John Scalzi - Redshirts

EXT — FEATURELESS EXPANSE WITH ENDLESS GROUND REACHING TO THE HORIZON — POSSIBLY DAY

ANON-A-WRITE—aw, fuck it, half the Internet already knows anyway: NICK WEINSTEIN comes to in the expanse, clutching his head and wincing. ANOTHER MAN is by him, kneeling casually. Some distance behind him is a crowd of people. They, like the MAN near NICK, are all wearing red shirts.

MAN

Finally.

NICK

(looks around)

Okay, I give up. Where am I?

MAN

A flat, gray, featureless expanse stretching out to nowhere. A perfect metaphor for the inside of your own brain, Nick.

NICK

(looks at MAN)

You look vaguely familiar.

MAN

(smiles)

I should. You killed me. Not too many episodes ago, either.

NICK

(gapes for a second, then)

Finn, right?

FINN

Correct. And do you remember how you killed me?

NICK

Exploding head.

FINN

Right again.

NICK

Not your head exploding, though.

FINN

No, someone else’s. I just happened to be in the way.

(stands, points over to the crowd, at one guy in particular)

He’s the guy whose head you blew off. Wave, Jer!

JER waves. NICK waves back, cautiously.

NICK

(stands, also, unsteadily, peering)

His head looks pretty good for having been blown off.

FINN

We figured it would be easier for you if you didn’t see us all in the state you killed us in. Jer would be headless, I would be severely burned, others would be dismembered, partially eaten, have their flesh melted off their bones from horrible disfiguring diseases. You know. Messy. We thought you’d find that distracting.

NICK

Thanks.

FINN

Don’t mention it.

NICK

I’m assuming this can’t be real and that I’m having a dream.

FINN

This is a dream. It doesn’t mean it’s not also real.

NICK

(rubbing his head)

That’s a little deep for my current state of sobriety, Finn.

FINN

Then try this: It’s real and taking place in a dream, because how else can your dead talk to you?

NICK

Why do you want to talk to me?

FINN

Because we have something we want to ask of you.

NICK

I’m already not killing any more of you. I’ve got writer’s block, because of you. And I’m about to lose my job, because of the writer’s block.

FINN

You’ve got writer’s block, yes. It’s not because of us. Not directly, anyway.

NICK

It’s my writer’s block. I think I know why I have it.

FINN

I didn’t say you didn’t know why you had it. But you’re not admitting the reason why to yourself.

NICK

Don’t take this the wrong way, Finn, but your Yoda act is getting old quick.

FINN

Fine. Then I’ll put it this way: Denise Hogan? She was right.

NICK

(Throws up his hands)

Even in my own brain, I get this.

FINN

You’re a decent enough writer, Nick. But you’re lazy.

(motions toward the crowd)

And most of us are dead because of it.

NICK

Come on, that’s not fair. You’re dead because it’s an action show. People die in action shows. It’s one of the reasons it’s called an action show.

FINN

(looks at NICK, then points to a face in the crowd)

You! How did you die?

REDSHIRT #1

Ice shark!

FINN

(turning to NICK)

Seriously, an ice shark? What’s even the biology on that?

(turns back to the crowd)

Anyone else randomly eaten by space animals?

REDSHIRT #2

Pornathic crabs!

REDSHIRT #3

A Great Badger of Tau Ceti!

REDSHIRT #4

Borgovian Land Worms!

NICK

(to REDSHIRT #4)

I didn’t write the land worms!

(to FINN)

Seriously, those aren’t mine. I keep getting blamed for those.

FINN

That’s because you’re the senior writer on the show, Nick. You could have raised a flag or two about the random animal attacks, whether you wrote them or not.

NICK

It’s a weekly science fiction show—

FINN

It’s a weekly science fiction show, but lots of weekly shows aren’t crap, Nick. Including science fiction shows. A lot of weekly science fiction shows at least try for something other than mere sufficiency. You’re using schedule and genre as an excuse.

(back to the crowd)

How many of you were killed on decks six through twelve?

Dozens of hands shoot up. FINN turns back to NICK, looking for an answer.

NICK

The ship needs to take damage. The show has to have drama.

FINN

The ship needs to take damage. Fine. It doesn’t mean you have to have some bastard crewman sucked into space every time it happens. Maybe after the first dozen times it happened, the Universal Union should have started engineering for space defenestration.

NICK

Look, I get it, Finn. You’re unhappy with being dead. So am I. That’s why I’m blocked!

FINN

You don’t get it. None of us are pissed off at being dead.

REDSHIRT #4

I am!

FINN

(to REDSHIRT #4)

Not now, Davis!

(back to NICK)

None of us except for Davis are pissed off at being dead. Death happens. It happens to everyone. It’s going to happen to you. What we’re pissed off about is that our deaths are so completely pointless . When you killed us off, Nick, it doesn’t do anything for the story. It’s just a little jolt you give the viewers before the commercial break, and they’ve forgotten it before the first Doritos ad fades off the screen. Our lives had meaning, Nick, if only to us. And you gave us really shitty deaths. Pointless, shitty deaths.

NICK

Shitty deaths happen all the time, Finn. People accidentally step in front of buses, or slip and crack their head on the toilet, or go jogging and get attacked by mountain lions. That’s life.

FINN

That’s your life, Nick. But you don’t have anyone writing you, as far as you know. We do. It’s you. And when we die on the show, it’s because you’ve killed us off . Everyone dies. But we died how you decided we were going to die. And so far, you’ve decided we’d die because it’s easier than writing a dramatic moment whose response is earned in the writing. And you know it, Nick.

NICK

I don’t—

FINN

You do. We’re dead, Nick. We don’t have time for bullshit anymore. So admit it. Admit what’s actually going on in your head.

NICK

(sits down, dazed)

All right. Fine. All right. I wrote my last script, the one we used to send everyone back, and I remember thinking to myself, ‘Wow, we didn’t actually kill anyone off this time.’ And then I started thinking about all the ways we’ve killed off crew on the show. Then I started thinking about the fact that for them, they were real deaths. Real deaths of real people. And then I started thinking of all the stupid ways I’ve killed people off. Not just them being stupid by themselves, but everything around them too. Stupid reasons to get people in a position where I could kill them off. Ridiculous coincidences. Out-of-nowhere plot twists. All the little shitty tricks I and the other writers use because we can and no one calls us on it. Then I went and got drunk—

FINN

(nodding)

And when you woke up you went to do some writing and nothing came out.

NICK

I thought it was about not wanting to kill people. About being responsible for their deaths.

FINN

(kneeling again)

It’s the fact you weren’t acting responsibly when you killed them that’s eating at you. Even if you hadn’t written our deaths, all of us would have died one day. That’s a fact. I think you know it.

NICK

And I gave you bad deaths when I could have given you better ones.