Give up your secrets...
Thanks to Matthew Graham and Ashley Pharoah at Monastic Productions we've got ahold of a script for archaeological action series Bonekickers for you to investigate.
You can read the script for episode one of Bonekickers by Matthew in our Script Archive.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~31~RS~)
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Fantastic! Any news on a second series?
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Nothing yet, I'm afraid.
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Sorry, but it could have been sooo much better. What could have been great, turned out to be rather silly... Really disappointed.
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Piers,
You hail the arrival of the script of Bonekickers as something triumphal - it isn't; and, I am not sure if the BBC has granted us access to the script as a beacon to follow or as an example of how NOT to write.
The series was dire - it was an example of how a writing team who had been successful with the utterly brilliant 'Life on Mars' and the moderately goodish ' Ashes to ashes' were given Carte Blanche to come up with any cliched, formulaic, sterotyped,stilted, uninteresting,unfunny,vacuuous tripe and pass it off as good writing. It was an example of how fawning, awe-struck executives were so caught up in the idea of winning a BAFTA that they never actually got around to reading the script. The aura of the writer's previous success had clearly blinded just about everyone in the production crew or destroyed the areas of their brains associated with objectivity.
As someone who is trying to break into TVwriting, what is even more galling is that if I had sent that to the BBC writersroom as an example of my writing I suspect the reader wouldn't have even got as far as page ten.
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As a writer I find it increasingly difficult to watch TV, the utter drivel that seems to get produced drives me continuously back into my study where I can write, cogitate whilst warming my toes in front of the fire, read or watch something wonderful on a DVD on my PC that actually constitutes stimulation. I have an overwhelming fear that all commissioning editors are preparing for their GCSE'S in which every TV genre they care to work in (Cops and Robbers, Robbers and Cops, Hospital Drama, Dramas about Hospitals, Social Comment, Comment about Society etc. is the norm . Wake up and smell the fetid room you've left stinking and empty. Far too much emphasis is concentrated on the lliterate and uneducated which unhappily is THE sign of our times and unfortunately the mass audience. As writers shouldn't WE be telling the stories, not the commissioning editors, or at least those who think BIG BROTHER is actually good TV
Oh yeah sorry ,it's all about budgets and viewing figures, but come on here, can't we raise the bar or are we all going to have to suffer BIG BROTHER reality (let's not pretend here that it's even remotely stimulating)TV where nothing gets produced for prime time TV unless the viewer has an IQ above 40
In anticipation
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Well, for what it's worth, I enjoyed "Bonekickers"
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I've already said that I thought this sad attempt at something relatively serious was 'rather silly'. But also have to agree with 'Kroggy' and 'Taughran' more detailed responses - particularly Kroggy's comment which doubles for me, too:
"As someone who is trying to break into TVwriting, what is even more galling is that if I had sent that to the BBC writersroom as an example of my writing I suspect the reader wouldn't have even got as far as page ten. "
And they probably would have had a good laugh at the same time.
But how much did this ill-thought-through, and probably very expensive series actually cost? Don't even go there...
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Much as I'd like a second series, Kroggy, I suspect the reader would have given up on page five and the description "Her rucksack jingles like a timpani".
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Takes all sorts.
Me, I love Bonekickers.
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@ Piers
I rest my case.
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I'm always surprised at how keen people are to put across at great length their dislike of a show, (as well as the 'illiterate and uneducated' masses who have the audacity to prefer Strictly Come Dancing on a Saturday night to a Tarkovsky box set) yet can't bring themselves to use their actual names.
Personally I think any script for a primetime BBC show is worth a look (even if it wasn't your favourite show of all time), but if you don't want to read it, here's a thought: don't.
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@DavidL
Actually, David, I did look at the script and even after donning the 'beer googles' it didn't improve.
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