The solstice happened yesterday, which means it's summer and the day is Wednesday. I have no series to write about. Instead, I'll write about various happenings in the TV landscape.
-Staffing season for the 2011-2012 TV season is complete. Nellie Andreeva wrote a "Staff Season Highlights" article for deadline.com. Of interest to me were the addition of Michelle Fazekas and Tara Butters as consulting producers for Hawaii Five-O. The writing team created The CW's Reaper then worked on the second season of Dollhouse. Andreeva reported that writers were split in drama. Some opted for riskier new series like Once Upon a Time and Pan-Am while other writers played it safe--opting for standard, safe procedurals. It would've been nice if Hollywood released the complete writing staff for TV series because I'm interested in knowing the specific writers responsible for 22 episodes (or 13). Oh well. I'll learn each writer once the Fall TV season kicks off in September.
-The comment section for the article was more interesting than the article itself. The comments went into the reality of the staffing season--how it's 80% friends hiring friends followed by 10% hack writers landing jobs because of previous credits and another 10% just lucking out. The commenters were mostly aspiring TV writers who swore they weren't bitter. The discussion didn't have any groundbreaking inside info into the inner-workings of Hollywood though. TV executives and producers prefer safety to risk. They'd rather trust a multi-millionaire project in the hands of established veterans of TV rather than baby writers. Show runners hire friends rather than baby writers. If the 2011-2012 season has as many bad shows as 10-11 then maybe more baby writers should be given a chance.
-The reaction to The Killing finale could be described as being over the top. At the end of the day, The Killing's a TV show with a fictional story populated with fictional characters. People have written many words that criticize Veena Sud and question the AMC brand because The Killing betrayed its viewers but, again, it's a TV show. Any one who wants to know how the Dutch concluded the story easily can. I understand people's rage over investing 13 weeks into a show that ended with a cliffhanger with zero resolution for any of its characters. If the show had as many bumps as viewers and critics said they did then why did they expect a 13th hour episode that transformed The Killing into an all-timer? I enjoyed Dan Fienberg's contrarian view on the Firewall & Iceberg podcast--what made the viewer expect to know the identity of the killer by season's end? Sure it's a logical conclusion to a season of television but when the narrative spanned only thirteen days then it's seemingly unrealistic for a case to be resolved in that amount of time. People need to calm down, but if the finale took the heat off of the LOST series finale, then continue to complain.
-The second season of Treme's been very good. Sunday's George Pelecanos' penned episode ended with yet another shocking death and ruminated on what the identity of New Orleans is. Is it crime-filled, full of violence and, therefore, bad? Is it the good city populated with talented musicians and artists? I have no answers for those questions. I've enjoyed the musical performances tremendously in the second season. I've enjoyed the storyline with Antoine as he deals with his band and teaches school children how to play music. I like how Simon, Overmyer, Bourdain and his other writers are content to show characters hanging around, creating or playing music or cooking food or celebrating Mardi Gras. The show's audience is very small but it received a third season order earlier in the year. By now, every Simon fan hoping for another The Wire abandoned ship but Treme's worth your time.
-That's about it. I don't watch much summer TV series except for HBO. I'll probably write about the True Blood season premiere and the second episode because HBO Go will have it. I'll write about the final season of Entourage. I'll post other content that won't be episode reviews. And, as always, the Summer Re-Watch continues with Dawson's Creek, Everwood and Monty Python's Flying Circus.
THE YOUTUBE CLIP OF THE WEEK
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About The Foot
- Chris Monigle
- Originally, I titled the blog Jacob's Foot after the giant foot that Jacob inhabited in LOST. That ended. It became TV With The Foot in 2010. I wrote about a lot of TV.
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