FORGOTTEN BOOK: AIMEE AND DAVID THURLO'S ELLA CLAH: THE PILOT SCRIPT

Aimee an David Thurlo's Ella Clah:  The Pilot Script by Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin  (2013)

Bestselling mystery writers Aimee and David Thurlo produced seventeen popular novels about F.B.I. agent Ella Clah, plus an additional novel about Ella's mother, Rose Destea.  Ella is a Navajo, whose Christian minister father and traditionist mother often fought on how to raise their two children, as the parents' divergent beliefs tore the family apart.  Ella ran from the reservation, got a college degree, and joined the F.B.I. as the only Navajo agent in the Bureau; she never returned to the reservation.  Ella is tough, capable, and has an unvarnished record of accomplishment, but her chances of advancement in the Bureau are slim because of her sex and her race.  Ella's brother, Clifford, remained on the reservation and became a traditional medicine man, spurning his father's religious teachings.  Ella's father's ministry took him to every corner of the reservation in his moving "church" -- a converted ice cream truck.  Ella's parents, although living apart, have reconciled their differences and each now "walk in beauty," a Navajo term for finding balance between all the conflicting parts of one's life.

This basic background varies from that of the novels.  Some changes were necessary to overcome some of the practical problems of television production..  Goldberg and Rabkin met with the Thurlo's and gained with their enthusiatic approval for the direction of the proposed series.  (In the books, Ella left the F.B.I. to become a special investigator for the Navajo Tribal Police; for the proposed series, she remained with the F.B.I., stationed in their Albuquerque office with her Mexican-American partner Alfonso Mardones.)  The basics for the proposed series were worked out in late 2001, and Goldberg and Rabkin produced a treatment, which they pitched to CBS Productions, which, in turn, sent it up the ladder to the CBS Network.  The proposal was met enthusiastically and a pilot script was ordered and various casting suggestions were made.

And there it sat.  The pilot was never made and the show was never aired.  "Failure is the norm in television, whether it's in the development stage or once the show gets on the schedule.  It's rare for a pilot script to get shot.  Getting your produced pilot picked up to series is like winning the lottery.  Surviving for a full season is a miracle."  So why wasn't the show picked up?  "The reasons probably had less to do with the quality of the script than with the counterprogramming strategies, internal politics, prior commitments to studios and talent (stars, directors, and writer/producers), compatibility with existing shows, and the number of open time slots the network has to fill."  Reading the script comvinces me that the network goofed up big time in passing on this series.  This could have been a winner.  

A check with IMDb shows that the series remains "in development" more than two decades later.  So good luck with that.  Eventually, Goldberg and Rabkin released the pilot script in book form in 2013 -- it was just too good to just have fade away.

Ella, stationed in the Chicago office, has just single-handedly stopped a major bank robbery, subduing seven criminals.  She's hoping to get an open slot on the Special Investigations Unit, but instead is told to report to Albuquerque to help in the investigation of the death a Navajo anthropology professor, obstensibly because she's the only Navajo in the Bureau but, in reality, higher-ups want her sidetracked.

Arriving in New Mexico, she finds the F.B.I. officials there are not really intersted in pursuing the case; it's easier to believe this was a matter of a simple mugging.  Ella's cultural background shows the death to be murder, and the death to be a ritual murder.  Also involved is a church opposed by many Navajos; the church is being under constructed for Ella's father.  Leading the opposition is Ella's brother, who may be a suspect in the killing.  A death two months earlier is tied to the professor's death.  Then a tribal police officer who may have had a handle on the case is murdered.

Ella is forced to confront her past as well as the resentments of her own people before she can find a way to the solution.

There is an authentic feel to the script, which brings in tribal lore and customs, as well as racial and social tensions.  And there's a lot here to cram into a single hour episode, but the scripters make it work.  Suspense, humor, personal conflicts, and a great main character add to making this one a winner.

Recommended.

The Thurlos were the authors of numerous mystery and romance novels, many of them drawing on native American themes and culture.  David Thurlo was raised as a non-native on a Navajo reservation and taught school there until his retirement.  Aimee Thurlo was born in Havana, but spent most of her life in the United States.  She met her husband when she happened to move next door to his apartment; three weeks later they were married.  Both their marriage and writing partnership prospered for over forty years until Aimee passed away from cancer in 2014.  Their other main characters include Sister Agatha, a former investigative reporter and teacher now in a cloistereed. financially distressed monastery in New Mexico, Charlie Henry, a former special ops professional who now runs a pawn shop in New Mexico, and (on the preternatural side) Lee Nez, a vampire who is also a New Mexico State Police officer.  The Thurlos have received a Romantic Times Career Achievement Award, a Willa Cather Award for Contemporary Fiction, and the New Mexico Book Award for Mystery and Suspense. 

Lee Goldberg is a best-selling mysery and suspense author, as well as a noted writer/producer of television and films, and an international consultant for the television industry.  Among the TV crime series he has worked on are Diagnosis:  Murder, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, Hunter, Spenser:  For Hire, She-Wolf of London. 1-800-Missing, The Glades, and Monk.  He is the author of numerous mysteries, including fifteen original novels about the television character Adrian Monk, nine original novels in the Diagnosis:  Murder series, the .357 Vigilante series (originally published as by "Ian Ludlow" and currently referred to as the Jury series), the Charlie Willis series about a Hollywood troubleshooter, the Ian Ludlow series of thrillers (in which th main character shares the name of Goldberg's early pseudonym), the Eve Ronin series about the youngest detective in the history of the  LA County Sheriff's Office, the Sharpe & Walker series about two LA Sheriff's Department arson investigators, the Fox and O'Hare series of caper novels written with Janet Evanovich, and at least half dozen stand-alone novels.  In addition, Goldberg has written a number of books about the television industry.  He is also the publisher of Brash Books and Cutting Edge Books, both focusng on innovative and classic crime novels.  He is the co-founder of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers.  Goldberg has been nominate twice for an Edgar Award and twice for a Shamus /Award.  He was given the Malice Domestic Poirot Award in 2012.

William Rabkin is a television producer and writer, working often with Goldberg as his writing partner.  He wrote five tie-in novels to the Psych television series, and (with Goldberg and a number of co-authors) wrote the 22 books in The Dead Man series about a man who cannot die and who is trying to stop the embodiment of evil from committing  mass murder.  Rabkin also wrote the reference books Successful Television Writing (with Goldberg), Beginning Television Writing, and Writing the Pilot.  He treaches screenwriting at UC Riverside's Low-Resident Graduate Creative Writing Program and is an assistant director of the MFA program at Long Island University.