The Biggest Hit on Television

"Time Enough For Us"

I have a screenwriter friend who had not worked in a while, and it started to make him nervous.

Not the no-paycheck part of not working, as it turns out. Like a lot of writers I know, his household income comes mostly from his spouse who is, fortunately, an attorney specializing in large-scale financial transactions. In the mornings, she goes off to work in an office, carrying a lot of files and a jumbo commuter-cup filled with coffee. He shuffles over to his “home office,” which is a small room next to the laundry area.

During the day, they each do what they do best: he sits and stares at the computer, typing and deleting dialogue until the afternoon, while she bills enough hours to keep the bank from taking the house.

It works for them. No judgement here. Everyone’s marriage is a self-contained universe with mysterious customs and codes. If they’re happy, that’s all that matters.

The only problem was that people in his life keep asking him the same irritating question they ask all unemployed writers. “What are you working on these days?” They’d ask with a cheerful tone, and he’d stammer out a few lame evasions — “um, developing a lot of, uh, new ideas,” for instance, or “just about finishing up a, um,  television pilot, thingy, script” — but it was always clear from his high-pitched defensive tone of voice, and by the way he struggled with his answer, that what he was working on, these days, was Wordle.

The response was always the same: a sad, pitying look that said I am sorry for asking you to tell me that you’re failing.

He decided to solve the problem by doing what most people do when they’re asked uncomfortable questions. 

He lied.

“What am I working on?” he taught himself to say. “I’m doing a series called Time Enough for Us. Have you seen it?”

Which of course they had not, because Time Enough for Us doesn’t exist. Not on Netflix or Hulu or Paramount+ or HBOMax or Tubi or Starz or Peacock or anywhere else. But there are so many shows on so many networks that it’s really impossible to watch them all, let alone know which shows are real and which ones are made up by writers who spend all day in their bathrobes until twenty minutes before their spouses are due home from the office.

But what my friend discovered was that if a lie is highly specific — “I’m working on a show I created that’s an adaptation of an early twentieth century Hungarian novel, it’s called Time Enough for Us and was nominated for an Emmy last year, a historical romantic comedy, a cross between The Crown and When Harry Met Sally” — there are never any follow-up questions. If anything, people are slightly embarrassed that there’s a critically-acclaimed show that they haven’t heard of.  Some people, apparently, even told him that it was their favorite show.

The only reason I found out about this tactic was that another writer called me up last week to complain bitterly about our mutual friend and his “success.”

“Have you heard about him?” He asked. “He’s doing that show. He created that show, Time for Us or Never Enough Time for Us or something? You know that show?”

“I haven’t seen it,” I said. “What’s it called again?” I asked.

“Time For All of Us,” he said. “Or something. It’s apparently a big hit. Look, you know him, right? Will you call him and ask if they’re hiring more writers?”

When I did as asked and called the writer to see if he was open to hiring our mutual friend, he sighed loudly and told me the whole story.

Eventually, though, he is going to be found out. I asked him if he had a strategy for this.

“I do,” he told me. “The thing is, I’ve been lying about this for the past three weeks and the lie has become so detailed that a few days ago I decided to sit down and start writing Time Enough for Us, just exactly the way I’ve been lying about it. And I have to tell you, it’s pretty good. Wouldn’t it be amazing if it turns out that I really do have a show called Time Enough for Us?”

I told him that it’s a brilliant strategy and I wished him luck. Before I hung up I asked about his wife.

“She’s great,” he told me. “She just made partner at her law firm.”

Which is an even more brilliant strategy.