STARZ's "Boss" and "Once Upon A Time"

Consider this a "tip of the hat, wag of the finger" style post.

The tip of the hat goes to "Boss", a new serial on STARZ. The show follows Kelsey Grammer as Tom Kane, a fictional "boss" mayor of Chicago who suffers from a degenerative neurological disorder. Only his physician knows; the rest of his team and family are too busy with their own lives to notice that anything is out of the ordinary.

Everything about this show screams subtlety. The cinematography is simple, but effective; color correction and eye-pleasing special effects don't intend to shock but instead enhance the viewer's understanding of the show. It's really in the acting and the story where the series excels. Kathleen Robertson plays it professional and sexy as Kitty O'Neil, Kane's aide, and Jeff Hephner plays Ben Zajac, Illinois governor hopeful, whose ambition bleeds through his suit so heavily you'd need to run after him with a towel to wipe it all up.

It's a great show with standards that most showrunners live to strive for. It stands in contrast to Once Upon A Time, a show where so many insane things are happening at once that it's hard to keep up with what's what.

Unlike Boss, which relies heavily on the realistic storytelling and minuscule intensity, Once Upon A Time takes no issue with going overboard on the fantastic. The production value in the show is catastrophic. That's not a bad thing; it's just that there's so much of it that it's hard to believe that ABC would let a show like this air. On second thought, they did have Pushing Daisies, which was also a pretty quirky show. So there's that.

But where Once Upon A Time fails is in its story. It's just a mish-mosh of fairy tales spliced together in some hackneyed attempt of a grown-up Disney story, mixed in with a little bit of reality to give the show some backbone. None of the characters have a real third dimension; by that, I mean that they are fully-formed, but not to the degree of absolute completion. It's as if all of the ingredients for a good character are there, but they haven't yet blended together to create that awesome character smoothie that I can easily digest.

And because the writing doesn't quite cut it, the entire show comes across as a lumpy mess of a fantasy series that doesn't quite sit well in my stomach.

I'd recommend both this and Boss anyway, just because it's up to you to decide what you like. And if neither of these shows seems like your cup of tea, there's always NBC Thursdays.

Once Upon A Time

Once Upon A Time is a new show that premiered Sunday, October 23 to a magical 12.8 million viewers. I was intrigued to watch this show for many reasons two of which were the amazing cast and the fact that it is penned by the writers of the old show Lost. The fact that it was a modern spin on fairy-tales made it every more intriguing, but did give it a slight bit of doubt to see if they weren't just making a giant cliche. I later found out that an Ithaca College's alum (Liz Tigelaar, who I admire) was listed as a consulting producer and that made me even more excited to watch it.

Overall, I think it is safe to say that this show had a great premiere. It had the second highest viewers on a Sunday night while there was football and the World Series. I think that many of those millions who sat and watched the show agree that it lived up to it's hype. The show was suspenseful, had a nice hook, had great costumes, and great acting. The only thing that could have been better in my opinion, was the special effects....but hey getting great special effects on a TV budget is hard....or maybe it was the fact I was watching it on my computer. I look forward to seeing where this enchanting show goes and hope they live up to their current ratings.

Public Domain

As creators of media we deal with copyright law and public domain very often. At a student level it can be as simple as finding a good royalty free song or sound effect. But this can make or break a television studio.

This October break I drove to Burlington Vermont to visit a friend at UVM. It’s a 5-hour drive through a lot of radio dead spots, but while seeking through the stations I found an NPR story about television I found interesting. The program started by quoting television exec’s that fantasized about how great it would be to create a Twilight or Harry Potter television show. The royalty’s would be ridiculous and obviously impossible. The program then quoted the creator’s of the new television show Grimm asking “What can we do that is in public domain?”

I actually found the exact radio program again and you can read it or listen to it here. The two shows talked about in the show are Grimm and Once Upon a Time.

But this whole issue brings up a controversial point, why pay writers or creators when you can take a public domain story that has already been created for free, a story that has already been widely accepted and praised by the public. Snow White, The Three Musketeers, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, The Bible. The list goes on and on.