TV Mandarins, Meet The Viewer (Part Two)

This is the second part of my interview with Diane Kristine--let's call her the uberviewer -- from Unified Theory of Nothing Much. For Part One, click here.

DTOS: How much do the following ways of finding out about a show influence your decision to sample a show? You can give a 1 to 10 answer, one being not very
much, 10 being absolutely important -- and if you want to make a comment about how you use these different methods, go ahead.

-On-air promos on the station.

3 - The problem is if I'm not watching shows on that channel in the first place (hello CBC), I can't catch the promos for others. And I don't tend to watch commercial breaks.

-Internet-based articles.

10 - I do most of my news gathering on the Internet, both for newsy news and entertainment news, so this is how I find out about most television shows. For American TV, I get most of my news from tvtattle.com, which gathers stories published elsewhere, and The Futon Critic, which gathers information from the networks. As far as I know, there's nothing like those sites for Canadian TV, so coming across information about a Canadian show is pretty hit and miss.

-Reviews by television critics.

9 - Which isn't to say that a critic has to rave about something for me to tune in. A proper review will give me a hint of whether I might find the show appealing, whether or not the critic does. The reviews I read of Love Monkey, for example, were mixed, but it sounded like something I'd like (and the on air promos looked good, and I like Tom Cavanagh,and I liked the book it was based on).

-National Magazine/Newspaper Articles.

2 - Mostly only if I can find them online. There's the laziness again, but if they want to reach me where I am, that's online.

-Outdoor/Advertising in other media

1 - I've never seen a static ad for a show that's intrigued me enough to decide to watch.

-Word of Mouth/The Water Cooler

3 - Not too important, just because many of the main water cooler shows are ones that tend not to interest me. At work, there's lots of conversation about reality shows, sometimes the heavily serialized ones that keep people guessing. But if I haven't been on board from the beginning, I'm not going to jump in and start watching 24 midway through the season. I did start watching the X-Files after a couple of seasons because so many people I knew raved about it, but that's probably my most recent example of word of mouth that prompted me to watch something. Well, I finally caved and rented Lost, so we'll see how that goes, but that was a combination of several of these factors.

-DVD

5 - I love the opportunity to catch up on shows I missed, though I have to be pretty motivated to want to watch a show in that concentrated way. That's how I watched Six Feet Under and Sex and the City, because at the time I didn’t have access to the channels they aired on.

-Star power

6 - Using a loose interpretation of the word "star" though. I originally tuned in to House because I tend to like medical shows, but also because I was a fan of Hugh Laurie and intrigued at seeing him as an American in a drama. I watched the Grey's Anatomy pilot for the medical show reason and the strong female focus, but also because I liked Sandra Oh. I don't have to recognize the cast to tune in to a show, but I am more likely to check something out because it has an actor I like in it, as long as there are other factors to interest me.

Canadian TV probably suffers from the opposite effect. It sometimes seems like there's three working actors in Canada, and they carry the baggage of any past bad shows they've been in. If I've seen the actor in several cheesy shows, I'm probably less likely to tune in. There's only a few Canadian "stars" I can think of off the top of my head who might make me check out what they're up to – Don McKellar, Rick Mercer, Sarah Polley.

DTOS: What kinds of things attract you to a show? Is there a common thread in the shows you like?

I think so, though it sounds pretty vague when I try to describe it: strong characters, intelligence, sarcastic/witty sense of humour (god, that sounds like I'm describing what I find attractive in the opposite sex). Characters are probably more important than plot to me. I love dramas that are funny, like Picket Fences and Ally McBeal (I had a thing for David E. Kelley shows until I turned on him), or comedies that have strong dramatic elements, like Sports Night or The Office.

Medical shows have a strangely big appeal, considering how squeamish I am. M*A*S*H, St. Elsewhere, early ER, Chicago Hope, Scrubs, House, Grey's Anatomy are/were some favourites. Maybe that's the key to Canadian shows not reaching me – not enough medical shows. But really, I have little interest in American politics and yet The West Wing is probably my favourite show of all time. For me, the best shows transcend their setting to be character studies, and often talk about issues that interest me.

DTOS: How important is it for a show to "make you feel something?" in deciding
whether you'll keep watching it?

Fairly important, though it depends on the type of show. I'm not saying everything has to be deep or touching. I loved Moonlighting for its frothiness. Arrested Development made me laugh and admire its cleverness – I didn't feel anything profound.

DTOS: Do you need to like the characters in the show you watch? Admire them? Or
simply find them compelling?

I don't have to like or admire them completely or even mostly, but I have to find them compelling. I think ER did a good job early on of having characters I disliked, like Weaver and Benton and Romano, but giving them enough shades to their characters that they were intriguing, not just black-hatted villains. Conversely, I wouldn't like House as much if I always agreed with his actions and didn't think he's an outright bastard sometimes. That's what makes him interesting.

And I don't have to relate to the characters. In shows I like, sometimes I do see something of myself in the characters, sometimes it's sort of an anthropological fascination (Sex and the City, for example, or Arrested Development).

But I don't think I could like a show if I disliked all the characters, either. I wouldn't have watched ER if it was all about those three characters.

DTOS: Is your relationship to other art in your city the same as your relationship to homegrown TV, or different? How aware are you of homegrown music, art, theatre, authors, etc.?

I'd never thought about it, but I'm far more clueless about TV than anything else (I mean, culturally speaking). I haven't felt the need to pay close attention to other forms of Canadian culture. They're just there. I've worked and volunteered with arts groups, studied Canadian literature in school. If I want to see theatre, I'm not going to hop a plane to New York for the latest Broadway production. If I want to see an art exhibit, I'm not going to MoMA. If I want to watch TV, I have many, many channels I can watch, mostly American – and most of the Canadian channels show mostly American shows - so Canadian TV is more overshadowed by its competition.

Also, papers like the Georgia Straight cover the local music and arts scene, including movies, so I have an awareness of what's out there, but I haven't noticed television coverage.

Plus there's no culture of appreciation for Canadian TV in non-industry circles. There's a grassroots organization promoting Canadian movies (the First Weekend Club), but as far as I know, no one is championing Canadian television to the public.

That would be a fine line, though, because desperation doesn't sell. If someone tells me I have a duty to watch Canadian television, I'm perverse enough that I'll not want to watch it because of that. It shouldn't be cod liver oil or charity. But I'd like to at least be able to easily find out what's out there and what's interesting about it, so I can decide for myself if I want to watch. Not because it's Canadian, but because it's good.

I think the real key is that, except philosophically, I don't care if something's Canadian or not. And I don't choose my leisure activities based on philosophical principles.

I don't read Ann-Marie MacDonald or Yann Martel or Rohinton Mistry because they're Canadian – I read them because they write books I like. They get prominence in book stores and in arts journalism, so there's no extra effort to dig them up. And they're not fighting any stigma like, oh, the binding is just not as slick as an American book, and we just can't afford the good typefaces like American books can.

Philosophically, I do think it's important to have Canadian talent and stories valued, in every form. But I don't know what makes a story Canadian other than the fact that a Canadian talent writes it. I don't really care where something's set. Toronto's nearly as foreign to me as Tisdale, and I know Seattle better than either of them. You're not going to hook me with overt Canadiana, unless it's something like The Mercer Report. You might hook me with an attitude or character that strikes a chord with whatever it means to be Canadian to me, but that's not likely to be a Mountie and his quirky townspeople.


Thanks, Diane, for taking the time to give us the viewer perspective.

I remember years ago going to the Genie Awards (Canada's Oscars, only, so not...) This is when they were being run on CBC to tragically low ratings, just before they turned to what they are now: a show in French. Anyway, person after person tramped up to the stage and got their awards and berated an audience (who wasn't watching) that "we keep making these great films, but you won't go see them..."

And as I sat down there in the audience, all I could think is, "what enterprise has ever succeeded by blaming their customers for not buying their produt?"

Of course, this is exactly what the music industry is doing right now, too, so maybe we went through the looking glass when I wasn't looking.

In any case, I'm dead sure that -- if the success of Corner Gas, Degrassi, and even Trailer Park Boys says anything, it's that Canadians WILL watch homegrown shows. Let's merely move off that debate point forever, because it's silly and untrue.

But I think Diane's answers (and I know they're simply anecdotal, not a meticulously researched representative sample) can point the way to things we need to do better as an industry in this country.

And that's what I'll talk about next time.