Book 7 for 2005

The Last Laugh: finish this sitcom edited by BBC Three; © 2005, 256 p., The Last Laugh.

I picked this up at a bookshop while we were in England. I found it to be an interesting concept. BBC Three commissioned several half-scripts and compiled them in this book. The object of the publication is to interest the reader in one of the scripts to the point that they would complete it. All submissions for a completed script would be judged and a winner would be selected, thereby giving the channel a new show for its schedule. Each of the scripts were written by writers who had written for television before, prefaced by a brief bio introducing the writer(s). Of those that I recognized, I was able to identify characters in the scripts that were similar to characters in the shows written or created by the same writer. It gives me pause to think about how many other television shows for which that would be true. I did not finish any of the sitcoms on my own, and not being a UK citizen I would not qualify for the competition anyway. I did find it to be mildly entertaining and intriguing as a marketing technique, and will be curious to see if any of the sitcoms in this book make it to air on BBC America.