HILLARY & HEATHER

Most Americans think Hillary Clinton will be successful as Secretary of State.  How successful?  We will see what the next 4 years in the world brings.  However, one should never underestimate Hillary Clinton's future goals, which are no smaller than being the first female President of the United States.  

My friend Dr. Mike pointed out that no Secretary of State had ever ascended to the Presidency.  While that is not true in American history overall, it has been true in recent American history.  But Obama destroyed the "No one has ever..." barrier when it comes to the Presidency, so that's no longer a valid arguement.

I posit that Hillary is actually in what I like to call the "Heather Locklear Paradigm".  Heather Locklear was a very successful TV actress in the 1990's.  She catapulted to fame in TJ Hooker, became even more famous as Sammy Jo in Dynasty.  Locklear was then offered the role of Amanda Woodward in Melrose Place.  

MP had some big problems.  Melrose Place was Darren Star's 90210 spinoff, and was not nearly as successful as it's progenitor series in its first year.  It's 20 something "adult themes" left its 902010 teen audience cold, and it was definitely ratings challenged.  The press turned on the show quickly.  Since MP wasn't as big a hit as 90210, it was rapidly turning into a problem for the producers and the network.  So what to do?  Stunt casting!  

Locklear was offered the Special Guest Star role to see if she could boost the shows ratings.  Was the proverbial weight of the television world was on her shoulders?  Not really.  It was a total win-win situation for Locklear.  If the MP was cancelled, she could say the ship was already sinking, I did what I could, but no one could have saved that show.  But if MP was a success it was a success because of her.  Needless to say, the show was big hit and made her an even bigger TV star than before.

Hillary is in the Heather Locklear Paradigm for 2012 (or 2016).  If Obama rights the economy, gets re-elected and the U.S. goes through another boom period, she can ride his wave into the White House.  If it all goes horribly wrong, she has all this foreign policy experience, relationships with every world leader, and no say over domestic (ie - economic) policy.  So if Obama fails, she can't take any of the heat.  Like Heather Locklear on MP, the Secretary of State position is win-win for our gurl Hillary.

EVOLUTION OF THE PROCEDURAL DRAMA

The procedural drama has been a TV staple for 10 years now.  The reigning champion of the genre remains the original C.S.I. and its 2 spinoffs - Miami and New York.  But the procedural is evolving.  The C.S.I.'s were all about the gagdets, the machines, and the science.  The characters were almost incidental.  All you needed was an inciting incident - a murder, and the digital effects would handle the rest.  I only watch C.S.I. Miami and even then, it's to see my condo on network TV every week in the establishing shots (C.S.I. Miami is filmed in Manhattan Beach California, although they do come to South Florida for a few weeks to shoot exteriors for the season).

Then about four years ago, a new form of the procedural was born in Dr. House.  House is also a procedural drama, but with a new twist on a decade old format.  The difference is that House is "the gagdet".  Whereas the machines have always done the trick, now, House is the "trick".  Two more shows joined this new twist on the procedural.  The new #1 show of the TV season with over 19 million viewers weekly is THE MENTALIST.  And the other new show is FOX's Lie To Me.  Both Thomas Jane (the aforetomentioned Mentalist) and Dr. Cal Lightman (LTM) are also the trick.  Thomas Jane uses his extensive skills in subtly manipulating people and Dr. Cal Lightman analyzes microexpressions (facial recognition techniques), turning him into a human lie detector.  Both shows are a welcomed edition to an evolving genre.

HOW TO WIN YOUR OFFICE OSCAR POOL

It's time for that annual ritual, the time honored tradition of winning your office Oscar pool.  Who doesn't need a little extra cash at the end of every February?

First, you need to tilt the scales in your favor.  It's more difficult to win an Oscar pool on the major categories.  Just voting on the major categories increases the possibility that you will have to split the winning with someone else.   The major categories are where you can make your mistakes.  If you have any pull in your office, use the full Oscar ballot with every category.  The average person has no idea who's going to win Best Costume, but you will.  I have always won in all the minor categories, and therein lies the secret.

As a reference, here are 2 interesting articles on Oscar voting, which makes sense of how all these relatively unknown people end up in the major nominations:  http://www.variety.com/VR1117998897.html

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117978689.html

Suffice to say that each branch of the Academy gets to vote only in their branch, Actors vote for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress, and Best Supporting Actress.  Actors do not vote on Best Cinematographer, the cinematographers do.  And so it goes for each branch.  Everyone in the Academy gets to vote on Best Picture, which explains why there are so many "surprise" Best Picture winners.  What almost no one outside of Hollywood knows is that each of the Academy branches are part of a larger union inside of Hollywood.  In the busy time between when the nominations are announced and the Oscar telecast, each of these branches hold their own private, non-televised award show for the recipient of, for example "Best Costume" according to the Costumers Guild.  Also within these union award shows (they are really more like dinners held in hotel ballrooms with 1 celebrity presenter for the winner of the evening. Can you imagine the pressure of showing up at the Costumers Award show in a bad outfit?  You might never work again in Hollywood, and that's a lot of pressure if you're a costumer just starting out in the business, I digress).

So 2 days before the Academy Awards, go to either:  http://www.variety.com/  or http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/index.jsp and using their search tools, search for the DGA winner (Director's Guild), PGA (Producers Guild - usually picks the Best Picture winner), WGA (Writer's Guild) for the Best Adapted and Best Original Screenplay award, etc.  Costume, Make Up, Set Designer, etc.  You can also try Googling the winners.  But use those winners to populate the minor categories so you can focus on the majors.  It will take you some time and effort, but the pay off is worth it.  How else are you going to correctly pick Best Special Effects other than sheer guesswork?  The SAG Awards, which are televised, usually correctly pick all the Best Acting category winners.

A couple of notes.  There is usually 1 surprise in the major categories.  Ususally one of the Best Supporting Actor winners is a complete unknown.  So make at least 1 wild guess that upends the conventional wisdom you're reading in the newspapers for major categories.  And this system is be no means foolproof.  The winner of Best Director for the Academy Awards may not have won Best Director from the Directors Guild.  Why?  Well, the Directors Guild is a much larger guild with many more voting members, as opposed to the Academy Directors branch with a much smaller voting membership.  

Good luck and while I do not endorse gambling, I do endorse an opportunity to look smart in front of your co-workers while make a little scratch on the side.  And do what I do when I win, use some of the money to buy donuts or bagels  for your co-workers, so everybody feels like a winner.

GREAT, A CHECKLIST

http://www.whitehouse.gov/agenda/civil_rights/

Fantastic.  Click on the link and scroll down to the LGBT section.  I must say, I'm impressed.  Now let's see how much of that agenda he is able to pass and how much Congress will let him pass.  

On a completely separate issue, the redesign of Whitehouse.gov is very impressive.  Simple, clean site navigation.  Improvement #642 (and counting) over the previous administration.

This website has been up for 2 days.  Why hasn't HRC, Equality, or anyone else sent a link and discussed their strategies for helping pass all this legislation?

UPDATE:  At the end of February 2009, HRC sent out a newsletter highlighting the White House Civil Rights link above.  Took them long enough.....

2 FAVORITE QUOTES OF THE WEEK

The first is CBS' Nancy Tellum at the TCA press tour this week slamming Ben Silverman and Jeff Zucker.

From Daily Variety:  Network rival NBC has clearly given up on storytelling in the 10 o’clock hour with its move of bringing in Jay Leno five nights a week. Business-wise it might make sense but writers, actors and agents are, obviously, unhappy. Her thoughts on a primetime talkshow? And would that effect what CBS airs in the hour?

 ‘My first reaction was to say thank you. Our 10 o’clock programs do extremely well. It’s a coveted time period. The creative community was shocked. So many top tier talents vie for that time period,” she said, while adding that she didn’t see the need to rebuild the hour’s template because of the Peacock’s past errors. “Why should one network’s failure in development redirect an entire schedule strategy?”

 And the second one is from my dear friend Dr. Mike.  For those of you who do not have a friend who is a doctor, I cannot recommend enough having as many doctor friends as possible (not just for the obvious second opinion). I have 3, 2 anesthesiologists and 1 resident, and they all have great stories to tell.  No wonder doctor shows never run out storylines.  Dr. Mike is a first year resident at Jackson Memorial here in Miami.  Dr. Mike has become a very good friend since we first met early this summer.  Anywho, this is the time of year when everyone gets a cold (at least everyone who doesn't live in Florida).  And here's Dr. Mike perspective on cold & flu season:

“Oh, I hate it when people get sick.  It means I have to work more.”

RETURN OF THE SITCOM?

Last week ABC announced that it is leaving no stone unturned in finding the next Roseanne or Home Improvement.  The theory in television, which is largely being played out weekly at the multiplex, is that in economically depressed times, American's seek more laughter and escapism.  This trend started at the end of 2008 when FOUR CHRISTMASES was #1 at the box office for 2 weeks in a row.  And then repeated when Jim Carrey's YES MAN was #1 on its' opening weekend.  And again this weekend with that Mall Cop movie.  The American public was sending a clear message to Hollywood.  We're miserable, a $10 movie ticket is cheap entertainment, give us something to laugh at.  Give us comedy, make us forget our troubles for 2 hours please. (Hollywood is largely a recession proof business, although as part of larger corporate America, even Hollywood is not immune in this downturn).

The U.S. television sitcom has not dominated popular culture since FRIENDS went off the air in 2004.  Before FRIENDS there was Seinfeld.  Although the great U.S. TV sitcom is not dead, it has been in hibernation.  However, I have discovered 2 great sitcoms already on the air.  I say this with no hesitation, THE BIG BANG THEORY is the funniest show on TV.  It is the television sitcom at it's finest.  The writing is great and the cast is even better.  As a special treat, pause your DVR at the end of every episode for Chuck Lorre's vanity cards:  http://www.chucklorre.com/index.php

There's is one more sitcom gem hiding among the TV rubble.  THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE with Julia Louis Dreyfus is another funny sitcom just waiting to be discovered.  Now in its fourth season, JLD is true standout talent in the world of sitcoms.  Again, great chemisty and timing among the cast and very funny.

I will be curious to see if network TV development can revive the sitcom to it's monster cultural status in these depressed economic times.  TV needs the genre to return as strong as before, and the audience is there waiting for it. In the meantime, I'm going to watch every episode of BBT that I can.

MY THEORY ON SECOND TV SHOWS IS WRONG

For years I've had a theory that a TV network or TV studio should never greenlight a writer's 2nd series idea. It was the TV writer's 2nd concept that became a hit TV series. If the first idea for a show was any good, then that would have become the hit TV show. Inevitbly, once their second series was a hit, everything they must have written prior will also become a hit. Because lightning always strikes twice on network TV. Now, there is a new generation of TV producers who second series after their first hit show is actually a far better series and a bigger hit than the first hit show.

My first example is GOSSIP GIRL. Neophyte TV producers Josh Schwartz & Stephanie Savage had a huge hit show on their hands right out of the box with THE O.C. in 2003. Like 90210 before it, the show was a hit on FOX, and made all of its young actors into TV stars (which had not happened to teen actors without a WB Network show). Unfortunately THE O.C. was not done in by storylines, but by scheduling. FOX tried the series out in a new day and time period every year, and always had baseball getting in the way of audience flow. Sadly, it's fickle teen audience could never find it and online viewing had yet to gain any traction with teen consumers. Then in 2007, after the demise of THE O.C., the same duo came back with 2 new series GOSSIP GIRL & CHUCK. (I'm sure CHUCK is a good show, it's just not my type of show). GOSSIP GIRL 's first season, like THE O.C. before it, made TV stars out of its unknown cast. The writing on the first season was compelling, but in the second season, the writing has only gotten better. GG was very good last season, this season, they're making it great television.

My second case is my new favorite TV show, THE MENTALIST. It's another well written, compelling, often times comical procedural drama, with a great cast. THE MENTALIST is TV producer Bruno Heller's second series, the first being HBO's ROME. ROME was epic HBO television at its best. In fact, in an interesting TV paralell, when it cancelled ROME and THE SOPRANOS went off the air, HBO has never fully recovered the TV crown it lost since then. THE MENTALIST is the only new hit series of the 2008/2009 season. For those of you who are fans of the show, I think Red John is really the head of the CBI unit, Minelli. This episode he "conveniently" went to visit his sick sister, he can break into the DOJ's computer system, and he does seem to always be on step ahead of Patrick Jane. Red John is a serial killer for the 21st century.

I consider writers to be artists of the highest caliber. I love it when they are able to not only be successful, but to build on that success. That is the heart of true talent. Anyone can be a one hit wonder, but can you be a 2 hit wonder? GG & THE MENTALIST have built on their already successful predecessors. Without hesitation I would produce Mr. Heller or Mr. Schwartz's next series. Let's see if lightning can strike 3 times.

UPDATE: TRUE BLOOD is the second show from SIX FEET UNDER creator Alan Ball.