From Water Cooler to Parking Lot at the Mortuary

Remember those TV shows we used to talk about at work the next day?  The thrillers or science fiction or cults shows or action series that everybody was watching then; they were the talk of the lunch room and water cooler and the first ten minutes of any committee meeting you didn’t really want to attend. In the old days it was shows like The X-Files, Friends, and ER. More recently, it’s been Battlestar Galactica, Heroes, 24, Survivor, and Lost. And as this season began, you heard some chatter about V and FlashForward.

But here's the weird thing.  According to our patent-pending mega-scientific Rush Survey, there is exactly one show on that list that people are actually still talking about ... yet all the rest  are still on the air.

What happened?

Check out longer, wider and uncut (?) ruminations over on Contrariwise. Meanwhile ... what did you think of the Lost re-premiere?  The beginning of a satisfying conclusion or Much Ado?

Flash Forward: Illogicallifragilisticexpedalidocious

Here's the opening teaser-paragraphs from a long, exquisitely beautiful piece from Editor in Chief Brad Munson, running in its entirety over on ScriptPhD.  Start here ... then check it out!

It goes without saying that pretty much every work of fiction begins with the "what if" question.  "What if I knew the world was ending tomorrow?" "What if my wife was secretly plotting to kill me?" "What if this article wins me the Pulitzer?"  What separates the great (or simply enjoyable) work from that which cannot be accepted is a second level of consideration: actually thinking about the "what if" and seeing if it has any real value, any weight, beyond that first fleeting thrill that comes with the High Concept. 

FlashForward -- the ABC TV series or the 1999 novel by Robert J. Sawyer upon which it is loosely, loosely based -- is a perfect example of exactly that: the cool but ultimately unsatisfying idea that really can't stand the stress of storytelling. Because hiding behind the spotty acting and cliche'd characters -- on screen or in print --  the whole concept has a serious problem: it just doesn't make a lick of sense. 

A quick reading of the novel (which is all it warrants) won't provide you with any background or spoilers on the TV series.  In fact, it will only confuse you even more.  The two have almost nothing in common, except the most basic of High Concepts and a character name or two.  But both versions do share one other thing in common: they could have ended just a few pages/minutes after they began.

Want more? Of course you do!  Click Here for the entire experience!

Firefly's "Mal" Makes a Special Appearance on Castle

Yes, it's horribly self-referential and cute, but, as Nathan Fillion/Mal/Castle himself says, "I like it!"  Nice to see he still fits into the old suit.  Imagine William Shatner trying to do this five years after TOS went off the air.  (Nah he was too busy doing The Barbary Coast right about then.  OMG .. The Barbary Coast.  Don't make me remember, don't make me remember!!)