d e a d t h i n g s o n s t i c k s .

These are the times that try men's souls

Thomas Paine wrote that in Common Sense about 230 years ago. I was reading that little pamphlet again not so long ago. Boy, it holds up. Paine is the shit.

Day 6's headlines frame the larger story. And this story is ugly for the country I still miss and still dream about every day. Katrina may get Americans talking about race in a way since nothing like O.J. and Rodney King. Then again, how far did the conversation get us then?

Ray Nagin is a supernatural being. Kanye West, you magnificent, mixed up rapper, you are the shizzle. Mike Myers, why won't you admit that the whole time Kanye was going off, your nipples were rock hard. Admit it!

I woke from a restful, poker-induced sleep this morning with as clear a vision can be on why this happened, and what it means.

All the stuff that Georgie did - play guitar, go back to Washington late, give an underwhelming press conference, vastly underestimate the situation unfolding -- all of this we have seen before. It is the story of the U.S. campaign in Iraq to the letter.

The people in Washington say "we're turning a corner. The insurgency's in its last throes." The Generals in Baghdad say, "we're drowning in sand here. We have no armor. These guys is crazy and we're losing." And when they say that, they get shitcanned.

Why has GW had such a slow, anemic response? Because the people around him didn't let him know what was really going on. They completely misread the situation, same as they did before, in Iraq.

How does this happen?

The President has a habit of surrounding himself with people who agree with him. He does not solicit outside advice, and does not consider or even tolerate views that differ from his own. The advice loop failed George W. in Baghdad, and it's failed him again in the USA.

A certain amount of arrogance in our elected leaders is to be expected. I remember a great Bill Maher line talking about Clinton, "You're telling me a man with the arrogance to think he can be the leader of the world isn't going to think he deserves to get a little stray strange now and then?" (I'm paraphrasing that, but still.) But Clinton was famous for soliciting advice from outside the box. As was Kennedy. As was Truman. As was FDR. And lest you think I'm showing my lefty Democrat bonafides too much, remember that it was Dwight D. Eisenhower who warned of the "military-industrial complex." He was a General. THAT is thinking outside the box.

So now we have the wrong man dealing with N.O. and Iraq. It's terrible, and it's sad, and we probably can't do anything to fix it.

So, anyway, back to the useless world of screenwriting, and how you can apply the bad lessons of George W. Bush.

Do not surround yourself with fans.

Your mother will always love your writing. Find people you trust who don't let you get away with anything. They can be writers or mechanics, or your spouse if they're inclined that way. But make sure that you find a coterie of people who read your stuff not to tell you how wonderful you are. You want people who will say the hardest, most important thing any writer has to hear: "I didn't get it." Or..."I'm not sure about..."

People who criticize one conversation or one piece of dialogue aren't what you're looking for. You need people to tell you when a character's behavior seems inconsistent or confuses them. You need someone who'll tell you when a story turn seems preposterous or coincidental or contrived.

You need someone who'll tell you that Iraq is a cesspool. Oh...and so's New Orleans, by the way. Sorry.

If you find that person, cleave unto them and make them your first reader. There was a great early episode of Rescue Me where the Lieutenant finally gets the courage to show his post-9/11 poetry to his wife. He's vulnerable and hopeful and she stops and says, "oh honey. It's awful."

That's a keeper, folks. Someone like that in your corner and you'll improve fast.

Probably a whole lot faster than the Gulf Coast or Iraq, anyway.

So finished today's work a little early. Weaned myself off CNN for five minutes. The footage though, has me thinking: really, what the hell is happening to the United States? We've had two election cycles where international observers were turned away or reported serious voting fraud. Now we have American refugees wandering around, where the government seems indifferent and incapable of helping them in a timely way, while in the capital, the guys in charge still talk about dividing spoils and sending tax breaks to their friends.

WHEN DID THE UNITED STATES BECOME A @^%#%&@ THIRD WORLD COUNTRY?

I spent four months in South Africa last year; a disorienting enough experience because you go from the first to the third world there in the space of a block. But it's not as disorienting as this.

What's next? Is Bush going to start dressing himself in military fatigues and start calling himself Mister Generalissimo?

Oh Snap! Oh Shit! It's happening!

You know what this means, don't you? We have to turn to one man.

Snake Plissken, Get in there. Good Luck, son. Good Luck.

In this time of strife and tragedy, let us all bow our heads and pray for some of the unsung victims of Katrina: ABC and Shaun Cassidy.

Seems the alphabet net has got a bit of a problem on its hands. One of the big-themed shows for the fall, Invasion, is getting caught in the floodwaters of Katrina.

Invasion concerns a creepy Aliens among us plot in the aftermath of...wait for it...a hurricane. ABC's pulled all the promos and now doesn't know what to do about the scheduled Sept 21 prmemiere.

This article has it all.

(If you click the link, my favorite thing about the article is that the article "ABC Delays Invasion Promos" is under the banner "Katrina's Rising Toll" Heh heh. I LOVE L.A.)

Still, I hope the show goes eventually since it features the talents of extraordinarily talented and very blonde Canadian thesp Kari Matchett - yet another Canadian actor they didn't find a good series role for here before she decamped for the USA. (Unless you count my friends' Power Play. But c'mon, that was a few years ago.)

I think the superior Canadian Band Tragically Hip should re-release this great early song of theirs as a single to benefit disaster relief. May not sell in the USA, but it would sell up here north of the 49.

That song also raises some interesting philosophical points. The story is really morphing at this point to a horror at how slow the response has been. I can't help it -- at times like this my former career as a media whore just flips the switch inside where you start monitoring how the story plays out. Call it my inner Noam Chomsky.

Anyway, there have been government officials who have tried to suggest that "there was no way to see this coming," though FEMA itself had a document in 2001 predicting this was coming, and a Canadian Rock Band used the idea of New Orleans Sinking in a song that they wrote almost twenty years ago.

The Congressional Black Caucus just went on CNN and was hella-pissed. The Senator from Michigan said that Kwame Kilpatrick, the improbably named (I mean, would you put that name in a script? I wouldn't, and I just finished writing for a show with a black character named Lubinsky) has arranged for housing for five hundred families in Detroit, right now. The Congressional Black Caucus (who CNN kept cutting away from, I might add) also said stop calling these people refugees. They are, after all, American citizens.

It's times like these that I just feel useless about what I do. I mean, really, worrying about the beats and the Act Four resolution seem pretty petty at a time like this.

In Toronto this weekend there's always an Air Show as part of the Canadian National Exposition. I live in a condo with a view of the lake, and for the last hour or so I have heard the jets roaring as they practice runs and marshall themselves at the island airport.

Today, those jet sounds make me uneasy. I wonder, are they hearing jets fly over the eerie, depopulated shell that New Orleans has become? Do they react to those sounds with fear? With hope? Why is every News Chopper from Dubuque to Windsor not now on their way to New Orleans? Really, I mean, I could do without the eye in the sky traffic reports for a couple of days. Couldn't you?

Yet there are things that surprise me. I gave it to Anderson Cooper a little bit back on Day 1. Oh Anderson, you gray-haired shaman, all is forgiven. Last night he just gave it to Mary Landrieu. In Salon today they've got the account:

CNN's Anderson Cooper laid into Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu when she used time on his show to start thanking government officials for their relief efforts. "Senator, I'm sorry," Cooper said. "For the last four days, I have been seeing dead bodies here in the streets of Mississippi, and to listen to politicians thanking each other and complimenting each other -- I have to tell you, there are people here who are very upset and angry, and when they hear politicians thanking one another, it just, you know, it cuts them the wrong way right now, because there was a body on the streets of this town yesterday being eaten by rats because this woman has been laying in the street for 48 hours, and there [are] not enough facilities to get her up. Do you understand that anger?"

Landrieu said that she was angry about the storm but that she wasn't angry at anyone. Cooper didn't let up. "Well, I mean, there are a lot of people here who are kind of ashamed of what is happening in this country right now, what is -- ashamed of what is happening in your state. And that's not to blame the people that are there, it is a terrible situation, but you know, who -- no one seems to be taking responsibility. I know you say there's a time and a place for kind of, you know, looking back, but this seems to be the time and the place. There are people that want answers, and people want someone to stand up and say: We should have done more."

The talking heads are actually asking the tough questions. You know the situation must be dire.

Of course, since I am a useless screenwriter type, the distancing monkey within me is already trying to figure out who's the protagonist in the disaster movie about this. So far, my early feeling is to go with h Ray Nagin. Mr. Mayor, as someone who's had the pleasure of visiting your beautiful and troubled city, I pray that you retain the strength to keep speaking out and calling these bastards out.

Well, back to my useless career. At least they found this guy.

Um. Okay. Uh...oh. Keep it together.
Talk about tv writing. Don't...don't...don't talk
about things that you want to say like... this
NO NO NO NO NO get it back cowboy, that's fine.

Okay. Breathe. Quick Brown Fox, lazy dog. Sibilance. Sibilance.

Right then. What about WEEDS?

The Mary Louise Parker show? It's a half hour. I just know the creator's a woman and nothing else. Apparently that she smokes pot.

Not airing in Canada. I've seen three episodes. Great cast: Mary Louise Parker, Elizabeth Perkins, Kevin Nealon...v. funny. Who's watching, though? And can something about a hot button issue like drugs in the USA - even...giggle, marijuana - remember, I live in Canada... can this really succeed as a half hour comedy with a sympathetic protagonist in the current climate?

I love Jenji Kohan...I think that's her name. But does anyone else? Does America?

This article in the New York Times today has me filled with awful jealousy.

An excerpt:

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 31 - Here are a few highlights from the hottest Hollywood script you will most likely never see produced on a television or movie screen:

• Abu, Ahmed, Musab and Salar, a cell of Islamic terrorists sent to Chicago by a nefarious network resembling Al Qaeda, are getting chewed out by their murderous boss, just in from Afghanistan. (They have been spending the organization's money like crazy but haven't blown anything up.) Just then, two deliverymen knock on the apartment door, bearing a huge flat-screen TV.

• Ahmed, whose cover is a job as a bike messenger, falls in love with a neighborhood florist - who turns out to be Jewish - but can't get up the nerve to ask her out. "You're bright, you're funny, you're talented," Musab says, urging his comrade on. "Who made the best nail bomb in training camp? You did!"

• Abu blends in by joining a bowling team, and becomes a fanatic: "We will dance in the blood of the losers from Hal's Body and Paint Shop!" he vows. But he is a hapless terrorist. A fertilizer bomb in his trunk accidentally goes off outside when he is bowling for the league championship - toppling his last two pins and clinching victory.

"The Cell," as this exercise in envelope-pushing is titled, has been making its way through Hollywood for more than a year, cracking up development executives and their assistants, being passed from friend to friend like an underground newspaper behind the Iron Curtain, and winning its creators, Mark Jordan Legan and Mark F. Wilding, scores of meetings and three other writing assignments.

It's brilliant. Brilliant. I have no doubt whatsoever that these guys do not think in a million years that this will get produced. But as a calling card or a writing sample, well, it's probably the best thing since Trey Parker and Matt Stone sent around a video called "The Spirit of Christmas" starring a few foul-mouthed 3rd graders as some L.A. playa's Christmas Card.

Yes, I know it's disrespectful. Yes, they are horrible people. But they are working. And remember...they're in L.A. All you redstaters think they're heathens anyway, right?

See, the point is: you can be outrageous and think outside the box. But you also have to be good. This kind of stunt only works if it's really, really funny.

If anyone has this script, and can send me a copy, let me know, please. I won't pay money, but I'll be your boyfriend. For real.

Further down in the comments on one post, Jutra writes:

My question is, how do you pitch a show like LOST, where the primary appeal is in the journey to the end of the mystery?

That's a good question. But sadly, the answer is part of TV serendipity. LOST is a special case because it had network mojo. LOST was not pitched by Lindehof and Abrahms. Lost was pitched by the ABC network president (who's since left, I think.) When it's the person in charge pitching the show, it getting to air is a lot less begging and a whole lot more pre-ordained. I also think LOST got to air as quirky as it was because there was very little time between that pitch, them shooting the pilot, and the premiere. Boom - everyone went with it, no one had time to think or second guess (I mean, come on...a polar bear?) And the happy ending was huge ratings.

I imagine pitching an ongoing mystery series on American tv is very difficult. Long, 22 episode, open ended seasons are not the greatest form for it. You either get to a point where your mystery is so convoluted and full of missteps (Um...so Fox Mulder's sister is just...dead?) or people figure out that you never really had any idea where it was going in the first place. (Yes, Twin Peaks, I'm talking to you.)

It will be interesting to see how LOST does this season. They're at the point where it's time to fess up some answers, but not give away the game. The "others" will probably be a good addition -- at least for a while.

The other show I'm looking for this year is Veronica Mars. They did a bang up job last season of having their cake and eating it too with a compelling, season long mystery. I liked some of the stand alone plots, not so much some others, but the "who murdered Lily Kane?" subplot kept me coming back. I don't know if they're planning to do another season-long plot among the stand-alones for year two. I hope they figure out a way to do that, without it, Veronica Mars will lose a lot of its charm for me. I guess we'll see.

I think LOST is the best example of the happy accident in TV. I can't for the life of me imagine that show getting to air the way it did based on an outside pitch. You needed an inside man to get that one to air. Whatever. So long as it gets people excited about TV drama again, I couldn't care less how it became the sweet, sweet hit it is. Except that it proves, to me, anyway, that you really do need one tenacious network person who loves your material in your corner if you're going to get anywhere.

And just like that, a couple of more ass-hours and I'm through the rewrite of Act 1. I am bulletproof.

Then check the old email, and this tidbit from those lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky writer whores from LOST. Snippet of dialogue from the premiere, which just happens to air on my birthday, September 21st:

LOCKE
You're lighter. I can belay you down and bring you back up just as easy. Shaft may be narrower down there, too.


KATE
You left out the part where you just wanna see if I'm gonna be eaten by something.

All together now....
ooooooohhhhh!

It's fifteen pages without a sweat, and you leave the chair early.

Other days, you spend four hours thinking, "Freedman" or "Friedmann?" and not even Nic Harcourt and KCRW can help.

And you think of newbies complaining of their terrible writer's block, and how the inspiration isn't striking.

Inspiration is for pussies.

Ass in chair time just headed into overtime. I'm not calling the game yet.

Your media at work, folks.

This requires absolutely no further comment from me.

I heart Flickr.

So it's hard to watch the pictures of the unfolding disaster happening down on the Gulf Coast. Harder still to not be able to turn off the internal "story tracker" in my head.
Day 1 of the aftermath played out exactly the way that Day 1 always plays out in the U.S. Media: lots of plucky stories and footage of people being hoisted from roofs by helicopters.

Now the ugly reality is settling in: after predicting apocalpyse, and then doing the media's favorite contraction dance - oh it wasn't that bad after all! Yay! - we're seeing that the Ponchartrain levee was seriously breached, waters in New Orleans are rising, (cue Tragically Hip song here) and the search for "heroes and easy answers" gets harder. Oh. And the dead start to pile up. Day 2 of a disaster is where I usually switch to print coverage. I don't need my human tragedy sensationalized at that point. My favorite quote of the Front Page story in Today's Globe & Mail:

In a sign of the deepening crisis, U.S. President George W. Bush cut short his Texas vacation to return to Washington in order to oversee the federal response to the disaster, the most costly hurricane ever to hit the United States.

Yes, folks, the crisis is certainly deepening if Dubya's back in D.C.

Gee, George, maybe you should tell them governors to mobilize all their National Gua...oh...right.

And before the idiot dittohead brigade gets going, Let me just state for the record that I'm not pro-hurricane.

Sad.

I'm developing a series right now with one of the Canadian networks, and in an interesting bit of serendipity, one of the show's inspirations is newly released to DVD.

Profit had a short run (only 4 episodes) on FOX back in 1996. It was critically raved over, but this is the part of the story where writers have to admit that sometimes evil things like testing does indicate something: no one watched. Looking back now it's hard to figure out why, until you realize that this series, with its unabashed sociopath anti-hero lead, predates The Sopranos, Six Feet, The Shield, and leagues of fare more sophisticated to come. In fact, it's going to seem a little tame when you watch it now.

But get past that. The pedigree of the show is impressive. John McNamara and David Greenwalt, the co-creators, would go on to do great things, like Angel and the late, lamented (at least by me) Tim Daly show Eyes. Stephen J. Canell, the legendary Exec Producer, read the pilot script in his office and when he came out he handed it back to them and said, "I feel like there's been a cobra on my desk."

This pilot is a master class in writing. The first act-out will have you shouting. In the commentary, Greenwalt and McNamara say they got to the end of the first act in their pitch to CBS and the executive kicked them out of the office.

As good as that is, the ending is better. Profit is weird and wonderful and is defintely a good DVD purchase or worth a rental at your DVD googleplex box store.

If nothing else, it's worth watching the nine episodes just to see Adrian Pasdar and Keith Szarabajka engage in the James Earl Jones Olympic Deep-Voice Off. Yummy TV.

Well lookee-loo...we got our first user-generated topic...yesiree, this internets thing is awesome, even without the porn.

Below in the comments section of the post about Prison Break, we got into a bit of a discussion about arc-continuity type shows vs. stand-alone dramas. In response to that, KJC writes:

I've been experiencing some frustration lately with pitching my series to Canadian prodcos. They get really nervous when I tell them that the show will have (if I have anything to say about it) the same kind of balance between stand alones and serial/mini-arc eps as V Mars. They tell me that the international audience they'll be selling the show to will get confused and frustrated if I have continuing storylines. They want all (or at least 95%) stand alones, just like the slick and impersonal plots found on Law & Order. Personally, I think those kinds of fears don't apply in the day and age of VCRs, Tivos and DVD boxed sets. Charlie Jade did an excellent job of creating multi-layered storylines that stretched across an antire 20 ep season, and the Internet helped fill in the blanks for those who got a little lost. Today's audience is more sophisticated and tolerant of change. I just wish prodco and studio heads would wise up -- and catch up -- with the rest of us.

There's a few things going on here. The first, sadly, requires that I engage some HTML code that's liable to baffle any American readers. It'll be quick, I promise...
[Canadian reality] Let's assume that all things are equal, and your series is the bee's knees and like the CBC turning down Corner Gas or the Canadian Network Person I know who turned down... no kidding ... The Sopranos-- after he had seen the pilot, the problems you have selling it right now is destined to go down in history as shortsightedness of almost Biblical proportions. There's still a reason that Canadian networks don't like continuity that has nothing to do with audiences not being able to follow stuff.

When a Canadian Net buys a show from the U.S., whenever possible, they try to play it at the same time as the U.S. channel. This is because of a ruling by the CRTC (Canada's version of the FCC: but more concerned with Canadian Identity, and less with nipples and the f-bomb) that allows for "simultaneous substitution." If a Canadian Network shows a show at the same time as the U.S. Network, the Canadian channel gets to substitute its signal over the American one for the duration of the program. (In Canada, most of the U.S. Nets are available via basic cable.) Now this makes Canadian networks a ton of extra dosh, but also puts them at a pretty basic disadvantage, in that they don't really control their schedules. If American Idol wants to do a special episode, then CTV cuts whatever they were going to show and substitutes it, the better to suck up the ad dollars with, my dear... Inevitably, lesser shows get bounced around. And those "lesser shows" are usually the Canadian shows. So it's no wonder they don't want continuity. That show's going to work its way through seven timeslots and be pre-empted six times over its thirteen episode life. [/Canadian Reality]

I also remember hearing from someone-in-a-position-to-know the figure that even people who consider themselves "regular viewers" of a show only see half of the episodes. Half. That's a "regular viewer." That's brutal.

So you can imagine the Networks and Proddies getting skittish.

Thing is: so what? The way they've been doing it, for this we've seen so many hits? I say, "nay."

The fact is that, though people in my end of the biz are loathe to admit it, there have been some things learned from the Reality TV boom. If the narrative is compelling, it will become appointment viewing. And if it doesn't, you do a recap episode. Desperate Housewives and Lost learned that lesson. And Charlie Jade did too -- it's why we produced a recap episode eight months after we wrapped principal photography.

Law & Order was once one of my favorite shows. But I'm done. I can't possibly watch that formula again without retching. It gives me nothing new.

The funny thing is, between internet recaps, grey Bit Torrent files, and DVD sales, continuity driven shows are no longer the bogeyman they once were, or at least they shouldn't be. If you look at the U.S. schedule this fall, you'll see plenty of serial dramas. Yes, you risk not hooking the audience. But if you do hook them, the reward is greater. You might make them loyal viewers.

Like everything else, Canada will discover this. Probably a year or two from now. It just requires a few good network people with icewater in their veins and passion in their hearts. I know they're out there, rustling in the hills.

But then again, I worked for [Canadian Name Drop] Moses Znaimer [/Canadian Name Drop] so I've seen up close what vision can do.

Even the craaaayyyzeee-vision.

Welcome to anybody surfing in courtesy of A.Epstein's Complications Ensue. I'm new at this. Be gentle.

I am a man of strong opinions. One of my dear colleauges from my sojourn in South Africa, a writer of sitcoms (they have plenty down there) named Dennis Venter, busted me in the room for what became my catch phrase. Apparently I'd sit back and chew on an idea, and in a not-unkind way, say, "Here's why I hate that."

Oprah I am not.

Alex thinks I should have called this "Here's Why I Hate That," but I don't think that reflects how I feel generally about TV or what I do or the people I get thrown together to do it with. But it does sort of nose around the question, "why do this?" I mean....no one needs another screenwriter blog. Especially from a guy whose (hopefully) best credits lie in front of him.

Okay. So: in no particular order:

I currently have no ambitions whatsoever to write screenplays.
I do not have a screenplay spec.
I think the form is hostile to the point of homicide to writers.
There is nothing I would like better than to work on a series of good series, where you can follow a group of interesting characters. There is simply no way to have a character in a film that's as nuanced, shaded and interesting as the characters in the best long-running series. That's the form I love. I'm committed to it completely.

Now there's just one problem:
I live in Canada.
Are you laughing yet?

No? Then how 'bout this:
I live in Canada and I have a US Passport.
Okay, someone just did a spit take. Awesome.

The conversation I've had 4329 times in the last couple of years:

"You're AMERICAN?"
"Yup. Well, dual, actually."
"Where you from?"
"The Bronx."
"No shit."
"Serious, dude. You should hear my parents."
"And you work in TV?"
"Uh huh"
long, uncomfortable pause.
"Why don't you go to L.A., man?"

What's the answer to that? I'm never entirely sure. There are a bunch of mini-answers.

Mini answer number one: George W. Bush.

I know. It's cheap. But I was wavering with the moving down thing in 2003. In 2005, not so much.

I have no L.A. contacts. None. My career has so far been here. I have, in that wonderful parlance, "mystery credits." Hart Hanson toiled on Traders for years here before he went down. In my head I always thought if I were to make the trek, it would be as a middle-guy here trying to get table scraps there. I've been working fairly steadily, so I didn't worry about it.

The problem, though, is that writing drama or comedy in Canada can be a frustrating, and weird experience. L.A. gets to read about Runaway Productions. Canadians get to watch as buyers from the Canadian networks go down to the L.A. screenings and come back with armfuls of new goodies that they then schedule at the same time as they run in the US, and scoop up the ad dollars, and pat themselves on the back and say, "aren't we clever broadcast executives?"

Because they're good shoppers.

Now, not all executives are like this here. There are those who want to get good work done. But the hurdles, and the peculiar pessimism in the Canadian character make it a fraught and often demoralizing experience.

So why do I do it?

I love tv.

And because there's so little work, really, you don't get pegged as much as you do in the Land of the (Formerly) Free and the Home of the (Well, not if you agree with Bill Maher) Brave: I write animation, and half-hour comedy, and sci-fi, and hourlong drama, and documentaries. For God Sakes, I've even written this.

That's what this blog is about. Oh, and the neurotic reality of being a writer. And Dead Things On Sticks. Which I haven't explained, I know. But I'm getting to it.

Anyway, welcome. Feel free to kick the tires a bit.

And how great is it that this fine Canuck series is getting some love from the USA?

Sundance Channel, baby.

Laura Michalchyshyn is a fine Canadian executive who's sorely missed now that she's decamped for greener US cable pastures.

I always find people's reaction to FOX funny.

I do a lot of Sci Fi genre work and see, obviously, a lot of opinions from genre fans. And I guess because of the sheer number of short-run series Fox has offered up over the last few years, the...engaged fans have a big hate on for Fox.

So, yes. They did cancel Firefly. And...uh Strange Luck and Harsh Realm, and whatever. Other ones I'm forgetting.

But honestly, is there anyone more audacious in their development? I mean, yes, Fox did give us Stacked. But also 24, Simpsons, Family Guy, Arrested Development, House and X-Files. And though they aired on other networks, Fox production also gave us Buffy and Angel. And, sad to say, my guiltiest pleasure of the last couple years: first season O.C.

The Fox current department and the network may drop the ball sometimes, but My God they develop some interesting stuff.

I was thinking this again tonight while watching the premiere of Prison Break. This show grabs you by the throat straight in, and never lets go. The speed with which the plot advances in the first hour is breathtaking. Questions piled upon questions, very few answers. Very little spoon feeding, dynamic three or four scenes to get you into the show, and a few sketches to fill in the characters. But at the end of the first two hours, you still know very, very little.

It almost makes me think that the only way you can develop anything in Canada is to say, "Um, it's a mystery show." Because if you're not developing a mystery show, they want everything explained in, like, the first ten minutes. At least if some of the meetings I've been taking lately are any indication. Perhaps that's unfair. We'll see.

Contrast that with Rome, the new HBO series (which runs in Eastern Canada on TMN the Movie Network.) I was prepped to be disappointed by this show, and the first ep doesn't give you that frisson that your first glimpse of Deadwood, Sopranos, Six Feet did -- but it's got a lot going for it, especially its veddy British pedigree. I still think anyone has stones for trying to go up against I Claudius, but hey, it could be worse. Could be...Empire. (Sorry, Colm Feore. You still rule.)

I will definitely be watching Rome to see how they handle the history and characterization, but it's probably going to be on my viewing palate the same way Huff was: slow simmer, but never a boil. I can't imagine sweating missing an episode of Rome.

But Prison Break? No way. Fox has got my Monday night locked up, again. Even if it's just for those breathtaking first few minutes.

So I guess the TV season's underway. Everyone man your boats.

There are dark things that we all must admit about ourselves. Things that no one wants to fess up to. One of the reasons why I loved the movie Adaptation so much was because it showed, in all its excrutiating detail, just how sad writers are. Granted, the multiple scenes of masturbation were a bit much, but, you know, other than that: awesome.

If anything, for all that actors blather on about their method, and playing a "true" moment, the thing that I think distinguishes writers from civilians is that we will gleefully, even stubbornly, tell stories that make us look horrible, so long as the story is good. The story is more important than how we come off in the telling. If I get to the end of a story about what happened to me and someone says, "oh my God, you're a sick bastard. Please get away from me," that DOES NOT BOTHER ME AT ALL. What bothers me is if they YAWN while I'm telling the story.

In the spirit of this, and with the proviso that, yes, I know people in the area, and I know people who know people, and I hope everyone's okay -- I have to come clean and admit something right now.

I love Weather Porn.

You know what I'm talking about. The old Doppler Storm Track Nuclear Death Van Weather Plex 3000. The screaming local news promos that profess that their weather experts use not only the finest National Weather Service data, but Santeria and Baal Worship to bring you the latest developments in Mother Nature's Hella-Pissed campaign to eradicate each and every one of us from the surface of the planet we've so horribly despoiled. Maybe it's because one of my fondest memories of childhood is the two years I spent in Florida, where every night of the summer is Tornado night!

Some of my fondest memories involve contemplating death at the hands of the great crazy storm from the sky, or doing Tornado and Hurricane drills at recess. Last Christmas, I visited the Mater and Pater at their Florida retiro-digs and Dad and I waited for two hours to get on the Twister ride at Universal studios. When the cow went through the air, I nearly wept. I am a straight man in my thirties. I. Nearly. Wept. Oh Weather Porn, you complete me.

For a Weather Porn freak, there is no day quite like Hurricane Day. It's like Guy Fawkes Day and your birthday and the really good Christmasses when you were a kid all rolled into one.

I got up this morning -- early -- and over my coffee, I swooned as Anderson Cooper looked like he was going to burst into tears on CNN. He was all alone out there on a big bridge, and he was pointing out this crane that had just come loose on this barge, and "hey, gee, that's a crane swinging in hundred mile an hour winds, and um, should I really be standing here with that CRANE SWINGING AROUND LIKE THAT?" And his grey-hair's a flapping, and then they go to Mr. Unflappable, "I could have gone to Space if I wanted to" Miles O'Brien, and he chuckles just like Doc Hibberd on The Simpsons and points out that storms are funny things, "I'm only about three miles from Anderson right now," he says, looking around at the light winds mussing his hair ever-so-slightly and the rain just dusting the surface of his windbreaker. Meanwhile, they keep cutting back to Anderson who's freaking out on the Bridge because he can see this OTHER bridge, and there are TRACTOR TRAILERS just trying to cross it, and he's trying to find the words to say, "What kind of %$%#$@ moron are you, trying to cross a bridge in this weather?" And the whole time his feral little grey eyes are darting, darting, unconsciously toward the freely-swinging head of that %$@^$# CRANE THAT'S NOW TOTALLY LOOSE!

I thought I was gonna die.

I am a bad person. I know. It is a terrible tragedy. I will not take the opportunity to score cheap and sleazy points about how this has horrible connections to Peak Oil, and Global Warming, and all the other things that the Bush Administration doesn't believe exist. Like, um...Doppler Radar? Seriously, I think somewhere out there there's a Bushie just waiting til the dust settles to introduce the bold new discipline of "Intelligent Weathervanes." That's right. Do not trust the science people. Believe in the rooster on the roof.

The only thing I want to know, the only thing that would perhaps make me feel more comfortable in my sociopathy, is the knowledge that there are others out there who got up this morning, heard that the storm had moved east of the Crescent City and had been downgraded to Category 4 from 5, and were, just for a second -- a little disappointed.

No. Nobody?

Okay, maybe it's just me, then.

So for the last little while, I've been posting here and there on the subject of Charlie Jade at the Space boards. Space is the Canadian broadcaster for Charlie Jade, and the first station in the world to show the show.

What was great was watching as the series slowly did build a dedicated fanbase. Since I've only ever really been a freelancer on shows, I always felt disconnected from the process a bit. But this was a show that I helped shape, and now I was putting my head in the lion's jaws by interacting directly with the people who were watching it.

It's been a draw, mostly. It's a funny thing, because a lot of the time people ask for clarification. And Charlie Jade is a show that needs some serious clarification every once in a while. But what I found myself struggling with as I trundled along: at what point does clarifying a line of dialogue or "letting people know how things work or how things came to be" step over into denying the purity of the viewing experience?

I used to find it mystifying that people like Spielberg didn't want to do commentaries. But now I get it. Or at least I'm starting to.

The best example of this as far as I'm concerned is how it relates to the world of symbolism.

There's this story that I love: once upon a time some journo-wag asked Hemingway about symbolism in his novels, and apparently old Papa, that magnificent bastard, just sighed and fixed a dagger-like stare and said, "well I suppose there must be symbols inmy books, because people keep finding them."

I remember all those crusty English classes in High School, where ossified teachers would drone on about the symbols in Hamlet, or T.S. Eliot or whatever, and I think maybe that's where symbolism acquired this nasty taste for me. It wasn't the symbolism itself, per se. I love decoding in my art, meanings or signifiers that make the experience richer for me. The problem is having some old coot stand up there and tell me that this means this, and that means that, and that's canon and now regurgitate it all in your essay books while I go to the staff room to have a smoke.

Simply put, the truly magic thing about symbolism for me is the fact that it's the place where the artist and the art meet the audience. Everyone is different, and art is supposed to be dynamic. Just as a joke or a line of dialogue or a scene resonates with one person and leaves another flat, so too is the very tricky world of decoding symbolism.

A show like Charlie Jade is rife with symbolism, to be sure. A lot of it is seeded in there by us writers. Some by the directors, some in post.

But the best symbols, for me, are the ones that the audience comes up with.

I love the fact that Charlie Jade, like the Prisoner, is one of those shows where, "could mean this, could mean that, could mean nothing."

That's why when I'm navigating those boards and someone gets a symbol that we threw in there, I might tip the hat and say, "you found it." And some people might come up with something that is entirely part of their thing, and not intended, and sometimes they ask, "was that intentional?"

And I say nothing. Because so what if it wasn't? Does that make it less valuable? The problem is that if you respond to the symbols you did put in, and are silent on the ones that you didn't, people are going to start thinking the ones you do respond to are the only valid symbols.

So maybe it's better not to talk about it at all.

In Lost in Translation, when Bill Murray whispers in Scarlett's ear, I've read all over the internet postings from people PROVING they know it was this, or that. When really, the truth is it doesn't matter. What did it say to YOU?

New writers, I find, are always very concerned that their EXACT meaning get across to the audience. They want every symbol, every nuance, to be what they intended. Not only is this foolish. (You're never going to get people to agree on what things meant,) but it loses the wonderful, beautiful possibility of the audience bringing meaning to something that goes far beyond whatever it was you intended.

So I think I have to shutup about the symbolism. Ah well.