Seriocity

Genderbender

2012-01-22T15:22:00.000-08:00

A few interesting comments on the SHERLOCK post.

cgeye:

And, a "highly functional sociopath" being thrown off his game by a lesser, slutty sociopath seems beneath him. If he's just discombobulated because of the punanny, well... doesn't that out him as sexually immature, instead of possessing an intellect so beyond normal sexuality that it takes a woman of rare intellect to swerve his game? For a man who can attempt every other manner of mystery, he couldn't hole up for a week with every type of porn, to understand others' sexual motivations?

Excellent point. I fear it tells us more about Steven Moffat than we really want to know. It's juvenile in its way and it's funny that I gave that scene the benefit of the doubt and then had to sigh and take it back upon reading interviews. "Yeah, Sherlock's totally flummoxed because THAT WOMAN IS PURE SEX!" Oh, brother.

Night Flyer:

I believe the intention here was only that Adler initially befuddles Sherlock not because she's naked, but as the accompanying visual gag shows, she has no clues on her person for him to "read" like he does with everyone else. She outsmarts the show's established gimmick.

To the creators, "dominatrix" is likely just an edgy-sounding word more than a character-defining, nuanced definition. Sherlock is always pining for a challenge/mystery worthy of his attention, and this time he's found one that's personified in Adler. The attraction has nothing to do with sex. Sherlock and Adler were both uniquely immune to each other's primary weapons, which made them each try even harder to use them. Thus evolved a kind of mutual respect.

I didn't see any real sexual tension in what followed, just faux-sparring to misdirect viewers. What Will calls the "ignorance of sex" was most likely intended as cutesy humor directed at the same segment of fandom that giggles hysterically when a character mistakes Sherlock and Watson for a gay couple fifty times an episode.

Heh. Interesting take, although given the recent interviews I've read you've searched for something that isn't there. It was all about her nudity, and not about her taking away the visual clues. But I love that idea. I don't mind good sexual tension, not at all. But you say yourself that "dominatrix" isn't exactly a nuanced character description. You can't just go, "Okay, we're updating her to be a dominatrix" and then stop right there. Moffat's women have a bit of an issue with this. They are their descriptions, or their roles, and there's generally no more character work done.

So once again, we have Woman As Object and not a character. And when we're talking about Sherlock Holmes, I do expect that if he's going to be taken down, it will be by someone fascinating. And it so sadly was not.

Will Shetterly says:

"There are a lot of men who think that women use their gender and their sexuality as a weapon, which is essentially what Adler does and it supposedly blinds Sherlock to who she is.* ... *That's not how I read it at first because I gave Moffat the benefit of the doubt but based on interviews, that's exactly how it happened, which is rather a great disappointment."

Hmm. I think you'd have to consider the other women in the show before drawing that conclusion. Moffatt's update is based on a story about a woman who uses sexuality as a weapon, so I think it's legit to make that choice again for Adler.

That said, since Watson can't keep his girlfriends straight in this ep, I grant that Moffatt's feminist creds deserve closer scrutiny.

Closer scrutiny? Exactly how much scrutiny will you allow me? Does he have to create ten poorly drawn women? Twenty? Fifty? I appreciate being given permission to go there, but based on Amy Pond existing as a walking uterus for two years, and the deconstruction of River Song from a strong woman into a simpering Doctor lover, I think we already had enough evidence before Irene Adler showed up.

And sure it's legit. It's also the easy way out for someone who doesn't want to think about a female who isn't simply an object. That's the problem, you see, when women keep seeing this over and over and men justify it by saying what you just said. The only female character Moffat has created that really worked for me was Jekyll's wife. That woman was awesome. But he seems to have backslid a bit. That's not to say that I didn't like the Adler episode. I liked it a lot. But just because a female character isn't overtly a disaster doesn't mean there aren't issues that could be addressed. Adler as a dominatrix was frankly boring and expected. I'm sure all the guys liked seeing her naked. Good for you. But as a modern-day foil for Sherlock, she didn't work as well as she could have if Moffat had taken her out of that box.

Certainly going from Victorian courtesan to dominatrix makes sense to a guy. Of course it does. Sex to sex. Sure. But. Why does it have to such a straight-across substitution? What was different about Adler as courtesan was that she was seemingly a Victorian woman, but she was obviously aware of the limitations imposed on women by society and was flaunting those limitations by not being that woman. This modern-day Adler, on the other hand, is just a dominatrix, and frankly we saw a Goddam dominatrix in the pilot for DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, so YAWN. Dominatrix as a stereotype is quite different as dominatrix from a character standpoint, and the latter is NOT what we got. It's pretty sad when the MOVIE version of Adler -- which is period -- is much more interesting than the modern-day version.

Why is she a dominatrix? What led her here? Who was she before? What was her life like? What IS her life like? WHO THE HELL IS THIS CHARACTER? She's nothing. She's a shell. An amusing shell, a sexy shell, but just a shell. And as someone else pointed out, she's working for Moriarty, so she's not even doing any of this ON HER OWN. She's working for a man, she's brought down to her female emotions by a man, and she's saved by a man.

How am I supposed to feel about this, do you think?

I wonder how men saw Lisbeth Salander. Not objectified enough for you to be interesting? Not female enough? Too weird? Too obviously a well-rounded character, thereby a threat? God forbid she should be a PERSON. An OBJECT is much easier to keep at arm's length.

A point I've been thinking about: part of what redeems this Adler as an antagonist for me is that she totally loves Sherlock...and she's still totally willing to throw him to the wolves in order to win. She didn't fail because of her love for Sherlock. She failed because he was tricky enough to note the physiological cues that she loved him, which gave him the hint that she might've been too cocky when choosing her password.

And funnily enough, part of what destroys her as an antagonist is that she totally loves Sherlock. I can't tell you how Goddam tired I am of strong women being weakened by their love for a man. Maybe this is such a strong male fantasy that it blinds you to the obvious. Love does not have to diminish a character. And when it is used that way, it's virtually always used to diminish a woman. It's women who have to give up their strengths for the man. It's women who have to give up their lives or their careers for a man. That may not seem like a big deal for you but if you constantly saw this negative stereotype of your gender throughout your entire life, you'd get a little sick of it, too.

will says:

I think the key here is to understand the underlying point of a Dominatrix. It is not SEX that is the key in a Dominatrix deal - it is POWER.

My point is that rich men (and women) don't hire a Dominatrix to provide sex. It's to upend their power structure. For most who indulge, I would imagine it IS a sexual, fetish experience. But the fact remains that the "customer" gets off NOT from physical stimulation, but from MENTAL (ie, they find the power shift titillating, despite it being objectively non-sexual. Think people into girls holding balloons - not inherently sexual, but still generates a huge amount of "porn" for those who enjoy it).

The evidence doesn't bear this out. If it was NOT sexual, then it would not be presented as sexual. But that's how it IS presented.

THAT is the key to Adler in the BBC version. I'll admit that this is somewhat muddied by her unarguably sexual teasing of Sherlock. But think about what she was actually doing; Sherlock is (apparently) a virgin. That means he's never experienced sex. This is a person who HOLDS OVER HIM something that SHERLOCK doesn't know (what sex is like). Because sex generates such a primal response in our lives, Sherlock can easily be made to feel that he's missing out on something - which he tries to cover with bluster.

And like others have said, it's not in keeping with Sherlock's character that he wouldn't know everything there was to know about sex. BECAUSE THAT IS WHO HE IS. And so this was rather disappointing. But see, when some people conceive of a female character, that's what they start with -- the female part. Rather than coming up with an interesting character who happens to be female. She is tits and a vagina first and then maybe some clever dialogue, blah blah blah. BORING. Tired of it.

All this to say: I thought the portrayal of Adler as a Dominatrix was - while on the surface somewhat obvious - a fairly brilliant update, given that a Dominatrix challenges power conventions nowadays the same way Adler herself did back then (I admit I don't see quite the same weaponized sexuality in the Conan Doyle stories that you're finding). Yes, they could have played her lurid and graphic, but they chose whip-smart and surprisingly contained. I loved it.

I'm sure you did, because you have the luxury of not having to look past your own gender and see what women always see with characters like this.

(This comment is long enough as it is, but I have a great deal of response for your comments about men's interpretation of women weaponizing their sexuality. The basic point is that I think you're again missing the power forest for the sex trees. The empowered (weaponized) sexuality is merely a symptom of a different attitude of gender relations. That's what men find terrifying, not the sexy part. But we confuse it for the sexy part. OF EQUAL IMPORT is that when women are aroused, there is an EXPECTATION of sex from the man in their life (boyfriend, husband, etc)(obviously I'm only talking about heterosexual couples, etc etc). Often, however, I think guys might not be as into it as the media would seem to expect. However, there is no way to back out - you're a MAN, it's GIRLY to "be too tired" or whatever. So then you have to perform - and perform WELL, cause you're a MAN. It's Pavlovian - eventually you start to instinctually recoil from sex - which makes women's natural, regular old sexy advances seem terrifying. Not hugely related, but just figured that might be a bit of insight into the male psyche you had not considered.)

I think this might say more about you than it does about men in general (g). Suffice to say, that is not and has never been MY experience.

And really, there is NOTHING I like more than being told by a man that my reading of misogyny is wrong. Don't misunderstand. I appreciate the thoughtfulness of all the comments, and the attempts by the guys to describe why they loved Adler. I really do appreciate it, because the alternative is for people to be assholes about it, and none of the comments here was from that point of view at all. However, it's a bit ironic that you accuse me of missing the point when you miss the point that it is not a man's place to explain to a woman what is misogynistic, just as it is not a white person's place to tell a minority person what is racist. But for some reason that I think is fairly obvious if you think about it for three seconds, it's generally considered okay for me to tell women how to feel and think.

I've been told, VERY recently, that I am too sensitive to feminist issues. First of all, I'm not. So if the person who said this to me ever actually met a woman who was REALLY sensitive, it would be quite a shock. I don't go as far as a lot of women do. But then any type of militancy is rather exhausting and I don't think it helps the cause to be that way.

So what happens is, women ignore a lot of stuff. Some of it by choice, some of it because of workplace situations. Women still have to pick their battles and when they're working with men who are, frankly, terrified of women (which is what the evidence tells me about Moffat), that job gets harder and more frustrating. This is not to say that the men who ARE afraid of women, or who can't stand women, or who think they're just alien beings that are so different they have to be treated as such, are bad writers. That's not it at all. Steven Moffat has proven himself on many occasions to be a terrific writer. But the dude has blind spots, with story and with female characters.

An aside on this -- if you haven't seen the third episode of Sherlock, it is utterly, mind-bogglingly, earth-shatteringly wonderful. There's SO much for the actors, such wonderfully juicy, emotional scenes. There's a lot of that trademark Moffat misdirection, but the episode really lands on the friendship between Sherlock and John and it does so beautifully. What's distressing about it, to me, is another Moffat Achilles heel. After the episode aired, he teased the audience by telling them that they missed the clues. This is what he does. He sits there all smug and tells people that he littered the thing with clues that they will never find because they are not as awesome as he is (not to mention that if you create something, you are obviously going to know what the clues are and it doesn't mean your audience is stupid). But what he seems to be missing here is that I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE CLUES. The episode works SO well on a character level and to have him just demean it by bleating about clues is just weird. DUDE. YOU DID AWESOME WORK THERE. ACCEPT IT.

Moving on. Anyway, I do not appreciate being told, by men, that I'm wrong about this. Because you see it from a different point of view, and because you are male, does not mean you're right. In fact, you're just proving my point by being intractable and rather patronizing about it.

There's also the simplistic view that because I say this, I think you're a misogynistic asshole, which is simply NOT true. There are degrees, and most men fall on the mild side of it like you seem to, which is still not completely okay but because I'm not a raging crazy feminist, it's easier to handle. But when you are telling me what misogyny is, then we are gonna have an issue. But sure, it's hard for you to completely understand someone else's experience. Expecting you to grok this totally isn't possible, but the insistence upon telling me what is or isn't misogynistic is plain wrong.

I've already been HERE in the past, but I can think of one male writer who writes the everlong SHIT out of female characters, and his female characters are the best on TeeVee at the moment. That would be Matt Weiner. He's treading a fine line of writing strong women in an age when women were not considered strong. They still had rather Victorian roles thrust upon them, and the interesting thing about the women of MAD MEN is that they clearly do not FIT into these roles. But society won't let them off the hook so they either try to fit into these roles because they don't know how NOT to (Betty and Joan), or they say, "You know what, roles? FUCK YOU." Like Peggy, who is going to be as frustrated as Betty and Joan, but she's going to register that frustration outwardly, which is healthier for her but might wind up being more destructive to her with regards to society. Still, I would choose that over the quiet desperation of Joan and Betty.

MARCH 25TH. MAD MEN. OMFG I CAN'T WAIT.

I wrote about STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET earlier and everytime misogyny rears its awful puss, this seems relevant. The same guys who told me that STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET is misogynistic because of how Kim Novak's unhappy suburbanite is objectified by men thought that Lucky McKee's THE WOMAN was a glorious feminist film.

Sidebar: If you haven't seen this piece of shit (I could have sworn I ranted about it but it doesn't seem like I have), then DO NOT SEE IT. If I ever see this Lucky McKee creature in person, he'd better be able to run pretty Goddam fast. Basically, a feral woman is kidnapped by a family man who, you find out, isn't really that nice a guy, beats his wife, rapes his daughter, etc. Blah. BLAH. Male filmmakers, do us a favor. Don't try to make a feminist film. I'm begging you. You're off the hook for these, okay? Just give us good female characters in movies.

So. STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET - see. THE WOMAN - avoid.

When I first got on the Internet, guys were terribly surprised to find out that I was female, because I didn't talk about knitting or whatever, and because I had strong opinions. This still happens to women online. What does THAT tell you about where we are? Female gamers still get harassed, too, and are being forced to announce their gender in the game, which... you can imagine what happens next. Pretending that because women got the vote and can work outside the home means that gender discrimination is off the table smacks of male privilege and it's just unacceptable.

I just tire of the lectures about what is misogynistic, or snarky comments about my sensitivity when BELIEVE YOU ME I am not nearly as sensitive as I could be. Because I choose not to be. I'm not offended by everything but obviously when something sticks in my craw, I'm going to talk about it.

To recap - thanks very much for the thoughtful comments, even if I don't agree with them! Hopefully something appalling will happen this week so I'll have an actual topic for next week. God willing.

Blackout!!!

2012-01-18T10:17:00.000-08:00

Today is the SOPA blackout, when sites like Wikipedia and Reddit shut down to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act. These acts, which were driven by massive donations to the Internet-stupid Congress by the Internet-stupid MPAA, are designed to wipe out online piracy, like, FOREVS. Since the attempts to stop music piracy wound up destroying the music industry, I think we can see where this is going. I am not a lawmaker, or an expert in lawmaking. I am not an expert in Internet things (I'm proud of being able to post the above widget, for example). I cannot state with any fact the amount of money piracy has taken from MY pocket, but as someone who marched with a Goddam sign for several months back in 2007, I know what it's like to make what turned out to be a rather feeble attempt to protect my intellectual property.

That didn't work out too well, by the way. Just take a look at who gets the most chunk of change from sales and rentals. Take a look at whose paychecks are bigger. And then look at who's really serious about stopping piracy. A hint - it ain't the actual content creators. The notion of a massive corporation thundering about intellectual property is beyond weird, especially in this age of remakes and sequels and the crushing of originality. Obviously the entertainment business is a BUSINESS that couldn't exist unless it made money, but come on. These guys aren't stupid. They don't honestly and truly believe that SOPA is going to STOP PIRACY. Only dumb old Congress believes that, because they are ignorant patsies and lovers of campaign contributions. But the MPAA and the studios probably fall to their knees every morning and thank the gods that Congress is such a bunch of dumbasses. Fortunately they had evidence of that before, back when Congress voted to authorize the invasion of Iraq.

People are starting to crowdsource. Content creators are raising their own money and making their own movies and television shows. They're bypassing the corporate tangle of publishing to publish their own books. And this is all happening because of the Internet. So if you really imagine that the MPAA is going to allow content creators to use this Internet to make their own movies and television shows, you are sadly mistaken. SOPA is their gambit, their effort to assert control. "It won't affect me," you say, because you have never pirated anything. Sure, tell that to the people who got socked with million-dollar lawsuits even though they didn't steal a Britney Spears song. Everything is rented. The Cloud is NOT the great idea it's presented to be because your content can be taken from you at any time. ANY law that pretends to be For The People but that is this vaguely restrictive can be tightened around our necks, one byte at a time, until we are ALL considered criminals.

Piracy is never going to be stopped, and we should just accept that. DRM certainly didn't stop it. Instead, DRM pissed people off and made them not buy things. Remember the Sony rootkit? Yeah, good times. We are living in an age where you pay a bazillion dollars for cable, and then the cable companies take channels away from you, stick them in other packages, and make you pay even more. We're living in a time when we can instantaneously watch something, yet these monolithic companies want you to wait months to watch British shows. FOR NO GOOD REASON. It was bad enough when cable and satellite providers (but especially evil, evil cable HI TIME WARNER WHASSUP) were divvying up service areas. But now they're divvying up CONTENT. I don't mind paying for what I watch, read or listen to, but I strongly resent the Sophie's Choice way they're screwing us.

How much more would you pay if you could choose your programming a la carte? Why won't they let us do that? Think about THAT for blackout day.

And now, some blackout day links for you:

Whatever
Wil Wheaton

The Woman

2012-01-14T11:02:00.000-08:00

For some TeeVee viewers in the world, the new series of SHERLOCK has started. For U.S. viewers who don't know how to do anything, it won't be seen until May. It's January now, which means that in FIVE MONTHS y'all will get to see SHERLOCK.

In the olden days, when physical films and/or videotapes had to be physically sent over to another country on a tramp steamer, this probably made sense. But it doesn't now. At all. But no mind. I've seen the first two episodes and I also saw THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, which was my first exposure to the series. These two things actually DO have something in common -- the concept of a gender-defying woman.

In the case of DRAGON TATTOO, that woman is obviously Lisbeth Salander, and based on interviews with the writer, director and actress, a lot of thought went into the concept of the character. Mostly, into what they didn't want her to be. And then why is she who she is? Why does she act the way she does? Dress the way she does? Why is she so good at her kind of research? What results from this is fascinating, complex, contradictory but logically created character.

And then there's SHERLOCK and the introduction of Irene Adler. One of the things I like most about this version of SHERLOCK is how Mark Gattiss and Steven Moffat have updated the characters and the world. This Sherlock is not afraid of technology. He even uses it to his advantage. So does Watson, who isn't a musty old book writer but instead writes a blog. The writers have given this a lot of thought and it's always fun to see it manifested. For those who haven't seen any of the new series yet, there's more and it's delightful.

Anyway. The original incarnation of Irene Adler was basically the Victorian version of Barbara Stanwyck's BABY FACE -- a user of men, a social climber, etc. Kind of a typical female character of that time. But she was unique in that she was able to pull the wool over Holmes's eyes, and he never forgot it. So good for her, then, right?

The other recent version we have of Adler is from the Guy Ritchie movies, in which she is an American (which she is in the Holmes stories but not in the BBC version) but also a skilled thief. What I like about this Adler is that she defies convention. She doesn't have to be a fucking courtesan, thank you very much, because she has skillz. She's a bold, blustery American. Which seems kind of perfect.

The Adler in SHERLOCK is a dominatrix.

YAWN.

The way she is presented and written and edited makes it clear that the writers consider this a bold, fresh choice, leading me to believe that they have never seen an episode of any American crime show. Now, I understand that in the updating of Irene Adler you may go there. At first. But then you SHOULD go, "Yeah, we COULD do that, but it's a bit lazy, isn't it? Shouldn't we come up with something that is a bit more bold? More fresh? More distinct?"

There are a lot of men who think that women use their gender and their sexuality as a weapon, which is essentially what Adler does and it supposedly blinds Sherlock to who she is.*
This is not true, and all you have to do is watch the rape scene in THE ACCUSED to get that. How many times has a female victim been told that she was asking for it? Which, by the way, is never the case -- women simply do not ask to be raped. But how many court cases have there been where a famous athlete, for example, claims that the woman he assaulted deserved it, or was asking for it?

I think that men think women do this because men CAN use their gender and sexuality as a weapon. They can get aggressive and in someone's face and they can threaten each other and usually, one dude backs down. So I suppose it makes sense that they would think women can use their sexuality to do the same thing, only it obviously doesn't work that way.

Women, let me ask you this -- if you can avoid it, do you stop for gas at night? When you're walking down the street and a few dudes are walking towards you, do you take off all your clothes and face them boldly, using your sexuality as a weapon? NO YOU DO NOT. While 99.999% of men aren't ever going to do anything to you, there's always that wild card. So you just never know, and you have to always protect yourself. And that's not even counting the guys who will whistle, or say dumb shit like, "Hey, smile!" Like we're there to entertain them which, let's face it, some of them believe.

Based on this incarnation of Irene Adler, that's what Steven Moffat believes. It's as if Adler knows that when she strips totally nekkid, or cracks that whip, all men immediately bow before her and are incapable of thought. This is stupid of Adler but in the fictional world in which she lives, that's kind of how things work. Because Moffat doesn't make her ashamed of her sexuality, or her body. But the way she wields it is the sort of male fetish fantasy that doesn't exist anywhere, y'all. She knows being so unselfconscious in front of Holmes is going to fuck with his radar. But not because that's how human nature works. No, she knows it because that's how human nature works in Steven Moffat's mind. And frankly, it diminishes Holmes somewhat for me. I think less of him because he doesn't see through this shit right away and turn the tables on her.

You see, Adler is putting this on. There's nothing emotional or personal about it. It's a game with her and for Holmes to not see that, well, it doesn't feel like Holmes. This is Moffat using a woman to fuck with Holmes, but the woman doesn't get to use her intelligence. She gets to use her -- well, you get the idea. She uses the only thing that Moffat seems to recognize in women, which was also present in the Christmas episode of DOCTOR WHO. There, he had a perfectly organic reason for Madge's strength -- the fact that she was holding onto such incredible grief and being strong for her kids. But no, instead he dives right for the uterus. Disappointing.

So although I quite enjoyed aspects of Adler in the new SHERLOCK, and very much enjoyed the interplay between Holmes & Watson and MY GOD the Sherlock/Mycroft stuff is utterly magnificent, I thought Moffat really missed the boat on much of Adler. And seeing THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, I wondered how much more effective Adler would have been if she had been more Lisbeth Salander.

Lisbeth hides her gender and sexuality and creates an armor of protection around herself. She doesn't do this because she wants to fuck with men and play games. She does it because she's trying to fucking SURVIVE. She didn't sit there and one day go, "So here's my plan to totally transform myself." She just DID IT. And if you asked her why she cut her hair like that, or pierced what she pierced, or ANYTHING, she would just stare off to the side and not answer you. Lisbeth is only female when she's violated by a monster (but boy, does she turn on him in a satisfying way) or when she chooses to be with Mikael. But even then there's something off about her. Lisbeth is the woman who slips through the cracks, but doesn't moan about it. She just tries to live. She is barely contained rage but her control is magnificent. And if you apply that control to her mind-fucking Sherlock Holmes, I think it would be pretty interesting.

How would Holmes react to a woman who didn't use ANY of her male-perceived weaponry, but who instead was bristling with contradictions that aren't the society-approved ones? How would Holmes deal with a woman who is wearing such a mighty figurative suit of armor? How do you predict what a character like Lisbeth is going to do? Well, all you CAN predict is that she'd survive. Because that's how she's created herself. Adler, on the other hand -- I don't want to spoil anything for y'all but there's a twist and a big disappointment at the end that is just SO VERY MOFFAT.

But Holmes vs. Lisbeth Salander, that is interesting. Because she isn't going to give him ANYTHING, but she can become anyone. She plays things even closer to the vest than HE does and on a certain level, they are equally damaged. She's nobody's fantasy. But she also doesn't dwell on what's happened to her. She just creates another wall to slide in next to the existing ones. And then she matter-of-factly goes about the business of fucking people over in unbelievably creative ways.

If you haven't seen SHERLOCK yet, just keep Lisbeth in mind when you do. It'll be interesting to hear what y'all think.

Also, this week's episode of THE VAMPIRE DIARIES was frakkin AMAZEBALLS.

*That's not how I read it at first because I gave Moffat the benefit of the doubt but based on interviews, that's exactly how it happened, which is rather a great disappointment.

A Mild Case of Self-promotion

2012-01-08T18:26:00.000-08:00

It really IS mild. And short. There will be a more substantial post next week (I'm trying to post at least a little something every week, so let's see how it goes). Although most Americans won't see the new season of SHERLOCK until fucking ridiculous MAY, there is much to discuss that will not be too spoilery. I suppose it WILL be spoilery if you've never heard of Irene Adler. But I suspect you have.

So in the meantime, here's a little self-promotion. Firstly, Erin and I did a podcast for the very cool Millennium site backtofrankblack.com, and it is here. Troy and James asked terrific questions and going back to look at the show after so long was a very weird experience. Millennium totally holds up, and the differences between then and now aren't as apparent because Millennium wasn't a gimmicky show. It wasn't trying to be hip or edgy or any of that. It just WAS. And that means well-told stories, simple, effective editing, and just not so much TRYING. A lot of it was ahead of the curve, which you simply do NOT get credit for. EVER. And that sucks.

Something I really noticed was the use of sound. I think reality shows have fucked TeeVee sound design because every single potential moment is scored, and it's usually scored with that whooshing noise that is supposed to make you look up from the laundry and watch what's happening. Reality shows have wall-to-wall noise and sound and since that seems to be effective, people have no choice but to follow that lead. TeeVee viewership hadn't fractured as badly back when Millennium was on, but now it's all about doing whatever it takes to get eyeballs on your show. Hence the different sound design, IMO.

Millennium is a very quiet show, actually. You can hear the sound effects. Wind, footsteps, breathing, whatever. There are long stretches of the show with little to no dialogue. And editing was done differently, too. I think the minimalism helps the show to not feel dated. And there's something to be said for timelessness. But thins are different now, of course. Technology changes so quickly that it's pretty disposable. You buy an amazing phone and then six months later, there's an even more amazing one. So we don't even get a moment to enjoy and appreciate the advancement. Entertainment is like that, too. It's all files and DVRs that are easy to manipulate. You don't hold the physical representation of entertainment anymore, which might be why I like buying TeeVee shows on DVD. Because of how disposable things are, entertainment has to find different ways to get people to notice. Hence the whooshing.

HEY YOU KIDS, GET OFF MY LAWN!

Anyway.

The other bit of self-promotion is that I wrote a longish short story that I wanted to put on the Kindle for free, but Amazon won't let you do that. So it's up here for 99 cents. But I made a free ePub version that I put here, and so you can download that if you prefer. It's a pretty fun story, if your idea of fun is my idea of fun.

Here's the cover. I'm pretty proud of my rudimentary Photoshop skillz:

Till next week, cats and kittens...

The Year That Was

2012-01-01T20:20:00.000-08:00

THANK GOD 2011 is over. I mean, THANK FREAKING GOD. This year was a bit of a crazy bitch.

But even though 2011 sucked, there were some good things that happened in it. And what better way to head into 2012 than with a list of some cool shit that came out of 2011? Maybe positivity will help. Who knows? So:

The Vampire Diaries
There's been a meme going around about this show, in that "OMG YOU GUYS THIS SHOW IS SO GOOD I KNOW IT SEEMS IMPOSSIBLE BUT IT'S NOT OMG!!" And it's true. Vampire Diaries could have skated along on the goodwill earned by the YA series, but it didn't. In fact, the show became must-watch TeeVee if you have any interest in a show that defies its own conventions, falls viciously in love with its characters, punches them in the face, and somehow manages to keep alive a love triangle that should grow stale but doesn't. Helping the show on its way in the remarkably astute cast. Totally underrated, if you ask me. Shows where the leads profess their undying love for each other generally have dullards in the leads and other interesting characters flitting about the edges, but that isn't the case here. There's nothing wan about Elena Gilbert and the way Nina Dobrev plays her is spot-on perfect. She's spunky. Lou Grant would hate/love her. Not only that, but she's also asked to play Elena's wicked doppelganger vampire twin (I KNOW, but it works). Paul Wesley and Ian Somerhalder could not be better as warring vampire brothers (I KNOW, but it works).

While the relationships seem pretty simplistic right out of the gate, you will soon discover that they are in fact not. While it's hard to shine in a cast as strong and deep as this one, Candice Accola as dim snob Caroline manages to. Not only that, but Caroline's journey is one of the strongest of the show. And sure, they stop going to high school at a certain point and then you discover that they're all still supposed to be IN high school and you wonder if they all flunked, but the refusal on the part of the writers to hew to the tiny box that these types of shows inhabit is laudable. And yeah, there seems to be some kind of a founder's festival every single day in Mystic Falls and now the volunteers are apparently drafted into service, but you don't know... maybe if they skipped one, the founders would return as zombies and eat everyone. Hey, it's The Vampire Diaries. It could happen. This is appointment TeeVee in an age when that is almost fucking impossible. If you think Vampire Diaries is just some campy kid's show, you probably thought the same of Buffy. And you were wrong then, too. Twilight, it ain't.

The Fades
Holy mother of God, where do I start with this one? It's British, it's six episodes, it's an entirely new mythology for ghosts and other things (telling you what they are would ruin some stuff), and it's utterly impossible to ignore. The Fades is a tough, tough show, totally unsentimental but with an incredibly sentimental, sensitive teenage nerd boy at its heart. Paul's the kid who can't help doing the right thing, not because he thinks he's supposed to but because HE JUST CAN'T HELP HIMSELF. The adults in this world are broken and desperate, like a pod of outcast Felix Castors. And because it's British and six episodes, shit starts to happen and change right from the start. Just when you get a handle on it, something happens that makes you go, "I did not fucking see THAT coming." It's going to be on BBC America in the next few weeks and if you don't watch it, then I suppose you just hate television. It's violent and horrific and something that I think we could do here, if there was a home for it. But at the moment, that doesn't seem to be the case.

The Doctor's Wife
Easily the best of the Steven Moffat DOCTOR WHO, this is the Neil Gaiman episode that is to Doctor Who what a Darin Morgan episode is to The X-Files, which is to say that it is an episode of the show that is able to crystallize what you love most about the show, put a silly hat on some of the goofy stuff, and deepen the characters in unexpected ways. An utterly enchanting hour of television that's so good it shows the problems with the Moffat era even more. An aside -- there were several episodes from this season that I quite enjoyed but Moffat's storytelling just doesn't work for Doctor Who. He's good at a lot of things. Sherlock, for example. I just don't think this is in his wheelhouse. And I'm sorry I just used "wheelhouse."

Fringe
I won't be able to say "Okay, so here's what's happened and here's what's going on" in regards to Fringe, because it's got to be the most complex show on American television at the moment and I do not have a notebook with me. I am a huge nerd for alternate universe/Philip K. Dick types of things, and Fringe fits the bill where that's concerned. But more than any of the cool science, it's the characters who live at the heart of the show. It's the TeeVee version of ALTERED STATES, and not just because Blair Brown is on it. The writers on Fringe play with their conventions and they have a unique chance to examine how their characters would react if their worlds were changed forever. How many universes have there been? Which one are we in now? Where does Peter Bishop belong? Is there any universe where Walter Bishop isn't either crazy or evil? No seriously, that's a real question. The universe in which we're currently playing has big changes, and then more subtle smaller ones. And they are all fascinating. The writers don't wait for the audience. They populate their world, and then we catch up to it. "One Night In October" stands out, thanks to a phenomenal performance from the always dependable John Pyper-Ferguson and a terrific story about the differences between the same people in different universes. "And Those We Left Behind" is an episode that perfectly illustrates how science fiction can be used to illuminate the human condition. Ratings-wise, fewer people watched it then probably watched a Kardashian getting an annulment. Depressing, but cheers to Fox for keeping the show on the air when they had every financial reason to cancel it.

Breaking Bad
I would hope that everyone reading this blog is already watching this show and knows that it doesn't put a foot wrong, has an amazing cast that always delivers, and has killed off a villain like no other show ever has or ever will. Also -- MIKE. Because Goddam. If there was a better performance this year than Giancarlo Esposito's embodiment of Gustavo Fring... well, there wasn't. To the end of the season Esposito never cracked, and that made Gus a terrifying monster in tiny glasses and a perfectly tied tie. You will never look at a boxcutter in the same way again. We're all in the car with Vince Gilligan and nobody is wearing a seatbelt, because he's such a good driver that you just know nothing is going to happen. Hell, maybe we've all got our heads out of the window like dogs. When people say that we are in the golden age of television (something with which I don't entirely agree), it's this show that they're talking about.

I would put Mad Men on this list but then we didn't get a Mad Men this year, did we? More proof that 2011 sucked.

Men Of A Certain Age
"Oh God," you groan, "here she fucking goes again." Yeah, I still miss this show and 2011 was the year it was canceled, SO FUCK 2011, YOU HEARTLESS COCK. If we really ARE in the golden age of television drama, then an actual television DRAMA with deft writing, wonderful characters and painful truths interspersed with achingly funny, embarrassing moments would still be on my fucking television. But it's not. And its perceived failure means that other networks aren't likely to give a show like this a shot either. I was thinking of pitching Women Of A Certain Age. How do you think THAT will go?

It's not that networks won't give shows like this a chance because they are assholes. It's that the majority of TeeVee viewers don't want to watch a show like this. Maybe if they solved crimes and were "hip" and "edgy," people would be more interested.

Sigh.

Captain America, Thor and X-Men: First Class
Oh, fuck off. I'm weary of the pounding these movies have gotten. YES, it's easy to punch a superhero movie in the face. I AM VERY AWARE OF THAT. But when you go to movies and you are exhausted by how awful they are, you realize how fucking hard it is to make entertainment. Because judging by movies, IT MUST BE FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE. Then these movies happened and I happily remembered what it was like to go to the theater and be entertained. Every movie doesn't have to be some great commentary on human nature and the state of our world. Every movie doesn't have to be a deconstruction of storytelling. Some movies, like these, can be entertaining. What's also fascinating is how these three movies are anchored by huge performances -- Chris Evans as Cap, Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Michael Fassbender as a fully-clothed Magneto and James McAvoy as Xavier. And look! There's an American in there! Okay, just the one. But still cool.

Hanna
What the fuck, Joe Wright? I thought you were Mr. British Drawing Room Guy Where Actors Get Slightly Cross With Each Other! But no, apparently you are Mr. Fucked Up Fairytale Assassin Movie Where Teeth Are Crucially Important. Hanna is one of those movies that is like a lot of other movies on the surface but deep down below, it isn't. And it was a blast.

TrollHunter
The Scandinavian peoples are doing some weird shit, y'all. TrollHunter is, I believe, slated to be remade in American, although how, I do not know. Because it's about TROLLS, and guess where they AREN'T? This is a droll, funny, creepy little movie that will certainly make you think about trolls in another light. If you were ever thinking about them to begin with. And this, on top of the wickedly strange and creepy Rare Exports! Thanks, you wacky creep-bags.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes
How the hell did this movie get made?? It's not an action film. It's not REALLY a Planet Of The Apes movie either. It's just... quite terrific and sensitive and thought-provoking, and at its center is a wonderful performance by Andy Serkis. Seriously, it's time to recognize what this guy does. There's only one really big ape-on-human setpiece, and the rest of the movie is just lovely. HOW DID THIS GET MADE?

Young Adult
As unsentimental as Juno was sentimental, Young Adult doesn't go where you think it's going to. It heads there, but doesn't quite make the turn-off. Charlize Theron plays the bitch-queen from hell like the most unhappy person who has ever lived, and frankly, she may be. She has probably one moment of true honesty and happiness in the movie and the ending leaves you to wonder if she truly has learned anything, or if she's going to continue being the same horrible, lonely monster she was when the movie started. The whole cast is great. Patrick Wilson is always good when he's playing a lummox, and he's a perfect one here. And Patton Oswalt is terrific as a rage-infested nerd who's so caustic only Mavis is immune. What happens to people who stay in their hometown? What happens to people who leave? And who's really happy? I've felt that Jason Reitman has a great movie in him and he certainly has gotten closer with Young Adult, thanks to the terrific, tough script by Diablo Cody.

Frank Turner and Noel Gallagher
Not together, but separately they were my soundtrack for the year. If you guys haven't heard punk-turned-troubadour Frank Turner, treat yourself. But he's not some sensitive folky, not with a song like Thatcher Fucked The Kids, which sounds like a perfect Occupy theme song. He's witty and caustic and insanely melodic. And in the battle of the Gallagher brothers, Noel's solo release wins the day. I liked the Beady Eye album but it's a little thin, isn't it? Well, Noel's is not. It's not an Oasis record but if you've heard any of Noel's b-sides (I know, I know, I'm using Old People Talk) then you have some idea of what to expect. And live, well, man... wow. The new songs mix beautifully with the Oasis songs, and I've always liked hearing Noel sing the Oasis songs. While he seems reluctant to stand center stage, that's where he belongs. Looking forward to the new 2012 release, if that isn't just total bullshit.

Scarlett Thomas
Thanks to a certain writing partner, 2011 was the year I discovered the British novelist Scarlett Thomas, who is a motherfucking Godlike genius and I think, perhaps, my literary soulmate. Not in the "Hey, we write alike" way, because if I could write like Scarlett Thomas I could die happy. Which would not, incidentally, make me a character in one of her books because dying happy is such a long way from where these people are it's not even a possible thought. She's a first-person writer and her characters share similarities, so much so that you just know she starts with herself and goes from there. And that makes these clever, unique books all the more intriguing. If you want to read the perfect assemblage of Philip K. Dick and Jonathan Carroll, do yourself a favor and pick up The End Of Mr. Y, because it is fucking utter genius.

The Magicians
Have you people read this?? Seriously, if you like any kind of fantasy or science fiction, if you read Harry Potter while sipping a clever Trader Joe's Chardonnay, if you remember having your eyes opened by Narnia, if there was a moment during all of that where you went, "Hang on... wouldn't it be more like THIS?" then Lev Grossman's genius book is for you. In fact, there's a sequel that goes where you do not expect it to go, and a third book coming out next year. A THIRD BOOK. Sigh.

Bitter Seeds
It didn't come out in 2011 but I read it in 2011 and this is MY list, so it counts. Do you like X-Men? Are you fond of the British witches in World War II? Then pick this up. Ian Tregillis is a terrific writer and this book will fuck you up. A sequel is coming out in July, and I do not want to wait until July, Goddammit.

So that's some good stuff in 2011. And maybe I'll blog more in 2012. Maybe I should try to blog SHORTER, which would then mean MORE. Theoretically. I don't know. We'll see. My resolution for 2012 is pretty much to not kill anyone, so the bar's set pretty low. As for things coming out in 2012, I guess there's some. Sherlock returns, as do Southland and Mad Men.

Also, I am looking forward to The Avengers, and fuck you if that's a problem. It's still really fashionable to bash nerd stuff and wouldn't it be nice if 2012 became the year when we stopped fucking doing that for five seconds? Besides, I have a suspicion that 90s nostalgia is going to explode and that means 90s music, which all sounds like it came out of a giant flannel asshole, so if we could just agree to hate THAT and leave nerd stuff alone that would be awesome. Also, the world is supposed to end on my birthday and if you're not going to buy me a car with a giant bow on it, this would be a nice present instead.

Bookblogtopia

2011-12-02T11:42:00.000-08:00

Urgh. Busy.

THANK YOU to everyone who's bought IN OBSCURA. I hope you liked/are liking it! I may put up something free in the next few weeks if I can get my freaking act together. I've also FINALLY finished my YA book. I'm doing the formatting now, but this is probably going to be the cover:

I just finished the NaNoWriMo thing and eventually, I'm sure that novel will go up on the Kindle. Although right now it's hilarious because I didn't plot it out exactly so there's a lot of "Hey, how's the case going?" without any specifics. WORK TO DO THERE. But I think it's a fun world.

Here's my "Congratulations! You vomited out 50,000 words of something!" badge:

I mentioned book blogging in a previous post, and what a clusterfuck it seems to be. I'd like to thank jenfullmoon for her comment from the viewpoint of a book blogger. She says, in part:

The social contract of taking book solicitations is not a comfy one, or at least wasn't for me. I'd rather just pick out my own books at the store, ones that I could flip through to see if I liked them (still can't do that as well as I'd like electronically, so self-published Kindle folks are way less likely to get my interest), and read it recreationally. I wasn't doing this to be professional or start a career in it (hah), and at this point, when some random author solicits me to go buy and read their book, I'm just ignoring it. It's not nice of me, but I just don't want to get involved with that any more.

It seems like it's become a cottage industry over the past few years. You know how it is. People start doing something because they like it, then corporations swoop in and ruin it for everybody.

Another issue is that to be interested in a Kindle-only book I can't flip through, I'd have to already have known/read the author enough to trust that even if they're self-publishing this one (say, an author I loved who had a publishing contract and then got dumped for low sales, or a author with a contract/series that I read who puts their own e-books on their website), I can be sure it's pretty good. A brand spanking new author I don't know/trust selling an e-book? Total crapshoot.

This is the perception I'd love to obliterate. First of all, it's even EASIER to check out a Kindle book than it is a published book. You can download 20% of Kindle books for preview. If all you're doing at a bookstore (whatever THAT is) is flipping through a book, being given 20% for free should make it even MORE obvious if you are going to like the book. But look, I understand your attitude because we all get used to how things are traditionally done. It's all about track record. Everything's about track record. It's comforting.

But we HAVE to get past the fallacy that traditionally-published books are automatically better than e-books. Because while this may have been a hard and fast fact several years ago, it simply isn't anymore.

So basically, if you came to me, I'd be all "I have no idea how you write fiction books, I'm going to have to pay for this Kindle book before I figure out if you're good or not, and then I'm going to have to deal with the personal aspect of rejecting you if you suck because you specifically asked for the review. Not worth it."

Which isn't really what I was complaining about, because you're not in that semi-pro book reviewer club. You know what's a little ironic about those folks? That I have actually made a living as a professional writer for fifteen years. And their credits are...? I guess that's what is so infuriating about it, and what is so infuriating about the whole publishing industry. Anything subjective like art, I suppose. Because there are people who put themselves up as gatekeepers, and they don't necessarily have any skill or experience with it. They just do it, and writers and artists fall into line. WHY DO WE DO THAT? Well, I suppose partly because we ARE artists and that's our weakness. And they know it, so they exploit it.

When you start out as a writer, regardless of format, you need to get feedback. You can't grow into a better writer until you can not only take notes, but reject them as well. That's one of the hardest and most important lessons to learn -- when to hold 'em, and when to fold 'em. A lot of writers decide to take all the notes without knowing which notes are valuable and which aren't. Some writers decide not to take any, because their work is perfect. So they think. But that's a crucial aspect when an artist decides it's time to put their work out there. It's always tricky and you make a lot of mistakes. It's SO important to get to the intent of a note because what the note-giver is telling you doesn't always explain their issue. This is something I think I've managed to handle fairly well. Not perfectly, mind you, but I'm not bad at it. And I also think I give pretty good notes, too. Because unlike a critic, I've been there. I know what it takes to create a story and characters. Critics know what they don't like. And good critics, good note-givers, are a lot more rare than you would think. When you find one, you want to work with them forever.

Just because somebody is a gatekeeper, of whatever stripe, doesn't make them good at any of this. So here's my new thing on book bloggers -- I don't want you to read my book, because I don't know who YOU are. Why the fuck would I BEG someone I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT to read my book and then air their review publicly? This is my epiphany -- THIS SHIT IS INSANE. "Professional" book bloggers have cleverly created a space where they are given weight. I have to hand it to them. But no thanks. I'm already a professional. No begging will occur here.

Some people do the book blogging thing for reputation, or a career, or for ad hits or whatever. I just wanted to do it for fun, for fuck's sake. That could be what you are running into when you are soliciting for reviews. It's not quite as easy at it seems when even an unpopular blog like mine can get crap because everyone has Google Alerts on their name. Ugh.

Well, it's unfortunate that you're getting caught up in that. Just ignore it and read what you want to. Luckily, I didn't actually try to solicit any reviews. Because it just seemed all too weird. And, as it turns out, that's exactly how weird it is. Frankly, I care more about the quality of a thing than its popularity. The "professional" book bloggers are trafficking in the same shit many of the publishers are. What happens when a business struggles is they try to exercise more control. This happens in the entertainment business as well, and it's definitely happening in publishing. Because it's all corporate, the way they exercise that control is by trying to quantify something that isn't quantifiable -- creativity. And that's when it gets difficult to rely on your skill to just write well.

But look, I put my book out there. It was totally free to do, and the fact that people seem to enjoy it is really all I was after. Also, I really like making book covers.

Stephen Blackmoore says:

I think the self-publishing discussion took over what Chuck was really trying to get at, which was maybe, as writers, we should try looking at the quality of our work before looking at how we should publish it.

The conversation gets mired in how to sell over how to write sometimes.

The same thing happens in TeeVee and especially in features. People are so all-consumed with how to get their script to an agent or JJ Abrams that they don't focus on writing. And also, they think they're going to sell a script for a million dollars, or sell a show that will run forever. Because when you see success stories, as an American especially, you think that you could do that, too. You could be that successful, etc.

The only way ebooks will be taken seriously is if more traditionally published writers give up those contracts and start publishing on their own. Which Lee Goldberg did to a certain degree when he decided not to write more Monk books. He's a fantastic writer and I can't wait to see him succeed just doing his own stuff. I care about good writing and not shitty writing that got successful. So I am at cross purposes with some people in that regard. I don't think success stories where the writing is crap helps.

I just read a dystopian YA book called Divergent, by a writer fresh out of college. Veronica Roth. I would be super irritated, in a good way, if she'd managed to echo and not ape The Hunger Games. But ape she did, and her lack of life experience and especially writing experience shows with this book. It's not that she's a bad writer. She isn't. But you can tell that she's really new to it. The worst thing to happen to YA fiction is the explosion of dystopian futures. I think YA consistently has the best writing of all the genres. Or had, until the explosion happened and every pink-cheeked college grad decided to pop off a dystopian YA romance and get published. And the problem is, they ARE getting published. And then Hollywood, which doesn't know any better, options the things.

Nobody is going to create a more vivid, impactful dystopia than Suzanne Collins did. But you can create a DIFFERENT one, which is not where Veronica Roth went. Her dystopia is not at all believable. Seriously, throughout the entire book all you're thinking about is how the future doesn't make any Goddam sense. This is the latest wave and I'm afraid that it's going to go downhill from here. Luckily, Ally Condie wrote Matched, which is wonderful, and I did enjoy Ann Aguirre's Enclave, even if it's a little slight. Suzanne Collins, Ally Condie and Ann Aguirre were not new to writing when they wrote their dystopian books, however.

World-building is HARD, and imagining a future America after some kind of violent unknown event isn't for the novices. If you haven't read a lot of science fiction dystopian books (just seeing Mad Max doesn't count) then you have no business diving into this world just because a publisher wants a dystopia. It's infuriating.

I think we're moving towards actual science fiction YA and I've heard time travel, and that is just going to KILL these writers. Urban fantasy isn't a piece of cake either, but it's much more of a gateway genre for writers who are just trying to cash in on a crazy. But doing actual science fiction and time travel is going to be a tough road for newbies.

Read some Heinlein, for fuck's sake. At least skim a few of the juveniles and Farnham's Freehold. Work up to JG Ballard and Harlan Ellison if you want to do dystopia. If you want to cash in on the burgeoning time travel thing, see if you can grok David Gerrold's THE MAN WHO FOLDED HIMSELF before banging out a treatment.

Next, and hopefully very soon, I am going to write a post about vampires. No, I am not kidding.

Tivo is MAGIC and Other Stories

2011-10-06T10:31:00.000-07:00

Cable update: After three weeks of Tivo not working with two Motorola devices crammed into it, NOW it works. Actually, it started working right before the latest tech came out. Which is how these things go. But it keeps working, thank God, and the tech who came out was like in the super-secret spy-tech division, so now I have his card and can call him if the thing goes out, or if I need a guy whacked. And having jettisoned the mindlessly awful TWC cable box and replaced it Tivo... ahhhhh. If you've never used Tivo then you don't understand. If you have Dish network and use their DVR, you almost understand.

When -- not if, this is an inevitability -- you have a technological problem that can't be solved by rebooting whatever horrid piece of equipment a company has saddled you with, there is no force on this EARTH that should keep you from getting past the phone answering people and to the techs who do more than just check your cable signal. PEOPLE, YOU CANNOT COMPLAIN ENOUGH. They DO keep track of your calls so if you call whenever your cable goes out, or whenever your Motorola box doesn't work -- okay, maybe not EVERY time because then it would be a full time job -- then they will elevate you because they will be sick to fucking death of you.

And also, if you complain to the FCC, they write you a letter and then a person in corporate calls you. My contention is that way, way higher up than the phone grunts are people who are actually paid to care (hey, it's a gray area) when customers are dissatisfied. But since most customers just give up in frustration (the system is designed for this), only the real troublemakers get through, and it is they who must be handled carefully. Be one of those people!

I've added a few new scripts to the Pilots folder (look to your left), including a MAD MEN spec that didn't go anywhere because people stopped reading specs. While I've been checking out some of the new fall shows, I'm not going to give any opinion on them. I will say this, though, and this speaks to the fact that the networks were closed to development to anyone who didn't have a deal and wasn't one of the approved twenty white guys who always sell pilots and make shows. Television is not film. And while an exciting concept will get you an audience initially, if the show isn't compelling in a story/character kind of way, the audience will not stick around. This works for film because if you can get an audience into the theater opening weekend, success. But for TeeVee, you need them to keep coming back week after week. And according to the ratings, this isn't going to go down as one of the most successful fall seasons. In fact, the networks don't seem to realize this and have decided to go even FURTHER in that direction with the big-name deals they're making for next fall. So it doesn't seem possible that a smaller voice is going to break through anytime soon, which means that TeeVee writers are pretty much going to have to figure out how to make their voices heard in other ways. And no, I don't know what those other ways are. But I think we're stuck here for awhile.

Maybe later, when they've bought the last of their giant ape projects, I'll pick out a few that are exciting. There ARE a few.

Thanks to anyone who bought my book on the Kindle! But no reviews so far? Really? Sigh. I'd even take a bad one, because my page is so bare and sad. Wait no -- I would rather not take a bad one. I haven't done much with marketing the book because the whole concept mystifies me, but it's pretty obvious that marketing in every arena, not just e-publishing, can be as important than the work itself. It's about branding and packaging and because we have a zillion things coming at us every second, something needs to break through the noise.

I did look into book bloggers who review books. That seemed like a good idea. After all, shouldn't they be people who love books and want to review them? You'd think so. You'd be wrong. It's harder to get a blogger to read your book than it is to get an agent! The myriad rules and qualifications are kind of stultifying. What a BIZARRE little cottage industry. They only seem to read books published by a big publisher, which seems the antithesis of the exercise. But they've become important and I guess I can see why. Publishers are corporations, and corporations are confused by social media. This probably has something to do with the unalterable fact that social media is an individual sport and although Mittens Romney asserts that corporations are people, they aren't to the degree it's necessary to Tweet like a human being. The success of book bloggers was probably begotten because one of them made a book suddenly popular. So the publishers treat book bloggers like record companies treat the CW -- a confusing thing that does their work for them.

There's so much white noise in forums that it doesn't seem viable to pimp a book there, either. So I guess I'll take a slightly different route -- keep writing books and putting them on the Kindle. Hell, I like doing the covers and the book trailers anyway. And while I've gone beyond "keep writing well and someone will take notice," it's not hurting me to keep doing it.

With all the attention paid to the few successes in e-publishing, it is inevitable that published authors keep losing their fucking minds over it all. The latest example is Chuck Wendig, a real Renaissance man of writing. He recently ranted on his blog about self-publishing, and how perhaps self-published authors should focus more on the actual writing than on making billions of dollars. No argument there. But he ignores a few things, like the fact that there are bad self-published writers making money, just as there are bad traditional-published writers making money. About good writers who aren't selling a lot of self-published books he says:

In fact, if they continue to sell as they appear to sell then I would suggest these books would have done much better had they been published — gasp — traditionally.

But Chuck doesn't appear to be at all aware of the state of the publishing industry and how it is really, really, REALLY not interested in publishing anything. The publishing industry isn't looking for good writing. Not right now. It's looking for big, high-concept books that can be instant smashes. Midlist authors are being squeezed out, and it's mostly the midlist authors who are turning to e-publishing. This is the same thing that's happening in TeeVee and film. It's entertainment gigantism, and the problem is that if one corporation does it, then all the others have to as well. So if you're expecting someone with a non-high concept book and without any connections to actually get an agent and sell a book, you're a fucking loon.

The thing is, if self-published authors read stories about shitty writers who are making piles of money because they market well, what do you think the lesson is there? Presuming that all traditionally published books are terrific because they've been through "the process" is a little bit naive, and also dead fucking wrong. Has nobody read A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES?? That got published and pushed and marketed because of its concept, not because of the writing. What this attitude does is take the writer out of the equation, and it hands the power over to the agents and publishers and editors. Because they accept you, that means you are a good writer. Look, this isn't true in television or film, and it isn't true in publishing. I know traditionally-published writers are threatened by self-publishing but one doesn't preclude the other, and if you feel that you needed to "pay your dues" in order to become a real writer, that's fine. Others may not feel that way and for the first time in history, they have a real, viable path to get their work to the public. Yeah, you're no longer special. Deal with it.

Networkless

2011-09-15T17:10:00.000-07:00

"Thank you for choosing Time Warner," the cheerful Time Warner Cable human said after I'd signed up for their cable service. However, he did get one thing wrong there -- I didn't choose Time Warner. Because who in their right mind would voluntarily CHOOSE a company that has some of the worst customer service on record? No, I was FORCED to sign up with Time Warner because on occasion, I would like to watch television.

Previously, I had Dish Network. I got to CHOOSE Dish, and I choose wisely. Dish just freaking WORKED. While I couldn't use Tivo with it, the Dish DVR was as close to the Tivo interface as I've seen. It worked great. A few hiccups here and there but if don't live in storm country, the satellite rarely goes out (and by rarely, I mean almost never). Any trouble I had was resolved immediately. I never had to push eight zillion buttons, wait on hold, and give the rep 87,000 numbers and addresses and bullshit to get my problem solved.

Unfortunately -- and satellite, I BLAME THE FUCK OUT OF YOU FOR THIS -- I no longer face South, which means I cannot have satellite. Because the government doesn't actually give a shit about people who rent apartments (or people who don't have kids, or don't have construction jobs, but that's a whole separate rant), if you don't face South you are shit out of luck for satellite. Now, if you are lucky enough to face the right way, you have a choice -- Dish, or DirectTV. THAT'S A REAL AND ACTUAL CHOICE and because those two companies are competitors, they kinda have to deliver or their customers will split.

Time Warner, or Comcast, or insert your shitty monopoly here, doesn't have that problem. If I want to watch TeeVee, I HAVE to have Time Warner fucking cable. I can't even get OTA channels with an antenna. So that is my only option.

Well. That and Bittorrent, but you can't Bittorrent sports and frankly, it's only sports that keeps people from completely cutting the cable cord. Think about it, people -- we can get television programs ANYWHERE. We cannot, however, get sports. And that's how the cable companies keep you.

So I was forced to go back to this company that I had happily fled when I went to Dish. Guys, IT'S WORSE NOW. And here's how.

The sales pitch: Seriously, if I call you because my cable doesn't work, don't try to sell me Internet or phone service. Don't lie to me (because you think I'm just a girl who doesn't know any better) and tell me that I pay more for my SonicNet internet service because it's a "third party," when my internet speed is just perfect for me, it hasn't gone out one freaking time, and Sonic is a dream to deal with. Don't try to sell me bundles, assholes, BECAUSE I AM NOT STUPID.

The Motorola DVR: Oh my freaking GOD have you people used this thing? Have any of you, gentle readers, ever used a Motorola product that WORKED? The DVR needs to be rebooted almost daily and if you get an emergency alert (wickedly plentiful and right in the middle of the day on Time Warner), it freezes the thing and you have to reboot. Nothing about the interface works the way a thinking human would want it to. All these guys ripped off Tivo, and NONE of them could get it right? There are about five extra steps in this thing, for anything you want to do. Want to extend recording times? No problem, if you are a technomage who can read the mind of a Motorola and figure out where the FUCK they put that option! The DVR, combined with the Time Warner interface, is NOT made for people who watch TV. You can't even tell what's on, for fuck's sake! Rather than the utterly blissful Tivo guide menu, this crappy thing scrolls from side to side but because it can't actually FIT titles on there, all you usually see is one word or blank spaces. And don't even THINK about actually speed-scrolling through the menu, because you can't. You only get guide data for about a week, and you can only see five channels at a time because they plant a big honkin' ad for some fucking thing at the bottom of the screen.

And if you have to reboot this thing (AND YOU WILL), all the guide data vanishes for about a day while the menu reloads or whatever shit Motorola and Time Warner want it to do. The "techs," however, think it only takes half an hour to reload, which is fucking hilarious.

YOU LOSE GUIDE DATA. YOU CAN'T TELL WHAT'S ON. FOR DAYS.

This is normal to them.

Switched digital video: This is cable's answer to bandwidth issues. Basically, instead of a channel always being on and accessible, an SDV channel is not on until it's accessed. What this means is, there is constant two-way communication going on between your shitty Motorola DVR and the cable node. So if you have signal issues -- or just a MOTOROLA -- then you are going to have problems getting your SDV channels. The other thing SDV channels do is quit on you. Because if you're tuned to, say, TVG (which, sadly, is SDV) and you're watching it all day long, the fucking DVR assumes you're NOT watching it and switches to a non-SDV channel to conserve bandwidth. It should tell you something about this "technology" that it's illegal for network channels to be SDV. Right? I'm horrified that the FCC allowed this shit. Especially since they want to eventually move ALL cable to SDV. MY GOD. ALL OF IT. GONE, IN AN INSTANT.

I find it curious that companies that constantly extoll their fantabulous laser-quick Internet have to develop a new technology to save bandwidth.

But the biggest problem with SDV is what it's done to Tivo.

The FCC was forced to make a ruling telling monopolizing cable companies (i.e., all of them) that they HAD to offer cablecards to third-party DVR customers. The cablecard is the decoder that is built into the shitty Motorola boxes and unscrambles your cable signal because if there's one thing a corporatocracy cannot abide, it's theft... unless they are the ones doing the stealing by forcing the government to legalize it. Although the cable companies fought like a mother, they finally were forced to allow this. Of course, they charged customers for the truck roll it took to "install" the cablecard, and more often than not the techs had NO fucking idea what they were doing. So people had trouble pairing their cards with their Tivos. The FCC stepped in AGAIN, and mandated that the cable companies had to allow self-installs. Now, lemme just say, if there's something easier than putting the card into its slot, calling the cable company and reading numbers off a screen, I'd like to know what it is. Authenticating and pairing a cablecard is easy.

Because of the two-way, non-digital SDV technology, the one-way Tivo device needs yet ANOTHER FUCKING PIECE OF MOTOROLA EQUIPMENT (did I mention the cablecards are Motorola?) for this to work. Enter the tuning adapter, a piece of black plastic with the most irritating blinking light this side of a Cylon's eye. The tuning adapter is SUPPOSED to be responsible for getting the SDV channel and then sending it to the Tivo.

Except it doesn't. Work. AT FUCKING ALL. I decided I couldn't take the Motorola anymore and went and bought a Tivo. That was two weeks ago, and I haven't been able to get the Tivo working with the Time Warner/Motorola crap equipment.

What's really extraordinary about the tuning adapter is that it has this enormous set of diagnostic screens, and a little hole on the back of it for diagnostic equipment. But according to Time Warner, they have no way of knowing what any of it means. I mean, SERIOUSLY??

Time Warner couldn't give less of a shit about this. At least this is data I've gathered from the three weeks and dozens of service calls and four home visits (another tech is coming tomorrow, God fucking help me) that have been required to put me back at the same fucking place I started. And there have been some CHOICE lies and comments made during this time. One rep, who literally had NO IDEA what the tuning adapter was, said, "I don't want to point fingers, but..." while the Tivo rep was on the phone. Seriously, "Cindy" was a fucking moron, and the fact that Time Warner KNOWS it's their cables and their signal that is the problem didn't matter to Cindy. But at least she didn't promise to connect me with a supervisor and then hang up on me, like the next one did. Or how about the guy who told me that their DVR was the best on the market? Or the other guy who claimed that my TELEVISION was the source of the problem, when the fucking thing isn't even hooked INTO the television? Or the guy who said that the HDMI cables NEVER work and you have to use component cables? Or the guy who said he couldn't stand how loud the Tivo hummed? Which was my favorite, because the Motorola DVR sounds like a submarine diving.

I could go on.

Incidentally, when you have to have one of these guys come to your house, they read you this interminable thing about how an adult has to be present and the tech will call half an hour before he gets there. Except that the tech never calls. He just shows up. More annoying, though, is the fact that you get an automated call confirming the appointment, but you had better answer the phone because you have to press 1 to confirm it, or it'll either keep calling you, or dump your appointment. Also, these calls happen at the crack of fucking dawn. Pleasant.

Mostly, the techs do one thing -- check the signal coming out of the cable. Except for the worthless and useless home visits, this reminds me of my times on the phone with the Dell guy in India, who kept telling me to reboot the computer when it turned out, at the end of the warranty period, that they had fucked up the motherboard.

Anyway.

Because the cable companies have such a strong monopoly, and because Time Warner, Comcast, Verizon and AT&T got together and, like the five families, split up Southern California so they wouldn't be in competition, some of us are stuck with horrible, overbearing, underwhelming service from a company that we did not want to begin with.

Back when I first got cable, you plugged the cable from the wall into the Tivo and turned it on. Voila! Television. But that wasn't enough for the cable companies. They didn't control enough. They couldn't charge enough. People could still watch a lot of their sports on the networks. Luckily, HD and digital cable arrived and the networks became indistinguishable from cable, which meant that most people couldn't get OTA signals anymore anyway and just all started signing up for cable. THAT meant that cable companies could start charging zillions of dollars for sports packages, and movie packages. And the majority of sports migrated to cable. And then the cable companies started buying studios, and vice versa, and now everyone just owns everyone, which is why DirectTV owns tennis and you have to pay hundreds of dollars to watch football games that you used to be able to watch for free. Want to watch the baseball playoffs? Well, I sure hope you have TBS and your SDV works or you're shit out of luck!!

Why do networks HAVE to provide only on cable and satellite? Why can't I buy a subscription to ESPN, or TVG? No seriously, why?

I get about 2,000 channels and I watch about twenty of them. Which means (because of the Motorola DVR's interface) that I have to constantly search through this shit to get to my channels. I didn't have this many channels on fucking SATELLITE, for Christ sake! Nobody needs this many channels. Why do I need two hundred Spanish channels, or a hundred Korean channels? Why can't I just have the channels I fucking WANT? They are pretending that they're delivering us bang for our buck but it's the opposite. They're inundating us. Overwhelming us. And then, when they've worn us down, they try to sell us bundles of other shit that doesn't work. My God, can you imagine having phone, cable AND Internet from the same place??? Seriously, WHO DOES THAT? ARE YOU INSANE?

Gentle readers, this is deliberate obfuscation, a wearing down of the American consumer, making us so punch-drunk that we're now used to spending six hours on the phone with these fuckers, rebooting their worthless, shitty equipment over and over again, waiting hours for a cable guy who's only going to check the signal, make disparaging comments about your third-party equipment, and then vamoose. And they don't care if the problem is ever fixed BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO OTHER OPTION and they get paychecks, so there's no reason they should care. If you think this is EVER going to get any better, you are a fucking idiot.

I realize there's no way to stay outta the way of the man. The world is run by these megacorporations, and they're getting their bright, shiny tax breaks from the American government in exchange for campaign money. But you do have to wonder why nobody has taken out a cable guy. Fuck the post office. At least your mail gets delivered. Is there anyway to NOT stand for this?

Aside from giving up my sports, of course.

Because THAT I will not do.

But when the studios bleat about people stealing movies and television shows from the Internet, maybe they should take a good, hard look at WHY this is happening. It's easy to just label people as criminals but if all you want to do is watch Breaking Bad and you've spent three bone-wearying weeks trying to get defective equipment working -- equipment and service that you are paying for, of course, because NO BREAK FOR YOU -- then does downloading an episode really make you a criminal? You know what makes you a criminal? Deliberately creating rolling blackouts in California so you can make a pile of money, then being recorded on a phone call laughing about it. Setting up Ponzi schemes with the government's help, and then lying to naive people about how great these mortgages are. Making a pile of money off war.

But no, it's people downloading off BITTORRENT who are the criminals. The rest of these fuckers are installed in government.

I've already registered one complaint with the FCC against Time Warner Cable, and I doubt it'll be the last one. I know, how dumb am I to think that a government agency is going to do shit to its corporate overlords?

I hear Bittorrent calling...

In Obscura

2011-07-24T21:16:00.000-07:00

So I wrote a book, I made a cover for it, and I'm putting it up on Amazon and Smashwords.

I'm sure you're wondering WTF, right?

When you are a working writer, as I sometimes am, it gets easy to lose sight of what got you into this to begin with. Especially if what you're writing isn't being produced. Because we are the sellers and studios/agents/producers are the buyers, we need to please THEM. Not you, and not always us. Telling buyers that my art theft TeeVee show would totally be well received means absolutely nothing. It doesn't matter what I think. It doesn't matter if I'm right. The buyers ostensibly have a much better handle on the market. They will tell you what will sell. Entertainment goes through them. Sure, it would be nice if you could just get a buncha viewers to sign a petition, but sadly it doesn't work like that right now. So as a writer, much of your day is spent figuring out how to sell. It's a very valuable skill, I wish I were better at it, but it can really drain the creativity right out of you.

This isn't to say that buyers have no interest in anything that's good, or in a writer's voice or any of that. There is acknowledgement of how fucked this business can be. But it does get harder and harder to get your voice heard through the noise.

Writing a novel was, for me, a way to do something that was all about voice and not about the market. I know the market well enough to know what has a chance of being commercial and what doesn't, and there comes a time when you just gotta do what you gotta do. Hence, In Obscura. This is NOT a commercial book, not in the modern sense. Maybe it would have been, back before publishing died. Who knows?

But the advent of the e-book and the dominance of Amazon and Barnes & Noble's e-readers gives writers a forum through which to tell stories to an actual public that doesn't just include their moms. Also, my mom doesn't have an electronic reading device, so that wouldn't work anyway. So someone who's written an unfashionably uncommercial book (i.e., me) can actually format said book for the e-book market and sell it alongside Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer... 'alongside' meaning on the same website. Not necessarily right alongside. While this sounds egalitarian, it's driving some published writers and publishing professionals fucking batshit.

See, there's A LOT of shit up on Amazon's Kindle site. Just a ton of poorly written detritus to slog through in the hopes that you'll find something readable. And people don't want to slog. Who can blame them? Leveling the playing field has its advantages, but also its disadvantages. There's so much web chatter out there with all our competing social networking sites and blogs and whatnot that it's frequently impossible to find what you're looking for.

Publishing professionals maintain that actual published books have an advantage because they've already made it past the first circle of hell. They've been agented, properly edited, nicely formatted, have professionally done covers, are typeset, bound and marketed. Essentially, writers who make it through the publishing circus have paid their dues, and if you don't pay your dues, then you don't deserve to be published. I understand that viewpoint but we're not talking about a vanity press here. If I put my book up next to someone's published novel and my book sells more copies, then it means that more people wanted to read my book than the published book. And if not, well, then not. It's kind of simple.

The contention is that published books will be better than self-published books. And for the most part, this is likely true. However, a lot of bad writers get published. Likewise, a lot of good writers don't get published. And since one doesn't hurt the other, what's there to get upset about?

Before self-publishing became so easy, before self-published e-books could -- if properly done -- be indistinguishable from that Tor bestseller -- there was NO WAY a rejected author could sell a book. So publishing was safe from having to answer the hard question -- why the fuck did we turn that bestseller down? Now, however, that's a question that just may surface from time to time. So yeah, that's scary to some publishing folks.

This is simplistic, I know, and I'm not necessarily disagreeing that a book that's gone through its paces in order to be published isn't going to be better 99% of the time. But there have been several e-book successes, and it's pretty clear that publishing's a little scared. They're also scared because some published writers have decided to self-publish. Even though they don't have the weight of a publishing house's marketing department behind them, they do already have a fan base and the royalty rate for an author is MUCH better than the deal they get from their publisher. An author gives up the backing of a big publishing house for more control over their product. Some people are willing to do this. And some aren't.

Publishing is as stuck-in-the-past as the studios. They immerse themselves in social media and networking, but they don't really understand it. They don't know why some things go viral and others don't. They try to force it, and that just doesn't work. Studios and networks announce that movies and TeeVee shows are hits, but is it really possible that EVERY summer cable show is the highest-rated show of the summer? The math says no. It's as if the announcement becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But maybe the days of telling an audience what it wants, what it needs, are waning. It's cheaper to release an e-book or an app or do a two-minute comedy video in your living room than it is to make a TeeVee show or a movie. So I think that if the tide is going to turn, that's where it's going to start.

But let's be honest here. People who write books and then upload them to the Kindle in the hopes of striking it rich are fucking idiots. But then people who come to Hollywood in the hopes of getting rich writing movies are fucking idiots, too. If you don't love it, if you have no motivation other than money, then don't do it. Seriously. DON'T.

In Obscura is a book I started writing over a decade ago. I'd write, put it away, drag it out, change all the pop culture and technology, etc. It has a sprawling, ancient mythology that needed to be corralled. There's magic in it. But it doesn't feature a punkish, back-to-the-camera heroine covered in tramp stamps as she wields a sharpened weapon of some sort. It doesn't have the mainstream thriller fiction vibe either. It's not about a globe-trotting archaeologist, or a famous symbologist. There are no scenes of cardinals rending their garments at the Vatican. People, I DON'T EVEN MENTION OPUS DEI. The spine of this story is a secret history, created partly out of the inspiration I had when we were researching secret societies and black virgins and bloodlines on Millennium. And you can only fit so much ancient conspiracy into one hour of television.

I hope you take a look at it (hell, 20% of it is free anyway), and if you buy it, I hope it's worth your time and your two bucks.

This is a book that I think people would like to read. It's as simple as that. With all the hoops that have to be jumped through, all the preparation and positioning and marketing and pilot reading and what have you, it's a nice thing to be able to say, "Here's a book you may enjoy."

And here's a trailer that will hopefully whet your appetite:

Revenge of the Nerds

2011-07-23T12:19:00.000-07:00

Comic Con is happening right now. I am at home. Some evil creature convinced me to go down yesterday for the day, however. I didn't really want to go because as everybody has been saying for years, Comic Con has changed quite a bit from what it used to be -- a comic book convention. There's a lot of "hey, you kids, get off my lawn" shouting from the old-timers about how things used to be so much better, there are hardly any comics now, there are too many people, parking and hotel rooms are impossible, etc. All of this is true, but none of it is the real reason Comic Con is an epic failure.

Back in the day, you could drive down on Saturday, park in the lot next to the convention center, and then go in and buy comics. You could walk into panels, which featured comic book writers talking about comic books. There was the odd film or TV writing panel, maybe even a panel with book writers on it, but the primary focus was comics. Studios paid some attention to it -- there's an adorable photo of fans watching Star Wars at Comic Con in 1976. Now obviously, upon reflection, this looks more charming than it was.

But think about it for a second.

Making Star Wars was a gamble. This is a kind of half-assed attempt at promotion. "Hey, what about those comics people? Maybe we should show it to them." And then, worldwide phenomenon that changed movies forever. But it's pretty obvious from the photos that it wasn't the Comic Con crowd that pushed Stars Wars forward.

The movie didn't give rise to what's happening at Comic Con now. Its surprising success did. Now every entertainment company is owned by some enormous megacorporation. And the one thing big companies cannot abide is failure, which in corporate-speak means something that doesn't make the shareholders money. Companies don't take chances anymore. We all know that. It's not news. Although if it were, the "reboot" of Spiderman should change minds on that. When companies discovered an untapped but potentially valuable core fanbase being held captive in San Diego for four days, they went to fucking town. Literally. Movies -- and particularly TeeVee -- started invading Comic Con. And real geeks who had spent their lives seeking out cool shit found that the cool shit started coming to them. So for awhile, people were happy. Fans didn't realize that they were being used only as a promotional springboard.

Then more companies, more networks and more studios started getting into the act. And the con organizers bent over fucking backwards to accommodate them. Comic Con became THE destination for the year's entertainment product. There was still a dealer's room with comics and books, toys and artwork. And sure, it got a little more crowded, but that's the price you pay.

I'm here to tell you, gentle readers, that we have far surpassed that now.

It doesn't bother me so much that they oversell, it's the fact that it has become literally COMPLETELY impossible to see what you want to see. And really, when you look at the programming, it's 99% about the moving picture. Panels don't have topics. It's actors coming to promote their movies or shows. And whereas panels used to have all kinds of diversity (whether it be literal diversity or diversity of experience), that diversity is gone now. Could a bunch of writers get together and do a panel at Comic Con if they weren't on staff on an approved show, or had written an approved movie? Doubtful. This is a new era of Comic Con, an era in which only corporate-approved product gets presented to the masses.

The venerated Hall H, the bete noir of many a Comic Con goer, has to be entered with a siege mentality. People sit in Hall H all day long, because that's where the movie studios plop big-name actors to hawk their upcoming movies. I don't have a problem with folks who want to sit there all day to catch a glimpse of Harrison Ford, but this is what ALL of Comic Con has become. It's simply product shilling to trapped consumers.

It's cynical advertising and since the con is so drastically oversold, it creates a false demand that frustrates people. It's become the nerd version of Sundance, where only the privileged few can see what they came to see. Look, if I can't get into something, whatever. I didn't pay to get in anyway, and since I have worked in this business, I can't go five minutes without running into someone I know. If I actually could get a hotel room and stayed down there for the entire thing, I'd spend the majority of my time hanging out and hopefully making some new contacts. I'd treat it like what it's become -- a professional networking scene.

But it really bugs me that people spend ALL that money to buy their passes, their plane tickets, their rooms, their frightfully expensive food, and then can't get into anything they want to see. Then they hear about parties they can't get into, where all the stars/writers/directors they would love to talk to are going. So the major draw of Comic Con -- to talk to/interact with people you admire -- is taken away from them. All they have left is to sit in Hall H all weekend to catch that glimpse of their heroes.

Look, Comic Con outcasts, I can't get into the parties either. But fuck it. It's an artificial class system that's been created by executives who have -- once again -- inserted themselves between you and what you came for. And you can't even pay extra to get it. YOU LITERALLY CAN'T GET IT. So if you're coming to Comic Con just for the crazy-ass experience it does indeed provide, if you want to sit in a ballroom or a hall all day to catch the stars of your favorite show, then do it. But if you're looking for a real convention-going experience, or inspiration, or anything that isn't like wandering into a live-action version of a fucking Google search, then find a different convention. And there are MANY to choose from.

It's gotten to the point where all the whores come out. I mean literally THE WHORES, the girls in their sexy superhero-ess costumes who ride in convertibles writhing to house music as they blow bubbles at the crowd and try to get them to watch whatever-the-fuck reality show. The sexy superhero-esses who crowd every street corner (HOW APPROPRIATE) handing out flyers and asking people if they want to party. "We're having an awesome rave down the street." When this kind of trash arrives, you know the world is ending.

I had fun yesterday, but 99% of the fun I had happened outside the convention center. It was great to run into friends and meet new people, and I wish I'd been able to get a hotel room earlier because staying the entire weekend and just doing THAT would have been fun. But geez, they just make it immediately inaccessible. They make people feel like they're on the outside from the second the fucking thing starts. And that's not a nice thing to do to a geek, especially since conventions have traditionally been inclusive. Sure, geeks get together and pick on furries (who doesn't?) but there's still the spirit of geek that used to rule the con and now you just see it in little spurts.

Unfortunately, when you put on that badge, you are entering into a tacit agreement with the corporations that you will consume its product. And the corporate noise drowns out all others. So you'll see people trying desperately to promote their indie comic, or film, or whatever. But they have to do it the way the studios do, or nobody will pay attention. However, by virtue of doing this, they wind up having their product compared to Sony's, and that will always end in tears.

There's just too much fucking noise. There are no surprises, either. Nothing comes out of Comic Con suddenly having buzz. The studios have made sure of that. The buzz going in is the same as the buzz coming out. Nothing must surprise, because it's all teen test-marketed and branded to death. It's just food to the faithful and you, Comic Con goers, are those faithful.

The big geek refrain is that there's only one thing that ruined Comic Con -- Twilight. This couldn't be more fucking stupid. They think Twilight ruined Comic Con because all of a sudden girls were coming. Maybe it's a desperate move on their part, to ignore their own participation in Comic Con's demise by pointing the finger at the newest fanbase. But let's face it, y'all. Comic Con was going downhill FAR before the Twilight kids got there. And the fact that the demographic isn't so startlingly male-driven has nothing to do with Twilight and everything to do with the convention no longer being for geeks. Sony doesn't make some big superhero movie in the hopes that geeks will like it. They use you to get to the rest of the world.

The spirit of the geek, of the unexpected fanbase, isn't completely obliterated, though. The brightest spark I saw all day was when we passed by the Hasbro conflagration. There's a giant fucking My Little Pony there. Seriously so giant that it's ride-able. Lots of little girls getting their pictures taken with it, of course. Because My Little Pony is so obviously marketed towards little sparkly girls. However, there were a lot of guys there, too, waiting rather self-consciously for the little girls to get their pictures taken so they could sidle in.

You may be thinking WTF, but then if you read this link, you'll at least understand what I'm talking about. Guys love the My Little Pony TeeVee show. They certainly don't love it because it's being marketed to them. They love it in spite of the fact that they couldn't be further from the desired demographic.

In the midst of the cynical marketing, advertising and dangerously enormous crowds of people, it's refreshing to see these guys who truly love something so much that they will risk ridicule by showing up for it in public. It proves that inspiration and adoration can still come from unexpected places.

Bronys, my hat is off to you. You saved Friday.

I'm As Mad As Hell...

2011-07-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

...And I'm Not Going To Take This Anymore!

I was going to write a nice blog post about how summer has even more quality TeeVee than fall now (especially since 17th Precinct didn't get ordered). We've got Torchwood, Breaking Bad, Damages and True Blood. But then one of the best dramas I've seen in fucking YEARS got canceled and, well, here's the blog post you get.

In January, TNT president Michael Wright had this to say about Men Of A Certain Age:

We couldn’t be happier with the show. We look for a lot of different metrics on TNT. Obviously we want big ratings success, but we also want attention and good reviews from critics. This show works on a lot of levels for us.

Now that the show has rudely been canceled by Wright, it's time to call bullshit. But let's be fair. Whenever a network president says something like this about a show, you know the show is doomed.

I wasn't in the room when MOACA was unceremoniously yanked off TNT's airwaves (if there are even still things called airwaves). I have no reason to doubt Wright's sincerity when he talks about the quality of the show. As people have been joking since the cancellation, "I guess that one viewer is pretty upset," it's clear that the majority of Americans had never even heard of it.

As an aside, I think that if it's okay to joke about a lot of people losing their jobs, then I can joke when teachers gets laid off. Fair? Cool.

So.

Who's fault is it that hardly anybody had even heard of the show when it was cancelled? Can you really blame the viewers? Especially the viewers who watch whatever's doing well on TNT? I don't watch anything on TNT, yet when I heard about MOACA, I thought it sounded intriguing and wanted to check it out. Does that make me better than all y'all who hadn't even fucking HEARD of it BUT WATCHED STUFF ON TNT?

Because honestly.

But actually -- and it's sad for me to say this -- that does NOT make me better than you. This is still the business I'm in (I know -- SHOCKER). And as such, I find that it is somewhat helpful to know what's on the television machine. Even if I only watch an episode or two, I like to be familiar. And sometimes I've only watched an episode or two of shows and then given up, only to be pulled back when people told me I should reinvest (Veronica Mars comes to mind). Other times, the show has been on my radar but I'm a few seasons behind before I get into it (Friday Night Lights). But I'm rather proud to say that I watched Buffy from episode one. There are TeeVee critics who can't say THAT. And don't get me STARTED on people whose job it is to WATCH TEEVEE not watching TeeVee.

So I don't expect the regular TeeVee viewer to check everything out. It's not their job. It IS the job of the network to promote their shows. And if people tuning into Leverage didn't know about MOACA, then the fault lies squarely on the network's shoulders. Sure, I suppose people who like Leverage and whatever else is on TNT wouldn't have any interest in a quiet, well-written drama about men approaching fifty. After all, there are no aliens or heists or interrogation room scenes. But MOACA wasn't even one of those demanding shows, or tough shows. It was instantly likeable and -- networks LURVE this word -- relatable. And granted, the show wasn't of the TNT "brand." But if your brand is so tightly-focused, then don't pick the show up, even if you adore it. Because the cancellation day will be coming.

A sidebar on brands. I thoroughly understand the fact that networks need to brand themselves. I've been on shows that were so isolated in the schedule that there was no way to cross-promote them (cross-promotion means being able to promote a show throughout the week). I UNDERSTAND THIS PROBABLY BETTER THAN ANYONE. I love the puzzle of network programming. I think I would be good at it (and an executive told me this once, when I told her that Lone Star was going to fail). But cross-promotion has evolved into out-and-out branding and while some branding is a good idea because it gives the executives and writers guidelines on what the network will put on, too much branding means that your focus is so tight that you won't take any chances at all. And this isn't good creatively.

Oh, it works MONETARILY. Because if you put one light procedural on and people watch it, you can put thirty on and the same Goddam sheep will glue their eyeballs to the screen because Show 2 looks exactly the same as Show 1 except the actors vary slightly. That may work for a board of directors, but it doesn't work as a creative endeavor. And while I UNDERSTAND BETTER THAN ANYONE that television is a business, it's also got its creative side. A side, I may add, that is becoming increasingly diminished with every season.

Sidebar number two on network branding. If you want to see a network that knows its brand, check out CBS. It's really easy to know what to pitch there. It's also interesting that on occasion, CBS has tried to venture out of its brand and try something new, and that something new always fails. I do not blame the CBS executives for this. CBS has a very natural brand and demographic. It really works for them, which is why they continue to be such a big success. What MIGHT be interesting in the coming years is seeing if NBC's cable networks start leeching CBS's viewers. We'll see. Anyway, CBS developed a show with Sarah Michelle Gellar this year that clearly wasn't a CBS show, and it went to the CW. GREAT move. Incidentally, I was on a show that didn't fit on CBS and was handed off to UPN. The show SHOULD HAVE WORKED but guess what? No support.

Anyway.

What did TNT do to MOACA? Simple. They never told the audience what the show WAS. They didn't promote it, they didn't find a way to promote it, then they kept dividing up the seasons so the show got no momentum at all, it didn't do well, and it got cancelled. Remember when ABC yanked Lost around and viewers left? As soon as ABC gave Lost 13 episodes a season without a break, viewership came back. Because even though we have DVRs and never really have to know when something's on, there's still STORYTELLING at work. Episodic storytelling. It IS interesting that Falling Skies doesn't fit into the TNT paradigm either, but it's doing well because the network actually fucking PROMOTED it. I was on a terrific show that the network just didn't get at all, and didn't support. But they promoted the shit out of everything else. So I know how this thing goes, and that's how it went with MOACA.

More than that, and this REALLY FUCKING PISSES ME OFF, people in the industry didn't watch it. How do I know this? Because it never got nominated for a fucking thing. The people who vote for the Emmys are just trying to mimic the viewing audience. They want their Eminem Oscar cred. So why would they bother voting for a show that just TOLD GOOD STORIES WITH INTERESTING CHARACTERS? How sexy is THAT? The Emmy voters let this show down BIG-time. But then they let Friday Night Lights down, too, giving it the stupid fucking "final season" Emmy nomination that is, frankly, more insulting than just continuing to ignore it.

Remember when cable used to be a haven? It used to be the place where shows that didn't fit into the broadcast paradigm could thrive. But cable networks are owned by the parent companies of broadcast networks, so even though you think you're watching a rebel pirate cable network, you're really watching NBC with less of a licensing fee. And this means less risk-taking. And when a network like TNT takes a risk on MOACA and it fails, what do you think that does to further risk-taking?

Fucking obliterates it, that's what.

What's really galling about this is that we all GET IT. We had a really good drama idea we wanted to pitch, but we were told that we wouldn't be able to sell it because it was too much like Friday Night Lights. And you know what? THAT'S ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. But think about that for a second -- one of the best dramas IN THE HISTORY OF THE FUCKING MEDIUM, and we can't pitch a show that is a similar kind of drama because Friday Night Lights is a FAILURE.

It's too horrifying to fathom. But when you think about the business end of things, yes. That's true. And NOBODY involved thinks it's right, but you can't change it. You just can't.

Because we all need to survive, and the only way to do that in this environment is to tell ourselves -- repeatedly -- that no matter what we are doing, we are being creative. Because we look at what happens with such a wonderful show like MOACA and we cringe, seeing how a real, honest voice is treated by a network publicity department and the asshat audience who's too stupid or too uncaring to recognize or appreciate quality.

While the network led the audience in this particular case, it just makes me despair that all of us creative types are ever going to tell you OUR STORIES in OUR VOICES. Because you don't care. All you want is shit blowing up, people taking shades off and squinting into the sun, pithy remarks while handcuffing suspects, a chase scene through Vancouver, kids singing Journey songs, and reality TeeVee.

And because all of this still runs on an ancient ratings system that doesn't involve ANYONE who actually gives a shit about storytelling, YOU WILL ALL CONTINUE TO GET YOUR WAY.

But know this -- the second you start complaining about how there's nothing on is one second before I fucking GUT YOU.

There WAS something on. You were just too lame to recognize it.

People Are People

2011-06-29T12:42:00.000-07:00

Looks like my new foil has decided to slink away. Dammit, Ndroid!

Peter: Dude! If you read the blog, then you KNOW I mostly rant! Hopefully I'll have some stuff upcoming that's more to your liking, so stick around.

Cory: Appreciate the comments greatly. I'm going to ponder a writing and not a ranting topic in the next little while, but I've got a few things in the pipeline. I'll do it, though! And also, I do wish Josh Friedman would blog more. Although you can count him in amongst the successful showrunners, he's also had ridiculous struggles and when those we consider successful highlight those struggles, it does mean something. Most recently, of course, his show didn't get ordered. Which was insanely wrong.

Spicy Salmon:

The energy here should be focused on continuing to keep amazingly talented female genre writers on the front burner and not getting disproportionately angry over a joke.

Ah. I see. You're of the "it HAD to be a joke" school, because nobody would ever say that seriously. And because I take umbrage at the article, I am disproportionately angry? How do you figure? Did it occur to you that Elizabeth Perle isn't a deft enough writer to actually MAKE that joke and get away with it? Because she isn't. She thinks she's more clever than she really is. She gave herself a forum to actually make a point and she chose the coward's way out, instead attempting to prop herself up as a zany geek girl. Her list was pretty offensive and believe me, I'm not the only female TeeVee writer who felt that way. So are we ALL disproportionately angry, then? Or have we tried to make a mark in this business and found it an uphill battle when the executives and showrunners settle on an Approved Female Genre Writer and if they don't get her, they don't hire one? This goes much deeper than simply the singling out of one writer. And like I said in the post, who it is continues to be irrelevant. Because if you talk about male genre writers, you absolutely do NOT land on only one name. So someone's not paying attention.

Getting annoyed with this bullshit is kinda the point. Getting annoyed with it and explaining WHY it's annoying is doing exactly what you want -- shining a light on the problem. Because even a JOKE from someone with far more skill than Elizabeth Perle is an issue. There's more than a kernel of truth in that joke. I wish you'd be able to see that. But there's also another issue that goes beyond this, and it has more to do with women CREATING shows and not just being on staff. As limited as the opportunities are for women to write for other peoples' shows, those chances are even slimmer that they will get the chance to develop their own voices and create their own shows. So to a certain degree, their subservience to the male showrunner is still intact. I would like to say more on voice and the divide between creating and staffing but I shan't, because I will likely get myself into trouble. Suffice to say that if you want to become a TeeVee writer (and I don't know why ANYONE would jump into this pool right now), make sure that no matter WHAT, you continue to develop your voice. Don't rely on staffing to last forever. And don't think that if you work your way up to co-executive producer and are given the chance to do a pilot, that your voice hasn't been muted by your years of mimicking the voice of someone else's show. In other words, just stay vigilant. The audience will thank you.

Dan, regarding River Song: Yes, well said. That's why I like her, too.

This should be my last bit on Doctor Who. And a lot of what I'm talking about in these posts, while specific to Doctor Who, also has relevance towards television in general. While inspiration is a beautiful thing, just going with your gut and not exploring the effects that has on story isn't optimal. But neither is beating your idea to a bloody pulp by over-analyzing it and then throwing it out because you've forced it to not work. I don't like either way of working, nor do I respond very well when the shows I watch go too far down one of those roads.

I think Moffat is going too far down the former road, and I think he does that because he is the Scottish (he's Scottish, right?) version of a Native American trickster. He's clever and by GOD he will show you HOW clever. Clever isn't a bad thing but it can be destructive if that's all you're offering but the show and characters demand more.

Moffat doesn't develop characters. He reinforces them. In the case of Sherlock Holmes, he has two marvelous characters with whom to do this. He also has a throughline -- a big old puzzle, which Moffat clearly adores. There's nothing wrong with a writer who loves puzzles. And there's nothing wrong with the way he reinforces the character on Sherlock, because it's three episodes. I love how he cleverly reinvented Sherlock Holmes while staying true to who Holmes and Watson are. The little tweaks are wonderful. And he's blessed with two astoundingly great actors. There's a bit of cheeky reverence to his Sherlock, an appreciation of what Holmes has meant to literature and England more specifically.

Then why doesn't ANY of that exist in his Doctor Who?

As beloved as Sherlock Holmes has been over two centuries, Doctor Who is the television age's version of Sherlock Holmes. I honestly think that if you're British, your favorite Doctor's picture is embossed on your passport. People grew up with this series. They stuck with it through the rough times. And when it came back via Russell Davies, it was shiny and breathless in its dramatic potential. Finally, the effects had risen to the level of the setting. Daleks weren't made out of cardboard. The TARDIS could actually FLY. And the structure of the show, so simple with so much room for complexity, could take on modern storytelling.

Davies made that happen. He rebooted the Doctor as a modern hero, but he was also conscious of the history of the series. So much, in fact, that he continuously brought it back. The genius of Doctor Who is really in the simplicity of its premise, and the ever-changing companions allow the show to always come into the modern age. With Davies, there were three very modern -- but very different -- women. All had different strengths and weaknesses, and all affected the Doctor in very different ways.

Then Moffat arrived, bringing his giddy love for puzzles but revealing either a disdain or lack of interest in developing characters. For me, that's the real puzzle. There's some tricky stuff there that I don't think Moffat's aware of, stuff that Davies was able to navigate almost effortlessly. The world revolves around the Doctor. He's larger than life, of course, greater than great. He can do everything, and he wants to take you along on the ride. Everybody his companions meet, all the people who know the Doctor, are infatuated with him. How could you not be? So there's a trick to keeping the characters in his orbit but also slightly separate. They have to, at their core, remain their own people. This is as much for them as is it for the Doctor. We saw the evidence of this in The Waters of Mars. The Doctor tries to make a go of it on his own, but he can't. He's not capable of traveling without a human by his side because he turns into a monster. But he's conflicted because when he DOES have people around, he turns THEM into monsters. Hence the whole traveling alone thing.

This is the central conflict that eventually destroys the 10th Doctor. Each of his three companions affects him. He loses each of them in different ways. It's that kind of complexity that builds up to that great scene with Wilf, and the Doctor's rage at having to sacrifice himself for Wilf. Even thought for a brief moment the Doctor thought he could cheat death, in the end he couldn't. He was not, after all, a god.

Davies ended this storyline but it's not as if he didn't give Moffat plenty to play with. Unfortunately, Moffat either had no interest in playing with it, or just didn't pay attention. Because he's treading the same ground Davies walked and he's not doing it in an interesting way. It's as if he literally has NO idea that Davies already explored these themes with the Tenth Doctor. In the mid-season finale, Moffat has River Song say that the Doctor will never rise so high or fall so far. Erm, except that he already did. Splendidly. Gut-wrenchingly. And the Doctor was told so by his greatest enemy, as his humans friends (and Jack) were ready to blow everything up at his command.

While Davies wasn't perfect, it's annoying that so many people remind you of that. It's as if his imperfections negate everything that he did right. Honestly, I don't get it. Nor do I get the reverence for what Moffat's doing. I feel like Moffat has taken a deck of Doctor Who playing cards and keeps playing 52 pick-up with them. There are no throughlines. There are no character arcs. There are MOMENTS that are potentially great but a potentially great moment must evolve into an actual great moment in order to be, you know, GREAT. And just having potential doesn't make something worthwhile if it's never delivered upon.

The final reveal of who River Song is... eh. I don't have a strong feeling one way or the other about it, except to say that if Moffat's only interest in River Song was in her true identity, then he never really got the appeal of the character.

There's a lot of great TeeVee out there. At this particular moment, nothing is greater for me than Men Of A Certain Age, that show nobody is watching because the network (while saying over and over that they support the show) keeps farting out a few episodes every six months or so, then pretends surprise when nobody watches it. Even DVRs have a hard time keeping up. This show is letter-perfect. It's about very real characters who are insanely interesting, but because they aren't crime-fighting lawyers, former spies or some version of a cop, nobody gives a shit. That translates to TeeVee not giving a shit about putting regular dramas on. Which is a self-fulfilling prophecy, TeeVee viewers.

You know what other show doesn't do awesome in the ratings? The most perfect show that has never taken one wrong step -- Breaking Bad. This is a sneaky show. It draws in people who only love crime dramas, but it's not actually a crime drama. It's Men Of A Certain Age with meth. But some people have apparently gotten wise to the fact that it's simply a well told character drama and they'd rather watch something else. Not Men Of A Certain Age, of course, and definitely not Friday Night Lights. Shows that are just about people? What the fuck, right?

I say this going into development season, where we are all coming up with our stupid light crime dramas because nobody can sell a straight drama anymore. BECAUSE YOU ASSHOLES WON'T WATCH THEM.

Sigh.

The Clone Army

2011-06-19T12:31:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Perle calls herself a professional word jedi, indicating that she is a geek writer. With this stated, she writes an article on the Huffington Post, wherein she bemoans the fallacy that All Things Geek means Boys. It's a pretty good article, even though she disagrees that mainstreaming geek culture won't be the death of it. Because while mainstreaming culture and bringing it (finally) to the laggards makes people lots of money and gives Access Hollywood something to cover, it does indeed murder inventiveness and individuality. She certainly hits the high point, which is that there are women who love genre, too, and how's about tossing them a bone every now and then? However, then she says something that just blows the whole thing out of the fucking water:

Hire Jane Espenson to write all the things. Or create an army of Jane Espenson clones to do so. If this is not technologically possible, you can settle for hiring more female writers, producers, show runners, and directors, in general.

I'm sorry, WHAT? THE? FUCK?

Elizabeth Perle, Goddammit, are you INSANE? I mean, REALLY? Look, just take Jane Espenson right out of the equation. Replace her name with "Approved Female Genre Writer." So now what we have is giving ALL the work to ONE PERSON because of COURSE this ONE PERSON is the ONLY WOMAN who can be trusted to write genre. But hey, if that's impossible (and so far, it doesn't seem to be), then we'll "settle for" hiring LESSER female writers. While not ideal, if that's all we can get, then that's what we'll take.

I would expect this from a clueless guy (not that all guys are clueless, but you know there are many). But a female self-described geek? No. Elizabeth Perle is contributing to the culture of inequality by picking ONE name out of a hat because that ONE woman is the ONLY one who can be trusted to write genre. What a fucking insult to the women who have written, CREATED and RUN TeeVee shows!!!!

But her list doesn't get much better:

Bring back Buffy. Okay don't. Okay do. No, don't. Um. We're conflicted, okay?

OR -- and maybe THIS is a stretch -- actually put on shows like Buffy. They're out there. So are the women who want to create them, but if Elizabeth's assumption that Approved Female Genre Writer as the only go-to writer holds true, then it logically follows that none of these women is going to get her shot. Also, Buffy was created by a man. So was Veronica Mars. So was Mad Men. But then that's a whole other issue, and one Elizabeth Perle doesn't feel strong enough to tackle.

Discover the female George Lucas. Or Kevin Smith. Or Simon Pegg. Or Seth Green. She's out there, but no one is paying attention.

Irony. Yeah, nobody's paying attention. But let's take a slightly different angle on this thing. There's a division happening in TeeVee right now. There are people who make their living on writing staffs, and then there are people who make their living selling shows. And of course, there's going to be overlap primarily because agents negotiate nice deals for their clients when they are upper level and get on shows. They get development as part of their deal. So a writer on a show will also be writing a pilot. But let's say that as an upper-level writer (male or female, doesn't much matter at this stage), you've gotten to that level by being on staffs. Maybe a bunch of different staffs, maybe just the one. While you had better Goddam know what you're doing after all that time, there's also the question of whether or not you've been able to develop your voice. And based on pilots I've seen and read, it's something that should be discussed.

So rather than focusing in on one Approved Female Genre Writer whose name you've seen on your television screen, why not do some digging and find out who is creating shows? Who's selling pilots at the expense of a life on a writing staff?

No, I'm seriously asking you, WHO IS DOING THAT? Because as we had better be aware, 99.999% of all TeeVee shows are created by men. And since 99.999% of all writing staffs are male, it sure makes sense that someone as jedi-tastic as Elizabeth Perle has only heard of Jane Espenson.

There's a lot of jabber in the comments about for whom these shows were created. While it's true that TeeVee writers have to think about where they're likely to sell a project, shows are rarely born out of a desire to target only a certain segment of the population. There's a point at which a show must be allowed to create itself, before the writer steps in to harness it. You can tell when shows haven't been given this freedom, and then you can tell when they have.

But I guess the majority of America just doesn't give a shit, and writers are falling victim to that. There are SO many levels you have to get through before you can sell a show. Every level, every gatekeeper, changes your idea. It's a fine line between giving the buyers what they want and keeping your vision intact. And it's quite a different line than that which staff writers walk.

This brings me to the few TeeVee pilots I've seen. I watched three, none of which got on the air. The first was Wonder Woman.

(waiting patiently for the howls to die down)

Yes, I saw it. It's not great. But it's interesting to note why. There's no point of view. David Kelley just seemed a bit lost. He has NO familiarity with the genre, and that comes through constantly, as he tries to update, dismiss and reinvent it -- ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Not surprisingly, this doesn't work. At the end of the day, Diana Prince and Wonder Woman get totally and completely lost. It doesn't seem as if Kelley set out to entertain ANYONE. He doesn't seem inspired by the material or by any thematic content. It's not really a good thing when you don't have any idea what drew the writer to the project. Maybe he wanted to stretch himself. I don't know. He's trying, but he just doesn't quite get there.

I also watched Locke & Key, and you are very very sad that this didn't make the cut. The reason appears to be one of programming -- where does Fox put it? There are kids in it, and it's also really scary. Flummoxed! But also Goddam stupid. They found a place to put the dinosaur show, which has kids in it and is also scary. Not picking up Locke & Key is a mistake to me because it's an awesome pilot. Weird and spooky and cool and visual. A real shame.

Also in the "real shame" category is 17th Precinct, which is one of the best pilots I've seen in a long, long time. Admittedly, the best pilots I've seen don't always turn out to be huge smash successes. I'll direct you towards Miracles, which is one of my favorite pilots of all time. Or American Gothic, which was SO taken apart by CBS.

An awful lot of genre shows plain forget about the world-building. Some urban fantasy shows seem to believe that because the shows are set in the present day and on Earth, no world-building is necessary. This is bullshit, and it's why most genre shows don't hold my interest. And no, I won't tell you which ones they are. But regardless of what others think, world-building is crucial. Ron Moore does this flawlessly. He did it on Battlestar Galactica and Caprica, and he does it here. 17th Precinct is an immersive experience and its construction is meticulous. It's our world, only magic developed instead of science. It's SUCH a simple premise but apparently the fucking testing said it was too confusing. Look, testing audience, you are assholes for not liking this show. For killing this show. I don't know how the show was viewed internally and if NBC didn't like it, I don't want to know. I hope they're all totally depressed over there that this show didn't get on.

What's weird is, urban fantasy is SO popular in fiction right now. I realize there's a big disconnect between People Who Read and People Who Watch, but when a network gets a show like THIS, they would be doing the world a favor by putting it on.

Not only is the premise clear and concise, but anyone who's ever seen a procedural should just flat-out understand this show. So I have to think that the grunts doing the testing really fucked this up. The characters are real and terrific and the ending, which the entire pilot story works towards, takes the premise of the show and tweaks it so that you know INSTANTLY what the series will be. I mean, it couldn't be any fucking CLEARER. It's so organic and beautifully delivered.

Ron Moore wants to entertain the audience. He wants to give them something to root for, and something to fear. The way he builds the pilot story to its surprising conclusion is fucking masterful. And I felt his enthusiasm throughout. He has no interest in hiding anything from the audience. He doesn't care if they sit there afterwards and go, "Wow, you're really clever!"

He's not Steven Moffat.

It's a real shame that Locke & Key and 17th Precinct fell victim to pilot season. They deserved SO much better.

Speaking of Steven Moffat, I'll have a bit more on Who next and also will address a few comments. Just wanted to get this one out!

Oh, boy...

2011-06-07T15:37:00.000-07:00

Which you may recognize as a quote from America's response to Doctor Who. Well. There WERE similarities.

Anyway, I am working on another post that will include my upcoming viewing of the midseason finale, which I won't see until Saturday. But there have been several comments from mostly new people and rather than make the next post eighty-seven thousand words long, I'll hastily respond here.

Peter:

This is a rant not a review.

This is a blog, not a review site. You obviously have never been here. All I do is rant. So your criticism is unwarranted.

Ndroid, as far as I can tell a first-time reader, initially posted this:

What a load of old tripe! To present a woman marrying and having a kid is not to say, in giant capital letters, THIS IS ALL A WOMAN CAN EVER DO OR BE. In fact, Amy Pond is the first woman in forty-odd years of Who companions to go through marriage and childbirth and stay on board the Tardis - she's a modern woman who's having it all. How is that "horrifically misogynistic"?

Fair enough, there are plenty of people who dislike Amy (I think she's great, myself) but to imagine that it's sexist to give her experiences that a great many (most?) women live through is just absurd. The purpose of fantasy is to make us think anew about the stuff we take for granted. On that score Moffat is doing a great job.

And obviously, old friend, you are entitled to your opinion. However, starting out with "what a load of old tripe" isn't exactly a pathway to a successful back and forth. As far as I know, you've never been here before. Therefore, I didn't know you existed until now. So coming in here like I offended you on purpose may not be the best path to travel. If it wasn't clear that I was stating MY opinion on MY blog, then let it be now.

Here's the part I'm loathe to get into. As you later tell me that you're a dude, guess what -- you don't get to decide what I find misogynistic. You just don't. You don't get to tell a black person what is or is not racist. And if you ARE a black person, or any minority, then you should REALLY get this. Whether or not YOU find it misogynistic is YOUR business, and you have every right to state that opinion. However, you do NOT have the right to tell ME what's sexist and what isn't. You SO DO NOT it's not even funny.

It's funny that you mention Rory, because I utterly adore him. He's so clearly the best character on the show (next to River). In fact, if it became the River and Rory show, I'd be all in. I love that Amy and Rory are married, although I do wish Moffat had given us more character development (particularly on Amy's side) to tell us WHY they're together. As far as two characters having enough of an internal life to justify their marriage, well... I just don't see it. So you see, I actually want MORE of their marriage and their relationship. My comment about Amy being married had, in fact, nothing to do with the awesomeness of Rory. Instead, it had to do with the rather Bechdellian concept of a female character who can't exist outside the approved female parameters, i.e., marriage and children.

Two of the best characters to EVER be on my television were Eric and Tami Taylor. Yes, A MARRIED COUPLE. WHO HAD KIDS. But neither character was handcuffed by marriage OR children. In fact, just as in life, they were ENRICHED. They both had very vivid points of view that sometimes clashed but even when they fought, they did so in a realistic way. They were never presented as the greatest fantasy couple the world has ever known. They were REAL, and they were wonderful. The difference between the Taylors and Rory and Amy is in the character development. The mere FACT that Amy is married, or that she is pregnant, is not the problem. The marriage has its own issues which have more to do with Moffat's underbaked character development than with anything else. The pregnancy, on the other hand, is the same sad old "women in refrigerators" bullshit that has become so mocked and so tired throughout science fiction. Talk about a TROPE! Inevitably, writers who run out of ideas turn towards a wooman's womb. And lest you think I am singularly opposed to pregnancy in genre, let me point you to one of my favorite movies of all time -- Rosemary's Baby. Rosemary is, in many ways, a victim. However, she's an INTERESTING one. She's well written. The story is fantastic. Everyone around her is well written.

Buffy never went the marriage/pregnancy route but I thought the last two seasons of the show were awful because they lost sight of who Buffy was. So even though they didn't knock her up, I STILL DIDN'T LIKE IT. It is not sexist to have Amy get married or get pregnant, but it IS sexist the way Moffat is doing it. And lest we forget, this is the second time Amy's been pregnant, even if the first was some fantasy. It's a little creepy, the way Moffat keeps knocking up this pretty young woman.

Now, about sexism. The short-sighted think that Mad Men is sexist because of how the women are treated. But since that's how women really WERE treated back then, it isn't sexist or misogynistic. The CHARACTERS are, and that's a hell of a lot different than the WRITER being so. Interestingly, Matt Weiner has talked about how he considers Mad Men a science fiction show, because it allows us to use a different time to tell stories about our present.

I doubt you've seen Strangers When We Meet (mostly because it's been out of print GODDAMMIT) but it's a Kim Novak-Kirk Douglas film from the 60s. They are both suburbanites living in Brentwood who meet each other while dropping their kids off at the bus stop and start an affair. It's a fantastic movie and what struck me most about it was how the Kim Novak character MUST have been a model for Betty Draper. She's NOT happy as the wife and mother but it's the early 60s, so she's living a life of quiet desperation. She's a sex object to men. Even Kirk Douglas idealizes her. It's a pretty astounding character and while the men in the movie are misogynistic towards her, the omniscient point of view is not. I watched it for the second time with a group of guys and all of them said it was the most misogynistic movie they'd ever seen. Quite a surprising response, and proof that they never understood that character, or what the movie was actually saying. And these are guys who will happily watch movies about vaginas who eat men and not find THAT misogynistic.

I get that you don't like Amy as a character, and that's fair enough. You think she's a shrill harpy, I think she's a likeable character who isn't overawed by what she sees. But to extend your dislike into a massively generalisation about Moffatt being "misogynist" because the character doesn't conform to your tastes is completely unfair.

It WOULD be, if that's what anyone was doing. But just because you are incapable of seeing misogyny doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I am not extending my dislike of Moffat into misogyny, nor am I grasping at excuses for why I hate it. The misogyny is simply the final straw. I started last season loving the first episode, then it slid into boredom and confusion. As you mention down below, Amy as "the girl who didn't make sense" didn't make sense to ME because when you are just introducing a character, it flies in the face of reason to create a character who doesn't make sense. The companion is the audience's point of view into the Doctor and his larger world. No wonder I was confused and taken out of the story! I didn't know who Amy was to begin with, so then how do I know how she DOESN'T make sense? I don't. Because there's no way for me to know that. It really says more about how conditioned people are to accept shiny things that you're defending this.

Then there's Amy as the girl who waited. Not a bad concept on its face, but waiting isn't exactly the most proactive thing a character can do. Maybe this is believable in life but drama is heightened, and I don't tune in to watch passivity. But maybe you do.

My comment about "having it all" wasn't meant entirely seriously but I repeat, why should Amy NOT have life experiences that many, or most, women undergo? Isn't it interesting to have a married couple aboard the Tardis? I'm a man - I think Rory is fantastic, an honourable and understated guy who has grown just as much as Mickey did. Or would you prefer women to be kicked out of the door as soon as they're married off (farewell Leela, enjoy life tidying the commune, Jo Grant)? You're indulging in a weird reverse sexism that says male characters are free to be themselves but women characters must represent an ideal for all womankind or stand as evidence of the writer's appalling attitudes to women.

What do you do for a living? Simplify? See above.

Why shouldn't a sudden and completely unexpected birth scene be horrifying? Most women WOULD be horrified to suddenly find themselves in labour when they didn't even know they were pregnant. That's not a comment on pregnancy and women's self-image - it's a comment on flesh avatars, the teleportation of consciousness and other fantastical ideas.The job of the show is to be exciting and surprising, not to second-guess itself and run through the potential objections of people who seek out subtexts that aren't there. Newsflash: women get pregnant, even in Tardises.

Newsflash: THAT'S NOT THE PROBLEM.

You can't keep redoing unrequited love in the Tardis, or dreams of escape. They get boring. The show needed something new. Martha was a medical student and a black Briton but both of those attributes were forgotten after a handful of episodes whereupon she was reduced to a complete drip mooning over the Doctor in ways which were (to me, but what do I know) rather less respectful of women in general than Amy's behaviour.

Martha walked the Earth for A YEAR. Martha is an understandable character, and while her mooning over the Doctor was not particularly attractive, that's kind of what made her interesting. Because she DID have attributes that were not perfect. Hell, they ALL did. Rose wanted adventure to a fault. Donna was shallow and obnoxious. What they all ALSO had was a character arc. Rose finally found what she wanted, but it was ripped away from her. Martha woke up and realized that she couldn't run away from her life. And Donna had the biggest tragedy of all -- she found who she was, and it was taken away without her knowing, without her having had those experiences. But these are all subtleties that Davies did well, and I know that his particular style was not everybody's cup of tea. But do you see how I can say that and allow you to have YOUR opinion without just trashing it and telling you that you're wrong? You didn't see all of that. I did. So how about it, Ndroid or whoever you are hiding behind that moniker? Want to play nice?

The instances you cite of Moffat writing the other female characters badly - i.e. in ways you personally dislike - are pretty thin stuff but I would point out that in the two-parter, a family and kids are what Donna AND HER MALE PARTNER, A MAN OF THE MALE GENDER, both want. The point being made is not "women just want a husband and kids", it is "humans are caught between the need for stability and a desire for adventure, and the achievement of one leaves us hungry for the other." I'd argue that that is the secret of Doctor Who's appeal.

And I'd argue that there are very good ways to do that, and lousy, horrible, misogynistic ways to do that. I choose the latter.

So no, Amy is a real character - she's just not to your taste. Your "self-centred and petulant" is my "confident and sarcastic". If her pregnancy is a plot device then so is every pregnancy in fiction, in which case what are you saying? Pregnancy is bad?

Are you just being disingenuous, or are you REALLY this clueless? Hoping for the former, dreading the latter.

This is A LOT more complex than you're making it out to be, even though you want to put me into some little feminist box. I don't fit in there, pal. And it might behoove you to not assume things like that. You have very strong opinions that don't seem to have room for anyone else's. If you wrote this on YOUR blog, I might read it but then because I disagree so vehemently, I would not respond. Because what would be the point? One side arguing against another never brings those two sides together. But you are affronted, so you come into MY house and tell me I'm wrong. You don't just share your opinion. You flat-out tell me that I'm wrong, and you insinuate (oh, yes, YOU DO) that it's my raging feminism or whatever that's blinding me. Because there can't be any way that I am seeing what I see. You are the High King of Drama and you make the rules.

I have only censored two comments since I've had this blog. Well, two comments and all that weird Chinese spam that was happening for awhile. One comment was just nasty shit and another was a personal threat. That's my wall. However, I think it would be nice in a sort of fluffy way if people who posted here had something to say other than "You're wrong." I'll keep posting your comments, of course, unless they turn into Chinese spam. You seem like a smart, if somewhat pissed off, guy. But some acknowledgement that this is my sandbox would be really sweet of you.

You just do NOT get to decide what I -- a woman -- find misogynistic. You don't. Ironically enough, my bigger issue with Moffat is his storytelling. But I'll save that for next time.

The new Doctor Who review

2011-06-04T23:12:00.000-07:00

It's a testament to how far Doctor Who has fallen in my estimation that I didn't torrent last week's episode and instead chose to watch it on shitty Time Warner cable, with BBC America's hacktastic "editors" deciding where to stick act outs. Sadly, their chop-sockying isn't ruining my appreciation for the show because this year, same as last year, the show is bad (with a few exceptions -- dug the season opener, and Neil Gaiman's episode proved that the show doesn't have to suck if some deft writing and a love for something other than wowing an audience with puzzles is involved). But this year it's bad in a different way. Because THIS year, Steven Moffat has to write A WHOLE NEW SEASON for a WOMAN.

And I'm sure he sat there and went, "How the fuck do I do THAT? I already made her an adorable little girl. Everyone likes little girls. I made her a mini-skirt wearing hottie. Ditto. I made everyone love her, because who doesn't love a hottie who used to be an adorable little girl? But now it's another year. I married her off, of course, because HELLO, she's a WOMAN, that's what she's FOR. But the trouble is, she still has to travel with the Doctor. Luckily I can bring Rory along, because EVERYBODY KNOWS that no self-respecting husband would just let his wife trot off on her own, even someone as sweet as Rory. But I'm still stuck with Amy freaking Pond, who has already fulfilled one of her major womanly duties by marrying. I guess the only other thing I can do is start digging into that womb. Because aside from being a good wife, what IS a woman FOR? We all know that if a woman doesn't spit out kids she's not much of a woman. It's just going to be hard in the TARDIS and all, traveling through space and whatnot, but it obviously has to happen because there's nothing else to do with the old girl. I guess I'll science fantasy it all up, do my typical lazy, sloppy retconning -- oh! This flesh episode! I can do it in that one! And if I make sure Matt Smith talks a mile a minute, which isn't hard because that is what I've spent a season beating into him, then he can blah-blah-blah and nobody will question it. I AM A FUCKING GENIUS! Now Amy can FINALLY have the kid she's supposed to have because she's a woman and it can be all important and stuff because it's science fantasy and I'm quite certain that NOBODY in the HISTORY of GENRE has EVER used a woman's womb as something QUITE so important. It'll be like she was a queen back in the day or summat, like Anne Boleyn (STUPID woman, just have a BOY, you silly old cow) or any of them, really, because all they had to do was produce a fucking HEIR so the MEN could get ON with the business of running the WORLD. Yes, Amy's baby will be SPECIAL -- MY GOD SERIOUSLY I AM A GENIUS OF GENIUS PROPORTIONS -- and the best thing is -- YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE THIS, MY DEVOTED FANBASE -- the Doctor will know all of this (I mean, HE'S THE DOCTOR AND A MAN AFTER ALL) but he won't tell her because it's inevitable anyway and she's a woman with her girl head so why bother her with it, so he won't tell her and then she'll wake up and be SO FUCKING PREGNANT and it'll be like that episode of Mad Men where Betty Draper gave birth. Because I am BETTER than Matt Weiner, who was just doing something stupid like showing how horrific giving birth was back in the Sixties and continuing to develop this female character who people seem to like for some reason, but she's a horrible mother and a terrible wife so I don't get it. But mine is better, because it's SPACE! And people will FIGHT over Amy Pond and although the person putting these words into my horrifically misogynistic mouth hasn't seen the latest episode yet, she will say that I'll probably wreck River Song too because HELLO, woman."

QED, motherfucker.

Crowded House

2011-06-03T15:04:00.001-07:00

Rather than making any comments on the new fall TeeVee season, I'm hoping to shine a small pinlight on the shows that didn't get picked up. I'll do that after I read all the danged things. I may be able to see a few, but it'll mostly be based on what I read. When I read them. Cough.

Just a general note on the pickups: Mostly they make sense. While networks aren't going to stretch themselves all THAT much, they didn't play it as safe as they usually do. I don't get the sense that these new dramas are as craven an attempt to cash in on something as they've been in the past. So hopefully these shows will continue to be creator-driven. We'll see.

One thing that's happened already, however, is that ABC has cut the orders of several of its new shows. Mostly notably they've cut the order of The River to seven episodes. The River is one of the few pilots I've read thus far and you are NOT going to be happy that they've decided to parse out only seven episodes. The River is one of those shows that demands to be lived in and you just can't do that in only seven episodes, especially if you've planned an actual SERIES. If The River had been designed as a miniseries, then fine. Terrific. But this is bothersome. Because why even order series if you're not going to at least PRETEND to commit to them? If you check out the comments sections of any TeeVee blogs mentioning this, you'll see a variation on "Well, I'm not going to watch THAT." So the suits' decision to cut the order becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

People who actually pay attention to TeeVee shows (in other words, NOT THE DESIRED DEMOGRAPHIC) have gotten wise to these shenanigans, and they aren't gonna play anymore. And who can fucking blame them? Why the networks don't look at their business model and realize that there IS room for limited series and miniseries is a total mystery to me. Is it about the ad rates? Are they screwing the advertisers over by cutting the orders of these shows AFTER upfronts? I have no idea. But if a network can't even commit to a show that they just ordered, then why should the audience?

They shouldn't.

So what are the alternatives? Cable, obviously, is a big one. Because cable is not in the habit of suddenly shortening orders, or canceling shows midway through a season. Even if a cable show isn't going to be renewed, they at least finish out the order. I say "not in the habit," however, because since all these cable networks are owned by network networks, who's to say this won't change in the future? I hope it doesn't, but the way corporate America is consuming us whole must give us pause.

There aren't truly other alternatives yet, not anything that's mainstream enough to make a cultural impact. But that doesn't mean that potential alternatives should be ignored. And something that seems to be gaining steam in the DIY market is Kickstarter. There are a lot of dumb-ass things on Kickstarter, but there are a lot of awesome things, too. If you haven't heard of Kickstarter, it's a site that facilitates crowd-funded projects. Anything from art projects to innovative products to short films to fashion lines. If it's a creative endeavor, it may likely be a Kickstarter project. What happens is, there are different levels of funding for every project. For example, say some filmmakers want to make a short film. They have a budget that they need to raise via Kickstarter. They produce a presentation, which tells potential investors about their goal. It's a pitch, basically. The monetary goal is divided into different tiers. Maybe you like the idea but can afford to pledge only ten bucks. Five hundred people can pledge ten bucks to fund the project. But maybe you've got a hundred bucks. Fifty people can pledge a hundred bucks and they get something in return. A copy of the film, perhaps. Or you're some rich fuck and you, along with five other people, pledge a thousand dollars to the project. For that you get to go to the set. You get an autographed script. A blow job. Whatever. If all the slots are filled, then the project is fully funded and it's a go. If the pledge amount is NOT met, then nobody pays anything.

Tell me that isn't fucking cool. It doesn't require corporate suits making arbitrary decisions that only have to do with business. You, the creator, are presenting YOUR VISION to an audience and they either buy it, or they don't. Kind of how it should work, right? No middle men involved there. If enough people are interested in your project, it will be funded. And who owns it? YOU DO. No strings attached.

Why is this interesting for television? Because there is a TeeVee pitch on Kickstarter -- a genre show called Divine. And the creative team behind Divine isn't made up of a bunch of starry-eyed dreamers. These are people with a lot of experience in TeeVee. Not only that, but they have a star/co-creator with genre cred -- Misha Collins, who excellently played angel Castiel on Supernatural. They made an initial outlay of their own cash to shoot two episodes of the show. With those in post, they want to raise enough money to shoot the next four episodes, which would comprise the pilot.

They also include a presentation, explaining what kind of a show they're making and what their goal would be. What's most interesting to me about this particular project is that they aren't setting out to just make a TeeVee show that coincidentally will be shown on the Interwebs. They want to make a show that will be watched on phones, waiting for subways, at coffee shops. Not the way God intended television to be watched but let's face it, this is a new way to do something that used to work -- serials. Make a show that the casual viewer can watch on his phone while he's waiting for his latte? Perfect. Serials were hugely successful back in the day (i.e., a time where things were a fuckload better than they are now). Serials keep people coming back because they are compulsively watchable, and they tease in a much more natural way than a forty-minute drama does. Three, five or seven minutes is the perfect amount of time for a serial.

The Divine team knows this. What they hoped to receive to fund their project (the filming of their pilot) was $10,000. They reached that goal in 17 days. What they got was over $20,000, thanks to 365 donors. The pledge amounts ranged from $10 to $10,000. The actual pledges ranged from $10 to $1000. the majority of the money was pledged by people making $10 to $100. Think about that for a minute -- they fully funded their initial project -- twice -- by being smart about it.

So if you came across a television show concept that you thought was great and you could contribute by pledging $10, would you? You know EXACTLY what you're getting. There will be no corporate interference. Your show won't get canceled before you've seen it. You've paid money and you will get precisely what you paid for.

If that's not the essence of capitalism, I don't know what is.

Now obviously, this doesn't translate to people making a living. And that is generally the thing that makes people think this is not ever going to make a difference. But just because it's not perfect now, that's no reason to think that in the future, as more and more people edge towards crowd-sourcing and funding, the creative folk won't be able to make a living. The more crowd-sourced product is out there, the more word of mouth it will get. It'll grow, if it deserves to, and and maybe there's a future in which we the audience become used to paying for our entertainment in a different way than we do now. The old business model needs to change. It's funneling too much money towards middle management and corporate CEOs. That's the way things are structured now so that's how the game must be played, but there's no harm in exploring other avenues. We may be rewarded in the long run.

Good luck, Divine team!

I was going to rant about an article I read, but I'm going to save it for another post. That's just me being lazy.

Summer Lovin'

2011-05-25T18:58:00.001-07:00

It's summer movie season, which means HUUUGE blockbusters of CG-epic proportions. So far, we have seen Thor. And when I saw Thor, I thought, "Hey, this summer could BE something." Because Thor is magnificent fun. Well crafted, nicely cast, a great-looking movie with a genuinely likable star at its core. Like the first Iron Man, the writers and director put their enthusiasm for the material and the fun of summer movies right out there. If they have fun, chances are that you will, too. And Thor delivers. There are approximately four billion other superhero movies coming out this summer. One prequel/sequel (X-Men) and the fourth movie in a franchise -- Pirates of the Caribbean 4. Its full name is Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides, because Disney bought the rights to Tim Powers' terrific novel. Which happens if you decide to make a pirate movie about the fountain of youth and would rather not be sued. I didn't have to see Pirates 4 to know that Tim Powers' book is far, far better than the film would be. But that's kind of a no-brainer. It's tough for ANY movie to be as good as a Tim Powers novel. However, I was kinda hoping that after the reception received by the last two Pirates movies that this one, due to its lofty parentage, would be fun. You know; like the first Pirates movie.

Incidentally, I will admit to a secret thrill at seeing Tim Powers' name on a big screen and a movie poster. But I would get a bigger thrill if it was for, say, Last Call, Declare or The Anubis Gates. No prequel/sequelness or Captain Jack nonsense attached.

I still haven't seen Pirates 4, but this guy has. And based on his review, well... just read it and come back.

Are we all here again? Good.

Pirates made a ton of money this weekend (I haven't looked. It's just an easy assumption to make, because if you call something a blockbuster, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy). What this says to Disney is, "PIRATES FUCKING FIVE." Because according to the box office (they used to call them receipts. So cute!), the moviegoing audience gave Pirates a big thumbs up. Now, it doesn't matter if the entire audience came out projectile vomiting because they hated it so much. What matters is, THEY PAID TO GET IN. And as we all know, getting someone to pay for something is the best thing to which we as a culture can aspire.

According to the reviews, Pirates 4 should be a huge failure. Because the reviews said it wasn't very good. Some of the reviews said it was less than not very good. But only this guy's review called you a cunt if you liked the movie. Because anyone writing for a publication -- anyone who lists "film reviewer" on his unemployment form, I mean, tax return -- will not call the audience cunts. They just won't. Nor will they call out a studio for being cynical. They MAY have some harsh words for directors (although when they hate a film, they'll mostly blame the writers), and maybe they hate a performance, but there's a LINE, see, an invisible but well known Maginot line for how far you can go in your criticism when you are a part of the machine.

Dude who actually writes an honest review of a film that encompasses the larger, more cynical, hateful world of entertainment? He isn't working for Entertainment Weekly. He's a guy who paid to go see a movie. Disney didn't invite him to the set, or the premiere. He didn't get to have his picture taken with Johnny Depp. He doesn't work at Ain't It Cool News.

He's just a guy. An audience member. And although Disney gladly accepted his money, he has a voice and Goddam it, he's going to use it. If scores on Rotten Tomatoes really counted, if people like this guy wrote reviews on their phones as they were sitting through the credits, IF IT MATTERED, then eventually, over time, MAYBE, movies would get better. At the very least, studios that foist crap onto an audience that willingly swallows it might, for a second, BLINK. But if an audience keeps turning out for bad movies, like they will no doubt turn out for the execrably reviewed Hangover 2: Electric Boogaloo, then why shouldn't a studio keep making them? A studio -- a corporation -- has one main goal: To Make Money.

If you are a part of the machine, one of its cogs, that big bit at the center that everyone thinks is so crucial, or a rusty part that works really hard but doesn't get any of the credit, you do not share your opinion of "If you liked this movie, you are a cunt." There are truths that are known in this business, but unless you want to just pack up and leave, you don't acknowledge them. And even film reviewers and TV journalists are a part of this machine. So when people wonder why entertainment isn't as good as they think it should be, all they have to do is point-blank ask someone in the business what their real opinion is of something and their tepid, avoidy answer will tell you everything you need to know.

It's going to take the audience to stop fostering this belief that just because you call something a blockbuster, that makes it so. And sure, it'll happen one person at a time, but guys, you have the Internet. You have social networking. If there's nothing to dissuade the general masses from seeing lousy movies (and again, I haven't seen Pirates so I'm only going by this guy's review, because HELLO, look at what I said above about being avoidy), there IS something to be said for seeing the bad movie, and then being LOUD about it.

It isn't going to come from the industry itself. It's going to come from the audience. So when you see something you don't like, speak up. And while you're at it, stop watching reality shows too, okay?

Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat

2011-05-14T18:58:00.000-07:00

I watched the Kentucky Derby last week. Don't worry, this isn't a post about horse racing. You can keep reading. It's a post about how the coverage made me want to rip hats off heads and shove them down throats.

When I started watching racing, all we had on TV were the Triple Crown races. You turned on a network, and they showed you the horses, had analysts talk about them, then they went into the gate and ran. It was an adorable time, where TeeVee graphics were fuzzy colored squares, they didn't know from fonts, and any post-race analysis included only the race footage you just watched. There were no other angles. There wasn't a blimp. And there wasn't a computer graphic that made the race look like a video game.

This has happened in other sports, too, as you all well know. But only horse racing seems to have no idea what to do with it.

There were not, however, dim, fancy women whose only job is to speak into a microphone. And when I say "only job," if you can find me something else that Maria Menounous is supposed to do, by all means tell me. I don't know who this bint is, or where she's from, but I suspect she comes at me from some type of entertainment TeeVee show. It's one thing to have one of these dim birds pop out of her tree for a minute or two while she gives local color or shows us a fancy hat but I AM NOT KIDDING YOU, she was onscreen the majority of the time. Whenever the camera went back to, I don't know, A HORSE or Gary Stevens it was actually jarring. Your brain goes, "Oh, right, there's a sport happening here." As one of these idiots said, "The other part of the event is the horses." Oh really? The OTHER part? You know what was for you? The Royal Wedding. Now fuck off.

I need to have a conversation with whoever "produced" this coverage. Aside from the offense of it all, there's a practical side: Who is your audience? To whom are you trying to appeal? Either it's a show on fashionable hats hosted by the Real Housewives, or it's a fucking sports event. You tried to have it both ways and you completely failed. So thanks, producer of NBC Sports, for setting horse racing -- and women -- back. Can't wait to see how you handle the Preakness, especially since there are no hats.

But the horrendous Derby coverage wasn't the only iffy gender thing this week. Networks announced their fall/midseason pickups. I haven't read everything so I'm not enraged/delighted that certain shows didn't get picked up, but of the pilots I read that DID get picked up, they were among the best written. So that's actually a positive for the fall season.

Mostly, people online are going, "Where's 17th Precinct? What happened to Locke & Key? Wasn't Wonder Woman a lock? JJ Abrams only got TWO shows picked up? WTF?" But over at Deadline, they had a curious take on the fall lineup.

Intrepid reporter Nellie Andreeva broke down the pilot pickups by gender testing. In other words, which shows tested best with which sex. Because as we all no doubt are aware, women won't watch boy shows and boys won't watch female shows. No men watch Glee, for example. Singing! GAH! And no women will watch cop shows. Like Southland, I guess. Because of guns and language and scary scary stuff.

While everyone is attempting to analyze what the fall schedules mean (maybe even get a hint towards what development will be when it opens up in a month or so), it's this kind of stereotyping that leads directly to failures. This is why testing is so wrong-headed. The notion that 17th Precinct would be primarily male-oriented is just the dumbest thing I've heard since America's Next Top Model bleated about fascinators on the Derby telecast. Once again, everybody proves how little they understand the mind of the genre lover. Rather than designing shows aimed towards one age group or one gender, isn't it a better idea to just be SMART about what works for you? CBS has figured this out, and as a result they have an entire week of cross-promotion they can do. Networks look at what works, and then they try to expand that niche and the only way to do THAT is to put shows on that can be launched smartly behind or ahead of hits, and for God's sake, use cross-promotion. If you have one cop show night and four soap/reality nights, your cop shows are gonna take a hit because it's tough to promote during shows that are so different.

That doesn't mean that men are watching one and women the other. It just doesn't, no matter how much people want to put Americans into their little box (aside to politicians: The next asshat who says "working families" gets spam in their inbox). But people are just so grimly determined to continue this nonsense because testing takes individuals and turns them into percentages and ratios, and then businessfolk who wouldn't know a creative endeavor if it threw paint on their Maseratis use these numbers to crank out the kind of TeeVee you DO want to watch, because THAT'S WHAT THE NUMBERS SAY.

I would rather see reporters/online personality analysts talking about the programming as it relates to each network than once again boxing up women and soaps and men and cop shows. Programming is that puzzle that nobody seems to want to discuss, and since I find it rather fascinating, I have NO idea why. But based on the network pickups, they've all done enough to make it easier on themselves when they finalize the schedules. So that'll be interesting to take a look at when the schedules are announced next week.

There was another rather wrong-headed article the other day, this one in the LA Times. The headline is DOOM!!!!! "A dramatic decline for network dramas." OH NOES! Oh wait. It's about how few of last year's new shows are coming back this year and of course, once again, serialization is blamed. Because it's NO FUN when you can't arbitrarily single out that one crucial element for blame/praise. This is why Matthew McConaughey was supposed to be the next big thing. Or Julia Ormond. Remember? Rather than acknowledging that the sum of a film or TV show's parts is responsible for its success, or realize that the film/show came out at the exact right time and addressed a particular mood or direction the country was going in, they have to go, "It's clearly Bradley Cooper."

Okay, yes, it IS Bradley Cooper, but that's beside the point.

Here's one thing you can't do with a serialized drama -- run it for a few weeks, take it off for a few months, bring it back, preempt it, then hem and haw about its fate. As far as the rules of TeeVee go, that's a pretty fundamental one. This is one big reason why serialized dramas work better on cable than they do on network. They run straight through for 13 episodes, then they come out on DVD. Viewers know that they are going to get AT LEAST a full season, so they will sign on. But how many people go, "I won't bother watching that. They'll just cancel it." But there's also a difference between a drama so serialized that the only thing that's close-ended is the season finale, and a show that's a good balance of both serialization and close-ended episodes. A BIG difference. And the problem becomes that the networks swing too hard the other way, and say "We literally do not want anything that bleeds over from this episode to the next, except for the characters." But see, THAT bores people, just as shows that are too serialized don't get new viewers. There is a balance, and shows have been very successful doing this in the past. It's not impossible and believe me, all TeeVee writers who've pitched pilots go in with that balance.

But fuck it, because women watch Glee and men watch Southland.

Give me a break.

Appointment TeeVee

2011-04-15T22:55:00.000-07:00

You know that moment where you realize that there's an entire generation that comes after yours, and you don't have any awareness of them whatsoever? For example, people who were born in 1990 can drink now. Forget the horror of finding out that there were sentient creatures walking the Earth who hadn't seen Star Wars in the theater. THE FIRST TIME. Those days are fucking OVER. It's much, much worse now.

But still, the so-called generation gap isn't really that great, is it? Although our parents couldn't grok what we were into, that's because they were Adults Who Had Responsibilities. They really did grow up, and they took it seriously. Now, most people just don't. Because you don't have to. It's not unusual to find teenagers and Adults in line for the same movie. It's totally normal to see aging hipsters at Coachella. Adults are reading young adult books and watching Vampire Diaries. Adults buy iPhones, and then buy them for their kids.

Is that because the Adults of today were the first generation to grow up on that kind of mass entertainment? Star Wars really broke through that barrier. And the kids who saw Star Wars THE FIRST TIME didn't completely grow out of it and stop going to genre movies. Because why would they? After Star Wars, more genre movies came out every year. Entertainment and media also became easier to consume. Not nearly as easy as it is today, though. It IS a little ridiculous. Seriously, if there's something you can't find, you're not making the effort. I drove by a record store today (Wiki it, kids) and tried to remember the last time I was in a record store. I think it was when I went to sell DVDs to Amoeba. But I used to hit record stores almost once a week. Aron's, Rockaway, Rhino, Tower. That really amazing one in Pasadena that I only went to a few times, but it was like that record store in your dream where you find everything you've ever been looking for. I used to read reviews and then go buy records and CDs... WITHOUT HAVING HEARD ANY OF IT. I got REALLY good at knowing what something would sound like by reading a one-paragraph review or checking out the Desert Island Disc section of the free Tower magazine (that's where I found The Chameleons. Thanks, Tower!).

I spent hours in record stores. Until I didn't. It's not like there was a decision, where I went, "Right. That's over. Onto the Internet." Record stores started getting less product, then they gradually drifted away and died. It seems like a gentle death, but it isn't. Not really. Well, the death of other things, like Famolares and Chemin de Fer and Dittos weren't gentle either, but THOSE were necessary.

I used to go to bookstores, too, and spend hours there. Indie bookstores and even the big chains, which used to actually carry Books. The Border's in Westwood was a pretty fucking great bookstore. Dangerous Visions had a lot of my money. So did Vroman's. And A Change Of Hobbit. But I don't go to bookstores anymore.

Not a gentle death.

This week, the TeeVee landscape changed forever when ABC canceled One Life To Live and All My Children. Now, I don't expect that most of you paid much attention to the announcement. Maybe soaps are a curiosity for you, something your mom watched religiously for awhile and used to talk about. She'd say things like, "I remember when Jessie was the Hot Nurse. Then they put her in the blue sweater and trapped her behind that desk. But she had a LIFE back then!" People watched soaps for decades. They watched soaps their mothers watched, back when the shows were in black and white and only half an hour long. Back when they were called soap operas because they existed to advertise soap and cleaning products to lonely housewives.

But even when the housewives turned mad, soap operas endured. In fact, they began to flourish when the producers realized that the daughters of these women were watching the shows their moms watched. During the summer, the shows would turn young. They'd introduce younger characters (sometimes growing toddlers into teenagers overnight) and over-the-top summer storylines that were seriously fucking insane. General Hospital was a MASTER of this particular genre. There was nothing that show wouldn't do. No other soap had a crazy Greek shipping magnate who tried to freeze the world, starting with Port Charles (like you do). While All My Children played things fairly straight (as straight as you can in a soap), One Life To Live sent Clint Buchanan back to the Old West and turned his wife Viki into a woman with an evil split personality called Niki. The ABC soaps remind me of summer, peanut butter sandwiches on Wonder Bread and Pepsi. And while we all knew how Goddam stupid these stories were, they were hella entertaining. Soaps were not afraid to blow through story. If they didn't, they failed. And they always gave us something to talk about. To connect about.

Daytime soaps evolved into the nighttime soaps. If nighttime soaps had been considered just plain dramas, they wouldn't have worked. But Dallas? Dynasty? Knot's Landing? My own personal favorite, Falcon Crest? Those shows were just as batshit as the daytime soaps were. They created appointment television. Because -- and a lot of you may not know this -- there was a time when if you wanted to watch a show, you had to watch it WHILE IT WAS ON. That means that you had to somehow schedule your life so you could be home in time to watch Dallas. Because there were no DVRs. There was no On Demand. No DVDs, iTunes or Hulu, so you could catch it later. You couldn't catch it later. If you missed it, you were fucked. It wasn't going to come out on video. Hell, we didn't even know what video WAS!

So when people watched appointment TeeVee, they all watched it at the same time and they talked about it afterwards. NOT ON THEIR CELLPHONES, EITHER. We had no such thing as spoilers. Nobody EVER went, "Don't ruin it! I've got it recorded!" And frankly, that was rather nice. Because it's seriously annoying to be yelled at for ruining a show that finished airing years earlier because some twig hasn't yet gotten around to adding it to their Netflix queue.

I don't know what it's like to grow up now, or to have grown up in the recent past. But I have to think that the one thing this world is missing dearly is the collective experience. Oh, we have our collective tragedies, where horrible things happen in real time and we all watch. But there is no collective entertainment. People watch things when they watch them, not when they're on. Even movie-going isn't a collective experience. People Tweet and Facebook and text and time-shift their experience even while they're sitting in the theater supposedly having it.

When the kids of today get together and talk about what they used to watch when they were younger, what do they talk about? Nobody knows what a station identification is. They don't remember commercials, or public access, or local news reporters. There's no "Do you remember watching that episode of Twin Peaks when Bob first showed up?" We remember moments from episodes of television. You can say to someone, "Remember the episode of Emergency when Johnny got bitten by the snake?" And we fucking remember. Or, most famously, "Where were you when JR was shot?" So no wonder everyone's on their phone all the time. They don't have anything to share. And if there's any question about why TeeVee shows aren't making an impact, that's got to be part of the answer. TeeVee is still applying the old model of collective experience. And it just doesn't exist anymore.

When something happens like what ABC did this week, I feel the past dying a little bit more. And it's not being replaced with anything. With any other new, fabulous life. It's replaced with Kardashians and their basketball heroes, Teen Moms, Real Housewives. I suppose that to today's generation, this is as close to a collective experience as they're going to get. And just as my parents despaired at my love for Rich Springfield and The Facts Of Life, we despair for today's generation. I'm sure they're all fine with it. It's what they're used to. But it just feels so empty. It's savage. There's nothing delicious about it. There was an innocence, I think, to what we used to love. It was darling, in its own way. Harmless. And maybe the Housewives are harmless; I dunno. But it is really enjoyable?

I'm sad about the fact that I don't do what I used to do anymore, that there's no search to embark upon, no finds to relish. And although kids today don't know what they've missed out on, I do know. And I wonder if this is how the generation before me felt, if our lives moved so much faster that they thought we weren't getting a true life experience. Well, I'll assuage them -- we got one. I wish the latest generation could assuage ME, but I'm afraid they can't. And they really are missing something special.

The death of daytime television puts a lot of people out of work. An entire industry, really. Soap operas were a wonderful training ground for many terrific writers and well-known actors. But canceling these shows also serves to put another stake in the heart of the collective experience. Now, I suppose a corporation's idea of a collective experience extends only to the live role-playing game in which they're forced to endure when they're on their retreats. And corporations are all about moving forward. Razing the past. Always looking towards a bigger pile of cash. There's no room in the corporate heart for fondness or memories. Today, it's soaps. What will it be tomorrow?

Not a gentle death.

But Wait! There's More!

2011-03-21T15:30:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite shows is Discovery Channel's "Pitchmen." While it misses Billy Mays (as does the world), it still features Anthony Sullivan, pitchman par excellence, Yoda to other pitchmen and developer of product. The slogan is "simple solutions for everyday problems," and Sullivan sticks to that like... something that sticks to something else. Aspiring pitch people and inventors pitch their products to Sullivan and he tells them why they will or will not work in the direct response market. He's so good at his job that the show is completely fascinating. Because after awhile, you start to anticipate his response to a product.

Although Sullivan has inventors pitch to him, he rarely turns a product down because an inventor doesn't pitch well. And believe you me, the majority of them are NOT pitchmen. But then it's rather a separate skill, pitching and inventing. Sullivan isn't an inventor. He's a tremendous salesman, though. If he can immediately see how a product should be pitched, then he's hooked. But he's also been hooked by a product and initially flummoxed by how it should be pitched. Regardless, when you see the final commercial you get it.

I am in love with the culture of direct response and the history of pitchmen. In one episode, for example, a legendary knife worker comes out of retirement to demonstrate a new set of knives. It's an interesting subculture, to be sure.

Another reason I love the show is that it does relate to what we do in television. We have to pitch, too, and we have to be just as clear and concise as the pitchmen. Our product -- our idea -- has to have that "why didn't I think of that" element. It has to be familiar enough, yet different enough. It has to fill a niche, but not create one. It has to be, in essence, a simple solution to an everyday problem. As I said above, the big difference is that in direct response, the pitchman is generally separate from the inventor. The pitchman helps the inventor achieve his or her dream.

In TeeVee, pitchman and inventor are one in the same. And there are very few people who got into television because they could sell. Oh, many people discovered that they have the skill to sell, to pitch. But a rather large majority of writers would be just as happy not having to sell (hi, here's one!). It used to be that pitching was an aid, and not the whole enchilada. You could be somewhat proficient and still sell your idea if the idea was a good one. But the more corporations seized power, the more important pitching became. Because corporations, as we all know, are not about creativity. We all know what happens when sociopaths create art. Hitler and John Wayne Gacy come to mind. Ideas are commodities, not inspiration. They have to be unimpeachable. And this is where pitching comes in. It is entirely incumbent upon the pitchman to do all the work. Think of it as a baseball pitcher not having a catcher to throw to. That's what it's becoming.

AMC has taken a unique stand on this. They have something they cheerfully call a Bake-Off, where they have writers come in and do an entire presentation on their idea. To how many people, I do not know. Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, as writers we all have our entire pitches prepared. We know what the pilot is, we know who the characters are, we know everything about our world and we have at least the first season figured out. So it's not as if AMC's asking writers to do THAT much more work than they would ordinarily do. But see, the Bake-Off is for people who have already SOLD pilots to the network. THEY HAVE ALREADY SOLD THEIR SHOWS. And AMC is asking these people to pitch AGAIN in the hopes that they are good enough salespeople that the network will pick their show up to pilot. The show that already had to be unimpeachable when it was sold now has to be superunimpeachable. It's bananas on bananas. While it's good business practice to make sure you extinguish problems, it's another thing entirely to work over an idea to such an extent that you strangle it. This starts to have an effect on the market, in that audiences start getting bored.

EVERYBODY is trying to get into AMC and it's certainly no secret why. They've got the best shows on television. But when that happens, a network can afford to get very selective, which means that they can pick and choose who they want to be in business with. Not that they don't already do this, but it's made even more evident when things aren't working elsewhere.

But making people perform like this, I dunno... it smacks of gigantism to me. Sometimes success breeds success, but sometimes it breeds a quick path to failure. It's just a little too "The Next Great Restaurant" for its own good. If AMC ever erects enormous statues outside its offices, then we'll know that the fall of a civilization is imminent.

Yeah, we have to verbally pitch our ideas but now they're expecting us to be Anthony Sullivan. And that's not fair.

Women Of A Certain Age

2011-03-08T17:34:00.000-08:00

Oh look. I still have a blog.

(insert vague but impressive fake reasons for why it's taken me this so long to write another long-ass post, also including the fact that nothing was seriously pissing me off)

One of my favorite shows on TeeVee is TNT's Men Of A Certain Age. It's really hard to get a straightforward drama on TeeVee, and having Ray Romano as one of the creators must have certainly helped. If you haven't seen this show, you're probably one of THOSE who hasn't watched Friday Night Lights, either. SHAME ON YOU. Men Of A Certain Age, if you don't know (WHICH MAKES ME HATE YOU), is about three friends approaching middle age. I say "approaching," because nobody knows when middle age is anymore. What I love about the show is how frank and honest it is. These men are not portrayed as heroes, or sad sacks. They're people, navigating life, and it's wonderful. The writing could not be better. My only complaint is that the seasons are too damned short. Eight episodes?? Are you freaking crazy??

This is a show about men in the way that they haven't been portrayed on TeeVee. It really is. We have certain archetypes that we love on TeeVee. Hawaii 5-0 has sort of cornered the market on these guys, and that show does it very well. Men on TeeVee have to be cool, you see, even if they have other problems. At some point, they have to bank-turn a product-placed Camaro through the door of a nightclub. It's just the nature of television. And God knows there's nothing wrong with it. It's not easy to do well.

Men Of A Certain Age isn't that show. This isn't the show where Ray Romano is going to take off his sunglasses in a sexy way. It's such a beautifully written show and I don't know anyone who watches it. And that pisses me off. But it also got me thinking about what the same show is for women. Someone is going to say Sex And The City, or Desperate Housewives. And I say... not quite. I don't think there could EVER be a show featuring women the way Men Of A Certain Age features men. Because even though we pretend we're all about equality, we're really not. There's always a quota for women, whether it be women on staff of a show, or women as leads in shows. There is NEVER a quota for men. It's assumed that the shows will all be male-driven and have male leads, unless they need to add a touch of diversity and feature a woman. And that's just how it works, y'all.

Why isn't Sex And The City the female version of Men Of A Certain Age? Because it's a fucking fantasy, that's why. It's the female version of Hawaii 5-0. The women are always cool, no matter what. And even if it's well done, there's still that Wall Of Cool protecting the audience from brutal honesty. There's something about Men Of A Certain Age that goes so much deeper than shoes and clothes and finding love and kids. In the woman fantasy shows, these are generally the end of things. Dramas about women all eventually wind up in that little box. Desperate Housewives has been guilty of that as well. But as someone who's seen every episode of that show, I will also say that they have told some really wonderful stories. Not necessarily relatable to me, but extremely well told. But then nothing on television is ever going to be truly relatable to me. Desperate Housewives is, however, much more of a soap than Men Of A Certain Age, which adds a certain tart outrageousness to the storytelling. And it has that hook -- the desperate housewives themselves, defined by their 50s jobs. Is it wonderful that women over the age of 22 are leads on shows? Absolutely. No question. But I want television to take that and go deeper. The problem is, there's no home for that kind of a show. It's not a Lifetime show. It's not a network show. So what does that leave?

This kind of honest exploration is only going to happen in an ensemble situation, like (apparently) any Jason Katims show. And I guess that's fine for now. It's not like I don't adore those shows. But you try pitching a female character who has no interest in marriage or kids and see how far THAT gets you. This is an inevitability in drama. And while it usually is for male characters, it's not imperative. It ALWAYS is for female characters. Because, as our President says on a fucking constant daily basis, it's all about the working families. There are no others. Maybe that's why I usually default to creating male characters, because I just don't want to fight about it.

Growing up, girls have books to read and TeeVee shows to watch but I know I wasn't the only one who read boy's books and watched boy-oriented shows. Because the accepted model is that girls will always consume boy-oriented entertainment but boys will NEVER read books aimed at girls. This is a sad truth. For every Podkayne of Mars, there's the entire Harlequin line. And even Podkayne had a ton of problems. BIG fan, Bob, but your views on women leave something to be desired. But girls take what they can get. Boys don't have to. They don't have to compromise about anything. Don't want a family? No big deal. You make more than any woman anyway. But if a woman doesn't seek that traditional role? HORRORS.

Then we come to the YA explosion and almost all of this is aimed at girls. Publishers realized that there was an audience for this stuff. What's unfortunate is that a lot of it is the same old thing dressed up in a genre package. Twilight is a Mormon fantasy about true love through stalking, and babies. All Bella wants is to marry Edward and have his creepy vampire baby who will imprint upon the werewolf and then he will fall in love with it. BECAUSE OF COURSE. But it's disturbing, isn't it, that Twilight is SO popular for these very reasons? Is THAT the kind of fantasy girls are STILL being asked to want and accept? I looked at the March releases in YA fiction and it's pretty much all the same thing. There's some beautiful boy involved who changes everything. I don't have a problem with that archetype in general, but when enough people cynically dive into the pool, the pandering begins. The poorly drawn characters arrive. I am all for a female teen protagonist meeting the mystical guy but DO something with it. Having finished my own YA book that features the opposite arc for my female protagonist, I'm pretty sure no book agent will even read it.

"Happily ever after" isn't the end. That's where the second act starts. In the 50s and 60s, publishers like Julian Messner published career romance novels -- simply the greatest books of ALL TIME -- where girls went to the big city to start their careers and choose between the two inevitable guys. The best of these books found the protagonists figuring out how to do both. The worst of them, of course, found the guy ordering the protagonist to give up her job so she could raise his fucking kids. But this was at a time when a woman's place was pretty well defined. The only show that is truly honest about women is, ironically, Mad Men. Because even though the show is called Mad Men, it's about those women. Is it easier to tell stories about women back when they really had little choice about their futures? Why can't we do that now? Maybe it has to do with how far removed we are from that time period. Matthew Weiner has said that he considers Mad Men to be, in part, a science fiction show. And if you really think about it, that makes sense. It's safer to tell stories about people who are removed from your audience. But if you do that, then you'd better Goddam be as good as Matthew Weiner.

And I haven't even talked about the Judd Apatow movies, because I would probably starve to death ranting about what they're telling our society about women. But I think I may have touched upon that before. Ahem. So that's the babbling quotient for now. Incidentally, this fine post comes at you on International Women's Day, which probably has as its logo a uterus or a mother holding a baby and Jesus or something.

Next up: I saw The Adjustment Bureau. I will have some things to say.

Total Eclipse Of the Heart

2011-01-17T00:02:00.000-08:00

Today is the Eclipse Award ceremony, where either Blame, Goldikova or Zenyatta will be named Horse Of The Year. I know what you are all thinking -- how can we possibly be ready to party in Miami the day after the Golden Globes??? That's right -- the Eclipse Awards are in Miami this year. Because NO American city is more about the Thoroughbred than Miami.

Luckily for you, gentle readers, this will likely be my last Zenyatta post because she is retired and just about ready to scare the shit out of A.P. Indy or whichever poor bastard they choose for her. I mean seriously -- POOR FUCKING BASTARD. I'll be back ranting like a crazy goblin about some television thing or the other. And yeah, I've got a particular topic in mind (thank God).

Anyway, there's been quite a lot of heated speculation about the HOTY award. It goes a little something like this: Voters (mainly turf writers) repeatedly claim that since Blame beat Zenyatta, he deserves HOTY. They say that Zenyatta is the greatest synthetic specialist of all time but since synthetic racing is less than dirt racing (yes, somebody actually SAID THIS), there's no way she could be named HOTY. Now, these folks are the voters and as the voters, they have every right to choose whichever horse they want. It's their vote. There are some fantastic turf writers out there. Oddly, though, a lot of the good ones don't actually GET to vote. So they've simply been waxing poetic on the greatness of Zenyatta. You know... DOING THEIR JOBS.

Some of the really good turf writers DO get to vote. Some of them are voting for Blame, and others for Zenyatta. Like I said -- up to them. But then there are THE OTHERS. There's been a lot of derision towards the fans of the sport by these Others. Mostly, it happens when somebody goes, "Hey, you know what? It wouldn't be the worst idea if the fans had a say in this awards thingy." They lose their fucking MINDS over this and bleat about how fans are stupid, they don't know anything, they only like Zenyatta because they like pretty horsies, and they will just fade away and lose interest. These fans never cared about the sport anyway. If they did, then wouldn't the newspapers that carry columns by these Others be doing better? I mean, who DOESN'T want to read another riveting article about takeout in California?

(me)

The insinuation is pretty clear -- these Others know more about racing than any fan. And because of that, they get to vote. They vote because their opinion is INFORMED, while a fan's opinion is simply emotional. Now look. If you WORK in the Goddam racing industry, if you cover the sport on a daily fucking basis in that this is the way you make your living and you have NO idea what Zenyatta brought to racing, THEN YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG. Because if someone who's never even seen a horse race can know that they've seen something special in Zenyatta, then you, Mr. Professional Turf Writer And Self-Proscribed Genius, should be able to see it, too.

Instead, you denigrate and dissuade and demean the fans, the people who -- BTW -- buy your papers and read your articles. THEY'RE YOUR AUDIENCE, FUCKWITS. And your behavior ever since Zenyatta set foot on a racetrack is embarrassing. But hey, what do I know? I'm only a fan, someone who's been following racing for most of my life. Given how these Others seem to kind of hate the industry, they will soon be heaping praise upon David Milch's gambling show, which is probably all about takeout and carryovers. Wee! How fun!

I thought that on the eve of the Eclipse Awards, maybe I should make my case for what MY vote would be for HOTY. I'm going to give you more than that emotion you so despise. I'll give you precedent, you fucktards. I also want to mention the fact that you can deride all you want about the fans having a vote, but you DO know that in Europe the readers of the Racing Post and Daily Telegraph get a vote, right? So if they do it that way in a place MUCH classier than America, then what's the harm in doing it that way here? Why NOT include the fans? Are you afraid that you'll all be found out for what you really are? This vote should be about the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism. I suspect it won't be, which would be quite a shame.

Anyway. On with my vote:

The guidelines for the Eclipse Award for Horse Of The Year are thus: A horse needs to have made one start in North America.

That’s it.

The rest is left up to the voters, which means that any criteria can be used. Blame’s supporters claim that a vote for Zenyatta is a vote for emotion or sentimentality. This is supposed to give Blame the award based on numbers, but is Blame really a clear quantitative winner?

Blame won four of five races in 2010, including three Grade One races. He won two handicaps – the Foster, in which he carried 120 pounds, and the Whitney, in which he carried 121 pounds. Zenyatta won five of six races, all Grade One. She won two handicaps – the Santa Margarita, in which she carried 127 pounds, and the Vanity, in which she carried 129 pounds. She gave from eight to nineteen pounds to her Santa Margarita rivals, and nine to seventeen pounds to the Vanity field.

Some choose to denigrate Zenyatta’s Grade One races, calling them “restricted” because they are restricted to fillies & mares. However, last year’s HOTY Rachel Alexandra ran every race but one in “restricted” company. And running in “restricted” races didn’t seem to harm HOTY Lady’s Secret, or HOTY Azeri. Lady’s Secret won only one “open company” race. Azeri didn’t face males at all in her 2002 HOTY season, winning five of the races that Zenyatta won this year.

Another criticism for Zenyatta is that she didn’t defeat any Grade One winners. But since 2008, Zenyatta has won every Grade One filly & mare race on the West Coast except for two – the 2008 Santa Margarita, won by Nashoba’s Key, and the 2009 Santa Margarita, won by eventual Ladies Classic champion Life Is Sweet. In this exceptional, unprecedented case, Zenyatta’s lack of Grade One competition was caused by Zenyatta herself.

This year, the Breeders Cup Classic is being held up as the most important feather in a HOTY contender’s cap. But last year, it didn’t matter at all. Those who choose Blame dismiss the rather weak campaign Blame had in 2010. They toss his four-length drubbing in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, but his slim victory over Zenyatta carries all the weight in the discussion. They talk as if there has never been any other HOTY who lost the Classic.

Well. Awesome Again was unbeaten in 1998 but the horse he soundly defeated in the Classic, Skip Away (who was 6th), was voted HOTY. Curlin lost the Classic in 2008 but was voted HOTY over Zenyatta. Native Dancer won only three races in 1954 but was on the cover of Time magazine, and was named HOTY. Anyone arguing against being influenced by the fact that Zenyatta smashed the consecutive win record should take a look at 1996, when Cigar lost three races, including the Classic, but was named HOTY because he tied Citation’s record.

Numbers and precedent don’t seem to give Blame the edge here. The notion that the HOTY would also be the popular choice goes against everything her detractors think the award should recognize. It would take the serious scholarship away from racing and turn it into something populous. And as we well know, populous sports don’t thrive at all. Ask football. Or NASCAR, which embraces populism and thrives because of it. Racing is still that cranky old man yelling at kids to stay off his lawn.

Zenyatta ran for three healthy, sound years. She was a horse who loved her job and the people who surrounded her loved their jobs, too. They also realized they had an opportunity to share her with the world, and they did that. Zenyatta put on a show. She was breathtaking. Perfect. And people were caught up in her glory. For the first time in a long time, racing was popular because of something positive.

However, horse racing is tradition and this year, racing has the chance to honor that tradition with Claiborne Farm’s Blame, a marvelous racehorse who represents everything that is safe and establishment about racing. Blame is not, however, transcendent. People who knew absolutely nothing about the sport knew that they had seen something special when Zenyatta narrowly missed running down Blame. Teaching new fans how bittersweet racing can be is a difficult lesson but Zenyatta showed them that greatness can sometimes be better quantified in defeat than in victory.

The critics, the skeptics, say that a vote for Zenyatta would tarnish racing’s image. The people who came out for Zenyatta will slink away now, and racing will go back to the sad state it was in before Zenyatta first danced onto its stage. But these new fans are getting caught up in the HOTY debate. People who had never been to the track are using numbers and history to debate Zenyatta’s attributes. They’re eager to see Switch and Blind Luck run this year. This enthusiasm is not the only reason to vote for Zenyatta but in a race that has proven to be so closely contested, all that the mare did for racing breaks any tie.

In her three years of racing, Zenyatta captured the public’s imagination and put racing on the map. No matter what accoutrements we hang on this sport, it all comes down to one thing – the horse. Heart is not quantifiable. It’s emotional and visceral, and that is what Zenyatta has brought back to the sport. A vote for Blame would be a vote for the old-boy establishment that hasn’t found a way to connect with a new fanbase. A vote for Zenyatta is a vote for the future of racing.

And that is why Zenyatta is my 2010 Horse Of The Year.

Otaku for Dummies

2010-12-29T14:15:00.000-08:00

This week, Patton Oswalt and Javier Grillo-Marxuach both wrote articles about the over-saturation of geekdom. We have, it seems, reached the Omega Point* of nerddom.

Judging by the responses, geeks are a touch angry about the opinion that geek culture needs to lie fallow for awhile in order for it to return to maximum efficiency. Maybe it's a generational thing, because the geeks/nerds who grew up with readily available videos and DVDs and Internet shopping just come at this from a different mindset. But when you talk about the pervasiveness of geek culture, you really need to understand where this attitude is coming from, even if you wind up having a completely different opinion.

For me, it's not just that geek culture has become pop culture. It's the way it happened. Comic Con is the perfect example. The corporations jumped on Comic Con like a Biggest Loser contestant scrambles for a donut. They put their ad people and marketing departments and accountants on the case, and the job was to deconstruct geek culture. Figure out what makes the people who love this weird shit tick, then give them what they sort-of want but also make it as mainstream as possible. Knock off the interesting bits so it can be mass-produced and distributed and consumed by the largest number of people. This is what a corporation DOES. It takes something quirky and individual and turns it into a cynical bowl of shit.

A lot of people do not notice this, but some people DO and that's why both of these essays resonated with me. We are so inundated with geek culture that we're drowning, and this makes it impossible for anyone to truly be inspired by anything. There's no surprise anymore. Fans know what's coming out, when it's coming out, who's in it, who made it, how it looks. They follow writers, actors and directors on the Twitter and get text updates. They have the books, the games and the action figures before the marketing tool is even released. Because let's be honest here: The movies and TV shows and books are just marketing tools for the product.

It didn't always used to be backwards. At least if it was, it was hidden better. More innocent, maybe, even if being more innocent means you're a sucker. I just don't know if today's geeks get the same rush from seeking out the obscure. And maybe it doesn't matter to them. Maybe it IS a generational thing, and those of us who felt that rush are just fucking old assholes who don't have a place in the new world order. But I'm less concerned with the people who consume and love this stuff than I am with the people who are going to become the creators. If everything is readily, instantly available... if there is no need to seek out information... if there are no secrets and no mystery... if interpretation is something given to you by a studio marketing department... then where, exactly, is the inspiration supposed to come from?

It just seems like there used to be moments where time stops. Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Trek. Moments that could be separated out from all the rest of the shit. And no matter how people feel about our geek cultural touchstones, you have to admit that they rose like a tower from the landscape. I have no doubt that a lot of you hate these touchstones for that very reason. What makes time stop now? Are there people sitting in the Transformers movie who are completely mesmerized? Those adjusting their 3D glasses in Toy Story 3? We're in a perpetual feedback loop of geekformation. We're being bombarded with it. When everything is self-referential and time moves so quickly, is it even possible for something with an original voice to rise out of the muck?

If the media that people are consuming is simply a pale imitation of what inspired the heroes of THOSE creators, then who are the heroes for today? Can anything be surprising or astonishing or mind-blowing anymore? Maybe it's not necessary. Could be that OUR inspiration isn't THEIR inspiration, and they're going to be just as creative anyway. Or maybe creativity is just so different now that it's alien to us. But I don't think so. It's impossible to keep up with everything, of course. And yes, life DOES move more quickly now. We are instant consumers. But we are also instant creators, making parodies on YouTube and Funny Or Die. Short, funny parodies are the best vehicle for the Internet. Hell, YouTube made it easy by limiting the length of a clip. It seems like we consume, delete, consume, delete, etc. While previously, we consumed, digested, reflected and searched. But did we do that because there was no other option? Is there no real difference between the two? I wonder if our ability to adjust to whatever consumer culture does is actually a detriment. We don't fight for anything. We just let ourselves be dictated to.

Americans, in particular, are bred to consume and we are AWESOME at it. The pervasiveness of collectibles that are mass-produced by the billions... I'm not sure it exists simply because of corporate greed. George Lucas owns Marin County because he had the foresight to get his Star Wars toy money, when companies didn't think the merchandising would be worth anything. Now, of course, merchandising drives movies. But if the consumers didn't demand the toys, the corporations wouldn't have bothered. So is it up to us to stop it? Is the temporary rejection of geek culture necessary for US to find a way to survive, to get back to roots that weren't so fucking obviously materialistic?

This is a delicate balancing act because like a good sociopath, the corporations have overdone it. They know how to market the product to us because we've basically told them how. They understand the geek mind, and it's THAT which has made geek culture mainstream. So is it up to the geeks to forge ahead and create something surprising? It had better be, because the corporations won't do it. They won't take a chance. Somehow, the creators need to find a way to manipulate the system to get their voice out there. People forget that Star Wars was an uphill battle. And yes, it's incredibly sad that George Lucas is re-engineering and spackling his creation like it's Michael Jackson's face. But if anyone earned the right to do that, it's Lucas. It would be great if someone else would come along and earn the right to rape their creation.

Conversely, Joss Whedon can't stop the rights-holders from rebooting Buffy and if there's one King of the High Geeks, it's Whedon.

So maybe the lesson there is that creators need to find ways to see into that future, to hold onto their creations. And maybe it's not so much about geek culture dying, but rather that those who are aware of the oversaturation and long for the days of discovery actually create something new. Surprising. Unexpected. Not derivative of other things, but inspired by them. There is a fine line between derivation and inspiration and I think both Patton and Javi have given voice to that. There's awareness now, even if people misunderstand or disagree. So someone has to do this. Somebody has to find the ingenuity with which to steer the ship.

So what are we waiting for?

*If you haven't heard of it, the Omega Point is a term devised by the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. It's supposedly the moment prior to the singularity and it denotes the organized complexity towards which the universe is moving. He goes into a lot of philosophy that winds up being somewhat dualistic -- the universe is divided into matter and love, kind of a Pushme-Pullyu of complexity. Taken in the context of geek culture, my interpretation is that there's always a push towards the world being created. The world of geeks is the convention, the gathering, the assembling of like-minded citizens. Geeks gathered with their mimeographed Star Trek fanfic, with their fan clubs, on the Well. And one facet of geekdom is the love of world-building. Chardin says that the pieces of the world seek each other out through the forces of love, which is a perfect description for what geeks DO. And then, of course, there must be the wars -- the great Shipper wars of the X-Files world, the Spike Redemptionist battles of the Buffyverse, the myriad skirmishes within the Star Trek universe.

This seems to happen when the world becomes too large and too complex, forcing geeks to huddle in even smaller groups within that larger world. Is that what's happening now? Our geek world is so huge that there isn't even a small corner in which to settle. So maybe razing it to the ground and starting over is a logical way to go.

Lastly:

One might say that, by virtue of human reflection (both individual and collective), evolution, overflowing the physico-chemical organisation of bodies, turns back upon itself and thereby reinforces itself with a new organising power vastly concentric to the first — the cognitive organisation of the universe. To think the world (as physics is beginning to realise) is not merely to register it but to confer upon it a form of unity it would otherwise (i.e. without being thought) be without.

-- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man

Happy new year, everyone!

Walking Alone

2010-12-01T10:39:00.000-08:00

The big TeeVee news on the Interwebs is that Frank Darabont, film director and apparently "showrunner" of the AMC series The Walking Dead, has fired the entire writing staff and is considering not even having a staff for season two of the show. This has not been confirmed, although I would imagine that the first bit of it -- letting the staff go -- has already been done. Since the show only got a six-episode order for season one, I wouldn't imagine that the staff was very large. Probably a couple of guys. And yes, "guys" is a pretty good guess.

Let's play the Holy Blood Holy Grail game and pretend that the above is all true and confirmed.

Darabont, ultimate television historian that he is not, wants to model The Walking Dead on how the BBC makes TeeVee -- with a showrunner, no staff, and freelancers coming in to write episodes. First of all, I think the BBC model works because production over there is an entirely different animal than it is here. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there story editors on BBC shows? Isn't there some experienced framework in place to make the shows run smoothly? And haven't the majority of the showrunners come up through the very stringent system so that they know how it all works? Don't they have -- dare I say it -- experience? And don't the freelance writers also know precisely how the system works, and how to pitch and write scripts for these shows?

Since that's not how we do it here, I can't imagine that this sort of thing would run smoothly. Actually, hang on a minute... I actually have experience with this sort of thing! I was on a show where it was decided that the majority of the episodes would be freelanced. This led to hearing A LOT of pitches and not surprisingly, an enormous number of those pitches missed the mark. Because see, that's how our system is designed. It's almost impossible for freelancers to pitch an acceptable story to a US TeeVee show, which is why the WGA required freelance episodes are usually given to friends or assistants. Freelancing, for the most part, is so that people who want to break in are given the chance to. I'm a huge proponent of handing freelances to assistants. If I had a show, that's what I would do, too.

Darabont, unfortunately, is speaking from ignorance. I don't know what his thought process is for this decision (if indeed he made it). But I can imagine a few possible reasons: One, he figures that he is doing all of the work anyway, and can continue to do all of the work AND keep up with production. And two, that because of his feature director mentality, he truly has no idea what the fuck a writing staff is FOR. But this isn't all on Darabont. The comments on sites reporting this potential news have been staggeringly ignorant. Nobody understands what a writing staff does. Many of the comments say shit about staff writers just lazing around collecting paychecks they aren't actually earning. Other comments say that the writing sucked so hard that firing the writers is the right thing to do. Others say that hey, Darabont wrote most of the episodes and how long does it take to write a script anyway? Just don't fire the make-up guy. A goodly number of comments mention David Kelley, Aaron Sorkin and David Milch, three showrunners who write the majority of the episodes of their shows. So certainly Darabont, great genius that he is (he's from FEATURES!) can handle 13 zombie episodes. Still others -- and these are the most dangerous -- are from people who heard somewhere that TeeVee used to be mainly freelance, so obviously it works. And then the BBC example.

Over on Blastr (they spell it that way), Marc Bernardin -- one bloody smart cookie -- had these comments:

Is there a virtue in having a writers' room, in fostering the free-flowing exchange of ideas, inspiration and experience? Absolutely. But that's not the only way of making television; there are others, and they are perfectly capable of turning out excellence. Babylon 5 was written nigh-exclusively by J. Michael Straczynski, and didn't have a writing staff. Every line of dialogue during the first three seasons of the Emmy-winning West Wing came from Aaron Sorkin's keyboard; the writing staff there served more as a platoon of researchers.

Actually, word is that Sorkin's room broke the stories and then Sorkin wrote the scripts. So I suppose if you think that dialogue is 99% of writing, then this theory makes sense. However, that's not what I think.

Turning to freelancers might allow for a shorter production schedule, with a dozen writers all working at the same time, turning in an avalanche of material simultaneously to then be honed and polished by executive producers like Darabont and Robert Kirkman.

That's certainly the shiny fantasy of how this could work. But I have to ask... exactly WHEN is the heavy lifting -- the actual breaking of stories -- supposed to occur? If you haven't worked on a production schedule, then you really don't know what happens when the train leaves the station. If the writers are involved from the ground up, then they are more adept at getting the voice, pacing and characterizations. If you keep them out of the process and just hand them an outline, you are fucking yourself. Like, seriously.

And freelancers will get you new voices, fresh legs to help carry the drama over the long haul. They can also come from anywhere: Wouldn't it be sweet to see Stephen King bounce in for an episode, or David Chase, or Neil Gaiman, or Steven Moffat?

Because Stephen King bouncing into X-Files was such a success. This is backwards. The showrunner IS THE VOICE OF THE SHOW. The last Goddam thing you want is for a TeeVee show to have a thousand different voices. If it's an anthology, maybe. But this format doesn't work for anthologies, either. I have first-hand experience with that. But that's not even the biggest outrage with this statement. Now what you're talking about is famous writers, who don't need the work and don't need the money, taking work away from actual TeeVee writers. Well, how fucking OFFENSIVE. Is television REALLY going to turn celebrity? It's bad enough that networks want names for everything but REALLY? You're going to turn TeeVee back into a freelance medium and rather than that being a GOOD thing for writers, you are now just handing scripts off to Stephen fucking KING? Go tell your great idea to working TeeVee writers and see what they say about it.

Okay. People. Please. Don't be fucking stupid. You have no idea how it works. You don't know what writing is. You don't know what a writing staff does. You don't understand how the BBC model is different, or that because TeeVee used to be freelance-heavy, that was before even your parents were born. And ultimately, you have NO FUCKING IDEA how the credit process works. There are certain showrunners who have a tendency to put their names on scripts with other writers. They all have different reasons for doing so. They could just adore the shit out of residuals, and want as much as possible, even at the expense of a staff writer making a tenth of what the showrunner makes. They could be of the philosophy that since they are running the show, they have every right to put their names on scripts. They could want to cover their asses just in case a script gets nominated for an award. Or, they could think that actually sitting down and writing dialogue is REAL writing, and the work the writing staff does is not.

My favorite comments blame the staff for horrible shows. But see, a writing staff on its own has NO power. The power in TeeVee is ceded to the showrunner. So if you're watching a show you hate, blame the executive producer. Don't blame the writing staff.

It still astonishes me that people do not understand that the writing of the script comes at the END of the writing process. Just because you are not typing "Fade In," that doesn't mean you are not writing. Writing is preparation. Writing is construction. Destruction. Composition. It's editing. Storytelling visually, emotionally, humorously, logically. Critical thinking. Letting go of great ideas in service of the story. Character arcs, planned over an episode and a season and the life of the show. It's inspiration, the testing of that inspiration, the honing and fine-tuning of that inspiration. It's collaboration, for the love of God. It's a group of experienced brains tackling a blank white board and breaking a fucking story in two days.

Nowhere in the comments of one of these sites do you see someone say, "But who is going to break the stories?" Because that's not why people go into writing. They have "ideas." They think sitting in front of a computer or a typewriter or putting pen to paper is romantic. Writing is never shown as it really is, from the bottom up. Nobody gives a shit about how the chassis of a car is built. They only care about the trim. It's really easy for someone to read a script and give notes, just thoughts off the top of their head, and think that those notes will be a cinch for the writer to incorporate. Because after all, you just need to put in the leather seats or tint the windows, right? With a story, though, if the person giving the notes doesn't understand how that story was built and created, then the notes could be difficult to implement. And sometimes, they will be impossible. The writer will have already thought of the things the note-giver wants, thought about them, tested them, and rejected them.

Because THAT, people, is what a writing staff does, and the fucking disrespect being blurbed out on blogs and news sites is really offensive.

If you want to break into television and your fantasy about writing involves you sitting at a computer, then you're not ready. Go write features. Television is, as I said above, a collaborative medium. First of all, you will need to collaborate with your fellow writers. You will be facing that empty white board at least 13 times, and as you face each new episode, you will have previous episodes with story and character development to consider. You will have upcoming episodes as well, especially if your show is serialized. You will have budgets to consider in your story breaks. Actors. Production. Crew. Studio and network executives. You will have to become a serial killer of your story children and let your great ideas go. And all of THAT is before you even get to the script. What bothers me about writing programs at schools is that they don't generally teach this. Sure, they'll teach you how to write a solid script, but they won't teach you how to be on a staff. But geez, given the utter lack of understanding of how a writing staff works, I'm not terribly surprised.

A good showrunner depends on his (or rarely her) writing staff. These people have the showrunner's back, and he has theirs. It greatly disturbs me that people with NO understanding of this are being given shows, and it accounts for the upswing in horrible treatment of writers in TeeVee. TeeVee IS a writer's medium, but it shouldn't be a tyrant's medium. And it shouldn't be about someone's misunderstanding and misuse of writing staffs. I don't know why Darabont decided this (if he has), or why his experience with his staff was apparently so wretched that he doesn't want anyone around anymore. Sometimes, showrunners are just lousy communicators and aren't able to impart what they want to the writing staff. And sometimes it's just not a good fit. But again, it's up to the showrunner to use his experience and if someone doesn't actually HAVE experience, then THIS happens.

If Darabont wants to go this route, he'll have a somewhat easier time of it because this isn't a network show. He doesn't have the layers of executives and producers he has to go through to get something done. So his process is going to go smoother anyway. But it's a seriously bad example that's being set for the rest of the industry. If our system was set up for freelancing, that would be one thing. But it isn't. This isn't the BBC. And frankly, using Steven Moffat's S5 of Doctor Who as a shining example of freelance genius is rather Goddam stupid. Moffat was clearly overwhelmed, and it showed.

Maybe a writing staff could have helped him out with that.

Be Here Now

2010-11-05T21:15:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of Tom Stoppard's brilliant, iconic, disturbingly easy to quote Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, idiot savant Rosencrantz is perplexed by a coin he's been tossing. It keeps coming up heads. Through 157 coin tosses, the more pragmatic Guildenstern tries to find logical ways to disprove what Rosencrantz is experiencing. Ultimately, he arrives at a weak version of the transitive property: "He has never known anything like it. But he has never known anything to write home about. Therefore, it is nothing to write home about."

Because Guildenstern cannot justify or understand the thing that is happening right in front of his face, he dismisses it. Numbers-wise, it doesn't make sense. The way he clings desperately to his pragmatism eventually leads to the rather annoyed and finally resigned Guildenstern awaiting his execution.

Tomorrow, Zenyatta runs in what will likely be her final race. She has started nineteen times, and she has won nineteen times. This annoys a lot of people, because these folks are racing pragmatists who depend upon numbers and trends and whatever fancy new handicapping system they have to give them probabilities of how horses are going to run. Like Guildenstern, they use logic, and their logic is speed. Pure speed that is quantifiable and measurable by the speed figures that tell them when a horse is performing at the top of the game.

But Zenyatta is the idiot savant who just doesn't see those numbers. To her, it's not about predicting who is going to win. It's about actually going out and running the race. And so far, she's done that pretty damned well.

There's been a ton of analysis, of course, leading up to the Breeder's Cup Classic. It's been insane, actually. Mostly, handicappers have fallen back on their tools and their tools tell them that it's Blame, and not Zenyatta, who is a mortal lock for tomorrow. Along with this, they take time out to explain why Zenyatta is going to lose. It looks a little like this:

She's too slow: Zenyatta's speed figures are substantially lower than those of the majority of the field.

She's a synthetic specialist: Only two of Zenyatta's races have come on conventional dirt, and both of those races were at Oaklawn Park. She hasn't run at Churchill Downs yet.

Her style won't be conducive to a dirt track: Zenyatta comes from far back, and the word is that speed holds much, much better on the dirt than it does on the synthetics.

She hasn't beaten anything: Zenyatta hasn't faced the top horses in the country all year.

She barely wins her races in slow times: Although she wins, she really does just eke out these victories, and she does it over extremely suspect competition.

These are the reasons the numbers people give. This is why she can't beat Blame, Quality Road, Lookin At Lucky or Haynesfield.

Well, I am a numbers person, too. But I only have one number:

19.

The sheer amount of coverage Zenyatta has received since arriving at Churchill Downs earlier in the week has been unfathomable. There was a 60 Minutes special on her last week. She has a wonderful feature in Sports Illustrated. There have been interviews with all of her connections and stories just coming from all over the place. This is the kind of attention reserved for a champion AFTER a race, not in the week preceding it. But when people are around Zenyatta, logic goes out the window. HOW has this mare managed to win 19 races in a row, including two Breeder's Cup races? HOW did she beat those colts last year with the trip she had? HOW did she win this year's Santa Margarita while buried down on the rail with a sixteenth of a mile to go? HOW did she run down a filly while carrying nine more pounds? Stand in front of her. Just look at her size, and at the way she moves. People who do this become Rosencrantzes. They're tossing that coin, it keeps landing heads, and rather than question how it can be, they accept it and marvel at it. Whenever Zenyatta has gone to the track this week, she's been followed by literally hundreds of people with cameras. People leave their cars in the street to come over and get a look at her as she grazes behind her fence. Even trainers, hardened racetrackers, are taken aback and in awe when they see her. Her owners followed Zenyatta to the track in a sheriff's car, as Ann Moss filmed Zenyatta's van while hanging out of the window. It's bedlam, kids, that would even make the Beatles run for cover.

(remake of A Hard Day's Night with Zenyatta? She DOES love the camera!)

Her detractors, and they are legion, are cynical Guildensterns, always demanding another coin toss, so the universe can be set right. They have set impossible standards for her: She has to win ANOTHER Breeder's Cup Classic to be considered a great horse. She simply cannot be great unless she beats males, at ten furlongs, at Churchill Downs.

That's ludicrous. She already IS great. No other horses are held to this standard. The Guildensterns don't think much of her record. ANY horse, running against Zenyatta's competition, would win nineteen in a row. But her record DOES mean something to racing, and it's starting to mean something to the people outside of racing. Zenyatta has already landed heads 156 times in a row. If she doesn't make that 157th toss, it won't take away from her utterly magnificent accomplishments.

At the end of Stoppard's play, while awaiting execution, Guildenstern is still trying to find reason in the insanity of the play:

Where we went wrong was getting on a boat. We can move, of course, change direction, rattle about, but our movement is contained within a larger one that carries us idly towards eternity without possibility of reprieve or hope of explanation.

He still thinks there was a point when he could have made a decision that wouldn't have resulted in this outcome. Guildenstern doesn't understand that fate has put him here. He never had a chance. Rosencrantz, on the other hand, is just as cheerful, if not just a touch more befuddled than usual. Rosencrantz would freaking love Zenyatta. He'd be feeding her carrots, while Guildenstern would be measuring her to figure out how the hell she won all those races.

Tomorrow should be a celebration, not of records or statistics or a biased/non-biased track or pace or speed figures or any of that, but of perfection and honesty and heart. We should be carried along with Zenyatta, instead of worrying or fussing or fighting about what her place in history will be. This will likely be the last time we see this magnificent horse run and no matter what happens, watching this great horse barrel off that turn and charge down the stretch is going to be enough for me.

Heads.

Girl, You'll Be A Woman Soon

2010-11-01T17:53:00.001-07:00

No new episode of The Event this week, which is probably good because all I would do is link to Zenyatta videos. It's Breeder's Cup week and I promise you, the madness will end Saturday night. Well, probably a few days later. But soon. VERY soon.

So with no new TeeVee, it's time to talk sexism! Yes, sexism. That still acceptable form of discrimination. When people say "Sex sells," they are generally saying that hot girls doing dirty things makes people buy stuff. And apparently, it does. Because if it didn't, it wouldn't be so prevalent. And when it's time to market to women, we wind up with the Dos Equis guy. Seriously, WTF with that guy?? Who exactly is that ad FOR? Are women supposed to think that skeevy dude is hot? If so, epic fail, my friends. I WILL stay thirsty, because I ain't gonna drink with THAT asshole.

I think part of this sexism business has to do with the fact that we are so bombarded with female objectification that we're pretty well inured to it. You can't fight every fight, or else you will be called an angry lesbian. Not to say that there aren't any angry lesbians, but that's another tired old stereotype, isn't it?

Although, an aside -- I am completely objectifying the husband on Undercovers. I have no idea what his character's name is, even. I don't know what case they're on, what they're trying to find, or where they are. He sometimes wears a tux, and sometimes he is shirtless. So for that, thank you, casting peoples.

Anyway. Mostly, this stuff is just wearying, and not damnably egregious. Which is egregious in its own way, I suppose. A few weeks ago on my beloved The Event, the Hardcore Female Assassin was sent in to kill a bunch of people. I think it was a flashback. It's always a good guess that it was a flashback. Anyway, she goes in with her big, angry gun and... there's a baby. Yes, a gurgling baby, looking at her with his "Are you my mommy" baby eyes. And the Hardcore Female Assassin says to the men who callously sent her in, "You didn't tell me there would be a baby."

Right, because THAT'S WHERE YOU DRAW THE LINE. You're an assassin, but you don't kill babies. You wait until they grow up into adults before you put two in the brainpan. Clearly, obviously, dejectedly, she didn't kill the baby because her Womanly Instincts kicked in. SO dumb for the boys to send her to do this. Women NEVER kill babies.

Well. Hardly ever. And when they DO kill babies, they are instantly elevated to the level of the most heinous killers in history. The psychology isn't hard to figure out. Apparently, a lot of people had nightmares about being smothered by their mothers as children. No seriously, on a certain level this attitude DOES make sense. Mothers are the nurturers. We depend on them. We trust them BECAUSE they are our mothers. But here's the problem -- not every woman is a mother, so GET THE FUCK OVER IT. I can just imagine the guys sitting in the writer's room on The Event, coming up with this Most Awesome Plot Point. Because what happens is, the Hardcore Female Assassin takes the baby and raises it as her son. Ah, NOW we can understand and empathize with her. She's not a killer. She's a mommy! No doubt, this was an attempt to give the character some dimension. And about 99.999% of the time, that involves giving a female character a maternal instinct. It's character shorthand. But it backfires. This Hardcore Female Assassin has been made weak in a way that a male character never could be. And we see this time and time and fucking time again.

This isn't to say that all TeeVee or movie mothers are weak. They aren't. But whenever you have a female character using her womb to appeal to someone's better nature, then yes, that is a weak character. And if another womb is used to make a hardcore female assassin not kill someone, then that is a weak character. Example? Kill Bill. X-Files. Ad fucking nauseum.

Sexism has been flourishing lately. Judd Apatow's machine puts out of of these things about once a week. You know the ones, with the fat, disgusting slobs who are just so sad that the beautiful woman won't have their children. "But wait," you say. "Sometimes the guy IS terrific and the woman won't give him the time of day because he's a bit overweight, and wears a stained Gumby T-shirt."

What's your point?

The woman always loses in this scenario. She's a bitch if all she cares about is how the guy fits a suit. But if it's Katherine Heigl is Knocked Up, then she's not at all a believable character if she isn't totally grossed out by how the Seth Rogen character lives. Because that, my friends, is NOT a believable relationship on ANY level. Yes, SHE IS TOO GOOD FOR HIM. And that has nothing to do with gender. It's just the facts. Appearance matters, because it speaks to who you are as a person. And I don't give a shit if it's a woman who's not good enough for a guy, or the flip side. But what we're seeing almost exclusively is the flip side. Not only that, but these Apa-Shlubs are the only endearing characters in these fucking movies. Don't think so? Tell me which female characters in The Hangover aren't dreadful cliches. The hooker with the heart of gold? Really? Still? Women in these movies are either THAT, or they're ball-crunchers and shrieking harridans. It's not funny.

And when the aforementioned Katherine Heigl says that she didn't think her character would go for the guy who started a porn website with his pals, she gets eviscerated. People say that she shouldn't have taken the part, if she felt that strongly about it. Look, if actresses kept turning down work because they had to play unbelievable characters, there wouldn't BE any work.

It's not that all movies should pass the Bechdel test, but pretending that these Apatow movies are actually socially relevant and, well, FUNNY is ridiculous. Make your bromance movies, but let's not pretend they're good, okay?

You see this sexism in the geek world, too. Geeks are made fun of by people who either aren't geeks, or can pass for human out in the real world. So who do THEY make fun of? Well, since the majority of geeks are guys, they turn their ire towards the Twilight fans. You have not heard a geek go fucking contemptuously crazy unless you've heard him rant about the Twilight fans. When they came to Comic Con a few years ago, you would have thought that the geeks had actually been forced to watch Twilight and wear the T-shirts. They were AFFRONTED. They were PISSED. And they showed it. It reminds me of the Tea Party people, getting outraged at the wrong stuff. The Comic Con geeks really should have been pissed off at the shit movies being made, and at the studios that bought up all the hotel rooms. Be angry at the disdain shown the genre by these huge corporations instead of people who have the same love for their franchise that you have for yours. But because the Twilight fans are women, the geeks feel that now, they can look down on someone other than furries.

Even The Social Network, which is a terrific movie, has some issues with women. As Aaron Sorkin pointed out when defending himself against charges of sexism, that's just how these guys WERE. They're basically geeks, albeit geeks whose families can afford to send them to Ivy League schools. They are angry that women won't pay them the slightest attention. However, Sorkin and David Fincher took a lot of liberties with reality in the film. So why did Sorkin feel so adamantly that the women be presented -- in his mind -- accurately? Obviously, sexism doesn't bother Aaron Sorkin.

Sexism doesn't bother Zach Galiafinakis, whose name I just butchered. He really stood his ground that crazy racist Mel Gibson not do a cameo in Hangover 2 (HANGOVER 2? REALLY??). So Mel's not doing the cameo, and for the most part people are thrilled with Zach for taking a great moral stand. However, wasn't Mike Tyson in the first one? And isn't Mike Tyson an actual rapist? Seems like nobody had any trouble with THAT. After all, bitch was asking for it (men actually say this). So the guy gets applauded for being of such strong moral fiber, and the GUY WHO ACTUALLY SEXUALLY ASSAULTED AN INNOCENT GIRL is just fine.

This is not an awesome moral lesson.

People who write the hooker with the heart of gold, or the girl who becomes a lesbian when she's drunk, or the ball-busting bitch or the female assassin baby lover are truly clueless about what these characters really mean. But these writers aren't evil. They're not women haters. They're not trying to demean women. They're just blind to it. It's just not in their experience. And in Hollywood, unfortunately there are not enough women in power or on a writing staff to make men see this sexism and misogyny. We all have stories about misogyny on writing staffs. And outside of Hollywood, most women have stories about being hit on. We're all keenly aware of who else is walking down the street. We know not to tell some asstard to go fuck himself when he whistles at us from a car (we say it afterwards, when he's out of earshot).

But geez... it would be really nice if we didn't have to deal with this in our entertainment, too.

There's a very funny cartoon about what happens to a woman who makes charges of sexism on the Internet. I would post it here, but I expect that it will actually happen, so why ruin the suspense?

Lastly, yes, there are a lot of great female characters on TeeVee and in the movies. DUH. That's not what I'm talking about. OBVIOUSLY.

Clash Of the Titan

2010-10-13T18:17:00.000-07:00

It is no longer possible to come up with new, exciting ways to describe the streak that Zenyatta has been on since she first stepped into the starting gate in 2007, nearly three years ago. Nineteen starts, 19 wins. She's also learned how to pose for photographers, and she's so good at it by now that I think Miss Tyra would approve of how she finds the light.

TeeVee networks, sports channels and magazines regularly report on the Triple Crown. ESPN may mention the Breeder's Cup. But the truth be told, it's been a long damned time since any of these horses stuck around for more than one news cycle. But still they cling to their Derby, even as you see horses like Point Given and this year's Lookin At Lucky (who isn't) get pasted in the too-big Derby field, only to come back and assert their superiority in later races.

But by then, the news has moved on. No potential Triple Crown winner? So long, suckers. There's basketfootbaseball to report on! We used to have the same three-year-olds through the entire Triple Crown, but even that's different now. Horses aren't brought up to be able to run every two or three weeks anymore. Hell, not even every six or seven weeks. Trainers complain about the rigors of the Triple Crown, like it's some new thing and horses didn't used to routinely do it.

But last year, two fillies emerged. Given this country's predilection for sexism (more on that in a later post), it took everyone awhile to catch on. Racing caught onto Rachel Alexandra right away. She ran eight times and won all eight, beating males three times. It was an historic, if carefully chosen campaign and Rachel was rewarded by being voted Horse Of The Year. For all that Rachel did in the latter half of the year, it was her electrifying, comment-defying bazillion length victory in the Kentucky Oaks that was her most impressive. That was in May. And then in November, we had Zenyatta's breathtaking sweep to victory in the Breeder's Cup Classic past a bunch of sensational boys, with her ears flicking around as if to say, "Males? Pfaugh. NOT impressed."

Two remarkable performances from two remarkable fillies.

The Eastern-based turf writers and handicappers felt comfortable with Rachel. She ran in the East, she was stepping out of her division to beat the boys, and she was doing it on what they call "natural dirt," which we all know is anything but. Zenyatta made them uneasy. She ran on "synthetic" racetracks, and the Easterners just hate synthetic tracks. If you ever see a "flubber" reference, that's what they mean. But Zenyatta was going to retire, so everything would be fine. However, Zenyatta was brought back for 2010, and then she became a problem for her detractors.

Especially when my most beloved villain, wine fellow Jess Jackson, started issuing his press releases and challenges to the Zenyatta camp. Jess, you see, purchased Rachel Alexandra after her Kentucky Oaks win for about ten million dollars. On a blog, some jackhole praised Jackson for having an eye for picking out horses. Honey, if I'd had ten million dollars, I would have bought Rachel Alexandra after the Oaks, too. Jess Jackson wanted another Horse Of The Year, and so he bought one. He wanted to bring Rachel and Zenyatta together at Oaklawn for the Race of the Century. Zenyatta came; Rachel didn't. As has become bitterly apparent, Rachel was not the same horse in 2010 as she was in 2009. Either that, or (as happens with young horses) the rest of her peer group caught up to her. She was beaten three out of five races and recently retired. Nobody knows why. Jess Jackson, who's famous for blathering on until you want to eat your own hair, hasn't said why. And Rachel's trainer, Steve Asmussen, apparently has some kind of a contract of muteness and isn't allowed to speak.

So Zenyatta has marched on, on her own. Imagine how pissed off these East Coast people are, now that their standard-bearer has been retired. There's still this Goddam synthetic specialist, this slow mare who beats nothing, and people are acting like she's a great horse or something!

Well, yeah. We ARE. Because she IS a great horse. She may be the greatest female racehorse to ever campaign in this country. And she is one of the greats of all time. To suggest otherwise, as many have done in print, is clueless. Most notably, "that guy" is Andy Beyer, the dude who put his name on the Beyer Speed Figure, which is a well-known and oft-used handicapping tool. Shortly after Rachel's retirement, and a few days before Zenyatta was to go for her 19th win, he wrote a snarky, whiny piece about how great Zenyatta isn't. Now, everybody always has this argument. Who's the greatest of all time? Secretariat? Citation? Man O War? What recent horses have been great? Was Ghostzapper, the admittedly brilliant Horse Of The Year who ran only four times to win the title, was he great?

Seriously, FOUR TIMES? Who the fuck has a conversation about a great horse WHO ONLY RAN FOUR TIMES?

I am so sick of this bullshit, where we are only supposed to judge greatness upon the same chosen criteria. Beyer's numbers are MADE UP. They don't account for everything that can happen in the running of a race. Just to point out how arbitrary they are, Beyer chooses horses every year that will be his Beyer stalking horses. He sets the range of his numbers based on how particular horses run. This year, Rachel was understandably one of those. Her numbers were sky-high last year. And they should have been. Rachel had a lot of speed. Everything about her fit into Beyer's little speed box. But he really fucked himself by giving Rachel high numbers right out of the gate in 2010. See, Rachel got beat in her first start. And that became a problem because the three horses who beat Rachel this year had to be assigned very high speed figures, which meant that they each ran out of their heads to beat her. Statistically, it's more than a little improbable for that to happen three times. Rather, wouldn't it make sense that Rachel had lost a step? Bring her numbers down and the other numbers up just a bit, and the whole thing starts to make more sense.

But God forbid.

Zenyatta, on the other hand, is a frustrating puzzle for Beyer because so far, in 19 races, she has run to the level of her competition. She doesn't blow her fields away. And as she's gotten more experience, she's learned where the wire is and now she does just enough to get there. The problem with this is that Beyer can't tell how fast she really is. So all he has to go on is final time. And when a horse gallops along at the slowest pace possible for the majority of a race (which is how the others try to beat her), the final time can only be so fast. Ergo, Zenyatta's speed figures are very low. And that's the trap Beyer fell into last year. There was NO WAY she was fast enough to win the Classic. Not based on her speed figures. And that is absolutely true -- based on the artificial numbers randomly assigned to her by a guy who only cares about speed, she was not fast enough to win the race. But she won anyway.

After that, though, her detractors got wise. They dismissed every horse in the race, when prior to that they had been saying that it was one of the finest Classic fields ever assembled. But since Zenyatta won, it couldn't be. See?

Here's the flaw with speed figures. They only measure speed, and they do not measure what Zenyatta does. She never has the lead. She always spots the field multiple lengths. And when I say always, I MEAN ALWAYS. In every one of her 19 races, she trails and has to pass EVERY HORSE IN THE RACE.

Beyond Zenyatta's running style is the real reason behind this bullshit: She runs in California, on synthetic racetracks. If there's one word that will make the eyes bug out of an East Coast racetracker, it's "synthetic." They will foam at the mouth. They will hit themselves in the head repeatedly with "Beyer On Speed." They will lose their fucking nuts, because all the synthetic runners have done is ship East and beat the shit out of the dirt horses. See, the synthetic numbers are low because races are run differently on synthetic and rather than, I don't know, FACTOR THAT THE FUCK IN, these guys keep saying that California horses are too slow. And then they tear up their Pick Six tickets in disgust.

The people who will give Zenyatta greatness have a caveat -- she is the greatest synthetic horse ever, and her winning streak will have an asterisk next to it because of that. This is like saying to someone, "I'm sorry if you were offended that I slept with your wife." Zenyatta's improbable, record-setting victory in the Breeder's Cup Classic over males is discounted because, to her detractors, every other horse in the race ran poorly over Zenyatta's favorite surface. Which means that every horse Zenyatta has ever run against is inferior on the synthetic, while she is superior. Sounds a bit improbable, doesn't it? Zenyatta is, to this point in her career with one race left, PERFECT. She has NEVER BEEN BEATEN. And she's not some two-year-old who goes into the Breeder's Cup unbeaten in two or three races. She hasn't been beaten in NINETEEN OF THEM. I don't care if she had to run over broken glass or cotton. The surface doesn't matter. She still has to go out and run, and that's exactly what she does. But then Andy Beyer wasn't sold on Seattle Slew, either. Seattle Slew, who became racing's first unbeaten Triple Crown winner. Maybe Beyer just has a problem when he sees a horse whose ability appears limitless. Because you can't put a number on limitless.

Putting aside the obvious fact that it's sad racing fans are missing out on how great Zenyatta is, this is just all bullshit. Zenyatta has run on the dirt. She's won twice. She is the only horse to win two different Breeder's Cup races. She's the only filly to win the Classic. She is the only horse in years who has actually given real weight in a handicap. When she won her 17th race to pass Citation and Cigar, she did so under 129 pounds, giving nine to the runner-up. She's carried 129 and 127 pounds several times. The top handicap males aren't even carrying 126 pounds in their handicaps. She is tied with New Mexico-bred Pepper's Pride for the most consecutive wins in modern history. She's won nine consecutive grade one races, which is a record. She's won fourteen grade one races all told, which is the most for any filly. She's earned the most money of any American female racehorse in history.

And the detractors will toss all of that and say it doesn't count because she runs on a surface they can't handicap.

So it all comes down to this: The Breeder's Cup Classic, at industry-approved Churchill Downs, is Zenyatta's only chance to add her name to the list of great horses. All that she's done previously doesn't count. It's all about this one race, but only for this one horse. These people keep moving the goalposts for this great mare. They attack her connections for a "conservative" campaign, completely ignoring the fact that great mares like Azeri and Personal Ensign and even RUFFIAN had what would be considered conservative campaigns, if we're using the same measurements for them that we are for Zenyatta.

That, however, is insignificant and in fact, if you bring that up, they ignore you.

Andy Beyer showed up to Hollywood Park on the day of Zenyatta's 19th win. He was there to give a handicapping seminar, the irony of which didn't escape anyone there. We all booed him. See, people like Beyer are only impressed with that which they've seen. If it can't be quantified and put into their preconceived little box, then they dismiss it. They hate the enthusiasm that exists for this horse. They're like those Star Trek geeks who were SO pissed off at the JJ Abrams movie, because Kirk wouldn't do that, and because lots of people who weren't Star Trek geeks loved the movie. That's how they act, these racing establishmentarians, like people who are pissed off that a racehorse THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND has transcended the sport and is drawing more people to the track than any horse in a decade.

They are sure -- just positive -- that Zenyatta and her hateful fans will get their comeuppance on November 6th. Zenyatta faces dirt, Churchill Downs, a potentially muddy track, and a whole bunch of MUCH better males than she beat last year, in her own sandbox. That is the conventional wisdom going into this year's Breeder's Cup Classic. Zenyatta will be the favorite, and they will be apoplectic. They will all toss her, and feel pretty good about it. The racing world will return back to normal, where handicappers can once again caress their speed figures as their ordinary horses fit into the tiny boxes that are made just for ordinary horses. They won't have to worry about the extraordinary Zenyatta ever again.

Regarding their handicapping for the Classic, though, they have forgotten one tiny thing: It's not that Zenyatta will finally -- FINALLY -- run against good horses. It's that these horses will finally run against Zenyatta.

Week Two

2010-10-04T18:38:00.001-07:00

So episode two of The Event aired last Monday. Because it's this Monday, I need to get this damned post out.

I like watching the pilot and first episode of shows. You can see if the studio's still throwing money at a show, if there have been cast changes, story changes, if lousy pilots have great second episodes, if great pilots have lousy second episodes, and how many female writers there are on shows (not many). NBC is still throwing money at The Event, which they kinda have to, given the nature of the show. The first episode wasn't any different than the pilot. They've committed to their huge storytelling. On the one hand, great for them. Too often, shows just get dumped in their second week. We'll see how committed the network is to this show as the ratings come out, but there's a nice consistency to everything so far.

I do wonder, though... did anyone consider telling the story entirely from Sean's point of view? It's both a thriller and a suspense drama and that's not sitting too well with me. The show is MASSIVE, but I think that's hurting it. I realize that the network wanted to intrigue people from the get-go, so then you have to see the aliens or whatever they are, and the President, and the cover-up, and the CIA officers and all that. But as an audience member, taking a thriller route would work better for me. And if you consider it from Sean's point of view, the show's plenty big. Let the audience identify with this guy, and then the sky eats a plane and transports it to Arizona. That's big, right?? Isn't it more interesting to see a regular guy become enmeshed in this conspiracy? Which is kind of the whole nature of the genre?

But instead of telling a linear story, the show continuously flashes back and forward in time. While that might be a cool device if the flashbacks were more insightful, it's also really confusing to an audience who only has half an eye on whatever they're watching. That could hurt the show. And as much as I tease, I need shows like The Event to work. But take a cue from Lost. Start with the characters. I don't give a shit if I ever see the President. Seriously. Look at The Invaders, another show that eschewed the bigger picture in favor of one guy. Now, I'm sure that The Invaders didn't have the world's largest budget and they were forced to do it that way but shit, you don't always need loads of money. Sure, it's increasingly harder to hold your own against the slick shows that come out in the fall. But what if you don't compete with them and instead just fucking tell your story?

I wonder what would happen.

Woefully remiss in comments. I know I'm leaving some out. Sorry about that!

David:

I liked Lone Star.
I am a man.
Not everything I watch has to have explosions.
I am a construction foreman and my favorite show of all time is Six Feet Under.
I like shows with good characters. And when I say good I do not mean morally upstanding. I mean well written and well acted characters. And what I saw on Lone Star was the best acting of the night from a new fall television show.

Sorry they yanked a show you liked. But I never said that men only like explosions. I realize that if you don't work in TeeVee, all this stuff is fairly moot. But I think a discussion about marketing in television is very important, especially given the fact that marketing basically chooses what's on the air, and which movies get made. I've been pretty underwhelmed by the marketing for the fall shows. So far, only Hawaii 5-0 was properly marketed. The marketing for Lone Star, a show that everybody at Fox loved, was really lousy. It was always going to be an uphill battle because it's not an easy show to market. And marketing departments tend to be... how do I put this? A bit on the lazy side when it comes to doing their jobs. They want things that are easy. They don't want to be Don fucking Draper. But really, Don Draper is what the marketing department needed to try and sell this show. Because no matter how much you liked it, there wasn't a demographic that watched Lone Star. And that's a really big problem.

Is it a coincidence that the first two shows canceled had the worst marketing campaigns? The campaign for My Generation made every character on that show look like a trashy whore. And not in a good way.

I wouldn't harp on this as much if every writer pitching shows wasn't asked about the audience. And when we develop ideas, we do so with an audience in mind. If you pitch a show to USA, for example, and you don't know who the show is for, then you're fucked.

X-Men person:

I think your judgment is coming too early. Nobody, male or female, was given a real story in the pilot except for the main character. I will be disappointed if the women don't take on a bigger role within the next few episodes (assuming the show lasts that long) but I'm optimistically hopeful that they will. Remember, Betty Draper was barely featured in the Mad Men pilot.

However, Betty Draper wasn't the only female character on Mad Men. But it's interesting that the only one you focus on is the wife. Why is that, exactly? In the pilot, we meet Peggy Olson and Joan Holloway. And throughout the series, we've seen some amazing work done for these female characters. Simply the best female character work done on television. So I think it's quite a bit different than two anonymous, kinda stupid women who married the same guy. That's how it appears in the pilot and since you have so much time and energy to devote to the development of a pilot, well... if you're missing a beat or two, then it really doesn't bode well for the series. If women are going to be defined only by the man they fall in love with, then we're doing the kind of time travel I would rather not do.

Jennifer:

I think the intended audience is "people who like trainwrecks."

Heh. So anyone who watches the Real Housewife shows and summat? Most of the women I talked to thought the guy was an idiot. But a lot of the men didn't. That's kind of interesting. But your comment does speak to the point about what gets bought and what doesn't. For the most part, reality shows that do really well don't translate into dramas or comedies. People want to watch (ostensibly) real people doing stupid shit, but they don't want to watch the fictitious versions of those shows. Just like TeeVee versions of big movies don't translate. Because if they did, then we'd see Harry Potter TeeVee shows and the like. But we don't. People get the difference between movies and TeeVee. They'll watch despicable people in a movie, but with TeeVee it's about inviting characters into your living room.

Susannah:

I'm surprised you're so offended by Lone Star yet didn't even blink at the fact that Hawaii 5-0 decided the only female member of the team needed to be mostly naked in two of her three scenes in the pilot. Poor Grace Park was just a cardboard cut-out of a woman (no, wait, she's got personality because she's a surfer who randomly punches people out!) who was only there to forward the plot through gratuitous flashing of abs.

Maybe it's because Lone Star was otherwise a fairly decent show, and you expect better of a show that's actually making an effort to be original and complex than a cliched procedural-by-the-numbers like Hawaii 5-0?

Not exactly. For me, it's all about omniscient point of view. Take Up In The Air, for example. George Clooney's character is a hateful son of a bitch. Just a vile person. But the movie's point of view, the omniscient POV, is telling us that he's swell. That makes me want to punch the movie. Hawaii 5-0 is a fun show with eye candy for everyone. I stress EVERYONE. Look at the advertising: Everybody wet and hot. That tells you what the omniscient POV is -- everybody is being objectified. The characters are larger than life, and they will be presented as such. So because I know that, I can watch the show and have a good time. But with Lone Star, the show is telling you that this is a sympathetic guy. And that, I can't take. Because he isn't. It's a real subtle thing, but it bothers me. And when I develop a show, this is the kind of thing I think about. Because it's so important that as a creator, you have a real handle on how these characters are viewed.

I will say this, though. I disagree with your characterization of Grace Park's character. They did some awesome stuff with her in the second episode. And they're really playing to the actress's strengths, too, which I always appreciate.

I take your points about the polygamy plot, but I found the other aspects of the story compelling enough to keep me tuning in until it gets canceled. Despite the lead character's epic fail when it comes to love (and Fox marketing's even bigger fail by making that seem like the centerpiece of the show), I'm intrigued by the idea of a con man who wants to go straight but simply doesn't have the tools to function that way thanks to the upbringing he got from his dirtbag dad. The whole con man with a heart of gold thing reminds me of Lost's Sawyer.

It would remind me of that, too, if the omniscient POV was slightly different. Sawyer was not presented as the most awesomest hero ever. He was shown as the flawed character he was. We were not expected to root for him because he was a conman, but because he was going to go through something that would turn him away from that life and towards being a better person.

Bobo:

Along with X-Men above I'm inclined to give the show a bit more time to see if they don't answer some of your grievances, but for the most part I agree with your points. I think a problematic premise was exacerbated by the direction, casting, and scoring...in the pilot script, the hero was a somewhat intriguing cipher. With all that sensitive indie rock playing and the lead's too-accessible good looks and charm, the degree of presumptive sympathy for his situation was way out of whack with the nature of his behavior.

For me the worst moment in the pilot--and the one that most supports your charges of sexism--was when the woman in the hotel bar threw herself at Bob with all the subtlety of Lady Gaga (cheap wish-fulfillment) and then the show actually had the gall to congratulate him on not cheating on his TWO wives. I understand the intended point of the scene--see, he really does love and honor both of them!--but it was just one (or two, or three) women too many defined solely by their eagerness to sleep with Bob.

Yeah... there's that POV problem again. I wonder if the network felt that he was too heinous and tried to soften him up. It's an attempt, but there's a real easy way to handle that. A real easy way. However, that would have meant a change in the pilot.

Sasha:

And the show, imo, would work a lot better if he were actually a woman, with two husbands. Mostly because it would be more consistent--here's this person no one would ever suspect of being a horrible user because she's so sweet and nice...doing all these bad things. But then, I loved "Gossip Girl," too, and that's about three-quarters of its premise.

Heh. Well, it would be interesting to explore a female character in that way. Good luck finding a network that will take that on . But that's a fresh take on that premise that I might actually watch.

And meanwhile, I despise Don Draper and hate "Mad Men." So maybe I just have terrible taste :P

You obviously do!!! You're not supposed to love Don Draper. You're supposed to understand him. But I do have friends who just can't watch shows if they hate the characters!

Jim Henshaw:

While the way it "uses" women might well be a significant factor in the inability of "Lone Star" to find an audience, I don't think either men or women in an economy ravaged by Wall Street and Big Bank Con Artists wants to root for anybody similarly inclined.

Right. Good point. Nobody wants to invite that guy into their foreclosed home.

Still behind on things, and there's Zenyatta to talk about. Yes. THAT IS A WARNING. There will be a horsey post upcoming.

The Death of Television

2010-10-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

Stephen J. Cannell died today. Those of you who read this blog are probably familiar with him and what he contributed to television. All his accomplishments will be well documented in the articles and memorials that are already popping up on the Internet. But creating over 40 TeeVee shows and being the first producer to take advantage of Vancouver are not, to me, his most important contribution to the business.

You see, Stephen Cannell was an incredibly nice person, an optimist in an industry that seeks to crush them. No matter what was going on in his career, he always had his priorities straight. He was incredibly prolific, and he was also protective of the people who worked for him. He felt a responsibility to them. I keep repeating this over and over again, but that's because it's so important: A showrunner who doesn't look out for his staff is a lousy showrunner and somebody not to be trusted. No matter how insanely talented somebody is, if they are throwing people under the bus and grabbing credit like a starving man dives for a Big Mac, then they are not good at the job of executive producer. Pride in ones life and work is not borne out by creative an atmosphere of terror, nor is it about grabbing for the microphone at an awards show. Rather, it's about being a professional, and a protector. Cannell took that seriously. He made up his mind to be a kind, positive person. I'm sure he had his days; he wasn't a robot. But all you have to do is look at the outpouring of sympathy and shock on the Internet to realize what he meant to television.

We all grew up on his shows. I mean, Rockford Files, for God's sake! Riptide! The A-Team! 21 Jump Street! The Greatest American Hero! Freaking Wiseguy! I didn't know a lot about TeeVee back then. I was, however, a HUGE fan of Emergency, Dragnet and Adam-12, which made me a huge fan of Jack Webb. And Stephen Cannell was a story editor on Adam-12, so that always intrigued me. My understanding was that Webb was interested in making sure his writers learned how to produce. That was definitely one of Stephen Cannell's priorities, and he passed that down to writers like Morgan & Wong. They passed that along to us and believe me, when we get a show on the air, that will be our priority, too.

Writers can only mimic what they've experienced, and do what they've been taught. Too many writers were brought up in abusive writer's rooms and they have unfortunately taken that fear and uncertainty along with them. There aren't Stephen Cannells to show writers that fear is not a positive motivator, and that writing is work but it is also inspiration. And now there isn't Stephen Cannell himself.

So while it's important and wonderful to remember his work, to remember the terrific stories people tell about him and to hear the man himself talk about how he pitches a show (WE CANNOT GET AWAY WITH THIS. TRUST ME), Stephen Cannell's true legacy is that he was a smart, kind, protective man. He should remind us that there is something positive to strive for. We won't be like him, but we can at least try.

Today just didn't seem like the day to rant. But that will come later, after tomorrow's inevitable post about Zenyatta, horse racing's answer to Stephen Cannell.

The Loneliest Star

2010-09-23T18:54:00.000-07:00

PILOT WATCH 2010!!!
First show on death watch? Fox's Lone Star, a show that garnered some of the best reviews of the new season. According to the reviews, it is daring and original, with amazing characters that challenge and engage the viewer. If you haven't seen or heard about it, Lone Star is about a con man who finds himself married to two completely different women, both of whom he loves. The audience is asked to identify and sympathize with this guy, whose love is so great that it must be spread between two victims -- erm, lovely ladies. But the con man has a problem -- His mean dad David Keith wants the con man to pull the con on his Rich Wife's dad, played by Jon Voight. What IS a con man to do?

There's a movie called The Bigamist, where the magnificent Edmond O'Brien plays a traveling salesman (shut up; it's an old black-and-white) who finds himself falling in love with a woman on his route, even as he's got a wife at home. And you sympathize with him, because he is a lonely guy who really does begin to fall in love with this other woman. There's something about the journey of him falling for this woman that engages you in his struggle. The problem with Lone Star is that there IS no journey. When the audience meets this guy, he's already married to these two dupes. And this folly continues with the marketing. You've seen the poster: Pretty boy sitting on the bed, with anonymous lady legs wrapped around him. Underneath that, same poster, different bed, different lady legs. What does that poster say to you? Well, it says that this is a show that is going to use women the way they are always used on TeeVee, and that you, the audience member, are supposed to really feel for this poor fucker. But the women? Well, they have hot legs and are otherwise anonymous, just the way men like their women. And they love this asshole. That's all you need, right?

So who, pray fucking tell, is the audience for this show? It isn't men, because it's about a guy who loves two women. He does not have sex with them at the same time, so the men are out. It's not women, because the two anonymous sets of lady legs don't exactly lure women in. SO WHO IS IT? Which segment of the audience is Lone Star for? The reasons are coming fast and furious: It's serialized, it's too out-of-the-box, there was too much competition on against it, it's too Dallas, it's not Dallas enough, nobody even remembers Dallas... but they are overlooking the simplest explanation of them all -- nobody wanted to watch a show where the bigamist was the hero.

I realize that people are shouting all over the Internet, "IF YOU ARE A WRITER AND YOU DO NOT LOVE LONE STAR, THEN THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU." May I submit an alternative? Just because a show is distasteful ("daring" is the euphemism for that in television) doesn't make it great. Sure, there are different types of heroes out there and anti-heroes get just as much play as regular heroes. But if your anti-hero just really has a lot of love for two women and it's his DAD who's the real villain, well... did his dad just fucking marry two women? No. He did not. So I'm kind of on the dad's side. Stop fucking around and get the job done.

It's not a bad thing to be on the dad's side, unless the show is NOT on the dad's side. And the show isn't. The show tells the audience that you need to feel for the con man. He's the true anti-hero, and the dad is a bad guy. For what? For knowing that this is just a terrible fucking idea?

There was an easier way in to Lone Star. I wonder if that was even explored, or if the whole anti-hero idea just took over to such a degree that it turned the character into a skeevy asshole. It's a salacious premise, and they obviously thought that that was all they needed to draw people in. I'm frankly shocked at the number of women who think this is an awesome show. Seriously, is there a problem here? Have we become so inured to how women are treated on TeeVee that this is acceptably gritty television?

There was a scene in last week's Rubicon episode where one of the (many) powerful male characters pays his secretary for blow jobs. Seriously, so she can go shopping. BECAUSE WOMEN WILL GIVE BLOW JOBS FOR MAD MONEY. This was also treated in a salacious way, like, "Hey, this is a very complex character. Get it? What, the girl? Dunno. Just some whore."

Now, Don Draper is a total fucking asshole on Mad Men. He treats women horribly. I hate the way he treats them. BUT I UNDERSTAND WHY HE DOES IT. And the female characters aren't just used the way they are on every other show. Betty Draper is in every way Don's equal in the "fuck you" department. Anyone who thinks the women on Mad Men aren't as complex as the men is not paying attention. But why oh fucking WHY must women be constantly used to develop what passes for male complexity? It's like some kind of a shorthand. I HATE that we are still using women as a reflection for men. And while I really do NOT want to see dramas fail because it's bad for business, I understand why people didn't tune in for Lone Star. I don't think it's the best new show of the season. Not even close. And I'm flummoxed as to why more women are not hurling flaming arrows at the tainted morality of this show.

Rule By Secrecy

2010-09-20T22:21:00.000-07:00

So tonight, I live-tweeted The Event. You've heard of The Event -- NBC has been shoving it down your throats for months. Now, that's the job of the network: Promote the show. With The Event, NBC decided to promote what it wasn't: Jason Ritter losing his girlfriend, something happening to the President, a bunch of other stuff. That, of course, was supposed to whet the audience's appetite -- then just what IS the Event? This works awesome for a movie, but it's not quite effective for a TeeVee show. And it also makes the audience ignore the shit that isn't The Event. I know I blathered about this before, but forgive me. I've had two glasses of wine and I've seen The Event.

Everybody wants to recreate a hit, and the golden mean for television is to recreate a show that everybody watched AND talked about. A water-cooler show that makes them money. That's what they all want. Lost was that show, and networks have been trying to recreate that success ever since. FlashForward didn't work. V didn't work. And now NBC brings you The Event: The biggest, most sweeping, globe-spanning, history-making, world-changing drama of them all.

And that's the problem. Lost was the antithesis of that. The networks are confusing a global phenomenon for a show about a global phenomenon. Lost was about a group of people. It wasn't about saving the world from some vast conspiracy. And although a lot of people only watched it to get answers, it didn't begin like that. It was a character drama.

As the legend of The Event goes, NBC was looking for an event show. Now, as far as network development, they are looking for different things weekly. No, they literally ARE. And they've gotten into the habit of not even buying things for months, so by the time the development season is almost over, they suddenly go, "Oh shit, we gotta buy some stuff." And then they start issuing the directives that are not procedurals: Soaps, dramedies, event shows, and "ideas writers are passionate about." We all fall for that last one, like Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown.

But NBC wanted an event show, and Nick Wauters had a pilot called The Event. I think you know where this is going.

The pilot certainly looks fantastic. They obviously spent a lot of money on it. The cast is solid. And the pilot is directed by the wonderful Jeffrey Reiner, who did a marvelous job with our episode of Haunted. He was also the producing director on Friday Night Lights. He does a nice job with The Event, but... I think he could do more with something a bit less conventional. Because at the end of the day, The Event is a pretty conservative, predictable show. The gimmick is that you don't, of course, find out what The Event is. Beyond that, the show flashes back and uses false beats to ratchet up tension. It's not effective in a TeeVee show. It barely works in a movie. On TeeVee, you're asking the audience to invite your characters into their homes. But if you're constantly being dishonest with them, they will disengage from your show. You simply cannot have a show that is entirely about the secret. An audience needs more. People didn't sign up for Lost because of the secret. They signed up because of the characters.

The Event doesn't give the audience time to get to know the characters. It's too busy being clever and trying to tease the audience and hide information at the same time. If you need to do that, then your show just isn't going to work. Sure, people may tune in for awhile. Like I said, the show looks fantastic. And the secret is intriguing (although not at all hard to figure out, based on the pilot). But soon, the audience will tire of the constant teasing. It will require characters. And it will drift away.

Networks want to reach for the sky with their shows. They want their Mad Men, or their Lost, or their Breaking Bad. But reaching for the sky isn't going to get them there. Sadly, they need to trust that writers are coming in and pitching shows they are passionate about, with worlds they have developed and characters that come to life. Writers pitching ideas they are directed to pitch doesn't work. Because if nobody has a handle on the framework of the show, then that show will not succeed. But passion shows fail as often as the big event shows do, unfortunately. And the networks would prefer to have a Lost or a CSI than a Friday Night Lights, or a Gilmore Girls. So they don't buy family dramas, or quiet shows. They still go for high-concept premises. But characters carry TeeVee and if you don't have them, you don't have a show.

The Event is named after its secret. There are myriad ways to have fixed the show in development, but it seems that it was always pointed towards being big in scope. We'll see if this is its downfall, but I rather think it will be.

Conversely, Hawaii 5-0 also premiered tonight. A remake, of course, this show knows where it lives. The writer creates and develops distinct characters with backstories and lives, and plops them down in paradise, giving the audience a peek inside a culture we haven't seen since Magnum P.I. As an advocate for fun television, I can't appreciate Hawaii 5-0 more. Impeccably cast and directed and cleanly and economically written, this show should be a hit. Because sometimes, making entertainment is harder than making event shows.

I still want to talk about this insane development season, and some Fringe stuff, and get to comments. But for once, I decided to be current. Props, right?

Vampire Werewolves From Fairyland

2010-08-23T17:41:00.001-07:00

Here's an interesting musing on urban fantasy on TeeVee, with a focus on SyFy's Haven. Lately, there has been a lot of discussion on urban fantasy, mostly on book-type blogs. Is there too much? Too little? Is there too much romance in it? Is there not enough? Is today's urban fantasy totally different from yesterday's? Why are there so many vampires? The genre has been subdivided into urban fantasy and paranormal romance, which seems to be romance novels with fangs.

If I never see another misty cover featuring a vaguely urban-looking hooker-girl with piercings, a tramp stamp and an intricately carved athame dripping demon blood, it'll be too soon. I realize that the authors don't have any control over the book covers, but isn't this getting a little ridiculous? A new one comes out about every third day. Every time I see one, I think, "Are they STILL publishing these?? When will it END?" Maybe I think that because in TeeVee, you can't do forty shows that are exactly the same. Unless they're cop/lawyer/medical shows, of course. They STILL won't let you do that kind of an urban fantasy show because of Buffy. Which went off the air before tramp stamps appeared on the backs of these girls. And of all the urban fantasy in all the world, isn't the "somewhat supernatural kick-ass girl fights monsters and falls in love with one" sort of perfect for TeeVee? It's set in a real city. It's episodic as all hell. It's familiar enough for audiences. They get their romance (which they keep telling me all the wimmin want) and their fighting (which is what all the menfolks want).

But it seems like for THIS pitching season (which is still going on, BTW), everyone's desperate for a medical show (huh?) and they'll buy all their cops/lawyers/politicians/whatevers before they start looking into other boxes. Kind of like opening that really big bike-shaped Christmas present, and then finally sighing and opening the small package of socks. Genre on TeeVee = Christmas kitty socks.

Regarding Haven, of which I have seen several episodes, it seems like someone somewhere bought a darkish urban fantasy show and then FREAKED OUT and decided it had to be not-dark and not-fantastic. The problem with THAT, of course, is that you end up with a not-show. So let's see what, if any, urban fantasy sells. That channel that shows Haven on it DID announce a slate of pilots (all written by men, incidentally, so well done THERE). Among them is that rusty old veteran Ball & Chain. If you don't remember this pilot based on that particular comic book, Fox tried it several years ago but didn't put it on the air. So now that network is going to try it. They're picking up all funny genre stuff again. Although their two funny genre shows are working, how much room IS there for that? What if they just, I dunno... FUCKING BROUGHT CAPRICA BACK? I would enjoy that immensely.

It's a fine line between something original, and something familiar enough for executives and audiences. Like, it's SUCH a fine line that it practically exists in a quantum state. Schroedinger's pitch. And it's just as hard to pitch an original cop show as it is to pitch a familiar enough genre show. It's just that cops and all that are what the other networks are buying now. And when you pitch a procedural-type show, you get to spend less time explaining magic to them. Which is refreshing, in its own way.

I have my doubts about urban fantasy REALLY working on TeeVee anymore. The only thing that comes close is True Blood, and that's mostly Southern gothic horror and not really fantasy... although with the addition of the Seelie Court, it's venturing into fantasy territory. But don't get me started on faeries. I would love to see urban fantasy or some kind of hard genre show succeed on a network that's just starting to find its feet, but I don't know where that would be. AMC's going to try zombies but even if THAT succeeds, AMC hasn't shown that it has any interest in picking up the same types of shows. So I'd guess there won't be any fantasy on AMC. HBO and Showtime are what they are. Starz is sure doing a bunch of stuff, but they're really trying to be HBO so it's mainly about the kinds of people they want to work with. And if you're going to go after giant apes, then you're not likely to get a Buffy or an X-Files. I feel like Starz' eyes are too big for its stomach, and when the dust has settled they'll find that they so forged themselves on the buffet that they will need to purge.

So if genre is going to succeed, it has to come from an unexpected place. Could that place be Cartoon Network, which has aired its first live-action show and is ramping up to air its second? Rumor has it that the executives hate it, which can only mean that it's got some originality to it.

Woefully behind on some comments. Yikes.

DMc: I totally get what you're saying about Canadian vs. American shows. Now obviously, I can only speak from my perspective, which involves me hearing a lot of "If only you were Canadian." So I appreciate your position as well, since it is specifically yours. And I also appreciated the WGC's support during the strike. As for Canada being America's hat, it is, of course, said with affection. The hat makes the man.

januaryfire:

I think your logic is a little skewed. Not everyone who DIDN'T see Knight & Day DID see some shitty movie instead. Some of us chose to NOT see a movie and catch up on the neverending list of other entertainment options.

Well, I was talking about people who went to see movies and didn't see Knight & Day. So if you didn't go to the movies at all, you're not part of that particular conversation. And yes, it took me MONTHS to comes up with this awesome response!

Not all of you took my Doctor Who rant well, which means that the rant was successful. Yes, that is my criteria.

Dan hoped:

However, it wasn't all bad - was it? The fairytale vibe worked brilliantly, Matt Smith wobbled at times but was generally very good, River Song was excellent, the Angels action-packed two-parter was genius, and I personally thought the finale was very entertaining. Considering SM was working with a lower budget than RTD, I think he did marvels with the look and tone. It felt more sophisticated, to me.

I think Matt Smith is the right choice for the part. I don't think Moffat is the right choice to run the show. I disagree about his plotting and think everyone's been WAY too hard on Russell Davies. I liked the first angel episode but the second one was awful. Totally diminished them as the spooky bastards they were. Most of Moffat's episodes just don't make sense to me. If you set up unbreakable rules and you break them in a clever way, well bravo to you. That's good writing. But if you set up unbreakable rules, ignore them, pretend they were never established and then have everyone wish something away, well... then we're going to come to blows. I AM looking forward to a S6 with more River Song exploration. Because DAMN. She's awesome. I hope they can figure out Amy and actually give her character. She ain't got none now. It's great that little girls love Amy, but then kids love Teletubbies so I wouldn't exactly call them critics.

Dan (again? Still?):

@Erin: I don't think you can hold DW to the same logical standards of sci-fi, because it's sci-fantasy.

Actually, you're even MORE beholden to logic if you're doing science fantasy. The addition of the word "fantasy" to your genre description does not give you license to wing it. If you don't establish your rules, you are well and truly screwed. If the Doctor says, "I can't cross over my timeline" and then proceeds to tromp all over it with no repercussions, that's a problem. If you establish that the Doctor will literally be ERASED and that only Amy can remember him but River remembers him, that's a problem. If you begin your season with what is essentially an alternate reality while you're also introducing new characters, then that's a problem. How exactly are we supposed to know what's real? This is awesome to do when the audience already has some connection to the characters. But there isn't any. And in this season, there's a lot of drop-ins, like the Doctor or Amy will just mention the supposedly ongoing story, just because that's what you're supposed to do in a series. And then they move on. "Hey, look, it's The Silence. Well, time to go!" NO. IT'S NOT.

I don't think Moffat knows how to integrate a mythology or a season-long arc into a show. And that's on top of the rules that he breaks with a complete disregard to the fact that he established them. I honestly had NO idea where the hell I was on the show, or in the season. Compare that to the Davies era. Bad Wolf. There, I TOTALLY knew where I was. I got that Bad Wolf was important, and trusted that he would reveal it in good time. And he did. But The Silence? Not a clue. There's just no sense of place throughout the season. Ironic, I suppose...

As for River Song and her diary - well, we don't really know WHAT or WHO she is yet, so maybe it will become clear why she wasn't affected by events next year.

Okay, you can DO This kind of stuff if someone comments on it. If somebody went, "Hey, how the hell did River do that?" Or The Doctor commented on the weirdness that followed him throughout the season. If there had been any awareness of ANY of it, then you can get away with it. But Moffat doesn't seem to understand how any of this is supposed to impact the characters, which makes me think that he came up with fifty cool ideas and then shoehorned them in without a second thought. This stuff needs to be integrated with the characters, too. And it just wasn't.

I still don't know why he was building that weird thing in that odious Lodger episode. That episode is a perfect example of how not to write TeeVee. There's no sense of urgency or tension or awareness in the entire episode. This kind of thing is easy to fix, too. It's just sheer laziness that allows it to exist. And as someone who respects rules in genre, that drives me crazy.

Oh look. Another rant...

Doctor WHO??

2010-08-11T19:05:00.000-07:00

So apparently, if you have a lot of pilot ideas, at some point somebody is going to want to hear them. Hence the lateness of my Doctor Who blathering. But hey, I'm getting it done before the next season starts, so keep your hair on.

So. Doctor Who, Series Five.

I thought it was ass.

Not right at the beginning, though. I liked the first episode quite a bit. Steven Moffat had said the show was going to feel more like a fairy tale than its previous incarnation, and the first episode set that mood right away. An adorable small English village, an adorable little red-headed Scottish girl, and Matt Smith, the new Doctor, still spinning and disoriented from his regeneration and all that stuff that happened when David Tennant played him. The scenes he had with child Amy were lovely. The Doctor being Amy's imaginary friend played into the fairy tale themes.

But then Amy grew up. And by the end of the season, I still have no idea who she is, what she wants, what she used to want, what's missing in her life, what need the Doctor fills, what her point of view is, how she views the Doctor, what horrifies her about him, what she adores about him, what time traveling with an alien is doing to her, how she now relates to her life... etc. See, by the end of the first season -- hell, even before that -- I knew all that about Rose. I knew most of that about Martha, and ALL of it about the fantabulous Donna.

Amy remained a cipher to the very end. The only glimmer of character I saw in her came in the Vincent Van Gogh episode. Finally, Amy showed some joy, a love for something. That episode really worked for me, mostly because the actor who played Vincent was so wonderful. Finally, there was EMOTION on the show. The monster was stupid and pointless, but it didn't matter. I didn't hate Amy. And although the show's always playing with the old "you can't change history" trope, when it works it works great, and it definitely worked here.

The mistake made with Amy was in telling the audience how amazing she was, without showing us. TeeVee does this a lot, using it as a sort of shorthand. No matter how or why it's used, it's thoroughly irritating. What's bizarre is that the flipside of Amy Pond, River Song, was fucking AWESOME. Not in the angel two-parter. Lots of problems there. But in the last few episodes? Marvelous. She was the interesting character with the darkness in her. I wanted to follow her around. Screw Amy. Give me the River Song show. I thought it would be awesome to see her show up in the new Torchwood, but given what seems to be happening with THAT, I'm a hell of a lot less interested. So let's keep River Song out of any potential trouble, shall we?

A lot of how we the audience see the Doctor has to do with how the companions see him. They are our eyes into his world, which has always been part of the genius of the show. If we're introduced to a companion who just doesn't have a point of view, then the Doctor remains a mystery to us as well. That's really too bad, because it does a huge disservice to Matt Smith. I think he can be a good Doctor but he just hasn't had the chance to develop any kind of character. He isn't playing against anything. I don't know how he sees Amy or the universe. I especially don't know how he sees Earth because when he shows up in The Lodger, he acts like a fucking idiot, like he's never even SEEN a person before. This is not an in-valid way to present him... if that's ever been set up. And it's not hard to set up, either. He regenerated. It was particularly violent. His previous incarnation really, really did not want to leave. The events that happened to him were particularly, personally traumatic. He had become, in effect, quite human. But I feel like none of the "before" work was done. These discussions didn't happen.

One issue here is that by the end of Tennant's Doctor, we really knew him. He had a wonderful arc, especially in the last season. But it felt like Moffat just had no idea where to start the eleventh Doctor. And because he had no idea where to begin, he didn't make a decision. And that gave us a character with no point of view. He had nowhere to go, because he wasn't coming from anywhere specific. So his reactions to things and people and aliens can just be whatever, because he doesn't have a point of view. This isn't really any fun, and it doesn't make me engage with the character. Nor does it give him a consistent arc. We NEVER know how he's going to react in any situation, so nothing he does makes any sense.

Beyond all the myriad character problems, the stories were riddled with issues. The biggest thing that kept happening was the way the plots were solved -- Wishing makes it so. Seriously, in almost every episode, it all came down to someone wishing really hard. If you set something that's impossible to defeat, say, the Pandorica, then you can't just make up some bullshit about how the Doctor got out of there. The build-up for the damned thing is so "THIS IS IMPENETRABLE AND YOU WILL BE IN HERE FOREVER" that all you can do when Rory uses the screwdriver to get the Doctor out is roll your eyes and eat some more chocolate (I did this).

I don't want to go through ALL of the plot problems with the show. I don't think there's enough Interweb space for that. Suffice it to say that plot problems are not nearly as irritating or glaring if the characters are working. But since I mentioned the Pandorica, let's just talk about the most ludicrous scene in either episode -- where ALL the aliens who are the Doctor's enemies come together to put him in the thing. They're all standing there, Daleks and Cybermen and Silurians, talking quite calmly about why they're putting him in there. Since they're always trying to kill him and stuff, that would seem like the easier way to go. But no, they don't want to kill him. They want to put him in a (seemingly) impenetrable box. And before they do that, they want to take turns telling him how assy he is.

Really? Does that sound believable? That's horrible writing. HORRIBLE. There are SO many problems with the finale that it's impossible to take it all in. Steven Moffat's proven to be good at a lot of things. I loved Jekyll. And the funny thing about that was, there was actual emotion in it. Characters had arcs. But when you think about his previous Doctor Who episodes, which have been wonderful, you realize that they exist in isolation. He's not concerned with arcs and character development because as a freelancer, that's not his job.

But as a showrunner, it IS. We have the evidence now -- thirteen episodes worth -- to say that he just isn't a good showrunner for this particular show. He's a great soldier but not a great general. It feels like he had a lot of cool ideas, but just never settled down to arc the season and figure out what worked and what didn't. He didn't kill any of those children, and it wound up hurting the parent. Doctor Who is a science fantasy show, which means that you can be fantastic with the elements. You can fudge stuff. The Conservation of Mass isn't really your problem. But you HAVE to be consistent with the rules that you set up, and he just wasn't. The only thing that's going to keep me coming back next year is the promise that we are going to find out more about River Song. Maybe Moffat needed a season to shake off the dust and figure out how to run this thing. I hope so. I want it to get back on track.

Lastly, I just want to say something to all the TeeVee writers who are forging out to pitch pilots: We are all going through the same shit. Nothing that you are going through is any different than what everyone else is going through. You are not alone. Try to cut through or ignore all the bullshit. Go sell some shows you love.

Inceptionaltasticfulicious

2010-07-24T15:05:00.001-07:00

I was going to post my Doctor Who wrap-up, only to discover that Americans won't see the finale until today. So it'll be up sometime next week, if I can contain the rant so it doesn't exceed all of the bandwidth of the Interwebs. But in the interim, a short post on Inception.

Reviews seem to be somewhat mixed. Some people love it, some resent that it's supposed to be great, some are confused, some don't think it's dreamy enough, etc. And as usual, some completely miss the point. Jim Emerson, for example.

Boy, was I misinformed. I'd gotten the impression that Christopher Nolan's "Inception" was about dream states, but what this movie's facilely conceived CGI environments have to do with dreaming, as human beings experience dreams, I don't know. For what it's worth, Warner Bros. describes it as a "science fiction action film." But the movie's concept of dreams as architectural labyrinths -- stable and persistent science-fiction action-movie sets that can be blown up with explosives or shaken with earthquake-like tremors, but that are firmly resistant to shifting or morphing into anything else -- is mystifying to me.

As is the writer-director's conception of dream-time as something linear, scalable and reliably convertible with a calculator. (There's an app for that: Let's see, 5 minutes of real time equals -- what? -- one hour of dream time, equals a week of deeper dream time, equals ten years in limbo... Have you ever experienced seven consecutive days in the course of a single-setting dream?).

Oh, Jim. Yes, you were misinformed if that's what you thought. If only you'd watched the film! Then you would be correctly informed. Because all of that was explained. Discussions on lucid dreaming, shared dreaming, and the fact that an architect was needed should have clued you in. Then there was all that dialogue that you seem to have skipped over. The whole POINT of extraction and inception was to create a dream-space where the dreamer didn't know he was dreaming. So no, the movie wasn't about escaping into an existing dream and being naked in high school, or flying. It was about architecturally creating NEW spaces and realities. Everybody in the movie reiterates this. It's quite clear. That's what really worked for me -- the idea that the dreamspace was SO real that it was virtually indistinguishable from reality. The movie gave us a reality based on our own physical universe. Even the totems are specifically pointed out as having weight. The characters go so deeply through the different dream levels that it IS hard to keep track of where you are. And that's basically the POINT, especially when they're talking about limbo. See, people dreaming in limbo have NO idea they're in a dream. And at a certain point, is there even any difference? If you build a dream-world that is convincingly real, does that negate reality?

Inception works like the best of Philip K. Dick because it asks his favorite question -- What is reality? One of his definitions is "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."

Inception is the closest we've come to Blade Runner because of its very ambiguity. Nolan could have given the audience an unambiguous ending and when you're watching the film, part of you aches for it. But when you don't get it, well... if you're with the movie, then it's just SO affecting. And so Christopher Nolan. As one guy in the audience moaned at the end, "DAMN YOU, NOLAN!" Memento had one of the strongest character points-of-view I have ever seen in a movie. It's quite astonishing, really. And Inception continues to explore point-of-view. But rather than it being the main character's point of view, like it is in Memento, it's the audience's. At the end, Cobb has walked away from the totem which, let us remember, is his wife's totem and not his, indicating that he's in HER reality or dream, perhaps? So Cobb makes the decision that THIS is reality. He doesn't question it, so he hasn't given it that test. He ACHES for it, so he makes the decision that he is in reality. Does that make him wrong? It's the audience that is left wondering. I would love to know if the studio fought him over this. Because if there HAD been an unambiguous ending, I think it would have wrecked the movie. It definitely would have damaged the film's emotional core.

Unlike Jim Emerson, I think the decision to make the movie NOT weird and dreamy, but realistic, gives it a chilling reality. Nolan wants his characters to question what is real, to question perception, and he wants the audience to question it, too. He gives us rules about how one interacts in dreams, and those rules have to do with maintaining a tenuous reality. But even with all of the explanations (yes, all that TALKING, which people don't seem to like), he asks us to accept a world where dream extractors exist. It's not a science fiction/future world, it's a world we're familiar with, but bubbling under the surface is this form of corporate espionage. What's so marvelous about this is that Nolan's already using his audience's point of view, setting them up for the ending. He's using our perception of the world. It's not the weird, noir world of Dark City. It's not even future Los Angeles of Blade Runner. It's essentially 2010, but something is just... different. Nolan doesn't allow us to step back. He invites us in.

So really, this COULD already exist, but we just don't know about it. And when you look at the weird shit that's floating around, why couldn't it already exist? Hell, Sony's been doing work on mind control. What if we're all in dreams, or games, having information stolen, but we don't know it because it seems like real life?

One of Philip K. Dick's favorite discussions was about how much perception alters reality, and how governments and corporations have found ways to create spurious realities that they then market back to us, the consumer. His amazing speech on the subject, which he gave in 1978, is just SO ahead of its time. I'm sure I've posted a link to it before but here it is again.

If you question the creation of realities, all you have to do is look at Fox News. It's always easy to deduce if you're talking to someone who's a Fox News junkie because they use the talking points, but not like they're imparting information. They're imparting BELIEF. Fox News creates a reality, feeds it to its consumers, and makes those consumers think that THEY THEMSELVES did the research that led to this conclusion. It's fascinating, and I think it would scare the shit out of Philip K. Dick.

But it's not just politics that does this. It used to be that we were advertised to, and we knew it, and we accepted that advertising had to exist, and that was fine. But now EVERYTHING is an advertisement. There are no barriers anymore. A lot of it is SO viral and clever that we don't even realize what it is anymore. We can no longer tell the difference between a REAL reality, and one that a corporation wants us to believe.

That's a large part of why Inception worked for me. I can't wait to own it on BluRay!

Comments and nonsense at the end of the Doctor Who post, because I'm dragging my ass down to San Diego tomorrow to make fun of starships.

Only Quirky Crimesolvers May Apply

2010-07-13T10:28:00.000-07:00

So it's development season, where all TeeVee writers (and, sadly, feature writers) head off to the sales for the new development season hats and handbags. Remember, don't wear white after the networks close for pitches. Tacky.

But not only is it development season, it's also summer-show season. And they've been premiering like crazy little rabbits. If you're a viewer watching these shows, you might be thinking, "Wow, a lot of jobs for people in H-wood." You'd be partly wrong. A goodly number of these shows were either produced entirely in Canada, or South America. Yes, you read that right -- South America. This is the studios' attempt to save money and stick a knife in the backs of the unions. Have they succeeded? Well... not exactly. These shows aren't blowing the doors off the ratings machine. But then that means the studios lose LESS money. So compared to losing MORE money when they have to pay writers and crews a living wage (actors are still American, except for the Canadian ones), it's a win for the studios and a loss for the rest of us. And for all the jobs lost by American writers, it's a hundred times MORE for crew members. They gave us a lot of misplaced shit during the strike, but that doesn't mean I'm at all happy to see all their jobs sent to Canada or South America. Oh, Canada... you quiet, polite America's hat... you've finally found a way to completely screw our business. See, studio execs still get paid. Producers still get paid, and they get even MORE frenzied about making Canadian content shows. But if the show is Canadian content, that means it's Canadians who make it. And that isn't good for any of us.

That aside, there's a strange similarity amongst all of the summer shows. It's tone. Literally every promo or ad I see could represent five other shows. It's the summer of the seemingly quirky procedural. There aren't any dark shows, of course. It's summer! Everybody wants sunshiny shows with oddballs who share witty bon-mots! But... ALL of them? Really? I'm wondering if this is some kind of a contest, where every town must be represented by a quirky procedural. If so, we're going to have a winner soon.

So when you're pitching shows, you kind of have to keep this stuff in mind. Because if something's doing well right now, odds are the studios and networks are going to want... that. Before all this crazy summer programming, networks had to kind of wing it. Their fall shows wouldn't premiere until fall, so they had to figure out what they were going to want after those shows either succeed or fail. They had to essentially time travel (but don't try to SELL them time travel. Are you insane??). But maybe they aren't going to do that as much this year. Networks are just starting to open. Let's see what happens.

The procedural, witty or not, is still the go-to show for any network. Unfortunately, there are 65,456 of them on right now, and half of those are on USA. Yes, USA, the hit machine. Everything they put on works which is awesome... until it comes time to hear pitches. USA pitches really need to thread the needle. They have to be in the network's wheelhouse, but they also have to be different enough from the shows they have on. It's tricky. And that's even aside from the fact that I don't know one writer who wants to be pitching procedurals anymore. But it's not about what WE want. It's about what THEY want. So the trick is to find something you love within these parameters.

This leads writers to think about the wild settings in which they can put their quirky characters: A former pageant queen does security for a big hotel; A roller derby star is a bounty hunter; An orchestra conductor solves his cop brother's murder in a planned community. It's easy to get caught up in procedural roulette. But they hear five billion of these. And I always like to go back to the basics, back to what works. One of the best character introduction scenes ever was in the X-Files pilot. Which I just happen to have here (hopefully this works):

This is a masterclass in how to introduce your characters, their different ideologies, and your series in one economical scene. And unfortunately, it seems to be kind of rare these days. People are getting lost in the slickness of their shows, the desire to always out-hip themselves and everyone else. Now we've got the annoying, jittery camera work, the pointless push-ins that have NOTHING classical about them, the utter lack of rhythm to the editing. I miss the moments. The simplicity. I think all of this other crap is making television shows look like YouTube videos shot on some dude's Nano. These shows cost money, but they look cheap. And they sound even worse. What happened to scoring TeeVee shows? Now, all I hear is some vague, skittering nonsense that sounds like it was made in Garage Band. The thing about a show like The X-Files is, it holds up. And I'm not sure most of the stuff we're seeing now is going to hold up. The classics work for a reason, gentle readers.

So thank God for X-Files alumni like Vince Gilligan, who brings all of that to Breaking Bad. At least there's ONE class show on the air.

Belated thanks for the comments on my Zenyatta post. I've been watching racing for a long time and I've just never seen anything like her. It's a real treat being able to see her up close. And touch her, every once in awhile!

Stephen Gallagher wrote about The Phantom:

It's not shallow to say you have to get the look right before almost anything else. Comics are a visual medium and the visual impact leads. The look of the early superheroes was largely based on the costuming of acrobats and circus strongmen and made a kind of contemporary sense. The usual move in modernising involves reinterpreting the same look as some kind of logical body armor.

The Phantom's new look was like a cross between the bomb disposal suits in THE HURT LOCKER and those bootleg soft-toy Power Rangers you'd see as sideshow prizes in seaside towns.

Ditto everything you said. And it's nice to find another fan of the Billy Zane movie! I don't think any writer could have cracked this, frankly. The entire miniseries struggled against the update.

From the lovely Phantom-fan Cunningham:

Re: The Phantom - I'm a big opponent of the idea of body armor and costumes that 'augment' the actor's physique with padding (I'm thinking primarily of THE FLASH and BATMAN here). To sum up - it's Super MAN, not Super COSTUME.

I love that he was 2 1/2 times stronger. Well, THAT'S random. The costume was a huge mistake. And you're right; it makes anyone special. So why did they need Kit, then? Nobody believes in The Ghost Who Walks anymore, so the whole "legacy" thing means nothing. I've been working on an idea with a legacy element and because of these missteps, I've been REALLY focusing on why this particular person. I find it curious that the network let this go with such a weak explanation.

And thanks to folks who sent the LA Times article on Knight & Day. Seems like people who are going to see the film are having the good time they're supposed to have, which is great. What's interesting about the article is that the development of Knight & Day sounds an awful lot like the development of a TeeVee show. Mangold was the showrunner and all of these writers functioned as his staff. I understand that there were people who were pissed off that they didn't get screenplay credit. But coming from TeeVee, I kind of like what happened here. Although there are certain megalomaniac showrunners and higher-level folks who like to add their names to scripts, a truly good showrunner won't do that. The showrunner's job is to shepherd the script, not to take money and credit away from another writer. The best showrunners I've worked with don't do this. And if feature writers or directors are doing the work with the expectation that they'll get screenplay credit, well... I'm not sure I agree with that, either. In a writer's room, other writers polish scripts. But if you start down the road of wrestling for credit, then you end up with a competitive, backstabbing writer's room and that doesn't work for anyone.

But in features, this is just how it's done. And the development of Knight & Day doesn't sound that torturous to me, actually. It just sounds like development, and it did yield a super-fun movie that doesn't feel like the usual hodge-podge of styles and ideas. So mission accomplished. I do have to wonder, though, about all the lousy movies that have come out this summer and why there aren't articles on THEIR torturous development or list of writers and drafts. Why was Knight & Day singled out? Maybe people heard that and went, "Wow, SO not seeing that." Or do people just not care if The A-Team had fifty writers on it, because they know it's going to suck anyway?

There's a point at which a movie HAS to have a vision or a guiding hand. And in this case, it was James Mangold. For most of these movies, nobody seems to be minding the store. Maybe the more relevant article is about when development DOESN'T work.

Iain:

"It's America's fault, frankly." That's a little harsh. Using that line of reasoning then pretty much every product failure is the fault of the consumer not the marketer. New Coke failed? It's America's fault. The Edsel failed? It's America's fault. Could Knight and Day's failure possibly not be the fault of America but maybe the fault of studio executives who were oversold on the star power of Cruise and Diaz? Times change and so do public tastes in film and film stars. That said, I'll have to agree that Knight and Day was a great movie although I grew up watching Cruise and, to a lesser extent, Diaz movies so I was presold.

It's certainly a combination of factors but I DO blame America for not going to see it and going to see shitty movies instead. I also blame the critics. When I overhear people saying, "I hear that movie's no good," well... where are they "hearing" that? They're not saying that Aunt Flo saw it and didn't like it. They're going by their local papers and the Internet reviews. And yes, I DO know MANY people who are swayed by the reviews in their local papers. Even though y'all don't do that, it sure doesn't mean that the country isn't doing it. Because they ARE. Not everybody is on Twitter or Facebook. Knight & Day wasn't made for the usual audience -- twelve-year-old boys. Of course THEY don't read reviews. But the audience that movie WAS made for? They read 'em. It's not the people who just plain didn't go see the film who bug me. It's the folks who went to see some shitty movie instead, and then they complain about how much movies suck.

When A Little Princess came out, there was an article in the LA Times bemoaning the lack of family films. On the very next page was an article about how nobody was going to see A Little Princess. The movie business is certainly at fault in some respects but so are people who want to be entertained but then go see lousy movies, while ignoring the good ones. Look, we go through this all the time, with movies and with TeeVee shows. And it's never going to change. But when a good movie comes out and nobody goes to see it and THEN it gets destroyed in the press and people giggle about what an asshole Tom Cruise is, well... I want to say something.

So I've said something.

I still need to talk about Doctor Who, but that's going to take a very long rant that will no doubt be incredibly unpopular and divisive, so I need some time to prepare.

Now It's Time To Bash Film Critics... Again

2010-07-03T10:10:00.000-07:00

A bit of synchronicity for this post. Here's a recent article from the LA Times about how work has dwindled for screenwriters. The WGA made half of a good move in meeting with the studio heads. The other half, though, is that they need to meet with PODs and producers and other production entities, because that's where a lot of this abuse is taking place. If Warner Bros rightly wants writers to deliver material on time (really, people, DELIVER YOUR GODDAM SCRIPTS ON TIME), then they should reciprocate and pay writers on time. Writers rarely get paid on time. It usually takes several months for a paycheck to arrive. So the WGA needs to buckle down on this.

As you can see from the article, producers are taking advantage of the ratio of writers to work to make writers jump through hoops. As far as I'm concerned, it takes FAR more work to come up with an entire pitch than it does to just write the fucking script. But producers and executives remain obtuse about this. It happens in TeeVee, too, where now writers are expected to have entire stories broken just to pitch an idea to a studio. It's like they think that because a document is only two pages long, it doesn't take as much work as a full outline or a script. Only it DOES. You STILL have to break the story, which is the lion's share of the work. And the same goes for features, where executives and producers are given the luxury of hearing full pitches in-between their massages and fantastic lunches, and then picking which one they like best. That's horrible. To put it in perspective, that would be like somebody going for a job interview and being asked to do 75% of the job for free, so the employer can pick and choose who he wants for the job. Would anybody in any other industry stand for this?

This all falls on executives and producers who don't have the balls to make a decision. Because of the corporate culture (I've talked about this before), everybody is scared to death to take a chance because a wrong decision means they will lose their jobs. They know this because they see it happen, and they know that there must always be a scapegoat when you're talking about a corporation. This means that everything becomes increasingly conservative, and it's trickled down to the writers, as the article shows.

But "conservative" in Hollywood apparently means shitty. Studios don't understand that this is a speculative business. Corporations shouldn't be involved in these kinds of businesses because that's not how they operate. So these studios can only make sure-winner kinds of films, which means movies based on board games and comic books and all that. Shit comes out, and mostly America goes to see it. If America doesn't go to see it, then the source material gets blamed. See how that works?

But what if a Hollywood studio makes an ORIGINAL film that (GOD FORBID) isn't based on Chutes & Ladders, and it fails? Who gets blamed? Well, the people who are in it, or the people who made it. Because in a corporate culture, SOMEBODY MUST ALWAYS PAY. I'd like to blame other people. I'd like to blame the film critics and the American public for the perceived failure of Knight and Day. I hear your eyes rolling, gentle readers. But did you SEE the film?

The moronic David Denby calls it "jumpy, unmotivated and senseless." Wall Street Journal flack Joe Morgernstern opines "Knight and Day woke me up to just how awful some summer entertainments have become. It isn't that the film is harmful, except to moviegoers' wallets and movie lovers' morale, but that it is truly phenomenal for the purity of its incoherence." Which sounds like an apt description of that review, you pretentious asstard. Interesting that some of the more "literary" magazines and newspapers just turned up their noses, like they were expecting one of their precious indie films and not the kind of movie Hollywood used to make twenty times a year (looking at you, tiresome Village Voice).

And the always interminable Lisa Schwartzbaum, who apparently just likes to her herself talk (the review should be about the FILM, sweetheart... not about you), completely missed the point of the film. Which says something about a person who can't parse a summer romantic suspense comedy. But then it seems that most of these reviewers are looking for their negative hook, instead of actually reviewing the movie.

I find it interesting that many of the reviews are so dismissive of the fun this movie brings. What's the problem with entertainment actually being entertaining? Why must the word "fun" be used to denigrate a movie that is trying to be exactly that? I mean, mission accomplished, Knight and Day. Fun, clever, inventive, twisty, romantic. And the locations are exactly the kind of locations that this kind of movie needs. It's over-the-top spy suspense. This kind of movie used to be okay to make, but now it isn't? Are the "film critics" so beaten down by the shit the studios churn out that they have already formed their opinions before seeing the movie? Wow, that can't be it, right??

It's not like the automatic bashing of a film is new. I remember when every critic lambasted The Thirteenth Warrior. I guess because it was an easy film to dismiss. But the only reviewer who went, "Hey, hold on a second now" was Owen Glieberman. And he was absolutely right.

You know what else is different about Knight and Day? ONE writing credit. ONE. And it's not one of those "A-list" writers that keeps some executive's job safe. The writer of Knight and Day is Patrick O'Neill. According to IMDB, his only other writing credit was the show Dead Last, which none of you remember. It was basically Scooby Doo with ghosts. It was on the WB, and they didn't support it (shocker). Well, O'Neill brings that off-kilter brand of humor to this script. When people bemoan the lack of orginality in Hollywood and then they blame the writers, they do writers like O'Neill a disservice. I will go see anything O'Neill writes.

Of course, the guy taking the big hit for this is Tom Cruise. When you take a chance and make a movie that isn't based on a videogame or isn't a remake, then you're REALLY taking a chance. And that's weird, right? That making a movie based on a good script is now equated with taking a chance? Apparently, Tom Cruise is a total failure at the box office because this movie didn't do well. Since the studios seem to be mainly focused on promoting their game-show remakes in 3D, movies like Knight and Day just get buried. It's not Tom Cruise's fault that the movie didn't do well. It's America's fault, frankly. It's the fault of these stupid film critics who are so lame they can't even see fun when it's right in front of them. When you see this film, you remember how good Cruise is. He's a MOVIE STAR, and he doesn't need 3D to prove that.

But he's not alone here. Cameron Diaz is great, too, and so is the supporting cast. EVERYBODY in the film knows what movie they're making. It's patently obvious, but not to film critics, I guess. And James Mangold, the director, couldn't have done a better job here. He does two things marvelously -- he lets the actors create moments, especially early on. And he's got a fantastic sense of visual humor. Forget these music video hacks. Mangold should be the go-to guy for action comedy. He hit this nail right on the head. He did the script justice. The whole movie, in fact, exists because of the script. It's not an afterthought, like it is with every other movie you guys will go see because titans clash and all that bullshit. Did you go see Transformers, but you won't go see Knight and Day? Then you're an idiot if you complain about how bad movies are.

But wait! Some critics actually WATCHED the film and liked it. Here's Kenneth Turan's even-handed review, where he actually talks about WHAT HE SAW UP THERE ON THE SCREEN. I know. Crazy, right??

America, you failed completely. You don't deserve to see anything good.

New & Improved

2010-06-30T10:29:00.001-07:00

So DC has decided that Wonder Woman needs a reboot. Not a bad thought, certainly. Wonder Woman's the only true female superhero out there and the outfit makes it almost impossible to turn her into a viable movie character (because let's face it -- that's what this is about). Wonder Woman, like all female comic book heroes (except maybe Death), is a male fantasy. Superhero comics are ALL male fantasies. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, of course. But it seems like if you are going to reboot the only viable female superhero so you can take her to the movies, then you might want to get out of that mindset just a tiny bit. The guy you all love for some reason, J. Michael Straczynski, is going to be writing it and the Amazon herself was designed by Jim Lee. I follow Jim Lee on Twitter, because he sometimes posts iPhone art, and I love iPhone art. But here's what she looks like:

If the idea was to update her as a modern girl, well... no. I suppose her tiny jacket is supposed to add some toughness to her, as is the color change to black. Because nothing says I AM A TOUGH GIRL more than black and a little jacket. Now, I'm not the go-to person for what young folks are wearing out there but I certainly see my share of them, and I've done extensive research for projects involving alternative careers and hobbies for the Coveted Demographic. My question here would be, Where's the street wear? Not that she should be a skatr grl or anything, but if you want to go urban, then... shouldn't you? This isn't urban. This isn't cool. This isn't modern. And based on how superficial and lacking in thought the external changes are, I have no hope that the character will be anything other than what she's always been. Shouldn't a modern Wonder Woman have a new point of view? The backstory has been changed, of course. In keeping with the universe, there's a new timeline involved. This Diana doesn't have memories of Paradise Island. She's grown up in our world. That's fine. That's a perfectly acceptable way to reboot the series (and set up a great "bad guys are invading Paradise Island" teaser for the movie).

But then wouldn't you take advantage of that and REALLY dive into how the character can be different and contemporary? I know I haven't read the book yet but based on what I'm seeing and reading, this is a surface reinterpretation of the character. And I have to say, sometimes having a woman involved in this development is valuable. The reboot of this particular character -- the only real female superhero -- is a complete missed opportunity. It's a shame. But then we're still in the era where TeeVee shows with female leads are lacking women on staff (looking at you, Haven). Now, of course men can write female characters, just as women can write male characters. But that doesn't make the dearth of female writers any less relevant.

Speaking of which, I did want to back way up and mention how I felt about Fringe this year. The show still hasn't found a new way to tell these monster-of-the-week episodes. They feel like cast-off X-Files episodes, and we should be quite a bit beyond that. There have been a few interesting ones but for the most part, I'm tuning in for the alternate universe stuff. I am a sucker for an alternate universe. I am awesome in mine.

There's another issue as well: Olivia Dunham. I'm not one of those people hating on Olivia, mind. I really like Anna Torv and find Olivia an interesting character. You don't see that female character on TeeVee.

What I didn't like about the character right off was that she was fucking her partner. But luckily, he was killed and what they did with him was pretty interesting. But somebody somewhere thought there was something wrong with her. Maybe they were listening to the Internet fans (I hope not). Maybe they came up with it on their own. But the choice was made to "lighten her up." This isn't gender specific. Male characters need to be lightened up, too. But when a female character is given this directive, there's only one thing you can add -- a child. Olivia, with no man in her life and (GOD FORBID) no child, apparently wasn't considered a Real Character. So she was given a sister and a niece (the Most Adorable Child Who Ever Was) and a smile and a penchant for reading bedtime stories in sweet whispers. And it still didn't work because it was a superficial addition. It didn't tell us anything about Olivia as a character. What needed to happen was, she needed to be WRITTEN.

But there's a bigger issue beyond this. Olivia isn't actually the main character on Fringe, and that started as soon as the alternate universe stuff began in earnest. Sure, there were the experiments and she's the most special one and all but emotionally, Peter and Walter comprise the heart of the show. I know this must seem obvious to everyone but in the context of how you build a show and a pilot, you should take a look. There's nothing wrong with a show growing and changing. We certainly saw that with Lost. The thing is, though, that when it happens, it should be allowed to happen. I feel like the Fringe writers are holding onto a premise that simply doesn't exist anymore. I'm still watching, of course, because THERE'S AN ALTERNATE UNIVERSE, DAMMIT, AND I LOVE THAT SHIT. But all the cool stuff aside, if it were my show I'd be paying particular attention to the emotional drive. When they DO pay attention, the show's marvelous. I just wish it were marvelous more often.

I watched SciFi's miniseries The Phantom, because I'm going to be honest with you guys here. I like The Phantom. I know he has the goofy purple suit and all, but I like him. I think he's cool. I even liked the Billy Zane Phantom. Yes, I'm saying that in print -- I LIKED THE PHANTOM MOVIE, AND I OWN IT ON BLURAY.

I'll give you a minute to collect yourselves, gentle readers.

Back? Good. So this ties back into the Wonder Woman update. I think Wonder Woman is a fine character to update. It just doesn't seem like they've done it. And the more they wander into that territory, the closer they'll get to Promethea. Others just pale in comparison to Promethea. The beauty of that character is that she's got a timeless quality. Sure, you've got your ancient goddess, but you also have your modern girl. But The Phantom proves to be a character of his time. He's a character of the 30s and updating him simply is not possible. Everything about The Phantom says "myth," from his outfit to his fantastic horse, to the Singh Brotherhood and to Bengalla and the skull cave. He was rescued from PIRATES, for God's sake! Native Bengallans protect and help him.

This is not a guy you can stick in 21st century Manhattan (or Montreal weakly doubling for Manhattan). The writers really tried to update this character, and their idea was to take him from being a simple crime-fighting vigilante to a crime-fighting vigilante's organization. See, in SciFi's version, The Phantom still has the myth of Kit Walker as the ghost who walks, something that works much better when myth and legend still existed. Bengalla and the skull cave are still there. But underneath the cave is a sophisticated lair with all kinds of science in it, not to mention the Phantom's employees. The Phantom has become a corporation: Phantom, Inc. So what they've tried to do is tell the audience that while The Phantom started as a lone vigilante, the organization morphed into something more global and definitely corporate. But they haven't just taken the spirit of The Phantom. They're still using ALL the mythology, including the outfit and The Phantom's guns. And yes, he still lives in the skull cave.

The Singh Brotherhood has been updated, too. Now they meet in a boardroom, where some really not-good actor (he's REALLY NOT GOOD) cackles about The Phantom. Apparently, the Singh Brotherhood eventually figured out that The Phantom isn't immortal, that it's about the Walker line. Yes, I guess it took them awhile. So this global bad-guy company, who has enough going on that they can use a satellite TV company to test their "This is so X-Files season three" mind-control device, is MOST concerned with The Ghost Who Walks. I know: What?

And the whole Phantom organization? You'd think maybe they would be training other people as The Phantom, since he doesn't have any inherited super-powers or anything. But no, it's just the one guy. And he doesn't wear the purple suit in the miniseries. He wears this black turtle-shell looking thing that actually MAKES him a superhero. Literally. He's stronger (2 1/2 times his normal strength, for some reason), he's impervious to bullets (some kind of Kevlar-like blah blah blah). The thing with this mini is, they're fighting SO hard to retain what's good about the Phantom, while also trying to set the thing in the present day. And that just doesn't work. The Shadow, sure. You could update The Shadow. A lot of heroes can be brought into the present. But The Phantom is of his time, and any attempt to change that just makes it, well, stupid.

It's too bad, because it IS a noble attempt. And I love the idea of miniseries and backdoor pilots, because it gives the audience more to watch, and writers more to write. But this time, hero FAIL.

I am going to talk about Doctor Who at some point but since I'm still recovering from the Lost screaming, I'll give it until all the American fans have actually SEEN the finale.

Walking On the Moon

2010-06-20T11:29:00.001-07:00

One day in August of 1996, I got up super early, packed my single-serving snacks and drove down to Del Mar to see a horse race. Two years earlier, Bill Mott moved Cigar from the turf to the dirt, and he began to win one race after the other. Sixteen in a row, in fact, matching a streak by the great Triple Crown winner Citation. Today, Cigar was going to attempt to break that record in the Pacific Classic and win his seventeenth race in a row. Like every other racing nut, I became captivated by what Cigar was doing. He shipped everywhere and just kept on winning. He wrapped up his Horse of the Year season in 1995 by winning the Breeder's Cup Classic. And we all got up at before the crack of dawn to watch TVG, as he just outran the tenacious Soul of the Matter in the Dubai World Cup. They even wrote a special race for him, the Citation Challenge at Arlington Park. That's where he tied Citation's record.

Del Mar was packed, and there were a lot of people there who didn't really know about Cigar and the streak. Going to Del Mar was just something you did when you were tired of the beach and Mexican food in Old Town San Diego. But those of us who knew racing knew that Cigar could achieve something truly special. However, six furlongs into the race, that dream ended with the split of 1:09 1/5. I will never forget that -- 1:09 1/5. That's COOKING for a mile and a quarter race, and Cigar was right up there on the pace. Understandably he had nothing left, and Dare and Go went right by him to break the streak.

On the way out of the track I stopped by the test barn and caught a glimpse of Cigar's eye as he cooled out. He looked apologetic.

This past Sunday, it was Zenyatta's turn to try and break that streak as she went for her seventeenth win in the Vanity Handicap at her home track of Hollywood Park. One big difference with Zenyatta's sixteen wins is that they came with no losses. She's been perfect in sixteen races. As electric as the atmosphere was for Cigar, nothing approaches the zeal for Zenyatta. Because this was her HOME. She won her first race here, and now she would attempt to win her seventeenth. Those of us who've been watching her run for three years GET her. We know how much of a star she is. The world was introduced to her star power in the Breeder's Cup Classic, where she did what she had done thirteen times previously -- found her way to the front before the wire. And that, as I've posted before (and many others have said elsewhere) was the greatest event I've ever witnessed.

But seventeen would not be easy. Zenyatta would be asked to carry 129 pounds for the second time, conceding from 9 to 17 pounds to the rest of the field. Just for comparison last year's champion, Rachel Alexandra, carried only 124 pounds while winning the Fleur de Lis on Saturday. Quality Road, considered by many to be the best older male in training, won the Met Mile under 124 pounds. West Coast star Rail Trip carried 118 pounds in the Californian. And another terrific older male, Blame, carried 120 pounds while winning the Stephen Foster (ostensibly a handicap, but come ON) on Saturday.

Zenyatta was in for a race from the second choice, St Trinians, a European import who failed as the favorite in the Santa Anita Handicap, but that's been her only poor start since arriving in the U.S. She figured to have several advantages in the Vanity. The distance, the weight, her running style. The goal for jockey Martin Garcia would be to get some separation from Zenyatta on the turn for home, and hold off the big mare to the wire. And then, of course, not get ripped apart by the fans, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Hollywood Park had a giveaway day on Sunday - a Zenyatta bobblehead honoring the mare for what she had already accomplished, which includes winning the last two runnings of the Vanity. If she could win this third straight Vanity Handicap, she would join horses like Forego, John Henry, Native Dancer, Flawlessly and Kelso for winning at least three runnings of a major race. Ever since Zenyatta shocked the world by winning the Breeder's Cup Classic, there's been a special kind of "event buzz" around her. People have started to gather when she runs, coming from all over the world to see her. It even spilled over to the Santa Anita Derby, which had about double the attendance of recent runnings.

There's a unique atmosphere to Zenyatta's race days. People who've met at her previous races come together and talk about her and the good that her name is doing for the industry. There were several horse charities visible on Sunday, selling Zenyatta shirts for the upkeep of retired racehorses. Nobody paid much attention to the earlier races on the card, not even the people involved with them. We all just counted down to the eighth race. And as it approached, people began to gather around the paddock, zig-zagging up the stairs and to the balcony overlooking the paddock. People wore Zenyatta hats and shirts and jerseys. If they didn't have anything official, they made their own shirts. Or they wore the Moss's colors -- pink and green. One adorable older guy was dressed head to toe in pink and green. Yes. Even his shoes. The crowd surprised owners Jerry & Ann Moss with spontaneous applause when they entered the paddock. Even Zenyatta's OWNERS get an ovation. Shortly afterwards, jockey Mike Smith entered to his own ovation. Former jockey Julie Krone brought her daughter, not wanting her to miss out on seeing a horse like Zenyatta. And Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert didn't have a horse in any races that day. He just wanted to be in the paddock for Zenyatta.

When the horses came over, fathers lifted their daughters to see Zenyatta walk into the paddock. The one thing you don't want for your racehorse is for people to just start applauding and making noise when the horse is getting saddled, but there was very little anyone could do about it. People who'd come to see her for the first time couldn't help themselves. They get EMOTIONAL. The buzz was incredible as John Shirreffs boosted Mike Smith up onto her back. Zenyatta arched her neck and stretched her legs, delighting the crowd. And then we all good-naturedly streamed towards the track for what promised to be the race of a lifetime.

Everybody knew what Mike Smith needed to do in the Vanity. Zenyatta was going to be the victim of yet another slow pace. Smith needed to keep an eye on St Trinians, who would be sprinting for home just off the turn. He couldn't let St Trinians get away from him. Because Zenyatta's a closer, she generally sits at the back and loops around the field, so she doesn't interrupt that massive motor of hers. While Smith could have gone down inside with her he didn't want to take any chances, especially with all that weight on her.

So when St Trinians began to sprint for the wire, Zenyatta was only a few lengths behind her. If you watch the race, you'll see St Trinians' jockey Martin Garcia take a peek back under his right arm when they make the turn. He's looking for Zenyatta, and he was probably muttering "Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear," because she was RIGHT THERE. He got going on St Trinians and that little horse took off, floating Zenyatta even wider than she was, forcing her to lose valuable ground. In midstretch, the flying St Trinians looked the winner... at least against any horse other than Zenyatta. I've never seen a horse look as terrified as St Trinians did, as in, "I'm going as fast as I can! HOW IS THAT OTHER HORSE CATCHING UP??"

But Zenyatta is no ordinary horse. She knows exactly where the wire is; she's known sixteen times in a row, and she knew for the seventeenth time. Somehow she caught a filly who wasn't stopping. And when she caught St Trinians, her ears went up. Just like they do every single time she gets the lead. This isn't just about winning the race. She knows that getting the lead is the goal, and so far she's been able to accomplish that goal every single time. And with her running style, nothing is ever going to run past her. Especially when you look at her time for the final eighth of a mile. It was freakish. Racehorses who are 7-wide and are carrying 129 pounds aren't supposed to go that fast.

From the time Zenyatta steps out into the paddock, myriad emotions are experienced by her fans (which also include all the other horsemen): Awe, delight, fear, dread, panic, something slightly less than panic, hope, despair, disbelief and finally unfettered joy. Hollywood Park was the cauldron for all of those emotions, people so carried away by a horse's great, generous heart that they didn't care that they looked like maniacs as they jumped up and down. Thousands of people joined it to make one sound, an otherworldly full-throated roar, that deep-seated instinct all living things have when they recognize something extraordinary. There simply weren't any words after the race was over. Everybody stood and watched and screamed. Even the racing pundits on TVG couldn't speak. There was literally not a word out of them for several minutes. One of those pundits, Ron Ellis, trains leading older horse Rail Trip. He's in AWE of her, and he wants NO part of her with his terrific horse.

When Zenyatta galloped back, the roaring increased. Even her connections -- owners Jerry and Ann Moss, racing manager Dottie Ingordo Shirreffs and trainer John Shirreffs -- didn't know how to react. How do you react to history? What can you say? When I was a kid, I read all the Black Stallion books. I mean, of course, right? And one of the things I loved most about the books was the hint of mysticism about the horses. There's a big match race in the first book and I love the way Walter Farley writes about it. Because it just transcends being "just" a horse race. The race takes on a life of its own because of the presence of this mystery horse, the Black. How DARE he take on these two superstars? The gall!

This is what Zenyatta in the Breeder's Cup was all about. It was the end of every horse-racing movie ever. The credits were supposed to roll, but they didn't because the Mosses decided to bring Zenyatta back this year, for a shot at immortality. And they've achieved it. But people complain that she hasn't been tested. They COMPLAIN! They're totally blind to the otherworldliness of this mare. She is the unquantifiable. She defies the numbers that are so crucial to the handicapping aspect of the sport. How can you handicap a horse who doesn't appear to have a limit? People impose artificial limits upon her, but she just keeps winning anyway. In all probability, Zenyatta will run three more times. With seventeen victories behind her, are the odds REALLY against her to win a measly three more? But who she has become is no longer about being undefeated and winning more races. She's already accomplished everything a racehorse can accomplish. There was no more pressure on Secretariat after he won the Belmont, and there is no more pressure on Zenyatta. Her place in history is assured, detractors be damned. History has a way of sorting out the bullshit.

I wanted to see Cigar transcend everything to win that seventeenth, but he found a limit that day. Last Sunday Zenyatta had every reason, every right, to find a limit. But she didn't. She won again, ears up, making history.

Lost Highway

2010-06-14T17:16:00.000-07:00

Okay. There's a lot of smart-assery about Lost. I'll get to it, and then I hope we're done because I'm exhausted and the latest issue of Entertainment Weakly had a lot of stupid shit I'd like to bitch about later.

Back a few posts, about novelists who will save TeeVee.

Dzof smart-asses:

What happens when you let novelists write TV scripts:
1. The Wire.
2. Treme.

If you're only going to mention one guy, you forgot about Homicide and The Corner (a mini, but still TeeVee). But, erm... are you REALLY only going to use ONE guy to prove this misguided notion? Because I found something for you. What Simon had to say (heh) about Homicide:

Simon was asked by Mutrux to write the show's pilot episode but declined, feeling he did not have the necessary expertise.

Hey, look! Someone who wasn't just all focused on how brilliant he was. He actually DEFERRED to the PROFESSIONALS. Then what did he do? He learned how TeeVee worked. By the time season four of Homicide rolled around, he joined the staff full-time. But he was NOT running the show. He wasn't even a PRODUCER until season six. So unlike this Peter Watts asshat who thinks that TeeVee writers need to be guided by novelists who don't even own televisions, David Simon was sensible enough to recognize that television is also a profession, and that there are professionals in it. Therefore, your entire point just flutters away because by the time The Wire came around, David Simon WAS a showrunner because he'd learned from TeeVee writers how to actually do the JOB. Thanks for trying, though.

Johnny:

What gets me is the notion that the audience should be happy with what they got. The writers knew what the viewers wanted and had two seasons to deliver the goods. And to many, they didn’t.

Right. But to some, they did. Why is this so hard to grasp? Millions of people aren't going to agree on what they're getting out of a TeeVee show no matter WHAT you do. The thing is, Lost DID try to deliver on what a portion of that audience demanded. And that led to several uninspiring seasons. But when they went back to what interested THEM in the first place, the show took a breath and relaxed and I for one was MUCH happier with the show. So ironically, what you're suggesting already took the show down a bad path. As for writers knowing what the viewers wanted... well, fuck 'em. The SECOND a showrunner starts changing his or her show to suit Internet opinion is the second that show dies. I don't expect every human watching to love everything that I do. That's an impossible task. There's only one choice to make -- Do the show I want to do and hope people watch. The episodes and scripts I'm most proud of happen to line up with what the audience thinks, too. You simply CANNOT listen to people about this. Of COURSE showrunners are trying to please an audience, but that has to come out of THEIR inspiration. If the only inspiration is the audience, you're fucked. I'm not sure you can understand this until you fuck it up.

While all this is very interesting from a writer's POV, it's totally irrelevant from an audience's POV. A great majority of the loyal viewership wanted to know what the island was and the show denied the answer. The End. And by the way, they also wanted to know more about some of the characters, like Eloise and Widmore, but I forgot - Fuck it, right? Riiiight.

Completely irrelevant? Really? No. And if you didn't poll everybody who watched Lost, you can't insist that "a great majority" of the audience wanted every answer. The show didn't work for you. Fine. But the show worked for other people. And this may surprise you, but it worked for people WHO WERE VIEWERS OF THE SHOW. I am also an audience member, Johnny. Therefore, this is NOT totally irrelevant. Don't be an idiot.

L. Ron:

Very interesting, and maybe you do have a valid point....

So Fucking What?

Doesn't change the basic feeling of being cheated, and no reiteration of "It's the characters, stupid!" is going to change that.

Not for you. But seeing as how this is my blog and I am giving my opinion, then... well, it's my opinion. Isn't it? It's not YOUR opinion, nor am I asking for it to be. It's mine. And for me, for the Goddam hundredth time, it WAS a character show, the characters DID work, and I LOVED the finale. Apologies for not having the same opinion you have. I'm not trying to shove my opinion down your throat. If you'll look back at the numerous times I've stated that this worked FOR ME, then you'll see I'm not pulling your leg.

This was supposed to be a shortish post, but GEEZ, guys. How many times...? Ah, forget it.

Jesse:

I think this is a fantastic post. What it can seem like to people who don't like the finale is that you're just trying to rationalize the show's faults. Maybe?

But what's really going on is a good dissection and discussion about expectations and disappointment.

Thanks. And I don't think I'm trying to rationalize anything because I've said exhaustively that it works for some people, and doesn't work for others. What I've been TRYING to do is show you WHY it works for me.

Greg:

Two words for you: Babylon 5. All that pre-planning you think is impossible? It's been done.

Well. One word and a number. I didn't say pre-planning is impossible. I said you have to give yourself room to work. You all seem to be making everything I say into either/or and I'm not saying that. Now when you talk about something that's SO planned, as Babylon 5 was, I have to say that it didn't work for me. I found the show too dry. I'm not saying it's wrong, but if your point is that because Babylon 5 did it Lost should have too, I'll point out that they are two completely different shows. You can keep trying to trip me up but if you continually try to force hard-and-fast rules by offering exceptions, then you're not doing it right.

The fallacy to your argument is that I don't think Lost failed. Sorry it failed for you, but it worked for me. I'm puzzled as to why you keep trying to change this...

Rae:

He lost me when he admitted he had never seen an episode of Lost and doesn't really watch any TV (with your standard "I don't even OWN a TV" comment thrown in for good measure -- though I'm confused on how he's keeping up with Dexter and Sons of Anarchy if that's the case). Yet he knows how to fix it? That takes some balls.

Man, I LOVE it when some pretentious knob says he doesn't even own a TeeVee. I ABSOLUTELY FUCKING ADORE IT. Because it negates EVERYTHING they say. Especially now, when TeeVee can be downloaded and bought on DVD. If it really offends folks this much, then they shouldn't watch ANY of it. Be true to yourself, Sport.

Cory:

It's funny. I just saw an article about FLASH FORWARD on this subject. It claimed that when the show was sold, it came with a five year outline. They were trying to avoid some of the perceived pitfalls of doing a LOST. But now that FLASH FORWARD has fizzled, the article reasoned that maybe having such a detailed outline actually hurt the show because it hindered the writers from expanding on the aspects of the show that were working and dropping those that weren't now that the show was a living, breathing thing instead of just an outline.

You can have that but you HAVE to be willing to roll with it, too. And when you plan something out too extensively, you fall in love with things that you're either not willing to change, or unable to see how it CAN be changed. Likewise, if you don't plan something out at all, then you have TOO many options open to you and nothing against which to compare them. This leads into...

Jeff:

It's interesting you use Buffy as an example of planning not being necessary.

It IS interesting, because that's not what I said. But then that seems to be the theme with all the talk about Lost. NOBODY seems to be able to figure this out. Are you guys even trying?

I used the Jenny example as an example as inspiration. God, if the Internet does ONE thing extremely well, it somehow transforms EVERYTHING into black and white. I can't say that Yes, planning is important but that there's a fine line between too much and not enough? I mean, seriously? Because that was the entire POINT of the example! You simply have GOT to feel free enough to change things. But you also must have something there to CHANGE. I don't know how much simpler I can put this.

I could tell you that whenever I pitch or write a pilot, I've got a lot of stuff figured out. I think it might surprise you.

I don't think every minute answer needed to be jammed down our throats, but on a certain level, we have to recognize that Lost wasn't just a character show. Lost was, from day one, a mystery. Mysteries like Sawyer's letter and the smoke monster were equally important from the pilot on.

Sawyer's letter was a character point. And as far as I'm concerned, Lost WAS a character show. I've already said a zillion times that it was NOT a character show for some folks. And that's fine. But for ME, the finale worked because for ME, it WAS a character show. If there's another way for me to simplify that, lemme know. I mean, JESUS. How many times do I have to say this before it sinks in? I'm not asking for you to agree with me but GEEZ. To wit:

Doesn't work for me.

EXACTLY MY POINT.

Devon:

Tell me when you want to go after Mills and Stronach & I'll join you. That man should never have been allowed to buy ONE racetrack, never mind multiple ones, nor own a horse.

Whenever one of those asshats is at the track, which will probably be NEVER. I eagerly await the ass-smacking Stronach is gonna get at the next CHRB meeting. I hope it's EPIC. Jerry Moss is on the board and you DO NOT FUCK WITH JERRY MOSS. Especially now. And as soon as I have come down from yesterday's incredibly historical moment, I will blog about it. Hopefully before Zenyatta wins #18.

Irrationalitv:

I work in finance at a large entertainment company and have an MBA. I know it's easy to lay the blame on "those corporate types" and "Harvard MBAs" (the biggest douchebags on the planet btw especially the ones that come from consulting), but some of us actually love TV. Love it unconditionally and irrationally and do what we can to make a case for quality to survive. It isn't easy and we are bucking the system and are not rewarded for taking chances, but we try. I know I do in the tiny little corner of the business that I can influence. Daily.

Let me be a little more specific, because I wasn't before. Sorry about that. I've often said that there are marvelous executives that writers deal with on a daily basis. Just as it's not those executives I blame for the problems with the business, I don't blame people like you who work at these studios. The MBAs to whom I'm referring are the folks who are making decisions purely at a financial level, because they are beholden only to shareholders and boards and CEOs and the like. YES, television is a business but it's also a creative endeavor. Those two elements used to be able to duke it out a little and find a middle ground. I don't think that's happening anymore.

Roy Cooper writes:

As a novelist who's finding it an assload tougher to write the pilot script I've been asked to write than I thought it would be, I think this may be my favorite rant ever. If it helps any, not all of us novelist sorts are A) stupid enough to publicly admit we've never watched an episode of a show we are now going to tell you how to fix and B) elitist enough to think Tee Vee is a hive of writing inferiority and showrunner villainy, but rather a very different form of a very similar art. Jazz and Rock, baby. Greats in both venues who change the face of the world, be their tunes improvisational riffs or rock operas written in a grotto with a pen dipped in blood ink.

I know you're not all like Peter Watts, and bless you for it. Good luck with the pilot!

And yeah, actually, I have written in a room with random spewage from what was euphemistically termed "a roof." I think that's why I decided to become a novelist instead. Well ... that and the fact that I wanted to write about exploding dinosaurs, and I heard Tee Vee didn't have the budget.

TeeVee doesn't even have the budget for two people to talk in a room anymore, unless it's in Atlanta or Buenos Aires. Can one person do all the talking and the other guy just nod?

Sasha, regarding Gossip Girl:

The unreliability/inaccessibility of Chuck’s POV for the second half of the season (and sort of the first half) was weird enough, but I figured his thinking/actions would be explained at some point…I guess because I bought into the “omniscient camera” of the show’s first two seasons/almost every TV show. But now the season’s ended and we STILL have no explanation/access to his POV. Instead they left him bleeding out in some alley?

Much as I hate to be stodgy and concrete, I’m really unhappy that the writers cut this character off from the audience. I miss him! And am now totally not only confused as to what’s going on with him, but (more importantly?) what’s going on with the “rules” of the show. I don’t understand why they’d want to break their POV "pact"…or if they even realize that they did?

That's interesting. I don't think you're being stodgy. I think the writers switched things up on you without telling you they were going to. And that's not really fair. Gossip Girl is ostensibly a soap with the gossip girl voice-over. It didn't seem to set itself up as the type of show that could screw around with POV like that. So it seems kinda lazy to me, like they hadn't REALLY decided what they were doing with Chuck. Strange.

More later. Tired now.

Lost Weekend

2010-06-01T20:53:00.001-07:00

Oh, yeah. BECAUSE THERE'S MORE. In a nice contrast to all the genre blogs complaining about how Lost didn't answer any questions, here's an NPR blog.

In particular, a wonderful point:

Here's one of the things about mysteries: not everything is a clue. If you went to the headquarters of a company and you were trying to solve a murder, you would find a few things related to the murder, but you would also find lots of isolated, noteworthy things that aren't related to the murder. That's because the building exists outside the murder occurring. The building wasn't built just to house the murder.

I'm humbled by the simplicity. And that leads me to point-of-view. Lost was a pretty heavy POV show. Most TeeVee shows are omniscient. Particularly procedurals. There's no room for interpretation there. The point-of-view is going to be your investigators and maybe your criminals, although networks (and audiences, apparently) tend to dislike showing the criminal's point-of-view. When you think about POV, it sorta makes sense. You're tooling along in your obvious, 2D investigative point-of-view when you toss in a scene of the criminal doing bad things. Holy smokes! What are we to think? Well, since we're so automatically invested in the POV of Our Heroes (this is what TeeVee teaches us), that Our Heroes are fucking stupid. Point-of-view in television is very, very simple and any messing with the formula confuses people.

Ensemble shows are pretty much the same thing, only you get many omniscient points of view from all the different characters. But Lost... the entire series opened on a guy's eye. Flashbacks came FROM those characters. There wasn't an omniscient point-of-view taking us into the flashbacks; the characters themselves were doing it. I just think there was a different focus with Lost. I don't know if the writers were aware of how much they were expanding point-of-view, or if they realized it later. It sure could've been a happy accident. It's super-tough to do this on television, mainly because nobody will let you. It's one thing for a plot-point or character's action to be open to interpretation but it's something entirely different when it's the entire show.

And now, I direct you back in time to Twin Peaks, a show that was strictly set in POV. And that's why it was so fucking scary. That spooky shot up the Palmer's staircase? That's not the omniscient camera. It's so specific that that's why it's scary. What people see is what THEY SEE and not just what the camera is choosing to show the audience. People compare what they perceive as Lost's failings to the similar failings in Twin Peaks. Totally true, but I'm not sure they know why. Lost gave us a few seasons of caring ONLY about the weird island shit, forgetting about the characters entirely while they tried not to answer any questions. Then they came back to what made the show work in the first place -- the characters. And the plot began to suggest itself again. Twin Peaks faltered after giving up its mystery, who killed Laura Palmer, and meandered around trying to find some other plot. But when Twin Peaks came back to itself, it did so because the writers got back into the characters and then plot suggested itself.

Both Lost and Twin Peaks had ensembles that were heavily into their own points-of-view. I think the shows that try to ape this success, like FlashForward, do so with the typical omniscient TeeVee point-of-view. And just before some of you wiseacres think I'm saying that ensemble shows are character-driven while single-lead shows aren't, that ain't the case. THINK ABOUT THIS. In most TeeVee shows, you're watching a chosen point-of-view. It's safe; there may be character or plot surprises, but you know that what you're seeing is what's happened. Stuff may get held back, but you watch because you know that the omniscient friend with which you've made a pact will faithfully reveal the truth to you at some pre-designated point in the future (end of episode, two-parter, episode arc, season).

Lost didn't make that pact with people. Now, if you went into the show expecting the answers that you get from other shows, then yeah. You'll be disappointed. And maybe that kind of storytelling just isn't your cup of tea. Doesn't mean it's wrong.

You know what other show does this? Damages. And I dig that show. Except for season two. But one and three? Fantastic.

There's more:

Does this approach allow the people who write the show a little bit of wiggle room, and allow them to get out of things that might originally have been envisioned as meaningful, but now just turn out to be blind alleys? Of course. But it also respects the fact that when you solve a real mystery, there are blind alleys. There are things that don't mean anything. Haven't you ever watched Law & Order?

This is a real frustration when you're breaking a procedural. It's all about the smarts of your detective. There HAVE to be twists (somebody somewhere made that a rule), and not every twist can lead to the final unmasking of the villain or the solving of the case. But not every twist can NOT, either. There's an appropriate level of smartness that the detective needs to have. This isn't a new thing but the perceived complexity of the procedural IS. Now, we've got technology that can help or hurt. And every moment, we're always asking, "Does this make our detective stupid? Wouldn't he know this? How do we get him to walk through that door?"

Lost started this way and then they finally went, "Fuck it. How about we just tell stories about these characters and don't explain every little thing because not everybody in every situation HAS all the answers?" For me, that's refreshing. Because I can wonder about the power source without being flat-out told what it is. Yes, one of the show's themes is faith but for me, it's a philosophical faith. And the power source is endemic of that. The "first cause" argument. Plato vs. Aristotle vs. Thomas Aquinas, for example. They never worked that shit out.

Backed up on comments. I'll get to them next. Swear! Now I've got to go argue with some stupid horse racing people... it's like crack to me...

Wherein I Yell Loudly At A Novelist

2010-05-27T09:43:00.000-07:00

Oh boy. I found this today.

People are still ranting viciously about the Lost finale. Fine, it's the Internet. That's what it's FOR. But then Futurismic got into the business of talking about shit they know nothing about. In the article, novelist Peter Watts was quoted. And no, this is not "Peter Watts" from Millennium. He would not be this stupid:

You know what the creators of epic, multiyear-arc television shows need? They need a novelist or two on staff. Or a playwright. Somebody who understands that an epic tale needs to be planned in advance, that plot is not something you work out after you’ve already written 90% of the story, that you can’t just throw a bunch of kicks and clues into individual chapters unless you have some idea what they fucking mean. It doesn’t matter how gobsmacking your twists are, or how effectively they entice your viewers to tune in next week: the reason we come back is because we want to see how all these intrigues fit together, what the payoff is. These guys can be absolute geniuses when it comes to microwriting: why haven’t they figured out that you gotta use that arsenal you’ve assembled on the mantelpiece, sometime before the end of the tale?

Lemme just start by saying that I have mad respect for novelists. I really do. It takes A LOT to get a book published. And there are, obviously, some remarkably talented genre novelists working out there today. But kids, there are more bad books than bad produced episodes of TeeVee. There just are.

If Mr. Watts knew a Goddam thing about TeeVee he'd know that for years now, playwrights have been motoring on over and creating TeeVee shows. Some playwrights have done very well. He may have heard of a fella called Aaron Sorkin. Others haven't had the cinematic know-how or the stomach for television. It's not too hard to figure out why. Novelists and playwrights share something in common -- solitude, and autonomy.

I don't know why this isn't just totally fucking obvious, NOVELISTS, but you write in your pleasant little room, on your nice computer, while you cat-blog or tweet about energy drinks between chapters. This being 2010, it's astonishing that people who SHOULD be more plugged in than my parents simply have NO FUCKING IDEA how television is produced. It's not a mystery, people; it's all over the Internet! Showrunners and TeeVee writers have blogs. You're reading one right now! There are even those book things y'all write. It is NOT difficult to find out how television is created. But since you don't seem to be AT ALL interested in lifting a fucking finger to find out, let me illuminate you.

We do not get to sit in a pleasant little office and write when we want. Well. Not when we're on staff, anyways. Have you ever written in a trailer while the studio built a soundstage outside your window? Have you had an office with a pipe coming from the ceiling that occasionally spews water? I'm guessing not. While you lot have folks who read and give notes (I hope, although some of you clearly do not), you get to CHOOSE who those people are. And their only mission is to focus on your words. You write what you want to write. Sure, your agent, editor and publisher may push you in a certain direction but at the end of the day, you're doing what you want. You're creating and maintaining YOUR brand.

Let's see that again: YOU ARE CONTROLLING YOUR BRAND.

A television writer does not have that luxury. We can't always do that, because we can't just choose to be on the shows we want to be on (or Breaking Bad would have a staff of 100,000). In fact, there are SO many factors that go into putting a staff together that it would boggle even YOUR literary brains. Suffice to say, putting a staff together is even more complex and frustrating now than it's ever been. One major issue is that staffs have shrunk. By half. So if I'm a showrunner, I'm only going to get to hire a few writers anyway. Why should one of them be a novelist or a playwright who has NO CONCEPT of what goes into making television? Do you REALLY think all writing is the same? Are you that stupid?

But you know what? I like you, novelists. So I'm going to help you out. Here are just a few of the things that you, as a television writer, will have to handle.

The writer's room. You can't sit in there and play with your precious ideas. You need to cut through the extensive pre-book noodling that you're used to. A writing staff won't put up with some asshole stopping the flow of the room. Not only that, but not everybody is going to think your ideas are genius.

You don't get to pick your readers, and you HAVE to outline. Extensively. Like, ten to twenty pages of outlining. You don't get to "find" your voice or your story or your characters. See, this isn't YOUR SHOW. It's someone else's show. And that person is YOUR BOSS. You will have at least one writer giving you notes. Probably, you'll get notes from the whole staff. After you've rewritten your outline (which, BTW, you will probably only have a few days to write -- no three pages a day for you!), it will go to the POD (AND THERE WILL BE ONE). You'll get a set of notes or two there. You'll rewrite again. Then it goes to the studio. Notes. Rewrite. Then the network. Notes. Rewrite. And then... you get to write your script, and the entire process starts over again!

But you're still sticking with it because GODDAMMIT, you are going to fix TeeVee. But let's back up a sec because now we're going to talk about production. As novelists, you can write anything you want. Explosions on the Moon. Spaceships. Dinosaurs. Whatever. But now you're on a TeeVee show and no matter how many shiny, beautiful ideas you have, they had better be on pattern. You get to write to a budget. Fun, right? Actually, it can be a pretty interesting challenge. You get awesome bottle shows out of writing for budget. Some of my favorite stuff I've written has been due to budget issues. If you are an experienced television writer, you know how to get the most bang for your buck. If you're a novelist, you so don't.

You are NOT going to get what you want. Being in television means constant compromise, more than you're used to. A lot more. And when you're dealing with physical production, with prep and the actual shooting of your episode, you have a billion fires to put out and a billion questions to answer. Some of these come from actors, so you'd better be ready and you'd better be CLEAR. Want to sit on a set all day? No? Then television isn't for you. But even when you're done shooting, there's more. Post-production! Some people think post is a drag but it's the opposite. NOTHING can make your show sing like post-production.

"But wait," you say. "I'm just talking about being on staff sitting in the room. I don't necessarily have to write scripts. I just want to help you with mythology and arcs and all that stuff you aren't equipped to do." Oh. Okay. So now I have to pay some layabout who isn't even going to WRITE? So that's one out of my four or five staff jobs? An entire salary from a tiny writing budget for someone who isn't going to do any of the heavy lifting? No fucking thanks.

You're still not convinced, because you say that there IS great television in spite of the obstacles. And sure. You're right. But do you really, honestly think that TeeVee writers just fucking do whatever they want no matter what? There are SO many decisions that go into making just on hour of TeeVee, you can't even imagine. EVERYBODY has a say in this. I wasn't in the Lost writer's room. I don't know how they worked. But the idea that a show creator should have everything worked out when they sit down on day one is fucking stupid. You, novelist, have clearly never pitched a TeeVee show. And you've never written 22 hours of one. All of this furtive "planning" Mr. Watts refers to would go right out the fucking window as soon as the production train leaves the station. Networks and studios throw ideas out. They want things changed. They want the show to be more episodic. They need to have only so many episodes with this actor. Testing tells them that this particular thing isn't working with the focus groups. And on and on and fucking ON.

But let's say that you, novelist, DO have it all worked out. You've somehow managed to sell a show, even though you've never done TeeVee or even film before. And you have worked out the intricacies of your plot. And it SO works! MY GOD YOU ARE A GENIUS. But then you realize, in the middle of the first 13 episodes, that you're burning through A LOT more story than you did in your head. Oh shit! WHAT DO YOU DO??? Or how about if you're working happily on a particular storyline but everybody else thinks it's ass. And those people hold the purse strings. WHAT DO YOU DO?

Yes, as a TeeVee writer you should know where your show is going. But you should not know EVERYTHING. Because it's simply not possible to have ALL of these factors, many of them potential physical obstacles, in your brain when you create your brilliant mythology. You fall out of love with characters and actors. You get different, better ideas based on, I don't know... YOUR FUCKING WRITING STAFF. Dailies. Production. Set design. Whatever. And that's the FUN of working in TeeVee.

One of my favorite stories regarding this is about Joss Whedon, a guy who's taken a lot of pummeling for not knowing shit. But see, he DID. He also followed his muse and when they were doing Buffy, Joss just thought, "What if Jenny is a gypsy?" And Jenny wound up cursing Angel, which gave Buffy one of THE BEST arcs ever on TeeVee. But if some novelist had planned all of the show out in advance, they NEVER would have been able to make that decision. Because there wouldn't be a fucking OUNCE of inspiration. But you, of course, are irritated that they didn't know how Angel got his soul from the very beginning. Do you see how stupid that is?

What's really irritating about this pronouncement is the inherent laziness in it. Some novelist wants to bring his self-identified "superior skills" to a poor TeeVee creator who's already done ALL the hard work of getting to the point where he or she can even SELL a pilot, write the fucker, and then get the show on the air.

So that happened.

Lest y'all think I'm excusing Lost, I'm not. I don't think it needs to be excused. I'm not "making excuses," as many of you have suggested, by claiming that the show is character-driven and not plot-driven. My POINT, which I'm sure I said fucking clearly, was that FOR ME, the characters were much more important than the minutiae of the plot. You simply have GOT to be open to changes and inspiration. A TeeVee show is not a novel. It's not just written and done. It's a living thing that YOU are in charge of maintaining. What Mr. Watts is suggesting will stagnate the show and slow down the process.

Now this gem from the writer of the article, one Paul Raven:

My guess is that they’ve never learned to because there’s never been a need for them to do so. And I find it interesting that the two TV serials I’ve enjoyed enough to really engage with in recent years were not written in response to the production schedule: Dexter, for instance, was based on the novels of Jeff Lindsay, and – despite its initially ridiculous premise – blew me away with its narrative tightness, and Sons Of Anarchy – which has some lumpy moments and clunky cliches, but otherwise moves very smoothly – is on many levels a retelling of Hamlet.

I love that he calls them "serials." I mean, really? We're not at Radio Ranch anymore. He seems to be under the impression that the only good TeeVee shows are those which are based on novels. Weird. As a TeeVee writer who's sold a bunch of pilots, I will say that Yes, I fucking DO know how to arc a series. But I also know to roll with the punches. And you guys just... don't. Most egregiously, however, Mr. Raven proves he has NO knowledge of how television works by stating that Dexter was "not written in response to the production schedule." I don't know how he figures this, aside from the fact that Showtime is on a different schedule than network TeeVee. Thus, he concludes that Dexter isn't on ANY kind of a schedule. Dude, production schedule and airing schedule are completely different. Dexter, LIKE ALL TELEVISION SHOWS, goes into production. You don't just have oodles of time to fuck around and do what you want. Every show has a production train, and that train always leaves the station. THAT IS A SCHEDULE. So your premise is ASS.

This was supposed to be much shorter but they just made me so GODDAM MAD. I know there are some comments to get to. Keep your hair on. I'll get to them.

Shit. I mean really.

Lost Souls

2010-05-25T17:33:00.000-07:00

Now that Lost has ended, there are a bazillion blog posts on how unfulfilling, stupid, disjointed, illogical and pointless it was. Many bloggers ask many questions about the point of it all, and then complain that none of the questions was answered. As one of the viewers who didn't chart the plot points of this bitch, I gotta say... is that REALLY what you want? Or is it possible to just, I dunno... WATCH the show and follow the characters and enjoy the tremendous symmetry of the finale? I always weary of logic nerds who seem incapable of understanding character and emotion and exist only to complain about red matter and disappearing islands. Because all of the plot detritus aside, what the Lost finale did for me was create a resonant send-off for these characters. But too many people seemed too focused on WHY the flash-sideways universe existed than on what purpose it served.

Giving the flash-sideways universe time to unspool was rewarding, unless you were desperately trying to figure out where to add it on your Lost flow-chart. I found it interesting that all people wanted to do was solve it. They wanted Answers, Goddammit, and screw what was happening with the characters. But everything does NOT need to be spelled out and wrapped up in a neat little bow. That's not what I'm looking for in drama. I like the things that rarely happen in life, like parallels and symmetry and the impossibility of people finding each other. I didn't need to know the express purpose of the hatch (although it's not too hard to figure out now). The hatch introduced me to Desmond, who became one of the show's most captivating, lovelorn characters. But people reject that character development because The Hatch Was STUPID.

Lost was a genre show and as such, that means that every little plot point needs to make perfect mathematical sense. This is also what people objected to with JJ Abrams's Star Trek. It's STAR TREK. It should make logical sense. But what I like about Abrams' ouevre is that he utterly, completely refuses to sacrifice character for logic. Sure, it can get messy and confusing but the Lost finale was SO resonant that all you can do is sit there and marvel at how beautifully these characters were created and developed. You don't get that resonance without all that work, and sure, without some missteps along the way.

For me, the missteps on Lost came in the middle part of the series, when the writers paid too much attention to the Internet and tried to answer questions at the expense of character. And when the writers finally went "Fuck it," the show relaxed back into what made it so fantastic: A character show. Asking for a television show to be perfect for six years is asking the impossible. Every show is going to make mistakes. And a show like Lost, that's so dependent on exploration, takes more of a risk. Look at where this show began, and where it went. People who are so used to being locked in to a premise that carries throughout the life of a show just got mad. They couldn't go with it because that's not what they wanted out of their TeeVee shows. And that's fine. But that doesn't mean Lost was a failure.

What's so wonderful to me about the finale is how it took the crazy six years of this series, with smoke monsters and hatches and psychics and Others, and brought it right back to where it began -- the characters.

Some people said Lost has changed television. But unfortunately, it hasn't. Now it's just... gone. If Lost really WERE the game-changer everybody seems to imagine it to be, then there would be more chances taken in network TeeVee. But networks aren't taking any chances right now. They're circling the economic wagons. I'm not even sure television shows CAN be game-changers anymore. We're too locked into the procedural way of life. ABC took a chance with Lost. The show was bold, rich and different. And it kept being different, to such an extent that people wanted to crush it with a rock. It's funny, because people will go on about how TeeVee is just the same-old all the time but then they'll turn around and criticize the Jacob/Man In Black origin episode by going, "Gee, there are only a few episodes left and THAT'S what they want to spend their time on?" Well, YEAH. THAT'S WHAT MAKES THE SHOW DIFFERENT. You, guys, are trying to shove it back into that safe format that networks have been forcing upon you for decades. You're not ready for different either, audience.

Getting into fights on the Internet about creator intent is SO mid-90s. If you didn't like the finale, fine. We're just looking for different things from our drama.

So maybe you're wondering WTF happened. Were they dead? Alive and then dead? Not waving, drowning? Here's my interpretation, which also happens to be pretty much what Christian Shephard said in that monologue in the church. Seriously. Go back and watch it: Think about the castaways' lives prior to going to the island. As Jacob said, they were all pretty fucked up. They all had problems. They create their universes where their lives are better. Their problems are fixed. And they could exist there forever, if they wanted to (the choice Ben made at the end). But instead, they choose to remember their fucked-up existences. They can't be together in their perfect lives, so they sacrifice those lives, those fantasies, because moving on together is preferable the superficial fantasy of a life that hasn't really been lived.

And the ending mirroring the opening shot of the series? How often does a show actually get to pick their ending? It was a beautiful, perfect bookend.

Bravo, Lost. You went out on your own terms.

Business As Usual

2010-05-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile, mostly because I just can't think of anything nice to say. And you know what Mom says about THAT.

But since this blog is ostensibly, partly, sometimes about TeeVee and the upfronts just happened, I figured I should post SOMETHING. Only I haven't really read many of the pilots. My favorite of the pilots that I did read, CBS's Chaos, didn't get a pick-up although it may still be in contention for midseason. It's really hard to tell. The problem with Chaos is that it's not really a CBS pilot and unlike NBC or even ABC, CBS doesn't have another network that would be a better fit. Back in the day, they used to make Haunted and then shovel it off to UPN. Although UPN sure didn't know what to do with it. BTW, Haunted is now on DVD if you weren't one of the 5,000 people who watched it when it was on UPN. I'm really proud of that show.

How networks pick up TeeVee shows has changed. Surprisingly, not really for the better. Back in the day, testing was an aid to the networks. A show's life didn't depend on how it tested (see The Mary Tyler Moore Show). But as networks became less creative and more corporate, they needed to find ways to take something speculative and turn it quantitative. And also, the executives needed to be able to justify and keep their jobs. Because that's what the corporate life does to people -- it makes them constantly afraid of being fired. So testing became less of an aid and more of a necessity. If your show didn't test well, it didn't get on. If a crappy show tested great but everyone hated it, it got on anyway (and didn't last long, either). But then businesspeople did what they do best -- they ran the economy into the ground. And the entertainment divisions of these lumbering behemoths had to carry the rampant incompetence of Harvard MBAs on their backs. What that means is, even shows that tested well this season didn't get ordered. It was all about how little a show costs.

While it looks like the networks are flush with pick-ups, don't think for a second that that means TeeVee has recovered. It hasn't. These shows are being given the smallest budgets imaginable. The writing budgets are laughable. And the fight has only started. Don't think for a second that you're gonna see tanks and helicopters and spectacular car crashes in episode two of Hawaii 5-0. And so few of these shows are going to shoot in California because GOD FORFUCKINGBID that shows and movies should get tax breaks here. So even though it looks like the TeeVee business is moving forward, it's actually moving backwards and out of state. And I'm telling you, this is going to have more of a ripple effect towards the future than you think. If you're thinking of getting into this business right now, DON'T. Wait a few years. See what happens.

I'll continue the "Why people who are in finance and business are incompetent asshats" rant. It's affecting baseball (thanks, Frank McCourt) and especially horse racing. There is an Austrian. And it's not Schwarzenegger! This Austrian is the idiotic boob Frank Stronach. He's a horse owner and an all-around rich business type who decided, many years ago, to buy every racetrack he could get his grody hands on. And then, like apparently every business does at one point or another (there must be a graduate class on How To Declare Bankruptcy), his Magna Corporation went effing bankrupt. Naturally, it's absolutely FINE if a business declares bankruptcy. But if a human does it? Christ, the republicans jump all over the lazy, incompetent assholes. Businesses, though, get hand-outs and bail-outs. Magna's problem is that IT OWNS ALL THESE FUCKING RACETRACKS, including Santa Anita. And they are FUCKING WITH IT. The Oak Tree Racing Association, which for forty years has been leasing Santa Anita for their fantastic fall Oak Tree meet, has a sixteen-year contract with Magna. Well, HAD a sixteen-year contract. Some fuckwit incompetent who calls himself the president of this company decided to rescind Oak Tree's lease. For no apparent reason, other than I'm sure that somehow, it saves them money. Corporations are the Han Solos of this world without the character turn.

BTW, this president's name is Dennis Mills. AND I AM COMING FOR HIM.

If these people cared one iota about anything OTHER than money and shareholders and board meetings, then maybe they would find the money a little easier to make. I just don't understand people who care only about finance and deals and mergers and whatever but prior to all of this economic bullshit, I had a "live and let live" attitude. But now, THEY ARE FUCKING WITH ME AND MINE. And that is not cool. So finance and business people, show me that you're not just all fucking idiots who had no talent for anything else. It's on you now.

Back to TeeVee.

Well, shows are wrapping up their seasons and lives (Lost), leading to that wasteland of summer that really isn't a wasteland anymore because there's always Mad Men to look forward to. The only show that's been firing on all cylinders this year is Breaking Bad. There's just not a thing wrong with that show. Vince Gilligan keeps finding ways to up the stakes without changing the show. This is a lesson for the majority of showrunners but then Vince Gilligan is exceptional. He's better than you, he's better than me, he's better than ALL of us. And really, that's been one of about two bright spots on TeeVee. I utterly relish how good he is. It makes me think that maybe there's some light at the end of this corporate tunnel, that at the end of the day, maybe it CAN be about talent and drama and fierce individualism.

Another show that's working for me is Parenthood. It can get a little frenetic in recent episodes and I hope they keep an eye on that. Because this is a fantastic ensemble and the writing has been wonderful. Remember Once & Again? It's like that. I applaud NBC for picking it up for another season. NBC also picked up Chuck. And I really like that show, too. It's proof that television can and should be fun. And I don't mean "fun" as in "it's just goofy, go with it." Chuck's got real characters, too, but it's not trying to prove a point. Ironically, the network that took the most hits with the Leno debacle is bouncing back quite nicely. NBC seems committed to regaining their legacy of the home of the classy drama. It'll be interesting to see how their pilots fit into that. All three of these shows, Breaking Bad, Parenthood and Chuck, are different legs of the TeeVee table.

A show that used to be the fourth leg of that table, Doctor Who, just isn't working. I was SO looking forward to seeing what Steven Moffat would do with Who, especially given the episodes he had already written, his magnificent miniseries Jekyll, and his TeeVee resume. This is a guy who should have knocked this out of the park but so far, he's just fouling off one slider after another. It's hard to judge Matt Smith and Karen Gillan at this point because their characters haven't been developed at all. Maybe Moffat has something magnificent up his sleeve and all of these weird pegs will fall into place at some point but we're over halfway in right now and nothing is working. It's too frenetic by half and those wonderful emotional moments that Russell Davies did so well just aren't there. The last two episodes, Vampires Of Venice and Amy's Choice, slowed down the pacing a bit. And that was good. But aside from the first of the two-parter, these episodes don't have any teeth. To be disappointed by Doctor Who is to be disappointed by television in general. Come on, Moffat. Step it up!

Scattered comments. From Jeff:

Isn't Mad Men a show with writers portraying writers?

Why, yes, I suppose it is! The advertising talk definitely feels like a writer's room. I wrote a Mad Men spec and the ad campaigns were the most fun part of it.

Horace:

It appears that the pilot for the "Rockford Files" retread, remake, re-imagining -- whatever, is a huge dud. Everyone is pointing fingers at everybody for the failure. Here's a thought, maybe it was a bad idea to try to do remake of a show that was completely dependent on James Garner for its success.

They all seem to be pointing the finger squarely there. This is exactly like the Mad Men episode where they're trying to use Bye Bye Birdie for the ad campaign but it's not working and finally Roger, Scotch in hand, goes, "She's not Ann-Margret." Without James Garner, The Rockford Files isn't even a premise. On the other hand, Hawaii 5-0 has Hawaii. Everybody is bathed in that heavenly golden light and they all look gorgeous.

Posting this today because I may have some junk to say about Lost after tonight. It's ending or something?

Nothing But the Sun

2010-04-28T17:44:00.000-07:00

Loooorrrrrrd. It's been awhile, but I've upgraded from procrastination to dithering, so that's something.

Just collecting some thoughts from the past few weeks. I love when novel writers roll their eyes at movies. Sometimes I agree with them. Sometimes I don't, like when Monte Cook wrote this blog post about writer characters in movies. He calls it an overused cliche. And when you're talking about novice writers trying to identify with their main character, then yeah. It can be a painful cliche. But when you over-generalize, you forget about some stuff. Like the fact that one of the best movies ever (and my favorite movie of all time) features a screenwriter named Joe Gillis.

Anything can be a cliche if you suck at writing, and it's distressing to see a writer not get this.

This ties back to the MAMET MEMO as well. A lot of comments on this one, and I don't want to get into it too much because then I'm just yelling at people. Dithering does not brook yelling. So I'll just reiterate a little:

What Mamet wrote wasn't necessarily wrong, although I found his rules a little strict. What would have pissed ME off is that I am a fucking professional, and would have been hired as a fucking professional. I think this business has gone too far over to the point of not treating people like fucking professionals. Too many writers are having lousy experiences on staff and really, there's no need for it. I just saw Alan Ball speak at the Writer's Guild and his attitude was that at the end of the day, it's just television. It's not worth killing people for. You work hard but then you go have a life. There are too many people who have the opposite philosophy and I gotta say, the shows aren't better. Torturing writers doesn't make them work harder, and it definitely doesn't make their work better. I think a lot of people who have this philosophy are frankly afraid of being found to be frauds (whether they are or not). People who create and run shows SHOULD understand that the addition of "manager" to their title means something.

You know what this reminded me of? The harangues fans hurl at shows. You know the type. When they bitch about how this episode took place in a building, or that effect looked lousy, or their favorite character got killed or whatever. And it always comes down to the fan in question not understanding how TeeVee works. So I do wonder if Mamet knows how it works. If he did, I would think that the executives would have gotten screamed at instead of the writers. And for me, that's kinda the issue. If Mamet really DID want to yell at the executives, then he should have done that. But he didn't. He lectured professional writers instead.

There's another Philip K. Dick adaptation coming out this year -- Adjustment Bureau, with Matt Damon. The story's great, and this is a story that may actually lend itself to a movie. But then director, George Nolfi (whoever the fuck HE is), "insists" the movie isn't science fiction. He said this in Entertainment Weekly: "Sci-fi to me conjures up lasers and spaceships and time travel. This movie is told very realistically."

What a fucking idiot.

And once again, EW's summer movie preview issue decided not to list the writers. Fuck you, EW. You're a MAGAZINE written by WRITERS. What the ever lovin fuck?

Comment round-up!!

Little Miss Nomad:
I don't know how involved Mamet was in the show and yeah, Shawn Ryan ran it. Wonder how HE felt about the memo...

StampNBead:
The book excerpt I put up is NOT from the YA book. I may put a few chapters up soon but nobody's read it yet. And your daughter's blog is adorable! I love that she's into all these genre shows.

Horace had a question about Haunted. Sadly, the 12th and 13th episodes were NOT shot. We wrote one of them. Sigh.

Devon:
I MUST know what Arthur Miller said to you!

And yes, Zenyatta was glorious. I considered her other Apple Blossom win one of her best races. She didn't face much but it's the way she ran away from them that gave me goosebumps. She climbed a bit early (what's that shit in my face?) but when she made the lead, she just kept pulling away though she wasn't even running. Scary, and it should scare everyone else, too. I can't say enough about the Mosses and the sportsmanship they're showing by letting everyone see her. This just doesn't happen. The attitude they have and the way they enjoy her is the opposite of how this thing usually goes. Horses get retired the instant they reach a certain value. They could have retired her after 2008. They practically did retire her after 2009. But here she is again, tying one of racing's greatest records. Honestly, can anything beat her? She's not at the mercy of any pace. She can run down anyone and she's never been asked all that much.

I'm absolutely delighted that there are two horse racing channels so I can always see her. And I've been to the barn to see her, too. The thought of having this much access to a horse this great is mind-blowing. I really wish we had the great turf writers of old (ore yore, I suppose) to document her career. But instead we get Steve Haskin, and what a shitty writer he is. All he's done so far is complain about how Rachel Alexandra isn't getting any attention. I know that in this country, we are apparently now required to choose sides in pretty much everything -- Team This and Team That, Red or Blue, Right or Left. But geez... what Zenyatta has done over her career means SO much more than that. Can't these idiots just appreciate her? That is, after all, why the Mosses kept her in training. I feel like her accomplishments just aren't being given their due. Not just in racing, but in sports circles as well. And the reason people outside racing aren't getting it is because the people inside racing are squabbling about Rachel vs. Zenyatta. Once again, racing shoots itself in the foot. They should be taking advantage of this but instead, they have to do their boring old East-West thing.

Speaking of Rachel, she faces a pretty decent field on Oaks Day, in the La Troienne. She looked great schooling today and her last few works were more like it. She also faces Zardana again, so it'll be interesting to see how THAT turns out.

When I started this post, Eskendereya was still the Derby favorite. What a shame. He was Pletcher's first true 10F horse. But although Pletcher's down three, I think he's got a real shot in Super Saver. That colt's definitely bred to go the distance. The Derby will be interesting. Everyone's looking around for the 50-1 outsider who's going to win. I'm not counting out Lookin At Lucky, although I hope he gets home safe. Gomez hasn't exactly been the smartest rider of the year. Sorry, but I've got to throw out all those horses who jumped up and won big races after doing absolutely nothing. So no Ice Box or Stately Victor or Line of David. Although if Sadler wins with either Line of David or Sidney's Candy, I'm really fucking happy. Really frustrated that all these lousy horses are in the race when a real threat, Setsuko, didn't get in. Someone suggested that the graded earnings rule be changed to disallow two-year-old earnings. I love that. It would force these trainers to actually RUN their horses at three. And Setsuko would totally be in. Oh, well. He'll just win the Belmont.

I wonder how many of the "celebrities" attending the Derby will even see the race.

This post is all over the place. I'll try to get back on track soon. I'm just not feeling uber-witty now...

Late Last Night

2010-04-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's been far too long for a new post! I had this almost written but then got kinda busy because apparently, we're going into staffing season. Who knew? Since we last spoke, Zenyatta added her sixteenth in a row and scared the shit out of four overmatched rivals, and the new Doctor Who premiered.

I hear your gasps of surprise. No, it didn't premiere HERE yet. It premiered in England. It won't officially start on BBC America until the 17th. I assume that's because they have to put that film on a boat and bring it over. No wait -- it already exists in DivX form. Fucking idiots. There's absolutely NO reason for the delay and acting like the show needs to be physically transported via tramp steamer is just fucking lying to the audience. Gee, why do people pirate television? Anyway, I won't talk about it until after its official airing. Spoilers!

Now. Try this for a scenario. You're a professional TeeVee writer, on staff on a big network show. You're in the room all the time, working your story off, eating Red Vines and chocolate because ONCE AGAIN, someone overruled CPK for Ribs USA or the skanky dollar Thai place. You've already started shooting and have to scale back all the scripts written so far to accommodate the budget. The network blew up a script and a story and the room HAS to produce SOMETHING so production doesn't grind to a halt. Weekends aren't yours. You're coming up with stories, rewriting, writing, breaking. Then Monday comes, and what do you find on your desk? A memo, in ALL CAPS, from the self-identified genius who also happens to be the creator of the show.

The memo is all about HOW TO WRITE. While the Genius does take some shots at executives, essentially the memo is him talking down to the writers. See, HE IS GENIUS. HE WILL TEACH. What the Genius has forgotten is that the writers who were hired to actually do all the WORK on his show are already professional writers. And the last thing they need is to be lectured about how to do their jobs.

I don't know how the writers on The Unit responded when they got this memo from David Mamet but I know how I would have reacted. There's enough bullshit in this business without getting a lecture from a playwright, especially when it's a memo with RULES in it. I mean, rules?? Seriously? Who are you, Syd Field? This bad boy hit the Internet a week or so ago and reactions have been wildly different. Most people seem to bow down to Mamet's LESSONS OF WRITING. How often do you get advice from a genius? But some people (I'd put myself in this category) are annoyed. If I'm already working my ass off on a show and the Genius in the Ivory Tower decides to LECTURE me about how to tell a story, I'm gonna be a little frosted. Look, either trust that you've hired professionals, or fuck off. I might've taken this bullshit from Arthur Miller or Clifford Odets, but even Odets has some horseshit on his resume.

So lemme ask -- how would people have responded if this was an anonymous screed? What if all you knew was that it was written by someone who'd created a show, but not who? Or suppose you did know who wrote it but it wasn't DAVID FUCKING MAMET. Instead, it was written by Joe Showrunner, a journeyman who hasn't had the foresight to work in other, more respected media? Would you want to slap him or her? Of course you would. And you would also want to murder him for screaming at you in all caps. "But that's just what Mamet does," people say admirably. Yeah? Well, David Caruso won't cross a threshold. Just because someone with a name does it doesn't mean it's acceptable. It's not.

Look, as far as I'm concerned, there's only one true rule of showrunning: PROTECT YOUR WRITING STAFF. But now I'm going to add another one: DON'T LECTURE TO PROFESSIONALS, OR DO IT ALL YOUR OWN DAMNED SELF. Trust and protect your staff. Keep the show running. Don't think you can control people by making them scared of you, and don't think that lecturing them is going to get their best work. And yes, I chose the caps because I am yelling at David Mamet.

Maybe this comes from having worked for some of the best people in the business. See, I know it's possible for a show to be run in a healthy way. And having spent time in a protective environment, I just think there's no excuse for behaving any other way.

In other news, ABC head Steve McPherson talked about trying to replace "Lost" in the latest Entertainment Weakly. He said this: "We're not focused on finding the next Lost. We're looking for the next great, groundbreaking, game-changing idea." This seems to be at odds with what ABC put on last fall -- "FlashForward" and "V," two shows the seemed like an obvious attempt to clone "Lost." The network seems to be more focused on premise-driven shows and the tricky thing about "Lost" is that at its heart, it's a character-driven show. Based on ABC's pilots for the fall, they're going back to the standard cop/lawyer/doctor shows. The one show that could be of interest to genre fans is "No Ordinary Family," from Jon Feldman, Greg Berlanti and David Semel, that's about a family who develops superpowers. I haven't read it yet, but this show could be the kind of marriage between character and premise that ABC's been searching for.

A few comments...

Tanya:

did you watch justified? i enjoyed it. for some odd reason it reminded me of the south as portrayed in True Blood (raw and real but without vamps).

I did watch it but I couldn't get into it. I know everybody says it's the best TeeVee show EVAR and I think it's well cast and well made, but I'm getting a little tired of shows with trashy, stupid women. Yes, that's a character choice but it's not one I make when I'm watching shows. And I like True Blood IN SPITE of the trashy, stupid women!!

medrawt:

I'm certainly not a snob about books vs. filmed media, and don't have much patience for people who are. I do, however, believe that each medium has its own distinct strengths, which is why I find the process of turning novels into movies baffling (short stories make much more sense as source material, in my opinion).

Except in the case of Philip K. Dick! the problem with his short stories is that there's just too much story to fill in and I don't think the writers who've adapted him and the directors who've directed those films, has gotten into the mind of PKD. The aforementioned Justified is based on an Elmore Leonard short story. A TeeVee series based on a short story? Well, it makes sense in this case. They saw the engine of the show. And most of the time I don't think the people who option material (mostly producers) see that engine, whether it be for TeeVee or film. The weirdest adaptation, for me, is I Robot, which isn't at all an adaptation of Asimov's short story collection. No, I Robot is a rip-off of his robot novels. But the producers didn't have the rights to those books so they kind of snuck around them.

Lee:

I've heard from other tie-in writers that our experiences are more the norm than the exception. It seems to me that, more often than not, these TV tie-in novels are treated almost like freelance episode of the show by the showrunners.

I'm very happy to hear that. Especially in this era of multi-platforms. Why shouldn't the different platforms all work together? I'd like to see more of it, frankly. And thanks for posting that link to Tod's article. Very illuminating.

hilleviw:

And doesn't Umberto Eco get some credit for the Knights Templar thrillers? Name of the Rose, and Foucault's Pendulum both count I think, though they were not nearly as shlocky as their successors.

I highly doubt that Steve Berry, Dan Brown and the rest of them read Eco and decided to do that. Eco's FAR too literary. I think it's more about the way Dan Brown ripped off Holy Blood Holy Grail than anything else. Because if you're shlocky and you're already ripping off shlock... well, I don't know the math behind it but I think it approaches uber-shlock.

And that's all she wrote for this week. Somewhat shorter, right?

Message In A Bottle

2010-03-23T20:44:00.001-07:00

So who else watched the season premiere of Breaking Bad? All of you? Good. Then all of you saw Vince Gilligan at his very best, with the silently creepy Mexican cousins, Walter White's massive indecision, and the near-total flip of Jesse and Walter into good guy and bad guy. This show is perfect.

Season finale of Caprica this Friday. Hopefully it won't be the series finale. This show gives SciFi much-needed weight. A few comments:

cgeye:

So, OK, the dog got to me.
How does the dog know?

I loved that the dog knew. I think it's just that "other sense" thing. If humans hadn't made instincts irrelevant, than maybe Daniel would have known, too. Although he did know, but then used his randy version of the scientific method to prove himself wrong. Or something.

Georgiana,

My favorite duality is Zoe as tender flesh and blood and Zoe as giant mecha with clompy feet. I love the way she switches back and forth as we watch and the expressions she has that none of the people around her know are there. It's poignant.

Yeah, I absolutely LOVE the match cuts. And I love how in the last episode, even though Daniel tried to scare the Zoe out of her, she actually seemed to draw strength from the Cylon. Scary.

medrawt:
Wow, great comments! Media tie-in books definitely don't get respect. TeeVee writer/producer Lee Goldberg has been writing Monk tie-ins for quite some time. Having read his original fiction -- "Beyond the Beyond," a mystery novel -- I would have to think that the Monk people are lucky to have such a good writer working on those books.

It is interesting, though, that pretty much anything coming out of filmed media is dismissed in print media. Tie-in novels are trash, movies and TeeVee consistently ruin books, etc. It's true that the majority of novels just shouldn't be adapted into film, but not because the books will be ruined. Rather, it's because the majority of books are simply impossible to adapt to a visual medium. Comics and graphic novels are easier, but it's not because they're made of pictures. It's because they're created as ongoing stories. Comic series, especially, have to have the same type of engine a TeeVee show needs. And since most comics that become films are supposed to be franchises, you need that engine for films, too. There's nothing more difficult than being handed a book for which you have to find an engine.

Comics writers seem much better suited to making the transition to film and TeeVee, and vice versa. TeeVee and film writers seem to move fairly easily to comics. They're certainly not the same and I wouldn't suggest that they are, but the thought process is similar enough that the learning curve is achievable.

Books into movies and TeeVee is different. And it seems to me that the assumption has more to do with the perceived quality of all books than with the differences between storytelling in novels and storytelling in film and TeeVee. You can tell in a print medium. You have to show in a filmed medium. You just can't do the same kind of internal storytelling on film that you can in a novel.

But there's something about handing a book to an executive that makes all of this moot. It's the same reason we have all these remakes. Because there's existing material, that means someone else deemed it worthy. And that means if the show/movie doesn't work, the finger pointing just goes back to the source material and not to the executive. I mean, who are they making The A-Team movie FOR? Not the people who watched the show the first time around. That's (gulp) an older demographic. So they're making the movie for people for whom the title means nothing. But it doesn't matter if it means anything to the audience. What matters is if it means anything to the people who shell out the cash to make the film.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of nuance in finding material. People aren't haunting dusty bookshops, looking for that neglected gem that would make a magnificent movie. Instead, pretty much everything gets optioned. If it's bound and has a pretty cover on it, it's got a shot. And if more than ten people have actually read it, well... it's a slam-dunk. When you look at the numbers, even the biggest bestseller doesn't sell that many books and most of the books that are being optioned aren't huge bestsellers. So the lowest-rated TeeVee show probably gets more viewers than the book upon which it's based. But that doesn't matter to the people whose job it is to sell.

What remains frustrating, though, is that they don't seem to stumble upon actual good books that would make wonderful movies.

Most notably on TeeVee, adaptations include Bones, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, FlashForward and the new series Justified (I'm sure I'm leaving something out). Justified takes the kernel of an Elmore Leonard short story. FlashForward takes the idea of a Robert Sawyer novel. The other three are based on book series, which makes a hell of a lot more sense for an adaptation than just a single book. Book series are not all adaptable but at least there's usually an engine there that has to exist to take the series from book to book.

I've been involved with shows that have been adapted from books and am working on a pitch to take out that's based on a book series. And no, America, we don't just change things for the sake of changing them. I like to use whatever works in the source material. I don't always get my way with that if we're talking about being on someone else's show. But with this pitch, yeah. I get to choose. There are specific challenges to adapting material but they're good challenges because they make you really think about what works on TeeVee and what doesn't.

As much as people bitch about TeeVee, go to your local bookstore (if you still have one) and flip through some fiction. My lord, there's a lot of shitty fiction out there. It seems like publishers will publish anything, although we know that isn't at all true. But for those who love the craft of writing, most fiction just isn't up to scratch. Because a distressing percentage of published novelists don't seem adept at the craft. But the rest of the population doesn't really care about writing. They care about being engaged with story, which is why they buy prose murderers like Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer.

What was the point? I can't remember. But I like books, so I don't want to bash novelists too much. I just hate the intimation that books are always better than movies and TeeVee. Although I'm pretty sure that the novel Precious, Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire, Curse Of The Black Pearl (I did not come up with that) is better than the movie.

In honor of this post and Ada Lovelace Day (which is on March 24th), I'm putting up a portion of my book on The Box. You'll find it at the Pilots link to the right...