The CBC Can't Buy a Break

Sometimes I really do feel sorry for the poor old CBC.

The latest from Canadian Press:

Historical inaccuracies have forced the CBC to pull the movie about the life of medicare founder Tommy Douglas from its future broadcast schedule.

The network has also halted both home and education sales of the film.

Tommy Douglas is the father of Canadian Medicare. He's also the only socialist to ever lead a government in North America. And for current Trivia buffs, he's the grandfather of 24's Kiefer Sutherland. Tommy Douglas is a big deal in Canada -- he was voted "The Greatest Canadian" in a TV special a couple years back. The movie, "Prairie Giant," was originally supposed to air in January, but the CBC pulled it because of the Canadian Federal Election (whilst still running a very anti-medicare documentary. Go Figure.) It finally aired in March, to almost a million viewers between the two nights (which is pretty good by Canadian standards...equivalent to about 30 million people watching in the USA)

So what went wrong? According to CP:

The decision was made after the family of former Saskatchewan premier Jimmie Gardiner and several prominent provincial politicians complained that Gardiner was villified in the movie...

CBC recruited an independent historian to review the film and found Gardiner's character was "significantly different" from his true personality.

Now, on a dramatic level, Gardiner was somewhat the villain of the piece. I'm sure he did plenty to try and keep "the socialists" at bay. One of the family's big complaints seems to be that he was portrayed as a thuggish drinker, when really he was a teetotaler.

In any case, it's certainly nowhere near the liberties taken in, say...Oliver Stone's Nixon.

Medicare and Tommy Douglas' legacy is still controversial -- and the people he took on -- doctors, insurers, have a lot of power. Add in the fact that health care is still a third rail issue in the U.S. and the subject around this film was bound to be fraught.

If you have any experience in TV or film, though, you're probably scratching your head right now and going, "wasn't this thing lawyered?"

Well, yeah. And that's where this case gets kind of interesting.

See, CBC has been in this position before. Years ago, a docudrama series called "The Valour and the Horror" aired. It was produced by two of Canada's most noted documentary producers, and it caused an absolute shitstorm, because among its more controversial elements, it suggested that maybe the view that we were sold of our WWII vets being totally heroic might be a bit spun. It pointed out that the campaigns of the Allied Commands' Bomber Harris could have been excessive -- even monstrous. WWII vets went crazy, and the attacks on the CBC came fast and furious. CBC eventually apologized, cut and ran, withdrew the doc, end of story. All for suggesting that maybe the firebombing of Dresden might have been, you know, excessive.

As Jeanette Slonoiowski wrote about this earlier controversy:

Publicly funded institutions are particularly vulnerable to attacks by powerful lobbies whose animosity can and does jeopardize their financial stability. The Valour and the Horror can be seen as a particularly acrimonious chapter in the continuing battle between a publicly funded institution and the taxpayers who support it. In this it is not unlike the battle waged in the United States between veterans and the Smithsonian Institute over the representation of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

So how does the CBC keep finding itself in these situations? Do they just have the worst lawyers ever? Or lazy fact checkers? Or what?

It atually has a lot to do with Canada's libel laws. They work differently than in the U.S. and are a lot more restrictive. The legal principle at work here is something called a reverse onus.

That makes a libel suit way, way harder to defend, because the burden shifts to the defendant to prove that things are true. I believe the way it works in the U.S. is that the plaintiff has to prove, not only that the info was false, but that the defamation was deliberately done to damage the reputation of the wronged party.

This little difference in the law means that libel suits in Canada are very easy to file, and prove, and very hard, and difficult, and expensive to defend. It means that factually based Canadian stories will always go the safest route. And it makes the potential risk for anyone telling a true or based-on-true story nearly impossible if there's any chance of anyone taking issue with the portrayal.

See how libel chill works, folks? This is one of my least-favorite things about "The Canadian Way." CTV has got to be nervous about its upcoming Conrad Black film in light of this.

Anyway. It's a shame. It really was a great movie.

(If any of you law scholars out there want to expand or clarify my points here, I welcome it. I am not, nor have I ever been, a lawyer.)

Falcon Beach: The U.S. Market, She Shimmers, She Does...

You can tell that Falcon Beach premiered in the U.S. last week. Looking at my search stats, the vast majority of searches are for "Jennifer Kydd" "Falcon Beach" "How old" "where is it shot" and related terms.

It's an interesting reminder for we Canadian creatives: the pool is not just bigger down there, there's enough water to drown our market entirely. Think about it: more people watch a flop in the U.S. than watch our biggest hit up here.

Not to say that Falcon Beach is a flop. But the articles in Canada did always tend to focus on the fact that the ratings softened after a few weeks. And the reviews were middling. We'll see if the U.S. follows suit, but judging by a few reviews I've read, it seems worth noting that there is indeed a kind of "Degrassi Effect."

To wit: since Degrassi took off on The N, there's been this slow-growing idea idea that Canada is the place where we make teen-centred or teen-issue dramas that handle issues with sensitivity, not hysteria. This could be very useful to program makers; a niche, and a ready-made perception that we're good at this. Maybe it's time to focus energies on making more?

I mean, not like another Canadian spoof musical is going to sweep Broadway anytime soon. (Congrats to The Drowsy Chaperone, which picked up four Tony Awards last night. Guess Don McKellar's going to be extra insufferable now. Fantastic.)

Canadians are inveterate second-guessers. We may not have ever believed that any of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqi, or that Saddam Hussein worked with Al Qaeda, but we also never seem to learn the lesson that often the perception of something is more useful than the reality. It certainly was useful when it came time for Dubya, Rummy, and the Che-man to fix the case for war.

Right now there's a perception that we can make teen dramas that tackle issues in a way that U.S. shows can't. Partly because the hysteria level down south is so high, and because the American Family Association organizes a phone tree anytime a character so much as looks at a condom -- but the why doesn't matter. It's out there.

Now, the skinny may tell a different story. Yes, The N has refused to run episodes of Degrassi, and run others out of order. To their credit, Degrassi resisted calls to cut or change content, (a lesson that should get Canadian producers thinking) and The N made the call on whether to show the stuff to their audience. (They also got roasted by their online fan base for choosing to re-order or omit some episodes.)

I've heard from a reader of the blog that Class, the recently-announced Global University-set one-hour, is destined for a U.S. cable sale -- following that emerging Degrassi Effect narrative.

It's time we Canadian creatives were aware of it, and started talking it up -- capitalizing on it as a reality. Up here, everyone talks about Degrassi in a vacuum. It's not in a vacuum. Like "runaway production" and "Canada is a haven for terrorists," we shouldn't let this narrative be entirely shaped by others.

You want fuel? Look to a couple of the U.S. reviews, like this one...from a Pittsburgh Paper.

"Falcon Beach" comes across as the more responsible show. The characters have more depth and are more sympathetic.

Press notes say "Falcon Beach" is set in New England, but the flags seen in the background say Canada (the series was shot in Winnipeg)...

Wake-boarding stud Jason (Steve Byers) and more nerdy best friend Danny (Ephraim Ellis) want to begin the summer with a rockin' party, but the location they planned to use -- an abandoned beach house -- falls through when its owner, Ginny Bradshaw (Allison Hossack, "Profit"), arrives with her uptight, bratty daughter, Paige (Jennifer Kydd).

Eventually Paige loosens up and Jason is torn between her and his ex-girlfriend, Tanya (Devon Weigel), a coke-snorting model who's returned to town and soon takes up with Paige's druggie brother, Lane (Morgan Kelly).

"Falcon Beach" shows the consequences of anti-social behavior and evinces greater wit. Danny has a seemingly endless supply of brothers, including one who's taken a vow of silence. Lane refers to Paige's past boyfriends, who all worked for their father, as "The Extraordinary League of Yes Men," a clever turn-of-phrase.

By nature of its Canadian production, "Falcon" is a cultural cousin to "Degrassi," which may explain why it's the superior beach-set summer sudser. It also helps that parents do appear in this series, so it's not so much kids-gone-wild-at-the-beach (although beach beer blasts are a favorite pastime).

It's noteworthy that the ages of the "Falcon Beach" young hotties are never specified. Are Jason and Paige out of high school? Are they college age? Are they of drinking age? In Sunday's two-hour premiere, "Falcon Beach" doesn't clue us in. But they're young, attractive and having fun, so you can bet the teens and tweens watching at home will want to emulate them.

Pssst. We know teen drama. Pass it on.

Off To Join the Deadwood Entourage

My cable box and my DVD player are cordial, but cold to each other.

They know the drill. During the long Canadian winter and short spring, the cable box and PVR hum like a little Dickensian child struggling to keep the gears moving with his tiny, tiny fingers.

But then the summer comes, and the Cable box is demoted, to a device that brings me live sporting events, and the occasional news report. On nights in, that DVD player takes pride of place, as I catch up and expand my viewing horizons.

They tolerate this relationship, because they know I have needs. But neither is too happy about it.

But here comes a blip. Mmm. For the next several weeks, Sunday nights are going to be a stay-in or set the PVR kind of night.

Deadwood and Entourage are back.

I tremble a bit at the thought of more disquisitions, profane and true, from philosopher-prick Al Swearengen. I shudder to think what's going on with James Cameron's Aquaman, now that the strange flirtation with WB-pilot synergy is over with on that project. And what of Drama and Turtle? Will they ever get over crossing swords that one time in Sundance?

I read articles about the great David Milch like this one, and I'm ready to engage in a most unmanly swoon.

Entourage is a show that just caught fire in its second season. It wasn't just that the writing was cannier (when you add that many top talents to your staff, that's to be expected) or that the showbiz cameos (James Cameron! Mandy Moore! Malcolm MacDowell!) were sharper, it's that the stuff between the four guys -- the stuff that has nothing to do with showbiz, was just so... money...Finally, a show about male friendships in your twenties that actually feels right. Making Turtle smarter, Giving Eric some edge -- all of it just cracked. I got to the end of each episode of Entourage and I was already jonesing for the next one.

Here in Canada, the CHUM group stations have bought the first two seasons of Entourage, and will be playing them over the air. You can do that here in Canada, where we don't freak out over the occasional S-bomb or a slipped nipple. I think it's going to do gangbusters for them.

Deadwood and Entourage reminded me of the shows that made me want to be a TV writer in the first place. Of the shift that happens when you stop being a viewer and say, "that's great...I want to make something like that." So often, I watch tv and I can't turn off that critical sense. These shows make it easy. I'm just a fan.

There's something to be said about a great new TV show in the summer.

When there's only one or two a week -- it just seems sweeter.

Okay, Mr. Wu. I'm ready -- say that word -- the way only you can say it.

I Think I Actually Give Up

I took a break from pounding out the outline I'm on right now to go and take care of my carpal tunnel issues. I broke down and bought the Ilap. It was a bit of an odyssey finding one. First, the place I went to pick up my new computer bag was out. For some reason, every time I go to pick up more than one thing from this store, they're out of something. I have bad store mojo. All my life. It's my curse.

So then I trundled off to the Apple Store in the huge tourist trap downtown mall, The Eaton Centre. They didn't even stock it. I called two more stores and they were out and finally took three buses to find an Apple dealer with one in stock. (By now I was committed.) Right now I'm sitting in a lovely, mostly empty bar. The guys from the kitchen are freaking out over the World Cup match on the Telly right now...I'm chortling as I read about England managing to eke out a win through no apparent effort whatsoever, and my laptop is gloriously supported. My posture is much better. This rocks.

So why do I give up?

While I was in the Eaton Centre, I happened to wander into one of our chain bookstores, because someone I know was working there. I browsed the magazines a bit, and noticed that in front of one rack there were women, about a dozen of them, stacked four deep, all reading multiple copies of one magazine. People Magazine.

A dozen women, gathered to see Brad and Angelina and their baby Cletus, or whatever its name is. I watched this for about five minutes. The minute a People went back into the rack, there was another woman to snatch it up, fingers trembling as she flipped to the photos.

Pre-internet, a boy of a certain age could sometimes be caught in a variety store surreptitiously flipping through a Playboy with the exact same expression on his face.

For every woman that bought one of the People magazines, ten more just wanted to browse. Eventually, after a few minutes, the magazines were gone. And so were the women.

But then the stock guy brought out more. And within a minute, there was a whole new crowd of women, five or six, gathered 'round. I can't be sure, but I think a few of them were carrying gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

I give up. I officially do not get it anymore.

Bonus points: At a film industry gathering Monday night, I was talking to a woman and she asked, "You were in South Africa for a while, right?"

"Yes," I said.

"That's near Namibia, isn't it?"

"Uh, yeah."

Her eyes glazed over.

Guess what she wanted to talk about next?

I give up.

How Much Time Do You Spend Thinking About Gender Justice as it Relates to The A-Team?

Jaime J. Weinman's blog is one of my favorites, (see the sidebar) because we share a lot of the same cultural obsessions (Hello, WKRP!) but also because there's plenty of room where we diverge.

Writers are weird, and we tend to like weird things. Developing a writer's worldview, I believe, has to involve being on the fringes, or feeling on the fringes, and developing a dispassionate passion for something that others wouldn't give a secont thought about.

Even when it does intersect "mainstream" culture, writers bring a level of detail and attention that can only come from an outsider. Friday Night Lights chronicles how football is more important than anything else in a Texas town, but it took Bissinger -- not one of those people involved -- to bring it to the nation, first as a bestselling book, then a movie, and in the fall, a TV series.

Al Gore is a weird geek, so we get a great movie about Global Warming. George W. Bush was a popular fratty coke-snortin born again Christian silver spoon legacy jock, so we get the worst President ever. Life's funny that way.

We writers are all the product of our obsessions. I find Weinman's obsessions endlessly fascinating. See if you do, too.

Canadian Pay TV: New Series Offerings

Movie Central (west) and TMN, (east) Canada's equivalent to HBO, have announced their 2006/2007 lineup of domestically produced TV series. There are two new ones:

Durham County

Six hour miniseries, produced by Laurie Finstad-Knizhnik, Janis Lundman and Adrienne Mitchell of Back Alley Film Productions. It's about a detective who moves his family to a peaceful town hoping for a new beginning. (Sounds a little Everwood-y, no?)

Then the serial killer shows up.

Eeep.

ZOS

Eight part series, produced by Whizbang Films, with exec producers Paul Gross, Frank Siracusa, Mario Azzopardi and Malcolm MacRury

(Yes. Thanks to Canadian Television Policy 434195-9-T, Paul Gross (Due South, H20, Men With Brooms) is now required to be involved with everything.)

Set in the near future, follows peacekeepers trying to keep the peace in an UN enforced ceasefire in a fictional Balkan town split down the middle between Christian Serbs and Albanian Muslims. Sounds like this one might be dark comedy -- I certainly hope they go that route rather than maudlin drama. Canadian series often have a surfeit of earnestness. If they can resist that impulse, this could have some promise.

Other programs include a three part thriller Bon Voyage, a 90 min Just For Laughs special, The Nasty Show, and a third season of ReGenesis from Shaftesbury Films.

Can Sitcoms Be Funny and Real?

A reader writes:

Is there anything inherently wrong about bringing in real current events to a sitcom? What's wrong with having the cast of Corner Gas discuss equalization payments? Or Chandler Bing realizing that he can't run away to Ireland because of a new Homeland Security squeeze? Is there any room for the real world in the sitcom world? Standup seems to incorporate the two quite well (to the point that some standup loses its edge after only a month or two) - couldn't the same success be achieved on the set?

Hmm. An interesting question. My instincts say no -- but before we get to why, let's take a short look at the traditional place of the half-hour comedy.

Half hour comedies have been the engine that drive television for a very long time. Even when, as now, they're in a cyclical trough period in terms of popularity or heat, they're still hugely important.

That's because they're repeatable; and way more marketable. Even a middling half hour comedy with enough episodes to syndicate makes far far more with off-prime syndicated sales to local stations, than even the best one-hour drama. Also, when they're repeated in prime time, they do far better than repeated drama episodes.

(I would love to see how they compare in DVD box sets sales; my guess would be beyond the major hits like Friends, or Family Guy or Simpsons, that generally hour boxes do better, but that's a hunch not backed up by data. Anyone have the data?)

We have to surmise from this that people are far more willing to see an episode of a sitcom that you've seen before. Rather than the reaction you have watching a drama, "I've seen this one, damn," the reaction is more like, "Oh man, this was a good one." I don't care how many times I've seen the Seinfeld episode "The Contest," if I flip by it, I'll watch. When Ross shouts out, "We were on a Break!" it's still as funny as the first time I saw it. Then add in The Simpsons, where the first act usually never has anything to do with the rest of the show, and you're nine minutes in before you realize, "oh, right, this is the monorail episode!"

So the question of topicality in sitcoms faces an uphill battle right from the start. If you reference what's going on in the world in anything but a general way, you're going to ruin repeatability. You can see this for yourself if you ever see old episodes of All in The Family. It's a show, viewed through the lens of a few decades' space, that's easy to admire, but hard to love. Most of what they reference directly is so tied to the politics of the early 1970's (like jokes about Nixon, and the ERA) that it seems a bit impenetrable now. Compare that to a show that's more than ten years older, like The Dick Van Dyke Show, and it's strange to see that a show that's even older can seem a bit fresher -- because it sticks to its world and doesn't try to stick a foot into ours. (I'm not talking about things like fashion or social convention here...those things do seem dated, but somehow they're more acceptable than a character who's concerned about something, really concerned, that is barely a footnote now. And you don't need to go back to D.V.D. or Archie Bunker to see dated stuff - check out some of those first season Friends eps.) You seem to acknowledge this point near the end of your question, so I'm not going to belabor it.

The second reason why I think too much topicality in the sitcom is bad has more to do with the form itself.

We've talked several times before about comedy characters and how they're different than dramatic characters. I go back again to paraphrase comment a writer acquaintance of mine made on a panel a few months ago: Your average comic character takes about six seasons to change as much as a dramatic character does in one.

Sometimes this is structural. That 70's Show got 8 seasons or so out of the years 1976 - 1980. Happy Days did the same thing with the 50's. I'm hardly the first to note that M*A*S*H ran three times longer than the war it portrayed. (And became a drama in the end, anyway.)

The point is that a comic world is a very careful construction. It's like a souffle, and you don't want to introduce anything into it that might ruin the recipe. Introducing elements of the real world in anything but an offhand way threatens to create a dissonance between your characters' insistence on pursuing their blind obessions and never changing, and the realities of the world outside of Dog River, or Wisconsin, or Cheers, or KCAL radio, or Cafe Nervosa. People seek out comedies for escapism. You want to laugh with, or at, the antics of the characters in their constructed worlds -- not see how they react to the crushing or trivial elements in ours.

So while there's nothing wrong with Corner Gas characters complaining in a general way about taxes, equalization payments would be a stretch. (And a little out of character, too, no? Aren't they mostly concerned with what happens in Dog River, and maybe that other place -- Wolverton? (spit)) If Friends was still on, I suppose you could have someone date someone from Homeland Security, but that would have to be funny -- they couldn't be on the phone Jack Bauer-ing a couple of terrorists.

Finally, if you look at what people are really concerned about these days -- pictures of Brad Pitt's baby, whether Jen is still happy, Britney's bump and dropping the baby issues -- well, if they're not following the news in the news, do you really think they'd accept it more if it was coming out of Grace's mouth?

Or...shudder...Jim Belushi's?

Hand Waving & The Gun In the Drawer

ON THE PROJECT I'm deepest into now, we've reached a point where we have an overall arc for the episodes. We're still adjusting on the fly as we write outlines, because that's what you do, and also because good ideas keep coming and you want to integrate them.

The show has a complicated weave, and a lot of different things to track. One of the most challenging things about it is tracking what the audience knows when. In some cases, the audience is ahead of our characters, but there are some key facts that the audience doesn't know -- that they won't know (hopefully) until we reveal it to them.

That requires a deft touch, because the contstruction issues are daunting. There's a lot of choices you have to make just because of the demands of the form. For instance, you need to play time cuts, because you have anywhere from 41 to 47 minutes to tell your story. (We're writing for 47 and I think it's still tight.) You also have to play the story in such a way that you never see the conversation where the characters learn information that the audience already knows -- because that's dull for the audience and objectively you don't have the space.

Yet there's no getting around the fact that there's a whole lot of hand-waving in TV drama. People having conversations to convey exposition, people talking, talking, talking -- you try to make it as interesting as possible, but when you compare a standard TV show which shoots anywhere from 6 to 10 pages a day with a movie that shoots 1/2 to 1 1/2 pages, you can see that the scenes you pump out are just going to be different.

Right now one of the things we're working through is how you hide the solution, or hide the twist.

A lot of the hand waving that comes in tv writing is the writer's attempt to get you to pay attention to something here, while we try to slip something past you there.

There's an old theater saying, which I'll paraphrase, which basically amounts to, "If you put a gun in the drawer in the first act, it has to go off in the third."

That seems self-evident, but the truth behind it is this: you have to get that gun in the drawer in the first act, then get the audience to forget about it so that by the time someone goes for it in the third, it is a surprise on some level -- even though the audience supposedly knew it was there.

See? The game of chicken we play with viewers is this: we're going to show you stuff. And if you pay attention in the right places and make the right connections, you'll figure this out way before we show it to you. But we're betting you won't.

When, as writers, you win this game of chicken, people are entertained.

When you lose, people figure it out too early, and they say that your story was boring and predictable.

So why hide the shit at all? Why show the gun? Why not have it come as a total surprise?

Well, here's where it gets really nasty, chickens. If you just have the gun, or the murderer, or the secret rune or the letters of transit come out of nowhere, without setting them up, then it's a deus ex machina ending, and the audience will feel cheated and hate you -- way, way more than if you had crafted a predictable story.

Psychology is fun, isn't it?

Working back from your reveal, sometimes the hardest thing to do is to figure out how to leave clues that won't be obvious, but will add up to something meaningful. This is where throwing red herrings come in, too. You tease the audience, you lead them down a couple of paths, some false, some true. And hopefully, by the time you take the gun out, it's a surprise.

A lot of the time this is going to involve coincidence. All stories are based on coincidence in some way. Cinderella happens to drop the glass slipper on the stair as she leaves the ball, and it doesn't turn back into a rat or whatever so Prince Charming can find her. That's lucky, isn't it? Pretty coincidental.

In a romantic comedy, of COURSE the two characters run into each other after a year in the same cafe in New York. There are people I dated who live less than a kilometer from me and I never, ever run into them, but sure, why not. Cafe. New York. Sure.

The basic rule is that your story can weather some degree of coincidence, so long as that coincidence does not provide the solution to your story. (I think I wrote about this before once.)

What I'm finding now is, another way to think about it is: you have to get that coincidence as far away from your solution as possible.

If someone meets someone in passing who will become important in the end, that's coincidence, sure, but it's forgiveable. But the closer you get to the end, the less that coincidence will hold up to scrutiny, the more forced it will feel, and the more chance you have that the audience will reject it or figure you out too early.

You have to make peace with coincidence, and have a clear internal sense of how much is too much. (If you're like me, CRASH is too much. And yes, I know, that was the point.)

When you're giving notes on a friend's script, it's not enough to point out coincidence or a convenient story twist. You really have to drill down and ask yourself, "is this an acceptable coincidence, or are you asking the audience for so much here that it will threaten suspension of disbelief?"

I know writers who won't accept any coincidence in their stories, and almost universally, this results in flat storytelling that has way too much exposition, or much character histrionics that disguise the fact that there isn't a lot of forward plot momentum.

Unfortunately, coincidence and its proper use can often be the motor oil that keeps the gears of your story working. Remove it entirely, and you're left with an inert substance. To mix a metaphor, coincidence is like baking powder. A little goes a really long way.

On Demand North of the 49th

Checking over the blog lately, I notice that I've had a lot of Cancon. So this one maybe I'll try to keep shorter.

The Canadian Upfronts are happening this week, and it's hard to conceive just how in front CTV is. They dominate every night of the week. Seventeen of Canada's Top 20 shows are on CTV. Worse, a couple of CTV's homegrown shows are even in the Top 20! It's like they can't be stopped.

So now they're innovating again. CTV announced that effective immediately, they'll be making shows available on an on-demand basis, as ABC has done with Desperate Housewives and Lost.

Initially, they'll feature sports, news, and mainly Canadian shows such as Degrassi: The Next Generation, Instant Star, Corner Gas, Canadian Idol, and the new, big budget Whistler, but eventually they might be able to start licensing Canadian On-Demand rights for U.S. Shows.

The shows will run on demand with commercials, which you can't fast-forward through -- which I think to most people is a totally acceptable compromise. Hey, if you never have to miss a show again, and all you have to do is watch a couple ads, why not? If you don't want to watch the ads, tape the show and fast forward, same as usual.

This is going to be GREAT news for Canadian Shows, which often suffer from being punted around the schedule. Canadian networks, because they depend so much on U.S. shows, are at the Americans' scheduling mercy, and Cancon gets caught in the crossfire. Maybe now, CTV at least can start to grow the appetite for homegrown product. It's hard to hate the top dog when they seem to be doing so much right.

Which brings us to Global. Global used to be on top, with the powerhouse U.S. shows, but that's slid in recent years in the withering competition from CTV. Global announced an aggressive schedule with a lot of new buys, which you can find out about here.

By the way, I didn't just link to that Sun article for the announcements, but to show you the attitude. One of the features in the reporting of all the upfront presentations is that the articles written about them dump any mention of anything homegrown right to the end. Bill Brioux, who takes a faux populist stance in most of his TV writing, goes one better:

Oh, yeah, Canadian shows? Just as at the CTV upfront, nothing we haven't seen or heard about before. More Falcon Beach, more ReGenesis, more Debbie Travis.

What a maroon. And here's a shocker, kids. He's lazy and wrong.

Global did announce more Falcon Beach. But it also announced more Jane Show, and two other new one hour dramas which I know nothing else about:

Class is a university-set show, and Quill follows the adventures of a counter-terrorism operative.

There are lots of problems in the Canadian industry that have to do with US - writers, creators, producers, that we need to solve. But idiots like Brioux, who bring a standard issue Canadian-complex-defeatism to their writing, well...Houston, we got a problem there, too.

(If anyone involved with Class or Quill reads this blog, get in touch by email. I'd love to hear a bit about your shows -- and I know considering the dearth of non-press release driven entertainment reportage in this country, I won't read any articles about the shows in the papers. Not whilst the Bill Briouxs are doing such a bang-up job on the beat.)

Co-Writing and Gang-Breaking

In my trolling-for-inspiration question-solicitation mode, W.C. Dixon writes:

Do you find it easier to break a story on your own or with a group in a writer's room?

That's a no-brainer. I think the room is the way to go. You get a bit of Stockholm Syndrome with yourself when you're breaking: you will convince yourself that you've got a solution all worked out when it really is still crunchy. And then when you go to outline, that will bite you in the ass. If you're in a well-put together room, there will always be someone there to say, "wait, wait. I don't buy it, what about this?" And then you fix it.

Working alone -- to geek out for a moment -- is like having a single processor trying to crunch story. The room, you get all those brains crunching at once -- bam -- instant parallel processing.

I find when I break alone, I also tend to get off track easier, and get bogged down in fridge logic issues.

(digression) For those of you who don't read John Rogers, or haven't seen his excellent posts on Jargon Preservation, Fridge Logic is a piece of inconsistency in a story that doesn't really impact the audience's enjoyment: ie: it's something they won't bump on, so you don't really need to worry about solving it. The most famous piece of Fridge Logic ever is probably the letters of Transit in Casablanca. When you think about it, the idea that there are these letters that can get anyone out of Casablanca --because they can't be questioned -- by Nazis -- well, it's ridiculous. But if you think of that at all, it's a half hour after you've enjoyed the film, and you're standing at the Fridge looking for the Snapple and you go, "you know..."

Geek fanboys, when they talk about the inconsistencies in Star Trek episodes, 99% of the time they're complaining over fridge logic. (Sci fi fans are fueled by fridge logic...they'll find inconsistencies where there are none.)

The story logic you have to worry about is where you do something that really is going to make the person bump, or is too convenient, or violates something you've done before (ie: on Star Trek, they establish that you can't beam through shields. If they do that in an episode, that's not fridge logic. That's a mistake . Bump. (/digression)

Aside from those things, there's also some psychological comfort to breaking as a group. You don't own the success 100 percent -- but TV is collaborative, so you never do. But you don't wear the failures yourself, either. The story is our problem to solve, not your problem to solve. And you get to be with people, and though it's hard work, it can also be fun.

Breaking a story by yourself isn't fun. Is never fun. It's just a pain in the ass.

Which brings me to co-writing...have you had success co-writing with anyone or prefer to write solo?

I'm co-writing something right now. It has a lot of advantages and a lot of drawbacks. I firmly believe that once you do have a story, someone has to be the conductor, and move it forward. Most people I know who cowrite regularly have a system where one person takes first pass, one person takes second pass, and they go on like that. I co-wrote a play like that last summer. It can be an interesting process. Generally, when I co-write, it's a project where I was not "the primary" ie: it's not mainly my idea -- a lot of the initial ideas come from someone else. I tend to have very proprietary and solid ideas about how to execute ideas that I come up with myself. In order to have the necessary malleability to make the co-write work, I just find it's better if I'm not the originator. But that's probably a quirk that says more about me than about the process.

There's another common way to co-write tv, which is one person writes Act 1 and 2 and the other writes Act 3 and 4, and then they put them together and try to harmonize voices. I know that sounds horrifying at first blush, but it can really save a lot of time. If you are in sync with your writing partner, and you're working off a good outline, there's no reason in the world why you shouldn't be able to do this. I've done it in production a couple times, though more commonly as a rewrite of a freelancer script.

I remember years ago interviewing William Gibson (or maybe it was Bruce Sterling) about the book they wrote together, The Difference Engine. Apparently their rule was to rewrite over each other and the rule was -- you only saved the current version, you could not change anything back to the way you had it. Sounds like an interesting way to work -- this is in the age of trading disks back and forth. Now I guess you'd just shoot emails back and forth.

I know there are people who actually sit down, looking over each other's shoulders, and write together. I also think this is what most people think of when then think "co-writing." I can't imagine doing this for the life of me. Although I suppose if you're really in sync that could work.

I've only written like this once -- years ago, when I was in University, I co-wrote a sketch with a friend of mine. It was exciting to come up with stuff and get it down right away, right there. It was great to have the instant validation. It turned out to be a great sketch. That sketch probably marks the time when I stopped writing to have something to perform, and realized I took more pleasure in the writing of it.

That writer's on Corner Gas now, by the way. I know the good'uns.

The other thing that I notice about writing partnerships is that a lot of them seem to end acrimoniously. Hardly surprising, I guess. But if my heart's going to get broke, I suppose I'd rather have it be because my heart's broke, not cause an intimate work relationship got wrecked. But again, that might just be me. Your mileage might vary.

Mentally Exhausted and Morally Questionable.

C'est moi.

I'm at sixes and sevens this week with a ton of work and not a whole lot of inspiration. So if anyone's got any questions or things they want to ask me, fire away. Maybe it'll give me something to write about.

Otherwise, I'm just going to make some soup and get back to the outline.

And Jane, She is a Clerk...

Ah, Sweet Jane.

Anyway, this isn't about the Velvets or the Junkies either. This Sweet Jane is all about a new Canadian comedy, The Jane Show. It airs on Global, at least in Ontario, Thursday at 9:30 p.m. Global's notorious for moving around shows depending on your timezone, so check your local listings.

The development game in Canada can be fraught. Because you don't always do a pilot, a lot of the development is focused on scripts and bibles. That's a problem, of course, because so much has to do with casting and direction and how everything comes together that if you pick over the written details too much, there's no guarantee that you're going to get any closer to quality. And if you spend too much time picking over scripts, there's the ever-present danger (especially with a comedy) that you're going to get comitteed to death. I have several friends in comedy development deals right now who've had so many sets of notes that the joy has been completely leeched out of the script process. Everybody's at the stage where nothing's funny because they've read it too much -- and that's when, unless there's a strong hand at the till, the wheels really come off.

The Jane Show could have easily gone that way, for a lot of reasons. First of all, this show came out of Global's in-house script development program at a time when Global was tagged in the industry for a pretty cynical non-committment to Cancon -- ie: just about the only thing they did was the ultra low budget serial Train 48. I know the Train had its (few) fans -- but I saw the ratings, guys. The public wasn't on board. Doesn't mean everyone involved -- actors and writers -- didn't work hard, or weren't talented. It just means it was conceived and executed with a cynical eye toward maximizing Cancon at minimal cost. It was a loss leader for Global's U.S. shows.

When The Jane Show pilot aired, it seemed a bit dire, and hardly the thing to bring Global back into the "we're actually trying" fold (see Traders.) It was a halfhearted Sex & The City wannabe. It seemed strangely dated, it was trying too hard, characters had likability issues -- it was just a mess.

Then, just about the entire top tier of executives at Global TV changed. You know what happens to old projects when a new team comes in, right? So the chances for the series of The Jane Show to emerge as anything decent seemed long.

Well, the first episode aired last Thursday. And they beat the odds. All of 'em.

It's hard to quantify just how much better this show was than the original pilot. Is it perfect? Nope. But it's solid. The point of view is clear. The performances are enjoyable. And it's funny.

So everybody involved -- Global execs, the creators, the writers brought in to work the material for series -- should all pat themselves on the back. The weakest thing about The Jane Show now is that title.

Teresa Pavlinek (one of the co-creators, along with Ralph Chapman) is Jane. Jane is 33, and has spent the last eight years writing her novel. She's had a poor-paying arts job for so long that she needs a root canal she can't pay for, and she's reduced to debasing herself as a personal assistant to a horribly egocentric famous writer, just so he might one day read her book and give her an entree to the world of publishing.

Of course, he dies. He dies before ever revealing what he thinks of Jane's book. Armed with no money and being back at square one, Jane has a chance meeting with a friend who gets her a job interview with a liquor wholesaler. "We sell hope," they explain.

What's great about the POV of the show -- office work not as drudgery or debasement, as on The Office, but as a saving grace -- is a neat Canadian spin. See, here, personal assistants don't become powerful, and agent's assistants don't move up. Too often, in Canada, in the arts, there is no 'up.' The joke I've been telling for years is the pitch a producer gives to a writer, "hey, listen, buddy -- we're really low budget on this, not much to go around, but if you do me this favor right here right now and make this work, in a year I'll have another project going and I'll come back to you and then I'll ask you to do exactly the same thing."

So it might not read that way to Telefilm, but the dramatization of that attitude is probably the most Canadian thing about TJS; that and the very boss use of CanCon fave, "Sweet City Woman" in the end montage.

Pavlinek has been a fixture of the Canadian comedy scene for years. She's very tall, has expressive eyes, great timing, and is very funny. A bit of a Canadian Alison Janney thing going on, too. She does hilarious character work, which is the one thing that fills me with trepidation about TJS -- is Jane enough of a kook to let Pavlinek really stretch? I hope so, because the ensemble around her is good. The act outs were sharp and clear and filled with choice and the story had nice momentum.

Global could promote it better, of course, and let's not comment on the fact that it's been launched in ... sigh ... June. But you know, that's a structural Canadian TV problem, hardly a Global-centric problem, and it certainly doesn't have anything to do with the individual merits of the show.

After my anemic feelings for Billable Hours and Jeff Ltd. (both of which I've watched since, and I have to admit Jeff Ltd. has gotten a bit better, though the criticisms I had of it I think still hold true) The Jane Show promises greater things from Global.

(Full disclosure: I do actually have something in development at Global, but then again, I've had stuff at CTV, and that didn't make me warmer toward Jeff Ltd. Showcase is probably consistently my favorite channel. I'm a fan of Trailer Park Boys and Naked Josh, and I've worked on two shows for Showcase -- but I gotta say, Billable Hours? Not so much.)

Typing stuff like that gives me hives. Y'know, there really is a strong possibility I'm screwing myself royal by actually saying what I think in this blog. But then again, if people don't start doing that on some level in the Canadian industry, things are never, ever going to get better.

This is the time when I hear my mother's voice. "But why you?"

Simple.

I am dumb.

But I also believe in TV.

Alright. Back to work. On a Sunday. Sigh.

My New Series

I thought I should tell you all first, since you're my supportive readers. I've just sold my next series. I'm very excited about it as it's a high concept comedy, and I think it's time we did more of those.

Mike Crain, Karatist Preacher goes into Production in early 2007. It's the hilarious, offbeat, and yet socially redemptive tale of a young preacher who roams the country dispensing bible wisdom and kicking ass -- whoremongers, idolators, liars, jezebels, hypocrites, crooked CEO's, dishonest people, and Rush Limbaugh fans, you cannot escape the righteous words, and deadly chop of Mike Crain. Do not even try. You will fail. As Karatist Preachers go, Mike Crain is the man. Fundamentalists -- Mike Crain will go John 3:16 on your ass before you can yell gay marriage amendment. You know why Mike Crain is so formidable? Because Mike Crain follows the Gospel of Matthew. You know, the one about love and stuff. If you're a hater, then Mike Crain has a message for you: "feel my righteous chop, sinner." Mike Crain is a blue state karatist kicking machine. He'll bring a tear to your eye, and his sidekick, Blue, will warm your heart.

As far as I know (and I hope you'll correct me on this if I'm wrong) this is the first television series to ever be optioned off an album cover.

We have a generous, 22 episode commitment from a network I won't name now, because they'll be putting out a press release soon.

Jon Heder has been signed to play Mike Crain. We're all very excited. I'm buying a house off this deal. And best of all, the shit just writes itself.

And then I woke up. And was sad.

Somewhere, in some alternate dimension maybe, Mike Crain: Karatist Preacher is entering its fifth season. And in this alternate dimension, I am very happy with my split-level five bedroom house with a nice view of the lake, 20 minutes from downtown Manhattan, where I live with my loving wife, Rachel McAdams.

The Song About The Song That Once Said Something New

There's something I don't want to write. I'm having trouble getting started. It happens. I can't do the usual, and procrastinate for six hours before writing furiously for three. Which means I can't fall prey to justupdatetheblogitis. I mean, sure, there's a cream for that, but they haven't finished the monkey testing yet.

So in lieu of a well-thought out, argued, or considered posts, here are a bunch of random thoughts:

1. I got passed a tape from VH1 of two episodes of Love Monkey unaired-by-CBS. They were so well-written, the dialogue so fresh, the New York setting so authentic, the music and media cameos so well deployed that it makes my heart sad that no one watched the goddamn show. All of the idiots trolling myspace, feh. I wish genital itching upon you.
   
2. Cows taste good. That's Right. I said it. They are tasty, tasty animals.
3. Last night, a Canadian Television network had their big sales launch -- kind of like the Canadian upfronts. I wasn't invited. I'm betting other people who created shows on the network weren't either. I bet they tried really hard to get one of America's Next Top Models, though. A few years ago, I heard that a different network actually had the stars of one of their long running Canadian shows onstage when they announced that they had just bought an American show with exactly the same concept. That's how the Canadian actor found out. Onstage. This is how the television business works in Canada.
4. If young people are the viewers you want, and young people are the ones most likely to download, and your entire business model is based on buying U.S. shows that are now produced mostly by the production arms of the U.S. Networks, then once the advertising model goes, the U.S. networks will have to make money somewhere else. But if you haven't really ever put a lot into developing your own hit shows, how will you make your money then? Just wondering.
5. I wasn't kidding about the cows. Delicious.
6. Isn't it depressing that Teletoon keeps running the same 13 episodes of Undergrads, produced five years ago, and the ratings stay more or less the same, yet they can't raise the money to make any more?
7. Does anyone under the age of 30 ever read a book anymore?
8. If I had a dream last night about vengeful cows coming after me, and felt better when I woke up only because I realized I live on the ninth floor and they'd never be able to work the elevator buttons, well, does that make me insane? Or just pathetic?
   
9. Hot Pockets.
10. Do you think anyone ever asked M. Night, about The Sixth Sense, "Does Bruce Willis Have To Be Dead?"
    

Dare To Be Bold & Always Sweat the Details

Lovely anecdote from an Anonymous commenter, re: The Matthew Weiner Project for AMC I wrote about below:

I had a master class with Matt Weiner out here in Vancouver, maybe two years ago now. He mentioned this series, how he'd written this pilot on spec and how producers who read it always mentioned that what elevated this above the norm was the details, such as: the subway seats at the time were made of wooden slats -- a nightmare for the modern working girl and her taupe nylons. So women sat on newspapers on the subway. Small detail, well thought out. He used this pilot as his sample material despite years and years on Becker and despite his agent wavering about sending out an unproduced pilot as his sample. He had it sent anyway to a certain HBO series. A wise choice, no? Damn, I wish I could see it!

Me Too, man. Me Too.

Anonymous Commenter, if only I knew your address, I'd send you a complementary Dead Things On Sticks(tm) Dead Thing Stick -- suitable for poking your girlfriend/boyfriend, spearing dead critter flesh, or holding up complicated hairstyles. Accept no substitutes. Demand the Dead Things On Sticks(tm) Dead Thing Stick.

Whereever fine sticks are sold.*

That's the thing about bold ideas mixed with details that are so right: we're used to a paste of sameness today. Kickass creative means breathing the thing out your inner eyelid. It means knowing little things like that and weaving them in while having your characters make the bold, entertaining choices. It means having the faith to send out a script that is not the same old same old. It's knowing the difference between quality and crap. It's about having the courage to go out on the limb, and having the faith not to fear that someone will hack the limb off behind you.

If you can do that, then you're playing in the bigs -- whether you've made the sale or not.


*Not a real product. Jackass.

Advertising, the 1960's, and How We Pay For Shows: The Back To The Future Edition

Today we're going to have a linkapalooza a bit. I've got to dash off to a big pitch meeting. Wish a girl luck.

This article about a potential new series for AMC caught my eye. (From the NYTimes)

THE AMC cable television network is considering a series that would explore how Madison Avenue remakes itself to meet the changing needs of clients as consumers and the media undergo transformation.

So the show would be a reality series, right? Not exactly. It is fictional, a drama about the advertising industry circa 1960.

In another example of how the more things change the more they remain the same, if AMC decides to pick up the series, each episode may be sponsored by a single advertiser — just as was done in 1960.

The filming of an hourlong pilot episode of the series, called "Mad Men," has been completed after a month of shooting at locations in Manhattan, as well as the Silvercup Studios in Long Island City, Queens. Soon, the producer, @radical Media, plans to turn over the episode to AMC for a decision.

Now, this is interesting to me because it's a period show set in the 1960's -- something very close to my heart right now. Like all good period shows, there's a reason to set it there: 1960 is where the ad culture starts to change and the media world we live in and take for granted starts to be formed. I've always thought it was a fascinating world -- even thought it might make a good movie...but never considered a TV series. But when you think of what AMC's niche is, it makes sense.

Also -- please note the single sponsor idea. Maybe none of us know how the future of TV is going to unfold. But that doesn't mean people aren't trying. And looking back to the past for the single sponsor is one way to go. Would anyone really care if it was "The Ford Motor Company Presents 24?" As long as it was still free to you, I mean?

The more the creator, Matthew Weiner ( The Sopranos) describes the show, the more I love it:

Advertising was "the sexiest job of the period," Mr. Weiner said during an interview on Stage 9 at Silvercup Studios as a scene from the "Mad Men" pilot was being filmed.

"Some people think money is our national religion," Mr. Weiner said. "I think it's selling, and it's beautiful, and we do it better than anyone."

Mr. Weiner described himself as a big fan of the popular culture of the period, particularly films about what he termed "the war at the office." Among them he listed "The Apartment," "The Best of Everything" and "Patterns."

Rod Serling, who wrote "Patterns," also made ad executives the protagonists in several episodes of his TV series, "The Twilight Zone."

Still, Mr. Weiner said, if "Mad Men" becomes a series, he does not want viewers to wallow in nostalgia.

"We look back on that period now as innocent," Mr. Weiner said, but the early 1960's was a time of great ferment, prefiguring much of what happened to America in subsequent decades.

Bring on the overflowing ashtrays, IBM selectrics, and drinks in The Office, I say. Huzzah!

You're still bumping on the sponsorship thing, aren't you? Worried that your artistic vision as writers will be compromised by having to bow to grubby commercial interests?

Well, for heaven's sake, then...don't read this article.

Canadian show Alert

John Doyle in Today's Globe and Mail drops the unhappy news that he's gone off the TV beat til August. First he'll be covering the World Cup (note to Americans, the World Cup is kind of like the World Series, except it's soccer and the world actually cares,) then he's off on vacation. The nerve.

He leaves with one recommendation: The Jane Show, a new Global sitcom starring Teresa Pavlinek. They showed a pilot for this one last year and it was pretty dire. It's since been retooled, and Doyle says it's good. I'll be watching. I'd link to his article, but it's behind the Globe firewall. And other articles on the show are hard to find. I'd post the time, but that's hard to find too. Check your online listings.

And they ask why Canadians don't watche their own shows. Sigh.

Enjoy The Next NASCAR Event

I'm so screwed.

Seriously. So deeply, deeply screwed for the next couple of days. I'm going to ask y'all to procrastinate for me right now. Seriously, help a brother out.

One of the nice things about being a writer is that you never really have to grow up. You can still quote catchphrases you like over and over for weeks and weeks to your friends til you're sick of them and they are too. It's awesome.

Jim Gaffigan is my hero because he does his own meta commentary in his routines, and it sounds like my id.

Guess what phrase my friends are starting to get sick of?

Oh Jim, when will you come to Canada and make me happy?

The Squid, The Whale, Backstory and Busywork

I watched The Squid and The Whale on the weekend, and quite enjoyed it. The evocation of 1986 was subtle and clever, the performances were all solid, and I was intrigued by how the characters could be sympathetic even when they were saying and doing ugly things that were messing up their kids.

It was also yet another note in what's becoming my standard chorus: why I write TV, not movies.

Though I enjoyed the movie very much, at the end of it, I didn't want to spend any more time with the characters. The story about them was over. They were movie characters, I saw them at an interesting time in their lives (the span of the movie) and once that story came to its resolution, I had no wish to revisit them. What was interesting about them was done, and the parts that were unpleasant, weren't unpleasant in a 'have to see more' kind of way.

This, of course, is the very essence of a movie. It's probably one of the reasons why sequels to good movies (as opposed to Popcorn movies) usually kind of blow.

I admire the craft and the toil of any screenwriter who comes up with a competent, workable, readable screenplay. There's a lot stacked against you -- and I'm not just talking about the lack of respect you get from other stakeholders in the moviemaking process. But I still don't think it holds a candle to conceiving a really great television series.

Because a series is about creating a world from which multiple stories will spring. A well-crafted movie script is building a house. A well-crafted TV series is building a village.

Which is why it sometimes takes a village of writers to truly make it fly -- but that's a point for another time.

The delicate balance that one strikes when coming up with an original TV series is a living, organic compromise between the need to make a strong impression, and the need for space. Your character, setting, situation, secondary characters -- all need to be clearly mapped out so that when we meet them, we have an entire sense of who they are -- but at the same time, you have to leave room so that the characters can change and grow, and the situation can be re-invented, and the world you know so well can surprise you.

I'm not talking about a show like LOST here, that's built on mystery and surprise, I'm talking about your solid, kitchen-sink character based dramas.

So -- you can't blow it all in the Pilot, but at the same time, you must always remember the feeling you need to evoke at the end of the pilot: a desire to return. If people don't want to go back and see more from those characters, spend more time in that world, then you've got a situation like my reaction to The Squid and the Whale. You're done. You've written a movie, not a TV show.

In Canada, where there is a lot less opportunity, traditionally you've had a lot of crossover from people who write movies to tv series. To my mind, the fundamental differences between the two mediums, and the writer's inability to grasp this, has hamstrung more than a few series before they ever got going.

And there's another bugaboo that constricts and constrains the development of series television: fear of dynamic uncertainty.

What do I mean by that?

Well, a standard part of the tortured development process in this country (and I'm speaking not just from my own experience here; this is gathered from at least half a dozen writers I know who are currently, or have recently developed shows) is coming up with ever-more-detailed character descriptions and arcs. Sometimes a network will demand page after page of information about a character and where they came from. Early life, family life, romantic trauma in their pasts -- in short, everything that makes them what they are.

It's not hard to understand why. A TV series is a huge risk. It's very expensive. And hard to get going, and at the end of the day, you don't want to face the most terrifying idea of all:

It has to be allowed to develop organically as it goes along.

By asking for page after page of backstory, what the developing partner thinks they're getting is a fully-fleshed out character that will make the series all the more compelling.

But to a writer, a real writer, or a team of writers who are clicking and sparking on the same page, that's going to be, in the end, just a lot of busywork. You have to do it -- after all, you're not paying for the show, are you? But it doesn't really help. And you have to have the freedom to ignore all that backstory if the character takes you in another direction.

There's a problem I call "backstory fatigue." I've seen it quite a bit working on Canadian shows. You're talking about a story point and somebody says something about the character, and you have to shake your head and say, "that's not in the show yet."

One of the problems of writing so much backstory is that you get confused. You lose touch with what's been revealed to the audience and what still sits in that brick of a development document, begging to be woven into the story. Or not, as the case may be.

I'm starting to think that much of the criticism of Canadian stories being "slow to develop" is grounded in the desire to work more of the brick into the storytelling. The reality is that beyond the broad strokes of your character, your audience only needs to know what they need to know as demanded by the story... anything else is just slowing you down.

In The West Wing, for two seasons or so, Bartlet had two daughters, Annie and Zoe. You saw Zoe, and Annie was just talked about. But then they needed a third daughter. And so they invented Ellie. And it worked. You know why? Because they'd been clever enough to never specify that Bartlet had two daughters. (which surely would have happened had they been developing the show with the standard Candian brick of a bible.) They told you only what you, as the audience, needed to know in the drama at the time, which left open the storytelling possibilities until there was a need for a third daughter. Then, rather than have to "work in" that they have three daughters, that reveal of backstory drives a story of its own, in its proper time, that also reveals character.

That is the high wire act that is series television.

In Season One of The Sopranos, you see Tony's sister. In Season Two, Aida Turturro shows up and we meet Janice, the older sister. Ah. Now we have another piece of Tony. In season five, we meet Tony's good friend and cousin Tony B. Wow. We now see another side of Tony.

We didn't need to hear about Tony B. at the beginning-- only when he became relevant. Going back to The X-Files, we had the setup off the top: Mulder was a believer, Scully was a scientific skeptic. Only a couple of seasons into it did you learn that Scully had religious faith -- which Mulder derided. This was not in the show at the beginning. It does not live or exist anywhere in a bible document. It was, instead, a dynamic invention by the writers that served to illuminate the characters down the road -- and do so in a wonderfully evocative, inventive story.

It's hard to have faith. In God, in writing, in proof of concept. But as much as people want to take the uncertainty out of the development process, that can never happen. Successful series run for years, which means that everyone involved with them grows, changes and develops as surely as the characters and world they're inventing. You can't front load the process.

Which doesn't mean anyone's going to stop trying to do exactly that.

Ah well, c'est la guerre.

And On This Memorial Day...

Please note how John Rogers hits it out of the park. A beautiful post that sticks a knife in the heart of the rhetoric.

There is truth in the idea that soldiers are our designated warriors. But the accidental revelation in these attitudes is the bizarre concept that by soldiers choosing a life of taking risks on our behalf, these war supporters are somehow absolved of any responsibility to them other than emotional support and approval. There is the stink of ... the troops as employees. Like, say, gardeners. Not that I would ever make such a crude comparison.

But the fact is that soldiers make this choice in a specific context. They are not just entering a job. They are, to pull up my Catholic high school education, entering into a covenant with us. They take an oath to sacrifice their lives, if need be. That is, in my faith anyway, the holiest thing a person can do. In return, the civilian side of the covenant is a deep responsibility, a responsibility far beyond the emotional support one gives a sports team, or the minimal responsibility one has with employees. Our oath is simple:

We will make sure you have the equipment you need.

We will make sure have a clearly defined mission.

We will make sure that such missions are as well-planned as possible.

We will take care of your families while you are gone.

We will take care of you when you come home.

That's not a lot to do for someone who's out there getting shot at for you

Beautiful. Go read it.

Higgeldy-Pig-Ugly

Well, whilst you Yanquis revel in your Memorial Day, lining up to see X3 (it's Ratner, people! Ratner! If you reward hackery, hackery will be all you ever get!) Here in Dead Things City everyone woke up to an illegal transit strike. Eight hundred maintenance workers brought the whole system to its knees with no warning, and despite the fact that they signed and ratified a contract last year.

The weather forecast for Toronto today is going to be very Hot and Humid, with the air quality expected to be poor, due to smog.

In Detroit there would be gunshots.

In Toronto, I want you to imagine lots and lots of passive aggressive people spitting out "Sorrrrry!" as they bodycheck each other to get into cabs. Seriously. You haven't lived until you've experienced how a "Sorrrry" can actually mean, "Fuck. You. To. Death."

That's apropos of nothing except this:

A few people (or it may be the same hectoring blogofan, I can't be bothered to check) have asked about the promised but ne'er delivered fourth installment of the Spec Scripts Series -- on what to do after you do your spec script -- and submitting in Canada.

What I want to say is -- you guessed it -- "Sorrrry!"

Nah. The truth is that I was all set to write that, but somewhere in between the thinking and the typing, I actually changed my mind about a lot of what I was going to say in the post. There's a shifting playing field right now in Canadian television, and the honest thing is that a lot of the advice I was going to bust out might not be relevant anymore. So rather than teach you the wonders of shooting on 3/4 inch and 2 inch videotape (Thank you, University. Seriously, that's what we shot on. The same kids today have a full HD studio) I have let it go. If I can figure what to say on the subject, I will.

In the meantime, if you're a spec writer, I firmly believe that the one blog you should be reading right now is Jane Espenson. Every day, a firm, practical, juicy, crafty nugget of specwriter's gold. Serious. Go. Go now.

Guest Blog Your Way to Banff

Hey there. Are you going to the Banff TV Festival?

I'm not. Not this year. Too much doing, and I left it too late and it just seemed too expensive, and a little irresponsible when I already (ulp) have six TV scripts to shepherd this summer.

But I'm looking for guest bloggers. Anyone who attends a particularly great Master Class, or chews on some great gossip on the deck at the Banff Springs, or dishes dirt at that Irish Pub at 2 am -- I'd love to know. I'll give you full credit if you want it, and none if you don't. I'm not looking for the stuff that will get reported in the papers -- I'm looking for the inside skinny.

heywriterboy@hotmail.com will place your missives into the messy beating heart of Dead Things Labs. (TM)

(For those who don't know, The Banff TV festival happens every year, in a ridiculously beautiful setting in Alberta a bunch of people get together and chatter about TV. Not a lot of writers, but lots of program execs and bottom fee...no no no....we're all on the same team...)

Last time I went, in 2001, it was on a Fellowship, so I had nothing at risk and got to see the fun as I threw my voice on the Patio and said, "convergence" and "synergy" and watched everyone scatter and clamor.

Free tip #1: if you're in a Master Class, come up with a great question before you go in. Seriously. I sat through some seriously lame questions.

Are You (Lost) Experienced? Or Just Lost?

When ALIAS went on the air, they experimented with fake websites devoted to SD-6, and Rambaldi. There were various different things and a suggestion that there was some game to be had. I never really paid that much attention to it.

What a difference a few years makes.

I find myself flabbergasted by the amount of work and precision that's gone into the alternate reality game for LOST, LOST EXPERIENCE. Fake Hanso Foundation commercials, fake phone numbers with secret messages, a book published with "interview" clues dropped on websites like Amazon and Powell's...it seems to me like finally someone came up with something to do with corporate media synergy.

Having come off a show (Charlie Jade) that could really have used some of these kinds of tricks to help with a mythology and worldview that was dense and vast, but that had nowhere near the budget to achieve anything even in the same universe as what the makers of LOST are attempting -- well, it fills me with a sense of wonder and a little trepidation about the future.

Wonder because it does do something interesting in being able to stoke the fires of interest even through the fallow period of a summer off. Everyone noticed how much LOST was hurt this season by the repeats. ABC has adjusted so that won't be a problem next season -- the show's going to run uninterrupted, for the most parts. But that still leaves the summer. So now there's this game, ready to step up and fill the gap. Nifty.

On the other hand, there's trepidation, because now that the bar has been raised like that, the burden of creating and maintaining a TV show mythology is only the tip of the iceberg. I feel like there's no going back from The Lost Experience. This isn't Barney's Blog -- this is a full on throwdown to those of us who create content and who try to get TV shows going.

It occurs to me that this could wind up being a cool new way to get junior writers involved. This could be part and parcel of the right of passage -- and open even more opportunties for young writers who think differently.

But.

There's always a but.

Here in Canada, of course, we have writing rooms with three writers doing the work that would be done with eight or ten writers. There's no accounting for that in the production process. But I'll bet you twenty dollars sometime in the next six months I sit in a room and someone asks me how this concept could spin out something like the LOST Experience. And the answer, "a few more million dollars and about fifteen more people," isn't going to cut it.

No, all around my city now (well, not now, it's Sunday, but go with me here) there are discussions about alternate content and what about cellphone content? and how can we do value added stuff?-- and the LOST game is going to be the new benchmark.

And we can't even afford to sit on the bench.

I've seen this before. Post-SURVIVOR, I wrote on a bunch of reality/documentary shows being done by Canadian channels. And the notes were always the same: They wanted Survivor- style reveals and twists, and no matter how my editor friends or I tried to explain it, no one seemed to get that you can't replicate SURVIVOR's 24/7 four dedicated crews and hundreds of hours of wall to wall tape with one camera shooting a subject over five days, for a few hours here and there.

So I sit here, open mouthed, marvelling at things like this weird stunt on Jimmy Kimmel Live:



And I know that's the new bar. I sense it. And I don't see how we'll ever be able to effectively compete with it. Is the only way to do a mystery series now to have a CSI, Bruckheimer-sized budget? I don't know.

I should say that there's no way you're going to find me going around taking part in this LOST game -- I barely have enough time for work and keeping up with TV. But I'll be checking out that clue page now and again-- dipping in as other people play the game, to see what they've found out.

I just wonder, in the end, what it all means.

Lost and Gone Forever?

So -- Best Finale Ever?

Not so much?

Did they reveal enough? Too little? Too much?

Are they making everything up as they go along?

Interested to hear other opinions.

If You Want, We'll Gladly Take Back Neil Young...

The Mad Pulp Bastard passes on some notes on Canadian shows in the US of Eh.

The syndicated crime drama Da Vinci's Inquest, distributed in the U.S. by Program Partners, will be around for year two with clearances in 98% of the country and more than 200 station affiliates. Here in its freshman season in the US, the show delivered a season-to-date 2.1AA/2.2 GAA and a season average of 1.8 AA/2.0 GAA in year one.


Canada's #1 comedy series Corner Gas will be coming to American TV. CTV has signed an agreement with Arthur Hasson's Multi-Platform Distribution Company to market the show to U.S. networks right away.


Sadly, still no Charlie Jade. Guess that sympathetic terrorist wasn't the best idear. Cowards!

Embrace The Fun

My agent sent me to a hello-how-are-you-who-are-you-here's-who-we-are meeting the other day at a Toronto production company. I met with two women there, one in development and the other one of the show producers. It was the end of the day after a long weekend, and the office was very buzzy.

Both of these fine women were very charming, very amped up. They laughed easily, and described the projects they had in the pipe with enthusiasm and vigor -- and a lot of laughter. They both seemed like they really loved the company and really loved their jobs. They apologized for having to jump in and out of the meeting, or run off to another meeting.

I was only there for about an hour, but I got a great sense of the company, and an even better sense of these people. And they seemed fun.

You don't get that meeting very often. When you do get it -- make sure you capitalize on it. The Crazy Vibe is far more common in this business. I can only think of a couple of times when I've gotten The Crazy Vibe when it turned out to be a false positive.

But never The Fun Vibe. The Fun Vibe will never let you down. Unless they're religious cultists. In which case either the robes, the sneakers, or the lingo should give it away.

"Am I clear? Um...you mean like....Sprite?"