Yesterday the UK Government announced intentions to crack down on internet piracy of films, music and television. While this is a threat the government rolls out on a seemingly bi-monthly basis, one must wonder if anything will ever come of it. And if something does I, for one, do not think it will be a good thing.

I am not going to justify the downloading of movies and music. I think those things should be paid for legally. Nor will I justify the downloading of television that has been released on DVD. My intention is instead focused solely on television that has yet to be released on DVD.

As the internet creates an increasingly globalized world, people from all walks of life are able to meet each other and get in contact to discuss common interests. As technology continues to involve this will become more and more common and cultural divides will inevitably erode as a result. What does this have to do with piracy? It’s simple.

The television business model shows seemingly little appreciation for the notion of globalization. Just this past television season, Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse debuted on FOX in America in February. Coming from the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer there was much hype and anticipation behind the show and if you’re a fan of cult television that uses the internet the hype and news were unavoidable.

However if you were a British fan, you were royally screwed.

The show didn’t start airing in Britain until at least three months after it aired in the States. By which point, even the most careful of fans who uses the internet would be thoroughly spoiled on all the major plot points.

And what of the aired versions? Sci Fi, the cable station that airs Dollhouse season one in the UK, would change the act breaks, due to OFCOM’s arcane rules about advertising, and cut a couple of minutes out of each episode. As a television purist I’m a big fan of seeing the final product as the creator intended. I like act breaks where they’re supposed to be. I don’t like sloppy network cuts of episodes. So short of waiting even longer and getting even more spoiled until the DVD is released, what is a fan to do but pirate?

With films and music this problem does not arise. Release dates are roughly the same and none are arguably as good for watercooler (read: internet forum) conversation as discussing your favorite television shows. However with television this is very much an ongoing issue.

At this point I will give props to Sky One and Channel Four for airing Desperate Housewives, Lost, Bones and 24 mere days after they are shown in America. But what of the Dollhouses of the world where you have to wait months and months only to be subjected to an edited and diluted version of the show?

If Dollhouse and similar shows were shown within a week of their US airdate… If the act breaks were left in tact… If they were left uncut… If there was a Hulu-esque service on a par to the one offered Stateside… If all these conditions were met, which in this day and age aren’t out of the question, I would condemn people who pirate TV as I do people who pirate other forms of media. But the fact is there is a huge chasm between the wants of fans of US imports and the UK stations’ ideas of what their viewers want and until this chasm is closed I can’t get behind the idea of prosecuting and punishing people who download television.

The sixth season is set to premier in Wednesday 14th October on FX. The season will feature the return of Vanessa Redgrave as Julia McNamara’s mother, Erica Noughton.

Singer made a name for himself by directing The Usual Suspect in 1994.  He’s since been associated with comic book franchises such as X-Men and Superman.

And, yes, I’m sure another updating of Battlestar is just what everyone wanted this decade.

Teacher. Husband. Father. Cancer patient. On paper, Walter White (the brillaint Bryan Cranston) is an incredibly sympathetic man who you can’t help but feel sorry for. Season One of AMC’s spectacular Breaking Bad worked hard in establishing its protagonist as an ultimately good guy, someone to root for. He gave up on the opportunity to be a rich scientist, instead working as a high school chemistry teacher, not being paid enough to afford his cancer treatment. His son (RJ Mitte) suffers from cerebral palsy, and we are left cheering when Walter turns to violence to stand up for his son. All of his aggressive little acts merit a smile, actually… From taking out his frustration on a smarmy business man’s car, to blowing up an insane drug dealers room, it’s hard not to be on Walt’s side. Even his violent murder of a chained up drug dealer in his basement was justified… Hey, that guy had a shard of broken plate, it was him or Walt. Season Two, making the best move it could have, heads in the opposite direction to Season One. Meet Heisenberg, an inverse of Walter White’s identity, and at the same time perhaps the man he’s been all along.

We ended Season One prematurely, perhaps, due to that ever-soul-destroying writers strike. It closed on Walter and his protégée Jesse Pinkman (the Emmy-nominated, and deservedly so, Aaron Paul) making a deal with the devil, the vicious and unpredictable Tuco (Raymond Cruz). Much like any Faustian arrangement, it quickly falls apart. Tuco, after beating a lackey to death on a whim, has dragged Walter and Jesse into his business, and now they’re a threat to him. This story actually fits very well into S2’s arc, despite the conclusion of it in “Grilled” feeling more like a season finale. Tuco, descending into a paranoid crazy son of a bitch who kidnaps the pair with wild dreams of having them shipped off to Mexico to cook meth for him there, really does lose sight of why he is dealing. His uncle, a wheelchair bound man who can’t or won’t appreciate his grandsons efforts, serves as a bleak reminder of Walter’s own situation. Both men, in the space of one episode, risk a loved one for their own sick need to dominate in the drugs trade. Tuco almost loses his grandfather to poison intended for himself; Walter almost loses his brother-in-law (Dean Norris) to a bullet meant for him. Eventually, Tuco dies much like he deserved to… Gunned down to stop him from a fit of intense rage. You could say the threat is now over. Everyone got away safely. As the pink toy bear in the opening scene of the season tells us: no fucking way.

Following this almost-season-finale, we begin a new journey into the depth of identity. For Hank, it is not only having a chink in his armour revealed, but having the entire helmet pulled off of him. Having faced what isn’t short of a monster, suddenly the man who laughed at a dead body crushed beneath a car is jumping from a bursting bottle of beer. His bravado is utterly annihilated in perhaps one of the most jaw-dropping scenes I have witnessed on television, as he is faced with a mans head on a tortoise and a fellow agent with his leg blown off, a horrific glimpse into the true hell of the drug world. And despite the devil being dead, Walter is still bound for this hell, walking directly into it of his own accord.

Walter’s identity undergoes multiple changes, contrasting with the guy we forgave for dealing back in the first season. Does he cover up the terrible climax of his encounter with Tuco by going back to his family, ready to make up for sins past? Not at all. He figures faking amnesia in an elaborate scheme involving walking around a supermarket naked is the way to go. Who knows, perhaps he’s naked because he’s a newborn again… Heisenberg has officially been born. Lying to his pregnant wife (which he does over and over again throughout the season, even though it is tearing their relationship to pieces) is the best option in his eyes.  Skylar (Anna Gunn) has every right to turn on Walter after his actions this season.  She even goes back to work, showing she is willing to lead an honest life and try to scrape through that way.  She’d never accept the money Walter is making if she knew the source.  Her reaction to her new boss, who she seems tempted to have an affair with, breaking a fairly minor law is telling.  She almost walks out of her job because of it.  Walter’s lies in turn leads to the eventual disintegration of their relationship, concluding with her leaving him in the finale. His own son changes his identity to Flynn, which amusingly Walter objects to completely despite doing the same thing to himself in his dealer lifestyle. His handling of his son is generally awful, from corrupting the innocence of his sons appeals website by replacing the kindness of strangers for money made on the back of fuelling drug addicts. The image of Walter hiding a gun and drug money in his own impending child’s bedroom shows the sick contrast between the two sides of his personality. His overwhelming need to dominate leads to him literally making his son drink himself ill, whilst arguing with Hank over his “territory”, foreshadowing the eventual fate of another “kid” he will encounter later in the season. By the end of the season, we see not a family man, but a man alone, watching the sky literally fall down because of his actions. Alone.

His role as a teacher is also looked at in good detail this season, and ultimately he fails completely as one. Jesse Pinkman, despite no longer being at school, is no doubt Walter’s student. Except this time he isn’t asking for homework, he is asking for a thieving addict to be punished for stealing from him. This leads to the disturbing “Peek-a-Boo”, in which Jesse’s life is put in danger undergoing that very task for Walter. The most important thing to note, perhaps, is Jesse actually looking out for a kid in need, trying to protect him as opposed to exploit him. This isn’t where Walter’s going to lead Jesse over the season, unfortunately. Another lie leads Jesse and Walter into the desert, with nobody there to help them, where Walter rips Jesse apart with words rather than encouraging his better side. The fact remains, however, that on some level Walter does care… This isn’t some one-dimensional asshole who only uses Jesse for drugs. The teacher/student dynamic is still there, but it is one torn between that of Walter caring for Jesse and Heisenberg’s frustration. In a way, Jesse’s friends make up a class. One of them being shot dead by a child, and the other arrested, shows where it’s all going to end up for the students of Heisenberg. With the entrance of Jane (an excellent turn by Krysten Ritter), we finally hit a tipping point. She’s a threat to Heisenberg, and she brings out the worst in Jesse. She’s the real catalyst that leads to the tragedy looming in the distance, inevitable, since the first scene of the season. Ultimately we see Walter White, the father figure, in a scene where he talks to Jane’s father (John de Lancie) in a cruel quirk of fate in which Jane’s fathers love for his daughter ultimately convinces Walter of what must be done. Realizing that she’s going to drag Jesse down into the depths of addiction, and towards death, Walter finally finds the two sides of his identity meeting in one devastating scene as she chokes on her own vomit. Walter, protective of Jesse, needs her gone to save his student, hell, his family, and Heisenberg is well aware that she is blackmailing him. At the same time, this moment is a complete inverse of any other scene in which we witnessed Walter’s darker side… He lets a damaged girl die in front of him, his close friends girlfriend. She doesn’t have broken glass to stab him with, she isn’t threatening him with a gun. In this moment, we see the old Walter fighting beneath the surface, revealed in a tear. But what’s done is done. There’s no way back for him now.

In an interesting but ultimately needed twist, we also begin to move away from Walter’s role as a cancer-ridden man. I mean, a cancer patient doing it for his family? Yeah, we’ll make some exceptions. But now? He has the money, he is getting better physically and yet he doesn’t stop. His very reason for becoming what he has is gone and yet he doesn’t stop. In one scene we see him standing in a queue waiting to buy some paint with the everyday people, and walking out from their ranks to threaten some fledgling dealers to stay out of his territory. He’s becoming a territorial animal in many ways, and this in turn works well when he’s growling at small animals to get out of his way, but sooner or later he’s going to run into something a lot bigger. Be it the far more cautious and savvy Gus (Giancarlo Esposito), or the cartel who cut a man’s head off then blew up an entire group of police, it is going to happen eventually. There was a backlash against the final scene in which we found out those dead bodies looming in Walt’s future were just unknowns thrown from the wreckage of a plane crash Walt unwittingly orchestrated because it was expected that thugs had gone after someone in the White household… I wouldn’t rule out that fate for any of them just yet.

Going into S3, we will be moving into new territory yet again. Season One introduced us to a normal man who turned to crime out of desperation and a series of cruel circumstances. Season Two focused on the consequences of taking the route he chose, transitioning the man we had all grown to root for into a very different man, now deep in the drug trade and having driven everyone he cared for away… His family have left him, Jesse is devastated and in rehab… The movement of identity from Walter White to Heisenberg will no doubt continue, with his own brother-in-law beginning to really go on the search for Heisenberg whilst raising charity for Walter at the same time. Both family member and nemesis, father figure and corrupter, crime lord and fragile school teacher… Walter White is a man of contrasts, and I can only see S3 bringing the two worlds closer and closer together. There can’t really be a happy ending for Walter now… The events are still in motion, the plane crash was just some shock and awe to alert us to it even moreso. If anything I expect S3 to be even darker than what came before, from the man who took a deal with the devil in S1 to a member of the damned deep in the circles of Hell. And I can’t wait.

AMC are confident that, despite the genre element of the project, it will be a perfect fit on their schedule, which already includes Breaking Bad and Mad Men.

Oceanic 815… Landing in LAX?

The Lost season six premier (which will be 2 hours long, by the way) is going to be entitled “LA X” as revealed by this source.

After the final scene of season five’s finale, and recent casting rumours, it looks like we will indeed be visiting an Oceanic 815 that didn’t crash onto the island, but knowing Lost can things really be that simple? The space between LA and X also raises some questions as to what the title really means. Typo or complex mystery?

Lost returns in the new year.

This interview was originally conducted on September 11th, 2007.

Marti Noxon was recently kind enough to take time out from running Private Practice to do an interview with me. During it we talked about Buffy, Grey’s Anatomy and Point Pleasant as well as what it’s like to be a showrunner.

Pasha: How’s Private Practice going?

Marti Noxon: It’s been good. It’s been very busy. The first year of any show is a lot of work. A lot of late nights. But it’s good people, really good people.

P: And as a spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy, how much of a challenge has it been differentiating the themes and the tone from the parent show?

MN: Well… one of the good things about it is, I think the tone is very similar in a way. It has the same comedy/melodrama ratio. But it has a similar ratio as Grey’s. But it’s easy to differentiate because the actors are so much more mature and they’re at a different place in life. So in terms of differentiating the shows, the feeling of the show is quite different. And we do a lot of locations and they’re out of the office a lot and that’s really not the case on Grey’s.

P: And is it different working on something like Grey’s and Private Practice, which are quite mainstream in their appeal, as opposed to Buffy and Point Pleasant?

MN: Yeah, it is different. I mean the level of public scrutiny, especially when I was on Grey’s, I couldn’t believe – especially the amount of press we were getting. So, yeah, it does feel different – there’s an immediate response to everything we’re doing. Whereas, with Buffy you could fly under the radar. Those are two very different experiences. From what I understand Point Pleasant was more popular in international.

P: I know they were all shown here in the UK.

MN: We really didn’t get a response with Point Pleasant. It just sort of petered away. But yeah, this is just constantly, constantly hearing articles both about the show and on set stuff. So yeah, you feel more scrutinized.

P: And is writing Private Practice different than writing genre shows?

MN: Yes and no. Although I said to Shonda [Rhimes] when I started working on Grey’s that in a weird way Grey’s is strangely not based in reality either and that the doctors are based in their own superhero world. Tonally, it doesn’t feel based in the real world. It feels like a magical space and the doctors, a lot like on Buffy, have these twisted personal lives and then they jump into superhero mode and they save people. So in a weird way I feel the most in my comfort zone since I left Buffy. That tone shift between the very dramatic and the very light. And then these characters are doing something and have a mission. The hardest thing for me on Point Pleasant was I couldn’t figure out who was on what side and for me the show didn’t come to life until we started leading into the fact the girl was evil but by then it was too late. But Private Practice, in a weird way doesn’t feel that much different.

P: What are the challenges of writing shows that incorporate genre elements and shows that don’t?

MN: Shonda is a huge Buffy fan, which is why she was eager to have someone from that show help her out and we talk about both shows often and the contrasts and stuff. And she jokingly said to me the other day, “we should make them all really superheroes, we should make the doctors all have alter egos and fly around.” And I said “no, don’t,” ‘cause one of the things I like about working on a show that is not a genre show is that the rules and boundaries are a lot more defined and that the rules and limitlessness of the genre show and the fact that it can only be confined by your imagination can be really, really overwhelming. You can feel completely stuck because you have to just top yourself over and over again and also so many things are just old genre tropes. Here, you’ve got your old medical show clichés but you can’t avoid them so you just try and write them better.

P: Okay, now some Buffy questions… You started off as a writer and then you became a showrunner at the beginning of season six…

MN: Yeah, I got promoted to an executive producer and the reality is I was already doing a lot of stuff that I did on season six before, but I got credit for it. And people also thought that meant Joss [Whedon] wasn’t around and that just wasn’t the case. He was very much around.

P: So, as a showrunner what were your favorite parts of the job? Overseeing production, editing or did you still favor writing?

MN: I think that that job for me, aside from the fact that there is just a lot of pressure, is the most fun because you do a variety of things. You’re you’re managing a staff of writers and you’re talking to the actors and you’re involved in production. But the problem is that it’s kinda just too much for a normal person. One non-Joss person. You kinda just feel overwhelmed and it’s very taxing. Private Practice is a good situation and the Buffy situation was great as those responsibilities are often shared.

P: A friend of mine told me this, which I did not know, but apparently Joss once said you were Zoe to his Malcolm Reynolds. Can you elaborate on that?

MN: That seems about right. I was faithful and devoted and I worked on the engine a lot, but he often had to tell me what was broke.

P: Okay, back to Buffy, because this is apparently a very schizophrenic interview… I noticed in Buffy, and this hasn’t been mentioned in many interviews, that the tone of the show changed from season to season. Like season seven had a very earthy feel. How much of that is you and the writers deciding what tone you want and how much comes down to production?

MN: And how much of it is unconscious? I mean so much of it is where you’re at in relationship to your own creative process; each other; the actors; where you’re at in your life. The outside culture bleeds in. In terms of what’s going on in the world, I think we all went to a relatively dark place after Columbine and 9/11. I’ll never forget the day, 9/11, going down to the set and telling people to leave and driving through the streets. I mean we’d been joking about the apocalypse for years but suddenly it felt more real than a joke. So, I don’t know, I think so many things come into play and you don’t always know what the big picture feels like. We did know, for instance, that in season six we wanted to explore that post-collegiate, toxic taste of adulthood where you kind of try all of the bad stuff to see if that’s you. I mean the darkness and the nastiness was definitely a reflection of our own fatigue and we didn’t feel the need to be quite as fanciful. We’d done that.

P: The thing I noticed about season six was… The stories were dark, but the visual tone of the series was lighter than it had been previously. Was that a conscious thing to balance it out?

MN: That’s interesting. I’ve never really noticed that and to be honest I haven’t gone back and looked at stuff very much at all. I just saw an episode for the first time in years and I’ve never watched the seasons they way other people did. I’ve never sat down with the box sets and just watched them. From the first thirteen, I only saw them in terms of production and then watched them on television maybe once. And then, as the years progressed, I may not have seen them on TV – never seen the color timed version. But we were certainly aware that that season was very, very dark. And Joss and I often didn’t go to color timing so the person in charge of post may have been like “kick it up.”

P: Do you find it hard to watch things you’ve made then and to be able to enjoy them the way you do other shows?

MN: It’s nearly impossible. Although I watched the musical – in fact Joss and I watched it together – and it was far enough away that I just watched it and had a great time. I think maybe I’m getting close to the point I can watch Buffy and enjoy it. But I’ve never watched Point Pleasant, I’ve never watched… I just don’t.

P: I’d never really thought about it before. That’s interesting.

MN: Yeah, it either turns into an exercise of longing or self incrimination.

P: I imagine if you were really a perfectionist and kept spotting mistakes it would drive you mad.

MN: Yeah, and until recently I hadn’t really had a good working situation. I mean Point Pleasant was a nightmare in terms of network experience and the production and I’d just had a baby, so it kinda feels like this weird dream. My nanny would go with me everywhere and we drove to the location in San Diego in this limousine and I went to a meeting with the network and they had made me cry and I got into the limousine weeping and they took me to a really fancy hotel where I had another meeting and they made me cry. And my nanny said, “What kind of job is this?” They cart you around in the most fancy limousine and you have every luxury and all they do is make you cry. So that’s what I remember when I think of Point Pleasant: that’s the day I thought I was gonna be fired.

P: Do you find the satisfaction of running a show outweighs the stress of it?

MN: That is a good question. I think if you talk to any Buffy related person, that was a unique experience. What I don’t enjoy is the first year thing. It feels like a gauntlet that has to be run. I’d like for a show to make it passed that so I could just do my job.

P: And you’ve been a consulting producer on Angel and Prison Break. What did that involve?

MN: That is usually just related to story and script stuff, just spending time with the writers and talking about their ideas. It’s a relatively one-tier job. You pop in, you stay for a while and then you leave. It’s a lovely job.

P: So, back to Buffy, they had very distinctive speech patterns and rhythms. Did you find that made it easier to write for the characters and conform to that style of dialogue?

MN: The great thing about that job is those rhythms were present in my work anyway and I just fell into them and I’m a relatively good mimic, in terms of voice on the page. So it was delightful to know what you were aiming for and to feel it in your own bones when it was working. No writing is necessarily easy but it came more natural to me.

P: What characters in Buffy would you say you had an affinity for?

MN: I had different relationships with each of them. I loved to write Xander and Willow, in particular, and Oz. All the super misfits I was really comfortable with. Buffy herself was always interesting to write ‘cause she was in a way the least accessible character to figure out and it was an interesting challenge. But in terms of ease and relatability it was Willow and Xander. I was like, “I know these people.”

P: Okay, now I have a bunch of really geeky questions about plot points… Maggie Walsh was supposed to be the big bad of season four, but Lindsay Crouse was unavailable – that’s one rumor I heard. Is that true?

MN: Yes, that’s true. That is actually true.

P: Do you know what she would have done or did you never get that far with the plans?

MN: No, we never got that far.

P: Another rumor is that the season five finale, when it was going to be the series finale, was going to end with everyone dying?

MN: That is not true.

P: Last one… season seven, there is a whole thing with Buffy’s resurrection being the cause for the First Evil’s appearance and that was never really explained…?

MN: I know that we had a rationale. There was definitely a reason but it was never very clear. But we had one. We talked about these kinds of things endlessly. Nothing was ever, at least for us, not explained. But I’ll be damned if I remember what it was.

P: When you’re hiring writers for your own shows, what do you look for?

MN: You know it depends very much on the show. I think that, for me honestly the biggest thing is a “no asshole” policy and I also don’t want people who I don’t trust. Many people also believe you should always have a real freak in the room. Sometimes those people aren’t totally trustworthy but you always need someone a little whack as the tendency is to hire all the A grade students with pencils in their hands ready to go. But they may not always say that really weird and off the wall thing and you need that type. But generally you just look for someone whose voice, when you read them, makes you feel something. You read a ton of scripts and they’re very competent, they’re just not inspired in any way. Whenever someone makes me emotional or really laugh, they go in the interview pile and then it’s just about personality.

P: And when you read through the scripts, do you prefer original pilot samples, which are becoming quite popular now, or do you prefer traditional specs on existing shows?

MN: You know, it really doesn’t matter to me. It’s much more about voice. The one thing that I don’t like to do is read the show that I’m actually working on. For Grey’s I wouldn’t read Grey’s and for Buffy I wouldn’t read Buffy, because you’re much too close to it and you couldn’t be generous.

P: That makes sense. So when you sit down to plan a script, how do you do that? Do you start with the theme you want to talk about in any given episode? Or do you start with where the characters are at and then derive the theme from that?

MN: It depends on the show. We were always very conscientious about theme and emotional journey. It was less about the theme and more about the emotional journey of the characters on Buffy and we had to connect them in a way. On Grey’s theme is extremely important. But it’s a piecemeal, you figure out stories you really like and then you try and figure out the theme. Sometimes you back yourself into it by having stories that you like and then you try and find out what the theme is. Other times you start with a theme. Like, one of the doctors told that one of the things that makes them really sad is when they lose a patient. A patient just stops coming to them and they don’t know why. They call that “lost a follow-up.” We thought that would be a really interesting area emotionally for all the characters – where had they disappointed people along the way. So that would be where you start with a theme and then you try and find the medical stuff that supports it.

This interview was originally conducted on July 1st, 2006.

Tim Minear began his career working on syndicated shows before being hired on The X Files and Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. He is most recognized for his work on Angel and after departing that show went on to showrun, and in some cases create, several shows for FOX: Firefly, Wonderfalls and The Inside.

Here Tim discusses the inception and evolution of his latest show, Drive, and shares his observations on what makes a good franchise.

Pasha: Who or what has been the biggest influence in your writing and shows?

Tim Minear: Many influences, of course. I’ve been influenced by my favorite books, stories, films, television just like everyone. Too many to recount here. Add to that all the people I’ve worked with over the years. And in no small way, the audience is an influence. Maybe the biggest. And by that I mean partly real people in fandom with whom I interact, but also a kind of larger, imagined audience that I have with me and I’m always working for as I create something.

P: In your previous shows you’ve dipped in and out of many genres – is there one you prefer more than others?

TM: I’ve always been partial to science fiction, fantasy and horror — or more broadly, what Ellision calls “speculative fiction.”

P: Obviously you can’t say too much at this stage, but how has the concept of Drive evolved since Ben Queen initially brought it to you?

TM: Not at all and totally. The initial concept was so clean, so specific and so broad at the same time. My notion of what makes a good series franchise is something that is both specific and broad — for example, CSI is a genius procedural franchise idea because it’s specific: crime scene investigators who use science to solve puzzles. But it’s broad: one can tell endless crime stories under that rubric. Lost is a brilliant franchise because it’s specific: plane crash, stranded, island: but then it becomes endlessly wide reaching because instead of Giligan’s Island, JJ and Damon landed on the mystery of mythology and character revelation.

If something is only specific, so very “high concept” that it sounds more like an episode of a show, rather than a show, then it’s probably not going to hold the weight of a franchise. In other words, if you pitched Star Trek as “a show about a space ship that comes across a planet with a time portal” you’ve just described an episode: “City On the Edge Of Forever.” In my opinion the finest episode of STTOS, but it’s so specific that one knows what each episode is: the crew travels through time every single week. But a show about “a space ship with warp drive that has a five year mission to seek out new life and new civilizations — to boldly go where no man has gone before” opens it up.

So back to Drive. A secret, illegal, underground road race can be anything from Cannonball Run to The Game to North by Northwest to “Magnolia-on-wheels.” Ours is all those things.

P: How did shooting the pilot go – any anecdotes you want to share?

TM: Very smooth! Amazing cast, fantastic director (Greg Yataines), great crew. I got to work with Loni Peristere of Zoic again and I can’t wait for people to see our first shot: it’s a combination of road work, green screen and CGI. What you get is a five minute shot with no cuts that moves from car to car in speeding traffic and introduces us to an entire ensemble of characters. The visual grammar of the show continues like this — long, energetic and elaborately choreographed one-ers!

P: Will Drive have fantastical elements a la Angel and Wonderfalls or be more grounded in reality like The Inside – or will it be a combination?

TM: It really is, stylistically, its own thing. But there are echoes of all that. I’d say that it’s more genre than not. But no vampires, no talking knick-knacks. Though there are characters with secrets, dark pasts and at least one disaffected teenage girl.

P: What approach to narrative will you be taking with Drive? There have been rumors it may be like 24 or will there be room for the non-linear episodes from time to time that you’ve been known for doing in your other shows?

TM: It’s nothing like 24. And again, because of the wide canvass of the premise, it can literally go anywhere narratively.

P: On a scale of Wonderfalls to Angel/The Inside, how dark can we expect Drive to be?

TM: You kind of just described the scale: it can be as comedic and whimsical as Wonderfalls, but go as dark and operatic as Angel.

P: Final question: what is the status of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress film and The Inside DVDs? And if they’re not coming out soon is there anything fans can do to persuade Fox to release them?

TM: I hold no hope for The Inside DVDs. My best advice is for people to find the aired episodes on-line: they’re all there, and in nice quality. Moon is in the hands of the people who hired me to adapt it. I understand they’re pursuing ways in which to set it up. That’s really all I know.

This interview was originally conducted on October 23rd, 2006.

At the 2006 Screenwriting Expo, after finishing his class on breaking an episode of television, I had the opportunity to interview Tim Minear. Less than an hour prior to this interview I found out that his new television show Drive had not been picked up by FOX. Later, whilst transcribing the discussion, I was informed that Drive may not be dead after all.

In the interview that follows we discusses the status of Drive as well as his previous projects from Angel to The X Files to Firefly.

Pasha: So Drive hasn‘t been picked up. That’s questions twenty-one through twenty-five out… Okay, we’ll just assume it’s going be picked up…: In Drive you were going to create different areas of the US when filming. How were you going to do that on a TV budget while still filming in LA?

Tim Minear: Because technology has progressed. If you look at the opening sequence, which I realize most people reading this won’t have, you will see that it appears… What did you think of [the opening]?

P: It was great.

TM: It’s pretty cool. None of those people are really driving on the road, so any time you see them driving, the actor’s on a green screen stage. The way that was accomplished was by going onto that highway with the cars to shoot visual fx plates, back and front. We put our actors on a location they were never really in. And that was how we would have done it in series: we’d put them onto virtual highways. It means that if we wanted to show them in a particularly recognizable piece of terrain, from a different part of the country, we were going to send out second unit to shoot these places for virtual fx plates. Our actors would always be in LA on the green screen stage. But we could show them driving through whatever part of the country we needed them to. That was going to be one aspect. The other aspect was, for instance, the pilot takes place in Florida but we never went there, we just doubled California for Florida. So we would be dressing sets and dressing locations to mimic wherever we wanted to go.

P: Who did the score?

TM: It was a temp score, which is normally what you do for a pilot. You pull music from other soundtracks and temp it in. We did an actual expensive sound mix and we had a music editor who cut the music, but we pulled a lot of the score from things like The Italian Job. Stuff that had a certain fun quality, but that also had some suspense in it. Something that had a “wink” in the sound. And a lot of the score was songs. We use a lot of songs.

P: Would you have used Rob Kral if it got picked up?

TM: I don’t know actually, we never got that far.

P: When you started writing it how did you and Ben Queen divide writing duties?

TM: Basically it was his idea and we developed it together. We didn’t break it into acts.

P: Do you think Fox may still pick it up?

TM: Y’know it’s still technically at Fox. They picked up the options on the cast, so it’s still their’s so I don’t know. I’ve heard rumors that it’s not dead. I think they’re still trying to figure out what it is — it’s rather unusual. These serialized dramas tend to take themselves very seriously and there is a certain irreverence, which I think confuses the born-in-captivity television executive.

P: Why didn’t you direct the pilot?

TM: The network wouldn’t let me.

P: But you could direct The Inside’s pilot because of the delay in production?

TM: Interestingly enough, on The Inside they wouldn’t let me. Then a version was shot which they didn’t like, so they wanted it re-shot and I said “just let me do it.” And they let me. So it was like the third time we shot it. I just want to add that when [directing Drive] wasn’t even going to be an option, I wasn’t just going to choose someone the network liked, I waited a few weeks to get Greg Yaitanes and that worked out well.

P: So, The Inside: Howard Gordon was credited as being co-creator yet he never wrote an episode of the show. What was his contribution?

TM: He was a consulting producer. He was more support and was doing 24 so he didn’t really have time to write episodes. Occasionally he would take a scene and rewrite it when we fell behind. But most of the time he’d be cheering me on. He would show up when we were breaking stories and he would be my sounding board, so he was available to be involved conceptually.

P: If [The Inside] had gone on what would have happened with Web, my favorite character from the show?

TM: We hadn’t quite got that far. You know, if you’re doing a series, you want it to be a franchise and you want the parts to be moving parts. This wasn’t really a serial, it was more a standalone procedural, although it became more continuing story as we went along. That’s what it would have evolved into. But I think Web would have continued to fulfill the function that he was there to fill.

P: Has there been an update on the DVD release for The Inside?

TM: I don’t think so. I pushed and pushed and pushed and apparently they have market research people at studio level who crunch the numbers to decide whether or not it would be financially feasible for them to invest in something like that and they decided they didn’t want to.

P: Standoff, you’re a consulting producer on that. What does that entail? The day to day on the set or…

TM: Not on the set. I haven’t been on the set yet. What it involves it what it sounds like… I consult. Which is a producer… I mean I actively consult on the show, which means some writing and breaking stories with the staff and the executive producer and looking at cuts and making notes. You know, just giving my input.

P: Is that the same as when you consulted on Angel?

TM: It’s actually more.

P: Because Angel was already a running machine?

TM: Yes. I mean when I was on Angel in season four I was actively there until episode seven. But when Firefly was going I was completely out of the loop until after Firefly was cancelled and then I was back in for whatever that Faith episode was after Christmas.

P: Okay, when you pitched for Buffy one of your pitches involved Xander trying to lose his virginity…

TM: Yeah, yeah.

P: What were your others?

TM: I’m trying to remember. There were like six. Six or eight ideas and I honestly just don’t remember.

P: Did you have to do the same thing for Angel?

TM: No. No, no, no. There was no Angel at that point. I mean they picked up the show and they just made me an offer, I didn’t have to come in and pitch any ideas. In fact when they asked me to come in for Angel I said no about five times, which I think just made them want me more.

P: Going back to Drive — if it had been green lit what would the episode structure have been? For instance, Lost has flashbacks - would you have had anything like that?

TM: We would have avoided those to get away from comparisons. I’d broken, I don’t know, six or seven episode ideas. The action would have focused on two or three characters out of a larger ensemble and you would find out sort of why they were in the race and that’s how the stories would go. For instance, a lot of the stories would come from the racers and we wouldn’t rely too heavily on the puppet master aspect of the people running the race, but we’d find out what would happen to Alex’s wife. That kind of thing. All those questions would be answered.

P: So would each story have had a thematic tie to Alex?

TM: No.

P: Any plans to write any Firefly comics?

TM: No. At the moment, no.

P: What’s been your worst online or offline fan incident?

(Allyson raises her hand)

TM: Well… I’d say the worst experience: when I was threatened with castration at Worldcon by someone in a large audience during a Q&A — he was angry because of the bad messages my work is sending to America.

P: Would you ever get so frustrated with TV that you’d leave and move onto film?

TM: Well film has got its own set of frustration. In development it’s a lot of time and a lot of people weighing in. You can work on things for ages that never actually get made. In television, stuff gets produced. Even with the frustration of constant cancellation, if you only make thirteen or fifteen episodes per season or whatever, that’s still a lot of work. You’ve still been able to… I dunno… How many feature films would thirteen episodes be?

P: About six.

(John, Tim’s assistant, points out that a lot are three hours long these days)

TM: That’s like six or seven features. So, and as a writer in TV you have a lot of power and in movies you don’t. So I’m not tired of being canceled, I’m tired of maybe being at the same place year after year and not finding it a very friendly place for what I do.

P: Is that the network or is that with the studio?

TM: I’m with the studio and obviously I’m consulting with something that’s on that network right now, but I think that if I were to… Like the next time I go out to pitch another idea I think I will not be taking it there.

P: Will Twentieth be okay with you not pitching to their sister company?

TM: Twentieth will generally want me to take things there, but they’ve said they’d support me and they’d understand if that’s not where I want to go. I like the people at the network, but I think their brand has changed a bit. At one time, the sorts of things I do would have been quite at home there, but now I look around and see the environment elsewhere might be more appropriate. It’s difficult, because in some ways what I do isn’t generic enough to really fit in at a lot of places.

P: You worked on Wonderfalls as a show runner and Bryan Fuller was a creator. How much influence did you have on the creative direction and story arcs?

TM: Completely. Bryan and me and…

P: Todd Holland?

TM: Todd in a slightly different way. The three of us together was kind of a magical convergence. Bryan and I worked out all the story arcs, all the episodes and every beat together. There was a question as to how you make that pilot into a continuing series and I came in to help on that score.

P: Obviously you can’t divulge any of the plot points, but what were the themes going to be in the Faith and Spike spin offs?

TM: It was going to be one thing initially. Are you talking about the movies?

P: Yeah and the Faith TV show.

TM: It never really got that far. One thing we’d talked about was Faith’s thing on UPN, back when UPN was UPN, and that was right after Buffy was canned and right before Eliza took Tru Calling. So she had a choice to make between doing Faith and doing that and she did that. She didn’t want to just keep doing the same thing over and over. But, I mean we had talked about doing these movies — a Spike movie, possibly a Faith movie, and then Drive got green lit and the Spike movie derailed because of that. But there’s talk that those could be revived somehow. Joss still has ideas for that.

P: Was Drive the only reason it didn’t happen or were there studio and financial reasons?

TM: It was really… I became unavailable right when we talked about doing it and I’m sure there were studio politics and financial issues mixed in in some way, but we were not talking about doing it for any specific network. It wasn’t a network thing.

P: Straight to DVD?

TM: That was one idea.

P: Now The X-Files… “Mind’s Eye”, was that your spec?

TM: No that was not my spec.

P: Was that your idea or did you develop it in the writers’ room? How did the writers’ room work on that show?

TM: The X-Files?

P: Yeah.

TM: It was tough. I mean they were very thorough. There was a lot of scrutiny on that series and we would work them and work them and work them until, you know, Chris or Frank Spotnitz decided that they liked it. And it could be grueling. It was like a marathon. I do remember that what was interesting was when we were working on “Mind’s Eye” I had thought of Lili Taylor as the character. So I was just using her as a template in my head as I was writing the episode. Then her manager called us up saying “Lili wanted to do TV. Do you think there would be anything on The X-Files that would be right for her?” And we said we were writing it right now. So I knew we were going to have her while we were writing it, which was unique and wonderful and she got nominated for an Emmy from that.

P: Okay, an Angel question, which is just something I’m personally curious about… The Senior Partners: did you ever have an idea for what they were beyond what was established in the series? Or was it always going to be a bit mysterious?

TM: It was always going to be mysterious.

P: No set mythology then?

TM: No, I mean basically… No. You just want them to feel shadowy.

P: Do you know anything about the sixth season, if it had happened?

TM: No, I don’t.

P: You were fully gone by then…

TM: Yeah.

P: Any plans to bring back any of your series in some form?

TM: No, no plans. I mean there could be some Whedonverse thing, I just don’t know what it would be. But as far as I think - just post-Angel - no, there are no plans.

P: Non-Firefly comics… if they did a post-season five Angel thing would you do anything for that?

TM: No, they’re doing some Buffy comics right now and I was asked if I wanted to do that and it just feels like work and I try to not do that.

P: So nothing in development for next season?

TM: No, not yet. My deal is a development deal so I’m theoretically coming up with all these brilliant ideas that will be rejected soundly, but at the moment consulting on this series takes up all my time.

P: There was something Chris Buchanan said he was working on with you…?

TM: Chris and I and Loni talked about stuff we were developing. We’re still talking about that.

P: So is that a secret thing or…

TM: It’s not a secret it’s just so like un-formed that I can’t really say anything.