Dave is up first.
I've been watching a lot of Becker recently. So funny, superb writing and I like all the characters.
Last night, I saw the episode in which Kelsey Grammer guest-starred ('Because I Have Friends I Haven't Used Yet'), which aired just two days before a Frasier episode ('Daphne Does Dinner'). How could Grammer do both in the same week?
I'm guessing he maybe had to miss the read-throughs and rehearsals for Becker or they had to tape it on a different night. Or maybe his packed schedule explains why he was limited somewhat to three scenes.
Each of those shows worked on the following schedule: Three weeks on then one week off. And each show had a different schedule. Kelsey guested on BECKER during a week’s hiatus from FRASIER.
Once episodes are completed the network is able to shuffle the deck — move one episode up a week, move one back, etc. So it’s not unusual that both episodes featuring Kelsey were shown a couple of days apart.
From Glenn:
Ken, have you ever had an actor forced on you who turned out to be great?
No. Never.
However, we had one actor forced upon us that was so terrible we quit the show once the pilot was filmed. The show didn’t get picked up, nor should it have been. And we didn't care. We were never going to walk onto a sound stage with that guy again.
Chris Thomson wonders:
At what point, and what are the signs/vibes that you realize a show is basically needing to finish?
A number of signs.
You ran out of stories three years ago but kept going anyway.
Ratings are falling.
The star is tired of doing the show and his contract is up.
With rising costs for the actors, and above-the-line people, the show is getting too expensive to produce. Especially if you already have enough episodes for a large payday in syndication or streaming, why bother making more when it’s costing you more?
And finally, from Poochie:
So I've been watching a series of Youtube vids where a real lawyer breaks down courts scenes on TV. As you can imagine the majority of these shows and movies get it wrong. Just totally and not remotely how it operates in the real world wrong.
My question is could these productions staff lawyers for the pure purpose of writing/dialoguing ONLY the court scenes? Is that allowed by the WGA? Would the lawyer/writers need to be credited? Residuals? Is this something remotely possible? How would it work? And why don't more productions at least try to get this remotely accurate?
Shows are allowed to hire “technical consultants.” They’re allowed to tweak dialogue. On MASH we had Dr. Walt Dishell. We would write operating scenes and say things like “Nurse, hand me that frabbazabber!” And Dr. Dishell would put in the correct term (although I think frabbazabber is the correct term).
Technical consultants do receive a credit.
We had a medical consultant, a military consultant, and a nurse on the set to make sure everything looked right.
Other shows have lawyers and law enforcement consultants.
The gray issue comes when the producers want to do something that is a little iffy. There’s creative license, but just how far do you bend? That’s a case by case judgement call.
As for Dr. Dishell, there was one episode of MASH (“Life Time”) where he was so involved in the writing that he was awarded shared writing credit with Alan Alda.
What’s your Friday Question?
from By Ken Levine
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