The Triumphant Return of Short Takes – February 13, 2008

For all intents and purposes the WGA strike is over, so at last I'll have news to report that isn't strike related. But not this time.

Contract details: The actual terms of the contract are available online. Jonathon Handelman for The Huffington Post has a summation and evaluation of what it all means that's really quite interesting and points out wins and losses for the Guild. Here are some of the more interesting points:

• Jurisdiction on New Media: The Guild agreement will be in place for derivative New Media material – for example online material for shows seen on traditional media. For material produced exclusively for New Media Guild jurisdiction comes in once one of a number of budgetary ceilings are met ($15,000 per minute, $300,000 per program or $500,000 per series order). These seem high but are in line with what the Directors Guild of America agreed to. Compensation for derivative New Media is relatively low but more than they've been getting – in many cases that would be nothing. The high thresholds for New Media exclusive material combined with having the compensation for that be negotiable is a bigger problem.
  
• Residuals on New Media: If New Media productions are used on Traditional Media then residuals for television programs apply. New Media exclusive programs that run more than 13 weeks (for ad-supported streaming) or 26 weeks (user-paid downloading, for example iTunes), residuals will be paid.
  
• Residuals for New Media reuse of TV series and movies paid based on a percentage of Distributor's Gross rather than Producer's Gross – this is a very good thing since Distributors' Gross is higher than Producers' Gross and less subject to the sort of creative accounting that Hollywood is infamous for. This applies to Electronic Sell-Through (things like iTunes) and ad supported streaming. Here's where it becomes tricky. Compensation for ad supported streaming of TV is based on 26-week periods. In the first and second year of the contract the rate is fixed and would pay between $1300 and $1400 per year. In the third year of the contract the writers would be paid 2% of the Distributor's Gross, but the Distributor's Gross is capped at $40,000 for hour-long shows and $20,000 for half-hour shows per 26 week period, meaning that the maximum that writers can earn per episode is $1600 per year. Equally problematic is an initial window of 24 days for first season show, reduced to 17 days for other shows, in which residuals won't be paid. This is of course the period of greatest viewership of ad supported streaming material.
  
• Limited "Most Favoured Nation Status": If the Screen Actors Guild gets a better deal than what was negotiated with the Writers Guild in specific areas, the Writers will get that deal. Two things make this problematic. First the specific areas are the New Media provisions of the contract – if SAG improves its provisions on DVD residuals, which they will be focussing on, the writers don't benefit from that. Second, this was a handshake agreement and not written down.
  

On the whole it doesn't seem to be a terrible deal, and it does seem to mark a step back by AMPTP in some areas, particularly Distributor's Gross. There is a school of thought that says that a good labour deal is one in which no one is particularly happy. In that case this is probably a good deal. I just wonder if some of the provisions – the high ceilings on new media to grant WGA jurisdiction, the long initial window on ad supported streaming, and the cap on the amount of Distributor's Gross, will make this a better deal for the Producers than the writers. I'm also left to wonder if the Writers will be willing to "go to the mattresses" (a wonderful phrase from writer Mario Puzo in The Godfather) again in three years to improve on this deal. Time alone will tell.

Backdoor cancellations and renewals:
Michael Ausiello has produced a mostly comprehensive list of shows and when we'll be seeing new episodes, if ever. Now I don't vouch for the complete accuracy of Ausiello's list simply because I don't know if the networks – which of course have final say on everything related to the renewal of shows – have come up with it, but there is some interesting stuff here. The list of shows can basically be split into four groups: shows where new episodes will be shot for this season; shows which won't have new episodes until next fall; shows whose status is "to be determined" which I assume means that they'll either make new episodes for this season or hold it over till next fall; and shows described as "No new episodes expected. Ever." That's cancellation to you and me. In addition to Ausiello's list I've added some more shows from other sources So here is the status of the shows as I write this (apparently this literally changes hour to hour for the TBD shows and presumably shows he doesn't have listed):

• New episodes for this season:
  30 Rock, Back To You, Big Bang Theory, Boston Legal, Brothers & Sisters, Cold Case, Criminal Minds, CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI New York, Desperate Housewives, ER, The Game, Ghost Whisperer, Gossip Girl, Grey's Anatomy, House, How I Met Your Mother, Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,
  Lost, Medium, Moonlight, My Name Is Earl, NCIS, Numb3rs, The Office, One Tree Hill, Reaper, Rules Of Engagement, Samantha Who?, Saturday Night Live, Shark, Smallville, Supernatural, Two And A Half Men, Ugly Betty, Without A Trace.
  
• No new episode until the Fall:
  24 (January 2009 actually), Aliens In America, Chuck, Dirty Sexy Money, Everybody Hates Chris (they shot the complete season before the strike), Heroes, Life, Men In Trees, New Adventures Of Old Christine, Pushing Daisies.
  
• To Be Determined:
  Bones (unclear whether additional episodes will be produced for this season), Cane (No new episodes this season, future beyond this season TBD), Friday Night Lights (no new episodes this season, future beyond this season TBD), Las Vegas (Ausiello says no new episodes for this season but the San Jose Mercury-News says "Has probably rolled the dice for the last time.", October Road (future beyond the existing pre-strike episodes uncertain), Prison Break (future beyond the existing pre-strike episodes uncertain), Private Practice (Slim chance that it could return with 4 or 5 new episodes this season but will be back in the Fall for sure), Scrubs ("Four pre-strike episodes remain. Four additional episodes will likely be shot; unclear whether they'll air on NBC or go straight to DVD"), Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (future beyond the existing pre-strike episodes uncertain), The Unit (No new episodes this season, future beyond this season TBD), Women's Murder Club (no new episodes this season, future beyond this season TBD).
  
• No new episodes expected. Ever. (aka cancelled): Big Shots, Bionic Woman, Carpoolers, Cavemen, Girlfriends (No additional episodes expected, although a special one-hour series finale is being discussed – this was planned),
  Journeyman, K-Ville, Life Is Wild.
  

No huge surprises on the cancelled list, well perhaps with the exception of Journeyman. Life Is Wild was a good family show of the sort that people like the PTC say the public is clamouring for to counteract all the sex and violence on TV but the ratings weren't just in the toilet, they were swirling after being flushed. It was rare when the show managed a million viewers. Me, I blame The CW's programmers for putting it up against everyone else's family friendly programs, like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, The Amazing Race, and Sunday Night Football.

According to MediaWeek, "Viewers can expect to see ABC bring back new episodes of its highest-rated, veteran scripted shows this spring, but not its three, already renewed freshman Wednesday night shows that won't be back until the fall, or its average-rated series for which a decision has yet been made for next season." The article adds, "Boding well for the return of the fence-sitting scripted shows on ABC [Men in Trees, Boston Legal, October Road, Women's Murder Club, Cashmere Mafia, Eli Stone] and the other broadcast networks, however, is that it is questionable about how many new scripted shows can be developed and ready for the fall, unless the official start of the season is delayed. This may result in front-end 13 episode orders for some series that normally might not have strong enough ratings to return."

NBC wants to change the TV world: The rest of this post is going to be about NBC, a network that has spent the strike period aggravating my colon, and with a colon like mine aggravation is the last thing I want. It would be nice to say that what has been aggravating me has all spewed from the mouth of Jeff Zucker, and to be fair a lot of it has. First off, back in late January Jeff Zucker announced that NBC wasn't going to do upfronts for the 2008-09 season. According to Zucker they wouldn't hold the big announcement event at Radio City, but would use the time "sell the inventory." According to an article in Variety Zucker told The Financial Times, "Things like that are all vestiges of an era that's gone by and won't return." He also stated in another interview with Reuters that, "When people say the upfront, there are two things: One is the dog-and-pony show at Radio City and the second is the way we sell the inventory. The way that we sell the inventory in an upfront selling period is not going to change. Whether we still need to do the dog-and-pony show is completely under review here and you can look for an announcement on that from us very soon." In his Financial Times interview he made this broad statement: "I think there were a tremendous number of inefficiencies in Hollywood and it often takes a seismic event to change them, and I think that's what's happened here," adding that "the development process will change forever."

The next day Zucker announced that NBC would no longer make pilots for new shows. Well to be exact he said there'd be one or two new shows a year that might have a pilot made for them but for the most part shows would be selected in some other manner. Of course he didn't make it clear how the new shows would be picked. Speaking to the New York Times Zucker stated offered a couple of reasons; NBC's own financial status (Zucker: "Sometimes you see the world from a different perspective when you're flat on your back. At NBC Entertainment we've been flat on our backs for the last few years.") and the developing U.S. recession. One point that Zucker made that is very valid is that pilots often have nothing to do with the program that will actually be seen. The money is going into the pilots rather than the shows themselves. In the past couple of years we've seen this with shows like Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip and this year with Bionic Woman which had a stunning pilot which the show didn't live up to. But what replaces the pilot process as a means of selecting what new shows will air? Do you submit story summaries and sample scripts? Do you shoot some sample scenes? And how do you sell shows to advertisers when you don't actually have something real (or on a reel) to show them?

Finally, at the NATPE meeting at the end of January, Zucker stated in a speech that "Broadcasters can no longer spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year on pilots that don't see the light of day or on upfront presentations or on deals that don't pay off. And we can't ignore international opportunities, VOD (video-on-demand) or the Web." He added, "It's not about making less programs; it's about making less waste." The model he looks towards, in a way, is reality shows. According to the Reuters article, "NBC will order fewer pilots and start ordering more projects straight to series – 'those that our executives really believe in' – similar to the model for reality shows," although this apparently does not mean that NBC will be out of the scripted program business. It may mean an end – at NBC at least to the traditional September to May programming season, as NBC moves to a year round schedule. The Reuters article stated that Zucker, "admitted that the Peacock will be 'on its own' doing this at first but said its success would be followed by other networks."

Frankly I cringe more than a little when I read things like this coming from Jeff Zucker. Many of NBC's woes are in fact a result of decisions made by Jeff Zucker. If NBC has in fact "been flat on our backs for the last few years," then Zucker can see the person responsible when he looks in his mirror every day. Zucker's decision making process has seen the network throwing money at successful high profile programs (Friends, Frasier) while not developing solid new shows that would eventually take the place of the high profile shows, so that when Friends eventually ended there wasn't an established show to take its place, there was Joey, a show based on the rather dubious premises that people wanted to see one of the characters from a successful ensemble show without the rest of the ensemble.

According to Reuters, Zucker pointed out that "NBC Universal's cable network USA ordered five pilots during the past two years, four of which made it to series and two of which became the top-rated new cable shows of 2006 (Psych) and 2007 (Burn Notice). Yet none of the new scripted series that have debuted on the broadcast networks so far this season can be considered successful, and only two in the previous season – NBC's Heroes and ABC's Brother & Sisters – were hits." The problem is that he doesn't offer any explanation as to why those cable shows were hits or why the company chose the shows it did to have pilots made. The answer would seem to be based on who is selecting the shows to be made into series at USA, but it could just as easily be the nature of cable programming which tends to have shorter runs but a fixed number of episode because cable programming doesn't seem to be as ratings dependent, or be overseen by executives ready to pull the plug at the first sign of a weak rating.

So when Zucker says something like, "things like that are all vestiges of an era that's gone by and won't return," (referring to the upfronts) he would seem to lack a degree of credibility since he in part is one of the people responsible for making the process the way it is. And when Zucker says this: "This system has been around for 20, 30, 40 years and needs to evolve. We're willing to make chances and learn from our mistakes as we go," you have to wonder whether – based on his track record – he's being a genius or a bum. He may be right in that the whole system could probably use an overhaul to make it less costly and more efficient and effective. The real question is whether what Zucker is proposing is the right direction to take whether it is too much of a revolution and not enough of an evolution.

Silverman not hopeful about Friday Night Lights: Or it may be that he just doesn't like Friday Night Lights no matter what he says. Asked about the show by Radaronline he first told the interviewer to watch 30 Rock because it, and not Friday Night Lights was the best show on television. When the interviewer pressed him on it, Silverman said this: "I love it. You love it. Unfortunately, no one watches it. That's the thing with shows. People have to watch them. We're NBC, we have a reputation to uphold. And, man, with this writers' strike ... well, we'll see what we can do. But start watching 30 Rock." Silverman is right at least in part (and no, it's not the part about 30 Rock being the best show on TV). Ratings for Friday Night Lights have been less than spectacular. Part of that can be blamed on putting the show on Friday nights when high school football fans are off watching high school football or other high school sports. And, as I've said enough times about Arrested Development the networks are businesses and can't keep shows on the air that don't draw an audience. Still there is something about his attitude, embodied both by his demand that we "start watching 30 Rock," and by his statement that "we're NBC, we have a reputation to uphold," that makes me really uncomfortable about this guy and his motives. Currently, when you speak of NBC's "reputation" what you're really speaking about is a string of low ratings finishes as a network and an inability to find audiences for many of its shows. Before that – and I suppose I really mean before Jeff Zucker started his reign as head of entertainment programming which led to bigger and better things (for him anyway) – well that part really doesn't matter. I suspect that part of the problem is that Friday Night Lights is a legacy of the previous Kevin Reilly regime at the network, a show which Silverman wouldn't have put on the air in the first place and if he had had his choice would never have renewed for a second season. 30 Rock is another legacy of the Reilly era, but the difference is that

I am not entirely convinced by the way that renewing the series for the second season was a good idea, but that attitude is prejudiced by what I know about the second season and most importantly about the impact the strike has had on the show. If the series had ended at the end of the first season we, the viewers, would have at least had a sense of completion – the Panthers had won the State Championship, Matt and Julie were dating, Riggins's relationships were a mess, Tami was pregnant, Eric had his dream job, and so on. If the series is cancelled at the end of this season, given NBC's statement that they will not be making more episodes this season despite the end of the Writers strike, we are robbed of this sense of closure.

Dumb lawsuit Hollywood style: This one comes from Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily. It was initially reported that NBC would be suing the Writers Guild of America over the cancellation of the Golden Globe Awards Show which was to air on NBC but this has subsequently been amended when it was discovered that Jeff Zucker told the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Dick Clark Productions that the network would not be joining in their legal action. NBC cancelled the show when it became clear that the WGA would picket any event and that the Screen Actors Guild would honour the WGA picket lines. Initially the HFPA and Dick Clark Productions considered suing NBC over the cancellation but then opted to sue the WGA and asked NBC if they would be interested in joining the suit. There does seem to be a question of exactly when he said no – NBC says it was when they were initially approached but other sources say that it actually occurred after Frinke's initial report which included a bit of rather scathing editorializing about Zucker ("I say that if this happens then the WGA should countersue the NBC Universal midget for impersonating a mogul (and the HFPA for impersonating a legitimate news organization)."). No matter who is initiating the suit, it has to be one of the dumbest things ever. Dick Clark Productions was an organization that was legally being struck by the Writers Guild and even an event as traditionally loosely structured as the Golden Globes requires writers. The cancellation of this event and the threatened cancellation of the Academy Awards are the two vital pieces of leverage that brought AMPTP to the bargaining table. I'm not a lawyer but this suit sounds like it doesn't have a leg to stand on. Then again, given the state of the legal system in the United States, who knows.

Who does the PTC Hate This Week – February 8, 2008

For those of you who are interested my mother's recovery from her surgery hit a few bumps but she appears to be over them now. She was in the Intensive Care Unit a couple of days longer than we – and she – hoped and then was moved to the Special Care Unit, which quite frankly was nowhere near as nice as the ICU (and the nurses as a group were nowhere near as attractive) She'll probably be moved to a semi-private room by on Thursday.

Let's turn our attention to the Parents Television Council. The PTC is extremely upset by the prospect of the Showtime series Dexter being repurposed to run on CBS starting on Sunday night. In an article titled "PTC to CBS: Do Not Air Dexter on Broadcast TV" the Council demands that CBS cancel plans to run the show about a serial killer who kills other killers and promises the wrath of all American parents if the show runs. Literally. According to PTC President Tim Winter, "Dexter introduces audiences to the depths of depravity and indifference as it chronicles the main character's troubled quest for vigilante justice by celebrating graphic, premeditated murder." He also stated (boldface mine), "We are putting CBS, its affiliates, and every potential sponsor of Dexter on notice: Parents will not tolerate this type of disturbing content on the public airwaves. We are asking our members, our grassroots chapters and other concerned citizens across America to contact their local affiliates and ask them to reconsider their plan to air this show. CBS needs to realize that this disturbing program is wholly inappropriate for the broadcast medium." Winter quotes – or rather cites in much the same way that I do – a statement by CBS Chairman Les Moonves in which he "acknowledges the devastating impact of violent media on children," and said, "Anyone who thinks the media has nothing to do with this [the bloodshed at Columbine] is an idiot." Winter then asks, "why are you contributing to this culture of violence by airing Dexter?" The PTC statement concludes by stating that, "The PTC has documented a pattern of adult-themed content migrating from premium cable to syndication on broadcast TV; and we are seeing a migration of graphic broadcast TV content from the 10 pm hour to earlier and earlier times of the day. But Dexter is undoubtedly the worst example of this disturbing trend. This is the first time that such a graphic program has gone from premium cable straight to primetime broadcast television. While parental responsibility is always the key component of a family's healthy media diet, CBS must grasp the magnitude of the harmful role it will be playing by airing such a violent and disturbing program on its broadcast network."

Before we get into the bits of the PTC statement that I've quoted, I'd like to address something that actually appeared in the press release though it was not in the part that I've excerpted here. It is in fact something that the PTC mentions each time the show is discussed or even mentions the show without naming it. It is the description of the lead character as a "hero" or the "hero" of the show. My preference here is for the word protagonist. Dexter is by no stretch of the definition of the word a hero. On the other hand he is the protagonist because the stories are told from his perspective. We don't really sympathise with him. We may on the other hand empathise with him because of the way in which he has been shaped by outside forces. In this the question you truly have to ask is what makes Dexter the character any worse than Charles Bronson's character in the Death Wish movies, or Jodie Foster's character in The Brave One. Maybe it's just a question of degrees in that the other two serial killers (which by strict definition they were) gunned their victims down while Dexter's murders are more personal. And perhaps the fact that Dexter isn't motivated (initially at least) by a desire for vengeance but rather by the character's deceased adoptive father who has turned him into an instrument of justice for those whom the justice system has failed.

Let's take the PTC statement apart for a moment. Winter states that the show, "introduces audiences to the depths of depravity and indifference," and is guilty of "introduces audiences to the depths of depravity and indifference." To emphasise this point the describe his method of killing: "He always uses the same procedures, injecting them with tranquilizers, after which they wake up naked and bound to a table with plastic wrap. Dexter always slices his victim's cheek with a scalpel, and keeps drops of their blood on glass slides as souvenirs. He always explains why he's killing them, in one case forcing his victim to look at the bodies of his own victims by threatening to cut off the man's eyelids. Frequently Dexter stabs his victims before dismembering them. Sometimes he dismembers them while still alive." That does sound pretty gruesome but of course we don't actually know if that is what we'll see on Sunday night because we know that CBS will be editing the show for content as well as to fit within the constraints of broadcast television – in other words commercial breaks. We don't know the details and, more to the point, neither does the PTC. But of course to the PTC what the actual content of the broadcast version of the show is really doesn't matter; they've been protesting the translation of Sex And The City and The Sopranos to basic cable since the moment it was announced that those shows would be shown on basic cable, and the considerable amount of censorship that was needed to bring those shows to that level doesn't matter.

The quote from Les Moonves is quoted out of context. We know this because the PTC included a link in their press release. In fact the article referred to a specific issue, the 1999 decision not to go ahead with a TV version of Donnie Brasco. Here is a fuller quote from the article: "CBS Television president Les Moonves told ad buyers and affiliate representatives in New York that the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, CO last month had provoked a reassessment. 'It's not the right time to have people being whacked on the streets of New York,' he said. While Moonves said that it was not fair to blame the media for what occurred at Littleton, 'anyone who thinks the media has nothing to do with this is an idiot.' He said that when he watched the pilot for the show just days after the shootings, it seemed obvious to him that it could not go forward. 'You cringe not just as a programmer,' Moonves said, 'you just cringe.'" That's not exactly the same as acknowledging "devastating impact of violent media on children." It seems very specific to the Columbine shootings, and the fact is that since the shootings we have learned a lot about both the specific influences on the shooters and the general influences on various schools shooters. The media seems to have comparatively little influence, far less for example than the sense that they are being bullied and need to lash out at their persecutors.

Bearing in mind that CBS is taking considerable care in editing Dexter for broadcast television and will be showing the series at 10 p.m. Eastern, a time when children can be reasonably be expected not to be watching, the PTC's attitude seems more focussed on protecting adults from themselves. Or maybe they are just focussed on the precedent that this will presumably set. The problem for me is that I don't know what precedent this does set, but like Groucho Marx in Duck Soup, whatever it is they're against it.

The Broadcast Worst of the Week returns to an old PTC favourite with an attack on a recent episode of Las Vegas. There are two major plot lines in this episode that the PTC objects to. The first involves a character known as "The Cleaner." He cleans the clothes of married "whales" who visit strip clubs and other places where they shouldn't go. The Cleaner wants to retire, particularly after he is flooded with new clients thanks to a couple of Sam's clients who tell their friends about his service. He says that his grandson is the only person who can really succeed him but the young man is working for a women's rights group to "atone" for his family's line of work. He is eventually persuaded to join his grandfather in the family business, and even develops a new market – women who go to shows like "Thunder Down Under" and get a little naughty. It's a fun storyline and despite what the PTC may believe, not the major story of the episode. Here's what the PTC says about it though: "The January 25^th episode of Las Vegas glorified strippers, and treated as comic fodder unfaithful spouses deceiving their partners and makes a mockery of marital vows." They also objected to a scene at the start of the episode where Sam gets together with her clients at the strip club: "The show opens with an extended sequence in a strip club. One stripper is shown completely topless from the front, with only tasseled pasties covering her nipples. (This was the third instance in two weeks of tasseled pasties being shown on NBC during prime-time programming.) As the peepshow ends, casino hostess Sam offers to help some of the strip club's patrons with a problem. The men have spent the evening with strippers and are afraid their wives will find out due to the state of their clothing." There are a few things to note here. Based on the clip that the PTC provides, it is difficult to tell for sure whether the stripper who is "shown completely topless from the front, with only tasseled pasties covering her nipples" actually is as topless as they claim. They also forget to mention that one of the examples of "tasseled pasties" being shown was when Danny was wearing a pregnancy empathy belly and the pasties were added to the belly's "breasts" as a joke. But let's set that aside for being silly. Let's also set aside the fact that the strippers in this club were painfully overdressed for strippers at a Las Vegas strip club (most real "strippers" wear little more than a smile). No, it is the description of the men as "unfaithful spouses deceiving their partners." There's no evidence in the episode that the men were being unfaithful – that is having sex with someone other than their spouses – but rather were going out and having stupid fun that they didn't expect their wives to understand. That's what made the final scene in The Cleaner's story – where the women come in to have their clothes done – so funny, the wives of the men were out having their own stupid fun by watching male strippers. But apparently in PTC land looking is enough to render you "unfaithful."

The other storyline that the PTC objected to was in fact the main storyline of the episode. In this story Security Chief Mike Cannon and Concierge Piper Nielsen go to a bar to try to lure away a new bartender for the Montecito. Inevitably they get drunk. They also get married though they don't remember it. Let's let the PTC take it from here: "The two seek an immediate annulment as the staff of the casino laugh at them. At one point Mike wonders whether he should commit to Piper, but his best friend Danny quickly reminds him to look around at all the other beautiful women in the world, discouraging Mike's decent impulse to take responsibility for his actions. The show's twisted happy ending takes place at an annulment party Delinda throws for the happy ex-couple. Popular rapper Ne-Yo guest stars and sings at the party, ensuring that younger viewers will understand that it is cool to have your marriage annulled." I suppose this is the part of the episode that, to use the PTC's words, "makes a mockery of marital vows." I think it's an absolutely absurd position for the PTC to take. I wish I could say that it represented a new high in absurdity for the PTC but I don't think I can. There are a couple of things that the PTC might want to be reminded of. First, since I'm not a lawyer (nor have I played one on TV) I had to check Wikipedia to make sure that something I remembered reading about annulments was in fact correct; it was. One of the primary grounds for granting a legal annulment is if, "Either spouse was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the marriage." A drunken person is considered to be incapable of making a rational decision. The PTC's line, that an annulment under such circumstances is bad is incredible as is the statement about Mike taking responsibility for his actions. But what action is he supposed to be taking responsibility for? He got drunk, he got married, he had sex, and for this he should stay married "till death." Only the most irresponsible people would even consider something like that reasonable. But here's the bit that the PTC totally missed...Mike and Piper didn't get the annulment despite having sound legal grounds for one – they're still married.

Here's the PTC's conclusion on this episode of Las Vegas: "This episode of Las Vegas is yet another example of the entertainment industry's false depiction of reality, and demonstrates Hollywood's commitment to undermining our culture and desensitizing viewers to the most offensive and harmful of content. Stripping is not family entertainment. Infidelity is not without consequence. Marriage is not an insignificant action, to be entered into nonchalantly. Further showing the industry's contempt for its audience, this episode was rated TV-14 D, with no "S" descriptor, in spite of the graphic depiction of strippers and implied drunken intercourse." The demand for an "S" descriptor because of "implied drunken intercourse" (which consisted of Mike and Piper waking up discovering each other and that, under the sheets, they were naked combined with what to my mind was not a particularly graphic depiction of strippers is absurd. But their other assertions are equally absurd in part because they are true statements perverted by the PTC's bizarre attitude about this show. True, stripping is not "family entertainment" but there is a reasonable expectation that a show that airs at 10 p.m. Eastern and carries a TV-14 D rating is not being regarded as "family entertainment." Infidelity is not without consequence, but I don't see any sign at all of anyone in that episode being unfaithful to their spouses – watching strippers does not equal having sex in anyone's books except the PTC's. And Marriage is not an insignificant action, to be entered into nonchalantly but that is part of the reason why annulments exist as a centuries old legal recourse that even the Catholic Church recognises. The PTC is allowing their hatred of the series Las Vegas to impede on any good sense that they may possess.

There being no new Cable Worst of the Week again this week or a new Misrated, we next turn our attention to the PTC's TV Trends column. A couple of weeks ago the PTC skewered most of FOX's line up while stating that parents looking for "family friendly" shows (as defined by the PTC of course) "couldn't do better" than FOX's game shows. Now, they've come back to skewer at least one of those shows, or as they put it, "Leave it to Fox to tarnish its own silver lining." The show is Moment of Truth, hosted by Mark L. Wahlburg (not the actor and singer but the sometimes host of PBS's version of The Antiques Roadshow among other things), and the concept is fairly simple. Before the show the contestant is hooked up to a polygraph machine and asked a series of questions about themselves. In order to win money the player has to answer truthfully – or what the polygraph machine has determined is truth anyway. The thing is that the longer the person plays (and the more money they win) the more personal the questions become. Needless to say the PTC doesn't approve: "Before the episode is filmed, contestants are hooked up to a polygraph machine and asked 50 to 75 prying and prurient questions, along the lines of, "Have you ever made a sexy video and uploaded it to the Internet?" or "Do you think you'll still be married to your husband five years from now?" The questions become increasingly personal and embarrassing as the game progresses. Potentially, a contestant can win half a million dollars – if they continue to submit to the questioning. In an era when The Jerry Springer Show continues to garner an audience, it is perhaps not surprising that such a deeply offensive and inappropriate concept would attract a few viewers. Less easy to understand is why a network charged with using the publicly-owned airwaves 'in the public interest' would want to air a series designed to appeal only to an audience's crudest and basest instincts." We all know of course that when the PTC wants to express deep disapproval of a show or of the networks that run the shows they bring up the whole question of "using the publicly-owned airwaves 'in the public interest.'" It's like a mantra for them. In this case however they are invoking "in the public interest" not because of a perceived problem of obscenity or violence, but because they feel that the show is in bad taste; it's salacious and asks too many "sexually oriented" questions.

The PTC's objections to the show seem to be all over the place and I can't really put my finger on what they hate about the show. They cite a comment from American series' creator Howard Schultz who says "We won't ask any question that in any way, shape or form can harm a minor child under the age of 18," after which they cite the following as "some of the 'harmless' questions children in the viewing audience witnessed during The Moment of Truth's premiere broadcast":

• "As a football player, did you ever sneak a peek at another player's privates while taking a shower?"
  
• "Have you ever had sexual relations with someone the very same day you met them?"
  
• "Have you ever had a sexual fantasy while attending Mass?"
  
• "Have you ever padded your underwear to look more well-endowed?" (After the contestant answered "Yes," the camera zoomed directly into his crotch.)
  

I suppose that the PTC defines these questions as being "harmful" to children because of the vaguely sex related nature of the questions but in truth these are depressingly mild.

Then again, maybe the PTC is concerned with the show's focus on honesty, to the point where it might even be harmful. Here's what the article says about that: "Even those questions not overtly sexual in nature, far from opening a 'dialogue about telling the truth,' were clearly intended to be deeply hurtful. Contestant Ty was asked if he has delayed having children because he is not sure that Catia, his wife of two and a half years, would be his 'lifelong partner.' Upon Ty's truthful answer of 'yes,' Catia looked devastated. Creator Schultz has even admitted, 'There was a young man on the show and his girlfriend was sitting on the family and friends couch…On the drive home from the show, they broke up. And he has spent the last month and a half trying to get her back.' Apparently, the breakup of a relationship or marriage as a result of the program's questions could not possibly harm children." This is hardly solid logic, but it's about what I expect from the PTC.

The article makes a point of bringing up an incident in the Colombian run of the show (Colombia is one of about 24 countries the series is produced in, along with Britain and Brazil) to "prove" that there is potential for harm here: "The program's potential for harm became a fact in Colombia. There, a contestant on that country's version of The Moment of Truth confessed on the air that she had hired someone to kill her husband – and was rewarded with $25,000 as a result."

The article also makes a statement that I can't find any evidence of: "Tellingly, Darnell bought the concept for The Moment of Truth away from NBC, after that network decided not to produce a game show with so salacious (and potentially damaging) a concept. It says much that Fox is willing to purchase, produce and show a program that other networks refused for reasons of good taste, and which was actually pulled off TV in another country for hosting a would-be murderer." Now it is entirely possible that the show was offered to NBC and rejected; that sort of thing happens all the time of course and among the shows that were rejected by one network only to be picked up by others are CSI (most of the networks thought it overestimated the intelligence of the American public) and Survivor. I sincerely doubt however that the reason that the show was rejected was because it was "so salacious (and potentially damaging)," or for reasons of "good taste."

I will admit that I haven't watched more than a few seconds of The Moment of Truth and that was by accident. I don't watch "judge" shows (my mother is addicted) and I don't watch Jerry Springer or Maury Povitch (okay I watched Povitch last Friday but that was only because the other people in the ICU waiting room had it on while my brother and I were waiting to get in to see my mother after her surgery). But what is it that sets those shows apart from The Moment of Truth? Is it because those shows don't visibly at least reward their participants for appearing? Is it because this show is set up as a game show? Is it because this show is on in primetime? Or is it because this show is on a major broadcast network? I think it is a combination of these things that allows the PTC to summon up its boundless supply of righteous indignation and cloak their distaste for the material in a claim that the show is "harmful to children." I didn't like the few seconds of the show that I saw, but I won't say that it is for any reason other than the fact that it is boring and frankly down-market TV. But given that Springer and Povitch have made fortunes and have been doing their shows for years, there is obviously a market for this kind of thing and while I hate that there is a market for it, I can't fault FOX for trying to trying to tap into it. I just hope that it will be swept from the air by quality scripted programming once the Writers Guild strike ends.

By the way: the PTC winds up their article with an edited quote from New York Time reviewer Alessandra Stanley. I was going to show you what they omitted to make their point but as it turns out the PTC didn't cut a sentence or two, they cut four whole paragraphs! Read Stanley's article and see if the missing material changes what she wrote "Fox is renowned for callous programming. It was the network that put forth Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire? and Temptation Island. But unfortunately, this new series is not quite as innocently ill- intentioned…Ordinarily contestants stand to lose their winnings. Losers on The Moment of Truth don't go home merely empty-handed; they could return to a home filled with hate."

Captain's Not So Courageous...Or Funny

I had a sense of déjà vu watching Welcome To The Captain on Monday, but it's a sense that most viewers who aren't Canadian won't have. People who have seen the CTV series Robson Arms will understand what I'm talking about. For the rest of you – the majority I'm sure – the show will seem vaguely innovative but on the whole not particularly brilliant, and arguably not that great. Of course that's just based on seeing the first episode.

The Captain is the nickname for the El Capitan, a sort of aging glamour queen of an apartment building in Hollywood – beautiful and even stately on the outside but somewhat down on its heels on the inside. Josh Flum (Fran Kranz) is our entry into the world of The Captain and its eccentric inhabitants. Josh wrote and directed an Oscar winning short film five years ago but hasn't done much since. He's been working on a script but when his girlfriend left him he decided to move back to New York. Or at least he was planning to until his sleazy best friend and business manager Marty Tanner (Chris Klein) persuaded him to move into The Captain where Marty himself lives with his girlfriend. Once he decides to take the apartment (the previous tenant died) he meets Saul Fish, the first of the diverse group of residents, and Jesus, the building's doorman (actually I'm not sure exactly what Jesus is supposed to be as you'll see). Saul – who prefers that people call him "Uncle Saul" – is a long-time resident of The Captain. He wrote 79 episodes of a little show called Three's Company which I guess is supposed to be something of an in joke since Saul – sorry, Uncle Saul – is played by Jeffrey Tambor who was not only a frequent guest star on Three's Company but also one of the stars of the spin-off The Ropers. Quite obviously Uncle Saul is living quite well on his residual checks because he doesn't claim to have any credits beyond them. Jesus, played by Al Madrigal (who I have never heard of before this show) is supposedly the building's go-to guy; Uncle Saul tells Josh that if there's anything he needs, go to Jesus. On the whole though Jesus isn't particularly helpful – when Josh asks for some help with some boxes, Jesus says "No." On the other hand he does know everything about everyone in the building which might be good if it weren't for the fact that he will tell anyone everything about everyone in the building – he can't keep his mouth shut.

At a party that Marty claims is being thrown in honour of the new tenant but is in fact being thrown for the building manager, who just got out of hospital, who just got back after surgery, Josh meets the rest of the tenants in the building. There's aspiring young actress Astrid (Valerie Azlynn), who Marty claims is "perfect" for Josh. She is desperate to get Josh to help her study and get parts, in fact just about anything his Oscar prestige (which is minimal for a short film Oscar of course) can get her. Then there's Marty's girlfriend for now, Claire (Abigail Spencer). Next up is Charlene Van Ness (Raquel Welch), the building's resident cougar. Uncle Saul is clearly in lust for her – he says that she has an ass like a "buttery chardonnay – but Charlene's taste are for the younger things in life. Finally, as he makes a speech at what he still thinks is his party, Josh literally sees Hope across a crowded room. Hope (Joanna Garcia) is studying to be an acupuncturist. In fact she's just finished her certification exam. Josh arranges for a treatment for his sciatica at her apartment. Actually it's her brother's apartment, and is filled with "monster heads" – he designs creatures for the movies and is currently working in New Zealand. Hope is great, totally unaffected when Josh has a sudden erection during the treatment ("sets up a pup tent" as she puts it) and Josh is sure that he's found marriage material. The only thing is that as soon as she's certified as an acupuncturist, Hope is heading for New York. Impetuously Josh tells her he's going back to New York too.

Josh goes back to his apartment to find a note from Charlene, asking him to stop by her apartment. She tells him that she's got a "great" idea for an erotic story that she'd like him to write and that she's star in of course. It's really a ruse to get him into her apartment for a night of sex, as anyone but a complete moron would know as soon as he got the note. Josh emerges in the morning, exhausted, under the watchful gaze of Jesus and Uncle Saul who not appreciatively and mention that Jonathon Silverman – "he starred in Weekend at Bernie's" had spent his first night "in the 'House of Charlene' too." And pretty soon everyone else in the building knows including Hope. This makes Josh even more determined to go back to New York. He backs out of his lease with the building manager but when Hope returns that evening she tells him that she failed her certification (she left a needle in her instructor's buttocks – he discovered it while showering) and will be staying at The Captain, he makes a huge effort to stay. It's only after he's back in the place that Hope mentions that she has a boyfriend.

Earlier I mentioned the Canadian series Robson Arms as being similar to Welcome To The Captain. Both series tell the stories of an aging, once fashionable, apartment building with nosy Super (or whatever Jesus is). That's where the basic similarity stops though, and it's where – to me at least – Welcome To The Captain falls flat. Robson Arms is in its essence an anthology series that is frequently at least a dark comedy if not a dramedy. Each week different tenants in the building were featured. The only constant was the Super, Yuri, and even he isn't featured in most episodes. The sense I get from Welcome to the Captain is that they will consistently focus on the main characters of Uncle Saul, Jesus, Josh and Hope, with other cast members showing up as needed for support. And that's a shame because I don't find most of these characters to be at all engaging. Josh is essentially a straight man around whom the funny, eccentric characters revolve but while I find them eccentric I really don't find them to that funny. I've been a fan of Joanna Garcia since she was on Reba and her character seems to be one of the more down to earth among the characters on the show. Jeffrey Tambor's character of Uncle Saul is well beyond his character in last year's dismal Twenty Good Years but that's not saying a lot. It is light years behind such characters of George Bluth Sr. in Arrested Development (or so they tell me) or Hank Kingsley in The Larry Sanders Show to the point where you have to wonder whether he took this role (and the Twenty Good Years part before that) just to cash a pay cheque. Al Madrigal as Jesus is apparently supposed to be funny but so far I just don't see it. From what we've seen Raquel Welch is playing the woman a generation of us all hoped (prayed) she'd be like if we ever met her (horny, aggressive, promiscuous, and into "teaching" younger guys) even though in our heart of hearts we knew she wasn't. The problem is that she isn't so much playing a character as she is a caricature.

The script was nothing to write home about (you should pardon the expression). It felt flat and not funny at all, which is a bit of a problem in a comedy. Maybe – hopefully – it gets better and there is certainly a faction that says that "it must get better because it can't get worse...can it?" The show is quite deliberately airing without a laugh track and in a lot of cases that is a good decision. I don't think this is one of them. There didn't seem to be one unprompted laugh in this thing. The episode was alternately cringe-worthy and embarrassing. The sole exception in my view was the relationship between Josh and Hope but they weren't funny so much as sweet. As I mentioned with Robson Arms this would probably have worked as an episode – or a recurring storyline – within an anthology series, but here the relationship is the central plot point around which the entire series is built and I just don't think it is strong enough.

In most seasons even CBS would dump this unfunny mess fast. This isn't a normal year though; it is the year of the Writers Strike. The Writers Strike has in many ways given viewers what they've wanted – or said they've wanted – for quite some time; the opportunity to have time to settle into a series and decide over more than a couple of episodes before the network drops it like a hot potato. This hasn't been a bad thing although it also hasn't helped to build an audience for most new shows running against established hits. The networks have only pulled one series (Laughlin) before all of the episodes of that series have run. In many cases the result has been that shows have been kept alive long after they deserved to be around. Despite a couple of heavyweights in the cast Welcome To The Captain will, in my opinion be one of those shows that will stay alive because of the strike. I don't think it will be back after the strike and certainly not next season – regardless of when or how the strike is settled. I won't be disappointed because this show is ... well it's bad and I don't think time can save it.

Dagwood Bumstead – Critic?

I probably should have put up a review of Eli Stone yesterday but I was more than a little distracted by stuff going on in my personal life. My mother went into hospital on Friday for an operation to deal with an abdominal aneurysm. The operation was successful and my mother is recuperating but she's had a bit of a setback due to an irregular heartbeat. As you can probably imagine Thursday and Friday were pretty stressful for me and my brother and it hasn't gotten much better. TV takes a back seat and that's only right. In other words while I taped Eli Stone I haven't watched it.

When I saw the following Blondie comic strip I thought I'd be able to write something but I just ahven't been able to find the right words except to say that Dagwood is wrong about TV in general and TV characters in particular being better in the 1950s than they are today.

Who Does The PTC Hate This Week – January 30, 2008

I think I've already blown some of the surprise on this already with my post on the FCC fine of NYPD Blue but as usual there is plenty of evidence to prove that the PTC's collective elevators don't go all the way to the top. By the way, I didn't much like the way last week's layout went so I think I'll go back to what I was doing before.

The big news at the PTC website is of course the FCC fine for Charlotte Ross's bottom on the 2003 episode of NYPD Blue. The PTC seems to be at risk of breaking their writing arms while patting themselves on the back with all the credit they are taking for this event, even as most North American males are prepared to take up a collection for ABC to help pay the fine – most of us would agree that Charlotte Ross's ass was worth it! This is from the statement issued by PTC president Tim Winter: "We are thankful that the FCC has finally taken a stand for children and families with this unanimous order. The delay in getting here has been frustrating, but we are delighted by the decision. PTC members and concerned citizens across the country spoke out against the nudity in the 2003 episode of NYPD Blue and today their pleas have been answered." Can I have an Amen? The language does have some of that quality after all, particularly that business of "their pleas have been answered." But of course America is not yet delivered from evil so long as the Godless networks actually delude themselves by thinking that they have the right to appeal. But right is on the PTC's side: "Despite the TV networks' scurrilous lawsuits claiming a 'right' to air profanity, and that a striptease in the middle of the Super Bowl was somehow not indecent, this order should serve as a reminder to every broadcaster and every network that they must use the public airwaves responsibly and in a manner which serves the public interest." But then the PTC calls on the spirit of Walt Disney (!) to make ABC see the light (emphasis in this is entirely mine): "Unfortunately, the networks have demonstrated a pattern of avoiding any accountability after airing indecent content. We hope that ABC will honor the namesake of its corporate parent and step up to the plate, pay its fine and accept full responsibility for its actions." But of course that's not enough. Like all good social conservatives who decry the intervention of government into peoples' lives – until it is something they want of course – the PTC calls on big daddy government to keep this from ever recurring: "We also call on Congress and the courts to listen to the people rather than the mega media conglomerate lobbyists and defend the authority of the FCC to protect the public airwaves from those who would abuse their privilege to use them."

Where to start on this? How about with the assertion about lawsuits? The PTC consistently insists that the appeal in the "fleeting obscenities" case that overturned the FCC decision on the airing of obscenities during awards shows and sporting events – in other words live unscripted situations where a person might say something that they'd normally say if they weren't on camera – somehow gives license to writers, producers and actors to use such language in any circumstance. As has been show repeatedly this far from the truth; indeed some PTC press releases (I'm thinking of some of their "Worst of the Week" pieces mainly) have included more uses of the "F" and "S" words than have been heard on broadcast TV since the fleeting obscenity decision was released by the Second Circuit. I am not familiar with the details of the CBS appeal on the Janet Jackson incident but I have to assume that the network's logic is similar; that this was a live broadcast and that no one at the network had any idea that Jackson's nipple would be exposed and that as soon as they were aware that her nipple was in fact visible the network "cut to an aerial view of the stadium, but was unable to do so before the picture was sent to millions of viewers' televisions." (That was from Wikipedia.) The fact is of course that both of the FCC's decisions, in the fleeting obscenities case and the NYPD Blue nudity case are clearly attempts by the FCC to make new broadcast regulations, breaking with decades of precedent about acceptable standards without consultation or a basis in law. And even if there was a law, as the PTC consistently demands from Congress, it is uncertain whether such a law would pass Constitutional muster. I suppose that if the courts found such a law to be unconstitutional the PTC would call for a Constitutional amendment to make it "right."

In his Maclean's Magazine blog, Jaime Weinman writes (far better than I can) about this matter:

I think one reason for the weaknesses of today's network TV is the post-Janet-Jackson fear of FCC fines, which has wiped out most of the new freedom that network shows started to attain in the '90s. (You'll often hear writers for The Simpsons pointing out nostalgically that in the '90s, they had total freedom to show Homer's bare buttocks; now, not so much.) It may seem counter-intuitive that taking away these freedoms could make shows worse, since network television didn't suffer in quality before they were free to show more skin. But while shows don't necessarily get better when they have less censorship, a reversal of relaxed censorship – which is what has happened in the last few years – does seem to cause creative problems. If network TV producers know what they are and aren't allowed to do under current levels of censorship, they can work around that. But now we have a situation where nobody knows what they will or won't get fined for, and producers find themselves in the position of being told they can't do things that were OK five years ago. That creates confusion, resentment and wasted time, none of which are elements of good television as we commonly understand it.

It is a fact. There are frankly amazing stories about Desperate Housewives producer Marc Cherry being forced spend an absurd amount of money to electronically "fuzz" the erect nipples of at least two of his actresses who prefer to work bra-less, or at least with minimal protection "up there." Why? Because he isn't whether that sort of thing will be acceptable to network standards and practices, and if it is whether it would then be acceptable to either the protests groups or the FCC. It's absurd, particularly when you remember a show like Three's Company, thirty years ago, where nipples were quite visible (interestingly it wasn't "sexpot" Suzanne Somers who had that wardrobe situation but rather Joyce DeWitt who was "perky"). Now I'm not insinuating that Three's Company was great TV, but what I am stating outright is that when they were doing the show the producers and directors weren't wasting time and money on absurdities like that. The situation that we are seeing now is a retrograde step, and despite the FCC's contention that their decisions are making the boundaries "perfectly clear," the only thing that is really "perfectly clear" is that writers, producers, and networks are holding back out of a sense of fear that if they make a step over the some imaginary line in the sand that the FCC has established but hasn't told anyone about they are going to get hit with a huge fine, possibly because of another absurdity, that the show runs an hour earlier in one time zone than another.

Jaime also had this to say about censorship: "The other reason that a sudden increase in censorship is bad for creativity is that social standards have a habit of getting more and more relaxed (overall, I mean), no matter what the standards may be at the television networks. The current level of TV censorship is somewhat similar to that of, say, 1988, but whereas that degree of censorship was more or less where social mores were at the time, it's now a bit behind the times." People like the PTC and the FCC like to talk about how the sort of material in the NYPD Blue scene or the "fleeting obscenities" case run contrary to community standards but who is gauging what those community standards are? I'm not sure that anyone really knows what the American public – a community if there ever was one – feels about this situation. What I know is that various unscientific polls that I've seen online have suggested that the overwhelming majority of respondents had no trouble with the NYPD Blue scene but considerable trouble with the FCC reaction to it.

I would disagree with Jaime's claim that the current level of censorship is at about 1988 levels though. Just in the matter of naked breasts, by that time we had Valerie Perrine topless in PBS's Steambath (1973), and bare-breasted African women in a number of scenes in Roots (1977) the latter allowed because "they add reality, not titillation, to the landmark miniseries." (Farrah Fawcett's also accidentally exposed breast in an episode of Charlie's Angels (Angels in Chains) in 1976). Would either of those scenes be permitted today? Would any producer even consider putting a scene like those (let alone the scene in 1992's My Breast where Meredith Baxter's bare breast was examined by a doctor as he planned her mastectomy) into a script in the current climate of censorship? The answer is no; or rather the answer he wouldn't do it on broadcast TV, he'd do it on basic cable and probably win awards for making edgy and important productions. And in the meantime network television suffers because the stories that it is allowed to tell – in the United States at least – are restricted.

Moving on, I feel confident in saying that the PTC had to reach a long ways to come up with this week's Broadcast Worst of the Week. Pickings are mighty slim out there to the point where there is no new Cable Worst of the Week this time around – they're still incensed about the episode of Nip/Tuck with the suicide bomber story. For broadcast they finally settled on continuing their war with Seth McFarlane's Family Guy (although this was aired by FOX without the permission of Seth McFarlane who is on strike) but I have to say that even their writer doesn't seem to have his heart in it. The episode for January 13^th is – at least for the PTC – based around "disturbing sexual innuendo and sexual content involving Stewie, the show's talking baby." I say "at least for the PTC" because according to the TV.com summary "Peter decides to grow a mustache, and after being mistaken for a fireman, ends up lending a hand when a fire breaks out at a local fast food restaurant. The owner gives him unlimited burgers as a thank you, but he eats too many and has a stroke. When Peter recovers, he vows to expose the fast-food company for what it really is, becoming friends with a genetically engineered cow along the way." Stewie's bet with Brian, that Stewie can become the most popular kid at James Woods High School is a B-plot that they don't even mention. Here's a transcript of one of the scenes that the PTC objects to:

Stewie: "Do you know that I've got a date with Connie Demico this Saturday night at Anal Point?"

Brian: "Ah. I've heard about that place."

Stewie: "Really? What's it like? 'Cause I have no idea."

Brian: "Well uh, I suppose if you imagine it like a parking space that you think 'gosh there's no way I'm going to be able to fit in there' but then you fold in the side view mirrors and sure enough, well look at that."

Stewie: "Well in that scenario it sounds like I'd rather be the parking space than the car."

Brian: "Yeah, that's what I've always guessed."

They then state that after Stewie and Connie go to Anal Point, Connie whips off her top revealing her bra and asks whether they're going to "do it or what?" Remember, as far as she's concerned Stewie is a teenager and the coolest boy in school. Connie "screams in horror at the size of his penis" (not in the clip that I saw) and at school spreads the word about his size. In revenge "Stewie gets back at Connie by tricking her into kissing him while she strips off his disguise. Connie is arrested for molesting a baby." Is this crude humour? Undoubtedly but I'm not sure I'd go so far as to describe it as "disturbing sexual innuendo and sexual content" let alone their final summation: "This perverted plot is clearly inappropriate for broadcast television." Perhaps, but given some of the shows that the PTC labels as "Best of the Week, I think I prefer this (or I would if I ever watched it).

Cashmere Mafia is the Misrated show this week. This is what the PTC said in the introduction to their article: "A rating of TV-PG DL suggests that parents might not want to their young children to be exposed to some bad language and sexual dialogue, but that the remainder of a given television episode is certainly safe for viewing by older children and other family members. At least, that is the conclusion of the executives responsible for rating TV programs.... Apparently, ABC believes that children are mature enough to handle the themes of adultery and promiscuity, as well as the depictions of semi-nude women, that dominated the episode." They may be right, although their description of the episode is, as usual, alarmist. Instead of looking at the PTC's description of the episode, let's start up with a reminder of what TV-PG means. According to Wikipedia TV-PG "signifies that the program is unsuitable for younger children without the guidance of a parent." They further add some examples of show that are rated TV-PG and why (i'll drop the names of the shows and replace them with ellipses): "Some game shows are rated TV-PG ... mainly for their suggestive dialog. Most reality shows are rated TV-PG ... for their suggestive dialog or coarse language." Now the question here is whether the rating should have been TV-14, the next highest rating which is also the most common rating in TV.

The PTC focuses on two specific storylines. First is the situation surrounding Juliet and her husband who has had an affair. Juliet is considering having an affair of her own in revenge. She hasn't reached a decision yet but because of some things that happen in the episode she opts to have an assignation with an old boyfriend which ends in his hotel room, with Juliet in her bra and panties. However (and the PTC doesn't actually mention this but I know because I saw this episode) she doesn't consummate the relationship. The other storyline involves Zoe, who is having a problem with the fact that a younger woman in the office is included on a business trip by Clayton, her fellow managing director at Gorham Sutter (interestingly the PTC, unable to grasp the concept that Zoe and Clayton are equals at the company refers to him as Zoe's boss). After she sees the young woman slip into the married Clayton's hotel room, she confronts him about the situation, but according to the PTC, she "also worries that she is insecure in her own sexuality" and so, "decides to test her sexual attractiveness by walking into the room where her husband is working on his computer, ripping off her top to reveal that she is not wearing underwear, and attempting to seduce him. Her nude back is seen from behind."

Here's the point where I'm not entirely sure about. It may very well be that the PTC is right about the rating of this episode. They write: "Clearly intended to capture the edgy tone of Sex and the City (as well as some that program's fans), Cashmere Mafia contains material that is simply too mature for a PG rating. With depictions of women lolling around in lingerie and its many references to sex, this program is without a doubt too racy not to carry an S-descriptor for sexual content. It could even be argued that the program deserves a TV-14 rating." Now I don't think that the episode qualifies for the TV-14 rating; the scenes involved are simply not severe enough to reach that level. If the best that the PTC could come up with were Juliet "lolling around in lingerie", Zoe's bare back and the way she talks to Clayton about his affair (she tells him that he's "letting your little head think for your big head"). It doesn't reach what I believe is the standard for TV-14. The question for me is the "S" descriptor. For that to be applied on a TV-PG show requires "mild sexual situations." But what constitutes a "mild sexual situation?" And indeed is a (one) "mild sexual situation" enough. I'm thinking here about Juliet in her underwear with her "almost lover," because we've seen plenty of scenes where a wife surprises her husband by dropping a coat or whatever and revealing that she's wearing nothing underneath. My gut instinct says that the episode probably should have the "S" descriptor but it's probably a close call.

This week's TV Trends article declares that "NBC Joins the TV Sex Parade." According to the article "Until recently, NBC has been the best (or perhaps a better designation would be "the least bad") in terms of inappropriate and offensive depictions of sex during prime time. Certainly NBC's new fall season did not feature the flood of tawdry, sex-obsessed sitcoms and boundary-pushing dramas that ABC, CBS, CW and Fox did. Unfortunately, this is changing. Since the beginning of the New Year, NBC is increasingly joining the other networks in pumping sexual situations into its programming." Of course they don't just say that without "evidence." Here are some "proofs" that NBC has joined the Sex Parade.

• Playboy Playmate of the Year Tiffany Fallon was one of the "celebrities" featured on Celebrity Apprentice: "In allowing her to take a place with the other accomplished celebrities and professionals, NBC implied that someone who takes her clothes off for a living is every bit as respectable and appropriate a role model for children as an Olympic gold medalist or a multi-platinum country singer." The episode (since Fallon was the first celebrity eliminated) also featured an appearance by Jenna Jameson "demurely billed on camera as an 'Adult Film Star' (i.e., "actress" in pornographic movies)." The episode ended with Trump firing Fallon for not involving Hugh Hefner in the fund-raising challenge: "Trump sneers, 'I've known a lot of Playmates of the Year,' and repeatedly boasts of his close friendship with the elderly exploiter of women." Personally I find the description of Tiffany Fallon as "someone who takes her clothes off for a living" to be mean spirited. Oh, and by the way, Tiffany Fallon was probably in the early stages of her pregnancy with husband Joe Don Rooney of the band Rascal Flats during her brief time on Celebrity Apprentice.
  
• The game show 1 vs. 100, featured former Playboy Playmates of the Month, triplets Nicole, Erica and Jaclyn Dahm. Worst of all the show aired "at the Family Hour of 8:00 p.m. ET (7:00 p.m. CT/MT)." Former Playboy Playmates in the non-existent (except for the PTC) Family Hour – proof positive of NBC's determination to undermine the American way of life.
  
• In the January 10^th episode of My Name Is Earl, Earl repays his debt to a stripper who was injured when "Earl shines a laser pointer at a stripper's chest, causing her to fall off her pole and become injured" by becoming a stripper himself. "He takes off his shirt to reveal tassels covering his nipples. As the crowd hoots, Earl spins the tassels. Later, Earl states that 'some old Texan dude just offered to buy me a boob job.'" It sounds like a funny scene to me but of course to the PTC this is "in keeping with the program's continual downward slide," and they add, "Naturally, this episode also aired during the Family Hour."
  
• On Las Vegas (which the PTC hates anyway) Danny, "in an attempt to empathize with his pregnant wife, donning a female fat suit – complete with tassels covering his 'breasts.'" Well the PTC has never been known for getting their facts right and this is no different. First, Delinda isn't Danny's wife, she's his girlfriend. Second what Danny was wearing was not a "female fat suit" but rather a Pregnancy Empathy Belly and can you imagine the stink if the "breasts" on the belly weren't covered?
  
• It's not just shows that bother the PTC there's also the promo for Lipstick Jungle: "The ad goes on to show a woman's dress being ripped off, and an apparently nude man asking a female character, 'Do you want to take a picture?' But the commercial's biggest brag is the tagline, 'by the creator of Sex and the City!'" Because of course in the PTC lexicon Sex and the City is one of the most disgusting shows ever. In fact the PTC says of the commercial, "If ever proof was needed of network television executives' desire to flood prime-time broadcast TV with the graphic and explicit content previously reserved to adult premium cable, that commercial provides it…with NBC as a willing collaborator."
  
• Then there was Law & Order: Criminal Intent. I can't adequately paraphrase on this one so here is what the PTC writes: "While the foregoing examples are distasteful, they are as nothing compared to the horrifically gory scene of sexual violence that greeted viewers of Law and Order: Criminal Intent on January 16^th. Within a minute of the episode's opening, a camera focused on a pool of blood on the floor of a medical examination room. Panning along the floor, the camera revealed a dead man's body, his legs in stirrups used for gynecological exams, his pants around his ankles. The puddles of blood on the floor apparently emanate from the man's mutilated genital region, and the shot ends by showing a vaginal speculum jammed into the murdered man's mouth. This grotesquely graphic and gratuitous imagery is more appropriate (if that is the word) to an R-rated movie than prime time broadcast television. The episode, which also featured a teenage boy bragging about manufacturing cocaine and calling a red-headed female police officer 'firecrotch' as he swills vodka, aired at 9:00 p.m. ET – which is only 8:00 p.m. in the Central and Mountain time zones."
  

I really don't know where to start on this whole thing. The whole business about the Playboy models (Tiffany Fallon and the Dahm sisters) should probably be dismissed with the scorn that the claims both richly deserve. As I said about the My Name Is Earl episode, it sounds like a funny scene, complete with a neatly done Anna Nichole Smith reference (Anna Nichole met her "old Texas dude" Howard Marshall in a strip club). Similarly the "pregnancy belly" is a nicely done joke about the nature of Las Vegas the city. As for Law & Order: Criminal Intent I can't imagine a more specious argument coming from an organization like the PTC with repeatedly complains about scenes from the other Law & Order shows. The PTC is, as usual in these TV Trends articles, showing itself to be puritanical, strident, and in the end absurd.

Not As Addicted As I Thought

58%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?

I thought it would be higher. Then again I'm sure I lost points for not blogging more often. Hey I'm not Mark Evanier, who has something worthwhile to say everyday. And I'm not the collective that runs if charlie parker was a gunslinger,there'd be a whole lot of dead copycats. I am one guy with two blogs (one of which he neglects terribly) and there's a strike on which means there's nothing new (and worthwhile) that I feel like writing about. Yeah, I know, excuses excuses.

Fine For A Five Year Old Show

Warning: At the conclusion of this post I will be including a YouTube clip of the scene from NYPD Blue which caused 50 ABC stations to be fined a total of $1.43 million. This scene includes nudity, specifically Charlotte Ross's bare buttocks and the side of one of her breasts. It is presented here not to titillate but to illustrate. Obviously do not click on the play button if you are under the age of majority where you live, or feel that you might be offended by nudity.

I am absolutely incensed at the most recent absurdity to come from the American Federal Communications Commission. On Friday the Commission, levied a fine against fifty-two ABC stations in the Central and Mountain Time Zones for airing an episode of NYPD Blue which included a nude scene featuring Charlotte Ross. The scene was deemed to be "indecent" according to the existing regulations which defines material as being indecent if it, "in context depicts or describes sexual or excretory activities or organs in a patently offensive manner as measured by contemporary community standards for the broadcast medium." The fine levied was the 2003 maximum of $27,500 per station for a total fin of $1,430,000. Based on the current allowable fines, ABC would have been fined nearly $17 million if the episode in question ran today.

In their decision the Commission stated:

We find that the programming at issue is within the scope of our indecency definition because it depicts sexual organs and excretory organs -- specifically an adult woman's buttocks. Although ABC argues, without citing any authority, that the buttocks are not a sexual organ, we reject this argument, which runs counter to both case law and common sense.

FCC commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate wrote in a statement that accompanied the announcement of the fine that:

Our action today should serve as a reminder to all broadcasters that Congress and American families continue to be concerned about protecting children from harmful material and that the FCC will enforce the laws of the land vigilantly. In fact, pursuant to the Broadcast Decency Act of 2005, Congress increased the maximum authorized fines tenfold. The law is simple. If a broadcaster makes the decision to show indecent programming, it must air between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. This is neither difficult to understand nor burdensome to implement.

In response to the FCC fine an ABC press release stated:

'NYPD Blue,' which aired on ABC from 1993-2005, was an Emmy Award-winning drama, broadcast with appropriate parental warnings as well as V-chip-enabled program ratings from the time such ratings were implemented. When the brief scene in question was telecast almost five years ago, this critically acclaimed drama had been on the air for a decade and the realistic nature of its storylines was well known to the viewing public. ABC feels strongly that the FCC's finding is inconsistent with prior precedent from the Commission, the indecency statute and the First Amendment, and we intend to oppose the proposed fine.

According to the New York Times report on this, "Obscene speech has no constitutional protection, but indecent speech does. Under the law, FCC rules and court decisions, the commission can fine broadcasters for airing indecent speech outside of the 10 p.m.-6 a.m. safe harbor."

***

Okay, that was the "newsy" part of this, now the editorial part. The FCC is yet again kowtowing to social conservative special interest groups like the Parents Television Council and the American Family Association while using what can best be described as an elastic yardstick to determine what is and is not acceptable. As ABC pointed out in their press release, the FCC finding is "inconsistent with prior precedent from the Commission" which has not in the past found episodes where bare buttocks were shown to be "indecent." And there have been plenty of those episodes starting with the very first episode of the series in which we saw Sherry Stringfield in a nude scene with David Caruso. This was almost ten years before the Charlotte Ross nude scene, and let's just say that the Stringfield-Caruso nude scene would probably be considered a lot closer to most people's definition of indecency than the Charlotte Ross scene (Caruso's character John Kelly and his ex-wife – Stringfield's character – make love). That is ten years of precedent saying that it is acceptable to broadcast images like that, and not just after 10 p.m. Why? Because throughout the show's TV lifetime, NYPD Blue has always aired at 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific and 9 p.m. Central and Mountain, and while there have been findings with regard to the show on the grounds of language there have not been such findings in terms of nudity.. Are we to believe that it is only the 2003 episode, titled "Nude Awakenings" that has ever been actionable? Or are we to believe that the FCC has, in an arbitrary manner, changed its policy without bothering to tell anyone until it was time to hand out fines?

The episode of NYPD Blue aired in the US had both an appropriate ratings icon, V-Chip information, and an announcement about the content of the episode before the show started. I had a quote (but for the life of me I can't find it anywhere anymore) in which the FCC acknowledged the warning but added that anyone who tuned in late would not know to expect nudity. The big problem I have with this claim is that the particular clip cited came immediately after the announcement was made; it was part of the teaser for the episode and was shown just after the announcement and just before the opening credits. It is difficult to believe that someone could have such split second timing as to see all or part of this scene, which runs for about one minute and forty five seconds, without hearing the warning. And again what about the ten years of shows that preceded this one where nudity was shown well after the announcement occurred?

I also find the timing of this to be more than a little strange. The episode of the show first aired in February 2003, and the decision on the matter has taken the Commission nearly five years to make? Let me just remind you that the commission (then headed by Michael Powell) made their decision on the Janet Jackson case quickly. In the Without A Trace "teen orgy" case the show was broadcast in December 2004 and the decision was released in March 2006, a gap of fifteen months. Why did it take the FCC near 60 months to make a decision on the NYPD Blue nudity situation.

I'm a Canadian, and in Canada this sort of incident would pass without notice. The Canadian Association of Broadcasters, described as the "national voice of Canada's private broadcasters" has established the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council as an independent, non-governmental organization to administer standards established by Canada's private broadcasters (in other words it does not deal with CBC or Societé Radio Canada). The national broadcast regulator – the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission or CRTC – only becomes involved in censorship issues in the most egregious cases. Section 10a of the CBSC Code of Ethics says this:

Programming which contains sexually explicit material or coarse or offensive language intended for adult audiences shall not be telecast before the late viewing period, defined as 9 pm to 6 am. Broadcasters shall refer to the Voluntary Code Regarding Violence in Television Programming for provisions relating to the scheduling of programming containing depictions of violence.

That may seem to cover the situation in the case of NYPD Blue but precedent – specifically a decision on the airing of the movie Strip Tease by Quebec broadcaster TQS – is more explicit. In that decision the Quebec Regional Panel of the CBSC stated:

While acknowledging that the showing of bare breasts on strip tease dancers was intended by the filmmaker to be sexual, the Council considers that the absence of sexual contact or lovemaking in the film rendered it, to all intents and purposes, sufficiently innocent that there would not even be a requirement that its broadcast occur only in a post-watershed time frame. Moreover, by airing the film in a family-viewing period (at 8:00 p.m.) with appropriate advisories and the rating icon established by the Régie du Cinéma, the broadcaster had provided sufficient opportunity for those who might prefer not to see the film or not to have it available for their families to make that choice.

By this standard the NYPD Blue scene would not be considered indecent because there is an absence of "sexual contact or lovemaking." In fact this scene could probably be described as the most mundane thing in the world. This is a woman who gets up before her boyfriend (Andy Sipowicz, played by Dennis Franz, who had at least two nude scenes during the course of the series – talk about obscenity!) and his five year old son to have a shower before going off to work. She is surprised, shocked and visibly embarrassed – almost to the point of humiliation – when the son comes into the bathroom which she hasn't locked because she's used to living alone. She desperately tries to cover her nakedness. End of scene.

In addition to the earlier watershed hour that the Canadian system maintains, the CBSC maintains what I consider to be a sensible standard. In a 2001 decision related to Sue Johanson's Sunday Night Sex Show the Council stated:

While straightforward on one level, the scheduling issue is ultimately far more complex in the geographically huge Canadian context. The provisions in the Violence Code, which have been extended to be applicable to all forms of adult-oriented programming, are absolutely clear. On the one hand, programming intended for adult audiences must be shown post-Watershed. On the other hand, an exception is provided for signals originating in a time zone other than that in which it is received pre-Watershed. In such a case, the Code provides that the broadcaster is to be judged by the respect for the Watershed shown in the time zone in which the signal originates.

This decision applies primarily to cable channels. It puts the onus on the networks covered by the CBSC to hold shows with sexual content until after the Watershed period at the local station level. In the United States the networks do not and never have operated in this manner. Is it realistic to expect them to change the viewing habits of their audience by changing from "8 p.m. Eastern; 7 p.m. Central and Mountain" after sixty years of broadcasting? More really since this is a holdover from old time radio. But then again, the nudity in this episode of NYPD Blue wouldn't have been considered either sexually explicit in Canada.

Speaking as an outsider looking in at the US system of broadcast regulation, I have to say that it seems to be broken. Sensible precedents, developed over a course of fifty years have been discarded under pressure from social conservatives and a Federal Communications Commission packed with social conservatives (regardless of their party stripe) all appointed by an adherent to the social conservative agenda, George W. Bush. It is a commission where the definitions of "obscene" and "indecent" seems to be entirely that "it's indecent because we say that it's indecent and we say that it's indecent because it is obviously indecent." The only way in which the scene in question is indecent is if you consider any depiction of the human body to be indecent. There is certainly no sexual context in this particular sequence and certainly scenes that had more sexual context from this show were not fined by the FCC. But of course that was before the social conservatives took over the FCC. Now, the FCC takes that part of their mandate that speaks of "community standards" and takes it to mean the standards of the more conservative elements within the American community. And the rest of the industrialized world, Canada included, looks on in bewilderment and what the fuss is all about.

Warning: The YouTube clip that follows is scene from NYPD Blue discussed in this post, which caused 50 ABC stations to be fined a total of $1.43 million. This scene includes nudity, specifically Charlotte Ross's bare buttocks and the side of one of her breasts. It is presented here not to titillate but to illustrate. There is no sound with this clip (there was a broblem with the original poster). Obviously do not click on the play button if you are under the age of majority where you live, or feel that you might be offended by nudity.