Too Much TV: Your TV Talking Points For Friday, April 26th, 2024
My editorial algorithm suggests David Cross might be wrong about this
Here's everything you need to know about the world of television for Friday, April 26th, 2024:
MY EDITORIAL ALGORITHM TELLS ME DAVID CROSS MIGHT BE WRONG ABOUT THIS
In Hollywood, people say no for all sorts of reasons. Sometimes, the person or project isn't a great fit. But more often than not, people say no because the person or the idea isn't good enough. And because the only thing in Hollywood people enjoy less than hearing "no" is having to tell someone else "no," they come up with excuses that fall in the category of "believable, but easier on the ego."
For instance, an unsettling number of television writers believe that they haven't been staffed because of some form of "reverse-discrimination." Often because that is what their manager or agent has told them. But in reality, their work just wasn't as good as the person who did get the job.
I am seeing a similar trend in recent months when it comes to overall project pitches. An idea isn't sold, or is ordered and doesn't move forward, and the rejection is couched in some vague "well the algorithm said it wouldn't work." And in most cases, even from the outside it's clear that it doesn't take a bank of super computers in order to predict the project probably wasn't going to be successful.
Variety posted a piece today in which David Cross is complaining about the treatment his latest project from Bob Odenkirk received at Paramount+. And to be clear, while the piece is in Variety, like a lot of that site's stories as of late, it's built around comments from an interview at an outside source - in this case, it's from the Andrew Santino Whiskey Ginger Podcast.
In the interview, Cross complains that the duo had reunited for the docu-style Paramount+ comedy Guru Nation, in which the Mr. Show masterminds were cast as rival cult gurus manipulating the minds of their deluded followers. And according to Cross, the streamer's marketing and data analysis departments rejected it:
Cross went on to say that the reason Paramount+ scrapped the series was because of the “marketing and analytics department not getting it, not wanting it.”
Cross said he learned early on in his career how much influence the marketing department has over development decisions, and that what happened to their show is “an ugly reminder” that “they have all the fucking power!”
Cross continued, “If the marketing department doesn’t have the imagination to take a preexisting idea, and figure out […] how to sell it, then they can say no.”
According to Cross, the show’s pitch ignited a bidding war between four different networks. And hearing that, my first thought was....why did they go with Paramount+ in the first place? I mean, with all due respect to the fine folks at Paramount+, it is not the first (or even third) place that comes to mind when I think "perfect place for a quirky and edgy comedy from the duo behind the Mr. Show."
And this screed from Cross comes off as oddly clueless. He apparently believes that marketing can see anything and if they can't, then it's the fault of the marketing department. And while sometimes an otherwise great project fails because it's badly framed for audiences, it's more often the case that the project either isn't good enough or isn't what the audience for that particular network or platform is interested in watching.
Reading his complaints, it felt more like a version of "they're not hiring white guys." For whatever reason, the idea either didn't work or wasn't right for Paramount+. And it was easier to blame the "no" on data crunchers or marketing weasels than to tell Cross and Odenkirk the truth.
THE WEEKEND TIP SHEET
Here are some new titles to check out this weekend:
* Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story (Hulu)
The last time the Bon Jovi tour hit the Twin Cities, concertgoers were tweeting complaints about the show and posting videos of a noticeably off-key Jon Bon Jovi struggling to get through the show. As it turns out, the singer was struggling with vocal problems and that battle is the center of this four-part documentary. There is plenty of time devoted to the history of the band and that is all certainly interesting. But if you were one of the fans unlucky enough to pay a few hundred dollars for tickets to a show the singer was pretty sure wouldn't be up to his standards, watching his insanely intense efforts to keep going in the early episodes might be more infuriating than inspiring.
* Goodbye Earth (Netflix)
The streamer didn't make screeners available to me for this South Korean drama, but based on the couple of episodes I watched today, it's another twist on the "end of days" shows that country seems to crank out on a regular basis. Based on the novel The Fool At the End of the World by Kōtarō Isaka, the 12-episode series that centers on schoolteacher Jin Se-Kyung (Ahn Eun-jin) as she tries to protect former students from an oncoming asteroid that is expected to destroy the Earth. What sets this show apart from other similar ideas is its focus on how chaos brings about the true nature of human beings. I'll be blasting through the rest of this show this weekend.
* Dead Boy Detectives (Netflix)
A lot of the press coverage of this show has focused on the strange path it took getting to this point. The characters were originally conceived as a spin-off of the Max series Doom Patrol and even appeared in an episode of that show (albeit with a different cast). When Max passed on the idea, Netflix picked up the show as a way to add to its Sandman universe.
But all of that backstory distracts from the fact the series is a blast to watch. The irreverent story of two dead boys hiding from the Grim Reaper while working to solve supernatural crimes who team up with a young psychic capable of seeing them is just complicated enough to hold your attention while not requiring any knowledge of Sandman or any of its storylines. This show is the type that Netflix consistently does better than anyone else - fresh, fun YA shows that are adult enough for audiences of all ages.
ODDS AND SODS
* CBS has canceled NCIS: Hawaii after three seasons.
* If you are a Chicago Cubs fan, you might get a smile from my son's latest pet project: ispwizzyplaying.com, which is devoted to his favorite player, Patrick Wisdom.
* Sonja Christopher, who was the first person in Survivor Season 1 to be voted off the show, has died at 87, according to a current contestant.
* I had someone ask me about my favorite music to write to and while that answer depends a lot on my mood, my recent favorite writing music is that Spotify playlist I put together of French-language pop and light rock music.
* The BET+ original film The Deadly Getaway will premiere on Thursday, May 9th.
* The Rosemary’s Baby prequel Apartment 7A, starring Julia Garner and directed by Natalie Erika James, is headed exclusively to Paramount+ sometime just ahead of Halloween.
TWEET OF THE DAY
WHAT'S NEW TONIGHT AND THIS WEEKEND
FRIDAY, APRIL 26TH:
* Action Series Premiere (Peacock)
* Call Me Country: Beyoncé & Nashville's Renaissance (Max)
* Goodbye Earth Series Premiere (Netflix)
* Hack Your Health: The Secrets Of Your Gut (Netflix)
* Infested (Shudder)
* Knuckles Series Premiere (Paramount+)
* Luxe Listings Toronto Series Premiere (Prime Video)
* 100 Days To Indy Season Two Premiere
* Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story (Hulu)
* The Asunta Case Series Premiere (Netflix)
* The New York Times Presents: Broken Horses (FX)
* Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story (Hulu)
* We're Here (HBO)
SATURDAY, APRIL 20TH:
* Falling In Love In Niagara (Hallmark)
* High Hopes Series Premiere (Hulu)
* My Child Has My Doctor's Face (Lifetime)
* Predator Vs. Prey (BBC America)
* Soweto Blaze (Netflix)
SUNDAY, APRIL 21ST:
* Blue Carbon: Nature's Hidden Power (CNN)
* Killer Fortune Teller (Lifetime)
* Secrets Of The Octopus (NatGeo)
* The Jinx: Part Two (HBO)
MONDAY, APRIL 22ND:
* Ahead Of The Curve (Netflix)
* American Experience: Tragedy At Love Canal (PBS)
* CoComelon Lane (Netflix)
* Fern Brady: Autistic Bikini Queen (Netflix)
* Hip-Hop And The White House (Hulu)
* Intervention Season Premiere (A&E)
* 90 Day Fiance: Love In Paradise Season Premiere (TLC)
* Quarter Ton Teen Series Premiere (A&E)
* Restoration Road With Clint Harp Season Premiere (Magnolia)
* The Proof Is Out There: Military Mysteries Series Premiere (History)
* Tiger (Disney+)
* Tigers On The Rise (Disney+)
* Ugliest House In America Season Premiere (HGTV)
SEE YOU ON MONDAY!
While I certainly won't opine on whether Bob and David's latest will be a ratings winner (how well did Mr. Show do?). IO can say that anything from that team will be goo. I even enjoyed the Run Ronnie Run abortion.
Please stop reinforcing the aggressive industry storyline that white male tv writers are NOT being displaced by DEI hiring policies, that they are not actually losing jobs, and that when they do lose work it is only due to their own mediocrity. This is a lie — a well-intentioned lie sugar-coated in the feel-good of Hollywood’s self-congratulatory cultural politics, but absolute bullshit nonetheless. Just look at the changing numbers in the various annual employment reports — CAA puts out one, as does the UCLA Department of Social Sciences and the Annenberg School at USC. Despite the vested interest of these earnest folks in the diversity industrial complex to keep shading their statistics toward a narrative of oppression, big strides have clearly been made in recent years on behalf of traditionally under-represented groups. While it’s true that the top tier of TV creatives continues — same as it ever was — to be white and male (and largely Jewish — a statistic which no organization is EVER going to publicly cite) the middle ranks of white males have been gutted by new hiring practices put firmly in place since 2020. After decades of ineffectual diversity lip-service the entertainment business saw the George Floyd protests and decided that the mounting pressure for change was too great to further ignore. The time had come to mollify this simmering mass of criticism and win a few cultural brownie points as well. Hollywood’s various Top Bobs in their top jobs acted in uncharacteristic unison. Of course all of these big guys at the CEO level are still white men. Their magnanimity did not extend as far as actually stepping aside themselves (at least until several were ultimately forced out by #MeToo or incompetence), but they skillfully scattered a handful of women and BIPOC executives into conspicuous C-suite jobs, promoting them out of the middle ranks at networks and studios where women especially had actually long been the dominant foot-soldiers. But the true watershed occurred in the middle ranks among the white male tv writer-producers. Overall Deals for white male showrunners (except for those in the J.J. Abrams and Ryan Murphy stratosphere) dried up overnight in 2020 and strict policies now enforced hiring preferences that overwhelmingly favored women and anyone who could call themselves a minority. A great-grandfather from Spain? Sure. How about being vaguely Middle-Eastern? Does Armenian count as POC? I’m in a wheelchair? Fine. I’m gay? Hmm, not so much. Mixed-race writers who had “passed” for years suddenly rediscovered their cultural roots — with “Andy” becoming “D’Andre,” and women re-embracing their more ethnic-sounding maiden names. And it worked. Industry employment for these groups shot up. New kinds of stories being told by new kinds of storytellers surged on the networks and burgeoning streaming platforms. According to the aforementioned industry reports, in 2022 “under-represented” black writers now found themselves wildly OVER-represented in the tv business (not so much in movies), making up 12% of the general U.S. population but holding 23% of all tv writing jobs. Black over-representation in acting jobs is an even higher figure at roughly 28%. This black over-dominance gets buried a little in these data by skillfully lumping African Americans into a general “minority” employment category alongside Latinos who are still woefully underrepresented compared to their population numbers. But the true innovation of the past four years is the ousting of white males from the middle creative ranks — down 18% according to Annenberg. This is a fact, not some comforting sop offered to clients by their agents and managers. There are absolutely fewer jobs now available to white male writers (also producers and directors), and as they age out of our industry they’re being replaced with something other than white males — to the extent that these jobs are actually being replaced. Employment of baby writers at the staff writer level shows even greater losses for those who are penised and melanin-challenged — down 40% from hiring figures in 2015. So please don’t continue reinforcing the great industry lie that this isn’t happening, and that when someone gets passed over for work it’s their own fault — they’re just not as talented as the woman or BIPOC writer who got the gig. There are other forces at work here. But it doesn’t seem enough to just displace and disparage our beleaguered white males. Further insult has to be added on top of the injury, their purge being greeted with celebratory contempt throughout Hollywood and its related media. Search the term “mediocre white male” and you will find multiple quotes from the current ascendant femme and POC tastemakers and bosses expressing sheer delight at this blood-letting (one presumes out of pent-up rage after decades being pawed and condescended to by their cocksure white-boy bosses). “Stale, pale and male” is openly jeered in the corridors of power these days when the notion of hiring a man-writer gets proposed. “Oh, boo-hoo! Some over-privileged white guys have lost their over-privilege.” Yes, absolutely. No need to send a fruit bouquet. This is a business. And it’s never been a pure meritocracy. Every moment spent working as a writer in tv is a fragile privilege. Nobody is owed a fat-paying job where they are given millions of somebody else’s money to turn their tiny imaginings into entertainment for the masses. Instead we must all excitedly embrace the inspiring new content now coming our way from this new flood of new voices welcomed into the fold since 2020. But what content exactly? Has the new golden age arrived yet? Did I miss something while I was playing Fortnight? Can we really pretend that the tv of now is actually better than it was back before the great and glorious purge of white dudes? There are some really good things, certainly, but generally over-all? Or is it possible that our enlightened corporate gatekeepers have simply replaced a generation of mediocre white male tv writers with a new crop of mediocrities who aren’t quite ready for prime-time?