![Find Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show on Amazon](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMzc2NjIzNTI1M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNTg5MDA5MjE@._V1_SX300.jpg)
Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show Page #4
there was action,
there was just a lot going on there.
Something that you'd just always
keep in mind, you know,
first and foremost,
you're putting on a television show.
No matter what else I do in my career,
that will be the experience
that I compare everything else to.
who worked at
Star Trek:
The Next Generation.And she said, uh, you know,
a tour of the sets.
Turns, in retrospect, that
that was the key moment of my career,
because I just decided,
what the hell,
called "The Bonding."
There was this young man
who was giving me the tour,
and I conned him into reading it,
and it turned out, he liked it.
And he was one of Gene
Roddenberry's assistants.
And he gave it to the late
Michael Piller, who bought it.
And then I got this call
one day, just saying,
"I need a staff writer.
Can you start working tomorrow?"
And I said, "yes,"
and showed up and...
I was there ten years.
When I started at Star Trek,
it really was the fulfillment
of a lifelong dream.
I was a very serious Trekkie as a kid.
I loved the old show.
And then I killed Kirk.
I co-wrote Generations
I mean, I literally killed
my childhood hero.
I wept when I wrote it.
I don't know anyone else
who has that experience.
I don't know how to take it in
and understand what it means
for my life, what it says
about me, you know, what...
what insight it gives into my soul.
You know. It's a...
It's a unique experience
that I don't quite know
what to do with.
I never thought
I'd be writing television.
What I loved about journalism,
what drew me to it
is eventually
what repelled me from it.
What got to me about
covering real events is,
that body on the floor
doesn't get back up.
And it got to be relentless
and... and really
profoundly disturbing.
In October of 1977...
I was doing a third school shooting,
and I just had this moment
where I walked away,
and I just thought,
I can't do this anymore.
You said that you cried about
shooting Larry Flynt.
And that was the moment I thought,
well, then what the hell
am I gonna do with my life?
But with that very first script,
it was like a whole new world
opened up for me and I thought,
I get to fictionalize
all these things that I've seen.
Reporting live from Los Angeles,
I'm Janet Tamaro for ABC News.
I think that comedy
is harder than drama...
I'll just say it.
You know, when you're writing,
it's like eight hours
of being in a hole and then, oh,
oh, oh, here we go, you know?
I mean, sometimes there's days of,
oh, all right, great, you know?
But sometimes there's days of, like,
I don't know, man.
I just don't know.
Nothing is happening.
You know? This is horrible.
And it seems to not matter
how often you can conquer
a writing problem.
The next time
there's a writing problem,
that becomes the one
that will kill you.
When you're done with writing,
you have the "I'm awesome" feeling.
Look at what I did.
Oh, my god.
Of course, I've had that
after writing, like,
a one-line email, too.
"Wow, that was pithy.
Whew, wow, nice work."
I think the
challenge that comedy presents
that drama doesn't
is moving people
into ridiculous situations.
Our slang in the room is,
you have to close
the only door available
to this character is the door
that leads to the big block
and that's difficult.
The more episodes you write,
the more stories you've told
and can't tell again.
And that becomes harder
with every episode.
It's harder on the second
episode than on the first,
harder on the third than the second.
But the storytelling within
the episode doesn't change.
You have to get to the point
"You know what?
"If I were in that situation,
damn it, if I wouldn't do
the exact same thing."
The show was really born of the fact
that common heist shows, I felt,
weren't doing
what they were supposed to do,
which is to give you the magic trick.
They were being highly serialized.
Chris was talking about Rockford files.
Yeah.
And where were the shows
like Rockford Files
that was good, smart, crime drama
that you could watch with your dad?
Right, and it seemed like
there were a lot of shows
about serial killers on the air.
Probably more serial killers
have been captured
on network television than ever existed.
- In one season.
In one season. Yeah, there is...
As far as America is concerned,
scraggly white loners
are roaming the streets,
uh, dropping baroque clue paths
in the path of private investigators.
Talking to some of my friends
who write on
more traditional procedurals,
once they have an arena
where they're gonna be...
it's a murder at a circus,
it's a, you know,
murder at a microchip plant...
they're in heaven.
But it's finding a new clue path
that they haven't done before,
that's what they spend
the bulk of their time on.
And for us, the clue path is these...
is the heist.
And the con.
- Yeah. And the con.
I had lunch with an ex-FBI agent
and we were struggling with, uh,
what are we stealing this week?
This is sort of the endless struggle.
He said, um,
"Uh, well, you know, you hear about
"calibration weights for
centrifuges to make nuclear,
uh, to make nuclear weapons?"
And I was like,
"I wanna kiss you on the mouth."
If you weren't armed right now,
I would kiss you on the mouth.
You're telling me
that a tiny weight this big
could calibrate a centrifuge
to make nuclear weapons
for a rogue state
and you have to steal this tiny item?
That's the size of something
you put in a belt pouch
on someone who is rappelling
through a ceiling.
That's perfect!
Somebody said,
where did this come from?
Why did you wanna do this show?
I thought about, well,
I didn't wanna do an adaptation,
and it's an adaptation.
I really didn't wanna do a procedural,
it's a procedural.
I really didn't wanna do a mystery,
it's a mystery.
I knew I wanted to do humor
because I like to be funny.
I hope I am funny,
I hope I'm not the only one
laughing at my jokes.
But I think what it was about
for me on a deep level
and this is where...
that, that they respond to.
I had...
My best friend of 16 years
had been killed in a, in a,
in an accident.
If you don't wanna go there...
You know, it's funny,
I don't go there on the show, um...
But I do.
This relationship
between these two women
who were really different
was in some ways
my relationship with my best friend.
And you know, it's...
it's horrendously awful that, um,
you know, my life,
my personal tragedy became fuel
for this show, but I think
that's what happens to writers,
and I think that's why
nobody wants to be married
or related to a writer,
uh, even a television or film writer,
Translation
Translate and read this script in other languages:
Select another language:
- - Select -
- 简体中文 (Chinese - Simplified)
- 繁體中文 (Chinese - Traditional)
- Español (Spanish)
- Esperanto (Esperanto)
- 日本語 (Japanese)
- Português (Portuguese)
- Deutsch (German)
- العربية (Arabic)
- Français (French)
- Русский (Russian)
- ಕನ್ನಡ (Kannada)
- 한국어 (Korean)
- עברית (Hebrew)
- Gaeilge (Irish)
- Українська (Ukrainian)
- اردو (Urdu)
- Magyar (Hungarian)
- मानक हिन्दी (Hindi)
- Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Italiano (Italian)
- தமிழ் (Tamil)
- Türkçe (Turkish)
- తెలుగు (Telugu)
- ภาษาไทย (Thai)
- Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
- Čeština (Czech)
- Polski (Polish)
- Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
- Românește (Romanian)
- Nederlands (Dutch)
- Ελληνικά (Greek)
- Latinum (Latin)
- Svenska (Swedish)
- Dansk (Danish)
- Suomi (Finnish)
- فارسی (Persian)
- ייִדיש (Yiddish)
- հայերեն (Armenian)
- Norsk (Norwegian)
- English (English)
Citation
Use the citation below to add this screenplay to your bibliography:
Style:MLAChicagoAPA
"Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Aug. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/showrunners:_the_art_of_running_a_tv_show_18064>.
Discuss this script with the community:
Report Comment
We're doing our best to make sure our content is useful, accurate and safe.
If by any chance you spot an inappropriate comment while navigating through our website please use this form to let us know, and we'll take care of it shortly.
Attachment
You need to be logged in to favorite.
Log In