Get yourself a "Billion-Dollar Kiss"

What is the value of a TV writer’s blood? It’s a question posed early and often in Jeffrey Stepakoff’s “Billion Dollar Kiss: The Kiss That Saved Dawson's Creek and Other Adventures in TV Writing” (Gotham House, $26), a book anyone serious about breaking into the TV business has probably already pored through (though it’s been out just a little more than a week), and a book anyone considering an assault on the industry would do well to read.

Your Mayor greatly enjoyed “Billion Dollar Kiss,” and not just because the author was my first interviewee ever to salute me as the Mayor of Television when I got him on the phone. Part memoir, part trenchant analysis of the TV industry and all utterly entertainingly readable, it may be the closest the Television industry has to “Adventures in the Screen Trade,” William Goldman’s immortal dissection of the film business. (Though Stepakoff has stepped away recently from the industry, entrenching his family in Atlanta, the networks would be well-served by his sane insights into their struggles.)

Stepakoff worked on a lot of shows, such as (the ones his author bio on the book flap mentions) “The Wonder Years” and “Dawson’s Creek” and (many not mentioned on the book flap, like) “Simon & Simon,” “Major Dad” and “Sisters.” He made a lot of money, and was somewhat astonished that he was doing so. Stepakoff never seems to develop the world-weary cynicism most of his colleagues fall into, though he scarcely remains the wide-eyed innocent who began his career back in the late ’80s. (In the book, he does something that seems a bit of an industry no-no: He actually explains, step-by-step, how much TV writers make – for the first-run of a series’ episode, for its repeat and on and on if it goes into syndication. And it’s impressive money.)

The author takes readers into writers rooms, where desperate scribes throw anything at the wall, hoping something will stick (though I imagine his account is just a smidgen sanitized). He examines the shameful disparity in minority writers in TV, but, rather than ascribing the situation to institutionalized racism, he blames in on a more subtle (and more myopic) issue: Showrunners simply prefer to hire people they’re friends with, people they’re comfortable hanging out with, and many of them just don’t have that many minority friends. (Though, if you think about it, how likely is it that a showrunner is friendly with only very talented writers?)

And he examines the death of the sitcom, which began, he notes, around the time the FCC allowed the broadcast networks ownership of the shows they aired. Before that, he points out, boutique TV studios such as MTM churned out quality programming because they could work relatively independent of network meddling; afterwards, network executives fretted over every detail, fairly emasculating the actual creators of the shows.

The title refers to the chaos and tantrums that exemplified life on “Dawson’s Creek” in seasons two and three, before its course was righted by Greg Berlanti (who later created “Everwood,” similarly rescued “Brothers & Sisters” from its own chaos and will have “Big Shots” on ABC in the fall) with a simple edict: The show was about a love triangle between Dawson, Pacey and Joey.

Stepakoff stepped into the industry at the best possible time, by his reckoning, as he also essays the crazy period in which even fairly green TV writers found networks and studios throwing insane amounts of money at them for mere development deals.

Some might find the more personal details in the book a little indulgent, but they’re there to give the reader a fuller view of a writer’s life, not just on the lot, but how personal affairs affect professional considerations (which, in the end, provides even fuller insight into how the industry works). Stepakoff name-drops some industry icons – Steven Bochco, John Wells, etc. – but the only time the book really left me feeling a bit cheated was his seemingly truncated account of his brief but memorable collaboration with David Milch, the bomb-throwing genius behind “NYPD Blue,” “Deadwood” and the upcoming “John From Cincinnati.”

I just know Stepakoff has some great Milch stories and that he’s holding back on us. Looks like I’ll have to contrive to interview him again.