JUNE 25, 2006
INDEPENDENCE DAY
by Adam Targum
"Independence Day" is a story that went through several transformations -- some of its early titles were "Self Service" and "Pile Up." Originally, we wanted to do a story where Johnny was stuck in a situation, in a sort of a repeating vision, and he didn't know what the punchline was. He saw something terrible happen, but didn't know how he could prevent it.
In our original form, we had it set in the diner. Johnny and Bruce were having a meal, and Johnny kept seeing terrible things happen in the future. Each time he would have the vision, there would be a different person there in the diner involved in the final tragedy at the end. Johnny's mission was, obviously, to put all the pieces together and solve it.
The mechanism we had used is that we kept coming back to the same starting point: Johnny and Bruce sitting in the diner and having that same meal. But, when we took a step back and looked at it, it had a very similar device that was used in "Déjà Voodoo," which was a very successful and great episode.
Our goal then became to find another device that we could use to accomplish the same episode structure, but do it a little bit differently. Then, we sort of landed on the notion of Johnny and Bruce stuck in traffic and we moved out of the diner.
The kernel of the episode was always: what if Johnny saw something terrible happen to Bruce in the future and how could he prevent this from happening? This is a pretty typical "in" for the story but, in this case, we started off with Bruce very pointedly telling Johnny that he doesn't want Johnny to tell him anything about his future.
Bruce is tired of Johnny knowing everything. I believe the line in the script is: "You think being a psychic is hard, but try being best friends with one. That's hard!" All of Bruce's secrets and personal life and everything are really an open book to Johnny. So, the episode starts off with Bruce saying he doesn't want to know anything about his future; he doesn't want Johnny touching him any more or seeing anything.
Of course, right off the bat, Johnny sees that Bruce is going to be killed in a car accident sometime in the very near future. So, that really put a ticking clock on the episode and, when we come back after the commercial, Johnny and Bruce become stuck in a Fourth of July traffic jam.
For Johnny, this is seemingly a good thing. If Bruce isn't driving, the accident can't happen. It seems the tragedy has been averted, but that sense of calm is short-lived.
For this episode, what we really thought would be fun would be to really play up the strong Johnny and Bruce camaraderie -- you know, two buddies on the road for a getaway. Certainly, there have been great examples over the first four seasons where it was their banter and their relationship that was so much fun. So, our goal here was to really play on that and, also, to really give Michael Hall an opportunity to have some comedic beats because he does that so well.
I, personally, am very proud of the levity -- there are some moments that, I think, are a lot of fun -- there are just some great smiles and real laughs in the episode that are peppered into the urgency of saving your best friend.
As the episode goes on, it really snowballs. Johnny not only sees Bruce's death, but also that of two brothers, a young couple in peril, and some kids in real danger. Ultimately, this terrible tragedy is coming, but Johnny doesn't know how to stop it because he doesn't know what the cause is and how all these seemingly unrelated people and events tie together.
As the episode and tension builds, we ultimately find out what it all means and our hero Johnny Smith gets to save the day!
That's pretty much how the story came about. What made this episode very exciting, of course, is that Chris Bruno directed it. It was really nice to have someone who is so intimately involved in the show at the helm. And when the opportunity came around to cast his brother in the guest star role that, also, really made this episode extra special.
Thanks for watching. I hope you enjoy next week's episode "Panic" -- I wrote that one, too!
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