After an unsuspecting patient fails a background check, a second-year intern is forced to make a difficult decision…

First watch the episode, then read the script (annotated in pdf format).

Sins of the Mother is the episode of StrangerThings that really cemented my love affair with Earl and the folks behind StrangerThings. This is where the acting, production values and the story really came together to tell a story that surpasses not only Earl’s previous works, but just about anything that has come out of short speculative television in the last few years. Earl and the StrangerThings team hit their stride on Sins of the Mother and carry it through on the next episode, One of those Faces.

WGA - Day 10 Deadline Hollywood Daily for news on the strike.

Thanks to “Tierney Cat” for his insightful posting on the discussion board on a breakdown of what a WGA writer might typically earn. I think this sums it up pretty well, I’m on strike for the future of my union, for my health insurance and my pension. Right now, it’s sadly not about the writing which I love but about the business of writing which always plays like black comedy. Check out the rest of his post here.

I’ve just finished listening to Bill DeSmedt’s Singularity and thought I’d share. You can listen to the book over at Podiobooks.com. You don’t gotta have an MP3 player to hear the story. You can listen to it right on your computer.

On June 30, 1908, there was a massive explosion near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River. It was called the Tunguska Event. The explosion felled an estimated 80 million trees over 830 square miles. Yes, it was a big boom. Against this back drop, Bill DeSmedt’s Singularity weaves a present day tale of an astrophysicist, a rookie agent and an analyst who unearth a scheme to capture the submicroscopic black hole that caused the Tunguska Event and use its awesome power to transform the world. If you enjoy Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton you will dig this taut, fast-paced thriller. It is well read by the author - voices and all with plausible near future science and technology.

WGA - Day 6 - Strike news and insight over at Diaretical Throw-Up by David Press

Playing for Keeps, launching November 1st, …tells the story of Keepsie Branson, a bar owner in the shining metropolis of Seventh City. Keepsie and her friends live among egotistical heroes and manipulative villains, and manage to fall directly in the middle as people with powers, but who just aren’t strong enough to make a difference. Or that’s what they’ve been told. As the city begins to melt down, it’s hard to tell who are the good guys and who are the bad guys.

Playing for Keeps will be a unique podcast experience: you have the ability to subscribe to just the audio version of the novel or you can subscribe to the “PfK Experience”, where you will receive in the feed a PDF of the episode including art, links to content you can’t get on the audio feed, and a short supplemental podcast called “Stories of the Third Wave”.

Check out the site Playing For Keeps. The first espisode is available at Playing for Keeps.

Mur Lafferty is a North Carolina based writer who has written numerous short stories like my personal favorite, the funny and touching I Look Forward to Remembering You as well as the audionovel series Heaven.

Stranger Things: Episode 2A was written by Earl Newton and directed by Alex Traywick

In addition to reading the screenplay, you can view the video podcast of Discontent on your computer. You can also subscribe to the Stranger Things podcast via iTunes. However, if you don’t have a video iPod, you can still view each episode (as well as Earl’s engaging video updates) at StrangerThings.tv. - Don

And thus begins the premier of the video podcast series Stranger Things with Episode 1 Sacred Cow.

Stranger Things is a science fiction anthology video podcast created by Earl Newton. I am extremely honored that Earl has allowed me to feature the screenplay (pdf format) to the premier episode of Stranger Things - Sacred Cow here in Simply Scripts. This second draft script, which you can read here, also contains additional director’s notes about the evolution of the script from the page to the screen. This is a valuable resource for not only writers, but also folks looking to direct.

Sacred Cow was written by Earl Newton, based on an original story by Scott Sigler.

In addition to reading the script, you can view the video podcast of Sacred Cow on your computer. You can also subscribe to the Stranger Things podcast via iTunes, however if you don’t have a video iPod, you can still view each episode (as well as Earl’s engaging video updates) at StrangerThings.tv.

If you enjoy The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits or the recent short-lived anthology Masters of Science Fiction, then you will be quite at home with StrangerThings.tv. The writing, the acting and the production quality are top notch and on par with anything you are going to see on television today. This is, to my knowledge, the only video podcast you can watch in High Definition. This ain’t a blurry youtube vid. - Don

On another note, more back to earth, James Whyle has release the script to his radio play A Man called Rejoice which has been broadcast numerous times by the BBC Radio 3. I haven’t found an audio copy of the play online, but you can buy it for a buck at The Home of MiDor. Personally, I’d love to see the audio play released under a Creative Commons license. James’ work has been published as Rejoice Burning by Aurora Metro Press in New South African Plays.

Thanks so much to Marie for the heads up on these, too many to list here, scripts and transcripts from the Golden Age of Radio. There is the ‘manly espionage thriller’ David Harding, Counterspy, a handful of Sci Fi dramas like The Planet Man and Tales of Tomorrow as well as more recognizable series like Little Orphan Annie, Mark Trail and Escape. It is folks like Generic Radio Workshop and Early Radio that makes this stuff available to you, the reader.

So, skip on over to the Radio Scripts and transcripts page and do some reading. - Don

Shout out to John and Renee, two scriptarians who attended the Harry Potter party at the Whistlestop Bookshop friday night.

For those hunting around for the lost Lost scripts (not transcripts) those can now be found here.

Updated the TV Scripts and Transcripts database where in you will find, among other things the first episode of season three of Dr. Who - Smith and Jones. This comes from BBC’s Writer’s Room which also has teleplays of episodes of Life on Mars, Casualty and Hustle. Find also on the TV Scripts page, thanks to Weekly Script, episode 2 of Deadwood and, thanks to TimMinear[dot]net, you can read the last to episodes of Drive. (You can also watch the last two episodes of Drive on the Fox Myspace page.

Lastly, I’ve cleared out the backlog of Unproduced scripts which you can find on the unproduced scripts page. - Don

Thanks to Eleanor and the BBC for the heads up on this. The BBC has started a web series about how Science Fiction films have influenced your life. Take for example, Twelve Monkeys. Write about your recollections of the film and its influence on you. You have until April of 2007 to share your recollections about the place science fiction has had in your life. The aim is a collective, user-written autobiography of science fiction. - Don