In Television, as in Life, Timing Is Everything

It is a truth universally acknowledged that any screenwriter possessed of a mortgage will, from time to time, want to work in television. There are several reasons: The writer is valued more in television than in movies, and scripts are far more likely to be shot. Finally, there is a promise of wealth so great that my grandchildren, as beneficiaries of it, will not have to work, and thus be able to lead meaningless lives filled with nothing but shopping and substance abuse. Who can resist that?

But in television, as in life, timing is everything.

My first tour in Los Angeles lasted two years before I fled back to New York in time to vote for Al Gore in the ’88 Democratic primary. However, by then I had staff experience on two network sitcoms, which shall remain nameless to spare everyone unnecessary embarrassment. But the time served as a low-level writer qualified me to pitch.

Back in New York, I directed a series of short films for Comedy Channel (precursor to Comedy Central) about a character called the Love Doctor. The Love Doctor was played by the talented African American actor Isiah Whitlock. He wore a pale lemon suit and spoke in a Kool-inflected Barry White baritone. The “Love Doctor” was nominated for a CableACE award. After losing, the character seemed headed for obscurity.

But fate intervened in the form of an executive who has since become fabulously wealthy on the strength of something having nothing to do with me. He called and said, “Do you think the ‘Love Doctor’ can be a sitcom?” At that point in my career, if an executive had asked me whether the Nuremberg trials could be a sitcom, I would have pointed out that Bob Newhart would make a great Martin Bormann.

I said, “Sure.”

So I set about adapting my creation into a viable pitch. That the Love Doctor had appeared in only 30-second segments and was always alone in a bar was not daunting. I would create a world for him to inhabit filled with memorable characters whom viewers would come to love and tune into until we were in syndication.

In a short time, I was ready. The Love Doctor would be a late-night radio host. This was before Dr. Drew and Adam Carolla were talking to middle-school girls about venereal disease on KROQ, and didn’t sound quite as tired then as it does in 2006. He would have a sassy assistant, and a couple of friends with whom he hung out in a Bukowski-style bar. People with troubled love lives would call into the Love Doctor’s show and he would straighten them out with his advice. Sometimes he would become personally involved.

On the day of the pitch, I went into the room bubbling with fake energy about my idea. We looked at tapes of the “Love Doctor” to reestablish the character in the executive’s mind. Then I launched into my spiel. The executive laughed in the right places, nodded, seemed to appreciate the concept. He wanted to buy it. But he had one question:

“Can he be a detective?”

I held to my principles for as long as it took me to nod and say, “Sure.”

Flash forward 15 years. Although I make my living as a screenwriter, television continues to beckon. After recently signing with a new agency, I received a call from the head of its television department who wanted me to try and create a series. With visions of shopaholic, crack-addicted grandchildren dancing in my head, I said, “Sure.” A week later I called to tell him the brilliant idea I’d conjured. It would be set in an ethical twilight where characters must navigate between light and shadow, always striving to maintain some kind of moral equilibrium. It has sex (tasteful) and violence (but not the messy kind). And the beauty part is it’s a genre people love.

“It’s about a detective,” I begin.

“Let me stop you,” he says. “Does he have to be a detective?”