My wish list: Jaime Weinman on TV

By Jaime Weinman - Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 4:32 PM - 0 Comments

Macleans.ca has asked its leading bloggers, pundits and critics to weigh in with what they’d like to see in 2012—in politics, television, film, books, wherever. The wish lists will run throughout the month of December and will be archived at macleans.ca/wishlist.

There are many things I would like to see in television in 2012. More singing competition reality shows. More jokes about sexual organs. More cable dramas about morally-ambiguous protagonists. These things have become so rare. But here are some other things I might like to see.

(1) More action: Or at least less talk. A lot of shows this year set up premises that seem to call for lots of action and chases, like a bunch of people threatened by dinosaur attacks (Terra Nova), another bunch of people threatened by zombie attacks (The Walking Dead) or a couple of vigilantes fighting crime in a creepy illegal way (Person of Interest). But most of them seem to resolve themselves into a lot of talk and a few token action scenes thrown in when the producers sense that we’re getting bored by all the talking. Even the genuine action-adventure shows sometimes seem a bit light on the chases and stunts compared to the shows they’re homaging. Not that every show needs a car chase or an explosion in every act; this isn’t the ’80s. But sometimes it can be a blessing to take a break from the actors and watch stunt drivers instead. Let us just say that Person of Interest needs some heavy rewriting from the ghost of Stephen J. Cannell, or as I like to call him, TGOSJC.

(2) More hastily-scheduled shows: Continue…

My wish list: John Geddes on pundits, politicians and policy

By John Geddes - Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 4:32 PM - 14 Comments

Macleans.ca has asked its leading bloggers, pundits and critics to weigh in with what they’d like to see in 2012—in politics, television, film, books, wherever. The wish lists will run throughout the month of December and will be archived at macleans.ca/wishlist.

(1) When pundits, lobbyists, economists, former bureaucrats and retired politicians—along with sundry other commentators— decide to pronounce on the state of Canadian health care, I wish they would stop just saying it’s getting more expensive. We know the population is aging and demands on the system are increasing. No point repeating it over and over, unless you’re also offering concrete suggestions for reform.

(2) When cabinet ministers puff out their chests and declare that they are taking responsibility for dubious goings-on—blatant pork-barrel spending in their ridings, say, or failure by their departments to keep Parliament properly informed of costs—I wish they would actually take responsibility. Just speaking the words doesn’t make it so. They must say which bureaucrats or political staffers have been fired or demoted, or offer the prime minister their own resignations.

(3) I wish work on reforming the Senate would be abandoned and work on abolishing it taken up with gusto. Continue…

My wish list: Brian Bethune on books

By Brian Bethune - Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 12:49 PM - 1 Comment

Macleans.ca has asked its leading bloggers, pundits and critics to weigh in with what they’d like to see in 2012—in politics, television, film, books, wherever. The wish lists will run throughout the month of December and will be archived at macleans.ca/wishlist.

(1) According to journalistic adage, it takes three to make a trend, but there’s one trainee trend that ought to be nipped after two. In 201,1 two big-name authors released big-time follow-ups to the works of even bigger, but long dead, writers. P.D. James, now 91 but still smarter than most of us, wrote Death Comes to Pemberley, featuring most of the cast of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (and a handful of other Austen characters), while Anthony Horowitz channeled Arthur Conan Doyle and the gaslit world of Sherlock Holmes right through The House of Silk. Both living writers produced admirably—quality isn’t the problem here, rather it’s the unlikelihood anyone else will do as well. That goes for James and Horowitz too, as the latter is well aware. “I wouldn’t want to be that guy,” he allows, “the one about whom people say, ‘He wrote another of those too, but it wasn’t as good.’”

(2) Back in 1944 Raymond Chandler famously wished for more of the sort of (fictional) murderers who “commit it for reasons, not just to provide a corpse.” Continue…