Can the darlings of Hollywood, who have turned everything they’ve touched into gold, add one more gold bar to the vault?
Genre: TV Pilot – Half-Hour Single-Camera Comedy
Premise: An unpopular computer science professor invents a time machine and goes back to 1776, where he falls in love with a girl and, in the process, changes the course of history.
About: There is no hotter team of writer-directors than Phil Lord and Chris Miller. These two have worked their way up through an impossible landscape of surefire duds (21 Jump Street, The Lego Movie) to always end up with smash hits. This led to their inevitable move to TV, where they brought us one of the freshest shows on television, The Last Man on Earth, and also to being announced as the directors of the Star Wars Han Solo spinoff. Everything these guys touch turns to gold. And their newest, In Time, looks no different. Written by Julius Sharpe, a longtime TV writer who’s worked on such shows as Family Guy and The Grinder, this is about as “sure-thing” as a pilot gets.
Writer: Julias Sharpe
Details: 32 pages – undated
Movies get you all the glory. But TV gets you all the money. Ask anybody who worked on Forest Gump. According to the studio, that film STILL hasn’t broken even. I have no doubt that despite The Force Awakens being the biggest box office movie IN HISTORY, Disney will tell you that the film is still deep in the red.
But you write a TV show that stays on the air a few seasons? Even better, if you write a half-hour COMEDY that stays on the air? You are raking in the dough, Carolina Bob. Okay, I admit I’m laying the sales pitch on thick cause some of you hate when I review TV. But you’ll have to suck it up today. Our show features time travel and comes from the guys putting together the Han Solo origin movie. I couldn’t not read this if I tried.
“In Time” follows Dan. Dan is that nerdy kid no one liked who grew up to be… that nerdy adult no one liked. And it’s not that he’s a bad guy. He’s just… not the kind of guy you want to have a beer with. Or a 10 second exchange with. Take the computer science classes he teaches at the university. Out of the 45 people in his class, he’ll be lucky if 5 show up.
But that’s okay these days. And that’s because these days, Dan can control the days, or at least the ones he travels to. That’s right, Dan’s built a time machine (out of a bag), and regularly travels back to the year 1775, where he has a girlfriend, Deborah, who thinks he’s the most wonderful man in the world.
The thing is, Dan starts noticing little differences in the world every time he travels back to the present. Like the fact that his five students are now eating fish and chips instead of hot dogs. And Starbucks features tea instead of coffee. It looks like something Dan’s done… has changed the future.
You’d think Dan would’ve known that the man responsible for initiating America’s independence, Paul Revere, wasn’t the best man’s daughter to fall in love with. And that’s why Dan needs Chris. Chris is the opposite of Dan. An African-American well-loved star professor of history at the University. Chris’s students regularly give him standing ovations at the end of his lectures.
Chris doesn’t like Dan, so he’s weary when Dan tells him he has something to show him at his house. But when Dan takes Chris back to 1775, Chris changes his tune. What the two realize is that Paul Revere has been so caught up in rumors that his daughter is cavorting with a local reject (ahem, Dan), that he doesn’t care about the thing he’s supposed to start – the Revolution.
Dan wants to know if he can keep the love of his life and still prevent the British from owning America in the future. Chris lays down the law, telling him he absolutely needs to dump this girl. And as reluctant as Dan is, he’s about to do just that. Except something happens that changes everything, and of course, changes the future along with it.
There’s a new format sneaking its way into television programming. It’s the serialized half-hour comedy. And Phil Lord and Chris Miller are leading the charge. What’s really cool about this format is that it allows you to be funny and tell a compelling story.
In times past, TV only allowed you to do one or the other. Actually, it wasn’t until recently that TV allowed you to serialize DRAMAS. But now that they realize that works, they’re open to doing it with comedy as well. And I can’t tell you how wonderful that is. Because for every Modern Family, there are five The Goldbergs. Individualized stories are great. But sometimes you need a hook to bring you back next week.
Ironically, the one thing lacking in In Time’s pilot is more time. As most writers find out, one of the hardest things about telling a time travel story is how much freaking exposition you have to go through. And half-hour comedies aren’t exactly the formats of choice for dishing out exposition.
So Smith decides to excise all exposition in favor of story. While that was probably the right decision, the story seems rushed as a result, and we’re constantly wondering why really big things (like how this whole time travel thing came about and how it works) are glazed over.
The biggest effect it has is on Chris, who’s a huge history geek, yet doesn’t freak out about the fact that, say, he’s speaking to Sam Adams. In reality, this man would pass out from excitement. Instead, we barely get a, “Ooh, there’s Sam Adams.” And it robs the story of some authenticity.
What they probably should’ve done is what Lord and Miller did with The Last Man on Earth pilot, which is tell it in 60 minutes. They still might do that so we’ll see. But if you get past that fault – and the writing’s so good, it’s easy to – this is a delightful little comedy that’s extremely refreshing.
When you’re in Analyst mode, you’re always trying to figure out why something works. And 9 times out of 10, it comes back to the characters. If you like the characters, you like the story. If you don’t, you dislike the story. And I loved these characters.
Dan is perfect as the modern day misfit everybody ignores who’s found an outlet where people actually appreciate him. And his plight is relatable. Anyone who’s struggling with acceptance wants to find someone who accepts them. So we relate to his pursuit of Deborah. As Chris puts it, “Time travel could be used for infinite good and instead you’re just trying to get laid!” Well, yeah. But there’s something revealing in that. This is a man who no one loves. For him to go to the ends of time to find that love tells us a lot about him.
Chris is the perfect contrast to Dan, as he’s the popular mega-star professor everybody loves. When you’re writing a comedy, you want to look for extremes. When you’re pairing people together, go as opposite as you can. So if you have the nerd, pair him with the stud.
But the REALLY clever thing here is that when they go back in time, those roles are reversed, mainly because African-Americans didn’t exactly have the same status in 1776. So there’s this established dynamic that flips 180 degrees midway through the script that isn’t just fun, but you can tell it’s something the writer thought about.
My problem with all these amateur scripts I read is that you can tell the writers haven’t THOUGHT about everything. They’re just proud of whatever they came up with because, by golly, they finished a script and therefore they deserve a pat on the back for it. They treat writing “The End” as if it’s something the city should announce a parade for.
Show me that you’ve thought about every angle of your story, then I’ll be impressed. And that’s what we get here. The fact that the woman Dan’s fallen in love with so happens to be Paul Revere’s daughter, and that his frustration with that has shifted his focus away from the Revolution, which is changing the future, that’s really clever.
Not just because it’s fun, but because it sets up a choice. And remember, when you’re writing a story, you’re always searching for tough choices for your characters. Dan has to figure out if his love for this woman is more important than America winning its independence. And the fact that he waffles on that choice is hilarious in itself.
This would’ve been impressive if there was more time to tell the story. But even in its rushed form, it’s really good. I expect this to be a huge hit.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[xx] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: The one miscalculation here was a history professor not being more excited when he was taken to the time in history he lectured about every day. He was too casual about the whole thing. Whenever you write characters – specifically when they’re placed in extraordinary situations – you need to put yourself in their shoes, and ask HOW WOULD I REACT? You should get a good feel for how to write the character simply by asking that question. This should lead to much more authentic characters overall.
