218: Sins of Commission

The idea was flawed and never should have made it from the concept to sketch to full script.  The author fancied seeing his name in lights and being recognized on the streets, so he persisted despite the obvious shortcomings in the story.

The script hadn’t been worked on quite long enough and should never have made it to the pilot show.  The producer thought his mother would just love the main character, so he pressed ahead and made the radio programme.

The pilot was mediocre and should never have made it into a radio series.  The station manager was left with a weekly half-hour gap when a long-running serial ran into legal difficulties, so he plumped for anything over nothing and made the six-parter.

The radio series just about worked for the length of its short run and should never have made it onto TV.  The Head of Entertainment believed the format would work much better with visuals, that the English countryside would provide the perfect foil for the warring couples and angry dialogue, so he planned a major outdoor production.

The TV series was a triumph of style over substance and should never have made it to a second series.  The programmers decided they knew the minds of the viewing public much better than they did themselves, so they brought in new writers and persuaded them to do more of the same but bigger and louder.

The second series deviated from the original idea in all the worst ways and should never have made it to the big screen.  Hollywood loved the quirky British stock characters and quaint backdrops, so they re-scripted the whole thing set in LA with added tans and silicone implants and pretended they were being faithful to the original.

The book, however, was beautifully crafted.  The language danced and trilled and the richness of detail painted a story that lingered in the mind long after the reader had finished the book.  But it took longer to read than the box set did to watch, so sales were somewhat disappointing.