I was feeling a little bad for any non-House fans who might read this blog, given the amount of verbiage in the past few days related only to that show, but then I realized that I probably scared off any non-House fans long ago. Anyway, this post is not about House. Though it gets a tiny mention, because I just can't help myself.
Though it seems a little too far away to feel real, I learned a couple of weeks ago that I'll be covering the Banff World Television Festival this year again for Blogcritics. This is like TV geek heaven for me, if heaven were a place where you feel like you don't belong because you're not an insider. Which, come to think of it, is probably not an entirely inaccurate view of what heaven might be like. But this year I'll have my alternate identity as the TV, Eh? site person, which might add a new twist to the experience, a little more reason for my existence, a little more insight into this weird world of Canadian television. Though as you might have guessed from the title, the festival isn't all about Canadian television.
For me, the attraction is the writers and producers behind the shows who present Master Classes and In Conversation Withs, and speak in other sessions. It doesn't even matter if they work on shows I watch - I'm just fascinated by the process and the trends in the industry.
Last year had a Master Class by David Shore of House, which means even though there are likely more names yet to be announced, there is no hope of topping last year's lineup for me. (Though if they got Chris Haddock of Intelligence, I wouldn't complain too much. Or Aaron Sorkin, even if I think he's kind of an ass.)
Of shows I watch, the festival is going to include writer/producers Greg Daniels of The Office (also King of the Hill and The Simpsons) and Jenji Kohan of Weeds (though I'm still catching up on season two DVDs). There's also Ben Silverman, whose credits in all the Banff media are listed as The Office and Ugly Betty, which I do watch, but who also has on his resume reality series like Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader, The Biggest Loser, Identity, and The Restaurant, which I don't. One of the speakers I'm most excited to hear is Rob Thomas, currently of Veronica Mars, despite the fact that I don't particularly enjoy his show (and therefore don't particularly watch it). He just seems to have a lot of interesting things to say. For a different kind of interesting and insightful, TV columnists Bill Carter and John Doyle will be participating.
There's a lot more names on the website and I'll be writing something more "official" soon. I just had to spill now, because I am a geek.
