“Quality scripts on time.”
It's time for a stroll down memory lane to chat about the golden days of scribbling network TV. Those halcyon days before streaming crashed the party. Back in the early aughts, on J.J. Abrams's serialized spy show "Alias," I had the mega honor of working with Jeff Melvoin, a straight-up legendary showrunner. This guy had a no-BS motto: "Quality scripts on time." It became the guiding light of our scribbling room. It summed up exactly what the job was about - cranking out top-notch scripts while constantly racing against network deadlines.
This was the era when writers had serious clout. The ad-supported TV model demanded a constant stream of content, meaning writers had to be crazy productive and stay creative to keep the quality up across sometimes more than twenty episodes per season. We were the word wizards behind the curtain, well-paid for deploying our creative talents to fuel those long seasons under crazy time crunches. Times change.
With streaming platforms taking over, the industry has done a total 180. Nowadays, seasons are shorter, production timelines are longer, and that sense of urgency that once gave writers a ton of power, leverage, and a living wage paycheck has vanished. It's not unusual now for a season of eight to ten episodes to take two years to write and produce. It's not about selling ads for the new Toyota on Thursday night so the audience can buy their new wheels on Sunday. It's about adding subscribers before quarterly earnings calls.
That crazy creative energy (and living wage) of the past might be gone, but the lessons learned are still gold. The skill of delivering "quality scripts on time" is more important than ever. To pay the bills, scribblers need new ways to add value. This could mean being a jack-of-all-trades and writing for different types of media, connecting with audiences directly through social media, or developing a voice that's so unique it can't be ignored.
The legacy of those hustling, bustling writing rooms, where teamwork turned tight deadlines into epic tales, was hardcore creativity that fueled iconic shows. Draw inspiration from how legends like Melvoin led their scribblers "Onward!" making sure every script not only met expectations but was delivered in a timely fashion so everybody could keep working.
The industry keeps evolving, but one thing will never change: the need for gripping, well-crafted stories that keep the audience engaged. Let "Quality scripts on time" be the mantra that inspires a new generation of scribblers to keep typing with passion, efficiency, and determination. Always be scribbling! Check out Jeff Melvoin's tome of wisdom, "Running the Show" on Amazon — “Running the Show”
