Script Mother Professional Review: WoP S1 Ep1

Below is a review marked as professional by Script Mother, a screenplay reviewing website. This review is a reward for previously winning script of the month.

(Name is left out to preserve the anonymity of the reviewer)

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Very well-written universe and an interesting coming-of-age sci-fi script

Overall Rating: 40/100

Concept: Good

Story: Fair

Structure: Fair

Character: Fair

Dialogue: Fair

Concept/Story

First of, your action descriptions are very well-written. Your protagonist is strong and also has a fun, clever personality. The main issue with the story, however, is that it gets into the twist/action too fast. It's hard not to because you're dealing with a 30 minute pilot, but in your attempt to make her undergo the main transformation from human to werewolf, you end up sacrificing the building and setting up of her as a character. What I would suggest is focusing more on her motivation and the story behind her that ultimately gets her to the point of undergoing this significant transformation. A lot of times a pilot will leave out the big twist until the very end of the pilot. In other words, it's important to present your character and set her up as much as possible, then hit us with the big twist/climax.

You do a great job of immersing us in this futuristic universe where monsters and humans "co-exist", so to speak. But instead of pulling your character into this transformation halfway through the pilot, it's probably more important to give us more insight into her relationship with her environment. Why is Jacqueline so different from the others? Why does she hold alternate viewpoints from her colleagues? We assume she's worthy of being chosen to become the first werewolf, since she's the protagonist. But her being the protagonist can't just be the sole reason. She has to "earn" her place as the one who receives this gift/curse.

Structure

Structure is all about the choices a protagonist makes, and each choice takes her down a path which ultimately ends in the climax, which is the culmination of all her decisions up to that point. The climax is a point of no return, and sets your character, and us, on a journey that we want to stay on.

Character

As I mentioned, Jacqueline is a strong character. She's stubborn, set in her ways, and seems to be wise beyond her years. By this same token, she needs to have flaws as well. Perhaps her flaw is that she's reckless and rash in her decisions. If that's the case, this needs to be shown more in the script. A good example is Walter White from Breaking Bad. In the pilot for Breaking Bad, Walter comes off as extremely smart and capable of doing great things. He also cares for his family. But his flaws show through his greed and lust for a success that he never attained. So in a sense, his genius and strength is also his downfall.

I would suggest focusing more on setting up Jacqueline as a complex character beneath the high-energy action that takes place in your script. It feels like we should know more about her during the pilot. Right now, it feels like her transformation was forced and sudden, and we lose sight of her development as a character.

Dialogue

The dialogue flows well. The beginning scene with Jacqueline and her teacher is very clever and allows Jacqueline as a character to speak volumes. The pacing of the dialogue is also solid, as it's quick and smart throughout.

Overall Feedback/Conclusion

Overall, this is a great premise and the universe fits well, much to the credit of well-written action descriptions. I would definitely consider holding off on her transformation until the very end of the script. That way we get a cliff-hanger that makes us want to see the next episode.