"This Just Shouldn't Be This Hard."

I CAN'T FOR the life of me imagine what it must be like to be Maureen Parker.

Parker, Executive Director of the Writers' Guild of Canada, spends her days trying to work on behalf of this country's English language screen and TV writers. She deals with her compatriots at the Directors Guild of Canada, and ACTRA, the national Actors' Union. She lobbies the government and industry, keeps an eye on issues and cultural trends, and occasionally she even gets to spend time talking to creative people.

And ... she spends a lot of time -- probably too much -- in a meeting room in Gatineau, Quebec.

This afternoon, Parker, along with WGC President Rebecca Schecter, VP Charles Lazer and Kelly Lynne Ashton tromped off to another CRTC hearing on the future of Canadian Television. They were joined by like minded representatives from the DGC and ACTRA, including Actors Wendy Crewson and Peter Outerbridge. They sat before the commission and gave very strong presentations that deconstructed, bit by bit, the lunacy that was the CRTC's report on the Canadian Television Fund.

The points made between the three Guilds were strong. They came armed with facts and figures that proved that the Commission's strange contention, that somehow splitting the current CTF fund in two -- into a "market driven" fund and a "cultural" fund -- wasn't based in any sound business plan.

Time after time, they hammered away at the central points in their research -- that the so-called 8/10 productions that are supposed to be the savior of the Canadian industry don't attract audiences like 10/10 productions do. They challenged the assumptions that some third list, b-level U.S. star would be the magic tonic to draw Canadian audiences.

They could have made the point that from HOUSE, to FRIENDS, to LOST to SEINFELD, tv is a medium that doesn't need stars; it makes stars, and that this strange little social experiment the CRTC wanted to try -- see what happens if we cut the baby in two -- is simply another wasteful hurdle for an industry that faces too many of them already. That it would not result in more 'hits,' that it was an attempt to quantify success in a business where even the country with all the money in the world can't figure out a way to do that...

They could, and did, make the point that the talk of a "private fund" and a "public fund" was silly semantics -- since it was all, in fact, "public money" we were talking about...that in fact, all this hearing is about is who gets to hand it out -- the cable co.'s, with no record of doing this kind of thing, who don't have to compete for revenue ever in their protected markets; or the organization that has been examined, poked, prodded and charged with the task for years, the CTF. They could have made the point that rolling the dice on something knew and pulling the plug on something that, while imperfect, meets the need a little better each year was a foolhardy tinkering with a system that could not support it...

But none of those points probably would have mattered. Because judging by the questioning, the commissioners weren't really listening.

Time and again, the questioning returned to "let me just take the devil's advocate position" or "how can it be a problem to have two funds if both kinds of programs are covered?"

Tim Southam, the Director, scored a few points when he pointed out, exasperated, that suggesting that the kinds of programs he makes -- cultural programs where he struggles to take esoteric artistic disciplines like dance and make them knowable to an audience -- should be considered "cultural" and not try to appeal to an audience went counter to what he spent his days doing. It was Southam that also pointed out the peculiar situation a Canadian creative finds themselves in all the time, where you're forced to hustle out there and be the only person who's promoting your own work, because there's no one, no plan, no money behind you.

Rebecca Schecter picked up the baton and reminded everyone that Little Mosque was seen by 4 million people in its first week (over multiple viewings) precisely because there was an unusual -- almost unprecedented -- amount of promotion for it. She pointed out that, to this day, Mosque retains an audience of roughly a million -- proving that when properly promoted, these shows can score.

But through it all was the sense, the leaden feeling that everyone in the room had been there before. Wendy Crewson, Maureen Parker, they've both said most of what they said before.

They were all in that room today because a bully -- a cable mabel who's only too happy to accept his protected market -- stamped his feet and threw a tantrum, triggering this kabuki process.

And then didn't bother to show up.

It was then, near the end of the process, that Parker got this funny wistful look on her face, noticeable even through the jerky internet video. In response to yet another, "let's just play devil's advocate" question, Parker shook her head and said, "Two hundred and forty million dollars. That's what we're talking about here." For the entire Canadian industry. All TV made, and aired with CTF money. Hundreds -- thousands of hours a year. In a month where audiences checked out new shows on CBC and Global voraciously, in which CTV sold shows that haven't even been made yet, Parker pointed out that all the money in the fund was "the cost of three American feature films."

She shook her head.

"This just shouldn't be this hard."

And that's it, in a nutshell. More time, more taxpayer dollars talking about this fund and that fund and who should pay and where it should go and how many board members and culture and market, and this cable co who wants to control that pot of money and should they or shouldn't they -- all this time spent and wasted in conference rooms, going over the same old thing. Not moving forward. Covering the same well trod ground that keeps a dysfunctional industry beeping along, gasping for breath.

"This just shouldn't be this hard."

Maureen's right. It shouldn't be. And we're still talking about all the wrong things. But it looks like writers, and actors, and directors, and producers, and everyone else is going to be tromping up to Gatineau for a long time to come. Because it's not just that they don't really seem to get it. It's that it seems like they really, really don't care.

And meanwhile, all the really juicy stuff..."is this a good show? Is it bad? Why did people tune in? Why didn't they come back?" In short, all the stuff that makes shows better...well, we have to put that conversation aside again. Because it's time to go up the hill to see if we'll still be able to fetch a pail of water, come the fall.

For what it's worth, thanks for making the trip. I just wish I saw a sign that anyone was listening.

The Border: Now With Thirty Percent More Skin

UNFORTUNATELY, THE PREVIEW for tonight's episode of The Border doesn't seem to be up on YouTube. But I'd encourage you to tune in anyway. The ep, "Compromising Positions," is a nice change of pace episode that hits some notes that we haven't hit on the show before.

Ably written by series co-creator Janet MacLean, and Directed by Kelly Makin, this ep hews away from the Canada-U.S. dynamic we've seen in recent weeks for a story that mixes Canadian political intrigue, sex, and a bit of murder for good measure. The ep features the return of the delightfully arch Nigel Bennet, Alberta Watson, and Inna Korobinka in a really delicious comic turn as Svetlana -- the cagiest exotic dancer you've ever seen on the CBC.

The Border airs tonight at 9pm on CBC Television.

Monday Morning Quarterbacking the CTF

I TRIED TO DO something today that I can't remember ever trying to do before. I tried to watch something on CPAC. CPAC, of course, is the Canadian Parliamentary Affairs Channel. Anyway, today is the start of a week of hearings into the disastrous recommendations regarding The Canadian Television Fund, or CTF.

For those needing a catchup:

Last year a couple of cable moguls -- among them the delighfully fatuous Jim Shaw -- threw a tantrum by deciding to withhold their monthly payments to the Canadian Television Fund. Years ago, the Cable co's got a bunch of sweet, sweet breaks from the CRTC. And the payback (much like the "benefits" packages that get bandied about when one Canadian broadcaster gobbles up another) was to contribute to the CTF, a portion of the protected cable revenues they got in this sweet deal.

Jim Shaw, the millionaire monopolist, decided he didn't like the CTF and didn't want to play anymore after the CRTC denied his request to bring in more U.S. cable channels. He didn't get what he wanted, and so he went on a rampage.

Shaw's quite a character. He's famous for wielding his public utility as a private fiefdom -- by refusing to carry channels that disagree with his conservative mindset (Nobody wants to see the gay people!) and playing fast and loose with facts. His little pogrom against the CTF was backed up with months of slanted ads which misrepresented just about everything on the subject of Canadian television.

Oh yeah. He also hates Trailer Park Boys.

Anyway, incredibly, anywhere else the reaction might have been quick and fierce. But this is Canada. So instead a report was struck -- and the recommendations released last year were simply ... dumb. They recommended splitting the fund into two -- one that Shaw and his minions could their grubby little mitts on to fund and support the kinds of program that reflect "their" Canada. And the idiot stepchild fund -- the "heritage" fund. For, you know, "worthy" projects. (Read: crap nobody would ever watch and a fund that we can slowly choke with no money because no one will care.) The other big change - this new spiffy cable fund would relax the rules so that more American content could reign. It wouldn't have to be quite "as" Canadian. Because more American tv is definitely what this country needs.

The CRTC called for comment, and they received a record number of complaints -- most of the mail they received were very against the harebrained, ill-thought out plan.

So today in Ottawa a week of hearings start. Up today was Shaw Communications and the Writers Guild of Canada. Later this week -- on Friday, in fact, the commission will hear from actual creatives -- among them Karen Walton (Ginger Snaps, Queer as Folk, ) Aaron Martin (Degrassi, The Best Years,) David Barlow (The Border, Blue Murder) and Karen McClellan (Show Me Yours, Robson Arms, Alice, I Think)

The cynic in me worries at the Friday presentation. Because it could very well follow the corporate media script we saw at the last CRTC hearing -- where the demands of the huge networks and broadcasters got front page stories, and the presentations by the creative community were basically ignored. (Thank you, Big Media! You're welcome, tiny little citizen nothing!)

As an experiment -- watch the coverage today and tomorrow of Shaw's Charges, and see the play it gets. Then see the coverage the actual creative people get, presenting on a Friday, after weekend deadlines for the Dailies have past. This is how it goes in this country. Worship the power structure, don't celebrate the individual. It's the Canadian way.

But that's a much bigger topic. For now, coming full circle, I went to CPAC, because you'd think that something that was being done by the government to do with changing broadcasting would be on the government affairs channel.

Nope.

I love CSPAN and CSPAN2 in the USA. If you've got any wonky tendencies, they can be like manna from heaven. To be fair, CPAC also does show the daily parliamentary question period, which is the closest thing we have in this country to political bloodsport. (Imagine if Prez GW had to face questioning from the opposition every single day...) but for now, no love from CPAC. They're showing a Senate hearing. (Note to any curious American viewers, the Senate in Canada is not like the Senate in the USA. It's like, oh, I don't know, more like the Old Uncle Cletus Retirement Home for Political Hackery)

On the CRTC site, you can apparently listen to the hearing -- but alas, only if you're on a PC. Oh. The Irony. Let's just let it hang there in the air.

The only reason I'd be considering listening in in a million years, of course, is to see if there's been any last-minute twigging of the Shaw presentation. After all, the landscape and narrative on Canadian Tv has changed considerably in the last few weeks. But then again, it's probably not going to matter. A guy who's been lying for months won't mind throwing out a few more lies on the way to his spin, which basically amounts to, "It's my pipe, I should decide what you get to see."

I trust Maureen Parker and the WGC will do their able best to put forth the Cassandra position. It would be wondrous if just one of the commissioners grasped the social implications of the fact that "English Canada" is the only place in the industrialized world where homegrown shows aren't in the top 10 -- and that now, finally, when some shows are getting traction -- maybe we shouldn't strangle them in the crib.

But I'm not gonna hold my breath.

John Doyle from the Globe and Mail will apparently be taking a looksee at the proceedings. If you want to know what's going on at the circus, spend a loonie and pick up the Globe.

Just don't expect to see it on CPAC. Or, um, be able to listen if you have a Mac.

You know, the computer creative people use.

All this for a fund, the CTF, which definitely does have its shortcomings. But the Canadian way -- to throw the baby out with the bathwater -- is just a disaster waiting to happen. If only the chuckleheads on the commission can be made to see that.

Anyway, while they're all arguing about that little aspect of TV's past, Henshaw's got his last dispatch from NATPE up where he talks about the medium's future.

And Pal Dixon's got another great post from the TV Director's point of view. See, that fits so nicely into the part of the making TV narrative that the Jim Shaw's will never understand -- there are many, many ways something can go wrong -- and having smart creative people in charge with the room to effect real change is your only hope of letting things go right.

Course, you still may wind up with Trailer Park Boys. But that's okay. Some of us love that kind of thing. And there's more of us than there are millionaire silver spoon mogul wannabes who are only where they are because Daddy built up a nice big business for them to splash around in.

Finally, if you want to read the CTF's own spin on how it's been doing, click here. Sure, it's spin. But I guarantee you it's closer to the truth than anything the CRTC will hear out of Jim Shaw's mouth today.

* * *

UPDATE: Oh My God. Unbelievable. The first report from CP about the hearings is up. Jim Shaw didn't show. Why? He threw another tantrum:

The hearings got off to a rocky start Monday with news that one of the key reasons for the review, cable-distributor Jim Shaw of Shaw Communications Inc. (TSX:SJR.B), announced he would boycott the hearings because CRTC head Konrad von Finckenstein would not be chairing.

Instead, the hearings are being chaired by Rita Cugini, the regulator's regional commissioner for Ontario. A spokesman for the CRTC said the three-member panel was chosen for its broadcasting experience and that the final decision of the regulator will be taken by all the members.

Shaw and Quebecor's Videotron caused a crisis in the 12-year-old system about a year ago when they temporarily suspended payments, saying that the CTF had squandered their money by producing unpopular shows. The CTF obtains about $150 million in annual financing from private cable and satellite subscribers and another $120 million from government.

So let me get this straight -- you throw an entire industry into disarray, LIE about it for MONTHS, and then when the landscape CHANGES, and proves that you're full of gas, you don't show up at the hearing YOU CAUSED because DADDY'S not chairing it?

How is it possible that anyone in the country takes this guy seriously?

UPDATE2: Yup, okay. A couple people emailed me to let me know that you can watch the hearing on CPAC's site. Just what I wanted to do. Watch TV on my computer.

Oh the irony.

The Fyoouuchure is Nowww.

YES, YES. JUST about every news site you want to surf to right now is saying that the WGA and the AMPTP are close to a deal to end the writers strike, now in its fourth month.

I'll believe it when I see it. Keep your expectations low.

And while you're at it, why not take a look at these interesting reports Jim Henshaw filed from the NATPE convention in Vegas last week.

The Jeff Zucker speech is interesting, though Henshaw continues his inexplicable admiration for the weaselly and odious. Jesus, Jim. Jim Shaw and Jeff Zucker, too? What's next? Spooning with Nick Counter?

And The Winner Is...

A VERY WISE friend just said something that I think is very true. In these Canadian - U.S. series sales, it really remains to be seen whether it will be good in the end for any of the writers, or producers -- once everything's taken into account.

But there is someone who's gonna win. And chances are they'll be an Actor or an Actress.

So start taking your bets now: who wins?

"Extremely Emotionally Complicated"

AN INTERESTING AND candid interview with Greg Berlanti in Forbes. (H/T to Jaime Weinman @ Macleans) Ostensibly, it's about his new show, Eli Stone (which means this season he's resp. for Brothers & Sisters, Dirty Sexy Money, AND Eli Stone. Whoa.) He also, for you trivia buffs, is the guy who came up with "Pacey Kisses Joey," which Jeffrey Stepakoff describes in his excellent memoir Billion Dollar Kiss (coming out soon in trade paperback!)

Some excerpts that caught my eye:

Eli Stone is premiering at a time when there is little scripted competition on the airwaves. Do you feel even a little guilty about taking advantage of the strike?

It's interesting because I think people sort of see it that way, but I don't think the strike is good at all. I think there's almost no good that can come out of it, because the reality is yes, there's not that much competition, but it's also harder to promote your show since there are less talk shows to go on and less people are talking about TV. Given the choice of premiering in a strike or non-strike environment, hands down I would have chosen a non-strike one. It's made the whole thing extremely emotionally complicated.

So it's not just Canadian shows that are putting people in complicated positions. And when you're a writer/viewer, too. I was really interested to see Eli Stone. I've heard from some people who watched it that it was good. And I wanted to watch Lost, too. But I just couldn't bring myself to watch either one. I watched House the other night and it just felt wrong to me -- it felt like I was doing something wrong. I know that's not logical. But I don't want to write about Eli Stone or watch it til this thing is settled. And I know that's not consistent, because I did write about Breaking Bad -- but maybe that's because AMC seems like it's a bit of a maverick right now.

I guess it's just extremely emotionally complicated. More from Berlanti in Forbes:

There's been a lot of talk about the strike being used to overhaul some of the inefficiencies of the current television model, whether it's pilot season, the traditional TV season or the upfront ad bazaar. If you were at the helm, what would you fix first?

I do think that how pilots get made is an antiquated system. The reality is everyone is making the majority of network pilots at the same time, so you're grabbing for the same actors at the same time, the same directors at the same time and the same crews at the same time. It just creates a sort of craziness. I've done four or five pilots over the last four or five years, and it makes the process more sort of luck of the draw--it's not designed for quality.

What do you think television will be like after the strike? Will it change much?

Television is always kind of changing. I've been writing TV for about nine years, and I've already seen a few different changes. There was a time when I first got into the business where feature writers were just starting to write their own TV shows, that first sort of crossover. And then a few years later, people started spending more and more money on pilots to make them bigger events to capture people's attention.

So I'm sure it will change again, and I'm not so certain that it will happen as a result of the strike, or it would have just sort of happened anyway. I think the biggest--or at least the most interesting--change to me that is on the horizon: what it means to be a hit these days. Shows that are doing much lower in the [ratings] than their predecessors are deemed hits. And there are younger shows where 50% of your audience is watching online and how do you register success there. As television becomes more and more niche, what defines a hit will be the next question that comes up.

Hey, Henshaw, your whole thing about ratings for Canadian shows -- hmm -- sounds like the on-the-fly "hit or no hit?" thing isn't just a Canadian problem.

It's almost like we ... face some of the same problems? Ooooh.

CTV Sells Another Show To The Amnets

WELL, I GUESS the story just became a bit more complicated.

Yup, I was wrong about nothing selling. But then again, I also thought the strike would be over by now.

No one knows the 2nd part of this story until the shows go to air down south. Does anyone actually remember how long Due South lasted on CBS?

***

Now might be the time to ask the pros who lurk here, who have experience from the old days of late night shows on CBS and copros with studios like Tribune and stuff -- I wasn't in the game at that point, so I throw it open to you, call it a public service to the writers now working on Flashpoint and The Listener:

Canadians Tell Their Favorite U.S. Network Note Stories.

Have at it in the comments below.

Dead Letters (Not ON Sticks)

I STARE OUT my window at a wall of white and I can't help but think of picketing writers in NYC today. Good Luck, you hardy, frozen scribes. When the ice age comes and the mole people rise up with the hungry polar bears flanking south in a pincer motion to decimate Manhattan, it is you who will be the loyal resistance and last best hope for humanity. Word.

Now, see, sometimes the Sticksville Post Office gets letters. I am reliably informed that many of these communiques come through that famous series of tubes known collectively as the Interwebs. Naturally, we can't answer the, oh, tens of thousands of queries that come through (thanks to some tidy linking from Kung Fu Monkey on a previous post. Thanks John!) So sometimes we try to take care of them here. Let's get to it, shall we?

Don't you love it when there's a new exec that's brought in on a show and they want to "mix it up". That's so fun. Why do they do that?

I know it can sometimes seem like a mystery. But the answers you seek are all there in the Good Book. I direct you to Chapter 21, Verse 3:

And so The LORD sayeth unto the scribe,

Your work pleases me. And your honesty and your creativity
celebrates me and all my works.

So lo, today I send unto you, this fucktard.

They will fix what is unbroken,
And stir that which is polished.
Verily, they shall challenge the premise that thy hast sold
And the jokes thou hast giggled over.


As the bounty of grain has its locust
As the flower has its putridity
And the dove that nasty white poo stuff
So too shall you endure my trials.

And yea, it shall make thee stronger,
Thy skills shall multiply a hundred times
And a hundred times again
Betwixt the force of their banality.

And in the times to come, you will
Have the basis for a new character,
And the fucktard shall go home and
abuse their cat. Who totally hates them,
By the way, and spends every moment
of every day trying to figure out a
way to kill them and keep the food coming.

And the fucktard shall never know
The joy of my love.
For I do so love you, scribe.

It's a little hard to swallow, I know. But look on the bright side. At least he/she didn't ask you to cut the baby in two. Thanks for writing. Next!

First of all, long time reader, some time poster and all around fan of the
blog.  But as much as I appreciate what you put out on the web, to make as
much noise as you did on the slim possibility of a Canadian series being
sold to the US and what you'd label the writers of such a series, only then
to close the comments of a post that deals specifically with those issues -
whether you're friendly or not with the creators of such series - is very
lame.

What you do, while hard sometimes to admit, is important to the dialogue of
Canadian production.  I understand that blogging is only posting your
opinion.  However having read you consistently, I believe you take your
opinion seriously.  As such, I think you owe to those who read you a further
defense of what you've said in earlier posts or to retract your previous
comments.

Okay. Um. Wow.

First of all, I think perhaps you've flattened and squeezed out any of the nuance in my written and quoted position.

But of course, that's not the meat of the issue here. So let's talk a bit more about what I do here, and how I do it.

There are those who have taken me to task in the past, throwing around the contention that I hide behind the, "I'm just a blogger" thing sometimes. I think that's an unfair charge, but that's fine. I can take it. It does also happen to be true.

What standard do I hold myself to? Saying what I believe to be true. That's it. That can change. It can evolve. The reason this blog took the turn it did a little over two years ago was because I thought the reportage of Canadian media was insular and deadly. It was full of single-sourced stories that reflected, almost totally, a corporate agenda. For a long time, Antonia Zerbisias seemed to be lone voice in the Toronto Star actually approaching Canadian media issues from something other than a business perspective. John Doyle tries, but he is constricted somewhat by the fact that primarily he's supposed to be reviewing TV.

So I started blogging about what I knew. About the things that were being said everywhere I went inside media circles; about the truths that seemed to be common truths -- but were never disseminated.

But here's the thing -- as I've said many, many times before -- it's never been the whole truth. It can't be.

You seem to want to hold me to a journalistic standard. That's rich, because of course it speaks to the very reason why I started. Believe me, I see the irony. But I'm the first to say that this blog, and what gets written in it cannot ever be considered as a journalistic source, or as the full truth in anything. And this is for one simple reason:

I always have a conflict of interest.

I try to be even handed. I try not to settle scores. I dare to go so far in speaking about issues -- and I think it's a problem that there are so few voices that are willing to go as far as I go, in saying the crap that everybody thinks anyway.

But you cannot both be in the industry and outside it. I can't divorce my personal and economic interests from the work I do here. You can't take me as an objective source because I am never objective. I do have a dog in the hunt.

That doesn't mean I don't have an opinion. It just means that I'm not always willing to share that opinion with you. This shouldn't be a surprise. I've written about this before.

So in this case, as in others, if I say I won't comment on something, it's not because I don't have an opinion. I'm just not gonna share it with you. You think I owe it to you? Mmm. Okay. That's an interesting viewpoint.

I tend not to agree.

Now, the price I pay for that is that you get to speculate and think whatever you want about why I won't comment or talk about something. I can't help that. That's your right. The reason why it doesn't drive me crazy is because I know my reasons, and I know that whatever you imagine those reasons to be is very, very far removed from the reality.

I'm comfortable with my personal integrity on this issue. I won't be losing any sleep.

If you want to explore the issue, there are plenty of other people willing to talk about it. There's a discussion on Facebook, at Karen Walton's Ink Canada Group. You can go comment on Brioux's site. Hell, maybe you could, you know, read up on what the official voice of Canadian writers, the Guild, has to say.

I am not such an egotist that I think if I don't weigh in on a subject, that subject goes unexplored. I am simply not that important in the grand scheme of things -- and every cross that comes up is not mine to bear, no matter what you may think.

As for retracting what I said. Why? I still believe every word I wrote on the subject. I believe what I said in those interviews. I think every Canadian writer has a duty to explore how they feel, and what they're willing to do, especially since, you know -- it's going to happen again. (It already has, in fact.)

I'm already on the record. I don't feel the need to say any more. If you do, then by all means, find a way to do that. Step up.

One more thing. I've been thinking a lot in the last little while about what the most useful course of this blog might be in the months ahead. I don't know if I have an answer. I have been exploring and thinking of other ways in which I could help my industry and have a voice that's not related to the blog. That might evolve things here.

One thing I'll promise, though, is this: one day I'm probably going to stop. I'll either get too busy, or I'll decide that my off time is better spent writing a book or something. This thing has always had a stale date. We haven't reached it yet. But when we do, the conversation will continue without me, I hope.

If you don't like them terms, then I'm afraid my only recourse is to offer you a full refund.

Goddamn, that's a lot of snow.

Pucks Pass Pod as CBC Shuffles The Deck

WELL I GUESS this was inevitable. According to a press release (two years doing this blog, and CBC is finally sending me press releases. It's like....Christmas!) beginning next Tuesday, MVP -- the Hockey-themed-riff on Footballer$ Wives, and J-Pod, the slacker office hourlong comedy kinda drama hybrid are swapping places.

So JPod will inherit the MVP slot, Friday at 9pm, while MVP will now go up against the American Idol buzzsaw. MVP's first Tuesday airing is Feb. 5.

I guess we're going to get to see if MVP's weakness on Friday nights is entirely due to the unsuitability of that timeslot.

Theoretically, it might even be not so bad for J-Pod. In a less competitive slot (Friday night wasteland) the quirky show might just get more channel surfers sampling it. Latest ratings were dire, so something's gotta give.


At right: "We're going where?"

One more word about J-Pod....Yes, this is a constant refrain in Canadian TV, and yes, it's a big problem -- but everyone I know who's seen the later episodes say that the show really, really is much better starting Episode 7 or 8. Better storylines, better writing, better...well...everything.

Yes, yes, yes. That's the kiss of death for any show -- since by then the audience is fed up...but if you are a member of the Coupland cult -- and I know there's a lot of you out there -- it just might be worth your while to go back and check it out a couple Fridays hence. Just saying.

Timeslot juggling due to ratings. My God, CBC seems like a real network more every day!

All you lemmings can have Chuck Norris. I say don't count out the Thicke just yet.

And Then Later I Invite Them Over To Bowl

THIS WILL probably only be funny to the fourteen people out there who have seen There Will Be Blood.

As it sits with me, the movie doesn't exactly grow in my estimation, but there is that undeniable, crazy visceral performance by Daniel Day-Lewis. And a great part of that character, I'm convinced, is the loving specificity of the rhythms of his speech. A few days later, and I've still got that voice rattling around in my brain pan. There's a couple scenes where Daniel Plainview is making his pitch -- and the timbre and control, the charisma and the buried menace of it, the sheer force of it is truly spellbinding. I find myself wanting to appropriate that voice, somehow -- to use it in my own attempts to peddle snake oil.

What would that look like?

Well...I imagine...something...like....this:

"You see, I am a TELEVISION WRITER. And I wish to speak to you today about WRITING FOR TELEVISION. There are those who will say they can craft you a pilot, and that may VERY WELL be TRUE. But can they get you to SIXTY EPISODES? Can they craft a decent ACT BREAK? Will they rely on a creaky FOUR ACT structure, or have they mastered FIVE? It is THESE QUESTIONS you must consider.

I have a six episode strike over at the former CHUM, you see. I have had meetings with executives both HIGH and LOW. You could go with someone from the Film Centre, or someone who's developed a CANADIAN FEATURE, yes, about a man having sex with his GRANDMOTHER. But only I can have the FIRST DRAFT and the BIBLE for your series by APRIL. I can do it, I can have it, and I can make it exciting, with explosions and sexual interplay. YOU can GO WITH SOMEONE ELSE, that is your right. BUT you CANNOT say that you were not PRESENTED with the option to skip all that; to just DEVELOP WITH ME.

I await your decision. I will sit here and calmly wax my mustache. Please don't mind my son, J.W. He will be stepping out momentarily to procure a SMOOTHIE.

NOW, what is for LUNCH?"

Trending Up

LAST NIGHT, The Border's fourth episode was watched by 760 000 viewers across Canada. That's up significantly from the week before, and up from the heavily promoted premiere, which drew 710 000 viewers. Better still, younger audiences seem to be responding to The Border's mix of action and humor. The Terminator's numbers are going down. The Border's are going up.

There were a lot of naysayers, but it's safe to say now that the show is building audience. That's good news. If The Guard manages to hold on to its HOUSE audience tonight, that'll be another piece of good news.

Someone was laughing to me down the phone line today about this Toronto Star article. This is a typical Canadian news spin and another example of what I was writing about down below. Really, at what point do you look at the angle you're taking and ask, "is this really the right spin to the story?"

Fighting against the drag, and the perceptions is never easy. But with baby steps forward being taken by better ratings, and things like this story, about a CTV series sale to CBS, the chains are moving down the field ever so slowly.

Just keep grinding out those first downs, and maybe down the road there's a happy tale to tell.

(Though the timing of the CTV series sale is a little unfortunate.)

Parallel Intersections, Part Two

This is the continuation of my first Parallel Intersections post.

THE THING about movies that succeed or fail in the American marketplace, artistically or financially, is that they're allowed to rise and fail on their merits. Each success or failure is about that project and that project alone. It doesn't have to carry the burden of what it means for the industry.

There have been those movies that have done just that. Heaven's Gate will forever be a movie that sunk a studio. Cleoptatra, before it, was the standard bearer for a level of Hollywood Excess.

Yet in Canada, in English Canada, anyway -- every single film is subjected to this scrutiny. It leads to impossible heights that no project can meet, and a self-fulfilling cycle of failure. It also exposes faultlines that speak to something odd and wanting in the Canadian character -- the need for American validation (when something or someone does well in the USA, it's always news) and the grandiosity of purpose leads often to a certain type of producer fronting projects that are meant to be "so much more" than entertainment.

When we haven't even gotten the entertainment part right, for the most part.

***

The thing about that group of writers at lunch is that they all shared the best quality that writers can have besides wit: Doubt.

I've always believed that the best television and film writers aren't defined by their assuredness. It's quite the opposite. The writer who says, "it's brilliant!" when he or she looks at a finished script is never going to be as effective as the one who doubts. An agent friend of mine was relating the story of a top who he was thinking of representing. Keep in mind, this is a writer who was currently employed on a show that was a ratings success. "I don't even know why you'd want to represent me. I still have so much to learn." Of course the agent looked at him and said, "that's why I want to represent you."

That has profound implications for the issue of talent management in this country. Knowing that this is how writing talent thinks should affect the way that you deal with that talent. Yet it doesn't. From network executives to executive producers to publicists -- the Canadian industry is extraordinarily bad at managing and dealing with writing talent. The WGC has horror stories a mile long of writers being berated for taking jobs when they weren't under option; of being asked to create shows out of whole cloth and then give the created by credit to a producer who came in with a napkin.

In order to move forward as writer, at some point you're asked to make bold choices. But you do so wrapped in a cloth of always having that other, questioning voice wondering if you're doing the right thing.

A producer who finds the way to support that voice and bring it out; to hold it up and to allow it to find the right path is someone who will be successful in helping to birth artistically sucessful productions.

But unfortunately, far more common is that the creative writer who has a lot of doubt runs up against the producer who has way too little.

And those producers will often shake their heads and bitch that they can't find good writers.

While the greatest writing room Canada never had sits at brunch divvying up the check.

But the doubt that can be useful in creation can be harmful out here, checking the reaction to work.

There are shows that are overpraised, yes, which don't deserve it. But also, just like in the first example, there can also be an element of voracious devouring of one's own. There are a lot of people out there who will insist that they are judging the Canadian work they see fairly, when they really aren't. They're looking for it to be bad, to fulfill this strange need Canadians have to savage their own -- until such time as they're validated down south.

Now, which is it in each circumstances? Is it fair critique of something that isn't very good, or is it something being judged to an unfair standard and not simply allowed to be?

Sometimes it's both.

If you're a creative person, with a creative person's doubt, that can be hard to take.

***

I've always been a sucker for American history. I just love it. So I was tremendously excited at the prospect of seeing The Patriot. But I should have known better than to go see it in a Canadian theater.

From almost the moment the lights went down, any moment that nudged up against American mythmaking, there were snickers. And groans. The grabbing of the standard -- a rousing moment in any war movie, elicited over the top groans and catcalls.

Canadians' favorite sport was being played out in the theater -- the razzing and ridicule of American patriotism or sentimentality about their roots.

I had to finish watching the movie on video months later because after a while I couldn't follow the plot. The audience and their reactions were getting in my way.

Now the thing is, there's a large portion of the Canadian audience that doesn't just do this for American stuff. They do it for Canadian stuff, too. If there's a Tim Horton's cup in a scene, it's pandering. If the cop uses a Canadian place name reference, it's distracting.

English Canadian culture, because it has largely learned to define itself by being "not American," presents an incredibly difficult target to someone who says that they just want to tell a good story. Because part of the audience is always going to be looking for some element of Canadian-ness and seize upon it as an example of "trying too hard," or "Pandering." If you do an American style action hour, you're trying too hard to be American. If you put in Canadian stuff, "look at that, they're doing it!" It's like that audience at The Patriot. They're not even looking at the story. They don't want to get past the trappings.

Quebec audiences, watching their own sitcoms and silly shows and serious shows, and loving them, don't really engage with the material this way. They're just looking to watch tv and enjoy themselves. So they do. And the people making the shows don't second and third guess whether they're going to be cited as being too this or not enough that. They just focus on the work.

***

The root of my friend asking about the rituals of the Catholic liturgy came out of his own dissatisfaction with the kind of experience he'd had in his church.

Not having ever been to most other Christian churches, I guess I had the Catholic's view of Protestantism, that it was all about getting rid of the worst parts of Catholic excess, streamlining.

Not so, said my friend. The key is right there in the word: protestant. In opposition to. Often, it seemed to him, a whole lot of things were done not because they thought about the traditions and what would actually work best in terms of a service, or a celebration of faith, or an exploration of that faith; no. What was done was done in terms of how different it was from how the Catholics did it.

There were a lot of arguments in his church, he said. Arguments drove protestantism -- all the splits that happened down the line. Baptists who would argue and take stands on the issue of, if the person isn't fully immersed in the water, are they truly baptized or are they going to hell?

As this culture filtered to the day and day, he wondered if all the arguing really got in the way of doing what the thing was supposed to do: which was be a celebration, a service designed to get the congregation to think about how they felt about God, and what was said in the scriptures; what that meant to put into practice in daily life.

That's why he wanted to know about what I got out of church, when I went to church. And I surprised myself, when I started talking about it, with just how much actually I had gotten out of it. The brief sermon, the codified sameness of the Catholic mass, the fact that it was set in stone with the feast days tied to the calendar, which made themeing a homily easy -- all of that made for an hour a week where I thought about spiritual conduct, moral and value choices. Lessons of humanism and helping your fellow man -- all the things, in fact, that you were supposed to be thinking about.

Now, this is one highly subjective conversation. Never in a million years do I want or plan to get into a discussion of the merits or values of one Christian religion over another, or even the notion of religion itself.

What struck me about it was that all the arguments that my friend seemed to be talking about --they were all over the wrong things. They took us away from talking about what was really important.

Back in my secular world, I guess that's how I feel about the Canadian TV industry at this point, too. We're all arguing about the wrong things. There's arguments that have nothing to do with content -- like the portion of the audience that will inject into every single discussion their contention that the CBC is too this or too that, or run by commies. There are the people who will discuss the ratings, and what do they mean, do they mean this or that, should we be creating this kind of show or that...

...you've got cable moguls who want to throw fits and make the issue their personal taste. Along the way, if that means denying successes like Trailer Park Boys or even Corner Gas, so be it.

Swirling, swirling around, as I dive back into development, it's with the knowledge that as much as I want to just focus on creating a compelling world that people will want to watch...well, the conversation in Canada always seems to be about all the other things first. I'm as guilty of it as anyone.

All these intersections, all these implications. I'm not sure what any of it means. I don't know what the future of the internet is. I don't know if there should be one fund or two, or if broadcasters should be mandated to run drama or not. I don't know.

I just wish we talked about story more. And I wish there was a place in Canada where they encouraged that.

Cause there isn't.

At The Negotiating Table

YEAH YEAH, it's awful that there's no news. Everybody's all antsy. I'm with you.

So how about this link to a video produced by Disposable Television, featuring, among others, Seth MacFarlane and How I Met Your Mother's Josh Radnor?

It's profane, not like that thing with the cup that I've only heard about, but profane enough that I don't want to host it on the blog. But it involves puppets. And the subtle comic stylings of Seth MacFarlane. You were warned.

"Now let's go make Bionic Woman!"

In Treatment

I RECEIVED preview discs for HBO's latest experiment, IN TREATMENT, (Monday, 9pm, Movie Central and TMN in Canada/HBO in the USA) a while back, and I've worked my way through some of them.

If you're the kind of person who believes the idea of seeing a shrink talk to four different pages for a half hour a night seems deadly, I have to say: it's surprisingly compelling.

There's also no doubt that HBO, having lost the crown of innovation it once wore so effortlessly, is looking to try something new.

IN TREATMENT follows psychiatrist Paul Weston (Gabriel Byrne) as he has sessions with four different patients, one a night, Monday to Thursday.

The patients are various degrees of screwed up. The series is an adaptation of an Israeli series, as the New York Times recounts:

“In Treatment” is not entirely a plunge into the unknown, however. The show is HBO’s version of “Be’ Tipul,” one of Israel’s most successful and most talked about dramas ever. The American adaptation hews close to the original, with minor adjustments: a patient is a combat veteran of the Iraq war, not the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It also helps that Paul’s patients have an interesting patchwork of neuroses. Laura (Melissa George) is a young, very pretty hospital worker with a fierce erotic attachment to her therapist. Alex (Blair Underwood) is an ace Navy pilot who had a heart attack after a disastrous bombing mission in Iraq. Sophie (Mia Wasikowska) is a 16-year-old schoolgirl and a gifted gymnast who may have suicidal impulses as well as an unhealthy relationship with her coach. Jake and Amy (Josh Charles and Embeth Davidtz) are a couple straining over whether to have a second child.

All of them are intelligent, cagey and hard to classify, let alone treat. And as the problems pile up, Paul’s confidence begins to sag.

The interesting thing, as the Times points out -- is that the conversational sessions themselves are puzzles. They're as much about what the patients are not saying as what they're saying.

On the fifth day, we see the cost all this takes on Paul, as we view his sessions with his own therapist, played by Dianne Wiest.

In Treatment runs for four weeks. It's an interesting experiment. Whether you bond with one patient and choose to follow only their night, or go for all five -- it's evidence that HBO, though not as sure footed as it might have once been, still knows how to take that TV frame and shake it up when needed.

Parallel Intersections

LAST NIGHT I went to see There Will Be Blood. Although, probably like everyone else, I was bowled away by Daniel Day Lewis' performance, the experience was strangely empty. I felt like very little character was revealed and that, in the end, the length of the narrative wasn't justified by the meat of the story. It was strangely enervating, kind of like the feeling I had after seeing No Country For Old Men. That film had me gripped for the first hour. But, the second hour felt like holding a large balloon that was slowly leaking. By the time I walked out of the theatre, both the film and my rapture with it were completely deflated.

* * *

A few weeks back, I found myself at a resto on College Street in Toronto's Little Italy for a brunch with some fellow TV writers. The conversation was lively and animated, as it always is with a group of sharp and open minds. I walked away with a warm feeling, but also a feeling of melancholy, which didn't make a lot of sense until someone else who'd been at the table articulated the very feeling: "that was the best writing room Canadian TV never had."

* * *

About eight years ago, I went to the movies to see Roland Emmerich's The Patriot. The film was one that I'd wanted to see because Mel Gibson hadn't yet wacked out. Besides giving me my first real look at a young actor named Heath Ledger, the movie also introduced me to the considerable charms of Jason Isaacs. Yet it took me about six months to see the end of the movie on video, which I quite enjoyed. I didn't see it the first time cause I had to leave the theatre.

* * *

Last Thursday I met a friend for a drink. It was an impromptu thing, so instead of going somewhere with an atmosphere I enjoyed, we just went across the street to the sports bar. As we talked, a couple of people watched the Leafs game desultorily. A much larger, louder group cheered on the Raptors.

I hadn't seen this friend in a while. Long enough that I didn't know he had a new job. Which he'd had for three months. Whoops. Time, it does get away from you.

Anyway, after an hour or so, the conversation turned to a really surprising place. My friend is an evangelical. A Baptist. And he asked me, the lapsed Catholic, what was it that I found appealing about the Catholic liturgy. The celebration of the mass, the service, the tradition...was there anything I missed? Did it do anything for me, even still?

I had to reach back. It's been over twenty years since I went to mass regularly. But there's been weddings and Christenings since. And half-remembered traditions, words that, I only need bid them come and they spring to the lips like they'd never gone away. I picked out elements of prayers, of moments, of traditions personal and games from childhood meant to pass the time. I articulated something I'd never ever put into words before -- this one part of the liturgy, where the blessing of the host happens and the priest intones, "Do this in memory of me," how, from when I was about sixteen that became a time, a moment as I observed the ritual where I fixed the face and memory of someone who'd died, firmly in my mind, and took a beat to think about them. Then the altar server would ring the bells -- that job used to be mine -- and the spirit of that lost loved one would dissolve, and I'd imagine it at peace. A quantum of solace, if you will.

He wasn't asking about the mass out of sheer curiosity. There was a point to his questioning. As there was to all these stories. They all connect. They all relate. But the how and the why's for a little bit later. Now I've got to go read some scripts.

Before we reconvene for next time, though, I'd encourage you to go read Jim Henshaw's piece here, and take a gander at Diane's here.

Blood Ties: "We'll Meet Again"

BEST IDEA WINS. It's the greatest part of working in a writing room on a TV series, when you've got a showrunner with the stones and the smarts to run it that way. Best Idea Wins comes from the top down; it wipes away all agendas and ego, it builds camaraderie and it results in the bestest product you could ever hope for.

And when you're the episode writer, the nice dividend is, you get your name as the "Written by" and behind it, a whole bunch of great ideas from the minds who worked with you.

Best Idea Wins. I just don't understand working any other way.

To maintain and to nurture a true "Best Idea Wins" kind of room, you need a Showrunner who approaches his or her job with brio and confidence. Not the confidence that comes from thinking you're right -- because no one's right all the time. Not even the confidence that comes from "having a vision." Because Best Idea Wins means you have to know your material and its creative heart and still be flexible enough to take things in a direction that you didn't expect, should that idea present itself.

As an added bonus, when you're that kind of Showrunner and you do give credit to the great people who work with you -- everybody just thinks you're being modest.

Epstein and I were laughing about that just the other day. The more a Showrunner takes credit, the more writers think they're grabbing; the more they share the wealth around, the more people want to credit them. (There's a reason Joss Whedon always talks up his writers, kids.)

Anyway, this little disquisition on Best Idea Wins is brought to you by Blood Ties' penultimate episode, "We'll Meet Again," which airs across Canada tonight on the Space channel -- 9pm ET, 6PT.

Tanya Huff, the venerable author of the books BT was based on, has her own take on the episode up at her LiveJournal here. I'm going to take a crack at trying to walk you through how the creative came to be.

First of all, I joined the staff of Blood Ties about halfway through their season, once I was finished writing my previous show. They were over budget, and people were tired, and changes needed to be made to economize. We also had the looming knowledge that we were trying to build to a place at the end of the season that left the characters further apart than ever. The first volley of this was the return of Christina to Henry's life. That formed the nexus of my first episode, "The Devil You Know." After that we saw a bit more of Henry's pull toward the earthly. We knew that in episode 19 (that's right, 19 -- not the silly 2-season marketing thing Lifetime did that just confused everybody) Vicki was going to stab Henry. That violation and betrayal was going to be deep and have bad implications for their trust, and Henry's feelings toward Vicki. When we broke Ep. 20, "The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly," that's the moment where we wanted the characters to be furthest apart. And in Episode 22, the season finale, we knew we had to set up a terrible choice for Vicki. Everybody who's following the series, of course, knows that the ongoing choice Vicki has to make is between Henry and Mike -- so we wanted to give her another choice to make. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Episode 21 was a great dark spot of nothing. We didn't want to steal the thunder of 22. And we didn't want just a rebeat of 20, where the three mains really, really, really weren't getting along.

So what do you put in that slot to get the juices really going?

I relish this kind of opportunity, by the way. It's when series writing is its most exciting.

(Spoilers for Episode 121 "We'll Meet Again" follow)

By the time we got to the end of the season, we were all looking to tell stories that weren't so much about the monster of the week, but that were about the monsters that lurked in all of us. It was time to push our world a little bit. So in 20 we showed a bit of Mike and Vicki's backstory, when they were both cops.

What to do for 21, though? What to do?

In the room we threw out a bunch of pitches. One of the ones that really stuck, for the two Den(n)ises, was some kind of reincarnation story. We started from what sounds like a bad Japanese horror movie place:

Vicki encounters a man who claims that his reincarnated lover is trying to kill him. What they gradually uncover is a weird sport -- two people who have taken a lover's grudge through the centuries. Every lifetime, one finds the other and kills them. Last one living each lifetime, wins. But this time, one person's tired of the game.

And here's the first case of "Best Idea Wins." Peter Mohan, our Showrunner, thought there was something there. But that wasn't quite it. It was very fanboy -- not really our audience. I look back on it now and think, "what were we, high?" A bad showrunner or a panicky one or a non-writing producer would probably have tossed it with a glare -- but Peter...he ruminated. He nodded, and smiled...and rocked in his chair..something...something there... If we could just nudge it somehow...

It was Peter that came up with the idea, as far as I remember, that we tell a story of a couple that somehow refracts all the themes of Henry and Vicki and Mike -- we can't advance their antipathy anymore, and we can't nose into any of the juicy emotional reveals that are coming in 22 -- so somehow we needed to reflect what we'd come to know about these three. We needed to comment upon them, by riffing on their situation.

So we needed a pair of lovers who can't be apart, but can't be together. Something mythic. And not Romeo & Juliet, because, come on man, that shit's played out.

Naturally, I went to the Greeks.

I'd had vague memories swishing around the brainpan of the story of Hero and Leander -- Leander, swimming each night to be with his love, until one time the light goes out and he loses his way. (Hence, "Lee," and also, I think, "Helen.")

What happens if the light goes out, and you lose your way? What then? And what would that look like in a reincarnation story?

So somewhere in the room, the mashup happened -- a pair of star crossed lovers with a routine for meeting up in each life. A routine that gets disturbed because of something about our modern world. A man who comes to Vicki for help.

I don't know who came up with the idea of a teenager. Might have been me. (See, this is the nice thing about surrendering to "Best Idea Wins." Because you know that's how you're working, nobody jealously counts their contributions, or even remembers, man.) I have a vague sense of just pitching funny teaser ideas, and one of them was a young teenage boy coming in to Vicki and saying, "you have to help me find my wife!" Which, of course, is one of the greatest of Detective story cliches. It's cool when you can use things that are cliches and totally invert their meaning. It's tres post-modern.

Anyway, from there the usual story process took over -- pitches here and there. What's kept them apart? What's the obstacle? We know the obstacles that keep Vicki and Mike and Henry apart -- some are external, some internal. We needed our star crossed lovers to have that duality, too.

Somebody came up with the idea of them being out of sync -- so somehow this time, it's a Harold and Maude thing. She's too old for him. That's good. But what about that original idea from the top of the pitch -- where one wants to stop the game? There had to be something there...what would make her want to stop looking?

...A baby. She'd never gotten pregnant before.

Well, why? And what kept them apart in those lifetimes? What was the mechanics of it? We don't have to posit why they keep getting reincarnated, but there has to be some kind of reason in the universe...maybe the sense that they were unfinished, somehow... Maybe they were never together very long...so they never really got to finish their journey...and she couldn't have a baby...and what would make her easy to track...something Vicki could discover...

I remember being in my office and whooping with joy when I realized that, yup, women could be hemophiliacs, but it was really, really, really rare. (Thank You, Internet!) Super. Just the thing we needed.

From there, we hit the "wouldn't it be cool ifs?" I wanted a scene between Lee and his Older-younger brother. The idea of Coreen being sappy and unable to control her crying made us all laugh. A good comic bit of business for her.

What happened in the end? Did she die? Too cruel. Did he? Again, too bleak. What were we trying to really say about love, here, anyway?

There's a point where you've reached almost the end of your basic plotting where, intentionally or not you take that step back and you think, "what really do I believe about this?" And more importantly, what do the characters believe about this?

Henry is a renaissance man. He'd believe in Love conquering all. Vicki would be a skeptic -- maybe a skeptic because she's really too chicken to commit, but that's for the audience to decide...and what would Mike believe?

Well, Mike's a cop. Mike's not a superhero like Henry, and he's not larger than life like Vicki. Everybody wants the damsel to wind up with the hunky vampire because that's the fantasy. How can a poor old regular guy compete?

By working harder.

This is something I believe profoundly, by the way. I've always been suspicious of the idea of "the soul mate" and the kind of gooey, adolescent fantasy portrayals of love our culture shoves at us. It's not that I don't believe in the power of seeing someone from across a crowded room, it's just that...so what? When the dashing couple finally kiss, and the image fades to black, then what? Life is a marathon, not a sprint. Then comes the part we never see -- the rest of your lives together.

And that shit's hard.

Every long-standing relationship I've ever seen that lasted, lasted not because of a deep and abiding storybook love -- the fantasy -- but because of sheer bloody minded, stubborn, hard and endless work. Love that works makes us all grinders, just trying to get by, day after day, not get into trouble, build that trust, that respect, that familiarity...

It sounds a lot like police work. Investigating, dotting the i's, crossing the t's...being there. Okay then. Mike's the guy who thinks that love is hard work. Mike's the guy who's seen case after case of love gone bad.

Now I knew the emotional through line. The story of Lee and Helen was going to be our device to get our three characters to reveal how they felt about love. And it was going to force them all to take a pause, and think over the stuff they'd been together recently, and maybe come to a decision or two -- the result of which will be how they start out at the beginning of the final episode of the season.

It was clear that Lee and Henry would have to bond, and that maybe Vicki would at least try to express to Helen that which she could never broach with the men in her life - but the centrepiece in terms of plot here is that we wanted to show a turn in Henry where he definitely makes the choice that he's leaving Toronto.

I'd included a little telephone conversation off the top of my last episode, "The Devil You Know," where Henry is on the phone with someone, trying to suss out the last known whereabouts of Christina. It was a nice litte drop. And I was eager to explore this idea a little more. In our world -- in the Vampire lore that Tanya created, Vampires are very much animalistic in the sense that they can't share territory. Well, who keeps that straight? I had this idea that it was this one family -- a human family -- that had kept the peace and brokered the lines for generations. From there, those scenes got written lickety split. They just flowed out -- the stuff about the wine, Henry and Vicki, the back and forth and my grandfather warned me about you -- sometimes you know a character so well it doesn't even feel like writing. That's what it was like writing Augustus and Henry.

Researching flapper speak was a fun hour or so. "Dude, flappers were sick." I still laugh at that line.

From there, what else can I tell you? Doing the math of who died when and when they were in a coma was hard. Really hard. I math dumb. I wanted Lee to forgive his brother Jeff for something they did at Expo 67 -- but the math didn't work.

I also had, in an early draft, an exchange directly to tweak the fans. In the course of discovering his travel brochures, Vicki and maybe Lee discovered that before Henry was a graphic novelist, he'd written a few cheesy romance novels. But it didn't move the plot along, or really say anything essential about the characters so, you kill your darlings...

Back to the "Best Idea Wins." It's not just that a sure, guiding hand like Peter Mohan gets you to the heart of what the show's really about. It's that really smart people come up with really funny things to say that you just slip in there.

After my first draft, Dennis Heaton came into the room with an alt for a line that is just so completely Vicki that it makes me swoon:

"Real coffee would take this out behind the shed and beat it until it turned to tea."

I think Heaton also gave us the "what, did Mr. Wilson steal your ball?" Damnit, Heaton -- you scooped me on the Dennis the Menace reference this time...but one day... ONE DAY...

Sadly, most of the really mushy stuff that got written was probably me. But so was all the tough love stuff about it being hard work. So, what? I'm a hardass with a fondness for tissues? That's right ladies, tough and sensitive.

This script didn't get rewritten a lot -- mostly because everybody firing on all cylinders meant the "Best Idea Wins" engine was cranked way up. There was one major pass I did from the Pink to the Blue -- proof positive that no matter how much experience you have, you can still make rookie mistakes.

The Cast read off the PINK draft, and everybody loved it. But we could tell that Christina Cox was a little restless about it. And -- this is why you absolutely need your cast to read the script aloud -- it suddenly became clear:

I was too in love with my guest roles. Henry had a cool scene or two. Mike had his end soliloquy with Lee. But Vicki? Vicki was reacting a lot.

So the last pass, start to finish, was making it more Vicki. Beefing up her lines. Taking some stuff away from Coreen so that Vicki investigates alone. Having her drive scenes, not take the back seat. Tweaking the ending so she convinces Lee to give up, not Henry. As a result, there's a really interestng tonal difference between the Pink and the Blue shooting script. The Pink is a good story, a pretty good hour of Television. But the Blue is Blood Ties.

I didn't spend a lot of time on set watching this episode go to camera. The scene I saw the most of was Mike's final thoughts to Lee. And here, again, is why I love TV and how everyone can make it better. At the end of Mike's little speech, we're on Lee. And the expression on his face is...what? Does he buy it? Is this guy gonna get it and move on? Is he still dangerous? Is all of this just going to start all over again in another lifetime?

The way Tyler Johnson plays the scene, and David Winning directs it, you just don't know. It's a chilling note of ambiguity, something for the audience to fill in. You just don't know. I love it! And I love that while that's going on, Dylan still hits his note as Mike. We saw Henry make a choice earlier in the ep. Now, in this speech, Mike makes one, too.

And that's gonna cause some fireworks in Ep. 22.

So brings to an end my season of Blood Ties. It was such a fun show to work on. Such great people to work with. I know the fans may be disappointed, and certainly the cliffhanger of the Season Finale seems excruciating if it never gets resolved. But at the same time, if we don't get to continue the journey (which seems increasingly likely at this point...that's just my read -- I am NOT an official source) it's not as bad as some of those shows that just...stop.

Because, of course, if you want, you can see where the story was going. All of Tanya's Blood books are still in print. And though it's a shame to not be able to work Augustus and Coreen and all the great ideas Peter had for season two into that narrative, the books are still a cracking good read -- if you're one of those people who can't stand not to know how it's supposed to end...well, Tanya answered all your questions years before you thought to ask them!

If we managed to accomplish anything of value on Blood Ties, it's only because we had the smarts of Tanya Huff and Peter Mohan to build on.

Best. Idea. Wins.

(H/T to the Bloodlines fansite for the screencaps.)