The Doc is Out by Bob L. Head - The post-therapy dissertation is what really matters. 5 pages - Short, Sci Fi, Comedy

Hello writer

I have no qualms with the writing - a tad over-written in places and could be tightened - but considering the 3-day timeframe a decent effort.

I get the story, a frustrated Doctor with patients he thinks are idiots - He's gone a bit bonkers and takes it out on the bobbleheads instead - not bad at all.

I do have an issue with genre though - the combination you have chosen is Sci-fi and comedy - This is not a sci-fi (you may think it is because you made the dream sci-fi - but it's not) - Nothing made me laugh either, but others may find it funny.

I really liked the dream part - thought I was in for a good story, but after that i didn't enjoy it as much.

Hmm, interesting dilemma. It has sci-fi elements, but is it genre? I’m going with yes, the sci-fi is definitely there.

What bugs me is you introduce us to Ellen and set her up to be our protagonist but it’s not her story at all. It’s all about the doctor.

Dream Ellen is cool, reminiscent of her namesake, Ripley. Her giggle when she learns she’s getting her drugs undermines everything I liked about her.

The doc is fun. Not comedy though. Mean isn’t funny, but it is interesting. Great use of bobbleheads, I enjoyed that.

It’s way overwritten, especially page one. Also, you don’t capitalize names when first spoken, only when first seen, and we never see Susan. You didn’t need to name her, but it’s okay that you did.

I like most of the dialogue. Just not the reactions.

Pretty decent for so few pages. Well done.

Well...uh...that was different...to say the least.

This is a tough one to review and grade.  Let's see what I can come up with.

First of all, over 20% of your script is a dream, which isn't labeled as such.  This dream is all Sci Fi, but absolutely nothing else is, and since it's a dream, this does not meet the genre parameter.  Actually, i don't see the comedy here either - yeah, there are some funny lines and even scenes, but the funnyness comes from someone who is obviously insane, and IMO, that is not comedy.  It's actually scary in a way...in a funny way.

Story-wise?  Well, there really isn't a story here, sorry to say.

Characters - Yeah, I like your characters, as in they're pretty well drawn.

Dialogue - Your strong suit.  Each has a voice of their own, and the Doc is just a flat out nutjob.

Writing is fine, although Page 1 is way overwritten.

Your use of bobbleheads is great, but sadly, because of the way the scoring is made up, this gets you nothing, as you missed the genres, IMO.

So, score-wise, I can't give you what your script really deserves, based on the scoring categories.  What I'm trying to say is that your script is better than the score it's gong to receive, and that's too bad.

The doctor reminds me of the crazy antics from Green Wing.  I don't know who Lewis Black is.  If I have to use Google, things like this will get lost in translation.

Aside from that.  This meets the objective in a round about way.  Sci-Fi by way of dreaming is like cheating.  It still works though.

A crazy ass read.  Could almost be a pisser if it wasn't for Green Wing.

I'm going to be real generous with genres this round... because the fusion thing is hard.

But, you really walked the line for sure.

Almost all the humor comes from the doc talking to bobbleheads... which I think would play better on screen (depending on the actor) than the page. (And, really, that's the point of scripts, isn't it?)

I liked the bit with the lights on the walkway. Really cool way to create tension from an unseen enemy. Too bad the idea's kindof wasted here. Maybe consider re-using that particular bit in a future script that'll get more attention.

All in all, this was okay. Probably would have been better if you weren't chasing the genres.

Nice pen name, too bad you don't get points for that.

Loved the whole alien bit. Great visual. Would've liked to see where this could've gone if it was a sci-fi challenge. Turns out real life Ellen was nothing like dream Ellen.

Good dialog and character. Could totally see Lewis Black playing that role. Decent prose too. A bit overwritten but really painted the picture.

The fusion was there but kind of written to meet the challenge. At least it was good sci-fi. The comedy bit, meh. Depends on how you see it. Humorous in a WTF way. Good job, writer.

The genre says Sci-fi comedy. It reads a lot more like a horror.

The Doctor was absolutely bat-shit crazy in a disturbing way, not even remotely funny.

It suffers from what a surprising amount of the scripts in this tournament have suffered from, where it starts with one story, then suddenly dispenses with that story and jumps into an entirely different story.

It must be the time limit, because it's been a very common occurrence.

It starts off as a story about Ellen, but what it's really about is the Doctor.


All that being said...I did enjoy it more than most I've read. Judging by the writer's choice of genre, the scripts quality may even be entirely unintentional...but it's still there, nevertheless.

This opens in a SciFi (Mars) environment and it was intriguing enough but then it kinda went pear shaped for me cause it's not about Ellen at all. The real story is about Dr Head and his neuroses - his outlet being the Bobblehead dolls. The fact we're in orbit is incidental. The actual Bobbleheads were not that intrinsic either. I like the idea of the doctor being the real head case but it's just a bit undercooked at the moment.

The Doc Is Out

p3 the tone reads pointless in regards to what's been set up before

oh wow, p1 and the rest felt stuck together as with a stripe of cellotape. I wasn't expecting this at all, since the first page was a clean entertaining package that raised expectations. This story has no vessel or form to me.

I’d say you’re got three separate tones going on. You start with the sci-fi, which I actually enjoyed, then you dropped back to a standard doctor/patient dramedy, and then wrap up with a batshit crazy comedy.  Not sure that you succeeded in fusing them together, so it felt a bit disjointed to me. Not sure you really had a denouement so to speak, where you really wrapped everything up. It felt like Ellen’s story wasn’t finished and the doc’s story was just beginning.

I kind of wish you’d have stayed on the ship, but that’s just me. The writing is good, I just feel like it missed the mark a bit.

Best of luck,
Gary

I think the opening page is nice, well written and love the Alien vibe...

Ah, not in space really then - shame.

Okay and then it goes there, didn't expect that.

So, not sure this is really scifi or comedy but it is well written so points for that.

The bobbleheads, are they really integral?

I liked this despite above reservation but I think it needs more to transition between the phases of the story.

Hi writer,

Quoted Text INT. SPACE STATION PASSAGEWAY - MARS ORBIT

Not a massive deal but I think this could be set up better. Generally start with the largest locaton, but I think it would be better as a super so:

INT. MARS ORBIT - SPACE STATION - PASSAGEWAY

Or

INT. SPACE STATION - PASSAGEWAY

The one hundred meter long passage is a translucent tube
with a suspended walkway and a hatch on each end. The vacant
passage is dark and silent.

SUPER: MARS ORBIT

Quoted Text Moments pass. Suddenly, the first section lights turn on. No one is there. The next section lights turn on and the first section goes dark. Still, nothing is visible.

I know it's not a horror but it’s got a bit of a Lights Out vibe.

Quoted Text Make sure you stop and see SUSAN at reception to make your next appointment.

Don't need to capitalise an introduction in dialogue, just when we see the character on screen.

I can see the attempts at comedy, but it didn’t work for me.

The bobblehead dolls barely have anything to do with the story, they are very much forced in.

I also think the sci-fi is forced and doesn’t quite capture the intent of the challenge, this isn’t fusion, it’s a sci-fi dream in the beginning and an attempt at comedy for the rest of the script.

I think the strongest part of this is the dream, it didn’t hold my interest after that.

All the best.

Here's the thing. The problem is not just that comedy is subjective. Even with comedy we need to have a clue why things are happening. Ellen goes from fighting an alien, getting raped by it, to a shrink's office. Ok. But then the shrink turns out to be some nut obsessed with Ellen? One who has given her some strange latin words and...

I'm not going to go on. The main point is this: if you want us to pay attention to the dialog, which could be really clever and funny, you have to put us in a story where we have our bearings. Take Ghost Busters, the scene where Bill Murray finds the girl he likes floating above her bed. The scene has been set up. Bill Murray is the skeptic on the team. And this is the girl he's trying to get it on with. And yet he's the one who finds her possessed. Because he's a skeptic, because he's a lazy scientist, there is comedic tension in the scene. It wouldn't have worked if one of the other Busters had found the woman, because they were serious believers in ghosts and paranormal.

Best of luck next round!

Quoted from leitskev I'm not going to go on. The main point is this: if you want us to pay attention to the dialog, which could be really clever and funny, you have to put us in a story where we have our bearings. Take Ghost Busters, the scene where Bill Murray finds the girl he likes floating above her bed. The scene has been set up. Bill Murray is the skeptic on the team. And this is the girl he's trying to get it on with. And yet he's the one who finds her possessed. Because he's a skeptic, because he's a lazy scientist, there is comedic tension in the scene. It wouldn't have worked if one of the other Busters had found the woman, because they were serious believers in ghosts and paranormal.

Kev, not trying to pick on you at all, in all seriousness, BUT...

Based on how we're supposed to score this, each category is on it's own 5 point system.  I don't approve of it, but I think that's what we have to do

Your example is from a classic full length movie...we don't have room for such info here...not even close.

My point was this: if a story brings us into a scene, and things are happening that we don't know why, and characters are doing things where we have no idea what they want, we're not going to even pay attention to the dialog.

Why is the shrink obssessed with Ellen? We have no idea, but it gets so weird that I end up reading just for the sake of reading. We go from spaceship with Ellen hunting an alien, then to her getting rapes, then to the shrink, who apparently believes in supernatural stuff...it's not even worth my time remembering all the details. If the story doesn't even try to make sense, then even the most clever and coomical dialogue will get lost.

You could set up the scene in Ghostbusters as a short. All you have to do is establish that Binkman likes the girl, is a skeptic, and yet a Ghostbuster. One quick scene could accomplish that. The point is that in a story stuff can't just happen randonly. I'm trying like heck to be constructive on a story that just doesn't work. No doubt this is the result of fusion and bobbleheads, so we go from space station to shrink's office waiting for comedy to happen. But there's no actual story here, so the dialog ends up being irrelevaant,

I agree with everything except making Ghostbusters characters and everything that made that what it is, into a 5 page story or scene.

BUT...if dialogue is strong, don't you have to give it a high score?

My comment to the writer had nothing to do with the scoring. I am not reading with scoring in mind. I score it after I'm done. But comments are focused on trying to help the writer. And my point was that if the story doesn't make sense, you start to lose the reader, and once that happens, even darn good dialog will go unnoticed. If I don't know what's going on in the story, and it's jumping all over the place, I start to lose interest and the dialog starts to sound indistinguishable from chipmunks. It just goes in one ear and out the other, it doesn't register. Right?

Hahaha def my favorite!
Hi marks for everything.
Lolol, you're so funny. And a great writer.
Im going to reread it.
I wish I could write like you. Maybe some day. Oh, who Im kidding...
Congrats on this and other things you might do.

I'm reading the convo here and it occurs to me that people misunderstood it somehow.

The shrink here is not obsessed with either of his patients. That's what he does not to get involved too much in the lives of his patients. He learns to despise them to stay detached and have some laughs.
The character is so rich that he compensates for the lack of story. That's very rare for me. as I like entries with rich stories and this one works as a short.  Yes, nothing much happens, but it's his story - this characters life story. That's his life and all of him told in just five pages.
So, I for one marking high for the story. Because it's one man's life story and it registered.

Due to the high regard I hold for Khamanna, I am going to re-read this fully and give it another chance. I do miss things on first read a lot. I think the first time I watched Pulp Fiction I thought it was not very good. I can be slow on the uptake.

Ok, re-read completed. Glad I did, because indeed I did miss things.

Now the story feels a little better to me...but also fails to meet the criteria. I'll check back in case someone wants to convince me, I am truly happy to be talked into more positive takes on scripts, I hate being negative.

There is no sci fi in this. What I missed before was that this was a dream of Ellen's. So the story works much better now...but doesn't meet the fusion criteria. It's straight comedy.

But the comedy does improve quite a bit now in my eyes! This kind of does prove my point in a weird way, though in this case it's more my fault than the writer's. Here, because I didn't know it had been a dream, I lost interest in the dialog.

Part of the problem also lies in EXPECTATION. Expectation is very important in the way readers process scripts or books, or an audience with a movie. In this case, the expectation was created by the fusion requirment. I think if I had just been reading this script without knowing the parameters I would have picked up that it was a dream. But we knew it was fusion, and it said sci fi/comedy. So my mind was queued to expect sci fi, and it starts in space, bingo.

So maybe someone can point out why this is sci fi?

Anyway, much better job on the dialog than I realized, my apologies to the writer. Scores will reflect this latest read.

This was OK aside from the dream. The only point of that dream was to add a sci-fi element and it fails miserably. I'm sure with more time you could have thought of something better. As such, it spoils things.

So did the opening scene in the space station really happen or was it a dream? If it was a dream, I don't think this script qualifies as scifi. If it really happened, I would expect the therapy session to also take place on the space station because you're not be sent back to Earth just because you have some bad dreams. Besides, having to deal with a psycho shrink and an invisible Martian might make for good script.

This started really well and it seemed that the opening sequence would lead to this funny situation where Ellen and the entity play this little game before their loving starts. I was thinking , hmm, so where will the psychiatric office be on the space station, but we learn its a dream.

Anyway it is slightly dodgy with the fusion but isn't that funny with the comedy so a 50/50 for me.

Like Kev, this time round I can see the humour better. The first time round the sci fi horror tone was overwhelming and was not dispelled by her comments about the alien rape. So everything came across as really perverse and dark without humour.

This kind of thing happens to me as well, I can see from reviews that people miss essential details. I think there's a discussion to be had on the ways we can Signpost key stuff.

Perhaps ironically, I think I preferred my original, darker interpretation because in that he was completely  insane and frightening whereas now he's got issues, but he's really just a bit of a c&#t.

I think for the second half to work with the first, you'd need to hear more from the doctor. His interpretation. Did you suffer any trauma as a child? What was your relationship like with your father? Set him up as a very serious man exploring the issue, then finish it as you have. Without a standard interpretation/ exterior diagnosis, the reveal of his inner thoughts about the matter don't have a reference point.

Quoted from Scar Tissue Films I think there's a discussion to be had on the ways we can Signpost key stuff.

I'd be really interested to hear ideas on this. We know how important queueing the human mind is when it comes to creating, well, reality. The creation of reality within out minds is a process that involves expectation.

In the OWS's, I actually don't read the loglines because I know it will color my expectation about the story, and since I'm going to read it anyway, I don't want to do that. Here, I was reading which genres because of the fusion requirement. I wanted to know if I was looking for humor or not.

The title also impacts our expectations. In the Bugs story, we're expecting bugs, so it's easy to miss that they are mechanical.

In this story, I was looking for sci fi, got it right away. So when I saw the discussion about dream, my mind processed it as though her dreams were nightmarish(or erotic) memories of what happened. But I think I was wrong. They were in fact just dream fantasies. She never went to space.

My misperception changed the whole way I understood the story. I thought the shrink was helping her deal with a traumatic memory. But the fact they were dealing with a weird erotic fantasy...one which is actually funny...changes it all. The story works pretty well for a 72 hour thing, I think. It just doesn't really hit the sci fi genre. But I feel bad my comments with Jeff sounded more critical of the writing than they should have been, and I'm glad I read Khamanna's review!

The opening dream sequence was my favourite part, I would try to keep this sci-fi consistently throughout the entire script. I would add in an action line there’s a window looking out at outer space, or something. I enjoyed the over-the-top anger from the doctor, although I think more talk between the doctor and Ellen about what occurred in her dream (how she feels? How does it compare to other dreams she’s had?) could be interesting. I think this would be funnier if it ended on Susan’s final line: ‘Yes, doctor.”

Hi Writer,

Not sure if the dream sequence counts as sci-fi, but I'm going to be open minded and say it does.

Aside from that, the title says it all. I think that you nailed Doc's character. He's funny and well-defined.

I didn't see much story, though. You spend a page and a half with a different character, Ellen, and this leaves us with little space for poor Doc. I'd have liked to know a little more of him, in some way. It's just five pages, I know, but still...

The strongest thing is Doc's dialogue, no doubt of that. It was good enough to keep me invested in the script for three pages... and he was talking to a bobble-head!

A decent effort.

David