Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Tuesday, March 7th, 2023
Do Hollywood writers have a messaging problem?
Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Tuesday, March 7th, 2023.
DO HOLLYWOOD'S WRITERS HAVE A MESSAGING PROBLEM?
While nothing in Hollywood is guaranteed, it seems more likely than not that the industry is headed for a writer's strike. And while there are a lot of substantive issues that have to be negotiated in order for this likely strike to end, one less tangible field of battle is public opinion. Both the WGA and the studios will be out there trying to spin the narrative of the strike and the studio side starts with a number of advantages. Because they do business with the Hollywood trades, they have easy access to journalists working at those publications. And while a strike will cripple the bottom line of a lot of big media companies, none of them will be forced to move to cheaper digs or get out of the dream making business entirely. While writers already struggling to pay their bills will be undergoing an existential financial crisis if the strike goes on for weeks or even months.
So given all of that, you might expect that the writers would be out there telling their story. Spinning ahead of a possible strike and building the foundation of a story that can be built out over the course of a strike.
And yet, for the most part that hasn't been the case. WGA officials are notoriously squirrely when it comes to discussing their negotiating tactics or even their goals and talking points. There is a bit of conversation from WGA officials on background or off-the-record. But it's rare to see anything other than a bland statement on the record. And there is a great deal of pressure on WGA members not to speak to the press. WGA negotiators want a unified public message. But what ends up happening is that the trades end up filled with a few general statements and a lot of conflicting complaints from unnamed writers. While the studio side’s coordinated PR attack often goes unanswered.
The Ankler's Richard Rushfield has also noticed this problem and in his now weekly recounting of the industry's strike preparations, he has these observations:
One constant of every Writers Guild dispute is that the other side — whoever they are — runs circles around the Guild in the messaging war.
Like people who are too smart for their own good, the writers from a communications standpoint seem to have a very hard time dealing with the world as it is and spend their time building Aaron Sorkinesque castles in the air about how the public conversation will play itself out. Being writers, they always feel they can script the public discourse and the rest of the world will just... learn their parts and stick to the script.
The writers’ proclivity for hard-edged tough-guy-workers-struggle rhetoric doesn't help them present their case in a more endearing or flexible light. While the other sides — whoever they are — talk to the press, present their sides and talk down the Guild, the writers refuse to respond to questions on or off the record, sulk about why reporters aren't naturally on their side, questioning whether they've been paid off, and conducting witch hunts for leakers in their own camp.
Writers Guild: the Bolshevik routine neither impresses nor wins over anyone, particularly in its borderline psychotic Twitter incarnation. These issues on the line here are extremely complicated. Explaining them to the community at large is going to take finesse. Counting on the press to repeat your handouts as written is not a communications strategy.
As a longtime journalist and writer, I am inclined to see many things from the WGA point of view. But like Rushfield, I have this sense that a lot of the WGA sees messaging through the lens of the 2008 strike. And the industry - along with the industry's journalists - have changed a lot since then.
WHIP MEDIA STREAMING ORIGINALS REPORT
ODDS AND SODS
* The new docu-comedy series Jury Duty premieres April 7th on Freevee. Here's the logline: "Jury Duty chronicles the inner workings of an American jury trial through the eyes of one particular juror, Ronald Gladden. What Gladden doesn’t know is that the entire case is fake, everyone except him is an actor, including James Marsden, and everything that happens — inside the courtroom and out — is carefully planned."
* NBC has ordered Hot Wheels: Ultimate Challenge, a car makeover competition series based on one of the world’s most popular toys. The show will be hosted by Rutledge Wood and is set to premiere this summer.
* Silo, based on Hugh Howey’s New York Times bestselling trilogy of dystopian novels, premieres Friday, May 5th on Apple TV+
THE CRAZIEST TRUE CRIME STORY YOU'LL HEAR THIS WEEK
True crime documentaries are everywhere now and it can be impossible to keep track of all of them. Even worse, many of the docs are either slapped-together clip jobs or efforts that tell a story you've heard a dozen times before. It's rare to find one that tells a unique story, but Peacock's newest entry, Who Killed Richard Wone?, tells a perplexing and confusing story of one of the stranger murder cases I've run across.
Wone worked late one night and decided to stay at a friend's townhouse instead of tackling the long commute home. Less than 90 minutes after he entered the house he was dead and none of the three other occupants could explain how it happened. Or how he was sexually abused with his own semen. Or why they were all just out of the shower when the police arrived.
I spoke with Jared P. Scott, the director and executive producer of the documentary and he discussed how you tackle a story where there are a lot of theories, but no real closure:
Q: It looks like you were able to talk with most of the primary people in this case, other than the three defendants. But one part of the story that I suspect was a little frustrating for you was the subplot about whether or not the brother of one of the defendants was perhaps involved in the murder. You were able to show that he had a key to the townhouse and could have been there. But without hearing from him or the defendants, there was no real way to advance the story other than to say "Hey, this is a possibility."
Jared P Scott: Yeah, and it kind of mirrors what the prosecution dealt with. There were no charges brought against anybody else. Other than the three men inside that house. There was a decent amount of time in the trial that was allocated for these other questions, but a lot of the stuff you just had were just these circumstantial curiosities. As Glenn says, "I don't know, I don't know if the brother had anything to do with it. But we had to look at that the way we looked at anything else."
We have the benefit of hindsight, as viewers, and even as storytellers now 16 years later, to look back at this case. But as this case was happening, anytime there's a lead, anytime there's some sort of a potential circumstantial curiosity, you have to explore it. And you have to go down these paths that can be winding and dark, and ultimately lead into a dead end. But you can't ignore all of these pieces, because that's your job.
I don't know if the viewers will feel frustrated, but you can see the frustration from the people that are there that are telling the story, because you just don't know. There are so many things that you think are going to add up or like a part of it starts to fit. And then this piece works with that piece. But then this other piece comes along and obliterates everything else. So, it's just one of those one of those impossible puzzles that I don't know if we'll ever be able to solve.
Unless as you mentioned, the three defendants tell us a different story than they told the detectives that night.
The two-part true crime documentary Who Killed Robert Wone? premiered today on Peacock.
TWEET OF THE DAY
WHAT'S NEW FOR TUESDAY:
Blood & Money Series Premiere (CNBC)
Houses With History (HGTV)
Icons Unearthed Season Premiere (Vice)
Super Maxium Retro Show Series Premiere (Vice)
That's My Jam Season Premiere (NBC)
The Exhibit: Finding The Next Great Artist Series Premiere (Smithsonian)
Who Killed Robert Wone? (Peacock)
Click Here to see the list of all of the upcoming premiere dates for the next few months.
SEE YOU WEDNESDAY!
If you have any feedback, send it along to Rick@AllYourScreens.com and follow me on Twitter @aysrick.