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Tim Kring Makes My Head Explode
So, here’s the deal: I read an interview Tim Kring did with AV Club and it made my head explode (for those of you who didn’t get that from the title). What I really want to do is cut and paste the interview into MS Word and then insert comment balloons around every single he said that infuriated me. But instead, I will just pick a few choice excerpts to scream about here:While explaining why the Heroes crew writes stories in short arcs they refer to as “sprints,” Kring said, “You never really know where you’re going—you’re only seeing as far as your headlights all the time, so you can keep re-adjusting.” The reasons he listed after this statement (locations fall through, actors aren’t under contract, etc.) seemed to be the weakest sort of excuses I could ever imagine for a writer to explain why his show has no point any-more. I don’t think one subplot in the midst of a series that is filled to the brim with characters (almost too much at times) can derail the entire show if it had an actual endgame destination.
Additionally, there were several instances where he kept opining that the audience doesn’t understand that the show isn’t really formatted in tradi-tional television “seasons,” that they are really in “volumes” (just like comic books! Oh gee golly wiz!). Example quotation: “I like the idea of the audience knowing we tell the story in volumes, and it took them up to last year to fig-ure that out.” BITCH, PLEASE! You print “Volume IV: Fugitives” on the screen. I CAN READ!!!
Finally, and this is one that almost made my eyeballs melt, AV Club asked, “What do you make of all the comparisons between the show and comic books?” Part of Kring’s response included the statement, “We’re just often in the world of comparing us to a million things that have already been done.” Perhaps this is because you are doing the same exact thing that has been done before when someone tried to tell the story of what happens when a bunch of ordinary people discover they have special abilities. Perhaps you could’ve recognized the fact that people are going to automatically say, “How does this show differ from X-Men and why should I watch it?” and given them something to be proud of instead of something to be angered by. Perhaps you could have skipped that entire fucking storyline about Nathan going all self-loathing mutant and the government trying to eradicate the world of “spe-cials.” Mostly because THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT PEOPLE DIDN’T WANT TO SEE as it was already done in—what, peeps?—X-FUCKING-MEN.
Okay. Breathing now. In Kring’s (and AV Club’s) defense, there were some very interesting details shared in the interview, most notably the way the team of writers actually works as a group literally rather than individual writers penning individual episodes. But overall, this is just another reason to add to my list of why I think Heroes should just be put out of its misery so I can sell my season 2 and 3 DVDs on eBay and pretend like season 1 is a miniseries.
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Warner Music’s Major Misstep
NME reported Wednesday that Warner Music Group, the label that is home to a wide range of artists including Flo Rida, Deftones and Sarah McLachlan, has decided to stop licensing WMG artists’ music to free streaming sites like Last.fm and Spotify. WMG label chief executive, Edgar Bronfman Jr, said, “Free streaming services are clearly not net positive for the industry and as far as Warner Music is concerned will not be licensed.” The NME article continues, “Bronfman added that he wants to work on getting more people to take out subscriptions with applications unique to Warner Music, where a set fee would be paid in return for content. He reasoned that the amount of po-tential subscribers for that would "dwarf" the number of people who currently buy music from sites such as iTunes.” First of all, HA! to that statement about dwarfing iTunes. It’s like he doesn’t get that iTunes = music purchas-ing. Music streaming, well, that’s a different story. If I can hear it for free on the radio or a band’s website, then why would I pay to stream? This just seems like yet another milestone in the decline of the music industry. They just don’t understand that people won’t BUY the music if they can’t hear it first anymore. With regard to the free streaming sites themselves and their business models, Bronfman stated, “The 'get all your music you want for free, and then maybe with a few bells and whistles we can move you to a premium price strategy', is not the kind of approach to business that we will be sup-porting in the future." This means that the good news is at least this new policy will only impact future deals. A small glimpse at the silver lining, yes. A laughable attempt to make the music industry stay the same, indeed.
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Celine Returns to Vegas and Crushed My Dreams
Okay, so it wasn’t Celine herself exactly who crushed my hopes and dreams. E! News published an article yesterday announcing Celine Dion’s plans to return the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas for another 3-year resi-dency. Celine’s shows are scheduled to begin March 15, 2011. My heart gushed with pure joy at the thought of getting a second chance to see Celine in all of her Vegas big show glory! I was too young and too high school/college student poor to see her when she was there from 2003-2007, and I really thought this was going to be my chance! I could save up to do a weekend trip to Vegas, take in her show, steal Mike Tyson’s tiger. It would be the best kind of fun! But then I continued reading the article and saw this: “Tickets for the first 54 performances go on sale on Ticketmaster Friday at 10 a.m.” As in I’d have to fork over the dough in less than 24 hours?! How is a girl supposed to save?!?! I have no doubt the tickets for these first 54 shows are already sold out. My only hope is that 1. they are reasonably priced (HA! yeah right) and 2. that I can save up enough before the other sets of tickets go on sale. Bottom line: I’m still holding onto my dream…but barely.***
Power Outages Blow Hardcore
I’m sure by now you’ve either experienced or have heard the nonstop news coverage of the ridiculous snow storm that’s been hitting up and down the East Coast (Snowpocalypse, as some call it; Snowmageddon to others). Basi-cally, last weekend, I lost power for 37 hours. 37 hours without Law & Order reruns, 37 hours without the ability to have a working DVR to record Legend of the Seeker, and 37 hours where my hands were too cold to even hold the book I was reading upright. Obviously, this is not anywhere near as severe as some people had it and not as important because I don't have babies or elderly people living in my house. But it was certainly uncomfortable. No running water, no nothing! I ended up writing a ditty called "Camping in my House" to the tune of Billy Idol's "Dancing with Myself." Not pleasant. Not pleasant in the slightest. All I want to say is THAT WAS FUCKED UP and I really, truly do not hope that happens again 1. this weekend and 2. EVER because I have a date with season 4 of Ally McBeal and I do not want to miss it. But, since I’m all about the bright side of things, at least I got a ton of reading done!
And THAT was the Week in WTF!
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