Blind Justice script cuts -- finally!!!

[maggiethecat]

I just found a previously ignored folder in my e-mail program, and you longtimers are not going to believe what was in it . . .

Once upon a time -- two boards ago, to be precise -- a very scary lady named Zuzuu (who had some connection to the TV/film industry) sent me some bits that had been cut out of Blind Justice scripts. Two minor scenes, to be sure, but an intrigung look at how the show was being edited from the writers' standpoint. I thought I had deleted the message years ago, when Zuzuu made so many of us so irate that Shmeep and Mouse founded this board. But I just found it this afternoon, and so of course I had to come running over here to share it.

I've put the Late Unlamented Zuzuu's comments in blue:

Some of the nice little stuff in the scripts I read that never made it to the screen were: In the pilot, in the conversation Karen has with Jim in the car after they've been to their first crime scene -- the one where she reveals to Jim that she knows Anne Donnelly -- Karen had a line that was a bit on-the-nose but that I'm a little sorry they cut:

BETTANCOURT
Anne said you had no problem
banging every girl in the two-five,
but parterning up with a female?
Females on the job in general?

DUNBAR
I've done some growing up since then.

BETTANCOURT
Good for you. Meantime, there's a
guy cutting girls' tongues out and
I'm all of a sudden working a stolen car.


From "Rub a Tub Tub," a moment that survived in the episode as shot but was, in my view, completely neutered, was the one where Karen notices the stain on Jim's pant leg and Jim goes to the locker room to doctor the wound he received when he slammed into Marty's desk. As produced, he just kind of dabs it with a paper towel, and though we see how ugly the wound is, that's pretty much all we get out of it. As written, however, that scene resonated nicely:

INT. LOCKER ROOM - CONTINUOUS

Dunbar goes to his locker and opens it. He pulls out a box of butterfly bandages and some antiseptic wipes. He then puts his left foot up on the bench and rolls his left pant leg up. We see the deep gash on his shin that came as a result of hitting the desk this morning, plus other bruises and scars he's collected over the last year. Dried blood has dripped down to his sock. He takes a wipe and cleans the wound and the dried blood -- wincing slightly as he does so -- then takes a bandage and covers the gash. There's a knock on the door.

BETTANCOURT (O.S.)
You okay?

DUNBAR
Yeah, it's nothing. Be right there.

He quickly pulls his pant leg down and puts the boxes into his locker.

A nice little treat for a dreary November afternoon, I'd say -- and an early Happy Thanksgiving to you all! ;D

[rducasey]

Ah, Maggie, thanks for that. You're right, it does brighten up a dreary Nov. afternoon. Loved to have cleaned up that cutting room floor.

[Chris]

I remember talking about getting to go through your stuff when moving but I never thought it would include going through your e-mail folders ;D

Thank you for this little treat, karma for finding it and sharing it with us

Take care and keep smiling
- Chris

[mlm828]

Thanks for finding and posting these snippets, mags! I remember your telling us about them, but it's interesting to read what was actually written.

I wonder why these bits were cut. Maybe the reference to "banging every girl in the two-five" was left out because they wanted Jim to be a "bad boy," but not that bad. I agree the scene of Jim tending to his injured leg would have been more powerful if shown as originally written. I have no idea why they watered it down as they did.

[maggiethecat]

It is intriguing to wonder why this stuff was cut, isn't it? I can understand -- almost -- the line about "banging every woman" being axed since we got that element of his backstory from Jim's later dialogue with Christie, when we were clearly given the sense that he had no compunctions about cheating if it suited him . . .

. . . but the line about "doing some growing up since then" is, I think, now open to another interpretation. Females on the job in general? Not that much of a problem, when compared with the off-the-wall concept of "blind guy on the job." Maybe the year-long fight to regain his job had given Jim a new sensitivity about those who were considered "not the norm" and were up against it; maybe he could relate, finally, to those who had to struggle for acceptance.

But as to why they "neutered" the scene where Jim revealed the kind of physical damage he'd suffered by banging into walls/furniture/whatever since the shoot-out, well, I too am sorry that this ended up on the cutting room floor. The show seemed to display no other such compunctions when it came to exposing Dunbar's angst -- why did this one get cut?

Thoughts, anyone?

[Deleted]

I believe nothing that comes from Zuzu - absolutely NOTHING - sorry - too much weirdness she was.......

[maggiethecat]

divinemrse said:

I believe nothing that comes from Zuzu - absolutely NOTHING - sorry - too much weirdness she was.......

I would agree, were it not for the fact that these snippets came from the pre-Justifications days, when it was just the old IMDB board. This is real stuff, sent to me back when we were chummy and there was no suspicion in the wind. And, when you get down to it, the actual lines have the ring of truth and reality.

Yeah, she turned out to be demented and attitudinal, but, in the beginning, she was trying to suck up to us and make nice-nice.

Believe it. It's real. The original message was dated May 1, 2005, when the show was still airing -- and which pre-dates the Beyond Justifications board and this one.

[Deleted]

Oh I believe you, just not her and her so-called "connections" - she nothing but an out of work "writer" last I recall.

[bjobsessed]

Wow, thanks, Maggie! You sure know how to brighten a 'sickie's' day! I'm glad you decided to clean out your email folder!

[matilda]

Love your kind of cull Mags - mine usually involve old clothes, toys etc.

Fascinating - do we take these seriously given the above comments re this zuzu person or whatever her name was.

If the banging thing was in it, so much would have been different - we make the assumption that there was only poor silly Anne based on stuff that was said in various eps, as Maggie says, but hey ho if the JD was a serial pest then maybe he'd be off my list. A one-off maybe, serial pest, nah. Interesting.

Dunno how much effect the other would have had - we saw enough I reckon.

Lovely diversion on lovely SPRING day here in this part of world.

Tks

Tilda

[Dreamfire]

matilda said:

Lovely diversion on lovely SPRING day here in this part of world.

Tks

Tilda

It's SPRING??? I am sure it hit 38 degrees today my goodness, feels like mid summer.

[Kasman]

ashatan said:

matilda said:

Lovely diversion on lovely SPRING day here in this part of world.

Tks

Tilda

It's SPRING??? I am sure it hit 38 degrees today my goodness, feels like mid summer.

...and I HATE summer!!!

Many thanks for the snippets. Most interesting.

[maggiethecat]

I would like to put to rest once and for all any suggestion that the script cuts I was sent weren't legitimate, just because the person who sent them to me was an aspiring writer who was either on meds or needed to be.

Yes, she eventually became more than a little wacky. For those of you who don't know, the founders and original members of this board met on the IMDb board for Blind Justice, which wasn't the right forum for the kind of analysis we all enjoyed. So Zuzuu and another IMDB member called Kyt founded Blind Justifications -- great fun but Zuzuu ran it like a private kingdom and eventually started banning anyone (including Kyt) who didn't adhere to her particular POV. (If you want to know how silly this all was, I was banned because I didn't like the Faux Astaire ending to the series and said so. ) So Shmeep and Housemouse founded this board and we've been here ever since. None of this has any bearing, I believe, on whether the script passages Zuzuu sent me were real. I believe she shared them with me because she thought I would enjoy them. End of story.

I didn't post the entire PM from her when I found it yesterday because, other than the scripted passages, the rest of it was Zuzuu's opinion. Since she's not a member here, I didn't feel like giving her "air time." I am posting the entire PM now, in blue:

Thanks for the note. It's definitely been nice to find other smart (and obsessed!) "Blind Justice" fans--I've really enjoyed the conversations we've been having on the boards with printsofdarkness and others...and I agree, it's been way too long since a show has come along that has proved so captivating and rewarding on that level.

I got the early scripts (for the pilot, "Rub a Tub Tub" and "Up on a Roof") from my agency. Just called and asked whether they had any BJ scripts, and a few hours later a little package arrived. Unfortunately they don't seem to have any of the later ones, but it was nice to get a few of them, certainly.

The show has really come around in terms of character development. I was a bit concerned after reading the scripts I had and then seeing the shows as produced, because it seemed that they were actively cutting OUT the nice little character stuff. It was tiny but, cumulatively, very important, and I was afraid that the show was heading toward becoming a bad knockoff of CSI rather than the good character drama I'd hoped for...I was so relieved when the cases started becoming better integrated with Jim's psychology and/or simply background music to the real meat of the show, which is character development and relationships.

Some of the nice little stuff in the scripts I read that never made it to the screen were:

In the pilot, in the conversation Karen has with Jim in the car after they've been to their first crime scene--the one where she reveals to Jim that she knows Anne Donnelly--Karen had a line that was a bit on-the-nose but that I'm a little sorry they cut:

BETTANCOURT
Anne said you had no problem
banging every girl in the two-five,
but parterning up with a female?
Females on the job in general?

DUNBAR
I've done some growing up since then.

BETTANCOURT
Good for you. Meantime, there's a
guy cutti! ng girls' tongues out and
I'm all of a sudden working a stolen car.

So you'll doubtless recognize most of that excerpt (thank goodness for TiVo and video recorders, right??! ), but that first line from Bettancourt was excised--but the ghost of that line is still there, I think, in some of the smaller tensions between Karen and Jim, and it's why I can't let go of the idea that, even though losing his sight has forced him to reconsider his prejudices and he is definitely trying very hard to overcome them, he's still a little sexist.

From "Rub a Tub Tub," a moment that survived in the episode as shot but was, in my view, completely neutered, was the one where Karen notices the stain on Jim's pant leg and Jim goes to the locker room to doctor the wound he received when he slammed into Marty's desk. As produced, he just kind of dabs it with a paper towel, and though we see how ugly the wound is, that's pretty much all we get out of it. As written, however, that scene resonated nicely:

INT. LOCKER ROOM - CONTINUOUS

Dunbar goes to his locker and opens it. He pulls out a box of butterfly bandages and some anti-septic wipes. He then puts his left foot up on the bench and rolls his left pant leg up. We see the deep gash on his shin that came as a result of hitting the desk this morning, plus other bruises and scars he's collected over the last year. Dried blood has dripped down to his sock. He takes a wipe and cleans the wound and the dried blood -- wincing slightly as he does so -- then takes a bandage and covers the gash. There's a knock on the door.

BETTANCOURT (O.S.)
You okay?

DUNBAR
Yeah, it's nothing. Be right there.

He quickly pulls his pant leg down and puts the boxes into his locker.

So, again, minor...but nice.

That said, the draft I read of "Up on a Roof" didn't impress me at all. Before that episode ran, I feared the worst--but was blown away. So somewhere in the development of tha! t script they seem to have figured out how to edge away from focusing on the cases and integrating the character stuff with the procedural stuff much better, and the episode as shot is about 10x better than the draft I read. And though I haven't read any subsequent scripts, I've thought every episode from that one on has been great, even though every week I find myself wondering how they can top themselves given how much they've already accomplished character-wise.

Anyway. Yeah, I, too, should focus the energy I've been spending on this show into my own work.

See you on the boards!

Zuzuu

[hoosier]

I never find something this interesting when I going sorting through stuff!

I have often wondered what criteria, standards etc. are used to determine what is cut and what is saved when editing. I would like to assume that it is to ensure that any rough or awkward dialogue/scenes are smoothed over, that scenes flow smoothly and advance the storyline etc. We all remember the bloopers so clearly, the editor fell asleep at the cutting board those days! Some of their final choices, I don't know. For example the looong dance scene in the final ep. What purpose did it really serve? Yes, Jim and Christie's marriage appeared to be on the mend. Yes, they had become rather proficient on the dance floor. Dance scene, shower/tub scene? Hmmm

Karen's cut line from the Pilot. The "females on the job" line seems a little out of left field. Even if Jim was "banging every girl in the 2-5" does that automatically mean he had something against women as cops or implies that he had a problem working with or partnering up with them? Sure, we weren't privy to his thoughts about being teamed with Karen and he would have been careful not to rock the boat by requesting to be partnered with someone (male) else when he had just gotten back to the job. Without more background/context, this line just doesn't seem to fit.

The locker room/injury scene. Too bad they did cut this one short. Simple in its essence, this scene was a perfect example of Jim's hard won stoicism.

[matilda]

Re "females on the job" and serial banging, it would have changed my whole preception.

My perception is contemporary dude, used to females on the job, clinging to blokey culture but fairly reasonable - if females on job line was in then would have added a sexist elememt to character - I didn't think he was a sexist as we knew him, just a capital B Bloke. Plenty of them around, bless em.

So the line would have added a whole different element to the character.

Similarly, serial pest behaviour of the banging nature.

Cheers!

ps soz re weather Ash, have heard it's been foul, down tomorrow only 23 I believe, have been warned to pack for all exigencies! M