Pitchin Woo on Sorkin: Me and My Big Yap, Agin

Well, what do you know. Looks like old Alex and I are quoted all over this Toronto Star article about the return of Studio 60. (Tonight in Canada, Tomorrow in 'Murrica.)

Ratings have been disappointing in the U.S. but the show does better in Toronto, frequently appearing in the top 30 rated shows for the week. That doesn't mean everyone's happy. The healthy audience includes Canadian writers – who are also bloggers – who have some constructive criticism for Sorkin.

"Most show take a while to find their feet," says Denis McGrath, a TV writer currently working on a vampire show called Blood Ties in Vancouver. He thinks the show has only started to find itself in "the last few episodes, once they started featuring the new writers and Mark McKinney got a recurring role."

Part of the confusion, he says, comes from marketing; the ads "made it look like a comedy, but it's not a comedy. It's a drama about making a comedy show."

"West Wing this ain't," says Alex Epstein, whose credits include Naked Josh and is the author of the book Crafty Screenwriting. "I stuck with it because of Aaron Sorkin," but in his blog he noted early on that the show "feels like it either needs to be funnier, or have higher stakes."

"The first few episodes," he says now, "were about how terribly important sketch comedy is, and the recent episodes have been about a bunch of people to whom sketch comedy is important." That's progress, he says, because "you're telling a story about a family – every good TV show is about a family."

Both of the writers love the addition of McKinney's character, an utterly melancholy writer.

"I thought the way he was introduced was so great, he was a comedy writer who knows funny but never laughs, and never finds anything funny. I've worked with those guys," says McGrath.

Epstein just hopes the show finds out what it should be. "If he keeps it to the level of the Christmas episode, he's going to have a great show. I think he has to try to not be too funny. Like that episode, it was funny in the way a drama is funny."

I think Alex is on the money about The Christmas Show. That one had the mix of shameless manipulation, heart tugging melancholy, and good banter back and forth that Sorkin does so well.

I just want to say for the record that I have no advice to give Aaron Sorkin, despite what the article says. I am not quite that cheeky. And I swear to God -- I don't think it's Mark McKinney's job to save the show. But you know how we like our Canadian angles...

Still, I think Raju, the article's writer did a very good job. The Heroes article in the same paper is great, too.

If anything, the thing that I think that could save Studio 60 most isn't the romance at all. As astute blogger Diane recently observed to me, "Sorkin is great at writing male friendships." They haven't mined the most important relationship in the show, yet: the friendship between the two main characters.

If Matt and Danny can approach the level of camaraderie of Casey and Dan (Sports Night) -- then they'll be cooking with gas.

Showrunners: What they is, What they Aint, And How The WGC's Trying to Frame The Discussion

A few days ago I got an email in my email box that made me feel happy.

Not just because it had to do with the Canadian Screenwriting Awards, though that would be reason enough.

See, the Canadian Screenwriting Awards are pretty much the most awesome party of the year on the Toronto production calendar. Forget the Genies. Never Mind the Bollocks. (not actually an award, but still a mighty good album) P-shaw to the Geminis, DGC Awards, Toronto International Film Festival Galas or whatever lame what have yous. The annual writers award dustup is, hands down the place to be. Partly because the awards themselves are pretty painless. They're in and out in forty minutes. Then there's the food. It's good. Then there's the drinks. There's lots. People enjoy them. A lot. And when writers enjoy themselves, and when writers are cleaned up and start talking -- well, they're funny. Even the drama writers. I've laughed out a lung at some of these awards.

But that's not what made me happy. What made me happy was this email:

A new award will make its debut on April 23, 2007, at the Canadian Screenwriting Awards - the WGC Showrunner Award. Help us celebrate our country's best showrunners by submitting a nomination.

A showrunner is a writer/producer who holds the creative vision for a television series. He or she controls all creative decisions and oversees the series from development, through prep and production, to the completion of post. In other words, the showrunner is the creative force behind the series, and it is time for our best to step forward and be celebrated by their peers.

All nominees must be a WGC member and the recognized showrunner of a series working under a WGC writer/story editor contract.

IMPORTANT: At least one of the episodes of the showrunner’s series must have had a FIRST broadcast date between December 1, 2005, and November 30, 2006.

To nominate your showrunner, you must be a WGC member working on the nominee's series under a WGC contract. Go to http://www.wgc.ca/cscs_awards/index.html (you may have to copy and paste this link into your Internet browser) for a complete list of rules, a partial list of eligible shows and a nomination form. If a series you have worked on aired during the eligibility period and is not on the list, please call the guild and we will verify its eligibility.

The deadline for nominations is March 1, 2007.

Now, why is this award so important?

It's important because in Canada it's still semi-heretical to actually insist that a writer can be someone who holds the creative reins on a series. It used to be that the Producer class who ran Canadian shows came almost exclusively out of Line Producing. This is because deals and financing are so difficult to put together in this country that the person who sells something has a lot of power. Networks have relationships with these people, not generally with individual writers, as in the USA. They haven't always seen the difference. So the net result is that you have a lot of series pitched and developed to a point and then sold by people who are, effectively, lawyers. Or nuts and bolts producers, trained to watch the budget -- but not creative producers.

In this scenario, series are pitched, bought and sold by people who don't write. So the characters may be vague or non-existent, the concept may not be sound. Smarm sells the series, not the kickass pure quality of the idea.

Then writers are brought in. Writers are brought in, usually not for a lot of time because you want to save the money, and they have to try to make something meaningful out of the show. Then they write scripts and are paid out and sent on their merry way, and the series gets shot, edited, and delivered.

Well, you might say, what happens when you need to do production changes?

Good question. What happens is that the Producer does them. Or the Actors, or the AD's -- or maybe there's a writer there with the title of story editor or head writer who doesn't really have any power to change anything, it's just their unlucky fate to have to implement the faustian bargain that the series has become. Changes are made without a regard to story. Actors get to write their own dialogue. Directors get to change whatever they want to make a cool shot whether or not it serves the story, and because there's nobody there that really understands the story like a writer does, from the top-down, god's eye view... the changes that happen tend to throw out things like structure, and coherent story and character development for atmosphere, and cool "moments."

...or it might be, as it often is, that there are several Producers on the show who all jockey for influence and position. There is no one person who's the final word on creative questions. Instead, there's infighting between producers, each pushing their own agendas, burning money, crew, and goodwill as the show comes apart around them.

And the series turns out an incoherent, under or overcooked mess.

And then, you know what they do?

You guessed it. Usually they blame the script.

So for years, the reality is that if you were a TV writer with any ambition, you had to get the hell out of Canada. Don't take my word for it. House's David Shore is a pretty smart guy who thinks the same thing:

There is obviously a smaller market, and therefore less money and greater limitations, but I think the problems are deeper than that. I left Canada because I knew I had a lot to learn as a writer and I saw very few opportunities to do that without moving. In my opinion, Canadian television so often fails for the same reason American movies so often fail: They're not controlled by writers. Now I'm biased on this one and there are obviously great, smart directors out there and great, smart producers but no one knows the story like the writer. American movies are controlled by directors; Canadian television is controlled by producers; American television is controlled by writers.

Now that's how it used to be, and it's changing, slowly -- there are some writers who actually have fought their way into production so that they have a seat at the table and are influencing the end product, and in some cases truly fulfilling that creative vision in the same way as, say, a David E. Kelley or Stephen Bochco or David Shore or Jenji Kohan or Shonda Rimes does.

But something else has happened along the way, too. Some non-writing Producers have discovered that, you know, that Showrunner title is pretty nifty. So now they're calling themselves Showrunners.

The problem, of course, is that the "Showrunner" title doesn't mean that. It means the Writer who runs things. If you don't write, there is a perfectly nifty and nice title available to you. Or several. "Produced by" is great. So's "Executive Producer." Hell, that's a smashing title. But you know what, just like I don't get to call myself "General" if I haven't served, you don't get to call yourself "Showrunner" if you can't write.

The Simpsons, in its many years, has had many showrunners. The end "big" exec producers don't change: James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, and Sam Simon -- but they weren't the people actually running the show from day to day.

Sometimes the creator of the show is the showrunner, and sometimes they're not. Sometimes they are for a few years, then they move on and do something else, and a new showrunner takes over. (See lots of long running shows like The Simpsons, E.R., Seinfeld, Sex In The City -- all of whom wound up with different showrunners.)

The thing that defines the showrunner is not the title, it's the job. And what's the biggest part of the job? Say it with me, kids:

It's the writing, stupid.

You may be an excellent producer. You may be an awesome manager, who keeps your show humming along smoothly. You may be the greatest Executive Producer in the history of executive producers. But if you don't write, you are NOT the showrunner. And if your writing is bad, and your ideas are not great, then covering that by hiring a bunch of writers to "realize your vision" does not make you a great showrunner. It kind of makes you a fraud.

A Showrunner is a writer in the development meeting, the pitch, the story room, the casting process, the shoot, the edit, the sound mix, and the press for the show. They are a writer first, last, and always.

It's a damned hard job. Because you have to learn about budgets and costs and you have to motivate and manage a small army of people, and supervise this and deal with the network and answer everybody's questions, and somehow you have to do all this and take all this pressure and not turn into a raging asshole, because that's going to hurt the unity of the production going forward.

It requires a number of skill sets that don't normally go together. So when you find a person who can do all that, they're special, and they're golden. I'm working for an honest to Betsy showrunner right now, and let me tell you, the hours are long like they always are in TV, but the creativity is front and centre and it's a little piece o'heaven.

So fie upon any charlatan who pretends to that throne without having the chops. You're wearing colors that don't belong to you -- and you're making it harder to identify the very types of people who will help us to make our programs better, and relevant, and popular.

So, back to what the WGC has done. By establishing this award, they are going to shine a light on these special people, these showrunners who actually can do it all. And it's not going to be a case of B.S. and credit stealing because whoever's nominated for the award has to be nominated by writers who work for them.

Simple. Elegant. Brilliant. Way to go, WGC. Bravo.

My money's on Haddock.

(*I'm adding a caveat here... there *are*, of course, other ways to mount a successful show. I would venture that Slings & Arrows is an example of a top quality show where the writing and conception, direction, and production all form a cohesive whole, and works, but were in the hands of different people, ie: there wasn't one person overseeing all of it. This takes nothing away from the producers of Slings & Arrows. Obviously, they're brilliant. Look at the show. But though development may have been a little bumpier at times, it wasn't dishonest. Everyone was allowed to function by bringing their full expertise to bear, and it worked out. When something is GOOD, there is ALWAYS enough credit to go around.)


*****

UPDATE: March 2010.  So I saw some traffic to this old post and thought I should update a bit of what I think, based on three more hard won years.


First -- the WGC finally came up with a list of competencies called the Showrunner code.  It describes what the basic functions of a showrunner are in a classic, U.S. based system.


FWIW, I think now that as it's currently run and constituted, the (weak) Canadian system requires a partnership kind of hybrid to have the best chance of functioning. And that's because of the lack of Canadian Studios.


Producers here are on the hook in a way that individuals aren't down south, and there's no level of studio in between (I know in the vertically integrated model a separate network/producer isn't the norm in the USA a lot either, but for the purposes of the discussion, that's the best way to explain it.


What's happened up til now is a lot of crappy shows have resulted from unfocused creative choices made by Producers who don't understand and can't internalize the creative because they don't understand it like a writer does. This is why writer producers in the USA became the norm.


Without studios, what's the future? What's the possibilty? Well, I think it's either got to be Writer-Producers or Partnerships where the two are equal, and trust and respect each other.  But one way or another, the "keep the writer in the dark and treat them like the hired help days?" Gone.

Motivation

I've got about three big scenes and a wash-and-read through the whole script left to do. And here, outside my window in Vancouver, is the motivator for getting it done:

I'm not entirely sure what it is. It almost looks like a giant, flaming ball of incandescent gas. I have dim memories, like from childhood, that seem to suggest that this thing is good and desirable. It's frustrating, though, because those memories seem oh so distant now. I hope the villagers of Vancouver do not fear this thing and attempt to kill it before it eats the sky.

At least before I finish my draft, anyway.

Hand Waving

..is what we call it when, usually in an outline, you've got something not totally worked out yet but it depends on an action sequence or something cool happening, but it will be totally great on the day...

As in: "Lot of hand waving in Act three."

"Yeah, I know."

Anyway, this is me handwaving. Deeeeep in first draft country. Trying to finish today. Hoping to get a chance to write up some stuff on the weekend. In your meantime:

• May I direct you to Will Dixon's fine first part of a post profiling his friend and BONES creator/showrunner Hart Hanson. Lots of good TV stuff, and some Canadian TV stuff too.
• Matt Watts has a plea for people trying to pitch comedy to a Canadian audience. For those who don't know him, Matt's a very funny actor and writer who was on The Newsroom, among other things, and has also created a couple of great radio series for CBC Radio. I've got thoughts on his definition, too. But those will have to wait til later.
• A reader passed along this link to an article in the Vancouver Courier that makes some interesting points about Little Mosque, that I very much agree with.
  
• Jaime Weinman, on his Macleans' blog, has a great rundown of the Colbert style interview and how it trumps CNN. I'll have something more to say on this, too, when I get the chance. (It won't let me link to it for some reason...stupid innertubes...but go to Macleans.ca, click on TV Guidance, and scroll down to 18 January, Papa Bear Meets Baby Bear.
  

And oh yeah. "Hey Honey, you want to go see that new documentary about Horse fuckers?"
Hand waving out!

Little Mosque: Episode 2

Overnights: 1.2 Million viewers.

That's a little less than a 50% drop, but...

...the initial number was off-the-charts large. Two million two is a ridiculous number for a TV show in Canada. That's CSI, Grey's Anatomy numbers. So the question is, when is a loss of half your audience not a bad thing? There'll be no answer to that question for another week.

...the CBC screwed up by moving the timeslot, and by confusion over the Monday showing being new or a second repeat.

If the dropoff in week three isn't major, even if it retains somewhere around the million mark, this will be a monumental piece of good news for CBC. Even with that hanging over, my guess is we'll hear about a pickup of 13 episodes very soon.

Best part about that is that now I won't feel like I'm piling on when I write about how I think the show could be a lot better. But that's for another day when I have time. For now, I think there's a lot of people at CBC changing their drawers. At least I hope they are.

Thanks to my secret-squirrel spies.

Welcome To The 1970's

I've discovered the secret to writing on the West Coast: stay on East Coast time.

Not that I've had much time to do it, but it struck me last night when I tuned in a half hour too late to catch Little Mosque on the Prairie's second episode, that my TV life is radically different, and distantly familiar, than it is at home.

Monday, I had to rush out of the office at 7:00 p.m. to catch the second part of 24. After I tuned in CBC last night, I realized maybe I'd gotten the time wrong and wanted to make sure. So I had to tune to the onscreen cable channel, and wait for CBC to scroll around again. It only showed me what was on for the next hour.

Last week, I had to choose whether I would watch Intelligence, or House. This weekend, any plans I have are at least partially structured around knowing I have to be home Sunday night to catch Battlestar Galactica.

I'm ruled by the broadcast schedule clock. I have no VCR. I cannot pause live TV, rewind to see something again, watch an earlier feed, or skip a single commercial.

Out here on the West Coast of Canada, the crafty cablecos have fixed it so you can't even rent a PVR, so that's out. I'm looking at getting a digital package so at least I have timeshifting options. I can't really justify buying a VCR for a few months, even if they are sixty bucks.

It's an interesting experience. A cold splash of water that demonstrates candidly just how much television has changed.

NATPE, SHMATPE?

"The music business looks like, you know, innocent schoolboys compared to the TV business. They care about nothing but profit."

Tom Petty

One of the Producers on the show I'm working on right now blew out of the office yesterday afternoon to catch a flight to Vegas.

I hope he has some fun while he's there. Lord knows I always have. But fun isn't why he's going.

Right now, the NATPE conference -- short for National Association of Television Program Executives, is going on in Vegas. This is one of the most important conferences in the TV business for selling stuff. Well, depending on who you talk to. Most will probably say MIP, but MIP's in France and I think all those fuckers just want to go to France.

I went to NATPE once, when it was still in New Orleans. (Ah, New Orleans.) It was interesting to see that side of the business up close. I fought for an interview with Johnnie Cochrane, who was joining CourtTV. Kevin Sorbo and Lucy Lawless showed up to kiss station owners' asses. So did Cybill Shepard. And Ed Koch, the new host of the People's Court (at the time.) And Springer. And Sally Jessy Rafael. And Chris Carter was there flogging the X Files because it was going into syndication. Everyone was deadly serious about announcing their 'clearances' in the rest of the country. I think one of the hot shows they were hawking was Nightman. Yup. You heard me.

It's on this side of the business, the side that I don't particularly understand or care about, where the shit-scary changes that are roiling the whole industry are going on. If The Business is the World, then NATPE is kind of like Lois Lane in the Car at the end of the first Superman movie. Oh, the earth's opening, bitches. She's going in. But because this aint no fantasy, there isn't a strapping young, ablebodied Chris Reeve anywhere who can fly round the globe and turn the whole thing back. There aint no turning back on this one. But if you're looking to toil in this sweet demi-business we call TV, you, and I, absolutely have to grok the kind of fault-line panic going on at places like NATPE. The issues that are being talked about there aren't theoretical, and they're not five years out. The business model is broken now. The scrambling is happening now.

Both Will Dixon and Jim Henshaw have current takes on what NATPE looks like now. Jim thinks it's good for creative people. Wouldn't that be a kick? Will's got a link to a Broadcasting and Cable article explaining why syndication is so messed up. That article blows by one more funny thing: the messed up nature of syndication is exactly why shows like DaVinci, Corner Gas, etc, are starting to sell into U.S. syndication. They're buying them for the same reason the Canadian nets fill their schedule with U.S. shows: they're cheaper.

I suggest you go read 'em. And stop waiting for Superman. He aint coming.

Dude, I'd take Krypto.

ABC Showrunner a-go-go

There's various versions of this session from the Press Tour found on the net, but I think the Toronto Sun's Bill Brioux captures it well as any.

ABC Showrunners Speak.

Seriously.

I drive like a 75 year old Grandmother. When did that happen?

Bothered By Bauer

24's politics have never really bothered me before. I know people have pointed to various parts of the show (especially the whole subplot with the "Amnesty Global" lawyer last season) and said it runs with a hard right Republican agenda. It certainly doesn't endear the show to me to know that it's one of the favorites of the Rummy and Cheney crowd. But there's always been just enough feints and jabs in my political direction to keep me faithful.

So why did I feel so wrong watching the end of last night's four hour first block? Sure, there were things in there that made me sad. And as a writer, I was pretty shocked too. I mean, if you're going to blow the Nuke in Downtown L.A. in episode FOUR, you're burning through some very serious story, my friend. Those seasons are never 24's best. It's starting to look like Day 6 may be more like Day 4. Remember that one? Can you remember anything about the plot of that one? There were like, nine plots in that overcooked day.

It's not like the viewpoints that I bring to bear on current world events weren't given airing. The President, the President's sister -- everybody seems to be saying the right things. Even the idea of working with an ex-terrorist who wants to go straight is a provocative idea. (I'm waiting for the discussion of blowback, although I guess Curtis fit that bill, too.)

I guess what bothers me, though, is that the United States portrayed in this season of 24 is the United States that Bush & Co have been trying to build in the public's mind for six years: the terrorists are wily and they're here and they can attack anytime. We have an incredibly well organized (as they always are) terrorist group, plotting and succeeding with multiple missions over an 11 week period. They're cool, they don't make mistakes, and they've got the United States on its knees. And you definitely get the sense that the three-months inaugurated President Wayne Palmer maybe isn't up to the task of doing what needs to be done to stop them. Because he's not resolute, see. He's not the Decider.

The 9/11 attacks were horrible. But the fact is, there hasn't been a bunch of attacks on U.S. soil since. And the 9/11 attacks didn't hit any of the places from where Bush draws (or drew) his strength. And yet still -- all of those things they talk about on 24. How people are scared and are turning on each other, how they're ready to shred the Constitution? Well, most of that has actually already happened, with nary a peep from the populace or the nation's media -- at least until recently.

In the world of 24, if not our world, the doctrine Bush & Co are pursuing seems measured and logical. A country on its knees maybe can't afford to think about the niceties. But America - the real America - is not that country. Except, in the real America, you have people talking about 'the terr'rists' in Montana and Birmingham and Odessa, Texas -- where they're likely never going to show their faces.

When the fooferal over The Path to 9/11 happened, one of the most disingenuous things ABC and the program makers' did was to say that it was based on the 9/11 Report, even though it contradicted a whole bunch of stuff in that report, then turn around and say, basically "it's only tv."

The whole point of TV images is that they have great impact. Greater impact, in fact, than articles or cool news reports about this or that. Everyone knows this. So when the Producers of 24 show a U.S. under siege, basically the worst Bush nightmare that's been sold and sold and sold -- and whose power was starting to wear off, finally, after they went to the well so many times. Well...I think that maybe the escapism that 24 offers just isn't fun anymore. I think it's a bit of a cheat, and maybe, just maybe, the agenda isn't entirely 100% gripping TV. In the world of 24, unlike our world, we've already been shown that torture works.

The thing that really worries me is this: could dear, doomed, tragic Jack Bauer actually be working for the wrong side?

OMG! Americans like Us! They REALLY Like Us!

U.S. reaction on the press tour to Slings & Arrows, because though you all deny it, it really, really, really matters to you Canadians what Americans think:

But once in a very long while, a Canadian series somehow makes its way across the border to be embraced by an American audience: SCTV. Red Green. Kids in the Hall. Due South ... Add to that list Slings & Arrows, the third – and for all intents and purposes, final – season of the smartly satirical Stratford spoof now set to air on, and partially financed by, the American Sundance Channel.

For which we can thank Canadian Laura Michalchyshyn, Sundance's executive vice- president and GM of programming and creative affairs, hired away in 2005 from a similar position at Alliance Atlantis.

"When Robert Redford and I hired Laura two years ago," recalls Sundance CEO Larry Aidem, "she had only one condition and it was that we permit her to buy as much Canadian programming as she wanted, with a floor of 50 per cent and a ceiling of 90 per cent.

"And we said very quickly, `Number one, what's the catch? And two, where is Canada?'

"But seriously ... our audience does not distinguish between the kinds of original programming that we make and the kinds of acquired programming that Laura and her team selects, often from around the world. At the end of the day, they're either good or not and they're exclusive to us, and in this case the audience just loves it."

As do the American critics, at least a half dozen of whom have come up to me this week to rave about the show (as if I had anything to with it, aside from being born in the same country)

(It will be interesting to see if they can resist the siren call to do a Season 4. Between that and the news that the LOST producers are trying to negotiate an end date with the network, somebody's gotta ask: Is U.S. tv finally ready to change a bit and embrace something other than the open-ended 22 episode season?)

Or are Canada's newspaper writers ready to be a little less provincial? Back to that Lost presser again: looks like, um...no.

Jack Bauer Sucks

I find it extremely ironic that I'm currently writing on a show about a vampire and yet I'm humbled, really, at the thought that I'll not be able to come up with anything as cool as Jack Bauer gnawing on a guy's carotid artery.

I mean, damn.

Seriously. Buffy never kicked that much ass.

A Bunch of Little Old Ladies In Pasadena -- And How David Milch Broke Them

With the semi-annual Television Critics Tour underway again in Pasadena, it's a good time to check in with some of the best writers writing for dead tree media, as opposed to i kiss you media (Ie: the innertubes, of which Dead Things Labs is a rustly bustly part. Got it?)

I especially like the writers who blog their daily schedules. The faux process of the whole thing is at least as interesting and full of silliness as anything that comes out of the pre-packaged sessions themselves. Probably more so.

I'm disappointed that the Globe and Mail didn't send John Doyle this time. I always find his writing about the TV Hacks on Tour funnier than the other guy, Ryan.

But there is a Ryan I will go out of my way to read: Maureen Ryan, whose The Watcher blog at the Chicago Tribune is always good for a laugh and some great info. For instance, here she runs down David Milch's description of his new HBO show, John From Cincinatti:

“I guess that's what I was trying to say in this answer [in a previous interview] that to my mind reality is a shifting and elusive condition. It redefines itself constantly. …

“And which is to say that, when I was saying that this is a story that takes place on the margins of things, the attempt to identify the coordinates of reality is itself a kind of problematic and conditional effort. It's changing all the time.

"What constitutes -- where are we when we sleep? What is our sense of reality at that moment? It's, you know, science now suggests to us that what has been perceived as matter for a long time is, in fact, energy. That what looks solid, in fact, is constituted in waves, that Einstein's beautiful mathematical equations which depict the nature of reality don't apply at certain levels. And I think that's true as well about what constitutes the natural and the supernatural. You know, it depends on what foxhole you're in.”

Then there's Alan Sepinwall, who writes for The New Jersey Star-Ledger (which, if you're interested in such little things, has extra coolness because it's the paper that Tony Soprano walks down and gets at the end of his driveway in all those Sopranos episodes.)

Take Sepinwall's take on the David Milch session for John From Cincinatti:

Perhaps sensing he was losing his audience, Milch retreated to that familiar standby: jokes about his legendary history of drug use. (He's now in recovery from multiple addictions.) Quoth in its entirety:

"I was talking about this research project in pharmacology into which I was dragooned. The freon aspect began when I was eight, and then I was transferred over to the alcohol project, and then subsequently to narcotics. And in all of that research, to the extent that there was a coherent intention, it was to ride a wave, which one could generate on one's own terms, that the self was suppressed and the sense of -- I used to -- nitrous oxide. I was involved in the subsidiary project involving nitrous oxide. And the great thing with nitrous oxide, I was getting teeth filled before I even had teeth."

Near the end of the session, stars Bruce Greenwood and Rebecca De Mornay, who had been silent the entire time, were asked how working with Milch was different from other showbiz bosses.

"Well, I think you probably witnessed the difference in the last 20 minutes," said Greenwood, whose tone hovered somewhere between amused and annoyed.

Awesome. Seriously, I think David Milch should now be considered the standard bearer for TV writer crazy. No...not good enough...he shoud be like the measurement of writer crazy. Like when describing people we work with, we should talk in units of Milch. "How's so and so?" "Oh, they're about .5 Milch on talent." "Really, that's pretty good." "Yeah, but they're 3 Milch's of crazy." "Oh, fuck it, then."

Finally, I don't think she's on the tour. And I don't always agree with her, but I love, love, love Virginia Heffernan's TV blog in the NYTimes. (And not just because apparently she's related to a fictional character on the King of Queens.)

Do you know any other dead tree writers blogging about the TV tour? Anyone you like to read? Let me know.

Now, I think it's time to go and crack one of those...book...things that I've heard so much about. I wonder if I can find a place to have coffee in Vancouver.

Hmmmm.

The Five Stages of Television Writing

My friend Vanessa helpfully pointed out to me last week at The Paddock (sigh. The Paddock.) that I had Photobooth hiding in my Applications folder. So, you know, whee.

We're all familiar with the Kubler-Ross Five Stages. What you might not be aware of, is that writing also encompasses five distinct stages. Anyone considering doing it for a living must be aware of this, as it will form an important part of the rhythm of your day to day life.





Stage One: Cogitation








Stage Two: Desperation









Stage Three: Flagellation





Stage Four: Inspiration





Stage Five: Satisfatction*
*Not pictured. Ever. Stage Four is also sometimes called, "Consumption."

A Few More Motor City Pics

These ones feature the "bad guy," Frank Calasso, played by Toronto actor Matthew Deslippe. Courtesy of his MySpace page.

Frank is kind of the nemesis of the piece in the period (1960's) story. Matt did a wonderful job in the scenes I saw, which is good because Frank (and especially Frank's home life) were some of the favorite scenes I wrote. I also had an interesting time talking to Matthew about Windsor, since that's where the show is set, and he's the only member of our cast to actually come from there.

Matt, when I come back to Toronto, I want into that poker game.

And if anybody else -- cast or crew, has got photos from the shoot, pass'em along, willya? Thanks.

30 Rock

...has started doing "Family Guy" style punch ins. But short, sharp, and funny ones. There was one in last night's episode about two writers and cocaine that made my pancreas hurt I laughed so hard.

Seriously. Tina. Call me.

Two People In The Dead Tree Business Write Honestly About Canadian Media. Here's the Latest From One of Them.

Over at the Toronto Star today, Antonia Zerbisias reacts to the Canwest/AA deal with a take on what it means for foreign ownership. Then further down she addresses the latest move by the CAB:

Yesterday, almost under the radar, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, the lobby group representing the private industry, put out a release saying it is seeking to recoup over $790 million in so-called Part II licence fees.
Long story short: last month, the CAB won a federal court ruling that declared those licence fees a tax that the CRTC had no right to impose in 1997.

The money, which went into public coffers, was ostensibly to cover the broadcasters' use of public airwaves.

Now the broadcasters want the money back.

Specifically, they want their licences to print money for nothing.

Think they'll invest the three-quarter-billion-plus in Canadian programming?

Snort.

Which is pretty much what I was saying here last month.

This needs to get out from under the radar. The WGC, The DGC, ACTRA (whose members aren't exactly busy right now, remember) and other groups have to rally a big dollop of embarrassment. This ties into the Jim Shaw craziness too. The airwaves, under Canadian law, belong to we citizens. The CAB's members get to use them not as a right -- as a privilege. That 790 million dollars should be going not to the government's general revenue, but into the broadcast system to benefit Canadians and Canadian programming. And if they won't do it, then we need to go on talk shows, write MPs, scream bloody murder and talk about a fair market spectrum auction. There is no fucking carrot with these guys anymore. Time to sharpen the stick.

It'll be hard with the corporate media stranglehold -- but let's start with the CBC Radio types and take it from there. This is no time to be Canadian about this.

Rights, Responsibilities, and Jim Shaw's Checkbook Tantrum

This started as a comment response, then metastisized. I'm rewriting an outline right now so it's not going to be particularly edited. Forgive me for that.

Oh, one more thing. Watching Vancouverites drive in snow is like watching a line of fat kids in a swimming pool try to do the butterfly. I say both these things from painful personal experience.

In response to my pass along about the WGC's response to the AA/Canwest deal, Diane brought up this article, which flipped across the transom today:

OTTAWA - Calgary-based cable-TV executive Jim Shaw says he will no longer send his firm's contribution of about $56 million to Ottawa this year to support the Canadian Television Fund.
Shaw, CEOof Shaw Communications, says until the fund is restructured, he will withhold the five per cent of his company's revenues that legislation stipulates be used to support the production of Canadian TVshows...

``Over the past 10 years,''his letter states, ``Shaw has contributed over $350 million in direct subsidies to the Canadian production industry.''

Shaw goes on to argue that the ``CTF has become nothing more than a means of subsidizing broadcasters, pay and specialty services and independent producers to produce Canadian television programming that few watch and has no commercial or exportable value.''

The CTF was created in 1996 with a mandate to produce ``high-quality culturally significant Canadian television programs in both official languages.'' It also has an annual budget of $250 million a year _ $100 million of which is provided by the federal government.
That leads directly to another of Shaw's beefs.

He is particularly rankled that 37 per cent of the CTF's revenues are set aside annually for the CBC _ something he declares ``should be ended immediately'' in light of the fact that ``CBC already receives over $1.2 billion from Canadian taxpayers in the form of grants and mandatory subscriber fees.'

When I was a little kid, the thing that my Dad drove into my head over and over (and over, and over) was the balance everyone had to face between their rights and their responsibilities. He always made sure to let you know that he saw these two things as linked, and that you didn't get to have one without the other. You can't talk about your rights, if you aren't willing to fulfill your responsbilities.

Among the many dishonesties of the Bush adventure in Iraq was the fact that it became a deliberate strategy to sell the war to Americans based on fear, but to make sure that you didn't ask too much of them. So the tax cuts could stay in place, of course...and there didn't need to be a draft, to spread around the burden. Americans really weren't asked to sacrifice anything specific. That's why it took 3 years for them to turn against Bush an the war.

Well, the rights and responsibilities thing has also seriously gotten out of whack in the Canadian broadcast sector.

Jim Shaw's obviously a curmudgeon with a beef, but my feeling is that he's using the cudgel that he has to try and force a discussion. I could be wrong, but I'm going to hope that he actually wouldn't throw current programs out of whack to make his point. But you have to admit, it's a great stunt to get people listening.

So what's he doing?

Well, for one thing, I happen to not think he's wrong about the CBC and the CTF. I think that the entire issue of what we want the CBC to be, what its purpose is, and how it will accomplish that, needs to be discussed openly, and some binding recommendations need to be made to refocus and reframe the corporation. The CBC has a lot of competing demands put on it. Its mission is diffuse and unfocused. Even the greatest cheerleaders admit that it's asked to do way too much, without a clear plan or stable funding. But I think his point - that a corporation that gets lotsa dough from one place shouldn't get it from another -- well, there's nothing inherently ridiculous about that. He's got a point.

But-- and this is a big but --if it doesn't get CTF money, then where does it get the money from? For years, they've cut CBC's grant without spelling out what's expected of it, and accountability is lacking because it's run as a bureaucracy and not a business. Fiefdoms rule and plans -- expensive ones -- are made and then abandoned without benchmarks or a plan of victory. (You thought the Bush comparison off the top was superfluous, didn't you? Take that, bitches!)

Three years ago the CBC wanted to have a daily serial. So they commissioned a couple. By the time they were done, they were dumped on the air with no promo and left to wither on the vine. Why? New chiefs. New fiefdoms. More money down the drain.

Should the CBC have commercials? Should they do sports? Should they do lots more drama? Should they do cultural programming? Should they try to get ratings, or should they be an antidote to the American offerings of the Canadian private broadcasters?

I have views on all these things. I'm sure Jim Shaw does too. I have a stupid blog. He has that $56 million check he writes once a year. Who's got trump?

Money talks -- everywhere. If Jim wants to stamp his feet, good on him. Because shit needs to be said. And you know what? Maybe Jim's dead wrong and the CBC should get CTF money. But let's talk about it. Because - and here's the real point - the system aint working well right now. If we actually talked about it, well, maybe it would turn out that Jim's dead wrong. Then, suck it up buttercup and write your check. But the reason why he's stamping his feet is because our entire industry is based on looking the other way. Now Jim's gonna take his checkbook and go home. Awk-ward.

The rest of it, I think, is open to discussion too. The private broadcasters in this country do pay too little even when they do make shows. The license fees are too low. In a real sense, the CTF has become yet another source of welfare for businesses that are very profitable -- profitable enough to spend 2.3 billion dollars on mergers. (By the way, that's about THREE HUNDRED 6 part TV series like Across the River to Motor City.) In other words, say it with me now-- they're very quick to claim their rights, and have been extremely effective in denying their responsibilties.

They're so confident of this, that the head of their lobby group can deride having to spend money on Canadian TV altogether, even though they get breaks on things like cable substitution and a protected market. They can even have the stones to get up there before the CRTC, cry poor, and demand cable fees for broadcasting U.S. shows to you that you get anyway on the U.S. channels.

You don't think that has something to do with Jim Shaw's tantrum? You bet your sweet bippy it does.

Remember -- the discussion is never going to take place if we leave it to pols. Because there are no votes in Canadian TV. (Beyond we who make it, I mean.) It's not an issue that's on the radar, for all the reasons that we've talked about on this blog, and Tv, Eh? and in John Doyle's column in the Globe a million times.

Canadians are wonderfully patriotic. They don't want to be like Americans. They just want to watch every piece of shit on American TV, for free, like they're Americans. Is that inconsistent? Hell yeah it is. Let's talk about that, too.

Jim Shaw may regret opening the whole can of worms by putting down his pen, but fuck it. It's past time. This shit's broken hard. Let's talk. But let's talk about all of it. And this time, maybe the papers won't punk out like they did at the CRTC hearings.

UPDATE: one of the things about writing something fast is sometimes you reread it later and realize, mmm...I left something out. And it's this: I've met exactly two people in my life who worked at the CTF. And they both worked very, very, very hard, and believed in Canadian TV powerful much. And if Jim Shaw actually does follow this thing all the way through, and doesn't cough up the money, then -- and this is the point that maybe didn't come through -- he's a dink. Fullstop.

(this post was also edited to correct a math mistake above)

The Writers Guild of Canada Asks The Big Question

The WGC just sent out a press release about the AA/Global merger news that says it all. Great stuff.

Why is CanWest buying Alliance Atlantis if broadcasters are so poor?

January 11, 2007 – At the recent CRTC hearings into the future of Canadian television, private, conventional broadcasters like CTV and CanWest Global said the rise of Internet programming and other technologies have eroded their revenues and they are too poor to spend money on Canadian drama.

If broadcasting is such a losing proposition, why would CanWest want to buy Alliance Atlantis’ 13 specialty channels, let alone pay $2.3 billion for it?

“We keep on hearing the same story from the broadcasters – they are losing money due to market fragmentation and have no money for Canadian drama,” says Maureen Parker, Executive Director of the Writers Guild of Canada. “Well, this CanWest/Alliance Atlantis deal blows that argument out of the water. It’s obvious that broadcasting continues to be a lucrative business.”

Last November, Glenn O’Farrell, head of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, said it was a losing battle for broadcasters to try to compete for audiences when Internet sites such as YouTube and MySpace show amateur videos for free. But in its December 2006 report on the affect of technology on the broadcasting system, the CRTC concluded that new media technologies are not yet having a significant impact on traditional radio and television broadcasting audiences.

So although technology is offering new ways for Canadians to find entertainment and information, broadcasting remains the foundation for the entertainment industry in our country. And that’s why broadcasters such as CanWest are willing to pay big bucks to buy more television channels.

“At the television policy review in December we asked the CRTC to require private, English-language broadcasters to spend a minimum of 7% of their advertising revenues on the production of Canadian drama,” says Parker. “It’s a fair and manageable requirement, and the broadcasters can obviously afford it.

“The CRTC needs to come to the realization that broadcasting is a lucrative business and the broadcasters have the resources to produce and air more homegrown Canadian drama on their channels.”

The Winter of Our Discontent

If you happen to be currently dating a writer, this article has a nice little overview, in one life, of the kind of people we are.


The writer Jack Winter, at left.

Don't say you weren't warned.

5 Answers

To the "Five Things You Don't Know About Me" Post.

• Of all the things I've written, I'm probably proudest of the 11'o'clock number I wrote for a spoof musical.

Sadly, this is true. The song is "That Goose Is Cooked," from "Top Gun! The Musical." TG!TM was set backstage at a rehearsal for a megamusical based on...you guessed it, that movie...It was a play I started out writing for the Toronto Fringe based on an anecdote from someone else's dinner party. Someone was challenged to name the worst possible movie that you could make into a Broadway Musical. Top Gun won. (though in the show, we referenced what I'm sure would be a close second if anyone ever wrote it, "Apocalypse---WOW!" )

I wrote the book and the lyrics of Top Gun! really quickly (half the songs were backstage, Chorus Line-like numbers, and the other half were supposed to be songs from the musical itself.) A very gifted and wonderfully connected Canadian Musical Theatre musician, composer, and musical director, Scott White, wrote the music.

In our version, we made Maverick's partner Goose a woman (of course) and That Goose Is Cooked was the song Maverick sang when she died. Very Les Miz. Very Silly.

The actor who played Maverick, Dmitry Chepovetsky, sold the song unbelievably. (Which is why he got a Dora Award (Toronto Theater Award) nomination for his performance. Dmitry can now be seen playing Bob on Re:Genesis) The songs from within the musical were the most fun to write, (how could they not be, with titles like "We've Got A Plane To Catch," "You Can Ride My Tail," and "I'll Never Be Alone (Up There.)" but to this day nothing's tickled me quite as much as That Goose Is Cooked, which was written in about fifteen minutes at my dining room table. Part of it goes like this:

...But You/You were so funny, so wise,
So full of surprises/ You helped me to see,
Now you're debris/And it should have been me,
And now, Finally I feel the cost,
I've crashed down to Earth,
And I know what I lost.
What I lost...

Now...
That Goose is Cooked/That Fish is Fried/That Puppy's Roadkill/That Hamster Died!

(pause)

That pig is bacon/The Earth is Shaking/And Why?
Just Look in my eyes now/Cause these tears are Dry.

Brought the house down every night. There's a production going up in Dallas in March 2007, I think.

• I was a Florida voter in the 2000 U.S. Presidential ElectionTrue.

Also true. Under U.S. law you vote from the place you were last a resident. And for me that's Florida. I had already given notice that I was quitting my job to go back to school when the election happened. To this day I don't know if my absentee ballot was ever counted. Oh, but the nice TV company did basically pay me to watch CNN for 37 days. Whoops.

As for the others...I did indeed spit on Stephen Fry (on the set of Gormenghast; accident,) knocked over Charlton Heston (while carrying a stack of tapes; accident,) peed beside Joey Ramone (down the hall from Muchmusic; accident) and signed an autograph, "Kevin Smith" (at the Film Festival Party; totally on purpose -- but in my defense, she was ridiculously hot.) And I did sit through an unsettling job interview with the dear Marcia Martin, sister of Andrea, who laughs like Edith Prickley and was one of my favorite bosses ever.

My sister and I also share a birthday. But... we've celebrated it exactly once, when she turned thirty, and I was four years older, mourning the fact that I was passing out of my demographically desirable years. So there it is. The petit lie.

So there you go.

Motor City Pictures

So, doing a surfing thing today and came across the website of a really great guy I worked with on Across The River To Motor City. Patrick Antosh was the Costume Designer and to say that he did a great job would be to understate it by a factor of, oh, call it eleventy-billion.

One of the problems of not having a populated story department is that there's very little play you get in the back and forth of talking out the logic points in the script. Of all the Department Heads, Patrick was the one who really went out of his way to come to me to discuss this point or that point, and ask "what did you mean?" and "Am I reading this right?" He really enjoyed the scripts, really got them, and he always had such a great attitude that whenever I talked to him he had the virtue of making a tough day (as many of them were) seem warmer. When things became tough sloughing, Patrick was a guy who always had a smile.

He also gave me one of those, "huh, never thought of that" gems, when he pointed out that one of the big problems with making his costume budget was the fact that we had a tall cast. Apparently, part of the reason why all those actors are short is that it really saves money on the costumes.

Who knew?

Anyway, I cadged these great photos from Patrick's website. In the photo at right, we see Jessie Preacher (RAVEN DAUDA) in the office at Ambassador Investigations, circa early 1960's. Jessie's kind of the conscience of the show. It's sad that when we had to make script cuts, a juicy subplot of Jessie's had to go. Perils of budget, don'tcha know. Raven really shone in all the stuff I've seen so far.

And at top you see Raven with our hero, the young Ben Ford (SASHA ROIZ) c. 1963. Sasha was a real pro, and a nicer actor I don't think I've ever met.

So thanks to everybody, and thanks to Patrick. If you're looking for a costume designer, people -- he's the bee's knees. And if he's not the bee's knees, then he probably can make them for you. Even if you're six-four.

And The Consolidation Dance Continues

It just got announced that Canwest Global is buying Alliance Atlantis. This means that the specialty channels in the AA stable, including History Television and Showcase, will now be owned by Global.

This means that in the last year, pending CRTC approval, Canadian Creatives have lost two independent places to pitch their series: CHUM and Alliance Atlantis/Showcase.

They will probably have to create a "benefits" fund for the sale, but it's hard to see how this is good for anyone who works in content creation.

It's great for Canwest Shareholders, though, as the press release points out.

Wonderful. So happy I can't even link to it because to do so would require me to put down the kitchen knife.

The Numbers are In, and...

...Little Mosque did over 2 million viewers last night.

Now, that is great news for CBC and for Canadian TV generally...

...unless the dropoff next week is horriffic. The numbers will drop. But how much? We'll see.

In any case, I hope everybody basks. The show is not without its problems, but they're fixable. I'm glad they did well.

Save Me, Al Gore

I can't believe that I had to come to Vancouver to get snow. Seriously. On the Rick Mercer Report last night they had the sharpest political joke I've seen in months -- a new recycling box, the grey bin, for dead polar bears who'll soon turn up on our doorsteps as they move south.

It's funnier when he does it.

And yeah, I'm a hypocrite about Global Warming and environmental issues as much as much as anyone in North America because, you know, damn son, I want one of them Iphones powerful much.

Oh well, at least I get to meet in Vancouver today and not have to drive to Maple Ridge. Time is short for me, I know that I haven't answered the five things you don't know about me yet, and depending on how else my day plays out I may have time for a longer post on that -- and maybe something else, too -- later tonight.

Little Mosque: A Slam Dunk, Sez Doyle

Well. You don't get reviews much better than this:

Today, we celebrate a triumph. What arrives tonight on CBC is the smartest thing the broadcaster has done in years.

Little Mosque on the Prairie (CBC, 8:30 p.m.) is no masterpiece of comedy or social observation. It's hokey as hell. But it's terrifically good-natured, has a few terrific jokes and its mere existence is a grand-slam assertion that Canadian TV is different and that the best of Canadian TV amounts to a rejection of the hegemony of U.S. network TV.

He goes on:

It's notable that Little Mosque on the Prairie, while it's a sitcom, isn't derived from the U.S., network model. It has a British feel to it. The gentle mocking of a small community and celebration of the eccentrics within it has been a Britcom staple for years -- shows such as Ballykissangel, Hamish Macbeth and Doc Martin have mined the genre with glorious results.

And the important thing is this -- popular, consequential Canadian TV is a vigorous demonstration of our difference from the United States in our attitudes and national character. Trailer Park Boys celebrates lowlifes, dope-smoking and all manner of vulgarity. Da Vinci's Inquest and Intelligence deal with the reality of a dope economy and the thin line between cops and criminals. Corner Gas asserts that there's wonderful entertainment in the most gentle, never-nasty humour.

The topics and the substance of these shows stand as rejections of the U.S. network style and preoccupations. Little Mosque on the Prairie is nobly in that Canadian tradition. The U.S. media can huff and puff in wonder, but this is who we are, and we're fine with it, thanks. And thanks to CBC for doing its job.

So. There it is.

Little Mosque In The Prairie premieres on CBC Tuesday night, and Repeats Wednesday

Who Comes To Speak For the Skin And The Bone?

I got lost four times this morning, went over a bridge I didn't want to go over, almost saw Surrey by mistake, and now I sit pounding outline in a tiny little office with bile-yellow walls. Don't tell me showbiz isn't glamourous.

On that note, I don't have time to get into it very deeply, (or at all) but I want to direct you all to the fine post by Alex this morning about the ACTRA strike. ACTRA, the Canadian Union that represents writers, went on strike this morning. Talks, I believe, are ongoing.

It may seem frivolous in a world where Reagan fired the air traffic controllers and Thatcher crushed the miners, to speak about privileged, pampered actors and their labor concerns. Okay...it is a little silly. But if you care about good TV and Movies, it's also important. Go let Alex tell you why.

To my brother and sister performers walking picket lines today, I say, good luck. (NOT break a leg.)

Of course, I know that's easy for me to say -- since I'm in B.C. and I won't be affected by this strike, unless it goes on for months (in which case we're all in trouble.) May this end quickly and the spirit of compromise prevail so we can all get back to fixing the 1001 other things that threaten to send our industry the way of the mastodon.

Fog On The Mountains

Pretty.

Going to a Blow, Go.

Well, great. That's it for me. Apparently I have to leave Toronto which is nice and unseasonably warm and fly to Vancouver where the winds just blew over a damn stadium or something.

Sucks! Those mountains are pretty, sure, but fuck, dood!

Just kidding Vancouver. I love you. Where am I from? Uh....New York, why?

Blogging will be light for the next several days as I settle into my new digs and jump head first into work work work.

Be back when I can.

Dragon Boys

One more for CBC. I probably won't be able to catch it as I fly tomorrow, but CBC's new show about Asian Gang Life in Vancouver, Dragon Boys, is getting fabulous reviews. A critical winner. So please give it some eyeballs.

Party Allah Time!

Which, by the way, is another way better ad line.

Little Mosque on The Prairie is starting to get reviews and not just hype. John Doyle gave it a happy little blurb in next Tuesday's TV picks. (not online) And Toronto's NOW Magazine weighed in with a mostly positive review, for what it's worth.

But more importantly, a friend and fellow soldier in the trenches of the industry ripped me a new one yesterday about this post for Little Mosque. She makes a lot of good points, so I'll reproduce what she wrote below:

I'm just really happy and honestly excited
for the world that every Muslim i'm aware of who's seen the show has really
loved it (including several who work at the post-production place where
they're cutting it; and the 3 intelligent men on the panel on CNN). That's
rather significant. I also feel it's funnier than Corner Gas ,
and more entertaining because it explores new, topically-hot
territory (a tonic to my chronic sitcom fatigue syndrome.)

My friend's in a unique position to judge some of these things since, for a while, she (or is it HE?) was one of them...A network person. Here's what they say about that:

Soon after 9/11 happened, i proclaimed to my colleague at [other Canadian network that is not the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] we needed a Muslim comedy - we needed
to see Muslims with a sense of humour. i maintain(ed) that this could have
an enormous impact on Muslim/non-Muslim relations. (my colleague basically
dismissed me like i was a joke, myself...) so imagine how heartened I was
last night - just imagine, Denis! me, heartened! - when, after seeing a
series of truly funny clips from the show, the 3 intelligent Muslim men on
CNN said (laughing/smiling) that this kind of show "will have a much greater
positive effect than any think tank or interfaith counsel could ever
have..." - or words to that effect.

i live by the credo that humour can help us overcome almost anything.
so i hope this show succeeds because it would be a kind of victory for Humour.

and yes, let's hope people find it funny. trust me, if Corner Gas is funny,
Little Mosque is funny.

And then s(he) said, "Tell them, Make Jokes, Not War"

Allrighty then. Thanks for sharing.

The only worry I have, of course, is that it's nice that Muslims who see it seem to like it. But for CBC to hit with this show, it can't just appeal to that group. And if they're the only ones watching, it won't exactly strike a blow for understanding, either.

When the reviews roll in, I hope it will be given a fair shot and judged for what it is: this is not supposed to be hip stuff. It's supposed to be family comedy. Or so I gather. The messages get mixed when you mix in words like "edgy" with "family comedy."

I want to say something else here, because sometimes I get worried that I'll write something here that can be co-opted by people whom I have no truck with whatsoever: the CBC bashers. I think CBC, and CBC Management, sometimes don't make the best decisions. I sometimes question their expertise. Lord knows they do give everyone cause to do so.

I don't question, ever, the need for a CBC. Canada, a country that is, and will forever be, dominated culturally by the largest producer of cultural product the world has ever known. The nation has a fragile sense of itself at the best of times. A sparsely populated, huge land like Canada, even in the age of satellite and microwave and download and broadband, needs a strong national broadcaster to knit it together.

And since the private broadcasters in this country don't always stress their hometown bonafides as much as they should, that makes CBC even more important. It should not be a PBS North. It should not be the kind of station that shows only unpopular things that the privates can't make money on. It should be concerned, to some extent, about ratings. And it should try to get them. Just, you know...be smart about it.

I take pride in the fact that every time - how do I say this without attracting the hit aggregators that turn every web discussion that mentions this into a wasteland -- okay, how about this - every time the subject of that one country over there comes up and there's that other people living in the same kind of land that are sort of unhappy with that country and want their own stuff -- you follow my drift here, right? Anyway -- I think it's good that every time CBC News covers that, both sides complain about CBC's biased the other way. I like the fact that when I watch CBC News, it's like watching BBC News, and so much better than CNN News.

And here's my main point: I like the fact that the reason CBC is getting all this pre-press for Mosque in the first place is that it's the only network, certainly in North America, that WOULD have the guts to take a chance on this show.

That's the thing to remember. Whether the execution works, or doesn't. Whether people watch, or don't. I hope it works wonders for CBC. But if it doesn't, I hope they'll get right up on the horse and greenlight another show that's daring. And figure out if they can help execute it better.

Anyway, that's the last thing you'll hear from me about Little Mosque - -unfortunately the timing is really bad for me. I'm going to try to see the show Tuesday when it premieres, but I'm going to be neck deep in work. Please feel free to leave comments and tell me what you thought of it.

Inspiring

From the AP:

NYC Subway Savior: Someone Had to Help

- - - - - - - - - - - -

By DEEPTI HAJELA Associated Press Writer

January 04,2007 | NEW YORK -- Wesley Autrey said he made a quick decision to jump into a subway track to rescue a stranger from an ongoing train, an act he hopes other New Yorkers would follow.


"I did it out of a split-second reaction. And if I had to do it again, I probably would," he said on CBS' "The Early Show' Thursday. "I was like, 'Wow, I got to go get this guy ... somebody's gotta save this guy but I was the closest one.

"I'm still saying I'm not a hero ... 'cause I believe all New Yorkers should get into that type of mode," the 50-year-old construction worker said. "You should do the right thing."

Autrey's phone has been ringing off the hook since he helped the man on Tuesday by pushing him into a gap between the rails. Some callers were complete strangers so inspired by his bravery that they offered rewards.

Besides appearing on several morning television shows Thursday, he was set to tape an appearance on David Letterman's CBS "Late Show" and visit City Hall to be honored by Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

In hindsight, even Autrey was somewhat startled by his dramatic decision. But knowing he narrowly escaped injury or possibly death, he didn't regret his choice.

"I did something to save someone's life," he said Wednesday.


On Tuesday, while waiting for a downtown Manhattan train, Autrey saw Cameron Hollopeter, a 19-year-old film student, suffering from some kind of medical episode. After stumbling down the platform, Hollopeter, of Littleton, Mass., fell onto the tracks with a train on its way into the station.

Autrey, traveling with his two young daughters, knew he had to do something.

"If I let him stay there by himself, he's going to be dismembered," the Navy veteran remembered thinking.

He jumped down to the tracks, a few feet below platform level, and rolled with the young man into a drainage trough -- cold, wet and more than a little unpleasant smelling -- between the rails as the southbound No. 1 train came into the 137th Street/City College station.

The train's operator saw someone on the tracks and put the emergency brakes on. Some train cars passed over Autrey and Hollopeter with only a couple of inches to spare, but neither man suffered any harm from the incident.

Hollopeter was taken to a nearby hospital; Autrey refused medical attention -- and then went to work.

Autrey went by the hospital Wednesday afternoon for a visit with Hollopeter and his family. Afterward, he and Hollopeter's father addressed reporters.

"Mr. Autrey's instinctive and unselfish act saved our son's life," Larry Hollopeter, his voice choking up, said Wednesday.