It’s been seven years since the final episode of Ken Finkleman’s series the Newsroom. The thirteen episode series was hailed as a high point of Canadian television, spawned during the period of behind-the-scenes expose programs like Sports Night and The Larry Sanders Show, Finkleman’s series fit right in, and yet it still stood out from the pack.
As critically acclaimed as any during the 96/97 series, Finkleman as writer, producer, director and star fuelled the show with his own vices and neuroses. While tackling stories that were topical at the time, watching the show on video or in reruns over the years, it never lost its edge and hasn’t really dated. The show, centered around newsroom producer George Findlay (Finkleman) and his staff as they tried to put together their nightly national public broadcast (a thinly veiled CBC) while dealing with whatever mundane triviality George or inept anchorman Jim Walcott (Peter Keleghan) was dealing with that day.
The Newsroom was in many respects like Seinfeld, full of humour derived from awkwardice and inaninty, like George trying to get a suicidal man to kill himself on camera, or Jim pissing of David Cronenberg. The series ended with the fall of public broadcasting and George and crew running a comatose Jim for Provincial office… winning just as Jim flatlines.
Finkleman followed up the series with three more mini-series More Tears, wherein his character George was directing political documentaries, Foolish Hearts, which examined Finkleman’s relationship with his character George, and both of their difficulties with women. Foreign Objects explored some of the current difficulties in the world in a most esoteric manner.
Escape From the Newsroom was Finkleman’s first return to the the series which has since made him famous (albeit “Canadian Famous”), and the experience was positive enough to prompt him to continue with a further run of the show, seven years hence.
And so it’s back, and it’s in peak form. Tonight’s season opener began with the consummate George moment, as he asks his psychiatrist to call his girlfriend and his mistress and tell them that he needs more time to make a decision between them, and their pressure is causing him stress.
Meanwhile, Jim (how he is alive was explained in Escape from the Newsroom) gets his own talk show in New York, and winds up trashing his American career as only Jim Walcott could.
While certainly Finkleman hasn’t missed a beat in terms of his two lead characters, and his plotting, my only disappointment is finding how interchangable his peripheral characters are, as most of the supporting cast has been changed out, but really it doesn’t matter. The comedic timing is precision and aside from a few more wrinkles and grey hairs you wouldn’t even realize the show had taken a break.
I had reservations but it’s all worked out wonderfully. Canadian television is poised for a resurgance in quality…or not. But hey, look! The Newsroom.
12/01/2004
The Newsroom
13/12/2003
the kids in the hall (season 1).
warning: it’s hard for me to be objective about this review, because i have been waiting for a desperate amount of time for something like this to be released, so forgive any freakouts this review may have. that said….
1989: the year i entered high school, with the drama of going to a different high school than the rest of my elementary school classmates. coming from a smaller school and expecting to go to a smaller high school, i ended up going to one of the largest secondary schools in town. there were a lot more people around than i was used to, i had to take a school bus for the first time and the only people i knew there were loose acquaintances at best and ended up in a different stream. effectively, i was alone and i felt like a misfit in a world that had various strange codes of its own.
fortunately, this was the same year when the kids in the hall first aired and i somehow discovering the show on the dial (back when tv’s had dials) during one of the futile attempts of channel surfing through the only four non-cable channels available to me (one of which was purely french and one which was part-time french). the kids in the hall introduced me into the world of sketch-based comedy, which i was completely unfamiliar with. the kids were five guys who were definitely canadian, mostly suburban with a mix of urban and rural, exploring the real world as though it were an alien planet. they were trying to point out how life seemed to work and what was funny about it. and they played whatever roles they could, donning wigs and dresses to act out as women. to me, it was a beacon of hope; it confirmed that the world doesn’t make sense most of the time and bad things happen, but if you look at it a certain way, it could be hilarious even at life’s worst.
and i was hooked. over the span of five seasons, i went out of my way to battle the channel’s tendency to hop when the show would air and catch up on dave, bruce, kevin, mark and scott. i was introduced to the music of shadowy men on a shadowy planet, which in turn guided me into the world of non-top 40 radio (i.e. real alternative music) and parts of the canadian underground. their questions against the social boundaries by tackling then-taboo topics such as AIDS, homosexuality, death, the macabre, drugs and deviant behaviour felt risky to someone who had no idea about such things and forced me to evaluate what my thoughts would be on those topics. the characters became a virtual family to me, the writing made me think how to tell a story and the timing the troupe had in front of the camera soaked into my awkward skin and made me realize how people interacted and talked with each other. and oddly enough, i became comfortable in that skin and managed to be a part of the world i couldn’t understand before (not that i still do, but that’s the biggest lesson of all).
after the show was over after five seasons (i took that news pretty bad), i became dependent upon repeats of the show, which didn’t quite materialize until one of the big cable channel booms in the late 1990s. the only episodes you could purchase were best-of compilations from the later seasons. as a stubborn fan, the only way i could be placated was by a complete season set, like i had started to see for shows like monty python. especially the early seasons, which appeared to have fallen into a memory hole.
so when word came in that the kids in the hall would finally be released to the home market, i was ecstatic. one of the producers set up a forum to discuss a possible DVD release and i offered my two cents on what i wanted to see. i had no idea that in a few short months, the complete season one set could be purchased online in a single DVD set.
and even with my mixed modest/wildest expectations, the season one set is gold. it’s justified my entire DVD life.
06/12/2003
aqua teen hunger force.
the idea of a television show featuring anthropomorphic fast food raises one big flag. how can anyone pull off 11 minutes of watching a milkshake, a box of fries and a meatball hang around? where do they come from? what do they do?
fortunately, this ain’t no mcdonaldland or veggietales, as the aqua teen hunger force knocks out some of the most surreal, most rude and most funny television out. as one small chunk of the best hour of tv, adult swim, aqua teen hunger force is a short cartoon that focuses in one of the backwater parts of suburban new jersey, where three food products live and encounter the strangest members of the universe, which usually ends with massive amount of property destruction.
master shake is the leader of the trio, although he has no discernable leadership skills. rather, he is an asshole, one of the best asshole characters ever created. he’s self-serving and lazy, looking to either get real paid or berate anyone who can’t help his ambitions (namely, everyone around him). frylock is a mystical floating box of french fries, who has a brilliant scientific mind and immense superpowers. in any other situation, he could probably save the world on his own, but in the hunger force, he’s the ignore voice of reason, more than willing to work things out himself or otherwise push responsibility on those who do wrong. lastly, there’s meatwad, who’s the heart of the ground, with simple mind, simple pleasures and not much else. his two strengths are limited shapeshifting and naïveté, although he will (eventually) find out if he’s being hoodwinked.
every show starts off randomly with dr. weird and steve, two members of a south jersey shore facility that always experiment with some new creation or creature, which eventually goes hilariously wrong and cutting immediately into the main titles with hip hop’s schoolly d. we end up with the aqua teens, who are either in the house or by their long-suffering neighbour (and funniest character) carl’s outdoor pool, at which point trouble usually finds them. be they escapee’s from dr. weird, creatures from outer space or strange housemates, the aqua teens always have to deal with them if they can’t avoid them.
23/03/2003
six feet under.
hbo has been producing the best dramas on tv as of late, with such fare as sex in the city and the sopranos going places where the networks fear to tread. that along with brilliant miniseries like from the earth to the moon and band of brothers definitely give you your money’s worth with their original programming.
the most sublime drama going right now is the morbiddly quirky six feet under, which deals with the fisher family’s funeral house in california. after the father is killed in a car accident, the business is left to be run by both of his sons: prim david (broadway’s michael c. hall), who studied the business and discovered his homosexuality with officer keith (mathew st. patrick), and casual nate junior (sports night’s peter krause), who returned to the fold from afar to rejoin his doormat mother ruth (frances conroy) and aloof teen sister claire (lauren ambrose) at home.
each episode begins with the poetic opening titles, which perfectly match the sorrow and humour present in each episode (best i’ve ever seen/heard). then with the last minute of someone’s life, who wind up in the morgue to be cleaned by the opinionated federico (freddy rodriguez). from there, the buildup to the funeral is intercut with the developing story arcs involving the fishers and their loved ones. creator alan ball, who wrote the splendid american beauty, maintains his key eye on the facades people create in modern life and the bits that want to stay hidden but always surface. the women’s roles are particularly strong: ruth is slowly coming out of her quiet shell, claire fights against the conformity she sees the world around her and nate’s belle brenda (rachel griffiths) gets engulfed mixing her free-spiritedness with her need to fight against hypocrisy.
season 3 is already a few episodes old, airing sunday nights on hbo. season 1 is out on dvd/vhs. catch up with the fishers when you can; six feet under demonstrates how a story should be told.