Trouble Down At Mill

IT'S BEEN AN odd summer in the Canadian TV writing racket.

Last week, another Showrunner was fired off an in-production Canadian series. Tally up the writers (not all of them Showrunner-level) who have been let go, hustled out, demoted or superseded in the last few months, and so far as I can see the only top level shows that haven't experienced this degree of turmoil are Corner Gas, Murdoch Mysteries, The Border and Little Mosque. (And Little Mosque had a shuffle and turnover between Season 2 and 3.)

These kinds of changes and the unrest they suggest are significant not just for writers, but everybody working in Canadian TV. I believe the below-the-line people will have noticed by now, as the brand-new Filmport Studio in Toronto sits empty -- domestic series production is the only thing keeping people afloat right now.

Vancouver, I know your situation is different. But remember the WGA strike wasn't so long ago. Relying on the foreign service shoot hasn't done your production community any favors lately, either.

I know plenty of people out there are hurting. But it's quite a change from a few years ago when service production kept everyone humming and bought grips and electrics houses, while the writers reeled from the 1999 CRTC decision that cut the number of Canadian series in half overnight. Now, as the domestic picture slowly improves, things should be getting more stable. But yet there's all this turmoil.

What's going wrong? What exactly is the issue out there in writerland?

Some might point to the USA and say that there are replacements and changes made there too. And that's true. And there have been more of them in the last year than in previous seasons. If you read the Stepakoff book or follow Kay Reindl you might have some insight into what's going wrong there.

I think the business has been hurt more than it realizes by the breakdown in the mentoring and rising through the ranks that used to obtain. The WGA Showrunner program is trying to fill a gap that the breakdown in the system has made ever-more evident. The flip in power between network and production company hasn't helped things, either.

But the ratio of turmoil and turnover in the U.S. market is far lower than here. We simply have too few shows here to have the level of turnover we seem to be recently experiencing. Add to that the fact that in our brave new world of making pilots -- we don't actually seem to be fixing any of the problems getting a show up and running that a pilot is supposed to solve, and the elephant in the room becomes: "what really is going on here?"

In Canada, we have programs like the NSI, and the CFC and Canwest's new "Showrunner Training Program" trying to train people. In the case of the latter, though, you have to wonder at the value of the nascent program when it imports U.S. showrunners who don't know the challenges of lower Canadian budgets, or the peculiarities of the system here. Anecdotally, I guess there's some value to hearing how the pros in L.A. do it. But when you mix 'emerging writers' and 'showrunner trainees' in the same group, and don't deal with the real nitty-gritty problems that Canadian shows run into getting made -- the problems that even the networks here don't know about, you have to ask, "is this actually dealing with the problem at hand?"

Similarly, the CFC and the NSI send out new writers with series proposals. Some get optioned, fewer get made. But if there's a problem in talent management and system organization (and clearly there is) what value is there in injecting somone who doesn't have managerial experience, or even real-show experience, into the mix? Even as the CFC currently interviews potential new residents, I worry that when they graduate we're going to be throwing them to the wolves. Is the kind of attitude you see from emerging writers in threads like this and this helping, or is it making the problem worse? I know for a fact that when I came out of the Film Centre that I had a very, very different attitude about how I wanted to conduct the next few years of my career than I hear reflected back to me by the newer crop. Are new writers learning bad habits? Is that feeding the fire, here? Is the infatuation at the networks with "new writers" leading to management problems down the line? Are they being built up too much? Is this the best way to engender and build long careers?

Every series that's fired or replaced a writer this summer has got their own set of challenges and issues...so I don't want to generalize too much...but anecdotally, from what I've heard, I think all those problems have a common root:

Bad communication.

There's a peculiarity to the creative struggle here, that's got a particularly Canadian flavor to it. And that's the dominance of the passive-aggressive personality. Series, even Canadian series, are huge businesses. You're talking about a business that can employ a hundred people, and run through 20, 25 million dollars in the course of a season, in the case of the most expensive shows.

Yet it seems like rather than confronting problems as they arise, and negotiating the perilous creative waters, instead all there is is backroom maneuvering here and there and nothing happens until the drastic change is made.

I once heard what I thought was the best definition of a producer ever: "the person who can have any fight that needs to be had in under five minutes."

Avoiding the fight isn't a solution. Neither is putting off decisions. I've heard story of shows where producers argued over competing visions for what a show should be for the entire run of a show -- never coming to any accomodation or solution. No way you get a good product out of that.

In the midst of turmoil, the fear is that everyone will use this to push back on their own agendas:

• Writers will say that it's an example of not trusting the Showrunner.

• Producers will say that it's an example of writers getting too much power.

• Everyone will say that networks aren't picking the right shows or approving the right writers to staff them.

There's elements of truth in all of these, and probably half a dozen other theories, too. How do agents fit into the mix, for instance? What are they saying to their clients about how to be professional?

Becausee at the end of the day I think that's what this is. It's an issue of communication and professionalism.

Call a problem a problem. Then talk about how to solve it. Out in the open, head on, before it festers. Yes, it might make you uncomfortable. It might even make you feel icky. But there's too much money and creative energy at stake not to do it.

There's trouble down at mill. What are we going to do about it?

Jill Vs The Noobs

JILL GOLICK points out the thing that doesn't often get talked about in Canada; but should give pause to new writers looking to get their start.

Two More Sleeps

Mmmmm.

I still think I'm gonna miss Doakes. But this sure looks ... yummy.

Random Humbling Moment #478

SO IN THE last couple days, we were out on location shoots. And they were tough days. High scene counts, far out in the city, with busy streets that needed to be blocked off or traffic stopped in two minute increments. And there was rain. And bugs. And the fact that we were up against it, much of the day.

I've seen it a few times now. You look at your watch about six hours into the day and think, "we. are. screwed." Visions of having the plug pulled on you at two hours overtime keep you awake and terrified.

And then, slowly but surely, the crew catches up. They hustle a little more. Lighting that was going to take twenty minutes takes ten. The blocking goes quicker. Grips run. Electrics swear and reset mightily. The AD calls for finals and they're already done.

And all of this is done while they're getting more tired.

And you make your day.

It's a pretty impressive thing to see.

And one more random fact: unlike Toronto, where everyone's dire and shot out -- when you shoot on a residential street in Unionville -- the neighbours come out at the end of the day and bring you home baked cookies.

I kid you not.

Thanks, Maple Drive, and Unionville, and the hardworking crew of The Border, now up at Sheridan College, doing what they do. Episode 204, "Nothing to Declare," is wrapped.

The Director, Michael DeCarlo, is on a plane to Calgary, ready to start work on "The Wild Roses," after leaving behind some very classy calling cards. See you in September, Michael. Guest actors Matt Deslippe, Reagan Pasternak, Tamara Bernier Evans, Marie Ward, and Bruce Hunter made me laugh on every take. It seems like a thousand years since we started with David Fox in a former bar on Dundas, even though it was only about 10 days ago. It can be a great lot 'o fun, makin a fun little TV show.

But now, I'm back riding a desk where I belong.

P.S.A. Service To Writers: Clam Bake '08

THERE NOW, my brothers and sisters. My kingdom for some calamine lotion. Those skeeters sure can bite. Today the writer returns to his natural habitat - the warren like office with the Herman Miller chair. Oh how the forest creatures will dance and the mosquitos weep for the loss of so tasty a price.

They can suck it.

If you notice the results of the poll at left, you may note that "Did I say that out loud?" won handily in our poll of the worst clams in movies and tv, with a dominant 40% of poll respondents choosing it over such worthy contenders as "I'm getting too old for this shit," and "I have a bad feeling about this," which tied with 27%. No doubt some of that had to do with the always TV quotable Jaime Weinman weighing in and agitating for a big smackdown against DISTOL?.

Well, Weinman, you got what you wanted. But oh, the price, the price -- because by messing with the forces of nature, you might have something to do with the comparitively minty-fresh score of "Well, that happened," which only annoyed 3% of poll takers.

Writers: "Well, that happened" is still viable. Insert this ironic aside into your scripts immediately via the smart, ironic, funny sidekick with all deliberate speed.

See what you did? Damn you, Weinman!

Actually, I find the concept of the clam to be endlessly fascinating on a wonk/geek writer level. It's right up there with the provenance of slang -- why some slang words and phrases remain evergreen, [see: cool] while others date horribly [vis: rad, homeboy, "let me rap with you,"], others never really break out of their regional usage [chesterfield, bollocks, wicked] and still others wind up, hilariously coming out of the mouths of U.S. presidents. [See W.'s sad romance of the awesome.]

But back to clams. It strikes me that we haven't talked about that for a while, so I'd like to throw that open to the madding crowd. What's the most egregious clam that's out there right now? Now, now -- let's stay on point here, chilluns. I'm not talking story or visual stuff here. Let's keep it strictly on the dialogue-low. Things people say in TV and films that are supposed to be jokes, but that have become so shopworn as to be utter hackery. Go to town.

BTW, I think the whole clammy clam debate really should have been cured by the internet. I remember with glee being on Charlie Jade and being in South Africa and wondering if the dialogue phrase I was putting in was too stock, too cheap. Enter Google-in-quotes, and you see the page count with that exact phrase? Instant perspective my friends. Instant perspective.

Do Not Adjust Your Blog

WELL WELL, so many riches. The WGC contract extension passed -- which is good news for all Canadian writers. Flashpoint is on the move to Thursday, which is probably good move for that show, and the pilot to Pretty Handsome is probably the best thing I've seen since the pilot to Breaking Bad. But all that has to wait as I'm on the road to Mimico. Day 7 of 7.

Normal scribbling resumes tomorrow.

Freelancers, really? Part Three

IN PART ONE and TWO of this post, I went into the value of having a writing class in the Canadian Film and TV industry that can make a living on writing full time, and the economic and creative difficulty of "mandating" a couple of scripts per season for freelancers.

In rereading this discussion in preparation for this final post, I was struck by something new that came to me out of the comments. There were a few "freelance" writers who seemed to get a bit huffy because they thought I was calling them "part time writers." Of course, that wasn't my intent. A full time freelancer who puts together a living from many different sources during a year is, of course, a full time freelance writer. And in the sense that a writer in a story department isn't an employee, but an independent contractor hired for the length of the project, well, hell, they're full time freelancers too. It's just a difference in how you get to the point of making your year.

What we have here is a culture clash. The levers of how story departments work in Canada and how scripts are used to top up anemic salaries means that writers will always scramble for their scripts. So what we have here is a difference of opinion between those who look to staff and work on one project for a few months, and freelance freelancers (hoo boy) who want maximum freedom but access to a pool of greater opportunity.

That's a fundamentally unstable proposition. Neither method is better than the other. Both have advantages and disadvantages. There's just no way to please both groups through the mandating of one or two scripts for a freelancer each season. Whatever you decide to do, one group loses out.

It seems to me that the people who would most like there to be a "mandated freelance script rule" fall into three main categories:

1. Baby Writers who think it will make getting that first break easier.
2. Working, Full Time Freelancers who want the option of the occasional script as well as the freedom to work on their theatre, screenplay, print, or prose projects.
3. True part-time writers, who make the bulk of their money doing something else (acting, producing, crew, etc.)

Is there a way that we could improve the opportunities for these three groups without instituting the mandated freelance script, which would hurt people who mostly try and staff?

Let's take on the Baby Writers first. Guys, Girls, this may not be a thing you want to hear, but here goes:

Things are pretty good for you already.

If you have any talent whatsoever, you may not realize it but the Canadian system is already set up in such a way that it's considerably easier to break in here than it is in the USA. First of all, you have places like the CFC and NSI who are turning out grads each year, pre-vetted, that for some reason are a particularly flavorful fish for Canadian Broadcast Execs. You do have wet-behind-the-ears grads getting development deals all the time. I don't think that's always the best deal for the industry, but that's another subject for another time.

Add to that the fact that many series do look for a junior to put on staff when they're ready to go, for a very good reason: you're cheap. It all comes down to money. They can hire two or three of you for what they'd have to pay me. So there's that.

Then there's the regional nature of Canadian TV production. We have wonderful provincial barriers in this country, straining and groaning to make those tax credits work. If you are a writer from NFLD, or Alberta, or Saskatchewan or Manitoba -- heck, buddy, you may have just won the lottery. There are diversity programs you can take advantage of, if you're from a background that qualifies.

There's also the opportunity to get in at the story-coordinator level, helping a story department. You might even be thrown a co-write. Yup. Provided you actually can write, a little legwork on your part, a bit of bustle in the hedgerow, and you can truly make your own luck. But it really is on you. You have to figure it out. The movement you need is on your shoulder.

The problem isn't in the starting out -- it's the few years down the road when you're not the new thing anymore. When you have a bit of experience and some expectation. Then it gets dicey.

For groups 2 and 3 above, there are things that would make it better.

• We could try to pursue a course where we set minimums or try to raise the salaries for story editors. If the weeklies were higher, then maybe there wouldn't be such a scramble for scripts. But then again, they might hire fewer story editors. The pressure might go back to making everything freelance, with one harried overworked "head writer" having to cobble it all together. That's a sure right to quality. Sigh.
  
  
  
• We could try to take a stand against "writer sweatshops." Monitor shops that hire lots of writers to endlessly come up with story that then has to make it past a non-writing producer, all for a weekly and no script guarantee. The largely unregulated nature of this side of the business is kind of a bit of a scandal, and nobody's talking about it. Agents and business representatives have a role to play in this, too. Many Canadian agents are playing fast and loose and close to the vest when it comes to communication with the WGC. If the guild doesn't know about it, they can't do anything about it. There's a cozyness to producers out there that might not be serving clients exceedingly well.
  
  
• We could develop modes of conduct, education and outreach to people who will be running story departments, or network executives or producers, about the values of thinking about that outside person and what they can bring to the table.

As for all the things that a freelancer can bring to the table, I've often thought that what might be wise in a story department in Canada was to split or stagger contracts. A new director coming into the set can bring new energy. Why not codify that with writers, too?

What if we structured some story departments so that one writer, say, had their work frontloaded, and didn't work the whole season. And another writer came in later and started halfway through, thereby bringing new energy and torque to a show? I think that kind of worked pretty well for Blood Ties, where I joined halfway through the run. Maybe that's something that could be encouraged?

Imagine if, just as you're all getting tired, there's a new infusion of energy? That seems to me to offer the best of all worlds -- getting someone new in to bring fresh ideas and energy, and yet providing the continuity one needs to have a unified vision in the story department.

Anyway, that's what I think. What about you?

Is It Wrong?

THAT I FIND myself wanting to impress Bad Horse?


Probably not a good sign, right?


Whatever.

Friday Night On Set

IS A MAGICAL place.

When it's not batshit tense, I mean.

Friday night on set, when you're in no danger of NOT making your day, means a day that starts a little later. So people got to go out Thursday night. There's a few coded smiles and other inscrutable expressions. You arrive and the Director's wearing sunglasses. Could be a bad sign. Could just be that he's a stylin' guy.

The actors are loose. People might have even gotten some sleep last night.

You stare out at the Eastern gap and BAM, right there -- a police boat pulls another boat over, and you think, "Wow. You don't see that every day." And then if you're a writer, your mind goes to the cop asking the guy to walk a line to prove that he hasn't been drinking and how badly that could go really fast...

The silliness starts a little early. Video village, crammed in a little room -- you hear a peep of "sing, sing a song...sing it loud, sing it strong." The makeup pros are their usual lovely and charming selves. The between scene-chatter goes to the arcane and confessional. "Where were you in 1986?" "86?" you think. "Why '86?"

You don't ask though, because maybe that would spoil it.

The D.O.P. works his newfangled genuine asian-tea making contraption like Toscanini. And it does look kind of good.

About four, the sailing school starts and suddenly the gap is full of sails, sails everywhere. It's pretty and wistful, because you're not out there riding the waves yourself. The summer's slipping by and you're sailing through another workday, instead. The EP sits in for a moment and talk turns to how they see the boats go by every day and "you know what we should do! we should HAVE A PARTY ON A BOAT!" The makeup pros have the perfect band.

Well, of course they do.

The afternoon's work is a series of short scenes -- all with comedy runs in them. It's fun and loose watching the actors play. There's only one heavy scene to be done, and it's the reason we started late. We need it to be night.

People furtively discuss the upcoming hiatus. Who's going away? Who's going to stay in town? Good God Almighty Why would you stay in town in August?

They're putting up the coverings on the windows. We're going to shoot day for night for the scene. Maybe we'll get out of here before midnight. That would be nice.

The looseness continues. An AD explains the intricacies of "bag tag." He twirls his headset mic -- long, on the end of a cord -- like it's some fearsome ninja weapon. I pretend to be horrified. The AD watches one of the set PA's go by with a predator's eyes. "I'm gonna get him good," he says. We laugh, as men do when it's someone else's bag in danger of being tagged.

Lunch comes. There's a read through for the next script. I am monumentally pleased that my slightly off-color joke survived. There's another joke in there that's a matter of some controversy. I vote for 'in!' We shall see, we shall see.

I'm called back to set because an actor has a problem with a line. There's a little lump in my throat. On the other hand, it's actual, real life, honest to Betsy work. I hope this isn't going to be a problem.

The actor has a problem understanding the line. We've discussed a couple of other things this week, and made adjustments. I talk it through again. Just a minor massage gets the meaning I want in a way that the Actor is comfortable saying. There's a couple of other moments like this, where we change a word here and a phrase there. I'm not precious about any of it. In most cases, the things the actors want are small and manageable. There's a part of me that recalls, remembers that less confident writer of a few years ago -- the one who'd roll his eyes or stew or steam when an actor asked for a line change. I fight the hot wave of shame I feel thinking about that guy. The line is massaged. All is well.

Two of the actors explain to me the intricacies of "the blocking game." That's where when you have a scene where there's lots of coverage or where it's going on at the same time as something else - you try to clear your exit from the scene as soon as possible. Making sure you're not in the BG of the shot at a key time can make the difference between two hours sitting there being a human prop in the background, and spending two hours in your trailer watching "Robot Chicken."

"Of course we shouldn't be telling you this," they say. "Now you're going to specify so-and-so's there the WHOLE TIME."

I chuckle and say, "Oh, no, nothing like that. But you know writers, we're always working, filing it away, seeing if we can use it later." I say it so casually that they probably don't know that they've been warned. You know, like those signs that say "You may be filmed" when you enter a sports arena, or "do not remove this tag under penalty of law."

Well, now you're busted, boys. Suck it.

The looseness continues. There's a name-drop off -- gentle mocking at the hands of one of the performers who zealously discusses the subject of his A-list friends. Stories told of embarrassing encounters with bigger stars, foolish things said with sweaty palms.

Then the oysters arrive -- courtesy of the grips and electrics. They're crazy delicious. There's more talk of other bands, other parties to come. What we'll do and where and when. More lemon? Oh God, yes. Try it with the other sauce.

A glass of wine would be great right now. I mention that as far as I can tell, it's almost gin'o clock. The AD says, "You can't do that kind of thing in the workplace." But she smiles when she says it. We protest, but know she's right. Whatevs. It's Friday night and we're almost done.

The night's come early because we're lit for night, windows covered -- and we've been that way since 5 pm. I've been sitting and having fun and watching the scene play out so that when I emerge from the studio for a moment, I'm almost a little shocked to see that the night has actually descended.

I go back in and watch some more and get that tiny flash again, that momentary buzz where the pain of writing the script and the four outlines and the cards that didn't make sense and the subplots that wouldn't fit in and the plot point that wouldn't stay put and the arguments over this tone and that all slide away into mist and you get that whiff, that first rush from standing there and realizing that all these people are going back and forth trying to shoot, light, setup and act something that you made up out of your own fool head. How the hell did that happen?

I mention it's way more relaxing being here, on set. The Director smiles and so does the D.O.P. Seems like the other writer said that not so long ago, too. They think it's one of the oddest things they've ever heard. Set can be described as many things -- but relaxing usually isn't one of the words that leaps to mind. How do you explain the feeling you get, the joy of watching other people work, realizing, "hey, for me the heavy lifting's over?"

There's the 5 dollar Friday hat going around. 5 bucks gets you in. I'm in. Then we're moving out for the last shot of the night -- last shot! And it's only 9:30!

One more oyster? Oh no, I couldnnn--sslurrrp.

SUV's pull up. People get out. Walk into the building with purpose. Reset, let's do it again, we're trying to beat the rain. Again. The trucks start rolling by themselves. Nobody called Action. One more time. The A-Monitor is fuzzy and not coming in well. It only reads when you grip the antenna way down the shaft, and you know, jiggle it around. We all offer pointers on how to work it. The AD rolls her eyes. She's been doing this a long time. It's Friday night and the Men have reverted to boys. And the grips and electrics passed out the oysters, so you know, there's some kind of mojo happening...Oh yeah. Sing it loud, sing it strong.

One more time -- a great take. A big pause. "Check the gate."

The energy rises.

"Gate's good."

Guest Actor is wrapped for the episode. We clap. He waves on the way to the trailer. The AD smiles.

"That's a wrap."

Director reaches in and pulls out the five dollar winner. It's one of the Sound Guys. He looks surprised. .

I head for my car, and the night is humid and clear, the rain having just taken the edge off -- just a little. But there's enough edge to go around.

I look back at the studio as I start the car.

My car explodes.





No, it doesn't.
But that would be a cool ending.
Nothing so dramatic though. I drive off into the night. I feel like listening to some hip hop.
Friday night on set is the best.

6.75

WEEK TWO fast overnight ratings for Flashpoint came in at 6.75 million viewers overall for the hour, but with an uptick to 7.46 million in the second half.

That means they lost a million viewers from the premiere week. There's a couple ways to look at this. The first is that 6.75 is still about 82% of that premiere audience. That's nothing to sneeze at. And the continued growth in the second half hour means that people are tuning in, not tuning away once they find it. That's a positive sign too.

Still, you wouldn't want another drop like that for week 3.

I think the head-scratching question about Flashpoint now moves to the question I've had all along about the show:

What happens in show 18?

But there are a bunch of clever clever writers working that question right now, somewhere in Toronto, toiling away without a hiatus, in sweatshop like conditions...

Well, the last part isn't anybody's fault really -- the sweatshop like humidity has finally descended upon the Toronto summer.
Sigh.

Anyway, good news for the show and here's hoping more of those people remember to tune in from the beginning, and not halfway through next week!

EDIT: I guess the venerable Diane was right once again, the numbers reported for the hour are an average of both half hours, so they seem to be reporting them as 7.11 million. Which though my math is bad, I understand to be more than 6.75 million.

Trés Jaloux.

THE SUSPICIOUSLY BOYISH and Dapper Mike McPhaden is guestblogging on the Montreal JustComedy conference (which I believe used to be called Just for Laughs back in the day) over at Jill Golick's digs.

I'd be there too if I didn't have this job.

Whinge.

And don't forget...Flashpoint episode 2 tonight 10pm CBS/CTV

Run, Jump, Shoot, Whoa.

THE BORDER's Nazneen Contractor is featured in Toro. Photos by Franco Deleo. Interview by William Morassutti.

“I love playing Layla Hourani this season. I’m definitely more feminine. We get to see a more intimate side of Layla,” she promises.

That is all.

(The Border Season One is currently repeating Mondays at 9pm on CBC. New episodes return Sept. 29.)

Freelancers, really? Part Two

ALRIGHT, NOW. Where were we?

In Part One of this post, I laid out the vision of how I frame the question of mandating freelance scripts on Canadian series.

The brief recap is this: a suggestion was made, should the WGC try to pursue a policy like the WGA has in their MBA, where there are two freelance scripts reserved for a show with 22 episodes? That means that those scripts must go to outside writers. Through my examples and through some rather clever and cagey comments, I laid out the situation for the professional television screenwriter in Canada, and asked the question, "is the object to have as many people be able to get TV script assignments as possible, or is the object to have as many people earn a living only from their writing as possible?"

Mount weighed in with an example from another industry:

In Newfoundland, the Fisheries were structured to give fishing licences to a great many. The idea was to give the maximum number of people a way to make some kind of a living from the sea.
In Iceland, the structure was different. Much fewer licences were granted. Those who had them earned a very good living and then other Icelanders (Icelandees? Icelandicans?) made their living from secondary industries - selling boats, big screen tvs, hot tubs, etc.

Iceland still has a thriving fishing industry, Newfoundland has.... not.

A few months ago I attended the National Forum of the Writers Guild of Canada as an invited guest. (My subsequent term on the WGC Council didn't start until May.)

I found out a couple of things that surprised and pleased me. The first was that the WGC Membership actually has a higher percentage of their writers working than the WGA. I think that's a piece of good news that doesn't get out too often.

The flipside of that is that the vast majority of the membership are in an economic category where it's pretty clear that in all likelihood, they're not able to fully support themselves by their writing.

It was at this forum, looking at these charts, that I realized that at least for the last couple of years, I've been earning enough that I'm probably in the top tier of working screenwriters in Canada. That was cool to see, then scary, then cool again.

Let me break it down.

It was cool because, you know, it actually made me step back for a moment and feel lucky (and by lucky I mean, realize how hard I had worked, and by that I mean how lucky I was, etc, etc.)

It was scary because it still is unstable. If you average it out over five or six years instead of just the last two or three, it gets a little dicier. And who knows what next year will bring. Maybe I won't be flavour of the month. You just never know.

But then we got back to cool -- because I realized that the other thing the WGC has going for it is that there is NOT the massive disperity you see at work in the WGA and SAG down in the USA. Those fractious coalitions of members are held together, or not as the case may be, by a top caste who may be earning millions, and a bottom rung of many, many more people who are just scraping by. It's pretty hard to find common ground between those two groups.

Here that disperity's not as great. Which is good. But what does that have to do with the question at hand, or the object -- getting more writers to be able to have careers?

Well let's start by looking at the way it works in the USA under the WGA MBA.

There, out of twenty-two scripts, you have to hire two outsiders. In theory, this means that there's an outside pool you can draw from. In practice, what it often means is that series use these freelance drafts to "audition" writers that they were thinking of hiring anyway. You will often see that the person who got one of the outside scripts one year, the next year becomes a staffer. I think that's a pretty nifty thing.

So would that work here?

Let's look at the economic argument first, then the creative.

First, and most obviously - in Canada we very rarely do twenty-two episodes in a season. The usual order is 13. Sometimes a show might get 18 or 20 but this is very rare. In recent years, many cable outlets, places like Showcase etc, have taken to ordering 6 or 8 episode orders.

But that's misleading. Because of the number of mergers, "benefits" packages, et al, most outlets now, in development, commission a pilot and one, two, or three scripts. The most common number is two. So, those scripts are gone. So that 13 episode order is really 11, 8 is 6, 6 is 4, etc, etc.

Then lets add to how the script assignments are handled here. It's a bit of bait-and-switch really -- the payments for scripts are often used to "top up" what are poor weekly fees for story editors.

In his post on this topic, Alex Epstein at Complications Ensue put it this way:

My contract for my series gives me a lower weekly salary than the $6,000+ a junior story editor is entitled to in the States. If my show should go, I'll make that up in production fees. The WGC deal mandates that the writer of an episode be paid around 3% of the budget of the episode. (There's a more complicated formula than that but if the episode budget is a million bucks, the writer's getting a check for over $30,000.)

Normally a free lancer's script has to be heavily rewritten. A freelancer can bring new story ideas and a fresh perspective. They never turn in something you can shoot.

That's awkward because under the WGC rules, the contracted writer -- the free lancer -- is entitled to sole credit and 100% of the production fee no matter how little of their work remains.

In the US this matters less because the story editors are getting paid a whack of cash to rewrite things. That's their job, to rewrite. There is no production fee, either. So the scripts are worth relatively less and the salary is worth relatively more. It is less of an injustice to the writer actually turning in the shootable draft -- whether story editor or showrunner.

Moreover, in the US system a showrunner or story editor who heavily rewrites a free lance script is entitled to credit. So there may be no injustice at all.

Okay, so you combine this -- differences in the way the agreements work and the basic difference in payment structure and what you see is the number of scripts you get is way more important here for making your year. And there are always less of them available.

Now, sometimes when you build your story room, you might have one or two scripts left that aren't assigned. And you might see something else, too.

I've been on, and heard about, shows where the showrunner actually takes fewer scripts than some members of the staff. Partly because they're making more money, partly because they're busier, but mostly out of a desire to make that economic thing work. So if you have a great writer, maybe they get three and you get two. This is more common than you think.

Also, holding one of those scripts back can allow for a number of ways to make your room better. You could bring in a freelancer with all their fresh ideas and energy. You could use a script to reward a script coordinator, to give them a big break and get them to get their feet wet.

Or a showrunner can use that extra script as a motivational tool. For somebody who goes that extra mile, who performs really well in the room, or does extra duty, or really steps up, or whatever.

That's in a perfect world where the showrunner is given that flexibility.

Unfortunately in Canada we have this dual system in place -- an older, mostly non-writing producer driven culture where the writers are hired hands, and the move toward writer-controlled creative. But even in the latter case, you could always find yourself in a bad deal situation: a showrunner hired later or hired to replace someone might come in and find that they have a situation where the scripts are already gone, and there's very little that can be done to motivate people.

Much of this is a management issue. When there are no scripts left, sometimes things here become a little Lord of the Flies. You hear of shows that hire little writer sweatshops, where writers churn out story after story which have to be cleared with the caprices and the whims of a non-writer who's in charge. So writers in the room become jobbers, doing piecework on story that gets thrown up against the big wall with no Production or Script fee at the end of it. Dire.

As a commenter on Part One put it:

producers hire a combo of "seasoned writers", people who have written 5-10 scripts, and promising newbies (one or two who have to be from the film centre) and create a 'writing room".

once that is done they pay them a shitty weekly or monthly wage and these folks bang out story after story after story until the producers decide (on some strange whim) which one they want to turn into an episode -- "something like that happened to someone i know", seems to be the current raison de jour to make something. and then the painful process of writing the script starts.

this goes on for months and months until every possible drink option at "the paddock" or the "shoe shop" or the sutton place or the "irish heather" or "l'express" or O' Halons" has been exhausted.

Sounds nasty, don't it? See, part of my problem with "mandated freelancing" is that at the end of the day, it all comes down to the quality of the management that is running the show. On a good show, a well-run show, showrunners will use scripts to motivate and reward; on a bad show, I can easily see a return to the bad old days I've heard of from the 80's and 90's, where the "freelance scripts" were given to idiot cousins of the exec producer, or the ex-wife as part of the alimony settlement, or to the dude so and so did coke with at the Geminis. (I wish I could tell you that I made up the three examples I've just quoted. I didn't.)

Any system is only good as the people who are charged with administrating it. If you've worked in production, you know that there's a system in place where they offer extra tax credit bonuses to shoot outside the "zones" that comprise most production centres in Canada. This is classic Canadian, "spread it around" strateregy. But again, if you've worked, you know the result: this becomes the new baseline. Nothing shoots in Toronto -- you have to drive to Hamilton. Vancouver, you find yourself in Maple Ridge. With a blink, what was supposed to be an "extra carrot" just becomes part of the budget. And all you've done is guarantee that everyone has to drive an extra hour to go to work.

I have similar fears about mandating freelance scripts in our system. I just feel it will be abused. And don't say that it's the WGC's job to make sure that doesn't happen, because that, my friend, is talking about a level of supervision and investigation that's just simply unworkable. It's a non-starter.

I truly feel that this is tied in with the showrunner question, that that is the single best thing we can do to make the plight of writers better in Canada. But charging the right people with that mentoring and encouragement is key, too. When I was doing Across The River To Motor City, I deliberately argued and brought in a writer I knew who was great, and good with story, and who hadn't been getting traction getting a series gig. I gave up a production fee, and a script, because I knew it was better for the show, and because I tried to spread the wealth around. I think there are lots of showrunner level writers in Canada who feel that way. We should do everything, collectively, we can to big up those people. Celebrate them.

Showrunners who give their story coordinators a chance to do a script are doing the same thing. On a certain level, you have to put your trust in the right person there to bring people up with them. Some don't, but in my experience, most do.

Now that's my economic pitch. Here's my creative one:

TV has changed. Jaime Weinman at Macleans is better at this, and though I can't find a particular post right now, he's constantly writing about why the largely freelance vs. mostly staff culture evolved the way it did. In short, it's this: Even shows that you don't normally think of as "serialized" today have significant serial elements. The audience demands it. That, and the layer of complexity in a story demand someone who is there more than a freelancer is going to be. If you go back and watch medical dramas or cop shows from the 70's, you're going to be flummoxed by just how simplistic they are on every level. And how nothing connects. The nuance of where someone is in their relationship with so and so, or the general cant of how the "squad" is doing as the season progresses; that may not be as twisty and intertwined as, say, Intelligence or The Wire, but it's still complex enough that you want someone there that's been part of the conversation from the beginning. That is the route to great. The other way, to my mind, just won't work.

If you're a freelancer, and you want scripts, that might seem like I'm slamming the door on you. I'm not. And if you're starting out, it might seem like a barrier to you. It's not. In fact, newbies, things are actually way better for you than you think. There are plenty of levers in place to give you that first gig. It's number two and four and six that's the real issue. It's the established writers looking for a way to get scripts without having to be in the room that are really the main concerned parties here.

So if mandating outside scripts isn't a good solution, what else could be done? I have a couple suggestions, but they're by no means perfect, or complete. It's not an easy proposition to be sure.

But for that, you'll have to come back.

CBC Pilot-palooza 2008

MEDIA IN CANADA today has the skinny on FIVE -- count'em -- five pilots the CBC has ordered for the coming year. They're all half hours:

The Montreal-set sitcom 18 To Life portrays two teenage neighbours who get married on a dare and begin their life together.

The B Team, from the producers of Corner Gas, portrays an underfunded CSIS department led by an ambitious young woman. It will be shot on location in Ottawa and Winnipeg.

Also contending for a CBC series slot is Ontario-Manitoba copro Throwing Stones, a half-hour drama that finds four women from different backgrounds unwinding at the local curling rink with ice, brooms and beer.

Republic of Doyle is a half-hour drama about a father and son who fight crime - and each other - as private investigators in oil-rich Newfoundland.

CBC has also ordered Abroad, a back-door pilot about the romantic misadventures of a Canadian woman in London, based on the experiences of Globe and Mail columnist Leah McLaren. Structured as a Canada/U.K. copro, it's the only pilot in this batch that's a two-hour TV movie, not a half-hour series.

The article didn't have any other info on the creative teams behind the other projects, so if anybody has info on the teams, the creator-writers, and the provencance of the various projects, feel free to chime in below.

I look forward to the latest chorus of how this proves unequivocably that the CBC is going to hell.

Did You Vote?

VOTING FOR THE WGC 1 year extension to the IPA is now closed. I'm sure we'll hear results soon enough. I'd like to hope that we'll hear about it being approved by a huge margin, with a lot of the membership voting. But I'm starting to think that maybe that's not the way things go here.

Which is interesting. I want to call attention to 2 videos for you. They're support videos from Germany, to WGA and now to SAG, which currently still does not have a settled deal in the USA, while the "broken model" of Big Hollywood marches along quite swimmingly.



What's interesting about this is that we in Canada here have a contract that's actually halfway. Yes, we don't make lots of residuals like in the USA, but we do have some residual protection, after recoupment. I know, I know, monitoring the payments is a problem, and producers aren't always upfront about their gross -- but the fact remains that some people, right now, are receiving residuals for Canadian work they did years ago.

If you didn't vote, if you don't pay attention, if you "don't want to get involved in the politics" well, then you're helping to bring about a "European System" here. Pure and simple. Believe it.

If Jonathan Demme won one, would it be an Emmy-Demme?

MY FAVORITE THINGS about the 2008 Emmy Award nominations:

The fact that Jimmy Kimmel Live was nominated for Music and Lyrics for "I'm Fucking Matt Damon."

The fact that four out of five Best Guest Actor in a Comedy Series noms went to 30 Rock.

The fact that three out of five Best Drama Series noms are Basic Cable Channel shows -- not network, not pay cable, but basic cable channel shows . (Hmm, what do you make of that if you've got an anemic acquisition-only Canadian cable channel?)

The fact that The Wire goes perfectly into that good night having never gotten an ounce of Best Drama love, guaranteeing that people will be howling about that for years.

The fact that Andromeda Strain got a Best Miniseries nom even though nobody seems to have liked it very much. (I guess it doesn't just happen at the Geminis...)

The fact that there are now separate categories for Best Reality Program and Best Reality Competition Program. (I, for one, will sleep better tonight knowing that.)

The fact that all five nominations for Dramatic Series writing went to cable shows.

EDIT: so, what about you? Faves? Outrages? As FOTS (friend of the Sticks) G.C. points out, the fact that Mia Wasikowska didn't get a nom for her portrayal of Sophie on In Treatment while Diane Wiest... ehhhh.

Details on the Emmys can be found at emmys.com

Freelancers, really? Part One

OKAY. FURTHER TO yesterday, another writer/actor in Canada had an onset conversation with a producer about how great it would be if the WGC mandated a policy like the WGA has -- to guarantee a certain number of scripts to freelancers rather than staff writers, per show, per year. Is this a good idea, or bad? Well, Sugith reported it this way:

Al wondered out loud if this wouldn't be a good thing in Canada as well--the obligation to hire the occasional freelance writer--because if you choose someone who is not the vocal type as a story editor, while they may be a great writer, they don't bring much value added to the room. They would be more suitable as strictly a writer of episodes. But once the show is fully staffed as is usually the case in Canada, the showrunner has no room to maneouvre his or her hiring to bring in a freelancer. The obligation would keep that option open.

Having spent most of my writing career as a freelancer, I'd certainly applaud this initiative to reserve a script or two per season for a freelance scribe. In fact, when I began writing series television, virtually all the scripts were written on a freelance basis, but since about 1990, the industry in Canada has shifted to a more "American" model--staff writers hired to fill the room for a season and guaranteed a couple of episodes. It's ironic that the American model requires the freelance position!

What do you say, WGC? Think we can open the door a bit for the freelance writer--the bulk of our membership?

A commenter on his thread -- who also freely comments here and has worked plenty running shows in Canada, had this to say:

I try and hire freelancers on every show I do -- but it is hard to do sometimes because what producers do is hire story editors for wages that are too low and then top up their salary with the option to write scripts -- the script fees "top up" their story editing salaries and it becomes a bit of a free for all as story editors try and make as much money as they can for the three to six months they are working on the gig.

it's a mixed blessing -- back in the day when i got started productions would hire tons of freelancers -- maybe 13 or a series of 26. because the freelancers were not involved in the "day to day" realities of the show their scripts would have to be extensively re-written usually by me -- it was through this process that i learned how to be a writer -- now I didn't make as much money then as I do now but i learned the skills that allowed me to charge what i now do to do a gig -- kind of a get fucked for the first five years but make good cash later.

but it is not all about me.

the thing that freelancers did bring was a fresh perspective to a show. when you work staff after a while you fall into patterns -- hiring freelancers can help you break those patterns and keep the show fresh. sometimes only a dozen of the freelancers lines might remain after a "staff" rewrite but sometimes those dozen lines may give you a new character arc than you can ride for a year.

in short, i think that the WGC should be trying to insist that there should be a number of mandatory freelance hires -- maybe two of a series of 13 and four on a series of 26 -- if only to stop the lucky ones of us who get to be staff writers to stop being such greedheads,

This is certainly an interesting topic. It really is. And I'm conscious of my new role as a WGC councillor. So I'm really looking to try and reflect the views of the membership as well as I can.

But here's the thing.

Can we assume, for a moment, that the basic precept of most people who write television professionally is a desire to do that thing, and only that thing?

I mean, that's kind of the ambition of all artists, so it's not like it's an out of line dream. Most artists want to get to a point where they make money just from their art. Most professional musicians long for the day when they don't have to take a night job. (or a day job, as the case may be.) And every actor in the world wants to quit that waitering job.

And I don't think any of this is unreasonable. At all.

What's more, I think once you transfer this to other fields, the discussion becomes almost ridiculous. Nobody would dare put faith in a "part time architect" or a "weekend lawyer."

So then the question becomes how do you engender an environment where the most people possible can achieve that goal?

I mean, at a very basic level, the question we need to ask ourselves is, "do we expect a writing class that can make a good living doing this, or do we want the maximum number of people possible making SOME living from writing?"

Both those things are valid, but they also both have consequences.

Let me break it down for you.

Let's start with the former. If you have a class of people who can make a living writing and only writing for TV, then you engender a sense of continuity, professionalism, and craft. That craft can even transfer as an exchange of knowledge between the generations.

But if the goal is to have a larger group of people make SOME money from writing, well, then you get a whole bunch of other situations and consequences. The first big one is that the people who probably could make a living all the time if the industry supported that, are going to leave. Because it's too hard to grab together enough freelance gigs to make a go of it, when the object is to "spread it around."

This happens a lot anyway, for the most part. Ambition carries the best and brightest to pretend to be Americans down in L.A. The thing that separates Canada from, say, Denmark or the UK is the fact that often, the people that go get no love whatsoever from people here before they leave. Nope, there's no Hitchcock getting to remake his British movies in the USA or Little Britain before LBUSA. Tom Green goes straight from cable access to MTV. Jim Carrey is mishandled by the CBC and then becomes a superstar... whatever...in this construction, if you go, you go.

Now. Let's talk frankly for a moment about what "a living" means. I have made "a living" in Canada off my writing, exclusively, for exactly seven years now. Before that, writing was part of the equation, but not what kept me afloat. Even in the last seven years, there have been moments here and there where I've fallen back on short producing contracts to keep me afloat.

What is "a living?" Well, the first thing you need to know is that there really is nobody who's getting rich off doing this. Not here. If you get a good gig, a story editor or above gig on a series stretching over about six months or so, during which it's really hard to find the time to work on anything else, well, how much you make depends on the episode guarantee you get. Because Frank's right. The salaries are not high enough and you're "thrown scripts" to make up for that. That gig, you're probably going to amortize that mostly over a year, because it's very doubtful that you'll score that six months gig on a series, and work all the other months too. That might be your development time. It might help you down the line, but it's not gonna help you right off. Oh, and there's no guarantee you're going to work next year either, so you have to stretch your pennies.

So if you get a gig, congrats, you've scored a big plum. Now count on that being your year.

How much is a year?

Well, I might well alienate some people here who are just starting out. But it's not 50K.

There are lots of way to make 50k that are easier than writing (esp for someone who is smart enough to make 50K writing.) This is, I think, economic theory, right? At what point does the baker stop being a baker and try to go into construction because he can't support his or herself baking?

So there's a problem there: how many people in your sample are going to be professional writers?

I've lived an worked in countries where it was regular policy for writers of TV shows -- often the top TV shows in the country to have to work long hours in other jobs. Would it surprise you to know that it doesn't help with the creativity? Probably not.

But if you're just starting out, then think about this: if you don't have writers who can make a full time living in Canada, you are not going to have writers who are going to mentor you, to help you, to encourage you. At all. Because those writers are going to -- to a one -- do something else or move to the USA. It's just math. And the fact that writing is a pain in the ass. That's not a complaint, it's just the way it is.

Now. It's math that also makes mandating the hiring of freelancers hard in Canada - but I'm also going to argue that the "aw shucks" nature of the industry makes it unnecessary, while still leaving the door open for a 'third way.'

But for that you're going to need to come back...

Oh, One More Thing.

IN CASE ANYONE'S keeping track?

This is an astoundingly bad idea.

Banging the Pot One More Time

WGC MEMBERS: If you haven't voted on the question of the contract extension, the deadline is tomorrow. Details of how to vote online are available in this post.

In the meantime, does Canadian TV need more freelance writers? I think it's an interesting question with a somewhat complicated answer. Which I'll get into more when I can.

But for now, lunch is almost done and it's time to go back to set.

Hang on. More's a comin.

Um...

WHAT ARE YOU doing here? The first part of Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog is up.

Seriously. You Go Now.

Just Wait Til I Brawl With Rip Torn!

I GOT A few phone messages today that I found a bit mystifying until I came across this, in John Doyle's column in the Globe & Mail today.

In the matter of TV and the other bits of the popular culture, we Canadians have a terrifically complicated, tortured relationship with the beast. It's all passive aggressive.

Personally, I don't feel validated by merely being in L.A. and in close proximity to network TV stars. At the same time, I was delighted to see that the hilarious and wacky CBC soap opera MVP: The Secret Lives of Hockey Wives has been getting good reviews in the United States and is doing well on ABC's all-soap SoapNet channel. Some American critics got it, totally - the sexy, broad farce at the core of the show.

In The New Yorker, TV columnist Nancy Franklin wrote: "The opening credits combine funny and sexy better than any show I've ever seen: Synched to the propulsive beat of Sloan's 2006 hit Who Taught You to Live Like That is a quick succession of really close-up shots of gorgeous men getting dressed to play hockey and of gorgeous women getting dressed to go out and get those men who play hockey. The 35-second sequence is as gloriously over the top as can be, and no show could live up to it, but MVP is a good beach read, so to speak, if you need a break from all that Goethe and Plato."

It's a very good notice from a serious magazine that has an excellent eye for the delicious pleasures of pop culture.

Mind you, not everyone in the Canadian TV racket is pleased. In his much-read, daily online piece about TV, Denis McGrath (who writes episodes of The Border and tries to make it sound like he's doing Norman Mailer-esque toil on a really, really important drama) sneered with a cattiness that he couldn't contain. "I love The New Yorker, but come on, that review is like the puckish story they'll run once in a while where somebody writes, 'in defence of championship wrestling....'

Heh heh. The interesting thing is, of course, Doyle and I essentially agree, if not always on the examples, then certainly on the underlying problem. I've nosed around the points Doyle makes today quite a bit lately. And as I've stated before, my only problem with MVP was execution. I just think it didn't go far enough with the Soapy stuff. I stand by that opinion. And anybody who says different can go fight a goddamn bear.

Still, it's nice that apparently ABC SoapNet is pleased. Though I'll be damned if I could find that billboard in Times Square when I was down in NYC two weeks ago. Oh well.

Tomorrow, I start shooting my 2nd Border ep of the season, so blogging might be light til the weekend.

I've been a little nervous the last couple weeks about this script, since it's really an attempt to try and make a "change of pace" episode. It's much funnier and lighter than we've done on the show. Which is, you know...a risk.

But it read great this afternoon -- and the BLUE draft's on its way out and hopefully tomorrow things will go well.

And as an added bonus, the ep is almost a mini-reunion of people from my Across The River to Motor City project: Director Michael DeCarlo and me, plus actors Matthew Deslippe, David Fox and Bruce Hunter.

Should be fun.

Or... I mean to say, I better get a move on. Apparently I have four wives to find, and then I goddamn well better find a way to make that scene work on the day, cause let's face it -- If I can't make it work, then the whole goddamn system collapses and the bastards win...

Mailer-esque sounds like too much work.

Linkslutting Mad Men: Ooh La La.

AS THE TELEVISION Critics Association winds its way through the usual dog and pony show down in L.A., I haven't been keeping track with my usual aplomb. But as I wear out my Season One MAD MEN set (on Blu Ray, beeyotches!) I, like most of the critics, need a focus for my fawning. So just in case you missed the messiah-like attention Matthew Weiner and the Madmenites got last week, here's a roundup of some of my favorite articles.

Matthew Gilbert, in the Boston Globe, selfishly hopes the cult of Mad Men stays small:

Like many of us, I'm of two minds about the culture I love. It's a curious place to be, when your emotions are split in half, when you feel generous and selfish at the same time, giving yet greedy. You want more people to come to the party and enjoy what you like - especially offbeat creations such as "Mad Men," HBO's "Flight of the Conchords," the twisted humor of Sarah Silverman, the vintage-soul sound of Amy Winehouse - but not too many people. In that cheerful room where we exhort friends to watch a cool TV series, or listen to a perfect CD, or read a novel that will change their lives, there is a back door through which we sometimes want to abscond with the goods, alone.

Part of this possessive streak is a protective instinct. These days, in particular, it's hard to wish more popularity on anything that wasn't as solidly built for mass consumption as a Batman movie or "American Idol." At the slightest hint of a hit, the networks lean too hard, the celebrity mags pounce, spoilers leak, sequels are devised, audience expectations rise, disappointment sets in. And most importantly, the creators can lose their way. Popularity spoiled ABC's "Grey's Anatomy," just as it ruined NBC's "Heroes," which got too many eyes too quickly. Much as I encourage viewers to watch CBS's ensemble sitcom "How I Met Your Mother," I know it would probably lose some snappy in-joking, get too stuffed with guest appearances like those of Britney Spears this spring, and gain too much sweeps-event melodrama if it became a "Friends"-size hit. Now, the show is small enough to stay good, big enough to stay on the air.

A smarter and more succinct summation of the problems with the machine-like precision of our culture (a culture, ironically, that Mad Men shows the first zygote flickering beginnings of) I have not read.

But the New York Times Fashion & Style section points out that it might already be too late.

Tv Guide's the Scoop says Matthew Weiner either has a five-year plan for the show, or, um, he doesn't.

"In the life of the series, if it continues, I would like to cover this period of people's lives - and that's a five year plan and not a ten-year plan," he said. An AMC person was also quoted as saying: "What he meant was that he wants to leap forward between seasons, not just pick up where the last season leaves off. So he wants to cover a period of ten years in these character's lives, in five seasons." So we'll get five years of the show, which will end in 2011. But wait. No sooner had these quotes circulated, they changed tack. AMC then came out yesterday and said that Weiner never meant to reveal a specific timeline for the show. He was just, y'know, saying that he was planning to have timeline jumps between the series. OK. So not covering your tracks at all there AMC.

The Huffington Post said the critics at the Mad Men presser were all, like, shy and stuff, and totally had damp chairs and couldn't stop fidgeting, like, omigod, these guys are so MUCH dreamier than The Sopranos EVER WERE!!!!!!!!

Psychologically and emotionally the pull on the press was even stronger. Critics are heavily invested in this show; with most of them in agreement that it is currently the best series on television. But there is a huge difference in the relationship between TCA members and the cast of Mad Men and the dynamic they had with Sopranos creator David Chase and his actors. Whereas Chase gave brief, generally empty answers to questions from reporters, the very well liked Weiner is endlessly quotable and totally open to journalists. It is almost as if they are his surrogate therapists. Weiner knows how to give reporters several paragraphs of good copy without compromising his show or revealing any spoilers. The same is true of the Mad Men cast. They actually respond when asked questions and their answers are often quite informative, and sometimes disarming.

When asked to talk about a tragic event that one character suffers in the second episode of Season 2, Weiner politely replied, "I don't really like to talk about story lines." Then he added something far more tantalizing than a direct answer. "The second episode to me is, for all the characters, about how you should react to anything [versus] what you were told you should do," he said. "To me, we're always torn between the way we are supposed to be feeling and what we actually feel."

Then he really opened up. "I can say, being a father four times, that when you take that first baby home from the hospital – at least for me, maybe I'm a monster, I don't know – the experience of looking at a newborn for a dad can often be very strange. It's not like you're breast-feeding. You should feel something and yet you don't always [do so]. It takes time. At least it did for me. That is sort of what the tension is for me in [the second episode]."

Asked what he would say to viewers who will watch the premiere and not learn what happened to Peggy and the baby after last season's shocking finale, Weiner teased, "I'd say trust me. I will give you information as you need it in the most entertaining fashion."

Oh my stars. Yes Matthew, I will follow you anywhere. Here, take my car.

And of course, who better to interview Weiner than one of my favorite TV Partisans, Maureen "The Watcher" Ryan from the Chicago Tribune?

MR: I know you don’t want to talk specifically about what happens this season, but the fact that it’s set in 1962 – what does that mean to the show? A year and a half has passed, right?

MW: We’re further along in people’s lives. I’m telling the story of this period, and the question is, has the ’60s started to happen yet? And I actually thought it did last season, even though it was [the end] of the ’50s. I wanted to see these people a couple of years older, I wanted to move their lives along a little bit, so it wouldn’t have this kind of soap opera mood, this [feeling of] “and then and then and then.”

There’s a chunk of time missing and you’re going to have to catch up and see what’s going on. When you see what’s different, you’ll know what’s happened, which I think is kind of entertaining. And talk about a mystery -- I think from the first frame, you’re going to be trying to figure out what happened.

I think that you will get a sense that we are back with these people, that things have changed, that life is moving on and it is a whole new story. And the thing I’m kind of pleased about, and I kind of never wanted to say this in a weird way, but when you watch this season and you look back at the season before, you will see that there is already the sense that there is an innocence disappearing.

There are many reasons to [move the story ahead by 18 months], but the most important thing to me was, I didn’t want to go to the episode after the finale. I was not interested in that. I liked leaving it the way it was. I knew what happened the episode after [the finale], and I thought, then I have to do the episode after that. And all the sudden you’re watching something change in a very slow [way]. And at that point, why didn’t I do 22 [episodes]?

This way, you go to Valentine’s Day, 1962, and you get to see where everybody is – Don, Betty, Pete, Joan, Roger, Peggy, some new people. That will be its own story. There are things in there, even with the last season in your mind, you’ll be looking at. But I think you can not have seen this show ever and start with this season and see a fairly interesting situation and wonder how it’s going to work out.

I totally love and get what he's doing here, and it's exactly what I would do between seasons of any show I created. Oh, and it's all thanks to How 24 Changed Everything.

But back to Mad Men... what about the way-cool Ad Age tribute to the show, celebrating the release of the Season One DVD set?

And if you still haven't had enough, the fansite Basket of Kisses should be your next stop.

And finally, just to prove that the locus of way cool has shifted to AMC -- not only are they starting up S.2 of Breaking Bad, they're developing another period piece -- based on one of my favorite books.

All I know is that I finish shooting my second episode by July 24 -- just three short days away from the Season 2 Mad Men premiere. Suddenly that doesn't seem all that far away...

Generation Kill: The Boys in the Bright Green Humvees

HBO TONIGHT (TMN in Canada) takes a short step down the road to redemption, after the missteps of John From Cincinatti and the inexpicably renewed Tell Me You Love Me.

Generation Kill isn't perfect. And it takes a while to get into. But if you stick with it, by Episode Three this is one drama that packs a hell of a wallop to your sense of community, empathy and history.

Based on the memoir by Rolling Stone reporter Evan Wright, Generation Kill follows the Marines of the First Reconaissance Batallion, Bravo Company, as they roll into Iraq in the early days of the current Iraq war.

The show comes from Ed Burns and David Simon, the team behind The Wire. Like that show, there is a precise, journalistic style to the exchanges of the characters. It's profane and there's jargon for miles. In the first episode, I defy you to tell any of these Marines apart in their identical helmets and gear.

But if you'll forgive the pun, when they finally get into the Humvee and start into Iraq, things really get rolling. And by Episode 3, you're locked and loaded (okay I'm stopping now) into the characters and you can really focus on the story.

And it's quite a story. From the beginning, there's much swirling around in the stew of Generation Kill. You have the young Marines, who talk like Al Swearengen but less articulately. You're shocked by the sexist, crazy, racist and homicidal things that come out of their mouths. Some of the Marines are literally chomping at the bit at the thought of finally getting to kill somebody.

But underneath that, they're boys. And you realize, oh man, right...much of the conduct on the ground in this war is by young men who you probably wouldn't let stay in your cottage for a weekend (not without a huge damage deposit, anyway.)


Once the characters start to define and align -- the decent Lieutenant who's more capable than his lazy captain, (Lt. Fick, played ably and with sympathy by Stark Sands) the weary platoon sergeant "Gunny" Wynn (Marc Menchaca) and the ever seeing eye of the Reporter, (here played by Oz's Lee Tergesen) the true target of Generation Kill emerges. Scripts hew close to real events and reported conversations, and the picture of America's on the ground adventure in Iraq, of course, is not pretty.

This is the story of a unit trained to do one thing and sent to do another, with the wrong equipment, and plans based on ego, not military soundness. There are heartbreaking depictions of events that you may have read about : a village that the Marines declare all-clear is shelled and burned by an army unit whom they can't talk to because their coms won't link up.

The grunts try to do the right thing. The incompetence or agendas of those above them won't allow it. And people die. Yup, it's the same ethos as The Wire -- no matter what you try to do, the system will get you in the end. Great and light stuff for a summer's night, huh?

You'll find yourself praying for another crazy rant from Humvee Driver Corporal Person (James Ransone) just to tamp down the madness.

This is gutsy and great TV -- if you stick with it.

For info and stuff on the people and units, organizational charts, and all sorts of bushwa like that, go to Maureen Ryan for the hookup.

Flash the Pan

10pm - CBS - FLASHPOINT (PREMIERE)
Viewers: 8.03 million (#1), A18-49: 1.9/ 6 (#1)

The fast national numbers are in, and Flashpoint scored for CBS. Big. It handed them the night in terms of viewership, and 18-49 viewers, and it even built on its audience gaining in the second half hour.

We'll have to wait to hear how it did on Canadian screens -- and you can bet with Canadian nets tight fist with the numbers that we might not hear much at all if it didn't do well.

Is it a reflection that people are indeed looking for something to watch in the summer? Who knows. I'm sure that the fact that it's a crime show on CBS helped. Canadian nets that have to cadge together programs from U.S. nets don't go as far in the whole, building a brand thing, but though we found out last week that CBS is the "oldest" of the U.S. nets in terms of median viewers, it's also a place where a lot of procedural and crime shows have a home.

I still wonder what the future holds for Flashpoint in terms of being able to generate ongoing stories without becoming repetitive -- I've wondered that since the beginning with this show -- but still, it's a very strong premiere for the summer -- and a good start.

So I guess now we see.