Secret Pop

Jul 13, 2006

Windfall

I had a problem with the premise of this show, when I first heard it. The lottery winnings were not large enough to justify the extravagance being alluded to in the commercial. A jackpot split twenty ways. When that one dude says, "I'm off to buy a football team," I balked. In an IM conversation with Kevin Tavolaro, I think Kevin said, "Maybe it's a Pop Warner team." And if that's true, then I guess it's okay. But anything else misrepresents the buying power of money. And being someone who buys gas regularly and occasionally thinks about how much old timers say a loaf of bread used to cost, it irks me to watch actors and show-runners make lots of money on a flimsy premise.

So, I'm actually watching an episode of the show, and I was totallly wrong. It was not the premise of the show that sucked. It's the show. The characters mention the lottery in nearly every sentence. It's ridiculous. And I'm not kidding.

Here is my spec script for Windfall, bearing in mind that I don't know the names of any of the characters and that my laziness prevents me from properly formatting the text:


INTERIOR. EVENING. A tacky Italian restaurant.


RICK

Thanks for dinner. Is this just because I won the lottery?


JEN

Don't be silly. Winning the lottery doesn't have to change anything between us.



CUT TO:


EXTERIOR. DAY. Driveway in front of a suburban home.


KIP

I'm sorry you didn't like camping.


TESS

I did like camping. It's just that since I won the lottery, I want to do expensive things.


KIP

But that emasculates me.


TESS

So? Don't you want to pretend you won the lottery, too? I'll let you.



CUT TO:


INTERIOR. Hospital room. BRECK is stroking the hair of CASS, who is in a hospital bed.


BRECK

Thank God I won the lottery and can pay for this.


CASS

Don't you mean WE won the lottery?


BRECK

Of course that's what I meant. Wait. Which one of us is a guy? I can't tell from our names.



FADE OUT.


Anyway, I don't recommend the show. It's uninteresting and unchallenging, and Luke Perry's forehead is beginning to make him look like a shar pei. Unless, of course, they want to hire me to write for it. In which case, it is the best show in the world, and Luke Perry's forehead is beginning to make him look like an expensive Italian briefcase.

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