Roanoke Valley Native in the Middle of ‘Middleman’

By Colleen Evans colleen.evans@roanoke.com 777-3521

After a stint on the WB’s “Charmed” and a couple years of hard work and uncertainty, Northside High School graduate Andy Reaser has landed a writing gig for the new ABC Family show “The Middleman.”

While the 33-year-old is not a head writer, he now has a great deal more responsibility thanks to a smaller staff (comprising about four) on “The Middleman.” Reaser was assigned to write two out of 13 episodes, one of which has already been shot (Episode No. 5, “The Flying Fish Zombification”) and is due to air July 14. His second episode (Episode No. 10, about vampiric puppets) began filming July 3.

Reaser has firm roots in the Roanoke Valley. He was born and raised in Salem and Roanoke, and has a master’s degree in creative writing from Hollins University. His sister, Sarah Reaser O’Brien, is also a recent graduate of Hollins.

Reaser and his wife moved to Los Angeles in 2002 where he began to pursue a career in television writing. In 2004, Reaser got a chance to write in an episode of “Charmed,” after working three years as a production assistant for the show. Reaser rode the “Charmed” train until it ended in 2005 after its eighth season.

In the intervening years, Reaser began putting in time with the ABC Family network, pitching pilot ideas and writing “webisodes,” which can be viewed online, for the show “Wildfire,” which recently concluded its final season. Then the writer’s strike hit, and finding jobs was tough.

But the time spent pitching ideas and making new contacts was well worth it. When the strike ended, ABC Family began to staff its new show, “The Middleman.” Reaser was recommended to the show’s creator, Javier Grillo-Marxuach. After an initial meeting, Reaser was hired as a writer.

Sci-fi not his thing

“The Middleman,” is a show about artist Wendy Watson and her struggle to balance her art, her friends, and saving the planet while battling evil for the worlds’ most secret organization, according to the show’s Web site. Grillo-Marxuach originally wrote it as a pilot but turned it into a three-part graphic novel for Viper Comics.

After the success of the comic, Grillo-Marxuach secured a pilot for his project and turned it back into a TV show. Parts of the original graphic novel have made their way into the TV version, but Reaser said the writing team has a lot of freedom and is not limited by what has already been created.

Instead, his boss enjoys watching the writers breathe their own life into the characters and plot. “He looks forward to our input as far as filling out and creating the world the characters live in,” Reaser said.

The writing process is a combination of individual creativity and team collaboration. “I would say that I’ve seen ideas of mine or discussions we had in every episode, and usually every scene you can see something you pitched or an idea you hopped in on,” Reaser said. And for the episodes he is personally assigned, he can write freely.

But the show’s creator isn’t worried about cohesiveness.

“Javi doesn’t mind if episodes seem different writer-to-writer,” Reaser explained. “He encourages every writer to pick something that’s dear to him or her and make one of the small characters, names or places that’s not a main plot component a reference to that thing.”

For example, in Reaser’s episode, he references the band The Zombies, while another of his co-writers used his interest in Indiana Jones.

The show is able to remain thematically consistent because the writers read each other’s scripts and outline together, allowing each to look for ways to reference other writers’ episodes.

Both “Charmed” and “The Middleman” have science fiction elements, but it is not a genre Reaser embraces.

“I am the least-interested person on the Earth in supernatural aspects,” he said. “But it just ended up being that way. I learned that when science fiction is good, it’s really a lot more about character development and what’s happening to people.”

Reaser is thankful for the way his writing is respected at “The Middleman.”

“In TV, your scripts can get changed a lot,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate on this show; I feel as though what’s on the screen is what I wrote.

“Watching the show is a surreal experience from the writer’s point of view. When you see it you remember what the day was like when that idea came up in the room and how it got shaped together.”

n “The Middleman”

Watch Andy Reaser’s episode tonight at 10 on ABC Family. His next episode will air Aug. 18.

(c) 2008 Roanoke Times & World News. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.