An Interesting Turn of Events

FUNNY OLD COUNTRY. Had a bountiful and raucous night Saturday in the lounge at the Sutton Place Hotel in Vancouver. Much TV talking and special guest appearances by Writer Mafia types, East Coast and West. The new generation is coming, my droogs. We're silent like Charlie. But we're coming. Bwaa ha ha.

Meanwhile, what do you do if you've got a critically acclaimed show that's not getting the love from the Canadian audience, or the promotion from your network? Where do you turn?

Doyle has the scoop:

Intelligence (CBC, 9 p.m.) is going to be remade as a pilot for a possible series for the Fox network in the United States.

Haddock Entertainment, the production company of Chris Haddock, the show's creator, confirmed late last week that in a co-production with John Wells Productions, Intelligence is on the Fox slate of possible series for next year. John Wells is the TV and movie veteran who is executive producer of ER, was executive producer of The West Wing for several years, and was in charge of Third Watch and China Beach. He's accumulated six Emmys over the years.

According to Haddock, an agent at CAA, the powerful Hollywood agency, brought Intelligence to the attention of Wells, and he and Haddock got along famously when they met to discuss a possible U.S. network version. Haddock told me, "I'm looking forward to working with John Wells, that's for sure. I pitched it to Kevin Reilly at Fox and they came in to the deal. It will change substantially in adaptation to an American setting. There is no production order as yet. I believed that the series had great potential as an American franchise and John Wells agreed. We'll see how it goes."

Of course, speculation about a U.S. version of Intelligence is premature. It's only a pilot that's definitely being made. But ironies abound in this circumstance. Intelligence has had critical acclaim in Canada but hasn't been the huge ratings hit that CBC would like. Given the way of things in Canada, if the Fox pilot succeeds in being picked-up for a full-season production, it would probably land on CTV or Global in Canada. As the show is owned by Haddock Entertainment, CBC would not benefit in any financial way.

A lot of steps between here and there -- but what do you want to bet, too , that if by chance a U.S. version of Intelligence did make the sked, and drew real numbers, Canadians would start falling all over themselves to point out that this was the original? If you want to get ahead of that curve, check out my interview with Haddock, download the audio of the Tv, Eh? podcast, and tune in Intelligence, tonight at 9pm on CBC.

Jet Plane a go- go

NOW THAT I've ill-advisedly handed the keys to Matt Neffer, Boy Spotwelder, our Comedy Don Quixote, I'm out of here for the weekend.

Canadians, Happy Thanksgiving. Americans...um...Columbus Day sales! Go and stimulate your moribund economy, please.

Vancouver, I'll see you tonight.

Special Guest Bloggerspondent asks, "Where's the Cavemen love?"

IT LOOKS LIKE we've received a missive from the outer provinces, where friend of the blog Matt Neffer, Boy Spotwelder has taken time out from his ether and ginger snap constitutional to weigh in on matters comedic and half hour. Over to you, Matt.

Dead Mr. Dead Things on Sticks,


Need a topic for your blog? No, of course you don't, but I'm asking you for a favour anyway, since I know you've covered a lot of the new one-hours but I haven't seen a whole lot of DTOS debate about the new comedies.


I need help. I watched the pilot episode of "Cavemen" this week. By now, most people know the backstory. It was announced last March that ABC was going to create a pilot based on the characters from the Geico insurance ads. Much grumbling ensued, including my own, and likely yours.


That first pilot was then screened in the summer for critics and met with much derision. I haven't seen it, but am told it took place in Atlanta, was not terribly funny, and made a ham-fisted attempt to liken the cavemen to a non-descript minority living in the south that apparently wasn't so non-descript at all. The cavemen supposedly refered to themselves as "maggers" and there were lots of jokes about their sexual process, etc. Well, Eww. It sounds horrible and offensive and likely got the reaction it deserved.


The pilot was re-shot, re-written, partially re-cast, transplanted to San Diego, and the whole cavemen-as-minority thing has been played way down. Now that new pilot has aired. Variety has just called it "the lowest rung of comedy's evolutionary ladder." The LA Times called it "dismal", "pointless" and "not funny". The San Diego Union Tribune called it a "big hunk of comedic deadwood" and the Bloomberg critic said it felt as "interminable --- and about as funny -- as the stone age." These are some of the more positive pull quotes I could find.


People hate this show. They hate it. As Roger Ebert might say, they hate hate hate hate hated it.


And here is where I put myself on the line: I liked it. I thought it was fast, funny and on occasion even sort of sweet. The cavemen-as-minority angle has indeed been played down, but not completely excised, and it works. The guys are sometimes treated like outsiders, but the joke is clearly on the bigots, not the cavemen, and one routes for the lead characters every step of the way.


But however one feels about the part of this show that might scream "this is SOCIAL SATIRE," it really has to live and die on the strength of its jokes and its comedy, which is largely routed in the interplay of three or four slackerish, underachieving young men as they work and date. In that regard, "Cavemen" passes, for me, the ultimate litmus test which is, in this case: "Would this be funny even if they weren't cavemen?" I think yes.


Keep in mind that the argument here isn't whether or not we need another show about men and the way they interact with one another. One could argue (not me) that we don't, but my point is, the hatred of this show hasn't actually been framed in that context at all. Most of the reviews accept this mini-genre as a given, and simply hold this one out as a bad example of it. In fact, I've seen it compared, unfavourably, to other new series in this genre, including Carpoolers and The Big Bang Theory.


Well. I've seen those shows now, didn't laugh, and they only serve to make Cavemen look better.


The laughs are frequent. The little details are spot-on. The actors know how to land a joke, and how to throw one away. The casualness of the gags, which rest as much on the reaction shots as they do to the lines themselves, resembles no show so much as (gasp) The Office, which is almost universally loved. Finally, there's a general sharpness and specificity to the writing and a level of observation that, for one reason or another, struck a chord with me, and is funnier than any laugh-track comedy this fall. ("I thought you were gonna stay home and work on your dissertation?" "I was. Wikipedia's under construction.")


At any rate, all I'm saying it that the show seemed likable and funny to me at first glance -- it is not the second coming of comedy, and my opinion may change as the season continues. But I'm positively flummoxed by the level of hostility to this show and would love to know what your readers think. Are people simply reacting to the baggage this show carries with it and unable to judge the show itself objectively? Or have I completely lost my mind?


Signed,

Matt Neffer, Boy Spotwelder.

So, readers, what do you think? Is Matt cuckoo for cocoa puffs here? I don't know. I wish I'd PVR'd the thing now, because I didn't see the premiere so I can't say one way or another. Thing is, Matt is not alone.

It's been a while since we really did a big Comedy thing here. I think my heart is still bruised by the loss of Andy Barker.

I do think, however, that the narrative about comedy being in trouble on TV has now taken on a difficult life of its own. Comedy is always tricky. Nobody's ever going to laugh at everything. We're constantly arguing on this blog, for instance, about Corner Gas and Trailer Park Boys. Even when something's a success, you're not going to find unanimity.

It's way more difficult for new shows. I remember last year, the show that was universally excoriated by everybody was "Happy Hour." The only critic I remember sticking up for it was John Doyle. I watched it on his recommendation, and I thought it was funny. I agreed with Doyle's assessment that the hate-on for the show was more about prudishness over the fact that the show invovled cocktails.

So, Cavemen. And the other new fall comedies: what's the deal with them?

Wherein Our Hero Starts Giving the Business to the Business

I KNOW QUITE a bit about the business from the creative guy side. Considerably less from the suit side. So I'm asking for anybody who has any understanding of the biz from other than a "I'm a guy making wild guesses on the internet" sort of thing.

What is the deal with the layoffs?

Yesterday, Global TV announced that they're laying off 200 people in their news divisions coast to coast. Corus was decimated by fifty or so earlier in the week, leaving a massive hole in their west coast prescence. (And before you start the usual Toronto-grumbling, Vancouver -- I think this is more than offset by the news that CTV is reorganizing their development dept under Louise Clark, working out of Vancouver. Right person. Right job. And as a Toronto guy, sorry to say -- right town. The locus of TeeVee right now in Canada is VanCity, baby.)

Alliance Atlantis also laid off some people recently, didn't they?

Now the stuff at CTV and the former CHUM parts of the Globemedia collossus is understandable -- it's reorganization now that the merger has gone through -- but why all these changes and chaos now? Is this a quarter end balance sheet thing? Is it just that everyone woke up from a warm summer's sleep? I don't get it. Enlighten me.

Meanwhile, Canadians, I don't know if you've noticed, but apparently Global and CTV are in a deep deep ratings war, firing off angry press releases left and right to the press, claiming ratings victories and...oh well, read some of Bawden in The Toronto Star:

CTV sources noted the lowest-ever premiere for a season of Survivor this week – it's a Global show.

What really hurt CTV's pride was Global's assertion that CTV was fast becoming an older viewers' network.

The press release battle is really about positioning: establishing the kind of clout that Grey's Anatomy (a CTV show) can command among U.S. advertisers to become the most expensive U.S. series on which to advertise this fall.

Global claims that its viewership was up 39 per cent in the 18-49 age group, but CTV points out that it was still ahead 547,000 to Global's 487,000, for the same age group in ratings Week 1. The CTV range increases even more when the network uses ratings in the 25-54 age range.

Global's newfound aggressiveness may have temporarily rattled CTV, but the network that has enjoyed ratings supremacy for more than a decade is vowing to keep to the high road in the future.

Okay. Now. Is it just me...(I know, it frequently is just me) but is all of this rather unseemly? Let's unpack it a bit. In essence what these two big money-printing concerns are sayin is:

"Our selection of shows that we had nothing to do with making but cherrypicked from ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox are doing way better than their selection of shows that they had nothing to do with making but cherrypicked from ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox. And our promotion which basically just slides on in on the much more massive American promotion for the same show in the same timeslot is beating the hell out of their promotion which basically just slides on in on the much more massive American promotion for the same show in the same timeslot."

I understand there's lots of advertising money at stake. I do. I'm not naive. I just...well, I just don't think it's something to be all that proud about. Picking shows, developing, greenlighting, scheduling = hard. Going down to L.A. twice a year and writing a check? = Not so hard.

It's weird, isn't it? How come none of you nabobs in the press take that angle? You know, in the Globe and Ma...oh, right, CTV Globemedia.....but what about in the National Post or say the Vancouver Su...oh...riiiigggght...Canwest Global papers...

Hmm...

I'm so glad to be well served by our benignly concentrated news media. Now, where's that latest press release?

See why I'm not a business guy?

The Rare Medium Well Done: An Appreciation

EVERY ONCE in a while when I'm in New York with an afternoon with nothing to do, or if it's raining, I go watch television.

I know. Perverse. But not just any Television. At the Paley Center (The Museum of Radio & Television) you can request videos of programs from their library, and watch them in your own little study carrel. I've watched part of the Watergate hearings, Nixon's resignation, the JFK, MLK, and RFK assasination coverage, episodes of Tom Snyder and Carson -- all manner of stuff. It connects me to this medium and to its amazing history. It makes me appreciate where what I do fits in to what's come before.

One of the programs that's always held a special place in my imagination -- vastly influential, but so before my time, is Playhouse 90. The nobility of the enterprise, what they were trying to do, to push the medium in its earliest days, well, that kind of moves me.

I've yet to see anyone rise to that challenge in the internet TV age, for example. Well. Maybe that program of the guys' daily lives in Iraq.

Anyway, one of the pioneers of that program, and of television, died the other day. If you're my age, or younger, you probably have never heard of Martin Manulis. take a moment and read this:

Mr. Manulis’s achievement was more than putting on a high-quality drama for 90 minutes every seven days, although that he did. He corralled some of America’s brightest actors, writers and directors and paid them less than they were accustomed to, on the basis of the artistic opportunity he offered.

He oversaw a breakneck three-week production schedule; placated often-nervous sponsors and network executives; and planned subsequent episodes even as he dealt with mounting second-by-second tension that peaked with the tightrope walk that is a live broadcast.

In 1957, Mr. Manulis (pronounced MAN-you-liss) described his job as “Playhouse 90” producer in an interview with The New York Times as involving elements of “mother, wet-nurse and psychiatrist.”

The pace prompted Mr. Manulis to cut back to doing just one-third of the episodes his third year. (The show continued until 1961.) That he produced quality as well as quantity is demonstrated by the six Emmy Awards the show won for its 1956 season, including single best program of the year, “Requiem for a Heavyweight.” It was written by Rod Serling of later “Twilight Zone” fame and starred Jack Palance as an ugly, down-and-out, second-rate boxer.

“Playhouse 90” won five Emmys its second season. In a poll of television editors by Variety in 1970, it was voted the greatest television series of all time. In 2002, TV Guide ranked “Playhouse 90” No. 33 in its list of the 50 greatest television shows ever.

It adapted works of writers like Hemingway, Odets, Faulkner and Fitzgerald. Directors included John Frankenheimer and George Roy Hill. Actors stretched themselves: Robert Redford played a Nazi, Boris Karloff a dignified man, deeply in love. The 90-minute time-frame broadened dramatic possibility.

In addition to “Requiem,” Mr. Manulis’s most heralded shows included “The Miracle Worker,” directed by Arthur Penn; “The Comedian,” written by Mr. Serling and directed by Mr. Frankenheimer; and “The Days of Wine and Roses,” directed by Mr. Frankenheimer and starring Cliff Robertson

Martin Manulis was 92. His full NYTimes obit can be read here.

The Craziest Thing I Have *Ever* Seen

THIS ONE defies belief. ABC is going to let Rob Thomas remake a show that failed ten years ago.

"Cupid" lasted only 15 episodes during the 1998-99 season, but it attracted a cult aud and helped establish series creator-exec producer Thomas as a TV player. Scribe said he didn't intentionally decide to resurrect his first big series.

"For the last couple years, I've been talking to ABC about how to do an anthological romantic comedy a la 'Cupid' or 'Love Boat,' " Thomas said. "We kept beating around ideas and kept coming back to 'Cupid' as the best of the group. So they said to me, 'Why not go back and do 'Cupid' again?"

Thomas said he was "shocked" by the request -- in a good way.

"I'm getting a chance to do what writers never get the chance to do, which is to go back and try" to improve a work, he added.

Scribe said that while he'll write a completely new pilot, "I'm not going to reinvent it. What they're buying is the show."

There will be changes, of course.

For one thing, Piven, busy on "Entourage," won't be reprising his role. Thomas also wants to come up with a main title sequence that captures the show's conceit so he doesn't have to explain it every week.

New "Cupid" will also relocate from Chicago to Los Angeles, allowing for more high-profile stunt casting.

"The plan is to try to hook some really good guest stars every week," Thomas said.

Original skein also starred Paula Marshall as a court-appointed shrink trying to help Piven's character work through his Cupid issues. That doctor character will also return, though Thomas still isn't revealing the answer to one of the skein's enduring mysteries: Whether Piven's character really is Cupid or is just a bit nuts.

"If we make it into syndication, this time I promise that I'll answer the question," Thomas said.

Crazy.

Cupid was/is an awesome show, but...wow.

We are just...

I have...

Wow. Just wow.

Little Mosque: A View From The Room, Part Two

FOR PART one of this interview, click here.

For the second part of my interview with Paul Mather, Showrunner, and Rob Sheridan, Executive Story Editor and Paul's right hand for Little Mosque on the Prairie, Season Two, we got away a little from the basics of character and conception, and spoke a little more about philosophy. In a country that sometimes sacrifices entertainment value for "good for you"-ism, how does the mission of Mosque -- such as it is, fit in?



DEAD THINGS ON STICKS: A lot of the focus in the first season was on how different it was. Do you think it's more important that this show strike a blow for portraying Muslims in a positive light etc., or is it more important to be just funny?


PAUL MATHER: I don't think people watch TV because they want their attitudes adjusted. I think it's just got to be funny, charming, and a good story. You want your characters to be likable because they're on your show and you want people to like it. So I guess you're humanizing Muslims by doing that. Rob has a good story about watching some 9/11 show and a Muslim guy is praying and Rob realized whenever he's seen this in the past it's proceeded to the Muslim guy blowing something up. And now he's seen a Muslim guy pray and then that guy goes and loses his shoes or run over his daughter's bike in the driveway or whatever, and on some level just doing that changes the way you look at people. So the important thing is this show has made Rob less of a racist. And that alone has made society better. I heard a guy on CBC radio talking about how he sees women walking around in burqas. And a burqa's a full-body covering like you see in Afghanistan -- there's just a little screen that you look through. There aren't a lot of women walking around like that in Canada. He probably meant face veils (niqab) or headscarves (hijab). So that's a pretty big mistake. And it occurred to me that if this show goes on for a few years, and he was doing that same piece again, he wouldn't make the same mistake -- people might learn stuff. That's not the point, but it is a pretty cool side effect.


ROB SHERIDAN: Great. Now people can Google “Rob Sheridan” and “racist” and get a hit. I just finished David Mamet’s new book “Bambi Vs. Godzilla” (which I really only bring up as a way of saying “Look at me, I read!”). At one point Mamet says, “Movies possess unlimited power to entertain. They have, however, no power whatever to teach.” His point being, ‘tell your story, don’t lecture.’ I think he may be overstating the case slightly, in that movies and TV are certainly capable of reinforcing negative stereotypes, and can similarly advocate for something more positive. But I know what he’s saying. Ultimately we gotta tell good stories and funny jokes and the positive stuff can be a great corollary of that but not necessarily the focus.


[Denis here. Rob has basically shamed me into admitting I've been meaning to do a review of this book for about four months. I guess I was busy trying to defuse all the damage Rob's done as a racist.]

Moving on...

DTOS: Do you feel like the fictional town of Mercy is coming into its own more as a character this year?

P.M. I guess. There aren't that many non-Muslim main characters -- we're really about the people in the Mosque. So the town's a backdrop. You try to make it a place you would like to live.

R.S. As I hinted at earlier, I think one of things Paul really brings to the show as showrunner, aside from the obvious writing discipline, was to open up the show, get us into the corners of the town a little more, flesh it out. This world just seems bigger to me now. There’s a location in the first episode that really gives us a sense of the broader community surrounding the Muslim characters and it really made me laugh. Also the production team just built the most unbelievably beautiful, detailed swing sets every week that blew me away. It all feels quite real and lived-in.


DTOS: What sort of things do you wanna see explored in Season Two?


P.M. Well, what did we do: mostly just whatever seemed fun and interesting to us. There's some fun father/daughter stuff between Baber and his daughter Layla. Late in the season there's some twists and turns in the relationship between Amaar and Rayyan that are kind of fun. We've got some semi-political stuff: there are episodes about the American no-fly list and about CSIS. [The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service] There's a Bollywood dance number. There's a Christmas episode. There's a flashback episode where we see Amaar as a lawyer before he became an imam. There's a goat and a sheep, but not in the same scene.


R.S. Also there are a couple of really big episodes in the middle of the run that really involve the whole town going just nuts over one thing or another. Fairly ambitious and sprawling. They were a lot of work in the room, but Paul gave everyone a sense that there was nothing we couldn't do. Also we had some good guest stars. Dave Foley, Samantha Bee, Darcy Tucker. I had this really funny idea for a Merv Griffin cameo, but Paul kept saying “next season, next season.” Jerk.


DTOS: Finally, What's the deal with two hit Canadian comedy shows being set in Saskatchewan? You and Gas, mining the same territory. There's gotta be tension. C'mon. Be real. Are you gonna do an East/West Biggie/Tupac thing?


P.M. Theoretically we're not set in Saskatchewan, we're set "on the prairies." We're in Saskatchalbertatoba. But we do shoot in Saskatchewan for a few weeks. The Hotel Sask bar is our turf, O' Hanlon's bar is the Gas guys' turf. That's not out of any dislike: the Hotel Sask bar is just fifty feet closer to our hotel rooms and we're lazy. I went over to O'Hanlons once and met Kevin [White] and Andrew [Carr] and Norm [Hiscock] (from Gas). They'd just put out their last Production White so they were having a few drinks. I think I might have left without paying for my drinks. So ha ha! Fuck you Gas guys! You got Mathered!


R.S. I have a feeling we're all going to run into each other at the Canadian Comedy Awards. So, yeah, I expect gunplay.


Corner Gas airs Monday at 9:30 p.m. on CTV, and on the WGN Superstation in the USA.

oh..uh...

Little Mosque was just sold to Israel, Gaza & The West Bank.

(Seriously, how weird is that?)

It also airs on CBC Wednesdays at 8:00 p.m. (Premieres tonight!)

The Buy In

STILL EARLY, and we'll see what sticks. But some conditional 'adds' have emerged, and some others, sadly, have fallen off.


Journeyman:
Adding to the rotation

What I like:
The period details are fun...smoking on planes, the real relationship between wife and husband, Kevin McKidd's performance, two weeks straight of great guest casting, the wife, Moon Bloodgood, the fact that it's on right after Heroes, the 'what the hell?' factor.


K-Ville: Passing
Why: Didn't bother to PVR show 3, haven't watched show 2.


Back to You: Passing
Why: Saw a few minutes of Show 2, and it was better, but 30 Rock and The Office are all I need for comedy right now.


Pushing Daisies: Adding to the Rotation

What's Great: Everything. Seriously. Acting, Looks great in HD, chemistry, whimsy, direction, art direction, tone.
I'll watch just to see if they can pull it off week to week.

Moonlight: Passing

Why: Call me a vampire partisan, but that was a LOT of voiceover, and anyway, Vamps who can go out in the day? That's not fun, dude. That's cheating.

Bionic Woman: On the Fence

What I Like: Katee Sackhoff, Michelle Ryan, the concept
What I Don't: Everything else, including the new sister
I'll give it one more.

Dirty Sexy Money: On the Fence

What I Like: the jerk reverend, Peter Krause, Peter Krause's wife, Samaire Armstrong, the younger brother who's basically Ryan Adams when he was still drinking. And it looks great in HD.
What I Don't: The sneaking feeling that every time Peter Krause is on screen I'm actually wishing he was in a better show.

Private Practice: Ugh. Seriously. Could you set the bar any lower? So Passing.

Life: Adding to the Rotation

What's Great: Damian Lewis' performance (it's seriously bent,) the fact that the character he plays is flawed and capable of being unsympathetic at times, the partner, Robin Weigert post-Deadwood, Adam Arkin, and it looks great in HD.

What's Odd: They use exactly the same wall device we used in Across The River, which was filmed first. Damnit.


So based on my past track record, I respectfully submit to you that Life, Pushing Daisies, and Journeyman will be the first casualties of the fall viewing season.

An American Reader Writes

LAST WEEK, when I last wrote about the return of Corner Gas, and its debut in U.S. syndication, we got the kind of response you sometimes get from one of the sectors of the Canadian audience.

The Canadian audience basically exists in three attitude states about homegrown stuff. Group One is small and thinks that than anything produced in this country "sucks." Group Two is smaller and wishes they had a chance to see more good homegrown stuff on their TV screens. Group Three is the largest group by far. They don't care whether something is Canadian or not. Generally, if they don't watch a Canadian show, it's cause they haven't heard of it, not because they automatically think it's going to be bad. Group Four will watch it just because it's Canadian, no matter how bad it is. Oh. One more thing. Group Four is fictional.

Anyway, last week, commenter Blaine had this to say about Corner Gas:

Maybe Americans have better taste in comedy. The real question is why so many CANADIANS DO WATCH this show that so obviously DOES suck. I've tried a couple of times now and can barely sit through the first five minutes. Its just so bland, obvious and stupid. And I never laugh. I don't get it.

So today, an American fan of Corner Gas posted a lovely little response to my long-buried "How Corner Gas Ruined Everything" post that I think deserves promotion. Blaine, maybe this answers your question. But probably not.

So, over to Spiff:

I'm American and I love Corner Gas, and I'll even tell you why. The shows in the US "push the envelope" and are "outside of the box" so much that they completely lack believability. The reality of my life is that I'm surrounded by average people living average lives and yet we still manage to be important to each other, just like the folks on Corner Gas. People who act like they belong on a US show (sitcom or drama) are obnoxious. You want to tell them to shut up and sit down. Granted, you'd want to say that to Hank sometimes, but it'd be because he's legitimately an idiot and not trying to be one. I hope WGN keeps airing the series for us down here!

Thanks for sharing, Spiff. Some of us think the show's nifty, too.

Little Mosque Returns: A View from "The Room."

LITTLE MOSQUE ON THE PRAIRIE was definitely one of the CBC's brightest spots last season. It enjoyed a phenomenal leadup campaign, including exposure on CNN and in The New York Times, for what seemed to be (sadly) a revolutionary premise: let's make the main characters Muslims, and make them the heroes.

Set in the fictional Canadian prairie town of Mercy, Mosque was criticized in some quarters for being wobbly in the funny department, but praised for its sweetness. After a huge initial tune in of over two million viewers, the ratings stabilized around the million mark -- still better than any of CBC's other scripted shows. The curiosity factor got them press initially, but a million Canadians obviously came back because they liked what they saw.

The series was a rare case of the CBC moving fast to try and strike while the iron is hot, so that first season only comprised eight episodes.

CBC gave the show a vote of confidence (and thanks, I guess) by coming back with an ambitious 20 episode order -- a number almost unheard of in this country.

But there was also evident acknowledgment that changes that needed to be made to take the show past its initial success to the next level of quality.

So in April the show made waves again -- of the behind-the-scenes variety.

They hired away two writers from Corner Gas. A talent raid? How un-Canadian! I think I summed up the news pretty well here.

Paul Mather had been the showrunner on Corner Gas for a few years, as well as being one of the comedic forces behind The Rick Mercer Report. Story Editor Rob Sheridan had just completed his first year on Corner Gas. But he'd also had several seasons of cult favorite The Red Green Show under his belt, and had scored a Canadian Screenwriting Award nomination for the well-regarded Showcase comedy Naked Josh, on which he wrote for two full seasons.

By moving on, Mather and Sheridan opened up opportunities for more writers on Corner Gas, whose staff had been relatively static for a few years. One of the signs of an industry with something healthy going on is that there's somewhere for talented people to go; to keep moving up and take on new challenges.

Sheridan and Mather convened with the other members of the Mosque writing staff early this spring. Returning were show creator Zarqa Naraz, Al Rae (who's been nominated for a Gemini Award for one of his 1st season eps) and Rebecca Schechter. Mather also brought another writer with him from The Rick Mercer Report, Greg Eckler, and rounding out the staff: new writer Miles Smith.

I caught up with Paul Mather and Rob Sheridan via email to talk about Season Two of Mosque, which premieres Wed. October 3rd at the family friendly hour of 8:00 p.m.

DEAD THINGS ON STICKS: So obviously this series got huge ratings out of the gate in the first season. What did you guys see as your job coming into the show?

PAUL MATHER: The first season had so much heat out of the gate based on the premise. I knew we wouldn't have that same kind of media interest in the second season and that the series would have to rise and fall on its merits as entertainment. So it was a question of building on the work done in the first season: trying to get to know the characters a bit better; figuring out who pairs well with whom. What's the character balance in a twenty minute show with nine characters in the opening credits? How much Islamic stuff do you put in each episode -- is every plot about Muslim stuff? Can you do an entire show that has nothing to do with Islam? We had to figure that out. We ended up deciding that every show should have one Islamic hook -- ideally, there will be at least one thing on one plot you couldn't do on a sitcom that didn't have Muslim characters. Ideally every episode the non-Muslim audience walks away with one little factoid about the religion. We also had to work on the language of the show. Corner Gas has all these swish to's and imaginary scenes; it can break the fourth wall; telegraph stories. So there's all these devices that you have at your disposal. Mosque is more straight ahead: we stayed away from flashbacks and imaginary stuff. But on the other hand Mosque has a couple -- Amaar and Rayyan [played, respectively, by Zaib Shaikh and Sitara Hewitt]– who have a will they or won't they thing going on. Which is hardly a new development, but it's the first Muslim will-they-or-won't they thing on TV, so that's kind of fun. And we have a four-episode arc at the end of the season, whereas Gas is strictly episodic. Mosque also has a father-daughter relationship, Baber and Layla, [Manoj Sood and Aliza Vellani] which was fun to write. On a more practical level I had to put together a writing room, hire directors, get to know the production staff -- 20 episodes is a huge order so it takes a lot of work just to get that train moving.

ROB SHERIDAN: It became obvious to me early on that Paul basically brought me over to be his own personal punching bag. So that was a disappointment. But other than that I’m proud of what we all accomplished. We were able to build on the strengths that were there and open the show up a bit. Twenty episodes is a big jump up from eight, obviously. The universe feels a little bigger. The characters came into sharper focus. And we still got to tell our little jokes.

DTOS: Who's your favourite character to write for? Who do you really like writing on the show?

P.M. Lacey. Oh no wait I'm not on that show anymore. I enjoyed writing for all of them. Baber is a funny cranky guy. Amaar is fun because he's a Charlie Browncan't-get-ahead guy. Rayyan is fun because she's a smart woman who does stupid things. Yasir [Carlo Rota] and Sarah [Sheila McCarthy] are fun because it's fun to write couples. The Mayor [Debra McGrath (no relation)] is fun to write before because we made her more of a crazy narcissist this year. I liked writing Magee [Derek McGrath (also, strangely, no relation -- to me or each other)] because he's quirky without being goofy.

R.S. It’s a great cast, yeah. Fred Tupper [Neil Crone] the conservative radio host, comes into his own a bit more this season, too. He’s interacting a little more with the characters, out of the radio station more often, and that’s fun. Personally I always like writing the slightly larger-than-life character you can take to Mars every now and again. Your Fonzies and your Kramers and your Ted Baxters. On Corner Gas it was probably Hank. Surprisingly I think we were able to give some of that to Baber. Manoj seemed to really have fun with the slightly crazier stuff. At the same time we gave him some very sweet storylines with his daughter and that kept him grounded.

DTOS: Obviously you're aware of CW's Aliens in America...

P.M. The who in the what now?

DTOS: It's interesting that on that show, the Muslim is the outside character, whereas here, they're the main characters. Do you think that's important?

P.M. I haven't seen the show, so I don't know, but it sounds like a fish out of water thing and ours is more about a community within a community. There isn't that much of a fish out of water thing in our show -- it's more about Muslims bumping up against each other and sometimes bumping up against the community at large.

R.S. After that show was announced at the May upfronts we watched a couple of clips in the writers’ room. Not so much to size up the competition as to try and steal ideas. Nothing really came of that, though. I think there was a sense from some critics that maybe that show was going to be sort of xenophobic and mean-spirited, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case, so if it’s a good show I hope it does well. As Paul points out it’s really a fish-out-of-water story whereas Little Mosque is more like a school of fish on their own coral reef with scuba divers and plankton and… but perhaps I’m stretching the metaphor.

Part Two of my interview with Paul and Rob tomorrow.

Our Readers Write: CBC's Got a New Season?

THE NATIVES are restless.

One of the perennial complaints in the industry (which Chris Haddock alluded to in our conversation) is that the promotion is abysmal. And it is. But our commenters (and a few others who emailed me and didn't want to leave a comment) seem to have a big old problem with the CBC's efforts to promote its stuff, specifically.

Chet started the ball rolling:

I probably watch more CBC than anyone who isn't on their payroll. I've seen all kinds of promos for their new season, but I've never seen "Intelligence" mentioned even once. I assumed they were holding it back until January or after the playoffs. If it wasn't for Doyle, I would never have known it was on tonight.

The CBC brass desperately wants to bury this show so they can then point at the ratings and use them as an excuse to cancel it. They're not even being subtle about it.

Scott picked up the...uh...Torch:

I don't want to kick the CBC but honestly...

I write and edit for a gay magazine in Toronto and thought I'd throw a little love their way for 'Torchwood.'

I had to talk to numerous people and jump through several hoops before I was finally passed along to the outside PR company that, quite frankly, can't care less about the show.

The show debuts Friday and I haven't seen a single ad, even though CBC was a co-producer on the thing! I shouldn't be surprised but I am.

And our good friend Dixon brought it home:

I have to side with the other 'bitchers'...if it wasn't for you or Diane, I wouldn't have known 'Intelligence' 2 begins tonight (or the Torchwood debut for that matter). But it's all the same old Canadian mumblemutter about promotion, or lack thereof. I had no idea 'Whistler' 2 aired on Saturday night either...until I flipped past it by accident. And we all saw how Global buried The Best Years in the spring/summer.

But I did have lunch with the kids at Burger King recently...and couldn't miss that 'Heroes' Season 2 was premiering 'Only on Global' as the promo was plastered on every cup and wrapper. Um...it's not 'only' on Global...it's on NBC - Global just gets to simulcast and ad substitute and 'say' it's their show...but you all already know that.

Now, separate and apart from this general problem with Canadian lack-of-promo, I think the CBC stuff is a little different, for a couple reasons.

First, you and I pay for it. In taxes. You pay for a great show like Intelligence. It's a shame that they're not very good at telling you how and when to see it.

It may be that I'm cranky right now, (Scratch that, I'm definitely cranky right now. I haven't eaten and got very little sleep last night, and sat through a meeting and six hours on set today, and now I've just spent two hours formatting and writing up a feature on Little Mosque that will run tomorrow and Wednesday) but this just seems extra wrong.

I did a podcast interview with Chris Haddock, and spent an hour transcribing it for this site. That interview was set up because a helpful P.R. person from Haddock's company made it happen. I pushed to interview the two writers from Mosque. I've heard, anecdotally many times from people like Diane that the CBC is atrocious at getting back to you with promo requests. Now it's their premiere week, and where are the ads, where is the promo?

Edit: this was posted as a comment to this message, but it deserves a bump up -- because if anything, it's worse than I thought. Over to Diane:

A year and a bit of doing the TV, Eh site and I have not once received anything from CBC. The producers of Intelligence and 22 Minutes, for example, send me information directly from their own production companies (Haddock and Halifax Film). There's other stuff to complain about with the private broadcasters, but CBC is the lone network that will not send me information.

Last year, the CBC fired its publicists and hired a company called Media Profile to outsource their P.R. and Media requests. Everyone predicted this would be a disaster. It has been. Everybody knows it.

I said as much on the TV panel I was on in Banff last June. Afterwards, the head of CBC English Media Relations, Jeff Keay, came up to me and gave me his card and said if I ever had problems getting info from anybody at CBC, give him a call.

I haven't. I try to do my little part here. But if you're frustrated at not being able to find out anything about CBC programs, maybe it's time to email Jeff Keay, and tell him that Media Profile doesn't work, and that CBC needs to do a better job of promoting its shows. Hiring a publicity staff and spending some money on ads might be a start.

One More on Intelligence...

BY THE BYE, Haddock's people were also kind enough to send me the screeners of the first two episodes of Season Two. If you lost track of the show last year because it moved too slowly for you -- these two definitively stay with the pace established by the final two episodes of the first season. It's taut, hot, exciting drama -- and one of the most involving crime dramas I've seen, Canadian OR American. If you're a fan of quality TV, Intelligence really is for you. It's got the pulse, and the brain to go with it.

John Doyle, this morning, calls it "a wild ride." Pretty apt description.

Intelligence: Sex, Drugs, Espionage, and Chris Haddock

MORE SEX, DRUGS, AND ESPIONAGE. Sounds like a good hook for a show, huh? You'd think so. But CBC's Intelligence struggled last year to find an audience. It's frustrating, if you're a fan of quality tv. Intelligence is very much a show of the moment -- about how crime and government and policing all intersect. As the U.S. government pushes for more and more executive power, including the power to spy without any accountability, this is a show about where that lack of accountability leads -- and how personal agendas affect the pursuit of information on both sides of the border, and both sides of the law.

Season Two of Intelligence premieres in Canada Monday night, October 1st, at 9:00 p.m, on CBC.

Last week, I managed to catch creator and showrunner Chris Haddock, stealing him away from set for twenty minutes to talk season 2 and some of the challenges he faces making the show. You can hear the audio part of the interview on the latest Tv Eh? Canadian TV podcast. An edited, partial transcript of the interview is below.

DEAD THINGS ON STICKS: In a first season of a show you spend so much time setting the table, coming up with the characters and establishing the situations. Season 2 you’ve got more room to explore, so what kind of place you want to go with the second season where maybe you weren’t able to get to with the first?


CHRIS HADDOCK: On the Mary Spaulding side, she gets to really start building her intelligence network, and on the Jimmy Reardon side, he starts to really question the wisdom of staying in the trade – so he’s trying to accelerate his exit from the street level dope trade that he’s in, and they manage to come together to help each other further, as he gets much more into money laundering and tries to step back from his real… what got him the money in the first place…He’s trying to play a bigger game, and she encourages him in that direction to try and gain new information about that world. And we get to spend a little more time with his family troubles, his moral conflicts as he tries to get away from an increasingly violent trade. And she’s trying to keep him inside, so she can use him as an intelligence source. So it really is a continuation in the arcs of their ambitions, but we do see a little bit more of their internal struggles with what they’re doing.

DTOS: Talking about those arcs, this whole idea of accessibility, bringing in new viewers – and I know you’ve spoken a little on that point. But is there anything concrete you’re trying to do with the show to …

CH: …Address some of that?

DTOS: Yeah. How do you do that with a show that sort of demands to be serialized?


CH: It’s the constant refrain that show creators and broadcasters deal with which is the desire to appeal to casual or intermittent viewer that isn’t a regular viewer but likes the show and wants to be able to drop in and those of the constant viewers who like the serial aspect, and then there’s the syndicators who say we just want to be able to play the show anywhere in any order. Those demands are constantly there, and 24 you’ll hear they have huge followers but in syndication it tanks because viewers can’t invest in that. But you know many of these companies also own the DVD divisions, so what they’re losing in the casual viewers they’re making up by people buying the DVD’s. So it’s a really shifting landscape...script by script it’s a negotiation on the authors part, saying “how can I give the audience, the casual viewer a full satisfying experience, ah without them having to know all the backstory?” And you tackle that practically by saying, “okay, I will give those viewers a story that concludes, that begins and concludes and you don’t need to know all of the nuance, and then you’ll continue with another storyline, more of a serialized one.” It’s always going to be there. The only shows that have completely addressed that is something like the Law&Order franchise, or the CSI franchise, where you really don’t need to know anything before you get there. And that satisfies a great portion of the audience, and yet there’s a huge audience out there that, some of the biggest hits, are the ones that are extremely serialized. So if you’re a show like mine, you address the casual viewer, but some of the things the broadcaster can do is promote the show, and keep up the promotion, and that’s their task. My task is to try to satisfy both ends of that audience without alienating either. And no bones about it, it’s not always an easy thing to do.


DTOS: Are there any plans for an Intelligence Season 1 DVD release?

CH: Yeah, there have been. We’ve been trying to get the American distributor – we ‘ve got an American company that’s been putting the DaVinci show out on DVD and they look at Canada as a small market but we’ve been trying and just pushing, pushing to try and get them to make the investment in the first season. We won’t have it out when we hoped we’d have it out – this summer, because in their mind Canada’s just too small a market to put a rush on it. It’s a struggle. If we had the ability as CTV did to put a lot of coin behind it like Corner Gas, boom there they were with the set…it really does help. It’s a good support system. Unfortunately we don’t have the resources at the CBC to do that.

DTOS: You know, it’s funny with the current American government there’s this impulse to paint things in black and white, and in this show you burrow further and further into the ambiguity of it all. So why fight the tide?

CH: It’s partly because… really ambiguity allows everyone to participate in it and put a read on it. Whereas black and white, by necessity you’re missing all those people in the middle, really, all the people who are of an undecided nature. Who want to see the thing and decide for themselves. And to me it’s always been, as a viewer, the most satisfying material is something that engages you and invites you to participate, to make part of the decisions as to what’s going on, what’s really going on. So I guess I find that things of an ambiguous nature are more inclusive of an audience, and encouraging them to engage in it and some of the black and white stuff just addresses what might be the more passive viewer who turns on the TV at 7 and turns it off at 12, you know? The first year of DaVinci I faced the same thing, where people said, “man you really don’t resolve anything, it’s really ambiguous at the end and I’m not used to that.” And the second season people were more, “that’s really quite intriguing how you don’t sort things out.” And the third season was, “Man, I love how you never wrap things up.” So part of it is bringing an audience that is entirely used to that more simplistic black & white approach – and edging them over to a different kind of approach. By necessity it takes a while, but once people get on board with that, they find it extremely satisfying.

DTOS: You did a series for CBS a couple of years ago [the short-lived The Handler with Joe Pantoliano] Besides the obvious – budget -- What’s the difference for you between working in Vancouver and working in Los Angeles?

CH: Well working in Vancouver, they gave me the creative latitude that in the U.S. you don’t get as a newcomer – they give creative latitude to people who’ve delivered massive hits for them. You have to earn your creative freedom, really. I’ve been really fortunate to have that creative freedom, but that’s the deal with the devil I’ve made – I have creative freedom, but very little promotion and back end financial participation. In Los Angeles you give up creative freedom for bigger audiences and back end financial participation. I’ve been places where many people have said to me, “you’ve got what everybody in L.A. wants – you’ve got creative freedom and you’re not in L.A.”

Doyle Runs Down the Cancon Cornucopia

CANADIAN CREATIVES have a tough, fair minded ally in the Globe & Mail's John Doyle. He's not a cheerleader for homegrown stuff -- if it's not very good he'll say it -- which means his recommendations are less dismissable. And though there are those inside the CBC who don't get it, who go apoplectic over every Doyle criticism -- they fail to understand that not only is he just doing his job, but he's doing it from a place of general intense support for the CBC.

So this morning he runs down the Cancon offerings for fall and winter on the various networks. Now, the sensitive people in the CBC are liable to cotton to this passage:

Mind you, CBC takes a Soviet-era, Kremlin-like stance on advance notice of its shows. Asked to provide a list of what's coming between now and late January, CBC's outsourced publicity company essentially provided a list of what's airing next week. Later came notice of two other shows, neither of which I'd pick as really notable.

It seems some CBC shows don't exist until some CBC executive says they exist, which happens in November. This is weird. Thousands of people have seen snippets of the hockey drama MVP on YouTube. The show looks sensationally good and there's much buzz, but it doesn't exist until the Kremlin says it exists. Advance buzz isn't a CBC thing. CBC's policy is this: Whatever you say, say nothing.

A couple of months ago, when the fall stuff was announced, and when CBC specifically announced their fall schedule, they actually took some heat from journalists because they weren't doing enough drama. This, when in reality there were at least three more series in production for later starts. I know. I was working on one of them.

Consequently, the story got spun the way it did instead of the true story, which is this: If you care at all about quality Canadian drama and comedy, you need to care about the CBC. They are doing more, they are making shows with the right budget, and they're working really hard to make them good -- harder than any other Canadian broadcaster. Period.

The attitude that Doyle talks about isn't helping to get that message out. But it needs to get out. For all its flaws, the CBC wears the white hat here.

Anyway -- moving on to the shameless self promotion part of the discussion, here's what Doyle has to say about the two shows I'm involved with this fall:

Across the River to Motor City (CITY-TV, starts Nov. 22) is perhaps the most ambitious of the new Canadian dramas. Set both in Detroit and in Windsor, Ont., and in both the present and the 1960s, it's about private eye Ben Ford (played in youth by Sasha Roiz, and in old age by David Fox), whose girlfriend disappeared on the day of the JFK assassination. Her remains are finally found, and Ben must unravel what happened. Noirish, moody and complex, it's got an awful lot of plot.

The Border (CBC) "confronts Canada's toughest border-security issues" according to the CBC. It's about an outfit called the Immigration and Customs Security (ICS) Squad, and it stars James McGowan, Sofia Milos, Graham Abbey and Catherine Disher. An expensive bet for CBC, the series is big on action and intrigue, in a genre that requires oodles of ingenuity in the writing and directing. The rough pilot episode I've seen is promising but dramatically wobbly.

So there it is. ATR premieres the week of November 22 on Citytv stations in those markets that have them. (Check your local listings for the exact date and time. I think Winnipeg actually goes first, on the 19th.) The Border premieres on CBC in early 2008.

Of the other shows Doyle talks about, I think I'm probably looking forward most to MVP. (I had a shameful early dalliance with Footballers Wives) and Search and Rescue -- though I've also got high hopes for Da Kink in My Hair.

And don't forget, Rent-A-Goalie returns October 28. I've got two eps of that, 2nd season, too.

Oh, and Blood Ties continues on SPACE and Citytv. My eps are toward the end of the season. Oh God, the shameless self promo...somebody stop me...

And in the End...

YOU HAVE a read-through, it goes well, people give their tiny little line changes, you change a couple of character names because they didn't come back "clear for use," and...

...full YELLOW draft.

Sigh.

Anyway, they started shooting yesterday. It looked great. Good energy, lots of extras for our media mob.

I remember why I do this.

Big Shots: XY Need Not Apply

THE TORONTO STAR'S Vinay Menon has a review of Big Shots (premiering tonight) which elucidates in very specific terms, exactly what I was talking about last year in my post, The Eyeballs of Men. From Menon's review:

Who are these whiny imposters television is trying to pass off as men?

This is the question male viewers will ask after watching the premiere of Big Shots (ABC, CTV, 10 tonight). Assuming, that is, they can get through the hour without losing consciousness from all the involuntary forehead slapping.

Notify Guinness because we have a first: a show about men that couldn't possibly be aimed at men. A show in which male characters sit around on a patio and share their innermost feelings or stand around on a golf course and untangle their woes or lounge around in a sauna and bemoan the ephemera threatening to tear their hearts asunder.

In short: a gal pal show in which the gals are lads.

The feminized, science-fiction tv male lives! On TV, at least. I won't be tuning in Big Shots tonight. Based on the preview and the reviews, I've seen what I need to.

If you want to see a version of Big Shots that's actually about men, try to find a DVD of the BBC show Manchild. It's good fun. And for bonus points -- it stars Giles from Buffy!