Redshirts

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.
    FINN
    Yes. You’re not a grim reaper, Nick. You’re a general. Sometimes generals send soldiers to their deaths. Hopefully they don’t do it stupidly.
    NICK
    (looking back at the crowd)
    You want me to write better deaths.
    FINN
    Yeah. Fewer deaths wouldn’t hurt, either. But better deaths. We’re all already dead. It’s too late for us. But each of us have people we care about who are still alive, who might pass under your pen, if you want to put it that way. We think they deserve better. And now you know you do too.
    NICK
    You’re assuming I’ll still have a job after all this.
    FINN
    (standing again)
    You’ll be fine. Just tell everyone you were exploring the boundaries between fiction and interactive performance in the online media. It’s a perfectly meta excuse, and anyway, no one’s going to believe your characters