{"id":2951,"date":"2022-12-23T07:55:07","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T07:55:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/?p=2951"},"modified":"2022-12-22T21:54:27","modified_gmt":"2022-12-22T21:54:27","slug":"a-top-10-of-505-scripts-read-in-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/2022\/12\/23\/a-top-10-of-505-scripts-read-in-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Ten favourite scripts of 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

Previously on Self Distract… I’ve read scripts all my life and I love it, but since late December 2017, I’ve read at least one per day<\/a>. Once a year I do a personal top ten for no very clear reason, although oddly it wasn’t until I wrote 2021’s list<\/a> that I realised how thematically connected all ten were.<\/p>\n

Anyway. Now, read on.<\/p>\n

There’s obviously a week or two left of 2022 and I will continue to read a script every day, but up to this moment, I’ve read 515 during the year. That’s about typical, especially if I’ve been involved in any awards judging and I have again this year.<\/p>\n

But otherwise, this has been an unusual year because – so far – 238 of the scripts I read were from the same show. Doctor Who. Chiefly the 1963-1989 version, though I’m only up to 1981, and some scattered reading of the revived series, scattered because I’ve already read those and usually was just going back to re-read good ones.<\/p>\n

Speaking of good, as well as counting the scripts I read because that’s obviously vitally important to me for some reason, I do also make an extremely brief note next to each. Good. That word comes up a lot. Of the 238 Doctor Who scripts, a near majority were “good”, though there were some that were “a bit tedious”, others that were “fine” or “okay”.<\/p>\n

Then there were five that I noted as being “very good” — and by coincidence, also five that I’ve listed as being “utter shite altogether”. Details on application.<\/p>\n

None of the Doctor Who scripts made my personal top ten for the year, although Blink by Steven Moffat<\/a> might’ve got in if it hadn’t been the fourth time I’d read it.<\/p>\n

It’s not like my top 10 is significant, but then for completeness, it’s also definitely not in any way statistically valid. My top 10 for 2022, just for starters, contains only a single script that was actually written in 2022. The rest range across all of recorded history, making the list this year only because I happened to read them in 2022.<\/p>\n

So don’t see this as judgement or pontification or anything remotely about me, other than how this is a way I can show you ten pieces of writing I think are brilliant – and include links out to nearly all of them. If you don’t happen to have read them already, I envy you having them ahead of you.<\/p>\n

10. Justified: The I of the Storm by Dave Andron (read online<\/a> on January 16)
\n9. Battlestar Galactica: Mini-Series by Ronald D. Moore (read part one<\/a>, part two<\/a> online on November 20 and 21)
\n8. Motherland: Pilot by Holly Walsh, Sharon Horgan, Graham Linehan, and Helen Linehan read online<\/a> March 28)
\n7. My So-Called Life: Dancing in the Dark by Winnie Holzman (read online<\/a> April 23)
\n6. Slow Horses: Failure’s Contagious by Will Smith (read December 6)
\n5. Lou Grant: Nazi by Robert Schlitt (read April 22)
\n4. Peggy for You by Alan Plater (read January 24, buy from Amazon<\/a>)
\n3. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard (read July 10, buy from Amazon<\/a>)
\n2. CODA by Sian Heder, based on La Famille B\u00e9lier by Victoria Bedos, Thomas Bidegain, Stanislas Carr\u00e9 de Malberg and \u00c9ric Lartigau (read online<\/a> February 12)
\n1. Derry Girls: Season 3 Special: The Agreement by Lisa McGee (read September 29)<\/p>\n

Peggy for You and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead are stage plays, CODA is a film, and the rest are TV. Thank you to Hat Trick for the Derry Girls script, and Apple TV+ for Slow Horses.<\/p>\n

Thanks too, to Charles Martin who got me a lot of 1970s and 1980s Doctor Who scripts. .<\/p>\n

And most especially to possibly my favourite site on the internet, TV Writing<\/a>. Only 20 of this year’s scripts came from there, and I am astonished because it’s usually so many more.<\/p>\n

I expect it will be in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Previously on Self Distract… I’ve read scripts all my life and I love it, but since late December 2017, I’ve … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2954,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[178],"tags":[1936,343,1962,622,1941,183,1935,746,284,1021,1887,198,180],"class_list":["post-2951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-selfdistract","tag-amwriting","tag-apple","tag-apple-tv-2","tag-author","tag-derry-girls","tag-doctor-who","tag-dramatist","tag-ipad","tag-iphone","tag-mac","tag-slow-horses","tag-writer","tag-writing","has-featured-image"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/Derry-Girls.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4chyI-LB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2951"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2955,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2951\/revisions\/2955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}