Journal of Screenwriting - Volume 6, Issue 2, 2015

In the mid-twentieth century, US courts and legal commentators confronted increasingly prominent problems of idea protection. While not unique in raising such problems, the maturing radio and television broadcasting industry intensified and complicated them – in the unruliness of its idea markets, and the distinctive relation between idea and expression implied in broadcast series formats. Idea law offers a revealing scene of discourse about mid-century broadcast writing – a scene for making sense and value from often ambiguous and ambivalent writing practices. In particular, problems of idea protection and copyright’s idea–expression dichotomy draw out tensions across divisions of writing labour. This article explores how mid-century idea law struggled to account for the economic and cultural value of ideas, in arguments that compose particular but provocative discourses about broadcast authorship. It also points towards some of the broader interest of those arguments – as a particular case study in the fragmentation of authorship, and as a provocative but neglected antecedent for contemporary concerns like amateur participation, recombinatory creativity and even the ‘creative economy’.

The article uses two distinct historical case studies to argue in favour of the agency of guest writers and returning episode writers of American television drama series in terms of their ability to create thematically and stylistically distinctive episodes with an individual voice. In the first, I look at writer-director David Mamet’s episode of Hill Street Blues (NBC, 1980–1987) entitled ‘A Wasted Weekend’ and in the second I discuss several episodes written by writer-director-producer David Chase for The Rockford Files (NBC, 1974–1980). I explore the case studies in relation to existing critical literature on American television drama authorship and comparison to more recent examples of guest and returning episode writers. Using in-depth textual, script and production analysis, I argue that the tone, content and style of certain episodes of American television drama series are unique to the individual writer. I contend that the production roles of guest writer and returning episode writer, while different at different times, offer scope for writers to distinguish their work in American television. In addressing these particular screenwriting roles, I challenge the overemphasis on the production hierarchy in terms of critical accounts of creativity within American television drama and probe the exploitation of writers in cultural validations of television.

The British original Life on Mars, the spin-off Ashes to Ashes, and the American remake of Life on Mars offered divergent endings to the same premise, and each series finale divided viewer opinion to varying degrees. This article discusses these three different endings and considers how the writers of each series framed explanations for their creative decisions in discourse surrounding the finales. The article’s analysis illustrates that the series writers strove to justify their narrative resolutions strategically at various points in each series run to account for potential public reaction and to frame their writing decisions as driven primarily by creative motivations, not industrial ones. As such, the article suggests that writers of television finales, particularly those that close off serialized shows, have more opportunity and pressure than ever before to enter into dialogue with emboldened audiences about the production process.

Regular characters in episodic television series do not change, develop or transform. At least this is the way these characters are commonly understood. In television series, the plot focuses on episodic adventures, and the core cast of characters are seen as fairly rigid actants that facilitate those adventures. These apparently static characters of television series are generally understood in contrast to characters in television serials, who do transform over the course of episodes, seasons and years. This view can be found readily in popular discourse as well as writing manuals and scholarly treatises. But there is more to character change in television series. We can also see how characters in television series do change in different ways, displayed chiefly through character action and plot structure. Three kinds of character change on-screen are identified in this article: experiencing significant life events; expressing intense emotions, and displaying contrasting behaviours. Textual analysis of popular crime dramas and sitcoms demonstrates how characters in television series do change continually.

Discussion of Jimmy McGovern’s screenwriting tends to focus on the dimensions of politics, class, gender and religion in his work. While none of these concepts should be divorced from a discussion of ethics, what is missing is analysis of McGovern’s writing that ventures to consider it a kind of ‘ethical philosophy’ in its own right. While McGovern has a lot to say about religion and morality, I want to suggest that McGovern is more than a critic of religion, and that his work can be seen in relation to secular ethics. This research proposes an ethical analysis of McGovern’s screenwriting. It suggests that through actions and situations the narrative engages in ethical ‘work’. I explore McGovern’s work in terms of some key ethical concepts such as how we treat others, form judgements, how we balance loyalties and roles and the interrelationship between deception and decency. The focus is on scenes or episodes from the series Cracker (ITV, 1993–2007), Hearts and Minds (Channel 4, 1995) and Accused (BBC, 2010–2012).

This article provides an overview of linguistic research into dialogue in episodic television and the linguistics of screenwriting. It classifies relevant research into five categories: (1) genre; (2) audio-visual translation and language learning; (3) the relationship between television and society; (4) how characters and worlds are built; and (5) the nature of TV dialogue and its relationship to the audience. The main focus is on discussing research that falls into categories three to five and on outlining the potential for useful connections between linguistics and other disciplines in these areas. The purpose of this article is to raise awareness of linguistic research on TV dialogue, and to encourage interdisciplinary perspectives and collaborative research projects on television writing, in screenwriting research and beyond.

The Screenwriter in British Cinema, Jill Nelmes (2013) London: BFI/Palgrave Macmillan, 304 pp., ISBN: 9781844573653, p/bk, £24.99

Storytelling in World Cinemas Vol. 1 (Forms), Lina Khatib (ed.) (2012) Columbia: Wallflower Press/Cambridge University Press, 240 pp., ISBN: 9780231162043, p/bk, £52

Storytelling in World Cinemas Vol. 2 (Contexts), Lina Khatib (ed.) (2013) Columbia: Wallflower Press/Cambridge University Press, 224 pp., ISBN: 9780231163361, p/bk, £52

Into the Woods: A Five Act Journey Into Story, John Yorke (2013) London: Penguin, 312 pp., ISBN: 9781846146442, p/bk, £16.99