SESA Mailbox

Dear Channel Nine,

So, let me get this straight ......

NOW you start screening Gossip Girl? 

NOW?

From the beginning of the first season?

At 10.30 at night on a Wednesday? 

NOW?

And it hasn't occured to you that anyone with half a brain and an internet connection who wants to see this show has, at some point over the 15 months since the first episode aired in the US, done so, somehow? 

How exactly is it that you are still in business? 

Sincerely, 

MissE

SESA Mailbag: Monday Edition

Dear Channel Ten,

Wow! Thanks for finally screening the fourth season of US So You Think You Can Dance - just late enough so that any of your viewers who also frequent Television Without Pity are spoiled rotten about the winner. Much appreciated. 

But, really, three nights a week? 

Did you do a survey and find that fans of this show had no life? Because while we may be a little socially introverted and awkward, sometimes even the most loserish of folk manage to find non-tv things to do on Friday nights. 

Must you keep driving me into the arms of the torrents? 

Hugs,

Chesty LaRue

SESA Mailbag #237

Dear Channel Ten,

Back in August of last year, you impressed us all with the news that you would be 'fast-tracking' House - meaning that you would be showing it 'fresh off the satellite' a bit under a week after it screened in the US, instead of what you usually do, which is holding shows that start in the US in September for the start of our ratings year, the following February.

You were doing this for us, you said. We knew you were in fact doing this to try to slow the spread of downlaoding biting into your ratings, but still, we were appreciative. Better than nothing, right?

And then the writers went on strike, and House (and Life, and Journeyman, and Supernatural, and all the other shows you were 'fast-tracking') close up production and you were left with the opening of a ratings season with no new episodes of anything (except, oddly, for two episodes of Life you never screened, for some reason that no-one understands). And it sucked for you.

But here's the bit you may not have heard: the writers strike is over. It ended MONTHS ago. David Shore and the House team went back into the studio and produced four of their best episodes yet to wrap up the season.

The second part of the two-part season finale aired in the US a week ago. It was awesome and involving and sad and gripping and filled with OMFGoodness in spades.

To date, you have aired one new episode. After running a brief but intense 'House is Back!' campaign, you aired one new episode, before resuming the steady diet of repeats we've been fed for months now.

So, what happened to the fast-tracking?

I mean, it doesn't matter to me - I've seen everything you're not showing me now, and even if you decided to get your arse into gear, I still wouldn't bother watching. And I dare say I'm not the only one who's given up on your shit to get their TV when they want it.

(You could pass that last bit onto messers Nine and Seven, who have the rights to Pushing Daisies, Gossip Girl and Chuck, but see no reason to air them ...)

It's a bit of a shame for all of you, really. I'm a good little consumer and in your target demographic, but I am no longer buying what you are selling. And I love television of all kinds, and will happily spread the word, both to my real life friends and all over the interweb - if I see something worth watching.

The thing is this: I have no wish to be a downloader. There is a little part of me that would rather not do it. Unfortunately, I am also a citizen of cyberworld, and as such, I'm somewhat compelled. The watercooler that I gather around to discuss my favourite TV shows is no longer in the corner of my office - it's in my computer and all over the world. And sadly, it just doesn't cut it out here if you're six months behind - nor will the fans in the US and UK think not to discuss the surprise death in the season finale all over the internet just because some suckers in Australia haven't seen it yet and don't wish to be spoiled.

And to that, you could tell me that I could just stay away from the various websites that are most likely to spoil me, and hold off on my discussion, or limit it to the lameness that is The Tribal Mind. But that's not really likely to help when YOU are just as likely to spoil me as anyone else. Remember when Marissa Cooper died? Remember those weeks of promos you ran advising me to watch the lead-up to the season finale in which Marissa Cooper will die!!!

Because that was meant to be a SURPRISE. We weren't meant to know about it until it happened. If you'd fast-tracked the show a) you wouldn't have been able to run weeks of promos spoiling us all and b) we might have had a chance to actually be shocked.

So, no, I can't just stay off the internet for the months between when they air it and when you air it. I have to stay off the network instead.

Or I could just download it. And sure, I might feel a little bad about it, but it's better than the alternative. And once I start downloading it, what do you think the chances are that I'll ever stop and come back to you? Seriously.

No longer yours,

Chesty LaRue

So Very Very Very Confused

Can someone please tell me how I feel about this?

Correct answer wins a prize.

The SESA Mailbag

Dear Channel Nine,

Look, I know we haven't spoken in a while - you air a bunch of shows I don't watch. What can I say? Your purchasing decisions are dubious, and even when they're not, you treat your programs like playing cards, shuffling them around at will so we never know what we're going to get.

But I have to thank you (and I know you never expected that) for this past summer. You picked up where Channel Seven left of three long, hard years ago and brought Gordon back to our screens. And in a regular timeslot, too. It was awesome. That swearing. That Scottish brogue. The swearing. The 'holy cow, he's 38! Geez, cheffing is ROUGH!' exclamations. The useless restauranteurs and the pretentious chefs and an overuse of the words 'simple' and 'rustic' that made me weak at the knees.

And from what I read, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares has been a bit of a cult hit for you this summer. Everyone's talking about it. And I'm really really really glad you're keeping it for the ratings season.

Or - should I say - I was.

Until I found out that you were going to start showing the American version.

Because seriously, here's the thing: There are five seasons of RKN (UK). You've been screening an eclectic mix of seasons two, three and sometimes four. You have plenty of UK awesomeness left to show us - believe me, I know.

So why are we suddenly getting the inferior US version? Without the Gordon voiceover? And with all the faux melodrama, the instant make-overs, the US Reality TV style showdowns? No-one likes the US version better, except maybe the odd American without a choice in the matter. No-one. It's LAME.

It's produced by Fox, FFS.

And i know, I shouldn't complain. Some Gordon is better than no Gordon. And I suppose I'll watch it.

But only if you promise that one day you will show me the last of those UK eps.

Pretty please?

Yours (between 9.30 and 10.30 on Thursdays, and at no other time ever),

Chesty LaRue

The PTA has Disbanded

While we wait for AB's awesome recap of last nights SYTYCD (I peaked at the edit - what? I'm a nosy bint, ok? - and indeed ... there will be brilliance unveiling itself in this very spot sometime in the near future), I'd like to say that I am worried. Worried worried worried.

The Hollywood writers strike is underway. And if it goes on for much longer that could mean all of our favourite scripted (American ... but that's most of the good stuff really, innit?) TV shows go off air and/or into repeats. And if they go off air, they'll more than likely be replaced with even more RTV than we've been exposed to over the past few years and it's all going to be bad.

Don't get me wrong - I'm totally behind the writing folk. They should get paid when their work gets used online, and if there is no money is online streaming/legal downloading, as more than one studio exec has stated, then obviously they shouldn't be too worried about giving the writers a piece of that meatless pie - because 2.5% of nothing is still nothing ... right?

Anyway, I hope it all works itself out soon. Because now that we get all our TV 'streamed direct from the US' we're going to run out of good shit really soon.

And if they take my new House away without telling me what happens to the numbers ... I'm gonna cry!

In the meantime, anyone got any ideas for new Reality TV shows that can fill the hole? I won't steal them, I promise.

And yet Everybody Loves Raymond stayed on air....

To say that I am super excited about writing for a blog dedicated to the cathode ray is most definitely an understatement. Believe me when I say that I have my ponytail pulled high, my best Sparkle Motion dance hands and a pair of pompoms shimmying away in time to the flips of my joyous heart. But alas not all TV related writing is so joyous, and I am afraid I will be sharing some of my soul's burdens with you all today. The lovely LaRue wrote about When Good TV Goes Bad, well I'm writing about When Good TV Gets Cancelled.

I love a cliffhanger, but only when I get to know what's to be found at the bottom of the damn plummet! Why is it that the viewing public seem to be such arse heads? Not us, I mean them, out there, the ones who watch McLeod's Daughters and rate Home and Away ahead of Neighbours. Someone is watching Yes, Dear and it's no one I know (or at least they won't admit to it)! And yet programs with scope and lashings of ingenuity are shunted into the obsolescence of TV's week night carousel, swapping times and days like I wish I swapped lovers.

I was a late bloomer when it came to recognising the genius of Joss Whedon. As an older teen I had the tendency to pooh-pooh anything that wasn't consciously arty or literate. And to me the high point of TV literacy was an adaptation of a classic Victorian novel by the BBC costume department. As the years went on I managed to remove my head from my buttocks and catch a few episodes of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. I liked what I saw. Skip forward many years and I am living with a pal who has them all on DVD. I barely spoke to anyone for 6 weeks, but when I emerged, pale of skin and lank of hair, having watched all 144 episodes (plus all of the commentaries and special features) I was most certainly a fan of Joss. This set me on the path towards Firefly, a show that had been cancelled years before I discovered it. Firefly is a space show unlike any other. Set 500 years in the future, there are no aliens, people are still people and the average Joe can speak Mandarin. It takes the film school theory that Sci-Fi's are really Westerns in space to the next level. Firefly is most definitely and deliberately a Space Western. This is not the clean and clinical world of Star Trek, this is the world of petty crims, hustlers and smugglers who live on the edge of the civilised world. This is the world that Han Solo left when he picked up some passengers at Mos Eisley. This 'verse was seriously cool. It lasted a mere 11 episodes in the US on Fox, who presumably cancelled it after waiting for the vampires and moody teens to show up and improve their ad earnings.
Fox sabotaged their own show. They played episodes out of order (the pilot episode, where they set up the, uh, plot, was the final one that aired), they didn't promote it beyond 'From the man who brought you Buffy: The Vampire Slayer' promos and they kept asking the creators where the vampires and foxy teens were. The series is now available in a handy DVD box set, with 3 unaired episodes and buckets of special features. Oh, and the lovely people at Universal Pictures coughed up the dosh for a feature film called Serenity which finished off some of the story lines and gave a degree of closure. This sort of resurrection is a rare occurrence in cancellation land. Only the complete resurrection of Family Guy comes to mind as another time the TV gods intervened to save the viewing public from their evil network masters.

A far sadder cancellation abomination was that of Carnivale. Set in the US Dust Bowl of the Depression, this spooky, gripping, sexy and smart series was nothing short of a masterpiece. A wonderful mix of real life drama; historical accuracy to please the most picky; a custom built mythology that was breathtaking in it's scope, and the weird and wonderful world of freaks and carnies. This was TV of such high quality that even the harshest critic would have had trouble finding fault with it. Unless of course their world view was so easily threatened that they attended book burnings. It referenced real events, while building towards the final battle between good and evil. But good and evil with silky, silky shades of grey. And did I mention the sexy? Purrrrrr.
It was art, it was terrifying, it was gorgeous and it got cancelled just as the plot twist of the century was revealed. GAH! Bastards! I have such respect for the commissioning execs at HBO (Oz, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, Deadwood, Sex and the City) but what the hell happened in the HBO offices in May 2005? A mass TV exec brain fart? There are rumours of a 1 off mini-series to finish off the story arc, but after nearly 2 and a half years I fear that the battle for Carnivale is lost.

These are but two of many excellent programs that were cancelled before their time. Deadwood, Angel and Arrested Development all leap to my mind (no one tell me what happens in Angel season 5, the DVD's are waiting for me to get back home and watch them). At least the these three managed to wrap up some of the loose ends before being yanked. And I think this is what annoys me most about cancellation. It's just damn rude! You wouldn't start a joke and then refuse to give the punchline. Or tear out the last chapter of your own novel. So why do it to TV? It's that money thing, isn't it? I'm almost annoyed enough to go out and join Resistance.

So tell me, what show has you asking 'They cancelled this, but Everybody Loves Raymond went for 9 seasons?'