My Final Border Episode!

MY LAST EPISODE of The Border airs Monday night at 9pm on CBC. The teaser is now up. I'll have more about this later. Yeah, that is Patrick McKenna in the show -- he did a great job for us.

Tinsel Hockey

I DON'T KNOW what that headline means, exactly. I just like it.

If you're in Toronto, and you're a WGC member, don't forget that the WGC Holiday Party is tonight. Come on out and mix with writers in all their pasty, not-enough-vitamin-D glory.

If you've lost your invite, email me (link's on the sideboard) and I'll hook you up.

Also, I know the WGC West party was the other night. Vancouverites, dish up. Don't whine we don't know what's going on out there when you don't dish the dirty deets.

The comments, they is open below.

Underdogz

YESTERDAY WAS SPENT in a Writers Guild of Canada Council Meeting (coughing into a green handkerchief, yes, ladies he is available...) and there was some interesting stuff -- not all of it bad, believe it or not. Hopefully I'll get into that later.

But here's what caught my eye on the old Google Alert this morning:

Re:10 best U.S. shows you're

probably not watching, Dec. 2

It would be nice if Rob Salem were also to write about Canadian shows you probably aren't watching. One show I never miss is The Border on CBC Monday night. It is every bit as good as CSI and Law & Order but never gets into the Top 10 listed each week in the Sunday Star.

It has well-written stories, top notch acting, lots of action and even sex etc. Anybody I mention the show to usually replies that they [don't] watch CBC. What a shame. They don't know what they're missing.

Albert Speisman, Toronto

Albert was writing in regards to this article on the "10 Best U.S. Shows You're Probably Not Watching."

Now, Rob Salem at the Star is a good guy. Nobody likes TV more than him and he writes what he thinks his audience legitimately wants to read about, same as all journalist/critics. But Albert's letter does poke a bit at something that is an ongoing problem (one of many) when it comes to domestic Canadian product. I write about what writers have to do, and what Canadian creatives have to do all the time. But whenever I point out the fourth estate's shortcomings, I hear grumblings from certain quarters. No matter. People hate to be told they should be doing better... that's just human nature.

I can't speak to other cities in Canada. Thanks mainly to TV, Eh? I do see a lot of their articles, but there's that thing where you don't connect them all together in a pattern like you do with your homegrown stories.

For what it's worth, my impression is that over the last little while, The Toronto Star has slacked off a bit on covering homegrown stuff -- and slacked off in the most important department, which is covering the homegrown stuff right along side the U.S. stuff. I'll get to that in a minute. Alex Strachan in the Canwest Papers gives Canadian shows a good shake, and by far the fairest and best coverage comes from The Globe and Mail. (John Doyle, for instance, has made no secret of the fact that he really doesn't like The Border -- but he has written about it, and plugged it, quite a bit -- and he also is a consistent champion for more domestic tv.)

For most of the rest, they tend to rely on the Canadian Press, when they write a story on something homegrown.

Now, of course, you have to view all this within the context of the very, very serious contraction that's going on in the newspaper business. It seems that intelligent writing about TV, from a local perspective, is going the way of Newspaper Classified Ads. I think that's a huge mistake. Having a local guy like Sepinwall from the Star Ledger or Maureen Ryan from the Chicago Tribune write about something most people do for over 20 hours a week is an important part of connecting with your audience; but that's me. I don't run the presses.

The Globe and the Canadian Press both recently ran stories on the state of Canadian domestic television, with a cautiously optimistic spin. Both articles are informative, as far as they go. I'm not going to knock either one.

But the problem is that that's the only kind of article that Canadian TV gets. Usually in the paper it's treated as a thing apart. In fall preview articles, they spend lots of column space on U.S. shows, and if you're lucky, the Canadian stuff gets covered in a sidebar. In discussions of how the business is changing, Canadian writers may write all about Jay Leno, and the fortunes of NBC, but even for a Canadian audience they don't mention things like the upcoming CRTC license renewal hearings, and how that might affect what homegrown shows there are to watch.

Articles about Canadian TV, when they appear, are also exclusively the province of the Arts sections of papers. In the Business section, they're never, ever discussed -- even when the article is about the pressures facing the industry, Canadian or American. To read an article on Canadian TV networks, in the Globe Report on Business, you'd think that one hundred percent of the point of broadcasting in Canada was to re-broadcast American shows. It's ninety-five percent, true. And Lord knows, they'd probably like for it to be 100 percent -- but it's not. Not yet.

By hiving off and making sure that Canadian TV is usually only talked about in this separate bubble, it subtly reinforces the point of view that it's something different, something, in the stentorian tones of my long-gone Catholic youth: something slightly unholy.

This kind of disconnect and separation is what allows a lot of the misapprehensions and fictions to keep bubbling through; it's what allows some people to turn up their noses at Trailer Park Boys and talk about it like it's an object of shame, and not a show that brings hordes of fans out every time the actors make a personal appearance. It's what allows a double standard where Canadian shows are judged (sometimes) by a harsher yardstick -- and 'judged' is probably the wrong word, what I really mean is "dismissed."

Oh, don't get me wrong. There are a whole host of things that creatives still need to fix about Canadian shows -- at the development level, the production level, and certainly at the promotional level. But moving the needle of the public's opinion is made ever more difficult when there's the subtle intimation that there is TV, and then there is Canadian TV.

What prompted me to write this was a happy accident. I watched my colleague Sarah Dodd's episode of The Border on Monday night. When Sarah was writing this ep and prepping it and putting it together, I was deep into getting the next episode ready -- so I didn't have a lot of familiarity with the material. I think I read the script a couple times, and gave a few notes and suggested a few lines. But it changed in production, as it always does. And I never did watch an early cut. So when I tuned in Monday, I got the closest experience I've ever gotten to seeing an episode of The Border purely as a viewer does.

I was pretty entertained. John Fawcett's an awesome action director. And Sarah's script was emotional, with good personal subplots and stakes. There was a way cool neck-snap at the end that had me going, "whoa!" Fun. The episodes of The Border that weren't written by either of the Senior Writing Producers, Janet MacLean and David Barlow, were always supervised by one of them. This happened to be a Janet episode, and I could see some of the touches that she brings to it - things that she thinks are important to convey. My instincts are not always the same as Janet's, but to watch the finished episode, you can definitely see some choices that I know she pushed for that made the episode better. But... there's Sarah's voice too, and John's and there's Jonas rocking out a few very funny Slade lines, and some fine work from James McGowan, and everyone doing their level best and in the end, it adds up to a very exciting hour of TV, with a nice bittersweet coda.

I did a guest teaching stint at Humber College's Film and TV writing program this week, and one of the things I told them was that it's a miracle that anything good ever winds up on TV, since every single episode of every single show requires about sixty people to do what they do and not screw up at all.

From the couch, it was an entertaining ride. I enjoyed it way more than this week's House, for instance, which I found manipulative and schmaltzy. Isn't that funny? Even in my head, even with all I do to try and argue the opposite, I've got a bit of that double standard at work in my own brain, too. I was surprised that I enjoyed The Border more than House. I don't know why. But I was.

I remember years ago going to a video store and seeing all the Canadian films in the Foreign section. And I thought that said a lot. And I think the editorial "separateness" of Canadian TV accomplishes the same thing. I don't know how to fix it. But it certainly is a factor.

One among many.

EDIT. Wicked. And from the "look how au courant we are" spy this little story in today's Globe. Turns out there's a huge RCMP investigation into gangs infiltrating Canadian airports. Sarah's Border episode, which was written two months ago -- spins out from a gang that has infiltrated the Airport. Score another one for The Border crystal ball!

It's A Rough Gig. Wear a Cup

THE PODCAST FOR my appearance on Q yesterday is up now. (I'm last up in the podcast, after an interesting interview with Canadian Simpsons scribe Joel Cohen, among others.)

Bonus points if you can make out me desperately trying not to cough like an idiot.

Wheeze, Cough, ZoS

I'M BEHIND. DREADFULLY. Every time I get traction on this outline, it dissipates. It's a hard nut to crack. And now, after a few fruitless hours, I have to come to terms with the fact that the likelihood of making any real progress while stopping to hack and sneeze every twenty-eight seconds is 1Y34HERGHR;FWXXXXX...whoops...'scuse me.

Anyway, I've switched to catching up on work-related scriptreading for the day...that's going pretty well, oh, except for the broken glasses that fly off my nose every time I...every time I...ahhh ahhh ahhh...ok. I'm ok.

False alarm.

AnywaIPUBHT3R2IHFD;QLFJDAC goDAMNIT!

... point is there's not a whole lot of joy in Sticksville today.


So the friendly bicycle courier at my door is a surprise. He has a package for me from The Movie Network. The Movie Network, for those keeping score, is the only Canadian broadcaster that does a GREAT job of publicity when it comes to its homegrown stuff. (CBC does an OK job, which is to say, they've gotten better at targeting one or two shows a quarter to promote and getting kits and press releases out for them.)

But today's delivery comes with something unheard of in Canadian TeeVee promotion: a bit of swag.


The kit for ZOS: Zone of Separation, an eight part TMN mini coming in January to Canadian viewers (also presumably to Movie Central viewers out west) comes packaged in a replica of a soldier's backpack.

Sure. It's kind of dorky. If you talked to Brioux or Doyle or Salem or one of the jaded "get this all the time" hacks they would likely not be impressed... but the point is, it's something.

It's a bit of flash begging to cut through the clutter. It's going the extra mile.




Nobody else does it, so it's worth noting for the P.R. challenged Canadian networks:

This is kind of how you do it.

I'll review ZoS closer to the airdate, once I've stopped coughing. Seriously, I coughed and sneezed at the same time about a half hour ago, and I think for a minute there I went to the island on LOST.

Jaywalking To 10pm!

SO IT TURNS out when the lights come down in County General's E.R. this May, the timeslot will be getting a facelift. Or at least... A new chin.

Along with the rest of the 10pm hour, five nights a week.

NBC's Jeff Zucker didn't keep people waiting too long yesterday after musing about not being able to develop so many prime time hours in the future. According to the New York Times' Bill Carter, when Jay hands over the Tonight Show to Conan in 2009, Jay will move to 10 o'clock, five nights a week.

The new show, which will begin next fall, is expected to be set in Mr. Leno’s longtime studio in Burbank, Calif. Mr. Leno is expected to retain many of the most popular elements of his “Tonight Show,” including his monologue and bits like “Headlines” and “Jay Walking.” One “Tonight Show” staffmember said the new program would not be a variety show.

Mr. O’Brien, currently the host of NBC’s “Late Night,” will move “The Tonight Show” to a new studio on the NBC Universal lot in Universal City, Calif., in May. Mr. Leno, who is known to want to work as much as possible, would then miss only three months on the air, and would use that time to prepare his new show.

An executive involved in the discussions with Mr. Leno said that Mr. Leno finally came around to the idea that the television business had changed and a show like his could be a success in prime time.

Running the same show in prime time five nights a week would be a novelty for a broadcast network. Such so-called stripped shows have been a staple of daytime broadcasting.

FOX has never programmed 10'o'clock, and that's left NBC feeling jealous. Nobody programs Saturday anymore with original stuff. But what does this do to the business? Who knows?

You could argue that it's a game changer; that aging baby boomers will welcome being able to watch a show like Jay's in prime time before the news and their new earlier bedtimes. Sure, it cannibalizes Tonight Show for guests and screws Conan on the promise they made him, but hey, at least it keeps Jay from going to ABC!

To be honest with you, ceding the 10 o'clock hour seems like a terrible idea to me. I know plenty of, say, young parents who find that slot the only time they can watch tv after the kids are finally to bed and stuff's cleaned up. So you're ceding that young audience right there. I will never, ever, ever watch Jay, so that means you've lost me at 10'o'clock, forever -- or at least as long as this bizarre experiment lasts.

To be honest, it sounds a lot like one of Zucker's more famous treading water gimmicks from the 90's -- "supersizing" hit shows to 40 minutes each instead of developing fresh new product to replace them.

But then again, as the Times points out:

There have been no new hits at 10 p.m. on any network in almost four years; ratings for shows in that time slot continue to fall.

It's definitely a bold change. You have to wonder what the Canadian networks will do with one less source for 10pm shows to cadge. And what does that mean for content, now? Does the edgy stuff that used to run at 10 move to 9 with SVU and CSI: Miami? Does Drama take a hit?

Fifteen million a week for 5 10pm dramas vs. 2 Million a week for Leno. That's quite a cost difference.

Unless it hastens the flight of drama viewers to, say, Cable. There's an opportunity there, too. Especially considering somebody like me, who never really has embraced the stodgy CBS drama -- well, that means now if there's nothing on ABC, am I watching what? Baseball? The News on CBC? Cable? DVD?

The CBC News at 10 suddenly looks like a smart alternative where it never did before. What do you know?

Nikki Finke has more about the Jay-move here.

And They Can Have My Talk Box When They Pry It From My Cold Dead Neck

SINCE NOW IT SEEMS like it might become an increasingly important component of my income, I wish to invite you all to listen to me tomorrow on CBC Radio's Q program, where, in the second hour, I shall be talking about Tv Catch phrases, how they influence the language, and the Triumph of the Meh.

Oh, Dear Blurgh...

THANKS TO MEDIA MELTDOWN Monday, I find myself wondering whether I should change the name of the blog.

I mean, have you seen the price of sticks lately?

Time was I'd tell this joke with glee:

"Q: What's the difference between a Canadian screenwriter and a pizza?
A: A Pizza can feed a family of four."

Not so funny anymore, izzit?

Gawrsh, I hope my family enjoys the oranges I'm getting them for Christmas.

Merciful Mercer

WELL IN CASE anyone hasn't seen it, the inimitable Rick Mercer manages to be not a bit funny and make more sense out of the last week in Canadian politics. And his conclusion (which I share) is that it's vitally important than more than one head roll for us to get out of this.

Forgive them Canada; they know not what they do.

Not long after Stephen Harper took office as Canada's 22nd prime minister, a polar bear was born at the Berlin Zoo. Known as Knut, the cub was summarily rejected by his mother and so was nursed by human beings. Now, two years later, animal psychologists admit that he has become so addicted to human laughter and applause that, the instant those things disappear, he becomes desolate and cries for attention. This has led to irrational behaviour never before seen in a polar bear. Experts fear that, without constant applause, Knut could lose the will to live.

Enter Stephen Harper.

During the past week, while the nation wondered if the government would fall, junior Conservative staffers were ordered to be outside 24 Sussex Dr. by 6:15 in the morning. Their job was to stand there in the dark with the temperature well below zero and wait for the PM to appear. Their instructions were to applaud, wave and sing O Canada loudly as the motorcade pulled out of the gates and drove Stephen Harper to work.

Mr. Harper, by all accounts, actually believed that the young people were there of their own accord and represented a groundswell of love and support for his actions. Staffers in the Prime Minister's Office know that he is easier to handle when being applauded and not questioned. This way, nobody has to suffer at the hands of the inconsolable bear.

Enter Stéphane Dion.

Go read the rest. Well worth it.

So Long and Thanks For all The Cursing

TRAILER PARK BOYS, we hardly knew you.

I really hope Ricky straightens out and gets his Grade 12.

Elsewhere in the same section in the Weekend Globe, John Doyle talks to Mike Clattenburg about the TPB phenomenon. It's always been troubling to me that such are the vagaries of our system that something that's an actual breakthrough hit can lag being recognized as such.

For all the talk elsewhere about the "rising importance" of CanCon shows -- it was Clattenburg & Co. that consistently had punters waiting out in the cold for a glimpse of the boys. Why?

Well that's the question you should be trying to answer if you're writing that pilot right now.

As for me, I'm gonna just crack a cold one, shoot off a few rounds, stop with the thinkin' and just wait to see what Clattenburg does next.

Trailer Park Boys: Say Goodnight to the Bad Guys premieres at 10pm tonight on Showcase.