Rift 1x01 - Commentary
by Daniel Loach
It's been a week since the episode went up, so I reckon it's time for me to have my own say on what's going on in the pilot. I didn't want to write this right away because I think it's pointless on commenting on something if you don't know if it worked or not.
As anyone who read the original pilot will have noticed, this pilot is completely new to the last one. By and large the structure remains the same, but this was written from the ground up. An outline was written (coming in at around 12 pages on Word as I recall) and I worked from there. Though some things were copied and pasted from the old script I'm quite certain that what you're looking at now is 100% new material written in the last twelve months.
What I want people to realise though is that there isn't much in this pilot that came out of nowhere, and there's certainly nothing added as part of the season arc that wasn't there before. The Black Coat Man, for instance, always existed. He was the one who Gwen worked for, and he was the man who, in the original version, Maria was in contact with via the phone.
For me the phone didn't work out. It became very boring to write constant phone conversations into outlines, and I knew that the boredom would translate to the reader. I had no choice but to get rid of the phone element and bring in a physical antagonist. From there I got to not only have interesting scenes in the pilot but also I could make the season arc that bit more... well, I'll let you decide when we get to scenes in future episodes in which the BCM decides to show himself.
Other changes, bringing Sam into things. Alex's grief didn't work out. I wanted him to feel the pain of his sister’s death but a lot of what I was writing was a world weariness that came with hunting the vampire that killed his sister years before. I'd already got worries of him being accused of being a lost member of the Winchester family, so that weariness had to go. Now obviously he still needed his drive for revenge so I brought things forward a little, and he's running on a lot of anger.
I think you'll enjoy what happens when he taps into his reserve of fury across the season, because it's not always going to be him that suffers for it, and the repercussions of his selfish vendetta are something that will of course be addressed. In saying that, you may wonder why he didn't kill Drake in battle and save Maria. I wrote that he had enough time but I feel that I may have underwritten it a little. He could have quickly dispatched Drake, but did he want to? If and when he does it he'll want to savour in the kill. So, for that reason, and to show he's not utterly driven by revenge and he does actually care about something, he had to save Maria.
Eddie was an original creation, part of the new trio of fighters. He came out of the motivations of the other members across the episode, Alex, Maria, Sam and Gwen. Gwen is looking for retribution for her past. Now we'll explore that of course, because not everyone saw her in Angel (high points of S4 people, see them if you can) but you can take an educated guess from the pilot. Sam does it out of duty more than anything. Alex joins for vengeance six months later, and though would have joined out of supposed duty we know there's another reason behind it courtesy of the BCM.
Eddie therefore is a totally different character. He joins because it's what he's good at, and he wants to help people. We expand on his past in Minisode #1 "Jump!" but you get everything you need from him here. He's also a happier person than they are. He's got no issues (well, as we see in "Jump!" he had them, but he's seemingly past them). After the response to him it seems as though killing him off may not have been my best choice, but I'll win you over with the regulars, that's a promise.
What did I change last minute? Leaving out a teaser. There would have been a series scenes in which champions got offed in the name of the big picture and all that's good. It felt like a bad idea to me though, in the end. It wasn't really needed, and I felt more comfortable just jumping in with the action. In addition, that ending to Act Two wasn't always such a drop off. There was a big fight sequence with the whole blood and guts routine and it just felt... unnecessary. There are two big fight scenes in this script, that's more than in any other episode really. There's fights in the others, don't get me wrong, but hefty long ones, not so much.
One was all about getting the team working together and I liked it, the other was to go out with a bang and was, if I'm honest, a little bit of me trying to flex my action-writing muscles. But the one at the end of Act Two... I could do without it. In fact, I felt things worked out better without. They made me try and convey what had gone on in the dialogue and emotions of the characters. Maybe went a bit exposition heavy in places but to me it felt like I was pushing myself. I showed the deaths because the characters deserved that, but it was brief.
The thing that was left virtually unchanged from the very first draft was Gwen on the rooftop, and I think that needs explaining a little
What would I change? The second half of the script is a little bit all over the place now isn't it? Act Three is too rushed, Act Four drags on. Really the second half needed to be five acts, with Alex joining the team in Act Four having declined them at the end of Act Three. Act Four should have been them getting to the warehouse after Alex joins up, with a little action, and then Act Five is what the current Act Four is just cut down a little. I liked Amarra's fight (another last minute addition), and introducing Jack earlier than originally planned appeared to work out nicely, but just trimming things really couldn't hurt.
Overall, I'm happy with the majority of the episode. It does everything it is meant to do and the feedback has been positive so I feel that I've done a good job with it. It's far from perfect but considering it's the... seventh script I've released as a solo writer, I'm not looking for perfect just yet.
