Friday, April 8, 2011

The Bible

So I'm looking around on the interwebs for a Firefly bible and I can't find one (which means, apparently, that it just doesn't exist.)
But I do find this post about show bibles. In it, the author Lee Goldberg references the "Diagnosis Murder Writer Guidelines". I like these guidelines, my only quibble is that much relies on negative direction: "We aren't 'Murder She Wrote'" and the like. But sometimes, if applied with caution, negative direction can be helpful. Especially if it's coupled with positive direction: "Do make the murderer argue with the protagonist."
The most important part of the Bible/Writer's Guidelines is probably this:

Just about everything you need to know about the show you will find from reading the scripts and viewing the episodes we've given you. 

At some point I have to kind of wonder what the purpose of a show bible is. Theoretically the pilot is the "bible".  But the pilot is frequently so different from the rest of the show -- no matter how much like the rest of the show they try to make it. I sort of agree with the notion of writing the second or third episode as the "pilot" and just getting all that exposition over with.
I'm the only one bothered by this, right? Obviously his sweater was noisy and they went to a lot of trouble to tape it down. But my eye goes right to hidden mic rigs every time. 
The big exception might be "Firefly", as the pilot was really quite good. But I should give up talking about, or watching, "Firefly", for Lent.

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