-Masterscript-



Writers had encountered the masterscript theory before. In 1934, Ring Lardner and Robert Benchley reported sighting crumpled wads of paper in Alexander Wollcott's "Wit's End" apartment, which, based on their independent descriptions, resembles the first, second and third seasons of "Three's Company."

The Manhattan project brain trust committed the masterscript to paper a decade later, in the summer of 1944. It contained every possible television plot, sans proper names, and the mathematic formula used to separate, structure and arrange episodes for proper use. It was just over 12,000 words long.

Television producers initially panicked at the brevity of the masterscript, fearing a swift exhaustion of creative resources. But behavioral scientists quickly pointed to early studies of television viewers.

Take a picture of an actor with a neutral expression. Juxtapose the image with an image of another object, perhaps a bowl of gazpacho soup. Two slides, taken at different times, at different locations. But seen together.. Viewers connected the two as cause and effect. "He looks hungry."

The viewers can always be trusted to compensate for a lack of content. As a result, the same plots can be stretched, repeated and reapplied, ad infinitum. On one channel, three, or a thousand. A renewable resource -

- Unless you've seen the masterscript. Because once you've read it, once you've seen the plots laid end to end, compensation for content is impossible. No more reruns, not ever.

At least, that's the story. Let's find it, shall we? Disseminate the script, disarm the glowing box - live in a post-television age.