Develop Me Baby

Why is it sometimes so hard to just sit and read?

Will has got the Broadcasting & Cable rundown on stuff in development, plus some interesting commentary. I'm looking forward to the American version of Manchild and...mmm... Mad Men.

Still loving AMC and TCM. I know that parts of Canada had them a few months ago, but really, chickens, if I don't have it, it doesn't exist. When I fall in the shower, y'all don't even make a sound.

The Number of the Blogger?

Wow. I was just going to post that I'm super happy with my early Christmas gift:

American Movie Classics and Turner Classic Movies are finally on Canadian cable.

My PVR is filling up fast.

But then I noticed that the last post I made here was number 666. So maybe I should have thanked Satan Claus for the new TV goodness. And now I've finally gotten the chance to switch to the spiffy new blogger.

Still reading scripts for the new show -- will try to post more Tomorrow or Thursday.

Hive-Who Mind, Assemble!

I'm going to pull a Kung Fu Monkey or Alex and ask the Hive Mind rather than spend an hour Googling. I'm trying to work my way through something I want to pitch regarding heroes and likability -- and I need to know the lay of this:

In the new Doctor Who, how do fans feel about David Tennant's performance in the role? Is there a consensus about it? Is he well liked, and how do fans generally compare it to Christopher Eccleston?

I'm wondering if this question is one where there's a million different opinions and no clear consensus, or if it's more like, you know, the general drift that, for instance, of all the Bonds, Connery was best, etc.

Answers to the comments below, thanks!

It's Just A Jump To The Left

Well, as we all hump into Christmas week, seems like there are new winds blowing through Sticksville.

At about the time that most people are winding down for the year, I find myself winding up. Bombing through drafts of scripts, getting up to speed on a new project.

Part of the nice thing about being a freelance writer is that your schedule is your own and you never know what you're going to be working on next.

Part of the terrible thing about being a freelance writer is that your schedule is your own and you never know what you're going to be working on next.

So in between decking the halls and dealing with the aforementioned family stuff, I'm now contemplating a new gig, a new room, and for the short term at least, it looks like a new city.

As I did on Across The River, I'm all about the separation of bloglife and realworld; otherwise all that trust I talk about you needing in those writing rooms would be a bit bogus. So I won't be spinning many specifics here about the new gig. In fact, at least initially when January comes, I may have to restrict the old procrastinometer and throttle back a bit. We'll see. You've been warned.

In the meantime, I'm brushing up on my Shakespeare - or my production drafts; contemplating a good solid Christmas cleaning, and oh yeah, trying to take it easy this week and next. There'll be a couple of new posts, a review of my spiffy new St. Elsewhere DVD set, and maybe a few walk ons from your General Electric guest stars. But a lighter schedule for the holidays, to be sure.

Whereever you're going, and whatever you're doing this week -- don't get too stressed, remember to always drink a glass of water, and be decent to those who deserve it, and even some who don't.

Rescue Courtney

Interesting article in the NYTimes today about Courtney Cox's new series for FX, DIRT.

Edward Wyatt does a great job of tracing the vagaries of development -- even with a high powered Friend at the helm. Lisa Kudrow didn't do too well with the "non sympathetic" cable choice -- but everybody knows from those Scream movies that Cox has the evil in her.

No idea if we'll get it in Canada, 'course. Probably on Showcase in six months.

At first, Lucy Spiller, the tabloid editor played by Ms. Cox, was not intended to be at the center of the series. Instead, the focus was on a schizophrenic photographer, Don Konkey, played by Ian Hart, and an actor, played by Josh Stewart, who sells out his celebrity friends to further his own career.

At the time the idea was born, Coquette had a contract with Warner Brothers Television to come up with ideas for new shows. Because the new series was conceived as a no-holds-barred look at a world filled with sex, drugs and, if not actual murder, plenty of backstabbing, Warner Brothers suggested taking the new series to FX, which is part of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox entertainment empire and a specialist in racy, offbeat fare like “Nip/Tuck,” “The Shield” and “Rescue Me.”

But before the deal was completed, Coquette moved to Touchstone Television, which is part of the Walt Disney Company, the owner of the ABC network. Touchstone executives realized the series was far from the usual Disney fare (in the first episode, a womanizing professional basketball star appears in a kinky sex scene with a stripper), but its executives thought the show held promise and, despite never having produced a show for FX, agreed to pursue it.

FX, however, wanted changes. The network did not want a show about the price of fame to center on a fictional celebrity, because it would be too easy for the audience to dismiss the action as made up. Similarly, the executives felt the questions faced by a tabloid photographer were not morally complicated enough to drive the series. And, not least, FX already had three successful shows centered on 40-something white male antiheroes.

Think Cox can pull off the Leary maneuver? I wouldn't bet against her.

Daybreak is Dunzo

Let us all join hands and pray together.


"Moon Bloodgood, Moon Bloodgood, why hast thou forsaken me?"


Amen.

Stop Pushing The Vegetables, Start Working The Funny

Last night I found myself in one of my favorite urban hangouts here in Toronto. It's a chic, but unpretentious bar where they know how to pour a Guinness and mix a cocktail.

I was there with a few writers - a couple friends I hadn't seen for a while, and another guy who I've met and talked to a few times before. We ruled the corner booth and had way too many drinks and laughed and laughed. I could certainly see why these guys are pretty much top of their game in this country.

It was a bit of industry night. At another table was a writer I know (and taught, years ago) who's just wrapping his movie. A group celebrating their CBC pilot's wrap was in the centre of the room. There were actors I knew, a couple of development guys from companies I've worked with, and a passel of network execs from at least two Canadian networks. In the corner were a bunch of people from the Globe & Mail, gnawing dead things on sticks, god love'em.

Toronto really is terribly small.

Anyway, the thing that struck me is the way I had the same conversation five times: all about Little Mosque on The Prairie. Everyone's amused by the coverage. Everyone's worried. Everyone is holding their breath and wondering how CBC will react, or overreact, if the show doesn't do well.

I have to say that the drumbeat of articles is starting to make me nervous. It would be easy to fall into the pattern of thinking that the pre-press can only help the show. There's only one problem with that. Having been a journo myself, you have to separate out newsworthy from buzzworthy. Little Mosque is a great news story, no matter how it's played - the creator's story is interesting. The idea behind it is very interesting. But none of that is going to get an audience to stay tuned after minute one if the material isn't also funny, and relatable.

Jim Bawden takes up the case of Little Mosque today in the Toronto Star:

Storylines poking fun at small-town life are mixed with problems unique to Canadian Muslims trying to fit in. Sort of like Corner Gas, but with a difference.
What's missing are the usual stereotypes.
"The stories come from my own experiences and observations," says creator Zarqa Nawaz, who was born in Liverpool, grew up in Toronto, and now lives with her husband and four children in Regina.
"The feeling out there — the media's caricature — is of Muslim extremists," said Nawaz, who is creator as well as co-executive producer. "I'm showing a group of Canadian Muslims trying to keep their religion and family together, but facing everything with a lot of fun."

As far as it goes, that's great. But the dark thing is that Bawden's article is titled, "Comedy With A Mission."

In the New York Times article last week, which set off the round of international attention Mosque is getting, an even more telling quote snuck in in the last couple of 'graphs, where Neil MacFarquhar wrote:

In an earnest manner not atypical of Canadians, one goal of the show is to explain Muslim behavior, or at least make Muslims seem less peculiar, much as humor about Jews, Italians or gays helped those groups assimilate.

“On the news all you ever hear are voices from the extreme end of the spectrum,” Ms. Darling said. “This gives voice to ordinary people who look just like other ordinary people.

Does anyone see the problem here? MacFarquhar seems to get it, though he softpedals it by burying this observation near the article's end:

Selling the social responsibility will not work.

Traditionally, in Canada, we have done this a lot. We talk about how "worthy" the series is, not how engrossing or entertaining it is. There's no wonder Stephen Colbert wants to talk about Mosque -- it's a great story. But a great story is not neccesarily a great show - or a show that I want to tune in. Shows do not succeed or fail based on their news coverage or how worthy they are...they will succeed or fail based on how entertaining they are. How funny they are.

I worry about Mosque because I think, if you're a viewer looking for something to tune in in the New Year, you're going to choose what to watch based on what sounds entertaining and funny. But they're not making that case strongly -- the P.R. of this show is playing into the angle that's good for the people writing the stories -- but not for the audience who might tune in.

Imagine an alternate universe where all these articles still appear, and the lede is the same, about how this show could change people's views of Muslims blah blah blah, but all the relevant quotes from the show were, "You have no idea how funny this stuff is. We laugh all the time. I mean, if your faith dictates you must be veiled in front of a man, how do you take a swimming class when they change the teacher from a woman to a man?" "If you're just a regular person going through security, and you know you're a fourth grade teacher and they're looking at you like you're a shoe bomber, it's scary, but there's also something ridiculous about it, isn't there?"

The angle of the article doesn't change: just the sell. If I'm a reader, now my takeaway message is, "Man...that might be something to watch. Sounds like it could be funny."

Listen. Nobody wants this show to be funny more than me. I want CBC to have a big, fat, monster hit that pushes the envelope and kicks open the doors, and has people laughing at the foibles of intra-Muslim problems, and the misunderstandings with the larger community. It's a great idea, it's cutting edge, it's time, and it's daring.

But none of that matters if it's not funny. I just wish they spent a little more time selling the funny, and a little less time telling us how good this show is going to be for us.

Or as one of the people at the bar said last night, "If the show is all about how stupid all the white people are, I am so out of there."

A Modest Proposal

Well, Christmas has just come early for Canada's broadcasters:

Canada's broadcasting industry has won a major victory against the federal government that will save the sector more than $100-million a year -- and may force Ottawa to provide a lump-sum refund worth seven times that amount.

A federal judge ruled yesterday that Ottawa has been unlawfully taxing television and radio broadcasters, along with cable and satellite distributors, for the past eight years by charging fees for their licences.

In his decision, Mr. Justice Michel Shore ordered the government to stop charging the fees and said it may be incumbent on Ottawa "from a moral standpoint" to negotiate a full refund for the money that has already been collected.

Since the money was flowing directly into the federal government's coffers without a specific service provided to the industry, Ottawa was levying a tax without the proper laws in place, the judge said.

Glenn O'Farrell, president of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, said the industry was pleased with the decision, as many companies had been paying the fees under protest since they were introduced.

"This was a huge consideration for the industry as a cost of doing business, which was basically imposed unlawfully and for which there was no justification," Mr. O'Farrell said.

Read the full article here.

Now, let's lay aside for a second that these fees going to general revenue was, in fact, a bit of a cash grab. You know, unless you actually believe the stuff about broadcasting being a public trust and stuff. Canadian broadcasters have made record profits over the last few years; rates of profit higher than many other industries, largely because they enjoy a series of very, very protected favorable regulations from Ottawa.

Should Ottawa really have to repay the Broadcasters $790 million?

If I was a bigwhig at ACTRA, the DGC, or the WGC, I would be writing the relevant ministers, calling the press conferences right now...

We just found 79o million dollars for Canadian programming! Think about it...it'll provide jobs, it'll reduce the costs of developing Canadian programming. You could use it for the Canadian Television Fund (which is already kind of welfare for the broadcasters) or...or... it's a big enough fund that we could do something bold with it. What about a pilot fund? A fund for marketing?

Point is, the Broadcasters are making lots of money -- this is money that's already been paid. Maybe the government shouldn't use it for general revenue, but if they were to use it to subsidize Canadian programming, that would help the broadcasters a lot, wouldn't it? I mean, you know, them being Canadian and all?

No?

Yeah. You're right. They should probably just write a cheque. The moguls need new shoes.

Bring On The Desk

I don't know how it's going to translate.

My sister doesn't know how it's going to translate.

No one I know who's a fan knows how it's going to translate.

But nonetheless, This American Life is coming. Soon. To TV.

And if this article's to be believed, maybe it just might work.

Holy Sheep! The Office!

I just found out that Harold Ramis is directing tonight's episode of The Office. Awesome!

Go Union or Go Home?

Friend of the Blog Callaghan asked an interesting question below:

DMc - a possible future column: how long a young writer should wait before he/she joins the WGC/WGA. I noticed that you waited a few years.

Yeah. I did. Now, I'm going to do the caveat up front:

I am not a member of the Writer's Guild of America, West or East. When it comes to specifics about going union in the USA, there are many other writers whose advice I would consult first, as well as the excellent resources provided by the Guilds themselves.

That being said, I think the question about going union, and when, is a good one -- and involves some generalizations that are common to Canada, the USA, and probably other jurisdictions besides.

There's really only one thing to keep in mind when you're deciding when you should join the guild:

• Where's your work coming from?

The truth of joining the guild is this: once you go union, you can't go back. If you are a member of the union, you can't take non-union work. Period.

Now, in a perfect world, anyone who's producing anything for the public to see should be a signatory to the IPA (the Independent Production Agreement, in Canada, in the USA, the Minimum Basic Agreement.) They should want to work with the best writers. But, you know, Producers will always find a way to try and cut corners. And one of them is to use non-union writers.

You'd think this was because they want to pay you nothing, but that's sometimes not the case. In fact, most non-union productions, if they're reputable, will scale their payments at or close to what the Guild rate would be. (At least in Canada they will.) Often, believe it or not, they're just trying to save the "fringes" -- the percentage they're required to pay into your insurance, CPP, and pension if they're a signatory.

Now, the thing is, when you're starting out and have no credits at all, it's really hard to get hired. Getting them to hire you is a difficult slog, even if you're good. Because no one has taken a chance on you, no one wants to take a chance on you. Catch 22. If you're a good writer, but you're not yet union, well...maybe that's a way to score something starting out. If there's a non-signatory opportunity that you want to take, it could work out for you. Just so long as you know that if you ever really want to graduate to being a top-level writer, you're going to have to leave the non-union work behind.

But that might take a while.

In my case, the market for drama had just tanked after that 1999 CRTC policy change, and there just were no jobs. I worked lifestyle shows for over a year to keep afloat. They paid pretty well for the amount of work they were to do. That whole lifestyle narration game -- it's all very, very non-union. The WGC would love to make inroads into that market, but the reality is that I don't think there are too many new writers who'd be able to get writing jobs on just the signatory shows. There are companies that are also playing a bit of a game, in the sense that they'll sign on to the WGC for drama and comedy projects, but try to stay non-union for documentary and lifestyle stuff. Sleazy, but so long as they're separate numbered companies as the actual production entity, not illegal.

There is a TON of this kind of work out there -- and most of the writing on that makeover/dating/soapy shows is just bollocks. (I know more than one of those shows where they don't even hire a writer -- they make the poor editor write "guide script" that somehow never gets changed. Bleah.)

During the time before I went union, I did have a few contracts on WGC shows. I was contracted as a permitee, and the difference was basically that I didn't get the RRSP contribution, and they took 3% more of my cheque (5% instead of 2 or 3%, I think.)

The contracts on the WGC shows were always short term, and for development projects. None of them got picked up. Now, you can technically join the guild on your first contract. I didn't because, when calculating where my income was going to come from, far more was from non-union sources than signatory sources. If the contract I'd been offered was lots of weeks on a series, or a couple of freelance scripts, even, it might have prompted me to join earlier. You have to weigh how much that 2 or 3 percent is going to cost you, and if you can slam the non-union door yet. I finally joined when I scored a longer term job, where that money would have added up, where I would have really missed out on good RRSP contributions, and where a guild person really should have been filling that job.

But there's another reason why I think when you're starting out, you should try to get a bit of non-union work -- and this has nothing to do with the bottom line:

You need to get kicked.

I mean, you need to get screwed over. Yelled at, abused, taken advantage of, forced to toil at the whim and caprice of the deluded, the hateful and the insane.

Because it will happen.

TV attracts a lot of crazy people. Some of them are numbers people who want to be creative and don't have the talent and will make you pay for every second you spend with them so they don't have to face that ugly truth. Some are creative people who have somehow gotten into positions of responsibility with no idea how to motivate, manage, or even communicate with other people. Some (and these are the refreshing ones) are salespeople, and you will be a tool to them, like a hammer, or a pen, or a buzzswaw. Get used to it, word monkey.

I'm not saying you can't learn a lot from these people, and I'm not saying it won't be ultimately a rewarding experience on your way to learning your craft. But you will be taken advantage of, and in a very real sense, I think you have to be.

I know a few baby writers who managed to score a union gig right away, and joined up, and were lucky enough to never have to toil in the non-union ghetto. To a one, they seem to not really understand what it is the union does for them, and how things like minimums and RRSP contributions and working rules actually do benefit them. They take them for granted, like that girlfriend you had when you were 22 and now wish maybe you'd been a little nicer to. Until you've been pushed and messed around and burned a little, you don't really appreciate the sweet order the union brings to things. Producers will always try to squeeze -- that's their job. The fact that there's a body that draws a line in the sand for you and says, "You can't go past this," the fact that when some dork tries to go past it, they will actually step up and stand up for you -- all that is better understood when you've seen the other side.

I paint the non-union world in stark terms here. Now I've got to walk it back a bit: 90 percent of the gigs I worked non-union, I was treated very well. And the people were wonderful. And I learned a lot. But there's a lot of sorrow in that 10%. And new writers are often so focused on "breaking in" that they don't realize that, you know what, part of breaking in probably involves somebody being unpleasant to you down the line. Sometimes, you break in by getting broke.

Ask Will Dixon about the screamers. I mean, instead of me. I'm actually not ready to talk about my screamer experiences yet. Still too fresh. But I have had the egos. I've had producers who I found out were mad at me because I was not sufficiently deferential to them for them "giving me my start" in the business. (This, after being in the business for fifteen years, and giving way more value to them in the gig I did for them, than I got in return.) I've had gigs where most of my payment was "deferred" until...well....let's face it, until Christ returns and leads us to the New Jerusalem, or Branson, Mo. Or wherever.

You deal with all these people - the egos, the assholes, the bad managers...and don't kid yourself...once you go union, a lot of them are still there. But you have dental.

There's one side of the business that I haven't touched on yet. One way where maybe you don't ever want to go union.
Are you an entrepeneur?

A lot of writers are really bad businesspeople. But some aren't. Are you looking to make films and market stuff, and really sell sell sell? Are you looking to make your bones in indie craft where maybe the Guilds haven't gone yet? Are you looking at new technologies? Delivery systems? Are you somebody like the Mad Pulp Bastard, ready, eager, and able to work both those sides of the fence? Then maybe hold off on joining up. Why be restricted by the tenets of the agreement if you think you can get a better deal yourself, or if you're your own producer?

Bill is the kind of guy who could speak to this side of things better than me. Because the truth is that there are those out there who'll say that being union restricts your freedoms, too. I've heard those arguments. There are lots of people who say, for instance, that the fact that the WGC establishes minimums for script fees in this country means that no one ever makes more than the minimums. That may be so. But I bet you anything the minimums would be lower without 'em.

But in the end, I think it's about being part of a community. You can participate in things like the awards process, or go to the parties and actually meet other writers. It's important. It means that you're part of the group. You're serious. You're a pro. That's why I think, in the end, you've gotta know when to join up...but you've gotta join up.

Just don't think it's going to solve everything.

Now...there are some caveats I have about the whole union thing in the Canadian context that I haven't been able to weave in above, so I'm just gonna throw them in here.

The first is this: if you're an animation writer, I think you should join the Guild as soon as you can. Why? Because the WGC fought really hard to get animation covered over the last couple of agreements. The conditions for animation writers in Canada were vastly different before the Guild got jurisdiction. Most of the reputable companies have been organized, and gone signatory. If there are holdouts, then they're swimming against the tide and I don't think they should be supported. Animation in this country is a great way to break in, and there are lots of people doing lots of episodes. The WGC actually didn't establish a basic minimum for an animation script, because there was some play in there, and the likely minimum was going to be less than what some people were making. That will likely resolve itself over time. Also, the Writer's Guild of Canada is offering an incentive for animation writers to join right now. If you're writing animation, call'em and talk.

Secondly, in the just completed new IPA, the WGC has put in a new clause that takes away one of the obstacles to going union. It's a new waiver that allows a writer to fully negotiate any fee on a low budget project, under $60 000. So in other words, if you and your buddies want to do a short film, and everybody believes in it, and say you want to pay yourself as the writer the same as the crew because nobody's doing it for the money -- you're doing it with the hope that it will pay off down the line, well, now you can do that and not get in trouble with the union. This is a great positive step, I think, which allows you to try something different and not being forced to choose between the project and your Guild commitments. It's a testimony to the Guild's desire to be as flexible as possible for its membership that this got done. If only ACTRA would be as flexible...

So that's it. You've gotta choose when to go union. You don't want to do it too early, because then you're competing with people like me and trust me, Gwendolyn, I will rip out your still beating heart and show it to you before I let you take my freelance episode of that A-level supernatural thriller away...

...Oh God. Sorry. I don't know where that came from. Kittens. Fluffy Kittens. On a Beach.

Peter Boyle, 1935-2006

Lots of people loved him best on Everybody Loves Raymond, but for me, I've never laughed harder than his sublime performance in this scene from 1974's Young Frankenstein.

So Completely, Utterly Wrong.

I really am working on a new post. But...but...

dude.

Bigfoot and the Unicorn

Astute readers will no doubt note that I've pretty much been treading water for a week. Yes, there have been Christmas parties, but not as many as you'd think. There's been visiting a relative in hospital, but that's going okay. There's been a general lack of knowing what to write about, and a general winding down of the year's efforts. And there's been a little bit of goofing off. I hope I'll have something to say later on today. In the meantime, to my everlasting shame, this, dear reader...this....this is the kind of thing that's making me laugh right now. (All three links go to the same place, so don't think I'm being clever.)

A little preoccupied.

Doing what?

Nothing.

Geez. Never mind. Mind your own business!

Kung Fu Monkey Handicaps the Fall

John Rogers weighs in with a great post about some of the fall's surviving shows. I agree with pretty much everything he says, and he says it better than I could. Oh, except apparently I'm high, since I actually *DO* think Studio 60 got better.

Yeah, I'm punting. My back hurts.

Three To Four Years

Could the brains behind Kazaa and Skype, reorder the TV universe?
If Networks don't want to make shows, maybe we don't need networks?
Hey CRTC, maybe you should read this article in USA Today.

The service is not yet live, and details are under wraps. It's difficult to say why The Venice Project will be much different from YouTube or AOL TV, except that it will — like Kazaa and Skype — be based on P2P technology. That could make The Venice Project cheaper and more flexible than other Internet video services, which centrally host videos on server farms.

Zennstrom describes it this way: "We're trying to do the full TV experience by taking the good things from television and putting them together with the Internet and video sharing." A blog on theveniceproject.com says, "We're fixing TV, removing artificial limits such as the number of channels that your cable or the airwaves can carry, and then bringing it into the Internet age, adding community features, interactivity, etc."

Significantly, The Venice Project will be a secure, rights-protected service that intends to work with content producers such as film studios and sit-com creators, not against them. This is Zennstrom learning from past mistakes.

And it will be ad supported. Zennstrom insists that The Venice Project will work in ways that are familiar to TV viewers — as simple to use as iTunes or an on-screen TV grid.

Interactive features

So The Venice Project is intended to be a pipeline directly between content producers and consumers, with relevant ads inserted on the fly — the way Google plops ads onto websites. Interactive features will let viewers rate content and form social groups around videos and programs.

If it takes off, The Venice Project could be Zennstrom's third disruptor, because it stands to knock cable TV services like Comcast and network TV affiliates out of their middleman positions. Of course, taking on such powerhouse industries is a tall order, and The Venice Project could get squashed before it makes a dent.

A few years from now, maybe Zennstrom will take charge of The Venice Project, or maybe he'll move on to a new target.

"Three to four years seems like a good time frame to make commitments," he says. "That's what I told Meg. I'm here and committed for some time. I want to build the business and contribute to eBay as well."

Venice, anyone?

What's Iraq Watching?

Whenever I travel, one of the first things I do when I get into my hotel room is flip on the TV. I think you can learn a lot about a place judging by what they watch on TV. You understand a lot more about America when you see how the local news is built entirely around fear: fear of your medicine cabinet and what may be in it, fear of your neighbor down the block, fear of the weather, for which only Channel 4's Doppler 9000 Bone-Crushing Atomic Meteorological Deathstar has the answer...

Anyway, John Doyle in the Globe, bless him, agrees with my TV theory. And so do the wags at the UK's Channel 4. They made a documentary about it.

As Doyle writes in his Globe column today , if you're in Canada, tonight at 10pm ET on CBC Newsworld you can watch a pretty remarkable program called Tv, Iraqi Style:

This outstanding documentary doesn't set out to delve into the political and religious intricacies of the mess of Iraq today. It's about the TV industry there. But in keeping its focus on that, it reveals much about the heartbreak, the humour and the ingenuity of people who know they are living in a kind of hell.

In his blurb, Doyle points out the essential truth of the Iraqi life: there was a large middle class under Hussein, and they had TV's and all the TV's showed was how great Saddam was. Now, it's too dangerous to go out. So everyone watches TV. Freedom on the march!

Hey Canada -- Iraq has a healthier TV culture than you do. Yaaaay!

Corner Gas: The Antipodean Edition

The Globe's John Doyle has also picked up on the Australian reviews for Corner Gas, which just started running Down Under.

He quotes heavily from this review, which says, among other things:

A small ensemble comedy of low pretensions, Corner Gas gives the impression it should be viewed on a wood-veneered TV set with rabbit-ear antenna: humble, yes, but warmly engaging without indulging in any schmalz factor.

Four seasons have screened in Canada, scooping up several national comedy awards in the process. It's easy to see why. No sound stage, no laugh track, no gorgeous stars; three ticks in my book. From simple material, Corner Gas creator, writer and star Brent Butt has made an engaging observational comedy about everyday small-town people, think Northern Exposure morphed into a sitcom.

Doyle's take?

As with Iraqi TV, our own TV says a lot about us. And snobs in the Canadian TV racket take note: The Australians get it.

Hmmm. Critics on the other side of the world recognize the show is a hit, and why...which is something that most of the players wanting to make something "important" here don't. Doyle's dead on. Yet more proof, if any was needed, of How Corner Gas Ruined Everything.

Questions to Me: What the Hell Have You Done?

Strangely, I've received the same question twice in a couple of days -- a couple people asking me what, exactly, I've written on. Fair enough.

I would describe myself as a "mid level" writer, in the sense that I'm still building my career. Most TV writers will start with freelance episodes, then staff on a show and then move up the chain. In Canada, it's sometimes a three steps forward, one step back sort of proposition, because a lot of shows here are written strictly freelance. Also, unlike in the USA, where they have a creator write a pilot, then shoot it, then pick it up and have them hire a staff, often here they like to develop many scripts before making a decision, so sometimes you'll have story rooms for shows that aren't even greenlit.

The first show I wrote on professionally was the second season of Starhunter, a Canadian produced sci-fi series. (I should say that this was the first scripted drama I worked on. I got paid to write Documentary and Lifestyle shows before this, as well as things I wrote for the Canadian Sci-Fi Channel, SPACE.) I got the gig on Starhunter because I had to go out and shoot on set for their first season, for a special I produced for Space. By that time, I knew I was planning to leave production and take a hand at writing full time, and I talked my way into writing for the show.

I wound up writing three episodes for the second season, all freelance, non-guild. I did lots and lots of drafts and they actually used one of my scripts, I think, to show backers to get finishing money. You do what you have to do. I also learned on that show that, far from the U.S. style of writer-showrunner, Canada was a very different place. I think Playback did an article on the show, on set of my episode, and named the Director, the Producer, the Art Director, the Propsmaster, the Actors, and the Production Designer. But they didn't name me. Classic!

A couple of years ago I saw a box set of this show in a mall in Florida, and I almost bought it, just to have my eps (2 of which were kind of botched. 1 turned out okay tho) but I just couldn't bring myself to spend my own money on it.

I then had a year or so where the only scripted drama work I got was on a half-hour comedy produced out of Vancouver. Very low-budget. I'll always remember it though, since I had to go turn off my TV, and finish up the funny-funny of the draft of my episode to deliver it by 5pm on the afternoon of September 11, 2001.

From there I wrote and worked on a couple of lifestyle series, and wrote an episode of Life & Times on the Hockey Player Carl Brewer (still my favorite of my non-drama projects.) I also wrote about 75 episodes of a docu-soap set around the Toronto Zoo called Zoo Diaries. That was a fun little show that paid the bills.

During this time, I also did some writing for interactive projects, including kids' CD Roms. There were also a couple of development projects where I was in a story room, one for CTV and one for CBC. Both went nowhere. And I think I rewrote a children's film for very little money. I think it still hasn't been made, and I still haven't been fully paid.

I finally went legit and Guild when I got Charlie Jade, in 2004. I had been in a strange place before that. I actually had a lot of breadth and experience, but my credits didn't show it, since a lot of them were development credits. Charlie Jade was its own adventure, for a lot of reasons. That's where I met Alex from Complications Ensue. I spent four months in South Africa on this show, and learned quite a bit about myself in the process. This is also where I found out that in a pinch, I could write reallllly fast, and still maintain good quality. This is by no means an easy thing. But it can be a valuable thing.

When I got back from South Africa, I entered what I called "My Development Year." I had three projects in development at three different networks. All very different. Juggling was sometimes a problem, especially because no one else feels the need to keep to deadlines in getting notes to you, but when those notes come, everybody's suddenly in a hurry. This was, in another sense, the year of push-me, pull-you.

By 2006, I was humming along on a number of fronts. I did my first foray into animation, with a few episodes of two series for Teletoon, Skyland and Carl Squared. I liked writing animation. I think animation producers in this country really know their audience well, and what works for their shows. I found them to be professional in the extreme...and they paid on time, too! I'd like to do more animation work in the future.

One of the shows I created, or co-created, through 2005, was with the guy who'd been my boss on Charlie Jade. That show, Across The River To Motor City, got picked up for six. This is a big deal, since it meant that I now was going to be able to get a co-creator and co-executive producer credit. This show pretty much swallowed my whole summer. Since there were only six, and I was locked into a co-write with the Exec Producer, we only had the space to hire one other writer to come in and help us break and write an episode. I rewrote all six scripts pretty much all through production. Being called "head writer" doesn't really mean much when the only person you're supervising is, you know, yourself. But whatever. It was a ton of work and I got it done and I'm pretty proud of the work I did. Now I'm waiting to see how it all works when it's cut together. I'm glad that project is done. I certainly sleep better now.

Lately, I've been taking it a bit easier, and the bright spots have been helping my friend with a series that he's trying to get up at another network, and just recently I've had the pleasure of helping out with a script for the second season of Rent-A-Goalie. I'm also trying to figure out what I do next. Oh, and shooting my mouth off on this blog. Which is starting to make me nervous. And my agent. It's starting to make my agent nervous, too.

There might be something new coming for me soon. Or maybe not. In any case, for all the concerns and sleepless nights and angst and crazy people and bitterness and cynicysm, it is actually better than working.