Surf's Up on Falcon Beach

Well, it went to air, & far as I can see, no one got hurt.

Falcon Beach may be unfairly freighted with lotsa baggage, seeing as it's Global's big return to Canadian TV Drama. After watching the premiere last night I was relieved that it was a lot better than I thought it was going to be.

But is that enough to make it a big, Atlas-like, Canadian-industry-saving hit? Let's go to the tale of the tape:

PROS:

The 90210-factor. I'm thrilled to report that they've learned well the lessons of proto-fantasy teen soap 90210, by casting a lead actress who looks 27, to play 17. (Jennifer Kydd, above.) This is not a bad thing. First, it means the spirit of Dylan McKay rules. Second, she's actually hot, has lovely blonde hair, a bit of edge, and seems like she can act. And the fact that you suspect she's playing way younger than she is in real life raises the possibility that an adult male could watch her on this show and feel less creepy than, say, watching Rachel Bilson on The O.C. I hear from a female friend of mine that the lead guy, whathisname, is equally tasty. Ladies? Gay Male readers? What say you? +10 points

Putting a stake to realistic dialogue. In the last year, I've had scary discussions with development people at both networks and production companies who wanted "teenagers who talk like real teenagers." In a completely unsourced, unscientific poll of my own experience, I would boldly predict that 100% of these people do not have any ongoing contact with actual teenagers. Dawson's Creek worked because the kids talked like 30-year-old academics. Mean Girls, Clueless, and Heathers worked because they didn't try to ape real teen speak, they created plausible dialects of their own. (Dialects which eventually crossed over into real teenspeak.) Falcon Beach is nowhere at that level yet, but the decision to eschew "real teen talk" is a thankful development. +10 points

Promo the sh*t out of everything, and throw in a car while you're at it. A few years ago, CTV pulled out all the stops with billboards, on-air, editorial, and other advertising to introduce its new show The Associates. It worked in the sense that it raised great awareness of the show and gave them a great opening number. It didn't work in the sense that the show didn't deliver, and audiences quickly grew disenchanted and tuned away. Global has run a top-notch awareness campaign for Falcon Beach. They've leveraged it through their various media properties. They've done outdoor, and magazine, and editorial. They even cooked up a product placement-in-show thingie for some new Pontiac vehicle. Whatever works. Canadian series often fail because no one's willing to spend the money to promote them. No one can accuse Global of that. +20 points

CONS:

The Old Grey Mare, She Aint What She Used To Be. Okay. I know that Lake Winnipeg, like a lot of northern lakes, appears to be grey. But this is fantasy. For pity's sake, spend some money on the color correction. Make the thing look blue. I've seen a million Beer commercials shot in Canada, and not once have I seen a grey lake. -5 points.

If You're Gonna Drop the Needle, Drop the Needle. It's great that the Falcon Beach team has learned that if you're doing a series for young people, you better be prepared to clear some music. But they're a long way from perfecting the needle drop. When you watch The O.C. or even a show like Grey's Anatomy, the crisp interplay of image and song carry you away. The music cues pump up your excitement by kicking off with a change in action or locale. They drive the scene as much as they exist as aural wallpaper. In Falcon Beach, it looks like they locked the picture, then cleared the music. Music comes in, fades down under scenes, then back up, then out...but there's no real artistry to how and when. Maybe there needs to be better syncing between post and clearance -- or maybe the editors need to take a chance on certain songs. Worst comes to worst, you recut. There's not a single music cue from Episode 1 that worked in lockstep with the image -- save the wakeboarding sequence, to which the transition was awkward. Also -- and this is a big one -- you're talking to teenagers in 2006. Where the hell's the hip hop? -15 points

Would it Kill You to be Funny? For earnestness, you can't compete with Degrassi. Why even try? A little wit, a little Seth Cohen or even Pacey...well, it would go a long way. If the writers are being reined in, let 'em loose. There wasn't a single memorable line from last night's premiere. Welcome to the O.C., bitch! was a cultural moment because it was outrageously quotable. You gotta go to the wall. (Teenagers may be inarticulate, but I've also seen a lot of them who are pretty funny.) There's a couple of characters who could be breakout wiseasses, if only you wrote'em that way. See also Would It Kill You to Make Someone Slutty? -10 points

Well, let's see...by my count that leaves us up by 10 points. Which to me is enough to cover the spread. I think Falcon Beach has got a good chance to make it -- but only if it builds on its natural teen audience. The O.C. isn't a hit because only teens are watching, and neither was 90210. Right now there's not a lot to keep adults coming back for more. It's an eminently fixable position to be in -- and maybe there's a question of how far they can go because the ABC Family association...but the potential for this series is far greater than I would have thought, having read some of the initial scripts a long, long, long time ago. I've got fingers crossed, or some suitable, uh...wakeboarding lingo alternative. Hope it does well for Global.

Four Kings? Yeah...out of TEN.

Well, I'm flummoxed.

For the second time this season, I've read good pre-buzz on a show only to tune in and say, "Quoi?"

NBC's returned-from-the-dead Must See TV didn't exactly blow the doors off last night. The Office was as reliably funny as ever -- even if it did resort to a heart-to-heart moment between Michael Scott and Jim that the original would have never touched. Don't get me wrong, it was still funny, and the idea that Michael's the only guy in Dunder-Mifflin who doesn't know Jim has a thing for Pam is kinda sweet, and very true to his character. In fact, that scene pretty much summarized the basic cultural difference between the British and American iterations of the show. I dare say that for many Brits (and probably more than a few Canadians,) Michael's advice to never give up would seem -- unseemly. Maybe so. But also very American.

My Name is Earl was middling-to-solid -- I can't help but think that they've got to complicate the formula a bit more as they wear on. The twist with Randy was a good one -- and the little asides where Catalina references her dark childhood are getting increasingly twisted -- but I still think it's got a bit of mid-season sputter. Jaime Pressly is pretty gifted as a comedienne, though.

Which brings us to Four Kings. Oy.

You know, a few years ago, I sat in a session with Phil Rosenthal (Everybody Loves Raymond) at the Canadian Film Centre. We got talking about likeajokes, and how they were killing comedy.

Likeajokes are rife in the sitcom today -- it's the main force, in my opinion, that makes the four-camera soundstage sitcom so utterly moribund. We've gotten to the point now where we've all internalized the sitcom rhythm. We know the parry and thrust of the setup-punchline-topper form of sitcom writing, with the three-jokes-a-page and the snarky asides. But somewhere along the line it became okay to ape the form without the content. If you look all over the dial today you'll see shows where the actor goes into a rhythm, and, yep, there's the setup, and boom...there's the punchline. And the canned laughter goes wild!

Only one problem: the "punchline" wasn't funny. In fact, it wasn't even a joke.

Welcome to the wonderful world of the likeajoke.

A likeajoke is like watching an NBA player leave the ground, stretch toward the basket gracefully, place the ball nowhere near the basket, only to hit the ground triumphantly anyway, as we're forced to watch the crowd go wild and the team slaps his back-- for nothing. It's all rhythm, and no emotional payoff. The cathartic effect of laughter? Well, sorry, bub. The machine's cranked up to 11. Either go along with the fakey-fake catharsis, or...um...er...that's it.

Four Kings is chock full of likeajokes. By about four minutes in, I was wondering if I'd ever be able to watch a sitcom with a laugh track again. Time after time, I called out the "punchline" as the setup was being said. It was slow, abysmal, and mawkish. The pot-pill popping old lady was the only petit amusant in the whole show.

I read a lot of first scripts (perils of teaching) and I used to be amazed that people could get the feel of a sitcom without actually delivering any laughs. But now those people, apparently, have actual jobs on actual sitcoms.

Dana Stevens at Slate, who's seen more than last night's episode, seems to feel it gets better. I may give it one more. But to me, this is How I Met Your Mother all over again.

Maybe it is time to put the sitcom out to pasture.

Must see? Or Just Musty?

Well, I guess we'll see tonight.

I have fond memories of Must See TV. Once upon a time, those dark, long-ago days of 1995, it was still cooking for me. E.R. capped the night in its first breathtaking season, and started my TV taste-waning from the Half Hour comedies of my youth to the Hour Dramas I mostly watch today.

Before 1995, Must See was all about the Half Hours. Cheers and Frasier (when it started.) Even back to Family Ties. I can't remember why I liked Family Ties now. God, I hope it wasn't for Skippy.

The late 90's strain of Must See already had cracks in it -- Sure, there was Friends and Seinfeld, but there was also that steady stream of horrible pretenders sandwiched at 8:30 and 9:30 ET -- I mean, did anyone ever watch more than one episode of The Single Guy? I didn't. And I was a) a single guy and b) kind of hot for Ming Na. No sale. Don't even get me started on Veronica's Closet or Suddenly Susan or...gee.....um...I'm starting to black out now.

I wonder in this day and age, now that pandora's box has been opened and downloading shows is becoming Itunes-ized, if that whole idea of 'appointment viewing' and 'must see' is going to go away -- replaced by the 'must see when I want.'

I think that serial dramas like LOST or 24 are the only ones with that "must see" cachet, today. If there are water cooler shows (or indeed, water coolers) in offices now, I'm not sure that Will & Grace or even My Name is Earl are the shows they're likely to be talking about.

I'm old enough to remember when "keeping your audience for the night" was an organic thing...made easier by the fact that if you wanted to change channels, someone (usually me, or one of my sisters) would have to go up and physically change the channel on the (black & white: yeah, I know. Shutup) TV.

But in the end, I wish NBC well -- more for nostalgia's sake than for the merits of the shows. I've always appreciated Will & Grace more than I really loved it. I'm a fan of Earl and especially The Office -- but I certainly won't be letting Must See-giddiness carry me into the moribund E.R. Even Linda Cardellini couldn't get me to do that.



Allesandra Stanley in the New York Times today has a cautious review of new show Four Kings, (pictured above) that makes it sound likable enough. (Although I'm still gun shy, considering the free ride that How I Met Your Mother seems to be getting.)

Then again, as my friend Rob says, there are people out there taping According to Jim.

Anyway, I'll be watching. Will you? If you do, let me know what you think: must see? Or just musty?

I hear Rob Corddry's wearing Chanel

Well. This is interesting.

I liked Chris Rock. But I think about 100 million Americans who haven't heard of The Daily Show yet (Too Much Fox News) are going to see something really interesting. I might even watch this one live, not with one hand on the Fast Forward button on my PVR.

And the unexpected new Daily Show last night was like a warm bath. Sometimes I think I am a sad, sad man.

The Diversity Clusterf**k

Hoo boy.

Alex started it. I took a kick at the can. The Artful Writer chimed in, but in the end, John August came up with the best reason to do a diversity pass: It makes your script more readable, and therefore, better. (Whether you do it as you're writing or after, I don't think it matters...though I'm sure there's a contingent who would say it does.)

For the record, I think what John August articulates is probably another way of saying what Alex was talking about in the first place.

Anyway, sayeth Mr. August:

Screenplays are read quickly. Unlike a novel, you don’t linger for a few paragraphs getting to know minor characters, setting up their memorable quirks. Rather, you meet them on page 20, then see them again on page 64. As a screenwriter, you want the reader to instantly recall that they’ve encountered a certain character before.

A reader is much more likely to remember an international banker named Abebayehu Tegene than Abe Thompson.

You can debate why this is. Maybe it’s just that the name is more interesting. But in most cases, I think it’s because we’re hard-wired to match race to surnames. We see Abebayehu Tegene and we think, “This character is black. Not only that, he’s probably African.” We form a mental picture of “African banker,” then move on.

With Abe Thompson, the reader has nothing to latch onto. Abe Thompson is just a name.

John goes on to make the point that coming up with a cool ethnic name does not abrogate your responsibility to make the character interesting.

Most of the time, when I'm reading scripts from new writers trying to figure out if they have any talent, the thing that convinces me is how well drawn the three-and-four line parts are. You get sensitive to that in Canada, especially if you have a lot of actor friends, because when American movies come to shoot here, those parts are the ones they give to all the Canadians. I've helped a lot of friends run lines in my time, which means more often than not going over a lot of sides with cliched, dull, four-line parts. You learn a lot about a writer when he or she can communicate a full and rich life for a character we only see once for a moment.

(All this assumes, of course, that you already have compelling leads, and a story that isn't too FUBAR.)

None of this deals with the problems of race in America (or Canada) but then again, we're screenwriters. Not like we're going to fix that one anyway.

(And if we did, a director or actor would probably take the credit.)

Baby, Let Me Follow You Down.

I just finished watching Monday's Arrested Development. My God, this show just gives no quarter whatsoever. The whole thing was one angry, keening, preening, hilarious and laugh-out-loud in joke. From jokes about making the family more "relatable..." the "live" stunt, the "someone will die before this episode is over" stunt, the parade of celebrity cameos just dashed off with no fanfare whatsoever... It was a howl and a high point from a series that now seems to know that it's probably time to go: but not before it makes the point that the great sea of viewers, alas, really are that stupid.

It's such small comfort to know that people will be discovering this show for years on DVD, going, "why didn't it catch on? why didn't it catch on?" You hear that a lot from overreaching writers and producers where the answer is simply, "It wasn't that good." It used to be that I thought I could never get romantic with a woman who didn't find The Simpsons funny. Well, the torch has been passed. Arrested Development is exactly as funny as the critics say. It's going to be sorely missed.

UPDATE: CNN ran this AP story today about the show and its chances. They quote some of the big in-jokes from Monday's episode. If no one picks it up, that means...sniff....that only four new episodes of Arrested Development are left.

'Twas beauty, indeed.

Yes, okay. Three hours and seven minutes. But I can just about picture that conversation...

"You cut it."
"No...you."
No...you."

I want to spend my next vacation in Peter Jackson's 1933 New York. But only if I can be rich.

And who says we haven't progressed? It's great that someone with a schnoz the size of Adrien Brody's can be a romantic lead.

The action hero as writer. Swoon.

Dying is Easy (Part Deux)

"Canadians love to make fun of Americans – it’s the unofficial theme of Canadian TV comedy – but turning that spite back onto them is like standing up at a political rally and yelling, “Hey, our side does some dumb things too!” They don’t want to hear it. So whose side you on anyway? You wanna be a ‘merican, go the heck down there. So while you have (some) genuine political television self-satire in the U.S., you really have none in Canada. They’ve got This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Made In Canada and Red Green, but it’s all about as pointed as a high school end-of-the-year stage show that dares to declare the math teacher is a tough marker and the cafeteria food isn’t very good. The biggest laughs will always come from insulting the other school’s basketball team."

-Andrew Nicholls, Valuable Lessons

First...um...ouch.

I remember a few years back I was working with a mentor of mine on a TV project. This guy is funny, opinionated...Jesuit educated (so you know you gotta stay on your toes...) He was the one who first took the bloom off This Hour Has 22 Minutes for me. He pointed out exactly what Nicholls says above: that it's not satire if no one gets hurt. If you get "outraged" about things that nobody could really reasonably disagree with, like, say, "racism is bad" or "intolerance is bad," then you're not really doing barbed comedy.

22 is a Canadian-topical comedy program that's run on CBC for the last decade or so. It comes out of Halifax, and is supposed to be a Daily Show-like wrapup of the week's events. A few years back, the most popular comedian on the program, Rick Mercer, bolted and now has his own show. Oh, and then there's another topical comedy show called Royal Canadian Air Farce, which has been on the air here since roughly the Mesozoic era. Yeah, there's problem number one: CBC has three flavors of exactly the same show.

Yet if I had to quantify that flavor, I'd have to admit that it was... very mild salsa. It's not that there aren't laughs to be had on each of these shows -- it's that the laughs are gentle, not barbed. Even when they're barbed, no one bleeds. There's a comedy show on one of the cable outlets here that's supposed to be a show making fun of pop culture -- and the brief is, swear to God, "make fun of them, but be nice about it."

I suggest to you that any comic treatment of popular culture that's any less barbed than, say, Defamer, is not something that's needed, anywhere.

Now, compare the Canadian flavor of comedy to the vicious and delicious tang of Brit satire, or even the howl of outrage that is the Daily Show, and the gulf seems even wider. The Canadian editions mostly go after things that everyone can agree with. And, yup, in a lot of cases, that involves trashing Americans.

It's not like that's a new thing in Canada. The main issue in our current election right now, besides wearying scandals that no one really seems surprised or put out by, is "is the Prime Minister damaging our relationship with the U.S. by criticizing them too much?"

It's an easy score right now, critiquing the other school's football team.

Here's the problem: "Canadians are funny" is one of this country's cherished myths. Seriously. Like "we field the best hockey players in the world," "we're a nation of peackeepers," and "People everywhere think Canada is pretty great!" the Canadians-as-funny meme is nearly as ubiquitous as "We're number one" or "We're spreading democracy" is in the USA.

It's enough of a myth that CBC feels that it can build a whole week around how funny Canadians are. And yeah, they'll trot out the same names. Jim Carrey. Mike Myers. SCTV. (For the most part, all of these people are now based in Los Angeles, which is kind of what that bastard Tucker Carlson was saying, but still...)

So here we go into CBC's Comedy Week. Besides the three-shows-that-are-really-one-show sketch component they have, the CBC has done one truly groundbreaking, funny comedy in the last decade or so -- The Newsroom. The Newsroom came on the heels of Larry Sanders, and did manage to satirize the news business with gusto. But -- here's the catch. The first episodes of The Newsroom appeared ten years ago. And the creator, Ken Finkleman, has followed his muse into more and more esoteric projects.

I remember when The Newsroom came out, having discussions with CBC publicists who were...mystified! They couldn't understand why this show was good -- why it was drawing such positive audience response. They were a little giddy, and a little sad. They had a critical (and at least for that first season) an audience hit -- and they didn't know what to do.

Which neatly describes the recent history of comedy on CBC. Fifteen years ago they had a whole Sitcom department. They tried three series. They tanked. The department folded.

Flash ahead to now, and there's a big problem at the CBC. There's a comedy that's wildly popular on Canadian TV. (Corner Gas) They don't have it. There's an edgy cable show with a cult following (Trailer Park Boys). They don't have it. There's this myth that we're good at comedy, but the national broadcaster can't seem to hit with a comedy show that isn't toothless topical sketches that skewer Americans. What. To. Do?

Well...they actually took a positive step forward. Yay, CBC! The problem, of course, is that it comes complete with the requisite two steps back.

A couple of years ago, CBC started doing "comedy pilots" for their new shows, instead of throwing them on the air. The process by which they get to air, and stay there, is somewhat byzantine, as befits the ever-dysfunctional public broadcaster. A few years ago there was a show called An American In Canada, about an American weatherman who found himself transferred to Calgary. They did, I believe, two half-hearted seasons. By the time CBC yanked the show off the air, they had some great scripts and were genuinely funny. (Although, yup, the laughs to be had were mostly at the expense of Americans. But at least Canadians took some hits too.) Anyway, CBC canceled it. CBC could have its own Corner Gas, but no. Anyway.

On Friday, two of the pilots from last year start full series runs. One, Getting Along Famously, stars thespian married couple Debra McGrath (no relation) and Colin Mochrie (Whose Line is it Anyway?) as a married couple doing a variety show in the 1960's. I remember watching this show last year and just scratching my head because the number one question that popped into my pea-sized noggin was, "who the heck is this show for?" I still don't know. (Friday, 9:30 pm)

The second, Hatching, Matching & Dispatching, is Mary Walsh's show set in a Newfoundland outport where one family, the Fureys, runs the local ambulance, wedding, and funeral service. Sounds promising and funny. What I saw last year didn't deliver many laughs. I hope it gets better. (Friday, 9:00 pm)

Which brings us to this year's pilots. This year, they're one for three -- but again, that's no guarantee that the one that works will get picked up, or that the ones that don't, won't. I wrote about this a bit a month or so ago.

The first one up is called Cheap Draft, Bad Language, Fast Cars, Women, and a Video Camera. (Tues Jan 3, 9pm, CBC)

That's right. That's the title. Can you fricking believe it?

You know, there's a lot that's mysterious and unknown about the human brain. And there's a lot that simply you learn through trial and error. Take phone numbers. Seven number phone numbers work, because seven is about the limit of digits that most people can memorize easily. You know what else people can remember? Short titles. You know what they can't remember? Shopping lists. That's why most people write them down. You know what really doesn't work? Making your show title a shopping list. The fact that the CBC let this title go through is just...beyond.

Aside from the bitter truth that if you read that title, you can't help but think, "wow, they're really trying too hard..." and leaving aside the fact that maybe, just maybe, they hadn't heard of the similarly titled (and targeted) British series "Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps" ...and...damnit...sorry, I have to go off on a rant here.

You know what's one skill that no writer ignores? How stuff sounds. You read your work out loud. Because you need to hear how it trips off the tongue. "Funny on the page" does you no good in this business, because scripts are meant to be shot. Similarly, say the title "Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps" and you can feel it slide off the tongue. It's got a nice aural shape to it. Now--say to yourself, out loud, the following: "Cheap Draft, Bad Language, Fast Cars, Women, and a Video Camera."

Unbelievable.

Anyway, once you dip inside the show itself, it doesn't get much better. The acting is terrible. All mugging, all the time. There's a long segment that limns an "extreme" reality-game show that could have been funny, had they played it straight. But nope, the Canadian disease rears its ugly head again...they have to put it across in a smug, over-the-top fashion, just so you absolutely, positively get the idea that they're judging this kind of television. (This, to me, is the same thing that keeps The Tournament from being actually funny. Great. Either we smugly judge and go too far -- or we put up too-gentle wiff-balls. Are we having fun yet?)

Cheap Draft has a serious case of the try-too-hards. There's a few amusing bits. There's a sketch about "Extreme Sports for Kids" that's at least as funny as what you see on SNL. But that's another part of the problem. The whole show has a sketch-y kind of feel. I have no idea what would happen every week on this show -- and what's more, I don't really care.

Comedy's all about tone, and likability. The characters in this show are not likable, and the more they try to push and stretch their farcical bonafides, the flatter it falls. Take away the video camera. This Cheap Draft is just a bunch of warm beer.

Rabbittown, (Tuesday Jan 3, 9:30, CBC) on the other hand, is a bit of a treat. Not only are the characters strangely likable (in a junior Patsy & Edina kind of way,) you can definitely see what would happen from week to week. The template is simple: two girls, best friends, who probably shouldn't be friends, because they're destined to bring the worst out in each other. Their competitiveness means poison for the relationship. And hijinks. Oh yes. Hijinks.

I've seen articles written about toxic female friendships. I've seen them in action among some female friends. But I've never seen a TV show about it, with the exception of AbFab. It's a rich, comic area.

When we meet Odelette, she's just returning to St. John's after being dumped by her husband. Her mom owns the local hair salon, and she's determined not to go back there. She instead tries to become an "Exotic Newfoundland Dancer" at a local bar. This leads to a hilarious scene of the hapless Odelette trying to stepdance in a sexy way. It's a loony idea.

The relationship between the two woman, Louanne and Odelette, is priceless. Simultaneously warm, and toxic. Louanne gives her friend a haircut that makes her friend look like a fifties housewife. Odelette leads Louanne back toward drink. "I haven't drank since the last time you came back," she protests.

"Where we wound up in jail."
"I made out with that hooker."
"She was gross"
"I had to pay her."
"Come on, just one"
"One"
"Two"
"Two"
"Three. Doubles."
"Damnit."

Rabbittown also, Jebus be praised, does go for the jugular now and then - in that peculiarly Newfoundland way... Andy Jones, playing the proprietor of the local bar, is enquiring after Odelette's mother. Odelette mentions that she's only half-Newfoundlander, because her mother's from Montreal. Jones' looks wistfully away and observed, "I knew she seemed better than the rest of us."

Now that's a line that got me to laugh out loud. If you don't get it, it would sail by. But the great thing about Newfoundlanders is that they actually do have a tradition of laughing at themselves. Would that the rest of Canada returned the favour.

Rabbittown weaves through logical, rich, consistent character development. The low- key crush Jones' character has on the mother; the mother's exasperation over the relationship between her employee and her daughter...every scene in the half hour promises more.

And it's got a killer opening scene that manages to draw you in while ladling exposition so slightly it should get a laying the pipe award.

Rabbittown was written and conceived of by its two stars, Adriana Maggs and Sherry White. James Genn directs. It's Produced by Jennice Ripley. If this sucker doesn't get at least six episodes, then there's no hope.

I wanted to like the third show, This Space for Rent. (Wed, Jan 4, 9pm) A comedy based in Vancouver could work. There's one great scene with actor Jason Bryden, where he haggles with a Chinese street vendor in perfect Cantonese over the price of fish. At least I think it was Cantonese. Might have been Mandarin. Anyway, that was a funny scene. It's an incidental scene going on while two of the female characters lay pipe for the main plot. As he drives away on his Vespa, Bryden says, "Your life makes me sad." Funny line. Good scene. Is he the main character? Er...no.

There's also some good business with actress Emily Hampshire, playing a junior lawyer forced to be one of the boys in her new firm. There's some funny slapstick to be had there as she struggles to "act like she's got a pair." Is she the main character? Er...no again.

Ulitmately, This Space For Rent is pretty impossible to love. First of all, it's an hour long. And you feel every second of that hour. Jerry Seinfeld once opined "I'm not sure comedy wants to be a movie." Well, the one thing I'm sure of is that unless you're prepared to go the comedy-drama route, comedy doesn't really want to be an hour. The hour long epsiodes of Frasier, Seinfeld, Cheers, and Friends were always deadly.

The second problem is the main character, Lucky. (Dov Tiefenbach) Tiefenbach's got a comedy face, that's for sure. He took a very small role in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle and made it memorable. But, alas, his character here is a twentysomething writer trying to find himself. He gets depressed, whines, stays in his apartment for thirty days, gets static from his impossibly understanding doctor girlfriend, then writes a letter to the editor and gets a monthly column to bitch in Vancouver magazine. Yay, Lucky. Good for you! Now where's my glock? BLAM! I'm dead. Sorry, Lucky.

Twentysomething angst is something everyone goes through. It is not inherently interesting. When will writers and commissioning editors learn this? This can be your character's viewpoint, but it is not funny in and of itself. You need funny things to happen.

The kind of journey Lucky goes through in this pilot, might have been the plot of a middling Canadian film. But it does nothing to set up the central conflict or template for an ongoing series. And with an hour to establish character and tone (which is also all over the place -- from trendy film-effected montage and manipulation shots to slapstick to loopy drug humor; it's all in the pot: "let's cook it and see if anything sticks once we heat it and it explodes onto the wall,") the closest I can come to an idea of template is that from week to week we'd get to see Lucky write his column, Hate Male, (yup, I know) while his friends all try to find themselves.

Which is pretty much a one-minute pitch. I would think that after 48 minutes of TV, I'd know more. I don't. If you can't make me fall in love with your characters and your world in 48 minutes, I don't think you should get to make a series.

I think there's a persistent problem in Canadian TV -- and especially comedy -- and it's this: they keep giving TV series to people who really want to make Canadian films.

Not films.

Canadian films.

Yes, there's a difference. But that really is a different post.

As always, your mileage may vary. But the reality is that CBC needs some popular comedy hits to reverse its increasing audience irrelevance. Rabbittown is the only one of these three pilots with the potential to reverse that slide -- at least critically. I hope CBC looks at that pilot hard and tries to figure out what went right. Is it significant that it's the only one where the actors are also the writers? Maybe. Does that mean you've got a problem in your script development, or your casting, or both? I don't know. Is the Rabbittown duo really that talented, or does the fact that they wear dual hats leave them open to less meddling from the network? Again, I don't know.

What I do know is this: CBC needs to start doing better. Rabbittown's a start. But there's still too much decisionmaking by committee (which really doesn't serve comedy too well.) They take too long to develop things. (If Rabbittown gets picked up it likely won't return til 2007.) And most of all: it would have been much nicer if they could have gone two for three during Comedy Week.

ADDENDUM: Jan 3: Reading John Doyle's column in the Globe & Mail today, he pretty much agrees with my contentions on these three shows, but raises an interesting further point, which I didn't realize: Both Maggs and White are part of the creative team -- and may even be on air in Hatching, Matching and Dispatching, the Mary Walsh show. Does having two such similar styles of humor with creative crossover hurt the chances for a Rabbittown pickup? Who knows? It does make you despise lazy casting in this country, though. Similar to the situation last summer where CTV's Robson Arms premiered, and over its run, practically every cast member of Corner Gas, CTV's other show, showed up in different roles. This doubling up makes for a couple of problems: a) It makes it seem like we don't have too many talented actors (untrue) and b) it's impossible to establish a unique identity if your actors pop up on every damn show and all the commercials on the air too. I don't blame the actors here...people have got to eat. But it's yet another consequence of doing too few episodes. Typecasting? Forget about it. You're in trouble when your number one comedy features that guy from the Listerine ad.

Gentlemen, Start Your Cathode Ray Tubes...

Yes, there's much rubbing of eyes and bleariness still. (Though not for me, I woke up New Year's Day feeling sound as a pound, I'll have you know.) But this week is serious business indeed for Television in "America's retarded cousin." (Thanks for that one, Tucker.)

This week & next marks the "mid-season" launches of replacement shows on U.S. nets. I'll be checking out Emily's Reasons Why Not, Four Kings, Love Monkey, In Justice, and The Book of Daniel, to be sure.

But in Canada, January and February aren't really the mid-season, they're the start of the new season. Most Canadian shows run only 13 weeks (at most.) January and February are high TV viewing months in Canada, for obvious reasons. Though there's much to shake your head askance at in the decisionmaking process of Canadian Television, the idea that maybe we should get out of the way of the promotional juggernaut of the U.S. fall TV launch -- not a bad idea, rilly.

Not all the parties are taking part in the hootenanny, of course. CBC is going to roll out a number of new comedies, and comedy pilots, this week. Global has the launch of a Very Important Series, but CTV, who is the 900 pound gorilla of Canadian TV right now, doesn't have airdates for most of its homegrown stuff yet. (No wonder. They're making money hand over fist on their U.S. imports right now. CTV had the best shoppers this year. Good for them!)

Global's Falcon Beach, (see hotties at left,) a teen soap that premieres Thursday (and which will air later this year on ABC Family down in the USA) has been promo'd extensively on the network. It's supposed to be a Canadian O.C. I have mixed feelings about this one. Global has not done a lot of homegrown stuff in the last few years. Now there's a new team in place who are really trying to make a new identity for the channel, and that means developing signature shows. And that's the problem. Poor little Falcon Beach should just be able to try to be a diverting, soapy, trifling little show with a bit of wicked fun. But it's not. It's the bellweather of a whole network's emerging strategy. That's a lot of freight to pack into a tiny bikini. I remember hearing some strange things wafting through media circles about this show last summer when it was being shot, but hopefully they'll be able to pull it off. I'm rooting for Global on this one. Welcome to the 'Peg, beeyatch.

(God I hope it has a more clever line than that. Or some kind of catch phrase. And that they do manage to capture some good adult storylines, so that it can draw on something other than the fickle teen audience. See? It's just not healthy to have so much riding on a show. Unless you actually worked on it.)

CBC is going to be throwing a whole bunch of new comedy shows and comedy pilots at the wall this week to see if anything sticks. That deserves its own post. Later.