Television

Hallmark Mysteries Are a Crime

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TV Columnist Diane Werts tuned into Hallmark’s Mystery Movie wheel and wasn’t wowed by McBRIDE, JANE DOE and MYSTERY WOMAN:

Suspending disbelief and sometimes logic is required to get through either this
or a "McBride" case without throwing things at the
TV set.

Hallmark’s mysteries try hard, but feel perfunctory. Instead of tight plotting,
we get sluggish implausibilities. You can sense the writers shrugging their
shoulders and saying "close enough." There’s just a basic-cable minor-league
feel.

Even the key characterizations fall flat, which is itself a crime
when it comes to John Larroquette. This Emmy collector has proven from "Night
Court" to "The Practice" that he’s got high-test fuel in the tank. "McBride"
gives him a dog and sports trivia expertise, and that’s pretty much the
personality picture. Is it the genre that’s tired or just these cut-rate
interpretations? I’d hope the latter. But it’s still a mystery to me.

I felt the same frustration when I tuned into the shows. They are so flat, they make MATLOCK seem cutting-edge. There’s no reason the mysteries can’t be better. A lot better. It’s not the genre that’s tired, it’s the writers.

Fifty Years of GUNSMOKE

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Gunsmoke67New York Daily News columnist David Bianculli celebrates 50 years of GUNSMOKE, which was the best western and the  longest-running primetime episodic drama in TV history. LAW & ORDER is catching up to GUNSMOKE’s 20-year run, but it doesn’t really count. The cast of LAW & ORDER has turned over many times, but three of the four stars of GUNSMOKE stuck with it for 19 years (Dennis Weaver  left in the mid-60s and Amanda Blake skipped the 20th season).  James Arness as Matt Dillon became a television icon. But what really made the show work, from day one, was the writing.

"Gunsmoke" premiered Sept. 10, 1955, and began with a shocker. A
quick-draw gunfighter comes to town, resists arrest by a pursuing
lawman who has traced him to Dodge City, and guns him down.

Marshal Dillon, upholding the law, accepts the gunman’s challenge of a
daytime duel. Saloon girl Miss Kitty (Amanda Blake), deputy Chester
(Dennis Weaver) and town physician Doc (Milburn Stone) watch as their
friend takes aim – and is outgunned and shot down. Cut to commercial.

This was five years before Alfred Hitchcock stunned moviegoers by
killing off the heroine in "Psycho." (Retroactive, 45-year-old spoiler
alert!) Matt Dillon didn’t die, but he did have to recuperate slowly,
nursed back to health by his loyal buddies before facing the villain
again.

It was a stunning, mature approach to the Western, showing right from
the start that the good guys didn’t always win, that violence had
consequences and that the badge often carried a crushing weight.

Unlike some shows, which get worse with age, GUNSMOKE was actually at its best in its last few years, using the age and bitter experience of the characters as poignant and powerfulJames_arness_1 undercurrents in the sharp, surprisingly edgy and violent stories.  That’s not to say GUNSMOKE didn’t sink into a rut (the mid-60s especially), but even the black-and-white, half-hour episodes from the 50s still pack a surprising punch. Suzanne Barabas, author of "GUNSMOKE: A Complete History" notes in an interview:

When John Meston and Norman MacDonnell created "Gunsmoke," they wrote
down every single cowboy cliche they could think of, and decided to
break every single one, Barabas said. The irony, she said, was
"Gunsmoke" itself became a cliche.

Speaking of GUNSMOKE, I finally got around to reading Ben Costello’s "GUNSMOKE: An American Institution." It’s a handsome hardcover packed with photos and interviews. Is it worth $75? No.  It’s a breezy, enjoyable book with lots of interesting anecdotes but it doesn’t compare to Suzanna & Gabor Barabas’ monumental  "GUNSMOKE: A Complete History," one of the best books ever written about a TV show (and also one of the most expensive at $85).

If you’re going to buy one of the books, I’d spend the extra ten bucks and go for the Barabas book.  Of the two, the Barabas book is also far more scholarly and informative, Costello’s is more fannish and superficial (though he does offer many more pictures and some  intriguing details about the subsequent GUNSMOKE movies, which aren’t covered in the Barabas book).

Other articles celebrating the show and marking its anniversary are here, here and here.

045121633401_sclzzzzzzz_UPDATE (9-10-05) I almost forgot…my friend Joseph West’s latest original GUNSMOKE novel, BLIZZARD OF LEAD,  just came out. I haven’t read it yet, but if it’s anything like the first one, BLOOD BULLETS AND BUCKSKIN,  it’s a great read that’s also true to the spirit of the show and perfectly captures the voices of the beloved characters.

Out of Touch

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MdscastIt used to be that I’d catch at least one episode of every new drama series on television. That day has passed. There are just too many networks — broadcast, cable, and subscription — for me to keep up. I’m setting my Tivo to catch as many new falls shows as I can…but I know I will fail. And if I, a TV-junkie and professional TV writer, can’t find the time to  sample everything, how can we expect the average viewer to do it?

Here are some of the shows I’ve missed: TRU CALLING, KEVIN HILL, THE INSIDE,  ONE TREE HILL, SUMMERLAND, TARZAN, CARNIVALE, ROSWELL, CLUBHOUSE, THE MOUNTAIN, JACK AND BOBBY, NORTH SHORE,  MISS MATCH, THE LYON’S DEN, THE BROTHERHOOD OF POLAND N.H., JUST CAUSE, DINOTOPIA, GIRLS CLUB, HAUNTED, PRESIDIO MED, and MDs.

Granted, most of America missed those shows, too, since the majority of them didn’t survive a season. But that never used to stop me before. I saw everything.

There are a few series, like WANTED and THE 4400, that I haven’t seen yet and could still catch. And some of those old shows, like CARNIVALE, ROSWELL and TRU CALLING, I could always catch up with if I wanted to — I’ve got Emmy cassettes or DVDs for them somewhere and many of them are also out in boxed sets at Best Buy. But with so much to catch up on that’s new, I can’t really bring myself to go back…

Les is More

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There was an interesting interview with CBS chief Les Moonves in the Sunday NYT. In explaining why he canceled JOAN OF ARCADIA, he revealed his take on what audiences want from a story.

On this particular Thursday, at 11 a.m., Moonves was considering which of the
network’s current shows to cancel in order to make room for new programs. He had
decided to take a once-promising show called ”Joan of Arcadia” off the air.
The show was about a teenager who receives directives and advice straight from
God. ”In the beginning, it was a fresh idea and uplifting, and the plot lines
were engaging,” Moonves said, sounding a little sad and frustrated. ”But the
show got too dark. I understand why creative people like dark, but American
audiences don’t like dark. They like story. They do not respond to nervous
breakdowns and unhappy episodes that lead nowhere. They like their characters to
be a part of the action. They like strength, not weakness, a chance to work out
any dilemma. This is a country built on optimism.”

The last point strikes home with me. We like heroes who move the story along…and, ideally, there should actually be a story to move along. That means a story with a beginning, middle and end with clear stakes for the characters.  The characters shouldn’t be caught up in events, reacting to what happens, they should be driving what happens through their own actions. That’s good story-telling, plain and simple.

Moonves has constructed a Bush-like universe (without the politics): in his
dramas, there is a continuing battle for order and justice, the team works
together and a headstrong boss leads the way.  Producers looking to sell shows to CBS either comply with this point of view
or take their shows elsewhere.

Curiously, most of CBS’s successful dramas — the three ”C.S.I.” shows,
”Without a Trace” and many of the new about-to-be-discussed drama pilots —
revolve around a group of specially trained professionals who work in unison and
are headed by a dynamic, attractive middle-aged man. These prime-time-TV teams
— much like Moonves’s own — are determined and work-obsessed. They seem to
think of their office as an extended family while, together, they solve crimes.

In a way, it’s an old-fashioned model, harkening back to hits like HAWAII FIVE-O and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE, but with a new spin (reminds me of how NBC touted LAW AND ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT as ground-breaking show because we’d also see things from the bad guy’s pov…I guess no one at NBC had ever seen BARNABY JONES or STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO). Speaking of taking cues from the past,  Moonves’ plans for revamping the news division sound like he’s channeling Fred Silverman.

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Procedural Checklist

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Greg Braxton of the LA Times shares his funny, and stingingly accurate, ten-step formula for the typical TV police procedural.

2. The ‘What d’ya got’ scene

The star investigators must
arrive at a crime scene walking at a regular pace or in slow motion. Dark trench
coats are a must, and the stars should look properly stern and speak cryptically
out of the sides of their mouths when asking officers at the scene, "Who’s the
stiff?" Detectives should possess a background in comedy or philosophy: Nothing
kicks off a murder investigation or leads into the first commercial like words
of wisdom or a morbid one-liner such as, "Dinner really did cost him an
arm and a leg."

The list goes on. But Greg left a couple of things out:

1 ) the hero’s  obligatory dead wife (an updating of what was "the obligatory estranged wife").

2) the hero’s  or co-star’s  struggle with an  addiction (gambling, alcoholism, etc.)

3) one lead character eats healthy, the other loves junk food.

4) the irascible boss.

We’re Doing Little Movies

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It’s the biggest cliches of the TV season. You hear it in almost every interview with a showrunner or a star (particularly movie stars who have moved to TV) hyping their new show:

"This show is like a movie every week."

Or the popular variations:

"We’re doing little movies."

"The entire season is like a 22-episode movie."

"We’re bringing feature film production values, feature film writing, and feature film acting to the TV screen every week."

I wonder how many times we’ll hear it this season ( I’ve already read it in four interviews today, hence the rant). Just once, I’d like to hear them say "We’re doing a really good TV series." What’s so damn impressive about comparing TV to movies? The fact is, what’s on TV these days is a hell of a lot better than what’s in theatres. I’d like to see the cliche turn… and to start hearing feature directors and stars saying:

"This movie is like an entire season of a TV series crammed into 97 minutes."

Inside THE INSIDE

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Theinsiderachel4There’s a fascinating interview with writer Tim Minear at IFMagazine.com  about the development, production, and demise of the short-lived Fox series THE INSIDE (I’ve talked about the series here before). The  show was cursed from the get-go —  two entire pilots for the series were shot and scrapped before they finally got one that worked (maybe that should have been a hint).

"I got a call from the studio the day we were in prep for the second episode and
they had seen the cut, which by the way I don’t think turned out so well, and
said “I really loved the script, why do I not like this.” So I said “give me a
couple million dollars and I’ll go reshoot it myself” and that’s what we did. We
pushed production, started over again, we recast one of the main characters, and
sort of reworked the sets. We had 12 or 14 days of dress rehearsal and I got to
see all the things that didn’t work and had a very short time to rectify those
things. So we went back and reshot most of the pilot, so there really are two
versions of that pilot, not just the 21 JUMP STREET one, that’s a third version
of a different pilot that exists…

…The problem was, if it had only been the Tim Minear/Howard Gordon version of THE
INSIDE that we had to reshoot large parts of the pilot for, that would have been
one thing. But we had already come in redesigning, reconfiguring and trying to
salvage something else called THE INSIDE that they already spent a year on with
the same actress."

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the television business.

“Rebus” Returning to TV

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180305nrebusKen Stott is fast becoming the new John Thaw over in the UK.  He’s replacing the hopelessly miscast John Hannah as Inspector Rebus in the next set of TV movies based on Ian Rankin’s books. The movies are being written by Danny Boyle, who scripted some of the best Inspector Morse movies. Stott has  played cops before, most recently in the "Messiah" TV movies and as the leader of a sex crimes unit in five season of "The Vice."