The Story of the Hole

Scene from The West Wing



20 December 2000  I remember this scene and this story.  Actually, I have never forgotten it.  The West Wing writers, Peter Parnell and Aaron Sorkin, adapted the story from an old Alcoholics Anonymous parable.  But I like how they expanded it to friendship more generally.
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Marketing is Not Dead

The forgotten art of an effective television commercial

Today, most British commercials are wholly uninspiring.  Like this, this, this, this, this, and this.  All currently running television campaigns and all dreadful.  I mean for the love of God:  Domin-oh-hoo-hoo.  What is that?  And notice the extremely light product focus in all of these commercials.

There is one Domino's commercial featuring a live hedgehog supposedly coming out of hibernation.  The unappetizing critter makes no sound, but the helpfully provided closed captioning offers his thoughts:  Dominos?  That's it, that's the whole commercial.  It is so bad that no one has added it to Youtube.

Then comes something else entirely.  Created by BBH (Bartle Bogle Hegarty), led by Creative Director, Felipe Serradourada Guimaraes.  Sure, it is an emotional appeal ad, but at the same time, it is entirely product focused.

Grok offers some background on the campaign.  Find the music here.

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Watching Yellowstone from the Philippines

Season Five Now Available

I enjoyed the first four seasons of Yellowstone.  But after watching season four, I heard Ben Shapiro talking about it.  He pointed out that the writing is abysmal.  And I thought to myself, that is exactly correct, and vowed that I was done with the show.  I have always thought that good writing is the hallmark of good television.  Yet, here I am again, watching season five, and enjoying it.

Why?

Well Taylor Sheridan's writing is a bit better this year.  But not so much better to make a difference.  Hey I get it, Sheridan is a busy man.  But if we, all of us, are not watching Yellowstone for the writing, why are we watching?

The acting?  It's good.  Maybe not exceptional, but certainly well above average.  The casting?  Well with one major exception, the casting is perfection.  The exception?  Kelly Reilly.  I don't find her credible in the role of Beth Dutton.  The Beth Dutton character is a wounded child of uninhibited chutzpah and intellectual gravitas.  Reilly just does not have the acting skills to pull it off.  And it is such an important role.  The role needs a young Jodie Foster type.  Perhaps a young Faye Dunaway.  I don't know enough about today's Hollywood that I can name a suitable alternate actress.  But you get the idea.  The cinematography?  Maybe.  But it's Montana; it's really hard to screw that up.  Overall, the production values are first rate.  In any case, none of this is why we are watching Yellowstone.

No, we watch Yellowstone for the atmosphere.

And what is the atmosphere of Yellowstone?  Well, let's start with what it is not.  It is not woke.  It has no left coast values.  In fact, the show berates Californians at every available opportunity.  It is not politically correct.  It is not vegan or vegetarian.  It is an extremely pro-environment show, but in a way that the so-called environmentalist posers, in their North Face parkas, hate.  The show does not highlight America's supposed racial problems.  Or feminist issues.  Or proper gender ideology.  There are no trans cowboys in the show and no one states their preferred pronouns.  Think Madam Secretary.  It is anti-government and certainly anti-bureaucracy.  The writers seem to understand what no one on the left does:  Government is, at best, a hindrance to the productive.

Yellowstone is pro family, pro private enterprise, and pro rural lifestyle.  Pro Second Amendment.  It is pro rancher, and yes it must be added, pro beef.  No wonder the left hates it.  I am surprised, but glad, to report that there is almost no religion in the show.  It would be impossible to label it Christian television.  It is just not a Christian show by any stretch of the imagination.  If anything, I guess you could call it secular conservative.  I think this is really beneficial because the Hollywood left cannot simply dismiss the show as mere Christian propaganda for the flyover philistines.

There is one other aspect to the atmosphere worth pointing out.  Today's novelists and other writers seem to have lost faith in their protagonists.  Every lead must have flaws and personal demons, and the story is as much about overcoming these internal issues as anything else.  Think House.  No doubt post modernists would describe this as more realistic.  Real life is not black and white.  The best example I have seen of this is the show Homeland, where the lead character is so encumbered with mental illness that she needs electric shock therapy.  Without denying the gray in everything, personally I think this has gone too far.  Sure, no one is truly all good or all bad.  But for Christ's sake it is also not realistic that our CIA operatives undergo ECT between assignments.

Without such nonsense, Yellowstone is just more fun to watch.

In short, it is everything that our contemporary bien-pensants hate.  I think it is a miracle that a production of this type can even be made today.

So I encourage you to watch Yellowstone...for the atmosphere.  You won't find it anywhere else.

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Unforgotten, Series Four

Excellent television.  I had to upgrade my VPN to watch.  This is not to be missed.

But I don't understand the need...

Spoiler after the jump....

Honour

The Sublime Keeley Hawes

I have been a huge fan of Keeley Hawes since The Durrells in Corfu.  In this performance, I think she proves that she is one of the finest actors working today.  The Guardian's Chitra Ramaswamy calls Hawes' performance a study in controlled anguish.  But she only gave the movie four out of five stars.  That may well be correct, but Hawes' performance is sublime.

Highly recommended.  Find it on Britbox, Amazon, or Apple TV.

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Fauda on Netflix

If you have not seen the Israeli series Fauda, on Netflix, you are missing some of the best television of the last few years.  It is mesmerizing and difficult to watch at the same time.
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A la Carte Cable Television Pricing in Three Steps

Working Theory

What follows is a thought experiment based on the theory that if you do not charge cable customers for any channels that they do not want, they will in turn be willing and able to pay more for the channels they do want.

Step One

Make ESPN a premium channel.  To make this explanation a bit easier, let's just say, it's $10 per month (for all the ESPN channels as a bundle).  But I think it could easily be less.

No, this would not increase your monthly bill under this plan (keep reading).

Step Two

Offer a required Basic Tier with any five non-premium channels, selected by the customer, for $20 per month.  This tier would also include all local and public-access channels.

Step Three

Offer each additional non-premium channel for $1.00 per month.  Channels can be added and dropped online with, say, 30 days notice.

Examples

ESPN Customers

So the minimum cable bill would be $20 per month.  If you are an ESPN junkie, and let's take the extreme case - you watch little else - then your bill would be $30 per month.  And with that you get five extra channels, plus all the local stuff.

What about those folks who just love having 100 channels?

Well, not that they watch all of them, right?  But let's say that's what you need; your bill would be $115 per month.  That is before any premium channels including ESPN.  If you need ESPN in addition, your bill would be $125.  Plus you would get all the local stuff.

What about most of us?

Let's see, most of us like sports, so sure, we want ESPN.  And we want all the local stuff.  And we love CNN and Fox News and the Weather Channel, and a handful of other cable channels.  So for this example, let's say we watch as many as 30 different non-premium cable channels from time to time.
Basic Tier:         $20
25 Extra channels:  $25
ESPN:               $10
Total:              $55

And I think 30 channels is a lot.  I bet if you really think about it, you watch fewer than that.  For non-sports-fanatics, such as myself, this is a $45 plan.  And the truth is, I could probably get by with, say, 15 channels.  That would be a $30 plan.  10 cable channels?  $25 per month.

And there is room to be creative here.  For example, buy the ESPN premium channel, get Lifetime and Hallmark for free (so take those two out of your selected five).  Something for him, something for her.

Local-Only & Single Premium Packages

Finally I see no reason why the providers cannot continue to offer a local-only package, without any cable channels, for say, $10 per month.  I also see no reason why the providers cannot offer premium channels without either the local package or basic tier.  So that ESPN customer above, could pay just $10 per month for that one channel or bundle.  Or ESPN plus local for $20 per month.  When compared to the existing system, that is an incredible bargain for the sports fanatic.  Same with HBO and other premium channels.

Goals

Of course we want to lower monthly bills for most customers.  But we also want a plan acceptable to the providers.  The networks would almost definitely need to give up the bundles they now foist on the providers (if you want X channel, you must also carry the Y and Z channels).  For this plan to work, the providers would only pay networks based on the current subscriber count for each individual channel.  And so under this scheme, some of the least watched cable channels would necessarily go out of business.  But as currently constructed, we are subsidizing them anyway.
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How to Produce a Television News Report

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Postmodern Cops & Robbers

Have you seen the CBS police drama Flashpoint?

It is set in Toronto and follows a SWAT-like police team.  Each episode is based on an incident and the events leading up to it.  The show is well done and actually enjoyable, but this is not meant to be a review of the show.

Unlike modern police procedurals like CSI and Law & Order, and definitely unlike cop shows of days-gone-by, there are no bad guys in Flashpoint.  Only victims.  By placing the perpetrator in context, the show’s creators hope to demonstrate that he, too, is a mere victim.

What separates Flashpoint from its predecessors is the gray between black and white.  We all know it is there, has always been there, but this show is the first that I can remember that is less about the good guys and the bad guys, and all about the gray.

That is to say, Flashpoint is a cop show that only a postmodern sophisticate could appreciate.  Really. I can hear them now:  Well actually, I only watch the latest productions of Austen and Brontë on Masterpiece Theater myself.  But, if you commoners insist on watching cops & robbers, of course, context is everything.

And well, who can argue with that?

The problem is that the creators of Flashpoint have replaced the terribly passé concept of motive with a modern (and no doubt they would argue, more comprehensive) attitude towards context.  Thereby, mostly also removing the concepts of good and bad in the process.

Like society in general, the show loses something in this transition.  It is certainly old-fashioned to point out that some things are right and some things are wrong.  I know, call me simple-minded.  But, it does not really matter why you flew planes into those buildings killing thousands of innocents.  Likewise, even in the fantasy world of television, it does not really matter why you are holding a gun on that woman.

Geez, how I long for Dragnet.
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