Superbowl 3-D – What Will I Be Seeing?

Absolutely nothing! (In 3-D. At least as far as I can tell.)

This saga is all part of the vagaries of the Canadian broadcasting system. The first thing you need to know is that many years ago the Canadian networks made a deal with the Canadian Radio, Television and Telecommunications Comission (CRTC) that requires Canadian cable companies to substitute the local Canadian signal over any American signal of the same show provided that the Canadian and American shows start at the same time. So, for example, if CTV has CSI on Thursday at 8 p.m. Saskatoon time, and CBS has the same episode of CSI on Thursday at 8 p.m. Saskatoon time, the cable company has to put the CTV signal over the cable channel that we get CBS on. It has to be the same episode or the same sporting event and it has to start at the same time. This has caused some problems in the past when a sporting event has run long (as they inevitably do) and what I assume must be the computer at the cable company doesn't know about it. Shades of the "Heidi game" if that game you're watching is suddenly pulled off for a show you hate. This is known as "simultaneous substitution" or simsub. This way the ads that the networks sell get seen by everyone who watches a show – whether they like it or not (and we don't).

(And of course the Canadian networks aren't satisfied with simple simsubbing. From time to time the networks go before the CRTC and demand that they be allowed to substitute over shows regardless of whether or not they show a particular episode at the same time as the American networks. This say the networks will allow them to "program their own networks." The CRTC inevitably files these demands with the requests to allow the networks to count Canadian made infomercials as Canadian content in a circular filing cabinet, but I always get the sense that the networks go off from these meetings saying "one day my pretties." But back to the matter at hand.)

The biggest complaints about simsubbing come at Superbowl time, and speaking as one of those complaining I think we've got good cause. For years advertisers have literally spent millions on commercials for the Superbowl, and for that money they feel they need to do something that really stands out. I suppose that for the advertising community the Superbowl is like the last couple of weeks of December is for movie makers, the time when you put out the serious films that you desperately hope will be rewarded at the Oscars and the other award shows. The Superbowl is when you put together the commercials that you hope will get nominated for the Clios and the other advertising awards. And if you're Canadian there is a better than 50/50 chance that you won't see the multi-million dollar commercials, you'll see the run of the mill commercial from Leon's or something from The Great Canadian Oil Change or some local body shop. I'm trying to think of an analogy here that really works and having difficulty with it. I suppose it's like going to see a great musical on Broadway only to find out that tonight they're letting a high school production do the play.

In recent years – for me at least – there have been some developments that have allowed me to see the American feed of the Superbowl. For reasons that elude me, the broadcasters in Saskatoon never simsub the time sharing channels out of Spokane that I get as part of my basic digital cable. It doesn't happen, so for the past couple of years I've been able to watch the Superbowl with the American commercials. Now that we have the HD service we can also see the game in HD without simsubbing. Why? Well the CRTC has ruled that Canadian channels can't simsub over HD broadcasts until they are capable of providing a local HD signal, and Saskatoon and Regina are probably the last places that will be converted to HD by CBC, CTV and Global (CTV has only just decided to make CFCN in Calgary an HD station – CFRN in Edmonton is still not HD).

So in other words I will be able to see the American commercials during the game, including the 3-D commercials that Pepsi and Dreamworks will be doing for the Super Bowl. Pepsi is doing a commercial for their SoBe beverage line in 3-D, and Dreamworks will be doing an ad for their new movie Monsters vs. Aliens in 3-D. In addition on February 3^rd the NBC series Chuck will use the exact same technology to broadcast that show in 3-D. The commercials will of course be using 3-D glasses, not the red-blue type that are what one tends to think of when one thinks of 3-D, or the polarizing lenses which have been common for many years, but something called Real 3-D, which uses an red-orange/blue-purple combination of lenses. This of course means that you have to get those specific glasses to be able to watch the two commercials and the episode of Chuck. In the U.S. you can apparently pick them up in the supermarkets.

In Canada it's a different story. The Canadian rights holder for the Superbowl is CTV and CTV won't be showing the SoBe commercial or the Dreamworks trailer, so why should they distribute the glasses in Canada. There's no advantage in it for Pepsi (which owns SoBe) or for Dreamworks to distribute the glasses either. But what about that episode of Chuck? Well that episode of Chuck is part of the reason why the 3-D glasses promotion won't be running in Canada. You see, here in Canada Chuck doesn't run on CTV it runs on CITYTV. The CITYTV system (not a network) has stations in Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary Edmonton and Vancouver. But people in those cities won't be able to get the glasses either. You see CITYTV won't be showing the 3-D episode of Chuck on February 3^rd. They've got a more important show to put on that Monday – The Bachelor. Chuck won't be back on CITYTV until March 9^th. Whether they'll offer the glasses then or not, or whether they'll even air the episode at all is absolutely unclear for the CITYTV system's website. Meanwhile those Canadians who will actually be able to see either the unsimsubbed Superbowl commercials or the episode of Chuck won't be seeing them in 3-D unless they can make a run to a stor across the border, can find them on eBay or Craigs List, or can figure out how to make a set of their own. Not that it matters to me of course; I've usually abandoned the Superbowl as a blow out by the time the half-time show starts, and I've never seen an episode of Chuck because I bowl on Mondays.

(Thanks to a tweet on Twitter from The TV Addict – aka Daniel – for turning me on to this. The TV Addict is a much more professional site than this one, and I'm only saying that because... well because it's true.)

Last Templar – So Bad It’s Actually Bad

Nobody in network TV really "gets" the miniseries anymore. In fact, I've always had the sneaking suspicion that the only person with power in Hollywood who actually "gets" the miniseries anymore is Tom Hanks. Take a look at the series that Hanks has done: From The Earth To The Moon, Band Of Brothers, John Adams, and the upcoming Pacific. What they all have in common is that they are epic stories. And that's what the mini-series should be – epics. Look back at the great mini-series from the '70s and '80s and they were epics – Roots, Rich Man Poor Man, Shogun, Centennial, The Winds of War, War And Remembrance. Somewhere along the line though, the networks and the producers lost the idea that a mini-series should be an epic. What they turned into was a dumping ground for stories that couldn't be contracted into a two hour TV movie but weren't strong enough for a feature movie. And because there were so many of these bad stories – presumably because the broadcast networks weren't willing to allocate multiple hours to epics. They were, on the other hand, perfectly happy to give over two 2-hour slots from time to time to show the latest pot-boiler from someone like Judith Krantz (not that I have anything against Judith Krantz; she was a close friend of someone I had tremendous admiration for, and the lady did write a really good sex scene). And that, more than anything else is what eventually killed the mini-series on broadcast TV. Not that they're above trying them from time to time. CBS had Comanche Moon last year which wasn't half bad. It was a hundred times better than the latest effort from NBC, The Last Templar.

Let me just come out and say it. It took me less than ten minutes to decide that this thing sucked pond scum. The defining moment in that time was after the four horsemen in chainmail armour burst into the museum (after one of them beheaded a cop who thought the whole thing was a publicity stunt) and smashed the display cases, grabbed various items from a collection of artifacts from the Vatican, and started to ride off. Tess Chaykin, played by Mira Sorvino, starts to chase after them and shout – I kid thee not gentle readers – "Hey, come back here! That doesn't belong to you!!" I mean just the absolute stupidity of shouting out that line at the backs of four people on horseback who have just beheaded a cop and grabbed the mayor's wife; are we are supposed to believe that she expects them to come back and return the things that they have taken? At that very moment I could have turned the TV off without any compunction, if I didn't feel obliged to write this review. The things I do for you. Then again we don't have TNT in Canada so I really couldn't review something like Trust Me, much as I would have liked to (and trust me I would have liked to).

Okay, so Tess Chaykin is a cut rate Laura Croft, an adventuring archaeologist who has set aside her digging boots now that she has a daughter (she doesn't want to subject her kid to the long absences that she had to deal with from her father). Since she's played by Mira Sorvino we don't have Angelina Jolie's face and boobs – and acting talent – to look at. Tess immediately abandons her English friend Clive to chase after any of the "knights in shining armour" that she can find, but preferably the one who stole the Cross of Constantine – an artefact that her father dug up during one of his many archaeological expeditions. She grabs a convenient brass (or gold) crosier, mounts a conveniently placed police horse and charges off to Central Park to joust with the knight who took the cross. Wearing Manolo Blaniks. Tess that is. And what does she get for capturing a thief and murderer and recovering the loot, and ruining her Manolos? Why she gets arrested of course, with more guns pointed at her than at the guy in the shining armour. No wonder people don't want to get involved.

Of course the arrest isn't totally without its compensation, because it's in the police interrogation room that she meets the male lead, and obvious source opposite attraction and unresolved sexual tension (at least until the end of the miniseries), FBI Special Agent Sean Dailey, played by Scott Foley (from The Unit, nearly unrecognizable in a show where he has actual hair instead of head stubble). While Tess is at best and agnostic, Sean is a believing Catholic who has given up coffee for Lent – along with swearing and a bunch of other indulgences – who quickly clears Tess. Of course it is painfully obvious that Tess and Sean are going to be bumping heads very quickly (and bumping uglies eventually). Because after all Tess feels that she has to get involved even though she's recovered the artefact that her father had found. Sure enough, after Sean has delivered a replacement pair of Manolos (he didn't know what they were; his partner tells him "if you don't know what they are you can't afford them"; and actual, deliberately funny line!) Tess heads for the hospital to question the man she defeated in single combat. She dresses as a doctor (in high heels) to get past NYPD security around the patient, because obviously there isn't a list of doctors who are allowed to go in to see the prisoner and gets the information she needs by pretending to be an FBI agent dressed as a doctor. As she leaves another man enters the hospital room, posing as an FBI agent. He has a foreign accent and a lot more severe interrogation technique than Tess's – he gets the information and ends up torturing the guy to death. It's left to poor Sean to be the third person in the door. She's less successful in getting to the second "knight"; the man (appropriately named Bronko – I swear I'm not making that up) who supplied the horse for the group was gotten to by the mystery man and ended up being hung.

Sean is under pressure, and not just from his bosses. The Vatican, represented by Monsignor de Angelis (played by Victor Garber and even he can't save this) wants the artefacts recovered, although he seems so conspicuously unconcerned about a 12^th century device known as a decoder and apparently built for the Knights Templar. This leads Tess to search for an old family friend who she calls Uncle Bill, played with wild-eyed abandon by Kenneth Welsh, who is an expert on the Templars. Coincidentally, it is the first anniversary of the death of his wife and daughter, so Tess finds him at their graves. It takes Tess about five seconds to figure out that Bill was the boss of the knights in shining armour. He takes Tess to an abandoned church where he has stashed the decoder. He has a document that supposedly leads to a supposed mystery of the Templars that is bigger even than the treasure that they were supposed to have taken with them. But before he can fully tell Tess about what he's found they're interrupted by the mystery man (who has disposed of the third "knight" just as Sean and his partner get to his apartment) who gets into a firefight with Bill. Tess hides in a conveniently located sarcophagus with the decoder and the document. Bill escapes from the foreign guy and heads through a secret passage. When Tess gets out of the coffin she heads out the same way. After beating down a gang intent on rape in the sewer that the passage leads her too (they're outnumbered – four of them against one of her, but it does give the chance to utter the line over their prostrated bodies: "I'm nobody's baby!"), she's captured by Sean. He found the church by searching for her car and figured out that she'd gone into the secret passage to the sewers. He just happened to be driving by the manhole that she was coming out of. She manages to escape him by claiming he's attacking her. She has to get away because she just got a call from Bill that indicated that he was threatening her daughter and wanted the decoder and the document in trade. She arrives at what turns out to be something of a party with Bill Clive and her daughter – because of course Bill would never hurt her daughter – but she gives him the decoder anyway. Soon after, Sean comes to take her back into custody.

So now we bring three of the major characters together in one of those absurd things we've quickly come to expect from this mess. Sean, his nameless female FBI boss, Tess and Monsignor DeAngelis are sitting in a huge conference room, and the four of them – the only people in the room – are sitting at the four corners of this huge conference table. De Angelis, seeming increasingly suspicious (and if you haven't figured out by now that he's behind the mysterious foreign killer, who I guess is some sort of Vatican hit man, well I'm afraid I pity you) is kind of irritated because even though he denigrates the idea of the Templar secrets, he wants to know what Bill has found and he can't do that without the document and the decoder. Well of course, as it turns out Sean knows how they can replicate the decoder (using 3-D X-Rays of the artefact courtesy of the Transport Safety Agency), and Tess has the document (thanks to the camera in her cell phone). Deus ex machina much?! The net result is that they are able to decode most of the document, which tells the story of three Templars who escape the recapture of Jerusalem by the Turks by taking a ship that sank (more on that in a moment). They took the documents to a chapel in a recently captured fortress. The name of the place is given but no one is able to find it... until Tess, in the privacy of her home figures out that the name was transcribed by the knights into Latin from the original Turkish. She isn't going to do anything with the information until her daughter persuades Tess that she's all right with her mother going off on an adventure... as long as she's home in time for her recital. Tess takes her expedition boots just as Sean arrives at the door. She avoids him somehow (no idea how she worked this one out) and gets to the airport. Sean sees her boots gone and meets her at the airport. She tries to escape him again, but he's brought his own cops this time. Still they have no reason to hold her so she gets on the plane. Also on the plane are Sean – who arranges to get the seat next to Tess – and also on the killer, who confirms his status as a Vatican hit man by talking on a cell phone with De Angelis.

I'm not going to spend too much more time on this steaming pile of crap. Actually I think I've wasted too much time on it already. It is awesomely awful, with a total disregard for the nuances of history or geography. A major point in the historical flashbacks to the history related the document that Tess decodes with the device is that the three Templars escaped from Jerusalem by sailing from the city in the ship Falcon Temple. In fact they say that they watch the fall of the city from the deck of the ship. Neat trick that, since Jerusalem is over 30 miles from the Mediterranean as the crow flies. And that is far from the only historical error in this mess. I'm not sure if this is as it is written in the original novel, which in turn is a pale imitation of The DaVinci Code, or whether the script writers have simplified the product for the market place. This is the sort of thing that no one with the slightest knowledge of medieval history would buy into. But that's not the thing that turned me against this miniseries. Nor is it the fact that it doesn't live up to what I feel is the need for a miniseries to cover epic material. If this thing was any good in terms of writing or characterization that part wouldn't bother me too much. I mean I liked a couple of those Judith Krantz minis. No what I found so unacceptable was the thoroughgoing absurdity of every situation in the piece, right from the point where the "knights" beheaded the cop outside the museum – like there'd only be one cop to guard something like that – or the coincidence of Sean being right in front of the manhole that Tess emerged from. The worst part is that they have an extremely talented cast in this. They are wasted in this material. The net result is so monumentally awful that, while it doesn't surprise me that Canwest was responsible for it – they'd do anything in a co-production if it can be manipulated to qualify as Canadian Content – it does shock and sadden me that NBC, the network that made Centennial and Shogun, actually lowered their standards to the point where they could air this mess. For shame Mr. Silverman, for shame.

PTC Officially Nuts

I mean we already knew that right? But if we needed any more confirmation it comes from Billboard, and just about every newspaper in North America.

The Parents Television Council is demanding that radio stations not play Britney Spears's new single If U Seek Amy. It seems that the PTC has determined that if you say the words fast (and you've got a smut focused mind like the PTC does) it sounds as you are spelling out a naughty word:

If U See Kay Me

The PTC is telling radio stations not to broadcast the song between the hours of 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. because the Council believes it would violate the Broadcast Decency Act. In the words of PTC president Tim Winter, "There is no misinterpreting the lyrics to this song, and it's certainly not about a girl named Amy. It's one thing for a song with these lyrics to be included on a CD so that fans who wish to hear it can do so, but it's an entirely different matter when this song is played over the publicly-owned airwaves, especially at a time when children are likely to be in the listening audience."

There's been no comment from Jive, the label that is releasing Britney's new CD Circus on which If U Seek Amy can be found, or from Spears's "people," but think they're grateful to the PTC for playing their part in publicizing the CD and the downloads of the song. According to the Billboard report published on Wednesday, If U Seek Amy, the track is 92 on the Billboard Pop 100 and had entered rotation on six top 40 radio stations, and had sold 107,000 copies digitally according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Note to Julius Genachowski: When you're confirmed as head of the FCC, treat any PTC complaints on this song with the respect they deserve. Remember, "sanity not censorship."

Out With The Old; In With The New

With the inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States, numerous Bush appointees submitted their resignations. And so we bid a not so fond farewell to Kevin Martin as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in the United States. Martin's management style at the FCC has been described by a Congressional Report as a, "heavy-handed, opaque, and non-collegial management style has created distrust, suspicion, and turmoil among the five current commissioners." Michigan Congressman John Dingell of the House Commerce Committee wrote to Martin in December 2007 stating that "given several events and proceedings over the past year, I am rapidly losing confidence that the commission has been conducting its affairs in an appropriate manner." Dingell also accused Martin of "keeping his fellow commissioners in the dark in an attempt to push through policy," and this, combined with his actions in cable industry proceedings and attempts to relax newpaper-broadcast cross-ownership restrictions, led Dingell to claims that Martins actions "lead to larger concerns as to the inclination and ability of the commission to perform its core mission: the implementation of federal law to serve the public interest." Of course Martin's actions in media censorship, which seem to reflect Bush administration policy are what concern us most at this blog. It is a sad and irresponsible record of increased fines and decisions which fly in the face of decades of procedures and precedents, that took attention away from the real and important work of the FCC.

The question of course is what can we expect from the Obama administration. The new president has selected Julius Genachowski, a former Harvard Law classmate of his who was one of the editors of the Harvard Law Review when Obama was the organization's president. Genachowski graduated magna cum laude from Columbia College of Columbia University with a BA in history and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Following law school he clerked for Supreme Court Justices William Brennan and David Souter. He worked for the committee investigating the Iran-Contra affair, and for Congressman Chuck Schumer. He was general counsel to Reed Hundt during his term as FCC chairman until 1996. In private business Genachowski worked for Barry Diller as Chief of Business Operations at IAC/InterActive Corporation. He has also been on the board of directors at Expedia, Hotels.com and Ticketmaster during his time with Diller. He is one of the founding partners of Rock Creek Ventures and LaunchBox Digital, and until his appointment is confirmed serves on the boards of The Motley Fool, Web.com, Mark Ecko Enterprises, and Beliefnet. He is also a special advisor to General Atlantic, and helped found the New Resource Bank, America's first commercial "green bank." During the election campaign he led on the Technology, Media and Telecommunications working group, and headed the Obama Transition Team's Technology, Innovation, and Government Reform Group. According to Wikipedia, Genachowski "advised and guided the Obama campaign's innovative use of technology and the Internet for grassroots engagement and participation."

Genachowski's major concern upon taking office will....not be "broadcast decency" (censorship) and First Amendment. In fact broadcast decency probably won't a major concern for the FCC Chairman, nor should it be. Despite the Parents Television Council and their perpetual complaints, broadcast decency is probably the least of what the FCC does. Undoubtedly Genachowski's first major challenge will be the Digital TV conversion and the possibility of delaying the transition from February 17^th to June 12^th. In fact a bill was introduced by Senator Jay Rockefeller earlier this month with the support of President Obama. According to eWeek.com, some two million Americans are still waiting for the $40 coupons that will defray the cost of purchasing the necessary converter boxes. Further, the National Television and Information Administration announced that funding for the $1.34 billion coupon program has at least temporarily been exhausted. According to Nielsen, in December 6.8% of American households were completely unready for the digital transition, with 11.5% of Hispanic households completely unready and 9.9% of households where the head of household was under 35. Clearly this is an issue that needs to be addressed immediately as opposed to the silliness of someone being seen on live TV giving Mickey Rourke the finger at the Golden Globes.

Other issues that will be confronting Julius Genachowski at the FCC include Net Neutrality, media consolidation, the availability of high speed internet services. On several of these issues we know where Genachowski stands thanks to what has been published in the Obama campaign's Technology and Innovation Plan which was largely Genachowski's work. There were three main points to the plan: open government, open networks and open markets. His involvement in the dot.com field has given him a special interest in net neutrality, the effort to prevent broadband service providers from discriminating against services that overlap with their own business concerns, such as voice over IP (VOIP). The expansion of affordable broadband access would be an attempt to usage up to the levels of other countries which are more advanced in this area. According to WebsiteOptimization.com, as of 2008 the United States was fifteenth in broadband penetration in terms of subscribers per 100 inhabitants (25.0 – Denmark, with 36.7 per 100 inhabitants was in first place), and fifth among G7 countries (Canada and the UK are the top G7 countries). In addition, as Ars Technica reports that "high speed" is still currently defined by the FCC as speeds greater than 200 kbps.

The question of open markets applies to media consolidation. According to Ars Technica, it is likely that a Genachowski FCC would not have approved the mergers between AT&T and BellSouth, or Sirius and XM Radio. As well the regulations regarding newspaper and television cross-ownership, relaxed in November 2007 by Kevin Martin, would not have been changed. There is also a sense that the new FCC chairman will not be as ready to pursue Martin's policy of trying to force cable companies to offer channels on an ala carte basis through a host of new regulations. These regulations have in turn led to a dozen lawsuits brought by the cable industry.

But as I have said, it is the issue of "broadcast decency" and First Amendment considerations related to it that will shape our impression of Julius Genachowski and his tenure as FCC chairman. For better or for worse – mostly for worse – it is this area where the popular perception of the FCC is formed, not in its administration of Net Neutrality, media consolidation, or definition of what constitutes high speed internet. And as we all know the Kevin Martin years – and to a lesser extent the Michael Powell years – were a period when decisions on these issues scarred that perception as the opinions of fringe groups like the American Family Association and the Parents Television Council were given far greater weight than in the past, and more fines were levied and the maximum size of the fines went up by a power of 10.

We know what the Parents Television Council wants. In their press release "congratulating" Julius Genachowski on his selection to be head of the FCC they stated that, "We call on the FCC to focus squarely on its legal obligation to uphold broadcast decency standards, despite the fact that the TV networks seem determined to ignore the written law, the intent of Congress, and the will of the American people at every turn. We also encourage the new FCC to continue to work toward ensuring consumers' access to the quality cable programming of their choice and to provide consumers and families the ability to choose and pay for only the TV programming they want coming into their homes." They reiterated this when they called on the Senate Commerce Committee to "ensure that Mr. Genachowki is questioned fully about his commitment to enforce federal broadcast decency law and to resolve the tens of thousands of indecency complaints received by the Commission before being confirmed." They can hope, but there is ample evidence that they won't get what they're hoping for. As we've already noted, Genachowski is viewed as not being a proponent of ala carte cable pricing, and is being seen as at least partly being pro-consumer in this aspect (not surprisingly; from experience I know that ala carte pricing tends to be more expensive for consumers than bundling of cable channels). But where does he, and the Obama administration, stand on "broadcast decency" (or censorship). There are some interesting clues, which would probably be regarded as negative by the PTC and others with their point of view but hopeful for those of us who believe that the Martin FCC has gone too far in this area.

"Broadcast decency" as an issue seems to cross party lines. While Kevin Martin is strongly associated with the issue, his Democratic colleague on the Commission, Michael Copps, has been strong on the issue as have Democratic Senators Jay Rockefeller and Daniel Inouye. Still broadcasters hope that Genchowksi's appointment will mean a return to the more restrained enforcement, and they have some reason for hope. Genachowski is after all a founding board member of Common Sense Media, a non-partisan organization focussing on "parental education and control issues." Common Sense Media's ten point mission statement may give a huge hint about the direction his administration of the FCC will take:

• We believe in media sanity, not censorship.
  
• We believe that media has truly become "the other parent" in our kids' lives, powerfully affecting their mental, physical, and social development.
  
• We believe in teaching our kids to be savvy media interpreters -- we can't cover their eyes but we can teach them to see.
  
• We believe parents should have a choice and a voice about the media our kids consume. Every family is different but all need information.
  
• We believe that the price for free and open media is a bit of extra homework for families. Parents need to know about media content and need to manage media use.
  
• We believe that through informed decision making, we can improve the media landscape one decision at a time.
  
• We believe appropriate regulations about right time, right place, and right manner exist. They need to be upheld by our elected and appointed leaders.
  
• We believe in age-appropriate media and that the media industry needs to act responsibly as it creates and markets content for each audience.
  
• We believe ratings systems should be independent and transparent for all media.
  
• We believe in diversity of programming and media ownership.
  

While I suppose that the statement about appropriate regulations about time, place and manner and the need to uphold these may be worrying, given the way tht the PTC has used the current "safe harbour" regulations to demand fines for shows that air after 10 p.m. (the safe harbour time) in some areas of the country and at 9 p.m. in the Central and Mountain time zones, it is also heartening that the organization advocates "sanity not censorship." As part of an article on Genachowski's appointment The Hollywood Reporter spoke to Common Sense Media CEO Jim Steyer: "'As a devoted dad, he will always take the interests of parents and kids into consideration when important decisions are made at the FCC,' Common Sense Media CEO Jim Steyer said in an interview. However, he said he expects Genachowski to avoid ideological fervor. 'Our motto is "sanity, not censorship,'" he said. "Julius is a First Amendment scholar and will be a great voice for sanity."

Certainly a visit to the Common Sense Media website is a far better experience than the PTC website. Set aside the whole question of web design a search for any TV show provides a far more helpful experience. They don't accept the proposition – common for the PTC – that content that the organization finds unacceptable totally destroys any relevance or quality that the show would have. Take for example Family Guy, a show that the PTC has consistently and repeatedly attacked as being practically too lewd to be seen on TV at any time is given a three star rating as far as being "any good" as well as a scale that shows how acceptable content is for kids (for Family Guy the "minimal acceptable age" given by the site is 14 – exactly what it's Parental Guideline rating is). In addition they have a section on parent and kid reviews, warnings about content in the areas of sex, message, violence and language, and probably most importantly a "Parents need to know" section that not only states what the reviewer thinks about the show but also discussion issues for parents watching shows with their kids (an example from the Family Guy review: "Families can talk about when politically correct attitudes are helpful and when they can be harmful. Peter Griffin's love of television above and beyond everything else could also be discussed -- is this the way anyone should look at the world?"). Where the PTC would – and does – judge every show based entirely on how much objectionable content there is in the show, Common Sense Media will acknowledge that while a show may be unsuitable for kids (although many TV-MA shows get a "minimal acceptable age" rating of 16) it can still be a great show.

I doubt that Julius Genachowski will adopt the suggestion made by TV Week columnist and deputy editor Josef Adalian that, "Ideally, Mr. Genachowski would declare the FCC is getting out of the business of regulating what broadcasters can and cannot air at certain hours. He would recognize the lunacy of trying to protect kids from so-called obscene content on a few channels when the rest of their media universe offers easy access to such content." On the other hand I sincerely believe – or maybe just hope – that someone who has had the experience with the FCC that he has had will recognise the damage that Kevin Martin has done to the FCC through his crusade on broadcast decency which has unleashed a climate of fear among network and local broadcasters. Broadcasters need to know that what was acceptable last year, or a decade ago or thirty years (and longer) ago is acceptable today. Under Martin the lines weren't clear – broadcasters were famously afraid to air Saving Private Ryan (for example) even though the movie had aired uncut a year before because they were afraid that doing so would lead to a fine of over $300,000. Hopefully, under Genachowski, complaints and situations will be evaluated on a case by case basis the way they were before Kevin Martin.

Goodbye Grissom

One of my favourite TV characters is going away.

On Thursday night (which is tonight as I start to write this , but may very well be last night by the time I actually finish it) Gil Grissom will walk out of the Las Vegas Crime Scene Investigations lab for the last time and will probably go in the way he once told Warwick brown that he'd leave – no party with cake, he'd just be gone. William Petersen, who created the role of the smart controlled Grissom, has decided that – as Grissom said a couple of episodes ago – it's time to raise the ante.

For better or for worse, Gil Grissom is going to be one of the iconic TV characters of the first decade of the century, right up there with President Jed Bartlett and Jack Bauer. What is interesting is that when CSI began as a series few gave it much chance of succeeding. Though I can't find my TV Guide Fall Preview edition (about the only thing I miss about the death of the Canadian edition of TV Guide) from the year that the show debuted, I seem to recall that they thought that the show was "too smart" for the audience and too science oriented. They thought that the big hit for CBS that year would be the remake of The Fugitive which preceded CSI on Friday nights (before Friday night unaccountably became the "death slot" for most networks).

While the series began with an ensemble cast, something that has largely been retained, there was a clear leader of the group in the form of William Petersen as Gil Grissom. Petersen, who was probably best known at the time for his work in movies including Manhunter in which he played a forensic scientist, had a "pay or play" contract with CBS but wasn't able to find a project that he wanted to do. He feared being locked into a role that he would find boring. When the role of Grissom was offered to him he found what he wanted, a character where he – as an actor – would learn a lot and wouldn't get bored. It seems to have worked; in an industry where shows rarely go beyond seven seasons because actors become bored with the roles and drive costs up with salary demands, CSI has endured for nine seasons with Petersen being at least present in all but five episodes. Of those five episodes, one was built around the character of Jim Brass with only three other characters from the show appearing (Warwick, Nick, and Doc Robbins), one when Petersen had to deal with a death in his family and was unavailable, and three when he was appearing in the play Dublin Carole.

Over the years the character of Grissom has developed and changed. This tends to happen with many characters on TV shows of course but in the case of Grissom, and most of the characters in the original CSI for that matter, the development and changes have seemed organic and a logical outgrowth of previous events. In the first season Grissom seems far more outgoing, to the point of occasionally flirting with female characters, but as time went by he has become increasingly reserved; close to his friends and colleagues (who generally seem to be one and the same) but less open to outsiders. This change seems to coincide with the onset of his hearing loss; although he recovered his hearing he seemed to become more reserved. His relationship with Sara went unrevealed, if palpable, until it was finally revealed, first to viewers and only later to the characters on the show.

Grissom has a reputation as a polymath, someone with knowledge on a lot of subjects or perhaps more accurately an curiosity in learning about a lot of subjects. This has shown up in a number of episodes of the show. One of my favourites is when he has to deal with a murder at a convention of "little people;" we learn that he subscribes to the organization's newsletter. His understanding of deaf culture is more profound – his mother is deaf and he learned to sign at an early age. When he was younger he attended boxing matches to learn about bruise patterns and blood spatter, and became something of an expert on the science of boxing. Other interests are more personal. He loves roller coasters, to the point of setting up trips to work related conventions to be able to ride. He used to play poker and played well, to the point where he was able to earn enough money to finance his first body farm with his winnings, but in time lost interest in the game or maybe just in dealing with people. This is mentioned in the third season episode "Revenge Is Best Served Cold" and seems to have been forgotten only to be mentioned in the episode "Young Man With A Horn" earlier this season.

Grissom served as a significant influence to the younger investigators under his leadership. His relationship with Warwick Brown was at time adversarial, but still extremely closes. After his death Grissom and Catherine discover a DVD in which Warwick describes Grissom as being close to a father figure for him. Warwick was always worried about disappointing Grissom even in those situations where they disagreed. His relationship with Nick Stokes has similar qualities, although Nick's father is still alive. This relationship reveals itself in the episode "Grave Danger" (directed by Quentin Tarantino) where Grissom takes on the paternal role, referring to Nick by his childhood nickname of Pancho. More than that though, with the exception of Greg, Nick is the youngest of the CSIs and the one who has been taught the most by Grissom if only because he didn't have the same extensive science background that Grissom had. As far as Greg goes, Grissom is at once a mentor and a model. After all both have widely divergent interests, and both were scientists first before becoming field investigators. Grissom's has close friendships with both Doctor Robbins and Captain Jim Brass, although it's unclear how close either of these relationships is. Brass considers Grissom a close enough friend to give power of attorney to, and yet Grissom doesn't even know whether or not Brass owns a boat and they've never seemed to get together socially outside of work. His relationship with Robbins also seems to be primarily work related insofar as Robbins is always revealing new facts about himself to Grissom.

It is his relationships with women that are the most interesting. We don't know much about how he is dealing with the newest CSI of the bunch Ronnie Lake, but his relationship with Sophia Curtiss, who was briefly a CSI before transferring to the regular police department was quite cordial. His two big relationships though are with Sara Sidle, who was initially his protégé but in time became his lover. Petersen has stated that Sara "completes" Grissom. For Grissom the intimacy that they hove goes back much further than when they began their physical relationship. It is perhaps one of the reasons why he specifically chose her to come to Las Vegas after Holly Gribbs was killed in the pilot episode of the series. The hints about the relationship run through many episodes of the series, going back to the third or fourth season, and when the fact that they were together as a couple was revealed to viewers it didn't come as a surprise, simply as a confirmation of what we all knew for a long time (not that this made it any more palatable for some fans). The revelation moreover was done in such a way that it seemed natural. They didn't suddenly come together but rather it was as though we as viewers were being admitted into this aspect of Grissom's life.

I have to say right here that I am one of those people who doesn't totally like the Grissom-Sara relationship. In my case this has a lot to do with my preference for a Grissom-Catherine relationship. They seem to fit together much more readily. In fact there is a point where Grissom refers to Catherine as being like a wife. While the producers of the show prefer to describe the Grissom-Catherine relationship as being like brother and sister, I think there is more than a bit of truth in Grissom's description of it. I prefer to think of it as an almost platonic marriage, in which they share just about everything except sex. They complement each other; he's more driven by the data than she is while she's more willing to go with instinct, her real world experience has been more worldly than his while his academic knowledge is greater both in terms of degrees and variety of interests. Certainly he seems to have a deeper friendship with Catherine than any of his male colleagues – he's had her over to his apartment for dinner at least once that we know of – and the depth of their relationship has been explored a lot recently. She knows that she can talk to him about just about anything, apparently including her frustrations with her sex life, and she is perceptive enough to pick up on the messages he's sending even when he doesn't know he's sending them. She says that she knew that he was leaving, probably before he knew it himself. That remark in itself is telling, not unlike a woman who realizes that her long marriage is coming to an end, not because of the fault of either party but simply because the time for it to end has arrived. There are no recriminations or anger, simply a wistful sense of sadness and loss. I think that it is this aspect of the show that is most likely to be lost when Grissom leaves.

I have no doubt that CSI will be able to survive the departure of William Petersen from the show. The show has a strong ensemble cast and the addition of Laurence Fishburne as a permanent fixture on the series is a definite plus, while Marge Helgenberger, and her character of Catherine Willows, are both strong enough to become primary characters. What I do fear is that the departure of Petersen will significantly alter the personal dynamics of the characters in the series. The crimes will still be as intriguing – the writers will see to that – but the focal point of the relationships for nine years is being removed and it won't be possible to realign those relationships right away. In an odd way, that might be an advantage for the series if the writers are willing to spend the time showing those relationships changing. It may set the show apart from a series like Law & Order where characters are removed and replaced like cogs in a machine with only slight disruption in the day to day operation. I'm looking forward to seeing how the writers handle Grissom's departure and how long it take to deal with its repercussions.

The Fear Is NOT Real

Every so often there is a show that you feel you have to see just because of the people involved. You want it to be good of course, and you believe it could be good, but that's entirely because of the people involved – the people that are the reason you feel you have to see the show. 13 – Fear Is Real was one of those shows for me. The people in this case are Executive Producers Sam Raimi and Rob Tappert. You remember Raimi and Tappert right? If the only things they gave us were Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess that would be enough. But of course that aren't the only things they've given us. Raimi gave us the Evil Dead movies, the Grudge movies, and of course the Spiderman series (not to mention having Bruce Campbell as a friend since childhood). Rob Tappert has worked with Raimi since they were college roommates and has either co-written or co-directed most of the movies that Raimi has made (not to mention that he's married to Lucy Lawless). If there's one thing these two guys know it's horror movies. So yeah, I was looking forward to seeing what they'd do with a horror based reality show. So how'd they do?

Well I have to say that I was a bit disappointed, but before I get into reasons I should present a bit of a synopsis of the show. It began with a group of people being driven out into the wilderness in a converted school bus. Brief glimpses of the outside, mainly of graveyards, set the scene as New Orleans and the Louisiana bayous. As they drive along we meet some of the cast including Leah, a bartender who is afraid of just about everything but particularly the dark; Lauren, a model who claims that in the movies it's always the ditzy girl who gets killed first; Kelly, an events planner who talks about being a Christian and claims that she believes in the Devil and in his works; and Cody, a self proclaimed "ghost hunter" with multiple piercings and a huge Mohawk who claims not to be afraid of anything. As the bus penetrates deeper and deeper down a dirt road it becomes darker and darker. Suddenly the bus stops, its path blocked by some logs. The driver tells his passengers that this is where they get off. They keep walking down the road, apparently because they aren't allowed to stay with the bus. So they trek further down the road in the dark with all the weird foresty noises, which always sound scary at night, and finally find a deserted shack. And suddenly we're in every scary teen flick of the '80s and '90s, except that the shack is loaded with closed circuit cameras all feeding to "The Mastermind."

Despite several people in the groups saying "don't open the door," they open the door. The one room shack, which is to say without a toilet (big surprise), is "tastefully" decorated in blood spatters, voodoo doll, a pentagrams and the words "Don't Trust" both in blood, and if I recall correctly a ram's skull. As the group starts to settle in they hear a thump on one of the walls. It's an axe with a note holding a note onto the wall. The note says "Answer the phone." And of course, despite people saying "don't answer the phone" they end up answering the phone. Or at least they do after they find it, since it was hidden under the floorboards of the shack. On the phone is The Mastermind and he has instructions for them. First, one of them has to agree to stay at the cabin and therefore not participate in the "game" that The Mastermind has for them. Surprisingly it is great big fearless ghost hunter Cody, his mohawk looking more than a little deflated by the Louisiana humidity, who decides to stay put. The remaining twelve people pair up into twos. One member of each pair then has to walk down the road to ... an uncertain fate. Next the other six are told to walk down the same road. What we know (and they don't) is that their partners have been blindfolded, gagged and tied to chairs in the woods. As the others walk down the road they come to what they, and initially we since we're in on at least this much of what The Mastermind plans, think is one of their number bound to a chair. It is in fact a dummy. There are more instructions from The Mastermind. They have to search through the woods to find and release only their own partner. Once they do that they have to get back to the dummy as fast as they can. The last pair to get back to the dummy have to face the Execution Ceremony. They also have to take video cameras with them to film their rescue, leading to some very "Blair Witch-y" footage of them stumbling through the woods. Eventually, it is the only all female pair, Kelly and Lauren who have to face the execution challenge. During the night Leah, the one who is basically afraid of everything leaves the cabin – presumably to use or at least find the outhouse – and somehow panics. She screams (of course) and the others (of course) go out to find and comfort her. Nothing really comes of it but everyone associated with this production has to be overjoyed that they cast this scaredy cat for the show since she gets frightened even when there's nothing to be frightened about.

The next morning everything seems nice and normal with all the scares of the night before gone. Then Nassir, a concierge who claims to be a rapper, discovers a tape recorder sitting on top of a cage inside of which is locked a wooden box. The tape tells him to gather up the group before going any further, which he dutifully does. The box locked in the cage is the "Death Box." A player who has the Death Box and reads the instructions inside can kill three of his fellow competitors, but if they are caught with the box they are automatically put up for execution. Steffinnie, a young woman of Laotian descent who says she believes in spirits because she's seen spirit activity in her own life, quickly works out the combination for the lock (which oddly isn't 666 – that's the first number she tries) takes the box out but doesn't open it and hides it in the underbrush. When the others discover that the Death Box is out of its cage there is considerable discussion of who could have it and how it was probably a premature action. There's a lot of paranoia floating about and Steffinnie cracks. She goes back, and with some difficulty finds the box and puts it back in the cage. Crisis, seemingly, averted.

Night falls again and the phone rings. Kelly and Lauren are told to each use a video camera to record their last words to the group (and to us of course) and then walk down the road where The Mastermind's minions – yes he actually calls them minions and has done from the first time he spoke to the victims/contestants – will take charge of them. The minions are dressed all in black and along the road they grab Kelly and Lauren and blindfold them. They also apparently blindfold the camera because for the next minute or so all we see is a sliver of light on a mostly black screen. Finally we all arrive at the site of the execution challenge. There are two slightly larger than people sized wooden boxes; Kelly and Lauren are to be buried alive! They get into their crude wooden coffins, which are of course wire for sound and have closed circuit TV cameras, and the minions begin securing the coffins with nails and wire, lower them into the waiting graves and then shovel on the dirt. While Kelly prays, Lauren fidgets because of the dirt dropping down onto her. Once the burying is finished The Mastermind tells the girls (remember the coffins are wired for sound) that the first one to escape from her coffin will survive and return to the group. The other one will die. Truth be known the result is relatively anticlimactic. It doesn't take too long for Kelly to figure out that she can kick out the end of her coffin with her feet and then she can – amazingly – get out through that end. She's out of the box before Kelly even finishes pushing on the tops and sides. Kelly goes back to the group with Laurens video and I swear someone says "don't watch the video." And on most shows that would be the end but not on this one; the next day dawns and the group goes out to check the cage. The Death Box is gone!!

I have from time to time said that if a reality show is going to be imitative it should have some original aspect to it that will differentiate from the run of the mill. Why is it that after a seemingly endless string of Apprentice imitators came and went only Hell's Kitchen survived and prospered. The answer is that the Gordon Ramsay show had differences – Ramsay's perpetual presence as a hands on leader being the biggest – that made it seem different, or at least different enough, from the original model that it started from that people either overlook or don't care about the similarities. 13 – Fear Is Real is taking from the Survivor model – not surprising since the third executive producers is Jay Bienstock who has been with Mark Burnett's show since Australia – but in a very real way, rather than improving on the model the show is so pale an imitation that it might be called corpse-like. On Survivor there always seems to be something going on, whether it's gathering food or getting water or even lying in their shelters talking smack about other players and plotting alliances. In the wake of the first challenge where the victims have to find their partners the most exciting thing to occur until the Death Box was found by Nassir was a stimulating game of throw the stick into the holes in the concrete blocks. And that made it sound more exciting than it was. Watching Cody's mohawk deflate would have been more fun, but by that afternoon it had almost converted itself into a flat-top.

There is a further major problem with this show and that concerns the subject matter. The classic horror movies of the '70s, '80s and '90s had a common thread of unpredictability. You never knew when something was going to happen and it built up the dramatic tension to considerable heights. And of course none of the people in those movies knew that they were in a horror movie; well except maybe for Neve Campbell and her friends in the Scream series. The net result is that they went to the secluded cabin in the woods with little more on their skeevy little minds but partying, drinking, and getting laid. In those movies then it comes as a shock to all around her that the girl who just had sex ended up as the victim of a hideous murder. The horror aspects of 13 Fear Is Real are stage managed, and worse they seem to be on a schedule. While they may not have known that the first "selection challenge" (or whatever you want to call it) would take place the night they arrived, they knew that the next night either Kelly or Lauren would be "killed" and so there wouldn't be another selection challenge and they could basically relax. That doesn't really inspire fear in well... just about anybody. You can't schedule terror. Plus they're all aware that they're on a reality show dealing with fear and terror, so in light of that awareness how much fear can be inspired within them. The victims might put on a show but it lacks the believability that you might have if, instead of knowing they're on a show called 13 – Fear Is Real, they believe they're on something called True Beauty (to use the name of the week's other new reality debut as an example) and the situation they find themselves in seems like a horrible U-turn from what things are supposed to be. But of course you couldn't do that without fear of lawsuits, now could you.

13 – Fear Is Real is a major disappointment given the quality of the people involved in the show. The fear on the part of the audience has very little to do with what is going on on-screen. We have little or no involvement with the victims and thus their demise and their interactions don't interest us. There is no surprise or shock here and that undermines our sense of fear. And when you take the horror away from a TV series based around horror movie clichés, you aren't left with much at all. 13 – Fear Is Real gets good marks in terms of concept but the majority of the grade is based on execution (you should pardon the expression) and in that the show gets a big fat goose egg. It may not be the worst show of the year or even the month, but when it comes to everything else, it fails to live up to its potential, and it fails to scare us. In short it fails dismally as a show.

Christmas Cancelled!

Well the eighth through twelfth days of it anyway. I'm still not feeling up to my best or even an average level thanks in no small part to decongestants, antihitemines and other cold and flu stuff, and while I just might be capable of banging out a piece tonight on the latest bit of reality TV crap from Ashton Kutcher (prejudged only slightly) I wasn't capable of much of anything the past few days except perhaps sleeping. And let's face it, the moment has kind of past for what I was trying to do.

The Eighth Day Of Christmas...

...is temporarily postponed because I feel like something the dog left outside for me to step in.

On The Seventh Day Of Christmas

On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love – Television – gave to me...seven year end lists (or at least year end lists from seven favourites of mine).

This was the supposed to be the one that got me caught up; an easy one, because all I'd be doing is inserting links. Yeah, right. Schedule still way out of whack thanks to shovelling snow and feeding little brother, not to mention watching the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl game. I'll share a secret – the Rose Parade was more exciting than the football game.

But let's get started with this. These are end of the year lists put out by various people, most of whom I have a certain amount of respect for, although there are some that are included for reasons like the fact that they're Canadians.

• Alex Strachan, who writes for the Canwest newspapers has his "Naughty and Nice" list – five things he considered Naughty, and five that he considered nice. #1 on the Naughty list Farmer Takes A Wife: "This pig-in-a-poke, roll-in-the-mud dragged reality TV to a new low, and that's saying a lot. Is this really our reality?" #1 on the nice side was Canadian comedian and social and political satirist Rick Mercer: "Rick Mercer had himself a merry old year. An unnecessary fall election, and the nonsense that followed it, gave him a lifetime's worth of material to run with. And run with it he did."
  
• Long time friend of the blog Jaime Weinman, in his Macleans Magazine blog has his Best on TV list. He has five categories including "Best non-romantic relationship," "Best appearance by a ghost," "Best use of a TV show for political purposes," Best speech," and "Best-looking Canadian on TV." In the latter category he writes, "This is almost as difficult as choosing the most depressing news story of 2008; there are so many beautiful Canadians on television that many U.S. message-board posters have become convinced that Canadians are all beautiful. Which we are." Setting that obvious truth aside he's really talking about Colbie Smulders of How I Met Your Mother, and while I have other choices I can't entirely disagree.
  
• Alan Sepinwall of the Newark Star-Ledger has two lists here. One looks back at the best shows of 2008, while the other looks forward to the best episodes of 2008. His Best Series list is the traditional 10 best series of the year – although naturally there are eleven entries in his top ten list. Naturally most of his shows were on cable. #1 was of course The Shield: "It's been two months since I first saw the cop drama's final two episodes, and I still shiver at the memory of how uncompromising, how disturbing, how powerful and how devastating they were -- the best finale I've ever seen for an American TV drama. Unlike "The Sopranos" -- the show to which it was so often compared -- "The Shield" seemed determined to provide as much closure as possible, and yet there's a delicious ambiguity to the final fate of Vic Mackey (the brilliant Michael Chiklis) and what it means." In his Best Episodes list has fifteen entries with no apparent order. I particularly like his assessment of the CSI episode "19 Down": "The first half of William Petersen's farewell offered up Bill Irwin as a disturbing new villain, Laurence Fishburne as an intriguing new hero, and a reminder of just how much more potent the original "CSI" is than its various spin-offs and imitators."
  
• Aaron Barnhart at TVBarn.com and the Kansas City Star focussed his attention on what he called at one point, "TV's most thrilling reality show," the 2008 presidential election. In one concession to looking at entertainment he talks about the late night shows and in particular Tina Fey's version of Sarah Palin: "Her close encounter with Palin on one "SNL" episode was much commented-upon, but it was the QVC sketch -- with the fey-Sarah hawking "Palin in 2012" T-shirts while Real McCain, standing just off-camera, asked, "What are you doing over there?" -- that historians 100 years from now will write dissertations about."
  
• Ed Bark in his Blog also made a point of discussing the election, with four or five of his ten entries focussing on either politics or TV as a venue for politics, making reference to the death of Tim Russert, and MSNBC embracing its status as a left-wing response to Fox News. For him Obama was the TV story of the year: "From the hard-fought, ice-encrusted primaries of January to December's still operative after-glow, Obama is by far the year's biggest TV story. Making history helps, too. And in the end, yes he did."
  
• Tim Goodman of SFGate.com came up with a list of the twenty-five best shows of the year, although his number one was Mad Men: "This is a series that is brain candy as well as eye candy. Visually stunning and smartly nuanced, the full Don Draper character study is a thing of beauty. But this season, "Mad Men" fleshed out the surrounding characters as well (particularly Don's wife, Betty) while simultaneously ramping up the duality of Don, nailing cultural change and alluding to the onrush of chaos."
  
• Maureen Ryan has a list of the Top Shows on TV in 2008 that is chock full of stuff besides her Ton Ten list (with twelve entries) that reminds me why she's one of my favourite professional critics. I really like her assessment of the second season of Mad Men: "Even when it confounded me, this rich, complicated drama about yearning, unpredictable men and women left me hungry for more. This year, the "Mad" men frequently yielded center stage to the show's frustrated, fascinating women, who turned in stunning performances, and to supporting characters such as the lovable but heartbreaking Freddy Rumsen (Joel Murray)." And her writing on The Shield – "Few shows in the history of television have worked as hard to keep their fans' attention; only high-quality Swiss timepieces are more beautifully complex." – ain't bad either.

On The Sixth Day Of Christmas

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love (Television) gave to me – six male characters I enjoy.

I did this last year and it seemed to work out pretty well. In fact I think it worked out better than I expected it would considering that it was a last minute addition to the list. What I'm talking about is characters rather than actors. True, there are cases where it is the actor who really makes the character, where no one could ever imagine someone other than who was chosen playing the role. Then there are characters who may not be "actor-proof" but into whom an actor grows. After a while you may come to think that no one else could do the role but that's because you identify the character with the actor and vice-versa. Think of this sort of role as being an off the rack suit rather than one that is made to measure. And so with that as a preface here's my list:

• Charlie Crews (Life): One of the holdovers from last year and for good reason – I want people to watch this show! The reason I want people to watch this show is the performance of the two leads, Damien Lewis and Sarah Shahi, who is going to be on the list of female characters in a couple of days. Crews is a perfect example of an "off the rack" role. While I won't say that any actor could play the part, it's also not a part that could only be filled by Damien Lewis. In fact because Lewis is British, it's probably a role that he is less suited for than many actors. And yet Damien Lewis has made Crews his own. While Charlie's quirks and what might be called "personality tics" are largely the product of the writers, it is Lewis who takes those qualities and with his mode of speaking and his body language turns them into a believable character.
  
• Jack Donaghy (30 Rock): I can't remember the last time I actually watched an episode of 30 Rock (the first time I saw it I was very turned off by the character of Tracy Morgan) but I know and appreciate just how good this show is. A large part of it is due to the ensemble cast but the standouts are Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin. I don't know that Donaghy is the role that Baldwin was born to play but I do think that there is no one else who could play Donaghy.
  
• Patrick Jane (The Mentalist): I've recently been somewhat dismissive of The Mentalist because the series seems to be a "safe" approach for CBS. Still Simon Baker invests Patrick Jane with a number of qualities that make him stand out. I recently read an interview in which Baker stated that in his interpretation Jane is "full of self-loathing and incredibly self-deprecating." In his view, the death of Jane's wife and daughter shaped the character by taking away just about everything in his life. It's shown in his clothes which are worn and his shoes which are worn out. It indicates that since the death of his wife and daughter, "he gave up on his physical appearance." As Baker puts it, "Jane really has nothing left to live for, except for a form of revenge and justice, and his own take on what justice is." While The Mentalist may be a safe show for CBS, following a format that is episodic and therefore eminently repeatable, the way that his personality is presented makes Patrick Jane one of the more complicated characters around.
  
• Walter Bishop (Fringe): Walter Bishop stands out in a different way from Patrick Jane. While the fact that Jane has largely given up on living except for his determination to avenge his family, Walter Bishop is a mass to personality quirks that are blatantly obvious to the viewer. It's largely due to his insanity of course; Walter is quite literally a mad scientist. Although the role of Walter Bishop is one that abounds with opportunities to chew the scenery, John Noble invests him with a considerable amount of humanity. In a very real way Walter is almost a child, alternately naive and knowing, callous and caring. A very enjoyable portrayal.
  
• Dave Williams (Desperate Housewives): Villains are often the juiciest roles for an actor and in Dave Williams, Neal McDonough has found good one. On the surface Dave seems like a personable fellow out to make friends and help people. It's all part of a massive plot of course. While retaining his "nice guy" exterior, Dave has run Mrs. McCluskey out of her home, killed his former psychiatrist, started a fire in a night club to cover the murder that killed six or seven people, and framed Porter Scavo for the murder. The reasons for his actions have slowly been revealed. Initially it came out that he was seeking revenge against one of the husbands of Wisteria Lane. Narrowing it down slightly it was mentioned that the person he was after had killed someone in prison. Most recently it was revealed that – like Patrick Jane – Dave is seeking to avenge the death of his wife and daughter. In this case the vengeance will not simply be the death of the person (and I'm not going to mention who if only to avoid the wrath of the spoiler haters) he holds responsible for the death of his family but rather to inflict suffering on this man of the likes that he himself suffered.
  
• Gil Grissom (CSI): I've always liked William Petersen's performance as Grissom but with the announcement that Petersen would be leaving the series in the middle of this season, the producers seem to have made a very deliberate effort to focus storylines on Grissom. He's been made to appear increasingly melancholy and the producers have delved into his relationships with both the people he works with and people outside of his life who are important to him like Sara and Lady Heather. There's a telling moment at the beginning of the season when Grissom asks the psychologist played by Alex Kingston whether dogs can adopt the emotions of their owners that really lets us know that for whatever reason – most likely that Sara has left – Grissom is increasingly dissatisfied by where he is. It is perhaps fitting that it is his closest confidant, Catherine Willows, with whom he first confides his intention to leave. It is also fitting that she knows him so well that she can say that she knew he was going even before he did. In spite of the fact that they have never been physically intimate their connection is on a very intimate level. The past half season or so of the series has provided viewers with some of the most revealing glimpses of Grissom ever in the show.
  

On The Fifth Day Of Christmas

On the fifth day of Christmas (which has already passed) my true love – Television – gave to me ... five Emmy hosts.

What were they thinking?

I mean seriously: What were they THINKING?!

I'm getting this out late because I spent a cold and not overly clement Tuesday with my little nephew, which really meant watching cartoons on Teletoon here in Canada. This would normally spark a rant on the quality of the modern TV cartoon as compared with the stuff that I used to watch as a kid. The stuff I used to watch was better, and if he can say the same thing when he gets to be my age then the art form will be in seriously deep doo-doo. However I had already planned to talk about the Emmys and the decision to use the five reality show hosts nominees as hosts for the Emmys which in its own way shows that something is in seriously deep doo-doo.

I'm not entirely sure what the rationale was for choosing to spotlight the five nominees for "Outstanding Host for a Reality Show or Reality Competition" as hosts for Emmys. That the category was new is scarcely reason enough to make the choice. Of the five reality show hosts – Howie Mandel, Jeff Probst, Tom Bergeron, Heidi Klum, and Ryan Seacrest – only Howie Mandel is really used to working in comedy and before a live audience. Thanks to his work in game shows over the years Bergeron is probably almost as polished as Mandel. For the rest, their skills vary from marginal – Seacrest hosted the Emmys in 2007 and failed miserably – to non-existent in the case of Heidi Klum. Even so the experiment might have worked, or at least functioned adequately, if they hadn't insisted on having more than one of the hosts working at any one time. But – at least during the times when you actually saw the hosts which was increasingly rare as the show continued – the producers insisted on having two or more of the hosts working at a time.

Of course the business with the hosts was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to problems with the Emmy Awards. A certain amount of the problem might have been beyond the control of the producers. A significant number of the nominated shows, performers, writers and directors came from cable series and networks shows that quite frankly were artistic and critical successes but not necessarily seen by a large number of people even in the current climate of reduced audiences. The result would seem to be a reduced number of viewers turning in from the beginning.

Still there were a great many things that the producers of the show did have control over. While the TV networks insist that the Emmys be broadcast live rather than taped and edited, they also insist that the show run to time. The producers know this – or rather should know this since they've been doing the show for years – but still insist on writing stand-alone comedy material like the initial presentation of the hosts or the "tribute" to Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. In Fact the Laugh-In tribute may very well have been the worst thing of the night artistically – the jokes were bad, the performers who showed up weren't as sharp as they were thirty years ago (Alan Sues in particular seemed sadly like he was either drunk for real or suffering quite ill) and the whole seemed to have absolutely no purpose. The producers also put jokes in the category introductions for the presenters, most of which actually work better than the stand-alone material. The problem is that as the show rolls on, material increasingly gets cut for time. And it's usually not the stand-alone stuff but the presenter material. By the end of this year's Emmys the hosts were never seen (as hosts that is, but I'll get into that in a moment) and the presenters barely had time to be announced, emerge and read the names. No jokes, in fact no preface at all to what they were about to do. I'm not even sure if they showed clips of the nominated shows.

Which brings us to one of the worst excesses of the 2008 Emmys, the presentation of the award for Outstanding Host for a Reality Show or Reality Competition. While the presenters for the Outstanding Drama category were reduced to walking to the nearest microphone, swiftly reading out the names of the nominees and getting out of the way of the thundering herd from Mad Men it took about ten minutes and a commercial break for them to present Jeff Probst with his Emmy in a sort of mock tribal council or some other reality elimination format. Beyond the fact that it was boring as hell and badly presented the worst part of it was the waste of time that could have been used for better material, not to mention for a better category. Even the Outstanding Reality Competition category, which by virtually any measurable standard is the more important category, got short shrift as a result. And for the life of me I don't know why they focused on this particular category.

So what does the Television Academy have to do to make the 2009 Emmys if not more successful at least more palatable? Well, first of all, cut the number of hosts down to one or at most two. Whoever does host the show should be big – Craig Ferguson, or maybe Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer. Second, cut the extraneous stuff to a minimum – the obituary reel, a tribute to some notable show or person and do that with clips – but beyond that just focus on presenting the awards. And when you're doing it, keep the jokes to a minimum, particularly in the "lesser" categories. Those are the ones where the presenter should come out and just announce the names of the nominees. And for heaven's sake, when you time the rehearsals remember that sometimes winners talk longer than the amount of time you allot for them, and that people actually laugh at jokes – even the one's your writers come up with. Take the jokes out in rehearsal so you don't have to cut more and more as the show goes on and the important categories come up. Just my opinion of course, but that might make the whole show a bit more watchable.

On The Fourth Day Of Christmas

On the fourth day of Christmas my true love – Television – gave to me... four shows from last season that I wish were still on this season.

Okay, first of all this isn't the "fourth day of Christmas" post that I had originally planned. What I did have planned was a series of gripes about Canadian TV and the difficulties that being a Canadian imposed on people who love TV – like the fact that the best premium cable, and some basic cable, shows don't show up on basic cable here for months or years after they air in the United States. I could have reviewed Deadwood and Rome, but what would be the point; they had already been cancelled. And please don't ask me to subscribe to the premium channels to see these shows unless you are willing to provide me with a guaranteed $28 each and every month to pay for them. And don't even get me started on people who embed HULU clips on their websites that I can't see because I'm not an American. At least HULU tells me up front. Some other sources make me watch a commercial first and then tell me.

I know, this all sounds a bit self-centered. More to the point writing it was increasingly difficult for me, so I dropped it, but what to replace it with. I very nearly wrote "On the fourth day of Christmas my true love – Television – gave to me... nothing at all." I think I could have spun that into a piece about the industry but it kind of loses the numerical flavour. But then I thought of a great old standby, the "wrongly" cancelled show. Networks have all kinds of reasons for cancelling shows of course but in the light of what we got from them instead, maybe they shouldn't have been so hasty with what they did dump.

Moonlight – CBS: CBS cancelled a show that usually finished first in its timeslot and replaced it with The Ex-List. More to the point they cancelled a show about a vampire in love with a human (and vice versa) six months before ($150 million gross in four weeks), and less than four months before HBO put True Blood on the air. Yeah I know there were fan protests, and I know that after what happened with Jericho (which the network totally mishandled, but that's beside the point) CBS might be just a little wary of on a show that might be described as a "cult favourite," but come on, can anyone really say that the show wouldn't have performed better than The Ex-List? No, I didn't think so.

Women's Murder Club – ABC: This was the show that was usually on opposite Moonlight an alternated winning the time slot with it. The show, about four women involved in the criminal justice system – a cop, a coroner, an assistant district attorney, and a reporter – did reasonably well in the ratings and was one of the few new ABC shows to come back after the Writers Strike, and did so with little apparent erosion in the ratings. The show was not the unanimous critical success that Pushing Daisies or to a lesser extent Dirty Sexy Money and Eli Stone were, but in terms of audience numbers it was close to the latter two series. The time slot might have hurt it; Grey's Anatomy on Thursday night might have been a better fit for the show than 20/20 or the weak and often moved Men In Trees. Certainly Women's Murder Club would have done better coming out of Grey's Anatomy than Big Shots did last season or Life On Mars did this season.

Las Vegas – NBC: Yeah, I know it was expensive, and yeah I know that it was coming to the end of its string but it was one of the great "guilty pleasures" and it deserved to be treated better than NBC treated it in what turned out to be the final not quite a season. Particularly when you remember that this season NBC had Crusoe, My Own Worst Enemy and Knight Rider, none of which can be classified as "great guilty pleasures."

1 vs. 100 – NBC: This one was really hard to decide on. There are a lot of people who would have said Journeyman but it wasn't a show that I saw much of, and I could make arguments for FOX's New Amsterdam (because I liked the concept; it reminded me a bit of Highlander) or Shark (because it's fun to watch James Woods chew scenery), the CW's Aliens In America (which I never saw, but had good ratings – well good by CW standards – until it came back from the strike and let's face it the CW needs all the help they can get). In theory at least I could even make a case for the CW's Life Is Wild on the grounds that it was closer to family fare than most of what is on any network and even at its worst in terms of ratings it did way better than all of the MRC shows that the CW put on combined. But no, I went with a game show, 1 vs. 100 and I did it because as game shows go it was more knowledge based than something like Deal Or No Deal and despite all of the tinkering that NBC did with the scoring system (instead of money levels for each question where you got that amount for each mob member eliminated they changed it to ten levels were you had to eliminate ten mob members to collect that amount of money) and the composition of "the Mob" (putting permanent mob members in, some of whom wouldn't have survived the old system – I'm looking at you Dahm Triplets and you Oscar the Grouch) it was always an enjoyable show to watch.

On The Third Day Of Christmas

On the third day of Christmas my true love – Television – gave to me... three Reality TV Show stars.

Now contrary to what my friend Toby contends, I don't watch all that much reality TV. I watch what I call "The Big Three" from CBS – Big Brother, Survivor, and The Amazing Race and sample a few others in the summer. I really don't consider Dancing With The Stars to be a reality show, and I don't watch the Project Runway class of look-alike shows – Project Runway, America's Next Top Model, Top Chef, and the one about hairstylists. Mostly those shows aren't available to me. I've never watched the "dating" shows like The Bachelor, and most of the talent shows like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance leave me totally out of it. That goes for their Canadian versions as well, although I feel a considerable irritation over the fact that CTV has pulled Canadian Idol from their 2009 line-up and blame the economic environment. It's one of the network's highest rated show and either they think that they've found all of the singing talent in Canada after three seasons or that it costs too much to rent the venues. (Maybe if they didn't spend $3 million on the rights to the old Hockey Night In Canada theme. No hockey games to go with it, just the theme music.) I even became disenchanted with the only "talent" type show that I watched – NBC's America's Got Talent – as a result of the bloated audition phase and the atrophied performance phase.

What all of that was about was to explain why my list of Reality TV Show Stars is restricted to just three. I mean it could have been four if I'd decided to include Gene Simmons from Celebrity Apprentice but let's face it, Gene Simmons is Gene Simmons; larger than life and maybe even (in his way) larger than Trump. What I'm interested in in this post is the non-celebrities who have, through the medium of the Reality TV Shows that I watch have inserted themselves into my memory for a little while. I have to say that the number who actually did that was severely restricted. While Jerry and to a lesser extent Renny on the summer Big Brother created an impression but in the case of Jerry it was an increasingly negative one and in the case of Renny it often focused on that voice. There were good people in Amazing Race 13 but none who stood out in the way that Kynt & Vyxsin did in the twelfth edition of The Race. So here's what I've got, two players from the most recently completed cycle of Survivor and one from an otherwise unremarkable show called Greatest American Dog. These are presented in alphabetical order if for no other reason than it removes any taint of favouritism from the mix.

Bill McFarlin & Star – Greatest American Dog: I'm a dog guy – have been since the cat I thought was mine ran away when I was four. Watching Greatest American Dog generally reaffirmed for me the claim by the late Barbara Woodhouse that there were no bad dogs just bad owners. The people on the show all loved their dogs, but some were incredibly – even stupidly – indulgent of them. Some couldn't control their dogs while others were over-controlling to the point where their dogs were becoming stressed and the owners didn't even know it. And then there were the egos – mostly the owners – that got in the way. Bill, from Flint Texas, seemed to have a special bond with his Brittany Spaniel Star. Unlike some of the contestants he didn't anthropomorphise the dog, and unlike others he wasn't overly controlling. Star was smart and responsive, while Bill was genuinely concerned with the dog's welfare. At one point Star was injured – apparently by a feral cat – and Bill was heartbroken over the possible injury to his dog, not about possibly leaving the contest. This was in contrast with some other contestants. The other thing about Bill is that he was very friendly and willing to help other contestants on the show in working with their dogs if they wanted the help. Again this was in stark contrast with some of the contestants. One in particular – a professional trainer – tended to be condescending to the other owners. It is something of a testament to Bill and Star that when they were eliminated from the show, I eliminated the show from my weekly viewing.

Bob Crowley – Survivor: Gabon: One of those cases where the "good guy" and someone who actually deserves it wins a reality-competition show. Bob Crowley, a high school physics teacher, from Maine wasn't the most likely person to win the show. In fact he was arguably the most unlikely. He was the oldest man on the show and in a very real way one of the least effective in the physical challenges. But as he said at one point (it was inserted into promos for the show featuring him) he was "wicked smaht." His initial contributions to the tribes that he was on were in terms of woodcraft and outdoorsmanship. His teams had plenty of food cooked well (he improvised a griddle by splitting open and flattening a large tin can) and comforts (at one point he apparently built a bench at one of the camps). This led at least one of his competition to dismiss him as "not really playing the game." It was a severe underestimation. Even as his alliance was falling apart he was laying the groundwork towards forging new temporary relationships. And he was not above being devious. Not once but twice he created fake immunity idols of such good quality that they were able to persuade others of their legitimacy. But perhaps his greatest triumph in the game was an unprecedented string of personal challenge victories – both immunity and reward – with which he was able to retain his position in the game even as he was becoming the obvious threat to beat. In the end he was able to persuade the jury members that he, unlike second place finisher Susie (a woman who made flying under the radar a new art form), had lived up to the show's motto "Outwit, Outplay, Outlast." (One interesting sidelight about Bob: one of his students, Julie Berry, was a competitor on Survivor: Vanuatu - she finished fifth.)

Jessica "Sugar" Kiper – Survivor: Gabon: If ever proof were needed that reality shows have writers – at least to pick out and develop the storylines from the footage shot on location – it is Sugar. To viewers Sugar was the second most likable member of the cast (behind Bob) as shown by the fan poll at the end of the series. And yet she was the only one of the final three not to get a vote for the jury. Susie, who was probably the least visible of the cast members who made it to the merge – at least in terms of screen-time – received only one less vote than Bob. Clearly – and it was stated during the reunion show – there were things about Sugar and her behaviour that irritated people. I suppose that 39 days of Sugar is different than fifteen edited hours of her. What is abundantly clear is that however much she may have irritated them, Sugar also allowed herself to be underestimated by the other competitors (with the possible exception of Bob – I think he saw right through her). They seem to have based their impression of her on the body, the voice and the hair and ignored the fact that she had a brain. It was absolutely clear when we saw Corinne and Randy talking about Bob almost certainly finding the Hidden Immunity Idol at Exile Island despite the fact that Sugar had been there five times while Bob had only been there twice. Clearly Sugar was too stupid to find the Idol (she found it the first time she went). Setting that aside, Sugar was either responsible for or at the very least involved with some of the biggest moves in the game including the elimination of Ace – supposedly the "brain" behind Sugar – and the final elimination of Kenny by giving her Immunity Idol to Matty. In fact it was Sugar who gave Bob the million dollar win by voting for her long-time ally Matty ensuring the tie, and telling Bob of her intentions beforehand which allowed him to practice his fire making skills. Sugar's greatest enemy in the game was Corinne, and I suspect it may have been her statements at the jury session that influenced the portrayal of Sugar. First Corinne said that Sugar would have her vote if only she would agree to use the money to have her vocal cords severed. It went downhill from there. In a speech later in her questioning of the surviving players, Corinne showed off what I can only call her "Anne Coulter" side: "You are an unemployed, uneducated leech on society. And the only thing I would vote to give you is a handful of anti-depressants so that no one else has to be subjected to your constant crying anymore. And maybe if you get some, then it would seem a little more sincere when you are crying about your dead father." And there you have summed up the "heroine/villainess" (because Randy and later Kenny had admirably placed themselves as the male villain of the piece in counter point to Bob's hero) dynamic that the people who put the hours of tape for this season together in a viewable package used to shape our perceptions of this season.