TV: 24 is now officially crap...

Last night was the final straw. I've long been a fan of 24. In the beginning it was seminal and ground breaking. Now? It has become a parody of itself and I'm not going to bother tuning in for season 7 (or the inevitable season 8, 9 etc).

WARNING: Spoiler alert - divert your eyes if you haven't seen it yet!

After the truly affecting train yard scene with Ryan Shappel in season 3 perhaps we had hit the pinnacle. Season 4 started to loose its way. It ticked all the boxes but you felt you had seen it all before. Season five started badly. You knew they were in bad shape when President Palmer got smoked (I know, I know, he's gone to do his own show 'The Unit'). Then season six made a bad situation worse when Wayne Palmer was Commander in Chief (the man has as much gravitas as Ken Barlow). However, nearing the season six finale, here was the killer moment for me... Jack's nephew being taken away by Doyle and placed in the helicopter. You know the bit - as it lifts away the kid looks directly at us and though we can't hear it, we see him mouthing 'UNCLE JACK!' It was SOOOOOOO trite. The smell of cheese was so pungent it was enough to make a Frenchman blush. I literally laughed out loud.

I put up with more 'Copy that' than I care to mention. I suffered countless 'Right now I need you to...' and so many other catch phrases but NO MORE! The seasons' plot has more holes than a teabag! How easy is it to break into CTU? I mean are they really expecting us to swallow the notion that all you have to do to break in CTU is to put on a muscle vest, enter the sewers and as long as a giant turd doesn't stop you in your tracks you can hold the entire place to ransom?

ENOUGH! Just like so many other successful series before, 24 has made the transition from artistic pioneer into executive cash cow (Remember X-files?) and every week you can hear the 'moo's' as that poor old cow is milked for all it's worth.

Ah well, it was good while it lasted.

Roll on Lost season 4...

FILM/TV: When will Hollywood wise up?

More and more recently I am finding the cinema a complete let-down. I simply can't remember the last time I came away from a trip to the cinema enthused with the film I had seen.

Compare this to the current crop of TV coming from the US and you can't help but fear for the near future of Cinema. Shows like Lost, 24, Heroes etc simply put the vast majority of cinema releases in the last few years to shame. Look at this years Oscars - absolute drivel, 'The Departed' for best film? It's not bad, but best film?

I can't help feel that the problem is not inherent in the form of Cinema (self contained piece, 90-120 mins long) but rather the way the Hollywood machine is run.

You can imagine the exec's criteria being...

Big star = guaranteed audience
Familiar concept = easy marketing
Special effects = great trailer = easy marketing
Big franchise = guaranteed audience

Factors are all geared around opening the film - getting bums on seats for its first couple of weeks plus selling the marketing rights to a burger chain and any other possible pieces of marketing pap (birthday cards, action figures, toilet roll etc)

Now, compare that with TV. Commercial TV at that. They simply HAVE to have a quality show. It's not enough to satisfy people for a couple of weeks, the seasons state-side run 20-25 weeks. Then you have to come back the year after and do it all over again. So how do they get it right? What ingredient are TV exec's/producers adding?

Writers. In film land, whilst good scripts almost certainly exist, as soon as they are sold the original screenwriter is waved goodbye and the script is re-written for the talent (Actors, Directors etc) - almost always diluting the quality of the original script. Don't believe me? Do a search for some spec scripts and compare them to the shooting script (the shooting scripts is what they ran with after 3-4 different writers had been all over it and pulled it all out of shape at the request of the studio/director/actor).

Doesn't really happen in TV land, at least in the US. The story creator is nearly always given an executive producer status and stays on board with the project throughout its run. Guiding it, shaping it - ensuring that what they first dreamt up remains for the shows duration. That's not to say they write it all, or even write the best episodes. It does however ensure some consistency, some adherence to what sold the idea to the network in the first place. A principal lacking in film scripts.

'A camel is a horse designed by committee' a metaphor that could perhaps describe the fate of many a good film script?