – at the sight of Kirk.  Seriously.  He seems more excited to see him than his fiancee…who seems to notice a full three seconds after the fact: “Oh.  Didn’t notice you standing there.  Two feet to my left.”

Cookie Monster: Den, Roger introduce his other “assistant”: Andrea.

Me: Okay, I’m going to stop here a moment to proclaim actress Sherry Jackson the most gorgeous guest star in the history of Star Trek – and probably scifi television.

Cookie Monster: Back to de review…

Me: I mean, seriously.  If they had cast her in the last episode, Mudd’s Women, all my nitpicks about how and why the men were falling head over heels would have been addressed.

Cookie Monster: Moving on…

Me: I googled the actress to find out if she’s still working and came across a video interview with her.  She’s apparently 72 but she doesn’t look a day over 50.  And she’s still gorgeous.

Cookie Monster: No offense, but monster need to move dis review along so he have time to go pick up half-price remaindered fireworks.

Me: Okay.  So it turns out Andrea is a robot.  And so is Roger’s assistant – who Kirk’s shoots, exposing his circuitry.

Cookie Monster: After Kirk execute patented pointless dive roll.

Me: No doubt to confuse his opponent.

Cookie Monster: Den Lurch walk in and grab Kirk.

Me: Robot Lurch.

Cookie Monster: Who, it turn out, it addition to being super strong and stealthy, also do really good  impressions of Kirk, Chapel, and Stewie from Family Guy.  He be Exo-III’s resident Rich Little!

Me: Roger makes a robot version of Kirk – to prove he can.  He is like Kirk in every way, possessed of all of his memories – but, in the end, susceptible to racist rants.

Cookie Monster: Robot Kirk even fool Nurse Chapel – but, to be fair, she not demonstrate best judgement.  Referring to Roger, she say: “What’s he’s done may seem wrong…”  Seem?  SEEM?!  He responsible for death of two redshirts.  Me understand, dey only redshirts but still.  Somewhere, back on Earth, dere be little redshirts waiting for den to come home!

Me: The real Kirk is brought in and he converses with Roger while surreptitiously unfurling some twine from the back of his chair.  I’m not sure what I found more amazing, Kirk’s resourcefulness in fashioning a weapon out of his chair or the fact that Lurch and Andrea were standing right behind him and didn’t notice what he was doing.

Cookie Monster: Kirk jump Roger, den make run for it.

Me: Leaving Nurse Chapel behind (“I’m going to get help!!!”).  But he is no match for Lurch who corrals him and brings him back.  In retrospect, kind of a dumb move on Kirk’s part.  Moments earlier, Roger offered him the opportunity to play along with his little charade.  Instead of turning him down, why didn’t Kirk just say “Yeah, sure. ” instead of opting for the ridiculous high-tail into the meandering caverns?

Cookie Monster: But Kirk resourceful.  He such a player, he even able to seduce a robot!

Cookie Monster: Dis harder den it look.  Me suspekt he was practicing on Enterprise toaster oven.

Me: And, later, he turns Lurch against his creator by using suspect logic (“If I’m a danger to you and I’m here because of Roger, then Roger is the problem, isn’t he?”).

Cookie Monster: Chase ensue.  Roger get injured and, in big reveal, we discover…he a robot too!

Now that’s a really bad sunburn.

Me: Meanwhile, Andrea sees robot Kirk and asks for a kiss.  He turns her down, so she disintegrates him.  Guys, let this be a lesson.

Cookie Monster: It turn out she in love wit robot Roger.  Dey kiss, and commit suicide because robot love not meant to be, like comedians hooking up.  Remember Roseanne and Tom Arnold?

Me: All in all a solid episode…with a tremendous guest star in Sherry Jackson.  Did I mention her?

Cookie Monster: Yes, me tink you did.

Me: Anyway, for those who weren’t able to watch it, here is an abbreviated version of the episode:

Tagged: Star Trek, Star Trek TOS, Star Trek: The Original Series

July 4, 2014: Our Star Trek: TOS continues with…Mudd’s Women!

Continuing our Star Trek TOS rewatch!  Come on, who’s watching along with me and Cookie Monster?

Me: Hunh.  I remember this being a seminal episode back when I was a kid but, unlike, say, The Enemy Within, it fared much, much worse on rewatch.  Silliness aside, I wasn’t at all sure what the hell was going on.  Did these women have special powers?  What were they?  Why was Kirk immune?

Cookie Monster: Mebbe he built up a tolerance over time from all dat Kirking.

Me: The episode starts off promisingly enough with The Enterprise harassing an unidentified spaceship that looks like a flying cronut.

Cookie Monster: Cronut get in trubble and it blow up – but not before survivors manage to beam aboard Enterprise: guy called Harry and tree sexy ladies.

Me:  Who looked like they’d been beamed out of the evening gown portion of the Miss Universe competition.

Cookie Monster: Scotty, who apparently not been wit a woman since high school, reakt like dey be made of chocolate chip cookie dough.  Also, McCoy wide-eye grinning like he about to get some.  Hey, dey not nickname him “Bones” for nothing!

We just blew our lithium crystals!

Me: Even Spock, initially, seems susceptible to their charms.

Cookie Monster: Yep, monster suspekt someting is up (Pun intended.  Dis what me write dese reviews for after all)!  Me also instantly suspishus of guy who talk like a leprecon.

Me: I found it interesting that after saving their lives – and being treated to a lingering triple butt shot of the ladies sashaying down the corridor – Kirk makes Harry submit to a lie detector test.  Is this common practice for all passengers?

Cookie Monster: Of course!  Monster sure dis not de last we’ll see of Enterprise lie detector.  It do great job of catching Harry lying.  Also, do bang-up job of finding copy of his old driver’s license.

Me: But Harry is of lesser concern in this scene because the women are definitely having an effect on the crew members – with the exception of Spock and (again, for some reason) Kirk.  Physiological scans show: “Perspiration up!  Blood pressure higher than normal!”

Cookie Monster: Set erektions to maximum!

Me: Anyway, instead of quarantining them – which would seem the wise thing to do – Kirk gives these strange women free run of the ship.  One pays Dr. McCoy a visit.  The second she shows up, he can’t wait to get rid of that cock-blocker, Connors (“Connors, are you finished?!” – throwing him that “Get lost, I’m about to get laid here” look_.  Later, when she walks past his, uh, sensitive…er….equipment…he receives all sorts of strange readings, prompting him to ask her to walk past his medical instrument again.

Cookie Monster: For medikal purposes of course.

Me: She asks if he’d like to examine her but he turns her down on the basis that he “wouldn’t trust his judgement”.  Dude!

Cookie Monster: Later, Kirk return to his quarters and find woman sprawled out on his bed.  She be like: “You mind?”  Kirk horrified, probably becuz lying on bed is one step away from borrowing your toothbrush.  Gross.

Me: The women are able to exercise some sort of mind control over the male crew members.

Cookie Monster: Heh.  Members.

Me: Then, suddenly, there’s a suggestion that there’s trickery afoot.  Or a strange alien pill.  Or magic.

Cookie Monster: One second, she be woman wit no make-up and, de next, she be woman WIT make-up!

Me: But is it mind over matter?  It’s something one of the women hints at when she wonders whether self-confidence makes one beautiful: “Or is it that they act beautiful?  No, strike that.”

Cookie Monster: Strike dat?  What she be, in a court of law?  Objektion sustained!  Next witness!

Me: I feel as though something was left on the cutting room floor, something that would have given us a better understanding of these women and their powers – and why, exactly, they were so eager to go marry a bunch of doofus troglodytes and live out the rest of their lives on some barren mining planet.

Another perfect match. Thank you, eHarmony!

Cookie Monster: It look to me like she really, REALLY love to cook.  And den, when hubby-to-be insult her cooking, she run off into dust storm.  He run after her and Kirk…

Me: For some reason, Kirk doesn’t even help look for her.

Cookie Monster: Mebbe he not want to get involved in marital spat.

Me: Fortunately, the husband-to-be rescues her -

Cookie Monster: But he complain becuz she homely.

Me: Even though she just looks like the same woman – without make-up.

She’s not wearing make-up and her hair is messy! Avert your eyes! Aaaaaargh!

Cookie Monster: But Harry give her speshul pill dat improve her looks.

Me: Yes, he says the pills make “men more muscular and aggressive, women more feminine and beautiful”…but doesn’t mention any weird chemical properties that allow the people who take them to have a supernatural effect on others.

Cookie Monster: On de bottle, it specifikally state: “Not effektive on vulcans and spaceship captains.”

Me: She takes it and, magically, her skin clears up and she’s wearing make-up again.  BUT the twist is that the pill was a placebo.  It wasn’t the pill after all that made her beautiful.  It was her belief in herself!  Wait!  What?!!

Cookie Monster: Yes, ladies, you too can have de confidence to have make-up magikally appear on your face.

Me: Wait.  This doesn’t make any sense.  How could she have been transformed by her belief in herself when we clearly see she lacks confidence, which is why she takes the pill in the first place?

Cookie Monster: Don’t ruin happy ending wit your nitpicking.  Miner decide to keep her becuz she hot after all.  Awwwww.  Dat true love!

Our Star Trek TOS re-watch continues…soon!  Apologies.  My schedule is suddenly crazy.  Believe it or not, I’ve been reading the same book for four days now.  FOUR DAYS!

Anyway, Cookie Monster asked me to draw your attention to blog regular Bethany’s gofundme drive for a therapy dog: http://www.gofundme.com/ServiceDog4BethanyDraves

P.S. Happy Birthday to Golden Boy Martin Gero!

Tagged: Mudd's Women, Star Trek, Star Trek TOS, Star Trek: The Original Series

July 3, 2014: The series theme!

I was in a bookstore in Montreal, browsing for some suggested reads for my sister, when a song started to play over the P.A. system.  It was a great tune, very catchy, but my attempts to Shazam and identify it proved futile, so I flagged down one of the floor staff and asked if she recognized it.  She seemed downright enthusiastic I’d inquired.  “That’s the theme song to Veronica Mars!”  Really?  How the heck did I miss that?

Anyway, it just reinforces the importance of a great opening theme.  I know, I know.  The recent push has been away from actual theme songs in favour of those brief single digit note openers -

And who could forget -

As effective as they are, I still prefer the lengthier, more robust themes that ramp up the excitement and really sets the tone for a show, like -

And, of course -

We’re a long way from finalizing a theme song for my new show, but I already have one in mind.  In fact, I’ve had one in mind for over two years now and it’s been my iPhone ringtone for the past three months.  Of course, there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to license the song, but it’s interesting to note that, as I developed the series, I had two songs I was convinced would be PERFECT for the series – one for the opening (30 second) credit sequence, and one for the heart-stopping sequence that closes the season one finale.

Of course, much will depend on how we’re looking, budget-wise, late in the production schedule.  We may get one – or both!  Or we may have to settle for me humming a few bars of my own creation, Ship Happens.

But first things first.  The writers’ room shifts into gear this Monday and, in preparation, I’ve gone ahead and started beating out stories.  Working off my 13 episode game plan, I’ve completed beat sheets for episodes #2-7 and am presently working on episode #8. Nothing is written in stone and all is up for discussion, but at the very least these narrative blueprints will give us a terrific head start.  We’ve got 12 episodes to break (the pilot having already been written) over the month of July!

I will, of course, download our prospective theme song from iTunes for inspiration.

July 2, 2014: Pizza Paaaaarty! Pizza Paaaaaarty!

Last night, we capped off our Canada Day festivities at one of Akemi’s favorite pizza places in Vancouver…Chez Rob!

Chef Rob works the dough.

Sous chef Ivon prepares his own gluten-free dough (equal parts wallpaper paste and sawdust).

The topping ingredients: everything from Peking duck and sausages to apple slices and walnuts.

Oscar (aka The Cleaner) on hand to take care of errant scraps.

The cook!

Apparently, some nice leoparding underneath (it’s a pizza term).

Apple, bacon, walnut, cheese and arugula (aka The Coopergula!)