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captain platonic

Young slackbrother j. has a friend, D., whose superhero name is Captain Platonic. D. is smart, cute, and funny as hell. He’s the trusted confidante of the female form: they laugh with him, cry with him, and commiserate with him through their multiple breakups and get-back-togethers.

Talk to any member of his Estrogen Brigade and they’ll tell you that D. is amazing: one part best friend and one part older brother, tempering his male perspective with good old fashioned advice and the occasional pep talk. When they were having relationship troubles, they couldn’t live without him. When they were in the flush of a brand new romance, they couldn’t wait to tell him. D., simply put, was a great, witty, fun, charming, sweet, reliable guy.

But D. was never a boyfriend.

Older SlackBrother J. and I are riding the final crest of what’s known in Hollywood as staffing season. Things looked promising at the start. We wrote a new spec that our new agent had papered the town with, and the response was overwhelmingly positive, from simple wow-this-is-good to I-have-to-meet-these-guys!

Pilots were in the midst of being shot so scripts were sent to us on a daily basis, thick yellow envelopes delivered to our door by messengers in beat-up cars who called me Miss/ Every day I’d plow through the stack, making notes, discussing them with J., researching casting decisions online. We both were amazed at the number of scripts that were about adult families dealing with the dysfunction that dictates the American Sitcom Landscape. We were going back to plain ol’ funny, and it looked promising.

Our agent and our manager wanted us to look beyond the kids TV landscape, to graduate to the major leagues known as network prime-time. J. and I didn’t really care where we got a job, we just wanted to work. He’s got a family and a mortgage. I simply want the structured schedule so I can get out of the house and indulge my love of handbags with a new Louis Vuitton purse.

We took meetings with Network and Studio Execs and they were all overwhelmingly positive. You’re the first people to make me laugh in a meeting quipped one and another opined you two should be working. I can’t believe you’re not working. You’re going to be on every list that I make this year. Why aren’t you working?

Then the upfronts happened.

Our career bullet train that had been screaming across the tracks suddenly derailed when it was announced that out of the thirtyish pilots that had been made, only five or so were being picked up. And out of those five, one family comedy. In the game of musical chairs that is staffing season, we went from a hundred chairs to five in a matter of days.

After the announcements are made, things really get crazy. Network and Studio Executives hand over their list to the series Showrunners, and then Showrunner meetings start. These are the meetings where you get the actual job.

Our manager called us.

You heard?

We heard.

Everyone did everything right.

We know.

We still continued to take meetings with Network and Studio Execs, simply because it’s a good thing for these people to know you. And I happen to like taking meetings. You get to sit in a room and talk about yourself for thirty to forty-five minutes and no one charges you a dime. Plus most of the Execs I’ve met have been extremely cool. I opined to one of them last week that Older SlackBrother J. and I are the Captain Platonic of the TV writing world: people love us, but they’d rather hire the Hooters waitress.

Of course, this story isn’t over yet. The real Captain Platonic has been dating a lovely girl for the past year or so. I’ve heard she’s cute, snarky, and takes shit from nobody. It seems right for our Former Best Friend.

As for us, well, let’s just say that Older SlackBrother J. and I have an ex-girlfriend who may be knocking at our door. I’ll just count us as guardedly optimistic and leave it at that.