ESP-N (Comedy, 5 Pages). It's my entrance to the NBC TIPS program and I would love some feedback from you guys!

Let's skip the technical business and get straight into the guts of this script. ESP-N is a strange concept. I'm not entirely sure how you intend to make a series out of something as outwardly absurd as psychic sports analysts, but if you think that you can pull it off then more power to you. You do bring up That's So Raven a couple of times in this script and it does read like the same sort of single-camera sitcom as that program. I suppose that's workable.

The scene you have here, however, isn't working for a number of different reasons. First of all, you're rushing in. In the span of five pages you're trying to establish that there are psychic sports analysts who are always correct, who have a television program where they announce their visions of the future, and that they are somehow still allowed to go to casinos and gamble in spite of the fact that they are well known public figures that are also well known to be able to accurately tell the future. They're on television, after all. Seems like that wouldn't happen.

Then there's the business with World War III. There's a bit of a moral event horizon there that you don't want your characters to cross, particularly in the first scene of what I assume to be a pilot. That right there is the point where Chip goes from a bit of a jerk to an absolutely deplorable human being. Not even in the funny, somewhat sociopathic way either. He's just depicted as a selfish ass, while Ken is considerably more sympathetic. (In fact, you may want to consider making Ken the star of the show.)

That's all a problem because I can kind of guess where you might be going here, and there's a chance of this working. Chip is the central character, but he's a bit full of himself. Through the events of this episode he would be taken down a peg and humbled in some way, reconciling with those his actions have offended and growing as a person because of it. Shows have made a killing off of this basic concept for decades, and you could very easily make it work as well.

But as for this scene, I would strongly suggest throwing it out and starting fresh, and reworking Chip's character to make him less immediately deplorable.

/r/Screenwriting Thread