Cindy...wait. You're taking something that wasn't meant the way you're
responding to it.

The only way that B5 has been able to turn into something of quality is
because everyone involved checked their egos at the door. What you have to
do, in an environment like that, is to invite everyone to express an opinion.
But you have to remember that it's a two-way street; some of the best things
about the show came out of arguments that were absolute knock-down drag-outs,
not against each other, but against or for ideas and concepts and approaches.
That we all respected each other was a iven, so we were free to just argue
relentlessly with each other and we knew it was never personal.

Everyone down to the guy who make the meals was free to tell me I was
full of it (and did, often, btw), and I was free to do the same. What I have
always respected most is someone who can intellectually counterpunch. You
made a point. Strongly. I disagreed. Strongly. Now don't tell me you're
hurt, stand your ground and tell me WHY I'm wrong. You can be hurt and
wrong, or you can be hurt and right. You shouldn't be hurt because it wasn't
meant personally, and was strictly a response to the ideas and context and
concepts you suggested.

Neither you, nor I, should have to softpedal our opinions here, because
as soon as that happens, it becomes about ego rather than about what's
actually *right* in any given situation. You felt strongly about your
opinion. I could have come back with a "Gee, I'm hurt by that," which btw
would have been marginally true...and totally irrelevant. What I had to do
was come back at you, just as strongly, with why I felt that you were wrong.
Now it's your serve.

I don't view this as a game, btw, but rather the ONLY way in which
anything decent ever gets done. Case in point...when I was working on TZ, I
wrote up a first draft of a script that I thought was just spiffy, endlessly
terrific. Gave it to my Spousal Overunit to read, expecting she'd love it.
She did...but had a real problem with the ending. It just didn't work. And
we went round and round on that for DAYS, and gradually, she whittled down the
arguments and punched holes in some fuzzy logic on my part, and finally I
stormed off to my office and looked at the script, and was sufficiently
provoked into taking a different and better approach.

If you feel every bit as strongly now about your point of view as you did
then, then say so, and go over my reply and tell me why I'm full of it. If
you can't convince me, I'll come back just as strongly, and if we're actually
having a DISCUSSION, rather than just trying to score points...if what we're
after is what's correct, then sooner or later one of us will convince the
other.

This is one of the dangers in soliciting opinions. To an opinion that
takes exception to the work, there are several responses. The best and
easiest is "Yes, you're right," and there've been plenty of those; both the
day of the presentation, and in the Sunday discussion, some very good points
were brought up. Another response, usually an attempt to get rid of someone,
is "I'll think about it." Which is just a way to shrug off dissident
opinions. I respect a contrary point of view too much to just dismiss it.
Better to argue it out, find the strong points or weak points in the argument,
and see if it holds water.

If a point of view crumbles under heat, it wasn't strongly held or
properly explained.

Joey and others mentioned the viewer, at the promo screening, who took
great umbrage in my comments that this would run five and no more. He offered
his opinion, and seemed genuinely upset that, having said no to studio
opinions and fought hard to have this my OWN voice, that I wouldn't let myself
be swayed on this point by HIS voice. It's okay to fight someone's opinion if
that person works for the studio or the network; when its the guy in the
audience, he reacts with "Hey! Wait a minute!" and gets offended.

You and others are free to say anything and everything you want; I take
no criticism personally, however strongly voice. And it's got to run both
ways. If you feel strongly about something, and I come back, it isn't a slap
in the face, it's a discussion. Heated, perhaps, but that's all it is, and
somehow, with luck, the truth will emerge. Do you want me to softpedal my
responses or lie out of politeness? My guess is not. And I feel the same;
the first person to softpedal a criticism to me should bug out now, because at
that point the dialogue has become useless.

Fight for what you think is right. I will.

jms