Episode 105 Shoot
September 21, 1999

Another solid episode. This week Norris & Suzanne got to spend some quality time together, while Hunter helped Ford deal with some of his issues about being gay. The scene in Ford's room between Hunter and Ford was a really good one and I think it turned out well. We pre-taped it yesterday and got some good moments. It's tough, though, to get a feeling fro the scene when there's no audience. The writers all laugh, God bless 'em, but they're on auto-pilot, basically, when it comes to laughing. We ran the scene once for the audience tonight and it was good. It suffered from the show's most glaring problem, that the last joke in each scene, the 'button' or the 'blow,' is often one of the weaker jokes when it should be one of the strongest, if not the strongest. Still, it felt like a really good scene.

We were also in the gay bar tonight, breaking new gay ground. I really had two scenes there. The frustrated single gay stuff rocked on the first take. The audience loved it. The second time we did it, it completely sucked. I don't know what happened. Could they have tired of us that quickly? The timing seemed off from the beginning and then it never kicked in. We tried to kick it in a third, fourth, and maybe even firth time but that was not only beating the dead horse, but also chopping it into little pieces as well. Thank God we got it the first time. I hope the lens caps were off the cameras.

The scene between Sal and Ford turned out nice, too. It got tweaked during the week and found a good balance between the jokes and the serious stuff. Ford is on his way to being more comfortable with his new life. That's good, I think. But I also think it's the struggle that makes the character so interesting and compelling and fun to watch. Don't want him to 'grow up' too fast.

Episode 105 | Behind the Scenes | Oh Grow Up