Zounds! I Poke Thee

MIKE McPHADEN is a very, very funny playwright and up-and-coming Canadian TV writer, who has written the absolute last word on that Facebook meme I blogged about the other day.

For your dining and dancing pleasure:

Wm. Shakespeare's "Five and Twenty Random Things Abovt Me"

Today, Sponsored By Pepsi!

I'LL BE ON CBC RADIO's Q this morning just after 10am talking about the SNL Pepsi MacGruber Super Bowl spots.

EDIT: the podcast is now up -- it's the first item.

Time and Distance

EVERY ONCE IN a while I feel like I'm really slacking and not doing enough work for the old career. And then I have weeks like this.

Fun fact: furthest distance I have traveled in my screenwriting career for work:

8136.64 miles, 13094.30 km. That's the distance from Toronto to Cape Town, South Africa, where I worked on a Canada-S.A. co-pro in 2004.

Fun fact number two: total distance I will travel to work as a screenwriter in 2009, without leaving Canada: 4590 miles (7314 km.)

And that's in one thirty day period, a month into the year.

See, that's the thing with TV in Canada. Vancouver endlessly complains about having no work because all the work is "back east," and yet writers I know in Toronto are forever hopping planes to B.C. or Halifax or Ottawa or Montreal or Winnipeg or Calgary or whereever.

All of that is a fancy way of saying that after breaking story in Vancouver for one project two weeks back, this weekend I'll be traveling to St. John's, Newfoundland to sit in a room and break story on a totally different project.

All that and the Canadian winter, too.

I'm not complaining, understand. (Well, except for the winter part. But you'd complain about that too if you had snowbird parents who taunted you with Degrees-in-Farenheit messages left on your answering machine.) But it is a pretty weird way to see the country.

"Oh wow, I look around this nondescript room, and you use white boards too! Weird! We use white boards!"

By the way, all you New Yorkers who moan about having to go to L.A. to work...: 2443 miles. 3932 km. And the FCC is a pain in the ass, but at least they're not trying to kill you.

Face it. We're tougher.

Now. I wonder if there's anywhere in St. John's where a guy could have a drink and a few laughs?

Stephen Fry Is Stuck in an Elevator In London, England.

AT THIS MOMENT. How do I know? Well, he told me. And everyone else who follows him on Twitter. He even kindly posted a photo.

The British Comedian, actor, author, and one time performing-partner of Hugh Laurie, before he decided to go the prickly superstar cripple cranky Doctor route, Twitters his wearabouts daily.

I interviewed him once, and I'm delighted to say that his verbosity and wit translates wonderfully to the 140 character screen.

I just hope he doesn't have to resort to cannibalism.

Don't worry, engineers on are their way, apparently.

We live in a strange, strange world.

L'il Erica Scores

LAST NIGHT'S episode of Being Erica was its fifth, and last in the Monday 9pm timeslot. Whether or not it eventually becomes the hit that CBC needs it to be, anecdotally, at least in my crowd, it's got a high level of awareness and a diverging set of critical reactions.

Last night's episode was the first one since the pilot that I've watched beginning til end. (I missed one show altogether, and lost interest halfway through a couple of others.)

Comments from people who've watched the show and decided not to stick with it have pointed to the hour long format as a barrier. I've heard words like "padded", "thin", and "slow-moving" to describe the reaction.

I also heard a word that's gotta be a death-sentence whenever any Canadian utters it: "smug." It seems for a few people I've talked to -- especially a few women, the chirpy v/o's of Erica Strange can range from the cloying to the judgemental. They don't buy the life lessons at the end.

People are divided on Michael Riley. Some like him, some not so much.

Pretty much everybody agrees, though, that the show makes Toronto look beautiful.

I put the snarky up front there -- and contrasted it with my own inability to get through a couple of episodes, in order to let the rest of this post play out the point that I wanted to stress.

I really enjoyed last night's episode.

For the first time, the hour didn't seem padded. The music choice was integrated into the plot, and not just used as aural wallpaper to evoke a certain year.

Now, considering I'm always going on here about wanting to judge Canadian work by the same yardstick as U.S. shows, it bears pointing out that it often takes U.S. shows four or five episodes to settle into its tone...to "lock in", as it were. And full disclosure, the main reason I tuned in at all last night was because my friend Daegan Fryklind had the "written by" on the ep.

But once the episode was over, and I realized I'd really, really enjoyed it, I wanted to figure out why. What made it different, or more successful. And for what it's worth, here's what I came up with.

Relatable problems in the past and present

Past eps have featured Erica regretting not joining a secret literary society and revisting a class where she was cowed by a bully of a professor. The present problems were getting the right job, or being able to speak up for yourself. I half-tuned to both.

Last night, the problem was Erica being hurt that her best friend chose a lesbian couple as godparents over her. She hated being seen as 'the wacky aunt.' When she went back to the past, we were treated to a re-do of Erica's Bat Mitzvah, which she walked out on the first time cause a boy embarrassed and insulted her. Even though a Bat Mitzvah is a religious ceremony that only Jews go through, both problems somehow felt more universal.

Attitude of the protagonists

It struck me watching last night, that everyone -- every character, was acting from a place of good intentions. There were no cartoony bad people, like the uberbitch boss, or the overbearing professor. Instead, as befits a show where the protagonist flips back and forth in time, it's our interpretations of our own actions, and how we misread the intentions of others, that set the tone.

Fun with the Sci Fi element

This has been the element that's gotten me to hang in longer with Erica than I would have normally. In a past episode, she passed off Britney Spears' "Baby One More Time" as her own poetry, which was fun. But in last night's ep, we got the full Freaky Friday element. When she returned to the past, Erica was played not by the winning Erin Karpluk, but by teen Samantha Weinstein. So you were given the great spectacle of seeing a young teen talk like a wizened 32 year old. It juiced the premise just that little bit more.

Make the Music Work for You

Last night, the show featured two very different Karaoke renditions of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun." Both worked. That is all.


Heart in the Family Story

One of the stories they've goosed along the way is that something terrible happened to Erica's brother, and he died. You don't know why. Well, last night they didn't answer any of that, but in the interaction between older brother and the 13 year old Erica, you saw some of Erica's adoration of her big brother, and it was heartfelt and moving. There wasn't any smugness between the friends, too. The whole thing was very low key, and it suited the tone well.

I'm not sure there's not much more to it than that. The Exec Producers were candid about trying to find the right balance in the stories when they spoke to me for this column. I've noticed in the last couple of eps a desire to "get back to the past already." Not last night.

In relatability, heart, and execution, I really thought last night's show was a high point, and the first show that fulfilled the promise of the pilot -- improving on it in a few key ways, too. I hope they use more of Samantha Weinstein too. As wonderful as Erin Karpluk is, the two of them essaying Erica at different ages is even better.

Hope the move to Wednesdays continues a path to success.

You can watch the Feb 2nd Erica episode online at cbc.ca or buy it on Itunes if you're curious. (Canada only.)

Take a Good Look at My Face(book)

THE TENDENCY FOR social media to explode exponentially is well-documented. MySpace gave way to Facebook and now it's Twitter that's having the adolescent growth spurt. I remember that I joined Facebook, about two years ago, in a flurry of media and TV/Film types rushing to do the same. It quickly became a different way to procrastinate and check in, and a generally harmless to enjoyable social tool.

But like the internet, it's also a place where an idea, or a 'meme' can spread pretty quickly. It all depends if it catches on or not.

For the longest time, I've seen a "25 Random Things About Me" meme bouncing about. A few people I knew attempted it, but it was just another clickable way to spend your Facebook time.

Then a couple of my writer friends did it, and something sort of changed. By the time I did mine, on the weekend, the meme had reached its tipping point.

Now understand, this may only involve a dozen or fifteen people I know, tops. But it's interesting nonetheless because most of them are engaged in the creative fields. So there are intersecting mindsets and approaches.

What strikes me as most interesting is that, given a chance, most writer types will use their "25 Things" to try and articulate the bare bones of some sort of governing philosophy. Now that's something that you just don't generally do. Not in that way, I mean. Not unless you're given to writing manifestos. And let's face it, after the third or fourth one, the only person reading those is that guy working for the NSA. And sadly, he's just skimming for key words.

No, we writers are socialized and prompted to inject that kind of energy into our work. So to see it writ large is kind of like seeing the subtext become text. It's a little thrilling and a lot surprising. I feel like I've learned more about some of my good friends in the last forty-eight hours, than I have in the whole time I've known them.

Writers, most of us anyway, also always know they're writing for an audience. So decoding that layer is tricky, too. There are things that people (myself included) wrote in their lists that clearly reflects not a "world as I see it," but a "me as I'd like you to see me," agenda. There are things that are written from perspectives where you have a counter view, of events or even the basic facts -- but the last thing in the world to do is challenge those items. It would be like wading through someone's cerebellum and kicking the parts of the personality you don't agree with. Brr.

For some, this might seem silly and solipsistic. Just another cry for attention from a group of narcissists who demand too much already.

But there's something else going on in those lists. I've found the details of lives both profound and mundane. Plus beauty, inspiration, undeniable truth, and the unmistakable, comforting tendrils of the common humanity that connects us all.

That's the thing, I guess. You can try to post 25 random things about yourself. But that randomness shatters the moment someone recognizes themselves in you. And I can't help but think that our lives are made better by that.

I Didn't Even Know He Golfed.

STEPHEN COLBERT, riffing on the problems of Iceland, their government's collapse, and the island nation's new openly gay PM, Johanna Sigurdardottir ...

"How many Lesbian Prime Ministers can the world handle? There's already Canada's Steven Harper."

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ah ah ha ah ah ah ha ha ah ha!

When The World Ends

WHY YES, it appears that Being Erica is moving to Wednesdays to be paired with The Week The Women Went.

Which means that the fifth estate, CBC's venerable newsmagazine, will move to Fridays.

Is this:

• a) a case of choosing froth over substance, as some claim.
• b) a savvy reading of the competition, competing schedules and opportunity for growth.
• c) further proof of CBC's callous disregard of any viewer over the age of 50.
• d) the end of the fucking world.
• e) none of the above.

Time will tell, I suppose, though my money's on e) with maybe a little backsplash of b).

I do fear, though, that by virtue of agenda steamrolling, we've all lost the ability to talk about the CBC in any logical, dispassionate faction.

Legitimate concerns about attempts to cut the news budget, or emphasize the wrong priorities, are lost when people nervous nelly the movement of one show and equate it with the crumbling of the entire edifice of public broadcasting. God, are we really, truly that provincial?

You've got those on the right who want to pave the place utterly for its many sins of liberalism, and those inside who've breathed the air in there so long that they simply have no clue what the world smells like out here to the rest of us. You have the fogies who hate change versus the focus groups who demand nothing but. Then, of course, there's the healthy portion of Great Canadian Gainsayers who demand their right to just complain toothlessly about everything, every single change, whether they're right or not, credible or not, lucid or not.

It's one show. One timeslot. It occurs to me that ABC has had a newsmagazine on Friday night for, what, 20 years?

Yes, but 20/20, cluck cluck, that's just trash, cluck cluck. Yes. That whole Second Life cheating show last week was pretty riveting serious journalism, no?

The Week The Women Went, indeed.

Oh, and One More Thing.

JANUARY, except for the 20th, you really, really sucked. Good bye and drop dead!

Why TeeVee Should Be Webby

AFTER WATCHING AN absolutely, soul-crushingly awful SNL hosting by Steve Martin, I grabbed my seven hours rack time and was up and at the computer early this morning. I'm fighting to try and finish an outline revision so I can push it out the door before going to enjoy some manly Superbowl, poker, Bruuuuuce, and smack-talk...so I don't have much to add here today except to push links upon you.

First, there's another in a great series the A&L section of the NYTimes occasionally does appreciating characters on TV shows. Today it's the deserving character of Fiona, Michael's muse and partner in crime on Burn Notice, as played by the lovely Gabrielle Anwar. Anybody looking to create their own series should read a bunch of these columns to set the bar. I wish they were all collected somewhere.

Secondly, Jill Golick riffs off a bit of our Web Talk over the last week to tell you "Four Things The Web Can Do for your Television Series."

Enjoy your Sunday.