Science 2.0, the television pilot, has been in development Hell for two years, mostly because I can’t quite figure out what I want it to be in order to make it “2.0” and different from what people see everywhere else and no one who pitched me ideas really caught my attention. In the meantime, the Russians are not an IPO treaty nation so they happily let me build the brand and then spent $10 million foisting off a Science 1.0 show they call Science 2.0 anyway. Look for China to do the same thing some time soon.
But we’re getting closer. I am meeting on Thursday with a production group, spearheaded by an engaging guy who happens to also…sell sheep. Yes, sheep. He has done a lot of media stuff and had good ideas but the sheep are what sold me. If a producer wants to talk to me about his schooner, well, I am intrigued by the engineering but it doesn’t tell me much about his work ethic or his creativity outside the idea pitched. Sheep, on the other hand, are dirty business – if you are raising sheep for profit I know you know creative ways to get things done, because in California, there are literally thousands of regulations and to be called ‘organic’ add on even more paperwork and ridiculous fees.
It takes a certain wackiness to sell sheep but that eccentricity can lead to brilliance. Not all the ideas were brilliant in our meetings – Garth Sundem and I in cowboy hats doing interstitials singing about science, for example, is not great for a pilot. For being in the creative business, television executives are surprisingly uncreative and turning a play on two of our names, Hank and Garth, into singing cowboys would either soar or crash rather quickly in a development meeting so it is better not to try and be too bold until season two.
Plus, I don’t even know if Garth can sing.