Cinderella Spawn Takes Writerboy Hostage

(TORONTO) The granddaughter of boxing great and Cinderella Man James J. Braddock threw a few punches of her own last night as she took an area man hostage following the premiere of a TV show.

The actress, Rosemarie DeWitt (pictured left with co-star Ron Livingston) was starring in a new FOX show, Standoff.

The incident began shortly after 9:12 p.m. when the unidentified man fired up his PVR to find a pleasant looking woman with a really cute nose on his screen.

"I can't help it," said the man. "I really kind of like brown hair and brown eyes and pretty, cute noses. She just didn't look like people you see on TV. She was life pretty, not TV pretty, you know what I mean?"

DeWitt's flinty, no-nonsense hostage negotiator, Emily Lehman, quickly emerged as the best thing about the drama, STANDOFF, possibly triggering Stockholm-syndrome like feelings in her helpless hostage.

"Don't get me wrong," wept the man, "I think Ron Livingston is great and definitely deserves to be a TV star. He's the TV John Cusack. And don't get me started on Gina Torres...but there's just something about DeWitt. She's not any relation to Joyce DeWitt, is she?"

Fox has an interesting tradition of casting appealing, off kilter women in roles that make their casting among the best on Television. With characters like Chloe O'Brien on 24, Constance Brennan on Bones, and even Ming Na on Vanished, Fox manages, more than the other networks, to cast women who are pretty enough to suck you in, but strong enough that watching them proves to be compelling, preying on tired people who should know better.

Says Arthur E. Robinson, a psychologist and not the name that we currently can't clear for another role on Across The River To Motor City, "an interesting thing happens to the heterosexual male when he's tired and sitting on the couch after a long day. He might find himself susceptible to things that he otherwise wouldn't even consider, like watching a whole episode of a middling drama about hostage negotiators." Robinson continued, "Yes, the show might have their attempt at a HOUSE-like "Everybody Lies," hook with "at the core of every standoff there's a broken relationship," but really, how far can it go? A show like this as a limited run series could perhaps work, but are we really going to sit through 22 weeks of hostage situations? Then 22 more? I think the answer is clear."

A day later, the victim isn't so sure. "Here's the thing. Everybody loves the whole will-they-or-won't-they thing. Standoff had a great teaser, with Tom Wopat as a Seventh Heaven like TV star taking his kids hostage. Ron Livinston's character distracts him by revealing his no-no relationship with his partner. Now everybody knows. It looks like they're going to have to not be together to keep working together, but can they keep doing that? Can they keep doing that? I. Just. Don't. Know."

Evidence suggests that they can't just keep doing that. "Eventually," says Robinson, "All will-they-or-won't-they shows has to end with, "they will," and the question is whether STANDOFF has enough heft to survive to that point. I could almost see a very different show, where there actually was a very black comedy element to their relationship, where these two hostage negotiator types use all their manipulating hostage techniques on each other in the relationship. That could rise to the level of something sublime. As it stands, though, as a straight down the pipe drama with a frisson of romance, the world of Standoff is probably too limited to survive a long run with an appreciative audience."

But for one area man, now safe at home, the scars of his ordeal aren't quite ready to fade. And the Standoff in his heart is by no means over.

"I keep thinking about that nose. The dry line delivery, the evident passion and intelligence in the performance. The lovely fitted blouses...and the nose. God help me, I can't forget the nose."

Ker-Plug: The Smart Women's Survival Guide

[CANADIAN TV] Wow. See what happens when you have time off? One more quick plug:

The W Network today premieres a new show at 8pm ET. It's called The Smart Women's Survival Guide and it's an interesting stab at a hybrid: part lifestyle show with tips for young women, and part behind-the-scenes comedy.

I really, really, really hope this show works, because I think it's an interesting way to try and find a middle ground for being able to do scripted material at a lower cost. I also think the melding of real info and tips with scripted fantasy elements is a worthy hybrid concept that could scratch that reality itch while still offering opportunities for new writers to break into fiction.

Even if this show isn't your cup of tea, it's one I think you should check out, since I get the feeling that the format is something we're going to be seeing variations on in the future -- especially in territories outside the USA where money for programming doesn't always flow like a vodka fountain.

The writers for the show have a blog here. I'm looking forward to reading that too -- and not just because I know a few of the writers. I think I might have even taught a few of them, back in the day.

Break a leg, ladies. May the Smart Women flock to you en masse.

What I Learned on My Summer Un-Cation

So, there it is. There are jets roaring outside my window right now. Same as they do every year at this time, on this day. The air show's going on down at the Canadian National Exhibition. Time was, I'd be down there. I spent several summers at "The X" lugging around heavy aluminium canisters of soft drink syrup and CO2. I had vivid fantasies of one of the CO2 canisters tipping over, shearing off the valve off the top, and becoming the airborne missile that would bisect me and truncate all my teenage pain.

But you know, that was then.

Later this week, the Toronto International Film Festival will start. Streets will close, people will wait in line and crane their necks to get a glimpse at [insert star here.] There will be much fooferal and fuss as people scramble for tickets for movies they could see cheaper if they would just wait two weeks.

Time was, I'd be jostling in one of those lines, not because I wanted to, but because I was doing some festival-oriented story or another. I used to hate the fact that because the TV station I worked for had people accredited going back to the 1970's who didn't really need the accreditation anymore, people like me who actually did need to get accredited got shunted to press screenings and photo only passes. That's when I really started to hate the festival.

But then again, time was when the Festival was smaller, not quite so Hollywood driven, and it was fairly easy to volunteer and get some great tickets to films. And maybe you'd even get into a party or two. I get into the same two or three parties every year now, and the admission procecdures are getting to be more of a chore every year. I suspect we're two years away from needing to give a DNA cheek swab at the door.

A lot of the reason, though, why I don't like the film festival very much is that I don't like having the same argument over and over and over. And at the Festival, the Canadian film types come out, every year, and make their arguments for Canadian Cinema. And the Canadian Cinema types cluck over this film or that film that continues, or constitutes a "bold new direction" for the Canadian Film Industry.

And for the most part, it's a massive crock. But at least this year I have a new answer for those inevitable arguments. Every English Canadian filmmaker I see this week, I'm going to ask the same question: "Name me an English Canadian film made in the last ten years that is as joyous, well-realized, audience pleasing and involving as Jean-Marc Valee's C.R.A.Z.Y."

I just saw C.R.A.Z.Y. last night. I'd PVR'd it off the Movie Network. I sat down to watch Infernal Affairs, but got three minutes into it and it was the dubbed version and I just couldn't take it anymore.

I was so surrprised and so blown away by C.R.A.Z.Y. I can't even tell you. I knew only that it was about a guy coming to terms with his sexuality in 60's, 70's, and 80's Quebec -- but it was so much more than that. It was a genuine, heartbreaking, sensitive, wonderful movie.

And all the canapes and all the dead things on sticks in the world can't change the fact that I'm hard pressed to come up with a single contemporary English Canadian film that comes close to being as quietly profound and immensely entertaining as Jean Marc Vallee's work. If you haven't seen it, it's a great rental. Go.

So at least I got some ammo. But what else?

Well, funnily enough, this Labor Day feels a lot like when I was going back to school. I got to feel that feeling more than most, since I spent so many years teaching at University, that I would get that "back to school feeling" as an educator, not just a student.

But I'm not doing that this year. Nope. This year I'm looking at a big binder of blue drafts of my series. It starts shooting in two weeks. Two weeks! Wow.

I took a bit of rest over this weekend because I needed it, and because I couldn't really let the papers build up any more -- they were becoming a hazard.

Once we go to camera, most of my work on Across The River will be done. I'm ramping down just as everyone else ramps up, which is interesting. Because there are only six scripts, there won't be as much "generating new script" while other, earlier scripts are on the floor. Because the show is block-shot, there's going to be lots of skipping around through different episodes. It's an incredible task for the director, and for his team. But for me - most of my creative work is really done. I've spent the last couple weeks trying to reduce, integrate notes and track the story so that nothing gets lost in the race to economize and stage the action affordably.

Sometime this fall, I'll have to think on next projects (a few are already bubbling up) and maybe even on taking some time off. But all in all, if you ask me what I've learned on my summer un-cation, it's this:

I'm like a stingray. I'll only attack when I'm provoked or stressed.

No. Sorry. That's not what I meant to write. CNN is on in the background. Guess which story is receiving saturating coverage? Afgh...no.... Ira...no... the other Ira...nope ....Osama Bi...you kidding? The freak celebrity accident? Yessssss. What happened to the JonBenet guy? Oh, right. Good thing next week's the 9/11 five-aversary. That'll be good times.

Anyway, what I've learned over the summer is that for television production to achieve anything like a well-oiled efficiency, you need equal parts honesty and cooperation. I've also learned that if there's a flaw in the system, it's that the latter is far more appreciated than the former.

Sadly, I can't stop my attachment to the former. Any more than the main character in C.R.A.Z.Y. could deny his true nature to please his father.

So the official spin on me is this: "that guy's a straight shooter." Kay? Pass it on.

Dane Cook Explained

Heather Havrilesky has an interesting article in Salon today that takes on the popularity of Dane Cook.

The phenomenon of Dane Cook is one that I greeted initially with mild interest that quickly slid into alienation and then full-blown horror. It was interesting that this guy who had virtually no profile in the media had managed, through relentless touring and internet self-promotion, to become a huge force in comedy.

Then I started to listen to him. And the head scratching started. Because he wasn't funny. In fact, for the life of me, I couldn't even spot the jokes. He seemed to be getting huge laughs for stating the obvious.

Humor is subjective, of course, always. But Dane Cook, to me, wasn't that. There are tons of comics whose schtick I didn't find particularly funny: Jeff Foxworthy, Steve Harvey, Tim Allen, Ray Romano, even... I didn't find their stuff funny because it wasn't my sense of humor. But I always knew where the humor was.

By the time Dane Cook hosted Saturday Night Live, in the least funny episoe this century, his continued popularity was making me panicky. See, some of what I do is write comedy. If I'm actually past the point where I can't even see the humor in a comic who's connecting to millions of college students, I am in deep, deep trouble.

It got to the point there where I would reflexively say, to no one in particular, "but I like Jackass!" I was scared, man. Really scared.

Well, Heather makes it all better:

His comedy is most notable for what it lacks: a critique of the political climate (Dennis Miller, George Carlin, Jon Stewart, Bill Maher), a commentary on our culture (Chris Rock, David Chappelle), a slightly tweaked perspective (Ray Romano, Steven Wright, Jerry Seinfeld), outrageously dirty material (Eddie Murphy, Andrew Dice Clay), or just a goofy, oddball routine (Howie Mandel). Although his delivery can be chafingly smug, Cook doesn't present himself as anything special. He likes video games and chicks and sports and other general-purpose guy stuff. He's not particularly baffled by the world, or all that perceptive, or all that self-aware. He's a little self-deprecating, a little bit cutesy and a little bit aggressive, but most important, he treats mundane experiences like they're huge revelations: Breakup sex is the best, right? Right! Sometimes you have to lie to get out of stuff you don't want to do. I know you've done it, too, bro!

But Cook's is the sort of non-threatening humor that appeals to people who, when watching Jon Stewart or Jerry Seinfeld, don't feel like they're in on the joke. With Cook, you're always in on the joke.

The content, in other words, is secondary to the fact that it's shared...

From his sloppy college kid look to his avoidance of anything political, cultural or remotely critical, Cook aims at appealing to those vast numbers of kids who haven't really developed any interests yet, and are most of all focused on having fun with a big group of people... By celebrating the myopia of the young, Cook has become the hottest comedian around.

I'm not being elitist here. I'm not. The guy's not funny, but whatever. The point is, I think I now understand the sociology of why he's so popular. And, old fart that I am, that makes me feel a lot better.

Course, the fact that he steals material from Louis C.K. doesn't hurt, either.

Somebody Needs To Say It

Am I the only one who thinks that they should be taking a harder look at Paul Hogan?

Crocodile Dundee, man. You call that a stingray? Now this is a stingray.

I'm going to hell.

Why Vera Farmiga Makes Me Uneasy

In today's New York Times Magazine, Lynn Hirschberg uses the case of Vera Farmiga to explore the dearth of female-driven lead roles. Farmiga certainly sounds like a special talent. I'd never heard of her before, but I'll certainly look out for her now.

But the case Hirschberg makes is the uneasy thing. Because if her thesis is to believed, the movie business' new focus on action and comedy and marginalization of female-driven lead roles to romantic comedies means that an actress like Farmiga doesn't have the chance to develop a career like, say, Meryl Streep.

As recently as the 80’s, women were often the sole stars of mainstream studio movies like “Terms of Endearment,” “Moonstruck” and “Out of Africa.” For years before, from Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind” to Bette Davis or Katharine Hepburn in countless roles to Jane Fonda in “Klute” or Diane Keaton in “Annie Hall,” actresses carried films to box-office success. But today, women in mainstream films more often populate the margins as girlfriends, mothers and wives, often with stereotypical personalities. Meryl Streep’s challenging role as a Polish holocaust survivor in “Sophie’s Choice” in 1982, to pick perhaps the most famous example, is an increasingly distant memory.

For the most part at the studios, there are now two genres available to women in leading roles: romantic comedies (which made Julia Roberts and Reese Witherspoon into huge box-office stars) and women-in-peril films (think of Jodie Foster in the mega-hits “Flightplan” and “Panic Room”). Occasionally, women can be cast in starring roles as action heroes, as with Angelina Jolie in “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” and “Mr. and Mrs. Smith.” And it’s true that Oscars can be won by playing dramatic real-life characters: Witherspoon won the Academy Award for Best Actress this year for her portrayal of June Carter Cash in “Walk the Line,” and Nicole Kidman won in 2003 for her incarnation of Virginia Woolf in “The Hours.” But it says something about the changes in the industry that when Sissy Spacek won the Best Actress Oscar in 1981 for portraying the musician Loretta Lynn in “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” she was the lead in the film, while Witherspoon was playing a secondary character in “Walk the Line.”

Streep is invoked several times in the article, and for any fan of dramatic films, the cant is increasingly depressing. Whatever else anyone says about Streep, she's certainly carved her own way through the business with a consistently interesting energy and edge. If all we're to get from now on is Lindsay Lohan and Scarlett Johannsson, the form may indeed be in trouble.

Articles like these, of course, tend to reinforce my own bias -- a bias that's dealt with late in the article, when it's discussed how the roles for female actors are far more complex on television, where women drive viewership, something that apparently they don't do anymore at the multiplex.

But Hirschberg's Vera thesis, to me, raises other questions that roil beyond the scope of the article. And they're kind of connected to the whole TV vs. Movies debate.

See, Hirschberg views things only within the lens of the female role, but part of what disturbs me is the fact that a lack of complexity in female parts mirrors a lack of nuance and complexity overall, for one specific reason: men are at their most complex when they're dealing with women.

So if the wife or the girlfriend role is one-dimensional, then the meat of everything takes a hit. That's not just in films, it's in TV too.

Let's take a look at some of those better roles for women. I'm hooked on Brotherhood right now simply because I'm desperate to see where the relationship betwee Michael Caffey and his mother, and Tommy and his wife, end up. Both these actresses approach the role with a certain ferociousness and ambiguity that ripple off questions not just about how they will react, but how the men in thrall to them will react as well.

For all the noise made about Tony Soprano this past season, almost every interesting moment on the Sopranos this year, for me, was about Carmela.

And lets face it, Chloe O'Brien is more interesting than Jack Bauer, any day of the week. Kate is more interesting than Sawyer and Jack put together. And I would go so far as to say though Cuddy could sure use a kick in the kiester, Dr. Cameron, without the showy theatrics, is still what I'm watching in just about every scene she shares with House.

The difference is, at least when we talk about television, that most people I know that the skinny wife with the fat guy or the woman in peril is an easy trope that doesn't have anything to do with reality. But because the stereotype that men don't discuss anything emotional about their lives (bullshit in every guy I know, but whatever) is so pervasive, and because the audience for TV is so heavily female, just about the only way to get at male complexity these days is by exploring it through female characterizations, and how the men respond to them. When we lose that device, we lose an important way in to the inner life of all our characters.

But part of the reaction against the female role problem in films, and the retrenchment in TV, is that often there's a contentment with turning things around. We can let Jack be one-dimensional. We can feed into the stereotypes of how men are, either by falling back on shopworn complaints women have about men's "inability to confront their feelings" or whatever, or by creating attractive fantasies for women (the utterly feminized men of Grey's Anatomy, for example.)

This is not to say that every female role should be viewed through how it affects male characters. That's silly. But human interaction is complex. To reduce one side of it is to reduce all of it. And to react to that reduction by retreating into equally biased and false fantasies is to short-circuit the possibility of truth onscreen, in any way.

I don't know if that makes sense. But there it is. The lack of complex female roles isn't just hurting actresses chances for careers: it's hurting storytelling.

Keith Olberman, Patriot

This is a remarkable commentary.

How ultimately disheartening is it that it had to be made at all?

Good Night and Good Luck, indeed.

November.

How To Open

It's on my mind lately, of course, since I'm poring over how to introduce characters to an audience in my own show. But it does bear mentioning that I plugged in my (purchased, Diane, some of us pay our way) copy of House, Season 2, and watched the Q&A with the cast, and was reminded of one of the first things House ever said onscreen:

I'm paraphrasing here: but it's something like this:

Brain tumor, she’s gonna die, boring.

There you go. House in a sentence.

How your character enters the script IS that character.

No Fool You

So I just got through watching the Season 3, and Series Finale, of Slings & Arrows.

Sublime.

When I grow up, I want to do TV like that.

Just Cause It Buzzes, Doesn't Mean You Get To Milk The Bee

That didn't take long.

A couple of comments and four more emails besides, in various levels of pique, taking me to task on why I would write about a show that had great buzz and not name the show.

Well, chickens, that's buzz. That's how it starts.

Seriously, this blog isn't Aint It Cool News. I'm not into revealing early drafts of scripts or spoiler stuff or subverting the marketing machine for a show. Even in a country where marketing is a problem.

The reality is that the screening I went to last night was not a public event. It was a cast and crew screening. I believe that distinction is important. I am not charged with, nor is it my place to kick off the publicity for this show or any other. If it was a public screening, maybe. But it wasn't.

In a few weeks, publicity for the show in question will start to appear. And then I will gladly jump on the bandwagon and, like press reviewers, weigh in on the show and how it plays and all that good stuff. Until then, you're all free to guess -- and maybe -- quelle horreur -- prick up your ears a bit and try to keep those eyes and ears peeled for debuting Canadian series.

But til then, sorry, I'm not Harry Knowles. Not even for you, my dear Sticksvillians.

Buzz.

It's an interesting phenomenon.

Especially in Canada.

See, here buzz is often hijacked or proscribed by the hows and whys of how the industry works. First, the Canadian domestic industry is incredibly small. Everyone's married to everyone else, or they dated once or at least had a drunken grope session three Banffs or Vancouver Film Festivals ago. So you don't get a lot of honest opinion-sharing. You can't. The chances of running into anyone connected with anything is just too high.

I know that there are people out there who will say that L.A. or the U.K. is the same way -- but really...we're talking two degrees of separation, most, between everybody in the industry here.

The second thing holding back or twisting true buzz is the way series are produced in Canada. Things are fussed over and fussed over at the script stage, and then thirteen or four or eight episodes are ordered and produced. No pilots -- they're too expensive. So when a show debuts, it's in the can. For better or worse, on a sliding scale of enthusiasm, the network is committed. And unlike in the USA, where you might cancel a show after 3 episodes leaving five in the can that are never seen again -- at least until the DVD -- even that option isn't open to us here in the Great White North.

So add this fact to Canadians' reputation for (surface) politeness, and you have the perfect storm of buzzkill.

Which is why it's so remarkable when something breaks through. The difference between "guarded buzz" discussions where people dart left and right with their eyes, saying tepidly encouraging things lest they be the first one to come out with a hearty, "that sucked!" and a genuine, ear to ear grin of someone saying, "wow, that was really great!" is the difference between waking from a nightmare and dreaming gingerbread dreams all night long.

Every year, CHUM and Citytv throw one of the first parties of the Toronto International Film Festival. The Friday Night Shmooze can be hit and miss from year to year, but about five years ago I remember being at the party on a night when Cameron Diaz dropped by for a nanosecond, and I think Kevin Spacey was there too. But that wasn't the remarkable thing. The remarkable thing was all the Canadians flocking for autographs to a trio of guys standing in a football huddle in the main tent in the parking lot.

The Trailer Park Boys.

That was buzz, my friends. Genuine, unrestrained joy in encountering something. When TPB did a screening at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto, it was the same thing. Pandemonium.

Well, I'm giddy to be able to say that last night I sat in the audience at a Cast & Crew screening in Toronto for a new series that's going to be premiering on Canadian TV in a few weeks. Cast & Crew screenings are famous for "supportive" laughs. You know, not real laughs.

Well, there were real laughs.

And wide-eyed smiles. And a surprised, giddy, happy, shellshocked realization: "Holy Shit, this thing could actually be a hit!"

Stay tuned.

And The Statuette Kind of Looks Like A Face Transplant, Too.

Well, the Emmy Awards have come and gone, which means it must be time for the nominations for the Gemini Awards. Those are kind of like the Canadian Emmys, except, you know...not.

The major nominees were announced today. A few highlights, with comments:

Best Drama series:

Moccasin Flats, ReGenesis, Slings & Arrows, Terminal City, This Is Wonderland

To me this category should be, by rights, a mortal lock for Slings & Arrows. An incredibly strong second series, and a confident execution where everything worked: direction, acting, writing, and pacing. It's great TV, not great Canadian TV.

Best Comedy series:

Corner Gas, History Bites: Mother Britain, Jeff Ltd., Kenny vs. Spenny, Naked Josh, The Rick Mercer Report

This is where the inevitable weird Gemini rules get me. I don't think that Kenny vs. Spenny (which I love) and Mercer (ditto) should be in the same category as scripted comedy series. It's like putting The Daily Show and Seinfeld in the same category. You could do it, but why? Corner Gas is, of course, the 900 lb. Gorilla here, but I would not be displeased to see Naked Josh take this: a very underrated series that had some great episodes in their second season.

Best Animated series:

Bromwell High, Atomic Betty, Jane and the Dragon, Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends, Naughty Naughty Pets

Americans may scratch their heads, but Animation is so important in Canada that I would argue this is the third most important category for scripted series. Bromwell High is insane. Although I've never seen Naughty Naughty Pets, I support its title 100%. That title just makes me laugh.

Best Documentary series:

China Rises, The Nature of Things, The Passionate Eye, Turning Points of History, The View From Here

Canada has a strong documentary tradition going back to the NFB. All of these nominated shows are equally worthy, in my view.

Writing nominations:

Best Writing in a Drama series:

Ken Finleman, Morwyn Brebner, Ellen Vanstone At The Hotel The Perfect Couple

Susan Coyne, Bob Martin, Mark McKinney Slings and Arrows Steeped in Blood

Angus Fraser Terminal City Episode 6

George F. Walker, Dani Roman This is Wonderland Episode 313

Again, I have to go with Slings. At The Hotel had interesting moments but it was a mess. Strong category, though.

Best Writing in a Comedy or Variety Program or Series:

Dan Redican, Burnt Toast

Mark Farrell, Brent Butt, Paul Mather, Kevin White Corner Gas

Steve Smith, Rick Green, David T. Smith The Red Green Show Do As I Do

Kevin White, Irwin Barker, Gavin Crawford, Mark Critch, Barry Julien, Bob Kerr, Gary Pearson, Carolyn Taylor, Jennifer Whalen This Hour Has 22 Minutes Episode 7

Ian MacDonald, Jennifer Kennedy The Wilkinsons Ulterior Designers

Again, a bit of a bizarre mismatch. How does anyone other than Corner Gas walk away with this?

Best Writing in a Dramatic Program or Mini-Series:

Gordon Pinsent Heyday!

Ian Adams, Riley Adams, Michelle Lovretta Hunt for Justice: The Louise Arbour Story

Chris Haddock Intelligence

Suzette Couture The Man Who Lost Himself

Andrew Wreggitt, Hugh Graham One Dead Indian

Bruce M. Smith Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story

This is another incredibly strong category. I think they should give it to Bruce Smith just because of how the CBC sold him out so disgustingly on the Tommy Douglas movie -- but I thought both One Dead Indian and Intelligence were also pretty gripping.

Finally, congrats to Michael Filipowich and Patricia McKenzie, both nominated for fine acting work for Charlie Jade, which also picked up a total of 5 nominations. (Visual Effects, Sound, Picture Editing.)

The full list of Gemini nominees, confusing categories and all, can be found here.

Rescue Me (I want my TV)

...for we poor snowmice here in Canada, the third season of Rescue Me starts its run on Showcase tonight.

Don't be so smug, though, Yankees...I think the last season of Sopranos is about to start its run on over-the-air broadcaster CTV. Uncut. See, here in the land of gay marriage and spliff, boobs and the f-bomb don't bother us. If we feel uncomfortable, we just go to the doctor (covered under universal healthcare) and get our little happy pill. (Not usually covered, but hey, it's a frigging happy pill.)

Meanwhile, I have three episodes of Brotherhood, the last Vanished and Prison Break, and the season finales of Deadwood and Entourage to catch up on. And I even have spanky new furniture to watch them on. After moaning and moaning about having to work from home, I now pine for a nice quiet nice in. It's always something, isn't it?

And Don't You Forget It

Searches on some combination of "Falcon Beach," "Jennifer Kydd", and "topless" continue to drive a majority of hits to this blog. This leads me to conclude several things:

• The Family in ABCFamily does not necessarily include the "safe content" filter.
• Global is dead right in pursuing their, "we want dramas, but we also want to make sure they have a U.S. sale first" strategy.
• Apparently, lots of people think Jennifer Kydd is hot.
• None of the Falcon Beach searchers are getting to my blog because they searched "wakeboarding." Sick, Dude!

Falcon Beach is currently shooting its second season near Winnipeg.

Oooh. Kelly MacDonald.

Yes. She won. I don't care if you saw "The Girl in the Cafe" -- I did. It was crazy good. And she...well...she was....you know she was the girl in Trainspotting right? I have to stop. Really.


I did not watch the Emmys. I was playing poker. Are there outrages? Tell me. I'm pleased about The Office. I cannot say I'm displeased by 24 winning best drama. I like House, Diane, really I do. I do. I hope this isn't a problem......

As for, um, you know....um........Grey's........um..........ah....well, you got to do that prom episode, right?

That was great...right?

And the writing awards...they all felt right...............right?

Or what am I missing?

Collabroworld

A couple of articles in the paper today got me thinking about collaboration. In the first, there's a somewhat sad little piece about Fred Kander in the NYTimes. Kander, of course, is one half of the venerable songwriting team Kander and Ebb. Ebb, his writing partner, died in 1994, and Kander is now working to bring their last collaborations to a finished place.

The grieving process of spouses is now a familiar subject. Less is said, though, about what it means to survive a professional partner. For 42 years Mr. Kander and Mr. Ebb spent part of most of their days together in a small room — often around the kitchen table or by the spinet in the study at Mr. Ebb’s Central Park West apartment — conceiving, giving birth to and guiding their works to maturity. That they went their separate ways when work was done each day did not make it easier for Mr. Kander to do so when their work was done for good.

If anything, the differences in their personalities, the contrasting traits that proved so useful to their songwriting, made the unwinding more complicated. Once Mr. Ebb’s apartment was sold, where would Mr. Kander work? And with whom?

Several unhitched lyricists, like suitors bearing casseroles, made it clear that they were available; Mr. Kander thanked them but said he was, for the moment, “otherwise engaged.”

Maybe it's the stories of the Lennon/McCartney partnership we've all downloaded over the last few decades, but I find that people are able to grasp songwriting partnerships far better than other kinds of writing partnerships. I've said before that the idea of "The Room" - is something that is probably best not even discussed ex famille, since it involves a level of intimacy, give and take, and freeness that doesn't translate across most other workplaces. Most people outside the business tend to have a distorted view of the creative process anyway, but there's something particular about the idea of a bunch of people working in a room to craft a story that rubs people the wrong way. I think it's because the only analogue they can come up with is a project designed by committee -- where compromises reduce any vision to pablum. You can try to explain that The Room is far more Darwinian than that - not a compromise, but a survival of the fittest hothouse where the best idea wins - but again, you're probably not going to get it if you're not involved. (Or unless you have ambitions to BE involved. It's the old saw about sausages and lawmaking -- if you enjoy the end product it's probably best not to see it made.)

That's why the article in the Times on Kander struck me as so interesting. It's very much in line with a lot of my views on collaboration, too. Two people so professionally in tune that everyone assumes that there's a deeper thing going on. And there is, but not in the way you think.

We get into trouble, I feel, when we expect collaborative relationships to be like friendships, or sibling relationships, or anything else where boundaries are more permeable. The myth of how we understand these things, imperfectly, demand that there be some sort of filial or friendship bond there. We want Kander and Ebb or Lennon and McCartney to have been the best of friends -- but really, at the end of the day, it's not relevant. Not at all.

(This is not to say that you don't see spouses or brothers or friends who collaborate, of course. But as someone who has collaborated and doesn't find it to be that natural an experience, I think the difference has to be that professional collaborations are defined not by the commonality of experience, but by the differences. It's easier to maintain that separation if you, well, maintain that separation. And if you do have a personal relationship with your collaborator, your professional collaborative relationship, if it's going to be stable, has to be established with different rules and boundaries. In other words, one doesn't grow out of the other, it's more like they develop on parallel tracks.)

I've only had a couple of experiences collaborating in a musical way. I wrote the book and lyrics for a spoof musical based on Top Gun that had some minor success here in Toronto and in a couple of other productions. My collaborator/composer in that show is a guy named Scott White. Scott and I get along well -- very well. Our skills complement each other. And I deeply enjoyed the collaboration. But what made the collaboration effective, and possible, is how different we were. Scott and I see each other from time to time, and we're warm, collegial acquaintances, but we're not best friends. We don't go out for beers. But when it came time to work, we were always there, ready -- and our differing approaches clicked and meshed. Which, I think, is how it should be.

I say all this because I think, when you're starting out trying to find your way and your voice, the natural first thing you do is start collaborating with a friend. And in many ways, it's the worst way to start. If you have a previous relationship, that previous relationship will always be in the room with you, and it has the definite chilling effect of making it way harder to be professionally honest. In any collaboration situation, I have to be able to say when I think X is a "%@#$ stupid idea." And anyone I collaborate has to be able to say the same thing. If you know that later you have to go meet the in-laws, or pick up the kids, or go to Jenny's housewarming -- I imagine all of that becomes infinitely harder.

Which brings me to the other article on collaboration in the paper today. Eric Bogosian is doing a new production of SubUrbia, and it's being directed by his wife, Jo Bonney, who's also worked with Neil LaBute. How they negotiate the professional/personal relationship, to me, is an utter mystery.

“What’s interesting to me working on ‘SubUrbia,’ ” he said, “is that the guy I was 12 years ago was fascinated with the whole topic of fame and fortune — I was just coming off a period of pretty strong stuff like that — but that’s not the leading plane of it for me anymore. Not to sound pretentious, but I’ve been reading ‘The Three Sisters’ again lately, and looking at the way Chekhov paid such close attention to character. Which is what Jo is also so good at, the earned small beats, the little nuances. And no director I’ve ever worked with is as precise about the writing. She won’t let you cover up the flaws.”

He is not alone in this opinion.

“Jo is quick to dismiss and exile anything in the writing that isn’t top-notch,” Mr. LaBute said.

What about you, collaborators? Tell me about the intimacies in your working relationship. Is distance important? How about differences of background, temperament, approach? Do your significant others understand? Do they get jealous?

I've heard some heartbreaking breakup stories in my time. The worst ones are always couples who have kids who can't put the kids first. But just below that -- ugly and gnarly and awful -- and way, way, way worse than the breakup of just about any personal relationship I've ever witnessed -- is what happens when professional creative partnerships implode. Oi. That's some bad mojo.

Anyway, all in all, not a bad muse for a Sunday.

Well I'M Not Going To Be The One To Tell Him, I'm Telling You THAT Right Now.

A Requiem for Bellick

Oh Bellick. We hardly knew ye, didn't we?

Your endless cruelty. Your sadistic overlord tendencies. Your shameful desire to enjoy the power you had over everyone around you. The rage and shame that fired you once somebody had the power to take that power away.

You were a great character to watch on Prison Break, you really were. Not because you were deadly original, like nothing I'd ever seen on TV before...because I'd seen your type of character many times before.

But I liked you better. You stood out from the sadistic guard pack.

But all that, necessarily, is over now, isn't it? I mean, the cats are out of the bag, right?

Then there's this guy-------------------------->

FBI Agent Mahone, eh? Look at you, all shifty. Popping pills and stuff. Seeing the things that no one else sees. You're kind of creepy, too. Didn't you used to be sheriff or something? Seriously, you were acting all weird and stuff. Something about the water?

What's great about Prison Break right now is that the whole show is changing. And while it's changing, you can learn a lot about genre and the role of character in your show.

Every year what we do as television and film writers get harder, because hundreds of hours of new movies and television shows get added to the pile. This has been happening in film for well on 80 years now, and in Television for 50. At a certain time, a "totally original character" becomes simply impossible to invent. This is why when young baby writers don't know the history of the medium, it drives me crazy. Because the true secret of writing interesting television characters is this: the audience doesn't need you to do that. That's hard work. It means they have to work harder. In many cases too hard. And they don't want that. For godsakes, they're just trying to be entertained.

So while it's nice to run into an Al Swearengen or a Gregory House every once in a while, there are vast swaths of us out here who really love, and live for, a good Bellick. Or even an FBI Agent Mahone.

Genres demand certain characters, and whether implicitly or explicitly, audiences demand you populate the drama with those characters. They demand that the lead investigating cop be driven or curious. I happen to think it would be awesome and funny to have an investigator character who desperately doesn't want to solve cases, but always winds up solving them anyway. But that would probably run two episodes.

See, in the case of Bellick, part of what the audience is attracted to is what I call the Continuity of the Character. We've seen mean old sadistic prison guards before. We liked them in the shows we saw them in. We see Bellick, and very quickly we know what his deal is.

Then it's up to you to make us imprint on Bellick, and forget all the other characters who came before him. See? That's the trick. The familiarity gets you in, and then your skill in flipping or spinning that character keeps 'em there, stuck. Or keeps 'em coming back.

I'm sure that once cons start getting caught, Bellick on Prison Break will have more of a role, and not be ignonimously shoved to the side as he was in so much of the second season premiere...but let's go on to Fichter's character, hmm?

Now in the case of William Fichter's FBI Agent Mahone, there's a Continuity of the Character Cocktail being mixed up. First, it's a show about cons on the run now, so you absolutely need that tracker character in there. See? The genre demands a certain character. But then they go and cast William Fichter. Has Fichter ever, ever played a character who wasn't bent in some way? Nope. No how. So when he pops those pills at the graveyard, it's meant to make you wonder, "who he?"

Agent Mahone has a much harder road to hoe in terms of making you love him and forget all those who came before. Because one of those who came before was Tommy Lee Jones' U.S. Marhshall in the remake of The Fugitive. Man, that was a great character. I think that no matter how hard he tries, Fichter is never going to make us forget that guy. Which is why I think they cast him. Because they're going to go another way.

When you spend so much time sweating over your original characters, what you're really doing is being egotistical. You're writing something for an audience. They are in on the enjoyment and they will be the ones, ultimately, who decide if they like your characters and want to keep watching, or if they don't. When you tease them a little by showing them something they find familiar and then giving the character that new, corkscrew twist, you're engaging their intellect and having them do some of your work for you.

Yes, it's bad to put in the hooker with the heart of gold, or the supportive girlfriend, or the magic black person. But only if that's all they are. Sometimes, it's not your job to sit there and try to invent the wheel. Sometimes it's your job to take the wheel and figure out how to trick it out with a DVD player and some diamond-studded rims.

Oh, and (spoiler coming up).....













....that's why Robin Tunney's character had to be toasted. The show demands certain type of characters. When they were all trapped inside, you needed a character who could represent the outside world. The minute the cons got out, you don't need her anymore. Her story is over. I think it's interesting that they made her a prisoner, then killed her. Subliminally, she manages to invest the audience, in her exit, with the most important thing about Prison Break: it's not just that these cons are on the run. It's that the system that's chasing them is completely corrupt.

Ill Met By Moonlight

Never in the history of insomnia, short of the guy who got a spike through the head and didn't sleep for fifteen years, has there ever been anyone more awake than I am right now.

Dagnabbit.

Random things that you remember you read that suddenly come to you when you're wide awake at 5 in the morning, wondering if you should pack it in and get up or vainly struggle to get two more fitful hours of sleep in:

• The guy who plays Ellsworth on Deadwood, Jim Beaver, is apparently such an expert on George Reeves and his mysterious death that he's a technical advisor on the upcoming Hollywoodland, and is publishing a book on it. Weird. What would Al Swearegen think?
  
  
• Jaime Weinman reminds us that Hugh Carlson's classic WKRP episode "Fish Story" (the one where Johnny gets better at the breathalyzer the more he drinks) was written out of contempt for what was felt to be asinine network notes. Just goes to show that sometimes writers' prickly contempt (and even cruel or silly network notes) can lead to greatness. That's one for the humble bag.
  
  
• After writing this series for so long now, I want to write half hour comedy almost as much as I want a big juicy steak or a nice piece of fish. With all that's bullshit about Canada, unlike in Hollywood, here you really can do both if you want -- and if you have the talent -- and well -- sometimes, sometimes it almost makes up for the--
  
  --oh who am I kidding? I'd trade it all for a little more sleep right now.
  
  
• Then there's this picture, courtesy of L.A. film blogger Peggy Archer, of a piece of Grafitti on Paramount's Stage 24:

Why yes. Yes it does.

Fucker.

Tomorrow, we're on to Production Pinks.

Uh...I mean, today.

Wheeeeee!

Oh Snap! It's the 50 Million Dollar Man!

In a writing career that any scribbler should envy (even with the Zelda) F. Scott Fitzgerald seriously stumbled only once, when he wrote "There are no second acts in American lives."

Which brings us to Dave Chappelle.

Saw him last night at Toronto's Massey Hall. Read the reviews, and as far as they go, they're fine. You get the idea here. The short list? Is he still funny? Yes. Does he talk about why he walked away from his show? Yes. Is he crazy? Nope. And that's what scares me.

For a storyteller of any stripe, seeing Chappelle stalk the stage was an exhilarating and simultaneously unsettling experience. Exhilarating because his control and pitch are so exact. He's got a sense of timing and pacing that's unparalleled. He fills the stage -- one guy with a mike, smoking a cigarette every few minutes. His segues are seamless, his material never less than sharp. He can go from a serious political run to scatological lowest-common denominator material and back, and never seem like he's pandering. It's all fiercely smart. But more than that, it's confident, in a way I've rarely seen. I remember seeing Robin Williams years ago, post-Mork, pre-Good Morning Vietnam -- and though he was hilarious, it was such a self-conscious, throw everything at the wall and see what sticks train smash, that there was something about it that seemed unseemly.

Chappelle, on the other hand, stands up there and really seems like he doesn't give a fuck. Now, I know some of that is comic pose. But not all of it -- and that's what brings me to the unsettling part.

Because Dave Chappelle is undoubtedly a changed man. If you go back and see his standup specials from around the time Chappelle's Show debuted, or just before, and compare that to the guy on stage now -- it's clearly not the same guy. He's seen some dark shit, and it's changed him. There's something sad in his delivery that wasn't there before. You don't need to go too far to see an angry black comic. But Dave Chappelle will chill you, son. Because he's not just raging against the machine. You don't doubt for a second that he's seen it up close, felt the breath on his neck. For anybody who makes their living off creative labors... it's just... uncomfortable.

All black comics variously trade in some version of jokes about The Man...but when Chappelle stands up there and looks out at a largely white audience and says, "I don't mean you...you're not the real white people. I've met the real white people..." it's not paranoia talking -- it sounds -- it feels utterly reasonable. One of the lines I loved last night was when he talked about some of the truly rich people he's met, and asking one how he got so rich. After the traditional old-money disdain for the question, comes the punchline: "if you must know...my family holds the patent on fire."

When he compares the United States to M.C. Hammer, and asks, "what if the truth is that the United States is living a lifestyle it cannot afford?" He may be asking something that any number of left wing critics or academics have been asking for years. But the difference is: he had a seat at the table and walked away.

See, to see Dave Chappelle is to drink in the dissonance of the stories that we've all been reading about him for the last year. Because he does point out to you that there were six media companies that all spread the story about how crazy he was for walking away. You've heard so much about how crazy he is, that to see the fiercely smart, lucid, insightful guy stalking the stage is to make you wonder, just for a second, if the fix really is in, and why?

The thought of walking away from fifty million holds the same sick fascination for me as it does, probably, for most of you. How does a guy do that? What Chappelle does on this current tour is stand up there and tell you why. And damnit if you don't start to believe him.

You can climb the ladder of success in a creative operation, a creative career. You can make good money. You can buy houses, or afford a car, but you always have to keep in mind that you're not the person with the real money. And that every choice you make, every compromise, pulls you a little tighter.

So how do you walk away? Chappelle started with a metaphor, pointing at the stool on the stage, and saying, "that's fifty million dollars." And then the moment you reach for it...thunk...he drops the mike down on the stool. There it is, a big dick on top of the pile. He shakes his head. "I just couldn't figure out how to get that dick off the money."

My favorite part of the show wasn't the funniest, by any means. In a ten minute monologue at show's end, Chappelle tells a story of legendary Pimp Iceberg Slim. It's a story of how he got one of his 'ho's to keep working long after she should.

Chappelle has the story honed to a laser -- it's his best illustration, his main metaphor, for letting you in on The Game -- and by the time he comes to the punchline, well, if you're smart, you can see why he walked away. And you respect him for it.

Because if you're like me, deep down, you fear that you couldn't have had the strength to make the same choice. And much as I'd love to have a successful creative career - I hope I never have to find out.

Hobson was a fictional character. But a Chappelle's Choice? Well...that one's the thing, isn't it?