Meet Michel Arpin, Arbiter of Our Future

I STARTED MY term as a member of the WGC's governing council in May 2008. I was elected to serve the Central Region, which is effectively Ontario -- one of three councillors from the province where the majority of members in the Writers Guild of Canada reside. The council is essentially like the Board of Directors. Several times a year the council meets to approve the workings of the union representing 1900 Canadian screenwriters. We hear about arbitrations, issues related to industrial policy, and also issues of regulatory policy.

I try to make sure I'm up to date with whatever other writers are going through. Because nothing happens in a vacuum, too, that means I have to be aware and conversant with the larger issues that are going on out in the broadcast industry. Anything that affects the health of the industry, affects the viability of future work for writers. Regulation can be dry, and boring, and it's always a matter of balancing out certain self-interested groups. But in the end if the system is going to function, you can't have blinders on and argue for your partisan needs, or exclusively from your point of view. Sometimes the good of all means seeing the other guy's problem, and sometimes it might even mean partnering up with stakeholders you don't always agree with.

That's how I approach things as a councillor. But what follows doesn't reflect the views of the WGC. This is the purview of one hard-working, pissed off working writer, taxpayer, and Canadian.

MEET THE CRTC

Most Canadians don't think about the CRTC very much at all. Or if they do, it's once a year when they tune in the Super Bowl and find out that, yes, again, we don't get to see the nifty big-budget American ads. (The CRTC gets so many calls about that they have a separate information page about it.) The CRTC was established in 1968, and its full name: Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, demonstrates the breadth of its mandate. It oversees all the regulation for Cable and Satellite TV, Broadcast TV, radio, and anything to do with telephones, both cellular and land-based. The CRTC determines what rates the cable companies can set (because they're regulated monopolies) and telephone rates, and also arbites issues of Cancon, and anything to do with foreign ownership, etc.

The basic philosophy behind the CRTC is that the airwaves are owned by Canadians, and held in trust by the CRTC for Canadians. Companies who want the privelege of using them have to promise certain things ("promises of performance.")

On their web page, they describe their role thusly:

The primary objective of the Broadcasting Act is to ensure that all Canadians have access to a wide variety of high quality Canadian programming.

The main objective of the Telecommunications Act is to ensure that Canadians have access to reliable telephone and other telecommunications services at affordable prices.

Not only must we comply with these Acts, but we also report to Parliament through the Minister of Canadian Heritage and are subject to orders from Cabinet. In addition, we must take into account the wants and needs of Canadian citizens, industries, and various interest groups.

Generally, our role is to maintain a delicate balance-in the public interest-between the cultural, social and economic goals of the legislation on broadcasting and telecommunications.

Our mandate is to ensure that programming in the Canadian broadcasting system reflects Canadian creativity and talent, our linguistic duality, our multicultural diversity, the special place of aboriginal people within our society and our social values. At the same time, we must ensure that Canadians have access to reasonably priced, high-quality, varied and innovative communications services that are competitive nationally as well as internationally.

Over the next couple years, the CRTC will be holding a number of important hearings and making a number of decisions on your behalf that will affect what you hear on radio, see on TV, and maybe even how your internet service works.

Back in 1999, the CRTC decided that for the moment that it wasn't going to exercise any regulatory authority over Canadian internet providers. But this year there will be hearings to see if the purposes of the Broadcasting Act should be extended into the new media realm. It's a very complicated process, and it will require a lot of counsel, consultation and listening to balance out all the competing interests and come to a decision that's best for Canadians.

The CRTC hearings and decisions are presided over by a group of commissioners. Each one kind of does a similar job to what I do on the WGC council, except of course the issues they preside over are way more far-ranging. Because of that, they try to balance the commission with people who have different areas of expertise. Some might know something about engineering aspects of how the technology works; some will come from the telecommunications or cable sectors. Still others will be from a public policy background. You can read about the current commissioners and where they came from here.

MICHEL ARPIN and HIS PLAYBACK INTERVIEW

Michel Arpin is kind of like a super-commissioner. He's currently one of the commissions' Vice Chairs, which means he's just below the Chairman, Konrad von Finckenstein. The commission has two Vice Chairs, one for the Telecommunications side of things, and one for Broadcasting. Arpin represents the latter.

But that doesn't exactly fully explain the degree of his power and influence. See, Arpin has served as interim chairman of the entire commission in the past. He's also been a broadcasting executive in his career, and has done long stints at the CRTC before, from 1971 to 1979. He's also served as Chair of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters.

That's a lot of industry experience. Which makes this interview he gave to Playback Magazine a little shocking and a lot disappointing. (The full article from the December 15, 2008 Playback is probably behind their firewall, but I'll reproduce the relevant bits below.)

In what was a year-in-review and next-year-preview piece, Arpin was asked, and answered the following two questions:

Will Canadian drama on our television screens be an issue again at hearings in 2009?

The decline in Canadian drama is an issue that the unions regularly put on the table. It's documented. I'm sure they will bring it to the top of the pile at the hearings.

What are your favorite television programs?

I'm a news and documentary consumer. I'm not that interested in televised fiction or even feature films. I would prefer to read a novel.

[Emphasis added by me.]

Now. Let's let that sit there for a second.

Are you outraged?

If not, can I ask, "why not?"

See, the problem is, remember how I wrote where the commission tries to balance areas of expertise? Well, Arpin is the Broadcasting guy. If you look over the other commissioners, this is the guy who's supposed to be speaking for you if you work in the creative end of the industry. He's also speaking for you as a consumer of TV. Remember that -- their words -- "the primary objective of the Broadcasting Act is to ensure that all Canadians have access to a wide variety of high quality Canadian programming." [Again, emphasis mine.]

Have I missed something here? Does primary mean something different than I think it does? Does 'high quality Canadian programming' mean something different than I think it does?

If not, then is it possible...nay, even probable... that the person serving in that position, charged with upholding the Broadcasting Act -- simply doesn't know or care about the very regulation he's supposed to be upholding?

I wasn't being solipsistic when I recounted my short WGC council experience at the top of this piece. I was laying down my personal philosophy. I think it's important that if you're asked to represent people and do a job, that you are prepared both temperamentally and philosophically to do that job. You don't get to pick and choose. I don't get to say, "I'm an adult hour long drama TV writer, so I don't really care what's going on for people who write animation, or children's, or features."

And so Monsieur Arpin shouldn't get to pick and choose which stakeholders he gets to represent on the CRTC.

Over the last couple of years, we've asked people to write interventions to the CRTC. We've asked people to go to rallies. We've asked people to try and exchange information, to work to make the products we do better. We've seen Canadian shows make inroads with audiences. We've seen culture become an election issue which may have cost the Conservatives a majority in Quebec.

But these are still all baby steps, and they don't add up to a warm bucket of spit if the gatekeeper doesn't understand, and doesn't care to understand, what the hell all the fuss we're making is about.

In essence, by his own admission, what we have with Michel Arpin on the CRTC is the equivalent of a judge of a literary award who's illiterate. It's like installing a guy to oversee Public Transit who's never taken the subway. It's like asking a high school dropout to oversee the redesign of the educational system. Or it's very much like putting people who don't believe in regulating and overseeing the financial markets in charge of regulating the markets.

And how did that work out again?

It's possible that, even with all those shortcomings, that a candidate could still be well suited to serve. All it takes is for the person involved to be truly comitted to compensating for some of their deficits. If you're not versed in an area, you take counsel from others who are. I wouldn't think of asking Michel Arpin to start watching more scripted TV or go to movies, if that's not what he wants to do. But by virtue of his responsibility and his position, I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that somehow they find a way to correct this deficit.

See, when we as creatives talk about the CTF and the need for funding for development, and support of the industry, I try not to get too upset when some uninformed people come back with the usual canard of, "If they want to do programs, they should try to stand on their own, and not look for a handout." I don't get upset about this because I don't expect the layman to understand how it all fits together -- that, in fact, none of the cogs in the wheel of the broadcasting system in this country "stand on their own." (And that a whole mess o'other industries get government support, too.) The people who whine about every dollar that goes to the CBC may conveniently forget that the private networks get a huge winfall when it comes to that protectionist "signal substitution;" that Cable co's are protected from foreign ownership, and given near-monopoly status to keep out predatory competition.

I don't mind, because I expect the professional overseers, the CRTC commisioners, to have a more comprehensive view; to understand that things like how CanCon requirements work as a counterbalance to the huge disincentive to produce homegrown shows on Private networks caused by the policy of signal substitution. Let's face it, we all know Canadian channels wouldn't air a minute of Canadian programming if they could get away with it because the U.S. dramas and comedies are cheaper, and allow them to slap their commercials over U.S. broadcasts, getting two bangs for every buck.

But what that interview segment above, when combined with Arpin's conduct on the commisison in the last while, proves is that he isn't thinking of creatives. He can't wait to dismiss us. He is not engaged on our issues, he doesn't care about our arguments, and he goes through the motions to appear like he's doing his job, when really, the fix is in from the beginning on every issue.

So it doesn't matter that there was all that hard work done to show that splitting the CTF in two was a bad idea: Arpin listens to broadcasters and cable types -- not creative types.

Occasionally, even the constituencies he cares about go too far, like asking for carriage fees, and he may rear up and speak out about that...but it doesn't change the fact that basically -- he's completely unwilling to look beyond his personal biases. Now you start to understand why everyone on the commission talks about strengthening local news, but not about drama or comedy. Arpin wants to control the remote for you - and serve up the kind of stuff he wants to watch!

If you are a cultural worker, or simply one of the millions of people who do like to watch TV or go to movies, Arpin doesn't really care what you think, or what you want.

As Vice Chair, Arpin has a lot of influence in shaping the way the public consultation process works. If you read that response above in its proper context, you can see how things start to go. It's why the Cable companies and the Broadcasters went first at the last set of Broadcasting hearings, and why the Creative Unions were shunted to a day after the cameras were gone. And it explains and contextualizes further the bizarre dismissive tone Arpin took when the WGC had individual screenwriters tell their stories.

This is a man who isn't even pretending anymore. He feels so above us all as to be able to openly show contempt for the people he's supposed to serve.

WHAT TO DO?

This is where it gets tricky.

Arpin's term as a commissioner doesn't expire until 2010. By then, many of the decisions that will determine where the industry goes will be made. In 1999, they relaxed CanCon rules and it killed the scripted programming game for years, and drove many out of the business. When I sit in on my Council meetings, it's with the knowledge that by the time my term expires, I should have a pretty good idea about what my choices will be. Those choices? Stay in the business and move south. Get out of the business and do something else. Or stay in the business here -- but only if there's a business to stay in.

I brooded on that Arpin interview all through Christmas. I kept expecting somebody to pick up on it. A guy who's in charge of protecting Canadian programming who freely admits he'd rather read novels? Who dismisses every other genre but news? I mean, surely someone would write about that, right?

But no journalist, to date, has picked up on it. Playback let it lie there. So I guess, again, it's up to us. If you're a fan of television and would like the chance to see a bit more diversity through some more quality Canadian shows...if you're one of the millions who watched Flashpoint or Corner Gas or Being Erica or Wild Roses, or Mercer or Trailer Park Boys... then what can you do?

1) Contact or Write Your MP

This is a nice, clear, very specific issue. It's the kind of thing that could make a good question in Question Period. Contact your MP, talk to them about the CRTC and ask why Canadians have to put up with a man with the power to decide what they see on TV and in the movies who admits he doesn't care about either?

Here is a list of MP's office phone numbers and addresses. Make an appointment, drop by, or write your MP and ask them to raise this issue in Question Period.

2) Contact the Commissioners of the CRTC.

They are public servants. Now that Arpin's interview has opened the door, wouldn't it be interesting to know who, in fact, watches what? Is there anyone on the commission familiar with Canadian TV and film?

Write the CRTC:

By mail:
CRTC
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada, K1A 0N2

By courier:

Les Terrasses de la Chaudière
Central Building
1 Promenade du Portage
Gatineau, Quebec J8X 4B1

By fax:
819-994-0218CRTC Commissioners:
Write at the address above or phone:

Chairman, Konrad von Finckenstein 819-997-3430

Vice-Chairman, Broadcasting, Michel Arpin 819-997-8766

Vice-Chairman, Telecommunications, Len Katz 819-997-8766

Commissioner, Michel Morin 819-953-4375

Commissioner, Marc Patrone 819-953-9958

Commissioner, Timothy Denton 819-953-5388

Commissioner, Louise Poirier 819-953-0435

Part-time Commissioner, Peter Menzies 819-953-5241

Commissioner, Elizabeth A. Duncan
(Atlantic) 819-997-4764
902-426-2644

Commissioner, Suzanne Lamarre
(Quebec) 819-934-6347
514-496-2370

Commissioner, Rita Cugini
(Ontario) 819-997-2431
416-954-6269

Commissioner, Vacant
(Alberta/NWT) 819-997-3917
604-666-2914

Commissioner, Candice J. Molnar
(Manitoba/Saskatchewan) 819-997-4485
306-780-3423

Commissioner, Stephen B. Simpson
(B.C./Yukon) 819-953-6026
604-666-2914

3) Write the Chairman of the CRTC.

Express that you have concerns that Michel Arpin is not working in the best interests of Canadians, or the primary goal of the CRTC as laid out in the Broadcasting Act. Suggest that the Chairman request Arpin recuse himself from any hearings that have to do with Canadian programming or that might affect Canadian Content provisions, until such time as he shows a willingness to become conversant with the products and stories made by Canadians.

The Chairman of the CRTC can be reached via email:

konrad.vonfinckenstein@crtc.gc.ca

4) Contact Michel Arpin's office:

Impress upon Monsieur Arpin that you are a Canadian citizen, that you do watch TV and Film and enjoy them both. Ask why you should be confident that Monsieur Arpin will protect the position of high quality Canadian programming when he freely admits he doesn't personally care about any of it?

While you're at it, you might want to ask why he seems to show such contempt for the Creative Unions every time they appear before him. Maybe we've got all this wrong. Did a writer kill his pet hamster or something?

Remember -- be nice and respectful. The guy has had a long career and there are lots of people who respect him. If he has become arrogant enough to think that he isn't responsible to anybody, then being ostreperous right back isn't going to do anything to disabuse him of that notion.

Those are the sticks. How about we try one tiny little carrot?

5) Hearts and Minds, Hopefully With Popcorn

There's that old axiom about being able to get more flies with honey than with vinegar.

For this next step, then, you can help me if you're a producer, or if you're involved with a Canadian Film or Television Program.

One of the most wonderful things that's been done in the last little while for the arts in Canada is a one-man crusade by Man Booker Prize winner Yann Martel (Life of Pi) to try and bring Prime Minister Stephen Harper "stillness" by sending him books. The eclectic and interesting list of the books that he's sent since 2007 can be read here.

I'm proposing we do the same thing for Monsieur Arpin with Canadian Film and TV shows.

After all, it's a lot of work to try and get into something. And maybe we'd have more luck changing Monsieur Arpin's mind if he had some material to work with. The trick, though, is not to bombard him with a bunch of stuff all at once. That's just going to be an annoyance for the poor staffers.

What I propose is this: if you have a DVD box set of a recent Canadian TV show or Film you'd like to have considered for inclusion in Mr. Arpin's library, contact me at heywriterboy@hotmail.com.

Once a month for the next year, I'll pick a program set and send it off to Monsieur Arpin c/o the CRTC, with a letter explaining the show and what people like about it. If you'd like to join in the discussion of what shows/films should be sent, come join a group of engaged Canadian Writers & Creative types over at Ink Canada on Facebook.

Maybe Monsieur Arpin won't watch all these shows...maybe he won't watch any of them...but you know, there are a whole bunch of overworked staffers at the CRTC, and maybe we can win their hearts and minds, bit by little bit. I'm sure things get slow in Gatineau now and again. You know what they say...be nice to the assistants!

If nothing else, maybe Arpin can leverage his box sets for a borrow of one of the PM's novels!

For the first send, I'm going to start this up simply by sending a copy of the Season 1 DVD box set of THE BORDER, the show I just finished working on. (Hint to Arpin: Stockwell Day's a fan...maybe you can get him to ask Steve if you can get the really good novels Yann sent.)

Finally, dear reader, you can try to make a difference by forwarding this to anybody you might think would be interested.

And any journalists or radio types, I'd be more than willing to talk about this initiative to you.

Hopefully, by casting light on one powerful man's biases, calling him out, and making sure that one high-placed guy has access to a wide variety of high quality Canadian programming, we can get back to a place where we all have that opportunity.

Mad, I Tell You...

YOU KNOW HOW it sucks like, when a TV series ends, and you've got to wait all those months til it comes back again and you can go back into that world? Did all those Golden Globes for Mad Men just leave you pining for more?

Sorted.

If you go on Twitter, you may have missed your window to follow Don Draper (poor lamb seems he might be too busy to continue.) But no matter, his lovely wife Betty seems to be picking up the slack. And young Sally, their daughter, might become quite a tweeter herself, if Betty doesn't kill her when she finds out about the smoking. Bobby's getting into it, too.

There are clients of Sterling Cooper on the Twitter, too. Let's see, there's comedian and Utz snacks pitchman Jimmy Barret!

Sterling Cooper itself has gotten way into the whole spirit of things, too. You've got the old man, Paul Kinsey, Ken Cosgrove, Harry Crane, Joan Holloway, Roger Sterling, Sal Romano, that hottie-totty Jane Siegel, poor old Freddy Rumsen, even Hildy and her boss, that weasel Pete Campbell.

Some are more active than others, you know? Like Duck Philips hasn't said much for awhile. Not going to speculate on why...cough...rubber arm...cough.... And I'm also afraid the pressure might have taken a toll on dear Peggy Olson. Her personality seems to have split into two. Just like The Three Faces of Eve! I hope she has the strength to talk to that nice Father Gill about it.

And of course, like in any firm if you really want to know what's going on, talk to the girls on the switchboard, or better yet, hang out at the photocopier!

Now can someone explain something to me? Who the hell is this Dick Whitman guy?

You dig a bit further into this tale, and there's a story as interesting and as unlikely as any you're likely to see on the TV. What started as fanfic 2.0, caught AMC's ire, and then came back. Curious, this age we live in? Facebook, are you listening?

(I know that I'm terribly late coming to this by digerati terms, but hey, I'm not the only guy who just got on Twitter in the last month.)

Here's the strange thing. Even though I'm pretty out on a limb as not digging fanfiction...this...this I think is ... cool. And groundbreaking and fun, and I don't have a problem with it at all. I'm not even sure I can express why, exactly. And that's why this age is just so ... endlessly surprising.

So check out the Mad Tweets, if you have a chance. And while you're at it, take a look at Betty Draper's blog.

Gosh, something tells me she just isn't very happy there in Upstate NY in 1962.

Skins-tastrophe

WHOA. THIS IS more of Jaime Weinman's usual beat, but I just happened to be doing a flip around and caught part of the last episode of season 2 of Skins on Super Channel. I'm going to assume that they didn't do a different master version for Canada, so I'm guessing this applies for the United States as well.

One of the best parts of Skins, of course, was the music -- an incredibly lovingly-hand picked mix of the eclectic and trippy. Old school reggae, modern British house, weird folk, instrumental, industrial -- it ran the gamut.

But the finale was something different again. The final song playing as Sid scours Times Square for Cassie, is MGMT's Time to Pretend. You can see the scene as originally intended on YouTube (embedding is disabled but click the link) One look at the lyrics, and you'll see how the song kind of perfectly summed up the attitude through two seasons of Skins.

I'm Feelin rough I'm Feelin raw I'm in the prime of my life.
Let's make some music make some money find some models for wives.
I'll move to Paris, shoot some heroin and fuck with the stars.
You man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars.

This is our decision to live fast and die young.
We've got the vision, now let's have some fun.
Yeah it's overwhelming, but what else can we do?
Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute?

Forget about our mothers and our friends.
We were fated to pretend.

I'll miss the playgrounds and the animals and digging up worms.
I'll miss the comfort of my mother and the weight of the world.
I'll miss my sister, miss my father, miss my dog and my home.
Yeah I'll miss the boredom and the freedom and the time spent alone.

But there is really nothing, nothing we can do.
Love must be forgotten. Life can always start up anew.
The models will have children, we'll get a divorce,
we'll find some more models, Everything must run its course.

We'll choke on our vomit and that will be the end.
We were fated to pretend.

Harsh, melodramatic, kind of like, you know, being a teenager. The song that replaced it on the DVD and North American broadcast version is so anemic, so terrible, that it robs the scene of all its impact.

You know, I'm starting to think Needle Drop isn't worth it. Not if some fucking lawyer can just go in there and bung up the ENDING TO YOUR SERIES. Gaaah!

Don't buy the Skins DVD. Stay ah-wayyyy.

Up Is Down and Black Is White

MYTHS ESSPLODED in this Toronto Star article about CanCon animated show "Total Drama Island." (The second season of which, entitled "Total Drama Action," premieres tonight at 6:30 on Teletoon:

1) Canadians don't watch Canadian shows.
2) Americans won't watch Canadian shows if they have Canadian references.
3) The U.S. gets everything first; Canadian TV is way worse.
4) If you're doing a show for the U.S. market you better strip out all the Canadianisms.
5) Knowing your audience better doesn't help your show become more successful.
6) We can't do high concept.
7) Teens have been trained to hate homegrown Canadian shows just like older Canadians.

In the eyes of the many tween American fans of the Total Drama Island animated series, Canada sucks.

First off, there's obvious jealousy over this locally created series. The second season of the series, now titled Total Drama Action, debuts at 6:30 on Teletoon tonight, a good six months before the hit cartoon reality show – created by Liberty Village-based Fresh TV – returns to Cartoon Network in the U.S.

"If you go on the blogs of the American viewers, there is a kind of jealousy there. It's like, `Oh, those Canadians, they get to see everything first. We have to watch it on BitTorrent or YouTube chunks before it gets pulled off.' So it's this whole kind of subversive thing for them to see it early," says creator and executive producer Tom McGillis.

"It's a really fun thing that Canadians get this really sought-after show well in advance."

The first season of the series featured 22 teenagers at a fictional camp in Muskoka. Each character is a teen version of reality-show stereotypes: there's Owen, the happy-go-lucky fat guy; Leshawna, the homegirl; Beth, the wannabe sycophant; and Lindsay, the princess. The show mixes in elements from Survivor, Fear Factor and The Amazing Race. There are challenges, and, obviously, the voting off of a character until there is a winner. Like most "real" reality shows, this one is serialized, which – considering it airs later in the U.S. – initially posed a problem.

"When we sold the show to Cartoon Network, one of the first things that the head of programming said to me was `Tom, I just Googled your show, and I know who wins. What are you going to do about this?' And I was like, 'I don't know.' So I went through this ridiculous process trying to shut down the Wikipedia site and the spoilers, which were all over the place. And I failed. Luckily, the U.S. audience didn't mind so much."

That's a bit of an understatement. The first season just ended in the U.S. with incredible ratings, dominating with under-14-year-olds, and in some ages groups showing a 500 per cent ratings increase in the time slot. The show is just as popular with the tween set in Canada, and is unabashedly and proudly Canadian in its references. As such, tonight's premiere of Total Drama Action (the series plans to change the third word in the title as it progresses) is hotly anticipated.

Why is there no adult-oriented animation coming out of Canada?
Why do we continue to coddle the "if it's Canadian it must suck" crowd?
Why do we not hear about these successful shows so often?

All great questions. I don't have answers for them. That's up to you, I guess.

The Following Takes Place Between Me Being Really Really Psyched and Really, Really Bored

[SLIGHT 24 SPOILERS]


THE GOOD NEWS: Cherry Jones makes an awesome alt-world Hillary. Colm Feore, Janene Garafolo and Annie Wersching are solid additions to 24 lore.

THE BETTER NEWS: There's an early twist that makes for some great 24 goodness.

THE BAD NEWS: It doesn't happen til 10:17:36 -- well into Hour 3.

BSGooooood

So, um. About the Battlestar Galactica final set-o-episodes kickoff next Friday night? Um, you should read this:

Squeeeeeal.

Ghosts Love SWAT Cops

MARC BERNAN at MediaWeek has the skinny on the "Second Season Premiere" of Flashpoint.

There's always a good argument here about what constitutes a "season." I'm of the opinion that a season is as the creators intended it to be...so if you had a 13 episode season when it was written and conceived, that's the season. Broadcast Networks, of course, get to promote it however they want. (Lifetime chose to call eps 13-22 of Blood Ties "season 2" -- which kind of confused some fans, and sort of bunged up the continuity we had going for the season long arcs, bu whatever.) There might be handwringing on the creative end when you realize they're rolling out 4 eps that were meant to be 10-13 as 1-4, but there's nothing to do about it. What do you think? Does the fact that they're calling Episode 10 of Season One of Flashpoint the 2nd season premiere matter? I guess the real answer is: only if it tanks.

And it didn't.

Over to Bernan:

It was a clean sweep for CBS on this second Friday of January 2009 with its combination of Ghost Whisperer (Viewers: 10.63 million; A18-49: 2.5 rating/8 share), the second season-premiere of Flashpoint (Viewers: 10.06 million; A18-49: 2.2/ 6) and Numb3rs (Viewers: 10.08 million; A18-49: 2.4/ 7). The positive news for Flashpoint, of course, was retention out of Ghost Whisperer of 95 percent in total viewers and 88 percent in the demo. In these tough economic times, it pays to shop around for quality Canadian programming. There is plenty of it.

So I guess expect some knocks. I'm not exactly happy about this, to tell you the truth. The problems creatives are fighting here -- for creative control, recognition of the showrunner, etc, etc, aren't going to be helped with all the pressure now to find a U.S. shotgun sugar daddy. "Pretty good" is the enemy of "great." And I'm firmly of the opinion that while you may be able to kludge a good show together if everything goes your way, unless the person calling the shots is a writer who understands the vision at that basic DNA level -- it's never going to be great. And no manner of sales Stateside is going to make the material better. Especially when grasping ego issues make the "sale" itself secondary to the access.

It's a dangerous thing when you give someone who's only giving you 2 or 300 K an episode carte blanche creative control. It's a small investment for them, but it's everything to you.

Then again -- the scuttlebut I've heard from people who have worked on both Flashpoint and The Listener (upcoming on NBC...sometime...) is that the U.S. network notes are sharp, and on-the-money. Wouldn't it be something if U.S. networks wound up forcing Canadian networks to raise their game in the provision of notes? Hmmm.

In any case, congratulations to Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern, and their hardworking fellow writers, including the Season 1 head writer Tassie Cameron. They don't get enough credit for the success of Flashpoint.

Now wouldn't it be interesting if the next time a U.S. net came knocking, they picked a show with an actual writer-showrunner?

Maybe Lee Goldberg should come up here and do his Germany talk. Not to the writers, Lee. To these guys.

Late Late Late

THE Q Podcast is now up. My Tube Team with Tara Thorne comes up about a quarter into the podcast.

Nailed It!

IT'S BEEN A pretty good couple of years for TV writers and politics. First you had the final season of the West Wing eerily mirroring the two-years off Presidential race. (Which caused a sensation when it finally ran in the UK, because, well, it's eerie.) Then there was the strange serendipitous turn that the most colorful VP candidate ever just happened to be a doppelganger for one of the sharpest minds in comedy. Then there's the other former SNL comedian & writer who apparently just got elected Senator from Minnesota. And now, damn you HuffPo's Jason Linkins, you beat me to it:

Old Impeached Blago just got up and totally went Clay Davis on our ass.

For those of you who didn't see that memorable scene from THE WIRE, well...here you go:



Now take a look at this:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Man o Man. All I can say is...

"That is some shameful SHEEEEE-yit."

Moncton!

I CREDIT WEINMAN for spotting one from Earl Pomerantz first, but it's still a pretty good one.

And in a weird bit of serendipity, I just got finished writing the non-funny version of that anecdote for a funding agency. Sigh. The things you do to try and get your shekels.

Ink Stained Sympathies...

TO THE NERVOUS scribes & others at Toronto paper the Globe & Mail , who are going to be losing 10% of their workforce.

Flashpoint Back

REMEMBER THAT FLASHPOINT returns tonight @ 9pm on CBS/CTV.

And if you'd like to follow some behind the scenes action, one of the co-creators of the show is now offering 140 character tidbits of golden goodness on Twitter.

They've started shooting Season 2, though the episode that airs tonight is one of the four left over from the first season of 13 eps. Still, it's got CanCon heavy hitters, far as they go. Colm Feore plays a big industrialist, and Wendy Crewson is his wife who winds up with a bomb around her neck that they threaten to detonate if she speaks at the ACTRA rally again.

...kidding.

Or am I?

On Being Erica

THE VIVACIOUS ERIN KARPLUK, (don't you love it; see, Canadians are so laid back they don't even think of going with stage names. Dollars to donuts if she was 'Murrican that would have been Erin Karmichael, like, five years ago) was a guest on CBC's Q yesterday. Listen to the podcast here.

Conversations with Writers, Part XXXV: Why Why Why?

NOT A LOT of blogging time today -- I have to bounce between jetlag and pitch-shaping. But I've had two separate conversations this morning with writers complaining that they've reached the "why why why" notes part of their development projects. A little serendipitous considering the repost I chose to go with the other day.

One other thing to come out of these discussions has to do with story real estate.

In the world of the 20 minute half hour and the 40 minute hour the problem with the "Why" obsession is that when execs insist too much on the explanation, the time you have to spend on that explanation is robbing time from the entertainment value of the show. (Oddly, film has the opposite story real estate problem. Because running time isn't finite, and it's Director-driven, and Directors are deferred to in a way that writers usually aren't, today you have comedies that should be 90 mins regularly clocking in at 2:10. Think about it. When was the last time you saw a movie that wasn't too long?)

The only alternative to robbing entertainment to explain 'why' is to make the 'Why' intrinsically hilarious or compelling on its own. But of course, the 'why' rarely is. Which is why you want to spend your time on the 'What happens next.'

Last time we got hung up a bit on concrete examples, which is why one of my conversationalists this A.M. really hit on something. The example is Groundhog Day.

If you think of Groundhog Day -- the only 'why's' that are ever explored is the 'why's' behind the individual choices Bill Murray makes during his endlessly repeating day. What you are NOT ever given the 'why' answer to is:

Why did this start? Is it God? Why did he pick Bill Murray? Why this particular Groundhog Day? In other words, Danny Rubin & Harold Ramis do not bog you down in any of the metaphysical questions of how this world came to be or why this is happening to Bill Murray because they know it doesn't matter; what people want to see -- what they will enjoy, is seeing what happens next: why Bill Murray makes the choices he does, and eventually, how he comes to see the world differently.

Well, wait, when he sees the world differently, why does the day move on?

Because it does.

But why?

I don't know. Why do you think?

And that's the movie, and the audience's experience of it.

Now a more recent example of the other way to go - Ghost Town. In this movie, Ricky Gervais' character suddenly starts seeing and being able to talk to dead people. Why? Well, in this case, the explanation of the 'why' IS inherently entertaining. It leads to a great little scene where Gervais slowly pulls the fact that he died for seven minutes while under general anaesthetic out of his reluctant Doctor and a hospital laywer. The scene doesn't particularly move the plot along, but it is entertaining, and helps to reveal Gervais' character a little bit -- you see how impatient he is.

So there you see, the difference in two films where a big "Why" is left unanswered, and where it is answered. And the difference between them is entertainment value. If you can answer the "Why" in an entertaining and inventive way that the audience will enjoy, then do it. But if you can't, it's probably better not to shoehorn in an explanation that may add a scene to a schedule and rob you of a minute of time that could be better spent on making the funny, or deepening the stakes or suspense -- whatever genre you're in. Remember that the total audience you're writing for is not the Simpsons' Comic Book Guy, who are specifically looking for any little thing they can pick apart so they have something to say on Television Without Pity. Civilians just want to be entertained.

In TV, the "Why" argument can go on and on for years. There are lots of people out there who want to say that the pain in his leg is the reason HOUSE is the way he is, even though the show has gone to great pains to suggest here and there that he was completely the same even before the thing with the leg. So why is he that way?

I don't know. Why do you think?

Though I'm a big believer in trying to accomodate notes whenever you can, the tyranny of the 'why' can be particularly destructive. Because it forces you to spend brain real estate on something that doesn't make the story better. If there is not an entertaining answer to your 'big why' question, then it doesn't belong in the picture, and this one of those cases where you might have to take a stand.

So, with that in mind: here's your homework: Besides Groundhog Day, can you name other comedy or dramas where a big "Why this Happened" went unanswered and worked -- where, in fact, an explanation of the 'why' would have ruined it.

(Which I firmly believe about Groundhog Day, BTW.)

Night Moves

I'M BACK. And what's more, I'll be on CBC Radio's Q tomorrow talking late night tv.

First hour, about halfway through.

Reprint: The Bible Takes a Belt

Allllmost back. This was a bit of a doozy.

WILL DIXON has a riff up at his digs about Series Bibles. It comes courtesy of another one of Diane Kristine's excellent craft-related posts from the Banff TV Festival:

Hoselton confirmed that House doesn't have a show bible, a document that supposedly collects the known facts of the series. "It's sort of a joke," he revealed. "Every now and then, somebody will say 'Where does Wilson live?' 'I don't know, it's in the bible.' "

Greenstein suggested show bibles are not particularly common or useful, given the collective memory of the writing staff and the availability of episodes and scripts online. "If there's one on Desperate Housewives, I haven't seen it." In fact, he hasn't read a bible for any of his shows. "It's probably a useful tool if you're a freelancer," he shrugged. "But the series bible to me is a relic of pre-Internet days. It's not necessarily a tool we worry about."

Pretty much every US showrunner I've spoken with over the past few years has echoed this sentiment, that TV series bibles are a thing of the past. There might be a pitch document that gives character overviews and the gist of the show and where it all might go, but once it gets rolling the 'bible' really only lives in the writers room and showrunner's head.

But here in Canada for some reason, bibles continue to be a broadcaster-required necessary evil. I suppose it helps the execs maintain some control over the creative process ("That can't happen, it's not in the bible!"), but it can truly stifle the natural progression of things.

Good TV series don't happen according to a hard and fast pre-designed plan...they evolve. Of course you need a jumping off point, but once production begins, actor chemistry develops and character relationships take on a life of their own...pitches that sounded great don't end up that way on the page...arcs that felt right don't play out as well as expected....budget crunches require a bottle show or a lot of studio shooting...and then there's the audience response to take into account. And by that I don't mean listening to the screeching of the Internet fan boy/girls...I mean getting a sense of what viewers are responding to once shows go to air (what they are digging and what they aren't) and then applying it to future episodes.

And most importantly, there's 'the rooms' response to produced episodes. If you are any good as a creative, you should be able to recognize if something is working or not. But that can't happen if the season is being mapped out in minute detail from beginning to end prior to filming even beginning. And if it wasn't working, it'd be so painful to keep adhering to the bible because someone upstairs kept saying you had to...and by upstairs I don't mean God, though some may see themselves that way.

First of all, congratulations, Beavis. I wasn't going to touch this with a ten foot pole. But now that you have...

I'm of the opinion that a short(ish) bible is an OK necessary evil to get a TV series greenlit. By shortish, I mean something in the twenty page range - where you have a few pages of the basic premise, the characters, maybe a tiny bit of backstory, and thumbnails of possible episodes. If it helps an executive to see the show, then fine.

Just as long as you realize one essential, important truth:

The bible is a completely useless document for a story department, or a writer.

Useless? Did he really say that? Yes, he did. Why is he saying that?

Well, for most writers, you're going to get a sense of the show by reading a really good pilot script. If you don't, it's not a really good pilot script. The problem with a Bible is that it can paper over a whole bunch of storytelling sins that actually make it harder to make a show. How?

1) It locks you in.

There are people out there who don't like uncertainty. But a prose document is not a living breathing script. And I've never met the writer who will spend as much loving attention on a bible as you will on a script. You just don't. You can't. One, because experience shows you time and time again that the show really develops in the room. That's the creative process. Like when Ken Girotti was talking about Directors, the development meeting, the development of that script -- that's where you get to shape the show. If you stand over demanding what was in the bible, what you're really saying is that there can be no deviation from that initial thing conceived in haste when you knew the show a lot less.

I know it may be counterintuitive if you're an accountant or a bureaucrat or something. And I'm sorry about that. Did I mention that creative people were freaky? We are. Sorry. But if you play our way, you will occasionally get a great show. Your way?

NEVER.

EVER.

EVER.

Clear? Wait.

EVER.

I've used this example a bunch of times...but on The West Wing, Bartlett had two daughters, until he needed the third. Aaron Sorkin wasn't locked into that third daughter long before they had need of her because it had to be pre-approved in a bible.

Demanding a bible, and then forcing a story department to adhere slavishly to that document is exaclty like forcing a band to release their first demo of a song -- or that if they re-record the song, forcing them to make it sound EXACTLY like the demo.

It's a stupid way to work.

2) It papers over storytelling sins.

Was something not clear in your script? Okay. No problem! Explain it in the bible.

"But wait," you say... "the audience will never read the bible!"

"Aha. Exactly."

3) It doesn't help you write the show.

When you do have a bible, here is the guaranteed thing that happens every time you go to the one pager in that bible that describes the story you're about to write.

"uh huh. what? Goddamnit, this is all handwaving! It doesn't help AT ALL."

Network types in Canada feel very comfortable talking about Bibles. They're documents, they're hefty, they look good going to the CTF, and you can argue over little thumbnails here and story ideas there and whether this character should come from a three child household or two or be an only child.

But it doesn't get you any closer to creating a good script.

Recently, many Canadian shows found themselves having to write Bibles -- long Bibles, BIG Bibles for shows that were returning for subsequent seasons. In other words, there were already 13 or 26 episodes in the can and they STILL wanted a Bible!

There are other shows that have had lengthy Bibles for a good long time -- and it doesn't help them to get to finished, useful scripts. This is happening now. Right now. Bibles are not making for better series.

The problem with The obsession with the Bible is that it allows you to discuss ephemera and arcana; it lets you off the hook from seeing the movie or engaging with story. It makes creative storytelling more like writing a big old Psychology Paper.

Which, as you all know, you always do the night before anyway.

As a short primer for a new show, or even a document that a new writer reads first to get a taste for a show, I see the value in a Show Bible. I do.

But that stock is seriously overvalued in this country. And that lesson is yet to be learned. If you can't trust the creative process, then you probably shouldn't be involved in the creative process. Or you picked the wrong people to see it through.

The most important thing you do to influence the creative direction of a show?

Hire a writer. Buy their pitch. Discuss it with them. Give notes.

Er...that's it.

Obsess on the Bible, and you may think you're getting the show you want, but all you've done is force somebody to play around with the baby scissors, the magic markers and coloured construction paper.

Eventually, you gotta let someone get a hold of the sharp scissors.

Yes, they're sharp.

That's why it's fun.


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Reprint: Specing Serially The Easy Way

BECAUSE I'M SO very fancy, TMN, the pay broadcaster that runs most of the Showtime and HBO product up in my neck of the woods, sometimes sends me screeners of upcoming shows.

So it was this weekend that I screened the first episode of Season 3 of Dexter. I'll write more about the specifics of the show closer to the September 28 premiere date. (The short version is that I liked it a lot and think it really sets an interesting tone for the season.)

But that also lines up nicely for a persistent question that you always get about specs: specifically, in a show like a Dexter or Weeds or The Shield that's serialized quite heavily, how do you do a spec?

It's true that especially among cable shows, there's a great cohesion to individual seasons. Dexter Season 3 is going in a different direction than the two seasons before it, (and not just cause it has Jimmy Smits in it.)

The 13-a year order is a way that you can make this more doable -- it's hard to have a unifying theme over 22 without it being gimmicky (HOUSE got away with it last year with the "Survivor storyline" -- but even now the hints are being dropped that the big estrangement of Wilson and House isn't going to be something that runs a whole season. And it shouldn't. Where's the fun in that?)

But with Dexter, Sopranos, Six Feet Under, the nice thing about returning season after season was that it wasn' t the same old thing. Each season kind of had its own theme to it, separate and apart from the overall thematic area of the entire series.

(I don't think it's much of a spoiler to say that the theme running through Dexter is "change." Dexter has always been a fascinating coming-of-age story, and I have great hope for this season precisely because the slam-bang of the last two seasons is now all dealt with, and you're left with what is really juicy: a great character.)

So if you're looking to spec one of these shows, the answer's simple:

Write the first episode of a new season.

That way you can lay out themes that are true to the show, tell cohesive story that satisfies, maybe set up an intriguing cliffhanger at the end of the ep. You can show your mastery of the characters, but pick them up at a fresh point where you're not suffering under the burden of previous storylines.

It allows you to simply kick back and show how well you know the world.

Then all you have to do is be brilliant.

Ay, there's the rub.


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Reprint: The Note that Kills

Still away, so this is another craft reprint.

MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE I'm in the middle of the second complete re-draft of an outline, and I've only seen the four feet around my computer for about two days, but I was thinking a lot about notes. From other writers, from network execs, from whoever might be reading.

There are notes that are good and bad, as we've heard before. The one truly excruciating, where is my .22 note that writers get is the truly evil "DB" (for "Do Better." Wow. Thanks Brainiac.)

But there's another kind of note (and here I want to stress that I'm not talking about my current outline or circumstances, merely that the process calls back all the evil notes of outlines past -- kind of how the smell of cooling tollhouse chocolate chip cookies makes one think of random gunplay, the smell of sulphur, burning chlorine in the nose and the salty taste of children's tears. Wait. What? Really? Wow, that day camp I went to as a kid sucked, dude. For reals.) that kind of powers them all in terms of determining if you have a good story or not.

First of all -- everyone is bad at reading outlines. If it was up to me, you wouldn't send em. Networks would approve a verbal pitch and then see an early draft. Outlines would be for internal use only. They're hard, because they're neither fish nor fowl. If a script is a blueprint for a finished TV show, then what the mighty F is an outline? A napkin? A notional approximation in prose of the final script? So, like, a scale model of the skyscraper built of spam rather than concrete and steel?

Yeah, not getting the aesthetics off that one, dude.

Anyway, in script, in life, in outline, clarity is important. You will often get notes asking for something to be made more clear. And nine times out of ten that's the right note.

But here's the thing...

There's clear, and then there's clear. Sometimes, the point of the scene is to get the audience to the point where you are confused. You don't know what's going on, necessarily. Or what you thought was happening, isn't. This is good. This confusion breeds curiosity. It might seem troubling on the page, but the question to ask is, "is it the kind of confusion that will cause someone to turn off the show, or keep watching to see what happens next?"

Too often, in this damnable tenth instance, clarity is the enemy of storytelling. I've seen outlines and scripts that were 'fixed' so that you always knew what was happening as you went along, where everything was totally clear and understandable...

...and the story was as boring as a dog's ass.

Remember -- clarity is great -- but only so far. Confusion that breeds curiosity equals momentum -- for the viewer to keep watching, and for you to keep spinning your story. When clarity is a threat to that, you need to defend your material, and push back, and say, "yes it's not clear, but it's the good kind of 'not clear.'"

Of course, sometimes that's hard to see in an outline.

Then again, what isn't?

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Reprint: The Tyranny of "Why?"

I'm away for a few days. The following is a reprint from last November.

SO AS I alluded to the other day, a return to development means questioning a whole bunch of stuff about how you work and how to focus a new concept. Luckily, that means being able to have conversations with smart people.

One of those smart people is the Producer who I'm working with on one of my development projects. Al Magee has been praised elsewhere, so let's dispense with that one right off the bat. A few weeks ago, we're having a meeting about this project, and after I talked in circles for a little while, Al said something that I found unbelievably trenchant:

The Brits used to make movies about "what happened." The Americans make movies about "what happens next." And we tend to get pushed into movies about "why it happened." Which as box office shows - nobody really gives a shit about.

What happened. What happens next. Why it happened. Three simple phrases.

Two of them can lead to pretty good, or even great -- films and TV shows.

But the "Why..." The Why will kill you every time.

Canadian TV is forever about the why. Most of the time you will spend in a meeting with the network, they will want to talk about 'the why.' What you're saying, why the characters are doing this and that. We employ freelance 'story editors' on film, and even development TV projects. And if they've been raised under the Canadian system and they're doing their Telefilm best, they'll steer you clearly toward the shoals of "Why it happened." In the unlikely event that you do manage to score a scintilla of press coverage for a show, you're probably going to get asked questions about the why, and most creators who get a show will blather about the why given half a chance.

It's all specactularly wrongheaded.

Why?

(Oh come on, you knew that was coming.)

Before I unpack why 'Why it happened' leads us down a bad road, let's examine the reasons why the Canadian system has evolved that way (and for those who aren't Canadian, this is still instructive if you're a newbie writer because a lot of newbies play this game too):

1) The Desire for 'Cultural Importance.'

Many Canadian TV shows and movies, traditionally, have been developed by people who look at the dominant U.S. culture and find it wanting. They want to do shows that look as slick as U.S. shows but have "higher aspirations." That's why you couldn't swing a Dead Cat in a Development Pitch at a network a few years back without hearing "Six Feet Under." It's why FLASHPOINT getting on CBS is the most important thing everrrr... and why the P.R. for that show goes to great pains to point out how a straight-up CBS procedural is very different from U.S. cop shows.

Sometimes the people wielding the power in these situations are Producers who chafed under the industrial model, where U.S. creative would come up here and boss all the Canadian Line Producers around. One day, they vowed, we will do better.

Writers, too, usually see the writing on the wall. Those who want to sign up for the 'loftier sell' stick around, and those who have a more 'commercial bent' -- traditionally -- have lit out for L.A. at the first opportunity.

I could get into a cultural sidebar here and point out that every person I've ever met who talks about wanting to 'do better' than the U.S. culture generally reveal the more they talk, the less they really understand about the United States or Americans, and also how they fold in some pretty elitist ideas about Canadians, too...but that's a digression too far this morning.

The Desire for Cultural Importance is one of the main reasons why an actual, very Canadian show that's a huge worldwide success -- Stargate -- is never mentioned in the press here as a Canadian show. Even though ALL the key creative behind it are, in fact, Canadian.

It's also why everybody gets skittish about praising Trailer Park Boys. Look at Rob Salem having to defend his praise for the show in the Toronto Star because of 'outraged readers.'

Notice that both Stargate and Trailer Park Boys are shows that actually draw a dedicated audience. A measurable one, I mean. They have actual 'fans.'

The disconnect between shows that people watch and shows that fulfill the Desire for Cultural Importance is key.

2) The Government in the System

Telefilm, the CTF, all public funding of TeeVee and Flim requires you to blather on and on in documents about what this project does to further Canadian culture. Bureaucrats like reading about how this show will explain Canada to Canadians. The "Why," then, becomes the most important thing in the project to secure your fundings. The more time you spend talking about the why, the more it feeds back into the DNA of it. Why is also an easy thing for people to talk about. It's way easier to talk why than to talk story or character, because that discussion requires some level of craft or writing knowledge.

This pear-shaped discussion process leads to meetings where people tell comedy writers, "oh, we know it will be funny, but we want to talk about the heart," as if nailing the funny was the easiest thing in the world. And as if people tuned in to shows to see 'the heart.'

3) Unfamilarity with the Medium

There are a whole lot of people who make TV in this country who don't watch TeeVee. And a whole lot of people who make films who only see films at Film Festivals -- which is not how 90% of the viewing audience sees them.

The Tyranny of "Why this Happened," separates the makers of filmed entertainment from the consumers of filmed entertainment. It's one of the big reasons why so many shows fail to find an audience.

Why Why Sucks:

Tell me if this happens to you. Last week, watching a TV program with my Dad, I quietly endured the usual outbursts. My dad likes to try and 'figure things out.' In the opening scenes of a show, if a mystery is set up, my Dad will spend the next fifteen minutes saying, "he did it," or "I think it's her" or, sometimes, "they're related." -- whatever it is. Point is he's trying to figure out the mystery.

It doesn't matter that he's almost always wrong. The truth is that the only difference between my father and everybody else is that, um, he doesn't use his internal voice. We're all trying to figure things out all the time. That's how we derive pleasure from watching a show. In a comedy, we laugh out of anticipation, and then we laugh again out of surprise when it goes somewhere different from where we think it's going. In drama, one of the reasons why procedurals are so popular is that desire to figure out why. The reason why they're satisfying and hold our attention is because most people try to figure it out, and delight when they can't. That's what keeps them watching.

In both cases, what do you notice about people? They're not the monolithic couch potatoes they're supposed to be. They're engaged in the process. They're trying to imbue meaning, and their search for that meaning is the thing that makes them like the show. LOST is entertaining because we all try to figure out the mystery, and never quite get there.

Marshall McLuhan famously deconstructed his visions of media, and described TV as a 'cool' medium, meaning that we need to do more work to extract meaning from it. That, in fact, is the point.

The problem with making a show about 'why it happened' then, is that you are fundamentally robbing the audience of their part in the transaction.

They're the ones who get to decide what it means.

If you remove them from that process by making your show all about explaining, or lecturing, or hammering home the why and the theme, you are actually forcing the audience to disengage, not further engage in your presentation.

A light sprinkling of theme helps to focus you -- but only if you're focused on the what happened, or what happens next. If you spend all your time thinking about 'why,' then you are almost guaranteeing that you'll wind up with something that's not engaging to the viewer.

Which, by the numbers, seems to be most scripted Canadian TV.

Sounds simple when you put it that way, don't it?


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Writer & Creator talk "Being Erica"

THE EARLY BUZZ for the CBC's new series "Being Erica" (premiering tonight at 9pm) is huge. With notices like this one by the Globe's John Doyle standing up as fairly typical:

Being Erica (CBC, 9 p.m.) is very fine TV drama. It's entertaining, smart, serious and nuanced. It's definitely not silly chick-flick material, which is a relief, though it is obviously intended to please female viewers, especially twenty- and thirtysomethings. It fetishizes high-school experiences a tad too much but, in the three episodes I've seen, there are no letdowns, no segments that feel false. Its strength is that it has an emotional heft that feels authentic, not contrived.

And that means it's not just for those women viewers that CBC lusts after.

That's the kind of review any creative type would lust after. But reviews were still weeks away when I met up with Series Creator Jana Sinyor, and Executive Producer Aaron Martin at a west end Toronto social club that advertises itself as being for artsy types, but every time I go there it's ad knobs and bankers...It was actually refreshing to be there for something where you weren't being muscled by some event for the Fraser Institute.

We were ushered into a dark and cozy screening room, which made for an odd and vaguely Planetarium-like vibe.

I warned Jana and Aaron -- who both spent time on Degrassi: The Next Generation, where Aaron was head writer -- that in Sticks' tradition, this was going to be a crafty kind of interview about the process nitty gritty. They were goodnatured and forthcoming, as they talked about the challenges of taking a pilot to series, nailing and communicating the tone and the essential appeal of the show.

Excerpts from our conversation follow.

DTOS: I remember seeing this pilot back in March, I think. It was a few weeks after I ran into you at the coffee shop before you were going in for a meeting about the potential series. I'm not sure they'd picked it up yet, and when I watched it, I thought, "why was she nervous? This is totally going to get picked up." It really seemed like a world you just wanted to return to. So I'm interested in how that came about.

JS: The first thing is, I've always wanted to go back in time. I love time travel shows. And I was interested in the universality of not being able to hit certain milestones in your life as a woman: meet the guy, get the career going, get pregnant; if you don't meet those milestones you feel like you're falling behind your peers. I knew a lot of women who were attractive, talented, and for whatever reason, just weren't able to find that person, or didn't have a clear and obvious career goal. And I guess I combined those two things.

AM: Jana called me up and said, "I got a pilot, and they want someone to come aboard as sort of a creative partner, and help develop it." The minute I watched the pilot I felt the same way you did, I thought it was really good. So I jumped on board.

DTOS: The whole pilot thing is still pretty new in Canadian drama. We used to just develop and go straight to series. So with the blueprint out there and more developent after, I'm interested to know what changed from Pilot to series?

AM: We kept the core of it, in that she goes back to re-live a past regret. But there's also an ongoing story in the present -- each past visit informs a little of what she's going through in the present day. I think the pilot is weighted more in the past than the series. So in the series, she's facing a problem with her family, or her work life, or her love life, and when she goes back into the past, she finds a problem from her past that's somehow thematically linked. She fixes that, and then applies what she learned to her problem in the present day--

JS: -- And usually the regret, on first blush...it looks like it has nothing to do with the problem in the present.

DTOS: You've got that great fantasy premise. People sometimes get a little squirrelly about that kind of stuff. They start to fear the very thing about the idea that's cool. They get scared of it. How did CBC deal with it?

JS: There was some of that in the beginning, for sure. We really overcame that and wound up feeling really supported in making the show that we wanted to make. Down to putting in some... questionable content in there. Stuff they've never done before on the CBC. The whole mystery of who Dr. Tom [Michael Riley, This is Wonderland, Power Play] is and where he came from, and how he knows so much about Erica...is something we're going to explore over the course of the season, and hopefully future seasons.

AM: When we started out...(laughs)...We went down a road that was sort of 'over-the-top-Time-Travel.' And to their credit, the CBC said, "this isn't the show we want. We don't want all time travel." Our first concept was a really complicated sort of puzzle, all about Erica falling in love with her past....there was this guy in the past that she kept seeing in the present and it actually became way more about Time Travel than what it's now about. And what we wound up saying to the writers is that even though there's this fantastical element -- she's able to travel in time, but everything else in the show has to be grounded in reality. Real emotions, real conversations and situations. And it was CBC who steered us back to that...We had trouble in the first episodes in not really hitting the tone the CBC bought. And it's a hard thing to do. You have to keep the writer trick stuff with the time travel and the past and keep everything else real, and when you read real sometimes on the page it seems really--

JS: --Flat.

AM: -- But it's not flat---

JS: --That's what we want.

AM: And the thing is, we have an incredible actress in Erin Karpuk [who plays the titular Erica Strange] who can take any line that sounds flat and make it sound fun. So I think when we first started up the writing room we were veering off the tone a bit. And it was a process. And we caught it early, and brought it back, and that tone is what Jana set in the pilot -- a real woman's life in her thirties.

JS: There's a desire on the part of writers that sometimes we need to rein in -- specifically on this show, I mean, a desire to "be funny in the writing." Because the way the show works is it's not the writing that's funny, it's more the performer that makes it funny.

AM: The situations are funny. Not the dialogue.

JS: Yeah. So the writing on the page does not end up looking very....funny. (Laughs)

DTOS: But that's not an unusual circumstance with a lot of pilots. They're great and then you try to replicate them and you lose your way a bit...lots of shows go through that. It happens in Hollywood and it happens here, you do a pilot, they say, "that's it, that's the show we want." And then it's hard to replicate that tone at first. Why do you think that is?

JS: I think it's a failure on our part to communicate the tone. I was not as confident at going into this in how well I did know the tone of my own show, and I was more collaborative in my approach saying, "let's find it together." But if you know the tone should be the tone in the pilot, and it's not about going a different way or trying something different..it's really about the ability of those who know the tone to communicate it to everybody else. And as we go through the process we find ourselves able to break it down in more and more specific ways. Like getting really particular about how characters speak, how they don't speak, the way it should look on the page...you don't know how big it is, but it's this huge, invisible thing...it's what makes the show feel like itself.

DTOS: So now, at the end of the first season, what else do you know about the show that you didn't know then?

AM: I think even just structurally, we didn't know then, and we do know now, that you have to go back to the past by the end of Act One. It sounds simple.

JS: (agreeing) Mmm hmm.

AM: But we were like, "sometimes you can go back in Act Two, Act Three." No. You really have to go back in Act One. Sometimes we don't -- and it doesn't make the episode suffer, but...it's just better when we go back in Act One.

JS: We know how to use our characters better. There's that.

DTOS: Do you find yourself writing to the actors more? You know there's that point where the characters are you, they're in your head, and then there's this person playing them and you see what they're really good at. Has that helped you at all? What they're good at and what they're not good at?

JS: It's funny. There are two characters on the show that are easy for everybody to write. Any writer that comes into the department has a really easy time with these two characters. And then, everyone else is more challenging.

AM: The one thing I've found, and not to say Jana is Erica, but I do find myself saying, "how would Jana say this?" Jana is open and says what's on her mind, and Erica says what's on her mind, and it's very hard to write that at times. My first pass on my first episode I'd fall into the trap other writers fell into in not making Erica sound like Erica. And it got to the point where I'd send her scenes and say, "Does this sound like her?" And she'd go "no no no no," -- scratchy, scratchy, scratchy-- [Mimes crossing stuff out.]

So it was a process. And any writer has to go through this when you're taking on someone's vision. You have to make your voice sound like their voice.

JS: And the thing is, now, I think Aaron is actually better at explaining the tone than me. When you create a show it's really easy to make the main character sound like you, because then you just write the way you talk. But you don't realize that it's quite difficult for another person coming in to try and write the way you think and talk. And Aaron is incredbily analytical, and good at figuring out that sort of thing, and breaking it down and explaining it. So he sort of explained the tone of my show back to me in the way that I've never thought of it before, and then went on to explain it to others. In the beginning I was just speaking too generally. I remember you kept sending me the teaser and I kept changing it and you said, "Oh. So Erica never makes jokes. She never says a single funny thing. She's not funny." And I was like, "Yeah! She's NOT funny!" (Laughs)

AM: She's not ironic, she's not cynical, and a lot of things that I think are "go-to" places for writers. Cause it's fun to write people who are fun and ironic. Like Juno, that whole character. That's one of the main problems I had with Juno. I didn't believe her. And whenever we'd try to make Erica sound like that she just became a robot. And even Erin noticed it and didn't like it. She'd say, "I don't think I'd say this, I just don't." And this is early in the process for that. And Erin is a very good bellweather.

JS: She's very similar. Grounded, down to earth, salt of the earth type woman. She's very plain spoken-- which is the character.

AM: I think when you're doing high concept, you have to have very clear rules. Like one of the things we'd ask is, "what is Erica doing wrong that triggers Dr. Tom's visit?" And I don't think we were conscious of that at first, but now we're like, "okay what does she do in Act One that makes him say, "Aha, now you need a session with me.""

JS: And then there's "the false lesson."

AM: (sighs) Yeah. That one's really hard.

By this point, we heard shuffling outside the door, and my digital recorder battery was flashing. So I moved on to give them a chance to step up and make the sale! By answering that all-important-question: Who's the audience? (Beyond that Holy Grail 'women in their thirties?" Sinyor thinks a moment before answering. "Anybody with regrets. Anyone who looks back on something in their past and wonders what life would have been like if they'd made a different choice or taken a different path."

So in a word, I guess....everybody? (We all could use a chance to better identify the "false lesson," methinks.)

JS: It's also nostalgia. We go back a lot to the nineties, which haven't really been done in Time Travel shows. You go back to the 60's, 70's or 80's... But for a lot of people in their 20's, 30's, 40's, the 90's were big for us.

AM: There's a lot of stuff in the 9o's that's really cheesy and funny.

JS: You don't even really know how far we've come til you try to do the 90's every week.

* * *

More from that interview in the weeks to come, when I get around to transcribing it.

A program note. I leave you now for a few days for a bit of a getaway. We'll have a few choice reprints. See you next week.

Be It Resolved...

ROB SALEM, WRITING in a Toronto Star article about things that could make the cultural life of Toronto better, took some serious pokes at the Canadian nets yesterday. Seriously delicious stuff:

I have no personal New Year's resolutions. I mean, my job is watching television. As far as quality of life goes, that's pretty much as good as it gets.

I do, however, have some worthwhile suggestions for the various Canadian networks and their corporate media masters:

CTV (CTVglobemedia): What is with you people? You throw all this money at the CHUM channels, then gut them like a Christmas turkey. You do a spectacular job topping the original American So You Think You Can Dance, wisely retire the coma-inducing Canadian Idol, and yet can't come up with a decent variety/reality/game show of our own? What you paid for the Hockey Night in Canada theme just to blow a raspberry at the CBC could have financed an entire season of Flashpoint and the retiring Corner Gas — shows that millions of people avidly watch. More of that, too, please.

Global (Canwest): C'mon now ... Howie Do It is the best you can do? What's that you say? The Guard? Are you serious? You want to fill your Canadian content mandate, give us smarter shows like Billable Hours. Rebrand E! into something other than a deceptively dubbed dumping ground for American fluff and spillover you can't fit on the main network schedule. And please do not touch the specialty channels you acquired from Alliance Atlantis. They are just fine as is.

Citytv (Rogers): Why did you buy this once-distinctive franchise if all you wanted to do was turn it into OMNI 3? If you're smart, you'll take it back to its roots as funky, street-level guerrilla TV — your new street-front studio at Dundas Square? The operative word here is "street" — and restore the local entertainment coverage this city's vast cultural community deserves. Amortize the format through the other City stations across the country; maybe add some regional talk shows and magazines to the mix. And at least put the shuttered Speaker's Corner online. On the other hand, yay to you for backing Less than Kind.

The Movie Networks/HBO Canada (Astral Media): Slings & Arrows, Terminal City, Durham County ... Resolve to keep doing what you're doing (The Line), financing high-quality, highly exportable miniseries. Sliding worthy Canadian content under that new HBO Canada banner, where it has a second chance of being seen, is a welcome vote of confidence in the industry.

CBC (Us): No one can touch you for documentaries (I should know, I get about a half-dozen delivered to me every day). But take another look at your light entertainment: This Hour has 22 Minutes, Rick Mercer Report ... remember Made in Canada? Come to think of it, just hand the whole thing over to Mercer. That being said, your promising, if unlikely, time-travel sitcom Being Erica (starring Erin Karpluk, left) is already generating serious buzz (as long as it isn't Being Sophie).

Pretty sharp, eh? Nice to see Salem throwing the heat. And most of his comments are seriously on point. (We're all going to quibble about various shows. I think I've stated in the past that personally I wasn't a huge fan of Billable Hours or Terminal City. But whatever. That's just personal taste. The drift of the piece is the thing.

And I'd never thought of the Hockey Night in Canada theme debacle that way. It's true, though.

There's no question that if you're sitting around asking, "who was the smartest broadcaster last year?" that the answer would come back Astral, in partnership with their partners out west in Movie Central. (I don't know exactly if they're as good to deal with since I'm east and deal with TMN.)

Astral's TMN seems to be getting everything right, right about now. A little while back, they redesigned their monthly magazine for Pay TV subscribers. It's slick, easy to read and great-looking.

Their development slate has started to reflect a homegrown quality mandate that's equal to their acquisitions from HBO and Showtime. The January debut of ZOS continues that trend.

Astral also has figured out the P.R. thing - which is the bane of just about every other Canadian broadcaster. Not that they should get massive points for this, since it should fall under the "cost of doing business" side of things.

Yet Astral and TMN were among the first to recognize that TV bloggers had a voice in the reviewing firmament. Their press materials are accurate, and screeners are always sent out with plenty of lead time. You contact them, and someone contacts you back nearly immediately. It's hard to overstate how night and day this is when it comes to other Canadian outlets.

At this point, I can't understand anyone not having the Pay Channels. They're the best value on TV.

And finally, this year, the company scored a coup by their clever rebranding of one of their multichannels as HBO Canada. The extra programming and one-stop destination for that HBO programming has made a big difference.

* * *

Now, while we're on the subject of resolutions. I'd like to take a little moment to talk to you about "TV, eh?"

Over the last couple years, the Tv, Eh? website has become an invaluable clearinghouse for the kind of information you never used to be able to find anywhere. Articles on Canadian shows.

I don't think there's a creative anywhere in this country who hasn't used the site as a resource, or research for a job interview, to keep tabs on potential partners, to check your own press or to simply stay current. It's probably the single greatest resource portal for Canadian Television.

It's so great to see that the Canadian Association of Broadcasters..er...no, the Canadian Film and Television Production Association...um....the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Televis.....uh....the creative guilds... Film Centre and NSI...what?

Um. Wow.

No.

Nope, none of those organizations, with membership fees and fundraising and any other sources of revenue, pulled it together to start Tv, eh?

Since its inception, the site has been maintained and updated daily on a strictly volunteer basis by Diane Kristine, a Vancouver-based web publications manager who doesn't even work in the television industry.

You know, I still get the questions all the time about why I write this blog and I can't always give a good answer. It can sometimes be a pain in the ass. Some of it's ego-driven, of course, and even the part that's an attempt at good passionate citizenry and industry boosterism is cut with an undercurrent of self-interest. The less secretive and more vocal creatives in our industry are, I firmly believe, the better our product will be, and the greater our strength. So in the end, that's why I do it. Because I can, and because I think it helps.

But none of that applies to a woman who runs a volunteer site just because it bugged her that she'd never heard of any of the Canadian shows that I and others were blogging about.

So now I'm addressing the insiders here -- writers, producers, directors, and self-interested others who've gone to TV Eh? in the last year or so to find an article, or see what's being said about your show, or some show you're interested in. If you go to the site now you'll notice there's a "Donate now" button.

The bandwidth and all other costs associated with the running of the site are paid for by Diane herself. I think that's admirable. But I also think after two years of getting that service for free, maybe it's a good time to think about giving something back. Hit the donate now button, and give anything. Even 10 bucks. I know times are tight. But so's the margins by which we get people to watch these shows. How many viewers do you think Diane's activism has bought you? Show your appreciation.

And thanks, Diane, for doing the publicity job that few of the paid people in this industry seem capable of doing. See how easy it is to be a powerful industry insider?

The hard part is being a powerful industry insider who doesn't have to wear a nametag and ask if you want fries with that.

Doctor, Doctor, Give Me The News

AS MY FRIEND David Antoniuk said just moments ago, "we're ready for a black President of the USA, but not a black Doctor Who?"

WTF, People! W.T.F.?