Mari Ness

So a short while ago I was bemoaning the lack of decent TV, a lack only intensified by the Writer's Guild strike. "Now, we'll go from having almost nothing on to having absolutely nothing on," I grumbled. "And basketball doesn't count," I added hastily to that particular person.

"Well, there's the Sarah Connor Chronicles."

"That's Terminator. I didn't even like the original movies much."

But that and several other conversations today encouraged me to give the second part of the Sarah Connor Chronicles a try tonight. It's not going to be one of my favorite shows, but I do have to say that so far, I'm enjoying it more than I ever enjoyed any of The Terminator movies, and it might be worth following along on the internet or catching on DVD later.

On a related note, that The Moment of Truth show just looks utterly horrifying.

So benpeek is ranting a bit about rants about short stories, noting that people don't rant and scream as much about lousy short stories as they do about lousy episodes of, say, Doctor Who. (His point there might have been better made had he specified which of the many many versions of Doctor Who he was chatting about, but moving on.)

And I thought about this, and realized that yes, we do get mad at bad television shows and movies beyond all seeming reason, ranting and raving and even in one recent conversation of mine this week, threatening violent acts in relation to a recent terrible episode of Bionic Woman. We rant and rave and discuss or say we're going to refuse to watch TV or movies for awhile, although few of us actually reach that stage.

But with a short story? Not so much.

And I can think of one reason for this: deep down, or not so deep down, we're well aware of the vast amount of money spent to produce a really lousy hour of television or movie entertainment – compared to the almost negligible amount spent on writing a short story. The short story process works more or less like this:

1. Writers spend a few to several hours hammering out the details and the words of a specific short story, sometimes complaining to friends about the process. Now, admittedly, it's a bit difficult to calculate how much this time is worth and the money the writer might have made in the process – if the writer is a high paid attorney billing $500 an hour (not, in my experience, typical for most writers, but let's pretend more of us are called John Grisham) then, sure, this could be a fairly significant financial cost of time. Let's say $10,000, because I'm in one of those grumpy sorts of moods where nobody is paying me enough for the time I'm spending on these short stories. Add in another $5000 for the time spent by friends critiquing the story – sure, they haven't spent as much time as the writer has, but on the other hand, they have sense not to be writers, so they're probably financially more valuable than you are.

2. Short story gets sent to editors and starts the acceptance/rejection process. Let's say a nice average of 8 rejections to every 1 acceptance for any given short story; editors don't need to spend much time rejecting that one story (before the editors on my friends list start to howl, yes, yes, I know some of you do spend significant time on your rejection letters, but quite a few editors out there just don't have the time and don't bother.) The purchasing editor makes various changes and the story is paid for. Outside of a very few very limited markets in the U.S. (The New Yorker and The Atlantic, and I'm blanking on any others), most writers will receive anywhere from $25 to $1000 for a short story. Throw in $1000 for the editor's time spent on that particular story – ok, $2000, and the costs of printing and/or webhosting and/or podcasting – I'll again be overly generous and say $5000 (again, for that particular short story – and if production costs are higher I will guarantee the market is printing other things within that production costs.)

We've spent, on a generous budget, about $18,000 to produce this story. Let's round it up and say $20,000.

The typical budget for a television episode?

$500,000 and up. The budget for a single episode of ER is around $15 million now.

The typical budget for a movie? $1.5 million and way, way, way up. And the number of people involved? Far, far beyond the people involved in producing any short story – even at The New Yorker.

Even on the amateur level, filmmaking can be a major investment – pop over to newbabel's journal where he occasionally talks about everything that he had to go through just to create a short trailer for his film.

So when we see an extraordinarily stupid or lousy or just plain boring television show or movie, I don't think we're not just reacting to the other stupidity of said show: we're also reacting, on some deep level, to the utter waste of that much money. This is money that could have been handed over to us to buy utterly cool things, or solve poverty, or whatever. Instead, it was funneled into junk.

So I think that on some level, that's what we're responding to – and why short stories just don't generate that kind of passion and rage. Because they just don't involve the same amount of money.

(Inspired by a conversation elsejournal and an observation that I've sort of done this for movies and books, so why not TV?)

Note the careful choice of words above. I'm saying "favorite," not "socially important," "innovative," or "great." Yep, I know All in the Family had its moments, but the truth is, I just couldn't stand to watch either Edith or Archie. I've also left out some currently running shows that I suspect will creep into my all time favorites sometime – notably Heroes and How I Met Your Mother and The Office. And before two of you start shrieking at me, no, I still haven't seen Deadwood, which is why it's not on the list. And, of course, like my book list, this is partial at best.

1) Firefly: (No real surprise here, I guess.) The show where Joss Whedon finally became an adult, but kept the jokes going and provided us with a lot of astoundingly good looking people while doing so.

2) Carnivale: I am slowly drawing out my viewing of this, episode by episode, to make it last, and I'm not sure if I will ever watch it again. But this is a beautifully crafted show, and one of the most addictive shows out there.

3) Angel: Admit it; you thought this one would be Buffy. But although Buffy had some better individual episodes, and despite an uneven first season, a wild and contradictory fourth season, and a complete shift in tone and pace in the second, third and fifth seasons, overall, Angel was better integrated and a better show.

4) Friends: It took this show a few episodes to get going, especially since much of its humour turned on self-referential points: the ongoing Rachel/Ross saga, Phoebe's ongoing kookiness, Joey's ongoing dumbness. But once it did, this show was utterly hilarious -- and passes the "can I show this episode multiple times to English as a Second Language students and not end up utterly hating myself and the planet?" test.

5) Animaniacs: True story: So I'm sitting at Fort Lauderdale Airport, humming a bit to myself as I do sometimes, when I find my hum turning to actual words, "There's baloney in our slacks!" and suddenly realize that I am no longer humming, or singing, alone: the elderly woman across the row from me is also merrily singing along, "We're Animaney, totally insaney!"

The cartoon's that good.

6) Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The dreck that was much of this show's sixth season was almost enough to knock Buffy off the list – the mere thought of the Xander/Anya wedding episode is enough to make me feel slightly ill – but to balance that, Buffy offered some of TV's best episodes ever: "Hush," "The Body," and of course the Musical.

7) Blackadder: (Series 2-4) The first series, alas, was just not that funny; Rowan Atkinson went for pathetic and slimy instead of intellectually superior, pathetic and slimy, but once the new character was fully established in the later seasons, Blackadder became one of the most consistently funny shows ever.

8) Monty Python's Flying Circus: Yes, decades later, I'll admit that some of the pieces just don't work, and the fourth season, without Cleese, has a lot of missing moments.

But.

"Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition." Even parrots pining for the fjords. No matter how many times you watch that bit. Bring out the comfy chair.

9) Wonderfalls: Another show that was on the air all too briefly: only 14 episodes, only 14 little stories. 14 perfect little stories with astoundingly good dialogue. And, as I mentioned recently, a perfectly happy ending.

10) The Tick, the cartoon show. Just because: "Well, once again we find that clowning and anarchy don't mix." What's not to love?

( And now, shows that almost, but didn't quite make that list, in no particular order. )

So since a number of you have been urging me to start watching Dead Like Me like, two years ago already, I naturally picked up Six Feet Under at the library this weekend instead. I'm sure I had an excellent reason for this, beyond the fact that, let's face it, both the titles are kinda deathlike. (I am assuming that if I attempt to say that a large army of trained attack chimpanzees armed with flamethrowing Barbie dolls suddenly invaded the library and….yeah. As excuses go, that lacks something.) Let's just chalk up my inability to remember said excuse to chimp distractions.

But three episodes into this show, I can see why none of you have been urging me to watch Six Feet Under. I can see that it's a good show, with its good moments, but the chief thought engendered by these three episodes is, "They kept this on for five seasons, and cancelled Carnivale and Rome after only two seasons each?"

Then again, I remain completely baffled by television decisions, on both cable and network TV, because if I had my way, Firefly and Wonderfalls would still be on, and 7th Heaven and Temptation Island and whatever that trainwreck that was the Britney/whoever he was vehicle would never, but never, have even had a camera rolling. But that's just me.

For those who have missed Six Feet Under, it has the usual HBO Fun With Sex and Nekkidity, this time enlivened by caskets and the occasional ghost and a nice interracial gay relationship and a bus and some sly humour and some genuinely good acting on the part of nearly everybody. But it hasn't caught me and drawn me in the way that Carnivale and Rome did, where I finished an episode only to find myself pining for the next one. Of course, I never got into The Sopranos, either.

Next trip: Dead Like Me. Definitely.

Thinking about the lousy last episode of X-Files led me to think a little about some series finales:

Utter flops:

X-Files: I'm on record as an unabashed Mulder/Scully shipper who analyzed every quip and every sentence for evidence of the True Love; who squiggled with delight at the near kisses here and there; who squeezed every bit of unrequited romance possible in seven years of unresolved sexual tension. (Well, ok, Mulder did have his videos, so not completely unrequited.)

But even the unquestioned, undoubted, unmistakable Twoo Wwwove and Lengthy Kissing and Hugging and No Sexual Angst At All Except To Wonder If Skinner Should Be Allowed to Watch (yes! say all of us) couldn't save this very, very sorry episode, which featured a tedious and inexplicable and nearly endless court scene, and an almost complete failure to explain to anyone what the hell had been going on for the past nine years. Even passionate Mulder and Scully kisses can only do so much.

Moonlighting: Because I went out of my way to watch it, and now, years, later, couldn't tell you what happened.

Mehs: Good effort, but ultimately, vaguely unsatisfying one way or another:

Buffy: Buffy had brought us intense, emotionally satisfying – or emotionally brutal – season finales before: the wrench of rejection at the end of Season Two; the heartache of the end of Season Three, when Angel walked away into his own show; and the sniffling of the end of Season Five and Death Two. It had brought us the joy and humour of Season Four's dream episode. I refuse to discuss Season Six. With that, we were justified in expecting something – I don't know, more.

But – perhaps because much of the episode focused on a melee between a lot of characters we didn't much care about and a First Evil that really seemed to have learned nothing about organization or strategy even after millions and millions of years of being evil, which suggests that Evil needs to improve its training programs, the final episode turned out to have a lot of bother with almost no emotional payoff. We did get a final Buffy appearance by Angel. We did get a good Dungeons and Dragons joke. We did get a touching and well acted Buffy and Spike scene.

But in the last fifteen minutes, we got nothing else. Part of the problem, of course, was that the last fifteen minutes featured Spike's meaningless death, which might have been interesting if we had not all been well aware that this was just a brief stopover on the way to a season at a nice evil L.A. firm, which meant that this was at best a temporary disappearance, so it was difficult to feel much emotional angst over it. (It didn't help that the survivors seemed to feel precisely the same lack of emotional angst.) And yeah, ok, so, Sunnydale sinks beneath a mean nasty hellhole, but let's face it: 1) everybody had already left, and 2) with schools like that, not to mention all of the demon-dancing, the value of Sunnydale real estate had to be sinking lower than the Hellmouth. So I couldn't get all shook up about it – or find myself all that interested in the fates of all of the new little Slayers, who now lacked any uniqueness or destiny and who almost certainly lacked Buffy's clothing sense. Le sigh.

Cheers: The fans wanted Diane back. I wanted Diane back. NBC wanted Diane back.

So we got Diane back, and it just felt – wrong. Perhaps because so many years had passed, and yet Diane hardly seemed changed at all; perhaps because although Diane had returned, the Sam/Diane relationship had been funny precisely because it couldn't possibly work. And because it couldn't possibly work, bringing her back meant, inevitably, that she would have to leave, robbing us of the happy ending that most comedies – including Cheers -- need to have to feel "right." The episode had funny lines; it had Norm; it had the actors standing up in a line waving at all, and ultimately, no sense of satisfaction.

Friends: The last few episodes had a melancholic tone that only increased as episodes continued and the writers tried to set up satisfactory endings while setting up the flop that would be Joey. And it was this tone that penetrated the last episode of Friends, keeping the laughs muted. But the real problem here was the wrap up of the ten year Rachel and Ross storyline. That storyline had always had an undercurrent of control, of anger, and of hurt – with much of the hurt coming from Ross. And because of that, we needed Ross to make a huge gesture to win Rachel back and convince her to give up her career for him. Having Phoebe madly drive him to the airport, while admittedly extremely risky, was just not that gesture. Combined with melancholy feel, this created an end that felt almost as empty as the cleared out apartment.

M.A.S.H.: Because I also went out of my way to watch this one, and…you guessed it, but gets a Meh for effort since it's still one of the highest rated shows ever.

Yes! The ones who got it right:

Upstairs, Downstairs: Mr. Hudson married Mrs. Bridges. What else did you want? Continuity? It was the 70s, folks! Let's not be picky.

Wonderfalls: Sometime in the 10th episode, I turned to the person who was watching the show with me, and gulped. "Please tell me this has a happy ending."

"I haven't seen the last couple of episodes," he said. "So I don't know – but keep in mind, the creator was involved in Buffy."

"I want my happy ending," I said.

And I got it: not just a happy ending, but an ending that felt entirely, completely, right. A happy accident, since the show was not originally intended to end in its first season, but a fortunate one. If you haven't seen this, go find it on DVD, and watch through to the end: I guarantee you'll feel better.

Angel:

After the Buffy slipup, I had my concerns about this one. And yet, ending with the surviving heroes standing up against a motherload of CGI monsters and refusing to back down? It shouldn't work – but it does. Completely, utterly, works.

Firefly: I wanted to write something long and lengthy and poignant here. But all I could come with was this:

"Shiny."

Yeah.

We all have different ways of remembering the perfection of Teri Hatcher's breasts. Some – traditionalists, in their way – allow their minds to flee back to certain moments of Lois and Clark. Others think of a certain James Bond movie, and still others, perhaps to be excused by the follies of youth, know only of certain scenes from Desperate Housewives. Me, I'm a Seinfeld sort of person, and when I think of her perfect breasts, the sauna moment is the scene that comes to mind. Followed, of course, by remembering the follow up line from the series finale.

While we're on the subject of Seinfeld, it should surprise no one that two of my all time favorite lines from the show appear here and here.

So quite a few bloggers, and quite a few readers, have noted with apprehension or glee the upcoming merger of the WB and UPN channels, with some hoping wistfully that this will mean the permanent removal of America's Top Model (ok, this is probably just me and L); and most wondering worriedly what this might do to the upcoming fall television season when the schedules get combined.

Schedules? Come on, people. Think big. The WB/UPN combination can go far, far beyond scheduling Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars on the same night. Because here we have an opportunity to combine not just schedules, but whole shows. A small sampling of the possibilities:

Veronica Mars – Smallville

Veronica Mars arrives in Smallville and instantly begins to probe the town's mysteries; having five times the intelligence of most people in that little Kansas sure looks like Vancouver town, it takes her approximately two episodes to realize that Something Is Up with Clark, and three episodes to find herself ensnared in Lex Luthor's plots. Clark prevents another bus from heading over a cliff, thereby robbing Veronica of several potential plot lines. He and Veronica exchange marvelously exquisite dialogue provided by Veronica Mars's writers, which proves to be too much for Clark, who finds himself missing bland Lana dialogue. Fans everywhere beg him not to return to bland Lana dialogue. In the meantime, Sam Jones III (Pete) returns for a guest spot and finds himself snogging Charisma Carpenter, which confuses all American viewers who still don't know what "snogging" means, but any criticism is immediately halted when Charisma Carpenter gets naked. Also, Aquaman is killed and immediately becomes a zombie, forecasting the interest level in his upcoming show. The subplot of zombie dolphins chasing Veronica Mars raises ire from environmentalists but allows Veronica and Chloe to bond over a shared "ick."

Enterprise – One Tree Hill

I know, I know. Enterprise was cancelled already, but honestly, when did a little thing like time stop a single Star Trek plot? Ok, well, maybe all of Star Trek V, but then again, didn't you wish that something would stop that one? And, ok, yes, Star Trek I was a little bit draggy. And, ok...

...ok, I've never seen One Tree Hill. You want honesty out of me, you'll get honesty. What the hell is this show anyway? The few commercials I've seen for it keep showing more than one tree.

WWE Friday Night Smackdown - Gilmore Girls

Lorelai and Rory finally realize that the only way to solve their problems is to stop all of this insightful, well written dialogue crap and just wrestle each other under the big lights, a decision that incidentally raises the ratings of the wrestling federation when Alexis Bledel (Rory) hints that it's just possible that her shirt will be ripped during the proceedings. Everybody remembers that UPN is just fine showing bits of naked breasts (Enterprise body lotion shots, anyone?) and cheers up.

Firefly -- Seventh Heaven

In a bizarre and unforeseen time twist the crew of Serenity falls into a time warp showing up at the offices of Fox Television, where they learn the truth about the atrocious handling of their filmed adventures. Jayne shoots two executives of Fox Television, to the applause and relief of many inside and outside Hollywood. Terrified Fox executives agree to restore the show, but the crew agrees that they will never, ever trust Fox again, and insist on heading to a new network. Hurt by this disparaging annoucement, Fox execs throw the crew onto the set of the WB/UPN Seventh Heaven. To everybody's relief, Jayne shoots the entire cast of Seventh Heaven, except for the dog, because the dog is cute. Also, Mal and Inara finally make use of one of the wholesome cheery bedrooms on the show. The resulting scene is immediately downloaded across the planet.

Charmed

Various attempts are made by various writers to combine Charmed with any of the UPN shows, but are finally cancelled when people realize that Charmed just sucks.

(Because sometimes you just have to take a break and think about something other than worms. Even Christmas tree worms (Spirobranchus spp.). Really.)

I hate Fox.

This weekend I was finally introduced to Wonderfalls, a show that joined the long, long list of shows deliberately placed in the Graveyard Of Great TV by the FOX network, a network that seemingly cannot see greatness without wanting to kill it.

Various people had urged me to watch the four episodes of Wonderfalls when they aired, telling me that it was my kind of show. They were right. What they failed to mention is that Wonderfalls is one of the very very rare shows that also meets the MDM standard -- Mom, Dad and me, a show that all of us can watch and where my mother will not start objecting to the show's depiction of medical practices. (ER is a particular nightmare.) Most shows I like -- Coupling, for example -- lose one or other of my parents. The last time we found an MDM standard show was, I believe, the A&E/BBC II version of Pride and Prejudice -- the one where Colin Firth gets his shirt wet. Yeah, that show. And that wasn't even a television series.

Yes, Wonderfalls is that good. It leads me to babbling. Let me try to control myself by thinking of Colin Firth...um. No. Let's try another train of thought.

For those of you that missed the show, which, thanks to Fox, pretty much includes everyone, the premise is basic enough: girl holding a philosophy degree from Brown University starts working at a retail shop at Niagara Falls (on the American side, although for aesthetic reasons all of the shots of the falls are taken from the Canadian side) where, surrounded by annoying customers, inanimate objects start to talk to her. It works somewhat like this:

Jaye: I guess I thought if I could just get my sister laid the little wax lion might just shutup.
Eric: The wax lion wanted your sister to have sex?
Jaye: I'm assuming.
Eric: Does the little wax lion ever tell you to burn things or hurt people?
Jaye: I bet he's working up to that...

Yeah. It's pretty much impossible to describe. And pretty much impossible to sell, if not given a chance.

The show is sharp, well written, funny, suspenseful, and, unusually for television these days, character driven. (Tim Minear of X-Files/Angel/Buffy fame was a producer and penned a few of the episodes, which helps account for the quality.) And, although most of the show is family friendly, at one point an ex- nun ties up an attractive girl in bed and surrounds her with nice, romantic candles.

(No, it's not what you think, but hopefully that image got a few of you to go and watch the show.)

So, why did this quality show disappear and die on us? For the same reason that I never got around to seeing it in the first place: it was literally never given a chance. The show was moved to a midseason start; episodes, in classic Fox style, were shown out of order; and, of course, episodes were shown on Friday nights. As it happened, these were Friday nights where either I had something else I needed to do, or forgot that the show was on, whichever.

And, after only four episodes, the show vanished -- even though 13 episodes were filmed.

In some ways, I suppose, this limited run has its advantages -- at least we don't need to endure the pain of watching a show limp on well after it should have been gently laid to rest (Season Nine, X-Files, anyone?) But by killing the show this early, we also never found out where the show could have gone.

Tim Minear does have another TV series arriving soon -- The Inside -- of which I know absolutely nothing, nada, nothing, except that it's coming to TV very soon (I think this month, but correct me if I'm wrong.) It could very well be quality TV. Hopefully, Fox will let us find out.

I don't have much hope, though.

I hate Fox.