As if.

The second season of Fringe fell by the wayside earlier in the late last year but we can catch up with Dunham and co at our leisure now. Unless we’re already belatedly catching up with Dexter (about to start season three) and Burn Notice (couple of eps from the second season finale). Or (re)watching the first seasons of Scrubs and Green Wing.

It should only be for June and a bit of July: the fifth season of The Closer and the fourth season of Mad Men open next month.

Meantime The Goddess has Radar’s Patch to chuckle over while I have Treme all to myself.

We’ll get by.

There is some common ground. Queen, Maisey Rika and Phoenix Foundation. Better Off Ted, Modern Family, Breaking Bad, The Good Wife and Mad Men. (Yes, these last coupla years have been big box-watching years.)

She likes relationship stories while I like kill-my-dog-and-I-shall-lay-waste-upon-the-land-until-vengeance-is-mine stories. Her viewing threshold is a lot lower than mine – q.v. The Cult – but my excuse is that all viewing is a learning experience.

So we like different things. So what.

Were it not for Her, I would not have had the pleasure of Grand Designs, the River Cottage series, Pieces of April, and King of Kong. And were it not for me, She would not have had the pleasure of Mad Men, The Good Wife, Lars and the Real Girl, and In Bruges.

I suppose it evens out in the end. And because I do like to quote the good doctor,

  It is important to always try new things.

I readily confess to not having watched the last eight seasons as fanatically religiously as the preceding twelve, local broadcaster scheduling notwithstanding. It has been comforting to know that it continued to chug along as I took up with the likes of Miss Marple, Wallander, Orange Roughies, Dexter, The Closer, The Shield, and The Wire. A nice warm glow was almost always guaranteed when chancing on a L&O episode whilst channel-surfing.

Alas – until we start rerunning the show down here – no more.

Its been an institution. Its time has come.

Time for more of the same – but different.

The same goes for whenever I rewatch films like The Constant Gardener or television shows like The Shield where the endings are not happy.

Why do I subject myself to this torture?

It’s the execution. It’s the characters. It’s being taken by the hand for a half-hour or hour or ninety-plus minutes or days and returning to the real world short of breath, my heart thundering in my chest and a lump in my throat.

This is not a new discovery. Romeo and Juliet will never grow old. Rick will always have Paris. Rachel and Deckard will never have certainty.

And I think to myself:

  Someone wrote that shit.

  I lapped that shit up and begged for more.

  I want to write like that.

There are doubtless innumerable posts in the ether about what makes a piece of art resonate.

For me, it’s a singular interpretation, execution and vision that transports the viewer.

I have no idea where David Simon and Eric Overmyer are going with Treme but I am so there, man, because I’m hooked. Same goes for the recently concluded 100 Bullets from Messieurs Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso – each trade paperback left me floundering as a reader but I’d still make enough connections between the many, many plotlines and goddamn if it wasn’t a hot little page-turner. And then there’s The West Wing and The Walking Dead. And The Good Wife and Ex Machina. And Mad Men. … I could go on.

With the exception of Treme, all of the above are easily categorized genre pieces.

Each title resonates not just because they’re so different from everything else out there that they’re essential reading/watching – they’re the creators talking directly to us the audience at an individual level. They’re connecting.

That’s resonating.

• Screenwriter J D Shapiro apologises for Battlefield Earth.

  (Fedora-tip: WGGB Blog.)

• This. Is. SHATNER!

  (Fedora-tip: Alex Epstein.)

• Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire scribe and producer, David Mills died suddenly last week. I didn’t know – I should’ve, really, but I didn’t know – that he was the one who penned the Homicide “Bop Gun” ep (the one with Robin Williams and a teenage Jake Gyllenhaal). This forty-plus minutes of free-to-air television truly opened my eyes to just how much more you could put into a police procedural.

  His and David Simon‘s latest television series Treme opens in a few days. I can’t wait to introduce The Goddess to teevee a la Simon et al.

Peace out.

It’s largely negative critical reception in the UK may sum up the show best but will never explain why I persisted with these five hours of ‘entertainment’.

Nothing a self-respecting screenwriter won’t already know but nonetheless a recommended and refreshing Mametian reminder.

(Fedora-tip: WGGB Blog.)

FADE IN:

INT. FAVOURED LOCAL CAFE – MID-2006

GODDESS

I just read this great story about sentient misanthropic parking meters!

Our Writer tears his eye from a public library copy of “100 Bullets: The Hard Way”.

WRITER

That’s nice, Dear.

GODDESS

It’d make a great T.V. series.

But Her mortal is already back in the Land of Azzarello & Risso.

CUT TO:

INT. FORTRESS MAMEA – CHRISTMAS 2007

Our Writer pulls from his CHRISTMAS STOCKING... a BOOK on sentient parking meters with anger issues and histories of substance abuse.

WRITER

Oh. A book on -

GODDESS

I know! You should read it!

CUT TO:

EXT. BATTLEMENT, FORTRESS MAMEA – LATE 2008

Our Writer stifles a smile as he turns the last page of his Christmas 2007 gift. He looks at his Goddess surrounded by well-thumbed books, magazines and clippings on renovation, gardening and animal husbandry.

WRITER

That was fun.

GODDESS

(off Writer’s book cover)

I knew you’d like it.

WRITER

It’d be expensive -

GODDESS

But it’s got everything: actuary tables, scene examinations, car chases, gun fights, love scenes -

WRITER

Love scenes?

GODDESS

Just checking if you’re listening.

Writer smirks and thumbs through the book. Just in case.

CUT TO:

INT. HOME THEATRE, FORTRESS MAMEA – MID-2009

ON TELEVISION as credits roll and a ‘mute’ symbol appears in the corner of the screen. We hear a SIGH O.S. as --

-- our Writer sits on the couch, a glazed look on his face, and heaves another sigh. His Goddess looks up from Her innumerable colour charts, chips and samples.

GODDESS

At least everyone involved got paid?

(beat)

You’ll never get that hour back?

(beat)

But it was character building, yes?

She puts down a colour card with with names like satin road, sulu, deep blush and royal heath.

GODDESS

Say something.

WRITER

(slowly and painfully)

A monkey with both hands super-glued to his genitals, blind from antifreeze addiction and with incipient Parkinsons could have banged out a better script on an Underwood missing half its keys.

GODDESS

And what are you going to do about it?

The Writer pulls out his POWERBOOK and opens it up.

INSERT POWERBOOK SCREEN

as the following is typed in: “THE PARKING METER – When broken yellow lines are ignored and P5/P30/P60 signs are used as trophyware, who you gonna call?”

FADE OUT.

• The last swords-and-sandals epic I saw was Gladiator. Since then, Troy, Alexander, Rome and 300 have come and gone with nary a flicker of interest on my part. But The Incomparable‘s review of Rob Tapert and Sam Raimi‘s Spartacus has sparked a guilty, pulpy, what-the-heck kind of interest:
  …Spartacus won’t win any awards for the originality of its premise. Hunktacular warrior dude loves his superhot wife, but is reluctantly called away to battle for the good of his people. Hunktacular warrior dude is betrayed by sleaze-weasel Roman general and branded a deserter. Hunktacular warrior dude escapes and is reunited with his superhot wife just in time for them to be captured (notably, while in the altogether) by sleaze-weasel Roman general. Sleaze-weasel Roman general sells hunktacular warrior dude into the employ of agreeably amoral gladiator owner. Hunktacular warrior dude must wage a muscly, well-oiled, tiny-pantsed struggle up the ranks of the gladiator circuit to find his beloved wife and gain his whoa that guy just took a giant axe to the face!
• The always excellent xkcd webcomic has this heads-up for those writers out there putting the final touches on their denouement:

  

• And go here – now – for the rest of this brilliant bat-take on Memento:
  
  

– how could I forget Messrs Murphy, Falchuk and Brennan‘s brilliant and irrepressible Glee?

That show is responsible for my Goddess‘s growing unease at seeing/hearing how many showtunes I can belt out.

It’s been so long since we’ve rolled into 2010 I won’t bore you with -0

This is my blog – and in the world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. Hooah.

2009 was really a year for the goggle box –

– but cinema had some new – and old – pleasures –

– and when not glooed to a flickering screen, there was always –

I won’t be disclosing stats because they’re pitiful and I have no excuse. But if you break my run of comment spam (three figures and rising this past month) and ask nicely, I’ll consider it.

2009 was an okay year for watching and reading – a better year for writing – and 2010 awaits my conquest domination attention.

Overall rating: Satisfactory – but must try harder.

I’m at a similar place with my slate. Having reached my writing objectives for the year, I’m now trying to raise my film and TV viewing stats (59 finishes and 33 walk-/turn-offs to date, compared to 2008′s 94 and 19, respectively), as well as my reading stats (there’s a gaping hole from July to September that I don’t think I can make up for). I’ve completed Delta Force: Black Hawk Down (snore) and Close Combat: First to Fight (grin)* but… surely I could be doing something more useful?

We’re chortling through Glee. The Banana Boat writing group is ending the year with a bit of a bash. Only 24 sleeps until Avatar.

And after a few weeks of staring at my development file for the next project and not being inspired… I’ve just had a brilliant idea for my next project, totally out of the blue**.

Suh-weet.

* Not that you asked, but I’m currently chugging through Aliens vs Predators 2 and finding it rather tedious – I think I might join Monty and the boys in their North African campaign sooner rather than later.

** “Out of the blue”. What a crock. It was a fortuitous intersection of: people I know and want to work with; an achievable production budget; and a perfick location.

• Phill Barron has an excellent parable about being a writer for hire. (And if you’re reading this in… wherever Mr Barron lives in the UK, he has a car for sale.)
• Why aren’t there more interviews like this, hm?
• I just have to share this:

  
  
  (Fedora tip: Jill Golick.)

• And having shed a tear or few over the season three finale of Mad Men, these articles from Vanity Fair and American Cinematographer make tremendously fascinating reading.

  (Fedora-tips: The Goddess and Gareth James, respectively.)

EXHIBIT A

EXHIBIT B

What’s that? Why am I comparing oranges with bananas?

Because good writing is what makes the every-day interesting.

EXHIBIT A – REVISED

• Heee.

  
  
  (Fedora-tip: Alex Epstein.)

• I’m a Joss Whedon fan from his Buffy days (Dollhouse has yet to reach these shores) but this Cracked list of 5 Reasons It Sucks Being a Joss Whedon Fan is both funny and spot on, with my fave being:

  … There is only one real lesson in Whedonland, and it’s that loving cool people is dangerous because someone’s probably gonna shove a flaming rock into their skull.

  Yep: that’s how I got hooked in Season 2.

  (Fedora-tip: Lucy Vee.)

• And Roger Ebert‘s post about performance artist Chris Burden has really gotten under my skin.

… Hey, this is my 250th post. Woo-hoo me.

For me, the greatest sin of any homegrown show is try-hard self-consciousness – and thankfully, there’s none here whatsoever**. It looks and sounds like a real TV show, rather than something we should watch out of patriotism. The direction and cinematography are uniformly flashy. The characters are clearly delineated. The plotting is pacey and the dialogue largely on point with only occasional excursions into exposition.

But I’m not feeling for any of the characters. Why am I not caring for:

• a father who wants his sons back at any cost (and, so far, without much thought)?
• a bitchy sister who keeps needling her brother’s wife-with-a-shameful-history?
• or the brothers inside the compound, in too deep and with seemingly nowhere to run?

And what’s the deal with the mercenary hired by the outside group? If he’s really an ex-SAS soldier, he’s being awfully reticent and docile. A character with a skill set like his is a game changer: the rules of engagement may differ (it’s not a warzone so killing people isn’t a good idea) but the game is the same – if your objective is to get certain people out of a compound, then you do everything and anything to achieve that objective. Instead, he’s rolled on and off screen like a prop, as and when the story dictates.

Ep three screens tomorrow, and The Goddess has given me the hard word: If this doesn’t get any better, you’re on your own.

Oh dear.

POSTSCRIPT: OMFG – The Cult‘s section on the TVNZ website has a writers blog where creator Peter Cox shows some of the development process that went into the show.

* When I posted that, I couldn’t help flashing on this joker from the underrated Undercover Brother.

** No surprise, really: creator Peter Cox was behind both the near-perfect The Insiders Guide to Happiness and the excellent but abysmally scheduled The Pretender.