Heroes Shanks The Watchmen

SO I'M A bit late on this one -- and besides the fact that my PVR ran out on Monday's Heroes just as Hiro met Future Hiro -- the otherwise well-paced, exciting episode left me with one lingering "whaaa?"
"Um, did they just steal the climax of The Watchmen?"

Homage? Steal?

I wasn't sure...but a couple days later now...it kind of feels like a steal.

Worse, a steal that could keep that Watchmen project in Development Hell for LONGER. (Just film David Hayter's script already! Jeez!)

Looks like I'm not the only one thinking this, either.

There's not an idea in the SF or Comics Genre that someone hasn't tried to say "I got there first." It's one thing for fans to come up with a million derivative spins on "Yesterday's Enterprise" or this way or that way to bring back a beloved character. It's one thing to look at BSG and say everything good about Ronald D. Moore's version comes straight from the original (an extremely dubious fanboy proposition at best.) But this...this is a smiley face of a different order.

I like Heroes. I have a lot of time for Heroes. I think that their handling of the mutant-powers thing is sufficiently different from X-Men that I don't feel like it's too much of a ripoff. But I feel extremely negatively toward the Linderman plot reveal -- and the endgame regarding New York.

And I'm not sure I can tell you why the latter bothers me while the former doesn't. Maybe because one is stealing a general concept (people all around the world discover extraordinary abilities) and one is stealing the climax of a narrative.

I'd be down for a good old fashioned space opera -- but I'm not sure I'd dig it if the big reveal was the villain telling the hero (or even the Hiro) "Hey, by the way...I'm your father."

Am I being inflexible and fanboy here? What do you think?

I'm still an enormous fan of Future Hiro and his Great Big Effing Sword.

I Have A Headache

SO, Canwest's CHCH and other CH branded stations are becoming E! Canada.

CHUM's STAR channel was launched as kind of an E! Canada a few years back. They used a lot of E! Programming. I guess that's going to go away.

Also, CHUM and CTV were probably going to argue in their merger hearings before the CRTC that Global had two stations in each market so they should have them too. But now one is branded a different type of station. What does that mean?

For that matter, how can the CRTC allow E! in when STAR already exists? Isn't that the point of what they do?

No?

You know, all these huge companies with all these big rebrands, and sales, and duelling press releases about which of their B.S. entertainment shows about U.S. celebrities do better in Canada....and the only thing they're all dead sure of is that there's no way they have any more money to make real Canadian programs that Canadians want to watch.

There are receipts all over my floor.

Sweet, sweet, sweet Advil Blue.

Writers are Neurotic, You Know

WE'VE ALL benefited quite a bit from Unified Theories - Diane's questionably healthy obsession with HOUSE. Her weekly recaps are always a good read, and a recent foray into taking on the phenomenon of shipping was a hoot, but for me, something about her writer interviews really stand out. She talked to LAWRENCE KAPLOW for the second time last week . The piece is a fun read and is available at Blogcritics here.

Better, though, is Diane's edited transcript of the whole interview. Why better? Because you get a sense, a peek into the mind of a very gifted and neurotic writer. Kaplow's comments on House and his character, his humanity and lack thereof, and the interplay between real life medicine and onscreen drama is thought provoking, and the kind of thing that any writer would do well to follow.

Apparently, some of those comments about House's humanity is already getting Kaplow roasted online. (I'm not gonna link because...well, I don't really care.) I think if you parse Kaplow's comments they're pretty insightful about character in general, and the character of House in particular. Because I harp so often about keeping the audience in mind when you write, this is probably the point to bring up the indelicate.

It is always our job to keep the audience in mind and ask, "what are they getting out of this?" But it is not our job to give the audience what they want. Not always. In fact, rarely. If you give the audience what they want, you're a hack, and it's not even that they won't respect you -- they will actively hate you. Because at the end of the day, though they say they want to see House with Cameron or Cuddy or Wilson -- they really, really don't want that. It's our job to give the audience not what they want, but what they never realized they needed. We are merchants of surprise. But you can't get there either by not thinking about who you're trying to surprise, and why, or by cravenly giving in to what your (god help us) online fan base is telling you to do.

If they could do it, they'd be doing it.

They can't. Vide: fanfic. Shudder.

Anyway, House.

Even if you're not a fan, House is a show to be admired for many reasons: strong characters, great act outs, and a muscular blend between the medical moments and the character moments. Unlike some Canadian shows -- all of these scenes -- every one -- is story. I love it.

And I recognize too much of my own personality in Kaplow not to be flattered and frightened by that, too.

The Blog, Not Quite Becalmed, or, How People Talking To You At Parties Changes How You View Your World

LONGTIME READERS will know that this blog has gone through a few iterations since 2005. You take a while to truly find your subject. Originally, in those halcyon days of 2005, I was really just writing to procrastinate and not be quite so lonely in my endless cycle of development.

2006 brought other challenges, and a refocus. Because other people entered the arena -- and when it comes to writing advice, I've always said if there are those doing it better than you, get out of the way. With Jane Espenson, Ken Levine, and Alex covering TV craft issues regularly, I throttled back a bit, and this blog became more about my experience with TV. I figured, maybe a chronicle of a writer's life might help, and also carry along that whole try-not-to-be-so-isolated thing. That latter part worked like gangbusters. In the last couple of years, I've met, virtually or in person, a whole gaggle of Canadian writers, just like me. It's been a great eyeopener; it's almost starting to feel like we have a real community here.

The other thing, of course, was that I started writing a lot more about the particular challenges and peculiarities of Canadian TV. I worried for awhile (and my hits confirmed it) that this kind of inside baseball for such a small industry would tank any audience I had (and that, dear readers, is the pernicious truth -- at some point, even in a stupid free blog -- you start thinking about your audience.)

There certainly was some drop off -- I imagine a lot of the American readership confronted with one too many posts about the CRTC went, "ah, the hell with it" and got going when the going was good.

But then a funny thing happened.

Canadians started coming out of the woodwork. A lot of them. Some of them way better connected than me in this business; some just starting out, some as outside of the TV game as outside can be. I was frustrated by the fact that there was so little out there I could find about the industry that I was working in -- that the creative problems, pitfalls, challenges that I met were reflected nowhere on the internet or on the screenwriting sites. So I started blogging about that.

And lo, people started reading. I guess there's a lot of creatives in this country who were as frustrated as I was that in the discussion of the Canadian industry that occasionally pierces the business pages of our papers, no one really ever talked to us.

To be honest, starting to write more about Canadian TV released a logjam or a waterfall or pick your other metaphor of people writing me, commenting -- even stopping me at industry events to talk about this or that column I'd written. I started seeing hits coming in from the CRTC and from CBC and from CTV and Rogers, and...And the interview requests started coming, too. This paper, that radio interview...much to my bemusement, this thing that was really about me not banging my head against the wall in isolation had turned me into a -- spit take -- pundit.

Yes. That's a dirty word. I used to book pundits, you see. I used to chase them down and read their books, and ferret them out of their little pundit holes and whack em for this or that piece of juicy info that I could cut into a breezy and entertaining two minute piece. That was my other life.

I remember interviewing the Sci-Fi author Bruce Sterling once in this little cafe in Austin, Texas, when he said, "it's not my job to figure out the whys and hows; it's my job to say bold and outrageous things." (I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically it.)

Now I was the guy being chased. Somebody wanted me to say the bold and outrageous things. It really does come around.

My first boss in the industry put it best: "you want sparks on a panel -- get an American."

The dark side of this newfound "fame" (and believe me, in this context, no one puts "fame" in more quotes than me) was that I started hearing from my agent, "People are reading your blog."

It wasn't exactly said with encouragement.

Jim Henshaw wrote awhile ago about this Toronto actor, who penned this remarkable J'accuse covering the Canadian theatre, film, and television industry. I didn't get a chance to see Tony's show, but I totally respect what he did, and the great gulf that precipitated his need to do it.

To quote Jack Nicholson as the Joker, "this town needs an enema."

Change town to Industry.

The amazing thing is, all I did was wrote what I thought, and what I thought wasn't some particularly marvellous insight granted from on high. It was pretty much the things that my fellow writers, directors, actors, and industry workers had been saying to each other in whispered tones at the CFC Barbecues and Film Fest Parties for years. It's just that ... no one ever put it out there. Everybody stayed cowed and quiet. Well, except Paul Gross and ACTRA, I mean.

So after a while I started hearing comments from people saying, "I love what you're doing, but I could never do it." I'd get tons of emails saying, "please don't use my name, but..." Along about the time that John Doyle in the Globe pointed to this blog as a worthwhile read about Canadian TV, I got an email from someone who, jokingly said, "when all this comes crashing down around you, remember: I've got a couch."

A few friends suggested, with some concern, "maybe you should cool it a bit."

I would think about that, and it would make me a little paranoid, and then I would go back and say, no, wait...I have to believe that I'm doing right here. I write about the CBC because I love the CBC and I want it to do well. I want Canadian shows on the air that Canadians want to watch. I want to celebrate when people I know do good work...I don't want that work to disappear unheralded.

So I kept on keeping on.

CUT TO:

Last night, The Canadian Screenwriting Awards at Brant House in Toronto. The party was a little more subdued this year. It never got to the level of a rager. And one by one, many of my friends drifted off absurdly early...

...and then it occurred to me...

...they had to get up for work. Seriously. I know more people working on shows or about to start shows than I've known since I started in this business. Things are not as dire as they have been. That is cause for celebration.

And as my friend David A said..."Open Bar!"

As for the Awards themselves:

Well, class act Brad Wright picked up the first Showrunner Award, which was totally deserved, considering the number of Canadian writers the guy has brought up through ten years of Stargate and Stargate: Atlantis.

Naked Josh co-creator Laura Kosterski won for half hour drama, while Slings & Arrows won best hour drama writing -- Corner Gas picked up the trophy for comedy. This was particularly exciting for me as I was sitting next to my good friend Kevin White when they announced his name. Every year, the script co-written with Brent Butt wins, and this year, I guess it was Kevin's turn. He was gracious and funny -- and made good use of the bottle of CC host Gavin Crawford had at the podium.

For feature writing, the award went to some actor.

Kidding. Polley gave a nice speech. Let's move on.

Afghanda won for Best Radio Drama. This was an enormously affecting piece that I hope CBC Reruns -- some of our country's top playwrights, Jason Sherman, Andrew Moodie and Adam Pettle, (as well as Greg Nelson) did great work on this.

Pawing Kevin's award, I noticed that the sucker is pretty heavy. You could really commit a homicide with that thing.

Just saying.

Host Gavin Crawford was really quite funny. His material (co-written with Kyle Tingley) was sharp and insidery but not too insider-y. All in all, an excellent host.

But every conversation I got into before and after the awards kept coming back to this blog -- and it always reached the moment -- and the phrase -- that it seems that I hear more than any other nowadays:

"You can't write about this on your blog."

And you know what? You know the funny, strange, full circle thing about that moment that really, really puzzles me? Inevitably, the thing that follows is something that I would never in a million years write about on a blog.

In fact, dear reader, here's the time to speak truth. You ready for it? Here it is -- the dirty little secret of Dead Things On Sticks:

I pull my punches all the time.

There is a wealth of stuff that you hear, that you don't say. There's stuff you know, that you can't speak. There's confidences you have, that you keep not just because it would hurt people or you if you revealed them, but because it's the decent professional thing to do. This is called life.

I have in my head this line of confidentiality and professionalism that is so crystal clear to me...it's just that the line for everyone else seems to be somewhere back in Victorian England, where they'd cover the table legs lest thoughts turn to the impure.

I mean, gimme a break. No wonder things are so screwed up, if no one will speak truth -- any truth -- out loud. What in Pity's name is everyone so goddamn afraid of? Really?

Again, I must stress, I do not think of myself as any kind of great notable person or hero or anything other than a wanker trying to make a living writing fiction for Television. I've often thought that if I'd married a few years ago, I'd probably be in L.A. now. I would have packed it in and gone south like so many of us do in Canada...but a fear of loneliness and a desire to be close to those I care about kept me here. And if I was going to try and make it here, I simply couldn't keep quiet when things were so obviously, completely FUBAR.

So I wrote about it. And I didn't get into detail about shows I worked on, I didn't betray confidences, I didn't dish dirt, I didn't settle scores. I'd go into a story room and be my kind of avuncular, big laughing self, and hope that it all came out in the wash. I'd do my work, work hard, and hope that the tall poppy wasn't about to get scythed.

I've tried to maintain standards of accuracy and truthfulness at all times...but... It's been an opinion piece...and the unspoken caveat has always been, "your mileage may vary."

CTV bought CHUM and I didn't write too much about it, only once after the initial announcement -- because I worked for CHUM in the past, and because I did work for CHUM-bought shows. I didn't call attention to the fact that I wasn't writing about it -- I just didn't.

As in most of my posts, this has gone on longer than I meant it to. People say, "how can you write such long stuff" -- but the reality as any writer will tell you is that it's always easier to go long than to be brief.

So finally now, after all that preamble, I'm going to get to the point.

I've got a new gig.

A little while ago, CBC announced its fall schedule. I'm very pleased to say that I've been hired as Executive Story Editor on one of those shows. The Border is a Pilot that's just been ordered to series.

Drawn from today’s headlines, The Border is a fast-paced, hard-driving series set in Toronto in a paranoid post-Sept. 11 world concerned with security crises, terrorist infiltrations, cross-border police actions and trafficking in everything from enriched uranium to abducted children.

I'm very excited about this job. The people I'm working with are people whose work I've admired for years. I think this is exactly the kind of show CBC should be doing now. It's got a good budget, it's got a good team, and I think it's going to be great. Furthermore, as an American/Canadian who's always felt like he had one foot on either side of the border himself, this show is so in my wheelhouse I can't believe it.

So this will be my focus, professionally, for the next several months. I didn't necessarily go looking to go back to work so soon after finishing one show, but I also recognize how lucky I am to have the opportunity to go back to work. Believe me. There is no magic here. I bust my ass, that's all. I'm also very lucky.

What's more -- as I've said many times, I believe in the CBC and I think the CBC has a great role to play in making relevant TV for Canadians. This is the first time I will have a shot at being part, a small, small, small part, of that solution.

And the nearest way I can figure to be true to myself, and my sense of professionalism and duty and discretion is this:

I'm not going to be writing too much about the CBC anymore. I don't think it's right to take their money and criticize them -- even constructively. The CBC has had a rough few years, and now I want to be proactive. There will be those of you who roast me for this. So be it.

This is the only way I know how to be. You wanna roast me, have at it below. Or better yet, start your own Canadian TV blog. And be sure to use your real name when you do. (Yeah, right.)

I might ease off the throttle a bit about the Canadian TV brief too. I feel that I've said much of what I felt needed saying. I think maybe it's time to hear from some other people on the subject. Who knows? Maybe you.

I will stop to praise...there's one of those coming in the next week -- a new Canadian show that I have a big super duper fan crush on. I will gush. It will NOT BE PRETTY.

So this blog is going to evolve again. We'll see where it takes us. Thanks for reading and for enriching my life. I hope to be able to keep on keeping on for a long time.

Now stop procrastinating and get to work.

Sunrise, Sunset

SO THE beach is closed. Falcon Beach, the teens and wakeboarders opus recently on Global, will end after two seasons. In coverage of the cancellation, people around Winnipeg Beach lament that the show's loss is going to take a toll on tourism -- because people did come to see where the show was shot.

--*little Canadian Media 101 aside here -- interesting to compare CBC's negative spin on the tourist thing with the SunMedia spin. Hmmm.*

Bottom line, this gets me thinking....Canadian TV tourism. Cogitate on that a while. Could we missing a whole range of exploitable opportunities, here?

People, where are the Molly's Reach pubs? Why can't I get a Wojczek shaved beef sandwich?

Where's the Road to Avonlea Walking tour? Why are there no Wind at My Back hoodies? Bring on the Jeff Ltd. courier bags (the better to store your ego!) In the hot hot summer, why not slurp on a Cold Squad icee treat? I mean, c'mon, how long did it take them to release the Hockey Night in Canada theme on Itunes? Let's get on the stick here, people...there's money to be made!

You could have The Collector change purses. Or Blood Ties handkerchiefs. Or heck, we could always take Train 48 out of mothballs and charge people for the interactive Tony n Tina's wedding experience of their lives. Now there's an alternative revenue stream!

Yes, sure, there's a King of Kensington statue in Toronto, but how come nobody's offered a Chuck and Olivia line of scented Street Legal bath beads?

Seriously.

I was very amused to drive down Pacific Drive on one of my last days in Vancouver and see the Stargate there. Oh sure, my companion said it was actually a piece of public art, but you and I both know it was the Stargate.

Ancillary products, boys. Let's get on that.

***

Of course the cancellation of Falcon Beach is not surprising, since it kind of always had that problem that a lot of Canadian TV copros get into -- which show was it? Was it a nighttime soap? Was it a show for teens? There was a lot of back and forth and rumors seemed to indicate that ABC Family and Global wanted different shows. When that happens, it always ends in tears.

I just hope that this doesn't mean that no one tries another broad appeal, fun show for another nine years. Let's all move on and chipper up. Winnipeg Beach, you still have those waves. And somewhere, Paige Bradshaw's bikini lives on.

Probably on Ebay.

***

On the other hand, a nice surprise in the pickup for Robson Arms. It's a show of many charms. Like a series of short stories about the denizens of the titular apartment building, the in-and-out weave of narrative grows on you. I would not be the slightest bit surprised if this show caught on down the road. You have to tune into its wavelength, but the more you do the bigger the rewards become.

I really hope CTV gives it a good slot this fall. It did good numbers in the first season -- which is now available on DVD, so maybe with a protected slot, proper promotion, a couple more stunts like casting Leslie Nielsen, RA will rise again.

DMc on the Ray-dee-Yo, Today

And speaking of punditry, just a reminder I'll be on CBC Radio One today, on the new program "Q" discussing (what else am I qualified to do?) TV.

You can read about the show and see the schedule for your area (Canada) here. On the same page there's also a click through where you can listen to the show online, if you're outside Canada and so inclined. I don't know if they archive it, so you'd probably have to listen to the stream at the appropriate time for the local area.

Canada has five time zones.

Five.

Man.

NextMedia gets more Interesting, BBC-style

An announcement in my inbox this morning says that Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC, will be accepting an award of excellence for BBC at the Banff World TV Festival.

The more interesting part is that he'll be taking part in a Q&A at the close of NextMedia, the sister festival of Banff TV, which closes the same day the TV fest opens.

“The BBC continues to successfully push its boundaries, championing TV on the PC, radio and video podcasting, video streaming, and producing content for mobile and other wireless handheld devices,” says Mark Greenspan, Executive Producer, nextMEDIA – The Future of Digital Content. “Mark Thompson is the perfect choice to close nextMEDIA 2007. His insights on the BBC will resonate with our delegates.”
Mark Thompson was appointed Director-General of the BBC on 21 May 2004, after being Chief Executive of Channel 4 since December 2001. He took up his appointment on 22 June 2004. Thompson had previously worked at the BBC for more than 20 years, becoming Director of Television in April 2000, responsible for the management and running of all BBC network television channels.

Scheduled for June 8-10, 2007, at the Fairmont Banff Springs in the Canadian Rockies, nextMEDIA is an intimate three-day event that will present the brightest and most promising industry leaders in the digital sector. nextMEDIA is scheduled just prior to the Banff World Television Festival. The two events are dedicated to the innovation and development of television content creation and will feature synergized programs and linked schedules to capitalize on the harmonies between the traditional and advanced media sectors.

There's no question that the BBC has been generally more forward-thinking with their vision of digital content and especially, user-content sharing. Canadian and American nets both have much to learn from the BBC's approach. Should be an interesting session.

As for plain old vanilla Banff...I see they've added Paul Abbot to the roster. I have an absurd talent crush on Abbot just from the excellent miniseries State of Play. Banff's also added Chuck Lorre -- who as the creator of Two and a Half Men has the dubious distinction of being the last guy to create a viable sitcom for the major networks. Now there's a guy I want to hear from on the whole "death o' the sitcom" front.

Details of the Banff Festival at their site.

Sci-Fi Podcast Ho!

THIS IS unfortunate, because I really should have plugged this before, and now it seems like I'm just trying to be self-aggrandiz...(Ed: Stop being So Canadian.)

Right. Sorry. Sorry. (Ed: Really, quit it.)

Ahem.

Space: The Imagination Station is Canada's Sci-Fi/Fantasy Channel. I helped get the station off the ground as a Producer almost ten long years ago now, before I started writing professionally. This week, they invited me back to talk about my personal experience on Blood Ties and this posting on this old blog.

John Llyr and Mark Askwith are both friends of mine. Between them, they know just about everything there is to know about Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Star Trek, Comics, and all things genre.

Awhile ago, they started doing the HypaSpace Podcast, as a web complement to HypaSpace Weekly, SPACE's weekly wrapup of Sci-fi news and wackiness.

What's great about this podcast is that it's not just two guys yakking about sci-fi. The podcast runs down the latest news and rumors, to be sure, but it also plays clips from Space interviews with celebrities, artists, performers, writers -- this is stuff that never appears on TV, so it's pretty much exclusive stuff. And it's free.

So you should check it out. And if you check out this week's edition, you get to hear me yak, and then at the end they've even dug up a really cool interview I did with Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials) when I was at the station. I think you can even subscribe to the Podcast via RSS and on Itunes.

Thanks to Mark and John for making coming back so easy, and for picking an interview question where I don't sound like a total tool.

Will and His Landlord

YEARS AGO I was in a series of bizarre Hallowe'en promos for Canada's music video channel, Muchmusic. In my favorite one, you saw me screaming at an assailant who was throwing, hurling pumpkin after pumpkin at me, against a huge wall festooned with the Muchmusic logo. As the pumpkins got closer and closer, exploding seeds and viscera on me, I screamed my head off, taunting my assailant, screaming, "is that all you got? is that all you got?"

CUT TO:

The creative director's toddler son, sitting amid the pumpkins....crying.

I was there. I got pumpkin all over me. But even knowing how it was made, seeing it cut together, I still watched and thought I was a heel. And that made it all the funnier.

I'm probably the last person in the blogosphere to post this, but I don't care. Will Ferrell mines the same joke, but way better. And for the comedy scholars out there, let's review an important comedy rule:

• Making jokes about kids being drunk = always funny
• Actual drunk kids = never funny
  

EDIT: I took the video off because it was doing that weird thing of loading and playing whenever anyone came to the page. I don't know why. You can still find it at 150, 387 other places on the net, I'm sure.

More Radio Fun

APPARENTLY Yours Truly will be on CBC Radio on Monday talking about the return of HEROES, and girl tv vs. boy tv.

I'll be part of a panel on Q, the new Jian Ghomeshi afternoon Arts show. Check local listings for the time in your area. (In Toronto, it airs at 2pm.)

Be sure to roast me here after the segment. I loves me the punishing and the mocking.

Our Readers Write

A COUPLE of interesting posts/comments/emails received here at Dead Things HQ recently that deserve a bit o'mention. In response to the post below, "Why Canadian Satire Sucks," someguy commented:

I work on Mercer Report and I remember the debate footage.

As I recall the debate was on, like, a Monday and our show was airing the Monday afterwards. So if we were going to use the tape it would have been a week old. So we didn't use it. Nobody cared that we "weren't allowed."

I think our shows has done its share of satire. We've put the Liberal leadership up for auction on ebay. In our first season we actually (probably) cost a Winnipeg MP his job when we aired him falling asleep in the House of Commons. And there's Rick's rants.

That said the show isn't intended to be 100% satirical. It's a travel around Canada show with some satirical elements. When we send Rick to visit polar bears or go window washing we're not intending to do political satire.

I'm glad you wrote in, someguy, because it gives me a chance to say the thing that I didn't say this time when I revisited this subject -- I happen to think that Mercer and 22 are both very funny shows, with lots of great material. But they're not satire. Yes, both shows have in the past traded in satirical humor --The Rant bit Mercer does is the most satirical part of the show, but that's not their full brief.

Mark Farrell on Inside the CBC said much the same thing about 22 as you do above. There, he wrote:

I think of 22 as a news parody show. One of the tools it uses is satire.

I won’t speak for the other shows but when Mark Critch shows up at liberal debates and conventions the candidates tried to avoid us because they know or think we’re not going to be soft on them. For the most part those interviews are not set up before hand. But don’t take my word for it watch them on the website if you want and decide for yourself. As an example, according to our field producer, at the Giller awards Bob Rae was trying to get away, he was trying to avoid us, he took a wrong turn and ended up talking to Critch and Crawford.

Also, as an aside, the Prime Minister has so far refused to appear on 22 minutes (which is his right, he’s a pretty busy guy,); We (22) have not been invited into 24 Sussex.

So yep, let me say that I don't want to pillory either Mercer or 22 for not doing hard satire when it's not their intent to do hard satire.

Where the gap comes, and where I might diverge from Doyle a bit (or maybe this is what he's saying, too, I don't know, it's hard to tell) is that in the popular imagination, these shows are held up as "Canadian Satire" and are often (as in the case of the "Inside the CBC" reaction to Doyle's article) trotted out as an example of a more virtuous Canadian brand of humor that says something about our character.

In reality, it's anything but that. The combination of the "big 3" shows on CBC and the reverse onus libel laws in Canada make it very unlikely that any kind of true satire program could ever flourish in this country.

CBC can point to the "safe" poltical comedy we do and say, "see? we do that!" And they'll have plenty of people (like the apologist spinners on the CBC thread) who'll tart it up as virtue -- when really it's evidence of constriction, not expression.

Even on CTV/Comedy's doomed Popcultured, the brief was to do celebrity news "but with a smile," Ie: don't be mean. No wonder the show tanked. I mean, are we really saying that what our celebrity obsessed age needs is more softballs?

As Joanna Schneller put it in the Globe today (talking about the cessation of Premiere Magazine):

Premiere gave writers space in which to expand ideas about our cultural moment in a general-interest format. Without venues like it, entertainment writing falls into two slots: either highly specified, or distressingly shallow, a scrap heap of sound bites, tabloids, "charticles" and gossip. There may not be many of us actively mourning the loss of Premiere's type of intelligence, but we'll all feel it

I think the same is true of the lack of true satire in Canada. I think it makes us poorer, and smugger, as a people. There's a study out just now that proves that viewers of The Daily Show are better informed about issues than the rest of the U.S. populace -- including people who watch the national nightly TV news. What the study seems to indicate is not that people get their news from the show, but that to find the show funny, you have to have a base level of understanding of the issues. To me, one of the great strengths of both Colbert and Stewart is that they are actually quite hard on Democrats, too. That's the nice thing about true satire -- it means challenging ALL the received wisdom.

I like to think that Canadians are generally better informed than Americans about what's going on in the world. But I've also found in my personal experience that the best informed Americans are a lot more willing to challenge the orthodoxies at play in their mediascape, than the best informed Canadians are willing to examine similar Canadian myths.

I think that's because no one here ever says truly impertinent things. And I think a large part of the reason for that is because, well...they're afraid.

The example used in The Walrus article of a joke that almost got Mary Walsh in deep dutch was the quip about then-Reform Party Leader Preston Manning's speech being better "in the original German." Had the Reformers pressed a suit there, there probably would have been trouble -- despite the fact that the joke is funny.

I happen to think that's probably not good for either humor, satire, or political debate in this country. It's not that we're kinder, gentler. It's that we pull our punches. And in this day and age, I'm not sure we can afford to do that.

Thanks for writing, and letting me clarify my position on those shows, someguy.

***

Reader Jesse emailed me a link to this very fine story in the Chicago Reader, about how this summer, the Washington Post will close its one-man Canadian bureau, leaving absolutely zero American newspaper bureaus based in Canada.

Writer Michael Miner sounds like he had an opposite experience to me: he's an American who spent several years in Canada as a boy. Well, that's not exactly opposite. I'm an American who only lived in the U.S. a short while before I...no...wait...I'm a Canadian who was born in the...well, that's not exactly...

Oh bother -- read the article. One of my favorite points, which comes courtesy of the writer's Vancouver-based sister:

Canada is enough like the U.S. that Americans can't afford to pay attention to it. If we saw things Canadians did better, we'd have no good excuse not to copy them.

Neat observation. Miner also has a lovely turn of phrase when he observes:

Despite what Canadians think we all think, I don't consider Canada a part of the U.S. that technically isn't. For me, Canada is some sort of benign antimatter whose reason for being is to not be us. The existence of Canada is the gentlest reproach on earth.

"The gentlest reproach on Earth." I like that. I like that a lot. Thanks for passing that article along, Jesse.

***

Finally, an emailer, who I'll call, "Etobicoke," asks:

Are you going to write about the return of Billable Hours?

Well, Etobicoke, no. We don't talk about Billable Hours on this blog. We did once or twice -- tangentially -- when it first came out. Then, our delicate ears heard that someone connected with the show was going around saying that I slammed the show all the time on the blog. They were powerful upset bout it. They were upset enough to complain about me in Banff, and they were still complaining about me at industry events six months later. So, um...I punt.

However, if you'd like to read more about some of the changes made for Billable Hours' second season, Canadian Press has a great article on them, by Lee-Anne Goodman. Sounds like they really worked hard to retool to a more American-style writing room. You can see and judge the results for yourself when Showcase debuts the second season, this Sunday night, at 9:30 p.m.

They bad mouthed you, yet you plug the show? Why?

Because the Baby Jesus said, "turn the other cheek." And as I've said before, I'm a big fan of Baby Jesus, rather than scary punishy judgey Mel Gibson Jesus.

You're such a good boy.

Thanks, Mom. Er... I mean..."Etobicoke," thanks for writing.

Why Canadian Satire Sucks

A RECENT CONTRETEMPS in this blog had me take on (rather badly) the concept of satire at the CBC and in Canadian Comedy, as evidenced by three shows: Air Farce, 22, and Mercer. All this was sparked by a column John Doyle wrote about the subject in the Globe. If you click the link above, you can see the whole sorry exchange including me bloviating rather ... counterproductively ... on the Inside the CBC blog.

For the record, there is a problem in sharpness in Canadian comedy, and I knew this, and I knew it was at least partially structural, but I was exhausted at the prospect of trying to explain it.

Enter The Walrus.

One of the great things about playing poker with smart guys is that they read, and one of my friends left behind his copy of The Walrus on just this subject last weekend. I just got through the article in question, and it pretty clearly lays out (much to the consternation, I'm sure, of the ultra nationalists who wanted to make lameness a virtue) just why the situation is so.

And lo, The Walrus has that article (by Rebecca Addelman) online here.

Or at least the start of it, anyway. The article starts, cheekily, with a moment that was pretty dark for me -- during the last election, The Daily Show actually used clips of the Leaders debate to make fun of Canadian politics...which is something Canadian comedy shows were not allowed to do. (Oh my, isn't THAT something to be proud of...)

South of the border, the folks at The Daily Show with Jon Stewart thought otherwise. On January 19, broadcasting across ctv and Comedy Network airwaves into 465,000 Canadian homes, Stewart launched into six minutes on the debates. After airing some of the French-language contest, he deadpanned, “You may have noticed the quality of that footage was a bit grainier than the footage we usually steal. That’s because we had to get it from the Internet.” He then introduced more “forbidden fruit of debate footage that the cbc and the Parliament felt was too explosive for fake news”—two dreary Stephen Harper sound bites proving that Lunz was right, this stuff is boring, but that boring, in a blue-plaid tie, can be funny too. Canada is famous for birthing satirists who have gone on to take down the American establishment. How did we get to the point of needing Jon Stewart to make fun of our politicians for us?

The article goes on to explain the problems inherent in Canada's legal system -- the limits on criticism through free speech; the "reverse onus" that hamstrings comedians, and the more sinister, creeping effect where no one ever thinks of approaching the line lest they provoke a lawsuit that they're not insured for.

All in all, it's textbook libel chill. It's nothing to be proud, or smug about, and it's rampant in this otherwise great country.

Great article. Great magazine. (I would be very very happy to receive, say...you know, a free sub...hint hint)

Read it and weep.

Just don't make a joke about me that comes close to that imaginary line, because the burden's on you to prove it... and I'd love the money...

Fun With Actors' Names

LAURENCE LEBOEUF is a girl. SHIA LABEOUF is a boy.

Return to your homes, citizens.

Dipping My Toe into Durham

SO LAST NIGHT was a dip back into the thrall of the Toronto media thing scene. Which sounds about as fun as it is, but heyo, it's a living.

At a club in West End Toronto that used to be a lot more fun when it was The Mockingbird, the CFC held a launch party and panel discussion for a new original Canadian series called Durham County.

Durham County is a six part, one hour mystery/police procedural series that will premiere May 7 on Canada's premium pay cable channels, Movie Central (Western Canada) and TMN (Eastern Canada.)

TMN/Movie Central are getting aggressive about raising the bar on their original programming, and after some highs (they were first in for Slings & Arrows) and lows (sorry, Terminal City, which recently proved the difference between a format sale and a program sale) they are really doing their level best to complement all that sweet sweet stuff they pick up from HBO and Showtime.


Durham County has a lot going for it. I first heard about this show last year. Then, I got to work with Holly Dale, (who directed Episodes One through Four) out on Blood Ties. The buzz has been good. So I settled in last night with fingers crossed. I've liked some of Back Alley's shows in the past (Talk 16, Drop The Beat) and been lukewarm toward others (Straight Up, Bliss) but from the moment I walked in, you could tell that straight from the graphic image treatment, they definitely know their mood.

They only showed clips, but the clips I saw seemed fine indeed. There's some first rate actors in this, including a lot of actors who are working in English, rather than their native Quebec French. Laurence Lebouef, who plays the daughter, and Patrick Labbe in particular are huge, huge stars in Quebec.

It's worth a chuckle to know that yup, in fine Let's All Hate Toronto fashion, this is the second series we've talked about this week that is set ostensibly here (Durham County is North East of Toronto) and filmed somewhere else. (Durham County was shot in Montreal.)

Gosh, we can't even play ourselves anymore...SEE! We ARE like New York!

On the panel was Adrienne Mitchell, one of the Executive Producers (with Janis Lundman, who wasn't there,) the writer of all six episodes, Laurie Finstad Knizhnik, and stars Hugh Dillon and Laurence Leboeuf.

Hugh Dillon is amusing and great on screen. Very charismatic and wounded....in the opening episode, at least -- which is the only one I've seen so far, he's got a quality to him that you see on the best of those British Crime dramas, like Cracker or Touching Evil or Prime Suspect. Like everyone these days, people on the panel gushed about The Sopranos, but DC doesn't strike me as being quite that operatic. It's smaller, quieter, and more sinister -- it really does have that British crime thriller feel.

Which is awesome. I love those shows.

Anyway, I'm always going to be endlessly grateful to Hugh Dillon, not just for his rock and roll past and Hard Core Logo and his great charisma on screen, but for the fact that I got to sit in the audience and hear him swear constantly at this launch event. I mean, like, Fleet Week swearing. I think I saw a couple of delicate flowers jump in the back row -- especially when he said a word that I don't think we've ever heard on a panel discussion in Canada, anywhere. He's the perfect antidote to Canadian fussiness, and he brought it bigtime last night. Good on him.

It's interesting to see these panel discussions, having seen so many of the damn things in the past and even having had to cover a few. It's like when it comes to Canadian shows, we're not fully media trained, and getting things across clearly and succinctly seems to be a stretch. The most impressive speaker was probably Leboeuf, who was very eloquent in talking about how the portrayal of violence is handled in the show.

It's clear that everyone had Virginia Tech on their minds, and as Leboeuf struggled to contextualize the drama, you could see that everyone was still continuing a conversation that they'd obviously had many times on set.

DC forces you to be a voyeur to violence...it implicates you straight off the bat -- the opening five minutes are difficult to watch. But that's kind of the point. As the setpieces slowly unspool, it becomes clear early on that what you're watching isn't really a whodunnit, so much as a whydoneit. That's really appealing to me. I pitched and tried to make Across The River To Motor City more of a whydoneit last year, and met resistance. We ultimately wound up changing it but I'm intrigued to see how DC handles the brief. It's kind of like the road not taken.

Being an event about Canadian tv, someone inevitably asked about the financing. In this case, it seems like DC benefited from TMN/Movie Central + Rogers Fund + CTF + Canwest Global + money upfront from Granada, the international distributor -- based on the scripts. THAT's interesting, in a "you know, huh..." kind of way.

As for the rest of the event, everyone seemed delighted (maybe a trifle too delighted) that the show's turned out as well as it did. Every time my American angel hears too much hype, my Canadian angel gets embarrased and says, "really, just let people see it for themselves...don't make a fuss." This is why I am never happy, maybe.

It was nice to ease back into the scene with a low key event. There were the usual party suspects. Some welcome familiar faces, and some new ones bold enough to introduce themselves (I got asked twice how I liked Grindhouse, and was puzzled at first til I realized I had, in fact, written about going to see the movie yesterday. I enjoyed it lots, thanks for asking. I wonder if this is how Paris Hilton feels about getting caught not wearing underwear?)

There were writers only too happy to plant themselves at the periphery with me and ogle the Dead Things -- not on sticks, for once, more like in little bowls. There was shrimp, though.

It's completely clear to me that I need to psych myself up to bring my A-game for the Canadian Screenwriting Awards Monday. I'm going to need to pre-load a few conversation sparklers. And I have to enjoy myself, since it looks like my little work furlough is going to be short-lived. Again, more on that later.

As for Durham County, I'll be posting a full review of all six episodes closer to the premiere date. This is one I want to savor a bit.

You know, like the shrimp. I don't mind if you say I'm being a little shellfish.

Okay, now I'm just ashamed.

Wherein Denis Posts The Cat

NOT REALLY, I mean, I don't even have a cat. I barely know any cats. But I don't really have much to say today but a bunch of little tiny things.

So this will be the bunch of little tiny things post.

I'll probably have more substantive stuff in a couple days -- including some news that affects the drift of this blog in the months to come.

• It occurs to me that since I arrived back in Toronto, I have not seen the sun. That strikes me as somewhat ironic.
  
  
• ROGERS should spend less time buying money losing terrestrial television stations from CTV Globemedia and more time fixing my stupid damn buggy HD PVR
  
  
• A cut on the tip of your finger can bleed for a very long time. Almost the entire length of a Sopranos episode.
  
  
• Macs rule, but Apple sucks. There. I said it.
  
  
• Do not even get me started about Crackbook.
  
  
• You know that thing about stop and appreciate the little things? Well, for all the nutsoness of being a writer sometimes, there are nights like the one I spent last night at The Paddock, surrounded by some of the funniest comedy writers in Canada, telling stories. Good conversation, good people, good humor -- it all goes a long way. It almost makes you forget to drink.
  
  
• I've made it through to the end of Ep.2 of The Sopranos, and any lingering dissatisfaction with the drift of the first half of the season is gone. What a valedictory. The way it's lensed, with all those autumnal browns and indirect lighting takes my breath away. Melfi's office has never looked so ominous. I take it back. The Sopranos does live up to the hype. All that and Sydney Pollack too.
  
  
• Mark Leiren-Young, a nice writer who also worked on Blood Ties, sent me a link yesterday to this article he wrote, an interview with Vonnegut. I'm still bummed out by his passing. It's funny the things you can't shake off. John Doyle in the Globe today also has a wonderful appreciation for June Callwood. Many years ago, Callwood gave the commencement address at my University graduation. I forget now what she said, but it was suitably inspiring and wonderful at the time -- and warm -- and I think I even remember taking comfort in her words for the first couple of years when I was working and it seemed like I was banging my head against the wall. People like that make you want to just make dead sure you put out into the world more good things than bad. Yup. I guess I'm thinking about karma now.
  
  
• This is just hilarious -- passed on to me by Diane. Yes. Hating Toronto. I hear it's set to be a demonstration sport at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

Tell a joke or pet your cat today. Call Mom. Encourage someone who looks like they need it.

Me, I'm going to see Grindhouse.

Oh snap. See what I did there?

Despair.

I HAVE NEVER seen a film or TV show where a troubled sociopath shot up anywhere and it was glorified.

But the United States' relationship with guns is sick. It always has been. The video below is moronic. It shows just how adolescent the gun cliche has become in our culture.

As the inevitable Columbine rehash happens over the next few days, please remember that we heard this all before. And nothing has changed.

Change requires will. And will requires generational rage. You are the ones being killed, in Iraq and on your own campuses. Your culture is producing these damaged people.

What will you do to stop them?

While you're at that, I'm going to say a quick prayer for the dead.

UPDATE: Just because it happens every time I post something like this, I should remind upfront that I am, in fact, American-born. I vote proudly, and have always been proud of the good that the United States of America has brought to the world. Like a lot of Americans living abroad, I've had a rough few years keeping the candle lit.

But there's another motion here, too. For any Canadians reading this, I get slagged each and every time I mention something like this, but go read Jim Henshaw's post today about the amnesia at root in Canadian society. We love it when Rick Mercer goes Talking To Americans, while we all cede anything in Canada that makes the culture here slightly different.

And then something like this horrific shooting happens. I know. We've had a few here in Canada. But the difference is that after women were murdered by Marc Lepine in Montreal, things changed. Gun laws changed. That, at least, is not part of the Canadian amnesia. This country doesn't produce psychopathic spree killers at quite the rate as the United States does.

The U.S. and Canada have been moving apart culturally for years. But the people selling the stories and the people buying the stories here aren't actually, you know, buying the stories. Our cultural future is American. Stop being smug about being Canadian...because if your kids don't know Vimy and everything else, then what's the difference? Run up the Stars & Stripes and be done with it.

Ooh. Yes. Someone's blood sugar is low today.

Do What You Say!

Well, apparently all that has to happen to have a funny SNL is for me not to watch. This is probably zipping all over the Interweb today, but the reason I like it is because it's kind of bullshit to write a death scene. Any death scene. Time was, you'd give somebody a great out line, like all those old film noirs. But just like the whole shift to the "auteur" theory in film, there's been an equal shift away from giving characters something meaningful to say before they check out.

Now the death is all about the cutting and the foofera. This particular short borrows heavily from "The O.C." -- who knew their melodrama well. (Well, except for Oliver.)

Go on, write a death scene after watching this. I dare you. (Dennis Heaton gets points for sending this to me first.)

Horror is Sccaarrry Work...

So the new issue of Canadian Screenwriter is out on the stands now, and the cover article by Vern Smith is up at the Writers Guild of Canada site. The article features extensive conversations with two of my Blood Ties compatriots, Peter Mohan and (Evil) Dennis Heaton:

Although a fan, Peter Mohan had never written about vampires when he browsed the horror section of a Toronto bookstore 10 or 12 years ago. There, he found a novel about a cop and vampire searching for demons downtown, and said, “Hold it, I like all those things.”

Flash forward, and Mohan is showrunning Blood Ties, adapting Tanya Huff’s “Blood” novels for the small screen. The series–which debuted on Lifetime in the U.S. in March, and will eventually air on CHUM in Canada–revolves around Vicki Nelson, a cop turned private detective suffering from a degenerative eye disease, and her love interest, a 450-year-old vampire. Upon said revelations, the focus of her agency becomes more about ghost-busting and less about fraud and adultery. But as appealing as the gist of it was the day Mohan read the back-cover copy inside Book City in Toronto’s Annex, the kicker was that this story was set nearby. And above all else, it meant the job of establishing normalcy would be a little more seamless in giving way to supernatural revelations.

“This is a quintessential Canadian show in a way that many others aren’t because we don’t push a Canadian agenda,” Mohan says. “It’s just a cool story that happens to occur here. We can make shows that travel with real streets and locations in establishing shots. It’s just centred in this place to ground this world.”

Previously, Mohan worked on such shows as Due South and Mutant X and wrote scripts for La Femme Nikita, PSI Factor, and Highlander. As for horror, he’d written episodes of Friday the 13th: the series, and produced FOX TV’s Eerie Indiana: The Next Dimension. He’s also been working on a “kickass” vampire feature film over the past few years. The important part was that Mohan was already up to speed on Huff’s Blood franchise, as well as the genre’s hallmarks, when Kaleidoscope Entertainment serendipitously came calling.

“I’ve liked a lot of horror writers–King at times, McCammon, Clive Barker’s books of blood,” Mohan says. “I still remember as a young kid reading ‘Dracula’–the texture of the paper, an onion-skin paper, it was so affecting.”

Personally, Mohan sees the genre through a psychological lens filled with fears about life, death, intimacy, and generally “opening oneself up.” In terms of the evolution of Blood Ties, he describes a larger story arc involving fate, Vicki, her new partner, the vampire, and her former boyfriend/partner on the Toronto police force.

(Above, Peter Mohan works hard at his desk. He may be reading a network notes email. But he's probably on YouTube, because inspiration is hard, bitches. Below at right, Peter Mohan and Dennis Heaton in my office at Blood Ties. You can tell we're talking about something important because Peter is holding a real live BT script in his hand.)

“I’ve done 450 hours of TV, often having to pretend Toronto is Chicago, New York, wherever, so it’s great to write a show where they’re chasing monsters in the Annex,” Mohan says. “That’s the crazy thing about horror. The more you ground the story in something mundane, commonplace, the more you open your eyes to another level. By setting this in a very realistic Toronto with realistic cops who never thought there was anything like this, there’s a whole new world. Even cold cases that seemed insoluble–suddenly they’re looking at things differently.”

For Dennis Heaton, who also worked on Blood Ties, helping audiences establish normalcy was also job one with Fido, a zombie feature that debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival last fall. In Fido, it was a 1950s fictional small town, Willard, whereas Blood Ties is contemporary. In either case, Heaton describes a mandatory process of making that world as ordinary as possible.“You want to ground your audience so that when your character moves into the supernatural and then the unreal, they start to have reactions to that world, and your audience is having the same reaction,” Heaton says.

“You set it up and here’s your real world and now you’re faced with a vampire and your characters going through disbelief until it’s proven. You draw your audience in through your protagonist. If you’re set in a fantastic world, then your audience is going to have a certain disconnection from reality.”

Adapting all that horror
Blood Ties is also an adaptation for the small screen, so slicing the pie among a group of writers that included the author was another trick entirely.

With author Huff writing one episode, Mohan says the Blood Ties crew stayed true to the central literary dynamic by having the author in on story meetings and pitch sessions.

“Given the time constraints of television production and how quickly you have to get a script turned around, it’s better to have so many hands on deck,” adds Heaton. “You put your script forward and you’re getting feedback from maybe five or six people. You still have to filter that information, but it helps you focus the script faster.

“When you’ve got six people and they’re all saying this doesn’t work, you know it doesn’t work. Then you also have that assistance in finding out how to improve it and get it done, so your writing time is reduced from two or three weeks to three or four days because there are so many people cooking the script with you.”

Still, putting literature on TV can be brutal on the original artifact, so what about having the author in on the deed?

“Tanya’s been really good with us in the sense that these are her characters and she has certain feelings about how they’re produced,” says Heaton. “She gave Peter a lot of freedom to transform it from her literary world into television. It was a positive experience to work with her and get notes from her about whether we’re deviating from her course, because she also understands the things that have to change.”

As for the rest of the process, Mohan describes it as controlled chaos, saying, “You had to be writer and audience at the same time, and you had to be a hard audience. To win people over we had to bring them along by creating something emotionally real. Vicki is a hard sell to the supernatural. Bit by bit, she becomes more exposed to proof. If she’s accepted it, I think our audience will accept it. By that point, I think they will be invested in her character and her entanglements.”

(Above, Dennis Heaton and Travis McDonald in a notes session in Peter's office. You can see that we've failed to keep Travis awake.)

And While You're At It, Don't Call Me Bruce, Either.

INTERESTING ARTICLE over at Wired News. Jason Silverman explores the persistent impulse away from labelling something "sci-fi."

Cormac McCarthy's The Road is set during a nuclear winter. Two survivors walk south, breathing toxic air, seeking out the continent's last canned food while ducking bands of flesh-eaters.
Describe it as "post-apocalyptic," as most critics did, or as a masterpiece of dystopian literature. Just don't call McCarthy's novel "science fiction."
Even when clearly appropriate, film studios and publishers avoid the phrase "science fiction." So do the novelists, film directors and editors in their employ. McCarthy's book, which is about to become a blockbuster -- Oprah Winfrey will tout it on an upcoming TV show as part of her book club -- is just another example of how the powers that be dodge the term, especially when it applies to "serious" fiction or cinema.
You won't find the words "science fiction" in Random House's bio of Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author China Miéville. Instead, he's called the "edgiest mythmaker of the day." Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep? It's classified as comedy, drama, romance and fantasy, but not sci-fi, at Amazon.com.

Out in the fan weeds, the reverberations of this impulse have caused a lot of consternation, and their own twisting reactions. Some won't call literary Sci-Fi by that name, preferring "SF."

Others refer to "genre" shows -- which always struck me in its own way as ridiculously broad. I mean, what genre? That's as silly as speculative fiction.

Sci-Fi isn't the only genre that gets to play this silly game with language. Horror on TV goes through a similar kneejerk, for a different reason. Most TV stations that have to think about advertisers and crazy Christian boycotts won't be seen to get behind Horror -- even though you could argue that it's a genre that is enjoying an enormous popular upswing right now. But if you're pitching, you better be pitching a supernatural thriller, kids.

I remember marvelling once when I called something "horror" and a network type corrected me instantly with, "dark fantasy." Boom. Not even a blink.

We have always been at war with Eurasia, you see.

But the sci-fi thing, to me, is particularly problematic. Because the labeling game is causing problems.

First you get a show like Battlestar Galactica. It doesn't matter how many top ten lists it's going to appear on, it doesn't matter that this is a show that you'd appreciate if you love The Wire or The Sopranos -- there's a big portion of the audience that won't tune it in because "that's sci fi. and that title."

There are reviewers that hate sci-fi. There are people who won't go past their prejudices. I've never once seen data that suggests that the kind of person who hates Sci-fi and that label would watch the show if it was called something else.

Moore's BSG is a gutsy show. It's fearless storytelling. It's challenging, it's relevant, and it's provocative. And despite what he says, it is also great sci-fi.

I mean, face it, if something's sci-fi, most people are going to figure that out. If you keep promoting the idea that the sci-fi moniker is something to be shied away from, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You're dooming a genre that's always been about critiquing the world we live in now, and ceding it to the fanboys who like to see stuff blow up.

When you lose the clarifying ability of genre -- when you try to hide it, you lose sight, I think, of the mechanics of what you're doing -- and everything becomes softer and more slippery. If you're trying to run away from what kind of show it is, then how can you honestly talk about what needs to be in the show to reach -- never mind the audience that you want to trick into watching -- but the audience who would be predisposed to watch anyway?

In the network hallways, that leads to some frustrating conversations where they buy a sci-fi concept, and then fall over backwards trying to hide the sci-fi in it. You know how hard that is to write? Very.

Because there are certain expectations people have in watching sci-fi product, whether it's called that or not. Can you imagine a soap opera without any sex, either actual or implied? What about a murder mystery where they said, "maybe we should think twice about having a body." But these straitjackets are applied to sci-fi shows all the time. You get notes that just aren't consistent with the genre -- there's no sense making a Six Feet Under observation in a show that's just not built that way. You find yourself getting notes that you can't take -- because you have the wrong premise, the wrong characters, the wrong sets. And all this comes out of the idea that it's okay to buy one kind of show and then say you're going to make another.

Don't get me wrong -- there's a whole lot of problems catering to the built in audience, as well. For one thing, in my experience working for Canada's sci-fi channel, I've found that generally the hardest core fans tend to eschew complexity. They're conservative -- they don't like change. They don't like sex or complex human relationships between men and women. They like to think of themselves as more sophisticated, and smarter than the "average" tv viewer -- when in reality, they're not. But you know what? Maybe that's because all this dancing around what is and what isn't sci-fi has resulted in that being the only sector of the audience who's left willing to put up their hands and call themselves a sci-fi fan. Everyone else has moved on because they don't want dumb, and they don't like confused. There's other places to get your quality fix.

In the end, the reason why a lot of sci-fi product winds up being anemic, dull, or retreaded and bled of creativity is because in that development process, you have the people paying the piper begging writers to run away from the thing that is the very essence of the show.

It's focacta.

Which is why I'm working on a script that is a Dark Thrillo-Comic Serial Standalone Scientific Fantastical Musical Romcom Procedural.

Okay. Time for lunch.

Huh.

SWEAR TO GOD, til I saw a promo for SNL last night, I thought Shia LeBoeuf was a girl.