Sophie En Francais

BELOW, COMMENTER "J-POD" (yes, I know that's a little confusing) wanted to talk SOPHIE, specifically, what he/she thought was missing in the translation from the Québécois original, "Les hauts et les bas de Sophie Paqin" (The Ups and Downs of Sophie Paqin):

And if you're thinking that I cynically promoted this comment just to have another chance to run a picture of the lovely Natalie Brown, well, you're only partly right, there, Smuggy McSmugson.

"Reducing the golden source material from one hour format to a condensed half killed the joy that the original French version had. "Les hauts et les bas de Sophie Paqin" ... has smarter casting in that the token gay best friend was immediately given depth and purpose and Estelle's [the remaining client played by Sara Botsford in the remake] character was unadultarated fun and over the top with her artificial Parisian accent and her regalesque sense of entitlement. The addition of a few more scenes eased the viewer into the story; introducing Sophie's frost-biting mother and deadbeat brother provided the series with a sense of continuation and ultimate purpose. "Sophie" missed the beat by making the title character a little more slapstick than her Québécois counterpart. And to answer your question, yes, seeing the black baby was funny -- after an hour of buildup.

I was disappointed with this outing and with the decision to make this series a half-hour comedy. I guess I was spoiled by the original.

Ah, the perils of adaptation. Do it right and you've got All in the Family. Do it wrong, you've got the American Coupling, or Cracker.

What I find immediately interesting about the above comment was the example of Estelle. I believe in one of the reviews I read it mentioned this character who talked in an English accent for no good reason. But if you look at the above, you can see the cultural translation.

For a Quebec audience, a person speaking French with a faux Parisian accent means something very, very key. It suggests putting on airs, an unearned sense of cultural superiority. It's a rich character detail.

Lost in Translation.

It's tricky, boy.

I confess to not worrying too much about the black baby at the end, and being eager to see the relationship between Mother and Daughter. I do think, to be fair, the English SOPHIE needs to be given a few weeks to find its feet. Remember, in the beginning even adaptations that people consider great -- like the U.S. translation of The Office, take a while to find their way. U.S. Showrunner Greg Daniels admitted as much to me when I talked to him in Banff.

I don't know if Sophie Parker will ever hold a similar place in the hearts of TROC (The Rest of Canada) as Sophie Paqin does to the Quebec audience. But I do know this: the premiere got 636 000 viewers in Canada -- which means it kept 80% of its lead in from Little Mosque on the Prairie. That's not bad.

Maybe Sophie will grow on us. I hope so.

Of course, next week she & Mosque go up against a little show called, Idol something or other...

Who Is Simon Beals?

OUR ESTEEMED CANADIAN pilotologist, Jill Golick, is dipping her toes into the realm of alternative storytelling, along with a number of other Canadian creatives.

They've come up with Story2oh, which you can read about on the linked site.

Simon Beals has video podcast about his adventures in dating. Ali Barrett blogs called about knitting, relationships and sex. Their lives are about to collide. Is it the beginning of a great romance or a disaster in the making?

The story really gets underway this Monday, but already people on Facebook are getting to know some of the characters through their profiles and wall posts. It's neat -- kind of like you're hanging out with the characters before the lights go down and the movie begins.

As Golick explains it:

Story2Oh! is an experimental form of narrative. While it negotiates all kinds of new terrain, it also draws on skills the creative team has honed over the years in our work in television, film and other media.

The Web’s social networking sites have a wealth of media potential. It’s easy to add video, sound, photos, art, text. But using these sites and their capabilities for storytelling is uncharted territory.

Story2Oh! isn’t just a multimedia project, it’s multiplatform. We’re inviting participants to leapfrog through the Internet with us, following a trail of links, RSS feeds and twitters. This gives Story2Oh! an anarchistic quality because it doesn’t belong to any one web site. The story exists across them.

It is also a project that is demanding of the audience. They are participating, clicking ever deeper to uncover the story, searching for more parts of it. Getting your story fix from books, TV and movies is a more passive experience. But social network users like to move around. In a month, Facebook users look at more than 500 pages and MySpacers look at about 650.

Story2Oh! participants will be able to enter the story at many different points and experience as much or as little of it as they choose. They can move through the narrative in a multiplicity of ways, skipping big chunks, seeing it through a single characters eyes, focusing on what they like best or mining the Web for every last drop they can find.

We will try to make every Facebook wall-to-wall and FlickR album rich with drama and character so that every click will be a fulfilling story experience that propels you deeper and deeper. You’d call it a real page-turner if it were a paperback, in Internet terms we’re aiming for twitchiness. Using the same techniques that keep viewers addicted to shows like 24, Lost, Heroes and daytime soap operas, we will keep the story twisting, turning and hanging from cliffs, so that our audience keeps running back to the computer to check if anything new is up.

Check out the Story2oh page here. There, you can find out how to follow the narrative via Facebook and other venues.

What's interesting about this to me is that it's storytellers who are already professional, already successful, translating what they know about storytelling from old media to new. I can't wait to take the trip.

I've Restrained Myself

BUT COME ON, I know you wanted to hear more about the WGA strike. Luckily, for where it sits right now, there is merely the excellent Robert J. Elisberg's Writer's Strike Primer, (via Huffington Post.) Go read. It's even funny.

And while you're there, Roger Wolfson has a very clearheaded article, too:

The stakes are far higher than either side admits publicly.

The surprising reality of the Writers Strike is that the Companies truly believe they had no choice but to force the writers to strike. This is not because the Networks want to write off a bad season in 2007, or because the Companies want to void expensive overall deals. That money is chicken feed compared to what is truly on the table.

Here's what's going on, and it's chillingly simple: by forcing Writers and Actors to accept a fraction of their rightful share of DvD sales twenty-odd years ago, the Companies saved over ten billion dollars. If the Companies can do the same with the Internet, they stand to save that amount many times over. The Companies are employing a cold but somewhat logical strategy. In foregoing a certain amount of current revenue - perhaps as high as the value of an entire season of TV - they hope to save tens of billions in the distant future.

Before negotiations with the Writers began, the Companies said to their negotiator, Nick Counter: "This is how much of our future profits we are willing to share with the Guilds, and this is how long we can wait before we have to get back to work." And then they concluded, "between now and that certain deadline, get the Guilds as far below our maximum as you possibly can."

So Nick did his usual dance - pretend to negotiate with Writers, and then try to cut a deal with Directors that can be used against the Writers. Why does Nick prefer the Directors Guild? Because it is more reasonable or powerful than the other Guilds? It's not necessarily either of those things. No, Nick prefers the Directors simply because they are the least expensive Guild. Half of the DGA's members don't depend on residuals, as do all of WGA and SAG. Nick has given DGA preferred status over the years, granted it early negotiations, and declared it "powerful," simply so he can try to use DGA deals to apply pressure on WGA and SAG.

And just as Nick tries to use DGA as a front to pressure the Writers, he tries to use the Writers as a front to try to weaken SAG. SAG is Nick's ultimate quarry, not just because it is large and beloved by the public - but because it's the most expensive Guild. Every residual WGA gets, SAG contractually gets three times more. Nick's cynical strategy of using the Directors to force a bad deal on the Writers, so that the Writers deal will apply to the Actors, has worked more or less perfectly for thirty years.

So what's different this time around? The stakes. Just as the Companies are looking at higher stakes than ever before, so are the Writers. This time around, probably to the consternation of the Companies, Nick has gone too far. The deal he laid before the Writers is bad in the short run, but in the long run, disastrous. "New Media" is an inaccurate term. It's no longer new, and in a few years, it will encompass all Media. By trying to cut writers out of New Media, Nick has declared that he wants to cut them out of the business altogether.

But as many wars have taught us, imperial powers routinely underestimate what people will do to protect their homeland. While the Companies are only fighting to avoid sharing profits that the writers will earn for them in the future, the Writers are fighting for their professional lives.

The clock is quietly ticking toward the secret deadline the Companies gave Nick. That deadline could be February, or, God forbid, September, depending on how much the companies have decided to invest in this strategy. But it will come. And for every indication that Nick's old tactics may be working, there are ten never-before-seen indications the Writers are stronger than ever.

Can MVP Make It to the Third Period?

A FEW YEARS back I found myself in London for work, and as I always do when I have a spare moment, I flipped on the telly. You learn a lot about a country when you watch their telly. (In L.A., this one time, I turned on the TV expecting to see a slow speed car chase and instead saw my first ever ad hocking "vaginal rejuvenation." Brr.) Anyway, on this show I saw a bunch of tarty women fighting. It was all good fun. Bit of sex, bit o'drugs, lots of bad behavior -- even, dare I say it, murrrrdaaaah!

The show was called Footballer$ Wives, and, as the title promised, it tracked the off-the-field shenanigans of a team of English soccer players and their wives, mistresses and girlfriends.

MVP has obviously taken a page from the wives. Dubbed "the secret lives of hockey wives," the show is a soapy, fun, occasionally bitchy look into that world from a Canadian viewpoint -- tracking the off-ice shenanigans of a bunch of NHL players.

In the first episode, two main events collide -- the team captain takes a header off a balcony and expires under mysterious circumstances, and the team (called the Mustangs, here) sign a million dollar rookie from small town Canada. (Loon Lake, to be precise....now why would I make that up?)

All that's dressing, though, to introduce the characters who will take us on our soapy journey: the rookie, his small town girlfriend, the sleazy enforcer, the captain's widow, his slutty daughter, the heartless team manager, etc.

There's no point arguing or protesting originality in a show like this. Original isn't the point. This is cheeseburger and poutine television -- and if you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you'll know I mean that as a compliment.

There's much to recommend the first episode. There's a bit of sex, there's fun stuff with the new captain's pursuit of a virginal schoolteacher. There's the beautiful Charlotte Sullivan, from my Across The River To Motor City, vamping it up hard as a determined puck bunny. There's Matthew Bennet, just a little less sleazy here than as one of the Cylons in BSG.

The show, Hallelujah, manages to use needle drop music in an effective, ironic, and pleasing way. It's bright and colorful.

Which isn't to say that it's perfect. There are a few troubling construction elements that give one pause and makes me worry if they can sustain the goofy interest of the premise. First, the act curtains are extremely weird. I found myself being surprised by where they went to commercial. All drama has to have good act outs in my book, but for a soap they're drop dead essential. You don't go to commercial without a juicy turn or a big reveal. Also, there's not a single line in the pilot that's got that campy, awesome, this-is-gonna-be-fun feel. (Vide: "Welcome to the O.C., bitch.")

The second concern is a sneaking feeling that they haven't pushed the characters as far as they could -- also essential for a soap. The malevolent enforcer type doesn't seem as threatening or as sleazy as he should be -- and considering this show's going to rise and fall on its female viewership, I'm disappointed that they go out on Deborah Odell's widow character with her down and out -- not with a sense of how she'll scheme to get back. I wanted more Heather Locklear in Melrose Place. (Let us all take a moment to worship the excellence that was the character of Amanda. Ahhhh.)

Soaps are tricky beasts. They're the magic shows of television. Don't look here, look over there, BAM, see how we got you? There's always got to be a new rabbit coming out of the hat, or people lose the groove and get bored. People who sniff and roll their eyes at a nighttime soap usually don't have a grasp of just how deftly the best ones are constructed. The problem is that it's a high wire act. You can go down a bad road, quick, and get into the weeds. Look how quickly the brilliance of those early episodes of The O.C. hit the rocks. (Oliver? Come on.)

Then there's the other obvious problem: Nighttime Soaps are the shows that are most directly in competition with, and potentially supplanted by constructed reality shows. The makers of MVP would be wise to study Laguna Beach and the Hills, rather than the Melroses of the past. Your audience now expects that level of shock, crass, boom boom reveal and drama...If you're not willing to push things that far, that fast, then you're not even gonna get out of the box.

I will be dropping the hockey metaphors now.

For what it gets right, MVP is a positive step forward for CBC. Let the stick-in-the-muds wail and cluck -- soapy fun on Friday night is just what the Doctor ordered for our sickly national broadcaster.

Long live the puck bunnies. May MVP get its stories straight, bang out some great plots and good soapy writing, maximize its very pretty cast, and entertain for many winter nights to come.

(Oh, one more thing. I was gonna run a picture with this entry...But man, the gallery shoot for this show was not good. New pictures. Stat.)

Who Does Don Cherry Think He Is, Anyway?

THIS IS NOT the kind of program we usually talk about on the blog here, but I wanted to give a quick plug for the CBC genealogy series "Who Do You Think You Are?" tonight, for a couple reasons.

The director's a friend of mine, and I'm utterly fascinated by Don Cherry. Don Cherry is the closest thing Canada has to a bonafide homegrown superstar.

I think a lot of people in Canadian TV don't realize just how big he is. Cause, you know, he doesn't really go to the Giller Awards.

Okay, that was cheap. Aint I a stinker?

Who Do You Think You Are? with Don Cherry airs tonight at 7:30 p.m. on CBC

Sophie or Sophistry?

COMMENTER L.C. had this to say about Sophie, which premiered on CBC last night:

I also watched Sophie last night and I gotta say, it's not that funny and the directing seems a bit off to me. I really like the actress who plays her but I just couldn't relate or sympathize to her character at all. I really wanted to like the show but I just couldn't. I'll watch next week cause sometimes pilots aren't indicative of a series' quality but right now I'm not too optimistic.

I was actually a little surprised by Sophie. Not because it was great. It wasn't. But the vitriol that came through in some of the reviews had me expecting the worst thing ever. And it most definitely wasn't that.

One of the things that is hardest for Canadian creatives to understand is just how important casting the lead is. I've written before about the differences between a cast member and a lead, and how rough a job it can be to find them. No matter what you do, you can't make the public love somebody.

In the USA, you'll often see actors that they push through a few pilot seasons. Somebody's decided that so-and-so is going to break through, and they keep casting them until they do, or until they start looking like Ted McGinley. (Little Jump-the-Shark humor for you there.)

I think in the case of Sophie, they got one thing right. She's great. Natalie Brown isn't just incredibly pretty, I find there's something in her energy that's just, you know...compelling. It's the reason why everybody noticed her in that Bailey's ad. And it was on display last night. I checked it out with a few of the women in my life, (believe me, that's not as titillating as it sounds) and I got positive responses from about three-quarters of my admittedly limited sample. I think she also has a good shot with younger viewers.

I like the doddy aging actress played by Sara Botsford, though she's too broad. The Asian daughter could be a breakout character if you wrote funny for her. The production values to me seemed lush and warm. (Unlike L.C. I didn't really have a problem with the direction.)

Nope. With Sophie, I see two main problems.

First, we don't know what the show is yet. The pilot is Sophie's origin story. How she came to be where she is. That's not what we're going to see week to week. I don't know what we're going to see week to week.

But oy, the second one is the big one. The writing just wasn't funny.

I'm invoking the "Just Jack" rule here: nobody, I mean nobody nowhere, should be allowed to invoke the best friend gay character unless he is the funniest guy on the show. The character got no jokes, had no attitude beyond standard supportive gay man, and it just...didn't land.

I don't know why this keeps happening in all these Canadian half hours. You build sets, you hire people, you light it, you do all the expensive stuff...

...and then you don't bother to write good jokes.

There are at least four characters on Sophie that could be funny if they were given funny things to say. The lead actor is intriguing. I'll be giving it two more with my fingers crossed. This, to me, isn't Rumors - or G-Spot, where you immediately went, "Ugh. No."

There's two things that could save this show: a good, meaty, funny, wise mother-daughter relationship, and better writing.

And yeah, I know, I know, it's described as a "dramedy." But I think that word now officially is snarling and mangy and has to be taken out behind the barn and Old Yeller'd, because it's hiding too many sins. Sophie was paced and shot like a comedy. The performances were pitched as comedic performances. They gotta follow through with a few jokes.

Because Natalie Brown, lovely as she is, is only going to get them so far.

McGowan's Diary, Continued

James McGowan writes about getting the last shot of season one of The Border. (Hint: it's not a barn burner, but it is appropriate.)

Okay, This is Ridiculous.

APPARENTLY MY Rent-A-Goalie repeats on Showcase in a half-hour.

Whoops.

FLIPPING AROUND to try and catch the premiere of SOPHIE on CBC and there's my last Blood Ties episode -- "We'll Meet Again" on Citytv. Haven't seen it finished. Now it's half over. No idea it was on. Oh well. Canadian TV writer -- the glamour! never! stops!

McGowan's Diary

MORE FROM James McGowan's diary filming the last week of season one of The Border.

Wednesday, Dec. 12. We are at ICS Headquarters. A stroke of genius, good fortune or divine intervention has landed us the Rochester Ferry Terminal, at the bottom of Cherry Street in Toronto, as the permanent location for our offices. Benno Tutter, our inspired production designer, has transformed an empty shell into a spectacular palace of high tech monitors, computers and glass panels. The south and west walls are floor-to-ceiling windows, offering views to Toronto's cityscape and out to the Eastern Gap and the Leslie Street Spit. This is the starting point for the visual style of The Border. This is our home.

for more, click the link above.

Things I Know & Things I Don't

There's things I know in Canadian TeeVee Land and things I don't.

THINGS I KNOW...The premiere episode of The Border reached 710 000 viewers. That's apparently a healthy number, a vast improvement in the timeslot, but still short of that magic arbitrary 1 million number that's supposedly the bee's knees now.

THINGS I DON'T ... What those numbers will do in the next two weeks. Next week sees the introduction of Sofia Milos (CSI: Miami) to the cast, and more of an action-intrigue feel that follows through to my first ep, Bodies on the Ground, on Jan 21. "Bodies" is a big old actioner and pretty swell. I hope people continue to check it out. I'd also love to know those numbers in context, ie: what were the numbers for CTV and Global 9pm Monday?

THINGS I KNOW ... There's a controversy on about CBC sold its international sales rights. The Toronto Star has a fair precie of the fooferal here.

THINGS I DON'T ... whether it's really a bad thing or not. I've heard from lots of quarters over the last few months that once you get past the hurdles of funding and creating and promoting, the NEXT insurmountable hurdle in Canada is that there really isn't any domestic company that does a good job of distribution. Is it smarter, then, to sell to someone who can do the job, or should we try to build up Canadian distribs? Or is that shovelling more bacon?

THINGS I KNOW ... JPOD really, really feels like it should be a half hour.

THINGS I DON'T ... but not if that means less Thicke.

THINGS I KNOW ... Ellen Page was just as good in all the guest roles she did when she was acting in Canada.

THINGS I DON'T ... Why nobody in this country ever wrote a G.D. article about her.

THINGS I KNOW ... Thanks to the Writers Guild of Canada's efforts, CSI:NY was finally pulled from the rotation of The History Channel.

THINGS I DON'T ... Why CSI:NY is not allowed, but reruns of JAG (which replaced it) are OK. Apparently the CRTC has blessed this already.

THINGS I KNOW ... The MSM really fucked up those New Hampshire predictions.

THINGS I DON'T ... Why. Also: if this means that finally, finally, they might start to at least try covering things other than the horse race.

THINGS I KNOW ... The Wire, Season 5 is completely breathtaking. A totally funny, sad, inevitable portrait of the dysfunctional death dance government, police, and the fourth estate and how their various malaises impact each other. This show is more cynical about the impossibility of change than any show I've ever seen. I'm on Ep. 5 of my review discs, and....it's just....wow.

THINGS I DON'T ... Why this show, and shows like Intelligence, can't draw an audience.

THINGS I KNOW ... CTV swooped in and scooped up over the air broadcast rights for MAD MEN, beating SHOWCASE to the punch.

THINGS I DON'T ... What's SHOWCASE going to do to reclaim its once-bold mantle of innovation? And is a cerebral drama like Mad Men really going to do anything for CTV?

THINGS I KNOW ... CBS' version of DEXTER is gonna be cut to shreds.

THINGS I DON'T ... Who's gonna watch?

THINGS I KNOW ... anecdotally from several top insiders -- the number one vanity request of Canadian producers right now is wanting to be called "showrunner."

THINGS I DON'T .. if anyone (other than the CBC's Fred Fuchs, who's supposedly pushed behind the scenes for this) at Telefilm, The Canadian Nets, The CTF, or outside the WGC understands what the term means, and why it's ridiculous vanity to apply it to a non-writing producer.

The Border Now Available Online

THE PREMIERE EPISODE of THE BORDER "Pockets of Vulnerability," is now available for streaming, online viewing at CBC.CA. I've also heard that -- wonder of wonders -- some of the more nefarious methods of getting TeeVee seem to have...um... taken a liking to it. But why watch that way when you can access the site, for a nice, measurable hit that CBC can factor in to their calculations of viewership?

Click here to access the player and watch The Border.

A couple of notes: I'm not sure if this site is geo-locked or not. If you're from the USA or Abroad, could you let me know in the comments below whether you can or cannot access the show?

UPDATE: Exxxxxcellent. Apparently the show is NOT geo-locked. Americans and Europeans, View away!
FURTHER UPDATE: Nope, it's now geolocked. Americans and Europeans - agitate for some broadcaster to pick it up!

Also: The Border is running this pretty nifty mobile contest right now using QR codes. Apparently on promos and bus ads there are these little codes. If you take a picture with your cell phone camera and text that pic to a special number, you can win a $1000 Best Buy card. That is a GREAT deal and I bet the odds are pretty good, too. To find out more, click here.

Contest runs til Jan 23.

Increase Your TeeVee Q

I WON'T BE on CBC Radio's Q today, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't tune in --- because if you don't, you'll miss what I'm sure is going to be a very informative and interesting lament for the death of the TV Theme Song, featuring Tara Thorne, and Macleans TV writer, and encyclopedic expert on all things Television -- Jaime Weinman.

Americans, you can also listen to CBC Radio via the "Radio" streaming link on CBC.CA.

There is so much to recommend Jaime, not the least of which is is unreasonable and intemperate love for one of the Greatest TV sitcoms (and greatest TV theme) of all time - WKRP.

In other news, James McGowan continues his diary from the set of The Border here.

I'd like to thank everybody who watched The Border last night. Be sure to come back next week to see the debut of Sofia Milos. And, as I've said before -- shit blows up.

Finally, one cannot deny the Thicke. Do not even try. He is Thicke. He is J-Pod. Tune in tonight and worship him.

Did you know Alan Thicke sang the theme song to Three's Company? He did. Hey, see what I did there? Full Circle. Not bad for a guy with a bone-shaking cough, and the chills.

"A" Daily Show With Jon Stewart

JESUS. The man is a fucking rock star. He really is.

Deep laughs. Deep hurt. Man, I missed this guy. I hope this thing ends soon.

That being said...just...wow. Wow.

United Artists can Make Movies Again

NIKKI FINKE has info on a side deal between Tom Cruise-helmed United Artists and the WGA.

That's two Late Night shows and one Movie making studio who don't think the terms the WGA were after were all so unreasonable.

Whatever can it mean?

And In Response, Manolo Blahnik Immediately Introduced a 42 inch Stiletto Heel

AH, CES. I love the way you do things small:

LAS VEGAS – Japanese electronics conglomerate Matsushita Electric Industrial Co introduced Monday a 150-inch plasma television, which it says is the world's biggest.

The TV, unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, tops the Panasonic brand maker's 103-inch plasma TV released last year. The 103-inch television has sold 3,000 units over the last year, Matsushita said.

Matsushita, the world's largest plasma TV maker, said the 12-1/2 foot (measured diagonally) TV, dubbed "Life Screen," would be available in 2009 at an undisclosed price, mainly for use as billboards.

Unfortunately, the elephant immediately demanded residuals. And now SONY's claiming that they've never made a dime off elephants. What a mess.

The Border on Q

GRAHAM ABBEY, Shakespearean actor and action lead on The Border, will be on CBC Radio's Q today at 2pm.

Border Reading

A couple of interesting articles on The Border for you this morning.

James McGowan, (Major Mike Kessler) is keeping a diary all this week at The National Post.

And here's a link to an AP story with an international take on the show:

While shows like Fox's "24" play up the gunslinging, patriotic image of the zealous, terror-busting operative, "The Border," predictably reflects some deep-rooted stereotypes about Canadians, who have a reputation for being more understated, understanding, and open-minded than their neighbors to the south.

Milos, who plays a U.S. Department of Homeland Security agent based in Canada, comes across as quick to judge while James McGowan, who plays Major Mike Kessler, her Canadian counterpart, is seen as more willing to not assume the worst and just. Call it naiveté, but it is an image of which many Canadians are proud.

"The issues facing the border are pretty controversial," said Raymont. "A lot of nations have geared up their rhetoric to a shrill level, and we're just trying to bring a reasonable voice to that, make sense of what's happening and hopefully incite debate and public discourse."

Janet MacLean, the series' co-creator, producer and writer, stressed that they strive to "root ourselves more in what's going on, we try to be more engaging, rather than blowing up cities on a regular basis."

"We look at urgent issues from a Canadian perspective and we have that classic Canadian quality of being a little more reflective because we're not on center stage like the U.S," she said. "We have to cope with the realities of rendition flights, what's going on in Sudan, the issue of human rights in China, pedophile rings and international crime, but in a slightly different light."

Funny. The slant of that article reminds me of a long ago Onion headline: "Perky Canada has its own Government, Laws."

CBC & The Border -- A Swing For The Fences

WELL, SO IT goes.

Tonight at 9pm, I'm hoping a new era of CBC TV's relationship with Canadians starts.

I remember in my youth watching shows like King of Kensington and Street Legal and being entertained unbelievably, like DeGrassi, because they reflected my world.

The streets and the neighbourhoods and the kinds of Canadians I ran into everyday. Canada's grown as a country since then, both in population and in diversity. So CBC has a schedule of new programs that reflect that. You've got a comedy from Vancouver. A drama that flirts with our national pasttime, and a comedy adaptation of a hit French-Canadian show.

Tonight we try to inject a new voice into the Action Drama. It's a genre that comes with its own tropes and conventions, to be sure. Disturbingly, it seems some of those conventions now include things like torture porn.

You won't see torture porn on The Border. You'll see imperfect people cadging together imperfect solutions to intractable problems. But you'll also see a lot more, tonight, and in the weeks ahead.

I make you this solemn promise: Shit will blow up.

Tonight at 9pm is The Border pilot, filmed in October 2006 and re-shot a bit this summer. It has echoes of the Arar case -- not in a "ripped from the headlines" way, but in a minor key variation off a similar theme.

Next week brings the introduction of U.S. Agent Bianca LaGarda (Sofia Milos, from CSI: Miami, and The Sopranos) -- who shakes up the squad. There's also a bit of romance and a soupcon of tragedy.

Then, January 21st, is my first episode - a straight up action-fest. The three shows together, I think, represent the breadth of what The Border can be.

In the weeks to come I can promise you disgruntled soldiers, scheming strippers, sinister organ traffickers, petulant movie stars, and plenty of intrigue, sturm, drang -- and fun.

I hope you enjoy it.

CBC has a host of other worthy series you should check out this week, too.

J-Pod, based on Douglas Coupland's novel, premieres tomorrow night at 9pm.

Yes, that is Alan Thicke. At one point at the winter launch, I was standing about three feet away from him. I was afraid to look directly at him. He is Alan Thicke. And in this show, he is batshit crazy. Do not mess with the Thicke.


Wednesday at 8:30 p.m. after a very funny Little Mosque on the Prairie, -- it features a curling faceoff -- you gotta see it...comes Sophie, a comedy about a woman on the verge. It's funny -- I was always amazed in the UK how people became stars from being Page 3 girls or appearing in ads, but I gotta tell you, every conversation I've had about this show over the last month has at some point defaulted to, "you know that outrageously hot woman in the Bailey's commercial? Yeah, she's the lead in that show."

Hey, whatever gets you to tune in. Just try to deny that publicity photo.

Finally, Friday at 9pm, there's MVP -- a sexy soap set in the bruising world of professional hockey.

"Why," you might say, "That sounds like a whole bunch of new programming!I thought there was a writer's strike!" And to you, gentle reader, I say, plucky Canada is its own adorable country! We get to have our own TV, writer's strike or no writer's strike! Yaaaay!

Why You Need To Watch 'The Wire,' NOW.

ONE OF THE THINGS that frustrates me the most when I talk to other people in the business is when they're not current. I've had meetings, or discussions with people who were raving about the first season of Deadwood, when season 3 was on the air. They wanted to talk about stuff in the show that I'd seen two years previously, and I had to be sure to edit anything I said not to reveal what was coming. The Sopranos was the same way. I've had producers and network people make pronouncements on Six Feet Under after having seen only a few episodes.

I can't imagine a Doctor going on and on about something he read in a three year old medical journal to his colleagues. Or a Pilot raving about the controls of a jet that everyone else had been flying for years. But there it is.

Not everyone's going to see every show, to be sure. But professionalism demands a certain currency.

And this is The Wire's moment. As the show enters its final season tonight, on HBO in the U.S. and TMN/Movie Central in Canada, it's the show that writers are talking about everywhere. It's an astonishing, complex, riveting show.

And I say that not having seen every episode.

The other thing that's come up in the last few years, of course, is the impulse to not watch if you haven't caught up. It's the "Oh, I'll catch it on DVD model." I tried that. I have the seasons I haven't watched, ready to be viewed...I just haven't had the time yet. But I'm out of time.

The thing about The Wire, is that its seasons are structured in a pretty self contained way. I haven't seen the last two seasons, and I worked my way through the first ep of Season Five with minimal discomfort. Really. I promise. You can do it.

It helps that the canvas is so large -- David Simon's beautiful, terrible, crumbling Baltimore, a city that's grown rougher and meaner since we last saw it on Homicide: Life on the Streets. It helps that it follows criminals and cops and reporters with equal focus and dignity. It's layered, nuanced storytelling. You can dive in on episode one, and go back and watch the rest later, because the parts all refract. You don't need to know this to understand that -- in fact, I'm pretty sure that the resonances I missed in the last two seasons will be even better when I go back and watch, having seen season five.

No, you need to watch The Wire now because the cultural conversation is now. Now is not the time, for instance, to talk about that ten seconds of black at the end of the The Sopranos final ep.

Even if you're not a writer, or a TV pro, even if you're, gasp, a viewer, this is a show that is the culmination of all the things quality TV has been pushing toward. It's note perfect in execution.

If you were a fan of Homicide, you even have a familiar face -- Clark Johnson, who spends most of his time directing now, is featured as the beleaguered City editor of the Baltimore Sun.

I've noticed over the years that the people who most enjoy The Wire are people who read a lot. That's not surprising. Every season unfolds very much like a novel. Time was, we would all embrace detail and complexity because we were used to it from our reading. Join the conversation.

Watch The Wire, and watch it tonight.

(And if you don't have pay, make friends with someone who has it. Bring beer, or wine, or cheese. Really.)

Leaving L.A. & The Good Fight

I'VE NEVER MET Jon Robin Baitz, but he's pretty familiar to me. At least through his words. I mean, I didn't watch his show or anything, and I've never seen his plays. But I do love his work.

Wow, I really need to explain that better.

Jon Robin Baitz is a writer and playwright. He created a show that I only watched twice, called Brothers & Sisters. Or, as my father calls it, "Bruddas and Sistisss," when he calls and asks me if I watched it this week.

No, Dad. I haven't. I don't watch that show.

"Yew shudd. Iss Good."

(For the record, my father is an almost complete teetotaler. My keyboard, sadly, does not feature an English-Bronx English transliteration function. Get on that, Google.)

Jon Robin Baitz isn't a reason to watch the show, anyway, since he's not involved in it anymore. He was rather unceremoniously booted from the show as it found its way through three showrunners. He seems mercurial, and passionate and brilliant and pissy. He seems all this through his writing -- which I have little doubt conveys what he's like in person.

Writers are ego and neurosis and convictions that are sure, but that can change. We can contradict ourselves. We go on instinct and on passion, and so sometimes, we find we've got to backtrack.

I've been thinking a bit lately about what kind of writer I am, and how I got here. I've heard from people in my past who helped shape me -- thanks, CBC Radio -- and I've finally had time this holiday season to hang out with like minded writers; or even not so like minded. People with the passion of my approach, but different backgrounds and experiences.

There's this New Yorker Cartoon I saw some time ago - it's a picture of a girl sitting in the window and she's writing and the caption says "Dear Mom and Dad, thank you for my happy childhood. You've ruined any chance I have of being a writer."

I've felt like that in the past. And the nearest thing that I've come up with is that my writer entry point was moving around when I was a kid. You live in different countries and you pick up a different perspective. In my adult life, I've often been surprised to find myself drawn again and again to people who were born somewhere else, or who have spent time living in other countries. Baitz has that in his past. And in his writing for the Huffington Post, he seems impulsive, and frequently intemperate, and engaged and alive. I can see how maybe he wasn't well suited to work in the weekly grind of television.

I don't necessarily burn with the same revolutionary zeal as Baitz. I know that, in the pinch, I'm able to shove aside the personal and knuckle down to do what needs to be done to deliver the show. It's surprising how long in a short career I've had to employ that skill, but there you go.

What I want to direct you to now, is two columns on the Huffington Post that Baitz wrote about the end of his tenure on Brothers & Sisters, and his decision to leave L.A. It's about work, and love, and thinking intemperately, and saying too much, and fighting for what you believe, and maybe changing what you believe. In the second post he even backtracks and clarifies an earlier column he wrote about the strike -- even admitting that his reasons for writing the column might not have been pure.

That's a writer for you. It's why we would make lousy candidates. It's refreshing to read it in another. I haven't done anything as revolutionary as Baitz, who, I'm told, has finally gotten Gay characters to the point of banal normality in the family drama -- no mean feat.

The column fills me with hope, because I recognize traits in myself that I'm always laughing off and trying to apologize for. It fills me with hope because everything he says about L.A. makes me realize anew the things I love about my adopted city, and the reasons why I'm making my stand here. It recommits me to my purpose -- to not let go of the rope, to not stop fighting to make good TV in this country where so many talented writers and performers have been schooled to throw up their hands and flee south, leaving the business to charlatans and scoundrels -- and the beaten down creatives who could do so much more if they were allowed. It combines with the great swath of people I met this year who are capable and aching to do more. It fills me with the hope of working with and meeting more interesting, passionate people like Jon Robin Baitz.

Tomorrow, CBC premieres The Border, a kickoff to a week of new Canadian programming that I hope, finally, will connect with the people of this country. I'm hoping that 2008 is a good year. It's grey and foggy outside my window, but I read Jon Robin Baitz and I hear clips of Barack Obama in Iowa and I think, maybe, just maybe, the cynicism can take some time off.

We'll see.

Part one of Baitz's "Leaving L.A. - Work" is here.

Part two, "Love," is here.

And hey, cause I never said it, Happy New Year to you all. Thanks for reading. (And H/T to Henshaw for the article)