boyajian@akov68.DEC (JERRY BOYAJIAN) (12/20/85)
> From: jhunix!ins_aset (Sue Trowbridge) > Some of the new TZs have been so stupid and sentimental that it's a wonder > that crusty old Harlan was involved, such as last Friday's about a woman > brought back from the past to save a scientist's marriage. I really did > expect more from Ellison. But the "Shatterday" episode proved that his > works function much better as stories than as visuals. I think print is > the best medium for him; besides, it's a solitary art rather than a coll- > aborative one, and Ellison doesn't seem to be Mr. Congeniality. I think there is misunderstanding about just what it is that Ellison does for TZ. Aside from writing the occasional episode, or allowing stories of his to be adapted, Ellison had the position of "Creative Consultant" of something of that nature. He didn't really have any say in script approval or direction or anything like that. What he did was to look the scripts over and say, "This is too close to such-and-such a story by Joe Blow." Or, "No, this has been done too many times before." Or, "This is so incredibly stupid that it wouldn't fool a cabbage-patch doll." (And a comment like the last still wouldn't guarantee that the script wouldn't be approved anyway.) Whatever you may feel about a particular episode, or about the general feel of the series, it wasn't Harlan's fault unless it had his name on it. As for the Ellison-written episodes: True, "Shatterday" wasn't all that well-done, and while "One Life, Furnished in Early Poverty" was well-done, it wasn't up to the original story, but in both these cases, it was someone else taking an Ellison story and adapting it into a teleplay. The Ellison original teleplay, "Paladin of the Lost Hour", on the other hand, was one of the finest things I've seen on television, and the equal of many of his short stories. And I'm looking forward very much to the Ellison-scripted episode adapted from Stephen King's "Gramma". > Hard to believe the man who wrote two books entitled _The_Glass_Teat_ could > get a job in tv in the first place. The reason was that produced Philip DeGuere believes in Ellison, and vice versa. --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC, Acton-Nagog, MA) UUCP: {decvax|ihnp4|allegra|ucbvax|...} !decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-akov68!boyajian ARPA: boyajian%akov68.DEC@DECWRL.DEC.COM -------------------- Please note that this mail message is likely to be incomplete. The sender aborted the transmission. rhea::MAILER-DAEMON --------------------