TNT has commissioned producer Dean Devlin (Stargate, Independence Day, Godzilla) to produce something they are calling a “microseries.” Blank Slate will be an 80-minute original crime-thriller that Devlin will edit into 20 short episodes for primetime play on TNT in September. Car company Acura has signed as sponsor.
In Blank Slate, Lisa Brenner will star as an amnesiac who becomes part of an experimental FBI program dedicated to solving murders by “implanting memories of the recently deceased into the living.” Eric Stoltz and Clancy Brown also star.
“What we’re doing is drastically segmenting a TV movie so that instead of a three-act structure, we’ve created a 20-act structure,” said Devlin, awarding full credit to John Harrison, the writer-director of Blank Slate. “Harrison has had to write a cliffhanger on every fifth page of the script.”
As unusual as the concept for the microseries is, TNT’s scheduling of Blank Slate is even more unusual. Beginning September 8, the network will will spread out the microseries across five back-to-back episodes of “Law & Order” over two consecutive Tuesdays and Wednesdays (8 p.m. to 1 a.m.). One Blank Slate episode will play in sequence within each of the “Law & Order” hours. “Law & Order” was chosen because the reruns on TNT consistently grab lots of viewers.
For people who miss a Blank Slate episode and need to catch up, TNT will promote the show’s availability on TNT.tv, where the microseries becomes a series of webisodes. She said TNT is also working on including Blank Slate on TNT’s on-demand platform.
I think this is a really smart idea, although I have my doubts about how successful it will be. I think the concept is solid and would probably work if it were being shown after a successful first run program on a major network. Still, I could see some independent films perhaps using the five minute structure that Blank Slate will use to broaden their commercial potential. Using that structure would enable an independent film to be shown in the same manner as Blank Slate on both TV and as webisodes on the internet.
I think this is only the first of many films we’ll see shot in shown in this manner in the long run.
Interesting. Devlin's new studio is getting *very* tight with TNT, with his new show Leverage also coming to TNT this fall. Apparently, Devlin is doing a lot of very interesting things as a startup studio. John Rogers (head writer/EP of Leverage) had this to say about the new studio:
This is also a very 21st Century project in that the studio is … a guy. Dean Devlin, occasional business partner and good friend. The only suits are network suits, and the few I've met are pretty damn sharp. Otherwise it's an experiment in solo producing without all the overhead gunk. Dean's pretty aggressive in pursuing new tech — he'll occasionally buy new video cameras just to test them past the specs the manufacturers use — and new business models. We'll see what we wind up with using some elements of the New Model of production.
Well, I think Devlin's looking for some new angles and some untried paths. He's a pretty smart guy and I think he might be on to something with the concept of the microseries.