Well, it's almost 4 a.m. I was going to give you three guesses as to
what I've been watching -- again -- but I figure by now that's kinda
pointless. I know, I know, obsessive/compulsive. Sue me.

It's now 2 weeks and 1 day until those of you with satellite dishes see
the pilot. I'll be very interested in seeing (well, reading) your reactions.
I must confess that as this dialogue continues, I find myself learning more,
and questioning more, and digging deeper for information that had been glossed
over before. I very much appreciate your comments, your suggestions, even the
occasional outbursts of Attitude.

There will shortly be a private screening of the pilot on a real movie
screen, just for cast and crew. The only time that I know of that this thing
will be shown in the US on a big screen. Have been going over what I'm going
to say to the assembled folks...how does one properly thank another for the
fulfillment of a dream? How do you quantify five (now six) years of struggle,
now given life by people you had hardly met one year before, but have given
their blood and time and effort to see someone else's dream realized?

During the filming, as I would be standing on stage, off camera, and we'd
take a break between shots, invariably someone -- the camera operator, the
costumer, an actor, a carpenter -- would come up alongside and say, "Is this
close to what you saw when you wrote it? How are we doing on the dream?"
They knew what it meant, the long road to get here, that it wasn't just a
*job* for me and many others; it was something we wanted to do out of passion.
And they responded to that...slept nights on the set rather than going home,
produced work above and beyond the call of duty...how do you properly thank
someone for reaching into your head and pulling out a vision and giving it
form and weight and light and substance? I don't know. I don't know.

Whatever the future holds -- win, lose or draw -- I think we've done
something special here. And it's interesting to see how that sense pervades
everything...the casting, the production...and now even this. I have noticed -
- I do a LOT of bbsing, much to my spousal overunit's dismay -- that the tone
on this category seems vastly different than it is elsewhere. I don't
know...a give and take, no flame wars, a sense of community, the VERY SAME
sense present on the set, in the dressing room, behind the camera.

In the cold light of morning (when I manage to see it, when I'm not
coming at 4 a.m. from the opposite direction), I tell myself it's just a
television show, and six months from now, or ten years from now, no one will
notice or remember. At night, as I watch the show again for I no longer know
how many times, I allow -- just for a second -- the notion that we've carved
out a little piece of history. Win, lose or draw, we got it on film, when
everyone said we couldn't.

And now it's yours.

jms