hand me that broom over there.
I have no idea what the deal is. Honest.
Darin and I watched Anatomy of a Homicide on PBS last night. In case you missed it, it was a look at the making of one episode of Homicide--the subway episode from last year, starring Vincent D'Onofrio. The show went from the genesis of the idea (an installment of Taxicab Confessions), through the writing, through all of the network's notes, to arrangements of where they were going to film the show and find--oh, that's right--the guest star.
If I understood the show correctly, they finally got D'Onofrio about a day before filming was supposed to start. What amazing is, the show was so lauded and critically acclaimed that had they gotten a "name" star--sure, D'Onofrio's a name for me and Darin, but we aren't most people--the show would have been huge. (As I joked to Darin, David Duchovny desperately wants an Emmy, and he'll probably never get it for The X-Files, so...)
After the look at how the episode was made, they played the full episode with no breaks. I wasn't sure I could watch it again--it was terribly wrenching the first time. But I did and it was still great. Somebody cast Andre Braugher in the lead of a film already--that guy is so amazing.
Why is everything on at the same time this weekend?
Well, I know why. It's the same answer Darin and I always give one another, when we see an obnoxious news promo, like the one we saw last night.
"It's an addiction more deadly than cigarettes, than alcohol, than drugs. Meet people who are addicted...to sex!"
Darin and I started cracking up. Then one of us said, "Oh, that's right, it's November."
Sweeps month. A completely ridiculous construct, probably totally outdated in the world of 600 channels and VCRs. Made more ridiculous by the fact that stations and networks attempt to attract viewers (with the sole purpose of figuring out how much to charge per commercial minute) with fare that isn't representative of what the viewer's going to get the rest of the time.
So on Sunday we have the new Babylon 5 movie, River of Souls. Up against the season premiere of The X-Files. Up against the Law and Order movie with the return of Chris Noth.
We only have 2 VCRs. Thank goodness we have satellite, which shows us the shows broadcast during EST.
But! My friend Doris's episode of Profiler airs this Saturday at 10pm. It's supposed to be really good, it's airing during sweeps, she's my friend. Watch.
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Copyright 1998 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com