Old Girlfriends

ONE OF THE things that I miss least from the days when I had a (more or less) 9-5 job is the idea of office politics. I have many friends -- men and women, whose lives suffer greatly from their forced, unending proximity to people they despise. I sometimes wonder if I still worked in an office, if I'd like The Office as much as I do. Would it be cathartic, or un-bear-a-ble?

This is not to say that there aren't situations in film and TV where you hate your coworkers. That happens all the time. Everyone has the story of the first screamer they worked for, or the producer who made them cry, or the weird grip with the dead eyes who you're pretty sure you saw on America's Most Wanted a few months later. Don't kid yourself. TV and Film has more than its share of ... oddballs.

The thing is, you may bitch and moan about those people for the length of whatever show you're on -- but the show ends. They all end. And most of the time, you know exactly when they're going to end. So it's only the most insane, outrageous, or unreasonable colleagues that ever really drive you over the edge. There's a certain power to being able to think, "in X days, I will never, ever have to see you again."


It's not the personality conflicts that make office situations untenable. It's the fact that there's no reasonable expectation of the thing ending. Ever. That's what kills you.

There's another way in which work relationships you have in film and TV differ from office relationships -- intensity.

Because a TV show or a film is a runaway train, that gets moving and happening all at once and chugs or careens down a hill, there really is no way to get a sense of the whole production when it's happening. All interactions are truncated. Intense. Good producers know how to have a knock down argument in three minutes, because that's all the time you have to keep a crew waiting.

This intensity means that sometimes, revisiting those old work relationships after the project wraps makes them feel more like interactions with exes, rather than ex-coworkers.

I have made friends at work, and I still see them occasionally. But for the most part, when I see someone I didn't know very well or have any great feelings about when I worked with them -- I don't feel anything. It's like a nod, or a 'hi.'

But run into someone you worked with on a production, and it's way more like running into someone and poking the bones or sifting the realities of your past romance. There's a sometimes shocking intimacy to it. You compare notes, recall the 'big events' from the shoot, and invariably there's a Rashomon-like feeling that kicks in. With so much happening at once, no one ever gets the full story. You find out things months, or years later, that completely change how you view that work experience.

Writers miss a lot of this, as we're locked away in our above-the-line garrets -- and onto the next thing before shooting's even done. We miss it at our peril, though -- because it's one of the most interesting parts of the trade.

Jumping from job, to job, to job is not for everybody. But if you get into it, after a while it's addictive. You meet all new people. Some you hit it off with immediately, some you never really get to know, some you decide you don't care for. Some people become friends. Some drift away. It's the closest thing an adult can get to going back to school and having a whole new group of classmates. Most of us graduate college, and watch our opportunities to meet new people shrink. Not in TV and film.

And just as the knowledge that the job ends leads you to tolerate and not obsess over a coworker's bad behavior -- it also leads to another strange sort of freedom. Once you get your professional reputation to a certain point, and you're not worried about where your next cheque's coming from -- you get to pick and choose who you work with. And the further you get into it, the more you start to really consider shows based not only on the material, or the money, but on the people involved.

"Life's too short to work with assholes," is a mantra I've heard a lot in the last little while. And it's a hard thing to argue provided, a) you're good at what you do, b) people know this about you, and c) you're not actually an asshole yourself.

That last one may seem self-evident. You'd be surprised.

For all the sturm and drang that gets tossed on this blog about the state of the Canadian industry, there's a huge secret info-train of gossip and intel that no one talks about -- but it just bubbles under and shapes the industry.

There are several projects I've heard about in the last little while who have had trouble attracting talent in various job categories because "so and so's not worth it." Three years ago, I would have never guessed that. When you're trying to break in, it seems impossible to think of a time when you might find yourself in a position to actually say no.

Because it's not my side of the biz, here's a specific example I can give: right now, Toronto has a serious, serious shortage of lifestyle and factual editors. It's true. I know people who have bumped their rate three times in the last year. There are companies that have been effectively blackballed, shut out of all the top editing talent because they're a nightmare to work for, and they burn people. If you can cut, and you're good, it's the yellow brick road for you right now, my son.

I think that's kind of cool. If the editors in Toronto ever get organized, man...there's going to be trouble. The Canadian industry is lucky there isn't a WGC for Editors.

The other half of that equation, of course, is this: never burn a bridge. You never know who's going to be sitting across the table from you. And since it's so rare to know the full story of any production when it's going on, it's probably best to not burn a bridge until you know the person on the other end is actually a sociopath, and not just someone seeing an entirely different piece, and dealing with entirely different shit from you.

The part about not burning bridges gets said to people all the time -- but the other part -- the part that suggests that yup, you do indeed have some power yourself...that gets said less often. And it's true. The first time you turn down work because the money's not good enough feels kind of good. The first time you turn down work because even though the money's good you decide it isn't worth it? That feels completely different. That actually feels...dare I say it...sexy.

You may wonder why I'm writing about this now...and the truth is that it's inspired by kind of a happy accident. In the last couple weeks, I've run into four people who I worked on three different projects with, that I haven't seen since. And the sharing of those old stories -- those production tales...it always mines nuggets of understanding...and well, that's why we TV film types relentlessly talk shop (Much to the chagrin and forbearance of our non-industry friends, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, etc, etc.) Yup, it's navel gazing and solipsistic. But man, it sure is fun.

Today I saw one of the Actors from a show I did last year in a casting session, and it was like Old Home Week. And there was another actor I know socially. And one of the Camera Operators on The Border opped my short film a thousand years ago. He just moved up from focus puller. And now, the guy who directed all six episodes of Across the River To Motor City, Michael DeCarlo, is currently directing an episode of The Border. And he's (I hope) gonna get me into a location I've always wanted to see. Score.

The other day at the production meeting, just before shooting, there was a moment going through the script where I sort of flashed back, and realized that a whole year has elapsed since we shot Motor City. And there's Michael sitting across the table from me -- different project, different team, different story being told -- both in front of the camera and behind the scenes. And as I'm thinking this, he looked up, and he smiled.

I smiled back. With nostalgia or bemusement, I couldn't tell you.

But I do know this:

Beats the hell out of having to see Oscar in Accounting every day.

FIRST BLOOD!

OH LAUGHLIN, we never even had a chance to Viva.

CBS is singing the blues over “Viva Laughlin,” which has been officially canceled after just two episodes.

“Laughlin” becomes this season’s first scripted series casualty.

Mo Gets Mad with Weiner

I'M LATE GETTING to this, but in case you haven't seen it, Maureen Ryan did a simply stellar interview last week with Mad Men writer/creator Matthew Weiner.

What's great about Ryan's long profile is that it gets so much into what makes the show good from a writer's perspective -- the level of truth, the conception, the execution. This isn't a puff piece about actors, this is two smart people talking about a medium they both love. And what makes a show work, from a craft, thematic, and intellectual perspective. It comes from a place of giving the audience credit. It goes to a sense of crafting something in a different way than a lot of TV.

Mad Men may not be high rated, but there's a reason why it's got such a high concentration of big money advertisers...the people who are watching are a high concentration of people making over 100 000 K a year.

Go read the whole thing, by all means...this is just a short excerpt:

When you’re thinking about the writing of the show, do you think first about what’s going on in a character’s head or mind or soul, or are you thinking about, ‘I need to get to this plot point?’ Or is it both?

“Well, first of all the plots are very elaborate. They are real plots. They are like the plots we did on ‘The Sopranos.’ I hide it a lot. I hide it the way they do on ‘The Simpsons’ and ‘The Sopranos.’ By saying here’s the show, it starts off and you think it’s going to be about this, but it’s about that.

“A perfect example is the vomiting show [‘Red in the Face’], when the boss was coming over to dinner. What we learn on the way to the boss coming over to dinner is that the boss is older than Don, and that Don is already more attracted to other women – we see that at the bar. And then it becomes this issue about masculinity, which is also reflected in the Pete [chip-and-dip bowl] story, [it’s] a thematic thing.

“You have this plot that’s a revenge plot, which is based on the reality that you cannot punch your boss. You can’t. You can on TV, but you can’t on this TV show, because we’re following those rules.

“When Pete blackmails Don [in ‘Nixon vs. Kennedy’], one of the things I’m most proud of with that episode is, I said, I’m going to do this for real. How would you do that? It’s really hard to do, to blackmail another person. You see it on TV all the time, envelopes are exchanged and violence is threatened. But in most cases, people don’t murder each other. For the most part, people are like, ‘How can I get out of this?’ and how does the other person actually do [the blackmailing]?

“So I have a plot, and then I try to avoid the lie of – I wouldn’t say the lie of TV, it’s a dramatic lie, often, of trying to escalate it to such a huge proportion that it somehow [false]. They always say, ‘raise the stakes’ but if the stakes are in a real world, [they don’t need to be raised in a melodramatic way].

“If you’re really worried about Don’s relationship with Betty, then her finding that phone bill is a serious piece of tension. Whereas in a normal [show] – on ‘Desperate Housewives,’ people find that all the time, and then all the drama is them throwing [things] at each other. So I try to take that stuff seriously, and the way I approach story, usually is, I have incidents and I have a theme and I try to approach it from character. How is that person going to behave in those circumstances?

“With Sal [the closeted gay man who fled a potential romantic encounter in ‘The Hobo Code’], I knew I wanted Sal to be tempted. But then I started thinking – well, what does Sal know so far? Who is Sal? Is Sal ready for this? And what does the audience expect?

“I mean, this really trivializes the show, but I think a lot of what draws people into [the show is akin to when] someone’s expecting a phone call and they walk into the room and the phone is ringing but they don’t answer it right away. They don’t want to know what it is. Which is the way we are.

And Then There Were Three

So after a weekend catching up and relaxing, and clearing off the PVR systematically, I've reduced the fall season to three new shows that I'll continue to watch until they're moved or canceled:

Journeyman - It's still about McKidd for me, but the peek at the morality of what he does, the continued strain on his relationship, and the intriguing peek at the hand behind it all has me in. 'Course it's also Monday at 10pm -- and that's a good time for me to watch TeeVee.

Pushing Daisies - I didn't think they'd be able to pull the 3rd ep off, but they did. I like it, and what's more, I don't have much whimsical comfort stuff that I watch regularly.

Life - I still like it. I like him.

I checked out two more Dirty Sexy Money's last night and I just don't see it as a must see. If I'm home with time, maybe.

Kristen Bell joining Heroes comes at just the right time because I'm right about on the edge of giving up.

Rent-A-Goalie returns, and I Shamelessly Self Promote

SOMEWHERE I MISSED that tonight is a good night for Canadian TV. Global continues with the second ep of Da Kink in My Hair at 7:30, but the big news is on SHOWCASE.

The movie spinoff of Jim Shaw's favorite show, Trailer Park Boys: The Movie is on the air tonight, and following that it looks like they're sneaking the first episode of season 2 of Rent-A-Goalie.

The fun starts at 9, with the RAG preview going at 11:05 ET. (It repeats overnight.)

The "other" 2nd Season Premiere of RAG is a week tonight -- with two eps, at 9:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. The 2nd Ep is written by yours truly.


In fact, I have to start clearing off the PVR-- after almost a year with nothing actually on the tube, I've got about 11 episodes of 3 shows airing on various Canadian and U.S. channels in the next several weeks.

My 3 Blood Ties episodes start with The Devil You Know, which airs on Lifetime in the U.S. on November 9th, at 11pm ET.

Then the next week, it's Drawn & Quartered, which I co- wrote with fellow Den(n)is, Dennis Heaton.

The penultimate ep of the season, We'll Meet Again, airs on Lifetime December 7. (Citytv stations in Canada are about five weeks behind, and Space is even further behind in the season, so check your listings if you're in Canada.)

Finally, the miniseries I co-created and did the bulk of the writing for, Across the River to Motor City, bows the week of November 22 on Citytv stations in Canada. (Nov 22, Citytv Toronto, Winnipeg Nov 19)

Whew. It's funny how things come in waves in this business. It would be great to have stuff on steadily throughout the year, but I went through this exact thing a while ago when a bunch of the stuff I had written all aired at once.

I haven't seen the final versions of any of my BT stuff, so I'm looking forward to seeing the special FX and score in place. I loved the cuts I did see. Some very juicy stuff for fans of romance and backstory and Vampire Lovin...and who isn't a fan of Vampire Lovin?

Sorry, Haters!

ONE MORE PIECE of weekend gossip. Apparently the ratings for Wednesday's Little Mosque on the Prairie were up -- considerably.

The first two episodes drew around 775 000 viewers. Wednesday's ep drew close to a million.

People are finding the show. They're hearing that it's back, and it's funnier.

The word is getting out.

Put that in your Canadian TV pipe and smoke it.

Fooling Some of the People All of the Time

FRIDAY IN A WEEK where there's been too little sleep and too much to do in the P.M. I'm looking forward to a bit of stop-stop this weekend. Go-go is so overrated.

That being said, I think if you've read this blog for a while you probably get a sense of the strange caught-between feeling I get about my dual roots. Simply put, I'm a guy who always feels when I go down south that I'm not quite flashy, forceful or American enough. And here, in Canada, I feel like I'm sometimes a bit too brash, a bit too...you know...American.

God love 'em, the Canadian taciturn-ness, the passive aggressiveness, the occasional provincialism, the fear of speaking up or speaking out -- especially in the producer/writer class of my colleagues, ever facing extinction...well it gets to me.

But then I think that those qualities underlie all the stuff I truly love about this country, and its more measured and informed view of the world. So, you know. It's a wash.

Jim Henshaw today has a lovely story, just a funny and wise reminiscence about how the Canadian character plays when it comes to the arts. It's liable to make you smile, and shake your head a bit, too. And maybe that's not a bad way to enter the weekend.

So go read about Jim, and Andre Bernard Berge, and then think about the woman cutting her hair before the wedding in that YouTube video, and the people that pranked Springer en masse all those years ago -- and ask yourself: "why are Canadians SO GOOD at this kind of thing?"

They Used To Give Real Beavers, But They Kept Dying

ALEX EPSTEIN, Mr. Complications Ensue, and one of the writers of Bon Cop, Bad Cop has an awesome Canadian showbiz story up at his digs.

Seriously. This is how it works here.

Too funny.

Gemini-able

THE SUGGESTION was made last night at the Geminis, after endless category after endless category, that what we really need is to split the writing categories into Male and Female writers. Awesome.

I think we just found our fifth awards night!

(Yeesh.)

Still, congrats to Ian Weir for his movie and miniseries writing award for Dragon Boys. They also honored the writing staff of Mr. Dressup -- which was fine to see.

And I just found out, checking my inbox, that a show I wrote for, Skyland, won best animated series the night before. Awesome! Congrats to Vince Commisso, Steven Jarosz, Marilyn McAuley of 9th Story for that.

And They Didn't Even Need A Cheerleader

OKAY, OKAY -- because I wrote about how essentially silly the ratings pissing contest between CTV and Global was, seeing as it was built on the backs of U.S. shows that neither network produced, the news over the last couple days is especially noteworthy:

On Monday night, 1.298 million people watched Corner Gas.

And 1.293 million people watched Heroes.

In other words -- one of the most heavily hyped shows of last year -- with the benefit of millions of dollars of advertising, magazine covers up the wazoo, bestselling DVD sales and the full force of the American hype machine behind it, couldn't top the denizens of Dog River.

See, this wouldn't be an unusual story just about anywhere else in the world, where it's old news that people prefer their homegrown comedies, cop shows, and procedurals to the American imports. But it's an enormous story here.

In fact, if the business worked an entirely different way it would probably be CTV's proudest moment.

Whatevs.

Bottom line? Remember it the next time someone writes about how Canadians don't want to watch Canadian TV.

They will if it's good.

That's the message. Let's all try to stay on it, hmm?

At least that's the message I'll be spreading tonight at the Geminis. If you see us, give us a kiss.

Not really. That's just an expression.

What If The Sky Refused To Fall?

TWO FROM the hustings:

Land sakes alive -- the stupidest and most odious of the rollback provisions in the WGA negotiations is off the table.

It was Kabuki theater to begin with, but whatever - at this point we need something to keep the strike from looking like historical inevitability.

And whaddya know...even people with PVR's watch commercials.

Discuss.

Mmmmmm.

Bruuuuuuuuuuuce.

Congrats!

TO THE WINNERS of the writing awards at the 2007 Canadian Comedy Awards.

Best Writing — TV series: Brent Butt, Mark Farrell, Paul Mather, Kevin White, Andrew Car, Robert Sheridan for Corner Gas.

Best Writing -- Special or Episode: Kevin White, Mark Critch, Gary Pearson, Gavin Crawford, Jennifer Whalen, Carolyn Taylor, Albert Howell and Dave Nystromp for This Hour Has 22 Minutes.

Best Writing - Film Leila Basen, Alex Epstein, Patrick Huard, Kevin Tierney for Bon Cop, Bad Cop.

Question: what's the difference between special or episode and tv series?

I'd love to link to a complete list of winners but there doesn't seem to be one online. Excellent.

Here's a CBC Story on the Awards.

Like every other awards show in Canada, the awards go to Regina next year, which makes me fear thery won't be that well attended -- sorry guys, but it's bad enough to have to truck out there for the Geminis. That's not a cheap flight. Canada. You're big.

Backseat Writing

NOW THAT THE season is fully underway, a couple developments in shows that I like have me alternately scratching my head and slapping my knee with glee.

I'm saddened to read Alex and others pull a WTF? on the new season of Friday Night Lights. I'm still working my way through the excellent season one DVD box set and I'm chagrined to hear they take a detour to O.C.-ville in Season Two. (Maybe that's the deal with the devil they made to try to get the ratings up?)

But for me it's all about The Office. I know that some have had trouble with the one hour episodes, but for me, the wound's not fatal. Yes, the kind of observational comedy that is the show's stock-in-trade works better at a half hour, but then again, the shows still succeed at delivering the funny -- a domain that Seinfeld never managed to master in the one hour format.

In the premiere, I got really excited when I thought I knew where they were going, and disappointed when they went another way. In the Jim and Pam plot, I thought for a while they were going to deal with it by not telling us definitively one way or another whether they were together -- using the conceit of the documentary show to give us tantalizing evidence one way or another, and string us along for awhile. Maybe that would have sucked, I don't know. But I think they could have drawn it out a bit more. (Though the payoff of the office finding out, and Phyliss, of all people, immediately making the "bitch turn" was inspired.) Greg Daniels is a smart guy, and this show's continued ability to surprise me makes me think that making that choice of getting Jim and Pam out there means he's got bigger fish to fry.

Psychologically, it also presents -- for anyone still apt to make the comparison, the last important break with the DNA of the series' British parent. With the Jim/Pam pairing, we're now in uncharted territory that the British series never had to explore.

The last episode I watched (I think I'm one behind) gave a hint as to another way they might be mixing it up. Ryan's return to Scranton was a gut-buster -- nowhere more so than with Creed's jet black hair and attempts to be young, bra. "Can we get Red Bull in the vending machine?" Heh heh.

But it was with Jan's short, key appearance that I thought, "oh, wait a second."

By giving Michael the idea of the ageism suit, I think we may have just caught wind of how Jan's gonna get her groove back. And stick it to that weasel Ryan.

Melora Hardin playing the Lady Macbeth to Steve Carell's hapless middle manager is a jolt of juice I'm eager to watch unfold -- a glorious twist in a relationship that's been a guilty viewing pleasure for some time. Now if they manage to make us feel sorry for Dwight as he pines for Angela, the top of my head might come off.

It's funny how writing full time really has changed the way I watch TeeVee. Time was, I'd watch the same way a lot of people I know watch -- getting pissed off when the show goes in a direction you didn't expect or like. I guess maybe that's the frustrated artist way of watching TeeVee.

Now, I get far more joy when I watch and think, "oh, man -- that is a direction I NEVER would have thought of!" I derive intense joy from seeing writers do way, way better, be more original, more surprising, more inventive than I think I could have been in that situation.

Which, it occurs to me, is the way that regular people -- not internet superfans, not nitpickers, and definitely not jaded writers -- watch.

It took writing full time to return me to what I loved about watching TeeVee in the first place.

Man. Weird.

Go Jan!

Da Kink Just Needs Some Plussing

I SOMETIMES FORGET what it was like to watch TV when I was a little younger. A lot of the coverage for DIRTY SEXY MONEY, for instance, focused around how it was nice to be able to peek in on the rich and privileged and see what a bunch of screw ups they are.

But all television, all good television -- has that running through its DNA. Unlike a movie, which tells one good story (hopefully,) TV is meant to be a wellspring, a fascinating venue or area from which many stories can spring. You need the right area, and the right mix of characters to get you to the starting block. Freshman series all struggle to find the right voice -- but you know it's a dead man walking when you look at the venue and say, "that can't be fixed." But when you get a good venue -- the squad room of NYPD Blue, which gave you a new, fresh look at the cop world; the E.R. in E.R., the small town of Dog River in Corner Gas, Central Perk on Friends, or the Sunnyvale Trailer Park on Trailer Park Boys; you're halfway to creating a series that has some real legs. Add to that list Letty's Hair Salon.

Da Kink in My Hair (Global, Sundays, 7:30 pm) has the right venue and the right characters. It's a richly textured, interesting, vibrant setting that we haven't seen before. I found the show very interesting to watch -- but it is lacking a bit in the comedy department. More on that in a minute.

Da Kink, for those who don't know it, started out as a play at the Toronto Fringe Festival. The play, written by series co-star Trey Anthony, tracked the lives and loves of a group of Jamaican expats running a hair salon in Toronto. The play was a smash, transferred to the Princess of Wales Theatre, enjoyed productions in various places around the globe. A TV series seemed like it had to be a foregone conclusion.

But it wasn't. A rough development road greeted Da Kink. First it was at CBC. Then it split because of creative differences. The show, also developed through the National Screen Institute's "Totally Television" program, wound up at Global. They did an hour long pilot, and now the series is finally premiering.

Da Kink leads off with not-quite-a-premise-pilot. We meet two sisters, Novalette Campbell and her sister Joy (Ordena Stephens Thompson, trey anthony.) They run Letty's, a vibrant hair salon in the midst of Toronto's Caribbean community. Right off the bat we see that these sisters are quite different. Novalette is the responsible one. Joy is flighty -- so flighty that she forgot to write in the appointment for the big wedding party which lands in all at once. The dynamic of the sisters is established, but there's something else going underneath -- especially in regards to Joy's nephew, Novalette's son.

It's not much of a spoiler to say that by the end of the first episode you learn the backstory that Novalette traveled across Canada for seven years, earning money to bring her son and her sister to Canada from Jamaica. So the bonds are complex -- they also reflect the immigrant reality. There's a depth of character and connection there that you can see is eminently exploitable.

The parts of the pilot that work the best are the story parts: two sisters want their hair one way -- "natural" -- and the uptight mother wants it another way -- "straight." If you think that's a frivolous or simple debate, then you don't understand the particular flavor of pressure that surrounds notions of beauty in this community. To their credit, gloriously, the true heft of this debate is kept in the subtext. It's a light touch that says a lot about the potential for future stories.

The pilot moves swiftly -- the musical accompaniment is joyous and well executed. I defy you to keep still watching it. They want you to tap your feet and you can't help but do so.

The funniest joke in the whole thing, for me, comes out of character. Near the end the uptight mother of the wedding party drops her mask for a moment -- she's been very proper up til now, and yells at her daughter to get away from a boy. For just a moment the mask slips and we see that the woman who's doing everything she can to be dignified and uppercrust -- isn't that far from humbler roots herself.

I just wish that Da Kink's pilot had more of those moments. trey anthony as Joy is a force of nature. Thompson imbues Novalette with a lot of heart. Wide-eyed trainee stylist Starr (series co-creator Ngozi Paul) has a prescence and energy that you want to keep watching.

I enjoyed the story -- but the comedy for me, fell a little flat. In fact, weirdly, the pilot reminded me a lot of the pilot for Little Mosque on the Prairie. It's better than those first Little Mosque shows, because the stories are better and the venue is interesting. There are moments of real truth in the first three episodes, and there's a vibrancy of storytelling and movement that makes the show entertaining.

Global -- that whitest of Canadian broadcast networks -- should be roundly congratulated for sticking with Da Kink -- and for giving it a good slot too. The early prime of 7:30 Sundays is the right slot for this comedy. It's gentle and enjoyable.

I hope the network sticks with it. Because the hard part -- venue and character and heart -- that's all done. Of the three episodes I screened, all three had a story with real personal stakes, and satisfying emotional conclusions. Episode 3 is even built around Caribana, the annual street festival in Toronto. There's a lot made about expanding the kinds of voices you hear on TV. Sometimes that seems a bit forced, something that looks good on a public benefits sheet, but not good from an entertainment point of view. I hope the Afro-Canadian or Caribbean community likes the vision of themselves reflected in Da Kink, because for the rest of us, the ones outside, it's a really interesting peek inside. And like all good insider depictions, what gets you interested at first is how different it is, and what keeps you there is the revelation of universal truths. Da Kink's got that covered, too.

Going forward, I would hope they would bring in a few people who could just work on getting the comedy to be a bit sharper. Little Mosque, based on the first two episodes, is far and away a better show than it was last season.

Da Kink could use a bit of the same treatment. Not a rethink. Not an overhaul. All this show needs is a wee bit of plussing.

Capulets vs. Montagues

THIS MAY SURPRISE absolutely no one, but occasionally on this blog I don't always immediately know where I'm going. I start out with a thought, of course...there's always a thought. But like a Rainmaker Preacher who finds his subject as the Amens pile up (and the collection jar fills,) I sometimes discover my subject as I start to write. In a way, it's incredibly freeing, because unlike a mound of you spec monkeys who against the advice of the wizened, embark upon scripts without a clear idea of the ending, (see: "feel it, I have to") I never get to write that way in everyday life. I always work out my structure before hand, plan my beats, polish my act outs, and at least attempt a fully realized structure in prose before I ever type the fateful "TEASER," or "ACT ONE."

But not on this blog, Nellie. Oh no. That's why when people send me their whinges about "why do you have to write so long?" I come back with the standard retort: "because I don't have enough time to write it short."

The subject of the looming WGA strike came up today. I know it's probably the thing that's boiling and roiling and causing everyone to frock themselves in the Southland, but luckily, those of us in the genteel-er northern climes, with our cold weather and strong currency, where actors strike yet keep working -- approach the impending labo(u)r unrest down south with a peculiar mix of train wreck fascination ("O My God it's not going to affect me!") and pique, ("What, no HOUSE?)

In talking about the last strike, the '88 strike, my Border colleague David Barlow said something extraordinarily smart. See, we were talking about the occasional big plans and big dreams of Canadian creatives, and the idea that, hey, if there's a strike, who knows, maybe -- just maybe -- you could have your Canadian show make a sale to a U.S. Network. They'll have to buy something, after all.

Barlow related a funny tale of the last time the writers ankled, and it basically confirmed what I thought already. He said that when the strike started in 1988, there were calls -- lots of them. And interest. Lots of it. "What are you doing, what have you got? Oh yeah, interesting, interesting."

It lasted precisely the length of the strike. Once the strike was over -- crickets.

Now, that may seem like an obvious turn of events. But it's not to many creatives in this country. That golden goose-- the U.S. sale! is like the siren song calling many to the rocks. I've sat in meetings with producers as they talked up the potential of the U.S. sale that would never come.

The U.S.A. has, with reason, the most motherfucking confident culture in the world. A quirky Canadian show like Slings & Arrows can slip through on a small cable outlet because it's cheap, and has a different sensibility. But that aint network, folks.

The Canadian industry, therefore, has been traditionally split into two camps. The Capulets and the Montagues.

The Montagues love U.S. programming. They try to come up with concepts that have inherent "U.S. appeal." They try to create homegrown versions of shows that play in the U.S.A. They want cop shows, lawyer shows, broad-based comedies that could be just like American shows. They also want to do movies that are like this.

And who can blame them? Our box office receipts are counted every Sunday night as part of the domestic U.S. box office. We get the same shows, at the same time, as the U.S. networks. Yeah, we get them from Canadian networks, but let's face it -- that's mostly in name only. We gorge ourselves on U.S. programming. Same as the Yanks.

And yet...that eats away at us. Some of us, anyway. More of them in a minute.

One of the great problems of the Canadian mindset, observed in over thirty years now of living here, is that Canadians consider themselves the leading world experts on Americans. And in many ways, they are. They consume the same culture, they see the same films, they watch the same shows at the same times -- but the obsessions are not the same. The ... climate ... is not the same.

Three small examples:

• My parents (lovely people) are, in the usual way of parents, a little more conservative than me. But a few years ago they retired. They now spend half the year in Florida. They're disoriented, frequently, by how little they people around them see on the news. How much stories lack the larger world perspective, or give in to simplistic notions of fear. They find themselves having to bite their tongue when talking of the world. That is not a state that comes naturally to New Yorkers, but years in Canada means that they manage. They just didn't think it was something they'd have to do once they went back.
  
• When I was in High school and University, I lived with, laughed with, and loved a number of Canadians who were, at root, kind of anti-American. Some of these people later moved to the States -- some for love, some for money, some for school. To a one, every single person came back less Anti-American than they left. Why is that? Well, if you want to know the leap I make, it's this: the media that they consumed -- their primary view of Americans, showed a narrow side. Once they were among them, they saw a fuller picture. And that picture created dissonance.
  
• When I worked in Cape Town, South Africa, three years ago, it was the middle of the summer before the U.S. Presidential Election. It was an interesting experience. South Africa is far more influenced by the British cultural axis, than the American. I didn't read an American magazine for almost five months and it nearly did me in. Every conversation I had with South Africans eventually turned to U.S. presidential politics -- once they found out I was from the States. But the funny thing was seeing how they reacted to the Canadians. Because the Canadians were constantly trying to affirm how different they were from the Americans. But from the perspective of the South Africans, they didn't see that much of a difference at all. That made the Canadians livid. Besides bar conversations, there were also tons of five and ten year old Canadian shows on South African TV. And the funny thing was, though the people I talked to (all TV people, natch) didn't see that many differences between Canadian and Americans, they were able to spot the difference between Canadian and American TV shows. The Canadian TV shows they saw, they saw because they were a lot cheaper to buy than the equivalent American shows. And they said that they seemed a lot like the American shows, except...slightly.....OFF

OFF. That's the kind of thing that sticks with you.

The Montagues dream desperately of that U.S. sale. Of making a show that gets sold to the U.S.A. and takes them places. They do things that they think will appeal to the American market. And they never do. At best, the Brits, who are probably the best at exporting English language cultural product to the Americans, know that the best example is to sell the format -- hence, All in the Family, Three's Company, The Office.

Sure, the original might run on BBC America. But the glory, if the glory comes, goes to the remake.

Canadians make a lot out of talking about how "we produce comedians," etc. Mark Farrell talked about this on a Canadian TV podcast. The reality is that those who succeed are those who leave and embrace the American sensibility wholeheartedly. Mike Myers. Will Arnett. John Candy. Dave Foley. Jim Carrey. Paul Shaffer. Dan Aykroyd. Samantha Bee. Jason Jones. Andrea Martin. Rick Moranis. Dave Thomas. Martin Short. Phil Hartman. The list goes on.

One of the stories of this fall is the number of Brits on U.S. TeeVee. You have Kevin McKidd (Journeyman,) Michelle Ryan (Bionic Woman,) Damian Lewis (Life,) and that's not counting those who preceded the trend, like Jamie Bamber on Battlestar Galactica or the great Hugh Laurie on House.

See, those who are good -- who can really, really play American -- the U.S. readily embraces. Nobody cares if so and so is British or American, so long as you can play an American convincingly. That is the mark of a confident culture.

The mark of truth for me comes when you watch British TV and you see the actors who stay behind, who are asked to play American. They suck. Almost universally.

The only thing, for me, marring the otherwise excellent Jekyll, were the characters who were supposed to be American. They were over-the-top caricatures. They didn't convince me, to the extent they took me out of the story. Same with MI-5, (except for Tom's CIA G.F. in Season 1, who was U.S. Born) and any number of Brit shows that drew from British based, British talent to play American. It doesn't matter how much they studied, or tried, they weren't the ones who went and embraced the culture full bore by moving there... they didn't get the thing fully. They were... OFF.

The people here who dream of U.S. sales, of making shows that appeal to U.S. audiences and who will "get a U.S. sale" -- who think that somehow, some way, their take on a concept that you would see on U.S. TeeVee will fly -- well, they're Montagues.

There's a long history of Montagues in the Canadian industry. Some are Canadian. Some are Canadians who went down to the U.S. and had modest success and came back. Some are delusional -- who don't realize that the point of the U.S. -- the whole point, is that you go and surrender yourself fully, like Carrey or Neil Young -- and then you get accepted. You can't keep one foot here and expect to dine at the big table. Not when your accent's flat and not Brit-plummy. Some of the Montagues aren't Canadian at all...they're Americans, working Canadian in name only -- taking advantage of lax regs and passport scams and tax credits and loose realities that allow them to be "deemed" for the purpose of the production.

Then there are the Capulets.

The Capulets, you see, resent the Montagues intensely. They are cultural nationalists. They hate the fact that American culture dominates; the same as cultural nationalists in any country in the world.

The Capulets, largely, have driven the Canadian film industry. They produce films that are aggressively not American in tone or subject matter. That means, often, they have to eschew the things that Americans do well... they can't be sentimental, so they undercut emotion or sympathy. They don't go for the gut. They focus on shocking things Americans would never do. They don't tie up tidily or have a 'win' at the end - not because it's right for the story, but because that's what American films do.

It's been pointed out by people I care about that sometimes I'm a little hard on Canadian film. And that's true. I am (at least the English language division) The thing is, I firmly believe that a lot of what motivates some of these Canadian filmmakers are things that are anathema to creating good drama -- a good story is not as important as being different than American film. So long as that's how you think -- I want to be different, rather than "I want to tell a good story," you will not be a confident culture. You will always exist only as a reflection of something else - in this case, U.S. culture.

There are Capulets in Canadian TV. There are Montagues, too. And neither are going to get to a place where good work is consistently produced. Not if the WGA strikes, and not if they don't.

Good work will come from a growing community of people like, dare I say it, me. People who are post Capulet and Montague, who want to find a middle ground. People who think that Canadians do have a unique and different view on the world. (McLuhan, bitches!) A generation who believes that "telling Canadian stories" simply means "Canadians telling stories (and not 'stories they think Americans want to hear)" A generation of artists who doesn't care that Cold Case is Cold Squad with more money; a generation who uses their more expansive and inclusive world view to remix, recombine and come up with things as wildly inventive as Jekyll, or even Little Mosque on the Prairie, not as derivative as Shark but nice, or The Ghost Whisperer but different, or Without a Trace but ... um... in Kamloops.

By the way, immigrants will rock this new reality. And it's a fluid thing. Read back and see how many times I talk 'we' and 'they' when I talk about Canadians. That's a thing with me, too. Split identity. Globalization? Eff you, America. The Canadians have been dealing with that shit for years.

Anyway, point being, that just like in Romeo & Juliet, we've reached the point where if the Capulets and the Montagues don't find a way to get along, a lot of people are going to start dying. (At least in a, "you know, it's the industry and we've all got an inflated sense of our importance" kind of way.)The problem? Most people in the middle -- not quite Montagues, definitely not Capulets, have found working in the Canadian industry a bit hostile and so they have traditionally left.

Montagues -- who like U.S. product and storytelling -- there has to be a dialogue with Capulets, who just may embody a fresh take and an alternative to the dominant U.S. style of story and tone and execution -- even point of view.

When it comes to something like MIP and selling abroad, there's got to be more than "we're like a U.S. show only cheaper." There have been commenters on this blog over the last few years who have pointed out that it's weird that Canadians report success based on how many countries we sell in, not how many people watch us at home.

Well. That's not odd, though it should be. It's perfectly understandable. We're a colonized culture. Nothing's going to change that. Except, maybe, just maybe, making our stories more universal and not reactive to U.S. trends.

Stop waiting for the phone to ring.

Wow. You're good. You are magic. I can't believe, from my stool at my secret pub lair in Toronto, that you've read this far. Well done. Now, as a mint, I will reveal to you the spark for this overlong essay. This is a blast from the past, a pure, unadulterated Montague classic that fueled my thinking on this piece. This is crass, and obvious, and from another time. This is indicative of the lowest common denominator. This alone is reason why the Capulets, though they grate on me, have a point. This is an example of just how far we've come in developing watchable product in Canada, and it's a cautionary tale against opening the floodgates to second rate American "talent" who can't work at home but who will come up here and try to chart a course for the industry, if the CRTC has its way. These Montagues are still out there. Fear them.

To American and World readers, I present the following lexicon:

The woman in this picture is a Canadian actress, who's married to one of the two top Canadian news anchors. Imagine she's, say, the wife of Dan Rather.

This movie was produced by Canada's top movie producer.

This is what the Montagues were doing in 1984.
Please revel in the crassness.

And thanks to Dix for inspiring the link.

Ladies and gents, the box copy for 1984's Heavenly Bodies:


From the creators of Flashdance - comes a movie where dancing, music & romancing add up to the highest level of energy you are ever going to
find!

A disused warehouse is transformed into a workout club called HEAVENLY
BODIES. Now, instead of lifeless packages scattered about the place,
energetic women race into the locker room. Headbands are attached, leg
warmers are carefully pulled up well-defined calves and legs step into
leotards. Bras are unsnapped and feet are squeezed into sneakers.
Long, wavey hair is pulled back into a ponytail - the locker doors
slam and the class begins - THE ENERGY IS CREATED AND THE ACTION GETS UNDERWAY!

Awe.Some.

Sucking Blood, Very Nice, Yes, Sexy Sexy.

IT WON'T air in the U.S. for another month, and in Canada for another month and a half. But I've heard from a couple of places that my first Blood Ties episode, The Devil You Know, has aired in Kazakhstan, dubbed into Russian. I'm pretty stoked about that.

Greetings, Kazakh viewers.

I wish great health upon your leader, Nursultan Nazarbayev. Perhaps you can impress upon him the great joy that could be had by running the episodes in order?

Yes. Very nice.

What I Secretly Think About User Generated Content

courtesy of The Onion:


Viewer Voices: Where We Respond To The Opinions Of Our Uninformed Viewers

Three Small Things About The New Season

WELL, WELL. It's so hard to know things for certain. But there are some things I do know better now than I did yesterday at this time:

1. Pushing Daisies definitely can work in a week-to-week format, losing none of the charm of the pilot, even as it transits into the mystery of the week realm. Just seeing Chuck speak in Japanese and Kristin Chenowith warble made me smile. This show makes me feel good. That's something to be savored.
2. I respect Matt Neffer, Boy Spotwelder immensely, but after sitting stone faced through episode two of Cavemen, I have to say this baby's a definite cro-mag-NOT. It's not that it's offensive. It's not that it's stupid. It's neither of those things. Something else it's not: funny.
3. Just as I think I'm ready to give up on a show, then you read something like this Season Pass article on Carpoolers. Fume.
   

Blood Ties Returns in the U.S. of A.

APPARENTLY, IF you have an account with the U.S. Itunes store, (which normally means you have to have a U.S. Billing address, he said, hoping that the intrepid would be intrigued enough by the specific wording to explore other options, but sadly cognizant of the fact that most won't; or worse, will send me emails which I will not answer asking me how they could become members of the aforementioned store) you can now download Episode 13 of Blood Ties, which Lifetime still annoyingly calls the "Season 2 premiere."

I think it's also streaming on the Lifetime site.

Blood Ties returns to Lifetime for 10 all-new episodes starting Friday night at 11pm ET -- including the three that I wrote or co-wrote (We shot them as episodes 17, 18, and 21, so for purposes of Lifetime, they'll probably call them Season 2, Ep 5, 6 and 9. You do the math and tell me when they're on.)

For Canadian viewers, you're now only about 3 or 4 weeks behind the U.S. airing of the show.

When I saw Susanne Daniels, Lifetime's president at Banff back in June, she intimated that the ratings weren't that high for the show, but the paid Itunes downloads were significant.

Now you can see the Itunes download chart entering the calculus when people start talking about other shows. My guess is that it is a factor that's being watched more and more.

Lately, I've been getting a ton of email from people asking about a real second season of Blood Ties, and what's happening with it. In that persistent way of the genre fan, I know that anything I say will be parsed and re-parsed, and will most likely spark twenty or thirty follow up questions, none of which I can probably answer, even if I did know anything. So right now, I'm going to preface what I write very carefully: I have no absolute, concrete insider knowledge. I know nothing for certain. I can give you my personal opinion, which does not represent the views of anyone, or any company connected with the making, distribution, or televisual presentation of Blood Ties. The following is the sum total of what I have to say on the subject of a Blood Ties renewal. I apologize in advance for not being able to answer any of the questions that will start filling my mailbox five seconds after I hit 'post.' Most of them, I won't know the answers to, and none of them, could I answer even if I did. I hope you understand, and if you don't understand, well, then, sorry. Best I can do.

Okay.

My feeling is that for Blood Ties to be renewed for a real second season by Lifetime, with an investment that makes it possible to continue the show, the following things would need to happen:

1. Ratings for the second ten episodes are stronger than, or comparable to, the ratings for the first 12 eps. (Comparable would be amazing, since it's in a later timeslot.)
2. The overall Friday night lineup on Lifetime -- Lisa Williams, America's Psychic Challenge, and Blood Ties, does really well.
   
3. BT holds or even builds on the ratings of its lead in. That would be very good.
   
4. Strong ratings from women 18-49. That would not hurt a bit.
5. Blood Ties once again becomes one of the most-downloaded shows on Itunes. That wouldn't hurt, either.

There are lots of people who have speculated "what it means" that Lifetime has taken action A or action B.

They're all pulling that stuff out of the air. They don't know "what it means." I don't know what it means.

If three weeks from now, Blood Ties is number one on the Itunes Store download chart, and the Friday night airings on Lifetime are pulling equal or better numbers than in the spring, and beating or holding steady with the psychic stuff on before it, well, that might just mean something.

Or it might not.

TeeVee's funny that way.