I wish I could remember where I saw this. It was on one of those social media sites, you know the thing, places where we used to hang out but inexplicably concluded that it wasn’t worth all the right-wing crap.

Whichever one it was, what I saw was a thread that started with someone saying that some TV show was suspiciously like the idea they’d had. I’m not trying to protect names here, I’m just being useless. But the thing I do firmly remember is how the conversation thread went in two really clearly different directions.

Some people were telling this person things such as how he should tell the production company he wouldn’t sue them, so long as they commissioned him on the show’s second series.

Other people — all of the writers — were saying it’s a shame but it happens, no one has stolen this fella’s idea. I chipped in on this line too, mentioning how the films Tombstone and Wyatt Earp came out at the same time as did A Bug’s Life and Antz, as did Deep Impact and Armageddon. The list does go on. Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Oh! In 2015, television had Timeless, 12 Monkeys, Outlander and Doctor Who, while in films there was Predestination and Hot Tub Time Machine 2. All of them about time.

There are just ideas that are in the air or more likely that are prompted by the same situations and interests and events and ingredients.

Although… I did once have a thing I wrote called the Airwolf Drinking Game go around the internet with my name taken off. (Airwolf is the 1980s US TV drama centred around a helicopter and has a famous theme tune. The game included such things as your having a drink any time any character has any problem whatsoever that does not require a $2 million Bell 222 helicopter to solve it. “I’ve lost my keys!” De diddly de, starts the theme, diddle dee de duh de duh duh, cue Airwolf.)

And there was this one time that I gave a script to a friend for advice and she told me it wasn’t worth it. Something just over a year later, she asked my advice on a script because I knew the situation it was set in. The situation was the same as my script, the plot was the same, the characters were the same, the sole thing different was that this writer was a total idiot to do this. I gave her every scrap of really bad advice I possibly could and as far as I know, her script didn’t go any further than mine had.)

You know that you cannot copyright an idea. It’s the execution of that idea that is a piece of work that can be legally protected.

I hope the person in that thread I read listens to the writers who were trying to cool the conversation down. I mean, that thing about not suing if they give him a job. That’s surely attempted extortion.

I wonder if there’s a story in that.