Hello everyone!
Well, this must be a surprise that I’m actually only three days late (just
barely) for yet another installment of Eberts File. All I can say is that my one
day a week shooting schedule has been totally thrown out the window these past
two weeks and I’m really pressed for time (and sleep!) these days. But that of
course does not matter for neither wind nor sleet nor dead of night will stop
the file from reaching your eyeballs!
And now The Lesser Evil!
There’s nothing like a little bit of deception and paranoia to really liven up
an episode. TLE finally answered a nagging question: if either agency is going
to extort him for counter agent, why not try the high tech one? The answer is
that while bad at times, the Agency and the Official still remain ‘The Lesser
Evil’ compared to Chrysalis. Still, grass always seems a little greener on the
other side.
And now, the ‘bits’!
* Idalis was involved in a minor traffic accident before the shooting. The
result was the red eye (A recurring theme in I-man – see my file on Liberty and
Larceny) that required a little bit of script tweaking to explain. Idalis was a
real trooper to continue with the tough shooting schedule.
* The book I pass to the official in the opening is "The Art of War", by Sun
Tzu. It details the strategy, deception and countermoves involved in warfare and
in commanding your own troops. On one side of the page was the English, the
other the Chinese characters. Eberts read from the Chinese side.
* Some of you may remember Stark as Simon Taruses from "ST:TNG"’s episode "The
Drumhead".
* Stark’s office overlooks Balboa Park in San Diego. Cerberus’ headquarters were
in downtown San Diego.
* Always nice when a show has continuity. At last we address some questions like
the $10 million dollars. While the answer was vague, at least the episodes are
referred to rather than simply stand-alone.
* The final scene featured many a retake of Eddie trying to say "Cerberus". He’d
misspeak it, be corrected then misspeak it again. I don’t blame him, a couple of
times he’d ask for the pronunciation, and the director would have to think for a
moment.
* The ‘slapping five’ scene in route to the front porch between Vince and Paul
was totally ad-libbed. They are amazing.
* I’ll have to go into my archive of scripts to discover if Stacey Meyer was in
the script or simply a Vince Add-in. I think it’s in the script. R2, how could
you!
* Craig Silverstein is the story Editor for I-man. What that means is that he
takes the writers draft and gives it a sort of polishing. This accounts for
Paul’s ‘stay out of this Charlie Brown’ line. Although I had to admit I was
surprised that the production and Craig knew of my drama exploits.
* This also segues into the final scene. Originally Hobbes simply rails on about
having to pay the $800 for the window. Paul and I talked about and agreed that
the real indignity is that Eberts one-ups him with the computer program. My
thought was that when the scene arrived later that day Paul would ad-lib some
lines to that effect. Instead, about 20 minutes before the scene was to start
shooting, new script pages from L.A. arrived. Evidentially, Paul Called Craig
and convinced him to add a few more lines to increase the feud between Eberts
and Hobbes.
* Eberts is at last certified as a computer expert. Some of you (Well maybe all
of you) had a problem with my rapid search engine abilities in "Tiresias". While
that doesn’t fully explain it, at least
*Well, that’s what I got for this week. Hey, did my transcript ever show up?
What happened? Anyway, we’ve got a repeat next week followed by the last three
episodes for season one. I think. But after the hiatus one week will seem like
nothing! Then we unveil so many surprises for season two that we may pass out
sedatives before each episode.
So as my eyes droop let me say that having visited a few other the other Bboards
on sci-fi’s site recently, you’re still hands down the best fans around. Thank
you for your politeness and passion. Both are appreciated.
And now, my bed time.
Mike
