Review: Why Durham County Rocks

For whatever reason, it seems, Canadians have a dark streak. Dark and a little perverse.

It's not something we talk about. We're generally far more comfortable looking south to the USA and tut-tutting at every school shooting and eruption of crazed murder and mayhem. "There," we tell ourselves. "There is a nation on the brink; we're fine."

There are cracks in the firmament, of course. Years ago, the CBC did a very successful miniseries about Colin Thatcher, a popular prairie cabinet minister who went to jail for killing his wife. Here in Ontario, the scars are still fresh from the horrible Karla Homolka-Paul Bernardo murders in the 1990's. Out west in Vancouver, people I worked with were split pretty evenly between those who couldn't tear their eyes away from the Robert Pickton trial, and those who simply didn't want to know anything about the whole sordid business.

Being Canadian means being a questioner. We see the larger American culture next to us in a fishbowl. Now and again the glass of the fishbowl distorts, and to paraphrase Nietzsche, as we stare into the abyss we find the abyss staring back at us.

I think that's generally given Canadians -- at least the ones in the cultural realm -- a serious case of the Heebie Jeebies. Canadian film is generally dark and odd, and though many will deny it, I kind of think that a lot of that comes from looking at the prevailing American view of the hero, and heroic figures, and seeing it as a whole lot of bullshit. That makes you want to go poke the body and roll it over and see what's underneath.

We tend not to trust heroes in this country -- unless they're simple and sanctified, like Wayne Gretzky and Terry Fox. We put our trust in institutions more than individuals. You can find it all in the dueling mottoes of both nations: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness (which, as you students of history will know, was a last minute change from the more honest, but less soaring, "pursuit of property,") versus Peace, Order, and Good Government.

The problem with our cultural warriors: Canadians like to be entertained, too. And Lord knows those simple hero narratives the U.S. churns out by the flatload fill a nice, cheeseburger sized hole in us, as well.

The Americans manage to make heroes of Tony Soprano and Scarface. When you witness the American Dream 24/7 but don't really buy it, how do you make a hero narrative?

Durham County serves us up a hero, and then muddies the waters right away. As those waters grow murkier, the choices you're forced to make as an audience, the value judgements you're forced to generate -- are never pre-digested and easy. This is a show that keeps you involved by continually forcing you to evaluate how you feel about what you're seeing.

Mike Sweeney is a hard-boiled cop who's moving his family from the city to the burbs. Sweeney's had his share of kicks, lately. His wife has just come through a harrowing battle with breast cancer. His daughter is a moody and depressed outcast. And, we soon learn, his partner back in the city went down right before his eyes in a hail of bullets.

Mike is good hearted and righteous, but clearly struggling. As we peel the onion, we reveal guilt, infidelity, and a long- suppressed penchant for violence.

The other pillar of Durham County is Ray Praeger. Back in the day, Praeger and Sweeney were best friends. Something went down, over a woman. There was an accident, and Praeger's promising hockey career was cut short. Sweeney disappeared.

There's one other detail about Praeger that's important.

He's just become a copycat killer.

That's not a spoiler. One of the fascinating things about Durham County is they let you in on what's going on pretty much right away. Like the British Crime Drama CRACKER before it, or even old COLUMBO episodes, this is not a series about figuring out who the killer is.

The other standard way to go is to make the crime so byzantine and complex that it becomes a "how the hell is the hero going to figure this out?" story. Durham flirts with that, but ultimately, that's not its real target, either.

The show's been described elsewhere as a 'whydoneit,' and that descriptor is probably the most apt. What Durham County really wants to do is examine the issue of violence and our response to it. Part of the comfort of the American view of violent hero narratives is that the violent criminal is always the 'other.' They're fascinating to watch, but they are not us. Durham County doesn't allow you that luxury of distance. In fact, as the narrative unspools, the role of hero and villain flip and get twisted all about. As action piles upon action, you never quite lose your sympathy for the hero, but neither does he do himself or you any favors.

It's notable and interesting that Durham's entire top creative team are female. Notable because this particular view of violence -- male violence -- is full of arguments and counter-arguments that never seem to pierce the shell of a similar U.S. story. Mike Sweeney is a caring father and a bastard. He's a loving husband and a distant betrayer. He's a cop and a man outside the law. The women, interestingly, are not as complex as the men -- with the exception of Sweeney's daughter, Sadie. (Laurence Leboeuf) The familiar roles are here: unattainable object of desire, victim, mom, harridan... the women of Durham County struggle against these roles, but ultimately find it difficult to overcome them, because no one is being honest. They seek breakthroughs that are ultimately unknowable, because they don't know the secrets we do. I've seen plenty of narratives where the male characters were allowed to be emotionally stunted without consequence, and the female roles were sketchy and reductive (the daughter, the wife, the girlfriend.) I've seen the reaction against that -- where the female characters are all complex and interesting, and the male characters are either female-wish fulfillment figures, stereotypes or ciphers. But this is the first time that I've ever seen a story where a connection is made. A lack of honesty between the sexes -- the inability of the men to express their desires and thoughts not only drives the drama, but also renders the women in their lives incapable of helping them, or even helping themselves. Pretty provocative stuff.

All six episodes, scripted by Laurie Finstad Knizhnik ripple these themes out in an ever-expanding circle. The direction, especially the first four episodes by Holly Dale, are lush, moody, and beautifully composed. But there aren't the scenes you see in a lot of Can Drama -- where nothing happens but some character stuff. Here, the character stuff -- even the moments of stillness, always advances the plot. And the plot does advance, and twist. Characters make decisions that will hang them later. Choices have consequences, and the story advances, slowly, surely, and then finally at a breakneck clip as the various threads all come together - and the noose grows tighter. Drama is story. Story, story, story....It's such a simple thing, but a thing that so many shows in our country get wrong.

In the end, that's what Durham County has that so many other Canadian shows I've seen lack -- you are pulled from scene to scene.

Part of it is the brilliance of the casting. The daughter, Laurence Leboeuf, is exceedingly good. Hugh Dillon gives the performance of his career. He's finally managed to take that rock star intensity and pull it down to simmer: he's never less than interesting to watch. And Justin Louis as Ray Praeger takes you from sympathy to revulsion to pity and back again -- his portrayal of a damaged, dark everyman with shattered dreams and control issues makes you tense, and disturbed...it gives you that good heebie jeebie feeling.

These are interesting people who you want to spend time with. That gets you halfway there.

Without revealing too much, by the end of the six hours, you've reached a conclusion to the narrative that still leaves many, many threads open. There are plenty of places to go should TMN, Global, and Movie Central choose to return to Durham County. I hope they do -- it's definitely worth the trip.

Durham County premieres May 7 on TMN and Movie Central. Check your local listings.

Niiiiice

APPARENTLY, over on the Lifetime board for Blood Ties, they're working out the details of the Blood Ties Drinking Game.

Every time Henry tries to put a lighthearted move on Vicki, slam one.

Every time Vicki takes off her glasses, take one sip.

Every time Mike flirts with Vicki, slam one.

Everytime Henry goes vamp with black eyes and teeth...

or how about everytime Henry mentions dear "old" dad take a shot

Etc..

Yes, my pretties. You do good work. Yes.

Canadians Want Drama

JOHN DOYLE is on fire again this week. With his column in the Globe this morning, one can't really seem to shake the feeling that he's writing very pointedly to a group of CRTC commissioners sitting in a conference room in Gatineau, Quebec.

I realized something interesting last night, post-last post: I actually do want the CTV Globemedia - CHUM Merger to go through. I mean, in a perfect world, no. But now it's in motion, and the assets if the merger didn't go through would be less valuable. And if CTV was forced to sell some of the CityTV stations, then what did they pay money for? Obviously those are the big assets. That thought made my head hurt.

CTV has also been the best of the Canadian privates when it comes to the cause of indigenous programming. That praise is dubious, but it's true.

But Doyle picks up the baton this morning and goes somewhere else with it, by going back to those articles last month, the study that showed that Canadian networks spent way more on buying U.S. imports than they spent on producing programs. Doyle takes it a step further and points out that they even spent more money on supposedly "cheap" U.S. Reality programs than Drama. Ouch.

Last month, some figures were released by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. They showed that, as usual, commercial Canadian TV broadcasters have been spending more on buying U.S. drama than Canadian drama, but for the first time ever they are also spending more on rinky-dink reality and entertainment programs. The CRTC figures indicate that in 2005, about $101-million was spent on reality TV, talk shows and entertainment-news programs, while only $71-million was spent on Canadian drama.

As several interested parties have pointed out, this situation was created by the CRTC itself. Its 1999 decision to change the definition of "priority programming" has meant that "priority" now includes entertainment and reality shows, and that let broadcasters off the hook for making and airing one-hour Canadian dramas. Since then, the reality-TV craze waned and the most-watched, talked-about shows have been dramas. When most Canadians watch TV, drama is what they want to watch, and the majority of the most-watched programs in Canada each week are dramas. But we're not making any.

Perhaps, as the CRTC attempts to regulate all the takeovers and manoeuvres, it could take a look at its own record and do something positive for the makers of Canadian TV, not just the executives. It could demand more drama be made. Its own figures, and the situation in the U.S. market, make it an obligation.

Doyle also points out that in the current season, all the U.S. nets are feeling a squeeze from audiences. Everybody's down but FOX, and that's just cause of Idol. In fact, the only thing working on the U.S. nets besides Idol, is drama. Funny dat.

So while the Gatineau boys gavel, where are our players re: Drama?

• CHUM (soon to be CTV) has Across The River To Motor City and Blood Ties in the can, waiting to be scheduled. Also has Murdoch Mysteries shooting, or about to.
  
  
• CANWEST GLOBAL About to bow The Best Years; various other things in development (About to swallow Alliance Atlantis, which between their "drama in permanent downturn" past and "CSI:NY is History Content!" Present isn't looking very rosy right now.) Global is also pursuing a "it needs to have a U.S. sale" strategy before they'll greenlight a show. Practical, but it couldn't save Falcon Beach.
  
  
• CTV - Whistler season 2 in the Wings. Rumors said they were going to pick up another drama, but instead it looks like they may order a couple pilots. Which means they weren't sure. Also, Ivan Fecan is very involved. Pilots = a good step. We'll see.
  
  
• CBC - Slate of 3 new dramas announced, trying to go for broad appeal stuff. Will bow over the fall.
  
  
• ASTRAL/TMN/MOVIE CENTRAL - About to drop Durham County, which is at least a creative home run. Other stuff in development.
  

Will the CRTC step up and reverse the 1999 decision? Remember that instituting quotas isn't enough. We'll just go back to dumping Canadian dramas in bad slots with no promo. Apparently Canadian networks need to be saved from themselves...they're going to need more than a nudge to get them to back away from the cheap U.S. programming crack pipe, and no amount of whispering "Corner Gas, Corner Gas, Corner Gas" is going to get them there.

So is the CRTC going to extract from CTV the first plank in a new drama committment? That's what Doyle seems to be calling for. That would be great.

A girl can dream.

And There You Have It!

From Bloomberg News:

``This deal is done,'' said Stuart Langford, a commissioner with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission. ``It's highly unlikely that anyone would tolerate us just saying no.'' He spoke at a hearing in Gatineau, Quebec.

``We are not in the business of killing deals,'' Konrad von Finckenstein, the CRTC's chairman, said at the hearings in response to a request to postpone a ruling on the acquisition until the CRTC updates its rules. That would cause a ``tremendous loss of value.''

Please sir, can we have some more? (money for Canadian programming, I mean.) 50% of the advertising market should come with a price, n'est pas?

Nobody Ever Tells The Writer

HEY HIVE MIND, I've just spent a few frustrating minutes trying to get some details about when a few episodes I wrote might be airing. But the schedule information for Canada, like most TV P.R. information in this country, is sorely lacking. And I've reached my attention expiration date for the activity.

So here's the deal. Two series, both shown in Canada on Teletoon.

The first is called CARL SQUARED. I really like the animation and the goofiness of this show, and enjoyed writing for it. Good premise: slacker teen has clone who does all his dirty work. I wrote two episodes, "Night of The Living Clones" and "Lights, Camera, Carl." I can't be sure, but I'm reasonably sure that the images I've got here are from these episodes.

The second show is called SKYLAND. I wrote three eps -- "King For a Day," (which I've seen,) "The Book of Worlds" and "Infiltration."

According to Wikipedia ( three of the most frightening words in 21st century English,) both the latter eps of Skyland have already aired. The eps of Carl Squared are listed on the website, but there's no episode breakdown to show when they'll be on.

If you see them listed, if you flip across one of them, do me a favor and drop me an email.

If you can help me out, great. If you want to speculate on the strange circumstance that not even the writer can access easy info about when things he's written go to air, well, speculate away.

Kisses.

EDIT 05/04: A very dedicated member of the audience relations department at TELETOON, name of Julie, wrote to tell me that the two Skyland eps in question won't be re-airing for a while. However, she also had this to say:

I have much better news for you regarding Carl Squared! You can catch “Lights, Camera, Carl” on May 17 at 12pm and 5pm (et/pt). As for “Night of the Living Clones”, this episode is scheduled to air this Sunday, May 6 at 5pm (et/pt).

Well, Geez. Thanks Julie! And Thank You, Interwebs!

Reaping and Sowing

I'VE HAD two conversations with people who I consider to be smart, thinking individuals in the last week who think that Rosie O'Donnell was fired from The View because she's part of the so-called "9/11 Truth Movement."

I happen to think that all of the conspiracy thinking I've heard about 9/11, from "Loose Change" on down, is softheaded, paranoid, and ridiculous.

But it has incredible traction, because everyone now knows that the United States Government lied to get America into Iraq. They opened this door.

The media has a lot of credibility to rebuild. They need to be a lot tougher on this government. And I think the Democrats should continue to refuse to engage with FOX News. It's time to call it like it is.

I read two front page articles in the NYTimes this past Sunday. One was an unlikely success -- how American troops are gaining traction in an area of Iraq where locals have finally entered an uneasy truth because they feel homegrown terror is a bigger threat. (The big caveat: it's a homogenous region without a lot of Sunni-Shiite interfighting) But on the same page, the story that U.S. rebuilding projects are already in disrepair and crumbling.

The pendulum is swinging, and if we don't really go hard at the truth, people are going to start to believe the really wacky stuff. Time to rip the bandaid off.

Save us, corporate concentrated media! Save us!

Ooooh...it's Out There

TODAY WE start the long process of once again backing slowly out of the room where all the babies are. (That's a Simpsons reference...Homer in a room with thousands of babies gathered just like The Birds...and he slowly pushes Bart and Lisa behind him and out the door without a word. Priceless.)

Reading Will Dixon's measured response to the great fanfic contretemps of '07 (no caps deliberate, let's all be clear about the status of this argument -- on both sides...ie: very small tempest, very small teacup) got me thinking about ideas and their expression, and it's sparked something that I think is interesting; something that writers deal with all the time.

Will touched on it yesterday in his post about a new CW pilot called The Reaper directed up in Vancouver by Kevin Smith. On the surface it would seem to be very similar to both The Collector and Brimstone -- and I bet others could come up with half a dozen other movies, from Constantine on down.

This is why copyright law does not protect ideas, but the specific expression of those ideas. If I do a vampire show, I am not copying anyone. But if I were to suddenly start writing a show about a female private detective who partners with a vampire and who also has a romantic triangle with said vampire and her ex-partner, a cop -- well, then I would expect some very nasty lawyer letters from my former employers, and an aggrieved book author.

Part of the interesting thing about creative works, especially ones that are ongoing, like a TV series, is that once you set the table (write a pilot, introduce characters, establish template and basic premise) the ideas that can spring from that aren't limitless. There are only so many threads you can pull. Sooner or later, you pull all of them.

It might take seven seasons. Or you might be a show like The O.C. One of the reasons why The O.C. burned out so fast was the rate that they chewed through story. Arcs that would take a season in other shows, that show threw away in four eps. They literally ran out of story.

When you set the table, and you have a room full of writers, there really are basic parameters of where you're going to go. You can be cagey about it. The example I remember well is that in the Pilot of The West Wing, you heard about Bartlet's daughter and granddaughter. Then, in the first season, they introduced Bartlet's youngest daughter, Zoe, as a character. It was a couple of seasons later when suddenly, Ellie, the middle daughter, showed up.

Now -- up til that point, Bartlet had only had two daughters. He'd only mentioned two. (You wouldn't meet the first daughter, Elizabeth, until Season 5) But if you tracked it back, they'd been very careful to never mention that he had only two. There was no reason they couldn't have a third.

It's said that Joss Whedon had the idea to give Buffy a sister in season two...but didn't wind up using the idea til a couple seasons later.

The point is, sometimes the turns and the twists can be sleight of hand, but most of the time you need to hide the ideas in plain sight. (You mention that Wilson has three ex-wives on House, you're going to meet one eventually.) In both West Wing and Buffy, they had to do some gymnastics to get their ideas in there. (West Wing, Ellie is estranged -- that's why we haven't seen or heard too much about her before; Buffy, there's hocus pocus and Dawn, Buffy's sister has a magical origin.)

When you hide these plot filaments in plain sight, it opens the possibility that other people are going to pull on them first. Because ideas and the expressions of them are funny that way. The more you build about characters and backstories and such, the more logical it becomes to go in a certain direction. As a writer, you can write toward that, or, if you're perverse, you write away from that.

Spec writers discover all the time the perils of the logical idea. You're trying to write a sample to get a job, and you're halfway through your draft or your outline and suddenly you turn on Smallville or House or Supernatural and there it is: your story. Or something close to your story. Every writer has this happen to them. And when it does, I say, you just gotta take it as encouragingly as you can: see? You do get the show. It's a badge of honor!

Now go back and start over.

I had a West Wing spec for years that got me work. I wrote it at the end of season one. By season five, they had done two or three of the plots in my script. Years and years ago, in my first attempt to become a TV writer (which I chickened out on) I wrote a Wonder Years spec script about Winnie running for student council president. They did that plot by the end of the series.

The thing is that this sort of thing happens to writers all the time, and there's an element of it that's boring and prosaic, and an element of it that's spooky and weird.

The previous examples were the prosaic ones. Here's the spooky: I was out yesterday afternoon with my friend Mark Askwith. He told a story of back in the day when the legendary comic writer was about to retire and give over his first comic series. And Mark was one of the guys they asked to pitch a story for it. There were four people in contention. Mark slipped his story to someone who was mutual friends with one of the other contenders, the guy read it, and freaked, and said, "You guys have to talk." Mark and this other guy had apparently independently written the same story. Then they found out that a third writer had written his story, and it had a few similar elements. The guy that got hired for the gig was the one who went in a completely different direction.

That's what happens, folks. How? I don't know.

Years ago when I was in University I was in a comedy show. We wrote our own sketches. I wrote a lot. A lot. Three days before we opened we went to see Second City, and saw the show. And three of our sketches -- the concepts were up there big as life.

There were a couple of people who were convinced that someone, somehow had copied us. But I never thought that. A couple of the sketches were topical; about stuff that was in the news -- so even though this was my first example of this happening, instinctively I knew that what we had here was just two people riffing off the same event and coming to a similar comic premise. One of the other sketches was a little weirder, though. I mean, it was a really out there kind of character piece based on a quirk that someone had told me about their days working in a restaurant.

And then the Second City show did a sketch with a remarkably similar thing....even some of the same jokes.

How did that happen? Beats me. To this day, I know for sure it wasn't a case of someone stealing from someone else. But there in the room, you would have to at least entertain the notion that somehow they'd gotten ahold of student written scripts and....I mean....

Naahhh.

In any case, I'm pretty glad that I never thought that Second City was copying me, because the talented guy in that show -- the young kid who I'd been seeing in Second City for a couple years, every week when I went to the post show improvs? Mike Myers. Whatever happened to that dude?

Sometimes ideas are just out there. It's the collective unconscious. I don't know. What I do know is through the years, I've seen many, many examples of people completely independently coming up with the very same idea, at around the same time.

It happens in science, too. The untold story of a lot of inventions, from the telephone to TV, is that people working completely separately on opposite sides of the world make discoveries at the same time. They come to the same conclusion. Who gets the credit is sometimes a matter of luck, sometimes a matter of chicanery. Philosophical concepts spring into being out of multiple mouths. Medical researchers at competing labs try the same thing at the same time, and wind up having to share the credit in the AMA Journal. Astronomers discover something on the same day.

So when you notice that Grey's Anatomy consistently does the same medical case two weeks after House, it aint copying, folks. It's kismet.

If Huff Can Say It, So Can I (Hee Hee)

It sucks not being able to say something you know, and it's a great relief when you can.

Tanya Huff posted the big news on her blog, so I feel sanguine about repeating it here:

U.S. Blood Ties viewers: Lifetime has picked up the back nine. You will get to see all 22 eps of the first seaon, including the 2 and 1/2 written by me.

Now, if you'd be so kind to take a moment -- to write Lifetime a nice "Thanks!" email, I'd be much obliged. And please... wait a proper period of time before bugging them about picking up season two.

I suggest...72 hours. That should be enough.:)

Sorry, No Fanfic Sale.

I gotta make something clear -- because I just got a very sweet email from a woman in the midwest who's obviously very passionate about her fanfic, and insists that there are plenty of great stories that I would enjoy if I would just...

I'm not going to quote her, because it was pretty long and it doesn't need to be quoted to make this point:

Please don't send me fanfic. About any show. Ever.

Because I get paid to write, you see. And I never, ever, ever want to have to actually defend myself against accusations that I've stolen from fanwank. And now that I'm coming off a show with fan buzz, (Blood Ties) -- it's a real fear. I have not read fanfic -- any fanfic -- since I started getting paid to write TV. I can't, you see. And it's your fellow travellers that make that so.

(And I'm going to jump in and put in an edit here -- because I want to make it clear that I understand the enthusiasm. And I understand that most people who will go and write fiction based in a world they see on TV will do so because they love it. I get that. There's not a writer alive who wouldn't totally grok and love that enthusiasm. But that enthusiasm wanes when it starts to cause you problems.)

Doris Egan, who's probably one of the best hourlong writers out there right now, actually has fanfic people coming out and accusing her of taking from them on her blog. Follow the comments here.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the not-funny side of the funny little rant of a few days ago. If for no other reason, this is why fanfic -- all of it -- is a bad thing. Fanfic writers: so long as these deluded people are in your community, you should expect utter hostility from pro writers, everywhere.

Shame on you.

Accusing a writer of plagiarism is the most serious thing you can do. It is not cute. It is not funny. It is not just for fun.

So don't send me -- or any pro writer -- fanfic. Ever. What you're doing actually hurts the shows that you profess to love. I don't care if you're the biggest fan in the world. If you write fanfic, and tolerate the people who entertain fantasies that TV writers actually have the time to steal from you -- you are supporting libel. And that is not a hobby. That's a crime.

Durham County: Gushing By Proxy

The Toronto Star's inimitable Rob Salem had a feature yesterday about Durham County, the new, 6 hour pay cable mystery series coming to TMN and Movie Central next week. I link to it because I'm behind in writing something that I'm just thrilled to be writing -- a gushy review. I've seen the whole show, and it's a monster, folks.

Maybe the best drama series Canada has ever produced. (En anglais, anyway...)

I'm loathe to build it up too much and raise expectations too high, but then again, it's Canada, there isn't enough advertising money, so what's the point in not gushing? It's not like it's going to get a proper, American-style promotional push on our second-class airwaves engorged as they are, 24/7 with U.S. promo, like a mosquito drunk on blood from...(okay...enough of that)



I'm not done my own review yet, so let's let an excerpt from Rob's article be my placeholder:

They are coming from almost opposite directions, playing characters who are violently, diametrically opposed, and yet they share so much in common.

Primarily, that in Durham County – the new six-part series debuting next Monday, May 7 at 9 p.m. on The Movie Network –they both deliver what may well be the performances of their respective careers.

Hugh Dillon, the musician/actor who so memorably blew movie audiences out of their seats in Bruce McDonald's Hard Core Logo, dials it all the way down to simmer as Durham's Mike Sweeney. He's a hard-boiled homicide detective with issues driving him back to the old neighbourhood: a sterile suburban enclave surrounded by ominous, omnipresent electrical towers.

There he re-encounters Ray Prager, his one-time best pal, as vividly and kinetically embodied by Justin Louis, the veteran Canadian character actor (Missing, Hidden Hills, Urban Angel). Prager has issues of his own, not the least of which is that he has recently become a copycat serial killer.

In a sense, it is almost as if their roles are reversed. Dillon, who at a younger, angrier and more self-destructive point in his life was not that far removed from Logo's incendiary Joe Dick, would seem perhaps the more natural choice for the explosively thwarted Ray.

Louis, with a couple of decades' worth of cops and crusaders on his acting resumé, could basically have mailed in the role of Mike.

But, then again, this is far from your traditional cop-versus-killer scenario. Durham's complex characters are painted in subtle shades of grey, a testament both to the actors who play them, and to the uniquely estrogen-intensive ensemble (producers Adrienne Mitchell and Janis Lundman, writer Laurie Finstad Knizhnik, director Holly Dale) that created them...

Louis grew up in the Jane/Finch corridor, raised on welfare by a strong single mom. Director Holly Dale, who helmed the first four Durham episodes (with producer Mitchell finishing out the run), guided him through one of his first major film leads, in the 1995 Canadian comedy Blood & Donuts.

It was she who helped him get over any initial reservations – on the advice of his agent, he passed on the project. Twice...

"But then, having read it ... I was blown away. I mean, I read all six of them in like two hours. And then I looked at the cover (page): `It was written by who? This woman – oh, I've got to meet her.' And then, in talking to her, I really related to what she wanted. This is essentially a feminist viewpoint of a serial killer. And I was like, `Well, that's different.' It just seemed like a character that had so many colours that I could explore."

If you don't have TMN or Movie Central, you're going to be missing out.

[EDITED TO ADD: I should also add, that this show was also developed with GLOBAL -- who'll have second broadcast window. They deserve a big praise-up, too. Good for them. There's enough glory for the quality of this one to go around.]

Read the rest of Rob's feature on Durham County here.

Step Away From The Canadian TV Crack Pipe

So, um...looks like the CRTC hearings into the CHUM/CTV Globemedia Sale opened this morning. I have many nervous friends at CHUM Stations who'll be watching these hearings closely. For those keeping score, the coverage helpfully whittles down the number of major Canadian media companies left on the horizon:

1. CTV Globemedia-CHUM
2. Canwest-Alliance Atlantis
3. Astral (Standard Radio)
   
4. CBC (if no one tries to pull a fast one, that is)

Guess Gavin Crawford's quip at the WGC awards last week (paraphrased) about "it'll be so much easier when there's only one place to pitch" isn't so far off.

What's my take?

Erm. I have none. What about you?

John Doyle gets my lovin' recommendation, though, for a very, very funny/sad rant in today's Globe & Mail. More about the recent news of Canwest rebranding CH than CTV/CHUM, but still:

The last thing the Canadian TV networks and the watching Canadian audience need is more air-headed coverage of American celebrities.

But that's precisely what we're going to get with CanWest Global's bizarre decision to foist the execrable E! Entertainment Channel on Canadians. With the signing of a cheque and, presumably, the agreement of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, CanWest Global is turning over its venerable CH stations to the content of an American cable outfit that's entirely devoted to maniacally intense and superficial reporting on U.S. showbiz. This move is grotesque. It's the sellout of a string of Canadian over-the-air channels to dumb-as-a-post American cable coverage of already overexposed and often talentless idiots.

It's important to be clear that this is not the arrival of E! on cable in Canada. CanWest's CH network is made up of six local television stations located in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Five are owned outright by CanWest, and the sixth, in B.C., is owned by the Pattison Group. These stations reach the largest markets in Canada.

They are over-the-air stations and they use the airwaves that belong to all of us, not to CanWest. Any broadcaster who wants to use our airwaves is obliged, in return, to provide Canadian content. That's the way it works.

In this instance, CanWest says it will rebrand the CH stations as E!, but maintain local news and current-affairs content. Maybe it will, but that sliver of local content will be aired on a station ostentatiously rebranded as a Hollywood-obsessed celebrity-news machine. It sounds highly unlikely that the CH stations will continue to look anything like they do now.

As I write this, the E! channel is airing The E! True Hollywood Story - Tori Spelling, followed by The E! True Hollywood Story - Lionel & Nicole Richie, and that is followed by The E! True Hollywood Story - Goldie & Kate. I think the latter is about Goldie Hawn and her daughter Kate. In prime time on the day I'm writing, you'll find E! Entertainment Special: Wildest Dating Show Moments. That's a show composed of "outrageous clips from TV's most popular reality dating shows. Clips from Blind Date, Cheaters and Fifth Wheel are featured."

Just in case you need to know what's coming on CH, on E! tonight, in prime time, you could see Dr. 90210: An Officer and a Gentle Woman. That's a reality series about plastic surgery in Beverly Hills. On tonight's episode, "A probation officer turned beauty queen seeks out Dr. Rey for breast implants, and Hayley decides to return to acting after her visit home to Montreal." Like, wow - some woman from Montreal appears on the show. There's your Canadian content right there.

Mmm. Mmm. Delish. That's good rant. We need more ranting in this industry.

Just not from me. heh heh.

And While We're On the Subject...

The good grey Globe & Mail's redesign: what does everybody think?

I like the look, and I'm cautiously optimistic about some of the new columns/features. There have been a couple of things I've read in the last week (besides Doyle) that I quite enjoyed that came from neither the Guardian or the NYTimes. That's a nice change.

Any other Globe readers? What do you all think?

So You Want to Freelance For a Series...

MONDAY MORNING and I'm still pulling receipts together. So why not take some time and hear the freelancer process as described by a freelancer?

Tanya Huff, besides writing all the fine books on which the BLOOD TIES series was based, also freelanced an episode called "Stone Cold," which aired in the USA last night on Lifetime.

She's got a unique perspective -- being the person who invented the characters in the first place. She's got some interesting thoughts about the differences between TV writing and Novel Writing (which I think is a process that most of us could probably imagine. TV, not so much.)

Emails fly back and forth and we all agreed that medusa will be my monster of the week (it's way too complicated for freelancers to do mytharc episodes) and I returned to the city and the writing room to break the story...

Now, here's the first difference between the writing I usually do and writing for television. At this point in my career when I set out to write a book, I send the concept of what I want to do to my agent and he presents it to my editor and she tells me when they need me to have it finished. Okay, there's some other stuff about money in there but that's pretty much it. I tell them what I want to do, then I do it. For about a year. All by myself. Television, otoh, is collaborative. Roughly translated, this means you may get to go to the toilet by yourself but that's about it. And no one's making any promises about the toilet.

So, I'm in the writing room with Peter and Shelley and Dennis and Mark and we're about to break an idea down into a teaser and four acts. And I say something along the lines of, well, what if there's these guys and they're unloading statues in a warehouse and one of them has bleeding eyes. And instead of someone saying, "go for it, this is when we need it done" the four other people in the room take the idea and start throwing it about. Ever been to a concert and seen a beachball go bouncing over the heads of the crowd? Like that.

Idea are flying thick and fast and all of them are either good or interesting or both but none of them are being explored. Or not in any way I recognize. Oh wait, the bouncing and the flying thick and fast – that's the way they explore the ideas. Oh! (little lights go off in my brain) So I throw a few ideas in too. This is fun! It doesn't seem to be actually accomplishing anything, but it's fun...

Except – and I'm still not entirely certain how this happened – at the end of the day, we have all the points of the episode up on the white board. Beats are being hit, acts are ending with a bang, and the most basic outline of the story is complete and Peter, who is, as you'll remember, the man in charge because this show is his baby, has essentially agreed to what's been created. I say essentially because he was actually on the phone with casting for part of it and we kind of snuck act four in under the radar. As far as I recall, my main contribution here was to say, "Why don't we use his mother again since we're already paying her?" And Shelley said, "Man, the producers are going to love you."

The rest of Tanya's description of writing for Blood Ties is in three parts, and it can be found on her livejournal here .

(Spoiler Warning: it does discuss plot details for her ep, so if you are in a country (Hellooo Canada) where it hasn't aired yet and you're spoilerphobic, you might want to come back later.)

Not that you would, but if anyone wonders where I am in this process when she's talking to the other writers -- I haven't joined the show yet at this point. I'm still back in Toronto slaving over Across The River To Motor City.

It's a good read. Go.