text: Ed Martin 2016-02-13T06:20:58-05:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=ed-martin Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Ed Martin Good old fashioned elbow grease. Super Bowl Stunner: Goodbye to 'The Good Wife' tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2016:/theblog//3.9190058 2016-02-08T16:35:57-05:00 2016-02-08T16:59:01-05:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/ The Good Wife, which has a mere nine episodes to go before it ends. In truth, and for the first time in its seven-year run, The Good Wife this season has felt like a show that is ready to call it quits. For reasons known only to series creators, executive producers and guiding lights Robert and Michelle King, the storylines have either been redundant or wildly improbable, and in general not at all engrossing. Who thought it wise to have Gov. Peter Florrick become a potential candidate for president (which seems to have ended after a dreadful showing in Iowa) while estranged wife Alicia struggles once again to start yet another law firm, with typically combustible results? Why keep Alicia separated from her former colleagues at the Lockhart Agos Lee law firm when the real drama and much of the narrative fire on this show has always come from watching them all work together? At this point in the show's history Alicia Florrick and Diane Lockhart ought to be a formidable duo, thoroughly involved in each other's personal and professional lives, rather than estranged former friends who no longer speak to each other. The season hasn't been all bad. Star Julianna Margulies continues to excel at dramatizing the intense personal and internal struggles in Alicia's life, especially as they relate to the death two years ago of her lover Will Gardner, memories of which have recently been tearing her apart. (Indeed, Alicia's breakdown scene two weeks ago should make Margulies a contender for a third Emmy win in this role.) And new cast member Cush Jumbo has been a revelation as young attorney Lucca Quinn (Alicia's partner in her new firm). Jumbo has become so popular so fast that Twitter lit up right after the announcement during the Super Bowl of "Good Wife" ending with suggestions that CBS spin Lucca off into her own series. I think that's a great idea - one that would be made even better by the inclusion of occasional appearances by any of the many brilliantly conceived recurring characters on The Good Wife, especially such eccentric attorneys as Michael J. Fox's Louis Canning, Carrie Preston's Elsbeth Tascioni, Martha Plimpton's Patti Nyholm and Mamie Gummer's Nancy Crozier. They all deserve to live on in some fashion if at all possible. On a broader note, the end of The Good Wife could bring to an end any association the broadcast networks have with the dozens of outstanding dramas on premium cable, basic cable and the streaming services that have come to dominate and characterize the era of Peak TV. NBC's The Blacklist and all three of Shonda Rhimes' dramas on ABC are held in high regard, but of all broadcast dramas in recent years only The Good Wife has consistently appeared on year-end best-of lists that are otherwise occupied by series from other areas of television. It is the only broadcast drama that in recent years has been referred to as "good enough for cable" or "proof that broadcast television can still compete." ABC's American Crime can claim similar accolades, but it is a limited series rather than an ongoing dramatic series and therefore another thing entirely, as it were. And so it is that the passing of The Good Wife is a loss for CBS in particular and broadcast television in general, and very likely the end of an era. I have to say the end came fast and furious. One year ago I never would have guessed that I would be writing this column at this time. For more, visit the PlanetEd community at MediaVillage.]]> The Foibles and Fumbles of 'Fashion Police' tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2015:/theblog//3.6893954 2015-03-18T15:56:58-04:00 2015-05-18T05:59:02-04:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/ The increasingly sad story of E!'s deteriorating franchise Fashion Police has become a case study in what not to do when producing a television program. It's a horrid mess, rather than a hot one, and everyone involved has made remarkably poor choices along the way. It's hard to connect what Fashion Police has become to what it long had been: One of the most entertaining programs on television, before the tragic loss of its host and essential reason for being, the late, great Joan Rivers. Rivers might have denied this, but from where I sat Fashion Police was first and foremost a showcase for the talents of one of the great comedians of our time. She had definitive taste in clothing and accessories, a fine working knowledge of contemporary popular culture (an attribute that sadly escapes many comics of a certain age) and a cutting and clever wit that had been honed over six decades of performing in virtually every medium, from radio to digital. The show was built around her, it grew around her and it thrived around her. I do not for a minute believe that anyone who watched on Friday nights tuned in only to enjoy the relatively tepid commentary of her co-stars Giuliana Rancic, Kelly Osbourne or George Kotsiopoulos. They were all fine in partnership with Rivers, trading jokes, challenging each other and defending their points of view -- but at the end of the day the show was all about its leading lady. Remember, Fashion Police fans weren't referred to as Giuliana Rangers or Kelly Rangers or George Rangers... or even Fashion Rangers. (The pic below features the original Fashion Police cast with actor Adam Pally in happier times.) Joan's Rangers are still in mourning. Friday nights simply haven't been the same since she passed. Certainly, Fashion Police hasn't been the same, either. How could it be? And how could anyone involved expect it to be? When I first heard that Rivers' daughter Melissa Rivers (the executive producer of the show) and various executives at E! and its parent company NBCU Cable thought it best to keep the show going without its dazzling comic center, my response was that this would be the biggest TV mistake since Murphy Brown's baby (and, before that, Rhoda Morgenstern's divorce). Better to let it rest with its great memories intact. But that wasn't to be the case. Onward and downward, as they say. First came the news that Kotsiopoulos was leaving the show. I have no knowledge of the details concerning his departure, but assuming it was his decision, that would make him the smartest person on the Fashion Police team. Then came the decision to install another funny woman with a caustic wit as the ostensible star of the show. There is nobody out there who can replace Joan Rivers in that capacity, not even Kathy Griffin, who gamely agreed to give it a go. Anyone would have suffered in comparison. Griffin surely did, whether she cares to admit it or not. She left the show last Friday, claiming that she had certain issues with it, which invites questions as to whether or not she had ever watched it before agreeing to become its star. With Twitter fueling the fun, Fashion Police really messed the bed two weeks ago, right after the Academy Awards, when Rancic, reportedly reading jokes off a cue card that had been written by someone else, mocked the dreadlock extensions worn on the Oscar red carpet by young singer and actress Zendaya, suggesting that her hairstyle might have made her smell like "patchouli oil" or "weed." Zendaya -- who has previously appeared as a guest judge on the show -- took to social media with cries of racism. Rancic -- who isn't a comedian and should probably stop trying to tell jokes anyway -- offered an urgent apology. Osbourne, for whatever reason, up and left the show. It was all such nonsense. Not for one second could anyone believe that Rancic's joke (which wasn't even her own and wasn't especially funny) was racially motivated. It may have been tasteless, but haven't most of the jokes on this show since its start been rude (sometimes shockingly so) to some extent? I know little about Zendaya, but her response suggested that she needs to toughen up a bit if she is to continue to survive and thrive in so high profile a career. Rancic, the older and more experienced person in this situation, should have been less anxious in her response to the agitation of Zendaya, making clear to miffed Millennials everywhere that sometimes people in this world are going to say things that they consider unkind -- and, of more importance, that context is everything. One can only imagine what Rivers would have said about all of this. I think her kindest words might have been, "Oh, grow up!" As a staunch defender of comedians' rights to say just about anything in a humorous way -- especially on a comedy program known for its sometimes harsh humor -- I don't think she would have kept quiet about the dust-up. Of course, it likely wouldn't have happened in the first place, because I also think Rivers would have rejected the offending "joke" as not funny enough, or not up to her standards, and she would have been right. (Plus there's the thing about Rancic not being an actual comedian, but whatever.) If nothing else, Rivers would not have tolerated an attack on the Fashion Police by the PC Police. Anyway, it has been reported that E! still refuses to end Fashion Police and will revive it yet again (in September), this time with Rancic and Brad Goreski -- the fashion stylist who took over for Kotsiopoulos -- as co-hosts of the show. (If nothing else, that's a giant win for Goreski, pictured above.) Could it be that Fashion Police will tone down the humor, stop trying to be The Spirit of Joan Rivers Comedy Hour and instead transform itself into a newsy, lighthearted, less-cutting look at celebrity fashion? I can actually imagine that working, at least in the E! of Things. Like I said above, context is everything. This column was first published in the Planet Ed blog at MediaBizBloggers.]]> Soap Opera Update: "General Hospital," "Bold and the Beautiful," "Days of Our Lives," "Young and the Restless" tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.6312042 2014-12-11T19:20:23-05:00 2015-02-10T05:59:01-05:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/ Anyone who thinks daytime dramas are on a down-slide, simply because only four of them remain, simply hasn't been paying attention of late. ABC's General Hospital and CBS' The Young and the Restless and The Bold and the Beautiful have been in fine form, each one as engrossing in its own crazy way as anything else on broadcast television. And while NBC's Days of Our Lives is currently in a bit of a slump, it may simply be catching its breath after one of its best years in years. More than three decades after it was famously cited as TV's Hottest Show by Newsweek, General Hospital remains a marvel of modern soap opera, now nearing the end of a second consecutive year of breakneck storytelling that has given great material to everyone in its primary cast (including a host of new characters that have come on board during the last 24 months) while bringing back and revitalizing at least a dozen others from the '70s, '80s and '90s and giving them plenty to do, too. Not all of the stories are to every viewer's taste, but how could they be? For my part I could have done without the murder this year of legacy character A.J. Quartermaine by Sonny Corinthos, a mobster who had tormented A.J. since the Nineties. A.J.'s birth in 1979 was a major plot point in one of the show's all-time best stories (the affair between Monica Quartermaine and Rick Webber that turned Monica's husband Alan into a would-be murderer) and should have grown up to become a focal character on the show (running the global conglomerate ELQ and following in his parents' adulterous footsteps). But -- and this is important -- his murder has tipped much of the GH narrative on its side, landing Sonny in jail and prompting A.J.'s son Michael, who was raised by Sonny and always loved him as a father, to break all ties with Sonny and Carly (Michael's mom) and accept his true heritage as a Quartermaine. Viewers have waited many years for Sonny to lose everything. It was almost worth losing A.J. to make that happen. Everything else about GH -- for my money the best soap on television right now -- has been on fire, much of it due to the returns of a host of colorful supervillains from the show's past. Many of them are fascinatingly tied to a relatively new character, mad doctor Liesl Obrecht, played to striking perfection by Kathleen Gati (pictured below), who consistently makes the over-the-top doc funny and frightening without allowing her performance to degenerate into ridiculous camp. As far as I'm concerned, in the fertile arena of daytime drama Gati has delivered the performance of the year. And how about Nancy Lee Grahn as power attorney Alexis Davis and William deVry as semi-reformed mobster Julian Jerome (pictured at top)? Without question they have been the soap opera super-couple of the year. (They are known online as "Julexis.") What makes their work together so extraordinary and their chemistry so profound is the fact that Grahn and deVry aren't kids, as most super couples, especially the sexually combustible ones, tend to be. They are both accomplished soap opera veterans with decades of work behind them. Grahn (a two-time Emmy winner) and deVry make Alexis and Julian more complex and captivating than any other couple in daytime or primetime -- and way sexier, too. I could fill three columns praising other performers and stories on General Hospital, but in the interest of brevity I'll also single out Jane Elliott, Robin Mattson and Lynn Herring, who still make hot-tempered Tracy Quartermaine, homicidal Heather Webber and mercurial opportunist Lucy Coe, respectively, as much fun as they were in the Seventies and Eighties; newcomers Maura West and Michelle Stafford as psycho-mobster Ava Jerome and crazed baby-snatcher Nina Clay; Donna Mills as Nina's icy mother Madeline, and three of the younger cast members who more than hold their own around these fantastic veterans - Chad Duell as Michael Corinthos, Bryan Craig as his brother Morgan and Kelly Thiebaud as Britt Westbourne, the manipulative and manipulated spawn of Liesl Obrecht and lunatic monster Caesar Faison. How thrilling it has been to see a soap opera that just celebrated its 50th anniversary move into the modern era while embracing its phenomenal past. Meanwhile, the two CBS soaps are cooking with gusto. Young and the Restless is currently doing something no soap opera has accomplished since Bold and the Beautiful brilliantly explored the crisis of homelessness in America - tackling a contemporary issue in great depth by telling the story of one man's terrifying battle with prostate cancer and the impact it is having on the people he loves. Christian LeBlanc, as Michael Baldwin, who is facing the fight of his life, and Greg Rikaart as his fragile younger brother Kevin are crushing it, as the kids like to say. Then again, these two always show their peers how it's done whenever they are handed amazing material. It is no accident that they have four Emmys between them for their work in these roles. The exquisitely produced and always distinctive Bold and the Beautiful, which has included the beloved Bob Barker and many Big Brother alumni among its guest stars this year, is ending 2014 with a story we have seen dozens of times before and somehow making it feel like something fresh and new - the miscarriage of Hope and Wyatt's baby, which came about after a nasty spat between Hope and her monster-in-law Quinn (the fabulous Rena Sofer) that ended with Hope taking a tumble down a spectacular outdoor staircase seemingly built for just such accidents in the back of a sprawling Beverly Hills mansion. This event impacts almost every character on the show, and everyone in the cast is making the most of such high-octane material, especially Emmy winners Scott Clifton and Darin Brooks as battling half-brothers Liam and Wyatt. As noted at the top, Days of Our Lives is in something of a slump right now - one that hopefully won't last too long. But that dip is coming at the end of a compulsively watchable year that built up to the powerful departures of longtime cast members Alison Sweeney -- Emmy worthy right to the end for her portrayal of emotionally kinetic firecracker Sami Brady -- and James Scott (as sexy and sinister villain turned quasi-hero E.J. DiMera). Days in 2014 also featured a soap opera milestone: The wedding of Will and Sonny, the gay couple that has been at the center of much of the drama on this show for at least two years. True to form there is already trouble on the horizon: Sonny has recently been reacquainted with a past lover who happens to be a closeted professional athlete. If nothing else, the writers and producers of this show deserve credit for treating their gay characters as equal in every way to everyone else on its canvas. Then again, the creators of daytime drama have never been afraid to tackle relevant issues and move the medium forward. This column was first published in the Planet Ed blog on MediaBizBloggers.]]> HBO's Media-Focused Drama The Newsroom Returns for a Riveting Final Season tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.6122502 2014-11-07T13:50:54-05:00 2015-01-07T05:59:01-05:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/ The third and final season of HBO's The Newsroom begins on Sunday. It's an abbreviated run with a total of only six new episodes before the end. If the second three are as entertaining as the first, second and third, which HBO provided for advance review, the end of this show will not be especially welcome. Tellingly, the first three episodes -- which begin with a mad scramble to accurately report on the April 2013 bombings at the Boston Marathon, careen through the early stages of a hostile corporate takeover and set a number of characters on a collision course with the federal government -- play like the opening half of an extremely satisfying three-hour movie that moves so quickly it feels more like 90 minutes. (They also include tasty little sub-plots about the hazards of hasty tweeting and the blowback from office romances.) The speed factor is hardly surprising -- Aaron Sorkin, who created and writes the series, has never developed a project for screens large or small that has dragged. Even those rare efforts that weren't very good (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip comes to mind) never suffered from a lack of dramatic momentum. The Newsroom is the first series I can think of that takes place squarely in the recent past (a year or more before the year in which each season has debuted). This unique structure allows the characters to respond to real-life events without the show coming off as if it is exploiting major news stories, many of them tragic. Too many critics have crabbed that the permanent flashback in which the series operates allows Sorkin to unfairly criticize what happened, lazily bloviate about what should have happened and somehow take the easy way around addressing real-life stories large and small. That's a bunch of bunk. There is nothing wrong with Sorkin having done what he did in the name of insightful entertainment. The Newsroom isn't a news or documentary program; it's a serialized drama that is as much a high-gloss soap opera as anything else. Watching the producers, reporters and anchors at the fictional Atlantis Cable News network react to true stories we all remember well even as they deal with their own completely fictional personal and professional life challenges is an engaging experience unlike any other I can think of, except perhaps certain legal dramas produced by the great David E. Kelley, who similarly merged fact and fiction with distinctive skill on such series as The Practice and Boston Legal. Yes, the relationship flips and flops that many of the characters on the Newsroom canvas seem always to be caught up in are rather repetitive, perhaps because Sorkin tends to write almost all of his characters in the same way. They're all smart and snarky and given to reference-rich hyper-babble. In other words, they talk too much. Sorkin did a better job of keeping such excessive dialogue in check during his years on The West Wing than he has done here, but I just accept his lack of editing as one of the many unusual quirks about The Newsroom that consistently hold my attention. The thing I like best about this show is its sublime ensemble. The primary cast is just grand -- Jeff Daniels as controlled, sometime blowhard Will McAvoy, the star anchor at ACN (a role that earned Daniels an Emmy); Emily Mortimer as MacKenzie McHale, his equally motor-mouthed producer and fiancé; Sam Waterston as Charlie Skinner, the wise, weary, hard-drinking head of the network; Thomas Sadoski and John Gallagher Jr. as Don Keefer and Jim Harper, respectively, producers at different experience levels; Olivia Munn as Sloan Sabbith, a genius economist and financial news anchor; Alison Pill as Maggie Jordan, an eager young news associate, and Dev Patel as Neal Sampat, a young technical wizard and news gatherer. The recurring cast is equally splendid, especially Jane Fonda as bombastic Leona Lansing, head of the corporation that owns ACN; the always terrific Chris Messina as her insecure son Reese, the president of the parent company, and Marcia Gay Harden as Rebecca Halliday, the brilliant attorney who represents the network. Fonda, in fact, dominates every scene she is in, regardless of who she is sharing it with. Her fiery, mercurial performance as Leona has been wildly entertaining from the start, but is especially fun in the third season, in which Leona finds herself in a fight to save her company from two scheming young relatives (twins, actually) who are set to take control of it upon reaching their 25th birthdays. One of the terrible twosome is played by Kat Dennings of CBS's silly sitcom 2 Broke Girls. You might assume that Dennings' inclusion here is risky casting. If so, you would be wrong. She's just great in a role that could have easily deteriorated into a cartoon character, truly holding her own against the magnificent veterans around her. Sorkin has the advantage of viewing reality in the rear-view mirror as he writes this show, so let me indulge in similar hindsight conclusion-making. I think that from the beginning The Newsroom would have been a stronger show if its seasons had been limited to only six episodes, absent some of the filler necessary to produce 10 (in season one) or nine (in season two) with a cast this expansive and characters so richly drawn that must be satisfyingly served. Less would have been more, although I don't think that phrase is in Sorkin's lexicon. (I understand scripts for each episode of this series are considerably longer than average. I have no first-hand knowledge of this, but given the fact that his characters never shut up or even come up for air it is not difficult to believe.) Six feels like just the right amount to entice fans while also leaving them hungry for more. Regardless, the hurried passing of this fine show, which should have been with us for several more years, is a loss for television. Any series that thoughtfully and consistently deconstructs any area of the mainstream media is a show worth embracing. This column was originally published in the Planet Ed blog at MediaBizBloggers.]]> National Geographic Channel Takes to the Big Easy to Launch New Food Programming tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.6097028 2014-11-03T18:02:43-05:00 2015-01-03T05:59:01-05:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/ National Geographic Channel, a network that in recent years has become known for its uncommonly creative publicity and promotion practices, faces just such challenges this month when it will debut Eat: The Story of Food, a three-night, six-hour documentary miniseries beginning Friday, November 21, that should leave sated anyone hungry for fresh information and fascinating historical footnotes about the title subject, and two new ongoing half-hour series, Eric Greenspan is Hungry, in which the celebrity chef travels around the country in search of the best meat, poultry and shellfish recipes, and Chug, a series in which comedian and TV host Zane Lamprey travels the world sampling the finest cocktails (and some interesting cuisine). Greenspan and Chug debut on Monday, November 24. At first blush Eat, Greenspan and Chug might not seem all that different from the food oriented fare on other information and lifestyle networks; in other words, it would be easy for them to get lost in the massive menu of food shows already available to those with insatiable appetites for same. So NGC decided to make certain that reporters and bloggers would learn as much as possible about them by hosting a two-day, three-night event last week in New Orleans filled with activities involving food, many of them cleverly tied to these three programs and all of them including talent from these shows who were always ready not only to discuss their own projects but to offer guidance, advice and opinions about whatever was happening (or being consumed) at any given moment. The event kicked off with dinner at Commander's Palace, since 1880 one of the finest and most consistently acclaimed restaurants in the city. The meal was preceded by a screening of the first hour of Eat and a press conference with three of the more than 70 chefs, food experts and scientists seen in the miniseries: Author and television personality Simon Majumdar (host of Food Network's Iron Chef America, The Next Iron Chef and Cutthroat Kitchen, among others), Eric Greenspan (who provided the liveliest moments of the press session by taking shots at the culinary competition shows on Food Network and Bravo, calling them "no-brainer programming") and Anna Boiardi of the now-legendary Chef Boyardee food dynasty. They were accompanied by Pamela Caragol Wells of National Geographic Studios, an executive producer of Eat. The long (and very filling) day that followed began with the de riguer coffee and beignets at Café du Monde, followed by three hours of cooking instruction at the New Orleans School of Cooking, during which writers were divided into teams and learned the basics of Louisiana cooking. (A side note: My talents in the kitchen begin and end with scrambling eggs and making pasta, but I was chosen as one of four team leaders during this activity. Fortunately, a writer I chose to be on my team, Mary Beth Albright, later revealed that she had been a competitor on season seven of Food Network's The Next Food Network Star. Mary Beth, who came in second in that competition, proved to be an invaluable team member.) The extended cooking lesson was followed by a fascinating walking tour to several historically significant New Orleans restaurants, including Antoine's (pictured below), Arnaud's, Café Soule and Tujague's (the second oldest restaurant in New Orleans, pictured at right). The detailed histories of these restaurants -- and in most cases the past and present meals served within -- reflect and intersect with so much world history and international culture that it all fit quite well into the National Geographic of things. The following day's activities consisted of a screening of the first episode of Eric Greenspan is Hungry and a press conference with the outspoken chef at Le Bayou Restaurant, followed by a screening of the first episode of Chug and a press conference with series star Zane Lamprey at the Museum of the American Cocktail. (Lamprey, formerly the host of Have Fork, Will Travel on Food Network and Drinking Made Easy on HDNet, funded the first six episodes of Chug through a Kickstarter campaign.) The event concluded with dinner at Root, which was recently named one of Bon Appetit's 50 Best New Restaurants. One might be tempted to conclude that expressive personalities such as Eric Greenspan and Zane Lamprey (who, among other things, is known for leading very loud group toasts in restaurants, which surprised other diners at Root) might not qualify as typical hosts of National Geographic Channel programs. As we got to know them during the New Orleans food event, however, it became increasingly clear that they will likely bring new life (and perhaps new viewers) to the network, and that is never a bad thing. Together with Jason Silva of Brain Games, these men could open the network up beyond its traditional reputation as a destination that educates first and entertains second. Their respective programs manage to do both and to do them quite well. As for the New Orleans event itself, everything about it made perfect sense. With viewing options increasing exponentially, seemingly by the day, it is becoming ever-more difficult to call attention to new series on broadcast or cable networks. Given that reality, it is remarkable that so many networks are actually cutting back on their publicity efforts, largely limiting them to e-mails featuring links to online "screening rooms" that don't always work and an old-school press release or two. Events of this kind, when they are done right, can generate awareness for programming above and beyond most of the rest. They also do much to keep an entire network top of mind in the months that follow. This column was first published in the Planet Ed blog at MediaBizBloggers. ]]> ABC's Red-Hot How to Get Away with Murder Proves Broadcast Isn't Playing It Safe tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.6079092 2014-10-30T18:57:38-04:00 2014-12-30T05:59:01-05:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/ How to Get Away with Murder to ABC's schedule now gives each of the Big Three networks a current drama series that challenges basic cable's status as the home of top-quality, unapologetically adult programming. The other two shows that share the distinction of being utterly "cable-worthy" are CBS' The Good Wife (the first to reach this exciting status, and still the best) and NBC's The Blacklist (a handsomely produced thrill-ride that for better or worse has brought pay cable-level violence and brutality to broadcast television). Each of these three can be positioned alongside the best that AMC and FX have to offer. One might also put ABC's sizzling Scandal and NBC's midseason marvel Hannibal on this short list of broadcast series that often dare to go there, content wise. Given the strides into grown-up entertainment that these shows and a few others are taking, it appears that broadcast television is finally overcoming antiquated restrictions, moving into the modern age and becoming genuinely competitive with cable networks and streaming services, at least as far as scripted content is concerned. Let's hope nothing happens to derail this welcome momentum. How to Get Away with Murder, like The Good Wife and The Blacklist before it, may be stretching standards and breaking boundaries, but it is worth noting that these shows wouldn't be in a position to do what they are doing had so many others not pushed so many envelopes before them. Off the top of my head, a partial list of such broadcast history-makers would include NBC's Hill Street Blues and ABC's NYPD Blue (perhaps the most groundbreaking broadcast dramas ever); ABC's thirtysomething; NBC's St. Elsewhere and ER, and Fox's 24. The adults-only show generating the most excitement right now is ABC's brand-new Murder, a fact that should come as no surprise to anyone who saw its sizzling pilot last summer. There were other fall season pilots that I liked, including The CW's The Flash and Jane the Virgin, but Murder was the only one that left me champing at the bit to see more. Three more episodes in and it hasn't disappointed. The pilot made clear that this new series from super-producer Shonda Rhimes and her colleague Pete Nowalk (who actually created the show) was going to be a fast and furious blend of riveting legal action and searing personal drama full of more twists and turns than even Rhimes' Scandal (which is more riveting this season than during its first three, something I wasn't sure would be possible). But as wild as it was, it didn't prepare anyone for the show's uncommonly frank presentation of the sex life of one of its main characters (Connor, a gay law student who will seemingly stop at nothing to get ahead) or that startling sequence in the October 16 episode when fearsome attorney and professor Annalise Keating removed her wig, false eyelashes and makeup before confronting her husband with damning evidence of his affair. (Her outrage was outrageous, given that she is no stranger to extramarital escapades.) It's difficult to determine which act has generated the most talk and Twitter excitement of anything seen or heard on television so far this season: Viola Davis, the actress who plays Annalise, revealing herself in high-definition close-up in so bold a manner, or her pointed question to her cheating husband, "Why is your penis on a dead girl's phone?" (ABC took particular delight in promoting that phrase without actually revealing it in its entirety.) It strikes me as somewhat disconcerting that an attractive middle-aged actress allowing herself to be seen without makeup caused such a stir. Further, while he is certainly not the only sexually active gay male character on broadcast television, the fact that young Connor is as open about his private life as he is and candidly discusses his sexual conquests with his fellow students, including heterosexual males, shouldn't be such a big deal, either. (Jack Falahee, the actor who plays Connor, and Conrad Ricamora, who plays his sometime lover Oliver, are pictured above.) But these things represent a collective ongoing progress that isn't simply welcome on broadcast; it is representative of what the medium must do (with great care and quality, of course) if it is to remain relevant in a world in which children are raised with easy access to the Internet and all of the surprises it holds in store. As impressed as I am with Murder there are things about it that are starting to bug me. I don't understand why Annalise's home is so dark and dingy, or why she and her husband Sam would choose to live in the same building in which Annalise maintains her legal practice, thereby insuring that they almost never have any privacy. And I can see myself getting tired of the show's narrative structure, which has the story jumping from present (when the legal students in Annalise's charge are frantically trying to dispose of Sam's dead body) to the recent past (which has everyone involved in the mystery surrounding the murder of a cheerleader, plus lots of other cases and personal trauma-dramas). Still, it's a thrill to have yet another series on a broadcast network schedule that looks to be one of the bravest and boldest on television. I imagine the dramas in development for next season are going to reflect the particular strengths of this striking show. I should think they would have to. This column was first published in the Planet Ed blog on MediaBizBloggers. ]]> The Walking Dead, Sons of Anarchy, Doctor Who, Transparent, Peaky Blinders, Kingpin and More Non-Broadcast Newsmakers of the New TV Season tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.5965686 2014-10-10T12:10:21-04:00 2014-12-10T05:59:01-05:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/ Here's a look at a few of the biggest broadcast buzz-killers. Transparent. Overnight, Amazon is the new Netflix. During premiere week, arguably one of the most competitive of the year, it dropped the entire first season of its brand new comedy drama Transparent, featuring the performance of the year by Jeffrey Tambor as Mort Pfefferman, a divorced father of three adult children who decides to become his authentic self -- a woman named Maura. It is no exaggeration to refer to it as the most highly acclaimed new series of the fall season. Lingering outrage over the inexplicable snubbing this year and last of the brilliant Tatiana Maslany of BBC America's Orphan Black by voting members of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences is the only thing stopping me from naming Tambor as the first likely Emmy winner at next year's awards. Watch this show appear on every important Top Ten list in December. The Walking Dead and American Horror Story: Freak Show. Speaking of stealing the networks' thunder, Sunday will bring with it the season premiere of AMC's The Walking Dead (along with its addictive live after-show, Talking Dead). The buzz for this show is already greater than that for any other series currently on television. Close behind on the media hot meter is the return FX's multiple award-winning franchise American Horror Story, this time subtitled Freak Show (pictured below). Doctor Who. Seven episodes in and I'm still not sure how I'm feeling about Peter Capaldi as the latest regeneration of the title character in Doctor Who. I hope to fully come around, but so far it feels to me as though the part is still being written for Matt Smith. Maybe it's just the stories that have left me cold. I still wish the Who creative team had opted for a younger Doctor, perhaps an older teenager, which would have been something completely new for the franchise. All concerns aside, I am enjoying the slow-growing relationship between the Doctor's latest companion, Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman), and her colleague Danny Pink (Samuel Anderson). And even when it's a bit off, Who remains one of the most imaginative series in the history of television. Sons of Anarchy. I've lost count of the dead bodies so far this season on FX's ultra-violent biker soap. The carnage is so omnipresent that it has lessened the sickening impact of the savage murder of Tara, or so it would appear given the robust ratings Sons is currently enjoying. (Viewers are plainly more forgiving than critics on such matters.) Much of the all-encompassing madness has everything to do with the malevolent machinations of motorcycle mama Gemma Teller (Katey Sagal), easily the most detestable character on television now that King Joffrey is rotting in his grave on HBO's Game of Thrones. It's more than a little exasperating to watch every character on the canvas, including her son Jax, blindly accept everything the ferociously flawed Gemma says as unequivocal truth. But there wouldn't be much of a story at this point if Jax and his buddies weren't so dangerously (and at times laughably) dim. I can't imagine Sons coming to a satisfying conclusion in a few weeks; in fact, given everything that has happened, I'm not sure that Jax murdering his monstrous mother will be enough of a payoff. Still, Sons is nothing if not consistently surprising, so I'm there until the end. Homeland. One show I don't think I'll be staying with is Showtime's Homeland, which began what is supposed to be its comeback year with a highly problematic two-hour premiere that included a scene in which bipolar CIA operative Carrie Mathison, dangerously freaked out (if that is the correct term) by the prospect of motherhood, momentarily attempted to drown her new baby. I don't know what to say, except that the writers and producers of this show, who are trying to rebuild it after its dreadful third season, haven't done themselves any favors. What were they thinking? What should we be thinking? More importantly, why should we care? The best thing about Homeland right now is the story of Carrie's colleague Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend) and his struggle with PTSD, which last Sunday had him beating the crap out of two slobs in a diner who thought it appropriate to make crude remarks about the plus-sized woman with whom Quinn was enjoying a meal. Actually, there was something very satisfying about that scene, even if it was meant to be alarming. Kingdom. Aside from the antics of Justin Bieber, I can't recall the last time a male performer generated so much instant publicity for a passion project as Nick Jonas did last week for the new DirecTV series Kingdom (and his upcoming solo album) by stripping down and grabbing his junk. He did this for a photo spread in the new issue of Flaunt magazine. The pics went viral fast enough to reverse time (the way Superman used to do by flying around the earth in the wrong direction). I haven't seen Kingdom, but from what I gathered at DirecTV's presentation of it at the Summer Television Critics Association tour it looks to be quite unlike anything else on television these days. Set in the world of MMA fighting, this is as much a show about bodies as minds and emotions, which makes the Jonas photos an oddly appropriate form of promotion. Tosh.0. Daniel Tosh tried something daringly different on his Comedy Central series this week: For the first time ever, the clips of viral videos and the original content produced by Tosh and his team were deliberately family friendly. That's a laugh in itself, given how popular this often very explicit show is with kids and as a family viewing experience. "Comedy Central has been forcing me to make this show dirty and gross for years," Tosh acknowledged during the atypical half-hour, filmed before an audience of children and their parents rather than the usual crush of college kids. It was surprisingly funny, even if there was nothing in it that wouldn't be welcome on ABC's gentle America's Funniest Home Videos. Probably the edgiest thing in it was a sign outside the "Tosh Orphanage" that offered "Used Kids." The young ones in the studio audience seemed to love what their host was doing, and he really seemed to enjoy interacting with them. That's all well and good, but I wouldn't want to see him do it again. Peaky Blinders. With even less fanfare than that surrounding the quiet arrival of Starz' new comedy Survivor's Remorse, which debuted last weekend to much critical acclaim, Netflix last week dropped the six-episode first season of the sizzling British drama Peaky Blinders. I'm half-way through, and totally hooked by a show that sounds like something we have seen a hundred times before and yet plays like something entirely new. It's a handsomely produced drama based on a real-life crime family in post-World War I England. Cillian Murphy is riveting as Tommy Shelby, the head of the family, but Helen McRory, as iron-strong family matriarch Aunt Pol, steals the show. You'll have to tune in to find out what the title refers to. (Hint: It involves razor blades.) Satisfaction. In a move that upset nobody, USA Network last week cancelled its dark medical drama Rush. Meanwhile, it renewed the wholly unique if somewhat flawed Satisfaction, the adult drama about Neil and Grace Truman (Matt Passmore and Stephanie Szostak), an upscale (and rather boring) married couple struggling with individual mid-life crises that may or may not destroy their marriage. Satisfaction wasn't exactly a hit in its first season, but let's give USA credit for trying and sticking with something so different. Some advice for season two: Spend less time on Neil and Grace's jobs and more on their involvement with sex worker Simon (Blair Redford) and manipulative madam Adriana (Katherine LaNasa), the power hungry woman who runs his escort service. They're the best characters on the show. Dallas. Was it something I said? Not 72 hours after my column for MediaBizBloggers about Dallas, in which I urged TNT to not only renew it for a fourth season but to find a new creative team that might correct the damage that had been done to this cherished franchise, or to at least produce a wrap-up movie that addressed the multiple cliffhangers in the final episode of the series' third season, including the surprise demise of Christopher Ewing, the network up and cancelled the show. This is no way to end the sweeping saga of the Ewing family, which has been playing out in various ways since 1978 and still has a lot of life left in it. In my MBB column I suggested that another network pick up Dallas if TNT were to cancel it and run with it - and I specifically urged CBS to consider doing exactly that. In all seriousness, I find it difficult to believe that Dallas done right wouldn't work on CBS, especially as part of its Friday night lineup, where it made history in the Seventies and Eighties. You're the Worst. Speaking of questionable moves, FX last week decided to send its sensational new comedy You're the Worst over to FXX for its second season. Meanwhile, it's other big new comedy of 2014, Married, will remain on FX. I think they got it wrong. Worst is the funniest and sexiest new comedy of 2014. Married is the opposite in every way. Worst deserves a prime position on the glorious FX Networks' mother-ship. Married, which shouldn't have been renewed in the first place, should have been the one to go to FXX, currently the home of multiple Simpsons marathons that are remarkably enticing, but not much else. If FX paired Worst with Louie it would have the best hour of comedy on television. This column originally appeared in the Planet Ed blog at MediaBizBloggers.]]> Syfy's Ascension Is Already One of the Most Talked About TV Events of the Fall Season tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.5662662 2014-08-08T14:16:04-04:00 2014-10-08T05:59:07-04:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/ As I continue contemplating the dizzying number of shows that I previewed at both, I find that one of the few that I continue to think about on an ongoing basis and one of the very few that I cannot wait to see is Syfy's Ascension, an uncommonly ambitious six-hour mini-series scheduled to debut in November. Interestingly, Ascension did not even have a pilot available for critics at the TCA tour. All they saw was a trailer, which was also screened for the audience at a well-attended panel for the show at the Con. I say "well-attended" because the room was full and people were turned away -- this for a property that at the time did not even fully exist. Perhaps it was the lure of Battlestar Galactica veteran and Con favorite Tricia Helfer, who leads the cast. Fortunately, the very smart people at Syfy chose to feature a session with the cast and producers at TCA even though they did not have a pilot to show critics. That is unusual at TCA tours but hardly unprecedented. Also, it would have been a mistake for Syfy not to showcase it when it did, because it was the only opportunity to promote it at a TCA tour prior to its November premiere. The session generated significant buzz, partly due to the talent involved, but primarily because of the intelligent (some might say intoxicating) premise of the show, which is categorized as a full-blown mini-series, the first from Syfy in five years (which alone makes it an event). It feels like the launch of an ongoing franchise to me in much the same way that the 2003 Battlestar mini led to a series that turned out to be widely heralded as one of the best in television history. Anyway, it was my impression that critics and bloggers didn't stop talking about Ascension after that TCA panel. This was certainly true of the journalists I encountered at Comic-Con who had participated in the tour. And then something they saw in San Diego sealed the deal -- the spectacular Ascension Café in the Hard Rock Hotel, normally a restaurant known as Mary Jane's. Every year at the Con, Syfy takes over the centrally located and highly visible Mary Jane's and transforms it into a theme restaurant that showcases a particular Syfy program. (In recent years it has been Café Diem, a location well known to fans of the much-missed Eureka, which really ought to return to Syfy as a TV movie franchise, and the Defiance Café, pegged to the network's current post-apocalyptic adventure-thriller.) This year it was transformed into an immersive environment that thrillingly promoted Ascension in every way, from the haunting spectacle of early-60s era individuals lining up out front to apply for a mysterious mission to the wildly detailed décor, which included video monitors at every booth that played a segment from President John F. Kennedy's historic 1963 speech about the space race. The exterior of the Ascension Café was especially eye-catching at night (as pictured above). Bathed in an eerie orange glow, it stood out amid the media circus that the Gaslamp District's Fifth Street becomes during the Con and at any given time had crowds of passers-by stopping to marvel at it. Kennedy's enthusiasm for space exploration during the peak of what we might now refer to as the Mad Men era is the starting point for Ascension, which pulses with nostalgia, history and futuristic adventure even though it is set in the present. As the story goes, with Cold War tensions mounting and the future of America uncertain, Kennedy approves a program that sends 600 people into space in a giant vessel (with USA patriotically emblazoned on its side) with the goal of populating a new planet that it will take 100 years to travel to. The miniseries is set at the midpoint of the trip, when many of the original passengers have already passed away, leaving their children and in some cases their grandchildren to continue. The ship has lost contact with Earth, causing some of the people on board to argue that it ought to turn around and head back home. Also, a murder has occurred on board as the miniseries begins, causing all manner of concerns and conflicts, as there had never been a killing on the ship throughout its first half-century of travel. Nobody can tell how Ascension is going to turn out, but the buzz is already building because of its exposure at two major media events this summer, and because it is that rarest of television productions -- one that seems to have been designed to appeal to people of all ages. They include boomers who may have childhood memories of President Kennedy, the space race and everything else we have been reminded of or come to appreciate during the first 6 ½ seasons of Mad Men and Millennials who likely know nothing about any of it (education being what it is today) but nevertheless appreciate smart science-fiction adventure in any form. This column originally appeared in the Media Post TV Blog. ]]> General Hospital's Amazing 50th Anniversary Celebration Ends With a Few Troubling Story Choices tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.4981518 2014-03-17T17:43:11-04:00 2014-05-17T05:59:01-04:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/ General Hospital I have been thrilled with much of what I have seen on the show during the last two years. I can't say that it's been all good - the return of Caleb the Vampire and Lucy Coe's obsession with destroying him was one of the most tedious storylines I have ever seen on any soap opera, and it seriously undercut the excitement that the spectacular Lynn Herring's otherwise energizing return to the canvas had been generating. (If the show really had to go there - and I really wish it hadn't - I think Lucy should have killed Caleb by crushing his skull with one of the crystals from Lumina. Why not? Weren't the crystals found on Spoon Island, where Wyndemere and its catacombs are located?) That not-so-hot mess aside, almost everything I saw on GH during 2013 - its 50th anniversary year - was a joy to behold. The return to the canvas of so many beloved veteran characters in ongoing stories (Anna Devane, Duke Lavery, Felicia Jones, Frisco Jones, A.J. Quartermaine, Robert Scorpio, Holly Sutton, Sean Donely, Lesley Webber, Kevin Collins, Scotty Baldwin, Laura Spencer, Bobbie Spencer, Nikolas Cassadine, Brenda Barrett, Noah Drake - even Richard Simmons) or for brief but welcome cameos (Audrey Hardy, Juan Santiago, Ethan Lovett); the return of so many exciting villains (Heather Webber, Caesar Faison, Stavros Cassadine, Julian Jerome); the inclusion of references to classic ABC soap operas Loving and Ryan's Hope (the latter heralding Ilene Kristen's return as Delia Ryan); and the resurrection of the Nurse's Ball, a cherished annual GH tradition throughout the Nineties, made for the most memorable year since Luke, Laura and Robert took on the Cassadines on that tropical island and destroyed their menacing weather-control machine. GH even made time to acknowledge veteran characters Steve Hardy, Jessie Brewer and Amy Vining in ways that were lovely tributes to the late actors who portrayed them. There were also visits from the spirits of long-missed characters who years ago were killed off in half-assed stories, including Alan Quartermaine, Emily Quartermaine, Georgie Jones and Rick Webber. I generally detest visits from ghosts on soap operas, but these were so well done and the returns of the characters so welcome that I allowed myself to enjoy them. After a fifteen-year period during which everything that was wonderful and history making about GH had been torn to shreds by past network executives, executive producers and head writers who were obsessed with turning the show into something resembling The Sopranos-lite, and instead delivering a show that proved to be nothing much at all, current executive producer Frank Valentini, head writer Ron Carlivati and their talented team did more than just recharge the show. They repaired it -- ending the neglect and correcting much of the damage that had been done to what had been arguably the most important scripted series in the history of daytime television. It was a ride I never thought I would get the chance to take. I couldn't be more impressed. Along with so many blasts from the pasts came multiple new characters that have brought much to the show, especially the villainous Dr. Liesl Obrecht, her devious daughter Dr. Britt Westmore, goody two-shoes nurse Sabrina Santiago and her GBF Felix DuBois, sometime bad boy lab technician Brad Cooper, murderous vixen Ava Jerome (whose sexy scenes with young Morgan Corinthos have been ridiculously hot), the mysterious Dr. Silas Clay (brother of the aforementioned Caleb) and Clay's nephew Rafe (who's turning out to be quite the little weasel). The early months of 2014, which are still acknowledged as part of the show's 50th anniversary, have offered similar treats: An update on Brenda's sister Julia and her company Barrett Enterprises, the return of rascally Ric Lansing, the revelation that Brad has ties to the denizens of Port Charles' Asian Quarter (an area of rife with turmoil during the mid-Eighties), the return of Bobbie's adopted son Lucas (the biological son of Julian Jerome), and the start of the first gay romantic triangle in daytime drama history (between Lucas, Brad and Felix). Why, just the other day Monica mentioned playing cards with Lesley, Audrey and Gail - the latter a beloved character that hasn't even been mentioned on the show in longer than I can remember. (Are Lee and Gail still around? Why doesn't their son Scott Baldwin ever mention them?) Also of note: For the first time since Laura Wright took over the role, Carly Jax has lately been written as a three-dimensional character, actually softening up and showing occasional sympathy toward and support for other women. Wright has run with the chance to do something besides play Carly as a one-note mean girl who couldn't say anything nice about anyone who wasn't a mobster or murderer. These added dimensions have allowed her to move to the top tier of actresses on GH occupied by invaluable veterans Jane Elliot and Nancy Lee Grahn, the formidable Finola Hughes and blazing newcomer Maura West. (As Alexis Davis, Grahn has been just great of late, wrangling her independent teenage daughter Molly, her long-ago one-night stand Julian and her smug ex-husband Ric.) But as glorious and nostalgic and generally wonderful as GH has been for more than a year, it has lately been undercut by a number of storylines that threaten to bring it all crashing down. Murderous Heather Webber, a woman well into middle age, was stabbed in the stomach and buried alive by her son Franco (the worst GH character ever), only to dig herself out of her grave, kidnap Carly (a much younger and stronger woman) and drag her all around Port Charles for weeks, constantly threatening to stab her but never getting around to it. It was as difficult to sit through as the prolonged struggle between Lucy and Caleb in those Wyndemere catacombs (where Heather and Carly also ended up). Heather is a great character in limited doses, but at this point she has been egregiously overused, I'm sorry to say. How many innocent people can we watch her kill before she is made to suffer for her terrible crimes? And how can a woman of her years be so physically resilient? Months before she was stabbed she fell off the roof of the title institution - a fall that would likely cripple if not kill a triathlete -- and survived with barely a bruise! Meanwhile, just as the character of Carly has been adjusted to resemble something like a fully developed human being, the GH writers have plunged her into a highly improbable love affair with Franco, a genius artist and one-time serial killer who tormented a number of residents in Port Charles, especially Samantha (the "widow" of Carly's best friend, Jason), Lulu (Carly's niece) and Michael (Carly's son). None of this seems to matter now to Carly, who believes much of Franco's prior madness was due to a brain tumor (removed months ago and displayed in a jar in a shocking courtroom revelation). But the audience knows Franco is still a dangerous psycho (he's the one who stabbed Heather). Even without that, it seems that Carly has breezed right by the fact that Franco was largely responsible for her teenage son Michael being savagely raped in prison three years ago. (That's an event no writers on GH then or now seem to know how to handle. Michael never seemed more upset about it than a young man might be after being dumped by a girlfriend or flat-lining his SATs.) Carly has long been detestable in many ways, but never where her treatment of her children is concerned. Nothing about this storyline makes sense. And then there is one of the most alarming storyline turn-offs to come along in years: Brain-damaged killer Jason Morgan, who supposedly died a year ago, has once again come between Dr. Robin Scorpio Drake and her long-suffering husband Patrick, with whom she was only recently reunited after being held captive by Jerry Jax and Liesl Obrecht in various locations for two years. Upon learning that Jason is still alive but frozen in suspended animation, Robin heartlessly agreed to leave not only her husband but her adoring little girl for as long as it takes to revive him. If we were expected to believe that she would abandon her family to save a loved one, the loved one should have been the supposedly deceased Emily Quartermaine or Georgie Jones. Robin would move mountains to save either or both of them and the audience would have been on her side. Instead the character, one that literally grew up on GH, has been all but destroyed by this latest turn of events. Here we have a primary storyline that is once again all about a woman in Port Charles losing her rhymes-with-wit at the mere mention of the name Jason. It was 15 years of stories about women fawning over this deadly underworld hit man and his murderous, temper-tantrum tossing boss Sonny Corinthos that helped bring GH to the brink of cancellation just two years ago. The show has improved in every way since Jason was supposedly killed off early last year. (Even Sonny has become more interesting!) The only way for this to play out without further alienating the GH fan base is to have Jason awaken from his most recent comatose state as the "old" Jason, a happy and helpful medical student dedicated to saving lives rather than ending them. How would Jason Quartermaine deal with his own abhorrent behavior during his time as Jason Morgan? That story could play out for years. Even more problematic than Carly falling for the man who brought about the rape of her son or Robin ditching her little girl to go save a murderer is something Sonny has done. In what may be the most unwelcome recent story turn of all, Sonny shot an unarmed A.J. point blank in the chest after he walked in on A.J. choking Ava Jerome (the person who murdered Sonny's beloved girlfriend Connie Falconeri) and, without having all of the facts, decided to kill once again. A.J., a long-time fan favorite who was "killed off" years ago by a previous writing regime in a ridiculous sweeps stunt storyline, recently returned to the canvas, only to once again become a punching bag for the borderline insane Sonny, who had previously tormented A.J. for years. (Sonny, swell fellow that he is, also once shot his son Dante point blank in the chest, just as he did A.J. Sonny didn't know at the time that Dante was his kid - he only knew him to be an unarmed police officer at the time that he shot him. Fortunately Sonny is a lousy shot - Dante and A.J. have both survived his murderous impulses.) There have been other recent story developments that are either unwelcome or so illogical that I find myself fearing for the show's future just as I was a few years ago. Among them: The revelation that Victor Cassadine, a villainous character not seen since 1981, has been installed as the new chief of the World Security Bureau and, in that capacity, appointed as the new Chief of Staff at General Hospital the nefarious Dr. Obrecht (who has tried at least twice to commit cold-blooded murder). These moves keep two interesting characters front and center, but they have been jarring to viewers, and they have further reinforced a growing concern about the show: It seems that the many evil characters on General Hospital, from Sonny to Heather to Franco to Jerry to Liesl, never really pay for the crimes they commit, no matter how heinous. And now it appears that Helena Cassadine and her son Stavros, two more long-time murderous maniacs, may survive their most recent "deaths" and return to wreak fresh havoc on the hard-working residents of Port Charles, all of whom should know by now that the only way to stop the evil people who torment and murder their loved ones is to cut off their heads. If the GH writers can bring back dead villains over and over again, surely they can bring back from the beyond a few more good characters, as well. Whenever I write about this show I can't resist making a renewed plea to have Dr. Alan Quartermaine, his adopted daughter Emily Quartermaine and Maxie Jones' sister Georgie Jones return to the living. The current GH regime has done an outstanding job of correcting many of the worst mistakes made by previous writers and producers (mistakes that, I believe, contributed over time to the erosion of the show's fed-up audience), but it needs to go a little further and bring these three back. I say this primarily because they were three important legacy characters in whom viewers had invested years of their time that were unceremoniously killed off in badly written and long-forgotten sweeps stories. For all intents and purposes Emily has already returned as Rebecca, a twin sister she never knew she had. (Rebecca is easily explained away as Emily under Cassadine-induced mind control; Helena, a master at such stuff, hated Emily with every fiber of her being.) So that's an easy fix. Alan and Georgie would be a little more difficult, but I know the GH team is up to the challenge. Alan could become a background character, and Emily and Georgie could both decide not to stay in town after they return. But at least the audience would know that its wishes had been granted. If the actors we associate with Alan, Emily and Georgie are unable to commit to this idea, or are simply not interested, any one of the three could be recast. I also think it's time to recast Robin Scorpio Drake if Kimberly McCullough, the actress who has portrayed her for 30 years, is no longer interested in doing so. Better a change than perpetually adjusting the narrative around McCullough's schedule in such a way as to piss off the audience. I'll close with a request to the GH creative team that is more a challenge: Please fix the Rick Webber mess! I won't go into the details of the destruction and death twelve years ago of that character, one who was absolutely vital to the show during its historic heyday. Suffice it to say that it was one of the most offensive and most poorly written storylines in the history of GH -- one that rewrote much of the show's history with reckless abandon. When Alan, Emily and Rick appeared to Monica Quartermaine and Tracy Quartermaine as ghosts (or a shared hallucination brought on by secret ingredients in a jar of relish) Rick mentioned that the circumstances surrounding his return to Port Charles weren't what they appeared to be. (I'm paraphrasing.) So let's get Rick back (recast or otherwise) and give legions of longtime GH fans a story that corrects one of the greatest f-ups in the show's history.]]> Who Is Tyler Oakley and Why Do His Videos Command Larger Audiences Than Many TV Shows? tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.4818179 2014-02-19T16:22:55-05:00 2014-04-21T05:59:01-04:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/ Frontline titled Generation Like, which among other topics explores the increasingly strong bond between digitally driven Millennials and corporate America. (It premieres this week on PBS.) The program in part reveals how brands are seizing opportunities to take full advantage of the huge followings young people amass through videos on YouTube and via social media and, conversely, the growing appetite among the young to become as well-known as possible simply to be famous and make money. Intellect, education and artistic talent aren't of concern, or so the panelists seemed to declare. Prominent on the panel was a 24-year-old man named Tyler Oakley who has amassed over 3,800,000 subscribers for his YouTube channel, which is loaded with videos in which he sits and talks about things and answers questions that his fans send to him via various social media platforms. Interestingly, almost none of the more than 200 journalists and critics assembled for this session had heard of Oakley until they walked in. "It is a career," Oakley said at one point. "It's my favorite thing I could ever do." He confirmed that being a YouTuber, as Oakley and his contemporaries are known, can be very lucrative. It certainly seems to have been for him. At one point Oakley said something that depressed half the folks in the room and enraged the rest. Commenting on the importance of fame, he said, "Think about if parents have two kids. One's a celebrity. One's a teacher. Which one is my mom going post about most on Facebook, me or the rest of my siblings who have normal jobs?" Putting aside the rather uncomfortable feeling one gets listening to a successful young person declare that it is in many ways better to be a fame-whore than a teacher, I decided to check out Oakley's videos and see if there was any real substance behind his success. One hour and many videos later I hadn't detected any. But I totally understood why young people like him so much and why they might watch his videos to pass their time or simply kill some of it. Oakley is very telegenic, or videogenic, or whatever term one might use to describe someone who plays well on YouTube. Among Oakley's other accomplishments, he has formed the YouTube equivalent of Oprah's Book Club -- that is, a book club for people who don't read. Once a month he recommends a new book from the Amazon company audible.com. He also co-hosts Top That, a weekly countdown show on Pop Sugar. In many of his videos Oakley will sometimes have as a guest another young YouTube star. As I started seeking out some of them (with help from my 19-year-old goddaughter) I realized there is a burgeoning community of these celebrities who are unknown to most of us but have millions of young followers. Many of them have multiple channels comprising their own network. Based on my random sampling, it appears that many of them seem to be a bit more ambitious than Oakley, in that they tend to do a lot more than talk in their videos. For example, a young man named Jack Harries, who with help from his twin brother Finn boasts approximately 3 million subscribers to his videos, went naked bungee jumping in the summer of 2012 to celebrate hitting 100,000 subs and presumably push the number higher. (It worked.) A young man named Dan Howell, who also has more than 3 million subscribers to his channel Dan is Not on Fire, invites his fans to laugh at his perpetual embarrassments and humiliations. Marcus Butler, with just over 2 million subscribers, takes dares from his fans and suffers the consequences. James Cameron Phillips has only been posting videos for a few weeks, hence his paltry sub total (11,000). But starting this week he's taking a whole new approach and is determined to hit the big leagues. The majority of the hugely popular YouTubers appear to be young men, many of them from England, all of whom look like members of a boy band. They average anywhere from 1,500,000 to 3,000,000 followers, most of them likely tween and teen girls given that they all seem to be sexually non-threatening, somewhat like the Jonas Brothers at their peak. Though it's an apples-to-oranges comparison, the amount of subscribers these guys have comprise audiences larger than those for many popular basic cable series. They support each other as eagerly as they promote themselves and are guests in each other's productions. They gather every year at VidCon and the twice-yearly YouTube convention Playlist Live to meet their fans and hang with each other. Some curse, others are clean cut. And they all possess the uncanny ability to talk for five to ten minutes at a clip without saying anything important -- or pausing for breath. I can't help but wonder, where these people will be 10 years from now? Is it possible for the videos these people are making to be expanded into longer formats? Or would that be the kiss of death? Will the audience for what they do online age along with them? Or will today's viewers of such video programming move on to other things and be replaced by new generations of kids -- rendering today's YouTubers obsolete? Read more about Watercooler Videos at MediaBizBloggers. For more insights on YouTube "cewebrities" read commentary from Jack Myers' Hooked Up Insights.]]> Sunday's Episode of The Good Wife Is The Most Exciting Hour of Broadcast Drama This Season tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.4163498 2013-10-25T10:46:49-04:00 2014-01-23T18:58:21-05:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/ The Good Wife is the most exciting hour of drama anyone will see on broadcast television this season. It is certainly the strongest broadcast hour of 2013 to date -- and no, I haven't forgotten the most moving episodes earlier this year of NBC's Parenthood, with its harrowing and heartfelt arc about one character's heroic struggle with cancer and the impact it had on her loved ones. Parenthood may have touched me, but The Good Wife has knocked me flat. It is also the strongest episode in the five-year history of The Good Wife, which is saying a lot given the unwavering quality of that show since it began. There are reasons why it is often the only broadcast series grouped by critics into the company of television's finest dramas, the rest of which happen to be on basic and pay cable. In fact, speaking of pay cable, I would say that this episode of The Good Wife calls to mind the season-four finale of HBO's modern-drama standard-bearer The Sopranos. That was the episode in which Tony and Carmela's marriage exploded, a plot development that had been building throughout that season, and even before, as Carmela became increasingly aware of her husband's many infidelities. Remember that blistering confrontation between Tony and Carmela? At one point it seemed as though Tony was going to cross a line he had never even approached and hit his wife, but he instead punched a hole in the wall next to her head. It was one of the most powerful moments in the history of television. Nothing in this episode of The Good Wife gets quite that intense, but it comes close in different emotional and psychological ways, both for the characters and for longtime viewers invested in them. That's the greatest thing about television, isn't it? The way a well-done comedy or drama draws people in, becomes a part of their lives and establishes long-term emotional connections with them? Those of us who were fully invested in The Sopranos felt like we were right there in the room when Tony and Carmela were screaming at each other. To this day I recall not simply feeling that I was standing next to them, but that they were draining the air out of the room and I had to think about breathing. There are scenes in this Sunday's episode of The Good Wife that aren't far from that in their raw power. They tear at viewers' established emotional connections and their comfort with certain assumptions about the characters in ways I have never seen a broadcast drama do before. It's no secret that a major storyline on The Good Wife this season involves a small group of attorneys at Lockhart/Gardner quietly planning to break away and start their own firm, taking a handful of L/G clients with them. The tension generated by this plotline has been palpable since the season began, as has the knowledge that when the time came for the group to actually leave, the you-know-what would fly in all directions (hence the title of the episode, Hitting the Fan). That's exactly what happens right from the opening sequence and it never lets up, making for what can only be described as the kind of breath-taking, pulse-pounding drama broadcast television networks will need if they are to survive and thrive in the new media world. This column continues in the MediaPost TV Blog.]]> Emmy Flub: Larry Hagman (of All People!) Excluded From Special Memorial Tributes tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3962970 2013-09-20T15:27:25-04:00 2013-11-20T05:12:02-05:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/ Perhaps a kinder, gentler word to describe this decision is problematic. That would certainly seem to be the case with the announcement this week that Sunday's telecast of the Emmy Awards would in addition to the annual In Memoriam segment feature tributes to five select individuals interspersed throughout the program. A decision of this kind guarantees heated debates in the media and elsewhere about those chosen for such special recognition versus those who will be included with the rest of the recently deceased in the standard memorial clip package. Don't believe for a minute that the various executives from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and the producers involved in this decision didn't expect some squawking. One would have to be completely out of touch with reality not to expect a public fuss of some kind. That's exactly what has happened following a telephone press conference yesterday with Ken Ehrlich, the executive producer of this year's Emmy telecast, during which journalists wanted to know why Larry Hagman, who passed away last November, was not one of the five recently deceased individuals receiving special tributes during Sunday's show. (I was not on that call, but I have read the subsequent coverage and communicated with one of the participants, a smart, seasoned journalist I have trusted and admired for more than 20 years.) Hagman was, after all, one of the biggest and most popular stars in the history of the medium that the Emmys celebrate. His portrayal of the iconic oil titan J.R. Ewing throughout thirteen seasons of Dallas on CBS, a number of follow-up made-for-television movies and the recent Dallas reboot on TNT spanned five decades. He was at the center of the greatest season finale cliff-hanger of all time - the legendary "Who Shot J.R.?" mystery. The episode of Dallas that revealed who shot his character broke all kinds of records (on a Friday night!) and remains the highest-rated regular episode of a scripted television series ever. Further, Hagman had already charmed previous generations of viewers, including children, with his starring role in the long-running sitcom I Dream of Jeannie, which remains in syndication to this day. He appeared in a number of other television series, as well. Let's remember that Dallas, the drama that made Hagman a household name, ran on CBS from 1978-1990, and was for many of those years the highest-rated series on television. Even when it began losing steam it remained in the coveted top ten. CBS is presenting the Emmys this year, which makes the Hagman snub all the more acute. One could argue that Hagman made a greater and longer-lasting impact on television than any of the five individuals selected to receive special tributes. I tend to agree, but I'm reluctant to go there - with one exception. Certainly, James Gandolfini of The Sopranos, Jean Stapleton of All in the Family and Jonathan Winters (who probably appeared on more television shows throughout his career than any of the others receiving special tributes) made extraordinary contributions to the medium and deserve special farewells -- if special farewells must be made. Producer Gary David Goldberg, the creator of Family Ties and Brooklyn Bridge, is a less obvious choice, but not one I care to take issue with, for reasons both professional and personal. This column continues in the MediaPost TV Blog.]]> Millennial Madness: Pivot and Revolt TV at the Television Critics Association Tour tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3691723 2013-08-02T17:31:34-04:00 2013-10-02T05:12:01-04:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/ Revolt TV offered only a breakfast, the highlight of which was a brief appearance by network founder Sean Combs, who made his way around the room introducing himself to every critic and reporter, instantly winning over the crowd with his simple basic graciousness. His message about Revolt, which will be a largely music-driven entertainment channel, was this: "If you're a Millennial and you want music you have nowhere to go. You are homeless and out there all alone." Revolt, he continued, "will cover music as a culture. It will not be a remix of MTV, not another version of BET. It will be a multi-cultural, new American news network [that will] cover news of music and music culture. "Young people have been unplugging from cable and running to the Internet," Combs said. "Nobody understood [why that was happening], but I did. The No. 1 interest for young people is music." Revolt, he noted will launch "in a few months." Pivot, which launched this week, produced the more formal presentation, parking network president and chief executive officer Evan Shapiro and an assortment of twenty-something chatterboxes on stage in the International Ballroom at the Beverly Hilton Hotel. Shapiro was a much livelier presence, but in every other way the Pivot session had TCA members flashing back to the Summer 2005 TCA tour when Al Gore appeared on the same stage along with a smaller group of twenty-something chatterboxes to launch Current TV, which was going to revolutionize television, attract a new generation of young people to a medium that had in their eyes become dusty and outdated, thrive as television by young people for young people, etc. We know how that turned out. Introducing the panel, Shapiro had much to say about the state of the new world order and the role that Millennials will play in it. "Clearly, the world and the media industry are at a critical juncture, a turning point," he declared. "Literally, pivot means to turn. So rather than fear a disruption in the world around us and in the industry around us, rather than fearing this turning point, we're leaning into it. This starts with our audience. We are a next generation television network for the new greatest generation, Millennials. [Yes, there were gasps and grumbles in the room when Shapiro dared to go there and compare the current generation of young people with the one that came of age and sacrificed more than any of us can imagine to both save and change the world in the '40s.] "Where other people may see navel gazing, entitled narcissists, we have a hero generation ready to take on the challenges that are present in the world, challenges they didn't create," Shapiro said, as the grumbling continued. There was lots of talk about what the various news, talk, information and entertainment shows on Pivot would say about and do for young people, as opposed to all people. Time and again young adults were spoken about as if they exist in some kind of bubble where nobody else matters. And none of the people on the stage betrayed any knowledge of or interest in the challenges faced by young people in virtually every generation before theirs -- challenges that were met without the economic and technological advantages most Millennials enjoy. That said there was no denying the energy emanating on stage from Shapiro and his youthful colleagues. If that truly informs the programming on Pivot -- on TV and via other distribution platforms -- this could be one of the most successful and talked about network launches in years. Shapiro noted that Pivot is launching 31 years to the day that MTV made its historic debut. Like the Revolt TV panel earlier in the day, the subtext of the Pivot session was that MTV has dropped the ball in entertaining and informing young people, choosing instead to fill its schedule with cheap reality shows and a couple of modestly successful scripted projects. "Even our business model embraces the disruption around us," Shapiro exclaimed. "Thirty years ago, cable was the disruptive technology in television. Recently, we've seeded that mantle to other players who use our pipes. We want to help reclaim the disruption for our industry." The cheerfully and forcefully outspoken Meaghan McCain, on hand to talk about her new Pivot series Raising McCain, pounded yet another nail in both the MTV and Current coffins. "Current never would have hired me," she said. "Start there. I'm a Republican. Just start there and bypass Current. I would have never happened on Current. In my opinion the biggest threat to youth in America is the polarization in American politics. I came to Pivot because I think there has to be some kind of middle ground between the Kardashians and C-SPAN. "Young people can't just be given these two options," McCain continued after the laughter in the room died down. "You laugh, but it's true. Come on. When I was growing up, MTV News was loud, proud, really inspired my life in a really real way. That doesn't happen anymore. I want to give people information, but not talk down to them. I know what it feels like to have people talk down to you in relation to politics and American culture and issues that are facing us. I'm so excited that I have a show where I can be myself and be crazy and talk about issues that really affect me, in an intelligent way that doesn't scare the head of this network." This column was originally published by the Myers Media Business Network.]]> With All My Children, One Life to Live and The Haves And The Have Nots, Will OWN Own the Soap Genre? tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3586350 2013-07-12T17:39:46-04:00 2013-09-11T05:12:01-04:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/ All My Children and One Life to Live that have been playing since late April on Hulu, HuluPlus and iTunes will run in afternoon time periods on OWN. Fans of these long-running shows, which were canceled by ABC and had their final broadcast airings in September 2011 and January 2012, respectively, have been crying out via social media for a basic cable network to televise them even before Prospect Park came along with lifelines for both. Viewers thought OWN would be the perfect place for AMC and OLTL - and for General Hospital, had ABC decided to dump it, too - because Winfrey has been and will forever be associated with daytime television in general and ABC's daytime lineup in particular. (Her massively influential syndicated daytime talk show was not produced by ABC but it ran on most ABC stations.) For some reason Winfrey came somewhat slowly to this party, even though she has always admitted to being a soap opera enthusiast. It has been rumored that Winfrey and her team reconsidered the value of soap operas on their network because of the success of Tyler Perry's primetime sudser The Haves and the Have Nots, which debuted on May 28 and has apparently doubled whatever rating OWN was already enjoying in its time period. That makes it a winner on several levels, which is somewhat surprising, because Haves hardly qualifies as a game-changer of any kind. In fact, with the exception of a naughty word or two it plays like a long-forgotten soap from the Sixties, albeit one with more African Americans in its cast than in all soaps from the Sixties combined. But Perry nevertheless is off to a decent start. His show, to its credit, doesn't perpetually lunge for outrageous plot turns to propel the drama of it all. Rather, the characters actually talk to each other in scenes that run much longer than those of almost any other current television series you care to name. And they are often talking about concerns almost everyone can relate to, from family relationships to money problems. Perry is actually writing conversation and allowing characters to converse in the way they often did in scripted daytime and primetime broadcast entertainment back in the day - in other words, in the Seventies and earlier, before all of our attention spans were demolished by various media influences. The big questions here are these: Will Winfrey let "Haves" loosen up a bit and develop more of an edge, and will she look to develop more original serialized dramas? The answers may depend on how well AMC and OLTL play on OWN. From what I've seen of both shows since they returned from the dead as online programs they aren't nearly as robust as they had been on broadcast. I think the new AMC has been the more successful of the two, because the strength of this show was always the intimacy shared between its characters and its viewers. The smaller scale of the online experience actually enhances the enjoyment of this show, even if a couple of its storylines have been simply awful (such as the kidnapping and torture of Angie and Jesse's daughter). OLTL on the other hand was always at its best when it was indulging in over-the-top drama, sometimes bordering on the lunatic. (Characters careened through crises brought on by multiple personalities, visited underground cities, interacted with the great beyond and time traveled, among other narrative roller-coaster rides.) The online version of OLTL has been way more restrained and therefore far less interesting. This column continues on the MediaPost TV Board.]]> Lifetime's The Client List and Army Wives Are Two of the Best Soaps on TV; The Challenges Facing Dallas tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3455075 2013-06-17T13:55:15-04:00 2013-08-17T05:12:01-04:00 Ed Martin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ed-martin/ Revenge, which went from white hot in its freshman year to lukewarm in a dramatic sophomore slump, the maintenance of an effective primetime soap opera that does not revolve around doctors, lawyers, detectives, supernatural beings or the kinds of characters found only in science fiction is way more difficult than it looks. So why doesn't Lifetime receive more media attention for its Sunday night soap opera block, which features two of the most consistently entertaining serials on television, Army Wives and The Client List? I've written before about Client List, which each week plays very much like a Hallmark Channel movie -- albeit one with hand jobs. The Hallmark comparison is deliberate: That's how wholesome and heartwarming Client List can be when it tells stories about family, friendship and community, which it does as well as any other similarly focused series on television, including NBC's Parenthood and The CW's Hart of Dixie. But Client List is more consistently moving and infinitely sexier than the rest, largely due to the many talents of series lead Jennifer Love Hewitt, who excels as a perpetually put-upon wife, mother and daughter who juggles mounting problems at home with the demands of her job as manager of and popular masseuse at a high-end massage parlor that offers "happy endings" to select clientele. This show could play like one long joke, but everyone involved has too much self-confidence for that. The cast, which includes Cybill Shepherd, Loretta Devine, Greg Grunberg and Colin Egglesfield, hits every note with emotional perfection. Even without the sexual component Client List would be an irresistible weekly pleasure. As of this writing Army Wives just concluded a very compelling seventh season and has yet to be renewed for an eighth. I can't claim to have stayed with this show during the previous six years, but when I weigh the unremarkable drama that I remember it being early on against the very sturdy and satisfying show I watched these last few months it seems to me that Lifetime ought to continue with it. Wives somewhat surprisingly matured into a gem of a primetime soap that found great strength in narrative restraint. In other words, characters were shown dealing with demanding situations rather than just crying or fighting or otherwise screaming at each other. It also offered timely and thought-provoking explorations of issues that our military families deal with on an ongoing basis even as most of their countrymen busy themselves with other things. And this season it gave Brooke Shields and Jesse McCartney their best dramatic roles ever. (I'm not kidding.) If asked about primetime soaps a couple of years ago I would have said that we'll never again see the likes of Dallas, Dynasty, Knots Landing and Falcon Crest, not to mention the first versions of 90210 and Melrose Place, but then TNT's Dallas came along. Like The CW's reboot of 90210, which lasted longer than it deserved to, and its revival of Melrose Place, which was a much faster failure, the new Dallas is a continuation of its old self, with many of the original characters on hand to tantalize veteran viewers and a bevy of handsome young hunks and beautiful young women to presumably attract a newer and younger audience. While Dallas has been successful enough for TNT to recently renew it for a third season, its creative team is going to have to work awfully hard to give it some direction following the death earlier this year of irreplaceable actor Larry Hagman and his character J.R. Ewing, who in the reboot as in the original gave this somewhat stale franchise an enduring and endearing energy that was much missed in the final episodes of season two (after J.R.'s funeral) and will be painfully absent in season three. The only character with any real complexity is Linda Gray's still riveting Sue Ellen Ewing (a character Gray has now portrayed in five different decades). The younger actors on the show could learn a lot simply by studying how Gray gives herself over to her character and the situations Sue Ellen finds herself in. Meantime, the writers should learn to be as fearless in devising difficult situations for all of the Ewings and their acquaintances as Gray is in tackling whatever comes her way, including Sue Ellen's latest stumble in her decades-long struggle with alcoholism. Her boozy eulogy at J.R.'s funeral is one of the under-appreciated treasures of this television year. Read the full version of this column at the Media Post TV Board.]]>


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Important! Freebase is read-only and will be shut-down. More.
Arthur Tavares en
Arthur Tavares was an American actor and film editor. He was born as Arturo Tavares in San Francisco in 1884. During the 1910s Tavares appeared as an actor in silent films in Hollywood, but during the 1920s he switched to become an editor. At the beginning of the sound era, Tavares worked on Spanish language versions of American films. He also made a number of films in Britain, including The Wrecker, The First Born and Song of Freedom. [ - ]

subset: commoncrawl


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Mucha stock preview 4 by lockstockWatch
©2006-2016 lockstock
I rather thought my head looked like the Millenium Falcon, what with all the STUFF sticking out on the sides. *makes WHOOSHING sounds*
Thought you might like to see how I used your photo for reference. You have a beautiful profile. :thumb298671671: Thank you for allowing artists to use your stock
Wow...I really think much himself would have liked to have had you as a model. You have a natural beauty.
Beautiful profile shot!
Starting to do this portrait on a piano key. Doing it as a "study", since the key itself is stained, but I may be able to work it into your falcon - er, I mean, your hair... I'm still new to deviantart, so you can see what I've done so far in my scraps? Also on [link] if you don't mind jumping over to facebook.
Beautiful pose, I love they way you arranged the flowers in your hair
Royalty, very nice.
what a profile!
Lol. You portrayed a Mucha style wonderfully. I used this to do a little doodle, I'll post a link as soon as it's uploaded.
How did you get them to stay in? did you buy them?
The flowers? They're just pinned in with bobby pins. It's one of those fake clusters of flowers you can get at a hobby store.
Beautifull stock. (:


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