So I suck at comedy. Last time I tried writing a comedy it turned into some kind of generic teen movie with no real jokes. In the five pages of my Earl spec I have completed thus far I only have one real joke, and that's a comment I overheard someone say at the beach that I thought would be perfect coming out of Randy's mouth. The irony is, my dramas include some great comedic moments. I guess I'm funnier when I'm not trying.
So I'm finally giving up the ghost and ditching the comedy. It's time I accept that I'm not funny. Hence the disappearance of the Earl spec from the progress bar.
The good news is its replacement. I was flopping back and forth between two ideas for a spec pilot and neither of them worked. One was a comedy that didn't really lend itself easily to the episodic format, and the other was an expensive sci-fi that had a lot of elements of existing shows. Then I realized that an action feature I was twisting around in my head would make a perfect TV drama unlike anything on the air at the moment but still following a commercial mold. And if Heroes takes off on NBC this fall I'll be in the perfect position to pitch it.
I'll just add Earl to the ever-growing pile of specs I never finished. I learned my lesson. No more comedy, Emily. Stick to what you're good at. Action drama with morally ambiguous characters.
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I know the feeling. It's hard to turn on the funny. Especially while writing screenplays. I can be funny enough on my blog (at least, I think I am. I suppose that's up to the reader's discretion), but I find it hard to transpose my specific style of humor to writing. But the Office is one show that I think has a sense of humor closer to my own, Which is why I'm hoping that Spec will turn out well (if I ever get around to writing it, that is).
ReplyDeleteExpensive Sci-Fi concepts are great. As are action dramas with morally ambiguous characters. But when the two are combined: TV heaven (a.k.a. Battlestar Galactica).