To me, at least, there's something to be said for the cost-effective ratio of work committed to chances of acceptance when it comes to TV scripts. It can take me about three months to write a novel, and of course, as many of you out there know, only a few seconds for a publisher or agent to say, sorry, no thanks. It takes me about a week or so to write a spec script, which is no less painful getting rejected, but you feel like you can move on more quickly.
This past week has been somewhat brutal in the parade of "nos" and incredibly frustrating because of the Return of the Great Tease, as I'll call it. I'll explain. A couple of years ago, an actor friend of mine actually paid me to represent the lot of us working together to go to Pitch Fest in Toronto. It was something of a revelation, and here's where you get to sneer and snort at me derisively, because I suffer from a great deal of ostrich head, never bothering to network much. Hey, in books, if email works, you never have to go outside now, do you? I write up what I do, I send it out, and someone either loves it or tells me to get lost. In movies and television, you must talk to people. Yikes.
At the Fest, I made a good impression on a number of execs, and I know this, because they actually gave me their cards, their emails and invited me to submit. Consequently, I didn't get too far after that with our joint projects with my collaborators, but one particular network here at home (and since we have so few, it's not hard to figure out which one) was greatly encouraging. One of their drama execs at the time emailed to say my main gal "is one of the more interesting heroines that we have seen as a lead character in a series and we appreciate that you have stayed, to some degree, within your wheel-house as far as subject matter goes. It certainly shows." That being said, they didn't like the overall idea behind the pitch, (which is fine), soooo they "like to move the dialogue on to what else you might be working on or any other ideas that you might have. Can we keep trying?"
Now this is wonderful if you're a writer slogging away. Nothing ultimately came of it, because the next pilot I pitched was allegedly too close to something they already had in development. I didn't think it was anywhere close, but there you are, and I moved on. Time passes, I work on a couple more non-fiction books, I go broke trying to get Gallivant off the ground, la, la, la. Until I try my hand again at pitching some spec pilots. 'Tis the season when development is in bloom.
The exec who was always encouraging and nice has moved on, too, but just the same, I got back a very polite note from the head domo of the department who wrote that my latest heroine for a very different concept "is a fascinating one as you have conceptualized her, and we enjoyed your script." But they're not going to do anything with it. Errggh. Their big tent show is already up and running and they "have two pilots currently in production so our schedule demands are currently being met by the material we have in production or is about to go to camera."
And here we come to the point where this isn't really about me. It's the larger issue of what's wrong with television in my country, Canada. If one completely sucked, it's easy enough to blame the incestuous relationships between prod companies and the networks, the horrible taste of commissioning execs, the crap that gets on, etc. You can rationalize all kinds of ways to excuse yourself from the truth that you suck. But here's an exec telling you in black and white that yes, you are good -- and we're still not going to develop your idea or ask you back this time for more ideas. We have our three new shows (three! Imagine!).
There's no point blaming a specific individual. If anything, it's nice to get a response and a very polite, encouraging one at that, especially in these days when if you're in books, you often get nothing back in reply.
But it is something of a travesty and a joke in Canada that we have so few networks, and of those, there is so little money to be spent on cultivating our writing talent. We are still hewers of wood, drawers of water when it comes to making films and television, with the remake of Total Recall being done in downtown Toronto, but you can bet the script wasn't written here. I can think of plenty of shows produced with Toronto and Vancouver locations, but only count on one hand the number that are written by Canadian writers, and of those, fewer still that are not utterly unwatchable.
Yes, I admit some of this sounds a little like sour grapes, but consider that there is empirical evidence to back me up. NBC promptly dropped The Listener after a handful of episodes due to low ratings. It's not that the Listener is outright terrible, it's just exceedingly bland and dull. And it's still getting made, which suggests somehow we'll stomach it while Americans have pushed the plate away (is it because it fulfills the Canadian content regs for the netowrk?). Blink and you would have missed the Bridge, which had a brilliant pilot, followed by a whole season of lacklustre, cliche-riddled episodes, prompting CBS to finally say no, thank you. Am I implying that American TV is better? Hell, yes, it's better. As much as you may sneer at the relentless stream of crap, with the horror of a revitalized Charlie's Angels due in the Fall, we've also had House, Law & Order, Dexter, Mad Men, The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, The Big Bang Theory and that's just recently. American TV has been built on a foundation of Paddy Chayevsky and Rod Serling.
Contrast that with Canadian TV raising us on such derivative, cringe-inducing fare such as King of Kensington, The Beachcombers, the downright embarrassingly awful Wayne & Shuster, decades of coma-inducing Front Page Challenge. Now we have the CBC network's continual love affair with retro-80s and 90s fare, such as The Republic of Doyle, which is nothing more than the Rockford Files with a Newfie accent and Being Erica, which is a watered-down Ally McBeal. It's also given us of late InSecurity, which the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star have both slammed as excruciatingly unfunny. Yet it will get more episodes, even though its viewership has declined.
It's funny because I've just spent the last half hour trying to rediscover a link I thought I bookmarked but hadn't. Too bad, wanted to share it. A TV writer in the UK wrote an excoriating column earlier this month for the Guardian on how drama commissioners at the BBC were becoming more like American film development execs, constantly contradicting each other in trying to put their grubby fingerpints on the creative product, since they have no talent but are in a position that seemingly validates their judgment. Writers, the columnist argued, redraft and redraft material into a porridge to please. As the columnist put it, however, when this is done in the States, the writer at least winds up with a swimming pool.
Of course, the grass is always greener. The BBC still gives us Sherlock, Luther, Doctor Who and so many other brilliant shows. Only the Brits could take a chance on a concept like Life on Mars. And if you don't like the Beeb, there's wonderful stuff being done for ITV and Channel Four that make you think you have options when you send your stuff around.
Is it the case here? No. We are told there is not enough money. But that's too simple an explanation. There is also a great lack of balls. In some ways, we have graduated a little to the point where at least on the Listener, there are references to "ministers" and "parliament" without disguising the Canadian political landscape. But it's still a show with an incredibly trite premise. The hero's a telepath; wow. It makes the upcoming "Unforgettable," with its premise of a detective with an eidetic memory, look positively PBS-worthy (unless the writing is very, very good, and even if it is, expect a nosedive in ratings for that one in the same way the wonderful Lie to Me died). And Flashpoint is still a rehash of the old Seventies nugget, SWAT.
Yes, these shows do find a market overseas -- to countries that can barely afford their own original programming. Okay, maybe a few spots in Western Europe, too. While living in the UK for several years, it was bizarre to discover Street Legal re-runs relegated to a 3 AM slot on Sky. Still, these sales are not a huge feat. When the Americans want to rip off or buy the formats for our Prime Suspect or Life on Mars or Steptoe & Son, then our television industry will come of age. And so we go on boasting about Paul Haggis being one of our own, when the goal should be to create an environment in which a Paul Haggis has enough money and creative freedom thrown at him that he doesn't need to leave... or want to.
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