Kingdom of Sam - Sitcom (rewritten)

Hi all,

Recently I decided to have a good crack at rewriting the sitcom that I posted on here a while back. I've taken much advice from helpful members of the forum as well as from some incredibly helpful feedback from other people.

I tried to upload this to Scribd but for some reason the pages were overlapped on the site, so I uploaded to Google docs instead.

I'd be extremely grateful if you took the time to read this and get back to me on what you all think. Much of the advice given to me the first time round has been heeded and implemented.

Thanks!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4kA28GYN8fhczl6dktQQXBnYWs/edit?usp=sharing

it's got some funny bits in it, also some bits that don't feel believable - like why has he been given a job by someone who hates him to be someones assistant when his background is being on TV?

Because the guy hiring him knows that the job will be shit. I may add a new opening scene between Andy and Tony describing exactly that, if it's not clear enough.

You've got some good jokes and the characters are much more defined. So that's all to the good, I particularly like the salt on the cornflakes scene. Just funny, weird and convincing.

But there's still a lot of 2 characters sitting around and talking back and forth which feels quite static. Also you're jumping at the wacky, so for example you describe 3 weird things the guy does in the studio, it would work better if 2 of them were slightly weird and the 3rd was much weirder.

Thanks for the feedback Sooty. I see what you mean about the weird factor. I think we tried to implement a similar 'weird, weird, very weird' thing with Dom when he leaves work and sees progressively stranger things doing a job of work.

Thanks again, all feedback is greatly appreciated.

There's some really funny stuff in this, and it's definitely an improvement on the last draft. A few things I noticed:

I love "...the chef's special" line.

In a few places, you have one character telling another character about something the audience has already seen. For instance, much of the bit where Dom tells Sam about getting fired, is him recapping what happened in a previous scene.

The scene where Sam has to hold the cup for Andy is really funny, but I don't buy the bit where Sam drinks the piss in the next scene. I think it worked better in the previous draft, when he was trying to save face in front of the girl and her boyfriend. I don't get the feeling that he'd care enough about what Dom thinks of him to drink it.

In the scene where Sam and Dom go to meet Amanda, I think some of Amanda's dialogue is a little bit on the nose. Also, splitting up with her boyfriend doesn't seem to have had much of an effect on her emotionally. Could she be breaking up with her boyfriend as Sam and Dom walk in?

I'm really jealous of the "You read in there?" line.

Overall, I think it's well on the way to being a really great pilot. There's plenty of funny stuff in it, and I think you've done a good job of addressing some of the problems in the previous draft.

Good luck with it!

Thanks very much! I'll certainly be taking your advice and using it when I write the next draft.

The piss drinking does definitely need to be Sam backed into a corner rather than trying to prove a point to Dom, I think you're definitely right there.

And yeh, of all the characters, Amanda is the one I struggle most with. I wanted to try and make her more part of the group in this draft, rather than a kind of token 'woman' figure. But in doing so I've kind of robbed her of emotion!

Thanks for the feedback!

Just managed to get it on Scribd, which makes it a little more accessible.

I've given it a couple of mods and a new opening scene, which I hope sets the whole idea off a bit better. Maybe makes things a little clearer too.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/235616637/Kingdom-of-Sam

Enjoy. All comments are extremely welcome.

I'm going to be brutally honest, I didn't really like this. I think the premise has some legs to it, but it's just not that funny. I stopped reading when Andy started pissing into a cup or something. But alas, there were a few things I liked, such as the 'salt on cereal' and 'the chef's special'.

I'm going to start with something glaring and detremental, however. And that's spelling and syntax errors. To your credit, I only found a couple, but it drags down the quality of the whole script. The two I found were 'sleaves' (pg4) when it should be 'sleeves' and 'monkey's' (pg6) when it should be 'monkeys', as it's only a pluralisation.

With the intial coffee shop scene (pg9) with Amanda and the Customer, I don't know why that has been included on it's own as it adds nothing on its own. I think it should be combined with the next scene in the coffee shop where the protagonist actually enters, furthering the narrative. So the conversation between the customer ends, she begins to leave and Sam enters just as the customer walks out the door, even perhaps holding the door open. Plus an exterior shot isn't needed for the cafe, it can be cut out at no detrement and would save on the budget of a production.

And the scene between them and that thing about the shit? Ditch it. It adds nothing in humour and everything in vulgarity. It would only work if there was a sense of dramatic irony about it, perhaps. But as it is, no.

One thing I would completely scrap is the car crash set piece. For it to work effectively, you'd need to seriously damage a 5series. And that'd cost. You can't put in an expensive set piece like that in without making it the funniest thing in the show.

I do, however, think that the concept can go somewhere. I understand you want to take it in a weird direction, but try and be a bit smarter than dog shit and pissing because I know some of that writing in there is better than that sort of tone.

Well thanks for your honesty.

I can't really comment on the spelling errors... they just happen. I'm human!

The reason that the original Amanda scene you refer to isn't directly connected to Sam was because I initially wanted to build her character with some separate solo scenes where she didn't rely on Sam or Dom to support her. But I do understand your point.

The car crash scene is something that has been very similar since draft 1. There's always been conversations regarding the impracticality of crashing a nice bmw through a window- It may well be that a new idea will replace that pretty soon, as you're certainly not the first to point it out.

I appreciate your comments as you've clearly taken the time to read and properly construct your feedback, which really helps me.

The piss and shit might stay though. The idea is that Sam is so sure that he'll be a star but instead he's getting pissed on. Not sure if it worked but I wanted it to make Sam a character where the audience could laugh at his 'misery'.

Thanks Josh.