sf/f TV development news - 2013

[JD]

Wow, I must have missed a lot of news about this show, because I haven't gotten that from anything anyone else has said. I mean a title is really a very minor part of the concept for a show. Just because it doesn't have a title yet that doesn't mean there's something wrong, it just means they haven't decided what to call it yet.

[RJDiogenes]

xortex wrote:

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It tells me Sy-fy doesn't want to commit to anything they percieve might fail and are already jockying for power over RHW who seems to already be stymied and compromised and controlled before he even begins. My perception is that a title is contingent to artistic conviction and integrity - ie. believing in what your doing and why and going in strong with vision and not being unsure.

No, it just means they haven't thought of a title yet.

[Christopher]

xortex wrote:

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My perception is that a title is contingent to artistic conviction and integrity - ie. believing in what your doing and why and going in strong with vision and not being unsure.

Boy, you really don't know much about the creative process. Sometimes titles can help you find your focus for a work, but they're not usually as essential as that. Lots of works get their titles changed very late in the creative process, or even after they're completed.

And there's more that affects title choices than creative concerns. When trying to come up with a title for a TV series or movie, the legal and marketing departments get involved and add hurdles to the process. The creators may have a perfectly clear vision of their creation and what they want to call it, but the network might not clear that title for use and may insist on calling it something else instead.

[xortex]

How long does it take to clear a title legally? No, this is an artistic issue and a play for power and control. They haven't even read my 'untitled' thing yet either.

[Temis the Vorta]

Okay, here's your answer. Look at this list of greenlit pilots. Several are still untitled. If you looked back to previous years' pilot lists, you'd see that shows that went to series sometimes went without titles for a fair amount of time during the development process. It means nothing.

There is no correlation between how long a show goes untitled and its odds of a series order. If there were a correlation, the people whose livelihoods depend on getting a series order would have figured it out long before now, and everything would have a title.

They'll need to choose a title in time for the marketing campaign to get ramped up, but since the networks haven't even gone through upfronts yet, nobody has started work on any marketing campaigns.

As Disney could tell you now, a title can have a great deal of importance to the success of a show or ahem a movie. Not something you want to rush into.

[xortex]

Here's my answer, however wrong it may be. If he believed in a title, it would have a title which either tells me he's not sure of what he's got or doesn't feel strongly about one title direction over the other. Either way it is not decisive and that doesn't instill confidence in me one way or the other.

[JD]

You're making way to big of a deal out of this. As big as it may seem to people on the outside of the industry, when you're creating a series coming up with a title is really a minor thing when compared to working out the characters, series plot, and backstory.

[Enterprise is Great]

And titles change. IIRC, the original title of Lost was Nowhere. Just because something has a title now doesn't mean it won't change to something else later.

[RJDiogenes]

^^ Yes, titles frequently change. Tales of the Gold Monkey was originally Tales of the Brass Monkey. The Night Stalker changed to Kolchak: The Night Stalker in mid season. Baa Baa, Black Sheep changed to Black Sheep Squadron between seasons. Charlie's Angels was originally The Alley Cats. Hart To Hart was originally Double Twist. The Outer Limits was originally Please Stand By. Give me a couple of minutes and I could probably think of a hundred more.

xortex wrote:

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Here's my answer, however wrong it may be.

It's very wrong. You clearly have no idea how many writers, including myself, have multiple untitled WIPs in their files at any given time.

[CorporalCaptain]

There was also once this show called Enterprise.

[Christopher]

Heck, Star Trek was originally going to be called Gulliver's Travels, and the captain of the ship was going to be Captain Gulliver.

RJDiogenes wrote:

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You clearly have no idea how many writers, including myself, have multiple untitled WIPs in their files at any given time.

Me, I can't stand having untitled works; I always need to come up with some kind of title. However, I've been known to change the title late in the game. Orion's Hounds was originally going to be Spirit of the Hunt and then something else I can't remember offhand. Spider-Man: Drowned in Thunder was outlined as Lying Vanities. My TOS novelette "As Others See Us" went through a bunch of different titles before my editor and I settled on that one, and I still regret that I didn't push harder for "How Not to Be Seen." And my recent TNG eBook The Struggle Within was meant to be called The Courage of Conscience, but the folks at Simon & Schuster didn't think that had enough oomph or whatever.

[xortex]

Did Sy-fy buy it or rather RHW unseen or could he be unsure about it's direction? I think he's doing that just to be kisch and cool. That's why they called him the Vulcan.

[RJDiogenes]

^^ He's not unsure of the direction.

CorporalCaptain wrote:

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There was also once this show called Enterprise.

True.

Christopher wrote:

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Heck, Star Trek was originally going to be called Gulliver's Travels, and the captain of the ship was going to be Captain Gulliver.

Interesting. I hadn't heard that. Thank goodness that didn't happen.

Me, I can't stand having untitled works; I always need to come up with some kind of title.

To tell you the truth, it irritates me, too. But sometimes I just find myself getting bogged down and want to get going. Sometimes I even use placeholders for character names, which also bugs me.

[Enterprise is Great]

The Hollywood Reporter has an interesting article called From 'Lost' to 'Friends,' The Strange Art of Picking a TV Title.

[Christopher]

I'm reminded of how Ellen DeGeneres's sitcom was originally named These Friends of Mine in its first season before some execs decided that was too bland a title and thought just Ellen would be better -- and then just a month after the first season ended, a sitcom just called Friends came along and became a huge hit.

And it's bizarre that ABC has two shows this season with "the B-word" included but censored in the title -- and that's not long after that Shatner show with a bleeped profanity in the title. Where is this drive to profanity coming from, especially given that there's no way they can get away with it and it's only going to cause trouble? I guess it's a way of grabbing attention, but it's still pretty awkward, and it's odd that it seems to be a sudden trend.