My Weekend Reading

Thanks for your comments. Things are settling down and O.K., touch wood.

Jaime J. Weinman is probably one of only a couple of writers in Canada who thoughtfully write about Television regularly. (Which to my mind, is a very different thing than being a TV critic.) He's got a wonderful piece up at Macleans about "comedy torture." You know what I'm talking about, even if you don't.

How Long Until The Audience Snaps?

And as long as you're on the Weinman tip, why not check out this piece on his blog about why we don't see "Very Special Episodes" of sitcoms anymore. (It's also ineffably sad to see Michael J. Fox in his prime, before the cruelties of Parkinson's and Politics took their toll.)

And over at The Sun, Bill Brioux (who's either writing his way out the door with his true feelings, or maybe might not be feeling the axe's handle quite yet) comes up with a radical, if commonsense answer to the Canadian TV problem.

You know, silly me, trying to write about how complex the situation is. It occurs to me that if people can stand up there, bald faced, and say they need to charge people more for over the air networks, but can't possibly spend a dime more on Canadian shows, then the equal and opposite reaction should be radical suggestions like Brioux's. As the angry parent said to the recalcitrant child, "You brought this on yourself."

I still want to hear someone explain to me why, if we have ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, and CW on our cable dial already, and the Canadian networks aren't going to make any homegrown shows at all, well...why do we need Canadian networks again? Really.

And Sometimes Life Intervenes...

I've been dealing with something from the real world for the last 24. I'll be back when I can. In the meantime, may I suggest a glass McManis Viognier and maybe the veal marsala?

No?

Okay. In the meantime you should check out Peter Casey (Exec Producer, Frasier) on how that series came to be in a stellar three part post on Ken Levine's blog. I was lucky enough to hear this story more or less from Casey's mouth when he came and visited us when I was a resident at the Canadian Film Centre. You know, before all my dreams died.

Then there's this, an article on the latest CBC Hail Mary in a Sitcom Can. I have thoughts on Little Mosque on the Prairie, but those are for a different time. For now, just read the article, and as always, you can tell me what you think.

Now I need sleep and a shower. Maybe, who knows, all at once.

Time Out for Free Flowing Coolness

Moon Bl..okay, okay.

This is cooler than any thing I could possibly post about TV or TV writing today.

Sometimes you just have to let the imagination wander.




And then of course, there's this:





OMG. BESSSST. MUGSHOTTT. EVVVARR.

well, at least since this:



You know what, now that I think about it, I'm unfairly forgetting this:



Oh, Nick Nolte. You're dreamy.


I had high hopes for Tom Delay:



I don't know, though. It kind of just creeps me out. He looks like a child molester, not a crooked politician. It's not the goodness I'm looking for.


Oh man. I feel sooooo much better.

Long Taye's Journey Into Night (With Moon Bloodgood)

Mmm. Bloodgood.

I wanted to write about Daybreak for a couple of weeks now, but it seemed that maybe me and W.C. Dixon were the only ones watching it. But then he weighed in about it over at his place, Uninflected Images Juxtaposed, and I figured, Okay, now's the time.

Course, now it seems like ABC is going to futz with its schedule and either yank or move Daybreak, so we happy few viewers are going to be really rewarded. Sigh. Anyway.

Dixon seems to be struggling with the show's central conceit -- the endlessly repeating day -- and wondering if it all doesn't sound more like a movie.

But because each day begins the same way and everyone involved back at the same starting gate (except for our hero who knows what happened the day before so can try to change or influence events), the element of consequence seems to be entirely removed. Save the woman from the speeding bus, but arrive late to the hospital and sister gets taken downtown...bummer. But the next day we're back to square one, so our hero can save the woman from the bus AND get to the hospital or warn his sister - but he isn't able to stop his partner from hooking up with a bad seed. Awww man.

So there are Choices and episode specific Consequences, but those consequences start lose some of their uummph when we see the day start over again. It's like one big do over. And one might begin to cease to care. .. It still feels like a cool movie hook.

Of course, the movie comparison here is Groundhog Day. Though Ramis' movie was ostensibly a comedy (though a pretty dark one,) the setup was the same. Bill Murray keeps repeating the same day over and over, focusing his romantic attention on Andie MacDowell, trying to win her in a new way each day, only to have the whole mess reset to zero in the morning. Only when he learns to be a better person, and grow, and in a sense, give up his selfishness, does he get to progress to the next day.

In Groundhog Day, we're treated to a really enjoyable, and then really dark montage where Bill Murray moves through the day, frustrated, doing whatever he wants precisely because nothing has consequences. He can punch out someone who annoys him...he can even, when he's depressed and doesn't want to play anymore, just drive a truck through a wall. And the next day he wakes up.

(An aside: the really dark part for me was rewatching the film last year after not seeing it since it was out in the theatres. I remember thinking when I saw it the first time that his day probably repeated for a few months. But watching it years later, years older, I realized there were little clues (like the fact that he could play the piano like a virtuoso) that meant that he'd been going through the motions of the day for years. Maybe longer.)

That is a rather enervating concept for an ongoing drama series. But Daybreak did something very early on that got me to sit up and take notice, and probably got me to keep watching the show.

Very early in the series, Taye Diggs' character gets shot.

The next day, (which is the same day) he wakes up in bed with his girlfriend, Moon Bloodgood... what? Really? Okay. But this is the last one:
Anyway, the next day, she wakes up first, and finds that Taye's character, Hopper, is covered in blood. From the gunshot wound. That he still has.

So he winds up in the hospital, and the day goes awry from there, and so on and so on.

So... in that moment, the viewer has been given a very important piece of info about "The Rules of the World." In this world, everything that happens to Hopper sticks. If he's sleepy at the end of the day, he will wake up sleepy. If he got shot, he will wake up shot. So every day takes a toll on him.

Why is this interesting? Because it takes away the other potential suspense killer of the series: the fact that there is no clock. Say he screws up, so what, he's got do-overs, endless ones, like in a video game. Except that he doesn't. Because eventually he's going to catch another bullet, or make a mistake, or have an accident, or get so warn down that ... he dies. And the implication of that gunshot wound is that if he dies, he's dead. Interesting.

But that's only one part of it. And I still found that kind of head-interesting, but not really that heart-interesting. So the day has consequences for Taye. Okay. But it's still moving the chess pieces around, making some choices, forgoing others, all while trying to uncover the next clue that might get him closer to solving what happened.

Then, last week, they dropped another puzzle piece. And it was a big one.

One of the subplots involves Hopper's slightly crooked partner (Victoria Pratt) who coincidentally, looks like this:

Seriously, how can you not be watching this show?

Anyway, Pratt's character, Andrea, is involved with this junkie ex-cop. She scored dope for him, and that's why she's in trouble with Internal Affairs. We learn pretty much off the top that she and Hopper are estranged. He's been shutting her out for months. She knows it. She's in trouble with IAD, and he doesn't seem to be doing much to help.

He convinces her to help him out in one of the early eps, and for her trouble she gets shot and killed. Hopper feels pretty bad about that, but the next day she's alive again, so, you know, no harm no foul. He then spends a couple of cycles of the day telling her that he doesn't have time for her. Eventually, on one of the days, he says something off hand that escalates so she winds up killing her junkie boyfriend. Hopper feels bad that he failed his friend.

The next day, instead of tracking down another clue -- in fact, we're told, and he believes -- the biggest clue yet (a meeting with the stranger who plans to reveal all,) he responds to Andrea's entreaties for help. He helps her with the boyfriend.

But things go south. It winds up with the boyfriend taking Andrea hostage. Now we find out the history between Hopper and the boyfriend. In trying to talk him out of doing what he's doing, Hopper apologizes to him. It turns out that the guy was kicked off the force because of a positive drug test. Hopper didn't rat him out to get the drug test. (Which is what the guy believes,) but then again, Hopper knew the test was coming and did nothing to warn his friend. That's what he has to apologize for. Very emotional. The boyfriend lets Andrea go.

The next morning, when everything resets, Hopper is shocked when his phone rings right when he gets out of bed. That has never happened before. It's Andrea. She doesn't remember anything from the "day before," but she tells him that she woke up this morning and felt different. She tells him about the ex-boyfriend, and that she's taking him to rehab. She wants Hopper to help.

CUT TO Hopper driving the two of them to Rehab. In the backseat is one of the clues...a photo of a dead woman. The junkie boyfriend recognizes her. From one of his first cases when he was a cop.

Hopper has just scored his biggest clue yet -- one that he never would have gotten had he not "fixed" the situation with Andrea.

And now we have the full shape of the rules of Hopper's world. It goes straight back to good old Edmund Burke:

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

This is the moment that made me go, "whaaaa?" and think, "wow, this is a great series." So, like Groundhog Day, there's something more going on here than the conspiracy itself. The implication is that Hopper has to become a different person, and help those around him, in order to solve his dilemna.

I love this, because it deals with the whole cosmology of "why the hell is the day repeating" thing without really dealing with it. It posits that there's a hand guiding all this for some reason. I like my God hypotheses light, with a little lemon, so this fits just fine with me.

Point is, Daybreak is a far more interesting show than it first apppears. And just like Dixon wondered at how hellish it must be breaking story for this show, I find myself wondering how much back and forth there was about when to drop that little Andrea bomb. It's so much more dramatically interesting to drop it right where they did, but then again, maybe if you knew the rules of the world earlier, more people would have been intrigued enough to stick with the show...

It's a hellish tradeoff. Point is, even without this stuff, Daybreak is a great actioner in the style of 24. Diggs is winning as always, and the cast is populated with great actors who never get their props, like Adam Baldwin, and ridiculously good looking models who are actually pretty decent actors, like Pratt and Bloodgood. I'm not even going to mention (or post a picture of) the woman who plays Hopper's sister, because, I mean, come on. But she's also ridiculously hot. And let's face it, Daddy's a straight arrow, but damn, Diggs is hot, too. Everyone is hot hot hot.

In any show with a fantasy or sci-fi element, one of the most important things you can do is establish the rules of your world. They need to be clear, and once they're established, you cannot violate them. I worked on a show a few years back where the Executive Producer, when asked why things were happening, would respond, "because it's cool." Directors, too, sometimes want to do something "because it's cool."

And there again is the basic difference between series and film. In a series, you're designing a system...and doing something "because it's cool" is not acceptable. It has to conform to the rules of the game you've established. And if possible, reinforce those rules in the viewer's mind in a way that advances the story. Establishing the rules is like hiding pipe (exposition) - the only thing you can't do is stop the action while you explain the rules. You've gotta tell the audience as you go along. Daybreak did a very good job of that, in my opinion. It's just a shame more people didn't come along for the ride.

Oh, and...Moon Bloodgood. I know. I know. I'm weak.

I Swear to Baby Jesus, I am Not Spamming You.

This is not me.
I do not work for P&G, and I do not email market.

"It's not working quite as well as it used to, and the trend is a little disturbing," admits Denis McGrath, interactive marketing manager for Procter & Gamble. "We were doing better a couple years ago. The smart marketers have got to be asking: 'What's it going to be in the future?'"

Denis McGrath -- works at P&G in Interactive Marketing...

...why do I feel like an angel just walked over my grave?

My God, what if we're related. I mean, you know us Irish...

What I'd Say to the CRTC

From Tv, Eh, comes this account of the Screenwriters (WGC) testimony before the CRTC hearings yesterday. (I believe this is the WGC release)

Watershed Moment for the CRTC to Save Canadian TV

Canadian screenwriters travelled to Ottawa today to urge the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to save Canadian television by restoring Canadian drama expenditure requirements for over-the-air broadcasters like CTV, Global and CHUM.

“English-language broadcasters say they are committed to Canadian drama, but right now there is only one Canadian drama series on air in Global’s prime time schedule, and three on CTV’s,” said Suzette Couture, an award-winning screenwriter who wrote the most-watched TV movie of 2005, The Man Who Lost Himself. “That’s discouraging for experienced writers who are forced to look for work in the U.S. It’s even more discouraging for emerging screenwriters – but ultimately, it means no Canadian television drama for Canadian audiences.”

Joining Couture at the CRTC hearings into the future of television was James Hurst, showrunner for the hit series Degrassi: The Next Generation, and one of the few Canadian screenwriters with a show on in prime time. Hurst told the CRTC that having the opportunity to work on over 100 episodes of his show helped him learn his craft. “Some broadcasters have made the pitch for quality over quantity, but that’s the wrong way to go. You can’t make quality programming that Canadians want to watch by producing one series a year. And you can’t build an audience on limited runs and repeats.”

Canadian screenwriters are requesting that private, English-language broadcasters be required to spend a minimum of 7% of their advertising revenues on the production of Canadian drama, as well as more money on script and concept development.

“It’s no coincidence that eight of the top ten shows in Canada are American dramas,” said screenwriter Rebecca Schechter, president of the Writers Guild of Canada (WGC). “Drama, in particular one-hour drama, is the most popular form of entertainment in the world. If this country doesn’t produce quality drama of its own, Canadians will watch someone else’s.”

“We are presenting a completely manageable formula for broadcasters,” explained Maureen Parker, WGC Executive Director. “Spending goes up as revenues go up, and goes down if revenues are down. The CRTC now can step up to the plate and protect the public’s interest by ensuring they will have the choice to see Canadian drama on TV.”

The Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) represents more than 1800 professional screenwriters across Canada who create the distinctly Canadian entertainment we enjoy on our television, movie screens, radio and computers – such as dramatic TV series and movies, feature films, documentaries, animation programs, comedy and variety series, children’s and educational programming, radio drama, corporate videos and digital media productions.

It goes without saying that I support everything the WGC does on my behalf. But Suzette Couture?

I have nothing against Suzette Couture. But she's the wrong standard bearer. Suzette Couture has no problem getting things made. She's had a whole career. They've seen her speak before.

I wish they'd taken a few more mid level writers and had them stand before the commission and say, "If you don't change this policy, you're forcing me to become an economic migrant. The proximity of Canada to the USA will always mean that some talented people choose to go south. But right now you've stacked the deck so against us that it barely seems like a choice."

Then I'd point out what happens to countries, historically, when they don't control or guide their own culture.

I just feel like it's the usual suspects chatting to the usual suspects. It's depressing.

Global's New Series

In a press release, Canwest Global announced its new Canadian series today. The relevant parts, with annotation:

CanWest's 2007 original programming rollout begins with the second season premiere of international hit FALCON BEACH (13 x 60 min), Friday, January 5, 2007 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Global Television.

Because I know you've been waiting for it, chickens.

Other diverse series in production and set to premiere in Spring 2007 include

* Season Two of acclaimed, observational workplace comedy THE JANE SHOW (13 x 30)

I just heard buttlescutt last night that a very funny Toronto female comic whose Fringe shows I quite enjoy is now working on this.

* THE BEST YEARS (13 x 60), a campus-life drama from writer/creator Aaron Martin (Degrassi: The Next Generation)

This is probably the show with one of the best pedigrees. I just hope they're brave in development. Martin is a great writer, and he's got a team of some of the best writers working in Canada right now. I would love, love, love this to be Global's out of the box hit.

* DA KINK IN MY HAIR (13 x 30), a heart-warming series based on the popular stage play

Another show that was originally in development at CBC til "creative differences" intervened.

* LOVE YOU TO DEATH (13 x 30), a black-comedy anthology starring cult filmmaker John Waters

I continue, against all hope or sense, to root for the anthology format.

* PAINKILLER JANE (22 x 60), a sci-fi stunner starring Kristanna Loken (Terminator 3) and Rob Stewart

Good title, at least. And look at that -- Sci Fi stunner. Stunner. I like the cut of the PR release writer's jib.

* DURHAM COUNTY (6 x 60), an intense police drama starring Hugh Dillon and Justin Louis.

Good cast, and great buzz. I guess they're sharing this one with TMN. Global's probably second window like on ReGenesis. I hear so many good things about this that I'd love to read a script. Hope it works.

I find myself sicky fascinated with Global's production slate, since I had a dog in that hunt, too, onceuponatime. I had a series in development there last year that wasn't picked up. Not only that, but it was my favorite thing I've ever written ever. Not only THAT, but now that NBC's developing a series based on THANK YOU FOR SMOKING, I can reveal that I wrote the pilot for this sweet, sweet, dead, dead show, which totally explores a similar world and workspace which quite a few people told me would never be a good series -- anyway..not bitter...not bitter .. I wrote the first draft of the pilot and bible for this show in 2001.

Global believed in the show and the writing enough to put it into development last year. So I'm grateful for that. Sniff. Not as grateful if they'd...but no...no...this isn't the time for that.

Sigh. Your new series are lovely, Hubble.

I'm going to go sulk now.

Not really.

(Really.)

Requiem for a Stargate

Have you ever discussed your opinion of Sci-Fi's Stargate SG-1 or Atlantis? Those two shows were supposed to be bigger than Star Trek at one time. Both are filmed in Vancouver and employ many Canadian actors. I am really interested in your take on the whole thing and the business side of things. After celebrating ten years of the show, Sci-Fi decided to pull the plug and not renew the series. How nasty is that? Yes, I know it's a business, but the timing really sucked. What is your opinion?

I might have alluded to it in the past, but I don't know if I ever came at it head on. I always really appreciated Stargate SG-1 because I thought it was well-executed and it knew exactly what it was. I haven't watched it too much since Ben Browder took over, but one of the things I think it had going for it was its sense of humor. The way Richard Dean Anderson delivered his quips, well...they were funny lines delivered well, and elevated even further by the performance.

I also think that Stargate transcended the film it was based on pretty quickly. It was always, like Buffy, a much richer television idea than a movie idea. There were so many stories to tell in that world.

Stargate was also a very important show in the realm of Canadian Content. Once upon a time, there were lots of shows like Stargate shot in Canada. But most of them had writing staffs that were filled entirely out of L.A. In some cases, by Canadian expats, so they got the full cancon credits, but if you actually lived in Toronto or Vancouver where the show was shot, you were screwed.

Stargate employed a lot of Canadians not just below the line, but above it. It's a show with a pretty decent budget that gave many Canuck writers a chance to move up. I know a couple of people who broke on Stargate, and the main showrunner there for several years has been Canadian. The spinoff, Atlantis, continues that tradition.

The shows were fun. Things blew up, you were entertained. Distribution of the show was spotty in Canada, so I really kind of discovered it on DVD. If you think Corner Gas gets no credit, well, Stargate's even in worse shape on that score. But screw those haters. It's made a lot of writers a lot of money, and trained them, too. So it's done the hell of a lot more for our industry than many of the other shows the cultural snobs will point to as "telling our stories."

And as for genre stuff, well let's just say that in my years at the Canadian Sci-Fi Channel, Space, I saw a LOT of bad shows that gave me a headache and made me think the future of Sci-fi TV was mired in terrible schlock. Compared to a lot of that, Stargate was like a sip of Fiji water.

And, I hate to say this, but ten years for Stargate? That's beyond awesome as far as a long run goes. It's almost inconceivable. Stargate did really well in syndication around the world, even after that market mostly dried up, and that's what kept it going all those years.

But after ten years, I can't really see Sci-Fi as the bad guy here. They're the ones who stepped in when the original network was going to drop it. They kept it going longer than anyone thought they would. From a business standpoint, after that long you're simply going to be risking running out of story areas or repeating yourself (How badly did Star Trek suck at the end, after repeating itself on fumes through about two series?) Not to mention the fact that your cast is going to demand more money and start to be more expensive...you're going to have to train new writers, new showrunners because your other talent is going to get antsy...and then there's the syndication package itself. If you have enough episodes for five days a week strip syndication, you're going to reach that magic tipping point where it's not worth making more, because you won't make enough back in adding value to the syndie or DVD packages to make up for the investment.

I find it hard to accept that a show that survived cast changes, and ran 10 seasons without a noticeable drop in quality has somehow been hard done by.

I'm tremendously grateful for Stargate SG-1, even though I never made a dime off it. Because I know I'll probably be working someday soon with writers, actors, and crew who cut their teeth on that show. They were trained right, they made a great contribution to the Canadian industry, and they did it all without once being celebrated at home. How very, very Canadian.

Studio 60 Fa la la la la

It's been proven time and time again that competition is good, so long as it's fair. In fact, competition makes creative people better. No Revolver, no Pet Sounds and all that.

And so the teeter-totter between the great competing "behind the scenes of a comedy show" series.

In response to my post of a couple weeks back, where I reluctantly admitted that maybe 30 Rock was the show with momentum, commenter Robyn posted this question, and link:

What do you think about this piece, which basically says Studio 60 fails because it talks too little about comedy writing?

Well. I think that piece is pretty much dead on the money. But wait, sports fans...let's go to the tape.

Studio 60 is coming up at the three-quarter turn...precisely because they've decided that maybe, just maybe, the comedy is the way to go.

It's always interesting to see shows adjust their ground game -- once they get past the inital panic of "are we going to get pulled," "are we going to get picked up?" Dramas, especially, take some time to find their feet. There's tons of examples to cite, so I'm going to punt and not cite any, but trust me when I say if you love a show that ran a while, it's not on the strength of Episodes 1 through 6. Even if Episode 1 was pretty good.

I thought Episode 1 of Studio 60 was pretty good. I stuck with it. I stuck with it even when it started to trough. But along about the time that second John Goodman episode aired, I was starting to seriously lose my religion.

But judging by the last two weeks, the ship has more than righted itself. It's more like Sorkin has gotten a clearer idea of what he wants the show to be. And Hallejuhah, apparently he wants it to be funny.

Last night's episode (which airs Monday night if you're south of the 49) managed, in parts, to approximate some rat-a-tat Front Page sensibility. There's a lightness that works when smacked against the ponderous stuff, which, of course you're never going to get rid of -- it's still Sorkin.

But like a lot of shows when they find their feet, Studio 60 is starting to make some key adjustments. As the article linked above demonstrates, the addition of Mark McKinney, writer and now performer, as the sardonic, doesn't find anything funny writer -- is a masterstroke. And slowly, they're fleshing out the personalities of the new writers -- and connecting them to the larger cast.

Add to that one of the big problems from the pilot: that P.A. character who seemed like she was important and never went anywhere? Well, now she's Matt's assistant. So Matt has a foil. Check. This time, it's not Bradley Whitford who gets a Donna. Time will tell if the chemistry between Perry and the actress playing his assistant reaches or even attempts to reach that level -- but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

The cynicysm that underlies the writers' attempts to torpedo Matt's Christmas spirit was well handled. And the nice thing is that for once, Mr. Smartypants Sorkin didn't bust out his usual textbook kid who knows all the answers thing, and tie a bow on the cliche that it's ALWAYS been Jews in Hollywood who've been most into pushing the Christmas spirit. Irving Berlin? White Christmas? Hello?

And don't even get me started on Nazi Claus.

The gold standard of behind the scenes shows was always Larry Sanders, which turned on Larry's self importance, meanness and self-absorption. That was never a formula that was going to work for Studio 60. But with the lightness of the latest episode, they finally found the way to counterpoint the heavy stuff; it's cause of the joyful fast moving bits, that the spectacle of the New Orleans tribute really, truly landed.

And as an added bonus: the Canadian TV writing tip. When they introduced Mark McKinney's character in the last ep, they told you off the top that he's a former writer for the show whose wife and son were killed in a car accident.

As the hostage taking story played out in the B.G., never once did they make that text again. They'd told you what his history was -- you were expected to infer into all the subsequent discussions how he might just be looking at the unfolding action a little differently than anyone else...

In Canada, you would have gotten the note: "remind people why he's feeling what he's feeling" And that would have killed it. But unless you were particularly vicious, persuasive, or foolhardy, you would not have been able to talk a Canadian gatekeeper out of that note. Lesson one.

Studio 60 is back, baby. It's back.

and in an unrelated note...this week's Battlestar Galactica looks like it has the Sci-Fi fans saying "ho hum" -- but I thought it was one of the best uses of flashback and non linear structure I'd ever seen. The contrast between the gritty hardness of the present of the Galactica crew -- and the element that we haven't seen before -- the time when New Caprica still offered hope...was sublime. And the revelation of all that had been hinted at in the subtext was pretty satisfying, too. Great writing. This is one I'm going to go back and watch again the next time I need to tackle flashback structure.

But I fear the gulf between BSG's "genre" fans and its "drama" fans is going to grow ever wider. It's clear that Ron Moore isn't interested in pandering to the tropes of the genre. And sci-fi fans love their tropes.

Pull Up A Chair, Star Readers

Hello to everyone who's surfing in for the first time from The Toronto Star, who linked to my recent Corner Gas article. Dead Things On Sticks is a rantspace and a procrastination focuser for me. My name's Denis, I'm a TV writer who lives in Toronto. My most recent project is something you won't be able to see until next year. I co-created and wrote a six part series for CHUM called Across The River To Motor City.

On this blog, I talk a lot about Canadian TV and the media. Here's some of the posts that have gotten the most attention.

A student wanted to interview me about Canadian TV. Here's the result.

Richard Stursberg likes to spin the CBC numbers. Me, not so much.

So the Canadian networks want to charge you more to watch their signals? Here's what I think about that.

The CFC did a couple of TV pilots recently. Here's a report on the screening.

I offered up my recent ideas on 10 Things That Would Make Canadian TV Better. Then the readers responded.

But it's not all Canadian TV here. I talk about American TV a lot too. Like what happens when Good series go bad.

As a writer, you have to be flexible about your ideas.

Why am I watching Heroes and not Friday Night Lights?

Oh, and not to alarm anyone, but I kind of have a man-crush on This American Life's Ira Glass.

And here's a post that collects most of my other big posts about writing.

Take a poke around the blog, and I'm sure you'll find something you like.

Liberal Leadership Convention

This is unbelievably awesome television.
I am a desperate geek.

Gettin Schooled

THUNKA THUNKA THUNKA.

That's rain outside my window that looks suspiciously like it wants to be snow. This is the kind of weather that makes a rewrite much, much easier. Blueglow will be relieved that I shant be haunting the coffee shops today. (Still gotta write about that.)

So the better to get to work, and ease into the weekend, I need something easy to write. Hmm. Let's see. Here we've got an email from Nicole. Nicole is a journalism student somewhere here in the fine Province of Ontario, and she writes:

For my final assignment I am doing an article on Canadian media—specifically how America affects Canadian television and Canadians viewing habits. If you feel like you could give me any insight or views into this subject, I would like to interview via-email.

Sure Nicole, sounds fun. And since everything is repurposed for content here at Dead Things Labs, let's have a giggle and share Nicole's questions and my answers to the group, shall we?

Here are my questions..thank you so much for taking the time and helping me out. You rock!

I really don't. At best, I sway. But Thanks. Shoot.

Do you think there is any difference between writing tv for Canadians as opposed to Americans? Explain.

I think so. There's several ways to answer that question. First, though I truly believe there is a difference, I'm not sure our industry has done a very good job of exploiting what that difference is, yet.

On a basic level, the difference is that Canadians are not as insular as Americans are. The great bulk of Americans have very little curiosity about other cultures or an international perspective. (They have more now than they did five years ago, to be sure, but it's still tied up in post-9/11 fear and a sense of threat, not genuine curiosity about the world.) Americans tend not to be too interested if the show isn't about Americans, or something happening in America. I have a hard time explaining this to Canadians, a lot of the time, but Americans tend to kind of be isolationist as a people. (Their government's experiments in imperialism notwithstanding.)

What that means is that I think you can write a bit more about the situation in the world, or feel free to set something other than Chicago or New York, or have a character from a different part of the world in a Canadian work, rather than an American work.

The peculiar thing about Canadians, of course, is that they spend their whole lives absorbing and observing a culture that they're intimately familiar with, of which they aren't really a part. I think that might make Canadians more introspective as a people. So maybe characters who are more thoughtful, and more considered, rather than "men of action" could play here, more than in the U.S.

If you believe the ratings, smarter shows that use irony do a little better with Canadians. God bless'em, the great bulk of the American people don't really cotton much to irony. They didn't get it when Mark Twain tried it a hundred years ago, and they don't get it now. Irony rules the internet, and snarky magazine pieces, but not that mass TV audience.

On a more practical level, the differences have to do with social pressure. Because the religious right isn't quite as militant or influential in Canada, you can portray things that you simply can't in the USA: teenagers can have sex on TV here, without immediately getting pregnant. If they do get pregnant, they could actually have an abortion, not be forced to keep the baby or have a magic miscarriage. Degrassi actually had lots of trouble getting some of their shows past the N, though it's their most popular show. Shows that aired here and were no big deal were too hot to handle down south. That's telling. The Sopranos runs on CTV here unbleeped. Dropping an F or an S bomb won't be thought of as bringing the whole of western civilization to a halt. And, of course, Canadians are mostly allergic to jingoism, that kind of "My country right or wrong" rah-rah stuff you see in a lot of CBS shows. Oh, and people here who smoke pot do so without immediately trading up to heroin. They are not necessarily evil.

But on the other hand, there are lots of things that are going to be similar in writing TV for Canadians. They demand the production values, pacing, and quality they see from the best U.S. shows. And so they should. That's the place where, sadly, we have to do better. And it's a challenge, because we're never going to have the money most U.S. shows have.

That's a long answer, Nicole. But that's what you get for asking a complicated question.

What do you think makes a successful Canadian show?

I don't think there's a magic bullet or yardstick. And again, that question needs to be parsed a little bit, because are you talking success in terms of ratings or revenue, or in terms of being artistically successful? I'm going to assume the latter, because I think it's a more interesting answer and I'm the one answering the questions here, Nicole, let's not forget that.

Oh..you're getting a text message? I'll wait.

There. (I'm kidding, of course, this is an email interview. I've never even met Nicole, though I think she has superb taste in interview subjects.) John Doyle, the TV writer for the Globe and Mail, thinks there's a gentleness to it. And I tend to think that's part of it. American comedies really evolved to a place where we were laughing at people being nasty to each other. Corner Gas is a lot more gentle, and a million and a half people watch it every week, which is a huge number for Canada. The people on Corner Gas tolerate each other, and may get annoyed from time to time, but there isn't nastiness. Trailer Park Boys has a ton of swearing, but the characters form, in their own way, a sweet, supportive family. (One of my favorite things in TPB is the way they handled the gay relationship between Mr. Lahey and Randy. Nobody cared. It was just matter of factly revealed. Nobody has a problem with the two of them because they're gay. It's a far bigger deal that Lahey is always drunk and Randy never wears a shirt.) Degrassi, in all its incarnations, was successful because it spoke to its audience about subjects that U.S. TV wouldn't touch, and it didn't judge or talk down to them. So that's something.

I think successful Canadian shows come out of not replicating U.S. formulas -- but in trying to speak to the parts of the Canadian psyche that don't get represented on U.S. TV. Sometimes that's executed in a clumsy or unsatisfying way, but when creators here do a series with the audience in mind, and not so focused on "what they want to say," that helps. And being different because we're different -- not being different than American shows for the sake of merely being different, is huge, too. I don't know if you see that there's a huge difference between those two things, but there is. If you take another Canadian show that I think works, Rent-A-Goalie, the obvious, surface thing is that it's about hockey. But the thing that makes it work isn't that -- it's the gentleness underneath the fart and jock jokes; the sense of family, just like Trailer Park Boys.

How is Canadian TV affected by America?

Profoundly. We're the only country in the world that receives U.S. network feeds in their entirety on our cable systems. So their shows are all on at the same time as in the USA. No other country has this burden, and it is a burden, because in many ways we really are what Hollywood would like us to be: an extension of the U.S. domestic market.

The USA is the largest and most successful exporter of culture the world has ever known. And we're right next door. In other countries, people love U.S. shows, but they also love their own cop shows, their own lawyer shows, or family dramas, or soaps, or talk shows. Canada is an anomaly in the sense that most of our top 20 shows are American.

What makes it even stranger is that you'll see lots of Canadians stand up and wave the flag for Canadian music, or Canadian books, -- hell, they'll get all misty eyed at Hockey Night in Canada and the "I Am Canadian" beer ad, but they're more than happy to watch another nation's values and obsessions on TV every night. It's a disconnect, to be sure. I just happen to think it's a disconnect that we in the Canadian TV industry have sometimes made worse.

The new season of Degrassi seems to be sexed up. Do you think this is this a way for CTV to compete with American shows kike the OC?

I really don't think so, no. I think it's just a function of where those characters are in their lives right now. I actually haven't watched Degrassi for a few years, so when I tuned in I was shocked by how old they've all gotten. No wonder they're all sexed up -- they're all 19 and 20 years old and totally hot.

Degrassi always aged the kids in real time. And now that they're practically adults, well, all those hormone stories aren't so taboo anymore. And the great truth that Canadian TV can say that U.S. tv can't is that by the time kids get to the end of high school, the majority of them are sexually active -- at least in some fashion.

What is your opinion on the Cancon mandate?

I think it's important. There are some really radical people in my industry who think that we should have a quota system like France where I think 60% of their prime time has to be homegrown fare. I think that's totally unrealistic, and you'd probably have a viewer revolt, and the Canadian networks would really suffer. And Oh My Lord that would mean a whole lot of crap on the air. So I don't favor that at all.

But the arguments that people make against Cancon quotas are exactly the same arguments they made against forcing stations to play Canadian music. And for a few years, yeah, that meant playing the same bad stuff a little too much...but the industry matured. And now, I think you've got to say that Canada's domestic music scene is arguably more vibrant and interesting than the U.S. scene, especially since we're ten times smaller. Whether you're talking bands that only really succeed domestically like Blue Rodeo or Tragically Hip, buzz bands that are indie music darlings in the U.S. like Broken Social Scene, Feist, Arcade Fire. K-os, Sum 41 -- hell, none of these bands would be around if not for the regulations that allowed Canadian artists to get a toehold and not be overwhelmed by the much larger American market.

If there's a consistency to support for Canadian TV, we'll get to that place, too. Because people will be able to get better, get more experience, move up in the ranks and not have to go south to work in TV, which is what happens now. In fact, if they hadn't changed the rules in 1999, I bet we'd have more hits on the air right now than Corner Gas. It takes a few years. But I think we saw with the rule change where the Networks' priorities are. Once they didn't HAVE to put Canadian drama and comedy on the air...boom...they stopped. Overnight.

I also think this is contingent on separating the Canadian Film and TV industries a bit. Canadian Film is arthouse film. Nobody wants to see arthouse TV. The people who should be creating TV shows here should be people with a commercial, audience-entertaining sensibility. These people, in the past, haven't been the ones getting TV shows here. So, like David Shore (House,) Hart Hanson, (Bones, Judging Amy) and a bunch of Simpsons writers-- they went to the USA.

What do you think the CRTC must do to ‘save’ Canadian TV?

Go back to the carrot and the stick. Right now the networks are asking for carriage fees, so they can charge cable operators to carry their signals. Which are mostly simulcasts of U.S. shows, which is a big fat joke on the Canadian public. Try explaining to the Canadian public that they have to pay 10 bucks more a month for cable just so they can watch CSI on CTV and not CBS. See how far you get.

They also want more ad time, they want to count infomercials as CanCon. It's pure greed. Utterly silly.

The CRTC should restore a quota: 7% of private broadcasters revenues have to go into Cancon, period. They should also stipulate a number of hours a week in primetime that has to be devoted to homegrown scripted programming. That's the stick. Then offer the carrot: breaks or credits on Adtime for spending money to actually promote these homegrown shows. There are people smarter than me that probably have better ideas about this, but the bottom line is that Canadian networks have treated their homegrown shows as a nuisance. Something has to be done to force them to really try to invest in these programs' success. Broadcasting licenses in this country are not a right, they are a privlege, and they have to step up as corporate citizens here. They're crying poor, but broadcasting in this country has been and continues to be ABSURDLY profitable. All we're asking for here is our fair share -- and 7% is not a lot, in context. Networks who spend 300 million a year on U.S. shows and then balk at spending more than 90 million on homegrown shows just aren't credible.

What do you think about the CRTC hearing going on this week?

It would be nice if the commission showed some teeth. The broadcasters have gotten their way for so long that I think they just expect to get whatever they ask for. It's outrageous that they're standing up there, asking for even more breaks and protection, and then out of the other side of their mouth whining that there's no room to spend money on domestic shows. I hope people finally wake up and realize that these guys want to charge them more every month for stuff that they're already getting, and not give anything back to anyone. We'll see.

Bill Brioux Laid Off

This might not mean much to anyone who doesn't follow Canadian TV or the SUN newspaper chain's CANOE site, but Bill Brioux, long time Sun TV critic, was one of 16 people laid off yesterday in the Toronto newsroom.

Brioux was cantankerous. I thought he was sometimes unfair to the CBC (and if I'M saying that, well, you see what I'm saying) but he was a good writer and his stuff wasn't pablum. I'm going to miss his articles. I hope he turns up somewhere else on the TV beat. At least he said what he really thought. We're going to need some good TV critics with context and experience if we're to rebuild this industry.

I Punched A Whale

"...down he went. Like Liston"

Ah, Scrubs. Welcome Back.

NBC Comedy Thursdays, you scamp. How we've missed you.

Never mind the fact that I got to hear Tina Fey say, "I'm back with Denis" several times.

Oh yeah.

You heard me.

Hi Lar Eee Ous

I don't know how many of you read the Globe and Mail, and if you do, if you follow John Doyle as religiously as I do, but his column today is stunning in a "you gotta be kidding" kind of way.

You know Michael Apted's "7 Up" series? The documentary series where he followed a group of British schoolkids every seven years and traced, through their lives, the changes in contemporary British society? If you haven't seen these films and you're a writer, you really should see them -- more insight per minute that just about anything else you're likely to see, when it comes to character, especially writing characters over time...

Anyway, in Canada, the CBC heavily promoted their broadcast of the latest installment, 49 Up. But when people tuned in, they found something off and wrong.

Turns out the CBC edited out an entire character for time. Boom. Picked one of the people, and cut them out of the film, every time they spoke. Start to finish. The hilarious, indelible thing? This is one of three women who were interviewed together for the first time as kids...so if you are a fan of the films, you have these three women linked in your mind. They used the other two. Just...snip. One was gone. No explanation.

I mean, really, how does that conversation even get past the "Is this a good idea?" stage?

Me On The Ray-Dee-Yo: The Sound Files Edition

Caveat and proviso: I don't have any idea about how to host audio or anything. I also don't know if it's kosher to post these. Remember, I not only use a Mac, I use Blogger. None of your fancy Wordpress for me, no sir. People asked, so here's a link to two of the interviews I did the other day about the future of Canadian TV on CBC Radio. If the link don't work, um...I can't help. And if someone from the CBC says, "you have to take those down," I will do so. That's just the kind of team player I am.

For Windsor, where I managed to sneak in a small, awkward plug for Across The River to Motor City, try here.

For Sydney, Nova Scotia, where I think the host was probably the most engaged, you can click here.

Thanks to Diane for these, and the links, too. (And Diane, if they result in too much traffic from the ten thousand hits I get a day, let me know and I'll take'em down.)

Just kidding. I don't get 10 000 hits.

Britney Spears, no underwear.

Uh oh. How'd that get in there? Now we're screwed.

Apologia

I've sufficiently defrosted from my trip to Calgary that I can now see humor, and not simply wonder in the fact that I'm somewhere almost forty degrees warmer than I was on Monday.

On the other hand, they did have snow, and didn't call out the army to deal with it.

That reminded me of one of my favorite bits from venerable Canadian comedy institution This Hour Has 22 Minutes. If you go to their site, you can see some of the sketches that were, for various reasons, not allowed to air.

My favorite has got to be the "Ski Doo Apology." (It's in Flash video, so I can't embed.) Americans, you'll probably recognize Colin Mochrie from Whose Line Is It Anyway? Yup. He's one of them crypto-Canadians too.

Wet snowsuits. Classic.

How About A Writing Tip?

I know, I know -- you'd love to hear more about the arcana of the Canadian television system, right?

Bueller?

No?

Okay, how about this:

When you write, so much about getting in the frame is about changing your point of view. Part of why I stopped writing on a desktop computer and went all laptop, all the time, was the ability to change your location, and immediately change your point of view. There's a couple of coffee shops near me I like to haunt, and one bar/resto. But sometimes even that's not enough.

If you're at home and you have your newspapers, if you read them, get tuned into what's going on in the world, that's one way to broaden your perspective. I make sure when I'm not actively writing something to start each day with coffee in one hand, New York Times and Globe and Mail in the other. But sometimes, more drastic measures are needed.

Sometimes, when I really want to open my way of looking at the world, when I want to think differently, I switch it up by becoming a media tourist.

Instead of reading my papers every day, I read someone else's.

For a while after Katrina it was the Times-Picayune. The Irish Times is also kind of cool. And what about this newspaper, in English, from The Netherlands? I've always loved Austin, Then, for nostalgia's sake, there's the Cape Times. While I was in South Africa, Ronald Reagan died. The difference between that coverage, and the coverage you were seeing in the USA was...illuminating. Ronald Reagan wasn't too popular with South Africans, that whole not condemning apartheid and all...

If you consume news every day for a week from someone else's perspective (and ONLY someone else's perspective -- you can't cheat and read a paper or check Google News or something. It only works if you completely immerse yourself in this one news source) I find it frees up your thinking. It makes you think differently about place, and your patterns. It's just something that kind of helps me. Try it. See if it does the same for you.

It Was Good To Be The King

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Alll Waxxxamaan!

Believe it or don't, once upon a time Canada had a sitcom that reached 2 million people a week and was kind of sharp, too. You can't see it. Not yet, anyway. But maybe that might change sometime soon, as this article in the Toronto Star points out:

Larry King, the friendly Jewish storekeeper played by the late Al Waxman in his most famous role, was a good-hearted slob who enjoyed solving problems and making people happy. But here is a problem even Larry might find hard to resolve.
After going off the air in 1980, the show seemed destined for eternal afterlife in reruns. Before Corner Gas, it was the only hugely popular sitcom in Canadian television history.
Had the CBC realized how successful it would be, no doubt it would have tied up the rights to rerun it in perpetuity. Instead, those rights ran out in 2002. And negotiations to keep the show on the air have hit a snag. Many players came to an agreement with the CBC. The deal-breaker is an impasse with Louis Del Grande, who was a story editor and writer during the first three seasons, but not involved in the last two seasons.

The show dealt with social issues — from Larry's low sperm count, to the bureaucratic barriers faced by would-be immigrants, to Cathy's desire for independence.
Teenage delinquency was the subject of a show in which a young Mike Myers played a scam artist.
King struck such a nerve that at its peak, close to two million viewers watched it every week and Waxman became that rarity, a genuinely Canadian pop star whom people all across the country wanted as their friend.

Hope they work this out. Even just for TV history's sake.

Thanks for listening to me prattle

A lot of nice emails and comments from people. Thanks for all that. I got bumped off the air in Toronto. And Edmonton canceled. Dunno why. Oh well.

A few people already sent me MP3's of Halifax, Sydney, Saint John, and Windsor. I love the internets. It really is a series of tubes.

Thanks to Diane, and also Dan Misener, who loves the radio and somehow survived me teaching him at Ryerson. I remember you well, Misener.

So hey, anybody with Ottawa, Winnipeg, Calgary or Thunder Bay, let me know, m'kay?

It was a really interesting experience.

Wow. And hits are up by 60%. Power of radio, people. To brand new visitors, I say: I really don't want more of your tax money. And I really do want to help make shows you want to see.

Keep reading, and hopefully you'll see that. Feel free to comment, too. We're a big happy family here at Dead Things Labs.