As some of you already know, I’m taking a hiatus from the 9-5 life so I can spend more time walking my kids to school and working on my writing. Whenever this has come up in conversation, the question back has been: “Hunh. OK. So what are you going to write?” And it’s been a real point of shame for me that I haven’t had much of an answer. Until now. Now, I have very much of an answer. And the answer is that I intend to use this time to create an entirely new TV genre, one I’ve dubbed: the “situation tragedy” or “trag-e-sit.” I’m still working out the details, but here’s a rough sketch….
Trag-e-sits offer a half hour of episodic entertainment starring 4-6 whacky neighbors and/or family members and/or co-workers who move the plot forward through a series of short, tragic, situational interactions. The whole thing is punctuated by a “cry track” — the sound of a studio audience weeping, designed to induce a similar reaction in the home viewer. Some of the literally several trag-e-sit treatments I’m currently developing include:
- A family-oriented trag-e-sit in which two single parents, with six kids between them, move in together. They know that they must somehow form a family. But instead, bit by bit they break each others’ hearts.
- A workplace trag-e-sit where a new TV program director joins a second-tier station and proceeds to turn everyone on the staff against their feeble-minded but well-meaning anchorman.
- A Boulder-based trag-e-sit, in which an alien (I call him “Gork”) comes down from the planet “Bork” and ruins the life a young woman named “Cindy.” He completely misunderstands the way humans are supposed to behave and the consequences are, well, awful.
Wish me luck!
update: so-called “t. philter” writes: “I wish you’d been more specific about the awful consequences of Gork’s confusion.” Well, I don’t want to give away the store, but I will tell you that he puts his fingers in other people’s sodas. Also, he keeps trying to hump grandma.
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