Bernard Landry writes

By Martin Patriquin - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 6:24 PM - 6 Comments

Bernard Landry dropped me a note a couple of weeks ago. There’s nothing particularly extraordinary about the former Quebec Premier publicly speaking out about something or other (it’s undoubtedly the source of many headaches for Pauline Marois); what is interesting is that he would do so to a designated Anglo journalist whose opinion, you’d think, would mean bupkis to him. That said, I’ve interviewed him before, and we once had a 10 minute conversation entirely in English outside the Gazette offices on St. Catherine. (I kept looking around for fear that it was part of some elaborate Just For Laughs gag.) Suffice to say he’s approachable and great with a quote, which is always nice for a person in my line of work.

As it happens, Landry took issue with how I used one of his more infamous quotations in a blog post about Sun News. (You’ll find it here. Hey Brian! Great Hair!) Referring to the wee shell game Quebecor plays with its news brands—ultra-patriotic outside of Quebec, fleur-de-lys blue nationalist at home—I wrote the following: “Hell, even former premier Bernard Landry, the man who once compared the Canadian flag to a ‘red rag,’ once wrote for Quebecor—before his union sympathies got the better of him and he gave up his column during the Journal de Montréal lockout in 2009.”

Landry took issue with my translation of “red rag”, and accused the English Canadian press corp of ignorance and bad faith. Ayoye.

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‘We’re not quite staring down the barrel. But the pattern is clear’

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 6:04 PM - 7 Comments

The prepared text of British Prime Minister David Cameron’s speech to Parliament this evening.

Mr Speaker, Mr Speaker of the Senate, Mr Prime Minister, Hon Members of the Senate and Members of the House of Commons…

Je vous remercie du grand honneur que vous me faites en m’invitant a m’exprimer devant ce parlement historique.

I want to begin, in this place, by paying tribute to Jack Layton and I offer sincere condolences to Olivia and his family. His energy and optimism were above politics, and I know he will be missed by all those who serve here.

One of the things I am finding about this job is that whichever countries I visit, members of the Royal family have got there first.

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How much is your vote worth?

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 5:08 PM - 22 Comments

Mike Moffatt figures some minorities are underrepresented by the current electoral map.

My question to you is: Given the other tensions the electoral system needs to consider, how much under-representation is acceptable? Is it acceptable for the vote from a “West Asian” be worth 95% of an average Canadian? 90%? 80%? 70%?  Where is the cut-off?

The Commons: A fishing story

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 3:19 PM - 8 Comments

The Scene. Peter MacKay, as is his habit, was up before the questioner was even through. This is, presumably, what the Defence Minister does to demonstrate confidence. Or impatience. Or a general disregard for proper manners.

The poser of the question in this case was Scott Simms, the diminutive Liberal from Bonavist-Gander-Grand Falls-Windsor. “Mr. Speaker, we now know, with great regret, that the Minister of National Defence ordered his search and rescue helicopter to pick him up from his vacation on the Gander River,” he lamented. “The response is ‘It was a demonstration of their capabilities.’”

There was much groaning and grumbling from the government side.

“He feels that he is entitled to use vital life-saving equipment for his own personal limousine, and we would like for him to answer to it,” Mr. Simms continued. “The Prime Minister has suggested that the chief of defence staff pay back the money for his personal flights. Will the Minister of Defence do that same, pay back the $16,000 and apologize?”

As noted, Mr. MacKay was already up, apparently eager to state his case. Continue…

Abortion: Harper’s vigilant global audience

By Paul Wells - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 2:34 PM - 99 Comments

The CBC is reporting that the federal government is providing funding to Planned Parenthood Canada, after a delay of a year and a half, and only for projects that do not advocate or provide abortion, and only in countries where abortion is usually illegal.

LifeSiteNews, a leading social-conservative website, isn’t assuaged. LifeSite figures any money to Planned Parenthood is money for an “abortion giant,” and that’s enough to make it worth criticizing. Note that the “contact information” at the bottom of the story doesn’t tell you how to contact the reporter, as is the case with, say, Bloomberg. No, it’s addresses and numbers for the Prime Minister, his CIDA minister and for social-conservative MP Brad Trost. LifeSite is telling its readers where to apply pressure to make sure its transgressions against anti-abortion politics go no further. Continue…

A Dangerous Method

By Brian D. Johnson - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 1:53 PM - 0 Comments

A Dangerous Method

Michael Fassbender stars as a mild-mannered Carl Jung, who graduates from treating his barking-mad Russian patient (Keira Knightley) to paddling her bare bottom in an adulterous affair. Despite that kinky interlude, given that it’s directed by David Cronenberg, the most shocking thing about this elegant biopic is that it’s not shocking. Scripted by Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons), it unfolds as a loquacious essay on the origins of psychoanalysis—enlivened by some wry repartee from Viggo Mortensen, who steals every scene as Sigmund Freud, and gets more mileage out of a cigar than anyone since Groucho Marx. Vincent Cassel adds some rich diversion as radical psychoanalyst Otto Gross, who believes in indulging erotic impulses regardless of their propriety, and goads Jung into betraying his wife (played with China-doll poise by Canadian newcomer Sarah Gadon.

Funding Planned Parenthood, but not abortion

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 1:14 PM - 18 Comments

A few months ago, Conservative MP Brad Trost was boasting that the government had “defunded” Planned Parenthood. But after more than a year of public waffling, the CBC reports that the government is about to approve funding for the group.

International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda has decided to approve a proposal by the International Planned Parenthood Federation to provide sex education and contraception in five developing countries…

The proposal gets around the thorny issue of abortion by asking for money for sex education and contraception services, and does not include abortion services. The funding is worth $6 million over three years for Planned Parenthood to work in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mali, Sudan and Tanzania, where abortions are illegal except in cases where the mother’s life is at risk.

Pakistan’s ISI supported Kabul attacks: US admiral

By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 12:36 PM - 2 Comments

The senior-most military officer in the United States has accused Pakistan’s intelligence agency of supporting last week’s attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. Adm. Mike Mullen, speaking to a panel of American senators, said the Haqqani network that carried out the attack is “a veritable arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency.” Pakistan has firmly denied the alleged connection, saying that Mullen’s statement was “irresponsible.” At least 25 people died during the Sept. 22 attack, including 11 civilians. The ordeal lasted 20 hours, as insurgents attacked NATO headquarters and the U.S. embassy in Kabul. Mullen also told the Senate panel that there is “credible intelligence” suggesting the Haqqani network was also behind the high profile attack on Kabul’s Intercontinental hotel in June. The Haqqani network has close ties to the Taliban in Afghanistan, but is thought to have roots inside Pakistani territory.

Georgia executes Troy Davis

By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 12:33 PM - 6 Comments

Troy Davis, a convicted murderer who many had come to believe was innocent, was executed by lethal injection at a prison in Georgia Wednesday. Davis’s case galvanized opponents of the death penalty. No physical evidence linked to him to the killing of police officer Mark MacPhail outside a Burger King in Savannah, Georgia in 1989. Most of the witnesses who fingered him for his crime have since recanted their testimony. Nonetheless, attempts by Davis’s lawyers to reopen the case failed. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court declined to hear a final appeal. Davis was put to death at 11:08 local time.

Reuters

A Little Post-Zombie Discussion

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 12:30 PM - 2 Comments

AMC is making good on its threat, I mean promise, to create a half-hour discussion show to follow episodes of “The Walking Dead.” Now, while my inclination is to mock this idea (“The Mocking Dead?”), I can see the point of it. Networks need cheap programming, as I said, and this is a type of cheap programming that is a little different from the regular reality show, and ties in with the more prestigious world of scripted TV. In an era when online discussion has made us want to talk about shows in depth, this is a way for a network to get in on that: instead of going online to find out what happened and why, we can stick around and find out from insiders. And because there’s a feeling that we’re all going to be moving from DVDs to streaming (Netflix sure wants us to) the “making-of” extra will no longer be as valuable as it was during the TV on DVD boom; maybe it makes more sense to actually program these segments and sell commercial time on them.

Now, the mockable stuff – well, you probably noticed most of that. There’s the name, “The Talking Dead.” Most of all, there’s the lack of likelihood that this kind of thing can really be a venue for serious discussion. With a show as flawed as The Walking Dead, there are lots of things that can be brought up, but even if the show takes some cutting questions from fans, there won’t be much they can say. This is why most DVD “making-of” extras aren’t very enlightening: everyone somehow manages to tell us that everything was great, everyone did a great job, they got exactly the cast they wanted, and so on. If “The Talking Dead” turns out to be something more hard-hitting or in-depth, that would be interesting – but if you were a network executive, would you let insiders say stuff that might negatively affect the success of the show? More than that, if you were an insider, would you want to say stuff like that? I just don’t see how, whether Walking Dead‘s second season is good or bad, the discussion show could be more than a glorified DVD extra every week. Maybe it’ll prove me wrong and re-invent the whole genre of self-produced criticism; but the odds are against it.

It also brings to mind one of Monty Python’s suggested endings for an episode (at about 1:30 in this clip) – if you don’t have an ending, get two big match experts to sit down in the studio and say what they thought about what we’ve just seen. “What about summing up from the panel? That’s cheap.” Yes, it is.

National Assembly passes controversial Quebec City arena bill

By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 12:26 PM - 2 Comments

Quebec City has moved one step closer to getting an NHL hockey team Wednesday after the provincial government passed a controversial bill designed to shield the city’s new arena from legal challenge. Bill 204 declares the city’s deal with media giants Quebecor to run the arena legal. It aims to pre-empt any lawsuits challenging the status of the partnership. Debate over the bill exposed deep rifts in the Parti Québécois. Five MNAs left the party over the issue. The NHL has not promised Quebec another team.

CBC News

Peter MacKay “rescued” from fishing lodge

By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 12:18 PM - 3 Comments

One of Newfoundland’s three search and rescue helicopters was used to pick Defence Minister Peter MacKay up from a private fishing lodge last July, CTV reports. MacKay’s office says the trip was used as a demonstration of the fleet’s search and rescue capabilities. Military sources say no demonstration was planned until MacKay requested the lift. The story comes one week after it was reported that Gen. Walter Natynczyk used a government jet to meet his family on a Caribbean vacation.

CTV News

Week in Pictures: September 19th – 25th 2011

By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 12:13 PM - 0 Comments

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Week in Pictures: September 19th – 25th 2011

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Oktoberfest in Munich

A long time exposure shows visitors riding a ferris wheel at dusk during the first day of the Munich Oktoberfest on Sept. 17, 2011. The world's biggest beer festival in Germany runs until October 3. (REUTERS/Michael Dalder)

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Next Nadal serves one up

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Israel, Palestine and Brian Topp

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 11:35 AM - 36 Comments

A day after laying out his position on the Keystone pipeline, the NDP leadership contender lectures the Prime Minister on Middle East policy.

We can be friends of the friends of peace, on both sides. In stark contrast to the policy of the Harper government, which currently aims in the opposite direction. Which brings us to the question of the recognition of Palestine in some form by the United Nations.

The details will matter. Perhaps the Palestinians will overplay their hand at the United Nations in coming weeks or months, and make it impossible to help them – not for the first time.

But on the fundamental issue of recognition of a Palestinian state, as a step towards a peace in which both it and Israel live free from terror and violence, in recognized borders and at peace with all of their neighbors, it would be right for Canada to stand with most of the world. And to recognize Palestine.

British PM to visit Canada

By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 11:33 AM - 0 Comments

British Prime Minister David Cameron is making his first solo visit to Canada Thursday, when he will be flying to Ottawa after making a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York. Cameron will meet privately with Prime Minister Stephen Harper before addressing the House of Commons, a regular occurrence for the leaders of countries with close relations to Canada. Cameron was in Toronto last year to participate in the G20 Summit. It is expected that the two prime ministers will discuss issues such as the flagging European economy and the ongoing NATO mission in Libya.

CTV News

Global markets take big hit

By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 11:21 AM - 0 Comments

Markets all over the world shed points Thursday as the euro zone debt crisis continued to chip away at investor confidence. The euro zone economy is on the brink of recession as markets fell into one of their sharpest declines of the year on Thursday, the Globe and Mail reports. Europe’s FTSE 100 fell more than 4 per cent by mid-afternoon local time, while in North America, the TSX, S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average all fell sharply in early trading. In Europe, investors are uneasy that the economy can weather the prospect of a Greek debt default at the same time as the wider economic recovery grinds to a halt. The European Union’s financial services commissioner told France’s Le Figaro that he can’t rule out the need to bail out European banks as the possibility of another recession in Europe begins to look more realistic. As markets tumbled significantly, people in Greece were mobilizing against austerity measures that have been imposed by the country’s creditors, the IMF, European Central Bank and European Commission. Athens faced a 24-hour transportation strike on Thursday, while demonstrators planned a protest outside the Greek legislature later in the day. Many Greeks are blaming the austerity program for perpetuating the country’s economic collapse. Unemployment there continues to rise as government spending falls and taxation levels increase in an effort to balance the Greek budget.

The Globe and Mail

Don’t Forget the Budget

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 10:35 AM - 0 Comments

One thing about “Louie” that has a lot of people excited is that it seems like it could finally be the breakthrough when it comes to making scripted television very cheaply – maybe not as cheap as reality shows, but cheap enough that networks might not automatically turn to reality if they need an inexpensive program. Now, there are several caveats here. The quickest way to drive down costs is to make things as bad for scripted crews as they are for reality crews; “Louie” apparently works under union guidelines (cutting deals to pay as little as the union will allow), so I’m not talking about that show, just the possible future of cheap scripted TV. Whatever agreement they’re covered by, TV shows tend to hold down costs the way everyone holds down costs: longer hours for fewer technicians. You could see network executives pointing to “Louie” and demanding that other shows work as cheaply as that (or somewhere near it) without the special circumstances that allow that show to get away with it.

Those special circumstances include the fact that it is mostly a one-man operation, which cuts down on the costs of hiring writers, directors, regular cast members; it also may cut down on little expenses that add up (like perhaps making it simpler to schedule: Louis CK is in virtually every scene, and usually tries not to have too many other actors in the scene, so he can schedule around the availability of relatively few people). But I don’t doubt that other shows will try it. In fact, this is the first real success in a long-standing FX network strategy of trying to find a very economical way of producing TV.

The network already tried it with “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia,” but while it was eventually a success as a show, it was a failure as a money-saver: the extremely cheap first season didn’t make much noise, and so the show was retooled with a bigger name in the regular cast (Danny DeVito) and a more normal budget. With “Louie,” FX’s John Landgraf finally figured out how to put together a show that cost very little money and had big names in the cast (mostly as guest stars) and could get attention without the necessity of raising the budget to regular TV levels.

I don’t know that this will work for other shows, artistically I mean, because while I’m on the record as believing in cheap comedy (huge budgets don’t always help comedy, particularly since it encourages the directors to shoot too much footage and rely too heavily on editing), most shows probably need a bigger baseline budget than “Louie”‘s. But the show does at least demonstrate what has been true since the silent film days: it can be good for a comedian to make his own films, or at least learn all the facets of the filmmaking business – writing, directing, editing. Because while “indie” scripted TV may not take off, cable networks are clearly on the hunt for this kind of thing. Making a TV show is more expensive than ever for a studio, but easier than ever for one person who knows where to get the equipment. These things could be coming together.

Who’s out, who’s being encouraged to get in

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 10:31 AM - 6 Comments

Libby Davies has decided not to run for the NDP leadership. Peter Julian hasn’t announced a decision, but he picked up two more endorsements yesterday from within the NDP caucus: MPs Isabelle Morin and Kennedy Stewart.

That gives Mr. Julian four MPs (Morin, Stewart, Brian Masse and Rathika Sitsabaiesan). Thomas Mulcair has the endorsements of eight MPs (Robert Aubin, Francois Lapointe, Jamie Nicholls, Marie-Claude Morin, Alexandrine Latendresse, Pierre Nantel, Claude Patry and Marc-Andre Morin). Brian Topp has the public support of one (Francoise Boivin).

More on “house arrests”: stats and stories

By John Geddes - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 9:53 AM - 30 Comments

When Justice Minister Rob Nicholson unveiled the government’s crime legislation earlier this week, I asked his department for information to support one aspect of the complex bill—the move to stop judges from handing down “house arrest” sentences for a raft of crimes.

The background documents released with the legislation highlighted the need to prevent judges from issuing these conditional sentences—which allow convicted criminals to serve time in the community with restrictions, rather than behind bars—for serious offences such as manslaughter, arson and fraud over $5,000.

I had hoped Justice Canada or Nicholson’s political staff would give me some sort of analysis of sentencing patterns to show why he believes courts are coddling dangerous criminals with this particular form of light punishment. Instead, the department merely passed along data from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, showing how often judges hand down house arrest sentences for certain crimes.

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‘Same heart and same values’

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 9:45 AM - 1 Comment

The Prime Minister and Benjamin Netanyahu exchange greetings in New York.

During the brief photo op, the two men both said the solution to the Israel-Palestinian impasse lies in a resumption of two-way peace talks, not a United Nations declaration of statehood for Palestine.

“We know that nobody wants this more than our friends in Canada and our friend, the prime minister of Canada,” said Netanyahu. “I want to say Stephen, we have a lot in common.” The Israeli leader added: “Same heart and same values. And that I say with great appreciation for your stance, for your conviction, for your friendship.”

Despite some previous consternation over Lawrence Cannon’s choice of words, Canada still officially opposes Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. Embassy magazine looked at that and other issues last year in a fairly extensive review of Harper government policy in regard to Israel.

A cheese so good people ‘attack’ it

By Pamela Cuthbert - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 9:20 AM - 0 Comments

Photography by Andrew Tolson

I was at a bustling food fair in Italy when a cheese stopped me in my tracks. All other enticements—white truffles, rare molluscs, champagne—blurred into the background. Gouda would never be the same again.

That’s right, the stuff we know as “goo-duh”—mild, adaptable and as inexpensive as it is unremarkable—is having its potential pushed to extremes through aging processes: the rewards can turn out an ultimate taste experience that packs a punch of caramel, coffee and salt—or, if taken too far or mishandled, a wax-like inedible waste.

Afrim Pristine of Cheese Boutique in Toronto started importing, and then aging, a farmstead Gouda (meaning the milk is sourced from the family farm) from the family-owned Lindenhoff label after trying it with his dad at an international show. “We had a taste,” he says. “And then we freaked out!” He set out to see if he could buy up all of their supply. His cellar today is stocked with hundreds of the 11-kilo wheels. “In my opinion, this is one of the top five cheeses on the planet.”

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When someone close drinks too much

By Julia McKinnell - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 9:10 AM - 0 Comments

Robert Clare/Getty Images

Sometimes a person’s drinking problem gets so out of hand the spouse of the drinker starts to secretly wish the drinker would die. Helen and Edmund Tirbutt, the husband-and-wife authors of Help Them Beat The Booze: How to Survive Life with a Problem Drinker, recognize the sentiment: “There’s no need to feel guilty if you’ve experienced such thoughts because they are extremely common amongst people in your situation. It isn’t easy. We know. We’ve been there.”

Edmund Tirbutt gave up drinking 24 years ago. Helen stopped five years ago. “We prefer to talk about people having ‘drink problems’ rather than being alcoholics because we feel there is less scope for ambiguity,” they write. “The term alcoholic can provide those who are in denial about their drinking a convenient get-out clause, because they can always think of a reason why they are not an alcoholic, unless they are actually sleeping on a park bench.”

In a phone interview with Maclean’s from her home in Kent, England, Helen Tirbutt explained why she and her husband wrote the book. “Ironically, even though Edmund had had a drinking problem, we really didn’t know how to help our friend,” she said, referring to the death of a young alcoholic they knew. “We didn’t understand the AA program. We didn’t understand withdrawal. We didn’t know where to go for help. GPs often can’t help you.”

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Giving up to a U.S. invader in France

By Patricia Treble - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 8:50 AM - 0 Comments

John Lawrence/The Travel Library/CP

The canopy of plane trees that guard the banks of France’s Canal du Midi have created such scenic vistas that UNESCO calls it a “work of art.” Now that beauty is under threat by an invasive fungus in what President Nicolas Sarkozy calls “a great tragedy.”

For five years, officials have tried to contain Ceratocystis platani—believed to have arrived on wooden American ammunition boxes during the Second World War—by cutting and burning diseased trees plus the surrounding healthy ones. But the disease kept spreading along the historic canal, a 360-km network of waterways built in the 17th century to connect the Mediterranean with the Atlantic.

Now France has admitted defeat. It will fell all 40,000 trees. The chopping and replanting with resistant varieties, costing an estimated $300 million, will be carried out gradually to avoid leaving bald spots on the waterway’s banks. However, it will be decades, if not centuries, before the new trees are mature enough to recreate the magical views.

Can sci-fi be saved?

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, September 22, 2011 at 8:50 AM - 2 Comments

Brook Rushton/FOX; ABC/Getty; Archive Photos/Getty; USA Cable Entertainment LLC/Keystone

Seeing the kind of publicity buildup Fox is giving to Terra Nova (premiering Sept. 26 on CityTV), you might think it was the last hope for science fiction on network television—and maybe it is. The show is about a family from a dystopian future that escapes to a prehistoric past, complete with CGI dinosaur fights and hints about hidden conspiracies. The network has high hopes for it: Landon Liboiron (Degrassi), who plays a rebellious teenage son, told Maclean’s the network has made the publicity into “a huge thing.” There’s a special sense of urgency surrounding both this show and the same network’s Alcatraz, from J.J. Abrams (Lost) about mysteriously ageless prison escapees. Every season there’s a science fiction show from a broadcast network that is supposed to be a big hit like Lost, or the drama that made Fox’s reputation, The X-Files, but it’s been years since any of them worked. If audiences reject this year’s sci-fi shows, it might be taken as a sign that no matter how much money a network spends, sci-fi isn’t mainstream anymore.

In the last few years, sci-fi movies like Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Avatar have been big hits. But television has been another story. “It’s really bizarre,” says Jeff Pinkner, a showrunner on Abrams’s Fringe (in which an FBI-led team investigates unexplained phenomena), “People really want to accept it in a movie theatre, but on television, they’re like, I don’t know.” Ajay Fry, who covers science fiction as one of the hosts of Space’s InnerSPACE show, thinks the networks have been “too focused on trying to create something ‘like’ Lost or ‘like’ Battlestar Galactica,” and the result has been a lot of expensive, highly hyped failures. Some of those failures were original creations like last season’s The Event, a wildly promoted drama about a huge mystery involving aliens. Others attempted to recreate the days when sci-fi was popular: ABC spent two seasons trying to get an audience for a new version of V, the ’80s invasion allegory. One long-running sci-fi show after another has retired with nothing much to replace it; the CW network’s Supernatural is the only remnant of the youth-oriented genre shows that were popular in the ’00s.

On cable, things brightened up this summer with Falling Skies, where ER’s Noah Wylie leads a resistance movement against alien oppressors. But other cable networks are cutting back on the genre: the Syfy network has introduced the dramas Warehouse 13 and Alphas, but also some inexpensive reality shows. And on highbrow cable networks, viewers seem more willing to accept fantasy shows than sci-fi. Game of Thrones and True Blood are two of the most popular shows on HBO, a network that does not program sci-fi. Ron Moore, creator of the revamped Battlestar Galactica, once told Entertainment Weekly that high-end audiences avoided his show because of the subject matter. “Science fiction sort of has a rap,” Pinkner adds. “We’re running against that as far as viewership goes.” Magic and vampires are in; alien conspiracies and futuristic devices are a harder sell.

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