It’s about a New Zealand show called The Almighty Johnsons and my opinion had to do with how I felt the writers had done a disservice to the female characters on the show. So here in 2021 Melissa and her co-host were planning an episode around the show, found my essay and asked for permission to quote it, which I happily gave.
If you know the Almighty Johnsons this whole episode will be of interest; if not my quote comes into the conversation here at 1:18:25 when they Introduce to the section on gender in the show and then at 1:19:22 – when they begin using my quotes.
You know, the difference between TV, obviously, and movies — movies you are going to tell me the most interesting 2 hours in someone’s life. What are the most crazy, interesting 2 hours and we’re done. Maybe there’ll be sequels, of course, blah, blah, blah — but, in general, that’s what you’re going for. In a TV show — especially a pilot — you need to give me enough fodder to understand that there are at least 20 hours — nowadays with streaming, 40 — used to be 100 — in order to get to syndication — but that there’s that much interesting embedded conflict among this group of people that I’m going to be constantly interested in watching them overcome whatever their problem might be. Whatever their issue might be. So, every show has what we would call an overarching dramatic question that is trying to be answered. It’s like — and it can be — it should be — the bigger it is, the more universal. So, for me, an easy example is Bones, right, which some people realize what was — she’s uber-smart and autistic and he’s uber-Catholic and, you know, goes for the emotion. Which, of course, is a flip to what we think gender-wise. It should be the dude being super-logical and the girl being super-emotional, but they flipped it so that’s interesting. But really it’s a show about science versus religion and the 2 characters represent those 2 points of view and there’s never going to be an answer to that question. Except if you accept that the answer is you need them both and that’s how they solve their crimes is the 2 of them together are better than each separately. So, you’re overarching question every week is being addressed. The individual question each week is simply who committed this murder. That’s always going to be solved but the overarching dramatic question can never be solved or your show’s over.
It’s always fun to sit down with students and share stories about entering the television industry and how things work at all stages and I had that opportunity the other day.
Daniela Torres, a just-graduated (Congratulations!) student of the Columbia College Semester in LA program asked me to guest on a podcast she had recently begun hosting with another college student she met during her internship (good example of networking in action!).
We could have talked all morning (the benefit of a 3 hour class session) but we held it to about an hour and fifteen minutes or so. Hopefully, along the way I answered some questions you might have about how the business works. So often it amounts to working hard at being a better writer and gathering a group of other talented, hard-working people around you so you can all rise together.
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a television writer with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. She also teaches Television Writing and the Art of Film at San Jose State University.
Rosanne discusses what made shows like Beverly Hills 90210 compelling, what to do and not to do when attempting to pitch a show to broadcast or streaming, what most young writers neglect in their writing process, and much more!
The Courier Thirteen Podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Audible.
HOST: They do a really good job of holding the tension for you to keep watching on to the next episode and I think that’s really well done yeah so.
Rosanne: We used to think when streaming came along that wouldn’t be as important because the idea of leaving a show with a bit of a cliffhanger was so you’d wait a week and you’d remember to come back the next Thursday at nine o’clock or whatever that was and then we’re like oh streaming. You just binge right through it you don’t need it but of course, Netflix will say no no now we need what they’ll call the binge-ability factor. Oh yeah, we need you to see the thing that says next episode and click that right away. We want you to watch five in a row. That’s just as important as coming back next week and I think that’s really a funny — we thought there was a change there and it’s not necessary at all.
HOST: Yeah just because it’s on this platform where you can binge it doesn’t mean that people will automatically just go to the next episode if you don’t make it enticing for them to do so. I mean I’ve watched a lot. I’ve started a lot of shows on Netflix and I didn’t move on to the next episode like you didn’t
Rosanne: It didn’t catch you.
HOST: — I don’t see the reason.
It’s always fun to sit down with students and share stories about entering the television industry and how things work at all stages and I had that opportunity the other day.
Daniela Torres, a just-graduated (Congratulations!) student of the Columbia College Semester in LA program asked me to guest on a podcast she had recently begun hosting with another college student she met during her internship (good example of networking in action!).
We could have talked all morning (the benefit of a 3 hour class session) but we held it to about an hour and fifteen minutes or so. Hopefully, along the way I answered some questions you might have about how the business works. So often it amounts to working hard at being a better writer and gathering a group of other talented, hard-working people around you so you can all rise together.
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a television writer with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. She also teaches Television Writing and the Art of Film at San Jose State University.
Rosanne discusses what made shows like Beverly Hills 90210 compelling, what to do and not to do when attempting to pitch a show to broadcast or streaming, what most young writers neglect in their writing process, and much more!
The Courier Thirteen Podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Audible.
Rosanne: The Murdoch Mysteries? The one about the cops…
Host: I think so yeah.
Rosanne: Canada’s got some interesting tv. Interesting business there too. It’s called Murdoch Mysteries. It’s on Netflix for a few seasons. It’s run for ten seasons. It’s about a constable. It is what they call their police in Canada in the turn of the century 1900. So you’re getting a period piece and his girlfriend, who becomes his wife later on, is the coroner because she was a rich woman who learned to be a doctor but nobody will trust you to be a doctor. So she basically cuts up cadavers and helps solve crimes and what they did beautifully is they’re very interesting little you know detective stories but they have a lovely cast of surrounding characters and eventually they married these two people and in the States if you marry characters the show’s over right? Bones they got married shows done. Castle they got married shows done. We don’t understand that the day after you get married like that’s when the story starts.
Host: Yeah there’s this trope that marriage and then that’s the end game. Like the end game was getting married but there’s nothing after that yet yeah.
Rosanne: Whereas they’ve been I think married for four or five seasons now and you know they’re perfectly interesting and fun and work together.
It’s always fun to sit down with students and share stories about entering the television industry and how things work at all stages and I had that opportunity the other day.
Daniela Torres, a just-graduated (Congratulations!) student of the Columbia College Semester in LA program asked me to guest on a podcast she had recently begun hosting with another college student she met during her internship (good example of networking in action!).
We could have talked all morning (the benefit of a 3 hour class session) but we held it to about an hour and fifteen minutes or so. Hopefully, along the way I answered some questions you might have about how the business works. So often it amounts to working hard at being a better writer and gathering a group of other talented, hard-working people around you so you can all rise together.
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a television writer with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. She also teaches Television Writing and the Art of Film at San Jose State University.
Rosanne discusses what made shows like Beverly Hills 90210 compelling, what to do and not to do when attempting to pitch a show to broadcast or streaming, what most young writers neglect in their writing process, and much more!
The Courier Thirteen Podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Audible.
Well, many things worked about the show. One of which was her sister was a lesbian and she and the female sheriff in town had a relationship and Emily Andreas, who produced the show in Canada knew the trope of killing your gays and she made a promise upfront that neither of these women would ever die and, sure enough, as you get to the end of the 4th season, the last episode is their wedding which is really quite beautiful after you’ve watched the characters across 4 years. but the fact that she did that to counter this negative thing that had been happening in tv and because you knew that. the fun was in always getting one of those 2 women in a terrible situation that they should have died and you knew they were going to have to work their way out of it and so often you would say “Oh, don’t tell me how something’s going to end because I need the tension of worrying.” I didn’t have to worry about them dying but I had to wonder — so it’s worry and wonder, are the 2 most important things for an audience that pulls them through a show — I had to wonder how’d they get out of it. So it still worked and I thought that was brilliant. So I think that’s a really good show and people probably think it’s an American show because it was on American TV as well.
It’s always fun to sit down with students and share stories about entering the television industry and how things work at all stages and I had that opportunity the other day.
Daniela Torres, a just-graduated (Congratulations!) student of the Columbia College Semester in LA program asked me to guest on a podcast she had recently begun hosting with another college student she met during her internship (good example of networking in action!).
We could have talked all morning (the benefit of a 3 hour class session) but we held it to about an hour and fifteen minutes or so. Hopefully, along the way I answered some questions you might have about how the business works. So often it amounts to working hard at being a better writer and gathering a group of other talented, hard-working people around you so you can all rise together.
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a television writer with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. She also teaches Television Writing and the Art of Film at San Jose State University.
Rosanne discusses what made shows like Beverly Hills 90210 compelling, what to do and not to do when attempting to pitch a show to broadcast or streaming, what most young writers neglect in their writing process, and much more!
The Courier Thirteen Podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Audible.
Actually, I’ll tell you what. It’s actually not an American show but it aired on the Sci-Fi channel. It’s from Canada. It was Wynonna Earp which just wrapped up after four seasons — four and a half seasons and I love that. It was the story — science fiction, of course. Wynonna Earp is the great great great granddaughter of Wyatt Earp of the OK Corral, the gunfight and Tombstone, and all that stuff and in their envisioning — it’s based on comic books — the first person in every generation after Wyatt Earp is gifted this gun called the Peacemaker and all the people that Wyatt Earp killed in his life come back to life as ghosts and the only thing that will kill them is this gun and so you’re stuck with the job of fixing the mistakes he made in the past. This guy you never met and it was really well done because you’re watching her go through this obligation. So the little coverage of Buffy the Vampire Slayer — you’re born in this generation to take care of this problem but she had much more more problems. She was a drunk and all those things.
It’s always fun to sit down with students and share stories about entering the television industry and how things work at all stages and I had that opportunity the other day.
Daniela Torres, a just-graduated (Congratulations!) student of the Columbia College Semester in LA program asked me to guest on a podcast she had recently begun hosting with another college student she met during her internship (good example of networking in action!).
We could have talked all morning (the benefit of a 3 hour class session) but we held it to about an hour and fifteen minutes or so. Hopefully, along the way I answered some questions you might have about how the business works. So often it amounts to working hard at being a better writer and gathering a group of other talented, hard-working people around you so you can all rise together.
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a television writer with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. She also teaches Television Writing and the Art of Film at San Jose State University.
Rosanne discusses what made shows like Beverly Hills 90210 compelling, what to do and not to do when attempting to pitch a show to broadcast or streaming, what most young writers neglect in their writing process, and much more!
The Courier Thirteen Podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Audible.
Host: Yeah, it seems like your not — not that into — not that engrossed in American television. Which, I mean, I do understand on a level.
Rosanne: I do agree. Now there was a great show like two years ago now, which got canceled too soon called Stumptownand it was the story of a woman who became a detective because she kind of couldn’t do anything else very well and she lived in Portland where there were reservations and Native American casinos and so she was sort of working in that world. She had a friend who ran a bar who was a former convict, so that was an interesting characterization and then they made a deal right away that they would never have a love relationship. They were just going to be friends and that was lovely to watch and that was really good because it was about real people going through problems.
It’s always fun to sit down with students and share stories about entering the television industry and how things work at all stages and I had that opportunity the other day.
Daniela Torres, a just-graduated (Congratulations!) student of the Columbia College Semester in LA program asked me to guest on a podcast she had recently begun hosting with another college student she met during her internship (good example of networking in action!).
We could have talked all morning (the benefit of a 3 hour class session) but we held it to about an hour and fifteen minutes or so. Hopefully, along the way I answered some questions you might have about how the business works. So often it amounts to working hard at being a better writer and gathering a group of other talented, hard-working people around you so you can all rise together.
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a television writer with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. She also teaches Television Writing and the Art of Film at San Jose State University.
Rosanne discusses what made shows like Beverly Hills 90210 compelling, what to do and not to do when attempting to pitch a show to broadcast or streaming, what most young writers neglect in their writing process, and much more!
The Courier Thirteen Podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Audible.
Host: Is there a show on today that you think is really good at capturing those really human moments and I mean is there a show that you really adore that does that does that? That accomplishes that well?
Rosanne: I watch such a wide variety of tv. I must say what i love for y’all’s generation is the existence of Netflix means that you can watch television from a variety of different countries beyond which all the various things being made here and of course between cable and streaming and whatnot, we laugh now there’s something like 420 new shows out in the world. So it’s almost impossible to keep track of all of them. I learn so much when students come in and want to pitch a show I’ve never heard of then I have to go watch it and figure out what’s going on with this right? So I watch such a variety of things it’s hard to say. I’ve been watching a lot of stuff out of New Zealand and I’m a huge Doctor Who fan and any kind of science fiction is fun because it is looking at modern-day problems but in that science fiction world. So it’s kind of fun to watch and go oh they’re having… this is a problem they’re dealing with but it’s happening to aliens instead of you know humans or something. So that’s fantastic. I watch a lot of Australian tv. A lot of English tv. A lot of the kind of murder mysteries they do where it’s not all about the gore. It’s not about CSI where’s all the blood and all the stuff I have to put under microscopes. It’s about again people and how come that person seems guilty but no and it turns out the red herring is that it’s because they knew they were having an affair but they’re not the one who killed him. So it’s like puzzles and I find that really interesting and I find they can make more real people in shows like that. So sadly in terms of what I think about you know American tv.
It’s always fun to sit down with students and share stories about entering the television industry and how things work at all stages and I had that opportunity the other day.
Daniela Torres, a just-graduated (Congratulations!) student of the Columbia College Semester in LA program asked me to guest on a podcast she had recently begun hosting with another college student she met during her internship (good example of networking in action!).
We could have talked all morning (the benefit of a 3 hour class session) but we held it to about an hour and fifteen minutes or so. Hopefully, along the way I answered some questions you might have about how the business works. So often it amounts to working hard at being a better writer and gathering a group of other talented, hard-working people around you so you can all rise together.
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a television writer with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. She also teaches Television Writing and the Art of Film at San Jose State University.
Rosanne discusses what made shows like Beverly Hills 90210 compelling, what to do and not to do when attempting to pitch a show to broadcast or streaming, what most young writers neglect in their writing process, and much more!
The Courier Thirteen Podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Audible.
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a writer and university professor of Humanities in the (IGE) Department at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; and screenwriting for two MFA in Screenwriting programs (Cal State, Fullerton and Stephens College). Her current books include Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture (McFarland Publishing, 2017) and Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection (ABC-CLIO, 2017), which she co-edited with her CalPoly Pomona colleague and officemate, Dr. Peg Lamphier.
In her previous life, Welch was a television writer/producer with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences and Touched by an Angel and ABC NEWS/Nightline. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.
In this episode, Leslie and Rosanne discuss 10 things Hollywood writers must know. For example, how to write what you emotionally know, how to work in a writer’s room, the do’s and don’ts of pitching, when to use a pitch deck and when it’s a horrible idea and much more.
Host: I don’t know how you’ll feel — how you feel about this Rosanne but like do you think that’s a problem with a lot of shows in general, that they try to take an approach and just make it more like and it gets too outlandish that you don’t even believe it at a certain point.
Rosanne: I think that is. One of the words that everyone is tired of hearing around town is can it be edgier? Show me something I haven’t seen when in fact what really works is to watch people you care about go through believable situations and come out on the other side — find their way through it, That’s kind of what people look for when they’re watching a drama particularly. You want to see that other people have survived things that might be in your world. As you said before, people you know that we have in our families with addiction or issues of other kinds. People going through divorces. That’s a very dramatic thing for a teenager to see happen to their parents, even for someone in their 20s. I had a friend who her and her husband knew from the time the kid was about 12 they were got to get a divorce but they made the assumption that it would be bad to have divorced parents in high school. So they made a deal they’d wait till the kid was 18 and graduated. So here’s a kid who thought his family was perfectly normal and then you know they graduate from high school. Daddy and I are breaking up and it was like — so everything you believe to be true is all blown up. So that’s a legitimate experience for someone and I think if you just go deeper into those experiences and how people manage, that’s much more dramatic and interesting than oh my gosh, my daughter’s having an affair with the senator and now his you know chief of staff is sending a hitman to kill her so that it won’t ruin his political campaign. Ehhh. No, let me just see a kid get through his parents being divorced because that’s really tough and that’s going to connect me to that person for a long time.
It’s always fun to sit down with students and share stories about entering the television industry and how things work at all stages and I had that opportunity the other day.
Daniela Torres, a just-graduated (Congratulations!) student of the Columbia College Semester in LA program asked me to guest on a podcast she had recently begun hosting with another college student she met during her internship (good example of networking in action!).
We could have talked all morning (the benefit of a 3 hour class session) but we held it to about an hour and fifteen minutes or so. Hopefully, along the way I answered some questions you might have about how the business works. So often it amounts to working hard at being a better writer and gathering a group of other talented, hard-working people around you so you can all rise together.
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a television writer with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. She also teaches Television Writing and the Art of Film at San Jose State University.
Rosanne discusses what made shows like Beverly Hills 90210 compelling, what to do and not to do when attempting to pitch a show to broadcast or streaming, what most young writers neglect in their writing process, and much more!
The Courier Thirteen Podcast is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Audible.
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