HBO's The Wire wraps up its third season this Sunday. With its top-notch acting and riveting storylines, it's my favorite show on television. This season several big name novelists have written episodes, including Richard Price, George Pelacanos, and Dennis Lehane. This is fitting because the plot of the show is told very much like a novel, with twists and turns and character development seldom seen on TV.
Given The Wire's success in using well-established writers, it's interesting to look back to see how other shows that used well-established writers have faired. As you will see the results have been hit or miss:
Gore Vidal and Gilligan's Island
Vidal's sharp wit would seem to be a good fit for this zany sitcom, but alas it was not. The episode took place entirely in the Professor's head, where we learn about his regrets, fears, and desires. Audiences found much of the material unsettling, particularly a flashback sequence involving the Professor's mother and an Ecuadorian drag queen. There was also a scene featuring the Skipper with his shirt off. The whole episode was way too out there for its day. It probably still is.
GRADE: C-
John Updike and Mama's Family
Actually not as bad as you would think. In the episode titled "Of Mama and her Forlorn Nature" Vicki Lawrence gave a tour-de-force as the ornery lead. While lines like "Perfectionism is the enemy of creation, as extreme self-solitude is the enemy of well-being" seemed out of character for Mama to say, the surprise ending where daughter Naomi goes off to Harvard and gets pregnant during her first semester was captivating. My only criticism is that I wish Vint Jr.'s attempted suicide was better explained. Wait; was he the baby's father?
GRADE: B+
Jonathon Safran Foer and Perfect Strangers
Working as an intern for ABC at the young age of 11, prodigy Safran Foer convinced executives to let him write a pilot about two friends from different backgrounds living under one wacky roof. It's obvious that this episode laid the groundwork for his critically acclaimed debut novel Everything is Illuminated. From Bronson Pinchot's funny-accented Balki to Mark Linn-Baker's perpetually exasperated Larry, there are numerous aspects of the show that remind one of the book. It's fascinating to see Safran Foer at the early stages of his career fine-tuning his gift for writing funny-accented and exasperated characters. Why they're bothering to make a film version of the Everything is Illuminated is beyond me; Perfect Strangers is all you need.
GRADE: B
Toni Morrison and The Golden Girls
No one can deny Morrison's gift of prose, nor her understanding of the complexities of womanhood, but this was a bad match from the beginning. There were numerous pre-production issues, the largest two being moving the entire set to rural Kenya and Betty White's ongoing Ecstasy addiction. This four-part episode centered on Rue McClanahan's character, Blanche, having difficulty in obtaining her mail-order husband, Mkwame (played with surprising poignancy by the late Redd Foxx). Fed up, she and the girls head off to Africa. While Morrison's script attempted to reveal the injustice of the mail-order African husband business, the message of the episode was undermined by Betty White's demands to hold a rave at the base of Mt. Kenya. The producers eventually gave in and the show was a disaster.
GRADE: F
Isaac Asimov and Joanie Loves Chachi
Asimov was a huge Happy Days fan, so when the opportunity came for him to pen an episode of the show's spin-off Joanie Loved Chachi, he ran at the chance. In the script you can tell that Asimov did all that he could to keep away from any science-fiction related storylines, and other than the robot invasion in Act III he does a pretty good job of it. Many say that Asimov's words brought the best acting ever out of Erin Moran, and after seeing the episode it's hard to argue with that. It's said that during Asimov's work on the show, he and Moran had a torrid affair, and this certainly came through in Moran's sexy and assured performance, particularly in the scene where she lures a horny robot into a burger joint and then smothers it to death in her breasts.
GRADE: A
This post is dedicated to hanging Christmas lights in the rain.
