This is the script for a SF/F sit-com I'm writing with my friend, Helen Lyttle. I considered putting this in 'Non-fiction' or 'Open Discussions', but I was advised to post it here. I'm looking for readers of the whole 30-minute script, and I've put 13 lines of dialogue/stage directions (excluding chapter headings, etc) as a start. I did try IWW Script list, but not a single person offered a crit, so I'm having to try here.

I'm also including the logline, premise and dramatis personae:

Title: Tales from Wonderland
Genre: Sit com, fantasy/surreal
Authors: Adam Lowe & Helen Lyttle

Premise: What if a bunch of oddly mystical and inherently lazy
students were charged with saving the world?

Logline (Series): A group of bizarre supernatural undergraduates have joined a transdimensional detective agency and must juggle
crime-fighting with the inevitable inertia of student life.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Adam Drury – Auburn hair, freckled, tall & skinny. Child psychology student. Slightly nervous, self-conscious. Failed superhero whose only power is the spontaneous creation of apples.

Taryn Jagger – Dresses like a rock star. Big breasts. Beth Ditto-esque. Bolshy, crude, alcoholic. Lesbian alien princess who can’t remember why she came to earth.

Mikilas Dark – Petulant emo teenager. Lots of black and brightly-coloured eye make-up. Powerful witch but can’t control his powers.

Vincent Thorpe – Pinstriped suit. Business student. Very smart, neat. Quarter-vampire member of the Illuminati.

Blaze – Cheery, bubbly superheroine. Flame-coloured hair. Slightly innocent.

Jimbob – Runs StudentWorld. Bartender/manager/janitor/everything else. Manic. Fed up of crazy student pranks. Likes to dress up.

TALES FROM WONDERLAND

[THIRD DRAFT]

SCENE 1

INT. CASTLE, DUNGEON—NIGHT

SNOW WHITE brandishes an ornamental sword. She is duelling. Her assailant is only seen from the back, but from her clothes it is deducible that she is the WICKED QUEEN. SNOW WHITE looks scared, backed into a corner.

SNOW WHITE
No! You can’t . . .

She is suddenly backed up against the wall by her opponent, a sword to her throat.

SNOW WHITE
Please! Don’t kill me!

FADE TO BLACK.

OPENING CREDITS

SCENE 2

INT. STUDENT HOUSE, LIVING ROOM—DAY

Four students sit around, almost lifeless. VINCENT, in a pinstriped suit, sits at a desk, hammering away at his laptop keyboard—the only real movement in the room. The other three—TARYN, ADAM, MIKILAS—slump on the sofa, blankly staring at the TV. Jonathan Creek is on.

There is an almost imperceptible movement: ADAM, his hand on the remote, changes the channel.

TARYN
What are you doing?

ADAM
It’s four o’clock.

TARYN
It’ll be arse-kicking o’clock if you don’t change that back.

ADAM
Charmed’s starting!

There are two factors I keep in mind when I write a crit. I have to like something about the piece, and I want to learn something I can apply to my own story telling through the analysis necessary to write a decent crit.

How those factors apply here is this: I think that in other first 13's you have offered on Hatrack you demonstrate a talent for writing. Since writing scripts is a very different discipline from writing shorts or novels, it's not clear to me that I'll learn much that's useful to me by critting, because I'm not planning on writing scripts, ever--but in the belief that there is no never, I'll give this one a shot.

First, if more scripts are going to be offered at Hatrack there needs to be a discussion of whether the first 13 logic applies to scripts and if so, how. But until and unless that happens I propose not to initiate that debate now, and just review this one anyhow.

So to the piece itself.

Premise - why would anyone entrust lazy students with saving the world? Doesn't sound credible.

Logline - "bizarre supernatural" is a little more interesting and attractive than "oddly mystical and inherently lazy" and "a transdimensional detective agency" could be interesting--but the logline is let down by "inevitable inertia of student life" because I don't know what it means.

Skipping to scenes 1 and 2, I can see no connection, either between these two scenes or between the scenes and the premise and logline (aside from the lazy students): in the scenes there's no supernatural, bizzare, transdimensional detective agency. It says it's sitcom and maybe it's me but I don't see any comedy in these scenes either.

Now I get onto unfamiliar territory: stage directions.

In scene 1: "Her assailant is only seen from the back, but from her clothes it is deducible that she is the WICKED QUEEN." How will an audience deduce from her clothes seen from the back that she is the wicked queen? Surely all the audience will see is two women in period costume duelling with swords. They will not know whom to root for, what they're fighting about--how will they even know that the losing one is Snow White? (And why are we opening with something derived from a well-known fairy tale?)

Scene 2 is just lazy students arguing about TV--sorry, I don't find lazy students engaging, they're just irritating.

In the stage directions it says, "Jonathan Creek is on." How will the audience know that? Sounds? A camera angle that shows the TV picture and some of the characters? ... Now we're probably getting into a question of where does the script stop and the story board start and since that's outside my experience I'll stop here--but I think this is an indicator that posting scripts on Hatrack may bring crits that are less than helpful because we have to understand how visuals and sound are communicated from writer to director, crew and actors.

Talespinner had some good thoughts. In screenplays and teleplays, though, many (most) creative decisions are made by the director, so, some details like how the viewer would know how Jonathan Creek (whatever that is ) is on would be made by him/her. After the director rakes the writer's telescript over the coals, then there would be a shooting script (probably written by someone else) with much more detailed stage directions. The screenplay writer tries not to annoy a director (who knows the budget) with too much stage direction; I assume this is the case with teleplays, too.

Other critters here who are not familiar with the form can just shrug their shoulders at the stage directions and read the story, commenting that, mainly. That's probably what you want, anyway.

Also, the problem with these 13 lines is that the comedy doesn't begin until a couple of lines later. Also, stage directions don't really count for much in sit coms, as the narrative is joke- (and therefore dialogue-) driven.

I'll send the script along anyway, so anyone who wants to can either read the first page or two and crit that, read the whole thing, or just ignore it at will ;-)

The 'inevitable inertia of student life' refers to the laziness of students.

The question of how they will know Jonathan Creek is on is probably one for the director, but this can be shown by revealing it on-screen or having the sounds played intra-diegetically. However, directors don't like to have their job done for them, so you're usually encouraged not to tell them how to shoot a scene. Which is opposite of writing stories or novels. In that respect, I think Pat's totally right. I probably need to find a scriptwriting website to get this critted on.

I've loved everything you've written (though some of it has, admitedly, scared me...:-)

I have dabbled in screenplay myself, and immensely enjoy both the reading and writing of them. I would love to read whatever you have ready.