Blue Skies, Smling at Me...

BILL BRIOUX talked to me, as well as esteemed writer/bloggers JIm Henshaw, John Rogers and Breaking Bad's Vince Gilligan about recession-era TV, and how it's affecting what you see on the Box:

As Denis McGrath, a former writer for CBC's The Border sees it, it is all about networks feeling our pain and not wanting to be behind the curve. "We've got to do something to acknowledge what people are going through," he sees them saying, "because there is a danger of being out of step with what people want to see."

McGrath is about to take his own step toward the light. He leaves this week for Newfoundland, where he will run the writing room on The Republic of Doyle, an upcoming CBC private-eye drama he describes as retro and fun. But even darker shows like AMCs' Emmy-winning Breaking Bad – a show about a dying school teacher (Bryan Cranston) so desperate to provide for his family he turns to selling drugs – have had to adjust to the new economic reality.

"Reality does impact, and you can't help but pay attention to what's going on in the newspapers every day," says Breaking Bad creator/producer Vince Gilligan. He sees his show as being about "a good man who makes a very bad decision" and then "the cascade of consequences, the domino effect from that decision." It is an extreme example of what a lot of people are dealing with today.

Suddenly, CEOs and bankers are the new bad guys on TV. The Canadian-born creator of the American cable drama Leverage, John Rogers, says the recession probably helped his show get a second season because many of his stories focus on people going after corporate criminals. McGrath found it interesting that the creators of the midseason ABC comedy Better Off Ted had tapped into a growing cynicism and mistrust about the corporate world. "It has finally sunk in that these guys have wrecked our economy," says McGrath.

There is word leaking out from Friday Night Lights that job-loss storylines will be on the agenda next season. "It's certainly on producer's and writer's minds and that means those kind of stories will be on the table in the coming weeks," says veteran Canadian TV screenwriter Jim Henshaw (BeastMaster).

"The only thing the networks want to see right now are what the networks are calling `Blue Sky Shows,'" says McGrath, who has heard through his agent and writer friends in L.A. that "Happy stuff` is all the rage. "All those Criminal Minds, CSIs, dark, crime procedurals are in real trouble.

"When the real news is all doom and gloom, the dive to comedy and escapism is almost a reflex."