RSS? Mess? Quest? Que?

Reader Sandra writes below:

Please add an RSS feed to your blog!

Dear Sandra,

I'm a writer. I use a Mac. I can't add three digit numbers in my head. Add those things together and what you get is this: I am a one-trick monkey savant.

I have heard of this RSS of which you speak, but that is all. I have something called the Atom site feed turned ON in Blogger, but as far as this RSS goes, it's all geek to me.

If some nice person out there wants to send me a set of clear, easy-to-follow directions for setting up my Blogger template to make an RSS feed possible, on a Mac, using a few easy steps that will take me no more than five minutes to do, then awesome.

Otherwise, I'm just going to continue to throw feces the old way.

That is all.

UPDATE-Y DOO:

Helpful reader Matt Watts writes:

your RSS feed is - and always has been - woring fine.

The address is:
http://heywriterboy.blogspot.com/atom.xml

So there you go. I'll add it to the sideboard when I get some gumption to do so.

CHUM Orders Series; Our Hero Secretly Pleased

Today, Canada's CHUM Television (CityTv/Muchmusic/Space, etc.) ordered three new Canadian Drama Series. Excerpted from their press release:

TORONTO, March 16, 2006 – CHUM Television has ordered three new original dramas – The Murdoch Mysteries, a 13-episode spin off of the hugely-successful made-for-television movie franchise, Blood Ties, based on the popular Tanya Huff vampire novels and the mystery series Across the River to Motor City.

“CHUM has a long history of support for homegrown production and these series will see us continue and grow our commitment to Canadian drama that connects with our viewers,” said Roma Khanna, Senior Vice President, Content, CHUM Television. “We will be bringing our audiences three exciting new programs that are set in Canada and feature strong, dynamic, original storylines that combine universal appeal with a uniquely Canadian perspective.”

“We are very excited about these productions”, said Diane Boehme, Senior Director, Independent Production, CHUM Television. “Blood Ties will appeal to anyone with a thirst for romance and vampire lore while Across the River to Motor City offers engaging characters and a unique perspective that has not previously been explored on television. The Murdoch Mysteries were so well received as MOWs, that we felt obligated to satisfy our audiences’ very clear desire for more.”

The Murdoch Mysteries, from Shaftesbury Films, builds on the success of the highly-rated Detective Murdoch Mysteries made-for-television movies adapted from Maureen Jennings’ best-selling mystery novels. The series, set in 1895 Toronto, combines compelling Victorian tales of murder with the fast-paced, visually-intriguing styles of today’s leading crime series. Casting and pre-production for the series is expected to begin this summer. (13 x 60’)

Blood Ties is based on Tanya Huff’s internationally popular “Blood” novels. When her latest love interest turns out to be a 450-year-old vampire and the caseload of her fledgling P.I. agency shifts from fraud artists and cheating spouses to battles with ghosts, ghouls, zombies and demons, ex-police detective Vicki Nelson realizes that her life will never be the same. The series will be produced by Kaleidoscope Entertainment and goes into production later this summer. (22 X 60’)

Across the River to Motor City is a mystery series spanning two eras, two countries and two unforgettable characters. As an insurance investigator in 1960s Windsor and Detroit, Ben Ford weathered the storms of those tumultuous years. Four decades later, a long-buried tragedy leads his daughter Kathleen to unravel the secrets and lies at the heart of her troubled relationship with her father – secrets Ben will risk everything to keep. The series is being produced by Jonsworth Productions in association with Devine Entertainment and will begin shooting in the fall. (6 x 60’)

With this announcement, genre fans get something new in Blood Ties. I've read a couple of early scripts for this show, and they're good fun. I don't know about the Murdoch Mysteries, but it sounds intriguing.

Canadian TV is changing, and with the CRTC's increased demand on drawing ratings, a lot of hard choices are going to need to start being made about ongoing programs. CHUM reflects this in the release, too, with the revelation that their current series Godiva's and The Collector are not being renewed.

And now we come to the part of the story where I reveal how I've buried the lead:

I'm the co-creator of Across the River To Motor City, with a man named Bob Wertheimer, who was also the co-creator and Executive Producer (and my boss!) of the show I wrote in South Africa, in 2004, Charlie Jade.

Looks like I have a busy summer ahead. I'm going to have to rethink what and how much I'll be able to write about the process here on this blog. As we've talked about before, the writing room is a place of trust, and production is a fragile and stressful experience. I have partners now. And making television, well, it's a bit like making law and sausages...you don't really want to see the process up close -- even if you think you do.

For a guy with a big mouth, I've always prided myself on being fairly circumspect and professional in my dealings in this business. I like being enthusiastic, and I like working with people, and being able to trust people. And I like it when they trust me. And that's going to be even more important now.

But...don't get me wrong. I'm thrilled.

This is a big step forward for me. Huge, actually, as I've only been a hired gun up to now. I'm sure I'll be able to talk about the process obliquely here and there. But if occasionally you don''t see my normal fist to the groin level of candor about my day-to-day projects, I hope you'll understand.

This blog has always been a procrastination enabler and focuser and a work in progress -- and I hope both those things can continue. Hell, if the Scary Movie guy can keep writing, I should be able to handle blogging and a six pack!

Though... I'm not sure I'll be doing a lot of procrastinating over the next few months. Eep.

Anyway. Yay!

Prairie Giant Indeed, and Hi To Warren's Many Minions...

The mighty Warren Ellis saw fit to link to me. To quote Penn Jillette: "Yessssssssssss."

Further to our discussion of the CBC below...whoops...seems like amidst all their shufflin' for attention and entertainment and nothing challenging and those one-million viewers -- well...um.

Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story, the biopic of the father of Canadian Medicare (and the NDP, and grandfather to 24's Kiefer Sutherland) drew just 50 000 viewers shy of a million viewers Sunday. And 750 000 viewers returned for part two.

This is SIGNIFICANTLY more viewers than CBC has drawn for any of their other drama shows recently.

Now, if they'd not been craven and cowardly, they maybe could have drawn those viewers at a time when Politics was actually on the agenda, not now...but, you know...whatever.

Point being, this is NOT a validation of stuff like This is Wonderland. It will undoubtedly be spun as such by some. But the point is -- there are people who want to watch drama on CBC. See? There they are. They weren't watching Wonderland. Maybe they tuned in and didn't like what they saw. Who knows?

Point was, they didn't stay.

However --

The CBC's whiplash reaction: we're going to test everything, we're going to be popular, we're going to appeal to younger viewers, we're going to...what do you want us to do?

Well, flop sweat may not be the answer either.

Could it be that it's the material, stupid?

Choose something good.

Dear Arrested Development,

Hi. How are you? It's been a while, I know.
Yes baby. Sure I miss you. No. No one will ever replace you.
Sons & Daughters? Oh, yeah. Well...sure...I've seen it.
Yeah. Okay. Back to back. Every week. I know.
But that aint serious, baby, you know that.
That's what they do when they think you're gonna crap out,
that's what they do when they're gonna cancel the show.
No. Shh. Shh. It wasn't you?
Lorne Michaels? He's a punk.
Funny? Well....

Sure baby. It's a LITTLE funny...

"I'm not racist. I dated a black man once."
"Did you tell anybody?"
"Of course not. I'm not stupid."

Y'know. Like that.
It's a little, you know...improvised.
I know. I was skeptical too, baby, but it
works.
Even if they do put a little ostentatious
"this program is partially improvised"
"warning" at the top. Wonder why they do that?
Still, all in all, it's pretty funny.
Baby?
Baby?
Oh. Come on, Don't be that way, baby.
We had a good run.
We'll always have Portia DeRossi.
And Buster's hand.

Listen, I have comedy needs.
I don't think I should apologize for that.
Jon Stewart is only one man.

Fine. Be that way.

Playing Obscurity for Depth

John August talks about The Matrix trilogy in a very funny, and a little angry post. He also gives a phrase to something that I see all the time in scripts. It's the title of this post.

We've all seen things that played obscurity for depth. Sometimes it bothers you because your head hurts and you really think you've missed something, and sometimes it really is a cop out.

I think Syriana had a bit of playing obscurity for depth. I liked it, but I'm not sure at what some of the players were trying to accomplish with their final actions.

The problem, though, is that Canadian film and TV is chock full of stories that play obscurity for depth. It is a massive cop out, I've been guilty of it myself from time to time, and it really needs to stop if we're going to hold and build an audience.

In the funny papers.

Reality series were going to kill television. We're still here, but some of those popular characters aren't. After all, Death is the new Black.

If you are a popular TV character actor, and you're suddenly unemployed and want to try your hand at something else, I'd suggest avoiding the-three-camera-traditional-sitcom.

Mad Pulp Bastard Hijacks the Blog

...to talk about, of all things, The CBC. You know Bill Cunningham's D2DVD wonderland -- and if you don't, Seamus on you. (I'm getting in shape for Friday.)

Anyway, down in the comments section of my last CBC post, Cunningham posted something that I think deserves some top-love.

My view (for what it's worth - probably not much as I'm not Canadian and thus not as "involved") is that your CBC needs to focus on programs that are so damn funny or dramatic or action-packed or whatever, that people from all over Canada - no matter what the region - will find something to like or hate about it. Must see tv.

Alex Epstein was talking on his blog about NORTHERN EXPOSURE - a show that on the surface had limited appeal: small town life of an Alaska doctor. What made that show run for six years was the fact that the characters, while outside our experience here in the Southland, were relatable and funny. Damn funny. Quirky too.

Memorable.

I want to outline Cunningham's comments here, because he is, of course, American. And like it or not, we live in Canada. So whatever an American thinks is news.

(Oh, just try to deny it.)

But there's a great point in there. I wasn't even in the Biz when Northern Exposure was first on the air. (Actually, I was, but as a lowly current affairs researcher) I have doubts that a show like that would survive on CBS more than two episodes today. Things have changed a lot since 1992. BUT -- he's right. NX is the perfect Canadian show that wasn't. I often thought that The Full Monty was a perfect, enduring model of a story that was tellable anywhere -- it was very specific to the UK, but the story was universal and that's why it traveled. No one worries about making a self-consciously English program, or a self-consciously American program. Yet because of the way the system works, that's almost all we seem to make here North of the 49th Parallel.

If the CBC wants to put "butts in seats" to watch their programs, then they need to focus on the product and not the deal. Make memorable shows and market them accordingly.

See what Bill just did there? He pulled out a crossbow and Ted-fucking-Nugented a fucking arrow right through the heart of the whole biz up here.

The whole thing is about the deal, because the deal is so hard to make.

And that's where you start considering things like regionalism and representation -- so that a show that was actually funny, like Rabbittown, gets shitcanned, because, presumably, "we already have a Newfie show on the air," and a show that's clearly inferior like "This Space For Rent" gets a second, or third chance because it's Vancouver-based and you know...YOUNG and...what's that other word...oh yah...HIP. Um...now...where's my knitting?

That's also how you do something embarrassing like say that the secret to your success in the future will be to institute quantifiable testing to come up with sure-fire shows people want to watch -- despite the fact that they test American shows up the yin-yang and it does NOTHING to guarantee you a hit!

You cannot replace qualitative decisionmaking with quantifiable, dispassionate testing. Can NO one see that this is the same fruit of the poison tree that makes us consider place over concept, and 'overt Canadian-ness' over quality? Is there NO ONE at the CBC who will stand up and say, "I think this show is funny and deserves to be made, and if I'm wrong, I'm responsible?"

Testing. Pfft.

There's a story about SPOOKS/MI-5 that the BBC wanted everyone in their target demo for the show to be talking about it at the water cooler the next day. That's part of the reason why they cast a recognizable star and killed her (deep fried her face) in the second episode. That's why every bus had banners for the show. That's why every young person's music station and cable channel and cell phone had ads about the show. They went out and made a show that, like it or hate it, you HAD to see it and talk about it.

Are there ANY shows on Canadian TV that you HAVE to talk about(other than the fact it's set in Vancouver or Toronto)? If there are - I want to see them (and I don't mean that rhetorically. I want to see them).

So there's Bill's gauntlet. Okay, Canadian readers, time to de-lurk, and step up. Any suggestions for Mr. Bill here? I'll start us off. Early DaVinci's Inquest. Corner Gas, probably. Slings & Arrows, definitely.

What else?

Anyone?

Bueller?

Stop making it about the deal. Jesus, Bill, it sounds so simple when you say it! :)

James Burrows, people.

On NPR's Fresh Air.

Go.

24 Hits The Bottle

Pretty exciting 24 last night, heh?

Poor Edgar. Poor SamWise McGill. Poor...Tony? Um...maybe.

But watching last night with my ever-attuned Canadian TV spidey-sense tingling, I noticed something else:

They never left the bottle. 24 last night was a bottle show.

When info leaks out about how so-and-so's budgeted, "IE: Each ep of 24 costs $2.8 million..." or whatever, that's actually a misnomer. During the course of a season, some episodes, locations, stunts, special effects are just going to cost more. Remember when they blew up the motorcade? That cost some change. Helicopters to-ing and fro-ing? More change.

You obviously don't want to go over your budget, so sometimes the best way to catch up is to do a Bottle Show.

A bottle show, classically, is a show that takes place only on the standing sets of a particular show, using the main cast. (Ie: guest leads minimal, low extras.) You don't do any location shooting, and you don't do any really complicated camera setups. That usually means you can shoot fewer days, and save money that you're going to spend down the road -- or, more likely, get your show's budget back into a manageable place after you've blown it.

The bottle show is a valuable safety valve - another contingency that you have to make sure that you stay on budget and don't spiral out of control. Since it's easier to shoot, it's also a chance to rest your crew a little.

The other way to save money, of course, is the much-derided Clip Show. The Bottle Show is at least a little more viewer friendly, because you're getting a new story...and depending on how it's executed, GREAT new content.

Here's why I love Bottle Shows: the writing is the only real special effect.

If you can't blow things up, fly helicopters willy-nilly, or employ a ton of extras, well, then son, you better have a pretty kick-ass story...because most of your story is going to be people talking to each other.

The trick is to raise the stakes as high as possible. On 24, that means trap everyone in a room -- literally, in a bottle -- and kill a couple of people we've been watching all season. (Once I realized it was a bottle ep, for a brief, sick second I was sure -- SURE -- they were going to kill Kim.) A Nerve Gas attack on CTU is a perfect bottle story plot. The tension's so high you don't even notice that 80% of the show is in three rooms, with characters unable to go anywhere.

On Charlie Jade, I wrote our bottle show (which, for budgetary reasons, was also a clip show -- don't even get me started.) and the solution we came up with was this: amp the stakes by making this the first time the hero and the villain confront each other directly. Oh, and have the hero torture the villain. And reveal a major, major twist: in this case, the true nature of one of the enduring mysteries of the first 12 episodes -- a change that makes our hero never able to look at things the same way again.

On 24, it means getting the Presidential subplot to the precipice of declaring martial law, and revealing that Homeland Security is, for all intents and purposes, shutting down CTU. Oh, and let Peter Weller escape. And maybe Kill Tony. And the nerve gas. Boom. Big stuff.

Yeah -- those two Homeland Security people were in a car that we haven't seen before. But you didn't see a driving shot, did you? Did you see outside, as they drove? Nope? Driving rigs are expensive.

It takes a special kind of TV director to make a bottle show sing. On CJ, we got ourselves into the comical position of having the director move two of the three bottle-show plots out of the bottle. I don't think he got that he was directing actors in this show, and that's what made it cool. He just wanted to blow things up. Whatever. Usually that doesn't happen.

When you sit down to write a bottle show, it brings an almost zenlike quality to the task. You know that, in effect, you're really going to be writing a four act play. It's a very different discipline, which is why I relish the challenge.

Unfortunately, a lot of Canadian shows are budgeted so close to the wire that they wind up including a bottle show in the budget...which removes it as a useful contingency when things fuck up. And things always fuck up in Television.

In fact, once upon a time, I was involved with a show that may-or-may-not have made it to production. Their season plans called for two bottle shows, two clip shows, and a show that had to be block shot with a second show which was the same story from someone else's perspective.

It was awesome.

There are worse things you can do as an exercise than think about how you could tell an interesting story with your main characters without leaving the standing sets.

Put 'Em in Your Mouth and Suck'em

Well, I guess this was inevitable, once South Park did the Scientology episode.

Hey, isn't it past time for someone to come up with a competing crazy-celebrity religion?

I tag John Rogers. He could do it.

CBC Pays the "...Rent."

Today's Globe & Mail has a story by Henrietta Walmark chronicling CBC's latest programming move. This is hard on the heels of a hoity-toity speech by CBC Prez Robert Rabinovich at the Empire Club.

When last we checked in with the CBC, chickens, The Prez chose to outline a major address about how they're going to reach out to the people by speaking to a crowd of the most priveleged insiders in the country. Sigh. When the CBC doesn't get it, you have to admit, they don't get it hard.

I'm reminded of Louis Armstrong's response when someone asked him to define Jazz:

"Man, if you gotta ask, you'll never know."

Apparently, they've ordered two new half-hour pilots of one of the new comedy pilots CBC showed this past January. The lucky (very) show is called This Space For Rent.

Excerpted from the article:

It didn't achieve the highest ratings of the three pilots that aired that week (only 188,000 viewers, compared to Rabbittown's 251,000). And the new episodes won't go directly to air -- they'll be tested with focus groups before any decision is made about turning the show into a permanent series.

But according to Anton Leo, CBC Television's head of comedy, This Space for Rent is an example of the kind of show the network is looking for. Last month in Ottawa, Richard Stursberg, CBC's vice-president of English-language television, told a conference of independent film producers that CBC's mix of genres will henceforth be driven by a new "audience-first" development strategy, with shows that aim to attract a minimum of one million viewers and are "fast-paced, accessible and escapist."

This Space for Rent, says Leo, "possesses a number of characteristics that are in line with what Richard was talking about. It has some lovely comedic situations, strong character and some outright funny lines. So much comedy now comes from either extreme discomfort or tremendous darkness. That's not what this is and not where we want to go."

Television critics were deeply divided about the pilot episode, even here at The Globe and Mail. Henrietta Walmark called it a "knockout comedy" in Globe Television, the paper's Toronto-area TV magazine. Critic John Doyle, on the other hand, found the show's "stoned-slacker" attitude "deeply irritating."

Full Globe article available here... For Americans or others struggling to parse that one million figure -- Canada's population hovers around 30 million right now. Subtract roughly 7 million francophones (mostly in Quebec, who watch Radio Canada, CBC's French service) and you're talking a pool of roughly 23 million potential viewers. Roughing it, that means CBC says it expects to pull audiences that would be, if we were expressing this in American market terms, about 10 million viewers.

That's ambitious, certainly. But it's not impossible. Corner Gas on private network CTV draws 1.5 million viewers a week. (Coincidentally or no, that show is escapist, and certainly anything but dark -- but not particularly fast-paced.) CBC has, in the past, achieved those kinds of numbers for their comedy shows, newscasts, and (it's Canada) Hockey.

The question is, is This Space for Rent the right horse to back, right now?

Here's what I had to say about it when it aired back in January:

I wanted to like the third show, This Space for Rent. (Wed, Jan 4, 9pm) A comedy based in Vancouver could work. There's one great scene with actor Jason Bryden, where he haggles with a Chinese street vendor in perfect Cantonese over the price of fish. At least I think it was Cantonese. Might have been Mandarin. Anyway, that was a funny scene. It's an incidental scene going on while two of the female characters lay pipe for the main plot. As he drives away on his Vespa, Bryden says, "Your life makes me sad." Funny line. Good scene. Is he the main character? Er...no.

There's also some good business with actress Emily Hampshire, playing a junior lawyer forced to be one of the boys in her new firm. There's some funny slapstick to be had there as she struggles to "act like she's got a pair." Is she the main character? Er...no again.

Ulitmately, This Space For Rent is pretty impossible to love. First of all, it's an hour long. And you feel every second of that hour. Jerry Seinfeld once opined "I'm not sure comedy wants to be a movie." Well, the one thing I'm sure of is that unless you're prepared to go the comedy-drama route, comedy doesn't really want to be an hour. The hour long epsiodes of Frasier, Seinfeld, Cheers, and Friends were always deadly.

The second problem is the main character, Lucky. (Dov Tiefenbach) Tiefenbach's got a comedy face, that's for sure. He took a very small role in Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle and made it memorable. But, alas, his character here is a twentysomething writer trying to find himself. He gets depressed, whines, stays in his apartment for thirty days, gets static from his impossibly understanding doctor girlfriend, then writes a letter to the editor and gets a monthly column to bitch in Vancouver magazine. Yay, Lucky. Good for you! Now where's my glock? BLAM! I'm dead. Sorry, Lucky.

Twentysomething angst is something everyone goes through. It is not inherently interesting. When will writers and commissioning editors learn this? This can be your character's viewpoint, but it is not funny in and of itself. You need funny things to happen.

The kind of journey Lucky goes through in this pilot, might have been the plot of a middling Canadian film. But it does nothing to set up the central conflict or template for an ongoing series. And with an hour to establish character and tone (which is also all over the place -- from trendy film-effected montage and manipulation shots to slapstick to loopy drug humor; it's all in the pot: "let's cook it and see if anything sticks once we heat it and it explodes onto the wall,") the closest I can come to an idea of template is that from week to week we'd get to see Lucky write his column, Hate Male, (yup, I know) while his friends all try to find themselves. Which is pretty much a one-minute pitch. I would think that after 48 minutes of TV, I'd know more. I don't. If you can't make me fall in love with your characters and your world in 48 minutes, I don't think you should get to make a series.

The full post is here.

The problem here is that a lot of new things are being said, but in the end they add up to the same old same old. CBC has, forever, been obsessed with drawing younger viewers/listeners, yet they never really seem to come up with anything that sticks.

Rent condescends. Contrary to what Anton Leo thinks, the characters are all pretty whiny and mopey. This is not Friends in Vancouver. There’s no unified point of view.

Funny thing about Canada. We don’t really have that many series that are recognizably set in Toronto, even though it’s our largest city. Regional resentment runs that high. In fact, the ratio of Newfoundland-set series to Toronto set series on the CBC in the last few years probably hovers around 3:1.

Imagine not setting a series in New York, because people resent New York. Well, welcome to Canada.

Vancouverites are the worst for resenting Toronto. Seriously – the cliché that Vancouverites pull out is that in Toronto, someone will ask you what you do within five minutes of every conversation. (That’s true.) Vancouverites don’t see the flipside of that equation, though – every conversation with every person I’ve ever met from the West Coast turns within five minutes to some serious Toronto-hatin’. The funny thing is that, when you point out the former to a Torontonian, they’ll laugh and nod. Yup. That’s what we’re about.

Vancouverites? Can’t laugh about anything to do with themselves. Go on. Try it. Make a joke to a Vancouverite about their city. Then duck. Yup. Those are mountains. They’re beautiful. Can we just move on?

Vancouver, in other words, isn’t the most universal setting for a Canadian series. It’s a very strange place, and it doesn’t translate. I think Canadians, most of us, have a far easier time imagining Montreal or Newfoundland or hell, Calgary, than Vancouver. It’s a place unto itself. So making it the base for your big comedy splash? Iffy. Pitching your series to a demographic that’s used to Friends, and doesn’t watch CBC? Iffier. Giving TWO more pilots to a show that already had one-hour – well…that’s just…I don’t know. Words fail.

If there was really something so unbelievable, so original about the concept for This Space for Rent, then I could almost see going with TWO HOURS of test material to try and tinker and get it right. But there isn't.

However, now that they’ve gotten the call, I wish them nothing but massive karmic success. Seriously. Another failure for CBC does no one in the Canadian TV industry any good.

But I can’t help but feel, having read a couple of really funny, tightly constructed, unique and accessible half-hour scripts currently in development at other Canadian networks, the question that nags at me is this:

Is anyone good even going to approach CBC anymore? Or have we all given up?

They may have the space for rent, but is talent really buying anymore?

I'll say this about him...

That Tony Soprano, he sure don't disappoint.

Uncle June!

Do You Know This Man?

His name is Ernie.

Well, not really. That's just a nickname. But Ernie has been a fixture at the corner of Yonge & Gould Streets in Downtown Toronto for 25 years.

In my yooot, like thousands of other Ryerson University students, I would pass by Ernie's cart every day. His hotdogs were good, and they were cheap. He gave a bursary to students low on cash. He told corny jokes and played the best of the Village People. And he was there. Always.
Well, he's not going to be there anymore. Ernie retired last week, at the age of 78 -- for the second time. The first time he retired, it was as an electrical engineer in fibre optics. He traded fibre for processed meat, and the bellies and hearts of Downtown Toronto students were all the better for it.

There's a lot I'll miss about Ernie. Not the least of which was his penchant for greeting me -- every time -- with a delighted, "Hello, young fella!"

Now, I'm sure he greeted every "young fella" that way. But that's not the way I remember it. Not long after graduating Ryerson, after working in the industry for a few years, one of my writing mentors lured me back to start teaching part time. I was 25 -- not that much older than the students I was teaching. Well, the march of time is cruel -- because over the next 10+ years, I got another year older and they stayed exactly the same age. I can't believe more teachers don't go batshit crazy. My teaching experience now has pretty much left me with the inability to remember a name. That's what having to learn forty new names every three months and then never see them again does to you. But when I passed Ernie's cart, rushing back to my day job, or post-day job, walking down the street after class trying to figure which coffee shop would bear my writing burden today, I was always up for an Ernie dog. And I was always a young fella.

When you spend a lot of time inside your own head, and when you live alone, to boot -- it's easy to lose perspective. I've been in a bit of a melancholy downtick, lately. Nothing too serious. The kind of thing that you know you're going to bounce back from, you just aren't too sure of the timing. (In fact, sometime in the next few days, I think I'm going to have news. Good news.)

Anyway, when I'm feeling the mean reds, I think of Ernie - a guy who survived leukemia, who walked away from one life, and found another. Who always had a kind word, and who never failed to call out to a young fella who was probably taking himself too seriously.

Anyway, Ernie, goodbye and thanks for the sauteed onions at no charge. That's the kind of value you don't find in Toronto.

You can read the Toronto Star article on Ernie's retirement here.

The Strangeness of Fans

This post is going to be about Battlestar Galactica. Well, not exactly. Keep reading : I promise, no spoilers. For those of you who live in Canada and who watch the series on the SPACE channel, you're only at episode 9 or 10. The point I'm going to make in this post doesn't require me to reveal any heavy spoilers, but if you're one of those people who don't want to know ANYTHING about what happens next -- you may want to skip this post. If 10 was "highly spoileriffic" and 1 was "not very spoiler-y at all" I would put this post at a 2. It's about fan reaction, not content. I would ask anyone who comments on this post to follow my lead and not mention specific details of plot for any of the "Season 2.5" BSG episodes. There are plenty of BBoards where you can go have your say on that. I reserve the right to delete any comment I find spoiler-y. Okay? Let's skip down a bit.


















Now, to keep my promise and make my point, I'm going to say this: In the finale of the 2nd season for BSG, something strange happens. It's a bold move, and dramatically, it's a really exciting one. It allows Season 3 to go off in all sorts of fun and interesting directions. It makes perfect sense in terms of storytelling economy, and moving the thematic base of the series forward. It shuffles the deck, and is probably one of the boldest season finale moves I've ever seen.

And when it was over, I put my head in my hands and thought to myself:

"the fanboys are going to go INSANE."

I've had my experience with this, working as I did for the Canadian Sci-Fi channel, SPACE. Heck, I was there from the beginning of that channel. I helped get it on the air. Fans, of course, come in all shapes and sizes and temperaments -- but when it comes to sci-fi, there's also a lot of what we came to call, "crazies."

I think Shatner, in that famous sketch, called 'em "Get-a-Lifers."

Anyway. Some of the things that surprised me most when I got my dose of exposure to scifi fans was the following: a) as a whole they're really really conservative (they hate change) b) they think of themselves as very smart and sophisticated and c) they're really not as smart and sophisticated as they think they are.

I never really watched or followed soaps, so I have no firsthand knowledge of this, but I've heard that every fandom has its quirks. Soap-fan friends of mine report that yes, there are Soap-crazies, including those who don't really seem to grasp the difference between Actor and Character. But when it comes to Sci-fi, the thing that always struck me most was that gap: the gap between how they viewed themselves and how they actually were. Ronald Moore has done a lot to mess with that gap with his re-invention of Battlestar Galactica. There are still those fans out there, frothing, furious that the new series didn't follow the old. They're mad about Starbuck being a girl, and -- this is my favorite part -- they keep insisting that the show is one moment away from death and cancellation -- despite the fact that critically and by every measurement imaginable, this is a sea-change hit for SciFi.

A lot of fans seem to hate sex. Objectification, awesome. But actual sex between people? Icky. Others insist that the vision of humanity on the run is too dark. They prefer the original's escapist hijinks. Whatever you think of that artistic taste issue (and it is a taste issue) the thing they seem to hate the most is that this show is drawing accolades and praise from non-scifi viewers. It's reached beyond the core audience. By my reckoning, only two genre shows have done that in the last 20 years: Star Trek: The Next Generation (which everybody watched. In fact, every incarnation of ST lost more of the "non-scifi" people til Enterprise, sadly, was left with the rump) and X-Files. Now, BSG has got that cachet. And it's driving them crazy.

I know for a fact that here in Canada, BSG has proven to be a portal show -- ie: people who don't watch the channel much are seeking it out. I have no reason to believe it's any different in the USA. That's incredibly significant.

And the culture clash between sci-fi fans and (for lack of a better term let's call them) drama fans is making for some very interesting reading. Because the drama fans DO tend to be a little more sophisticated. They know a little more history, a little more about politics, a little more about relationships. (These are all wild generalizations, I know, but they are my impressions.)

I'm still working through what my policy's going to be on reading BBoards once I get a show on the air. I'm sure it will happen eventually, though it might be an act of hubris to think that there will be an online community that cares enough about any show I create enough to comment. But let's take that as read. I don't know what I'm going to do -- how much contact I'll have. I doubt I'll go into the point-by-point lunacy of, say, Kevin Smith, responding in kind. I'd like to think I'd go the Ronald D. Moore route. Do a podcast. Answer questions submitted by online people, that sort of thing. I cringed when I saw that Moore's wife was wading in to threads on the SciFi Channel boards. I wonder if she knows what she's getting into.

Writers dealing with fans and how to handle it is a thing that a lot of people are talking about right now. Artful Writer has an excellent post that touches on this.

But after all my rambling, here's the thing that I find interesting. Fascinating, really. And I don't understand it.

Now this is a highly unscientific measurement, and I did not read every post. But if you go to the Sci-Fi Channel's Battlestar Galactica board and read the reaction to "Lay Down Your Burdens" -- it's really, really negative. Classic Sci-fi fan reaction. "Gaah! Change! Hate it! I'm betrayed.!"

If you go to the BSG board on Television Without Pity, and read that reaction, it's way more positive. And what's more, the analysis is smarter.

So...here's my question. And I really don't know the answer.

Is this a Jets and Sharks thing?

Are the sci-fi geeks at the Sci Fi Channel and the Drama fans at TWOP?

I don't know.
But it sure is weird.

S Minus 1

One More Sleep.

S Minus 2

Ahhhhhhh.

Viewing Enhancement

The O.C.
is a much,
much,
much,
much
better
show
when
you've
been
drinking.

S Minus 3

Oooooh.

David Mamet's Unit: "That's The History of the World"

Well, Alex seems to have hated it. The Mad Pulp Bastard, Bill Cunningham, wasn't too complementary (down there in my comments below) -- but judging by the Nielsens, America has another take on it: They love The Unit.

From Variety:

According to national estimates from Nielsen, "The Unit" averaged a hearty 5.1 rating/12 share in adults 18-49 -- the best showing for a noncrime CBS drama since "Touched by an Angel" six years ago -- and 18.5 million viewers overall, the largest audience for a regular Eye program in the timeslot in nearly seven years.

The drama from 20th Century Fox Television, starring Dennis Haysbert and Scott Foley, improved on its solid lead-in from "NCIS" (3.8/10, 17.21m) and also gained 1 share from its first half-hour to its second (4.8/12 to 5.3/13 in 18-49) -- a good sign for a premiere.

The 5.1 rating in 18-49 reps a 50% rise from the 3.4 CBS had averaged in the 9 p.m. hour since "American Idol" bowed on Fox in mid-January and shook up the night. Among all regular-slot drama bows this season, only ABC's "Invasion" (which followed "Lost") had a higher 18-49 score.

"The Unit" also earned a big 7.0/15 in adults 25-54, drawing nearly the same rating among men as women.

A high male rating, high female rating, solid numbers for 25-54, massive rise in 18-34, build on the lead in, and build in the second half hour? That's pretty much ratings nirvana, kids.

And this is where sometimes negative hype helps. I just skimmed, didn't read, the comments below -- but I got the sense of a negative spin going in. So I girded myself, because I was really looking forward to this show. Being disappointed by it would be a bummer.

Luckily, I wasn't disappointed. I'd call it a solid B+. I'm not a big CBS viewer. Wait a minute, what do I watch on CBS? Mmm. None of the CSI's, no NCIS...holy cow...there's not a single CBS show that I watch regularly. Wow.

Okay. They got me for one.

When they announced The Unit, the thing that attracted me to it was obviously Mamet, plus Shawn Ryan, who's proved himself a deft, muscular storyteller with The Shield. I was interested to see if Mamet-rhythm-and-worship and Ryan's cable-pedigree could translate to network -- especially a red meat, red state, stodgy old warhorse like CBS.

Let's face it. There's not a blessed thing that's original about The Unit. We've seen the Special Forces thing before. In fact, we've even seen the wives-home-thing before, in good old Mel's We Were Soldiers, co-starring Madeleine's Stowe's freakishly botoxed lips.

The intriguing thing about The Unit for me was seeing how Mamet and Ryan would spin these all-too-familiar tropes. And after seeing the pilot, I can honestly say that I wasn't disappointed.

First, there's the cast. Dennis Haysbert, Scott Foley, Robert Patrick, Regina Taylor? You had me at hello.

So what if there's a silly teaser -- and it was pretty silly -- it's nice to see something blow up and things go down. You're thinking, "Yup, I've seen this before." Great. Solid. Safe. CBS.

And then they start fucking with you. There's a bit of Mametspeak in the hood -- but just a bit -- The way Foley calls Haysbert "Top," the fast-scene where they spring into action at the wooded cottage of the ex-unit member -- where everyone moves quickly and at once and doesn't pause to let you the viewer in -- well, that could have been straight out of HEIST or SPARTAN...

...then there's what I think is the poignant subtext to that scene -- a subtext that I haven't seen anyone comment on so far. There's all this fooferal about "Don't you lure my husband back, he's not coming back" -- which to me plays as wife-and-commander in cahoots to try and give dignity to the badass commander who's there in the wheelchair. He obviously aint coming back, guys. He's in a wheelchair. Then there's a left turn: he offers Foley's newbie the gun -- and the scene, like most of Mamet's best, has just gone in a different direction. He was showing the new guy off. And once he passed muster, he was offered the gun. This was a scene about cost (the guy in the wheelchair) and initiation. Then the crisis begins, and the real initiation begins. I dig it.

You've got a problem in these shows, right off the bat. Because this show's about hard men. Scott Foley's the new guy -- but unlike the pilot for Conviction, you can't view this sucker through the eyes of the new guy -- the naif. Because that's not the guy's character. He's worked hard to be here, and he's not going to show jack shit. You're dangerously close to the edge when you show the scene of him looking at the picture of the wife and kids. Haysbert's response to that is particularly stoic and Mametian.

For as much as people admire Mamet, and as much as writers like to hold him up as an ideal, it's funny to me that a lot of people miscalculate why Mamet wields such power. Everybody knows that Mamet cadence, that poetry...but not many people cotton onto the other element that makes Mamet Mamet -- he constructs worlds that are not realistic, but that are heightened. It's not reality. It's Mametovision. Whether it's the bluster of those real estate agents in Glengarry, the thieves of Heist, Val Kilmer in Spartan -- Mamet-speak and plotting isn't about real life, it's about constructing extreme situations and extreme versions of how to get out of it -- usually with the power structure stacked against you.

So for his pilot, Mamet shows you just how badass his Unit is by putting them in the worst, most extreme case they can possibly be in: an operation in the United States, that puts them at odds with the Posse Comitatus act.

It's interesting to me that the phrase is thrown around twice in the pilot, yet none of the commenters I've trolled reading online seems to have picked up on it, and wondered at its significance. It is a big deal...it raises the stakes for these guys beyond failure. Beyond Death. Sure, we've seen death before. These guys put their lives on the line, blah blah blah - and they never get credit or thanks blah blah blah -- but in this case, if they fail, not only do they open themselves to risk of life, not only do they risk failing, or killing hostages -- they go in knowing that if they fail, their government won't just deny they exist -- they'll turn on them and hang them out to dry.

That is a very Mamet theme. And the fact that these guys don't blink in the face of that, well...that's just how badass they are. They're so badass they'll threaten the lives of FBI agents because that's what needs to be done.

We don't even blink when Jack Bauer tortures anyone anymore. But that was truly shocking.

And that, chickens, is the point.

Nice ticking clock, too...they let you know that the whole point of these terrorists is to inflict maxium damage on the newscrews, Fire, Cops, and early responders -- so by threatening them and going in first, they're really protecting them. Neat trick.

Second inversion of cliche: the whole women's subplot. I mentioned We Were Soldiers above. They really did do the same plot that time, and it used a lot of the same cliches, but it layed there flat. What I liked about how they used the idea in The Unit was firstly, the way they're telegraphing right off the bat that this marriage isn't maybe the most solid: the wife thinks that the husband will be pissed, but when he comes home, he's not the slightest bit surprised that he's moved in across the street. The husband aint coming clean with his wife.

And if you missed the subtlety of that, a moment later, just as we've spent the whole ep building up the stoicism of the wives, and the family nature of the Unit, we get a nice, solid dollop of soapy-opera goodness. These people aren't Red State, Military Robots. They're just as screwed up as the rest of us.

Meanwhile, we do get to see the naif who's resisting the world she's been parachuted into, but it's the new guy's wife, someone who would be more likely to react badly and show it.

She's unsympathetic, sure, but then there's a key piece of dialogue that shows you why: "If he gets killed, in 90 days I'm off the base."

Ouch. That's true. That's so. They may "stick together" and "act like family" -- but that's also an illusion that's meant to help them cope. The reality is that on another level their husbands are tools, to be taken out and used. The support only goes so far. From the Earth To The Moon also did a good job of showing this side of the home front. In any case, it's nice to know that the "homefront" stuff isn't just going to be long-suffering wives.

And then there's Regina Taylor's speech, which ends in the line quoted in the title of this post. I laughed out loud. Man. Now THAT is Mametspeak.

I think The Unit, at least in Pilot form, did a pretty good job of setting you up for one reality that feels familiar -- and then sneaking in some other, more interesting themes underneath. This is not the straight-ahead double of NCIS or JAG. Interestingly, though, it'll still play to that crowd. That might be the most subversive thing about it.

It's sad that a lot of that has to be snuck in these days, but if that's the way it is, so be it. I thought The Unit's pilot was a nice mix of smart and familiar. I think CBS has got a hit, and at least one new viewer, (at least for an hour a week.)

Plus, I think Shawn Ryan's stock just went up.

Sons & Daughters

Hmmm -- not much commenting below.

You lurking Canadians -- yes, I'm pointing at you -- you burn my ass.

Anyway, I thought Sons & Daughters easily outpaced Free Ride in the battle of the partially-scripted shows. I think it has a deeper cast, first of all. It's wonderful to see Max Gail back on TV. Shout out to the Barney Miller fans!

In Sons & Daughters, the improv back and forth did allow for some quirky and shaggy laughs that didn't go where you expected them to. It leant a winning unpredictability to things. I also think the plotting and basic structure of the episode was far more succinct, clear, and tight than Free Ride.

But maybe Sons & Daughters' biggest feat is this: you're talking a huge cast, and by the end of the second half-hour, every one of those characters were suitably defined. I knew who everyone was -- and I'd already picked a few favorites. It also made me much afeared to find myself half-speculating, "now which of these characters am I most like in my family unit?"

Yeah, it was fun to see former Muchmusic VJ Amanda Walsh up there jazz-handsing mightily, but Fred Goss and Eden Sher were the standouts to me.

From the learn-something-about-writing department -- Randy Wayne's Jeff Fenton was being set up as the standard good-looking jock, and then there's that scene where he dismisses the cute blondes because they're mean to his cousin...yup, the whole ugly-on-the-inside thing has been done -- but what a character-revealing moment: it makes you think totally differently about that character. Not a bad thing for your pilot.

I'll be watching this one til they cancel it. Heh heh. Okay, okay -- maybe not. Supposedly it did build on According to Jim's numbers, and did okay with 18-34's. Not the splash that The Unit (which I still haven't caught up on) made, but not bad. Hopefully it'll be enough to keep it going for a while.

I also liked how small the stories were. With a cast that big, you don't need to advance everything too far each episode, because your crosscutting gives you narrative momentum -- having to service all those characters mean that lateral motion can free you from the need for constant forward narrative motion. It's an interesting technique.