The Newsroom

I'm having trouble with The Newsroom. Dear friends of mine love the show. And yet I find it to be a pompous show about people whose jobs are not really that important.

In THE WEST WING, the characters made decisions that affected millions of people. Their struggles really mattered. In STUDIO 60, the characters made a fluffy variety show, but it was sort of funny that they took their jobs so seriously. And the show was more about the personalities, anyway; we weren't expected to root for whether one skit got on the air or not (except if a character cared about it for her own sake).

But THE NEWSROOM actually seems to be about whether the characters manage to get their sound bites on the air before, or better than, their competitors. It seems to take it for granted that I should care, as if the characters were, say, cops, or soldiers, or doctors, or firemen. I'm experiencing a failure of stakes and jeopardy here. I'm having trouble buying in.

Is it about the wonderful, fresh, witty characters, and the unique and surprising situations they get into?

Are you buying in?

Okay, I Give Up

We watched the "bitcoin" episode of THE GOOD WIFE. I'm about ready to give up on this show.

When we started watching, THE GOOD WIFE was a sharply written character-based drama about a woman who'd been betrayed, torn between her untrustworthy husband and her boss. There was a procedural element, but we watched the show for the human drama. Which was was Alicia going to jump? Was she going to make it on her own? How would she raise her kids under all that pressure? Could she ever trust her husband again? Did she want to?

Now it seems as if it's become almost a pure procedural. Most of the bitcoin episode was a series of investigations about who Mr. Bitcoin might be. Sure, Bitcoin is interesting territory. But I'm not watching the show to watch about cryptographic currency.

The B story was an incredibly lame runner in which Alicia warns her son not to get too involved with his incredibly cute and polite girlfriend, because she heard him say "I love you." This was manufactured drama. Most parents know better than to tell their teenager not to date someone -- assuming you can affect the relationship at all, which is unlikely, you'll just drive your teenager into rebellion or deceit. ("Okay, fine, I won't bring her over. I'll just leave home and never come back!") And why would she object to the girlfriend, who's apparently a smart, hard-working, straight-A student? It rings false.

Somewhere along the line, it seems that the writers of THE GOOD WIFE forgot what was interesting about their main character. They had her ditch her husband permanently, sleep with the boss, and then ditch him too. She has no stakes in the episodes any more. There is no real jeopardy for her. All she seems to want is "to be a good lawyer." All the interesting plotlines go to Kalinda, who has some tough choices to make.

In general, they seem to have forgotten a lot about their characters. There was an episode where Diane Lockhart has to tell Eli Gold to make friends in the law firm. Eli Gold, of course, is a political fixer who knows everyone in Chicago. Nobody should need to tell him he needs allies.

Ah, well. Let me know if it gets better, would you?

Grimm

Watched the "3 Little Pigs" episode of GRIMM. Aside from the atrocious, leaden acting, the "push" storytelling, and the way the nominal main character never really had a difficult decision to make, what bothered me most was how little it mattered that the show is supernatural. There are possible perpetrators who turn into sort-of-werewolves and sort-of-werepigs, but the clues are fingerprints, license plates, photographs and blood typing.

If you're writing a supernatural show, the story should really hang on the characters being supernatural, shouldn't it? LOST GIRL is also a procedural about humanoids from the realm of fairy tales; but aside from the distinctive characters, the compelling personal issues and the adorably perky sidekick, there's a whole mythology there, and she can't solve the case without understanding what sort of critter she's dealing with.

Grr, I say. Grr.

Who Are the Bomb Girls

I'm really looking forward to catching BOMB GIRLS on January 4th on Global.

Here's your homework. Before you watch the pilot, figure out how you'd do it. It's a show about the women who made bombs for the war effort in WWII. Who's your core cast? What kinds of characters would you put in there? And what sort of things need to happen in the pilot?

Then watch it, and see how close you are, and what you think of what they did.

Not so klever Kalinda

'sfunny how one little logic glitch can scotch a big emotional climax. We've been watching THE GOOD WIFE Season Two.

SPOILERS, of course...

It's an odd season because the nominal main character, Julianna Margulies's Alicia Florrick, barely has a story line. It's as if they've given up on her as, y'know, kinda boring and frigid and self-righteous. But now that she's taken Peter back, and Will has proven himself a romantic coward, what is there to do with her?

So the season has become about Kalinda and her secret former identity. We just watched S2E18 (or so), "Foreign Affairs" in which Alicia finally discovers that Amber Madison wasn't the only woman with whom Peter cheated on her -- her dear recent BFF Kalinda did, too. And she finds that out just Peter wins the election.

But Kalinda's secret, frequently alluded to, and something on which an inordinate amount of plot hinges, seems to be that she used to work for Peter in the States' Attorney's office, and he helped her change her identity.

We're supposed to believe that clever Kalinda would change her name and identity, quit the State's Attorney office, and then go to work at a high profile firm that regularly defends clients from the State's Attorney office. Almost every episode, she's appearing in a courtroom.

How has nobody from the State's Attorney Office already recognized her?

Any sensible person trying to flee their old identity immediately moves to a new city. Kalinda would be wise to move to LA and pass as a Latina. They can always use detectives in LA, from what I understand.

This is a pretty gaping plothole. And it's spoiling our enjoyment of what is otherwise a beautifully-written show.

The problem is, it's very easy for writers on a show to convince themselves they can get away with a logical hole. "No one will care about that," you tell yourself. But once you betray the audience like that, it's hard to get them to go with you on anything else.

Of course, Lisa and I could be the only two people in the world who noticed this, in which case THE GOOD WIFE folks got away with it. But I'm guessing we're not.

The shame of it is that it's unnecessary. I've got a simple fix. Peter Florrick could have met Kalinda in another city, gone to bed with her, and helped her forge a new identity in Chicago.

It's often not hard to fix something, if you are willing to go to the trouble. I'm still impressed with Brad Ideas's fix for the painful Battlestar Finale.

I'll be interested in seeing what the details are once we get the full reveal. Maybe it'll all make sense in the end...

What Secret Circle is Doing Right

On my other blog.

Premieres

What network premieres are you most looking forward to?

In Appreciation of THE GOOD WIFE

We finally got our DVDs of THE GOOD WIFE and we've been watching steadily. Just finished S1 disk 3 last night. What a deftly written show. You almost wouldn't think it was on broadcast. I love a TV show that's written for an audience who's ready to pay attention. Nothing is said twice, and many things aren't completely said.

Of course, it's inevitable that it's essentially a detective show. These days, you can have any kind of hero on TV, so long as they solve crimes. You can have a lawyer show or a doctor show, so long as they solve mysteries.

There's almost a template for a high quality broadcast show. A TV show wants to delve into its characters, and that means story arcs. But viewers want to be able to tune into any one episode and get 45 minutes of entertainment. How do you square the circle? The way VERONICA MARS did. Every episode has an episodic A story that entirely begins and ends over the course of the episode. It has an interpersonal B story that gets resolved by the end of the episode, too, but is part of a longer dramatic arc. And there are a few beats allocated to the show's uberplot -- in this case, the political and legal battles of Alicia's husband.

Within that template, the show is subtle. Alicia Florrick is intentionally hard to read. Does she want her husband back? She doesn't seem too sure. She'll defend him against an outsider but will barely give him a smile when they're alone. What Alicia and the other characters leave unsaid is at least as important as what they say.

Nice work.

CJ on Hulu

Looks like CHARLIE JADE is now available on Hulu. (In the US at least.) Via Mad Pulp Bastard.

Awkward Much?

Huh. I'm trying to find Awkward and Teen Wolf on MTV on my Bell Satellite, but no go. Uh, is this some crappy, fake MTV that doesn't have the new MTV shows?

UPDATE: Seems so.

An Oral History of FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS

In Which We Confirm That The Murder Arc In Season Two Was a Dumbass Idea:

Jesse Plemons (Landry Clarke): I never imaged Season 2 to go like it did, with the storyline about Landry murdering Tyra's attacker.

Hudgins: We were coming to the end of Season 1, and the show was critically well-received, but the numbers. … So we thought, let's do something big, something shocking and titillating and provocative.

Massett: I kind of felt there was some pressure from the network.

Berg: It was a disaster. I went crazy when I read that. That opening episode, you've got a murder.

Zinman: In retrospect, I think we would all say, "That was a bad call."

Yeah, that knocked us all out of the show for the rest of the season. First of all, it wasn't the show. Second, in Texas, if you beat to death a guy who's trying to rape your girl, the only way you go to jail is if that's where they decide to hold the ceremony where they pin a medal on your chest. I mean, that is a righteous kill. But third of all, it wasn't the damn show.

Glad we've cleared that up.

CJ on Disk?

Q. Is there anywhere I can get copies of episodes of Charlie Jade? CJ and the SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES are the shows I'm trying to emulate, structure- and format-wise, with my own show.

So far as I know, CJ is only available in Region 0 (PAL), not Region 1 (NTSC), so you would need a multi-format DVD player to play the disks. You can buy the Australian DVD through Amazon.com, and you can buy it through Amazon.co.uk. No word on when there would be an NTSC release.

I wouldn't necessarily use CJ as an example of a structure or a format. Serial storytelling is a hard sell at present. CJ was not picked up for a second season, and Sarah Connor wasn't picked up for a third. You might be better off with the format of a longer running SF show like FRINGE, which combines episodic stories with a serial arc.

18 to LIFE, alas

Just found out that one of our favorite shows, 18 TO LIFE, has definitely been cancelled -- I heard about it from one of the cast members.

Well, damn. This was a crisply written, funny, sweet, sexy show. And it was really hitting its stride. The cast is funny and adorable, and they have well-drawn characters to play. This year our family comedy viewing has been 30 ROCK, MODERN FAMILY and 18 TO LIFE.

Somehow or other, the series was controversial in the States. Apparently Americans took issue with the teen protagonists enjoying an offscreen sex life? Even though they are, you know, legally adults, and, uh, married? Maybe one day someone will explain that one to me.

What killed the series, though, was what kills any series: low ratings. Why didn't this show do better? Why do certain incredibly unfunny shows get renewed? You tell me. I'll miss it.

Well, I'm looking forward to whatever Derek Schreyer and Karen Troubetzkoy come up with next.

Thought of the Day

A lot of sitcoms are, in fact, darker than you realize. At its core, "Two and a Half Men" is about loneliness. "The Big Ban Theory" is about alienation. "Mike & Molly" is about self-hatred. You would never know it from the shows themselves, but you do, sometimes, feel it while watching them. To laugh at these things with our mental families may allow us to cope with our own loneliness and alienation and self-hatred. It may be that the sitcom's constant avoidance of any final, dramatic catharsis is its accidental strength. If so, that would make this least lifelike form of entertainment the most comfortingly similar to real life."

"A Simple Medium," by Tom Bissell, The New Yorker, December 6.

Comedy is discomfort. It is about something bad happening to someone else.

Slapstick is comedy about physical pain and, occasionally, death. ("And now we see the importance of Not Being Seen.")

A lot of teen comedies are about the characters being embarrassed or scared.

A lot of grown-up comedies are about characters doing things for which they should be embarrassed, but aren't, so we're embarrassed for them. (E.g. the Marx Brothers, THE OFFICE, SEINFELD, ROSANNE, Mr. Bean, etc.)

I would say a lot of Woody Allen's comedy, back when he was funny, was based on frustration. The comedy in my series, NAKED JOSH, was mostly frustration. A lot of Jewish humor is based on frustration. And fear. No soup for you!

Absurdist comedy ) is really a sort of intellectual discomfort. ("We want your pollen.") Juxtapose two things that don't go together and you get absurdity. (ROMANES EUNT DOMUS!) As my six year old daughter will say, laughing, "Thaaaat's not riiiiight!"

I Know What They're Thinking

So, they want to remake BUFFY: THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, without input from Joss Whedon.

I think I know what they're thinking. "Let's dumb this idea down, so that more people can enjoy it." Joss is not really a mainstream taste. The original movie, which he wrote, was a niche success. The series went on for seven seasons but it was never a monster hit. Screw the hardcore fans, how many of them are there? Let's get rid of the creator, with all his difficult, complex ideas. They make the audience's brain hurt. Oh, and we have to hire a good-looking chick writer. Someone who can really reintroduce us to Buffy. Make her more approachable. Less dark. More like CHARMED.

And when I say, "hire a chick writer," let me clarify that I'm not against them hiring a woman. They could have hired Marti Noxon. But reading failed actress/professional hottie-turned-unproduced-screenwriter Whit Anderson going on about how she's going to do what Chris Nolan did for the Batman reboot, my gut tells me that they were looking for a chick writer to "bring something new to the franchise."

I tend to think it will flop badly. Thas all the earmarks of a cheesy, misconceived notion. Just for starters, how do you nail Buffyspeak fifteen years later, make it seem contemporary, and not sound like you're a bad mimic?

Joss's response is priceless:

This is a sad, sad reflection on our times, when people must feed off the carcasses of beloved stories from their youths — just because they can’t think of an original idea of their own, like I did with my Avengers idea that I made up myself.

Obviously I have strong, mixed emotions about something like this. My first reaction upon hearing who was writing it was, “Whit Stillman AND Wes Anderson? This is gonna be the most sardonically adorable movie EVER.” Apparently I was misinformed. Then I thought, “I’ll make a mint! This is worth more than all my Toy Story residuals combined!” Apparently I am seldom informed of anything. And possibly a little slow. But seriously, are vampires even popular any more?

I always hoped that Buffy would live on even after my death. But, you know, AFTER…

In Appreciation of Jenny Schechter

We've been watching THE L WORD, Season 4, after a long hiatus -- we didn't feel like watching Dana's breast cancer spiral in Season 3, so that derailed our watching the show a few years back. I continue to be amazed at the high points of the writing. When THE L WORD is good, it's as good as anything on TV. I think part of the secret is that it has a core audience that can be counted on to watch it no matter what -- and that leaves the writers free to jettison any requirements of "likability" and just make their characters as compelling and human as they can.

Some of the characters are enormously likable. And then there's Jenny Schechter. Jenny is a narcissistic personality verging on a psychopath.

/* SEASON 4 SPOILERS */

In Season 4, Jenny reacts badly to a bad book review, and, seeking revenge, concocts a plot that involves adopting a sick dog from an animal shelter so she can go to a vet to put him down , in order to seduce her reviewer's girlfriend, solely in order to prove a point.

Jenny is a dog-murderer.

Jenny is insane. But she is insane in a very human way. She is one of those people who is never, ever wrong, and it is always someone else's fault.

Jenny Schechter is one of the best villains on TV. None of us is very likely to meet Tony Soprano. But Jenny? I know Jenny Schecter. I have worked with Jenny Schechter.

The show isn't perfect. When the writing is bad, there are misfires. There is a tendency to present LA, outside of the lesbian circle, as if it's small-town Texas. Kit goes to an abortion clinic that turns out to be a Christian adoption clinic -- as if anyone in the 213/323/310 would have trouble finding Planned Parenthood. The girls go to Tina's party, and Tina's straight showbiz friends don't know what to say to them, and say stupid homo-uncomfortable things to them -- as if showbiz people don't already know a slew of gay and lesbian people. For heaven's sake, when Marlene Dietrich was dating a woman, everyone at the Brown Derby knew it. ("Women make better lovers," she said, "but you can't live with'em.") Tina's showbiz friends would be swarming around Bette asking her for advice on what art to buy.

But when it is good, it is very, very good. Hats off to THE L WORD.

Is Megan Aidan?

Lisa and I watched the MAD MEN finale last night. Quite an episode.

/* SPOILERS */
/* SPOILERS */
/* SPOILERS */

Lisa and I had an interesting conversation this morning about where the show is going to take Megan. Lisa interpreted the conversation with Betty Draper ("so you'll move again") to reflect back on Don. No marriage is perfect, and he'll pick this one apart, too.

But Lisa is a fretter, while I'm an optimist. I interpreted Don's comment to be a criticism, because Betty is a perfectionist control freak who'll never be happy. Don seems to have made the decision to finally be happy -- I think this episode is the first time I've ever actually seen him happy.

Of course TV shows rely on conflict, and characters not changing, so Lisa's probably right.

But that raises the Aidan issue. Aidan Shaw, you'll recall, was John Corbett's character on SEX AND THE CITY. He was pretty much Mr. Perfect. Low-key, loving, available, and he's a carpenter in New York. (Non-New Yorkers: it is almost impossible to find a carpenter in New York, let alone a craftsman. A carpenter in New York will never, ever, ever be out of work. Ever.)

So when Carrie dumped him, for me, some of the wind went out of the show. I stopped believing that Carrie Bradshaw was seriously looking for someone to be with, and it became apparent that what she really wanted was to keep dating.

And again, of course that's an artifact of it being a TV show, because the show is about Carrie wearing fabulous clothes and dating. It would have taken major lifting to morph the show into an equally satisfactory show about a writer in New York with a happy marriage. The show was never made for my demographic, and it's been hugely successful.

But creatively, when you create a Megan or an Aidan, you've created a challenge, I think. It never bothered me when Don cheated on Betty. First of all because I met the mistress before I met Betty -- she's the last character to show up in the pilot. And because Don's relationship with Betty is so shallow. For him, she's someone to raise the kids, and for her, he's someone to pay for the house. There are issues with all of Don's lovers. Even Faye, Ms. Almost Right, can't deal with kids, and that's a dealbreaker for Don, who lost his parents.

But Megan is pretty much perfect. Nurturing, loving, low-key ("It's just a milkshake"), smart, sexually liberated, and ambitious. (And played by the utterly adorable Jessica Paré, about whom you will, God and Telefilm willing, be reading more in these pages anon.)

So unless Season 5 is going to be about Don having a happy home life -- and what are the odds of that -- what does the show do? Joss Whedon would probably kill her, but I don't think this is that kind of show. Or Don starts to chafe at the bonds of happiness. But the price of that is we stop believing that he really wants to be happy.

The third way would be to slowly reveal that Megan's not so perfect after all. After all, when a girl throws herself at you, odds are there are going to be some surprises along the way. She could be bipolar. Or just plain nuts. Then we get to see something we've never seen in Don before: trying to hold onto a relationship that's falling apart for reasons that, for once, aren't his fault.

That's the way I'd go. But I'm an optimist.

Meanwhile, what to make of Matthew Weiner's portrayal of Betty Draper? A few months ago I began to feel that Betty is a portrayal of Weiner's mother. This is not based on any interviews or facts, it was just starting to get so intimately harsh, the way when you see a really harsh portayal of the Catholic church you know the writer must have been an altar boy. But then I found out that that creepy neighbor kid, Glen Bishop, is played by Marten Weiner, Matthew Weiner's son. Ooooohkay. I wonder where that portrayal came from.

Of course it could all just come out of Matthew Weiner's head. But creativity doesn't come from nowhere. Almost all of Lisa's main characters are trying to get over something they can't get over. A lot of my characters are trying to find a faith they can believe in.

What do you think?

Mohawk Girls

Tonight I am definitely checking out MOHAWK GIRLS, the pilot for a proposed new APTN series MOHAWK GIRLS starring the amazing Tiio Horn. It airs at 12:30 am, but that's what DVRs are for, right?

UPDATE:  It is a quite charming take on SEX AND THE CITY, the "city" being the Kahnawake rez. Tiio Horn sure 'nuff does radiate the star quality. Props to Cynthia Knight for her script. I hope this gets picked up!

Netflix.ca

It's been a long time coming, but Netflix finally launched a Canadian service. They don't seem to be mailing DVDs out. They're focusing on video on demand: all you can eat for $8 a month, downloaded to your videogame console.

Need I say that could potentially rock the world of television? You have to watch Hulu on your computer screen, which is fine for college students but not so great for families. But if I can watch my TV on demand -- why the hell do I need to pay $80 a month for cable? Plus $25 a month for Zip.ca to mail me DVD's?

As a consumer -- yay! As a content creator -- yikes!

Fools Rush In

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A friend of mine posted the above on Facebook, and I thought it was interesting. I was in a meeting a few weeks ago with a production executive friend of mine, talking about a serial drama I was pitching. Canadian networks are notorious for not wanting serial dramas, and I knew that -- this was just something I felt was too close to my muse not to pitch anyway. She informed me that US networks are now even more chary of serial dramas than Canadian ones. They don't want DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. They don't want LOST, to name two hit series.

(Needless to say, they're not looking for MAD MEN, either, which in spite of its critical success gets tiny numbers on a cable channel.)

This is depressing for those of us who love to write serial dramas. But you see the danger in mounting a serial drama. Most new TV series get cancelled. So as a viewer, if you have to choose between a new episodic drama and a new serial drama, why not choose the episodic one? At least you'll get an hour of satisfying mac'n'cheese television. If you give your heart to a serial drama and it's dumped after six episodes, there's six hours of your life gone, or so it feels.

I tend to suspect that part of the problem is that a lot of serial dramas are so watered down by network execs wary of mythology and complex story lines. If you're going to mount a serial drama, you can't try too hard to make it episodic. You're going after the audience that's willing to give their heart to some characters and their arcs. You have to give them the serial goodies. GOSSIP GIRL is all nothing but soap opera, and it seems to do okay.

It does seem to me that network television is driving itself into a rut. CBS doesn't want to hear any pitches that don't include a cop solving crimes, or so I'm told. You'd think in a 500 channel universe there'd be more room for story telling, not less; and story telling, after all, is one of the cheapest special effects you can buy. But that's not where the networks live these days.

I guess that's why, while I am pitching a bunch of episodic shows this year, all my current go projects seem to be features...