Please enjoy.  I directed the first two, and wrote the third.

Whatever your politics, few would accuse FOX news of actual journalism.  (Nor, any more, does MSNBC deserve the right to the word “news.”) Kudos to them, I guess, for being entertaining/”informative” enough to maintain eyeballs and make a buck.

But, man… The above theatrics from last week features the standard untruthful and inflammatory nature: “operate in a manner opposing my philosophy” I guess is the new definition of “disenfranchise.”  Yet amidst the bloviating, what really offends my sensibilities is Beck’s horrible “comedic” style.  (Sorry to use so many quotation marks, but this issue seems to beg them.  Am I wrong?  He thinks he’s funny, right?)

Here then, some advice to Mr. Beck from a comedy writer:

• If you’ve only got one joke, you don’t milk it a half a dozen times.  You get in and get out.  Or, ideally, you write some more jokes.  Your sarcasm about Cuba was the best writing.  Notice, no gas can.
• Don’t tip your hand and spoil your illusion.  I guess if you need to remind us it’s only water, for lawyers’ sake, then fine, have the little cartoon happen.  But lose the big white sign reading, ‘water’ from the canister.  It’s redundant.  Either way, you’re removing the steam from your gag; getting matches became pointless.
• Instead, douse your poor chump once at the beginning, really well, as you list offenses.  Get all the comedy from that moment possible, all at once.  THEN, spend the rest of your rant waving around a barbecue lighter as the chump cringes in fear that you’ll oafishly get close enough to ignite him.  See how much funnier that is already?  Plus, you drive home your point of carelessness in government.  THEN remind us it was only water, AFTER the whole gag is over.
• Don’t confuse your metaphor.  Is the chump uncomfortable because it’s gasoline, or because it’s cold?
• “We can disagree on policies… but some of us don’t agree on the policies.”  Huh?
• Really?  Slavery?
• Your landing needs work.  Calling for “and end to the games” doesn’t make sense, y’know… in the middle of a game.  Try a callback to your earlier gag, such as finally actually lighting your chump on fire.  You calm down, the threat of ignition is over, the chump exhales his relief but then you accidentally light him on fire.  Now, as he runs screaming in pain via whatever comedic special effect you’d like, or offscreen with sound effects, you drive home your point that this is how much Obama cares about the average American.

See?  Fixing the comedy even stengthened your thesis.  Should you need any help, Mr. Beck, I hire out as a consultant.  To anyone.  (Although in full disclosure, you I would charge extra.)

Kings was rich in mythology, but slow.  After the groundwork in the first hour, it was the duplicity and intrigue that showed up in the second hour that offers the most promise that it’ll get good.

Castle was cute.  Not cute enough to add to my overfull list of shows I follow, but if it were my genre, I’d be interested.  Remember Moonlighting?  That’s what they’re setting in motion.

Better Off Ted has promise, especially in its rich overall tone, but didn’t deliver the funny in the pilot.  This may have been a case of all the funniest jokes being spoiled by the trailers.

Scrubs phoned it in.  Sigh.

Lost was a serious filler episode.  Some of the latest big questions seem like contrivances just to make plot happen.  (Why did Sun land thirty years in the future?  Why was Sayid miles from the landing point of Jack, Hurley, and Kate?)

Dollhouse got better. Not awesome yet, but markedly better.

The Battlestar finale was a loveable trainwreck.  The structure of the two-hours was all over the place, and there was a whole lot that was unsatisfying.  But, like in most of the series, you didn’t care about logic or unresolved questions as much as you cared about this cool Art taking place before your eyes.  Mary McDonald is a fantastic actor, and Edward James Olmos made me cry.

In the case of Lost, that number would be about 5% of an average live broadcast audience.  And since it’s spread over an entire month, really it’s a drop in the bucket.  However, let us remember a couple of things.  First, these figures don’t include sites like Hulu.com.  As far as I am concerned, Hulu features a viewing experience far preferable to any of the network sites, and in cases where it doesn’t just forward the viewer to the network, is probably representative of a comparable number of views.  Meanwhile, in December when these measurements were taken… Lost wasn’t on yet!  The numbers reflect people getting excited to remember all the plot twists before the show returned in January.  We should expect January numbers to be much higher, and February (which would be the first month to have a new episode each Wednesday) to be higher still.

Now recall that, per the 2008 strike settlement, writers make zero dollars during the first seventeen days following network broadcast.  The studios claimed they needed a “promotional” period (never mind that the “promotional” period follows the broadcast…)  They claimed revenues currently are so small that they cannot possibly share.  It is far too early, they said, to know how the internet will play out, or to discuss paying any money to the people who created the content they’re using to forge a new revenue stream for themselves.  Well, I caught Grey’s via the net recently, and I watched Jack-in-the-Box wheeled into a hospital multiple times.  I not only didn’t (couldn’t) fast forward through the commercials like on my TiVo, but–due to the obnoxious repetetiveness–I still remember what the commercial was for, a week later, and I sorta feel like having a Meaty Breakfast Burrito.  Someone made some money, and the writers deserve a percentage.  It doesn’t matter if that percentage is small, but it does matter that there’s a percentage.

Joss Whedon recently spoke about the economics of  Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a pioneering effort to develop new content for the internet, and to redefine the business model of production.  In a Wharton interview, he summed up the strike’s results nicely:

We can’t accept anything remotely like [our current situation] with the studios.

When the studios talk about the difficulty of monetizing the Internet, they’re not lying. There are a lot of paradigms wherein you aren’t making that much money. But it’s all pure money for them because they have these libraries they can just put on. They’re really not interested in putting on original stuff because they can just throw the libraries on and make free money off of that. None of us is in that position.

For [the studios] not to offer the creative community a percentage of what they make — they say, “oh, it’s too difficult” and “we’re not going to make any money” — is disingenuous to the point of criminality. What they’re making is pure profit. For them to shut out the people who actually created the content is something that should be looked into by a federal investigatory committee.

That really says it all.  Whatever money you’re making, networks, share.

Dollhouse promises a rich mythology all of its own, apropos of a Joss Whedon story.  (Oops…)  The show centers around some super-secret corporation that hires out “actives” to the ultra-wealthy, providing them custom-built personnel perfect for handling extreme situations (or, it seems, dates.)  These agents literally get a new personality and skill set implanted in their brains, specially created for a mission, overwriting all previous memories.

But there are hints that the technology, the people, and the system behind everything are far from perfect.  The Dollhouse is under FBI investigation, its staff question the morality of what they’re doing, and trailer for the season promises us a rogue agent.  Some of the more interesting scenes in the show featured agents milling about in their blank state between missions, almost lacking in any personality at all.

In short, there are promises that we won’t only have pretty people and cool action, but also plenty of damage and consequence, exactly what one wants to see from a Joss Whe– uh… from a good pilot.

Production felt slick and together, as if we were in the middle of a series that had been on the air for a long time.  You might not have distinguished it from production design on the later years of Angel.  (I swear I’m trying, but the comparisons are hard not to make.  At least I’m not drooling, right?)  Many of the names in the credits will look familiar to Whedonverse fans, meaning there’s a team here ready to hit the ground running.

My main concern is casting.  For Dollhouse to maintain as a series, we’ll need hundreds of characters from Eliza Dushku.  She was perfect as Faith.  But her performance here didn’t have all the notes needed to put Dollhouse’s pilot on par with Buffy or Alias.  I wouldn’t say Duskhu’s not up for it. But  I will say she’ll need to grow as an actor. If there’s anyone who can make that happen, it’s Joss. I LOVE JOSS! GO, JOSS, GO!  Welcome back to TV, buddy!

Awww, dammit…

Best aspect: Hints at the rich fabric yet to come.  Particularly intriguing was Amy Acker’s subdued performance as a Dollhouse technician/doctor, her facial scars begging one to ask about the story behind them.

Worst aspect: The gratuitous titillation and obnoxious network packaging.  It was all a bit much, and certainly proof that FOX is a bit out of touch with the programming they’re offering.  (Please, please, FOX, don’t Firefly this show.) Dushku with Summer Glau reminding the camera that we’re in for Friday nights of ass-kicking hot girls insults the intelligence of the audience tuning in to these shows. (Never mind that ass-kicking hot girls IS half the reason that they… we… are tuned in.  Just don’t insult us!)

Verdict: Foregone conclusion that I’ll watch every episode.  The degree of difficulty here is ridiculously high, seemingly offering us characters with no consistency, by design.  How do I root for a protagonist whose emotional stakes are not her own?  But this is a writing team who knew the difficulties going in, so I’m betting we’re good.  Even if they fail miserably, watching will be worth my time.

Odds of success: Joss Whedon has a built-in audience of hard-core devoteds.  The Sci-Fi network (not to mention years of datelessness) have trained geeks that Friday night is their time for television.  Battlestar Galactica is on its last episodes, leaving that Friday night crowd looking for a place to land, and that Dollhouse is smartly paired with Sarah Connor Chronicles.  Meanwhile, FOX programming is now in the hands of Kevin Reilly, the same man who gave The Office and 30 Rock the time they needed to bloom over at NBC.  Bare minimum and most likely, we have the makings of a cult hit.

I’m impressed by how they managed to respect the original, and yet expand it in ways that acknowledge the show’s history and growth.

What do you think?