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SO DID y'all have a nice weekend? Me too, thanks for asking.

There were some interesting changes in the TV firmament over the weekend. First, out of the upfronts came a bit of a ratings revolution. It looks like most of the networks are now agreeing on a standard for viewership called, "Live plus three." Simply put, with 17% of households now timeshifting using TIVO and other PVR's, and that number set to go to 20% by Christmas, the whole "watching live" paradigm is no longer tenable. (Interesting that it survived the VCR...is it possible that that many of us never taped because the machine was flashing 12:00, 12:00, 12:00 all the time?) Live Plus Three is exactly what it sounds like -- they'll now set rates based on people who watch live plus all the people who watch PVR'd shows up to 72 hours after they first air. (Why 72 hours? They had to cut it off arbitrarily somehow, and with time-sensitive ads for things like sales or movie openings, much past three days and the value of the ad is lost.) The Amnets tried to float "Live Plus Seven" last year, but were rebuffed.

If some advertisers want to use measurements other than live plus three, Ms. Ross said, CBS “is going to be flexible” and consider just about any alternative — except one.

“We want to write business,” Ms. Ross said, but “we will not do live only; we want to get credit for DVR viewing.”

The difference in attitude between last year and this year seems attributable to data showing the growing popularity of DVRs. David F. Poltrack, chief research officer at CBS, said his forecasts estimated that by the fourth quarter, DVR penetration would increase nationally to 20 percent or 21 percent. And by spring 2008, he added, it “will be in the high 20s.”

“The good news,” Mr. Poltrack said, is that about three-quarters of all shows watched in delayed mode in DVR homes originally appeared on broadcast networks, which include CW in addition to ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. In DVR homes, he added, series like “C.S.I.” on CBS are watched even more as playbacks than they are live.

What's more interesting to me is that this consensus seemed to be arrived at very quickly. Because, of course, necessity is the mother of invention and all.

In Canada we are often told that change in Television takes a long time. It takes a long time to develop shows, it takes a long time to know if a policy is working or not. It's interesting and instructive to remember that in an industry where a lot of money is at stake, all the time, sometimes change doesn't take very long at all.

***

Meanwhile, as the U.S. upfronts hangover fades, the Canadians have lammed it to L.A., cheques in hand. (That's right, yankees, I said "cheques.")

It's worth noting now, before the joyful announcements in the next week or so about the goodies they've brought from down south, the drift of how things work here, where change is much slower.

Private broadcasters in this country receive lots of public funding, either direct or indirect. Indirectly, they receive monetary benefits from the CTF, which allows them to offer lower license fees for indigenous programming. They enjoy cable substitution, which allows them to maximize value of those U.S. shows they buy by showing them at the same time as the U.S. channels, and bumping their signal for their own, so they get two channels to show their ads, not just one. And they get other benefits, which we'll get into in a minute.

Point to remember is this: the airwaves do not belong to the networks. The way it's supposed to work is that they belong to you and I. The CRTC is supposed to look after them for us, and make sure they're being adminsitered and used in such a way that it benefits the public trust. Us. For the privilege of using the airwaves, media companies like CTV Globemedia and Canwest Global and Corus and Alliance Atlantis and Rogers are supposed to give something back.

I know it's very quaint to express things in those terms in a time when media mergers and business realities in broadcasting are presented as faits accompli...but last time I checked, they hadn't actually changed any of those regulations. Yet.

Now a few figures. According to the CRTC, private networks spent $479 million on foreign, mostly U.S. programming, in 2006. That was a 16 percent rise from 2005. From 2005 to 2006, spending on domestic Canadian drama series fell 15 percent: to $70.9 million.

That's a little more than the cost of one high profile U.S. drama series like 24, or Heroes or E.R.

When the announcements come from the private Canadian networks this week, read them in their proper context. Canadian networks are like people haunting the remainder table at a bookstore: their business model is based on benefiting from the creative risks of others while they take as few of their own as possible.

You want to find that admirable, go ahead. I don't, particularly. I think that 70 million dollar U.S. drama you bought for 80% off shows off your blotchy chicken legs and varicose veins, and makes you look fat in those pants. There. I said it.


***

Finally, back to the supports received above. Here's the news that came down on Friday:

TORONTO (Hollywood Reporter) - Canadian TV viewers have more commercials in their future, the country's communications watchdog said on Thursday.

Releasing its latest policy changes for over-the-air TV stations here, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission said it will progressively remove restrictions on advertising-time limits for broadcasters, with the ultimate goal of removing all such restrictions by September 1, 2009.

The CRTC said that the move from the current 12 minutes- per-hour primetime advertising limit to a completely market-driven model aims to give broadcasters additional revenue to deal with increasing competition from cable channels, new media and other emerging digital platforms.

This brings in line the number of commercials allowed in Canada and the U.S. (The U.S. allows 14.) Of course, after 2009, even that restriction will be lifted.

By 2009, expect the 38 minute hour show, and the 18 minute half hour. You're welcome.

This is a major change. And it didn't take very long at all. See? Money involved.

Basically the private broadcasters were just handed a bunch more free land. Good for you, guys! A job well done, here's a present.

Now, reported exactly nowhere, of course, was that a couple of years ago the CRTC floated a toothless proposal to allow private networks to earn more time by broadcasting homemade drama. This was supposed to be a carrot-approach to encourage them to do what they're supposed to be doing in the first place.

Now, of course, that's out the window -- and what was secured for this great gift of corporate largesse?

Nothing for me. And nothing for you either, viewer. Oh, except for more commercials.

Again, you're welcome.

What's interesting and instructive, though, is this... watch the way the story was played in two of the country's more business oriented newspapers...the Globe and the National Post.

The Post Headline and lede:

CRTC refuses to give broadcasters fees
Regulator rejects plea to charge cable carriage levy

TORONTO and OTTAWA - The CRTC rejected a plea yesterday by conventional broadcasters to allow them to charge cable companies a fee for carrying their signals.
But the television industry was given a salve of relaxed limits on the amount of advertising they can sell during each hour of broadcast, which should help boost revenue as new technology and growing competition squeeze profits.

And here's how the Globe played it:

CRTC rejects networks' request for more fees
Decision comes down to lack of compelling data showing the major players are having financial difficulty

Canada's biggest television networks say their financial health is fading, but the federal broadcast regulator is not convinced.

In a long-awaited ruling from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the regulator told the large TV networks, who are seeking access to millions of dollars in new fees, that they have not provided sufficiently compelling evidence that their business is struggling.

What's particularly interesting about the Globe's treatment of the story is that the news that you and me will have to watch more commercials thanks to these businesses that wanted more money from us but were not in any financial difficulty wasn't mentioned until the 16th paragraph of the story. I mean, call me crazy, but to me that's the news. But that shows how little you, dear viewer, matter in the Canadian broadcast firmament. The news that impacts you gets to go to the bottom of the pyramid.

The other thing that's interesting in the business-paper play of the story is that it's reported as a "setback" when really, it's anything but. And so now, gentle readers, let's call it like it is:

Okay...come in closer. Closer. Ready?

The CRTC got played. And so did you.

Carriage fees were never going to happen. From a public point of view, the whole thing was a non-starter. But in the realm of negotiation, that's not how you go in. You go in with the outrageous request, and then "settle" for the thing you wanted all along.

The private networks got a tremendous boon, and once again, they had to give up nothing. They asked for the stars and settled for the moon, and now they get to do an "aw shucks, we're actually quite disappointed" as the hookers and blow are shuffled in the back door.

***

So where does that leave us? You and me, the Canadian TV viewer and the Canadian creative? Well, I don't know, rightly. But I think we actually have common cause, you and I. It's just that people like me have been doing not a very good job of getting that concept across. Strange, since we're supposed to be storytellers.

I'm very tired of the debate around Canadian programming being framed and fought in the business pages. I'm tired of being forced to defend regulation being cast as "Canadians being forced to watch programs they don't want to watch." You know, like Corner Gas.

I think, for my part, the people who are making the announcements they always make after these decisions need to smarten up and take a different tack. We should learn from the private networks.

We have a CRTC head who has said that the CRTC needs to get out of regulation, and get out of the way of the market.

I say fuck it. Let's agree with him.

Here's the thing, though. Let's not go forward and talk about things that nobody cares about like making 7% of spending on foreign programming mandatory.

Let's go forward with something big, something that people can get behind.

WGC, DGC, Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, CEP, Left Handed Grips of Timmins, what have you...Let's go to the CRTC with this message:

End Cable Substitution.

Seriously. That's what we want. It's a policy that is not market driven. It doesn't benefit viewers -- ask anybody who hasn't been able to see the "next week on" because the Canadian net doesn't show it. If the CRTC chooses to end Cable Substitution, then the Canadian networks will compete with the U.S. networks. If they have Grey's Anatomy and we have Grey's Anatomy well, that's not an artificial advantage, now, is it? It's the market. Let viewers choose.

Maybe now the network that gets ahead is the one that offers something different...a program that Canadians want to watch that they can't find on their U.S. channels. That benefits viewers!

Oh, and here's one more thing: here's how we sell it. The thing that gets more complaints to the CRTC than anything else every year:

If you're with us, viewers, you'll finally be able to see all the Superbowl commercials!

See, we're on your side, viewers. Canada's creative community just wants to offer you choice.

We should stand up before the commission and make very cogent arguments about why ending cable substitution is the jim-dandiest thing we could ever do that will just make Canadian viewers so very happy, and make everything great! Oh sure the private networks will complain and talk about how they need to be protected from the larger U.S. market. But pshsaw! Come on...that's just standing in the way of the market, right?

Maybe if the heat gets too hot, we accept the "crappy compromise" -- mandated, fair, and enforceable spending guarantees for indigenous programming to create the next Corner Gas and actually reflect some element of Canadian culture on Canadian TV.

But we won't be happy about it. No, sir. Nope. Because that's not what we really wanted, now, is it?

Whaddya Gonna Do?

UM. I just realized something.

Thanks to the Memorial Day Holiday in the USA, the absolute, last-ever episode of the Sopranos ever, ever ever... is not going to be June 3.

It's going to be June 10th.

On June 10th I'm not going to be in front of my widescreen HD TV. On June 10th, I'm going to be with a lot of other people ... at the Banff TV Festival.

Um.

No.

No. No. No. No. No.

This is not good. It's the TV FESTIVAL. I am, to quote the man, "prostate with grief." How am I supposed to avoid spoilers with a thousand people who work in TELEVISION?

Pssst. Hey there, TMN and Movie Central. How you doin'? That's a very nice dress you're wearing. It really brings out your exclusive output deal with HBO. Listen, do you mind if I lean in and whisper a few sweet nothings in your year?

Cough. Screening Party. Cough.

They Make TV Everywhere, You Know...

An old friend of the blog popped up on the comments of the last post, to raise a most excellent point.

I met Dennis Venter in my time in Cape Town, South Africa, when I was writing for Charlie Jade. Besides working on that show, he's written over 120 episodes of comedies and dramas for South Africa's (arguably) healthier TV industry. (Healthier than ours in some ways, but then again, the writers aren't unionized and don't make anywhere near the dosh we whining Canadians do. And guess what, kids? The job's just as hard.)

Anyway, Dennis writes:

When at Banff, look out for "Home Affairs", a finalist in the serial drama category. One of the shows I've worked on recently and a pretty good one overall.

One of the great things about the Banff TV Festival, if I remember correctly from the only other time I went (in 2001) is that the awards they give out are truly international. Onsite, there's a library where you can see some of the nominated shows - in many cases, shows that have not, and may not ever show up on North American Television.

When I was in South Africa, I got kind of hooked on a youth drama show they had there called Yizo Yizo. (They also got I'm Alan Partridge long before we did.) Yizo Yizo was crazy. A show in about eight languages every episode, set in an apartment block in Joburg, with all sorts of great and odd South African music on the soundtrack. I'd never seen anything even vaguely like it. Now, I have to look up Home Affairs. Supposedly there's a South African kind of West Wing show that's pretty good, too. Maybe Dennis can tell us the name of that. I'm looking forward to Green Wing and I've seen a bit o' The Street, but forgive us, world, the U.S. next door is just so bloody loud that we often can't hear some of the quieter siren calls from foreign program makers.

I know this blog gets a good international tradewind, so how 'bout it? Go to the Banff site and look at the nominated shows. Any of those shows that we North Americans haven't seen? Are they worth tearing yourself away from the pretty pretty Rockies to take a look? Let me know in the comments.

Skate of the Nation

WELL, I'M not doing all that well in the (Semi) Famous Writers' Hockey Pool (Suck it, Cunningham!) but eight full days of sitting in a too-cold office on my new show has borne great fruit. We've broken full three stories, exciting and meaty episodes all, and today we had a big, beautiful, enthusiastic meeting...the result of which is I shall happily be spending the next week or so of my life going to outline.

I say happily, which of course is a lie, because I don't think there's a TV writer alive who likes to write an outline. They're ponderous, painful, evolutionarily-deadening beasts, destined to be slopped and written over and trampled underfoot on the way to scripted glory.

But man, if you don't do a good one, you're setting yourself up to be pincushion one at the needle haystack rodeo.

(Look at that. All of a sudden I'm channeling Dan Rather on peyote.)

There's a certain something truly comical about where I am sitting right now. We're still in our temporary digs, at one room at the back of a massive, utterly empty production office that most recently served as the office for "Diary of the Dead," which I think is the latest Zombie-splattermasterpiece from George Romero which may also be a crossover with Anne Hathaway's character from the Princess Diaries.

I'm making that last part up, but tell me you wouldn't pay 12 bucks to see THAT bastard.

The point is, it's cold in this little office. It's really cold. Air Conditioning is set to "Kill The Planet" and none of us can figure out how to stop it. Oh well.

I'm hoping for a good tuck in tomorrow and great progress on my first story. It's a challenge because unlike my last two shows, a) I'm not coming in late where there's a whole bunch of scripts and cuts already to judge the character voices, or b) I didn't spend months creating it, so I haven't locked into the voices that way.

So instead, I'll painstakingly rewatch the pilot, try for the actors' cadences -- take every scrap I can from what the Showrunners say about each character, and then go in there and try to bulletproof a story.

Because that's all you can do.

Somewhere in this whole process there will be an outline, and a poker game, and then notes and revisions and then a trip to Vancouver to see The Police and then a first draft and then a Banff.

So. Um.

Yeah.

Lots of stuff coming up. Oh. And if we want to be sticklers, I suppose I also owe a couple of book reviews and maybe a promised interview with the writer of Durham County, and maybe some thoughts on some of the scripts for fall shows that I've read and Oh yeah I think I may buy a car.

So...Somebody order me one. I'll be back when I can.

If the waitress wants money, Cunningham's buying.

Sensitive Men Everywhere Go "Ooohh!"

Oh Jenna, Jenna, Jenna:

NEW YORK (AP) - Jenna Fischer of "The Office" has fractured her back in four places, but it could've been a lot worse.

Her publicist tells the New York Daily News that Fischer fell down some stairs at a bar where a party for "The Office" was being held. The publicist says Fischer "avoided anything scary near the spine and she'll make a full recovery in time to shoot season four of "The Office" this summer.

Now, I admit, I've been a bit of a "Karen is way hot" guy this season. But after walking over hot coals and her scene last week, and now this, all I can say is:

PAMMMM!

Midweek at the Upfronts, And...

Can't say I'm too excited.

Oh sure, I didn't hold out a lot of hope for VERONICA MARS, but still...a few years from now, when Kristen Bell is a much bigger star off much lesser material, there will be no comfort. I still sort of resent the whole post-MY SO CALLED LIFE career of Claire Danes.

I'm sorry to see that JERICHO went, too, as I think scheduling killed that show, and now they have to pay the sins of the new reality of the TV business:

Maybe you can't take breaks with your big shows.

If that lesson is learned, then maybe Jericho will not have died in vain. Not holding my breath, though.

Many people told me THE CLASS was worth another look, but I never got around to it. And now I don't have to.

I can't say I'm too impressed by the Vampire P.I. series going in after Ghost Whisperer on CBS. Besides the fact that I've seen that show a million times, and even worked on a show that tried to give that premise a fresh spin, I read the pilot. And it was meh.

The fact that I know I'm going to love VIVA LAUGHLIN (I loved the British original, BLACKPOOL) is tempered by the fact that I know it's going to be almost instantly canceled.

Josh Schwartz, two series. Woo. Hoo. Try not to burn through eight seasons worth of plot by Christmas...

I don't think I can take two more seasons of 24. Jack Bauer, your show is tired. I SAID YOUR SHOW IS TIRED!

To tell you the truth, the only thing that got a smile from me was at least HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER got another season. That's fairly thin gruel.

And let's have a moment of silence for the writers who are currently, or will soon be, trying to come up with a second joke that could propel the Geico CAVEMEN past the 30 second mark.

Oh wait.

Oh.

Oh man.

I just had a thought. What if the CAVEMEN pickup is fake? Maybe -- just maybe -- ABC is going to put hidden cameras in that writers' room and all the offices and watch as the specially-cast writers slowly go insane and one by one by one commit ritual suicide.

Man. That, I'd watch.

Gina Holden is One of The Good Ones

IN CANADIAN Television, you sometimes hear a bit of grumbling about the actors. "They're just not experienced," you hear. Or "disciplined..." you hear that a lot too. Or...they don't have that "star" quality, it will be sniffed--until they go south and get cast in some big show in the States. Just you watch, within about two, two and a half weeks, you're going to see an article in your local paper profiling "all the Canadian faces who will be on U.S. screens this fall."

For the most part, this will probably mark the first time an article has ever been written about these actors in Canada, even though most of them have been working for years. Way to go, Canadian journos!

But one of those other criticisms that gets whispered a lot is, "they don't know how to be a lead." And that one isn't always false.

A lot of Canadian actors make their bones by appearing in small parts in (usually American) shows shooting here. So you'll do two, three, four days on a show -- even if you're a featured cast member or villain for that week.

When you're a lead, you're on screen a lot more than that. A lot more. It affects how you have to prepare, the number of lines you have, how you build a character, how you track that character's journey through the show...

...it can freak you out a bit. You get to the end of your tricks, all those little games and actor-y things you do that have always served you so well, and lo and behold...um....

Now they want something else.

Most actors I know have also been entirely responsible for building their own character's backstory. Either the script is flat and they are functionary and they have no clue who they are, or the Director is completely disinterested in the old dayplayer. They just want to track the big fish.

Directors, in my experience, deserve a lot more of the brunt of criticism for actors not being great on screen than they ever cop to. I was having a conversation with a far more experienced hand than I yesterday, and we both wryly came up with four or five examples of actors who had worked in this country, but not well, who had never been too impressive, and then suddenly went down to the USA and got a whole lot better. Fast.

Maybe they improved their craft, right?

Uh huh. In one pilot season? Maybe they finally brought their A-game?

Or...maybe the difference in most of these performances is, for the first time, they were actually directed. They were challenged and tasked in such a way that they weren't just another set piece being moved around.

When an actor is asked to direct themselves, the results are never very pretty. Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor have both astonished me in various roles, but nothing could save them from their performances in the second Star Wars trilogy. (And don't blame greenscreen...there's some great performances in Dark City, for instance.)

There are a whole lot of name-brand directors in Canada (people you've heard of) who are famous for not being able to talk to actors, at all. It's a big problem -- because with our smaller budgets and tighter timelines we're often flying through ridiculously scheduled shoot days...and an adrift, flailing actor has no way to help themselves. But the only person they can turn to can't communicate in a way that makes sense to the actor. (Hint: "say the line like this" does not work.)

I've had the pleasure of being on a few sets where the director really was able to pull great performances out of mediocre actors, and elevate the performances of actors who were doing pretty well themselves. It's like Night and Day. Which is why, I guess, I've always had a bit of razzie for the directors who only like to geek out over the shot and the action. It's about the actors. They're the greatest special effect you have.

Oh my God, I swear, this blogging thing is not representative of the writing I usually do. This stream of consciousness thing really is interesting because what was supposed to be the two or three graph intro to the post has now eaten the whole thing. I better get to it, though, because I've got to be in my car driving to work in about twenty minutes.

Hmm... So.

Back in "how to be a lead" territory. Most showrunners will tell you that their secret fear is that their actors will turn into unmanageable monsters. There is something latent in the actor gene code, maybe it's there from those years of go-sees and auditions where they were humiliated and poked and prodded and rejected, but there is a real danger of bad behavior sucking up all your time.

And then there are those actors who are so great that you just think, "this person's golden, and game, and somebody should build a show around them."

Gina Holden is an actor like that.

I've said before that one of the best things about Blood Ties was that we had an absolutely amazing cast. From the leads on down, a nicer, more professional group of actors you would never want to meet. I ran into Kyle Schmid in a bar in Toronto last week, and his ear-to-ear grin actually lifted my mood. And there are those people out there who know me who will testify that that, is a feat.

But right behind Kyle and Christina and Dylan, all season on Blood Ties (at least the half I worked) there was Gina. Gina had the job of Vicki's assistant, Coreen. It could have been a thankless role. She had to get out a lot of exposition -- which is always hard for an actor...but she'd spit out those names with aplomb. Gina would patiently wait as they put her in one crazy goth-costume after another. And this woman who was anything but goth would disappear behind the makeup.

The sisterly-relationship that Christina Cox and Gina played so well became a big part of the show in the back half of the season, and as the Vicki/Coreen bond grew, I think Blood Ties found a resonance that we all recognized was something special. All of it unplanned. All of it because Peter Mohan had the great idea to make Coreen Vicki's assistant, and because he cast a great actor who crackled onscreen with our lead.

Christina, too, was kind of protective of Gina in her role -- because, she said, she played exactly the same type of role back on F/X. That's class -- a lead actor who steps up, and wants her fellow cast members to have good material to play, too. Like I said, our cast was the best. Smart, engaged and talented, too. Was I in heaven, or Maple Ridge?

What I remember most about Gina, though, is that she was game for anything. She had bugs put all over her in one episode. Great! "Did you see it?" She would beam. She had an unbridled enthusiasm. Several time after scripts went out, she would come up to the writers and be excited, and thankful. She would always laugh at the good lines during the readings -- and not to speak for any of the other writers, but the fact that Gina and Christina had a funny energy that was totally different than the energy between Christina and Kyle or Christina and Dylan was manna from heaven -- it gave us somewhere new to go. You have no idea what it's like to realize that all four of your main actors, if need be, can actually sell a joke. It's awesome.

Not to spoil or anything -- but Gina figures prominently in the BT season finale. And because everything in a series IS about the lead, Coreen and her part, gives Vicki a chance to emote, deal with a big problem, and show heart in a way, in a depth she hasn't before. It's amazing stuff. She does great work, and she helps Christina and all the other actors do great work.

It's exactly the kind of behavior you reward. And it's what you're looking for in a series lead.

So this week I read that Gina has been cast as Dale Arden in the Sci-Fi Channel's new Flash Gordon series, which will be airing soon. If there's a second season of Blood Ties, and I go back to it, I will miss writing for her, and I'll miss seeing her, because an actor with that level of enthusiasm is something that just gets to be infectious.

But she's going to be an awesome Dale. Good luck, Gina!

Dude!

Seriously, Dude. Seriously.

Look What's Taking Schrute...

25 Episodes of Earl?
30 for The Office?

Whatever can it mean?

Weinman says this:

In the case of The Office this might enable NBC to sell the show to syndication a year earlier than usual -- 30 half-hours plus the 50 they've made already will be 80 episodes, which is short of the magic number of 100 but is sometimes enough to get syndicated. So NBC may get a double whammy: fewer reruns, and perhaps some syndication money to cover the cost of producing more episodes.

Hmmm. Imagine a world where they order MORE episodes?

Sigh.

OH, CHRISSY.

The Fresh, The Familiar, and The Impossible Trick

TODAY WE'RE going to geek out a bit about process and psyche here, and it will be insidery and not necessarily pretty. You've been warned.

Friend of the blog blueglow waded in a with an interesting couple of comments in the post below, where I talk about the upfronts. Here's a taste of what he had to say:

This is a little off topic with regard to the body of your post, but it's something I've been thinking about since i started reading the various blogs about writing and screenwriter and since I am currently in full procrastination mode... what the hell...

I have no idea how you guys do it.

If I was ingesting the amount of info about the biz and the trends in programming you do on a daily basis I don't think I could write a word...I know when I have tried to pay attention to shows of a similar ilk to the ones I'm working on it stops me dead because it makes me feel like there in not a single original thought in my head so why bother...How do you manage to navigate thru a story when you are so aware of all the other stories and series that in development or are going on around you -- obviously you're able to do it (you're working tons right now) but I know if I was paying as much attention to the media as you do I would feel like there was little point in adding to the clutter....the question I guess I am asking (because people work in different ways) is, do you take into consideration all the other shows that are being kicked around or are on the air when you work at the most fundamental elements of plotting and characterization?

The short answer is Yes -- not necessarily the shows that are upcoming (not in any real organized way) but certainly shows that have come before that have a similar area.

This answer is going to be a rough mix of process and the much muddier psychological whys. (I was trying to lay out one then the other, but I can't figure out how to do that because they're so mixed.)

Though I completely understand your approach, and I understand everything you're saying, the thought of working the way you do terrifies me, because how would I know if I was doing something that a similar show had already done? If you don't know what else people have done and are doing in the genre, how can you possibly know when you're being original? See, same question, same neurosis, opposite entry point.

I tend to go into things for television from a craft entry point anyway, because that has so much with how I view the idea of originality on TV.

Simply put, I think when we talk originality on TV we're using a different mixture, or recipe, than when people talk originality in art or in the novel or even the movie. Originality in TV to me is more akin to originality in popular music.

When you hear an unbelievably catchy song on the radio (these days, if you're talking a new song you haven't heard before, I'm probably talking, on the satellite ratio) the thing that gets you is that most of the time it pulls off an impossible trick: it simultaneously feels and sounds fresh and familiar. Maybe there's something about the bassline or the chord progression, or maybe it's built upon a sample from an earlier song you liked...but to me the pleasure comes from feeling that it's both new and familiar - both receptors in your brain go crazy, and that's why some songs you hear for the first time and go, "that's amazing!" and you love it right away.

I think that's kind of like what we do in TV. TV is about constantly pulling off the impossible trick. When you drag people out to a theater (and I'm talking about viewers here who aren't 18 year old boys with no sense of history) you have a bit of a higher burden on creativity -- it needs to not be something you've ever seen before, or if it's even the slightest bit pastiche, it better be great pastiche, like The Departed. Same is true of a good novel, I think.

But at home you're competing with laundry and the kids and pilates and dinner and the effing cat, and most of the time you really need to draw in your viewer quickly or they'll choose one of their other 278 entertainment options. And of course, because your timeline is longer -- rules of characterization are completely different. Imagine trying to paint a character like Tony Soprano in 2 hours and 30 mins.

When I sit down with a series idea, my entry always is 1) Okay, what's this like? 2) Now, how's it different? 3) What am I going to give the audience that surprises them -- something they haven't seen before?

And I go from there. When I'm writing off a bible I didn't create, it drills down to the episode level. What's the shorthand of this ep? Is it a Frankenstein story? Is it the Telltale Heart? (genre room, now) or What's the obstacle here: (action show, now) ticking clock bomb, secret that can't get out, etc. etc. I can't speak for my compatriots, but when I was on Blood Ties, I was very aware of Buffy and Angel, and would often when bumping up against something, think, "how'd they do this?" to actively try to go in another direction. (I didn't much consider Forever Knight, since I've only seen maybe a half dozen eps of that show, and it was long enough ago now that I think the statute of limitations has run out on story-messing.)

The thing is, I enjoy working this way. When I see a series that's cross-pollinated two genres, I'm delighted and giddy to see if it works. When I see a refinement of an idea that's out there already, I love it. Raines, to me, was kind of genius-y because it took that Medium/Ghost Whisperer vibe and gave it a secular twist that men and women could watch equally. I'm not gonna watch Medium because I don't really buy the whole psychic mom thing, and the less said about Ghost Whisperer the better. To me, Raines was that idea 2.0, in that because he knew his conversations were all in his head, you were automatically off the hook in believing in heebiejeebie, and it was also a great extension and twist on the defective detective area Monk introduced a few years back. His vision/conversations told you about him and revealed his character, not just plot. I'm constantly looking to do something like that. I want to pull off the impossible trick.

I also have this need to figure out when a show fails, why it fails, beyond bad timeslot or poor promotion. I'm not as good at that, but I think I'm getting better. But. But. I worry that more and more of the shows I find fresh and original don't catch on. I'm not quite at the point where I'm second guessing my own tastes yet -- not really -- but I can see that being a potential problem in the future.

Some people might look on my way in as setting the bar lower, but, fine, let them go off and get work then, I couldn't care less. Working my way cuts me a little more slack because the boulder you still have to roll up the hill is huge, but at least you've got all those giants who came before helping you push. I tend to think that execution of an idea is all.

(Nothing makes me angrier than a great idea poorly executed. Seriously, I can't understand for the life of me once you've caught the tiger by the tail and have a great idea that you don't do the work to make it good. Arrrrgh.)

Let's face it, TV only has a truly 'revolutionary' show once every few years. And the revolutions are constantly being re-fought, because people have no memory. All In The Family made certain topics OK for tv, and now they're not again. Hill Street Blues gritted up the drama. E.R. amped the pace, made jargon and complex research okay, then de rigeur -- and The Sopranos signalled that Cable was now the tastemaker. Most of the stuff that is really groundbreaking (Hello, Twin Peaks) burns bright and out fast. Those shows leave marks on us all as creators, without necessarily re-shuffling the landscape.

Now a bigger question is: why am I this way? Well, I've got a theory.

I'm in the first Sesame Street generation. That show, The Electric Company, and even Mr. Rogers -- those shows were made for me.

Those were the last shows that were made for me.

I don't want to back and refight the great and stupid GenX-Boomer culture war, but the truth of it is, when I was growing up, I and most people my age were cultural refugees. We'd come home from school and watch Three's Company and M*A*S*H, shows that were in NO WAY aimed at us. (Seriously, could you imagine a 10 year old today watching reruns of West Wing? I know they watch Friends, but Frasier? Not so much.) The culture was obsessed with boomerdom. I watched the old SNL and watched the cast change to the Eddie Murphy SNL, and then the ringer years where the old boomers came back. But it wasn't aimed at me. Letterman was aimed at college students when I was still in high school. Parents were watching Carson. I watched and appreciated them both. Because I wasn't locked into stuff that was aimed directly at me, I surfed and cadged a lot more from various places. I discovered jazz early, and my parents were quite puzzled when I got hard into Sinatra at 15 or 16. To them, that was their parents' music: but to me, it was all the same. All culture talked about events that happened before I was born, or referenced things I had to go look up. That's just the way it was. I didn't give it a second thought.

While this was going on, the whole pop culture ascendancy came in, too. Entertainment Tonight came on the scene. 24 hour news became a factor. Then MTV and Muchmusic -- which was the only part of the culture that I felt aimed at me, and even then, for only about eight minutes. Weekend box office totals started making the papers.

By the time I got to University, cultural marketers had started to finally cool on the boomers in order to go after their kids. A Young Market was identified and people started actively going for it. The entire concept of 'tween shows' still freaks me out a little, because, man, where were those shows when I was that age?

I'd look at SNL, and Sandler and those guys came in and I sometimes found them funny, but not all the time. And the boomers clucked "Saturday Night Dead" and how bad it was, while the people a few years younger than me were getting it. And for a while it was, "wait a minute...where's our cultural moment? Oh, don't tell me it was that fucking TIME magazine article, the Coupland book and Reality Bites...C'mon...I'm gonna fucking kill somebody!"

The came Britney...

And...

Oh..oh man. These people behind me...they're not going to be cultural refugees, are they? Hmm.

Part of having to spend all those years parsing things that weren't meant for you made my brain work in a way where it kind of always stands apart and analyses. Very rarely do I ever get fully immersed in a story or a movie or a TV show. I'm always clocking where they're going, and what they're doing... Once upon a time I thought this was just the famous GenX cynicism, but I've come to understand that that's merely a symptom, not a cause. It's not so much cynicism as it is distance. A distance that comes from spending those big teenage years not as the focus, but on the outside of a culture looking in.

So it is any wonder that now that I'm making culture that I feel comfortable working that way?

I don't know how it's going to work for those coming up behind me. Because I have to assume that the marketers klieg light is going to shift again. Now we have the "Most Praised Generation" entering the workforce, and there are hilarious articles like this, all I can think is, "what's going to happen when these guys find that the experience they've had all their lives is shifting? How will the people who've had stories aimed at them their whole lives react when they have to tell stories for someone else?

I guess we'll see.

I'm gonna keep my head down, clock what's out there, and keep on trying to pull the Impossible Trick.

Somebody's Gonna Buy a House

MY INTEREST in the annual orgy of money and hope against hope known as "The Upfronts" waxes and wanes from year to year depending on whether or not I'm working, and on what.

This year, my interest is dulled a bit by starting a new job. I'm paying attention, but not really paying attention. When the dust settles at the end of next week, however, I'll be more interested, because who gets picked up and who gets cast might have a bearing on one or two things I'm working on.

No, not in that way. No, I'm not getting a job down south. I'm still a lowly Canadian TV writer. Bathe in my neurotic inadequacy, damn you! Bathe in it!

This is a very tense weekend in L.A. and environs. I'm sure the phone calls are flying fast and furious, as gym chatter is taken as gospel or blasphemy, depending on the listener/gossipers body fat index and glucose level. Lunches and their seating plans will be dissected like chicken bones in some fucked-up santeria ritual. There are a lot of people who were working who, come Friday, won't be. There are people who are writers, who, come Friday, will be series creators. The industry will realign itself along a new power centre.

And then in the Fall, the audience will get a chance to weigh in and some (most!) of these new Masters of the Universe will be unceremoniously given the bum's rush.

Though I've found it lackluster in general this year, the nagging subplot that's held the most interest for me on Entourage is the upcoming premiere of Johnny Drama's Ed Burns-created Pilot. I really hope it's a hit, just because I'd like to see Johnny dealing with fame again -- especially if they do the requisite thing and show Vincent's fame starting to cool without a new project. That would be awesome.

Back in the real world, though, I may bloviate on the radio about season finales, but like most writers, my mind's already more in next season. What will the new trends be? What's going to break new ground? What will be the freshman show that everyone will be spec'ing one year from now?

Diane's got a funny little link-story about how anything you read this weekend is bogus. Til you get the tap and are told you're flying to New York, anything goes.

After all, as Bill Carter pointed out in his highly entertaining Desperate Networks, you never know when Phil Rosenthal is going to drop by a meeting. If not for him, no CSI-inspired forensic porn, no cash cow falling into Alliance Atlantis' lap, and maybe -- just maybe -- Tony Danza would be a bigger star than ever.

Here in the North, far from the klieg lights of big money American TV, the Canadian Upfronts -- such as they are -- happen in a few weeks, once the U.S. place their bets. Canadian execs go down and make deals and CTV comes back with all the best shows.

Ooops. Did I say that out loud?

Canadian Upfronts are funnier and sadder. They're more like sales parties. They occasionally import two of the lesser (less Desperate?) Housewives, a minor Soprano or two, or the young guy from that show that nobody's heard of yet.

They also forget to invite the creators of their homegrown shows. I'm not kidding. It's happened more than once.

Of the early American calls, I'm pleased about Friday Night Lights. Pleased because I never watched it. Now, not only do I finally have a series to catch up with on DVD, but it's coming back. Score! Personally, considering the fact that most of my favorite shows are currently on NBC, I'm sorry for their troubles, but not that troubled, you know? Desperate times leads to creative risk, and maybe the next TV revolution. A guy can dream.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, The Bionic Woman from David Eick, Chuck, Journeyman and Life have all been told to staff up.

There's enough nostalgia in me to hope The Bionic Woman goes somewhere. (And considering how often super, asskicking Lyndsey Wagner got patrontized, it will be interesting to see a post-feminist or third wave feminist take on the idea.) If it's good in any way, I think it's gonna find an audience, and it'll be the genre spec next May. We'll see, though. And since Glen Morgan's on board, could this mean a return of a certain mythic writer geek godhead figure? Hmmm. Hmmm.

Just as long as they "re-imagine" the fembot fight:



Mmm. Fembots.

I'm fairly Meh on Chuck, but I do loves me the Kevin McKidd, and the fanboy in me likes Journeyman's premise. (think Quantum Leap.)

I would like to try to explain to you how fast I hope ABC's Caveman show goes down, but...words fail. If it's a big hit with the American public, I'm going to invite the Chinese to invade now, and just get it over with.

I have high hopes for Action News, the Kelsey Grammer/Pat Heaton sitcom for Fox, as well as the cop show set in NOLA. Strangely, the thought of seeing Sarah Connor week after week doesn't thrill me.

As always, these suckers will surely disappoint. Most of em. Maybe you should hold off on buying that house.

Otherwise, to the new Masters of the Universe I say, "Congrats." Good luck nailing your template.

As always, if anybody has copies of these pilots in script or other form, I'd love to see'em. Daddy writes in Canada, and Daddy writes on the interweb. Daddy is not an insider.

Ratings, Shmatings

JOHN DOYLE, it seems, is almost owed a co-write for this column of late.

For the record, I've met Doyle but I don't really know him. We're slated to be on a panel together in Banff, though, so I'm fairly excited about that. I will make certain to ask him about the Brother, his cat, and his current choice for Most Irritating Canadian (Television Division.)

For now, though, I simply want to quote a bit from his column yesterday and make a couple of points:

An Associated Press story that ran in numerous newspapers in the past few days begins thus: "In TV's worst spring in recent memory, a startling number of Americans drifted away from television the past two months: More than 2.5 million fewer people were watching ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox than at the same time last year, statistics show."

Well, "statistics show" is the key phrase. The statistics come from Nielsen and, frankly, they are dubious. As the AP story acknowledges after offering hair-raising stats on lower viewing numbers for the networks, about 17 per cent of U.S. homes now have personal video recording devices such as TiVo. They can watch TV whenever they want, with ease. It's simple to set your TV to record all episodes of your favourite show and watch the episodes later, individually or in a marathon. The thing is, the Nielsen numbers reflect only a tiny fraction of viewers with PVRs and then document a show being watched only if it is viewed within 24 hours of originally airing.

In Canada, the Nielsen numbers are even more peculiar. The sample is small, the margin of error is huge. Nobody is going broke in the TV racket. Viewers are not abandoning TV in droves. They're watching what they want, when they want or when they can get to it, just like me.

I've got a couple of points here, one expandable to North America, the other mostly Canadian in nature.

1. The advent of PVR timeshifting is the time bomb that won't go away in ratings measurement.

When I was living in Vancouver earlier this year, I kind of stepped back into the 1970's. I didn't have a working PVR or VCR. So if I wanted to watch a show, I had to watch it when it was on the air. If I wanted to watch two shows that were opposite each other, I had to choose one.

This was really, really weird. It's completely alien to how I (and a vastly growing number of TV viewers) now experience TV. I have the Movie Channels on Pay, and I will occasionally graze them, but the ON DEMAND channel is why I subscribe. I never worry about missing a Sopranos if the PVR cacks up. I know it will be there for me the next day.

If I PVR a program, I will usually not watch it that night. I'm busy. I have three weeks of The Office and Lost on the PVR right now. I'm hoping to get to them this weekend. My Vancouver 'forced appointment viewing' only resulted in me abandoning several of the shows that I watched regularly: gone were 24 and Prison Break, and others. Shows that I quite liked, like Raines, I never really watched more than a couple eps, because I wouldn't bow to the tyranny of planting my ass in the seat when they wanted me to.

The whole PVRs only-count-if-you-watch-in-24-hours thing masks a bigger problem: commercial skipping. Everyone does it. I now pause a show at the top even when it's live so I can fast forward through the ads.

And I work in television.

They've started to discover that there are heavily PVR'd shows where, if you count the later viewings, the show 's ratings can be up by 17 or 18 percent. That's huge. But...

...those people aren't watching the ads. What to do?

It's a ticking time bomb that even Jack Bauer couldn't fix.

• The games played with ratings in Canada are part of the reason why they don't release ratings here.

As Doyle points out, in Canada the sample size is very small. The way statistical sampling works, if you have a properly selected sample of 1000 people or more, the margin of error is quite low.

But the more you go down, the more distorted the numbers get. And -- here's the real trick -- the smaller your numbers are, the more distorted they are.

So in other words, if the sample size is only 600, and your ratings are 2 million, you can be pretty sure that those numbers are pretty close. Not as close as if the sample was 1100, but close.

But...

Most shows in Canada don't do 2 million.

If you have a rating of 180, 000 -- and that sample is only 600, then those numbers could be plus or minus tens of thousands of viewers.

If your ratings are under 100 000, throw a dart. Seriously. It's about as accurate.

Add to this the fact that Canadian stations regularly add together a number of airings of the same program, and report that as, "X people watched this show," and it muddies the water even further. All this because Canadians are used to U.S. style numbers talking about 10, 12 million people watching a show. They don't understand the smaller market and what it means. And I actually kind of support stations not releasing their numbers, because I've seen with U.S. shows how the data is used by people who don't understand it to support some boneheaded point they're making.

And I'm not even talking about bloggers here. I'm talking journalists.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics: point is, it's all another symptom of how the whole system's rotten. If you're basing your decisions on numbers and numbers alone, especially in Canada, you're showing a remarkable lack of intestinal fortitude - and you may just be being foolish.

The barn door's open. The cow's gotten out. The sky is falling.

Wheeeeeeee!

DMc on the Ray-dee-Yo: This Time It's Personal

I AM going to be on CBC Radio One again today, on Jian Ghomeshi's Q show, talking about TV season finales.

I think my point of view is: Weddings, meh.

I know. Really original.

I gotta work up some material. Check the local radio listings on CBC.CA to see when Q airs in your market.

EEeeevillll!

I FORGOT to append to my last post that another movie-derived musical opens in Toronto this weekend. EVIL DEAD: THE MUSICAL started right here in Toronto, at the Tranzac Club. It went to NYC, became a sensation, and now it's back. The songs are pretty bad, but that's not the point, is it? If you're in the first three rows -- the "splatter zone" -- you get covered in fake blood.

I ask you, what is not to like?

Read about it here.

I Am Reliably Informed...

THAT THE room we've moved to today is the very same office which used to be the story room for TRADERS. Hart Hanson may have very well sat where I am right now.

I'll take that mojo.

Top Gun: The Musical, And The Photocopy, and the Parody, and the High Horse

SOMETIMES THINGS to write about fall into your lap. Out of the rubble of the great fanfic contretemps of '07 (Still no caps, but yes, they're still coming, and yes, they're still pissed) I wrote a week or so ago about ideas, and how they spookily sometimes seem to be snatched out of the ether by different people at different times -- and how it sometimes happens at the same time, too.

But what about when you're working with "provided materials?" An angry commenter on the original fanfic post apparently doesn't like my high horse. Which is funny, because I happen to have bought a piece of artwork called "The High Horse" from NY illustrator Molly Crabapple. I have to go get that framed.)

Alison, in part, wrote:

while you rant about people not writing original work, you are being paid to use someone else's characters in a world that you did not create, using the rules that they setup in regards to that world. How original can that possibly be?

It isn't. It's professional fanfic. Any writer who writes as a freelancer or on staff of a show that he or she did not create is a fan fic writer.

Though she plays a few rhetorical games in her comment [like insulting the show I worked on in an attempt to insult me...heh heh. Yeah, like that stings. -- go read it if you want the full flavor] Alison raises an interesting and provocative question: (the answer to which she wouldn't get, but we're writing for pros and would be pros here, chickens, aren't we? Yes, we are) How can you claim any originality in work that's based upon something else? And how does that work separate out from... fanfic (shudder)

To an extent I think this is a question that all writers wrestle with. It's wrapped up in the whole, "am I a hack?" question. You can be glib, and talk about there only being seven stories, or everything's stolen from Shakespeare and the Bible... but finding the original idea -- even in a world that's not your own -- is one of those things that separates out the pros from the amateurs. (For the purposes of this post, I'm including any of you spec monkeys who haven't made a sale yet. Because that's how you have to think of yourselves: pros who haven't made a sale. Yet.) It's what separates the writers from the fanfic writers.

Which brings me, Brothers and Sisters, to Top Gun! The Musical.

If you happen to be in Dallas, Texas starting this weekend, you can (and I hope you will) go down to the Dallas Hub Theater, pay your 20 bucks and sit down and watch one of the most fun things I've ever written.

I've written a bit about Top Gun! The Musical before. It came out of a rant about musical theater and how crappy it was that the only properties that rated the musical treatment seemed to be Disney shows and bad movies. (I think it was the Urban Cowboy musical that popped my cork, though I'm sure someone will write in and tell me that the brand new, Legally Blonde musical is "OMG...rilly good!"]

Anyway, in the spring of 2002, I sat down with a great composer and musical director named Scott White, and started banging out songs for TG!TM. We talked about Sondheim, he played me tracks from Company, and we hashed out what we wanted to do, starting from this ridiculous premise: somewhere, a big-budget megamusical based on the 1986 Tom Cruise movie Top Gun, is in rehearsals.

Scott and I decided to go in a few directions fairly early:

We decided we didn't want to tell the whole story of the movie.

This was mainly from me. The more I looked at Top Gun, the more I realized that the plot basically (forgive me, father) ran out of jet fuel at the point Goose died. Top Gun was the first MTV movie, and as such, it was slow and choppy because nobody had gotten that newfangled style down yet. The meta-commentary on the gay subtext of the film was way more interesting that anything that was going on on the screen.

We decided that we wanted to show more of the rehearsal than the movie.

The more we talked, the more we realized that Top Gun was really a metaphor here, a placeholder. The story we wanted to tell, like Chorus Line, was the story of the performers in it, and more than that: the entire idea of the creative process, how fragile it is, and how difficult. We focused quickly around the Director of the piece, who is desperately trying to tell himself that he's doing something artistically worthy (even though the audience knows that's bogus.) From there, we sketched in a few other characters: we had our Director, Billy Palmer, sleeping with the actress playing Charlie (the bitch,) while his long-suffering stage manager, Wendy, carried a torch for him (there's your love triangle.) Then we had some stock characters: the actor playing Maverick was dumb as a post (and insisted on being called "Maverick," at all times,) the actor playing Iceman was "gayer than anything in that Will & Grace show," and Goose...well...we made Goose a chick. We always knew that the heart of the piece was killing Goose, and it seemed to flow better that she was a woman. Also, let's face it, the real Top Gun didn't have much room for women and in a seven person cast we wanted more females. When we clocked the script, we realized that between book and songs, the amount of material that was actually from the musical-within-a-musical clocked in at about 30-35% of the show.

We didn't want to steal.

If Top Gun was a metaphor, and if people recognized the tropes, then, I very quickly decided, there was no need to stamp all over it. We wouldn't be using Danger Zone, or You've Lost That Lovin Feelin. We were going for fair comment, cultural criticism and parody, and we didn't want to be accused of plagiarism. It became very clear to me that there was no need, in fact, to use any dialogue from the movie. Even the situations could be turned around a bit. So in the show-within-a-show bits, we didn't take any lines from the movie. And you know what? It was easy. Because it really was about the experience of the movie more than the movie itself. It was about us, the audience. Trippy, eh?

We snuck in every theater in joke we could think of.

Which meant stuff like, though Goose's character was now female, that change wasn't really reflected in the rewrites, and the actress was suffering through having a non-existent characterization. We made our Charlie a little-bit-past-it actress to deal with neurotic issues, and to humanize her a bit. And we decided that we wanted a larger-than-life producer to enter at about the forty minute mark.

Why?

We wanted to change things up and get subversive.

We wanted the show to be about seventy, eighty minutes so it wouldn't outstay its welcome. And after about forty minutes, we wanted to shake it up -- by then all the in jokes about theater and creativity would be familiar, and everybody would know our characters, what their deal was and where their relationships sat.

Enter The General. The General is one of my favorite ever character creations. His dialogue, when I wrote it, poured out in a torrent, and most of what's in the show is first draft. Whole speeches came unbidden from his lips. The General is an ex-military man who's turned to theatrical producing, and just as you think you know what's going on in the show, he torques it another way. Because the General sees this show not as an artistic piece, and not even as a cash cow: he sees it as an example of American Cultural Imperialism, a way to win the hearts and minds of the world, through Musical Theater.

The General...in short...is batshit insane.

But he's a ton of fun. And then, just as you get his deal -- that this guy sees this show as an instrument of war by other means, we "show him" the 11'oclock number -- "That Goose Is Cooked."

Top Gun! The Musical did extraordinarily well for a modest Fringe musical. It was completely sold out. People scalped tickets. Seriously. We remounted the show the following summer and did well, receiving two Toronto Theatre Award nominations (called Doras) for Dmitry Chepovetsky (who played Maverick) and Best Musical. The cast was stellar and top notch. We took the show to the New York Musical Festival in 2004, and there have been other productions in Halifax, and Houston. We still get inquiries about it all the time, which is how it's going up in Dallas this weekend. (If you want to read an interview of me whoring the show, click here.)

When I went down to Houston to see the U.S. premiere in 2002, it was an important moment for me. Because it was the first time I'd seen something I wrote performed by people who I had had zero contact with. They only worked off the script. Also, the deep heart of Texas is a very different place from Toronto. Would the show play, and would the jokes land?

They did. The differences were intriguing. The General, a part that I saw as a savage indictment of the parts of the American psyche that scared me, was cuddlier down south. That's to be expected, I guess. But all in all, it was ... great. And now it's flying again. Yay!

So what to make of this?

In searching for stuff on the Dallas production of TG!TM, I came across info on a Chicago production which just closed in April 2007. There it is, folks. It's Top Gun, the Musical.

Am I upset? Not even slightly.

Because you can't copyright an idea. And as Alison would be quick to point out, deciding to do a musical based on Top Gun isn't original. The only way, in fact, to mine any originality is to see what you do with it.

Now, in mine and Scott's Top Gun! musical, our thematic targets were really the artistic process, and how do you know you're a hack, and how your dreams for something never quite live up to the reality. And it was also about hope, and longing to be part of something good and not knowing if you measured up. And it was about propaganda, and how culture can be used to sell wars, and all manner of nasty stuff. And it was about gay subtext becoming text. And it was about eighty minutes.

What's intriguing, of course, is that in the five years between TG!TM and this version of the Top Gun musical, the U.S. is in a very different place. We made dark jokes about Iraq that were yet to come true. The kind of jingoistic, TG swagger sits in a different place in the American cultural mindset now. The other thing that changed, of course, is YouTube came along, which allows me to show you this:




Interesting. See, they chose to go with the Danger Zone, interp dance route. Funny, but more of a sketch than our opening number, "We've Got a Plane to Catch." Looks like they made Goose a girl, too...but a girl in drag. Funny. Different way to go.

Poking around, it doesn't look like this Top Gun musical got very good reviews. Some of the commentary seemed to indicate that there was no there there -- that once you got over the initial joke, it wasn't saying anything. Which is exactly the litmus test we put up to our TG musical: it had to say something different than the movie. It had to stand on its own.

And interestingly, that's basically the legal argument as to what constitutes a derivative versus an original work -- how much is you, and how much is the thing that you're parodying or commenting upon? In our case, the heart of the piece is not TG, it's making art, and how difficult that is. And that's what made the difference, I think, in the affections of audiences and critics both.

Of course, both Top Gun musicals rely and are informed by a very funny sequence in an otherwise forgettable movie called Sleep With Me. (And interestingly enough if you believe the scuttlebutt, old Quentin isn't being too original himself here.)



We never did too much more with TG! It's a seven person cast, which is large for a small cabaret style show. It's got swears, and you kind of have to have an 80's sensibility (ie: Top Gun has to have been formative for you) to get it. So the commercial appeal is limited. But the rights are still available, should you want to do it in a theatre near you.

To the cast and crew in Dallas, I say, "Good Luck." Now, back to my high horse.

Idiosyncratic and Wildly Original

TWO WORDS that maybe don't get associated with TV enough. Though you could also argue that people, in their homes and hearths, tired after a long day of doing whatever they have to do to make money, aren't always looking for that, so much as a little comfort. Hmmm.

I'm still adjusting to the new job, so not much from me today, either. Sorry. Luckily, Will Dixon over at his place has just posted a thoughtful little profile of one of the ubergeek writer crushes of the 1990's -- Darin Morgan. He was very idiosyncratic and wildly original -- but at a price.

Eccentric and reclusive, he's oft been described as the Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) of television due to his knack for turning formulaic TV on its ear.

Two out of three ain't bad, but he's also, apparently, notoriously slow.

A self-proclaimed couch potato, Morgan reluctantly joined the staff of The X Files in the third season (via his older brother Glen Morgan) and made a splash over the next two years with four memorable episodes: 'Humbug', 'Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose', 'War of the Coprophages', and 'Jose Chung's From Outer Space' (Final Repose actually won an Emmy).

Then he joined the staff of Millennium for a season, and wrote and directed 'Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense' and 'When Satan Got Behind Me', two of the funniest and cleverest screenplays you'll ever read. These were great TV series scripts, but not necessarily great model scripts for those looking to break into series TV.

Go hang out with Will. If you can, bring brownies. Tell him I said 'Hi.'

Otherwise, if you happen to be reading this from the nation known as Canada, tonight is your chance to finally see the buzz show of the spring. The first show that maybe has had the ambition to take that "Sopranos" crown and dust it off. As John Doyle put it:

In January, when I was in Los Angeles for the midseason TV critics press tour, I had one of those magical moments when all the dross that arrives suddenly seemed irrelevant. I was in my hotel room, typing away at a laptop, trying to make sense of the CBS schedule, or something equally frustrating. The TV was on because new series from the networks and cable channels are shown continuously in the hotel for the critics.

As I wrote, I was vaguely paying attention to the first few minutes of a show I knew nothing about. Then I stopped typing. And then I sat down in front of the TV and watched, entranced. By the end of the program, I was awestruck. I watched the closing scene. Darkness fell on a suburban street, the camera caught a few isolated figures and there was Bob Dylan's voice singing, "In a world of steel-eyed death, and men who are fighting to be warm./ "Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm."

The Riches (Showcase, 10 p.m.) is what I was watching. Made for the Fox cable channel F/X, it came unheralded and as a complete surprise. The opening episode - the one I saw in L.A. and airing here tonight- is astonishingly ambitious, serious, entertaining, funny and moving. It's one of those exercises in TV drama that demolish any suggestion that what's shown on TV is empty-headed nonsense.

We meet a family, the Malloys. It turns out that they are "Travellers," a large, connected clan of grafters and con artists who exist outside normal society, travel the United States in their RVs and sometimes gather together in some remote place to celebrate their own, unique community. They have an elaborate hierarchy and despise those who live normal, settled lives. They don't have social security numbers and the kids are schooled by the clan in thievery and cons.

When we meet the Malloys, dad Wayne (Eddie Izzard) is engaged in an audacious con, which he pulls off with aplomb. Then the mission is to meet mom Dahlia (Minnie Driver) as she is being released from prison. Dahlia looks ravaged by the prison experience. She needs the bosom of the clan and, when things go awry, the Malloys flee.

What happens next is probably the best setup for a series I've seen in years. If you have any pretensions toward writing at all, The Riches' pilot deserves to be closely studied. Showcase, 10pm.

Dane Cook: Serious Actor?

Busy at it, so not much today.

What does it say that I'm actually really, really rooting for him to be good in this? I always like comics who go dark. But a guy who I don't particularly like as a comic -- yet -- I'd love it if this hype paid off.

Is that petty or anti-petty? Or is it Tom Petty? I'm so confused.

From The NYTimes summer movie pullout:

Dane Cook is a successful stand-up comic with a burgeoning film career in pop comedies like "Employee of the Month" and this summer's "Good Luck Chuck" (Aug. 24). There's nothing funny about his work in the offbeat thriller "Mr. Brooks" (June 1). The movie stars Kevin Costner in the title role, a wealthy, upstanding business executive with a secret life as a reluctant, puritanical serial killer, and William Hurt as Mr. Brooks's mysterious alter ego, who eggs him on with chilly glee. Who in his right mind would want to compete against those two? Mr. Cook does, and when he's on screen, you can't look at anyone else.

His character isn't just nasty, he's the apotheosis of vile. A voyeur with a zoom lens, he enjoys taking naughty snaps of a lusty couple in the high-rise across the street who don't believe in closing the curtains. Unexpectedly catching Mr. Brooks in the bloody act of bumping them off, he proceeds to blackmail him, but not for money. What he really wants is to get up close and personal with Mr. Brooks's murders, and demands to be taken along for the thrill.

When he instructs Mr. Brooks to call him Mr. Smith, he looks smug, savoring the pleasure of being able to dominate this dangerous man. But he also radiates an irrepressible adolescent excitement at the prospect of the adventures ahead; it's as if he were seeing himself as Robin to Mr. Brooks's malignant Batman. Mr. Cook makes his character a sort of savage baby, pouty, impulsive, underdeveloped, utterly lacking in moral brakes yet seething with an urge to punish.

The power of the performance lies in Mr. Cook's ability to make his character horrendous but ordinary, even familiar, and thus more appalling: a grandiose, macho nudnik with a raging ego and a hair-raising sense of grievance. Playing off Mr. Costner's cool, meticulous killer, he's a wild mess, arrogantly braying at Mr. Brooks while secretly shooting him anxious glances, freezing in fear at decisive moments, then cackling in borrowed triumph over foul deeds well done.

Reminder: Durham County

TONIGHT, TMN 9pm. Check the time for MOVIE CENTRAL.