Where the hell have Chris and Jennifer been?
The short answer? Working.

Just not always employed.

However, as of May, that changed. After three years of spec script after spec script after rewrite after notes after meeting after networking event after pitch after script after treatment, we finally got what we wanted. We're writing television and we're getting paid for it.

Someday we will tell the full story of the mountain of paper we generated before getting the "yes." Someday we will tell people exactly how we did it with as much detail as one can possibly get. But that will be some week in which our episodes ain't filming. They work theater-people hours in this business.

Last week we hit 105 on Sunday morning.

So no Tastes Like Phoenix updates for a while longer, then?
I'm sorry, I must have passed out. What did you say?

How'd you get hired?
We wrote more sample scripts than there are trees in Oregon.

We got an agent.

Our agents submitted the sample scripts at a phenomenal rate.
When the producer people said "Can you come in tomorrow at noon because all our staffing is happening in the next 24 hours?" we said "Yes."

What's the show you're writing for?
The Agency.

It's a ten-o'-clock drama on CBS that just moved to Saturday nights. The Agency is part espionage thriller, part office drama, and part cop show, telling the stories of the men and women working in the CIA Counterterrorism Center. While the vast majority of government-based shows came and went (The Court, First Monday, The American Embassy, Citizen Baines), The Agency is back for a second season, with a new crop of writers.

Never heard of it.
That's all right. The show got off to a rocky start last year. Its "pilot," that is, the first episode, was scheduled to air in late September of 2001. The episode, written in the spring and filmed over the summer, was about our heroes chasing a nasty group of terrorists to keep them from blowing up a shopping mall in London. Unfortunately for several nervous network executives, the villains of the piece were a little-known group called al-Qaeda.

Did the episode schedule get rearranged on September 12th?
What do you think?

Did they re-record the dialogue about this guy called "Osama bin something?"
The producers have heard of something called taste, yes.

How 'bout that episode "A Slight Case of Anthrax?"
Perhaps the best adjective for the show is, "timely."

Do a lot of people watch it?
Well, WOTC's last publicly released marketing survey estimated, what? There are 3 million roleplaying gamers in the world market, and 50% of the market is supposedly D&D?

The Agency averages 6 to 8 and I think the first season finale got 12.

Oh.
Yeah.

When does your episode air?
If everything runs on schedule, the season premiere will be in late September. Our episode will be two weeks after that; right now that date is October 12th. Due to production considerations, it was chosen as the first episode to film, but it will be the third to air.

What do you mean "production considerations?"
I mean, if you write "Exterior, Desert, Dawn: A lone tank patrols the Israeli-Syrian border," the guys down the hall have to go find...you know...a tank.

Or at least something that looks and moves like one.

And then the guys down the hall ask you, "Does the tank have to move for it to 'patrol?'" And then one of them asks you if it'd be easier for you to write "Interior, Syrian Tank Command Office" and have an army guy eating donuts who just hears the tank report over the radio.

The writer who writes the scene to be "Interior, Syrian Tank Command Office" and knows if they have Krispy Kreme donuts in Syria is the writer who gets their episode filmed first.

The writer who says "I need a tank" gets rewritten.

Did your episode get rewritten?
Some. As you can tell from TLP, we write at length, and a lot of dialogue was trimmed down for time and to make it sound Agency. Big chunks were written by the head writer and show runner.

Is all the good stuff yours and the bad stuff theirs?
No. Nor vice versa.

Did they fuck you over?
No.

Can you tell us spoilers?
No.

Will your episode suck?
No, see, because the CIA actually lent the producers their Suck Detector, which was developed in 1968 as part of a secret Cold War project to determine if life in the Soviet Union was as bad as all the defectors claimed. Because of this incredible machine, the show is mathematically guaranteed to never, ever, ever suck for any of you 10 million people with diverse backgrounds, political views, age demographics, and attention spans. Promise.

Okay, so, Saturday, October 12th, 2002, 10:00 PM, right? What's your episode called?
"The Great Game."