Will Dixon and Al Magee

I SWEAR this is not just because he hosted a wonderfully enjoyable, raucous dinner in Banff, where Evil Dennis and I managed to traumatize a very nice Magee TV staffer -- but Will Dixon is quietly on fire again with a great profile of one of Canada's nicest super-producers -- Al Magee.

There's a lot to ponder in Will's two part (so far!) profile, but here's the bit that caught my eye the most:

Al: The big lesson from Europe was that all audiences really crave homegrown hits. I worked on a show in Finland called Tutto Jutto, a crazy cross between Lawrence Welk and the Newlywed Game. On Thursday nights 3 million of the 5.5 million population watched Tutto Jutto. It’s no wonder that our own hits have such an idiosyncratic homegrown feel.

And the professional sensibility in Europe is the reverse of here; the producers and broadcasters don’t take themselves too seriously, but they take the work and their responsibility to the production community and the audience very seriously.

It's too long for a T-shirt, but I wonder if we could get that last statement on a coffee mug? Or maybe, I don't know, how about a tattoo that we can pass out at the CFTPA convention and the broadcaster launches? Who's with me? Anybody?

You're leaving me out here alone again, aren't you? Bastards!

Part I of the Magee profile is here. For part II, click thusly.

(and just to clarify, in the post below I mention that the only thing keeping us from doing interesting work is will. I mean will. I don't mean you, Will. Glad we cleared that up.)

I'm Not Sure.

THAT I get John From Cincinatti.


I'm also not sure that I care. The performance of the actor playing John, which I thought would get old fast, is really growing on me. Greenwood is dependable as always. And to see Ellsworth and Charlie from Deadwood show up in very different roles is both disconcerting and joyous.

And I haven't even thought about Luis Guzman yet.

And Rebecca DeMornay as a hot granny? Come ON!

John Doyle wrote yesterday about HBO series and how far and away better they were, and you have to admit it's true. Even the ones that I don't care for, like Big Love, are consistently more interesting than anything available from the major networks.

The thing is, because of how crappily CanCon does here anyway, you would think that would take the pressure off to make things more accessible. I'm almost sure that I could live with an industry where we weren't getting the boffo numbers thanks to poor promotion and various other structrual limitations, so long as the quality suggested that we were making a contribution to the art.

One problem, of course, is that fine line between art and self-indulgence. I think there's a bit of Emperor's New Clothes Syndrome out there in CanConLand. Many that have been called "brilliant" and "visionary" have struck me as "boring" or "twee."

I've worked on cheeseburgers and I've worked on vanity projects, and I've worked on shows that were on a continuum between those two things. But if any network, any broadcaster would have the balls to let someone talented here make a John From Cincinatti, well...that'd really be something, now, wouldn't it? That's probably why I flipped for Durham County. Save us Obi-Wan-TMN...you're our only hope!

Except they're not...or they shouldn't be. CTV 's run The Sopranos, terrestrial. CBC gets a whack of cash from taxpayers. How is it possible that they don't have room in their development slate for brilliant? Where is their process failing them?

Think: the only thing keeping us from doing these shows is will. Will, and the wisdom to trust a creative voice and get the hell out of the way.

If You're Surfing in here from Blog T.O.

WELCOME, first of all. This is a blog about TV writing and sometimes Canadian TV. If you scroll down through the last two weeks of posts, hopefully you'll be able to find some lively reportage from my trip last week to the 2007 Banff TV Festival. I have more of that stuff to come, including an interview with the Executive Producer of The Office, Greg Daniels.

If you look at the entry from June 8, I think there are links to some of my big all time posts. Can't say more now. Busy rewriting. Ciao.

Dude, when do you have time to Write?

Debbie over at BlogTo -- a nifty little blog about all things Toronto, did a little email interview with me recently. Go read it here and find out why I'll never forgive Avril for that thing she said to me on the carpet at the MMVA's...or something:

How did you get into screenwriting?

Sideways. I always wanted to write. When I first graduated Ryerson I sent a script I wrote down to L.A. It was a "Wonder Years" spec script and I got really great feedback on it from the Executive Producer of the show. But I didn't follow up. I drifted into TV producing, doing stories on media and technology, first at TVOntario, then at Citytv. I had a wonderful time at Citytv, got to interview a lot of people, but was still restless.

In 1996 I did a play at Summerworks called "Press'd" -- and my boss at the time, Moses Znaimer, brought a Director friend named Jeremy Kagan to the show. And Kagan flipped for my play. He loved the writing. But I never followed up. About a year later, I'm watching the Emmys and there's Jeremy Kagan, accepting an award for Directing "The West Wing," which was my favorite show at the time. And I decided, if I ever got another break like that, I wasn't going to let it pass by.

By this time I'd moved on to help start up Space: The Imagination Station. I met up on-set with a couple of guys producing a show called STARHUNTER. They liked me, I wrote a few eps for their second season, and then I took the big leap. I quit my job and went to the Canadian Film Centre. When I got out, I never looked back. I've been working ever since, first in documentary (I did a lot of lifestyle wedding shows) and now drama.

I say all this because now I look back and I think the missed opportunities had purpose. I had to get past my fear. People tend to think that you only get one 'break,' but it's not true. You just have to want it badly enough that you are willing to risk everything. Some get there more quickly because they've got youthful bravado or a natural fearlessness on their side. Some come later to it, once they realize that they won't be happy if they don't really try. But the risk -- taking the risk, is all.

The full profile is here.

It's a Bouncing Baby Blog! Pro-Writer Style!

IT'S HARD at this point to come up with a new entry point into the scribosphere. Lots of niches are being scratched daily. But more and more agents, both southerly and cold Canadians, are reporting that they're hearing that people want to read original pilots as spec samples. Sometimes it's as the second or third script -- but still, that makes for a daunting challenge.

Because nothing is harder than writing a pilot. It's a dark bit of business, part necromancy and part bone-crushing bravado.

Luckily, an incredibly wonderful, hardworking, and way experienced Canadian writer named Jill Golick has a new blog where she obsesses over pilots. Not so you don't have to...just because she's writing pilots herself and therefore, she's obsessing over them anyway. She's just letting you listen in. Awesome, hey?

Here's a bit from a recent post on a British show I've never seen, but boy do I want to now:

One of my favourite series of 2007 thus far is the British series Skins. The opening scenes of the pilot, entitled "Tony" and written by Bryan Elsley, are absolutely fabulous.

The show opens with a 30 second title sequence that is all shots of characters and ends with the series title "Skins".

The first shot of the first episode is close on eyes which pop open, awake, as the camera slowly pulls out to reveal a teenage boy in bed as church bells ring in the distance. His alarm goes off and he flicks on some music as he springs into action, doing his dips, chin ups and bicep curls in only his tight white underpants, his face expressionless. His first smile appears as he surveys his image in the mirror.

That sequence takes 37 seconds and it's all about character.

A teenage girl looking bedraggled in her smudged makeup and short skirt walks up the street.

In his bedroom, our teenage boy's watch alarm sounds. He stations himself at the bedroom window and looks out. In the window across the street, a woman allows her white robe to drop to the floor, revealing her naked back. She glances out the window; she knows our boy is watching.

On the street, the girl glances up at the woman's window and then at his. She stops, arms crossed, staring up at his window. Is she a pissed off girlfriend?

No, actually. She waves, trying to distract him as the naked woman turns in his direction providing a good front view. Below the young girl finally attracts his attention.

The boy turns to his stereo, cranking the volume higher, higher, higher still, smiling with satisfaction in the direction of his bedroom door, behind which we can barely make out a male voice: "Tony! Tony!"

Tony, the teenage boy, signals to the girl below and she lunges for the front door. An irate looking 40-something male wearing nothing but red boxers storms into Tony's room, yelling to be heard over the music.

"Sorry," says Tony, pretending to fiddle with the remote, "the volume's busted."

"Every fucking morning!" spurts his furious father. Meanwhile the young hottie is sneaking up the stairs, into her bedroom, peeling off her clubbing clothes and slipping into her demure English school girl uniform.We're not done yet.

Tony is now sitting on the toilet reading Sartre's Nausea as his father knocks on the bathroom door begging to be let in. Tony smiles mildly as he flushes, brushes and goes out the window, leaving the bathroom door locked and his father pounding and cursing on the other side.

Tony climbs down to street level, pauses to smile at the now-dressed woman from across the street and lets himself into the house.

In the kitchen, Mom is making eggs. His sister, now every inch the innocent school girl, nibbles toast. Dad, still ranting about getting into the bathroom, steps into the kitchen and stops dead when he sees Tony.

The lock is broken again, Tony claims mildly, as his father stares at him with mounting hatred.

By this time, you couldn't pay me to turn off this show. And the interesting thing about this opening is that none of it has anything to do with what follows. Tony's parents and sister don't have any significance in the series until a much later episode.

Instead of establishing story, the writer has opted to devote the first three and three quarter minutes of the pilot to setting up character. And he has done so beautifully.

Jill breaks down other pilots and talks about what makes them work. If you're taking that leap toward trying to come up with a pilot yourself, it's an invaluable addition to the scribosphere: Running With My Eyes Closed.

And That's a Wrap.

SITTING IN a Starbucks in Canmore, on my way back to Calgary, a short dinner with friends and then the Red Eye home.

The 2007 Banff TV Festival was pretty good for me. I met a lot of people I'd only heard of before. Lots of blog-love from people -- a nice conversation or two with people like Sean Davidson from Playback, and Bill Carter from the NYTimes (swoon), hangin' with the writer mafia, and best of all -- the chance to hang with people I usually only see as pixels -- Will Dixon, Alex, Diane Kristine, and Callaghan (though My God the man whines.)

When I get back, it's diving straight into notes for my CBC script. But I might also have a one-pager to write up. Ah the potential Development Deal. You are a sultry, siren calling little beeyotch.

So hope you enjoyed the posts from Banff. There will be more.

Mountains are Pretty.

Pictures of (some of) the writer mafia...in the Rundle Lounge, Post Wrap...

Number 1: Matt Schiller, Al Magee, Travis McDonald

Number 2: Dennis Heaton, Shelley Eriksen

Number 3: Diane Kristine, Me

Number 4: Alex "Have You Bought My Book Yet?" Epstein, Peter "The Cyborg" Mohan.

They're in the Money

HERE ARE the winners of the Pitching prizes at the 2007 Banff TV Fest:

CTV CANADIAN DOCUMART ($60,000 in development funding)
First prize and $30,000 was presented to Boy Genius & Bobby Fisher by John Chris Tou.

Second prize and $20,000 was presented to Taqwacore by Omar Majeed.

Third prize and $10,000 was presented to Murder for Love by Larry Day.

PITCH IT!: THE N NETWORK YOUTH DRAMA PITCH
Days and Nights at Camp Kanata by Chris Carter and Adam Jack won a development prize of US $10,000 from The N Network. The winner of the Youth Drama pitch also received a $5,000 motion picture film product grant as prizing for this year’s Audience Choice Award, provided by returning sponsor Kodak Canada Inc.

PITCH IT!: UK TV STYLE LIFESTYLE PITCH
Property Protégé by Lyndsay Duthie won a development prize of £5,000 from UK TV STYLE.

PITCH IT!: THE COMEDY NETWORK COMEDY PITCH
Frankie Fats by Scott Feschuk and Scott Reid won a development prize of $10,000 from the Comedy Network.

PITCH IT!: FOX 21 REALITY PITCH
Man Camp by Josh Levy and Robi Levy won a development deal with Fox 21.

iPITCH
Kwad9 by Jean-Francois Grenier won a development prize of $10,000 from the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund.

Congrats to the winners.

Paul Abbot Doesn't Believe in Typing

THE LAST session I attended at the 2007 Banff TV festival was a conversation with one of my favorite TV writers.

Paul Abbot might not be a household name over on these shores, but he's quite the big deal in the U.K. with several constituencies. There are those who love him for his longstanding work on Coronation Street. Then, others who admire his dark comedy Shameless. There's the work he did on several beloved Cracker episodes. And then there's Touching Evil.

Then there are people like me who admire all that work that came before, but who swoon like little girly men at the thought of State of Play, the six part miniseries set in the netherworld between journalism and British Politics.

I was disappointed to see that Paul was there only via satellite, but once you settled in (and got used to the video lag over the mojo wire from London) there was much to admire and report.

Firstly, he said that just this afternoon he's been outlining State of Play II. He says he's a bit stuck at the moment, as he started the 'wrong way round. Not exactly sure what he meant by that, but he assured the audience that BBC would probably have the sequel in hand by next autumn.

The American adaptation is also proceeding. He says he's very interested and encouraged seeing how they get it down to 120 pages. (His original script for the six hour series was 850 pages long.)

They're also working heavily on an American version of Shameless, possibly involving Woody Harrelson. Abbot said it was probably destined for cable since "They found out that fully 1/4 of the material couldn't be broadcast conventionally thanks to FCC rules." Ah America, America.

During the course of the interview, when he spoke about State of Play, I was pretty surprised to discover how he apparently did the thing you're never supposed to do. "I wrote the first ten scenes with no idea where it was going or how it was going to end. I just wanted to get the characters and inhabit the world."

Oh man. But he was just getting going.

Because it's a world, believe it or not, that he managed to reflect mightily without doing any research. "I'd never been inside a newsroom, and I'd never been inside parliament."

Right about this time I'm digging my nails into my knee. Because clearly this guy is a better writer than I could ever aspire to be. When you're that good, you make breaking the rules look easy. And they're not.

Abbot said that the closer he got to the end, the more scared he got, and the more that helped his writing. Been there, done that. Great. At least he's not an alien.

During the Q&A, I asked a question about the complexity at the heart of State of Play, and how he was able to maintain it; whether he had any difficulty getting the narrative past gatekeepers either at BBC or elsewhere. Abbot mostly shrugged off the question, but not before making a great point that though you have to view the network person you're dealing with as your customer, dealing with their note doesn't have to mean doing what they say. In fact, sometimes it's better to go deeper.

If you try sometimes, I guess, you just might find, you give'em what they need.

Abbot also said something intriguing about the experience of writing that I've been pondering myself lately. He said that in many ways, one of the biggest challenges of doing a six part series by yourself is that by the end of it, you're an entirely different writer than you were at the start. I certainly found that writing Across The River last summer. It's an amazing thing to try and reconcile the end with the start, just because you're in such a vastly different place when all the dust and tears and choices have settled.

Abbot was passionate about the need for story teams, and says that, against a lot of advice, he went and bought a building to establish a "writer's studio" in London, where teams of writers can be mentored and paired with a project. Abbot sees that as the way out of the British tendency to only do short runs of shows. In places like Canada that model is viewed a lot more favorably than it is by pros like Abbot. He came out and said that most top quality U.S. drama, working on that 22 episode a year model, is much better than anything that the British are producing.

See? The grass is always greener.

Finally, Abbot waxed angry and eloquently on the subject on the need for writers to be able to inject their personality into their work. He sees a fundamental flaw in a system where writers are forced to conform and respond to the whims of powerful script editors and producers.

"Your personality is what we want. The entire way you're training writers is wrong if you don't allow for that. We tend to train writers to be nothing more than fairly literate typists." Abbot thinks that Producers have their place in crafting the series for market, "but once the story is told, it ought to be up to the writer to find their way through. Otherwise you're just wasting your money."

And Then There Was One

WELL, IT'S the final day of the 2007 Banff Television Festival. It's been a great fest so far -- a chance to meet some of the new blood (even if I did feel, morally, that I had to tell them to strongly consider moving to the USA if they're just starting out and have nothing to lose.) Last night there was also an enjoyable dinner courtesy of Al Magee of Magee TV -- who is everywhere, all the time.

On that score, it bears repeating that Chris Szarka (Producer of Rent-A-Goalie) is the tallest man in Canadian showbusiness. And for once, for once, I managed to outdisturb "Evil" Dennis Heaton (Fido) with a simple three word phrase:

"Quack for Daddy."

Today I'll be taking in Mike Clattenburg's convo with John Doyle -- I'm hoping they really give'r to the whole Canadian TV thing - and maybe a bunch of pitches. I have a couple of meetings, and have to steal time to go over notes on my latest script from CBC. Call it Multi-multi-multitasking.

Today's the day that most of the big-wigs pull out. But the writer mafia, my friend, we stay til the end. The bitter, bitter end.

Take the script. Leave the cannoli.

Oh, I'll also be on Q on CBC Radio today (in the latter portion of the show) talking about Banffing and Pitching and Raindrops and Roses and Whiskers on Kittens.

It's the air, man. It's the air.

More later today.

Ben Silverman Changes The Gravity In The Room

IT WAS near the end of Ben Silverman's "via satellite" appearance at the Banff TV festival where he said the thing that made the room full of (mostly) Canadians perk up:

"I have to give a shout out to Little Mosque," he said. Silverman promised that he would come to Banff next year in person. And, he said, "I'm coming up there with a shopping bag. Soon."

Now that's notable. Because not only is Silverman the who ported The Office from the U.K. to these shores, but his company, Reveille, also had one of last season's only breakout hits, Ugly Betty, based on the popular telenovela "I Am Betty the Ugly."

Silverman has always been a bit of a wunderkind. At the age of 25, he helped sell Granada's Cracker to the U.S. The show didn't work, but it was only the first step up a ladder of a career that's relied on doing the thing that Americans don't normally do well: looking beyond their own shores for great ideas. Silverman was in the right place at the right time to watch Reality TV take off in the U.K -- and when the explosion of format sales took off, Silverman was there in the middle of it.

So he's seen first hand the value of pulling in new formats, new ideas from new places.

"There's some wonderful talent in L.A., but they're all eating from the same feed," said Silverman, in response to a question from Bill Carter, this afternoon. He was clear that he was going to be "forcing our executives into an international world view."

He's got a much bigger sandbox to play in now. The reason why Silverman was in Banff only via satellite was that, well, he's a little busy. Over the next thirty days, he'll be wrapping up his involvement with Reveille, and especially with Ugly Betty, cause it's now on a competing network.

The "executives" Silverman will be trying to force into that international worldview are his new coworkers at NBC, where he's just taken on the job of Co-Chairman of both NBC Entertainment, and the NBC Universal Television Studio. NBC, mired in fourth place, could certainly use some sort of big jolt. But when Carter asked if he could realistically be a change agent in a place like NBC, he paused and said, "It's a lot harder than I thought it would be. This is a big ship. I'm in the oil tanker."

Besides spending time abroad, maybe Silverman's internationalist views (and his veneration for the creative) comes from a childhood that saw him spending time in Stratford, Ontario, where his father was the musical director at the Stratford Festival, for a time. His mother, an opera singer, was also an exec with the BBC, based in New York.

The rest of the interview with Carter touched on some forward-looking and interesting views on TV. (Views that pretty much completely jibe with my own.) Silverman doesn't think the sky is falling when it comes to tv. He had an entertaining run when he talked about the person coming home at the end of the day, pummelled by distraction and worries about the war and meetings and coworkers and family and kids and laundry... and how they just want to turn on their TV and escape. He talked about going to dinner in Manhattan last night, and discussing the Sopranos finale, and two people whingeing that they hadn't seen it. "Tough," he said. That water cooler factor -- that's the thing that TV still has....you still want to talk about it.

The problem with that? You have to find the water cooler shows. Silverman's good at that. But the secret, such as it is, isn't rocket surgery: compelling characters, an emotional hook, and situations that entertain and that people respond to.

One of the most interesting points to come out of the exchange with Carter, that feeds into the "maybe the sky isn't falling" point of view? Now that Nielsen has started rating commercial viewing and not just program viewing (a change advertisers demanded) they have found something that could have incredible implications for the short term in TV. Apparently, "upscale" shows like The Office have the highest percentage of people actually watching the ads. Carter pointed out that that was incredibly counterintuitive, and it is. It doesn't seem it should be that way. But Silverman thinks it all has to do with audience engagement. They're more engaged, so they keep watching. And maybe...that means watching the ads, too.

Think about that for a minute. If people who watch good shows watch more commercials because they like the show, then what does THAT do to the advertising model?

In any case, Silverman is clear that he thinks content will go on, even if distribution changes. Eventually that digital world will enhance, not cannibalize, what we now know as TV. "The computer will come to the TV, not the other way around."

As for his own schedule, he's particularly high on Journeyman for the fall. He thinks they've got the right lead, and the right concept with heart. He also likes Bionic Woman and Chuck. We'll see.

My question is, when he comes to Canada with his shopping bag, will we have shows bold enough to interest him? Think about his high concept shout out. Little Mosque is new. It is untrod ground.

Bold.

I hope Silverman gets his chance to be as bold as he's promising. He's talking a good game right now.

"I didn't need this job. I wanted this job." he said today. And I believe him.

Wouldn't it be funny if he turned out to be better for Canadian TV than some of our homegrown movers and shakers?

Put that in your Banff and smoke it.

Lifetime talks about Blood Ties

JUST BEFORE my cold - so cold - CBC Newsworld interview this afternoon, I attended an "In Conversation With..." session with Susanne Daniels, the President of Lifetime Networks.

In a relaxed interview with Bill Carter from The New York Times, Daniels was refreshingly upfront, and pretty confident, about the challenge she's facing.

Daniels came to Lifetime from the WB, where, as an exec she managed to shepherd everything from Smallville to Buffy to Dawson's Creek. She worked with Kevin Williamson before Scream, J.J. Abrahms before he was a juggernaut, and Joss Whedon when his most reliable credit was one season on Roseanne.

So she knows talent.

She also knows talent close to home, since her husband, Greg Daniels, is the Exec Producer of The Office. Now that's one creative household.

She also said something that I've never heard a network exec say ever:

Don't always listen to the networks when they say what they want. You have to develop the thing you're passionate about. She admitted, in fact, that things change so quickly in the network game that you're better off going with your vision, and that networks often don't know what they want.

Wow. Would that there were 100 more network execs who thought just like her.

Daniels has no small task trying to bring Lifetime back. Her impression when she joined the network was that it seemed to be dated, and a little stuck in the past. She related stories about being on a plane and telling her seatmate what she did for a living and getting a funny look back as she said, "yeah, I used to watch your movies." "Give me a little while," Daniels said, "I'm going to try to get you back."

How that's going to translate into a new movie strategy? Daniels was a little unclear on that point. Seems like she's still working through it herself. But she was bullish on the upcoming slate of original dramas they're launching this summer, including Army Wives, which was (according to Daniels) Lifetime's most successful original program premiere in the channel's history. There are two more series going up this summer, which is a big slate for a cable channel. Daniels says, "that's the thing about cable. Look at USA with Monk. F/X and The Shield... You need one breakout series and you can build your whole channel around it."

So the three dramas this summer, as well as a couple of interesting sounding reality series (a Psychic Challenge?) is Daniels' way of rolling the dice to try and bring the viewers back.

But still, it's going to be a bear. Because as Carter pointed out, 55% of the TV viewing audience is female. That's not exactly a niche. How do you program for a niche that's that large and diverse? Especially when ABC is basically doing the same thing?

Now, Blood Ties fans, you've been very patient up til now, so here's what she said about Blood Ties. Late in the session she mentioned the acquisition of the show and used it as an example of how other considerations come into play. "The show did well for us - not spectacular, not a breakout...but it was one of the most downloaded shows consistently on Itunes."

In chitchat after the session, Daniels was even more enthusiastic about the show. Part of the reason for holding back those last ten episodes for October was that they are going to try a real push to build a whole night around Blood Ties. Daniels thinks that the show hasn't reached its full ratings potential, and they can get it there with better attention and positioning in the fall.

It's hard sometimes for fans to understand that the business realities do sometimes get in the way of the need for instant gratification...but to me, it sounds like a very smart and savvy programmer is thinking that she's got a great property that can do better with a little more help.

So loyal Blood Ties fans -- your efforts have paid off. The downloads are noticed, as is the enthusiasm out there. And yeah, waiting sucks, but sounds to me like you've got someone in the Executive Suite who's looking to try and do on her end, everything you're already doing on yours. This is a great thing.

But...

Before you ask....no -- she didn't say anything about that.

Ron Moore blogs on David Chase's Balls

I KNOW, that's a headline worthy of a five year old. What can I say, the air's thinner here.

Ron Moore, who has proven through three seasons of Battlestar Galactica that he is no stranger to the "OMG" mindblowing ending, thinks that the Sopranos final curtain was just perfect:

For weeks, the speculation has centered around a simplistic black and white question for a show that revelled in never providing monochromatic answers: would Tony live or die? The prosaic nature of the question and its anticipated answer was itself was the most disappointing thing about the lead-up to the finale. Either Tony was going to get whacked, or he wouldn't. "The Sopranos" would end with either the bitter little pill of the "bad" guy finally getting what he's got coming or with the vaguely false relief of family affirmed and life goes on.

Instead, Chase managed to do the unthinkable, the unbelievable and the unprecedented: he yanked us out of their lives without any resolution whatsoever. We were torn away from Tony, Carmella, AJ, Meadow, Paulie, Sil and the all the rest without any idea what happens to them tomorrow or even later that same evening. In real life, when you lose contact with someone, you seldom if ever have the satisfaction of knowing how the myriad threads of their lives resolved themselves. They are removed from your circle of knowledge and yet their lives go on unbeknownst to you in ways you can only imagine. The Sopranos are gone from our lives, but their lives go on without resolution, much like ours. None of us have tidy, revelatory endings that are the culmination of our "story arcs" and neither will they.

Oh, I'm sure there are those who will bemoan the lack of resolution to the story or that Chase has somehow "robbed the fans" but I'm a fan and I'm ecstatic. I'm glad he thumbed his nose at the tyranny of the narrative drive to bring things to a tidy conclusion so we can all clap and walk away without another thought about that mob family in Jersey, satisfied that all's well that ends well. Screw that. I don't want to see Tony's death, nor do I want to watch him drive off into witness protection, or sit down to some kind of illusory happiness in the bosom of his family. I simply want to pretend that his life continues, that he's still simultaneously worrying about onion rings and whether that guy is hiding a gun in the restroom.

It's poetic. It's exciting. It's perfect.

And most of all, I wish I'd thought of it first.

Me too.

Bill Carter of the New York Times also is up with the story he was working on when we did our panel yesterday: he talks to several of America's top showrunners to gauge their reaction to the finale:

For David Shore, creator of the Fox hit “House,” one of the best touches was Mr. Chase’s own refusal to discuss the ending. Mr. Shore said: “Obviously he wants us to speculate on what it all means. Obviously that’s what we’re all doing.”

David Milch, who has created highly regarded dramas like “NYPD Blue” and “Deadwood,” said: “It was a question of loyalty to viewer expectations, as against loyalty to the internal coherence of the materials. Mr. Chase’s position was loyalty to the internal dynamics of the materials and the characters.”

I fear, a bit, this split between the writer and their vision and the audience's desire for closure. But it's true that any real student of the show over the last several years had to know that this was never going to end in a tidy little bow.

Forty eight hours later and I'm still shaking my head at the bravura turn of it.

The TV fan in me hopes we'll one day see a series as good. The writer in me, darkly, suspects not. One thing for sure, though -- years from now when people talk about that ending, it will still have the power to astonish. And that's something, isn't it?

Might As Well Be On Mars

DIANE KRISTINE reports on Rob Thomas' visit to the Banff TV Fest. If you're somebody who's sending Mars bars, maybe you should stop now. The nuts were grand for Jericho. But really. Just stop.

The CW is still floating a June 15 deadline for the network to make a final decision on Veronica Mars' fate, but Thomas says the decision has already been made. He has been told president Les Moonves is not backing it, and the CW is not offering much of a deal or any guarantees despite that June 15 deadline.

"They were asking me to give up a whole lot on the outside shot of putting Veronica Mars back on the air," explains Thomas, who believes the false hope may be serving to distract from the fact that the CW cancelled the show.

He wavers only slightly when asked if it's official that he's taken the reins on ABC midseason replacement Miss/Guided, starring Judy Greer — the opportunity he was being asked to give up. "I think there's one little point they're still hammering out, but everyone involved believes it is going to work out, so it's official. Believe me, I've been doing Miss/Guided stuff every day this week, so I hope I have a job or I've been doing a lot of free work," he laughs.

He wavers not at all when declaring "Veronica Mars the TV series is gone."

Interestingly enough...by the time of Thomas' afternoon Masterclass, he wasn't even trying to deny the Judy Greer project anymore. He's moved on. Dude's got a new job. And I for one think, "Rob Thomas + Judy Greer = NICE."

I've got one or two things I'm going to post from Thomas' masterclass later. But for now, you should just go read Diane's piece.

At the St. James' Gate Pub in Banff...

THERE ARE those writers who stay till the bitter end, and those who punk out like little candyasses.

You know who you are.

Special points to: Will Dixon, Travis McDonald - Probie, Christin Simms and the WGC's Maureen Parker.

Also: Peter Mohan may be a cyborg. He should be watched.

EDIT 06/12: Callaghan, whingeing like a little bitch, points out he was there almost til the end last night.

Whateva. My Bad. See how you do tonight.

"I'm on three hours sleep," he says.

Seriously. No wonder the guy never posts.

My Radio Face Takes a TV Stroll

NOT THAT you should care, but just in case you do, I'll be live on CBC Newsworld today at approx 2:45 p.m. Mountain Time, 4:45 ET, chatting about the Banff TV Festival.

Rogers Buying Citytv

Rogers to buy Citytv stations
CTV to get $375-million for 5 stations

Financial Post
Published: Monday, June 11, 2007
Rogers Communications Inc. is buying the five local Citytv stations after the broadcast regulator said it would not allow CTV Inc. to buy CHUM Ltd. without the sale of those properties.
Rogers and CTVglobemedia said the five stations -- in Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver -- would go to Rogers for $375-million. The purchase would give Rogers an instant presence in what it calls a "formidable national television platform."

From the Financial Post. Full article here.

In the wake of the CRTC rejection (or conditional approval, depending on how you look at it) of the CTV takeover, this replaces the previous deal where Rogers was going to buy the A-Channels. CTV will now keep those.

What does it mean? Nobody knows. But here's a few nuggets for thought:

299 Queen Street West -- the main Citytv building, houses all the specialties like Space, Muchmusic, Bravo! etc. Now they'll be owned by a different co. than Citytv. Presumably either the stations or the specialties will have to move.

CHUM has always relied on cross-pollination - Camera guys would be shooting for Fashion TV one day, Much More Music or Star! the next. As an insider told me earlier today in Banff, "it's going to be like trying to separate conjoined twins."

CHUM has always bought shows with a specialty (Space, Bravo!) and terrestrial (Citytv, A-Channel) component. Now that presumably goes away. Where will the envelope come from? How big will it be? Does the benefits package go away now? Will CTV operate A-Channels or turn them CTV? Will we be left with small local programming spends from Citytv?

Considering the fact that they just announced the largest slate of indigenous programming of any of the Canadian Private Networks, that can't be good?

Does anyone know what's out there? Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone home?

Daddy needs to get Comfortably Numb now.

People, TV people, are the Peopleeist People...

THE WEATHER here in Banff is truly changeable from moment to moment. It was rainy and cold this morning, with a blanket of spooky fog on the mountains outside my window. Now the sun's out and it's merely cool. And the sun will still be up at 10:30 p.m.

Freaky.

The day started with an interview. Greg Daniels, Exec Producer of The Office. I'll be writing this one up as soon as I can. There was some good writer-geeky goodness in there. Later, in Daniels' masterclass, he expanded even further on the way the writing on The Office works. Lots of great insight.

Two of the most interesting points:

- Each rough cut of The Office comes in at 35 minutes for a 21 minute show. That's a lot of cutting.
- Daniels was originally going to just supervise the American remake, but couldn't get any writers to sign on because everybody said it was a suicide mission. Heh heh.

What made it even cooler was that Jon Plowman, the Executive Producer of the original version of The Office on BBC, was in the audience. There was a great exchange between the two that I hope someone else got down -- because I foolishy opted to trust my memory. Why do I do that?

I also managed to grab lunch with Plowman (as part of a group.) He said a bunch of things about how comedy goes through the BBC that has interesting implications for networks looking to produce comedy in Canada. He also said "I think writers should be paid more."

Hear hear, good sir. Hear hear.

The major tap dance for me was the panel I did this morning with Gillian Flynn from Entertainment Weekly, Eric Kohanik from TVTimes, Bill Carter from The New York Times, The Globe and Mail's John Doyle (who mentions Across The River To Motor City in his column today.) Moderator Bill Brioux kept the whole thing moving at a nice clip. Brioux started, of course, with a bit of shop talk about the Sopranos finale. (It's a funny thing to watch grown people scurry from a conference room so they won't be spoiled.) A lot of interesting issues were raised about the limits, strengths and weaknesses of modern newspaper criticism. I think there was general consensus in the room that at the very least, TV writers need to know more about the shows they're writing about than the people who are watching them, and that maybe there was a need to return now and then to reevaluate shows that take a while to find their footing.

Gillian Flynn was particularly strong on this point, when she rightly pointed out how 30 Rock progressed from a weak-ish start to become one of TV's best shows.

Intriguingly, by the end of the panel everyone pretty much agreed that maybe the thinking about TV criticism needed to shift from a print-based paradigm to thinking that you're writing primarily for the audience online.

And though I couldn't recall where I'd first seen it at the time, I was glad I was able to refer to this post by Will Dixon . Musing aloud on the discrepancy between sports coverage and tv coverage in a paper, the point was raised that as TV expands, and invents and recombines genres, having a "tv critic" is roughly like expecting a sportswriter to have an intimate knowledge of basketball, baseball, cricket, golf, lacrosse, jai alai...

Imagine how much better it would be if you could have TV writers who specialized. It's an intriguing thought.

All in all, an interesting morning. And no matter what anyone tells you, I did not say that all television is bullshit.

I may have said that everybody who works in television is bullshit.

But maybe I was trying to be funny.

In any case, my break's over now, and back into the fray for more hey how are you's. It's a tough job, this schmoozing. I will find someone who does it well. And I will bring them trinkets. And lo, they shall be my new god.

Don't Stop.

I KNOW that many of you will disagree, and maybe you're even howling in protest even now. And I'll probably have more to say when I'm better rested. But I have to go down and just say that the more I think about it, the more I have to conclude simply that that was the bessst....endinggggg....evaaaaar.

The Writer Mafia at the Banff TV Fest 2007 (or at least part of it anyway) would like to strongly thank a few amazing and thoughtful and awesome women at TMN, the Movie Network, for making viewing of the aforementioned finale possible.

TMN on Demand will have the finale online on Wednesday.

I'll probably edit this post later.

Apparently I'm an Optimist.

WHO KNEW?

From today's Calgary Herald:

'There is no secret to good TV'

Alexandra Burroughs
Calgary Herald

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Tony Soprano isn't the only one ready for a hit. As one of television's favourite anti-heroes faces his fate in the series finale of The Sopranos tonight, there's another kind of mafia stalking the 28th annual Banff World Television Festival, which kicks off today.

The don of this mob is Canadian TV writer Denis McGrath, and just like Tony Soprano, McGrath is trying to exploit a chaotic situation for his own benefit.

McGrath and his self-described "writer's mafia" -- a.k.a.: a half dozen of his writing pals -- are hitting the Banff festival at a time when the North American television industry is in turmoil.

Declining ratings, competition from the Internet, unpredictable viewing patterns and skyrocketing production costs have put the TV industry into a morass of confusion, speculation and pessimism. Rarely have industry insiders been so outspoken about the dire straits of their medium. Hit shows are no longer predictable. American networks are gambling on outlandish ideas and expensive risks. A singing talent show is the industry leader.

But in that chaos, McGrath sees opportunity.

"We're going to hang out in Banff and talk to people to help them understand that there is no secret to good TV," says McGrath, who writes a popular television industry blog called Hey Writer Boy, and recently worked on the upcoming CBC series The Border.

"Good TV is about focused creativity from writers who have power."

By the way, I'm not the Don of the Writer's Mafia. More like the Court Jester, and the Guy who takes the cannoli and leaves the gun. But let's not quibble when I'm saying bold and stupid things:

"Everything about TV is more complex than it has ever been before," he says.

"The characterizations, the shading, the humour, the fact that we're willing to watch an anti-hero like House on TV whereas 20 years ago every hero had to be a white hat wearing do-gooder -- this is all making for better TV.

A high dollar and pending strikes in the U.S. may strengthen the homegrown industry by keeping a lot of Canadian talent from seeking more lucrative opportunities in the United States.

"We've got this interesting bottleneck. We have the talent. We have a few good shows, a few hits," says McGrath.

"If some of this talent sticks around, we have an interesting opportunity here to actually move forward and do some good work."

McGrath says he's going to Banff to convince producers and broadcasters to take advantage of the opportunity before it's too late.

"The next Canadian broadcaster that actually has the courage to go out and green light something that's entertaining, but keeps that complexity -- they win."

Why I'm Going To Banff

WELL, IN a couple of hours I'll be on the road, leaving my friends in Bragg Creek for the chummy confines of the Banff Springs Hotel. And then it'll be All TV Festival, all the time.

The Eagle Eyed Among you might remember that when I came up with The Maple Leaf List, I said I'd also be announcing it today.

That's not going to happen, and the reason why is one of the main reasons I'm going to Banff.

There's no list to be had. I will say that I received a few suggestions, including, step up, TWO people who seemed to indicate that Peter Mitchell's CTV pilot is nifty stuff indeed. But for the most part, the responses I got were of the, "good idea, can't think of anything, please don't use my name" variety. Truthfully, when I started, that's kind of the response I thought I was going to get. I just took a flyer.

I'm going to keep the sideboard link open. I'm going to keep hoping that down the line we'll get people passionate enough about what they're reading to take that extra step of trying to promote someone else's work that they really loved.

But we're not there yet. And that's why I'm going to Banff.

We have an industry where people won't say what they know to be true. Where so-called Powerful Producers won't engage on issues of creativity; where the discussion of content does not seem to include the audience, what they want and need and why we haven't been giving it to them. We have an industry where we've been making bad television the same way for thirty years, and all anyone wants to do is talk about tweaking funding matters, not discuss the whole idea that the system doesn't work because creativity is thought of last, not first.

That's why I'm going to Banff.

Every year, Banff pulls in creative, interesting showrunners from the United States, and talks to them about their successes. This year that includes Carol Mendelsohn from CSI, Greg Daniels from The Office, Rob Thomas from Veronica Mars. (Okay that last one wasn't a success. But creatively??) They stand up and describe a system where the output of the writer is put front and centre. And all the attendees from Canada nod and go home and change nothing.

I saw somewhere that of the Canadian Banff attendees, about 40 percent were producers, 40 percent were network people of some stripe and the rest were others.

Well, I'm one of the others. And there's a few of us going this year. We're going to be the fun, occasionally loud ones laughing a lot at that booth at the St. James Gate pub. Come by and say 'hi.' We're really very nice people. But it's time we were more visible. It's time that we forced our way into the discussion, and raised the heretical notion that talking about the funding formula isn't the way to do stuff that doesn't suck.

I'm also going to Banff to cover it for this blog. And maybe do something for CBC Radio and Newsworld. Over the next few days you'll read reports from the perspective of an actual creative, of a conference where everyone talks creative -- but not to the people who really matter.

I will be doing this as my usual avuncular self. It doesn't always come through on this blog, but I'm actually quite a friendly guy, so long as you don't water me after midnight. (As a side note, if you're going to the Fest, too, come on up and say "howdy" to me. Seriously.)

I also want to start meeting the people who I know are out there -- the producers who think like me, who could make for a rewarding, not nightmarish work experience. And as I've said many times before -- the network people, too. There's not a hit show on TV that got there without a champion inside a network. It takes all of us to get it done. And we all have our roles to play.

It's just my position that the role "assigned" to writers in Canada has been faulty. And hasn't embraced the creative process. And we can do better. And to find like-minded people who'll stop arguing about the past and start creating the future?

Well, that's why I'm going to Banff.

I'll also be doing a panel Monday Morning with a bunch of TV Writers I kind of admire, like John Doyle, Gillian Flynn from EW, and Bill Carter from the NYTimes, to name just a few. I'm looking forward to that. I'll also be rah-rahing for a couple of friends pitches. I may even informally pitch one or two things myself...but that's getting ahead of things.

I'm also hoping that I'll get a chance to see Green Wing, and hear from some international types. And get a lungful of air that isn't smog-ridden.

So sit tight. And since I'm going, now's probably a good time to do a relink and refresher to some of the big posts I've made on Canadian TV. I am writer, hear me rant.

See you soon!

How Corner Gas Ruined Everything.

Awhile back I wrote about Ten Things That Would Make Canadian TV Better. And our readers wrote.

Should we all be thinking about demanding an end to cable substitution?

Why don't Canadian comedies blow most of us away?

What did Durham County do right?

When all the bullshit gets to you, you just can't help thinking things like this.

Why do it then? Because there's no better way to learn a living when it clicks.