Father Brown, "The Dark Lantern"

This is my first of six tv spec scripts that I have written so far for this BBC murder-mystery series. Although this story is my own take on the series and its characters, it is technically a "sequel"/follow-up of sorts to an episode they did in their most recent previous season (season 8), called "The Wisdom of the Fool", the premise of which was a travelling troupe of Jesters who turn out to be a secret gang of assassins/vigilantes who come to the little village of Kembleford where Father Brown (the local parish priest and amateur sleauth) resides, seeking vengence on criminals who've escaped justice. That premise, the idea of a gang assassins masquerading as a travelling troupe of jesters/magicians/other circus-type performers, had always been one that I had wanted to write a story about myself, and since the "Father Brown" series beat me to it, I decided I could still use my own ideas for it and apply it to this follow-up episode that I've written, in which I expanded upon some of the interesting story/character beats that they hinted at in their episode yet I felt weren't fully explored, leaving the possibilities open for potential character arcs and further conflicts using the original episode as a springboard. In addition to the usual regular cast of characters on the show, I also created a new villain/antagonist who has ties to the Society of Jesters, yet is still entirely my own creation/character idea. In addition to the callbacks/references to that one particluar episode ("The Wisdom of the Fool"), I also tried to use as many other callbacks/references to running gags, character quirks, and other back story elements to the show from past episodes of the series over the years so that regular fans of the show would recognize and appreciate. I also wanted to demonstrate this spec as a showcase to the producers of the Father Brown series itself to show them that I have done my research on the series as a whole and that I know how to write an episode in the style and tone of the show, with an excellent grasp of the character voices; in fact, the other writers and readers (especially the ones I know in the UK through writer's groups on Twitter) who have read this and my other Father Brown specs have told me that my scripts read and sound just like an actual episode of the show, a comment that I often received about spec scripts that I wrote for other tv shows ("Frasier", "Modern Family", "Monk", etc.) in the past. One of my greatest strengths as an ND/ASD writer is being able to mimic the exact style and character voices of whatever show it is that I am doing a spec for; and in this case, I feel as though this is best work/writing yet, since I feel more passionately about writing for this series than I ever have for any previous show (and I'm not even a Catholic, I just love the comic-chemistry of the cast from a writer's perspective, and the general style of the show is a light-comedy, period-murder-mystery, which fits my writing style exactly, since the two biggest influences on my own writing style were P.G. Wodehouse and Agatha Christie, and this series is a perfect blend of the two). I'm aware that the BBC's policy is usually not to accept script submissions from non-UK writers, but since my writing style is so British-sounding after a lifetime of watching and absorbing British tv shows and reading British authors, I feel that my writing style is definitely more British than American (in fact, several of the UK writers who read these specs said they not only sounded "authentically" British, but they didn't even realise I was American until I told them!), and I would absolutely move to the UK once I was able to secure a good writing gig, should I be able to actually get the BBC to option these scripts. I'm aware that they also don't do "writer's staff rooms" on British tv shows the way they usually do with American ones, but they do however tend to have regular contributing writers to Father Brown, and I feel with my determined commitment to prove I have quite a few good ideas to contribute myself, I would love to become one of their regular writers. The fact that this is only the first of five spec scripts that I've churned out so far (I'm also nearly finished with a 7th spec for it as well, which continues the substory/character-arc thread I laid the groundwork for in "The Dark Lantern") will hopefully demonstrate that commitment, as well as my writing skills! This first spec I wrote for them is a good colourful yarn of revenge and "things are not what they seem", and it's been enjoyed by both Father Brown fans as well as other writers/readers who don't even know the show, but still enjoyed these specs so much that they've said they were going to start watching the show because of them! I've also now written an original pilot in the same light-comedy murder-mystery genre, called "Hawkwood" (same Wodehousian/Christie tone & similar setting/quirky characters as Father Brown, but with a more charmingly "devilish" detective MC than the Padre), which I intend to use as my calling card to submit to the Father Brown producers, since for legal/copryright issue reasons, they require that an original pilot be submitted through a UK agent (which I'm also still looking for) before they can read my actual specs for it.