So I’m sitting there watching the November 4 episode of
Fringe (title: “Novation”) and slowly my jaw drops as I realize how much of it is stolen…from Matt Costello and me.
In case you missed it,
Fringe is developing a story line about beings from alternate Earth called shapeshifters who possess a special cellular structure. With the help of an implanted disc, they can sample anyone’s DNA and become a perfect copy (down to the base-pair level) of that other person. The disk stores the various genomes and can switch between them.
Flashback to 1998: Warner Aspect publishes a novel by Matt Costello and me called
Masque. It centers around secret agents called “mimes” who have a special mimetic DNA (mDNA) that can be programmed to copy anyone else’s DNA. All they have to do is slip in a template disk encoded with that genome and their bodies change into a perfect copy of that person down to the molecular level. They also have blank programmable disks that can copy a DNA sample, allowing them to “steal” anyone’s genome on the fly.
Notice any similarity? Come on. Just a little?
They say you can’t copyright an idea. Fine. But this is a lot more than a mere idea, this is a process, this is a whole
technology. It’s also the same plot – using these beings to infiltrate a rival group.
And it’s not as if Hollywood has never seen
Masque. It’s been floating around since Tom Cruise’s production company (Cruise-Wagner) optioned it for Polygram Pictures immediately after publication. When Polygram folded, so did the deal, but numerous game companies have been interested in adapting it to interactive form (which was how we’d originally conceived it).
Am I angry? Sadly, no. I say sadly because this seems to be the way writers work these days. Disheartened is more like it. Where I come from, writers honor each other’s work. But the second-raters are always with us. They’ll rip you off without so much as a by-your-leave because odds are they’ll get away with it. (Not always: Just last week
Little, Brown yanked the Q. R. Markham novel, “Assassin of Secrets,” for plagiarizing dozens of writers, including Robert Ludlum.)
Since TV is such a collaborative process, the writers of this particular script might well be clueless as to the origin of the technology. But whoever introduced it into the story conferences had to have read
Masque. It’s too…damn…close.
I’m not the litigious sort, and don’t keep lawyers on retainer like Fox, but, you know, a little tip of the hat would be nice.
If you want to check out what I’m talking about, the episode, “Novation,” is
here and the novel is available as an ebook under its preferred title,
DNA Wars.
Judge for yourself.