Scribbler Provides The Facts of “Life”

I wasn’t crazy about Monday’s first episode of 18 to Life (starring Stacey Farber and Michael Seater, right) and said so here. A “scribbler” associated with the show took exception to some of my cheap, smarmy remarks and, in the interest of fair play and in the spirit of the New Year, I’m moving his retort up from the comments to the space below. I have heard from others that the show finds its feet as the season progresses and I’ll track that in future posts. UPDATE: The show got off to a strong start Monday, scoring an overnight, estimated 779,000 viewers according to BBM Canada. Here’s what “scribbler” had to say:

I’m not a fan of people who comment on their own shows, but I feel compelled to clear up a few facts. While ABC was indeed on board for the pilot, they did not “pull out once the scripts came in”. That’s not how these things work. ABC came on for the pilot only, and had their fingerprints all over this script. It was a long shot from the beginning (we were up against Kelsey Grammar and “Modern Family”) but a very fruitful collaboration, and an extremely difficult decision for ABC to finally take a pass (a decision not all their execs agreed with). We wish they could have seen some of the later scripts, once the concept had a chance to find it’s legs, but that isn’t part of the protocol.
As for CBC’s taken so long to make this show they “almost had to change the title to 25 to 54” (note to self: idea for a spinoff) that’s also false. We shot this pilot in 2008, taking the time to iron out some of the bugs. CBC greenlit this the moment they were allowed to early 2009, and we shot the series this past summer. That’s a normal television timeline.
While I remain a fan of your blog, please don’t fill in your gaps of knowledge with assumptions. There’s enough misinformation on the web as is, you’re too good a blogger for that! And I hope you give our show a shot — I may be biased, but I believe we really did find our legs.