71dude is up first.
What are familiar, long-running shows that you've never seen (disinterest, don't like the star, never got around to it, etc.)?
Never seen an episode of NCIS. (How can there be so many murders in the Navy?) I tend not to watch franchise spin-off shows. All the CHICAGO shows — CHICAGO FIRE, CHICAGO CROSSING GUARDS, etc.
Never watched WALKING DEAD. I just don’t like zombie shows. And with the exception of one episode (that confused the crap out of me), I never watched GAME OF THRONES. Fantasy shows are not my thing.
Brian asks:
Were there any sets that were logistically challenging? I'm not speaking about difficult actor, just sets.
You’ll notice in living room sets the couch is always in the middle facing out. Especially in multi-camera shows shot in front of an audience. There’s a reason for that.
I directed a show on Fox called ASK HARRIET early in my directing career (when I took anything I could get). They wanted to be “different” so instead of the couch being horizontal it was vertical. Only one problem: You couldn’t shoot it.
A couch that faces out allows cameramen to get on either side and shoot the actors talking. But if the couch is vertical you can’t shoot the actor on the downstage side unless you brought a camera up into the set. And of course the camera shooting the upstage actor would see the other camera.
What an ill-conceived set. Needless to say, I never had an actor sit on the couch. It was just this useless piece of furniture that took up half the set.
I’ve had other unwieldy sets where it was hard to get one angle or another, but nothing like that.
From Kevin from VA, who has a question after reading my rant on Mike Myers.
Some of the blowback to your post today on your dislike of Mike Myers has me curious. Have negative comments by your readers ever caused you to regret or reevaluate a post of yours? Just how much do the comments "stay with you", the good and the bad? Are there any posts that in hindsight you now wish you'd never published due to your reader's comments?
Yes, there are times when readers will offer a perspective I hadn’t considered and I will thus alter my position. Occasionally, I’ll either add on to the original post or change the original post.
As for regrets, over the last sixteen years I think I have deleted one or two posts, but I can’t recall the specifics. And those were cases where I felt I inadvertently hurt someone’s feelings. I try not to do that.
And finally, from John G:
Would you prefer the challenges of writing the early seasons of a show or the later seasons?
I’d much rather write a show in the early stage of its run. There’s still a sense of discovery, not to mention you have more available stories. When you get into the later years the characters can’t surprise you anymore. You pretty much know how they’re going to react in any given situation.
The one exception for me was CHEERS. I co-wrote 40 episodes and never got tired of writing that show or those characters.
What’s your Friday Question?
from By Ken Levine
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