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<font face="georgia"><font color="red">The other point, which I already mentioned in another thread, is that it seems totally contrary to (my conceptions of) Minbari attitudes to name *anything* destructible after Valen
</font>
The worker caste has always been a puckish lot.
jms
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I was going to post this earlier, but kept forgetting in the rush of B5:LoTR airing. I wanted to wait until it was actually out to say anything, but yes, as of last week, Delicate Creatures is finally out at a bookstore/comic store near you.
jms
</font>
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Do not tempt the patience of Wizzards, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
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<font face="georgia"><font color="red">During the run of Babylon 5 and also in the books which you have certified as canon, all Minbari beds have been at an angle. I think Delenn even tells Sheridan in one episode that Minbari believe sleeping horizontal is tempting fate. Ivanova and Lennier both were put on beds that (until Marcus changed it for Ivanova) aren't horizontal even though they were severely or motally injured. So people are wondering how come, when Dulann is lying in medbay, the bed is horizontal. It couldn't be because of human influence since I believe the Liandra was built before those pesky humans could stick their noses in.
</font>
It wasn't at an angle because it isn't a bed for sleeping in. It's a medical examining tube. Take a look...half of his body is inside the tube, there's a scanner above him that runs the length of body inside the tube (it's what David leans against in one of the scenes)...there are three such tubes in that room.
It's more like an iron lung in that sense (though clearly more advanced). A person may fall asleep in one of the tubes, but it isn't a bed for sleeping.
You don't want to go upending patients who may be critically wounded; I can't imagine who would try and apply a sleeping custom to a medical procedure
That's just common sense.
jms
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<font color="red">>Now that there's been time for everybody who could see the movie to voice their reactions, my impression is that most of us liked it enough to want to see where you would go with the series.
How do you feel about the reactions to Rangers? Is it about what you expected?
Encouraging? Discouraging?
</font>
What I've learned over the years is that no matter what one does, there will be a certain percentage who love it uncritically, an equal (but often much louder) percentage who hate it uncritically, with the majority somewhere in the middle.
The thing you have to do is make sure the number stays more in the middle or leaning toward liking something than not.
And adding it all up, it seems to have done the job. It's been overall far more positive than negative. Criticism? Sure. That's what a pilot is *for*, to find out what does and doesn't work. You try shit. You experiment. Some will like it, some won't, which is all to the good.
The fulcrum on which all this now rests is the ratings, which have gotten kinda weirdly skewed.
We heard what we initially thought were disappointing figures, that we'd done a 1.7 when SFC was hoping for a 2.6 or better. It kind of puzzled everybody because the B5 audience is generally pretty reliable.
It became even *more* puzzling when the more detailed figures came in, showing that by quarter-hours, the show *gained viewers* and did not lose them.
Meaning folks who came on the show by accident, stayed to watch. It should have been much higher than it was.
Then the final market-by-marked figures came in from the studio, and we had our mystery resolved.
The east coast ratings got hammered by the football game, which was the highest rated such game in something like 5 years. The B5 male demos are pretty much the same as for sports, and we lost heavily to football. So there we did not do well.
By contrast, on the west coast, where the show aired *after* the game had finished, we not only met but *exceeded* SFC's expectations, getting a 3.2 or 3.6 in many markets, which is actually pretty unheard of for a basic cable network.
The problem is that the average, 1.7, is still what's used for advertising. So we have to see if SFC will look past the show getting hammered by a big football event on the East Coast to look at the West Coast figures and see that there is, indeed, a market.
It's in the hands of the TV gods from this point on.
jms
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So, Nommy (and Karina)...
What have you got to say for yourself now?
Uh huh...not your fault. Nope. Ratings are beyond your control. We may not get LotR series because some people just hadda watch a football game. One where the referees...(oh. sorry. It really is out of my system. Promise).
http://www.hostboard.com/ubb/biggrin.gif
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Do not tempt the patience of Wizzards, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
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LOL Wizz! Steelers? Hmmmmmm GO PATRIOTS!
..
.
.
Anyway, I did watch it at 11:00 PM. Did they take that into account. Hmmmm
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Nommy
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<font face="georgia"><font color="red">Do you personally see any parallels between the EarthGov future you crafted and the US Government we're seeing unfold right here?
</font>
There are a few troubling echoes here and there. One can only hope that the system of checks and balances continues to check and balance.
BTW, if you're looking for an interesting site that reposts some intriguing articles on Bush (from legit papers, btw, like the New York Times, LA Times, Chicago Tribune) which haven't been getting much play, check out:
www.smirkingchimp.com
jms
</font><font face="wingdings"><font size="-4">
[This message has been edited by Wizz (edited February 03, 2002).]
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<font face="georgia"><font color="red">Personally I think we can make a pretty good judgment on the (non)credibility of a site that... criticizes the War on Terrorism...</font>
So is it now unAmerican to criticize an administration? Do you feel that it is wrong to bring concerns to the table, to ask if something is being handled correctly? Are you saying that it has been handled correctly in every single, tiny facet? Because only absolute and total perfection is above criticism.
It's always interesting to see how often people support the right to free speech until someone actually *uses* the thing....
jms
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<font face="georgia"><font color="red">
Hi Joe,
One (or two?) years ago you mentioned Michael Moore on this newsgroup. Because of your recommendation, I checked out his books & movies & have been a fan ever since. His latest email newsletter should be interesting to you. It deals with the trouble he had getting his latest book published. Kinda reminded me about your trouble with TNT meddling with Crusade. Here is the link:
www.michaelmoore.com/2002_0205.html
Loved the Rangers movie BTW!!
</font>
Interesting stuff...thanks.
jms
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</font>
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<font face="georgia">Just an FYI to those who've been keeping up with the comics...my latest issue of Amazing Spider-Man came out last week, and next week comes issue 10 of Midnight Nation, leaving just two issues left in that series.
Also, the new series I'm doing for Showtime hits with our first two-hour premiere on March 3rd, with the series proper debuting a week or so thereafter. The goal is to air the 18 one-hour episodes pretty much straight through, without breaks, right through Summer, which would be great, because it gives an
audience an opportunity to catch up with the show and keep up with it.
I'm also giving some thought to doing a couple of convention appearances this year. I took the last almost two years off all major cons because I always feel kinda awkward being up there just on my own, I much prefer to be talking about something outside me, like a show. Otherwise it's just me mouthing off
and I can't imagine anyone sitting still for that for more than a few minutes let alone an hour or two. With Jeremiah going, and the comics going, and other projects like Polaris (first two scripts turned in, we'll see what we shall see) in development, that may be worth the effort.
Nothing's set yet, but I'm giving it serious thought.
jms
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<font color="red">* How did his mum buy the cloth for his costume without arousing suspicion?
</font>
It came from the swaddling clothes he had with him in the rocket from Krypton. Ma Kent had him use heat vision to cut the threads.
<font color="red">
* Where does Clark Kent buy his spectacles, given that they are presumably plain glass?
</font>
They were made from the same rocket.
<font color="red">* Why doesn't anyone notice that Clark never works out, even though it would be impossible to have a body like that without doing so? And if he doesn't work out, why would he bother waxing his chest and back? (and who helps him with the back?)
</font>
Actually the new Clark does some of that just to ease suspicion.
<font color="red">* Where does Superman keep his wallet?
</font>
In the pouch of his cape, which is also where he keeps his CK clothes when he has to change on the fly.
I have no life and I must scream.
jms
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<font color="red">Many of us have known for a long time that you have been a Superman fan and collector of Superman memorabilia for a long time. What is your most cherished Superman related item?
</font>
I have a number of very cool Superman things, some costing a fair bit, but the one thing that is emotionally the closest to me is the one that came freely.
Long time ago, former Superman editor and living monument Julius (Yes I'm Older Than The Pyramids But I'm a Nice Guy So What Of It?) Schwartz used to give out these gold Superman emblem tie-tacks, cheap but cool. I managed to snag one of them a few years back.
A couple of years later, I'd been wearing it on a sport coat and discovered, to my horror, that it had come off somewhere and was just gone.
Now, every Thanksgiving, we'd all get together for dinner...me, Harlan, Susan, Julie Schwartz, and Ellie and Robert Bloch. Sometimes more if the situation merited, but that was the core of it.
That Thanksgiving, I explained what had happened and asked Julie if he had any more of the tie tacks. He didn't. So I figured that was pretty much the end of it.
It was about a year later that we lost Bob Bloch. It was a great loss to the core group and to the field and to all Bob's fans.
About three, four months after that, I got a note from Ellie, by way of Harlan, containing a gold Superman emblem tie tack, one that Bob had gotten from Julie years earlier. She said she knew that Bob would've wanted me to have it.
So of all the Superman items I have, that is the one that I cherish most.
jms
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<font color="red">
Well, the irony of it is pretty succinct. Joe has no life about as much as Harlan has no mouth (and he MUST scream...)</font>
Get up. Go to work. Come home. Write. Sleep. Get up. Go to work. Come home. Write. Sleep. Weekends: write, some sleep. I've seen one movie at a theater in the last year (LoTR). Don't do parties, don't generally get out. Know lots of Superman trivia. No life.
<font color="red">I always thought Joe's background tidbit of Eilerson, as getting knocked down and being the "talking stain on the floor" was inspired by Harlan...
</font>
Actually, that was me as a kid.
jms
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Not to add to the furor more than necessary (though some might say the furor the better)...I came across this in the Charlotte Observer, a mainstream paper not exactly a bastion of liberalism, in an article by Jay Bookman. This is the lead....
""We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too," pundit Ann Coulter told this month's meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference. "Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors."
"Appearing on Fox News a few days later, Coulter acknowledged the statement and bragged that it had been a "huge hit with the audience," an estimated 3,500 who turned out for the three-day conference in Arlington, Va., that bills itself as the nation's "premier annual gathering of conservatives.""
jms
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I haven't talked a lot about Jeremiah here because, basically, I haven't had time to put my thoughts together due to the rigors of actually *making* the thing. But we're now closing in on the premiere, and I figured this might be a good time to start laying out some of the information. (This will, however, be
kinda brief because I'm fighting a bit of a fever and intend to go lay down after this.)
The Showtime series tracks the aftermath of the Big Death, which wiped out roughly six billion people, anyone over the age of puberty. It's now 15 years later, and people have been ridinng on the ashes of the old world for the most part, the available resources slowly declining and running out. It's a moment
of transition: either the decline continues, or now that they are adults, people start to rebuild a new world out of the ashes of the old one. The question is what shape will that world take, and who gets to choose?
Our lead character, Jeremiah (Luke Perry) is a wanderer, trying to find out what happened to his father, who disappeared during the last days of the Big Death while en route to a locale specified only as Valhalla Sector. He wants to find out the end of the story. Along the way, he encounters our other lead,
Kurdy (Malcolm Jamal-Warner), also a drifter, and the two are thrown together by circumstance into a duo. The two-hour premiere follows their lives, the dangers they encounter, establishes the world of our series, and sets the stage for a new dawn.
Basically, I wanted to do a post-apocalyptic series that wasn't all darkness and grimness...I wanted to tell a story about hope, that this isn't about endings, it's about beginnings. When the Black Death hit, lots of people thought it was the end of the world. It wasn't. What followed the Black Death was the Renaissance, a new beginning, as our characters face a new beginning.
Here's the airdate schedule for the first batch of episodes that appear on Showtime, with writing credits. (se is sam egan, jms is, well, if you don't know by now....)
3/3 "The Long Road" (two-hour pilot, introducing the world and our characters, jms)
3/15 "Man of Iron, Woman Under Glass" (a somewhat fanciful tale of a guy who grew up after the Big Death believing that some day the super heroes he read about as a kid would come back and fix things...and a tale of a most unusual romance between another of our main characters -- Marcus Alexander, head of what was once the NORAD Thunder Mountain complex -- and a woman whose existence has been kept secret from everyone for years. jms)
3/22 "And the Ground, Sown with Salt" (what happens when, after the Big D, a group moved into an abandoned Air Force base and decided to use those resources for their own destructive aims. a very intense episode guest starring Jason Priestley. jms)
3/29 "To Sail Among the Stars" (a young woman has been stealing whatever gas can be found here and there because she intends to be the first one to sail (with backup gas engines) beyond the horizon since the Big D to find out what happened on the other side of the world. Guest starring Melissa Creider. jms)
4/5 "The Bag" (the son of a medical doctor has set up what may turn out to be a dubious medical practice of his own, traveling with his brother from town to town and exploiting people...and finds that his past catches up with him. Guest starring Jake Busey. se)
4/12 "City of Roses" (jeremiah and kurdy travel in search of more information on the Big Death and Valhalla Sector, and along the way discover some potentially dark secrets about the fate of Kurdy's parents in the last days of the Big D. se)
4/19 "Firewall" (a mid-season turning point for our characters as we learn something of vital importance about Valhalla Sector, and Markus has to make a decision that could lead to any number of deaths. Guest starring Michael Rooker. jms)
The goal is to run the show straight through without reruns. The remaining titles to this point, not yet organized by airdate, are:
The Red Kiss (se)
Journeys End in Lovers Meeting (jms)
Tripwire (jms)
Thieves Honor (se)
Mother of Invention (sara barnes/al katz)
Ring of Truth (se)
Things Left Unsaid, Part One (jms)*
Things Left Unsaid, Part Two (jms)*
The remaining episodes haven't been titled yet.
Our two-part season finale which we're shooting early to allow for post work.)
The show is often a bit of a romance, there's lots of humor, lots of action, there's an overarching mystery and an arc to it...it is, at times, oddly a show about small victories and gemstones found amid gravel. I can't think of any other series quite like it in tone and attitude and look and design. It's allowed me to do some things, and write some stories, I could never get on broadcast TV in a million years, particularly "And the Ground, Sown with Salt." I'm quite proud and pleased with it, and I think it's worth checking out.
You can keep up with information at:
www.jeremiah.tv
and at:
http://www.mgm.com/scifi/index2.html
(The latter has the transcript of a relatively nutso appearance done by Luke, Malcolm and me for the Television Critics Association meeting held in Pasadena a few weeks back.)
Anyway, that's all for now. More later....
jms
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<font face="georgia"><font color="red">I wonder though, how many of the liberal side expressed outrage when Alec Baldwin suggested on national television that people attack Ken Starr's house and kill him and his family?
</font>
If that's what he actually said, rather than a paraphrase, then it's as equally stupid as the Ann Coulter statement.
This isn't a liberal/conservative issue. It's an issue of basic humanity.
jms
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RE: Jeremiah
<font color="red"> Any word yet on sales to foreign markets? (I'm thinking UK specifically here).
</font>
The only thing I know for sure is that at the big international sales meeting where Jeremiah was showcased at NATPE, the foreign buyers were lined up around the block after seeing some of the footage.
jms
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<font face="georgia">RE: Jeremiah
3/29 "To Sail Among the Stars"
<font color="red">And I just had to forget something... "Among the Stars" or "Beyond the Stars"?</font>
It's beyond.
I'm a dork.
jms
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<font color="red">What happend to "Tribes"? Was it a working title for "And the Ground, Sown with Salt"?
</font>
Yes.
<font color="red">
And did you miss "The Touch"?
</font>
Yes. I'm a dork. See above.
jms
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<font color="red">I've been wondering about this ever since we first heard about Jeremiah: What on Earth did they do for food, medicine and most supplies!?!</font>
Exactly the point we explore.
<font color="red">Now, 15 years is really quite a long time. Without any specialized knowledge, I'd guess that electricity wouldn't last more than 6 months (at the outside) anywhere without regular maintenance which means little in the way of frozen food would be available for long. </font>
Another point we explore. The power went out a long time ago and, with some recent exceptions, has stayed out. The info needed to get power plants up and running, and repair lines, is there, but you have to know all the stuff leading *up* to that information to make it work. I wouldn't know the first thing about how to get a power plant up and running at 13. Nor would I know much about crop rotation. The cities would empty pretty fast once the water stopped coming in.
<font color="red">Canned goods might last as long as, say...5 years or so? Medicines could last a year or so, many much less without refrigeration.</font>
Some canned goods might last the full 15 years, though not in the best of shape. It depends on the type of food and the type of canning. Medicines,yeah, they're pretty much gone.
<font color="red">If we stipulate that puberty would begin at 13 on average, by the time those kids make it to 20, there's really not much left for them to scavenge except clothing and shelter, is there? Even shelter could be marginal in a lot of areas. </font>
Which is exactly the point we're going for. They've been able to ride the ashes of the old world until now, but things are now pretty much exhausted. Either they continue the decline, or they start to rebuild the world and take responsibility for the shape of that world.
(BTW, on the fever thing...I found out (while in considerable pain) on Thursday that it's a massive ear infection. [First person to make a joke about massive ears gets it in the neck.] Which is why I've been offline for a while. So at some point I'm going to have to take the train back because if I fly right now it'll perforate my eardrum. And it's a looooooong freakin' train ride....)
jms
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<font color="red">I may have missed this. Is Joe running the show on Jeremiah??</font>
Yes. There are a number of EPs on the show but I'm the designated show runner. All the bucks stop at my desk.
<font color="red">Is he going to get his people together? music, directors, art directors, cinematographers, costumers, clap board guys? </font>
Yes, I hired all the crew (many of which came with their own people). It's shooting in Vancouver, so it's a Vancouver crew.
<font color="red">I can't imagine him taking on a show without total say in everything.</font>
Correct.
<font color="red"> Is Franke doing the music? </font>
No, Tim Truman is doing the music. It's just a different kind of show. You don't use the same composer for everything you do.
<font color="red">Am wondering if Mike Vejar will be directing some episodes. </font>
Mike's directing our two part season finale, "Things Left Unsaid."
jms
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