Day Ninety-Six: The End

My life since I moved to L.A. has been somewhat like a TV show. In the pilot, I flew out here with no job, no friends in town, and no real prospects, and moved into my sublet in Westwood. During the first season I worked at some temp jobs, made friends, and tried to keep a level head in spite of frequent unemployment and a general lack of clarity about what I was doing here. But in the season finale everything turned around as I landed a job as a production assistant on NYPD Blue. The second season started off promisingly, but some drama during the sweeps episodes portented danger, and in a shocking but inevitable May finale, I was informed that I would not be returning to the job in the fall.

In the third season of my show, the producers couldn't quite decide what they wanted to do creatively. They started me with a temp development job at a production company, then decided that didn't work and went back to the unemployment storyline. By mid-season they figured that wasn't working either, so they put me in a longer term job at the USA Network. Many viewers protested this move, declaring that the show had jumped the shark by having the once-nomadic main character take on a steady, non-volatile job. Despite this opposition, the series maintained high ratings and the USA storyline continued into the next season.

But the writers had some tricks up their sleeves. Early in season 4, they began an intriguing story arc concerning the purchase of Universal (parent company of USA) by NBC. This didn't seem to affect me much at first, but as the season went on the implications became more severe. In a pivotal late-season episode, several other people in my division were unceremoniously laid off as my boss and I waited anxiously to learn what our fate would be. Alas, the season ended as we were both shown the door (the door that now had an NBC logo on it) and I said goodbye to the longest-running job I'd held in my time in Los Angeles.

Season 5 has been well documented on this blog. It was a strange, experimental season that aired for about thirteen weeks in the summer. Viewers everywhere scratched their heads as they wondered where the producers were going with this storyline. They now have their answer.

This new season will be an interesting one, I think. The main story arc concerns my attempt to keep focused on my ultimate goal of a career in television writing even as I work forty hours a week in a job completely unconnected to entertainment. I'll have more time to write, but will the job seep into my identity and tempt me to pursue an easier but less rewarding career path? The writers are staying pretty tight-lipped about future episodes, though location scouts for the show have already been spotted in Westwood at the corner of Wilshire and Gayley. Also, a short preview aired tonight during the Emmys: it showed me arriving at work at about 8:30, going out to lunch with my new co-workers, and starting on the projects that my boss had lined up for me. It was just a series of quick shots, though, and it was hard to tell what was going on. Stay tuned, I guess.