I want to enthuse at you about something and all you want to know is what’s this thing with love kittens and where they are. Let’s do a deal: I’ll explain a thing I feel this need to explain – while you just skip all of that and jump down to where it says It’s Safe Here and Also There are Love Kittens.

So, previously… I’ve read film, TV, radio and theatre scripts all my life but since December 2017, I’ve made sure to read at least one every day. I know I’ve learned from it all, but that wasn’t the point, the point was to have a good time. As I write this to you, I haven’t read one today but I will shortly and that will be my 570th of this year. Given that there are substantially fewer days in the year than 570, you can have a pretty good guess as to how this enjoyment thing is going for me.

Only, this has been an unusual year because of how many scripts I’ve re-read. I’ll often re-read scripts I like, but this time there were so many of them and it’s King Charles’s fault. I skipped watching his coronation and flicked channels instead, until I came in half way through an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. It was “…Nor the Battle to the Strong” by René Echevarria and as I tuned in, a series regular, a hero, is faced with a dangerous situation — and he runs away.

He gets chances to make the “right” decision, as defined in paragraph one of the Series Hero Rulebook, and he doesn’t do it. I’d already seen it, a very long time ago, and read the script quite a long time ago, but I was hooked to the end. Which yes, did feature this character getting some redemption (Series Hero Rulebook chapters 7 through 19) but he didn’t deserve it – and he knew he didn’t. The redemption became part of everything terrible and I was enraptured all over again.

As I say, though, I came in half way. Where I was, there was no chance to rewind or stream the episode, but I could get the script so I did. (Note that this link downloads a text version. All other links here take you to a PDF online.) Then I read it and then I read the next one. And the next. “…Nor the Battle” is a fifth season episode and I went back to the beginning to read the pilot script. And then the next one. And the next. So yes, I re-read all Deep Space Nine scripts this year — and it wasn’t the only series I reread, it was just the only one where I could get all seven seasons of the scripts.

There is also Star Trek: The Next Generation and I have read all of those, but I tried a couple this year and they are surprisingly empty on the page.

So before I babble on at you about a top ten, I want to confess that of the 570 scripts I’ll have read by the end of today, an astounding — to me — 275 were repeats. Deep Space Nine accounted for 174, while I also re-read 13 Doctor Who, 21 The West Wing, 17 Frasier and 9 Cheers. Other substantial chunks of new reading for the year were 20 episodes of Inside No 9 and 41 of Fame.

For no very good reason, I’ve decided this time to have a top ten that excludes repeats like Deep Space Nine, even though the original pilot to Frasier, “The Good Son”, is as fine a piece of writing as the revived 2023 Frasier’s pilot “The Good Father” is ordinary. Plus there was one script I read for a book project and even though the script was never made, it’s also never been released in any way so all I am probably allowed to do is tease you about it.

I think we’re ready. Wait, it’s time for the It’s Safe Here bit.

It’s Safe Here and Also There are Love Kittens

“Love Kittens Go to High School” is the title of an episode of Fame by Susan Goldberg and it is without question my title of the year. It was sixth-season Fame and I’ve never seen it, but I enjoyed the script too. Not enough to make my 2023 top ten, but there was no possibility that it wouldn’t get a shout out for that title.

So now, the top ten, including links for you to read them — where possible — and entirely for me, the date I read them.

10. Community: Basic Rocket Science (aka The Fundamentals of Flight)
By Andy Bobrow. Episode aired 14/10/10, script read 12/8/23. The Community characters get stuck in a space simulator simulator (not a mistake, it’s a simulator of a simulator) and go nowhere, do nothing, but when they return, you feel like they’ve come from the moon. Read the script.

9. Paddington 2
By Simon Farnaby and Paul King. Film released 5/11/17, script read 28/10/23. If it were any more perfect, it would be higher up this list. Read the script.

8. Z Cars: A Quiet Night
By Alan Plater. Episode aired 2/10/1963, script read 14/2/23. Famously, nothing happens in this episode of the one-hour police procedural, but you come away realising that really the most enormous things have happened. Episode is lost and the script is only in this book.

7. Collateral
By Stuart Beattie, revised by Frank Darabont, Michael Mann. Film released 6/8/04, script read 25/7/23. A hitman hires a taxi to take him to each of his targets. One clear, simple idea, milked perfectly for drama. Read the script.

6. Dickinson: Split the Lark
By Alena Smith. Episode aired 29/1/21, script read 13/9/23. The show is billed as a comedy, on account of it being very funny, but the pain in it is a knife. Read the script.

5. The Cider House Rules
By John Irving. Film released 7/9/1999, script read 2/5/23. Irving dramatises his own 560-page novel into a 125-minute script — and it took years. The script is only available in this book, US edition, UK edition.

4. Poker Face: Dead Man’s Hand (Pilot)
By Rian Johnson. Episode aired 26/1/23, script read 2/9/23. Even the font and title design lovingly reminds you of the NBC Mystery Movie wheel that brought us Columbo, which is a clear enough inspiration for this otherwise very modern, very tense, very funny series. Read the script.

3. My So-Called Life: Strangers in the House
By Jill Gordon. Episode aired 20/10/94, script read 24/2/23. Finely wrought family and school drama, where over and over, the quietest moments are the loudest. This one made me teary. Read the script.

2. Silo: Freedom Day (Pilot)
By Graham Yost. Episode aired 5/5/23, script read 16/7/23. Utterly compelling drama in a claustrophobic space. Episode 3, “Machines” by
Ingrid Escajeda is unquestionably the most tense hour of television I can recall. That script isn’t available, but the pilot is. Read the pilot and note that the script is titled “Wool” rather than “Silo”. That’s the title of the book it’s based on.

1. She Said
By Rebecca Lenkiewicz. Film released 13/10/22, script read 1/5/23. The plot is the uncovering of Harvey Weinstein, but the story is of the scalding abuse of women and its acceptance by society. You think you know this already, but then you read this harrowing tale in one sitting where your eyes just never stop getting wider — except when you want to cover your face. Read the script.

It’s weird. I keep a list of this stuff so that I can quickly find a good one to reread — and because it somehow keeps me doing this thing I want to do, it somehow prevents me skipping a day and so falling off the wagon — and in a few days time it will be the new year, I’ll be back down to a count of zero. That’s rather cleansing, somehow.

Though it’s surprising how fast that count rises again.

Which reminds me, I need to go read today’s script. I wonder what it will be.