Customer Reviews

Billion-Dollar Kiss: The Kiss That Saved Dawson's Creek and Other Adventures in TV Writing

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For a decade and a half (1988-2004), Jeffrey Stepakoff had it made. He was a writer and producer on several hit TV shows including most notably Dawson's Creek as well as Major Dad & The Wonder Years. He became wealthy in the process. He also was able to gain a number of insights into the TV business that he is able to share in his book, "Billion Dollar Kiss."

Jeffrey Stepakoff starts out with his education at a fancy East coast university where he dreamed of becoming a big shot Broadway playwright. Through a series of unexpected events, he wound up in Hollywood as a would be TV writer with a seemingly crazy woman as his agent. Stepakoff and his agent was able to parlay a script for the Molly Dodd TV show into a career that took him to the top of the TV production game.

Stepakoff soon wound up on the Dawson's Creek show that started off as a struggling enterprise ratings wise. One of his colleagues came up with the idea of having Dawson kiss one of the girls on the show. This kiss soon led to the creation of a love triangle that became what Stepakoff calls a "story engine" that he believes was the primary reason why Dawson's Creek became a hit show that has made thus far over a billion dollars for the network, the studio and the production company not to mention the folks who made the show.

There are some surprising insights into the life of a TV writer. For instance, writers run how the show is made, not the directors. TV directors do as the writers tell them what to do. Producers will uphold the writer's vision since doing otherwise leads to trouble with the Writer's Guild of America. This holds true even for major figures such as David Mamet who has directed a few episodes of The Shield and Quentin Tarentino who directed two episodes of CSI in 2005. As for "network interference," what happens is that networks will send down notes on what they think about how the show is progressing and what concerns that they have. However, the producers and writers ultimately make the final decisions and if they choose to ignore the network's notes, then the network generally accepts their decision.

There are tons of money involved in TV show production. As a result, if a script calls for a red sofa in a particular episode, then the production crew goes out and gets a red sofa for that episode. As you can tell, the TV business was pretty lucrative. However, it was the expense factor that led to the decline of the script written TV show. Networks came to realize that prime time news shows, reality shows and game shows were much cheaper to make and did not have the tendency to go way over budget that the scripted shows did. The end result was the end of the era in which Jeffrey Stepakoff made his fortune.

Billion Dollar Kiss is an excellent and revealing book about the TV business from a writer's perspective. It is warmly recommended to all those who are really interested in what goes on behind the scenes in Hollywood.

A tell-all insiders look into the "real" world of television from TV writing, making, producing, and all the eccentric characters that are involved along the way...Jeffrey Stepakoff describes the television industry from soup to nuts, through its glory (and not so glory) days. As a huge fan of Dawson's Creek, and an avid watcher of television, and lover of quality writing in general, this book was truly a non-stop treat. Thank you Jeffrey for opening our world to this crazy, fun, and certainly unpredictable biz!

As a TV writer who worked on staff consistently in the late 90's and early 2000's, when I came across this book I was immediately curious and interested to see what the author had to say about the TV writing business. Although our paths never crossed during that time, many of Stepakoff's anecdotes could have been my own.

Stepakoff interweaves his own experiences in the biz with the changing business as a whole and does so extremely successfully. Even though I was in the midst of the changing TV business (specifically the recent demise of scripted television), I was never fully aware of the far-reaching reasons behind it. Stepakoff has done a magnificent job of meticulously researching this book and for that, it serves not only as a fun memoir, but a legitimate historical accounting of the rise and fall of the TV writer and scripted television as a whole.

I whole-heartedly recommend this book for anyone who has any interest in what goes on behind the scenes in the life of a TV writer. It is especially relevant now given the current writer's strike as well. It should seriously be required reading for any college TV writing course. I know I'm going to make it required reading for my husband!!!

Having just this week seen a "news" story about the "CREAKY-ness" (oh, please!) of Dawson's Creek, I was reminded of how Jeff Stepakoff's book about Hollywood and TV writing rockets along with a payload of facts and smoothly-feeding fuel tank of wit. What a pleasure, to see taste, insight, and actual rhetorical skill streaming from what is far too often a trashy industry.

Having written and produced over 250 hours of television drama, I lived nearly every scenario in Jeffrey Stepakoff's book. Now, as a Professor of Television Writing, this is the ONLY book my students will be required to read. From process to production, history to reality, "Billion Dollar Kiss" is the most complete guide to the business of writing for television. Plus, with Stepakoff's light and humorous touch, it's a kick to read.

I read this book because I'm wondering how TV production is going to change in the next few years with the advent of Hulu and Netflix so I wanted to get some background on the history of the industry. This book does provide some color from a TV writer's perspective. I'd guess < 10% of this book has anything to do with Dawson's creek or actor celebrity gossip. The kiss referred to in the title is when (spoiler?) Pacey kisses Joey, officially kicking off the new love triangle franchise that would rescue the show from declining ratings and carry it through the rest of its run. Sadly, this is one of the only insider examples of anything interesting happening because of TV writers. The other contents I feel like you could piece together from wikipedia.

Some ideas I took away from this book:

For a while TV was all about the writers creating content so writers were kings, but when unscripted reality and/or game shows became popular writers started losing ground.

Because of some court rulings, networks started producing their own TV shows, which turned out to be more profitable because they kept making money on them after production due to reruns, etc.

I'm surprised the writing was so bland considering this guy is a professional writer, but I think it makes sense if TV writing is just direct and flat like that. Stepakoff ignores the "show, don't tell" thing and relates his story to you in almost an outline-like listing of events and facts that I doubt would be fundamentally interesting or engaging to most people unless he threw in something that got us emotionally involved, which he doesn't. Many memoirs have a tendency to just list people and events, maybe as a shout out to old associates, or just for the sake of completion, but certainly not out of consideration for the reader. He also relates many events that he personally had little to do with, proving himself to be a rather dry historian. Here's a snapshot, with some numbers thrown in to get attention via $$$ factor, "The Wonder Years sold into basic cable when Nickelodeon purchased it in the mid-nineties, right about when the prices started to go through the roof. Fox Cable Networks paid $400,000 an episode for Dharma & Greg. Lifetime paid over... TNT paid... TBS paid..."

I am overall happy I read the book. I think it basically delivers on what it offers.

I bought the Kindle version and listened to the whole thing in a couple of days. It was fascinating, entertaining, and informative. If you are interested in writing for TV or just want to know what others are dealing with, it's a blast to read. I'm buying a print copy for my PM and others to read.

The 90s were a golden age of television, and perhaps the last for the particular brand of scripted TV that flourished at the time. This is one man's walk though the TV business and Los Angeles in that period full of observations of the excesses and the culture of the time. Anyone who is interested in the reality of the television business or of TV history in the 90s will get a lot out of it and enjoy the book. Well-written and engaging characters throughout bring the story to life. What doesn't it have you may ask? Well, it doesn't go deep into any craft issues like what distinguishes a good story or a good TV writer from another. It's not a craft book, it's a memoir but a very engaging one.

I highly recomend this book to anyone who wants an insight into how Hollywood works. Amazing read!

Picked this up at random and was pleased to find a smart mix of behind-the-scenes TV-writing insights along with big picture trends shaping the careers, compensation, and success of TV writers from the mid-80's on. It also shows how these trends raised the bar for quality TV writing. I hope this leads to more books from inside the TV industry. Surprisingly objective for an insider's story. Very interesting and worthwhile read for anyone who wants to know what's behind good TV.