032 – Transcript

Just Right Episode 032
Air Date: November 22, 2007
Host: Bob Metz

Program Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this program are those of the participants, and do not necessarily reflect the views of 94.9 CHRW.

Clip (Star Trek: The Next Generation – The Neutral Zone)

Data: Is something wrong?

Ralph Offenbach: Wrong! Well, only that your computer here fixed about the best martini I ever had. Well, I might just get to like this place.

Ralph Offenbach: Let’s see if the Braves are on. How do you turn on this TV?

Speaker 1: TV?

Ralph Offenbach: Yeah, the boob tube. Well, I’d like to see how the Braves are doing after all this time. Probably still finding ways to lose.

Data: I believe he means television, sir. That particular form of entertainment did not last much beyond the year 2040.

Ralph Offenbach: Well, what do you guys do? I mean, you don’t drink and you ain’t got no TV. Must be kind of boring, ain’t it?

Bob Metz:
Good morning London. It is Thursday, November 22nd, 2007. I’m Bob Metz and this is Just Right on CHRW 94.9 FM, where we will be with you from now till noon. No, no, not right wing. Just right.

And everything will be alright today on this first really blustery and snowy day of the season. It almost seems to be. Welcome to the show. I’m Bob Metz and the number to call—and remember this number, 519-661-3600, where Ira Timothy will take the call if you want to get in. Because today we’re going to be talking about what else but television.

Last week, you know that the writer’s strike is going on. I’m going to be getting to that about halfway through the show, at least some of the details of it. The writer’s strike is affecting pretty well everything I’m talking about today. Last week, just as I switched to this subject, we had quite a flurry of calls at the end of the show. So don’t wait till the end. We’re looking for what you might be watching this season with the demise of so many of the current shows, apparently that might fall victim to the writer’s strike. But do call us and let us know what kind of show you like.

There’s no rules here. I certainly am willing to entertain any kind of show. And I’m going to tell you a little bit about how I do watch TV and how I do pick my shows.

And then Ira and I will get into a little conversation picking up on where we left off last week. But if you heard that opening clip, you know that was actually from a Star Trek episode from the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. And I think the idea that television will one day be obsolete as suggested in that clip is, I think, a little ridiculous in the sense of, depending on what you mean by TV. But it’s like Star Trek’s no money argument, which I’ve discussed on this show before.

You know, where Picard or someone else will say, oh, we don’t have money anymore, and yet you can show a million examples on that show itself where they do use money and how money is just, you know, that’s more science fictiony than science fiction. And now, but here’s the funny thing about that comment in that episode of Next Generation. I think that script might have been written during the last writer strike, because it aired on May 16th, 1988, and that was the last year that there was a general writer strike, and it afflicted the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. And I do mean afflict—anyone who was a fan of Star Trek from the first time around noticed in that first season how many repeat kind of stories there were. There was nothing really original, and that was because there was a writer strike affecting the show. And I’m very surprised that that show survived. It’s quite possible, and this is what I was just thinking about, that that very comment we heard might have actually been aimed at the writer strike, because it of course occurred during that season, and I don’t know how Star Trek was getting its writers at the time, whether they were using scab labor for writing their shows, because they carried on with it, and of course they were in syndication.

I don’t know really all the details of that. But nevertheless, even though the form and technology of audio-visual entertainment will always change, as it already has, as far as I’m concerned—I mean you could say television’s already been wiped off the map, if that’s how you’re going to look at it.

But the idea of television, I think, will be with us for good. You know, the idea of all these characters in the world of Star Trek not watching something equivalent to TV, and I think the holosuite is something totally different, just as our current day video and computer games, in that they’re interactive. It’s basically an interactive game, which is different from the passive activity that we normally associate with television in the physical sense. But in the mental sense, of course, television can be either passive or active, depending on whether you’re watching something that actually stimulates your mind or puts you to sleep. And sometimes that might be the very reason we’re watching a show. I watch this show because it puts me to sleep. I’ve heard people actually tell me that, because it’s a great way to fall asleep in front of the TV for a lot of people.

I can’t do it. My father, when he was alive, he did it all the time, and the TV’d be on all night long, unless somebody came by and shut it off. You know, philosopher novelist Ayn Rand once chastised those who criticized television as the opiate of the masses by basically responding that TV has brought more joy into more lives than any other single invention really prior to that, if you think about it. Television made affordable a means for the masses to enjoy the arts and the theater and comedy and drama, to have news and sports brought to them visually, often live, so as to make it possible for the first time ever for millions of people to share a single experience at the same time. In fact, today is the anniversary of one of those days, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, which was one of those first immensely shared experiences via television that brought emotion. My grandmother was here from Europe, and she was crying about the whole thing. I can remember those days very clearly, and it was an event that everyone shared through the television experience. But generally television is a theater of and for the masses, really, and I think this has made television as a medium a very powerful instrument, both for propaganda as well as for enlightenment. And you know, the funny thing is we take it all so much for granted today. It’s just part of our environment, and it can be either. Now, having said that about the basic technology, I think TV is here to stay.

I’ve got some other stories relating to that later on. But of course, we have this writer strike going on, and I just wanted to go over how I personally watch TV, and maybe I could call this why I’m part of the problem that the industry is facing, and perhaps the writers and actors themselves. You know, technology has also changed the way we watch TV. Most people sit in front of their TVs and watch what’s being broadcast at that specific time. So if your favorite show is on between 9 and 10 on a Monday night, you’re sitting there probably watching Heroes between 9 and 10 on a Monday night.

But even though I watch Heroes, I won’t be there in front of that TV on a Monday night when it’s actually being broadcast. Since the invention of the videotape recorder, I’ve been basically taping all my shows, the ones I like. I’ve kept on the videotapes and watch them when I wanted to.

Of course, that got very bulky after a while, because videotapes do take up space. But nevertheless, I still watch a lot of the new shows on TV, but only on DVD and at a time of my own choosing, which for me mostly turns out to be ironically sometime between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. because I’m an early riser, and that’s when I actually have time to watch a bit of TV, or on weekends and holidays, exactly at those times. But I’m not exactly a prime time viewer, if you know what I mean.

And I think a lot of you, or an increasing number of you, are also beginning to fall into that category. Now, about four or five years ago, I had all but given up on what I would call broadcast television. You know, this whole thing with the writer strike, by the way, is all about scripted television versus non-scripted television. Non-scripted TV is not really going to be that affected, but scripted television certainly will be, because that’s what you need writers for. And surely, about four or five years ago, reality shows were really dominating much of the network programming, and finding shows with well-written scripts and plots or deep and meaningful context to real issues were kind of hard to find.

And really, I was never in front of the TV when any of these shows were actually on. Now, about the same time, and I think we’re talking around 2003, I noticed that the price of standalone DVD players in most of the major stores had dropped to ridiculously low levels, unbelievable, like you could get one. I actually have a DVD player that I got at Future Shop for $19. And the average price of a run-of-the-mill DVD player, you’re going $29, $39. Anything above that is bells and whistles, and you really don’t need it.

You won’t get a difference in major quality or anything like that. And not only that, but blank DVDs I discovered could be purchased in bulk at about 20 to 30 cents each if you buy them in those stacks of 100, and you catch them on sale. Now, here’s something I’ve noticed about blank DVD prices, and this is in all the major chains. You can go in there on a Monday or a Tuesday, and the same brand, Verbatim or Memorex or whatever, will be like 60-some odd dollars for 100. And then you walk in four days later, and that same brand is on sale, the same thing in the $20 range. And I’ve always walked in, and if it’s in the $60 range I don’t buy, and if it’s in the $20 range I do, and I’ve never had trouble getting them.

You can almost always buy a stack of 100, which is the only really economical way to buy them, for about as low as $22 or up to, I’ve seen it now, it doesn’t really get much lower than $26, $27. But it’s worse than the price of gas. It just goes up and down from day to day.

And it has to do with sales and moving inventories and all sorts of things like that. But nevertheless, that’s a lot cheaper than a videotape, which you had to pay $1 to $3 for, sometimes a lot higher. And most significantly, what has also happened in that same time period is that the software and the technology necessary to capture, edit and burn videos has become surprisingly affordable and very easy to use on a normal PC. If you’ve got XP and a reasonable speed, if you bought your computer in the last couple of years, you’re ready to go. A lot of people don’t even know this, that their computers are completely capable of putting out a beautiful television signal, even better than what your TV can do. I know some people are still thinking that you get that old 16-bit digital pixelated kind of picture that they remember from 20 or 30 years ago.

Boy, we passed that point. Now, of course, the DVDs have several advantages over videotape. And the primary one is that you don’t have to rewind them.

That is such a drawback. Sometimes I go to watch a show on a video and by the time I’ve rewound the darn thing, I’ve changed my mind and gone on to something else. But in a television episode without commercials, there’s only between, I have discovered, on average, you’re talking between 42 and 45 minutes. Out of an hour episode, which basically saves 25% of your viewing time for the same content.

And also talk about space savers. If you compare the size and bulk of a DVD to a videotape, it’s just tiny. And some people only bother with that. They can just keep the shows on their hard drive or other forms of digital storage.

It just can be anything. But nevertheless, this has revolutionized the whole way people are watching television and watching their favorite shows. Now, I do use some old-fashioned TV. I’ve got two VCRs. And basically, to tape any shows I might find interesting. I sort of go fishing. I just leave my VCRs on. I go through the TV guides and, you know, what’s this magazine here I got from Inside Entertainment that goes out with the National Post and they do the previews. And you just check it out and you look and see what might be interesting. But I never draw conclusions from the reviewers or on the type of show. I’ll try anything because you never know what kind of show ends up being a hit. And I’ll tell you about a couple I’ve discovered that way this season.

Because they’re the last ones that would have been on my list of expectations of being good. But so basically what I do is I just put these shows on a videotape. And I just run the videotape into my computer with a capture device.

And sometimes, now with the strike going on, I guess what I’ll be able to watch. I’ll be able to do some catching up on some of those shows that I wasn’t able to. But nevertheless, you can burn these things to DVD, save them any way you want.

The toughest part, I think, is the discipline that you require to regularly program your VCR. And to remember because last week you brought up that problem right off the bat.

Ira:
That’s right. Everything’s getting rescheduled. And it’s hard to follow.

Bob Metz:
So you can’t even set your VCR to tape the same show week after week. You know what I mean? You can’t trust it.

So what do you do? You’ve got to keep following it. And you’ve got to follow the guides, and they’re wrong half the time, or they’ll move a show around for a special. And that kind of thing. So it can be difficult to follow some series if not even impossible at times.

I think that’s one of the problems that they’ve been having. And so over the past four years, I’ve digitized all of my favorite TV series, a couple hundred movies, and a host of philosophic and political type of programming that I like, and stand up comics and odds and ends. And you get to hear some of them on this show.

I actually use the software that I do for home video and stuff to produce things that you hear on the air here. And so needless to say, if you’re going to get into this, it really requires some organizing. If you can’t organize, if you haven’t got a system of organizing your shows, you’d be amazed at how they pile up. And if you want to go to a great website that really will help you organize your TV shows, because without this website, I would not have done any of this, because I wouldn’t have even known if I was missing an episode, or what order they’re in, or when they’re broadcast. And there’s a website where it’s called epguides.com, if you want to check that out. That’s EP, which stands for Episode, and guides.com.

And it’s a nonprofit. You won’t get commercials, terms of service, that and stuff. It’s a really good website to get shows going back as far as TV started. And the beauty of it is that you can find the original broadcast dates of each show. They put in a listing, and if you want to find out more detail about each episode, you click on the episode itself, and it’ll take you to a write-up of the episode and reviews, and all sorts of stuff.

I never go that far. I just look for the listings, get the shows. That way I know if I’ve got a season complete or not. But it’s a very handy site, and they keep up-to-date relatively with the new shows, too.

And sometimes they’re a little bit too up-to-date. I’ve gone on looking for a current show, and they might give you the working title of an episode. And by the time it airs, that title has changed.

But if you go back to the website, you’ll notice it’s changed there, too. They do try to keep up. They’re not always perfect, but it’s a very good reference. So nevertheless, what technology allows us to do in our homes today is equivalent to what some state-of-the-art TV and movie production studios were doing just a few short years ago for a lot of money.

And of course, you can do it at infinitely greater time and expense. But nevertheless, now, one turn on to actually getting into some of the shows, some of the things that have been going on. But we’ll take a break, and we’ll come back right after this.

We’ll start talking about some of the actual shows that broke in the season and what’s happening to them.

Clip (Dennis Miller – Stand-up Comedy)
What else did I do today? I went to Blockbuster, bought three DVDs, and then from noon to 4:30, I opened them, using only an X-Acto knife and a Jaws of Life I borrowed from a local ambulance team.

You know, it’s now actually easier to break into films than it is to break into their packaging. Cold here today. I was stuck in the room. Luckily, I got QVC. I like QVC. I like to shop.

I love it. You can shop stoned on your ass at 3 in the morning at QVC. Call them up, woman answers. Could I help you? No, I’m just looking. I’m just seeing.

Bob Metz:
An article that almost said a lot of the things I wanted to say. It just appeared on November 18th by Bill Harris in the London Free Press, called TV’s Radio Days was the actual headline on it. We’ve got a caller Ira?

Ira:
Yes, we do. We have Pat on Line 1.

Bob Metz:
Let’s get Pat on there before I continue with my story. Hi, Pat. How are you?

Pat:
I’m doing all right. Thanks.

Bob Metz:
What do you got for us today?

Pat:
Well, I was just calling in. I was interested in the strike. I haven’t heard that much about it, but you’re speaking on how the crux of the matter right now was basically reality TV versus scripted TV.

Bob Metz:
Well, no, I was just saying that it’s only scripted TV that’s going to be affected by the strike. The reality TV and the other types of game shows and sports will not be affected that much by a writer strike.

Pat:
Okay, now, like, were the writers striking due to the fact that the situation where non-scripted TV was affecting their…

Bob Metz:
No, no, no, no. It had nothing to do with it. In fact, I’m going to be getting into that in detail right after the next break.

Pat:
Okay. Cool. Well, my only comment was sort of like on non-scripted TV and how for myself personally, I lately have been sort of drawn into something that was really interesting about a television show that I really thought unexpectedly kind of broke the mold even for reality TV.

It was the finale of The Bachelor and how that had to be the show that you really thought that you knew what to expect, what was going to happen at the end and of course the premise of the show was that you have this guy and he has 25 women sort of competing for his attention and everything like this and this past season he actually chose no one.

Bob Metz:
Oh, you’re kidding.

Pat:
No, he came down to it.

Bob Metz:
Did he allowed to do that?

Pat:
And he had, yeah, he had two beautiful women. They looked a lot like each other actually and anyway, he was just like, no, I don’t think so. He just totally threw it in and it was like, it made for some of the most awkward, painful watching ever. And I was just kind of drawn into it because it’s sort of related to watching an accident happen.

I saw it like, wow, you can’t buy stuff like that.

Bob Metz:
Shows like that often, I tune into something like that. I sometimes feel very uncomfortable watching them because some of these poor people on these shows are really putting themselves in awkward situations.

Pat:
Oh, I agree. Absolutely.

Bob Metz:
But is that the type of show you’d normally watch or what type of shows do you normally watch?

Pat:
I’ll tell you the truth. Normally I hate reality television.

Bob Metz:
Is that right?

Pat:
I always kind of get drawn into the finale of that show just because it just seems too perfect, and it’s like…

Bob Metz:
So you’re not following it the whole season, are you? You’re just getting into that part?

Pat:
Oh, hell no. You just want to see how it ends. Forget the rest of the book, eh?

Bob Metz:
Well, I guess I’m just going to say that exactly, because I mean, personally, I’ve seen a lot of these reality shows, just very shallow and the premises are often, let’s get some people together and just try to do everything we can to bring out their absolute worst behaviors.

And we’ll call it a social experiment and we’ll intellectualize it. But in the end, it’s just a lot of people just kind of looking for something to gossip about as they’re drinking at home Friday night. I have a friend…

Pat:
They don’t have any life of their own.

Bob Metz:
I’m not a reality show fan myself, but I’ve got a friend who is. And what he likes a lot about the reality shows is that they’re analogies for other things in life, especially how they vote people off the island and things like he says.

Democracy in action. They always get rid of the good people and keep all the bad ones. And something, well, if that’s what turns you on great, but it’s not the kind of thing I’m looking for generally, because I don’t think we might think a lot of shows are crap or whatever, but one person’s garbage is another person’s gold mine. And that can even be you from day to day. There’s a lot of shows I love and I, but I tell you, I’ve always liked Star Trek, but I had a period in life about 15, 20 years, you could not put me in front of a TV set with Star Trek on it.

Ira:
Really?

Bob Metz:
Yeah, I was just not in that frame of mind to watch it, yet I still intellectually understood it was a good show, well written, all that stuff. I just wasn’t in that frame of mind. I think it often comes down to, there are a lot of good shows out there, whether you consider them good or not. You only have so many hours in the day, and that’s what I find now that I’ve been sort of picking out shows this way. I find I’ve got more than I can watch.

Ira:
Really?

Bob Metz:
I’m falling behind. And that’s only because I can pick when to watch them. If you’re just hostage to the hour of prime time type of viewing, I think that’s when you’re sort of hostage to a lot of shows.

Maybe that’s how you find some shows too, but it just depends on how you can manage your time and how it goes. But thanks anyway, Pat.

Pat:
Oh, no problem.

Bob Metz:
Thanks for your call. And call again with any future comments.

We’ll talk more about the strike after the next break. Now, this article I was just referring to from the Free Press about actually kind of addresses some of what Pat just said too. And it’s called TV’s Radio Days by Bill Harris again from Sun Media. And the subheading was prime time is in disarray.

But are viewers really tuning out, or are they merely tuning elsewhere? And here’s what he had to say. I sort of picked in on the main points of his article—rather long one. And he says, if prime time broadcast television doesn’t watch its back, it may be on its way to suffering the same fate as AM Radio, he says. There are more similarities every day. News, phone news, celebrity news, late night jokesters, sports, talk shows, reality shows, niche programming, movies old and new. And reruns, reruns, reruns, which are now available literally on hundreds of stations. Has there ever been a TV season like this one in which there are no new buzz shows? At least last year we had Heroes.

Already that seems to be like the golden age. It’s interesting, I was looking at another article last week that I just started talking about which said TV season lacking breakout hit shows. And I’m starting to wonder maybe the reason is because they already had an inkling that a writer’s strike was on the horizon. And maybe they weren’t just biding their time and hoping for the best.

However, I think a few gems did stick out of the whole melee there. But nevertheless, Bill Harris continues, quote, Ultimately, fewer and fewer TV viewers are developing immediate addictions to the new mainstream primetime programming that the big US networks, CBS, ABC, Fox, NBC, agonize over every year. Viewership for those networks is down about 5% this season.

Not disastrous, but still the trend is not upward. And this is occurring even before the American writers went on strike. So he’s talking outside of the context of the writer’s strike per se. This is a larger trend, which I think affects some of the motivations behind the writer’s strike. Nevertheless, he continues, primetime broadcast TV in 2007 still remains the biggest entertainment platform by far, which basically means regardless of the fact that it’s dropping, it’s still at a given single point in time. The largest viewership you get is still what we call primetime. Not only makes sense.

People are home in the evenings from work and families together. It’s just obvious. And then he says, but consider for a moment what started to occur with AM radio three decades ago. FM radio began to emerge with its every personal taste gets its own station approach. Suddenly there were country stations, blues stations, jazz stations, dance stations, and more dance stations and modern rock stations and even stations like CHRW, which are all very specialized sort of niche stations. And that’s where a lot of the market’s going.

And perhaps most ominously as far as AM radio was concerned, classic rock stations, which affected them the most. And he says, we haven’t heard a lot of talk about this, but we know simply from our own viewing habits that one of the biggest threats to primetime network dominance has been the availability of quality reruns here, there, and everywhere. The fact of the matter is if you ain’t seen it, then it ain’t a rerun. Hey, if we wanted to, we could watch TV for the next three years straight and not come across anything we’d seen before. And despite the easy cheap shots that everyone takes, there has been a lot of great stuff on TV through the years, especially in the past decade, as the movie industry has gone gaga over 14 year olds and thus abdicated its position as the creative go-to guy. Now there’s something I talked about to some extent in the past, how I said that as a rule, television has become more sophisticated in a lot of ways than the movies. And I think he’s identified, maybe that’s the reason is that the movies are really going for the kids a lot more now. And so you always have, even, I watched so many movies that might start out good, and then all of a sudden three quarters of the way they have to do something absolutely juvenile in the movie that sort of destroys the rest of it, just to keep the kids in, or I don’t know what the thinking is.

I always call it the Spielberg effect, but I don’t know if that’s particularly fair. And then, but Harris continues, quote, now combine that with all the niche TV stations out there. If you like science fiction, watch Space. If you like sports, watch TSN or Sportsnet or the Score. If you like music, watch MuchMusic or MTV. If you’re a student, watch Discovery.

If you’ve got a green thumb, watch HGTV. Heck, if you’re horny for porn, watch Sex TV. Is it really such a big mystery why new middle of the road, Primetime Network TV is losing its grip? These days, you can be a freaking TV addict and never watch a new Primetime show, he says.

Trust us TV isn’t going anywhere for a long, long time. Here, here, I agree. Totally. Obviously, he disagrees with Star Trek there. But the notion of the big networks producing a slew of new scripted Primetime dramas and comedies every year is becoming less and less lucrative, and therefore less and less likely to be.

Don’t touch that dial, heck, TVs don’t even have dials anymore, he says. But interesting at that time when the article was printed, which was November 18, he’s talking about some of the TV winners and losers. He sort of summarized them. And he says, among the rookie shows, he says, he broke it down into three groups, rookie shows that are holding their own in the ratings, quote, kind of sorta. I don’t know what that means. But among the shows are Samantha Who, which I have not seen, but I heard was okay.

Private Practice, don’t know that one. Bionic Woman, one of the shows I’ve been digitizing but haven’t seen yet, so I haven’t even got a comment on it. Second class rookie shows that have not met ratings expectations.

Dirty Sexy Money, Back to You and Cane. Now out of those, I tried all three of those shows actually. I found Dirty Sexy Money a little boring for my liking. I saw the pilot, my mother totally disagreed with me, she said she liked it. Cane I tried, don’t think that’s a show I would watch really, not my style. And Back to You with Kelsey Grammer has been getting a little bit of criticism. I’ve actually got a chance to watch that on the weekend actually.

And here again, this is a great thing about DVDs. I watched the whole season in a couple hours in the morning. They’re only 22 minutes long and there’s only been a handful. And it’s still trying to find its feet I think, but roughly it’s not a bad show. I can see this show becoming a big hit if it was given a chance and they don’t cancel it before people get a chance to discover it. And one of my complaints about the show though is it has a very weak soundtrack for some reason. I really have to turn the TV up in the laugh track, which is apparently a real one.

They do record in front of a live studio audience, but it just has this tinny sound that’s a little bit irritating when you’re listening to a comedy situation comedy. I noticed the same thing in the first season of Cheers as well. If you listen to them, the sound wasn’t quite as good as it became later.

Whether that’s a technological issue, I don’t know why that is, but that’s my only real complaint. And rookie shows that deserve your continued attention. Again, this is all according to Bill Harris. The Big Bang Theory, Reaper and Pushing Daisies. Now, The Big Bang Theory, I know nothing of. Reaper, I have been, I only found out about after it got started, so I started collecting it but haven’t watched any yet and I haven’t got the first two episodes. And Pushing Daisies, I understand is another good show, which I’ve got a few of but haven’t watched yet. So if any of you have seen any of these shows, your opinion might be appreciated. You might give me an idea of which one to start watching first. And veteran shows that are struggling, one, and this surprised me, Heroes, Ugly Betty and Friday Night Lights.

Now, Heroes I think is still a great show. It’s intense. You get more information in a 45 minute episode of Heroes. It’s just overwhelming what happens in one of those shows. But again, it’s not a new show anymore and often that takes the shine off some. Second seasons are never really as good as the first in most cases.

Sometimes that’s not true. Ugly Betty, I’ve actually been watching that show. I’ve seen the first two seasons.

A very good show actually. It’s sort of naughty and nice. It’s got an edge to it. It’s kind of humorous. Some people might think it’s a little touch on the cruel side sometimes, some of the things they do.

But generally, the stories are pretty good. And it’s actually a better show than most of you might expect if you haven’t seen it yet. And veteran shows that are kicking ratings butt according to Harris House, Dancing with the Stars and CSI. And believe it or not, I’ve never ever seen an episode of CSI. Have you, Ira?

Ira:
Actually, in all honesty, I have never seen CSI myself.

Bob Metz:
Isn’t that amazing? I know a lot of people that haven’t. And yet it’s the big show.

Well, that’s another thing. If Canada was more on the ball and they paid attention in all the signs that were coming up, all of the Canadian stations, they could have really picked up the ball and ran with it. Now with the American television shows and programming being stalled and ratings dropping, this would have been a great opportunity for Canada to jump up with its own Canadian programming and steal away the viewers.

Ira:
Well, I think there may still be something like that in the works.

Bob Metz:
I did find a clipping somewhere that hinted at something like that, but I don’t know how they’re going to play it. But it’s interesting how many of these shows, again, Dancing with the Stars isn’t exactly the kind of show I would normally watch, but I can understand its appeal. I fully understand it.

Ira:
Well, I think we all have an inner voyeur. I mean, that’s why reality TV is so big. We all want to see what these people are thinking, what they’re going on. They want to be their own scientists and watch the guinea pigs wander around, especially when it comes to celebrities. Celebrities have always been put up on this high pedestal of people with great talent, almost like gods, really. And now we want to see them humanized.

We want to see them get mad, get angry, get frustrated, or get just as excited as the everyday normal person does when they win something.

Bob Metz:
That’s an interesting comment. I wonder if that’s true of everyone. I can see the appeal. I can see the appeal of wanting to know what the real person is like. But sometimes I like to separate the art from the person. Sometimes what you discover about a show you really like is that the actor who stars in it is a real jerk.

And you might not really like them, and you don’t want it to affect your enjoyment of the show. You know what I mean?

Ira:
Well, those are the people you love to hate.

Bob Metz:
Hate to love. Oh, maybe.

Yeah, I don’t want to take that risk. Anyways, and here’s a veteran show he says, you should make time to catch up on. The Office, 30 Rock, and Weeds. Now, of those three shows, I’m only familiar with Weeds.

I saw the first two seasons, haven’t watched the third yet. But very good show. But for adults only, I wouldn’t be watching. Certainly not a show you’d watch with the kids. And because, of course, it’s on Showcase, and it’s very adult.

18 and above type of thing. But very, very well done. It’s almost a cross.

I always said between something like The Sopranos and Cheech and Chong in a funny sort of way, because it is a comedy drama, although more to the drama side. OK, well, take a break now. Talk about this strike itself when we come back and give you some details of what I found out about the strike.

And then after that, we’ll talk more about TV shows right after this.

Clip (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Bar Association)

Rom:
If this is a surprise birthday party, you’re a month late.

Speaker 1:
It’s not a party. We’re the Guild of Restaurant and Casino Employees. And we’re here to present our demands.

Quark:
The Guild of Restaurant and Casino Employees. What’s that supposed to be?

Speaker 1:
What does it sound like?

Quark:
It sounds like a union.

Speaker 1:
Exactly. So you better take our demands seriously. Increased pay. Shorter hours. Paid sick leave.

Quark:
This is no joke.

Speaker 1:
Yes, it is. And the fact that you don’t know that it is is what makes it so funny. And get back to work before I fire the lot of you.

Speaker 1:
You can’t fire us.

Quark:
Why not?

Speaker 1:
Because as of right now, we’re all on strike.

Speaker 2:
I hear Quark had only 14 customers all day.

Speaker 3:
And he’ll have even less tomorrow. I’ve been talking with people all over the station and support for our cause is growing. Quark will have to settle or go out of business.

Speaker 4:
I don’t know. Quark can be awful stubborn. I think he’d rather lose the bar than give in to us.

Speaker 3:
Don’t be such a pessimist. Remember rule of acquisition 263. Never allow doubt to tarnish your lust for latinum.

Speaker 4:
Your brother can quote rules of acquisition too.

Speaker 3:
I believe his favorite is 211. Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success. Don’t hesitate to step on them.

Bob Metz:
And that’s probably how a lot of people feel about union issues. Of course, this guild is also a guild and they’re on strike. Interesting cartoon in the National Post November 3rd by Clement. It pictures a Hollywood screenwriter in front of some palm trees wearing a Hawaiian type shirt and holding a picket sign which reads, and I quote, this is on the picket sign, quote, scene 24C fade in a man stands outside a studio holding a sign. It reads screenwriter on strike.

It’s kind of funny. It’s 519-661-3600 if you want to call in with some of your comments about the shows this season. I’m going to talk about the writer’s strike now. I’ve just been informed by Ira that we have some prizes to give away.

Stephen King book, The Mist, and tickets to see the movie The Mist. So that’s for any of the callers that call in and that also includes you, Pat, if you want to call back and get one for yourself because I didn’t know about that when you called. So please feel free to do that. And now here’s what I found about the strike itself and what the issues are. And back on November 1st, and this is sort of how I’m trying to put it together, I went through a number of articles from the Free Press, from other sources, a National Post, and I even have a great thing from one of the writers themselves here if we have time to get into it. But back around November 1st talks between Hollywood writers and producers ended abruptly with both sides saying that they were pretty far apart on key issues, on the key issue, sorry, of raising payment from the sale of DVDs and extending payment to the distribution of TV shows and film over the internet. While both sides in the dispute have withdrawn other proposals since the talks began in July, neither has budged on what the Writers Guild of America termed, quote, the hated DVD formula, end quote, which pays writers royalties on the sale of home video.

And that’s currently the case. They are getting money from home video, but not as much as they would like. So writers had sought to boost that payment. Now on the other side, producers maintain that the profits from DVDs largely offset the increased cost of production. They also don’t want to commit themselves to higher payment for digital distribution at a time when business models are still uncertain. So they don’t want to make any long-term contract situations and not going into a new market that they don’t fully understand, at least that’s their argument.

And interesting comment here, though. The magnitude of that proposal alone is blocking us from making any further progress. Jay Nicholas Counter, President of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, told Writers on Wednesday, and that would be the Wednesday around the date of this article, which is at the beginning of the month, November 3rd. We cannot move further as long as that issue remains on the table. In short, the DVD issue is a complete roadblock to any further progress. The issue is key to the industry because actors also are expected to fight for a larger share of DVD and digital revenue when their contract expires in June.

So think about that. We’ve got another strike coming up in June, actor strike. Not a good year for Hollywood.

Ira:
I think they planned it, Bob.

Bob Metz:
Yeah, I’m starting to wonder, Ira, starting to look that way. Now, the strike itself began November 5th. Interestingly enough, I’ve got three different newspaper clippings from the same newspaper that give three different dates for the start of the strike. One says November 1st, one says November 4th, and the other says November 5th. So take it or leave it, but it’s all around the same three or four days. I think some of them refer to maybe when negotiations stopped and then the official time of strike, I don’t know.

But you will find some conflicting dates on that, and I haven’t quite straightened that out. But it’s the first major U.S. film and television industry strike in nearly 20 years. And if the strike drags on, and the last one in 1988 went on for 22 weeks, now that was the one that was going on during the time that that Star Trek clip was aired that we played at the beginning of the show. And they figured when the reservoir of new scripts had run out, that’s it, the season could run dry. Now, in the producers, the studio producers apparently placed some ads in Variety and the Hollywood Reporter where they emphasize that writers already get paid when TV episodes and films are downloaded from internet stores and things like that. And under their headline, Setting the Record Straight, the ad said that a proposal to pay writers for that streaming was on the table when talks broke off on November 4th.

Okay. Now, that was in an article by Gary Gentile on November 13th with the heading producers state case in writing. Now, the first thing I noticed between the two Free Press articles is that the second article did not mention the DVD issue as it was emphasized in the first, which apparently was a stumbling block according to the first article.

So I’m getting a little suspicious about what really are some of all the issues. And again, I’ve seen three different press clippings on the date of the strike even. But as to some of the consequences of the strike, I think they’re already saying that we’re, you know, TV viewers hooked on cliffhanger episodes of hit shows like Heroes and Grey’s Anatomy might be left dangling at the end of the season. TV networks were bracing for the need to fill the airwaves with reality shows, game shows and more reruns. And if the strike lasts longer than three months, an entire season will definitely be lost. And so it’s basically about whether scripted or unscripted entertainment is going to be available or not.

And I know some people already are aware, fans of the thriller 24 are already disappointed because of the fact that that show’s apparently been canceled or at least held up for the rest of the season. Now, interestingly enough, I have an article here from the National Post by a fellow named Damon Lindelof from Los Angeles. And guess who Damon is? He is the co-creator and head writer of the television series Lost, one of my favorite shows not running right now because they weren’t even planned to start until January, I think. But, and of course, anyone who’s listened to this show heard my theory of Lost, maybe I should call this guy up and discuss it with him, or maybe he’ll be mad at me because I think I’ve got the right answer to what Lost is about. But here’s what he had to say in his own editorial in the National Post, and this appeared almost a full-page editorial on November 13th. I’m just picking out some of the key parts.

And again, this is Mr. Lindelof talking. Quote, television has always been free. Broadcast networks still offer their entire schedules for almost, or for absolutely nothing. The only catch, of course, is that you have to watch commercials.

Economically, that’s a fair deal. Regrettably, though, people can ignore the commercials, especially with the new technologies that I was talking about earlier, that actually keep the whole system running. He says 20% of American homes now contain hard drives that store movies and television shows indefinitely and allow you to fast forward through commercials, or edit them out entirely, as I might do. These devices will probably proliferate at a significant rate, and soon, almost everyone will have them. They’ll also be getting smaller and smaller, rendering the box that holds them obsolete, and the rectangular screen in your living room won’t really be a television anymore, in the sense that we know and that what we were talking about earlier. And interestingly enough, you might find it’s already getting difficult to find VCRs, and videotapes, amazingly, but you can still get them. Now, this probably sounds exciting if you’re a TV viewer, says Lindelof, but if you’re in the business of producing these shows, it’s nothing short of terrifying.

The motivation for this drastic strike action, and a strike is drastic, a fact I grow more aware of with every passing day, is the guild’s desire for a portion of revenues derived from the internet. He says, this is nothing new for more than 50 years. We’ve been entitled to cuts of studios’ profits from the reuse of shows and movies. Whenever something we created ends up in syndication or is sold on DVD, we receive royalties.

But the studios refuse to apply the same rules to the internet. Now, he says, I will probably be dragged through the streets and burned in effigy if fans have to wait another year for Lost to come back. And who would blame them? Public sentiment may have swung toward the guild for now, but once the viewing audience has spent a month or so subsisting on what they’re going to be getting, they might get angry. And he says, but he’s angry as well, he says. And he says, I’m angry because I’m accused of being greedy by studios that are being greedy. I’m angry because my greed is fair and reasonable. If money is made off my product through the internet, then I’m entitled to a small piece. The studios’ greed, on the other hand, is hidden behind cynical, disingenuous claims that they make nothing on the web and that the streaming and downloading of our shows is purely promotional, quote, end quote.

Seriously? Most of all, I’m angry that I’m not working. So, you know, he says, because of course not working means not getting paid. And finally, he concludes, when television finally passes on, there will still be entertainment. There will still be shows and films and videos right there on the screen in your living room. And just as the owners of vaudeville theaters broke down and bought hand-crank movie cameras, the studios will figure out a way to make absurd amounts of money off whatever is beaming onto whichever sort of screen. And we, the writers, will be writing every word. And I agree with him.

He’s absolutely on target on all of that. Now, of course, the issue is, I could make a big issue out of the whole issue of how unions operate in a proper manner of negotiating. Again, I sort of went on the side of the writers in the overall case. They’ve got a good case, but whether this is the way and the time at which to go around it, I’m going to save that one for another show. Let’s take a quick break here right now. We’ll come back and we’ll talk about some of the shows that we’re not going to be seeing soon.

Be right back after this.

Clip (Stand-up Comedy)
I don’t like the board games. I like the game shows.

Those are my favorite. I love the game shows. I’m not into all the survival and all that stuff because I’m still watching my favorite. The one I’ve watched ever since I was a little kid.

Stay home from school sick. Had to watch my favorite. The Price is Right. Bob Barker is the host.

I don’t even think he’s alive anymore. They don’t change anything on the show. It’s the same sets.

They’re still giving away ’78 Chrysler Cordobas. Same games. They get the Plinko game with the chip. They get the game where the guy climbs the little mountain. I love that song. Yodel-ay-hee-hoo.

Don’t go over the edge. Then they got the wheel. You know the big wheel they spin it. Wheel’s huge. Doesn’t seem like that wheel spins forever.

It’s like. I got like 20 left. I don’t like cop shows. I don’t like cop movies. I do not like that show Unsolved Mysteries. I have a theory. I think Robert Stack is committing some of these crimes.

Just to keep the show going. And now you hate cop movies. Every cop movie is exactly like every cop movie. They are the same scenes. There’s always the obligatory trace the call scene. Some cop’s on that tracing a call.

He has all this elaborate equipment going. Keep them on a little longer. A little longer.

Keep them going longer. Keep it good. We lost him. And we’re all sitting back going and get caller ID stupid. Yeah. Get caller ID.

That should solve all the problems right there.

Bob Metz:
Welcome back. Just Right with Bob Metz here on CHRW 94.9 FM. We’re only here for a few more minutes.

And I’m wondering what we’re going to be watching for the rest of the season. There was in the London Free Press. I think that’s where I got that from. No, this is I think this from the Post where I can’t even tell by looking at the article which are the papers. But it’s the Moonlight says the headline. And it says our writer strike survival guide will help you avoid reruns and recaps. And it’s written by Leah Collins. And it’s basically suggesting what you might want to watch instead if your favorite show is going to be canceled.

And by the way, if you want some ideas of what some of the shows that have been canceled or slated for canceling. Yesterday’s London Free Press. There’s a headline story strike hits TV schedules hard.

And this might be bad news for some of us. But apparently under the heading what’s happening to your favorite series a quick roundup Heroes will end its shortened 11 episode season on December 3rd. That’s only a couple of weeks away. Grey’s Anatomy following a November 29 repeat. It has one episode December 13th and one in January.

That’s it. Prison Break yanked November 12th conserve remaining episodes scheduled to resume in January on the 14th. House five episodes remain including those scheduled last night and next week. So that might mean only four or three left depending on when you’re watching it.

Desperate Housewives with Stereo Lane closes up shop after three more episodes including one saved for January. That’s it for the season. CSI new episodes due tomorrow in December 6th with two more next year. Back to You which I mentioned earlier also pulled from the schedule. Three episodes being saved for a new post-American Idol time slot starting March 12th.

Like trying to keep track of any of this right. Gossip Girl continues through December 12th. Now there’s one they predicted might be gone right away and yet it’s lasted this long already. It takes a holiday and airs two final installments January 2 and 9. Brothers and Sisters five episodes remain. The Office completed its originals will be replaced by Celebrity Apprentice starting January 3rd and Pushing Daisies three more installments including the one set for yesterday night so that means two more after today. But nevertheless this other article suggests some of the things that you might want to watch if you actually missed or if you’re going to miss some of your favorite shows of the new shows. And I don’t know how this might click with you but for example under the heading oh my gosh I’m missing Pushing Daisies and they say our mid season replacement they would recommend Wonderfalls if you like the other one now I don’t know either of these two shows too well but that’s the show that they recommend they said while fate still has to weigh in on his latest project Pushing Daisies it hasn’t been favorable to Bryan Fuller’s previously two equally whimsical and colorful series Dead Like Me and Wonderfalls so I guess there’s a connection there and that’s why they’re recommending that under the heading oh my gosh I’m missing Moonlight they’re suggesting mid season replacement Angel we know you’re too cool to actually be tuning into Moonlight and considering how pitiful the Friday night lineup is we know you’ve got things to do now interestingly enough Moonlight is one of the surprise shows for me I was telling you about this last week Ira I finally got a chance to see that I loved it wasn’t it good

Ira:
I am I haven’t seen anything that good since the Knight’s Fall or Night something that they did here in Toronto Canadian vampire

Bob Metz:
Well you know Rob McKenzie in the National Post back in the 18th was reviewing a bunch of shows and here’s what he said about Moonlight and he out of the top 10 this was his number four which was interesting and he said no this would not make me watch it okay this is interesting the gimmick vampire detective the star Alex O’Loughlin veteran of Australian theater and The Shield the babes Shannyn Sossamon as the vampire one Sophia Myles as the human one the setting Los Angeles at night the verdict surprisingly good and that’s what surprised me too I actually had to use the word surprising I’m not a vampire fan generally but there’s a chemistry on that show isn’t there

Ira:
There is it’s actually very interesting the way they have worked out to him and that they don’t go follow the old-time stereotype of other vampire TV shows and focus only on this supernatural thing

Bob Metz:
Exactly and there’s that relationship again that really can make the spark go and the vampire thing almost becomes very secondary almost third place importance to what’s really going on in the show and what he says here about it too he surprisingly good uses the eternal life of vampires to ask the question why do we go on living and that’s sort of part of the theme of the show that’s why I think they might have seen the Canadian vampire movie Knight’s Fall I think that’s the right name of it but and applied it to Moonlight because it is almost the exact same kind of premise there was a character called Nicholas Knight and he was a vampire and he was a police lieutenant or detective there’s a lot of vampire shows in that sort of genre and I’ve seen a couple others and they really have an appeal to me no no they because they veer off track and they go eventually back to this whole dark and evil vampire world instead of focusing upon the way Knight’s Fall and Moonlight does an excellent job of just putting it on the back burner and finding new opportunities yeah it’s a great well told story I hope we don’t lose this one I think it’s one of the hidden gems it’s not a ha ha funny kind of show or anything like that is just a good solid hour of entertainment excuse me one of the shows that just caught my eye actually got the first two episodes and I know I’ve only got two minutes left to talk about this but it’s a show called Viva Laughlin which has already been cancelled okay and what National Post writer Rob McKenzie had to say about that and he got it right he says quote debut episode has Hugh Jackman rendering an over-the-top version of Sympathy for the Devil which makes for a fun clip based on BBC’s Viva Blackpool which was great fun Laughlin hopes lightning strikes twice in American audiences are game for a drama with musical bits mixed in a strong contender for first new series to be cancelled and he got that right you know and that sounded like a positive write up up until then right

Ira:

Yeah then it’s just kind of went off the cliff there all of a sudden

Bob Metz:

Right and again that was a show they played the debut on a Friday night and a second show on a Sunday who’s going to follow that. And on top of that it’s got a really tough format trying to do something new, like drama. I watched a little bit of the first one so I really can’t tell you totally but they’re there in the serious moment I think it’s in a casino or something like that and then he’s making this point with another person and out of the blue everybody’s up and dancing right.

And it was more of a scene like out of that show not Moonlight but Moonlighting yeah way back when with Bruce Willis where they could get away with doing that in the middle of a script or something. Everybody would get up in the whole office would get up and have a big dance.

Ira: I think we need a new Waltons coming in right there.

Bob Metz: Maybe that’s the answer well I think we’re out of time for today. And got don’t know what’ll be left on TV later but I’m sure this is a subject that will continue on in the future.Television is something that’s always a part of people’s entertainment and it’s something that most people have access to. It’s not just for the very few.

Anyways that’s it for today hope again that you’ll join us again next week when we continue our journey in the right direction.

Clip (Stand-up Comedy)
I discovered that when you dig up dead people here it’s a crime but when you go to another country and do it it’s called archaeology and whenever they bring back the remains of somebody it’s always like Plato master philosopher or Tutankhamun Egypt’s child king they never bring back Stewart he liked cheese.