Perfect Episodes

August 29, 2023 at 8:41 am

I have never claimed to be perfect… but if the good folks at VANITY FAIR want to say so, who I am to argue?

Of course, they are not actually saying I am perfect. They are talking about “Blackwater,” one of the episodes I wrote for GAME OF THRONES. (I scripted four. And yes, “Blackwater” is my own favorite of those, although I thought “The Lion and the Rose” turned out very well too, and I have a soft spot for that one).

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2 023/08/best-tv-episodes

I haven’t seen all of the other episodes on the list… but I have to say, the ones that I have watched were by and large extraordinary, so I can’t take issue with many of VANITY FAIR’s choices. “The Suitcase” from MAD MEN, the heart-wrenching “Ozymandias” episode from BREAKING BAD… THE SOPRANOS had lots of great episodes, but “The Pine Barrens” was special, and for the entire rest of the series I kept waiting for that Russian to turn up again when we least expected… for “The Wire” they picked the episode where Stringer died, and one can’t argue with that, though Omar’s death hit me maybe a tiny bit harder… but the show was so good, it came close to perfection pretty frequently… and BLACK MIRROR is an extraordinary series in so many ways, but “San Junipero” is the episode I love to watch over and over, and tell my friends to watch… if I had to pick one episode that was even more perfect than all the others on the list, though, it would have to be the final episode of SIX FEET UNDER. I liked that series well enough, though I cannot say I loved it as much as I loved ROME or DEADWOOD or FARGO or a few other shows missing from the list, but that last episode was far and away the best finale in the entire history of television, and I cannot imagine how anyone could possibly do better.

Anyway… I feel very pleased and flattered to be in such great company. No work of art is ever truly perfect, of course… but it is very gratifying to hear that maybe you achieved it, or at least came close… for some of your readers (or viewers)… once in a very great while. There is always a next time, though… and regardless of how well (or poorly) one of my tales is received, I always want to do better the next time I sit down in front of the computer.

Tags: game of thrones, hbo, television

Eight Is Enough?

July 24, 2023 at 9:03 am

Eight is enough, they say.

But wait a minute. Who says? Okay, okay, there was that sitcom way back when, and sure, eight is enough when you’re talking children. In fact, you could even say that eight is MORE than enough… kids.

When you are talking Emmy Awards, though… well…

It’s still pretty damn good.

Nominations for the 2023 Emmy Awards were announced last week, and I am pleased and proud to report that HOUSE OF THE DRAGON racked up eight nominations:

CINEMATOGRAPHY FOR A SERIES (ONE HOUR) | “The Lord of the Tides” | Catherine Goldschmidt, Director of Photography
FANTASY/SCI-FI COSTUMES | “The Heirs of the Dragon” | Jany Temime, Costume Designer; Joanna Lynch, Costume Supervisor; Katherine Burchill, Assistant Costume Designer; Paul Yeowell, Assistant Costume Designer; Rachel George, Assistant Costume Designer
PERIOD AND/OR CHARACTER MAKEUP (NON-PROSTHETIC) | “We Light The Way” | Amanda Knight, Dept. Head Makeup/Makeup Designer; Hannah Eccleston, Makeup Artist; Heather McMullen, Makeup Artist; Kashiya Hinds, Makeup Artist; Harriet Thompson, Makeup Artist; Natalie Wickens, Makeup Artist; Bonny Monger, Makeup Artist
PROSTHETIC MAKEUP | “The Lord Of The Tides” | Barrie Gower, Prosthetics Designer; Sarah Gower, Prosthetics Co-Department Head; Emma Faulkes, Key Prosthetics Artist; Duncan Jarman, Prosthetic Makeup Artist; Paula Eden, Prosthetic Makeup Artist
PRODUCTION DESIGN FOR A NARRATIVE PERIOD OR FANTASY PROGRAM (ONE HOUR OR MORE) | “The Heirs Of The Dragon” | Jim Clay, Production Designer; Dominic Masters, Supervising Art Director; Claire Nia Richards, Set Decorator
SOUND EDITING FOR A COMEDY OR DRAMA SERIES (ONE HOUR) | “The Black Queen” | Al Sirkett, Sound Supervisor; Paula Fairfield MPSE, Sound Designer; Adele Fletcher, Supervising ADR Editor; Tim Hands, Supervising Dialogue/Crowd Editor; Mathias Schuster, Foley Editor; David Klotz, Music Editor; Barnaby Smyth, Foley Supervisor/Artist; Timeri Duplat, Music Editor; Paula Boram, Foley Artist
SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS IN A SEASON OR MOVIE | Angus Bickerton, Visual Effects Supervisor; Nikeah Forde, VFX Producer; Thomas Horton, VFX Producer; Sven Martin, VFX Supervisor; Mark Spindler, VFX Co-Supervisor; Mark Dauth, Virtual Production Supervisor; Sebastian Meszmann, VFX Producer; Mike Bell, VFX Supervisor; Tobias Graa Winblad, VFX

All those, PLUS the big one:

OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES

Additionally, House of the Dragon: Inside the Episode was nominated for OUTSTANDING SHORT FORM NONFICTION OR REALITY SERIES. Which I suppose means we are up for nine Emmy Awards, not eight, but somehow this last one counts differently, so…

My congratulations to Ryan Condal, Miguel Sapochnick, and the amazing cast and crew of HOT D. They did some amazing work, and this recognition is well deserved. Come Emmy night, I hope some of them get to take home a golden lady… but win or lose, it IS an honor just to be nominated. ((No idea at this writing when that Emmy night will be. The televised ceremony is scheduled for September 18, with the technical awards a week earlier, but if the strikes have not been settled by then, there is an excellent chance everything will be pushed back to November, or even to next year.)) ((Whether that happens or not, it is unlikely that I will be attending this year’s awards. Too much to do)).

This was a record-breaking year for HBO… well, okay, a record-tying year. In addition to HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, THE LAST OF US, SUCCESSION, and THE WHITE LOTUS were also nominated as OUTSTANDING DRAMA (along with some great shows from the other networks and streamers, of course). This is only the third time in Emmy history that one network has had four different shows in the same category. CBS did it in 1973, and NBC in 1992. And now us.

As to whether eight is really enough… well, one hates to be greedy, but I would have loved to see some of our writers, directors, and actors on the final ballot as well. You don’t get to contend for Best Dramatic Series unless you have some great actors, directors, and writers working of you. Most of our team will have other shots at the prize in seasons to come, to be sure ((I lost six Emmy Awards before I won my first)), but that’s not true for Paddy Considine, alas, not unless Ryan brings King Viserys back as a White Walker — and that’s heartbreaking. My gods, his portrayal was magnificent. He earned a shelf of trophies for episode eight alone.

We are living in a Golden Age of television, though. So much great work is being done on so many shows, it is hard to keep up.

Keep watching. The best is yet to come.

Tags: awards, emmy awards, television

Dark Winds Wins Wrangler

April 16, 2023 at 9:31 am

The Wrangler Awards have been presented annually since 1961 by the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, to honor individuals who “have made significant contributions to Western heritage through creative works in literature, music, television and film that share the great stories of the American West.”

This year’s awards were presented April 14-15. I’m very pleased to report that “Monster Slayer,” episode one of the first season of DARK WINDS on AMC, was honored as best Fictional Television Drama.

https://nationalcowboymuseum.org/collections/awards/wha/monster-slayer-dark-winds/

The episode was scripted by Graham Roland and directed by Chris Eyre, based on Tony Hillerman’s classic Joe Leaphorn/ Jim Chee detective novels (LISTENING WOMAN and PEOPLE OF DARKNESS were the main sources for our first season). Chris and Graham were among the Executive Producers for the season as well, along with Robert Redford, Tina Elmo, Vince Gerardis, Anne Hillerman, Wayne Morris, Vince Calandra, Zahn McClarnon (who also starred as Joe Leaphorn), and… yes, yours truly.

(Does this mean I need to start wearing my cowboy hats instead of Greek fisherman caps?)

Tony Hillerman was a friend, an amazing author, and a giant in the mystery genre. In Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee he created two iconic characters, and his books introduced millions of readers to the wonders of Navajo Country and the American Southwest. It was a great honor for me to have played a small part in helping to bring his stories to television. To see them so well done, and so well received, is hugely satisfying. I like to think that Tony would have been pleased as well. Zahn and Jessica and Kiowa and the rest of our cast have done such an amazing job, and Chris Eyre (who directed four of the six episodes) is one of the best directors I’ve ever worked with.

The first season on DARK WINDS ran last June on AMC. If you missed it… hey, check it out, you can still catch it streaming on AMC+.

Our second season, filmed here in New Mexico at Camel Rock Studios, and on the Navajo reservation, wrapped last month and is now in post. No date has been set yet for the season two debut, but we’re thinking June or July are most likely.

And that’s just the start. Tony wrote eighteen Leaphorn and Chee novels, and his daughter Anne has continued the series, penning eight more books since Tony’s passing. I’d love nothing better than to adapt all of them.

Tags: awards, Dark Winds, television

A Knight and a Squire

April 14, 2023 at 7:12 am

The news is all over the internet by now. The announcement was made on the 12th, at Warner Media’s big press event for the rollout and rebranding of their new streamer, MAX, coming your way on May 23. I was sworn to secrecy till then, but now that the word is out, I can go ahead and confirm it. Yes, it’s true. There’s another successor show on its way to you.

Dunk & Egg are coming to HBO.

The working title will be A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS: THE HEDGE KNIGHT. Whether that will be the final title, I can’t say for sure… beyond saying that no, it won’t be called TALES OF DUNK & EGG or THE ADVENTURES OF DUNK & EGG or DUNK & EGG or anything along those lines. I love Dunk and I love Egg, and I know that fans refer to my novellas as “the Dunk & Egg stories,” sure, but there are millions of people out there who do not know the stories and the title needs to intrigue them too. If you don’t know the characters, DUNK & EGG sounds like a sitcom. LAVERNE & SHIRLEY. ABBOTT & COSTELLO. BEAVIS & BUTTHEAD. So, no. We want “knight” in the title. Knighthood and chivalry are central to the themes of these stories.

Aside from the title, what else can I tell you?

Not a lot.

HBO has given us a greenlight to film for a full season (not just a pilot), most likely of six episodes… though that is not set in stone, and won’t be until considerably later in the process. To date I have written and published three novellas about Dunk & Egg — “The Hedge Knight,” “The Sworn Sword,” and “The Mystery Knight,” each of them initially published independently in various anthologies before being collected together in A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS.

Our premiere season will be an adaptation of the first of the three published novellas, “The Hedge Knight,” the tale of how Dunk & Egg first met during a tournament at Ashford Meadow. The pilot script is already written, and I think it’s terrific. It was written by Ira Parker, who is no stranger to Westeros. He was part of Ryan Condal’s writing staff for the first season of HOUSE OF THE DRAGON, and wrote the fourth episode of Hot D’s first season, “King of the Narrow Sea.” That’s the one where Prince Daemon returns to King’s Landing after conquering the Stepstones, and takes Princess Rhaenyra down into the stews of Flea Bottom. Ryan Condal is on board as well, as an Executive Producer. So am I.

There is no date set yet for the series premiere, or even for the show to begin shooting… but the writing is well underway. Ira has assembled a small but very talented team, and they are at it already, building on the foundations laid down last year in previous creative summits… and of course on the original novella. The Dunk & Egg novellas are fully-fleshed narratives more like the novels of A SONG OF ICE & FIRE than the imaginary history of FIRE & BLOOD; the stories are right there on the page, and our goal is to produce faithful adaptations of those tales for the screen.

If THE HEDGE KNIGHT turns out as well as we hope it will, our hope would be to go on and adapt THE SWORN SWORD and THE MYSTERY KNIGHT as well. That will take a few years. Then comes the hard part. Before we reach the end of the published stories, I will need to find time to write all the other Dunk & Egg novellas that I have planned. There are… gulp… more of them than I had once thought. There’s “The Village Hero” and the Winterfell story, the one with the She-Wolves, and maybe I need to write that Dornish adventure too to slip in between “The Hedge Knight” and “The Sworn Sword,” and after that there are… ah… more. I just need to finish THE WINDS OF WINTER, and then do either A DREAM OF SPRING or volume two of FIRE & BLOOD, and slip in a new Dunk & Egg between each of those in my copious spare time… and that will keep me ahead of Ira and his merry crew… for a few more years.

Well, I will worry about that tomorrow. Today, we’re celebrating. Dunk & Egg are coming.

Those of you who have not yet made their acquaintance should pick up a copy of A KNIGHT OF THE SEVEN KINGDOMS from your favorite local bookshop or online bookseller. (We have autographed copies at Beastly Books in Santa Fe).

You could check out your local comics shop as well. All three of the Dunk & Egg novellas have been done as graphic novels, and done very well, with some great artwork by Mike S. Miller, who captured both characters perfectly.

One more thing before I close…

Way back in the summer of 2016, when HBO first started thinking about GAME OF THRONES spinoffs, I pitched them two ideas: the Dance of the Dragons, which in due time became HOUSE OF THE DRAGON… and Dunk & Egg. That was seven years ago. (I can hardly believe it myself). The lesson there is that development takes time. I see all these stories on the net about other spinoffs being killed or abandoned… no idea where they get this stuff… and it just makes me shake my head. The Nymeria show is still in development. So is the Sea Snake show. Just had a great week on that one, working with writers. And there are others, both live action and animated. How many will get the greenlight like Dunk & Egg? Impossible to say. How long will it take? It depends. No one knows for sure. When I was in grade school, there was a cop show that ended every week with, “There are eight million stories in The Naked City. This has been one of them.” And that was only New York City. Westeros and Essos are a lot bigger, with even more stories. We just need time to tell them.

Current Mood: excited excited

Tags: hbo, television, The Hedge Knight

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