Spec script question: technobabble

Question

I am working on two spec scripts. One will be an original show idea and the other an episode of a currently popular show. The "currently popular show" spec script I want to do is a "House" episode. It is my most favorite show right now so I thought it would be a good idea to write an episode for it. Perhaps my enjoyment of the show will make the spec script better. Anyway..."House" is a medical show. Highly technical. The what-dun-it is usually some little known virus/ailment/cancer and all the nasty stuff it does, how to detect it, how to cure it, and so forth as well as what other nasty stuff is just like it thus making it hard to detect and thus where the A plot drama comes from. Dr. House and his team trying to nail the culprit. However, I am not a doctor. I know what I would like the what-dun-it to do for the script's plots (A, B, and C) but haven't a clue what could do the job.

What do screenwriters for shows like "House" do? Am I correct that they're not also doctors? If they're not doctors and use doctors as consultants to put in the technobabble, just how much technobabble is the writer to put into their scripts? Or am I to consult doctors myself to find the virus/ailment/whatever that can fit what I need the what-dun-it to do for my script? Just what is expected of me as the script's writer?

Scott

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]I am working on two spec scripts. One will be an original show idea and the other an episode of ... what I need the what-dun-it to do for my script? Just what is expected of me as the script's writer?[/nq]
I don't know what they do on "House" but to the best of my knowledge it is standard practice to have an MD or two working on medical series. I once intereviewed a doctor named Walter Dishell who was on the staff of *******.
The larger question is why are you writing a spec episode of House?

If you are planning to submit it to House, forget it. If you are planning to submit it to any other series, forget it unless you have an agent. If you are planning to use it get an agent forget it until you have had a bunch of episodic TV PRODUCED.
I don't have time right now to explain all the reasons for the above, but in any case, you seem to me to be setting yourself a huge challenge to try and tackle a technically based show if you don't know the tech.

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.
Alfred Hitchcock

Usenet · Answer

What I would do:
Some serious research. If that meant buying a doctor lunch, hours on google, or what have you ...
I heard a rumor (don't know if it's true or not) that on various "Star Trek" shows, the writers would substitute for anything technical. So an exchange of dialog on the page could run:

CAPTAIN
I need more power to the .
ENGINEER
Captain, if I do that, the will .

WEAPONS OFFICER
Captain, they're their .

CAPTAIN
Shields up.
etc.
I wouldn't do that in a spec. You want it to be seamless.

Yes, they have medical consultants. You don't. You need one. Make friends with a doctor.
Incidentally, I was once browsing a book call something like "100 obscure diseases you don't want to get." I'd only seen a couple of episodes of "House" at that point, but I found it amusing that the first three diseases I (randomly) flipped to had all been the featured illness on the show.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]Yes, they have medical consultants. You don't. You need one. Make friends with a doctor.[/nq]
I wrote a Sopranos spec and got a lot of help from a Psychiatry prof who loves the show and said shrinks often discuss the therapy Tony gets from Melfi. He has a rather low opinion of her as a shrink, by the way.

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.
Alfred Hitchcock

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]"House" is a medical show. Highly technical. The what-dun-it is usually some little known virus/ailment/cancer and all the nasty stuff ... could do the job. What do screenwriters for shows like "House" do? Am I correct that they're not also doctors?[/nq]
"HOUSE" has at least one doctor on staff solely to answer medical questions, and one (fantastic) writer who is also a physician.
[nq:1]If they're not doctors and use doctors as consultants to put in the technobabble, just how much technobabble is the ... what I need the what-dun-it to do for my script? Just what is expected of me as the script's writer?[/nq]
Consider this: Your spec "HOUSE" will be read, in the best case scenario, by execs and showrunners of shows other than "HOUSE", so you can safely Wikipedia/Google your way through the information. No one's going to know or be interested in checking your medical facts if the story and, most importantly, characters are engrossing. Remember that the purpose of a TV spec is primarily to prove that you can not only write, but write in the style of an already-established show/set of characters.
That's what's expected of you to write Dr. House, Cutty, and the rest just as you'd see 'em on any random Tuesday evening. If you can do that, you're, oh, a quarter of the way there. Good luck!

emg

Usenet · Answer

I don't write TV, I write features... but I do a lot of research. HOUSE is always about some freak disease, and I'll bet there are a dozen books on freak diseases.What I usually do is a bunch of book research and then talk to people who do it for a living. When I wrote (either CRASH DIVE or STEEL SHARKS - I forget which) I had a chance to interview the crew of a US Nuclear Submarine and take a tour. There were other writers & producers on the same tour, and when time came for Q&A they asked the dumbest questions you can imagine - many that showed they had no idea how submarires worked or even the basics of what a crew member does, After a couple of their questions, the guy in charge didn't alloow them to ask any more and I got to ask every question I had.

It was great... but the lesson learned (from their mistake) is don't waste people's valuable time with stupid questions.

I'd hit the books.
- Bill

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I don't write TV, I write features... but I do a lot of research. HOUSE is always about some freak disease, and I'll bet there are a dozen books on freak diseases.[/nq]
The thing with HOUSE, though and what makes it work as Actually Good Television and a popular fave is that while each plotline revolves around a freak disease, it's never truly about some freak disease. It's about the way that House and his peeps suss out not only the freak disease but the motivations and, often, outright lies of the patients and their families. It's about House's own failures as a human and his co-workers' failures to live up to impossible standards. Often, it's about unbearable pain and just getting through each day.

That's the kind of thing that this guy needs to focus on. Not that it'd be bad to do the research and get it right, but so long as he can adequately fake it, the heavy medical stuff is just about the last thing on the list he should spend his time on in a spec HOUSE script and that's including proper semicolon usage.
emg

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]That's the kind of thing that this guy needs to focus on. Not that it'd be bad to do the ... the list he should spend his time on in a spec HOUSE script and that's including proper semicolon usage.[/nq]
But at the very least he should get the details of a semicolonoscopy right.

Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.
Alfred Hitchcock

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I am working on two spec scripts. One will be an original show idea and the other an episode of ... I need the what-dun-it to do for my script? Just what is expected of me as the script's writer? Scott[/nq]
Medical reviews of House episodes, from a doc:
http://www.politedissent.com/house pd.html
What EG said. As long as you have enough good info to convincingly fake it, you'll be fine on the medical side. The people who'll be reading your spec are contest readers, various assistants, and if you're both lucky and talented, agents, showrunners, and executives. Generally, not doctors. Though if you do have doctor friends, they might be very helpful in finding a weird disease with all sorts of interesting implications for human relationships. That's the key - choosing not just a baffling, unusual medical condition, but a medical condition that can affect human relationships in interesting dramatic ways.
For example, the episode from a few years ago where a woman was in a coma from a rare blood parasite found in Africa. The upshot being that the only way she could have gotten this parasite was by banging her husband's best friend.( The details aren't quite right, but that's what I recall.)
If you're doing TV specs, you'll find more people familiar w/ TV on these boards:
http://207.5.19.9/boards/
http://screenandtvwriter.com/phpBB//index.php
See also these blogs, find the posts where they tell you what you really need for a good spec:
http://heywriterboy.blogspot.com/
http://www.janeespenson.com/
The drawback with a House spec is that it's been a really popular show to spec for a a few years now. People are going to get tired of reading them, if they haven't already. So if you're doing a House, you have to nail it. Gripping storyline, precise structure, pitch perfect character voices.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]I am working on two spec scripts. One will be an original show idea and the other an episode of ... I need the what-dun-it to do for my script? Just what is expected of me as the script's writer? Scott[/nq]
One more thing. Before you do anything else, read Alex Epstein's FAQ on TV writing.
http://www.craftyscreenwriting.com/TVFAQ.html

Spec script question: technobabble

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