Writing a third Modern Family episode: more storylines.

In my last post I wrote about the storyline involving Mitchell and Claire. I thought it was a great idea, but we still need at least two more storylines. This time let's concentrate on those and hope that we can come up with stuff that makes sense.

This is going to be my third script and since my first two didn't have anything to do with Luke, I thought it would be about time that I'd write a storyline that gives him a chance to do something that's hopefully worthwhile.

So, I did come up with a pretty good idea about Luke, Alex and Haley, but there was a potential problem with the storyline.  What I mean by that is that the episode that aired two weeks ago also had a storyline about Luke getting a girlfriend - a coincidence indeed.

At first I thought that, meh, I have to say goodbye to the whole thing, but since the execution (S4e11) wasn't really good - Luke was uncharacteristically rude in it - I reconsidered and decided that my idea was still decent enough. The writers certainly didn't get it right and let's not forget that the backstory for Luke was missing too.

In my Luke storyline, he is supposed to go on a date, but because he doesn't apparently have much experience, the girls want to have their say too. Alex and Haley will try to help him as best as sisters only can. Of course helping in this case means complicating things and confusing Luke to the point that he doesn't know who he is anymore.

The one special thing about this storyline is that it's supposed to be an homage to one of those classic episodes from 'The Simpsons'. Well, to be more precise, an homage to a classic moment on the show - that you might not remember.

But still, we need at least one more storyline for the episode. One that includes Jay, Cameron, Phil, Gloria and/or Manny. So many possibilities and yet it's not that easy to come up with stuff that would have some kind of a connection to the Mitchell & Claire storyline.

In a way I'm tempted to go for another Fizbo that would involve Phil and Cameron, but I have to make a decision on that once I start writing. I'm also thinking about writing a storyline for Jay & Gloria in which they try to agree on where they should go on their vacation. But those are just possibilities that I'm not so sure of.

Another possibility would be to put Cameron and Jay together and give them a problem that they would have to figure out. Maybe it would have something to do with exercise. Or maybe they'd go to a race track.

In that case this would leave us with Manny, Phil and Gloria. Another episode with Phil/Gloria and sexual innuendo? I'm not sure I want that to happen. I think we have seen enough of that already so perhaps I have to come up with something else.

Who really created 'Two and a Half Men'?

Oh my, I managed to find this absolute gem from: http://www.natpe.org/natpe/images/pdf/2003pilotbible.pdf

You know what's so awesome about this? It seems to confirm the widespread rumor in Hollywood that the real creator of 2 1/2 Men isn't the person or persons that we're being told.

Remember that 'officially' the show is created by Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn. They are the ones that get the big money from the syndication deal, since they are the 'creators'.

The problem here is that according to this official  press release from 2003, the pilot was written by Eric Lapidus. If you write the pilot, then you're basically the creator of the show.

So, how is it possible that the guy who wrote the pilot didn't even get a shared created by credit for Two and a Half Men?

I think someone should ask Chuck Lorre. Since he's probably still reading this blog: Chuck, what's going on in here?

Writing a third Modern Family spec script.

I thought I'd write one more Modern Family script because I don't really have anything meaningful to do at the moment. I haven't figured out all the storylines yet, except for the one that has to do with Claire and Mitchell.

In my opinion one of the most interesting storylines so far has been in episode s01e07, 'En Garde', in which it was revealed that Claire and Mitchell used to be figure skaters (in pairs) when they were kids.

Now, I don't know about you, but I liked Claire and Mitchell bonding so much that I thought it would be nice if we'd be able to revisit that subject matter again.  We haven't seen these two together much after that, have we?

So, in order to make this storyline interesting and relevant, I thought it would be really nice to write in the guy in the picture above, Brian Boitano. Mitchell and Claire were figure skaters, Brian Boitano the olympic gold medalist still is one.

This could be so much fun - and at the same it could be a really serious storyline too. Maybe Boitano actually knew our 'fire & nice' couple 25 years ago.  Perhaps it's time catch up on things and see how life has treated these people.

I think the storyline is almost bound to be funny and relevant because almost everyone knows the South Park song 'What would Brian Boitano do?' I'm sure we could find someone to sing it. Cameron & Mitchell might want to give it a go for example.

But the story could also be down to earth and give the characters more depth. I'm pretty sure our figure skating star would be proud of our environmental lawyer Mitchell and home mom Claire. Perhaps he would feel a bit sad about his own life (for the sake of the story).

As I said, I haven't figured out the other two storylines yet, but this one idea seems so good that I think I have a responsibility to write the script. It almost feels like the idea is too good to be true... 

Anyway, here's the song if you haven't heard or seen it before.