Three Moons Over Milford and the Flexibility of Ideas

So, call it my erstwhile hangover from years working at Canada's sci-fi channel, Space, but I knew from the moment I read about Three Moons Over Milford, I was going to have to check it out at least once.

Here's the very definition of a high concept, plausible sci-fi idea: As the series starts, people are acting strangely. They coyly reveal the reason why during the course of the teaser. Seems that sometime just before the start of the show, an asteroid slammed into the moon, breaking it into three large pieces. Scientists believe that one of the pieces (at least) is unstable, and will eventually plunge to earth, causing nuclear winter and the end of all life as we know it, above the cockroach level.

Here's the conceit: that could happen in twenty years. Or next Tuesday.

Which sets up the premise: what do you do when you think the end of the world is imminent?

This is such a potent zeitgeist concept for our times, I just have to shake my head and curse the fact that I didn't come up with it first. I imagine a lot of writers are doing that. It's such a good metaphor for the uncertain times we live in, that it's the kind of sturdy concept that could show up just about anywhere.

So what the hell is it doing on ABC Family?

Well, let's break it down. Three Moons Over Milford, as it's currently constituted, revolves mainly around one family. Papa Bear made a lot of money in a company, and responds to the news of possibly-imminent judgement day by abandoning his family and going off to "find himself." He leaves his wife, Laura, and two kids, Alex and Lydia, to go climb mountains.

There's a kindly, decent lawyer in the town of Milford named Mack McIntyre whose mother tries to sell her house to send him on a cruise around the world. He doesn't want to go.

The setup in the pilot demonstrates all the different ways people deal with the new reality of possibly impending doom. Dad flakes out. There's an unscrupulous real estate agent that tries to take advantage of people. The police chief is now young and green as hell -- why? Because everyone more experienced quit. Sixteen year old Alex wants to drive right away, and maybe have an affair with an older woman, because why the hell not? Daughter Lydia tries to knit the moon back together with her friends using some Wiccan ceremony, and burns down the school in the process.

By the end of the pilot, we've seen a bit of Milford (good people, quirky town, under stress) and the Davis family. Mom is going to deal with the loss of the family fortune by going to work in Mac's law office. Nice, clean setup.

What struck me about the execution is that it was a lot edgier than I thought it would be. The nasty characters are allowed to be nasty. The mechanics of the plot set up a situation where it's the son's birthday, and the daughter is supposed to address the town meeting to apologize for burning down the school. She says to her mother that she'd rather commit suicide. And mom's response? "Good. More cake for us."

That's pretty funny. Also not what you'd expect for a "family" show.

Yet there is something ineffably family about Three Moons. Obviously, a lot of the stories are going to focus around the two kids. The town is very reminscent of Stars Hollow, which is obviously no accident, since reruns of Gilmore Girls is apparently ABC Family's backbone.

Elizabeth McGovern gets to do her best Lauren Graham . Her character's name is Laura, wink wink, just in case you didn't get it...(although there's been some strange surgery in the years since She's Having a Baby. Brr.)

I enjoyed the pilot. It was well done. And I will probably never watch the show again. Why? Because I don't watch Gilmore Girls, either. The show doesn't really appeal to me. And in the end, really, neither does Three Moons Over Milford.

But that's A-Ok...and I still think they've done a great job, and I'm still envious of the flexibility of their concept, and how much fun they can have with it.

So many starting-out writers I meet -- even writers that are mid-career, like me -- seem to misunderstand terms like "Character Driven Show" "High Concept" or "Procedural" that it's worth noting in the case of this show, just what these things really mean. Three Moons provides a perfect example. (And it's not just writers, either. Lots of Producers and Network People I meet seem equally confabulated.)

Why is Three Moons a high-concept show? Because the concept is the thing that initially sells it. You don't need to know anything else. It could also, with the same concept, be a bunch of very different shows:

-The Sci-Fi Channel Version: a group of international scientists are brought together as the world goes quirky around them to try to solve the problems of the three moons.

-The Lifetime Version: Three women try to keep their different families together while dealing with the men in their lives who've all gone crazy from moon-fear. (In this iteration, the moons stand in for midlife crisis craziness.)

-The Cartoon Network/Comedy Central/FX version -- Ida know. But let's say it's in New York, and everyone decides, "fuck it, there's no rules." And anarchy ensues.

-The CW Version -- Same as above, but starring Felicity. A lot more hugging and crying. And a new Dashboard Confessional song in every episode.

-The FOX Version -- More violence, more fucking (implied), and prettier people.

Note, that in all the versions above, the basic premise stays the same: the threat of imminent (but uncertain) destruction causes people to abandon their usual roles and react differently.

See, it just so happens that they sold the ABC Family version, which dictates the quirky town setting (a la Gilmore Girls) and the focus on two kids. But you could still get several different shows out of it. Is your concept really the precious thing here? If you change the characters, does the show really change? I mean fundamentally. Does it wreck it, or can it really go another way?

See, a lot of people I talk to are so completely attached to the precise execution of their idea that they don't see that changing some details could actually make it better. To tell you the truth, of all my flippant "versions" above, I kind of think that maybe the ABC Family version is probably the best one. They tailored their show to their broadcaster and it paid off with something that's actually kind of different. Awesome. Even if it's not for me.

Now, it also takes you about ten seconds to explain the basic concept of Three Moons. You can fill in the characters and details later. That's high concept.

If you don't know the show without knowing the Characters and why they're doing what they're doing, then you have a character driven show. You actually need to know the character dynamic to understand the show. Think back to that one sheet for the first season of The Sopranos. Tony is in the middle. All the mobsters are standing behind him to his right. Carmela, AJ, Meadow, and Tony's Mom are standing behind him to his left. And the tagline says, "If One Family Doesn't Kill Him, The Other Will."

See, you don't really need to know who the Davis family is to understand or get Three Moons Over Milford. But you have to understand the family dynamic, and the therapy angle, to get what is different about The Sopranos. That's why it's character driven. You change any of those elements too much, and the show doesn't survive.

Is your concept really like that? Great. Now. What makes it different from other shows? What makes YOUR character driven show different from someone else's character driven show?

Or have you come up with the next great procedural? CSI's characters don't matter (not at first -- not when you're making the sale -- it's what they DO that matters -- and the fact that a mystery is set up at the start and solved by the end, an the audience is solving it along with the team.)

Obviously, hybrid-ing these different concepts can come up with fresh pitches and elements, but you do always have to keep a handle on why you're asking people to watch, and what you're promising them. I think that people who watch Three Moons Over Milford on ABC Family are being promised a certain kind of show, and based on the pilot, they're going to get that kind of show.

What are you promising your audience?

You gotta know -- because you have to be able to explain it to your broadcaster, and your producer, and your collaborators...and finally, to your audience.

And here's the funny thing: if you're pitching a broadcaster and you find that, hmm...your show really CAN'T survive the changes, then you really do have to walk away.

Because it's only too common to go into development and then have your vision chipped away at. You have to have clear vision going in, because only then are you going to recognize when your concept is irretrievably broken. Trust me. You'll see it before they do. But if you keep going past that point just to preserve the relationship with the network, well -- the show will inevitably fail and you will be the one that pays the price.

The flipside of that? If you don't know EXACTLY what kind of show you have, and what you're promising off the top, you're going to get lost very quickly.

And then where are you? Can't you smell the sulphur.

Yes, kittens. That's right.

You're in Development Hell.

Try the veal.