Bryce Zabel's FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH

No Redeeming Value

Enough is Enough 

This essay was originally published in A Writers Life. 

I am a big LAW AND ORDER: SVU fan. I have been for years. It's consistently one of the best plotted and acted cop shows on TV. I have used episodes of the show as examples in my TV writing classes here and abroad.

That said, I thought this week's episode ("Confession") was repugnant, pointless, and vile.

It demonstrated what a joke network standards & practices have become. The censorship at the networks has nothing to do with content and everything to do with the ratings of the show and the power of the showrunner. No new show, or one with weaker ratings, or one helmed by a b-list showrunner,  would ever have been allowed to produce, much less broadcast, this episode.

Dick Wolf shouldn't have been, either.

Expect 'Religulous' to Raise Oscar Hell

Working in Mysterious Ways

This essay was originally published in the Los Angeles Times Gold Derby blog.

When I attended a press screening for Bill Maher's "Religulous" in New York on Tuesday, it struck me like a lightning bolt on the road to the Kodak Theatre via Damascus: yeah, "Religulous" will probably be nominated for best docu at the Oscars — and God help us all after that.

We know that "Religulous" is seriously in the derby for several reasons. First, Lionsgate hired veteran Oscars PR reps to handle its ballyhoo (Michele Robertson in L.A., Jeff Hill in New York). Secondly, the studio is giving the documentary its theatrical runs in L.A. and New York to qualify it for academy consideration, as Jeff Sneider notes at Anne Thompson's blog at Variety.com. Thirdly, the hallelujahs that film critics gave it today at the screening. More disciples are sure to follow.

In order to catch on widely like religion itself, what atheism has needed for a long time is a popular preacher to rally 'round. Maher just volunteered for the job that's been vacant since Madalyn Murray O'Hair vanished in the 1990s (eventually found murdered in 2001). But Bill Maher kicks things up a notch. He's a pop culture hipster who already has a large, anti-establishment flock, and he has a bully pulpit that O'Hair didn't: his own HBO show plus vast presence across all media.

The Few. The Proud. The Readers.

Are Books Absolutely Necessary?

This essay was originally published in Etude magazine, Spring 2007. 

Here is a statistic that will make you gasp, or wince, or just break down and cry: One-third of Americans with college or graduate school degrees did not read a single (non work-related) book last year.  Not one book.  That’s a sixty percent increase in educated nonreaders in the past twenty years.

It’s no surprise what these non-readers are doing.  They are playing online and video games, watching YouTube, blogging, chatting in cyberspace, channel surfing.  I get it.  I mean, I don’t get why IMing with even the most fascinatingly salacious avatar is more compelling than reading just about any sentence that Joan Didion has ever written, but I get that people are otherwise occupied.

But here’s the disconnect – or the series of disconnects:  As the percentage of people who read books has declined (precipitously) in all categories (young, old and in between, white, Black and Hispanic, men and women, educated and not), the number of book titles published in the U.S. has soared.  Last year, almost 200,000 new books were published, up almost 50,000 from just a few years ago.  And, while readers have declined, retail space devoted to selling the books they aren’t reading has soared (courtesy of the Barnes and Noble, and Borders explosions).  Then, of course, there’s all the online retail space that makes book buying just a click away.

How to Throw a Pitch

You Will Be Creative in the Following Steps or Else! 

This essay was originally published by Lee Goldberg in A Writers Life. 

I'm going in to a major studio next week to pitch a TV series.  In advance of the meeting, the studio wants you to send them a very short log line of the concept, sort of the equivalent of a TV Guide listing. Assuming that they like the log-line, a few days before the meeting they will send you the "Drama Series Pitch" format that they expect you to follow for your verbal presentation. Here it is:

Ricky Gervais Revenge Plot Revealed!!

Steve Carell's Been Warned!

This essay was originally published in the Los Angeles Times Gold Derby blog.

When Ricky Gervais wasn't present at last year's Emmys to accept his upset victory for best comedy actor ("Extras"), Steve Carell leapt to the stage and claimed the statuette on behalf of the man who trailblazed his role on the original "The Office." Gervais produced, wrote and starred in the British version from 2001 to 2004 before Carell debuted a Yankee rendition in 2005, which won best comedy series at the Emmys.

Next, if Carell wins best comedy actor for the U.S. version of "The Office" on Sept. 21, "I'm going to beat him to the stage just to even things up," Ricky Gervais says. "I'm going to wrestle him to the ground and get his Emmy before he can."

Gervais may also have his own Emmy to claim that night too, as a nominee for best actor in a TV film for "Extras: The Extra Special Series Finale." Most award prognosticators pooh-pooh his chance to win because he competes against four past Oscar nominees and/or winners: Ralph Fiennes ("Bernard and Doris"), Paul Giamatti ("John Adams"), Kevin Spacey ("Recount") and Tom Wilkinson ("Recount").

The Book Is Dead. Not!

Rumors of Death...

This essay was originally published in Etude magazine.

The Book Is Dead.

That’s the title of the book I’m currently reading.  Of course the fact that this book was written and published, that I bought it and am reading it would seem a powerful argument against its main premise.

In fact, 172,000 books were published in the U.S. last year.  If you count vanity press and print-on-demand, a new book of fiction is right now being published every 30 minutes in America.  How can the book be dead?

There are several good answers to this.  First of all, most of those hundred thousand-plus books are essentially moribund, gathering dust on the acres of bookcases installed in megastores to lend them gravitas.  Actually, as a Viking publisher remarked a while ago, “everyone is reading the same 20 books.”  The miles of aisles at B&N and Borders are just, in the words of a B&N honcho, “wallpaper” – background decoration so that the place feels literary. The people coming in to buy one of those 20 anointed books want to browse for a while, sit in an armchair, sip a latte and feel ensconced in the world of books – of which eight out of ten flop in the marketplace. They die – mostly swiftly – moved from the front of the store “new” table to back shelf in three weeks, from shelf to return carton in two months and from there to $1.95 online sellers and Costco remainder bins.

The Drama Behind Drama

Global Meandering 

This essay was originally published in A Writers Life. 

Recently I attended a three-day "International Drama Summit" conference that MediaXChange, in cooperation with CBS, NATPE and Fox, put together here in Los Angeles.  A sobering fact came out of a panel discussion with Jeff Wachtel, head of USA Network, and David Stapf, head of programming for CBS and Paramount. They were asked point-blank by David Zucker (who heads Ridley Scott's TV production company) if they would ever buy a contemporary TV series set in Europe or South America, written and produced by Americans and starring American actors...and they both answered with a flat-out NO.

The only exceptions Stapf and Wachtel said they would consider would be shows set in the past (ala ROME, THE TUDORS or ROBINSON CRUSOE) or that are science fiction (which are likely to be set on other planets, regardless of what country they are shot in).  They believe that America audiences simply won't accept a contemporary series set in Europe, no matter how big the stars are. They said there hasn't been a successful network show set in Europe since the days of THE AVENGERS, THE SAINT and I SPY thirty five years ago...and they were unwilling to be the ones to try to break that record.

Just Doing It

When Life Throws You Bricks

This column originally appeared in The Huffington Post.

One of the most-asked questions about the business-end of Hollywood is -- how in the world do movies ever get made?? As the level of hoops to jump through grows, it's a question that gets asked even by professionals, who can see years pass before a film comes to life.

For Rob Hedden, the answer is simple. It happens because of a brick being thrown through his car windshield.

Four years ago, Hedden was chaperoning his son and some school friends, caravaning down the California coast into Mexico on a birthday trip. On the way back, driving along the freeway, a brick came crashing into the car, thrown from an overpass above.

When you're at a standstill, this is not a good thing. When you're moving at highway speeds -- it came close to being deadly. Glass went flying, dangerously cutting in to some people. Speeding off, Hedden quickly called one of the other cars to explain the situation, headed out of the pack to desperately find a hospital, and what could have been a tragic experience, turned into a mere harrowing one that allowed for eventual recovery.