Scifi orders Eureka rewritten 3 times, and during filming

[V]

http://io9.com/5055238/the-truth-behind-eurekas-improvisational-season-finale-revealed

Scifi Channel execs rejected the script that the writers finished for the Eureka "mid-season finale".

So they were ordered to write another one with a week to go, and they actually did it.

The execs rejected it again with 2 days to go.


The writers said that, realistically, there was no way to finish the new 3rd script before shooting started, and they'd be literally making it up as they went along; the other option was to push back the finale air date by a week or two, which would COST Scifi anywhere from $175,000 to $250,000.

Scifi being all about money, they ordered the writers to just make it up as they went along.

I don't really watch Eureka, but judging from online reviews, the finale they managed to make was still more or less coherent; which is really a tribute to the writers and cast.

But what does this really say?

****Scifi Channel execs who are not writers, themselves feel that they know what makes a good script or not and they have the power to just utterly meddle with series (remember Farscape season 4 and BSG season 3's "drop your running storylines for a season of standalone episodes" orders?)

they only really care about money (surprise surprise) and are just utterly willing to fling their own feces at us and call it a "finale" rather than put in the time, money, or effort to make "good shows"

My heart goes out to the Eureka folks; I don't blame them for Scifi basically screwing over their other shows to hype Eureka. The writers and cast are just trying to work on their show.

But I mean really.....forcing them to rewrite it TWICE? I could understand maybe, maybe ONCE even if there was only a week to go, but this, this just encapsulates it, this ultimatum the writers gave:

"well logically you have a choice between two things, Scifi execs; if you're going to be realy picky and want a new, THIRD script, the laws of physics say we can't just make more time to write it in. It will be written on the fly. The other option is to spend money on making a quality product, or going with our original script which for some reason you hated even though you're not a writer"

 

[Mr. Adventure]

I don't have a problem with TV execs only being interested in the money but it's unfortunate that they feel they know so much more than the writers and production staff. I wonder if there are some good examples that people don't hear about but you sure hear a lot of bad ones.

 

[USS Mariner]

Beyond Sanity
Beyond Reason
Beyond Quality
Beyond

 

[Lindley]

Now I'm curious what they rejected.

 

[Ben Sisko3]

And that's my cue to vomit.

 

[USS Mariner]

From what I can tell, Skiffy didn't want the writer's to finish Eva Thorne's storyline without having some kind of reset button for the next season.

 

[tharpdevenport]

Well, this is their hit show. Not good to fuck with their hit show. I like the show. It's not great, and if I miss an episode I don't worry, but what they are doing can only screw it up later.

 

[Nerdius Maximus]

Maybe they're trying to push the show off the air to make way for more giant lizard movies. The sci-fi channel is so dumb.

 

[DWF]

Now I'm curious what they rejected.

You can read about the general idea here.

http://eurekaunscripted.tumblr.com/

 

[Tulin]

You know, I thought "Eureka" was not bad for its first couple of seasons but this year.............ehh.

I just watched the Egyptian mummy episode and I only barely had it on in the corner of my monitor, while I was doing something else. It is just not holding my interest any more.

Here is the basic Eureka plot outline,

Something weird and mysterious happens
Scientists surmise it has something to do with experiment currently underway
Sheriff bumbles in and ends up

1)covered in goo
2)made to look stupid some other way
3)naked(which works for me)

Sheriff uses homespun wisdom to find a solution and save town
End of episode


It's been predictable since episode one. It's only this season that it's become boring.

 

[A Clockwork Lim]

Execs have to make themselves feel like they're important. Just sitting around handling the bookkeeping and buying or rejecting shows/seasons, which is the only fucking thing they should be doing, isn't good enough. They have to act like they're the reason a show does well. It's embarrassing.

The worst part is that they don't even seem to realize they're the reason a good number of shows go down the toliet. Hooray for living in your own little imaginary worlds!

 

[Guy Gardener]

I read the article, but I'm still not clear about what the most disagreeable element was to the suits? Old people doing it? Or the insensitivity of a post 9/11 gas attack, not that the article mentioned anything wrong with that idea rather tan that they just couldn't get it to gel... But still it's quite similar to the nano clouds in the two suns episode... Was the Immortality issue to do with religion? I mean if Eva was already Immortal before she went into the bunker that would ask a couple questions like does she predate history, did she date Jesus? The usual stuff. Zoe getting passive super powers is great shades of Chloe Sullivan from Smallville by the way.

I don't see what the problem is? That's how the Daily Soaps operate... Daily. I think what's been really proved is that Eureka can pull finger and produce 40 episodes a year and they're lazy bastards if they don't consider it.

Which would hopefully force them to break their programming and actually write some original stories about the people without having to deal with the "Speed/apocalypse" scenario every week...

I want to see Taggart come back and kick the shit out of Zane, and then just have a three episode arc about these two blokes trying to win her heart with out the end of the world being at stake once.

 

[Christopher]

You know, this isn't really that unusual or shocking. Scripts get rewritten all the time in television. It's the nature of the business that it's always on an insanely tight schedule, and getting a script rewritten from the ground up two or more times is not unusual. Plenty of shows have stories about how the writing staff had to do a marathon session to get a new script put together in a day or two, with each staffer taking a different act. And this would hardly be the first television script that was being rewritten during shooting either. While Star Trek's "Shore Leave" was being filmed, there were times when Roddenberry was sitting under a tree on location writing new lines for scenes that were being set up to be shot. Okay, it's different in that they actually had a basic script to work from and that was just tweaking the details, but the principle is the same. It goes back to the days of live radio, where actors sometimes got new script pages just before going on the air, and sometimes during a show in progress. It's not a question of a given network being stingy. The fact that industry outsiders rarely get is that a TV series in production is like a racing train that's being built on the move. It has a momentum that's very difficult and not particularly safe to interrupt. Practically everything is done under time constraints and pressures that would seem insane to most of us. (A book that gives a very good illustration of this is A Vision of the Future: Star Trek Voyager by Steven Edward Poe.)

So there's no big scandal here, no grounds for moral outrage. This is just a glimpse into how the TV business works.

 

[Brolan]

You know, this isn't really that unusual or shocking. Scripts get rewritten all the time in television. It's the nature of the business that it's always on an insanely tight schedule, and getting a script rewritten from the ground up two or more times is not unusual. Plenty of shows have stories about how the writing staff had to do a marathon session to get a new script put together in a day or two, with each staffer taking a different act. And this would hardly be the first television script that was being rewritten during shooting either. While Star Trek's "Shore Leave" was being filmed, there were times when Roddenberry was sitting under a tree on location writing new lines for scenes that were being set up to be shot. Okay, it's different in that they actually had a basic script to work from and that was just tweaking the details, but the principle is the same. It goes back to the days of live radio, where actors sometimes got new script pages just before going on the air, and sometimes during a show in progress. It's not a question of a given network being stingy. The fact that industry outsiders rarely get is that a TV series in production is like a racing train that's being built on the move. It has a momentum that's very difficult and not particularly safe to interrupt. Practically everything is done under time constraints and pressures that would seem insane to most of us. (A book that gives a very good illustration of this is A Vision of the Future: Star Trek Voyager by Steven Edward Poe.)

So there's no big scandal here, no grounds for moral outrage. This is just a glimpse into how the TV business works.

I guess the question that comes to mind is "Why?” In an industry that would thrive on efficient planning, why do they put it off 'til the end?

 

[Harvey]

Efficient planning can sometimes take too long for the quick turnaround required by Hollywood, especially in television. Being that this was the midseason finale, it's likely it had the smallest lead time out of all the episodes in the first half of the season for said planning.

If you wanted more planning, then I imagine the result would be HBO style seasons. Namely, fewer episodes, and far longer breaks between seasons. I think that style works better, myself, but waiting more than a year for new episodes can certainly drag on and on and on.

 

[Christopher]

I guess the question that comes to mind is "Why?” In an industry that would thrive on efficient planning, why do they put it off 'til the end?

They didn't put anything off. Sometimes a story runs into problems and it takes time to fix them, but the schedule can only be adjusted so far. Every effort is made to get the scripts ready as far in advance as possible, but delays happen, complications happen, and sometimes scripts just plain don't work. And keep in mind that any attempt to fix a script is being done by people who are trying to keep a dozen other balls in the air at the same time. Plenty of decisions in this business come down to the wire because they have to.

And it can go a lot worse than this. Sometimes a script's problems don't get fixed in time and you have to go ahead and shoot it anyway, and the result is a lousy episode. Every show has its duds, often for this reason.

To be sure, what happened with the Eureka finale is an atypical event, and hardly an example of the process working as it's supposed to. But even with the best of intentions and commitment from all involved parties, any process this complicated is going to go awry from time to time.