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Ricky Manning - Co-Executive Producer on Farscape, and writer of some of the show's greatest episodes.

From Fame to Farscape
  Hello, and welcome to "Ask the Froon."

Our first question tonight comes from Kelly... Could you tell us a bit about your background, and how you came to work on Farscape?

I grew up (though some would debate that) in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, US of A, then headed west to Los Angeles to attend the University of Southern California's film school (slightly after George Lucas).

My first writing gig came a mere eight years after graduation: a freelance script for a short-lived television show called Shadow Chasers (starring Trevor Eve) with then-writing-partner Hans Beimler (hi, Hans!). We then went on to a staff writing job on the last season of Fame and eventually landed on Star Trek: The Next Generation, where we met then-freelancer David Kemper (hi, DK!).

Hans and I also created and ran an X Files-ish show called Beyond Reality, ran the series version of TekWar, and even ventured into Brit SF with a freelance episode of Space Precinct.

After Hans and I went solo (Hans Solo? Sorry), he went off to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and I pitched a SF series to the Jim Henson Company. They didn't buy it because they already had one in the works - some weird-sounding thing called Space Chase with creator Rockne S. O'Bannon (hi, Rock!) and (of all people) David Kemper. I then pitched and sold a freelance script, Throne For a Loss, and the rest is, as they say, the rest.

Favourite on Farscape
  All about writing for the many and varied characters on Farscape.

Who's easiest/hardest/most fun to write for; who's your favorite guest creation; any challenges inherent in writing for animatronic characters? Questions from several folks, well, okay, just Angie, Helen, and A.K., but that's good enough for me.

Most fun: A tie between Zhaan and Scorpius; the former because she's both spiritual and kick-ass; the latter because I can use words like "prescient" and know Wayne will make them sound splendid.

Easiest/hardest: Mmmm... that's hard to say. Nobody jumps to mind as being particularly easy or particularly difficult. Depends what they're doing, I suppose. Crichton/Aeryn big relationship scenes are always challenging. Crichton/D'Argo buddy scenes are an entertaining break from the angst.

In a sense, everybody's "easy" to write because they're all terrific characters with clear voices and distinctive attitudes... and everybody's "hard" to write because there's so many of 'em and only 42 minutes in an episode.

Guest creation: Well, I had the honour and the pleasure to be the first to write for Scorpius, but I wouldn't say I created him exactly - DK and Rock had been talking about that character way before I came aboard.

Kyr, the young Tavlek, (in Throne for a Loss) was fun because he worked so well against Zhaan, whether they were fighting each other or flashing each other. Haloth, one of Maldis's incarnations, (That Old Black Magic) spoke entirely in iambic pentameter, and one doesn't get a lot of opportunity to write that in television these days. (I'm developing a series called Shakespeare, P.I. which will change that).

Tauza, Scorpius's "stepmom" (Incubator) was a good old-fashioned no-redeeming-qualities baddie; I hated having to kill her (as opposed to the two dozen characters I enjoyed killing off in... whoops, never mind, you haven't seen that episode yet).

Animatronic characters: The only things different about writing for them are the technical restrictions: for instance, you can't write nine pages of Rygel surfing. Aside from that, they're characters just like the others. When I'm writing Pilot I'm not thinking, "this is an animatronic", I'm just plain writing Pilot.

The oft-asked question, "What in blazes does a producer do, anyway, much less an 'executive' producer?" doesn't have a simple answer, and I'm too lazy to type out a complex one, so I'll just answer the second question and maybe that'll give you some idea.

A typical day on Farscape can contain any or all of the following:

Giving notes on an outline or script. Today, DK, Justin Monjo, Lil Taylor (Goddess of the Script Department), and I will be gathering 'round the office speakerphone to give notes to a freelance writer on her first draft of a "beat outline" - a rough scene breakdown. Because she's in Los Angeles and we're in Sydney, it's midnight for her by the time we finish.

"Breaking" a story. All the writers sit before a big blank whiteboard and come up with the overall plot of an episode. I argue with DK. DK argues with Justin. Justin argues with me. Lil argues with all of us. DK comes up with a Teaser that'll knock everyone's socks off. Onto the whiteboard it goes. Jokes are told. Toys are played with. Character motivations are debated. Plot points are bandied about. Act One is sketched onto the whiteboard. Actors drop by to divert us. Dave Elsey pops in and DK promptly asks him if he and the Creature Shop can build us a critter with three mouths. Food is ordered in. (For us, not the critter.) More arguments. Act One is reconsidered – then erased. Well, we still like the Teaser. We'll continue this tomorrow.

Revisions on a script. Each set of new script pages gets a new color: blue, pink, yellow, green, lilac, gold, lime, grey, double blue, double pink, etc. The record on Farscape is double green. Today, I'm doing lilac revisions. Nothing earthshaking; production considerations mostly - scene 18 is still too complicated (i.e. expensive), so I'm removing one character and simplifying the fight. Ben and Claudia had some good thoughts for the climactic Crichton/Aeryn scene, so I'm doing a dialogue touch-up.

The shooting schedule would be vastly improved (i.e., made less expensive) if Gigi could shoot B-unit scenes for some other episode all day Wednesday, but Chiana's in scene four of this script, which is still shooting A-unit on Wednesday, so I look at scene four to see if Chiana's absolutely necessary there. Turns out she is, so...

Solving production problems. Lil Taylor and I take a look at the production boards and see what the alternatives are. Maybe scene four can be swapped with scene nine on Friday? Except scene four's in Chiana's Quarters, and we're not shooting there on Friday; we're in the Centre Chamber and then in the Command, so we can't afford (time-wise) to move to a third set on Friday. Can scene four be set in Centre Chamber? It can, but it'll need a slight rewrite. Annabel Davis and Josh Mapleston (angels of the Script Department)have already sent out the lilac revisions, so these changes will be gold.

Watching "dailies". Daillies are the uncut footage of the previous day's shoot. Admiring the lovely work of our directors and crews. Laughing at the flubs and outtakes. Wincing at a guest actor in a bit part whose performance falls a bit short. Oh, well... we can cut around it.

Meetings. Pre-production meetings: what's this new creature in this script supposed to look like? Should it be animatronic, an actor in makeup, CGI, or what? Production meetings: going over each day of each shoot in advance, locking down the game plan. Actor meetings: so-and-so's got some thoughts on his/her character. (Sometimes the smallest suggestion from an actor will inspire an entire story arc. Other times we just nod and smile.)

Makeup meetings. Director meetings: hearing, for instance, Andrew Prowse tell us that a "simple" scene we've written is impossible to shoot - but he's going to shoot it anyway (and does, brilliantly). CGI meetings: There is never enough time nor money for CGI, so we pick and choose. Costume meetings. Creature Shop meetings. Special Effects meetings: Chris Murray demonstrates a new flamethrower he's built. Can we make use of it in an episode? We'd love to.

Screenings. Rough cuts: the first edited assembly of an episode - often too long, too slowly paced, too off-balance. We all give notes, suggestions, prayers. A scene that seemed essential in the writing looks superfluous in the cut; kill it. Sound briefs: screening the final cut of the episode for the post-production crew – dialog and sound effects editors, composer Guy Gross, etc. - and planning out the audio: music here, no music there, a certain background sound here, a line of dialog to be re-recorded there, a new line of dialog to be written, recorded, and snuck in here. Mix screenings: the soundtrack in all its combined, mixed-down, multichannel glory, and the final tweaks thereto – a crucial bit of dialogue gets overpowered by pulse pistol fire; can we make the words punch through?

Writing a script. Actually, given our busy days, actual writing usually takes place at night. Late at night. Very late at night.

Easy? On Farscape? Ha. And again, ha.

You want them to have an "easy" relationship? Just between us, is that what you're really saying here, Ann? Well... let me put it this way... be careful what you wish for...

(Insert more maniacal laughter here.)

Promises. Aeryn's back. Scorpy's back. Harvey goes bye-bye. Very simple episode, really. Geoff Bennett directed; his first for Farscape, but not his last. Splendid work. The Aeryn-in-Scorpy-makeup scene was particularly difficult to schedule: the Production Department kept gently inquiring, "Gee, is it really worth it for a one-page scene which is all Claudia will be able to shoot that day because the prosthetic makeup takes so long?" Geoff, bless him, fought for it - not only that, he came up with the brilliant notion of splitting the dialog between Aeryn and Scorpy Aeryn; the script simply started the scene with Scorpy Aeryn and then cut to 'normal' Aeryn.

To this day, Justin still rags me about my favorite line in Promises. A few episodes earlier, we saw Scorpius get shot and buried. Now he shows up alive. Big deal; this wasn't the first time Scorpy had popped back from apparently certain death. Still, somebody had to ask, so I let Sikozu do it: "How did you survive?"

I decided Scorpius wasn't the kind of guy who bothered to explain his magical tricks - "Oh, the Pulse Blast was faked; my coolant suit was pre-rigged; I had an oxygen tank already hidden in the grave, bla bla bla..." - so I gave him the simple reply, "Foresight and preparation." In other words, it was a setup... and how much else do you really need to know?

Terra Firma. John goes home. Finally for real. Visits family. Meets old girlfriend. Another simple story. Wish it'd been a two-parter. So much to do, so little time. None of the sex scenes even made it to the first draft. The first act - Crichton's monologue over snippets of scenes - was a desperate ploy on my part to cover as many expositional bases as possible fast and get on with the story.

I was a tad worried that with so many little plotlines going on, the juicy emotional scenes would get rushed or even lost - but director Peter Andrikidis masterfully kept the thing in balance. (And gave us a whale of a climactic battle in Act Four. We specifically built that set so that he and the stunt team could trash it.) We still had to nip and tuck to get everything into 42 minutes - but I don't miss any of what was trimmed.

Okay, I lied. There's one line that got lost in the edit that I do miss. Sikozu's listening to Scorpius describe what sounds like a suicidal plan. "But how would you survive?" she asks. Her next line hit the cutting room floor: "And please don't say 'foresight and preparation'."

Well, sleep deprivation certainly helps, and there's no shortage of sleep deprivation when you write for television. And this one really was a simple story, in essence: Scarran messes with Crichton's mind; Crichton kills Scarran. All else was ornamentation.

The hard part wasn't coming up with the weird stuff and the jokes; that was pure fun. The challenge was to make it all make sense, to devise a framework that allowed it all to mean something... and finding the un-funny moments that balanced out the gags, the bits that hurt Crichton, even though he knows they aren't real.

(By the way, if you watched the episode on the BBC and you were confused, it might possibly be because the Beeb censors trimmed out about two full minutes. Check out the DVD...)

How'd the actors react to the script? Ben thanked me; he loved the script and worked exceptionally hard with, to my mind, superlative results. Watch how beautifully and cleanly his emotional state tracks through the episode - and then remember that, like nearly all television shows, this episode was shot completely out of sequence, so he'd be filming a wacky scene in the morning, a heart-wrenching scene after lunch, and then perhaps an earlier scene with Kent McCord to finish the shooting day. It's a tribute to Ben - and director Rowan Woods – that his performance is so seamless.

The rest of our fearless cast were equally enthused; remember, they'd just done Crackers Don't Matter and Out of Their Minds a few episodes earlier, so by this time they were used to getting curveballs thrown at them. And everyone got into the spirit of the thing, actually adding insanity to what I'd written - the Aeryn/Chiana/Zhaan smooches, for instance, weren't scripted, nor were Aeryn's ginormous hair rollers.

I'd never worked with Carmen Duncan before, so I had no idea just how good she was as well. The bar scene between her and Ben still leaves me breathless every time I watch it. I'm delighted they got to play more scenes together in Kansas and I'm envious of Justin Monjo for getting to write that episode. (Not that I didn't have just as much fun writing the episode that followed Kansas.)

There isn't a short answer to that one (but I'll try anyway). Entire books have been written about screenwriting, and how to get a job therein, so here's -

Step One: Read some of those books. The more the better, because no one has The One True Answer on either how to write or how to break in.

Step Two: Write. Write lots. Then write some more. It's like anything else: practice counts.

Step Three: Learn a trade, acquire an inheritance, win a lottery, or marry money - anything to keep you fed while you:

Step Four: Repeat Step Two until your stuff is good enough to get an agent to take you aboard.

Step Five: See Step Three.

Step Six: Bother your agent to get you in to pitch ideas to television shows until someone hires you.

Simple as that.

Alas, at present, like Manuel in Fawlty Towers, "I know nothing." However...

...nikkicowan asks: "Have you heard about the 'Save Farscape' campaign going around the web? Do you have a message for your loyal fans?"

Indeed I have heard about it, and I'm gobsmacked (to use an Australian word). Gobsmacked and impressed. And moved. And grateful.

Not only have I heard about the campaign, but I've had the privilege to meet some of its ringleaders, instigators, and devotees - a terrific bunch of folks. Check out www.watchfarscape.com as a starting point.

And, yes, I have a message for my loyal fans (all eight of you... okay, seven):
"When the string is long, the pig is late."

Very unusually, Ricky Manning insisted on every question being sent to him, so that he could pick out the ones he wanted to answer. Being a nice man, though, he obviously didn't want to disappoint anyone, so gave us a set of quick-fire answers to the questions he couldn't spend more time on. We've matched the answer to the question where we could - they're the text in italics.

So, here's what Ricky said: Apologies to all those whose questions I didn't get to individually, but the answers are: Yes. No. Forty-two. I don't know. If I told you, DK would kill me. Sometimes. Medication. Wait and see. Because it's actually French. Equal and original. Not a chance. You can hope, for all the good it'll do. What inspiration? None of the above. Slowly and painfully.

What was the best thing about working on Farscape? from Jeanie The paycheck; what else?

Would you like Crichton to find his way back home someday? from David Healey. But where is 'home?'

Farscape was slow to start and then blistered and shimmered for the best part of two and a half seasons, before it all going horribly wrong in the latest series, with unrealistic character behaviour, a loss of "reality" and poor writing. Do you think maybe it's a good idea that Farscape was cancelled before it completely destroyed its phenomenal reputation entirely? Yeah... go on, ask him that one [like you'd dare!] from Paul. The other way around, Paul.

What is the most interesting thing about working on Farscape? from Sarah. Groupies, without question.

Can I marry Rygel, or the old granny with three eyes. They're sexy, from Stewart (14 years old). Stewart, make up your mind.

And finally, Scott wrote to say - Just wanted to let you that Farscape is the best damn TV show ever and our new girl that was born on Oct 7 2002 was named Aeryn, so this family will never forget your wonderful show.

And happy birthday to young Aeryn.

Thanks to all, and take care.

Froonium Ricky Manning