On the surface, Love Monkey's Tom Farrell seems the embodiment of cool. He's an A&R rep for a record label, paid to hang out in clubs and discover new talent. He rubs shoulders with musicians like Ben Folds and Aimee Mann, and one of his best friends is a former professional baseball player.
But he's not cool. He's not trying to be cool. In the words of the show's theme song (by the Odds), he is a sheep in wolf's clothing, the mere illusion of someone who is cool. And that is so much cooler than cool.
As played by Ed's Tom Cavanagh, Tom Farrell is endearing even as he loses his job and girlfriend in the same day, even as he stumbles through painful attempts to pick up women, to do the right thing, and to channel Jerry Maguire in front of his unreceptive boss. There's a refreshing lack of cool cynicism to the show, thanks in part to the sweetness of the Toms.
"When you have the actor Tom Cavanagh, he's so likeable that I could put him in a Nazi uniform and put a swastika on his forehead, and you'd still love him," jokes writer Michael Rauch, Love Monkey's affable creator.
Fortunately, Love Monkey is more High Fidelity than Hogan's Heroes. And like High Fidelity's Rob, Tom is passionate about music to the point of elitism. In the pilot, he says about his soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend: "She listens to Jewel, while I prefer music." In the second episode, he's thrown for a loop when he discovers his new crush, the near-perfect Julia (Ivana Milicevic), worships Starship's We Built This City. It's almost enough to crush the crush.
Based on a novel by Kyle Smith, Love Monkey captures the spirit of that book and puts it in a more TV-friendly environment. "The book dealt with real people and relationships - friendship and love and not having love - and that's really what appealed to me," says Rauch.
But the character was originally a tabloid journalist, and CBS balked at a show centred around a newspaper. So native New Yorker Rauch recalled the time when he hung out with an old friend who worked in the recording industry, "going to clubs to hear bands play and meet women and get drunk," and based Tom's job on that slightly more sexy world.
"That was how it went from being somebody else's book to being my show," he explains. "Creatively, it felt like, OK, now I can have some sense of ownership over it."
The music: “It's a character in the show"
The music industry is more than a setting for Tom's workplace – music itself is an integral part of Love Monkey. "Since the show is about a guy whose job it is to find new music, we're trying to use it to help find new music, too," says Rauch. "Our music supervisor, a guy named Nic Harcourt, sends a lot of new, up-and-coming bands to us, and we pick the songs we like and the bands we like and put them on the show."
These new artists mingle with appearances by a wide variety of better-known musicians, among them John Mellencamp, Aimee Mann, Joshua Bell, and Dr. John. Even New York's musical landmark, the soon-to-be-shuttered CBGB, makes a memorable appearance in the pilot.
"It feels like the city becomes a character, and adds texture to the show and informs the stories we tell," notes Rauch, who wants to show the grittier but still glamorous side of New York by shooting in places like Brooklyn and the East Village.
30-somethings: “There's a lot of pressure to succeed in your career, to find a mate for life, to begin that next step"
While Love Monkey centres on Tom and his mostly male buddies, it doesn't raise a testosterone shield that's impenetrable to a female audience. Male-focused though it is, there's a romantic comedy vibe to the show, which is as affecting as often as it is funny. At times, Love Monkey feels like an opportunity to eavesdrop on men in their natural habitat - and it's not as scary as we women might think. Sure, they ogle women in bars, talk about sports and sex, and act like 13 year olds with credit cards (to quote the book), but Tom and friends also reveal their insecurities about careers and relationships, and their confusion over simultaneously wanting love while being afraid of the commitment.
Bran (Judy Greer) tries to act as Tom's voice of reason. "You can't keep swinging from branch to branch forever, Tom," she admonishes her fickle friend. "Eventually, you're going to have to pick one and settle down. ... If you keep looking for the perfect branch, you're going to end up one lonely monkey." She's also the one to remind him that the world does not, perhaps, always revolve around him.
"Tom is a very likeable guy," Rauch says about the character. "He treats people with respect. He doesn't do anything intentionally malicious. He's just full of passion, and sometimes the passion gets in the way."
So does Tom represent the typical mid-30s guy? "In my experience, it's pretty close, but that might tell you more about me than you want to know," Rauch laughs. "There's definitely a lot of guys in that age range who are kind of stuck between full-blown adulthood and wanting to hang on to the vestiges of childhood."
The rest of the ensemble cover the gamut of social possibilities. There's Mike (Jason Priestley), the only one of the group who's married - to Tom's pregnant sister Karen (Katherine La Nasa). Shooter (Larenz Tate) has an unsatisfying job, but prides himself on satisfying the ladies. And Jake (Christopher Wiehl) is an ex-athlete and now sportscaster who feels the need to hide his homosexuality for fear of destroying his career.
Bran could be Tom's female near-equivalent, a single woman navigating career and relationships. "One of the storylines we're going to be following is the notion of being a successful woman in your 30s, and the pressure to get married versus the desire to be a full-time career person, and how that's different for women than it is for men," says Rauch.
Finding an audience: “We're kind of a guinea pig"
Love Monkey was recently launched mid-season on powerhouse CBS, which makes it something of a surprise that it wasn't titled CSI: Love Monkey. With nothing similar on the network, the show seems to be hanging from a lonely branch on Tuesdays at 10.
"They are very patient with the show, and they're so supportive creatively, but I do worry how long it will take to find our audience on that network," Rauch admits while filming the last of the eight episodes scheduled to air this season.
Maybe because of that, the show has turned to some creative Internet marketing. Besides the obligatory show site on CBS.com, there's a website for the fictitious label where Tom Farrell works, True Vinyl records ("Saving the world from crappy music, one gig at a time"). It includes bios of the fictional artists seen on the show and links to actual artists who've made appearances. The main characters also have MySpace pages, including Tom and his first find for True Vinyl, the John Mayeresque Wayne (really new Sony recording artist Teddy Geiger), whose site lets you listen to the songs he plays on the show.
Love Monkey returns to CBS with a new episode on Tuesday, Feb. 7, after this week's preemption by the President's State of the Union address. In Canada, the show also airs Mondays at 10 on Global.
(For more of my discussion with Michael Rauch, see the transcript of the Q&A.)
Cross posted to Blogcritics
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Q&A with Love Monkey Creator Michael Rauch
Michael Rauch took time out of a busy Friday on the set to answer some questions about his show Love Monkey for the Blogcritics article Sex, Love, and Rock 'n' Roll. But for more of our discussion, here's the transcript:
How did the idea to turn Love Monkey the book into Love Monkey the TV show come about?
MR: I had done a show with Sony, and I went into Sony carrying a pile of pitch sheets, to pitch some ideas. Before I could pitch anything, they handed me the book and said “we think you'd be great for this." So I read it that night. I live in New York but was in LA at the time. I read it on Friday night and called the Sony exec on Saturday morning and said, “I love it, I want to be a part of this." Mark Johnson, the film producer who did Chronicles of Narnia and Rain Man and Diner, had the option on the book, so Mark and I talked and I gave him my sense of what I thought this show should be, and he responded to it. We went to CBS. They were the first people we pitched it to, and they bought it. The next day, they said “we love it," but in the book, the main character (Tom Farrell) writes for a New York City tabloid, and they said “we'd like to find another profession for him."
Journalism wasn't sexy enough?
MR: Uh, no comment.
[Laughs – but I wouldn't dream of arguing that point]
MR: I think they'd tried shows geared around papers, and they weren't successful, so they wanted to try a different profession. So I thought of a bunch of stuff, and none of it was any good. Then I remembered that I had an old friend who was an A&R rep when we were growing up in New York, and hanging out with him back then, late at night going to clubs to hear bands play and meet women and get drunk. It was a very fun, crazy, alive environment. Then you add music on to that, and it felt like it would be a fun world to set the show in. So I called up CBS and pitched that, and they loved it. That was how it went from being somebody else's book to being my show. Creatively, it felt like, OK, now I can have some sense of ownership over it.
And you made music such an integral part of it.
MR: Yeah, music's a really big part of the show. It's a character in the show.
How would you describe the musical taste, and how important it is to the show?
MR: It's very important. Our musical wheelhouse is pretty big in that we have all these different types of music. We shot John Mellencamp today. We had Aimee Mann in an earlier episode. We had the Grammy award winning classical violinist Joshua Bell in an episode. We're going to have, I think, the Pussycat Dolls in one episode. And Dr. John. As long as the music's good, it goes in the show. And since the show is about a guy whose job it is to find new music, we're trying to use it to help find new music, too, and help bring out new bands. Our music supervisor, a guy named Nic Harcourt (an influential Los Angeles DJ), sends a lot of new, up-and-coming bands to us, and we pick the songs we like and the bands we like and put them on the show.
He's a pretty connected guy.
MR: He is a very connected guy, with a lot of cachet.
What was it about the book that appealed to you, that you wanted to translate to TV?
MR: The book dealt with real people and relationships - friendship and love and not having love - and that's really what appealed to me. I have all respect for procedural shows, you know cops and dead bodies and crime scenes, but I could never write them, because I wouldn't know how to do that. This was something I felt like I knew how to do, which was dealing with people, and that appealed to me. Plus it was very funny, which is always good, too.
How much do you think Tom reflects a typical 30-something guy's approach to life?
MR: In my experience, it's pretty close, but that might tell you more about me than you want to know.
[Laughs] OK.
MR: There's definitely a lot of guys in that age range who are kind of stuck between full-blown adulthood and wanting to hang on to the vestiges of childhood. I think in my parents' generation, that happened in your 20s, and it's been pushed back a little later now to your 30s. I think there's a lot of pressure to succeed in your career, to find a mate for life, to begin that next step. I know for me, I pushed it as far as I possibly could, and as late as I could. That's not for everyone. Some people get married at a young age, some people never get married. But I know a lot of guys in their mid-30s, that's the age they seem to be when they begin to embrace the notion of finding love, even though they've been looking for it for a long time.
It's been described as a male-centric show, though I think it actually has a lot of appeal for women. But were you worried about making Tom unlikeable ... [he's more of a cad in the book]?
MR: First of all, when you have the actor Tom Cavanagh, he's so likeable that I could put him in a Nazi uniform and put a swastika on his forehead, and you'd still love him. So I wasn't, no. I think most of the characters are flawed people, which seems to be the case with all of us. There are elements of all of them that are likeable, and elements of them that are less sympathetic. But to me, Tom (Farrell) is a very likeable guy. He treats people with respect. He doesn't do anything intentionally malicious. He's just full of passion, and sometimes the passion gets in the way.
So far the show is really focusing on him. Are you planning to expand that more?
MR: The first episode does. The second episode and from thereon in, it's much more of an ensemble. So Tom's story's always the A story, but there are B, C, D stories, that involve the other characters.
You're making the most of shooting in New York. How important is the location to the show?
MR: It's everything. The show was set in New York when I wrote the pilot, and they let us shoot it in New York. It was important to me to try to reflect a different type of New York than you usually see on TV or film, which is kind of a less glamorized way - which for me, ends up glamorizing the city even more. So instead of shooting Central Park West and Fifth Avenue, we're much more in Brooklyn, in the East Village, in places that are a little bit grittier, and have more of a reflection of the different types of life there are in New York. I think we did an effective enough job in the pilot that CBS let us do the series here. It feels like the city becomes a character and adds texture to the show and informs the stories we tell.
Is that where you're from originally?
MR: It is, I was born here, and I live here, and I never want to leave. So it's great shooting here for me. Less of a commute. There's an energy and a life force to the city that really feeds into the energy of the show.
Love Monkey is very different from your average CBS show ...
MR: It certainly is.
Do you have any worries about ...
MR: I certainly do.
Yeah, I mean, we're kind of a guinea pig. CBS, God bless them, had the courage to put the show on their network, which is the good news. The bad news is there's not really anything else like it, so we're kind of out there alone right now. They are very patient with the show, and they're so supportive creatively, but I do worry how long it will take to find our audience on that network. I don't think anyone knows the answer to that.
You have eight episodes this season?
MR: We have eight, exactly.
And you're obviously not finished shooting those yet [he's fielding questions from the set as we speak].
MR: We're shooting the last one right now. We have about a week left.
You've set up a lot of possibilities for the characters. Can you give an idea of what we're going to see in future episodes?
MR: Absolutely. The leading stories will be Tom's music stories, and getting involved with different types of musicians. The episode that just ran this week had this Britney Spears character who was tired of being packaged and sold and wanted to do her own music. The problem is, her own music is terrible. So how do you fix that problem? We have an episode where Tom's representing these two misfit brothers who are very talented but continually self-destruct and destroy any opportunity that Tom as their A&R rep has to promote them. With the other characters, Jason Priestley (Mike), who's married and whose wife is pregnant, is exploring from a guy's point of view what that's like when all your other friends are still single and you're the one person who's crossed the line into permanent monogamy, and all the issues that brings up.
Though he seems to be a little tempted by his nanny now.
MR: Yes, in that episode he certainly was. I think I'm going try to have him behave himself this season, and then if we're lucky enough to have a second season, maybe tempt him a little bit more. Larenz Tate (Shooter) has money and looks and charm but isn't happy with what he's doing with his life. He's kind of passionless as a career person, and is surrounded by people who love what they do, and how do you cope with that. And then with Chris Wiehl, who plays Jake, what it's like being a gay ex-pro athlete and now sportscaster, and how homophobic that particular arena seems to be, and the pressure on him to keep his sexuality a secret at risk of destroying his career.
Even from his friends.
MR: His friends know.
Do they?
MR: They do, yes - that was a slight change from the first episode. And then with Judy Greer (Bran), one of the storylines we're going to be following is the notion of being a successful woman in your 30s, and the pressure to get married versus the desire to be a full-time career person, and how that's different for women than it is for men.
Great, thanks for this. Was there anything else you'd like to add?
MR: Please watch the show! It's such a word-of-mouth show. It's a small show on a big network, so anything we can do to get people to watch it - if they watch it once and don't want to watch it again, that's fine, we just need to get them to watch it once. I think that's where we're going to find our audience.
Well I love it, so good luck with that.
MR: Thank you so much.
How did the idea to turn Love Monkey the book into Love Monkey the TV show come about?
MR: I had done a show with Sony, and I went into Sony carrying a pile of pitch sheets, to pitch some ideas. Before I could pitch anything, they handed me the book and said “we think you'd be great for this." So I read it that night. I live in New York but was in LA at the time. I read it on Friday night and called the Sony exec on Saturday morning and said, “I love it, I want to be a part of this." Mark Johnson, the film producer who did Chronicles of Narnia and Rain Man and Diner, had the option on the book, so Mark and I talked and I gave him my sense of what I thought this show should be, and he responded to it. We went to CBS. They were the first people we pitched it to, and they bought it. The next day, they said “we love it," but in the book, the main character (Tom Farrell) writes for a New York City tabloid, and they said “we'd like to find another profession for him."
Journalism wasn't sexy enough?
MR: Uh, no comment.
[Laughs – but I wouldn't dream of arguing that point]
MR: I think they'd tried shows geared around papers, and they weren't successful, so they wanted to try a different profession. So I thought of a bunch of stuff, and none of it was any good. Then I remembered that I had an old friend who was an A&R rep when we were growing up in New York, and hanging out with him back then, late at night going to clubs to hear bands play and meet women and get drunk. It was a very fun, crazy, alive environment. Then you add music on to that, and it felt like it would be a fun world to set the show in. So I called up CBS and pitched that, and they loved it. That was how it went from being somebody else's book to being my show. Creatively, it felt like, OK, now I can have some sense of ownership over it.
And you made music such an integral part of it.
MR: Yeah, music's a really big part of the show. It's a character in the show.
How would you describe the musical taste, and how important it is to the show?
MR: It's very important. Our musical wheelhouse is pretty big in that we have all these different types of music. We shot John Mellencamp today. We had Aimee Mann in an earlier episode. We had the Grammy award winning classical violinist Joshua Bell in an episode. We're going to have, I think, the Pussycat Dolls in one episode. And Dr. John. As long as the music's good, it goes in the show. And since the show is about a guy whose job it is to find new music, we're trying to use it to help find new music, too, and help bring out new bands. Our music supervisor, a guy named Nic Harcourt (an influential Los Angeles DJ), sends a lot of new, up-and-coming bands to us, and we pick the songs we like and the bands we like and put them on the show.
He's a pretty connected guy.
MR: He is a very connected guy, with a lot of cachet.
What was it about the book that appealed to you, that you wanted to translate to TV?
MR: The book dealt with real people and relationships - friendship and love and not having love - and that's really what appealed to me. I have all respect for procedural shows, you know cops and dead bodies and crime scenes, but I could never write them, because I wouldn't know how to do that. This was something I felt like I knew how to do, which was dealing with people, and that appealed to me. Plus it was very funny, which is always good, too.
How much do you think Tom reflects a typical 30-something guy's approach to life?
MR: In my experience, it's pretty close, but that might tell you more about me than you want to know.
[Laughs] OK.
MR: There's definitely a lot of guys in that age range who are kind of stuck between full-blown adulthood and wanting to hang on to the vestiges of childhood. I think in my parents' generation, that happened in your 20s, and it's been pushed back a little later now to your 30s. I think there's a lot of pressure to succeed in your career, to find a mate for life, to begin that next step. I know for me, I pushed it as far as I possibly could, and as late as I could. That's not for everyone. Some people get married at a young age, some people never get married. But I know a lot of guys in their mid-30s, that's the age they seem to be when they begin to embrace the notion of finding love, even though they've been looking for it for a long time.
It's been described as a male-centric show, though I think it actually has a lot of appeal for women. But were you worried about making Tom unlikeable ... [he's more of a cad in the book]?
MR: First of all, when you have the actor Tom Cavanagh, he's so likeable that I could put him in a Nazi uniform and put a swastika on his forehead, and you'd still love him. So I wasn't, no. I think most of the characters are flawed people, which seems to be the case with all of us. There are elements of all of them that are likeable, and elements of them that are less sympathetic. But to me, Tom (Farrell) is a very likeable guy. He treats people with respect. He doesn't do anything intentionally malicious. He's just full of passion, and sometimes the passion gets in the way.
So far the show is really focusing on him. Are you planning to expand that more?
MR: The first episode does. The second episode and from thereon in, it's much more of an ensemble. So Tom's story's always the A story, but there are B, C, D stories, that involve the other characters.
You're making the most of shooting in New York. How important is the location to the show?
MR: It's everything. The show was set in New York when I wrote the pilot, and they let us shoot it in New York. It was important to me to try to reflect a different type of New York than you usually see on TV or film, which is kind of a less glamorized way - which for me, ends up glamorizing the city even more. So instead of shooting Central Park West and Fifth Avenue, we're much more in Brooklyn, in the East Village, in places that are a little bit grittier, and have more of a reflection of the different types of life there are in New York. I think we did an effective enough job in the pilot that CBS let us do the series here. It feels like the city becomes a character and adds texture to the show and informs the stories we tell.
Is that where you're from originally?
MR: It is, I was born here, and I live here, and I never want to leave. So it's great shooting here for me. Less of a commute. There's an energy and a life force to the city that really feeds into the energy of the show.
Love Monkey is very different from your average CBS show ...
MR: It certainly is.
Do you have any worries about ...
MR: I certainly do.
Yeah, I mean, we're kind of a guinea pig. CBS, God bless them, had the courage to put the show on their network, which is the good news. The bad news is there's not really anything else like it, so we're kind of out there alone right now. They are very patient with the show, and they're so supportive creatively, but I do worry how long it will take to find our audience on that network. I don't think anyone knows the answer to that.
You have eight episodes this season?
MR: We have eight, exactly.
And you're obviously not finished shooting those yet [he's fielding questions from the set as we speak].
MR: We're shooting the last one right now. We have about a week left.
You've set up a lot of possibilities for the characters. Can you give an idea of what we're going to see in future episodes?
MR: Absolutely. The leading stories will be Tom's music stories, and getting involved with different types of musicians. The episode that just ran this week had this Britney Spears character who was tired of being packaged and sold and wanted to do her own music. The problem is, her own music is terrible. So how do you fix that problem? We have an episode where Tom's representing these two misfit brothers who are very talented but continually self-destruct and destroy any opportunity that Tom as their A&R rep has to promote them. With the other characters, Jason Priestley (Mike), who's married and whose wife is pregnant, is exploring from a guy's point of view what that's like when all your other friends are still single and you're the one person who's crossed the line into permanent monogamy, and all the issues that brings up.
Though he seems to be a little tempted by his nanny now.
MR: Yes, in that episode he certainly was. I think I'm going try to have him behave himself this season, and then if we're lucky enough to have a second season, maybe tempt him a little bit more. Larenz Tate (Shooter) has money and looks and charm but isn't happy with what he's doing with his life. He's kind of passionless as a career person, and is surrounded by people who love what they do, and how do you cope with that. And then with Chris Wiehl, who plays Jake, what it's like being a gay ex-pro athlete and now sportscaster, and how homophobic that particular arena seems to be, and the pressure on him to keep his sexuality a secret at risk of destroying his career.
Even from his friends.
MR: His friends know.
Do they?
MR: They do, yes - that was a slight change from the first episode. And then with Judy Greer (Bran), one of the storylines we're going to be following is the notion of being a successful woman in your 30s, and the pressure to get married versus the desire to be a full-time career person, and how that's different for women than it is for men.
Great, thanks for this. Was there anything else you'd like to add?
MR: Please watch the show! It's such a word-of-mouth show. It's a small show on a big network, so anything we can do to get people to watch it - if they watch it once and don't want to watch it again, that's fine, we just need to get them to watch it once. I think that's where we're going to find our audience.
Well I love it, so good luck with that.
MR: Thank you so much.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
My movie crutches
I admit, I am a little decision impaired. The day last week when I switched to digital cable, and the evil cable company gave me every channel free for a month, I flipped through all 200 of them until I became paralysed with indecision, curled up in the fetal position, and watched some Six Feet Under ... on DVD. I'm not likely to keep the movie channels, which seem to play a steady stream of films I've already seen or don't want to see, but I'm already in love with the Eastern feeds of American networks, in addition to the usual Pacific time zone stations. No more fighting against the weird inertia that causes me to rarely bother to record anything, when I have two chances to see the same show, and can spread out the Tuesday at 9 p.m. riches.
I'm also grateful for Zip.ca, the Canadian equivalent of Netflix. I've had customer service issues with them, but I'm thankful for a company that prevents me from roaming the aisles of the video stores as if the choice between The Forty-Year-Old Virgin versus The Constant Gardener will affect the fate of the free world. I tell them all the movies in their library I'd like to see, and they tell me when I get to see them by doling them out a few at a time in random order. I don't pay extra for those “what the hell” choices, and can keep them as long as I like – a perfect feature to catch up on TV shows I've missed, too (Lost - yes, I know, I'm the one person who hasn't seen it) or simply miss (Ally McBeal – yes, I know, but I liked it).
But I don't just love movies. I love the experience of movie going. Unlike some of my friends, who figure out what percentage of their mortgage payment each ticket would pay for and weigh the relative merits of Narnia versus overpriced condo, I'll see almost anything in the theatre. Almost. If a friend wants to see Hostel, she's on her own – I don't do well with horror or gore – but Memoirs of a Geisha? Eh, why not. I loved the book, have heard bad things about the movie, but it might surprise me. And in any case, the planet-sized Junior Mints and Coke are a special treat and always worth the price of admission. Literally.
But how to decide between movies I'm equally interested in seeing? After a dry spell around the holidays, I found myself wanting to catch up on some of the films I'd heard good things about, or just knew I wanted to see. Capote, Walk the Line, Harry Potter, Munich, Match Point, Shopgirl are some I still haven't gotten around to yet. That's far too much choice for someone who longs for restaurants that have two items on the menu, but Metacritic is my saviour. The site collects reviews by a variety of critics and gives a weighted average score for each movie (and DVD, and books, and music, and TV shows, but I'm trying to stay on topic here). It's all very pseudo-scientific, but the idea and the execution is brilliant.
A critic simply offers one person's opinion. That idea is revolutionary to no one, except maybe a few critics. Generally, a professional movie reviewer at least offers the informed opinion of someone who's seen enough to know that Glitter is not the pinnacle of filmmaking achievement, and of someone who genuinely loves movies (unless, of course, they picked “masochist” on the career aptitude test). But even better, Metacritic gathers many such opinions, gives links to the full reviews if available online, and averages them out to present a score between 0 and 100. It further divides the total score, as well as the individual reviews, into green, yellow, and red – green representing mostly positive, yellow meaning mixed, and red as in “stop, stinker ahead.”
Taking my list of to-sees, Metacritic tells me they're all considered decent to great by a range of critics, with Shopgirl trailing the pack. Sometimes the choice is easy. I'm not likely to be in the mood for Harry Potter or Munich on the same day, or I might be going with a friend who's never going to sit through anything related to Johnny Cash. But when it's all about me, all things being equal, I find myself clicking on “sort by score” to see what's first on the list. Capote, here I come.
It is, of course, an imperfect tool, a last resort. The site is fairly comprehensive, but I wouldn't rely on it to find out what interests me in the first place, or what's playing near me. For example, I'm determined to see Eve and the Fire Horse this weekend, its opening weekend in Vancouver after acclaim at Sundance, and it won't make Metacritic for a while, if at all.
Plus, there are films I know I'll have more of a shot of liking than the average critic, especially given my weakness for crappy romantic comedies. There are some, like King Kong, I'm skeptical I'd enjoy, despite critical acclaim (and if I want to test that gut feeling, that's what Zip is for). But rather than curl into the fetal position when faced with a choice between equally appealing movie opportunities, Metacritic lets me pretend to have logic on my side in the decision-making process.
(Cross posted to Blogcritics)
I'm also grateful for Zip.ca, the Canadian equivalent of Netflix. I've had customer service issues with them, but I'm thankful for a company that prevents me from roaming the aisles of the video stores as if the choice between The Forty-Year-Old Virgin versus The Constant Gardener will affect the fate of the free world. I tell them all the movies in their library I'd like to see, and they tell me when I get to see them by doling them out a few at a time in random order. I don't pay extra for those “what the hell” choices, and can keep them as long as I like – a perfect feature to catch up on TV shows I've missed, too (Lost - yes, I know, I'm the one person who hasn't seen it) or simply miss (Ally McBeal – yes, I know, but I liked it).
But I don't just love movies. I love the experience of movie going. Unlike some of my friends, who figure out what percentage of their mortgage payment each ticket would pay for and weigh the relative merits of Narnia versus overpriced condo, I'll see almost anything in the theatre. Almost. If a friend wants to see Hostel, she's on her own – I don't do well with horror or gore – but Memoirs of a Geisha? Eh, why not. I loved the book, have heard bad things about the movie, but it might surprise me. And in any case, the planet-sized Junior Mints and Coke are a special treat and always worth the price of admission. Literally.
But how to decide between movies I'm equally interested in seeing? After a dry spell around the holidays, I found myself wanting to catch up on some of the films I'd heard good things about, or just knew I wanted to see. Capote, Walk the Line, Harry Potter, Munich, Match Point, Shopgirl are some I still haven't gotten around to yet. That's far too much choice for someone who longs for restaurants that have two items on the menu, but Metacritic is my saviour. The site collects reviews by a variety of critics and gives a weighted average score for each movie (and DVD, and books, and music, and TV shows, but I'm trying to stay on topic here). It's all very pseudo-scientific, but the idea and the execution is brilliant.
A critic simply offers one person's opinion. That idea is revolutionary to no one, except maybe a few critics. Generally, a professional movie reviewer at least offers the informed opinion of someone who's seen enough to know that Glitter is not the pinnacle of filmmaking achievement, and of someone who genuinely loves movies (unless, of course, they picked “masochist” on the career aptitude test). But even better, Metacritic gathers many such opinions, gives links to the full reviews if available online, and averages them out to present a score between 0 and 100. It further divides the total score, as well as the individual reviews, into green, yellow, and red – green representing mostly positive, yellow meaning mixed, and red as in “stop, stinker ahead.”
Taking my list of to-sees, Metacritic tells me they're all considered decent to great by a range of critics, with Shopgirl trailing the pack. Sometimes the choice is easy. I'm not likely to be in the mood for Harry Potter or Munich on the same day, or I might be going with a friend who's never going to sit through anything related to Johnny Cash. But when it's all about me, all things being equal, I find myself clicking on “sort by score” to see what's first on the list. Capote, here I come.
It is, of course, an imperfect tool, a last resort. The site is fairly comprehensive, but I wouldn't rely on it to find out what interests me in the first place, or what's playing near me. For example, I'm determined to see Eve and the Fire Horse this weekend, its opening weekend in Vancouver after acclaim at Sundance, and it won't make Metacritic for a while, if at all.
Plus, there are films I know I'll have more of a shot of liking than the average critic, especially given my weakness for crappy romantic comedies. There are some, like King Kong, I'm skeptical I'd enjoy, despite critical acclaim (and if I want to test that gut feeling, that's what Zip is for). But rather than curl into the fetal position when faced with a choice between equally appealing movie opportunities, Metacritic lets me pretend to have logic on my side in the decision-making process.
(Cross posted to Blogcritics)
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Challenging the Crime Genre: An Interview with Bones Creator Hart Hanson
About a year ago, Bones creator Hart Hanson was presented with the opportunity to write a new crime show in a TV market saturated with CSI clones. Turns out, Hanson is up for a challenge.
In the 1990s, he developed the TV series Traders, about a group of stock brokers in Toronto. “Coming up with new stories set in an investment bank was just really tough,” he says now of his creation, which won several Canadian television awards.
After three years of that particular challenge, his now-agent cautioned him against moving away from a comfortable career in Canada, saying “you'll just be another of the millions of people in L.A. looking for a break,” Hanson remembers. In response, he headed south, and soon got that break on Cupid, starring Jeremy Piven (Entourage) and Paula Marshall (Out of Practice).
Hanson went on to work for such character-driven shows as Judging Amy and Joan of Arcadia before 20th Century Fox approached him about the idea for Bones. When he told them that he had no interest in a procedural drama, “they said, 'Oh no, we know. We think your take on a forensics show is what we're looking for,' ” Hanson recalls.
So he met with executive producer Barry Josephson about the idea of basing a show on forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs and the character she created in a series of bestselling books, Temperance Brennan. “We had a real meeting of the minds on how Bones might unfold, so I signed on, wrote the pilot, and here we are,” Hanson says.
Reichs herself has a producer's credit on the show. “She was very involved at the beginning, and intermittently we have her come in to sit with the writers,” explains Hanson. “She reads every script and gives us comments on them, and she's a pretty good resource for the writers. When they're coming up with ideas, they call and ask, 'Is this possible? Would this ever happen?'”
Character under the microscope
Hanson's solution to making Bones stand out from the crime drama crowd was to focus on character and humour as much as the case of the week – following the precedent, he says, of shows like Moonlighting and The X-Files.
Bones' version of Dave and Maddy, Mulder and Scully is FBI agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) and anthropologist Brennan (Emily Deschanel), who works with him on cases where the bodies are too decomposed or mummified for normal investigative techniques.
“We found that you can take almost any murder and figure out how the body degrades to the point where a forensic anthropologist is the only person who is going to be able to give you any clues, and we go from there,” says Hanson. “So instead of finding a fresh body, we usually find one that's anywhere between a week and 10,000 years old, and it applies to her.”
Hanson doesn't see Brennan's specialty as limiting the show's range of cases, but rather putting a different spin on the crime solving aspect. “The whole field of forensic anthropology is really technically advancing to the point where we can do almost anything that the CSI people can do, just with a different set of tools,” he explains.
Deschanel was cast after a long search for the right actress to play the brilliant but socially clueless Brennan, nicknamed Bones by her partner. “She walked in and she just was the character,” Hanson recalls. “She is smart and beautiful and funny, and she's slightly different. She's just left of centre as an actress.”
Brennan's parents disappeared when she was 15 - their bodies were never found – and she ended up in the foster system. “Her incredible drive and curiosity to find out what happened to people, and not to let anyone die anonymously, comes from that,” Hanson notes.
Booth, a former sniper, is “a guy in search of redemption,” he says. “He has to do a lot of good to make up for what he sees as the evil he's done in the world.”
Because of his admiration of Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (“he's just a brilliant man”), Hanson was familiar with Boreanaz's work. “I saw David over many years just grow and grow and grow as an actor, and I thought he was a great leading man. An old fashioned kind of guy - Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, mixed with a little Cary Grant.”
Hitting the funny bone
The chemistry- and quip-laden interactions between Brennan and Booth are byproducts of the show's focus on character, as is Brennan's comical ignorance of popular culture; her catch phrase is “I don’t know what that means.” There's also an ensemble of scientists, or “squints” as Booth calls them, working with her, all with varying levels of social ineptness.
He describes the humour of crime investigators and emergency responders as an inspiration for the tone of the show. “They're very funny people, and they're very funny about things that generally you can't be funny about. We're trying to do our network television version of that kind of humour. We're definitely not way over to where those people are – they can laugh at anything. We have to be a little more sensitive. But we really like that sense of black humour they have as a coping mechanism.”
Raising the dead
The comic relief is welcome given the often-gruesome subject matter. But the show also strives to add some heart, not treating victims as simply a pile of bones to be investigated. Originally, Hanson intended to use the show's holographic device to bring the victims to life. Known as The Angelator, after Brennan's colleague Angela Montenegro (Michaela Conlin) who invented it, the characters use it to recreate the crime.
Instead, Bones turned to other means to humanize its crime-of-the-week victims. “If you think of what would be left behind if you simply vanished off the earth now, it would be people's memories of you, and video and pictures,” says Hanson. “So we use that as much as possible.”
Life after American Idol
Bones returns for the second half of the season in a new Wednesday timeslot, which Hanson expects to be less of a challenge than the original pre-House slot. “Now, we get the benefit of promotions on House and American Idol, and the benefit of following American Idol. I think a whole bunch of eyeballs are going to realize we exist, and we hope they'll check us out and stick with us.”
He promises to explore the mystery of Brennan's missing parents, and to maintain the balance between character and case. “I think we have caught our stride in the tone of the show, so I think our plots are a little better, our mysteries are a little tighter and more compelling than they were in the first half,” he says. “Since the most important thing in this show is the characters, we'll keep on peeling them back, and I hope have people as invested in their personal lives as in their professional lives.”
Cast your eyeballs on new episodes of Bones starting Wednesday, January 25 at 9 p.m. on FOX, or Global in Canada.
Check out the full Q&A of my interview with Hart Hanson, with more on the show and the writing process.
(Cross posted to Blogcritics)
In the 1990s, he developed the TV series Traders, about a group of stock brokers in Toronto. “Coming up with new stories set in an investment bank was just really tough,” he says now of his creation, which won several Canadian television awards.
After three years of that particular challenge, his now-agent cautioned him against moving away from a comfortable career in Canada, saying “you'll just be another of the millions of people in L.A. looking for a break,” Hanson remembers. In response, he headed south, and soon got that break on Cupid, starring Jeremy Piven (Entourage) and Paula Marshall (Out of Practice).
Hanson went on to work for such character-driven shows as Judging Amy and Joan of Arcadia before 20th Century Fox approached him about the idea for Bones. When he told them that he had no interest in a procedural drama, “they said, 'Oh no, we know. We think your take on a forensics show is what we're looking for,' ” Hanson recalls.
So he met with executive producer Barry Josephson about the idea of basing a show on forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs and the character she created in a series of bestselling books, Temperance Brennan. “We had a real meeting of the minds on how Bones might unfold, so I signed on, wrote the pilot, and here we are,” Hanson says.
Reichs herself has a producer's credit on the show. “She was very involved at the beginning, and intermittently we have her come in to sit with the writers,” explains Hanson. “She reads every script and gives us comments on them, and she's a pretty good resource for the writers. When they're coming up with ideas, they call and ask, 'Is this possible? Would this ever happen?'”
Character under the microscope
Hanson's solution to making Bones stand out from the crime drama crowd was to focus on character and humour as much as the case of the week – following the precedent, he says, of shows like Moonlighting and The X-Files.
Bones' version of Dave and Maddy, Mulder and Scully is FBI agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) and anthropologist Brennan (Emily Deschanel), who works with him on cases where the bodies are too decomposed or mummified for normal investigative techniques.
“We found that you can take almost any murder and figure out how the body degrades to the point where a forensic anthropologist is the only person who is going to be able to give you any clues, and we go from there,” says Hanson. “So instead of finding a fresh body, we usually find one that's anywhere between a week and 10,000 years old, and it applies to her.”
Hanson doesn't see Brennan's specialty as limiting the show's range of cases, but rather putting a different spin on the crime solving aspect. “The whole field of forensic anthropology is really technically advancing to the point where we can do almost anything that the CSI people can do, just with a different set of tools,” he explains.
Deschanel was cast after a long search for the right actress to play the brilliant but socially clueless Brennan, nicknamed Bones by her partner. “She walked in and she just was the character,” Hanson recalls. “She is smart and beautiful and funny, and she's slightly different. She's just left of centre as an actress.”
Brennan's parents disappeared when she was 15 - their bodies were never found – and she ended up in the foster system. “Her incredible drive and curiosity to find out what happened to people, and not to let anyone die anonymously, comes from that,” Hanson notes.
Booth, a former sniper, is “a guy in search of redemption,” he says. “He has to do a lot of good to make up for what he sees as the evil he's done in the world.”
Because of his admiration of Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (“he's just a brilliant man”), Hanson was familiar with Boreanaz's work. “I saw David over many years just grow and grow and grow as an actor, and I thought he was a great leading man. An old fashioned kind of guy - Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, mixed with a little Cary Grant.”
Hitting the funny bone
The chemistry- and quip-laden interactions between Brennan and Booth are byproducts of the show's focus on character, as is Brennan's comical ignorance of popular culture; her catch phrase is “I don’t know what that means.” There's also an ensemble of scientists, or “squints” as Booth calls them, working with her, all with varying levels of social ineptness.
Booth: “When the cops get stuck we bring in people like you. You know, squints. You know, to squint at things.”“The characters as I designed them are very intelligent – much more intelligent than I am – and we get a lot of fun out of that degree of intelligence and their dysfunctional approach to the normal world,” says Hanson.
Brennan: “Oh, you mean people with high IQs and basic reasoning skills?”
He describes the humour of crime investigators and emergency responders as an inspiration for the tone of the show. “They're very funny people, and they're very funny about things that generally you can't be funny about. We're trying to do our network television version of that kind of humour. We're definitely not way over to where those people are – they can laugh at anything. We have to be a little more sensitive. But we really like that sense of black humour they have as a coping mechanism.”
FBI Agent: Look, you're very experienced within your field on bones and such, right? Doesn't your gut say suicide?
Brennan: I don't actually use my gut for that, sir.
Booth: She really, really doesn't.
Brennan's boss: Like all of us at the Jeffersonian, Dr. Brennan prefers science to the digestive tract.
Raising the dead
The comic relief is welcome given the often-gruesome subject matter. But the show also strives to add some heart, not treating victims as simply a pile of bones to be investigated. Originally, Hanson intended to use the show's holographic device to bring the victims to life. Known as The Angelator, after Brennan's colleague Angela Montenegro (Michaela Conlin) who invented it, the characters use it to recreate the crime.
Angela: This computer program which I designed, patent pending, accepts a full array of digital input, processes it, and then projects it as a three-dimensional holographic image.“We thought that would be our version of doing flashbacks,” Hanson explains. “We thought we'd be able to see them and connect with them, but it didn't work. It's still very technological. It's a cold thing. It's very good for describing what happened to people, but not showing who they are.”
Booth: Okay.
Brennan: Did you get that?
Booth: Yeah, that patent pending part.
Instead, Bones turned to other means to humanize its crime-of-the-week victims. “If you think of what would be left behind if you simply vanished off the earth now, it would be people's memories of you, and video and pictures,” says Hanson. “So we use that as much as possible.”
Life after American Idol
Bones returns for the second half of the season in a new Wednesday timeslot, which Hanson expects to be less of a challenge than the original pre-House slot. “Now, we get the benefit of promotions on House and American Idol, and the benefit of following American Idol. I think a whole bunch of eyeballs are going to realize we exist, and we hope they'll check us out and stick with us.”
He promises to explore the mystery of Brennan's missing parents, and to maintain the balance between character and case. “I think we have caught our stride in the tone of the show, so I think our plots are a little better, our mysteries are a little tighter and more compelling than they were in the first half,” he says. “Since the most important thing in this show is the characters, we'll keep on peeling them back, and I hope have people as invested in their personal lives as in their professional lives.”
Cast your eyeballs on new episodes of Bones starting Wednesday, January 25 at 9 p.m. on FOX, or Global in Canada.
Check out the full Q&A of my interview with Hart Hanson, with more on the show and the writing process.
(Cross posted to Blogcritics)
Q&A: Bones Creator Hart Hanson
I spoke to Hart Hanson in mid-December for the Blogcritics article “Challenging the Crime Genre: An Interview with Bones Creator Hart Hanson.” But for even more with the veteran TV writer, here's the transcript of our chat, with additional discussion of the show, the writer's life, and our mutual Canadianness.
You're Canadian, aren't you? From whereabouts?
HH: Yes, I'm from the West Coast, Vancouver Island.
Oh, are you? I'm in Vancouver.
HH: You are? And are you Canadian?
I am, I grew up in Alberta.
HH: Oh, whereabouts?
Edmonton.
HH: I've got a couple of writers on the show from Edmonton.
Really? That's ... unusual. [Odds seem slim. Edmonton's a city of less than a million people, and not what I think of as a hotbed of Hollywood writers.]
HH: I met them because they did a show up in Canada called The Associates, and then when they came down here I supervised a pilot of theirs, and remembered them when I had to staff up on Bones.
There's a lot of Canadian content on Bones, then.
HH: There you go, yeah.
I know you were a writer on Judging Amy and Joan of Arcadia, but what was your first job in TV?
HH: My first job in TV was up in Canada, The Beachcombers. The longest-lasting show in the Western Hemisphere.
[Laughs – though it could very well be true.] Yes, I remember it fondly.
HH: I did a bunch of Canadian stuff. I did some Road to Avonlea, North of 60, then I created Traders and then came down here.
Did you start as a writer?
HH: Yes, a TV writer right off the top.
When did you make the move to L.A.?
HH: I think it was the third season of Traders, I was thinking I wasn't going to be doing any more of those. It was a show set in an investment bank, and coming up with new stories set in an investment bank was just really tough. So I was really ready for a change when an ICM agent – now my agent, Matt Solo - came and asked me if I'd be interested in running American shows in Canada. At the time - this was the late '90s, '98 or '99 - an American show would get a great tax credit if they had a Canadian running the show. So he asked me if I'd be interested in doing that. And I realized I wasn't interested in that, although I might be interested in coming down to L.A. to see if I could make it down here, if I could cut it. He said, “Well, you know, if you come down to L.A., there's no advantage to anyone hiring you. You'll just be another of the millions of people in L.A. looking for a break.” And I said, “Well, I'll give that a shot.”
You were up for a challenge, obviously.
HH: I was up for a challenge. I was just short of 40 and I said to my wife, “Maybe we have one more adventure left in us.” I came down here and got hired on a show called Cupid, starring Jeremy Piven. He's become a huge, huge star on Entourage.
Where did the concept for Bones come from?
HH: It was late in the pitching season about a year ago. Another project I was working on kind of fell apart – it just wasn't going to work. I have an overall development deal with 20th Century Fox and they said, “Would you go talk to Barry Josephson about a property he owns, which is a documentary about Kathy Reichs, who is a real forensic anthropologist who writes books.” I said, “Oh, I have no interest in doing a forensics show.” They said, “Oh no, we know, we think your take on a forensics show is what we're looking for, so go talk to Barry.” Barry has produced a whole bunch of big movies (Hide and Seek, Like Mike), so I was anxious to meet him anyway, and we had a real meeting of the minds on how this show, how Bones, might unfold, so I signed on and I wrote the pilot, and here we are.
How involved is Kathy Reichs?
HH:Kathy is on and off involved. She has a very, very busy life of her own. She's a working forensic anthropologist both in Montreal and down in North Carolina, and she's written six or seven of these novels featuring Temperance Brennan, the protagonist. She was very involved at the beginning, and intermittently we have her come in for 10 days or two weeks to sit with the writers. She reads every script and gives us comments on them, and she's a pretty good resource for the writers. When they're coming up with ideas, they call and ask, “Is this possible? Would this ever happen?” So she's fairly involved. She has a producer's credit on the show and she earns it.
Brennan's work covers such a unique niche. How do you come up with these kinds of cases week after week?
HH: We found that you can take almost any murder and figure out how the body degrades to the point where a forensic anthropologist is the only person who is going to be able to give you any clues, and we go from there. So instead of finding a fresh body, we usually find one that's anywhere between a week and 10,000 years old, and it applies to her. The whole field of forensic anthropology is really technically advancing to the point where we can do almost anything that the CSI people can do, just with a different set of tools. We're not short of stories.
Do you look at stories in the news?
HH: We definitely look at what's going on, but we're not a “ripped from the headlines” show. Although the pilot was thinly based on Chandra Levy and Laci Peterson. And we've had a couple of other shows where the jump off point was a real case, and then it rapidly turns into a Bones and so I think it's barely recognizable.
How would you say Bones differs from the other crime procedurals that are out there?
HH: It's certainly less procedural. It's as though you took Moonlighting or The X-Files. It's very heavily weighted toward the two characters played by Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz – Bones and Booth. And it's funnier and a lot more character oriented than those shows are, a lot more personal stories.
Were you involved in the casting process?
HH:Oh yeah. I had final say on casting, except of course the network and the studio have to both sign off. I got my first choice for everybody – it was amazing and wonderful.
What do you think Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz bring to their roles?
HH: Well David was actually cast first. We'd been looking for Temperance Brennan for a long time, and had seen many, many actresses and not finding the lead to our show, the show we had in mind, when the head of the studio, Dana Walden, said “Would you consider David Boreanaz?” I said “I'd hire him today. I'd hire him right now.” It's not so much that I was huge fan of Buffy and Angel, but I definitely watched them, because I think that Joss Whedon is one of the great showrunners in TV, in fact he's just a brilliant man, so I would watch how his shows unfolded. As a result, I saw David over many years just grow and grow and grow as an actor, and I thought he was a great leading man, an old fashioned kind of guy, Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, mixed with a little Cary Grant. So we just jumped at him.
Emily was a longer search. We knew we needed someone who was smart, beautiful, and funny - all three of those things, like the legs of a stool. We kept finding actors who were two of those three things. You know, they'd be smart and beautiful but not funny, or funny and smart but not beautiful, or ... well, you know the math. And then she walked in and she just was the character. She is smart and beautiful and funny and she's slightly different. She's just left of centre as an actress. It was just ideal. She has a magnificent vocal quality. We were really excited when we saw her. And then the two of them together, when they tested together, you just knew they had that thing you can't count on, that little bit of chemistry.
That's really played up on the show, too.
HH: Oh yeah, we're playing to it as much as possible because when the two of them are onscreen, you're just more interested.
Brennan and Booth both have slightly mysterious, slightly tragic pasts. How does that affect their characters?
HH: We like to think it totally informs both their characters. He's a guy in search of redemption – he was a sniper. We don't know how many people he's killed. It's alluded to a couple of times through the series that he's done things he regrets as a man, as a human being, and this is his way of paying off his penance, is his way of looking at it. He has to do a lot of good to make up for what he sees as the evil he's done in the world. And Bones lost her parents at a very crucial age. When she was 15, they simply disappeared. No bodies were ever found, only the car was found. It destroyed her family - she went into the foster system - and so her incredible drive and curiosity to find out what happened to people and not to let anyone die anonymously comes from that. And of course one of these days we will bring her into contact with what happened to her parents.
So that's part of the plan, to reveal what happened?
HH: Oh yeah, you gotta go there.
The cases are pretty gruesome but there's a lot of levity to the show, too. How would you describe the sense of humour?
HH: Almost any writer who's hung around with cops or coroners or firefighters or EMTs knows that they have extremely black senses of humour – it's their coping mechanism for getting through it. They're very funny people, and they're very funny about things that generally you can't be funny about. So we're trying to do our network television version of that kind of humour. We're definitely not way over to where those people are – they can laugh at anything. We have to be a little more sensitive. But we really like that sense of black humour they have as a coping mechanism. Also, the characters as I designed them are very intelligent – much more intelligent than I am – and we get a lot of fun out of that degree of intelligence and their dysfunctional approach to the normal world.
The show tries to humanize its victims even though they're a pile of bones – how do you manage to do that?
HH: Originally, we had this holographic thing we called the Angelator - because it was designed by one of the characters, Angela Montenegro, played by Michaela Conlin. We thought that would be our version of doing flashbacks. We thought we'd be able to see them and connect with them, but it didn't work. It's still very technological. It's a cold thing. It's very good for describing what happened to people, but not showing who they are. So what we've realized is that there's two ways to humanize our victims. One is through the people they've left behind. You try to connect with the survivors. And the second it to use people's home videos, snippets of film and pictures and all this stuff. If you think what would be left behind if you simply vanished off the earth now, it would be people's memories of you and video and pictures, so we use that as much as possible and that works quite well for us.
The timeslot change in January – is it Wednesdays at 9 now?
HH: First we're on Wednesdays at 9, and then we drop down to Wednesdays at 8.
So it's before American Idol?
HH: Initially it's going to be after American Idol, and I think they're hoping that will introduce a whole new audience to us, and then after four episodes, we're going to go back to Wednesdays at 8, so we'll be on before American Idol.
What do you think of the timeslot change?
HH: We're pretty happy with the timeslot change. Tuesdays at 8, we were on before House, and the only place we could get any promotion was on Animation Domination on Sunday nights, where there was a large audience. There was no use promoting us on House because House was on an hour after we were. So now, we get the benefit of promotions on House and American Idol, and the benefit of following American Idol. I think a whole bunch of eyeballs are going to realize we exist and we hope they'll check us out and stick with us. So we're pretty happy with that timeslot change - it's much better than where we were.
It was originally promoted as sort of a thematic package with House, wasn't it?
HH: I love House, I think House is one of the reasons we're on the air, but to simply stay their lead in I don't think would give us the exposure we need to get into double digits in ratings. So we're pretty happy with the change. And I think House is pretty happy, too, because one of the other things that was floated was us taking the House slot immediately following Tuesday night American Idol, and using them to start another night. I think they should be hugely relieved that they're staying where they are, because they dominated that hour and it's nice for them to stay there.
What's a typical day at the office like for you?
HH: It's a long day in a first season. I generally get in here around 7:30 after a bunch of phone calls. I try to do my writing between 7:30 and 10, and then after that it's largely a producing job. It's up to the set, or casting, looking at cuts, giving notes on cuts, editing, all the usual stuff of producing a show – prepping the coming show while dealing with the show that's being shot now, and also getting scripts out for the next episode. And then that sort of settles down around 7 in the evening, and I usually get some more writing done between 7 and 9, or on bad days, 7 and midnight. It's a long day, but it's a first season and it will settle down.
How many writers are on your staff?
HH: We have seven writers right now.
How do you work with them? Do they do drafts and then pass them through you?
HH: Yes, I tend to do a last pass on each script just because the voice of the characters is fairly specific and unique. And because I can. They come up with the story ideas and they do all the research. They have to go extremely quickly from idea through to draft, so they're moving fast - they're really writing fast. Generally they only get one or two drafts, because we're so close in production.
Some shows use a whole room, meaning they get all the writers together to brainstorm ideas or plot out an episode. I don't tend to work that way. Steve Nathan, who's another writing executive producer on the show, and I will meet with the writer of an episode and perhaps another writer to listen to the premise, beat out the story beats, and then off they go to do their writing.
Do you ever get used to the uncertainty of TV? You've been picked up for a full season, but not knowing if you have another season, and you were on Joan of Arcadia ...
HH: I was on Joan of Arcadia only for the first 13 episodes. I was loaned out. It was very kind of my studio, 20th Century Fox, to loan me to Sony to do the first 13 of Joan because the creator, Barbara Hall, is a friend of mine. When she asked me to come and help her get the show up and running, I leapt at the chance. It was really nice. They say studios have no hearts, but it was very kind of the studio to let me go do that, because it was fun. But they only let me stay there for the 13 episodes, and then I came and wrote this pilot.
The uncertainty of TV? I guess I'm used to it now. It's such a crapshoot. You never know what's going to hit – no one does. You never know if you're going to stay on the air. I had a long run on Judging Amy, for me, of four years, and I was three years on my own show in Canada, but those are long, long runs. I tend to get a little bit antsy after a couple of years anyway. The constant change is not the worst thing in the world.
What can we expect from the second half of the season on Bones?
HH: We're going to answer a few of the questions we set up in the first half. I think we have caught our stride in the tone of the show, so I think our plots are a little better, our mysteries are a little tighter and more compelling than they were in the first half. Since the most important thing in this show is the characters, we'll keep on peeling them back and I hope have people as invested in their personal lives as in their professional lives.
You're Canadian, aren't you? From whereabouts?
HH: Yes, I'm from the West Coast, Vancouver Island.
Oh, are you? I'm in Vancouver.
HH: You are? And are you Canadian?
I am, I grew up in Alberta.
HH: Oh, whereabouts?
Edmonton.
HH: I've got a couple of writers on the show from Edmonton.
Really? That's ... unusual. [Odds seem slim. Edmonton's a city of less than a million people, and not what I think of as a hotbed of Hollywood writers.]
HH: I met them because they did a show up in Canada called The Associates, and then when they came down here I supervised a pilot of theirs, and remembered them when I had to staff up on Bones.
There's a lot of Canadian content on Bones, then.
HH: There you go, yeah.
I know you were a writer on Judging Amy and Joan of Arcadia, but what was your first job in TV?
HH: My first job in TV was up in Canada, The Beachcombers. The longest-lasting show in the Western Hemisphere.
[Laughs – though it could very well be true.] Yes, I remember it fondly.
HH: I did a bunch of Canadian stuff. I did some Road to Avonlea, North of 60, then I created Traders and then came down here.
Did you start as a writer?
HH: Yes, a TV writer right off the top.
When did you make the move to L.A.?
HH: I think it was the third season of Traders, I was thinking I wasn't going to be doing any more of those. It was a show set in an investment bank, and coming up with new stories set in an investment bank was just really tough. So I was really ready for a change when an ICM agent – now my agent, Matt Solo - came and asked me if I'd be interested in running American shows in Canada. At the time - this was the late '90s, '98 or '99 - an American show would get a great tax credit if they had a Canadian running the show. So he asked me if I'd be interested in doing that. And I realized I wasn't interested in that, although I might be interested in coming down to L.A. to see if I could make it down here, if I could cut it. He said, “Well, you know, if you come down to L.A., there's no advantage to anyone hiring you. You'll just be another of the millions of people in L.A. looking for a break.” And I said, “Well, I'll give that a shot.”
You were up for a challenge, obviously.
HH: I was up for a challenge. I was just short of 40 and I said to my wife, “Maybe we have one more adventure left in us.” I came down here and got hired on a show called Cupid, starring Jeremy Piven. He's become a huge, huge star on Entourage.
Where did the concept for Bones come from?
HH: It was late in the pitching season about a year ago. Another project I was working on kind of fell apart – it just wasn't going to work. I have an overall development deal with 20th Century Fox and they said, “Would you go talk to Barry Josephson about a property he owns, which is a documentary about Kathy Reichs, who is a real forensic anthropologist who writes books.” I said, “Oh, I have no interest in doing a forensics show.” They said, “Oh no, we know, we think your take on a forensics show is what we're looking for, so go talk to Barry.” Barry has produced a whole bunch of big movies (Hide and Seek, Like Mike), so I was anxious to meet him anyway, and we had a real meeting of the minds on how this show, how Bones, might unfold, so I signed on and I wrote the pilot, and here we are.
How involved is Kathy Reichs?
HH:Kathy is on and off involved. She has a very, very busy life of her own. She's a working forensic anthropologist both in Montreal and down in North Carolina, and she's written six or seven of these novels featuring Temperance Brennan, the protagonist. She was very involved at the beginning, and intermittently we have her come in for 10 days or two weeks to sit with the writers. She reads every script and gives us comments on them, and she's a pretty good resource for the writers. When they're coming up with ideas, they call and ask, “Is this possible? Would this ever happen?” So she's fairly involved. She has a producer's credit on the show and she earns it.
Brennan's work covers such a unique niche. How do you come up with these kinds of cases week after week?
HH: We found that you can take almost any murder and figure out how the body degrades to the point where a forensic anthropologist is the only person who is going to be able to give you any clues, and we go from there. So instead of finding a fresh body, we usually find one that's anywhere between a week and 10,000 years old, and it applies to her. The whole field of forensic anthropology is really technically advancing to the point where we can do almost anything that the CSI people can do, just with a different set of tools. We're not short of stories.
Do you look at stories in the news?
HH: We definitely look at what's going on, but we're not a “ripped from the headlines” show. Although the pilot was thinly based on Chandra Levy and Laci Peterson. And we've had a couple of other shows where the jump off point was a real case, and then it rapidly turns into a Bones and so I think it's barely recognizable.
How would you say Bones differs from the other crime procedurals that are out there?
HH: It's certainly less procedural. It's as though you took Moonlighting or The X-Files. It's very heavily weighted toward the two characters played by Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz – Bones and Booth. And it's funnier and a lot more character oriented than those shows are, a lot more personal stories.
Were you involved in the casting process?
HH:Oh yeah. I had final say on casting, except of course the network and the studio have to both sign off. I got my first choice for everybody – it was amazing and wonderful.
What do you think Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz bring to their roles?
HH: Well David was actually cast first. We'd been looking for Temperance Brennan for a long time, and had seen many, many actresses and not finding the lead to our show, the show we had in mind, when the head of the studio, Dana Walden, said “Would you consider David Boreanaz?” I said “I'd hire him today. I'd hire him right now.” It's not so much that I was huge fan of Buffy and Angel, but I definitely watched them, because I think that Joss Whedon is one of the great showrunners in TV, in fact he's just a brilliant man, so I would watch how his shows unfolded. As a result, I saw David over many years just grow and grow and grow as an actor, and I thought he was a great leading man, an old fashioned kind of guy, Gary Cooper, Spencer Tracy, mixed with a little Cary Grant. So we just jumped at him.
Emily was a longer search. We knew we needed someone who was smart, beautiful, and funny - all three of those things, like the legs of a stool. We kept finding actors who were two of those three things. You know, they'd be smart and beautiful but not funny, or funny and smart but not beautiful, or ... well, you know the math. And then she walked in and she just was the character. She is smart and beautiful and funny and she's slightly different. She's just left of centre as an actress. It was just ideal. She has a magnificent vocal quality. We were really excited when we saw her. And then the two of them together, when they tested together, you just knew they had that thing you can't count on, that little bit of chemistry.
That's really played up on the show, too.
HH: Oh yeah, we're playing to it as much as possible because when the two of them are onscreen, you're just more interested.
Brennan and Booth both have slightly mysterious, slightly tragic pasts. How does that affect their characters?
HH: We like to think it totally informs both their characters. He's a guy in search of redemption – he was a sniper. We don't know how many people he's killed. It's alluded to a couple of times through the series that he's done things he regrets as a man, as a human being, and this is his way of paying off his penance, is his way of looking at it. He has to do a lot of good to make up for what he sees as the evil he's done in the world. And Bones lost her parents at a very crucial age. When she was 15, they simply disappeared. No bodies were ever found, only the car was found. It destroyed her family - she went into the foster system - and so her incredible drive and curiosity to find out what happened to people and not to let anyone die anonymously comes from that. And of course one of these days we will bring her into contact with what happened to her parents.
So that's part of the plan, to reveal what happened?
HH: Oh yeah, you gotta go there.
The cases are pretty gruesome but there's a lot of levity to the show, too. How would you describe the sense of humour?
HH: Almost any writer who's hung around with cops or coroners or firefighters or EMTs knows that they have extremely black senses of humour – it's their coping mechanism for getting through it. They're very funny people, and they're very funny about things that generally you can't be funny about. So we're trying to do our network television version of that kind of humour. We're definitely not way over to where those people are – they can laugh at anything. We have to be a little more sensitive. But we really like that sense of black humour they have as a coping mechanism. Also, the characters as I designed them are very intelligent – much more intelligent than I am – and we get a lot of fun out of that degree of intelligence and their dysfunctional approach to the normal world.
The show tries to humanize its victims even though they're a pile of bones – how do you manage to do that?
HH: Originally, we had this holographic thing we called the Angelator - because it was designed by one of the characters, Angela Montenegro, played by Michaela Conlin. We thought that would be our version of doing flashbacks. We thought we'd be able to see them and connect with them, but it didn't work. It's still very technological. It's a cold thing. It's very good for describing what happened to people, but not showing who they are. So what we've realized is that there's two ways to humanize our victims. One is through the people they've left behind. You try to connect with the survivors. And the second it to use people's home videos, snippets of film and pictures and all this stuff. If you think what would be left behind if you simply vanished off the earth now, it would be people's memories of you and video and pictures, so we use that as much as possible and that works quite well for us.
The timeslot change in January – is it Wednesdays at 9 now?
HH: First we're on Wednesdays at 9, and then we drop down to Wednesdays at 8.
So it's before American Idol?
HH: Initially it's going to be after American Idol, and I think they're hoping that will introduce a whole new audience to us, and then after four episodes, we're going to go back to Wednesdays at 8, so we'll be on before American Idol.
What do you think of the timeslot change?
HH: We're pretty happy with the timeslot change. Tuesdays at 8, we were on before House, and the only place we could get any promotion was on Animation Domination on Sunday nights, where there was a large audience. There was no use promoting us on House because House was on an hour after we were. So now, we get the benefit of promotions on House and American Idol, and the benefit of following American Idol. I think a whole bunch of eyeballs are going to realize we exist and we hope they'll check us out and stick with us. So we're pretty happy with that timeslot change - it's much better than where we were.
It was originally promoted as sort of a thematic package with House, wasn't it?
HH: I love House, I think House is one of the reasons we're on the air, but to simply stay their lead in I don't think would give us the exposure we need to get into double digits in ratings. So we're pretty happy with the change. And I think House is pretty happy, too, because one of the other things that was floated was us taking the House slot immediately following Tuesday night American Idol, and using them to start another night. I think they should be hugely relieved that they're staying where they are, because they dominated that hour and it's nice for them to stay there.
What's a typical day at the office like for you?
HH: It's a long day in a first season. I generally get in here around 7:30 after a bunch of phone calls. I try to do my writing between 7:30 and 10, and then after that it's largely a producing job. It's up to the set, or casting, looking at cuts, giving notes on cuts, editing, all the usual stuff of producing a show – prepping the coming show while dealing with the show that's being shot now, and also getting scripts out for the next episode. And then that sort of settles down around 7 in the evening, and I usually get some more writing done between 7 and 9, or on bad days, 7 and midnight. It's a long day, but it's a first season and it will settle down.
How many writers are on your staff?
HH: We have seven writers right now.
How do you work with them? Do they do drafts and then pass them through you?
HH: Yes, I tend to do a last pass on each script just because the voice of the characters is fairly specific and unique. And because I can. They come up with the story ideas and they do all the research. They have to go extremely quickly from idea through to draft, so they're moving fast - they're really writing fast. Generally they only get one or two drafts, because we're so close in production.
Some shows use a whole room, meaning they get all the writers together to brainstorm ideas or plot out an episode. I don't tend to work that way. Steve Nathan, who's another writing executive producer on the show, and I will meet with the writer of an episode and perhaps another writer to listen to the premise, beat out the story beats, and then off they go to do their writing.
Do you ever get used to the uncertainty of TV? You've been picked up for a full season, but not knowing if you have another season, and you were on Joan of Arcadia ...
HH: I was on Joan of Arcadia only for the first 13 episodes. I was loaned out. It was very kind of my studio, 20th Century Fox, to loan me to Sony to do the first 13 of Joan because the creator, Barbara Hall, is a friend of mine. When she asked me to come and help her get the show up and running, I leapt at the chance. It was really nice. They say studios have no hearts, but it was very kind of the studio to let me go do that, because it was fun. But they only let me stay there for the 13 episodes, and then I came and wrote this pilot.
The uncertainty of TV? I guess I'm used to it now. It's such a crapshoot. You never know what's going to hit – no one does. You never know if you're going to stay on the air. I had a long run on Judging Amy, for me, of four years, and I was three years on my own show in Canada, but those are long, long runs. I tend to get a little bit antsy after a couple of years anyway. The constant change is not the worst thing in the world.
What can we expect from the second half of the season on Bones?
HH: We're going to answer a few of the questions we set up in the first half. I think we have caught our stride in the tone of the show, so I think our plots are a little better, our mysteries are a little tighter and more compelling than they were in the first half. Since the most important thing in this show is the characters, we'll keep on peeling them back and I hope have people as invested in their personal lives as in their professional lives.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Portrait of the author as a stick figure
From the strange and brilliant (but mostly strange) mind of my friend Britomart comes my new blog picture. The woman is a genius. I've never looked better. There are a lot of in-jokes from our weird and wonderful friendship, but it makes me laugh. And after all, isn't that what a blog portrait should do? She's worried people will think a demented child created it, so for the really curious, or the really bored, here's some explanation to help you understand that a demented adult created it:The obvious
Images of books, film, TV, writing = stuff I like. The caption of the '50s ad says "She's a constant critic (that's her job)".
My, er, body
I'm a glass of a fizzy, refreshing beverage. I have been called the Diet Coke of Evil, but now apparently caffeine is too strong to describe my evil powers, so I'm the Diet Sprite of Evil.
The oven mitt
I can cook. I just don't, much, and I like to mock my limited abilities. But I also told her the tragic tale of recently setting fire to my oven mitt, dousing it with water, then trying to use it again while it was wet, resulting in broiled fingers as well as chicken. Brain, meet hands. Hands, meet brain.
The flag
Britomart is American. I'm not. She's almost forgiven me for my ignorance of Target (you know, the higher class Wal-Mart) and the Fahrenheit scale.
The stuffed jalapeño
Part of my collection of tacky Mexican souvenirs, of which I am very proud. I wrote about him in a DVD review of the movie A Place Called Chiapas: "Dolls representing Marcos and the other comandantes were sold to supporters, and today, semi-aware tourists lap up these dolls while wearing their Che Guevara t-shirts. (Yes, I admit, I bought one a couple of years ago, for the same kitsch value as the stuffed jalapeño wearing a sombrero, sporting a moustache, and holding a Corona and pistol I picked up.)"
Apples and olives
From a discussion on the TWoP House forum where some people didn't get a throwaway joke about a vegan couple naming their baby Olive, which triggered some discussion about fruit-related baby names, which led to Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin. Then I did something nice for Britomart (sorry, it won't happen again) and she offered to name her firstborn after me. I posted something along the lines of "OK, great, my real name is Apple Olive." It became a running joke.
Lobster
Origins were in an e-mail from me to Brit that became this - comparing watching a favourite show as it declines with a lobster being slowly boiled. It too became a running joke.
Kumquats
My university's motto was (and I guess still is) Quaecumque vera, meaning "Whatsoever things are true," from a passage in the bible. We used to refer to it as the "Kumquats of Truth" since that made about as much sense. When kumquats came up in conversation, as they so often do, I told Brit that story.
subject and artist
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
All about meme
Oooh, Denis McGrath over at Dead Things on Sticks tagged me with my very first meme. Why do we hate chain letters but love memes? Is it because it's a cool word with a cool non-blog definition? Anyway, apparently Fun Joel started this one for screenwriting bloggers, but outsiders can play too.
What was your earliest film-related memory?
I have a vague memory of throwing up in the lobby when my mom took me to see some movie that disturbed me. I think there were lots of swirling psychadelic colours. Or maybe blood. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Herbie Rides Again – I wasn’t that sensitive a kid - but that’s the first movie I clearly remember seeing in a theatre when I was about four. Though not very clearly ... I was going to say Herbie the Love Bug except I looked it up on IMDB and I wasn't born yet for that one.
Name two favorite lines from movies
Three jobs you'd do if you could not work in "The Biz"
The Biz? You mean the writing for the non-profit world Biz? Um, yeah, so obviously I’m not actually in The Biz, I just like to write about it. But if I wasn’t in the glamorous world of web and newsletter production, with a side of blogging about entertainment, I’d like to be:
Name four jobs you have actually held outside The Industry.
Three book authors I like
Gah, just three? I’ll stick with ones who aren’t dead and whose next book I'm always anticipating: Anne Tyler, Nick Hornby, Ann-Marie MacDonald.
Name two movies you would like to remake or properties you'd like to adapt
Well, I guess I'd hire Denis or someone to adapt Life of Pi by Yann Martel and The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (I don't care if you like them or not – in this fictional world where I'm making movies, I'm paying big bucks).
Name one screenwriter you think is underrated
I like Denis’ answer: “all of them.” It’s why I started trying to interview some TV writers (Lawrence Kaplow of House for one, and stay tuned for another one next week) - I got annoyed and amazed at how some fans tend to give credit to the actors for everything, including plot and dialogue, and also that the Emmys were thinking about making winning writers and directors pre-tape their acceptances speeches so they didn’t take up valuable awards show time (my slight rant on that is here).
Oh, I have to tag people now? No one in The Biz knows me, so I'll pick a spec monkey and two people who should write more:
What was your earliest film-related memory?
I have a vague memory of throwing up in the lobby when my mom took me to see some movie that disturbed me. I think there were lots of swirling psychadelic colours. Or maybe blood. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Herbie Rides Again – I wasn’t that sensitive a kid - but that’s the first movie I clearly remember seeing in a theatre when I was about four. Though not very clearly ... I was going to say Herbie the Love Bug except I looked it up on IMDB and I wasn't born yet for that one.
Name two favorite lines from movies
- “How dare you make love to me and not be a married man.” – Ingrid Bergman to Cary Grant in Indiscreet
- “I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed.” - John Cusack in Say Anything
Three jobs you'd do if you could not work in "The Biz"
The Biz? You mean the writing for the non-profit world Biz? Um, yeah, so obviously I’m not actually in The Biz, I just like to write about it. But if I wasn’t in the glamorous world of web and newsletter production, with a side of blogging about entertainment, I’d like to be:
- a librarian (except the movies have really ruined that as an exciting career choice, haven’t they?)
- a linguistic anthropologist
- a travel writer with a hefty expense account
Name four jobs you have actually held outside The Industry.
- Sears lingerie department clerk. Not as sexy as it sounds (and given the “Sears,” it probably doesn’t sound very sexy to begin with) since it involved fitting a lot of old women - and the occasional man - for bras.
- Teaching English to French New Brunswick high school students (for a year) and Mexican business people (for 2 months). Taught me to fake patience well. And that I have no desire to be a teacher.
- Barista at Starbucks. I know lots about coffee, except why people think it tastes good without lots and lots of steamed milk.
- Administrator for a tiny playwrights’ organization, which convinced me that writing plays and scripts must be the hardest kind of writing there is, and who would want to do that?!
Three book authors I like
Gah, just three? I’ll stick with ones who aren’t dead and whose next book I'm always anticipating: Anne Tyler, Nick Hornby, Ann-Marie MacDonald.
Name two movies you would like to remake or properties you'd like to adapt
Well, I guess I'd hire Denis or someone to adapt Life of Pi by Yann Martel and The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (I don't care if you like them or not – in this fictional world where I'm making movies, I'm paying big bucks).
Name one screenwriter you think is underrated
I like Denis’ answer: “all of them.” It’s why I started trying to interview some TV writers (Lawrence Kaplow of House for one, and stay tuned for another one next week) - I got annoyed and amazed at how some fans tend to give credit to the actors for everything, including plot and dialogue, and also that the Emmys were thinking about making winning writers and directors pre-tape their acceptances speeches so they didn’t take up valuable awards show time (my slight rant on that is here).
Oh, I have to tag people now? No one in The Biz knows me, so I'll pick a spec monkey and two people who should write more:
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
TV Review: House - "Failure to Communicate"
(Warning: spoilers for the episode that aired Jan. 10)
The first House episode in a month (thanks FOX, my withdrawal symptoms are starting to ease) was Tuesday's "Failure to Communicate," written by another newcomer to the writing credits, Doris Egan, who shows no signs of failure here.
While House and Stacy are away defending his Medicaid billings – a daunting task in scenes that show House's flair for digging his holes even deeper, and Stacy's flair for getting him out of them - journalist Fletcher Stone is admitted to Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in the absence of the teacher.
After passing out and hitting his head, Fletcher has started to speak like a random-word generator for spam subject lines, in sentences such as "Why disqualify the rush?" The "kids" take on the case, but the attempt by Foreman, Chase, and Cameron to work together towards a consensus diagnosis proves that maybe House's dictatorship is better than their sad attempt at democracy, and their tendency to be shockingly polite to patients demonstrates that maybe House's extreme methods work best given the extreme cases he takes.
This episode also has far more fun than the previous one with the concept of Foreman at the helm of the diagnostic department, part of House's punishment in "The Mistake". He antagonizes Cuddy like the mini-House he aspires to be ("House is easier" she says in exasperation at one point) and tries to herd the flock towards a more radical, if less likely, diagnosis that would better explain all of Fletcher's symptoms, just like House might do. He even orders them to break into the patient's house when all else fails. His shaky leadership, however, dissolves to the point where he admits to Chase that it's easier to be confident when House is around to overrule him.
Though Wilson and Cuddy get very little screentime, this is a rare episode where all the characters had at least a shade of depth added, whether it was Wilson being the shoulder to cry on for a woman who's not his wife, or Cameron's softness and slyness used to great advantage to crack the case.
The show has used the catchphrase "everybody lies" in what seems like every conceivable way, until they come up with ways I hadn't conceived. With suitably twisted cynicism, "Failure to Communicate" tests the hypothesis that the more Fletcher loves his wife, the more he's lied to cover up his failings ("That gives us another lie. He must be really devoted"). Of course unravelling those lies holds the key to his current condition. And even more of course, House is the master of unravelling lies, even if he has to do it by speaker phone in the deserted airport, retrieving a kid's lost ball to replace his favourite office toy/nervous energy releaser, and using Stacy's makeup on a wall in lieu of his beloved whiteboard.
The case itself is interesting enough to hold the show together, with the episode beautifully balancing the patient's story with the House-Stacy relationship, which in previous shows has sometimes been oddly in the far background, sometimes overwhelmed the medical story.
Stacy and House had already reached an uneasy detente in their relationship, having previously admitted their feelings and the difficulty of working together. Now, trapped in the Baltimore airport during a snowstorm, when he isn't fielding phone calls from his proteges or Wilson about the case, House turns his detective skills on the people around him, including the mystery of Stacy's missing cross pendant. "It's an anomaly. Anomalies bug me," he explains his curiosity to her.
But he's not malicious, he's - I can't believe I'm typing this - almost nice. And she finally cracks, because she's actually bursting to confide in him. She had a fight over nothing with her husband, Mark, left the house without it, and is certain he is pushing her away – symptoms she recognizes from her failed relationship with House. And there House is again with the niceness. It's spooky. And yet, he's still cranky and caustic House. It's beautiful.
When their flights are even further delayed, she is nice enough to invite him to the hotel room she booked in case of that eventuality ("Mark knows when things are bad I always like to have an escape route planned"). Between the lines of much of House and Stacy's dialogue is the subtext of their desire to be together, but he finally raises it to the surface by asking what her intentions are (but in a much less Southern-belle-demanding-a-proposal kind of way). This leads to her absolutely hilarious and also a little heartbreaking diatribe on how her attraction to him is like Vindaloo curry. There's no way I can do justice to it by paraphrasing, so just trust me, it works. And just when she's admitted she misses curry, we – and they – finally get the kiss we've been expecting since Sela Ward joined the show as a guest star.
In the same review where I say that House is "nice," I have to say it: House is sweet here. No, I mean it. Really, I'm not being sarcastic. He's sweet, and it's a sweet kiss, with some passion and longing and mutual respect. And then the phone rings, and it's back to work for House, and back to craving curry for Stacy.
As he sits in that deserted airport, bouncing his ball, staring at his white wall, with Stacy keeping him company and eventually fending off the security guard who is going to force him to board the plane, the phone conversation House has with the patient holds shades of a conversation he and Stacy should be having. Fletcher tried to reform for his new wife. He quit drinking, quit recreational drugs, and – the key to solving the case – had experimental brain surgery to try to cure the bipolar disorder he hid from everyone because when he met his wife, he "wanted that life." The camera cuts from House saying those words, to a shot of Stacy watching him say those words. "And all you had to do is change who you are."
Fletcher, it turns out, has cerebral malaria from his trip to a third world country for the unproven surgery. House, it turns out, is still the man Stacy broke up with. "Give her time to miss you," Fletcher's editor comforts him after his wife leaves, in words that echo Stacy's and, since we've learned that the missing isn't enough, are therefore a satisfyingly melancholy ending to both the patient and romantic plots of the episode.
Here's your interesting House factoid of the day: It's in the running – one of five nominees announced today - for best drama in the NAACP Image Awards, which "celebrate the outstanding achievements and performances of people of colour in literature, television, motion pictures and recording arts." In celebration, House made no deliberately over-the-top racist remarks to Foreman this entire episode. Damn. I bet I could have got a good joke out of it, somehow.
American Idol takes over the airwaves for the next couple of week, so look for the next new episode of House on [sad edit:] Feb. 7.
Link:
(Cross posted to Blogcritics)
The first House episode in a month (thanks FOX, my withdrawal symptoms are starting to ease) was Tuesday's "Failure to Communicate," written by another newcomer to the writing credits, Doris Egan, who shows no signs of failure here.
While House and Stacy are away defending his Medicaid billings – a daunting task in scenes that show House's flair for digging his holes even deeper, and Stacy's flair for getting him out of them - journalist Fletcher Stone is admitted to Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in the absence of the teacher.
After passing out and hitting his head, Fletcher has started to speak like a random-word generator for spam subject lines, in sentences such as "Why disqualify the rush?" The "kids" take on the case, but the attempt by Foreman, Chase, and Cameron to work together towards a consensus diagnosis proves that maybe House's dictatorship is better than their sad attempt at democracy, and their tendency to be shockingly polite to patients demonstrates that maybe House's extreme methods work best given the extreme cases he takes.
This episode also has far more fun than the previous one with the concept of Foreman at the helm of the diagnostic department, part of House's punishment in "The Mistake". He antagonizes Cuddy like the mini-House he aspires to be ("House is easier" she says in exasperation at one point) and tries to herd the flock towards a more radical, if less likely, diagnosis that would better explain all of Fletcher's symptoms, just like House might do. He even orders them to break into the patient's house when all else fails. His shaky leadership, however, dissolves to the point where he admits to Chase that it's easier to be confident when House is around to overrule him.
Though Wilson and Cuddy get very little screentime, this is a rare episode where all the characters had at least a shade of depth added, whether it was Wilson being the shoulder to cry on for a woman who's not his wife, or Cameron's softness and slyness used to great advantage to crack the case.
The show has used the catchphrase "everybody lies" in what seems like every conceivable way, until they come up with ways I hadn't conceived. With suitably twisted cynicism, "Failure to Communicate" tests the hypothesis that the more Fletcher loves his wife, the more he's lied to cover up his failings ("That gives us another lie. He must be really devoted"). Of course unravelling those lies holds the key to his current condition. And even more of course, House is the master of unravelling lies, even if he has to do it by speaker phone in the deserted airport, retrieving a kid's lost ball to replace his favourite office toy/nervous energy releaser, and using Stacy's makeup on a wall in lieu of his beloved whiteboard.
The case itself is interesting enough to hold the show together, with the episode beautifully balancing the patient's story with the House-Stacy relationship, which in previous shows has sometimes been oddly in the far background, sometimes overwhelmed the medical story.
Stacy and House had already reached an uneasy detente in their relationship, having previously admitted their feelings and the difficulty of working together. Now, trapped in the Baltimore airport during a snowstorm, when he isn't fielding phone calls from his proteges or Wilson about the case, House turns his detective skills on the people around him, including the mystery of Stacy's missing cross pendant. "It's an anomaly. Anomalies bug me," he explains his curiosity to her.
But he's not malicious, he's - I can't believe I'm typing this - almost nice. And she finally cracks, because she's actually bursting to confide in him. She had a fight over nothing with her husband, Mark, left the house without it, and is certain he is pushing her away – symptoms she recognizes from her failed relationship with House. And there House is again with the niceness. It's spooky. And yet, he's still cranky and caustic House. It's beautiful.
When their flights are even further delayed, she is nice enough to invite him to the hotel room she booked in case of that eventuality ("Mark knows when things are bad I always like to have an escape route planned"). Between the lines of much of House and Stacy's dialogue is the subtext of their desire to be together, but he finally raises it to the surface by asking what her intentions are (but in a much less Southern-belle-demanding-a-proposal kind of way). This leads to her absolutely hilarious and also a little heartbreaking diatribe on how her attraction to him is like Vindaloo curry. There's no way I can do justice to it by paraphrasing, so just trust me, it works. And just when she's admitted she misses curry, we – and they – finally get the kiss we've been expecting since Sela Ward joined the show as a guest star.
In the same review where I say that House is "nice," I have to say it: House is sweet here. No, I mean it. Really, I'm not being sarcastic. He's sweet, and it's a sweet kiss, with some passion and longing and mutual respect. And then the phone rings, and it's back to work for House, and back to craving curry for Stacy.
As he sits in that deserted airport, bouncing his ball, staring at his white wall, with Stacy keeping him company and eventually fending off the security guard who is going to force him to board the plane, the phone conversation House has with the patient holds shades of a conversation he and Stacy should be having. Fletcher tried to reform for his new wife. He quit drinking, quit recreational drugs, and – the key to solving the case – had experimental brain surgery to try to cure the bipolar disorder he hid from everyone because when he met his wife, he "wanted that life." The camera cuts from House saying those words, to a shot of Stacy watching him say those words. "And all you had to do is change who you are."
Fletcher, it turns out, has cerebral malaria from his trip to a third world country for the unproven surgery. House, it turns out, is still the man Stacy broke up with. "Give her time to miss you," Fletcher's editor comforts him after his wife leaves, in words that echo Stacy's and, since we've learned that the missing isn't enough, are therefore a satisfyingly melancholy ending to both the patient and romantic plots of the episode.
***
Here's your interesting House factoid of the day: It's in the running – one of five nominees announced today - for best drama in the NAACP Image Awards, which "celebrate the outstanding achievements and performances of people of colour in literature, television, motion pictures and recording arts." In celebration, House made no deliberately over-the-top racist remarks to Foreman this entire episode. Damn. I bet I could have got a good joke out of it, somehow.
American Idol takes over the airwaves for the next couple of week, so look for the next new episode of House on [sad edit:] Feb. 7.
Link:
(Cross posted to Blogcritics)
Monday, January 09, 2006
James Frey and Doubleday: Lying liars and the publishers who lie with them
So James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, is a big lying liar? The Smoking Gun says so, and their evidence rings more true than the book did. Frey's lawyer is threatening suit, but Smoking Gun editor William Bastone isn't worried ... presumably because the best defence against libel is truth.
Frey apparently not only embellished, but completely fabricated details of his sordid criminal past – lies that call into question what else in the supposedly non-fiction book, which contained none of the usual disclaimers about altered characters and situations, was invented for dramatic purposes.
The line between fiction and non-fiction is always blurry. Memoir writers invent dialogue and tweak or misremember situations. But Frey went so far across that blurry line, that even the blurriness is blurry in the distance.
Because Oprah Winfrey relaunched her book club with Frey's memoir as her choice, helping it become the second most popular book of 2005 (Harry Potter was first), she is accused of being duped. But the primary dupe was the publisher, and Random House's Doubleday division was even complicit in the deception, either through negligence or manipulation of the truth.
I was one of the duped, too, on a much smaller scale. After I wrote a silly little piece about my aversion to Oprah but happiness that she was restarting her book club, the audiobook publisher of A Million Little Pieces contacted me to do a review of the abridged audiobook version. I did, and liked it, though I was taken more by the lyrical staccato style than the story. It was compelling for a peek into a world I couldn't imagine – but, apparently, Frey could. It had the air of being too outrageous to be fiction. I could not have taken it seriously as a novel.
In fiction, our willing suspension of disbelief is often a fragile thing, and it is more important that something rings true than that it is or could be true. But when a publisher labels something non-fiction, there is an assumption that we can suspend our suspension of disbelief and buy into the story as at least a close approximation of reality.
That assumption has been called into question before, and it will be called into question again, and publishers hungry for a piece of the sensational memoir market are either turning a blind eye to fact checking, or are encouraging authors to stretch the boundaries of truth beyond credibility. Why? Because we'll buy it, literally and figuratively. But by labelling A Million Little Pieces non-fiction, Doubleday went beyond selling a book for people to enjoy. They sold a man to be touted as an inspiration of what is possible to overcome, sold him to people struggling with addiction, and there should be some responsibility for truth in advertising with that kind of product.
The unvarnished truth about Frey overcoming his addictions, written in his distinctive style, should have been compelling enough, but it would have been competing with countless similar books out there, and would have been blown out of the water by Augusten Burrough's Dry, for one. Readers crave bigger, better, badder. Combine an author desperate for publication with a publisher desperate to satisfy that craving and you've got James Frey, and JT Leroy, and who knows how many others.
Some readers and reviewers wondered about A Million Little Pieces' veracity before the recent revelations, but to accuse someone of fraud without proof should be as big a sin as the fraud itself. Smoking Gun found the proof. Oprah could have. Doubleday should have.
(Crossposted to Blogcritics)
Frey apparently not only embellished, but completely fabricated details of his sordid criminal past – lies that call into question what else in the supposedly non-fiction book, which contained none of the usual disclaimers about altered characters and situations, was invented for dramatic purposes.
The line between fiction and non-fiction is always blurry. Memoir writers invent dialogue and tweak or misremember situations. But Frey went so far across that blurry line, that even the blurriness is blurry in the distance.
Because Oprah Winfrey relaunched her book club with Frey's memoir as her choice, helping it become the second most popular book of 2005 (Harry Potter was first), she is accused of being duped. But the primary dupe was the publisher, and Random House's Doubleday division was even complicit in the deception, either through negligence or manipulation of the truth.
I was one of the duped, too, on a much smaller scale. After I wrote a silly little piece about my aversion to Oprah but happiness that she was restarting her book club, the audiobook publisher of A Million Little Pieces contacted me to do a review of the abridged audiobook version. I did, and liked it, though I was taken more by the lyrical staccato style than the story. It was compelling for a peek into a world I couldn't imagine – but, apparently, Frey could. It had the air of being too outrageous to be fiction. I could not have taken it seriously as a novel.
In fiction, our willing suspension of disbelief is often a fragile thing, and it is more important that something rings true than that it is or could be true. But when a publisher labels something non-fiction, there is an assumption that we can suspend our suspension of disbelief and buy into the story as at least a close approximation of reality.
That assumption has been called into question before, and it will be called into question again, and publishers hungry for a piece of the sensational memoir market are either turning a blind eye to fact checking, or are encouraging authors to stretch the boundaries of truth beyond credibility. Why? Because we'll buy it, literally and figuratively. But by labelling A Million Little Pieces non-fiction, Doubleday went beyond selling a book for people to enjoy. They sold a man to be touted as an inspiration of what is possible to overcome, sold him to people struggling with addiction, and there should be some responsibility for truth in advertising with that kind of product.
The unvarnished truth about Frey overcoming his addictions, written in his distinctive style, should have been compelling enough, but it would have been competing with countless similar books out there, and would have been blown out of the water by Augusten Burrough's Dry, for one. Readers crave bigger, better, badder. Combine an author desperate for publication with a publisher desperate to satisfy that craving and you've got James Frey, and JT Leroy, and who knows how many others.
Some readers and reviewers wondered about A Million Little Pieces' veracity before the recent revelations, but to accuse someone of fraud without proof should be as big a sin as the fraud itself. Smoking Gun found the proof. Oprah could have. Doubleday should have.
(Crossposted to Blogcritics)
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Arrested Development: Not dead yet, but ...
I know, I know, you thought the show had already been cancelled. You wouldn’t know it from reading recent articles and Internet outrage, but it hasn't. Yet. Like last year, its season order has been reduced, this time from 22 episodes to 13. It’s very definitely not a good sign. It wasn’t a good sign last year when it was reduced to 18, either, but it still got renewed for a third season. But miracles rarely strike the same place twice, and I would bet my life savings (that’s right, all $1.25) that it won’t come back next year.Things look even worse now that FOX has pulled the show from its usual Monday timeslot. Though the official website still claims back-to-back episodes on Mondays, tomorrow (Jan. 9), a rerun of House airs in its place, even though there are four of those 13 episodes left to air. Because a rerun of House can be expected to do about twice as well in the ratings as a new episode of Arrested Development. Ouch.
On paper, I’m not sure how risky AD looked to FOX, with its great pedigree and familiar cast. The risks are possibly only evident in retrospect, knowing that it never came close in ratings to what it achieved in critical acclaim. Structurally, thematically, characterly (I might have made one of those words up), it doesn’t seem designed to appeal to a mass audience. It’s a show that relies on finding a niche of viewers who don’t need their heroes to be sympathetic and who have the stamina for complexity. Some of the most successful sitcoms, even the smart ones, are designed for straightforward pleasure. The payoff with AD might be bigger, but so is the effort.
And I’d argue that the risk paid off for audiences and for FOX. We got three seasons of one of the best comedies to hit the airwaves, with more episodes during its truncated three-year run than we had of the original British version of The Office. And the network that can’t seem to shake its reputation for schlock got a boost to its reputation with a critically acclaimed, award-winning show. Blaming the network for the show's inevitable demise is shortsighted and impractical, given its high cost to produce and bitterly low ratings.
It doesn’t surprise me, either, that the devoted critics didn’t manage to convert more viewers. One thing I think most got wrong in their zeal to promote the ratings-impaired show was to harp on how few people were smart enough to get it. Because many people, even the smart ones, resent being told that their tastes are a reflection of their intelligence. Many people, even the smart ones, want to relax in front of the tube and let the jokes wash over them, not work to unravel the complex plots and sideways humour. Maybe I’m a spiteful person, but the whiff of arrogance and desperation might have turned me off if I hadn’t already been hooked. That's added to the fact that the show has been considered a lame duck for so long, a viewer would have to be slightly masochistic to fall in love with it now.
They'll always have the DVDs. I just hope the rest of us don't have to wait to see the final four episodes until then.
(Cross posted to Blogcritics)
Thursday, January 05, 2006
The other Hollywood awards, part two
Actors and directors nominate the best of the year in filmIt's a busy time in the Oscar watch countdown, with enough nominations being announced to satisfy the most hardcore awards junkie (I may be in the running for that particular award). Earlier this week, the Writers Guild and Producers Guild announced their film nominations for 2005. Today, the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild declared their contenders.
Unlike the Golden Globes, which also have a reputation for foreshadowing Oscar success, many of the voters for the various guild awards also hold membership in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who determine the Academy Awards. In other words, some of the same people who vote for these "other" Hollywood awards will also be voting for the Oscars. In even more words, that means they are often – but not always – good predictors of Oscar glory.
This year, the actors and directors largely agree with their cousins the writers and producers – Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, and Good Night, and Good Luck are still leading the pack, but there's slightly more hope for Munich today, with Steven Spielberg nominated for the Directors Guild award.
Screen Actors Guild awards
The SAG awards focus on the onscreen talent, of course, which gives them the most public cache of these guild awards in our celebrity culture. Announced Thursday, nominations are for individual achievement as well as for ensembles, with that award going to the whole cast of a movie - the rough equivalent of best picture. The winners are named Jan. 29 in a ceremony televised on TNT and TBS.
Visit the Screen Actors Guild Awards website for all the details, including the television nominees - Felicity Huffman repeats her Golden Globe dual nominations with two SAG nods, too, one for the film Transamerica, one for her role in Desperate Housewives.
Lead actor:
- Russell Crowe, Cinderella Man
- Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
- Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
- Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
- David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck
- Judi Dench, Mrs. Henderson Presents
- Felicity Huffman, Transamerica
- Charlize Theron, North Country
- Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
- Ziyi Zhang, Memoirs of a Geisha
- Don Cheadle, Crash
- George Clooney, Syriana
- Matt Dillon, Crash
- Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man
- Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain
- Amy Adams, Junebug
- Catherine Keener, Capote
- Frances McDormand, North Country
- Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
- Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain
- Brokeback Mountain
- Capote
- Crash
- Good Night, and Good Luck
- Hustle & Flow
Directors Guild of America awards
I feel like there's something missing with the Directors Guild nods. On Thursday, they named their nominees for outstanding directorial achievement in feature film. Five nominees, one award to be handed out Jan. 28, along with the lifetime achievement award, previously announced, for Clint Eastwood. One award? Did they not get the memo about Hollywood excess? Anyway, according to their website, "only six times since the DGA Awards began in 1949 has the Feature Film winner not gone on to win the Oscar."
See the DGA website for more information.
- George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck
- Paul Haggis, Crash
- Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
- Bennett Miller, Capote
- Steven Spielberg, Munich
For even more to satisfy your awards show cravings, check out the LA Times Oscar Beat.
(Cross posted to Blogcritics)
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
The other Hollywood awards
Writers and producers nominate the best in their fields2005 is over, and everyone and their blog is reflecting on the best of the year, including Hollywood types. A slew of 2005 award nominations from the Writers Guild and Producers Guild were recently announced. But wait – there's more. Thursday, the Screen Actors Guild and Directors Guild will step up with their nominees. In the entertainment industry, it seems the holiday season was a mere diversion in the midst of awards season.
The Golden Globes get their nominations out early, and the venerable Oscars get the last word with their nomination announcements on Jan. 31, but in between, there are a number of more targeted entertainment industry awards where peers vote for peers. Though that should give them more credibility than, say, the Golden Globes, these are the awards that tend to get only passing notice from the public, lumped together as precursors to the awards that count - the Oscars.
But some of us do care at least a little - maybe because they’re a barometer for the Oscars, maybe because we want our favourites to be nominated for any accolade that exists, maybe because we just can’t get enough of Hollywood congratulating itself.
According to the collective wisdom of the writers and producers, some of the big contenders would appear to be Brokeback Mountain; Crash; Good Night, and Good Luck; and Capote.
Writers Guild of America awards
The Writers Guild announced their film awards on Tuesday, and will name the winners at a Feb. 4 awards ceremony. (The WGA television and radio nominations were announced in December.) There is at least one major surprise here - The 40-Year-Old Virgin is on my list of “I’ll see it eventually," but even without knowing if I’ll like it, I have to admire the writers for nominating a pure comedy amid the weightier dramas, something the Oscars rarely do.
See the Writers Guild of America website for all the nominees in film, television, and radio.
Best original screenplay:
- Cinderella Man
- Crash
- Good Night, and Good Luck
- The 40-Year-Old Virgin
- The Squid and the Whale
- Brokeback Mountain
- Capote
- The Constant Gardener
- A History of Violence
- Syriana
Producers Guild of America awards
Wednesday, the PGA announced nominees for producer of the year, in two movie categories – best theatrical motion picture and best animated motion picture. I would be embarrassed to admit that I don’t exactly know what producers do, except that the Producers Guild themselves acknowledge that’s a bit of a problem, too. The title is given out so freely, it has become almost meaningless (well, they might not quite say it that way). But these awards acknowledge the people who control “all aspects of the motion-picture and/or television production process, including creative, financial, technological and administrative." Oh, crystal clear now.
Awards will be handed out Jan. 22. For a complete list of nominees, including for television, see the Producers Guild of America website.
Best theatrical motion picture:
- Brokeback Mountain
- Capote
- Crash
- Good Night, and Good Luck
- Walk the Line
- Chicken Little
- Madagascar
- Robots
- Corpse Bride
- Wallace & Gromit:The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
(Cross posted to Blogcritics)
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
The non-artist formerly known as deekay
I feel compelled to explain the name change to sharp-eyed readers. I imagine you're shocked to find out that my initials are D.K. (Actually D.K.W. But deekayuu just doesn't look good). I'm finally changing to my real name – well, most of it – after thinking for a while that if I'd known where I was going with this blog, I would have started with my real name. Except maybe not, because I'm a little shy (aka neurotic) about people I only know offline reading what I write (hi William). And while I'm not in the witness protection program, I don't want to have to justify my shocking criminal behaviour or weird obsessions to current or future employers. So it's only now occurred to me that I can both use my real name and choose to be non-Googleable by eliminating that all-important last name. I'm not very bright.
Monday, January 02, 2006
Newbie TV Shows' Tough Timeslots
The gifts and the hangovers are only memories now, and it's time to hunker down for some quality winter couch potato time. But there are some new shows adding to the decision-making now. Mid-season series tend not to get the same hype that fall launches do, so it can be easy to lose sight of them, especially when they're shoehorned into a January that already seems two sizes too small. So here's a peek at what's new and notable, along with their timeslot competitors.
Mondays at 9
Emily's Reasons Why Not and Courting Alex are Monday's new half-hour sitcoms, going up against the return of 24. Both come armed with familiar faces. Heather Graham is Emily, who works for a self-help book publisher but whose own relationships are disasters. Jenna Elfman is Alex, a single lawyer who has a hard time finding a life beyond work. The female-friendly premises are probably not bad counter-programming against 24.
24's serial story has always been too much commitment for me, but I'm feeling friendly towards the sweet-looking Emily's Reasons Why Not (I haven't heard anything about Courting Alex beyond the premise).
New episodes begin:
Love Monkey has been called a male-centric Sex and the City, and stars the charming Tom Cavanagh from Ed as a single record company executive bouncing back from losing his girlfriend and his job in the same day. But that promising-looking show's arrival in the Tuesday at 9 slot destroys any of the happiness I felt about NBC moving My Name is Earl out of the way of House. Plus, Scrubs is finally returning to NBC with back-to-back episodes in the same timeslot. What is it with the networks trying to destroy my happiness?
If it was in another timeslot, I'd want to watch Commander in Chief, too, to see what new man in charge Steven Bochco might do with the show's promising but not fully captivating start ... but something's gotta give. House will remain my must-watch show, but during its two-week American Idol break, I can catch Love Monkey. Then I'll decide whether it or Scrubs becomes my must-record show. And cry myself to sleep Tuesday nights if I end up loving them both.
New episodes begin:
The buddy sitcom Four Kings joins NBC's new two-hour comedy block, following Will and Grace at 8, and before My Name is Earl and The Office. Another newcomer, Crumbs, with Fred Savage and Jane Curtain as his nutty mother, goes up against The Office in the 9:30 slot. Dancing With the Stars on ABC runs through both timeslots starting Jan. 5.
Neither of the new ones tempt me much, but since I'll be watching Earl and The Office in their new timeslots, I'm sure I'll click by to see what I think.
New episodes begin:
A couple of new shows enter the twilight zone of Friday night television. In Justice, starring Kyle MacLachlan, is another crime show, this one focusing on a non-profit organization that takes on cases of wrongful convictions. It gets the slightly cushier 9 p.m. slot, while Book of Daniel faces off with Numb3rs at 10 p.m. (after the two-hour pilot airs Jan. 6 at 9 p.m., repeating Jan. 7 at 8 p.m.)
I haven't seen Daniel - neither have most of the people protesting it – but I'll be tuning in to see Aidan Quinn as a troubled minister who talks to Jesus, pops painkillers, and deals with his equally troubled family. It had good critical buzz but the network cut its episode order before the series has even aired. Daniel might need help from a higher power to survive, but it looks like intelligent entertainment with a great cast.
New episodes begin:
(Cross posted to Blogcritics ... and, shucks, named a Blogcritics Editors' Pick of the Week.)
Mondays at 9
Emily's Reasons Why Not and Courting Alex are Monday's new half-hour sitcoms, going up against the return of 24. Both come armed with familiar faces. Heather Graham is Emily, who works for a self-help book publisher but whose own relationships are disasters. Jenna Elfman is Alex, a single lawyer who has a hard time finding a life beyond work. The female-friendly premises are probably not bad counter-programming against 24.
24's serial story has always been too much commitment for me, but I'm feeling friendly towards the sweet-looking Emily's Reasons Why Not (I haven't heard anything about Courting Alex beyond the premise).
New episodes begin:
- Las Vegas, NBC: Jan. 2
- Emily's Reasons Why Not (9 p.m.) / Jake in Progress (9:30 p.m.), ABC: Jan. 9
- Two and a Half Men (9 p.m.) / Courting Alex (9:30 p.m.), CBS: Jan. 9 for Men, Jan. 23 for Alex
- 24, FOX: special airings Sunday, Jan. 15 and Monday, Jan. 16 from 8 – 10 p.m., then settling into the Monday at 9 p.m. slot on Jan. 23
Love Monkey has been called a male-centric Sex and the City, and stars the charming Tom Cavanagh from Ed as a single record company executive bouncing back from losing his girlfriend and his job in the same day. But that promising-looking show's arrival in the Tuesday at 9 slot destroys any of the happiness I felt about NBC moving My Name is Earl out of the way of House. Plus, Scrubs is finally returning to NBC with back-to-back episodes in the same timeslot. What is it with the networks trying to destroy my happiness?
If it was in another timeslot, I'd want to watch Commander in Chief, too, to see what new man in charge Steven Bochco might do with the show's promising but not fully captivating start ... but something's gotta give. House will remain my must-watch show, but during its two-week American Idol break, I can catch Love Monkey. Then I'll decide whether it or Scrubs becomes my must-record show. And cry myself to sleep Tuesday nights if I end up loving them both.
New episodes begin:
- Scrubs, NBC: Jan. 3
- House, FOX: Jan. 10 (then thanks to American Idol, it's off the schedule again until Jan. 31)
- Commander in Chief, ABC: Jan. 10
- Love Monkey, CBS: premieres Jan. 17 at 10 p.m., then moves to 9 p.m. starting Jan. 24
- Get this Party Started, UPN: Jan. 24
The buddy sitcom Four Kings joins NBC's new two-hour comedy block, following Will and Grace at 8, and before My Name is Earl and The Office. Another newcomer, Crumbs, with Fred Savage and Jane Curtain as his nutty mother, goes up against The Office in the 9:30 slot. Dancing With the Stars on ABC runs through both timeslots starting Jan. 5.
Neither of the new ones tempt me much, but since I'll be watching Earl and The Office in their new timeslots, I'm sure I'll click by to see what I think.
New episodes begin:
- Four Kings, NBC (8:30 p.m.): Jan. 5
- CSI, CBS (9 p.m.): Jan. 5
- My Name is Earl (9 p.m.) / The Office (9:30 p.m.), NBC: Jan. 5
- Crumbs, ABC (9:30 p.m.): Jan. 12
A couple of new shows enter the twilight zone of Friday night television. In Justice, starring Kyle MacLachlan, is another crime show, this one focusing on a non-profit organization that takes on cases of wrongful convictions. It gets the slightly cushier 9 p.m. slot, while Book of Daniel faces off with Numb3rs at 10 p.m. (after the two-hour pilot airs Jan. 6 at 9 p.m., repeating Jan. 7 at 8 p.m.)
I haven't seen Daniel - neither have most of the people protesting it – but I'll be tuning in to see Aidan Quinn as a troubled minister who talks to Jesus, pops painkillers, and deals with his equally troubled family. It had good critical buzz but the network cut its episode order before the series has even aired. Daniel might need help from a higher power to survive, but it looks like intelligent entertainment with a great cast.
New episodes begin:
- In Justice, ABC (9 p.m.): Jan. 6
- Close to Home, CBS (9 p.m.): Jan. 6
- Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy, FOX (9 p.m.): Jan. 6
- Numb3rs, CBS (10 p.m.): Jan. 6
- The Book of Daniel, NBC: Jan. 6 at 9 p.m., then Jan. 13 at 10 p.m.
(Cross posted to Blogcritics ... and, shucks, named a Blogcritics Editors' Pick of the Week.)
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