Writer's blog: season 2, episode 10
By Gavin Strawhan
Okay, now I'm a bloke (in fact, when it comes to the
storylining and writing of Go Girls, I'm the only bloke) so what I
know about the agony of childbirth is mostly restricted to watching
the mothers of my children scream and yell and carry on, not
sparing a moment's thought for how I might be feeling or how tired
my feet might be from all that standing around...
But anyway, sometimes people talk of the act of creativity as one
of giving birth to something. If that's the case, then
Episode 10 was definitely a bit breach; it wriggled out legs first
or something and caused all sorts of emotional haemorrhaging.
But now I look at it and go, ahhhh, so what if it nearly killed its
mother or made me stay up all night in a goddamn hospital
pretending to be a sensitive reconstructed male? It was worth
it.
(Or at least I think so. But then, I guess we have to love
our children, no matter how ugly or stupid.)
So, what was the problem? Well, as is so often the case, it
began with conception. We had built up to the lovely ep 9 where our
boys cut loose, and then, well, we weren't exactly sure where to go
from there. What did our characters want now? Where
should we take them? We knew where we were going but a lot of
the ideas we had - to keep flogging my metaphore - were missing the
egg.
We thought it was time for our new girl, Olivia, to get a big story
of her own. I think in our original planning we had thought
of bringing in a past boyfriend from overseas for Olivia, someone
she'd also run away from (possibly explaining her move from London
to New York) but we'd had Hans whisk off Amy in ep 5 and we also
really liked Nathan and wanted to make more use of him. So,
we conceived (boom boom) of a rematch. And then, being
parents with a slightly twisted outlook, we thought it would be
interesting if he (the blind guy) took advantage of her
guilt. In our Go Girls way, it wasn't a case of goodies and
baddies; I think Nathan genuinely likes her and is considering a
more serious involvement, but when he realises that she doesn't
feel the same way, he decides revenge bonking is the next best
thing.
We decided, in that NZ North Shore way, that we would interweave
our other stories and not have Olivia off in her own in a story
ghetto, so we came up with the idea of Kevin being worried about
the closing of the Banh Canh, his favourite Vietnamese Takeaway
place (I believe Rachel Lang came up with the name) at the same
time as Brad is worried that Britta is being used by the
Player. This was the first in a series of quests we decided
to put Brad through in his attempt to win Britta, whom he has come
to believe is his true love.
Back to difficult pregnancies - we did go off on a few
tangents (I think at one stage the gothic psychodrama 'Rebecca' was
invoked and we were going to give Joseph the mother-in-law from
hell) but we realised this would mean Brad was being a story hog
and there wouldn't be room to do Olivia's story properly, so we
went back the very important writing principle of KISS (Keep It
Simple Stupid.)
Ah, so eventually we had a storyline. Then our firm but fair
Network Executive wasn't entirely convinced we shouldn't be
considering a termination so we took her out for a few drinks
(remarkable how useful a nice Pinot Gris is for problem solving)
and it was time to go to script...
Now, Kate, Rachel and I write all the Go Girl scripts between us
and then edit each other's work. The reason is because we
love the show and also because it pays quite well. But (I
think I mentioned this in a blog last year) every season we try and
give other writers a go. Now these are perfectly fine,
talented writers. But so far, for some reason, none of them have
quite cracked it. Go Girls scripts are deceptively difficult
to write - being mostly character driven and not based on the high
levels of conflict the writing gurus say you must use.
So it was with Episode 10. The writer wrote some lovely
sharp, funny lines. But it didn't work, so we had to put it
aside and start again. With Kate head down, Show Running
series 2 and Rachel busy on That Other Show That Can't Be Mentioned
Because It's On Another Network, it fell to me to write the
script.
(Btw this enabled me to write my fave line - personally, I mean,
obviously Rachel and Kate write lines I'm jealous of, all the time
- which is when Brad tells Kevin that The Player is an Actor, "he
lies for a living" tee hee.)
Then we got to production and, well, I won't say that the mother
drank and smoked all her way through the pregnancy, but poor Ep 10
was still not having the easiest run.
Most of the episodes are shot in blocks of two eps - which means
every director has two episodes to shoot - and it's inevitable that
they tend to pay more attention to one than the other. This
is especially true when there are big scenes where they can flex
their visual muscles. So lovely Peter Burger did such a
fantastic job on Episode 9 that he was worried he hadn't had quite
enough time to give Episode 10 all the love, care and high strength
narcotics it needed for a pain free birthing experience.
I don't think he should've worried so much. When I went to
the screening of the Director's Cut I was pleasantly surprised.
Delighted, in fact. And I thought Olivia was absolutely
gorgeous. So there you go. If only my own children turn
out as entertaining...
And on to next week where lots and lots of chooks come home to
roost, especially for poor Kevin...
