Why I wanted to like Alcatraz

As I was falling in love with Grimm, it started to occur to me that maybe I should try writing for it. Generally I am more drawn to movies than to television, because I like moving on to new things. When I wrote that one pilot and then had to come up with over twenty-six different potential episodes, that was really hard.

Still, it would be silly to not even think about it. Television is better to writers, there is less emphasis on coming up with “tentpoles” (a film that can hold up several sequels and lots of merchandising), and also this was something Portland, where I want to stay. (Though the writers are not based in Portland, so that’s less of a consideration.)

Anyway, when I looked into writing for television before, the way to do it was to write an episode for a similar but different show. You do this for two reasons. One is legal, because if your script is similar to something they were already going to do, they do not want to have ever read it. Believe me, I am down with protecting intellectual property.

The other is that you will view the show one way, but it is not necessarily the way that the people hiring will view it, and you may have differences that would prejudice them against your script even if it is otherwise well-written.

The trick then is to find a series that is a good balance, and be familiar enough with it that you could also write a reasonable episode for it. I thought I could have that in Alcatraz. Again, Once Upon A Time is not a similar show, despite the fairy tale aspect. However Alcatraz, much like Grimm, was basically a procedural with unusual elements.

I had some ideas that I really liked for Grimm, so I thought I would write one episode for Grimm (which maybe slid to two because there were two different ideas that I really liked), one for Alcatraz, and apply for both, plus Once Upon a Time as well. The flashbacks in Alcatraz could be somewhat approximate for the Fairy Tale Land sequences in Once Upon A Time, and then you are covering multiple bases.

I thought this was a great plan, and I was just going to wait until the seasons ended so I would not write anything that conflicted with something already aired, and also so I could finish up some other things. Unfortunately, I got to the point where I could not stand watching Alcatraz any more.

I am not sure if this disrupts the plan (except for the applying to Alcatraz part). If the other show is canceled, or if you are not sticking with canon because of episodes that you did not watch and never want to watch, well, if you still tell a good story it may be okay. I guess you have to wonder if anyone who is going to read it would be a big Alcatraz fan.

So, I don’t know what I am going to do. More on the overall writing plan next time coming up, with one specific detour first.