Olden but golden

Happy New Year - sorry it's been a looooong time since I posted, but... er... um... well... no excuse really. I'd like to say I've been Bookfacing or Teetering but I haven't really.

Anyhow, I was watching the Magic channel on Sky - by Magic, I don't mean a channel full of David Blaine suspended by his eyelashes above a pit of ravenous leopards, I mean Magic FM: The Easy Listening Radio Station: The TV Version of Aforementioned Thing*

I know this makes me officially An Old Man but as I was off with a bad back, was grumpy, cold and dying for a cup of tea, then it does make me an old man.

So Magic:TELRS:TTVOA was on and inbetween Curtis Stigers and Living in a Box there was 'One of Us is Lying', an Abba 'choon from the era where every song was about the various couples' marital angsts. And it took me back to a tv show I once worked on (yes, we're finally at the tv bit)

It was when I was a development producer, if not quite the head honcho supremo I eventually came. The guy who ran development came up with the idea, and a jolly fine one it was too, original and quirky. And it also had the benefit of selling to C4 instantly, who commissioned some pilot filming and a script. They even stumped up to shoot the pilot on film not tape, which in those pre-digital days meant a lot of money. I went to the shoot and there were dolly grips, camera cranes, best boys and lots of other things that my five years in telly had never exposed me to before.

The show was called 'One of Us is Lying', of course, and it built on a couple of other series my company had made. One was a teen problem page re-enactment series for the BBC, which did OK ratings-wise but wasn't that popular inside the Beeb for being a bit downmarket. They'd show teen issues (mainly sex) then have a discussion with Proper Adults after. The re-enactments were filmed on the cheap so it wasn't exactly dripping with production values. This show itself had come from a show from the dawn of C4 where stories were re-enacted with the simple question: True or False, which started off as a segment of ground-breaking Network 7 and was then spun off to a full series. I believe CBBC runs/ran a show called False or True which was very similar. Hey ho.

Anyhow, this show told an adult personal dilemma from three different points of view. So, say, Charlie and his girlfriend Magenta are having problems as Magenta has been having an affair with Sebastian but Charlie doesn't know until he walks in on them. You'd see it from Charlie's shocked, offended point-of-view. Then you'd see Magenta's opinion - Charlie's been neglecting her, nasty to her, Sebastian came on to her etc. And finally Sebastian's point of view - Charlie's told him he wants to dump Magenta but is worried she'll go off the deep end, Sebastian has always fancied her etc**

And only one of the stories is true, you have to work out which one. Like a whodunnit but without a dead body or a wise old lady asking pertinent questions.

So there it is, all shot on lovely film by a director who is now a Very Big Movie Person... well, I think, the filming day I went to was ferociously hot and I had been roped in to play an extra in the background so I was more concerned about not sweating in the wrong way or standing on the wires. So I didn't chat to the director at all as he was on the crane thing.

The pilot was just one of the stories as C4 had stumped up for a third of an ep. The other points of view were done as a voiceover on top of some stills, dulcet tones provided by Mr Development Head in his posh-but-camp teasing style.

C4 loved it and said let's get some storylines and budget a series. Yays all round.

Except...

Well, there were a few issues. Issue number one was that Mr Development Head left the company literally days after the pilot was delivered. It was a very acrimonious split involving legal disputes over %ages of shows that had been developed during his tenure and lots of other things I overheard in the corridors but wasn't officially supposed to know.

I was then made New Development Head, which I was delighted at... until issue two came along. I realised I'd get no more money (so was therefore a third of the price of my predecessor) and that the company's last commission was ending soon and boy did we need another one ASAP. Oh, and that our major client (not C4) was mightily pissed off as the boss had refused to make another series of the only hit show we produced as the money "was shit".

My first task was to rewrite 'Lying' to remove any story or wording done by Previous Development Head, something I was ethically unhappy with but was told in no uncertain terms I had to do.

Then I had to write some episodes.

Which is where issue three bit me on the arse. It's actually almost impossible to write a threeway story that can appear to be true from three different angles, yet isn't... well, try it. The one with Charlie, Magenta and Sebastian doesn't really work.

I took a week of working almost all hours to come up with a few stories but they weren't that good, so I went to see my boss and said I simply couldn't do it, feeling like a flop on my first assignment. She was uncharacteristically cheerful. "Ha!", she shouted, and sprinted out of her office down to the other side of the open-plan floor, to where her partner sat. It was always an odd sight, this six-foot high woman in heels and weirdo meeeeja clothes loping along like a cartoon character.

They returned slowly, her partner being more, er, ample and short. I often thought they looked like the number 10 when walking together.

They came in, shut the door and said they'd spent months trying to think up some stories themselves and failed, and they thought the only reason Mr Development Head had quit was because he'd sold an unmakeable show. Whether that was the case or not, I subsequently found out that the omens were hideous - C4 had backed away from a series when legal action was threatened by Mr Development Head, the director had quit before the final edit in a strop over something, the bills came in and the pilot was over budget by a factor of two... it was hideous.

But, luckily, a stupid idea for a prime time show I'd written six months before had just been green-lit by the BBC, so none of this seemed to matter. It was huge and ambitious and fantastic, and as it was my idea they didn't have to pay me a %age or go to court so they jumped with joy.

I was delighted too - I'd writ a show for the mainstream telly like! - slightly less delighted at their revelling in me not getting any money or 'owt.

I then spent six long months piloting various parts of the show, watching all the good ideas drift away, the slot change, the format alter beyond all recognition.

The show debuted in a shitty slot with a good-if-inappropriate presenter, seemingly tiny budget and did OK-ish. I watched that from afar as I left before it hit air.

So the moral is... um... er... mmm... well, don't write a show you can't actually make. It's suprisingly easy - I almost did a few times but just about pulled it off in the end.

--

* Just thought, it's hard to refer to TV channels of radio stations... do people think you've been staring at a DAB box if you say 'I was watching Magic'. An actual MAGIC channel would probably do quite well. From Paul Daniels to Derren Brown via Ali Bongo. Izzy whizzy let's get busy!

** The names of the characters in this pretend story are related to one of the tv shows mentioned within this blog. Can you guess which one? Ooh look, I'm being all interactive. Press your red button now!

Comedy Capers

OK, so the perceived wisdom is that the sitcom is kaput. Finished. Dying. Dead...

Too costly to make, little chance of success, big risk when reality shit rates better and is much cheaper.

Yeah?

Er, well... no, not really. Let's ignore that new sitcom on BBC One about a circus. What do you mean, you haven't heard of it? It's in that prestigious comedy slot, um... ah... 7:30pm on Wednesday. Up against Corrie or the Eurofooty, so plenty of viewers around wanting a nice, wholesome comedy show about clowns and that.

Anyhoo, back to my thesis, the one not totally disproved by the paragraph above. There are some great sitcoms on the telly, some of them even British-made.

Modern Family, screened here on Sky 1, is my favourite of the lot. Get episode one downloadifying or streamerized to your fridge, or wherever people watch tv nowadays (anywhere but on a telly). I'm sure the ABC1 trendy readers of this blog have ways or means to see a show not currently on air. Although, bless Sky, they do repeat it on a loop so it'll be on at some point.

It's one of the best first eps of any sitcom I've ever seen, seamlessly introducing every (well-drawn) character and actually having a surprise at the end. Try and see this before watching the others. Acting is superb, really superb performances throughout, and a great, proper funny script - it's superb. And it gets better - as sitcoms do, as you get to know the characters. The gay couple are the funniest twosome for a long time on telly.

OK, so it's done psuedo-documentary style and there's no laugh track, but - hey, sue me - it's still funny ha-ha not funny cringe-no-don't-do-that-oh-that's-so-embarrassing.

Its on ABC in the States and they've got a couple of other new sitcoms that are apparently really good (and a crap one with Her With The Squarest Head Off of Friends called Cougar Town about old ladies shagging young blokes - shudder). And on NBC, there's...

30 Rock. Do I need to rave more about this? It can be patchy to be frank, but it never fails to amuse, even if it is just Fat Baldwin mugging away, or Campy Kenneth, or Liz Lemon's rubbishness. The great Elaine Stritch as Jack's mother was utterly superb. And it's about the telly, so how can it fail?

Looking forward to seeing Community, the new sitcom with Joel McHale Off Of The Soup in it - the clips I've seen look very funny. And apparently Parks & Recreation, which started last year and almost got cancelled for shitness, has reinvented itself and is actually really funny. Thursday night on NBC in the US is back to their old slogan of must see tv, with Community, Parks & Recreation, 30 Rock and The Office in a row.

(Small note - I'm the only person who works in tv who doesn't say how great the original Office series was. I'm sure a lot of other people, like me, didn't laugh, or got bored with the concept, but no-one admits it now. I just can't do cringey comedy - oddly I can do US stuff like that... I like the US version of The Office a lot. Oh well. End of note)

And when it comes to UK comedy, there's Misfits, which everyone is raving about, even non-teens. That probably annoys E4 - if anyone over 25 likes it, they've failed or something. I will comment further when I've actually seen more than one ep. I quite liked it but sense it could build a bit, the high concept stuff normally takes a bit of time to get going.

They're making more IT Crowd, aren't they, and that's even got a laugh track on it. Joy. The blank patch is actually the Beeb at the minute. Name their funny sitcoms. That one with Boycey in it, off of Only Fools? Er, no. My Family? Not my bag. That one on BBC Two about the thirtysomething woman going back to live with her parents? Um, didn't manage to see it - sounded a bit saddo to me. Gavin & Stacey? Passed me by, I'm afraid, I thought it was nice and pleasant and smiley and that, but didn't actually laugh once. And this was on a plane with shedloads of booze. I howled at some dreadful film with Him Off Of The American Office in it, the spy remakey one I can't even remember 'cos was that merry and happy. And then Gavin & Stacey came on, all working class and stuff, and I smiled at 32% or so of the level needed to produce a guffaw.

Oh, and there was some sketch show on Beeb Three that was one of the oddest things I've ever seen. Several ugly middle-class middle-aged men running a council or something. They sang a song with the studio audience at the end, with a bouncing ball on the lyrics so we could sing along at home. As they say on t'internet WTF?!?!???!?!!1!!!!

(Look at how lazy I am, not even putting a link in. Tsch. Sure it's on their website or sommit.)

So with new eps of Family Guy and South Park on my iPhone (watch the one about The Smurfs, where Cartman becomes a right-wing school announcer/DJ, it's got one of the funniest topicalist punchlines ever), stacks of comedies on my Sky+, The Sitcom Is Back: It's Official.

Doctor Who

Ok, so I'm two days later than everyone else with any interest in Dr Who, but in my defence I've been... er, well... my schedule is... um... ah, oh, arsebiscuits - here's my view on the latest Who:-

PLUSES
High definition looking mighty fine - apart from the odd 'that looks pasted on' bit in some of the wider CG shots. Not helped by colour choices of, for example, the escape shuttle thing. From a distance it looked like it had a black outline, like the one off of Futurama.

Still, the colours - often the thing I notice first between standard and high def - were stunning and (SADDO ALERT!) Mr Tennant's Hair was looking good down to the very last be-product-laden strand.

Music - top notch, less syrupy and obvious than it has been.

Performances - not a duff one in the lot, even The Aussie One With The Baggy Eyes What Was In Neighbours. Lindsay Duncan was superb as the control freak captain, and the others were somewhat more rounded than the usual cast; compare them to the cast in that bus in the desert one. Enough said. Baftas all round. Mr Tennant's Hair should, obviously, be nominated for an Oscar. The way it drooped in the snow at the end was as moving a performance as I've ever seen. I wept. "Oh the humanity", I cried, "get the man some Su-Su-Studio Line Rock Fix Gel immediately!"

(Sorry)

Humour - not as funny as some but some good lines. Bowie Base - brilliant. "Folding Bikes" - yes! The comedy robot (by the way - "gadgetgadget"... doesn't that sound a little like "bideebidee", the robot off of Buck Rogers In the 25th Century"?) "Name, Rank, Intention"... "Doctor... Doctor... er, fun?". Lovely lovely.

Monsters - good ones, again much better than the last special. Nice prosthetics too.

Now, he says clearing his throat...

MINUSES
Plot. I don't expect Mr T Davies's's's stories to be watertight (oh punnity pun), even more so after reading how last minute he finishes them. But this one was a bit weak. Er, why surrender to "gagdetgadget" when a quick zzzap with the sonic would surely disable it? When he found out who everyone was and that he couldn't change things - why not save them all and put them on a distant planet somewhere they'd never be found? He mentioned that he's been in the "knowing this has to happen" situation before (Pompeii) but this one really moved him - why? The sudden change to Timelord Victorious - er, somewhat clumsy clunking of gears there, only made at all logical by Mr Tennant's superb performance.

The bit with the Dalek sparing the young Captain - didn't work at all for me. Why would the Daleks want Earthlings to explore the galaxies? Surely that would peeve them somewhat? I suppose Russell T was slightly handicapped with what stories he could've used from the recent back catalogue to illustrate why Ickle Baby Captain was special, but still...

Oh, and the end. Why didn't Old Lady Captain just run away, kill her two comrades then herself, so history wasn't altered - she seemed to think it mattered more than old Timelord Victorious about that but didn't try that hard. The change in the web pages was a bit weak too.

OK, enough. It motored along and was fun and exciting and interesting, but - to be frank - it needed a further writing pass to tighten up and fill these holes. And add a bit more as...

Pacing - it was slow. If it'd been standard length it probably would've been OK. The bit where Mr Tennant was stood at the door watching people run around with protein boxes - that seemed to last fifteen minutes alone. There was quite a lot of fat in it. Unlike Mr Tennant, looking even more rake-thin than usual.

--

OK, I'll stop now. As far as a televisual experience goes, Dr Who still wipes the floor with every other British made drama currently on... or, indeed, on in the last ten years. And as a setup for the Christmas ep, it was marvellous. The Doctor going mad, knowing he's going to die, the Timelord Victorious stuff - that's all new and interesting. Trailing Bernard Cribbins... Catherine Tait... The Master as a Homeless: oh, joy!

I just hope the end of the Christmas one is (temporarily) nice so I won't sit on Xmas Day being a bit frowny and worried.

As for the final ep, I'm expecting everyone to come back, from Sarah Jane, K9, and Mickey to Rose, Martha, Cap'n Jack and all.

--

(One footnote: not to be snide before the event, but I can't imagine The New Doctor Mr Smith giving a performance like Mr Tennant did in this ep. I suggest he needs EXTRAORDINARY hair to distract from the fact he's around nineteen and looks like he's been slapped in the face with a pan)

July 17th was the last time I posted on here. Eek. Well, I have had the excuse of employing 30 new staff on a big new project. New offices. New equipment. New bosses. New everything.

Apart from me.

Can't say I can promise to keep this updated any more, but here are x number of random telly notes:-

1 FLASHFORWARD
Am sort of loving it. Really enjoyable series, great premise, good actors, nicely paced, great effects. But. Butbutbutbutbutbut.

Er, it's all going to go to shit, isn't it? Lost did, and so will this. A matter of time. It's already quite inconsistent - the end of ep 4 revealed The Blond Dead One Out of Lost and The Tall Deep Voiced One Out Of This Life 'caused' the flashforward. GASP! Then ep 5 didn't mention it and sent everyone to Washington DC. I thought I'd accidentally flashedforward a week and missed an ep out.

(OK, I didn't, I thought I'd picked the next ep on my Sky+)

And The One Who's Ralph Fiennes Brother - has he had loads of Botox around his mouth or something? He talks clenching his jaw throughout, even when being nice to his ickle baby child. It's irritating.

I'll keep with it but I know, am just dreadfully certain, that it's going to have a hokey conclusion that will make me spit with fury at spending 22 hours of my life with pouty Joseph Fiennes and his mates.

2 ITV NEWS
So you all know how much I like the news, or more specifically the titles of the news. And ITV News has redone theirs. I was slightly excited - mainly as ITV News is about as important to me as Supreme Master TV (Sky 835, or suprememastertv.com - and, no, it's not a spoof)

It's OK, in a low-budget out-of-the-Nineties virtual-reality way. The titles do start and stop three or four times for some reason. And they could've got An Famous to do the voiceover, like they did for CBS News in the States when legendary anchor Walter Kronkite did the v/o announcing (shock, horror - a lady!) "This is the CBS News, with Katie Couric"). They got some PR for that.

Why didn't they ask Sir Trevor MacDonald? Generic Voice Over Man may be more convenient and cheaper, I suppose, and that summarises TV generally nowadays, and ITV specifically.

3 X FACTAH
I think Simon Cowell's saving of Jedward (God, I've typed that word, I want to kill myself.. quick, calm down, it's in the interests of TV, it's OK.. pant) will be the Jump The Shark moment for X Factor. I'm glad they've got rid of the voting to Sundays as I can watch the remaining monkeys sing on a Saturday, in what is a wonderfully produced and artfully contrived big variety show, without giving any consideration to all da kidz texting in. Of course I'm watching Antiques Roadshow in high def when the results thing is on. It'll just make me angry anyway.

Tsk tsk Simon, you've really pissed on your chips there.

4 HIGH DEF
Speaking of posh telly pictures, now I've got used to it, it's a bit meh. I notice more when things I like aren't high def (like Flashforward - come on Five, pull yer finger out!) than I do when they are.

5 GARROW'S LAW (I think it's called that)
That new oldene dayes thing about the original defence lawyer, that's high def. And it's the only show that I've ever managed to sit through where people wear hats and bonnets and wigs and other odd headgear - see blogs ad infinitum. Any hatular activity (unless it's sci-fi) sends me diving for the channel change button before the first 'good morrow me lady' is said.

But it kinda works for me here, as it's primarily a courtroom drama, and they always have wigs. Even Crown Court had wigs. ... ...

I loved Crown Court, ITV's fairly rubbish daytime drama out of the seventies. Dirt cheap to churn out, crap acting, wooden sets, but as I only ever saw it when I was off school ill, so it was a 'treat'. Like pancakes for lunch (mmm sugary) and Lucozade.

Back to 2009 - Garrow's Law started off as wooden as the New Forest but got me hooked halfway through the first ep.

THE SOUP
Please watch it. It's on E! a hundred times a week and is consistently the funniest thing on telly. Joel McHale is superb, and is now starring in a sitcom so the show comes from NY not LA. My only problem is that the standards division censors everything a little too much, from blanking out the voice of the sponsor of a segment, through blurring title captions and logos, to pixellating the running gag when Joel shoots the little hairy bloke dead most weeks. And blanking out the gunshot. That's just silly.

Rightyho, there's some random telly guff spewed in your general direction. Hopefully the next vomitous episode will arrive quicker than 4 months' time. Probably next week - it's NEW DOCTOR WHO this weekend. So excited!!!!1!!

Oops

Hello. S'been a while. I've been on hols and stupidly busy. And here I am on a Friday and, gulp, I haven't even switched my telly on since Sunday.

Maybe I'm regressing to being one of them interweb teens who think tv is boring and pointless, and only watch 30 second videos of dogs falling off swings on Youtube?

Alternatively, it's because I've been hugely busy and out/working late every night.

There's been plenty of stuff I want to see - that Charlie Brooker quiz (although apparently the 'slebs get in the way of Mr Brooker's patented diatribe. Who Do You Think You Are? is always good value. That drama about the financial crisis.

The good news is my Sky+ HD is finally working now, and it's a very nice capable thing. It works fine, the HD picture can be superb (and can be oddly pixelly in the background sometimes), the updated software is functional and quick, and it makes watching and recording anything a doddle.

Note my lack of passion there. As I've said before, it's all very well done but there's no spark, passion or cleverness. Unlike, say, Sky's incredibly slick sports coverage, the presentation is good but not special. I s'pose that's what a monopoly does - although I shouldn't complain, for the price it's truly excellent and the box also looks lovely.

Maybe I'm missing the little dancing TiVo logo man more than I care to admit... sniff...

More telly news as and when I actually watch some telly.

Limited ambitions

As I'm STILL without any telly at home, here's something from the past.

Cue the twanging harps and wibbly dissolve...

Picture the scene, Britain, mid-nineties, a typical indie tv production office (cheap furniture and staff in the open plan bits, expensive fittings and execs in the surrounding offices).

I was producing my first show, and we were due to shoot a one-off pilot episode to test the concept. It was a mix of factual items and comedy nonsense, all around a reasonably strong formatted idea, and had a tried-and-tested set of people appearing in it. Well, apart from me, moonlighting as a games reviewer. I was (a) free; (b) had seen the games so could comment; (c) free, and (d) looked stupid in the wig they made me wear so gave everyone else a cheap laugh.

Speaking of cheap, the show had a TINY budget. Weeny. Infinitesimally small (sp?). We filmed it in a disused old benefits office in Poplar, opposite Kwiksave (now it's an Aldi - is that up or down market?) and a canal full of sludge and broken Kwiksave trollies. The only pub nearby (you can tell I haven't changed much) said that we had to sit in the 'saloon bar' as we had a lady with us. Er, she was a lesbian and more macho than anyone else - but I wasn't going to argue with the man-with-three-teeth behind the bar.

Anyhow, the set looked ok and we'd come up with the monitor-point-of-view shot idea that made it just about filmable on the money we had. (Basically, we'd see a wide of a room and the characters enter - we'd then cut to a fixed camera 'within' the big tv in the corner, with a curvy-not-flatscreen-in-them-days effect on it, and use that for the rest of the scene, saving on relighting and moving camera. Most scenes ended with the main character pressing a button on the tv, cutting to footage so it was surprisingly effective)

Anyhow (ii) I'd spent three months honing the show, making sure the comedy stuff was easy to film and not too visual, as we couldn't afford props and redressing the set was a no-no. (Although we did a Dickens Xmas past/present/future thing, and the set looked jolly fine covered in Kwiksave Bargain Tinfoil as the future. The characters remarked on how the future looked quite like the present, just covered in tinfoil. Postmodern an' everything, eh?)

Anyhow (iii), the exec producer liked the scripts, the actors were happy, the content was good, I was cooking on gas, as we'd say in them days.

Until...

The boss came in. "I've written the pilot episode", she announced to everyone, "It's much better than your silly scripts". And with that she hurled a script at me.

Er... um... this was wrong on SO many levels. The boss had no sense of humour - she admitted as much. She hated the secondary character, the only really good actor and comedian. The Carry On-style innuendo and postmodernism made her cringe. She could write, and write well, but drama not comedy.

Her script was incredible. It had a robot supermodel in it, loads of outside scenes and a variety of perplexing remarks I think the boss thought were jokes. But weren't.

I went in to see her and said we couldn't film it, it cost too much. She said she'd pay herself for the extra time.

Sigh.

So we did it, as written. Every last scene. The robot supermodel, Candy LaBelle - I can and will never forget the character name - was an American actress hired at huuuuge expense for 3 days (£300!). I say actress, but, bless, she couldn't act. She had lots of complex techie lines to say and it took 30+ takes to get anything useable.The final denouement had her blowing up. We used a blow-up doll for that. Somehow.

Ooof it was awful. I mean really unfunny, illogical and slow. I cut it together, crying into my Sky-issue plastic coffee. I took it to the boss, gave her the VHS and walked out of the room to hide in the disable toilet. Pretending the Sky coffee had given me the shits.

She called me in half an hour later, stony-faced and ashen. I started to try and say that I thought it was a bit wooden, and too long, and-

She stopped me.

She told me it was awful. Shit. Dreadful. To cut it to pieces to rescue it, somehow, as we couldn't reshoot it and had to use it. But drop in new bits, filmed later. Some jokes perhaps. She'd leave us alone from now on, she knew comedy wasn't her thing but she now realised that you can't be overly ambitious on 10p an episode. That our brand of silly jokes, cheap jibes and implausible campery sort of worked, for no logical reason.

I left feeling ten thousand feet high. We made the eps we'd written and they were funny. Damn funny. The show rated really well, everyone in the office thought it was incredible, I was the toast of indie producerville. EP 4 went out - Candy LaBelle - hacked to bits but still not too good. We'd just about rescued it (even if some bits made no sense)

And the boss left me alone, for 12 whole episodes, a record in that office. She promoted me to a new show on a big channel, and most of my team came with me. She then had a hissy fit saying we'd ruined the show for the team taking over, that we'd all got the new show on our minds and forgotten the old one (which was wrong as the episodes that she was watching go out had been made long before we'd been promoted, and were the funniest of the lot)

I end this anecdote brutally as I've a train to catch. I think we've all learnt something there. I don't know what it is, apart from "leave me be please lady", but there you go.

Catastrophe!

Pluses to Sky + HD: stunning picture on both SD and HD, quick channel changes, one box instead of two, one BLACK box matching my Blu-Ray player.

Minuses: it only worked for a day, and is broken, saying "no signal". The installers are checking the dish but as everyone else in the block is fine, it's not that, is it? 48 hours without telly... oh, the humanity.