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.

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:

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.