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SciFi Weekly 2/19/02
Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy Television
A look inside the writing minds of TV's most popular genre shows provides valuable lessons for beginners
Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy Television
By Joe Nazzaro
Titan Books
Paperback, Jan. 2002
253 pages
MSRP: £11.99
ISBN: 1840233834
By Matthew McGowan
A collection of interviews conducted over the past several years, genre journalist Joe Nazzaro's Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy Television explores the careers of no fewer than 16 writers who have come to pen some of science fiction and fantasy TV's most popular (as well as some not-so-popular) shows. With informed and informative questioning, Nazzaro gets at the gruesome beauty that is television storymaking.
Fans of all things Roddenberry will find a good deal to keep them interested in this volume, such as hearing from the likes of D.C. Fontana, Michael Piller and Robert Hewitt Wolfe. And Buffy/Angel enthusiasts might learn a thing or two from the interviews with both David Greenwalt and Joss Whedon. Readers can also experience frank discussions with writers such as Howard Chaykin (talking about Mutant X), Neil Gaiman (Neverwhere), J. Michael Straczynski and Robert Tapert on the ups and downs of making a successful TV series.
As Rob Grant—of Red Dwarf fame—notes in his interview with Nazzaro: "It's very hard to get SF right. It's hard to get television right the first season. We were constantly rewriting all the time, saying, 'That doesn't work!'" And Rockne S. O'Bannon (perhaps best known for his work on seaQuest DSV and Farscape) would seem to agree with this general sentiment, claiming that "SF shows are so incredibly difficult to mount, to get people to understand. If you're doing a doctor show or a lawyer show, everybody understands that world. In SF shows, at least the ones I've created, you're inventing a whole new world."
Which is not to say that all the writers interviewed in this book agree on what makes good and/or successful television—far from it. But what they all do seem to agree on is the fact that, believe it or not, the lowest of the low on any television show is the position of "staff writer."
The nasty truths behind genre TV
Complete with a glossary, an "Index of TV Show Credits," writers' biographical data, footnotes and numerous sidebars, Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy Television is a most instructional and enlightening read for those interested in the ins and outs of the world of genre television writing.
And it ain't all pretty. It's amazing to learn just how much the constraints of time and—most often—money dictate what eventually shows up on viewers' TV screens. And television storytelling, it would seem, is not only a peculiar art, but quite a collaborative one, both for better and for worse.
Also for better and for worse is the fact that some of the interviews contained in this collection are several years old. So, while on the one hand it's interesting to see how Chris Carter was feeling just after completing the first season of The X-Files, some readers-cum-fans may find themselves bored by what may be old news about their favorite shows. As Robert Hewitt Wolfe notes in his interview with Nazzaro: "Television is a chaotic medium, and things change."
It is interesting, however, to see the likes of Charles Eglee talking about the value of the now-ness and broad appeal of Dark Angel in the same collection as Doctor Who veteran Terrence Dicks bemoaning the state of contemporary British television, claiming that "it's following the American pattern of things getting simpler, and more straightforward, and understandable to anybody, and I think the BBC's standards have slipped very badly. What we've got now are these 'reality' shows like Big Brother, which I hate, and I hate soap operas, so I'm really the odd man out these days. The only things that get anywhere today are soap operas and reality shows, and it's a great shame."
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