What was on TV? Fri, Dec 3, 2004

20 years ago, Warner Bros. was desperately trying to make Oliver Stone's Alexander happen. Bless their hearts. Let's see what was on TV!

8:00 Peep Show (recorded)

1x05 "Dream Job"

Available on Tubi and several other FAST services.

Olivia Colman is on this show, playing Mark's co-worker and crush. But so far she's had little to do. But she gets a nice showcase in this episode, as she receives a promotion Mark wanted. Mark is wounded but also embarrassed. He does a lot of very stupid and very male things in response, which lead to him drying pee off of documents in the bathroom and killing a dog. It's excellent. But I'm still waiting for a truly great Olivia showcase.

8:30 Degrassi: The Next Generation on the N

4x07 "Time Stands Still Part 1"

Available on Tubi and several other FAST services.

I watched school shooting episode of Joan of Arcadia earlier this year. It was pretty good, though it did propagate the myth fostered by the coverage of Columbine, that school shooters are usually bullied and alienated loners (the Columbine shooters were more motivated by misogyny and bigotry, as is the case with many mass shooters). But Joan followed the very special episode model: the would-be shooter appeared in that episode and then never again.

Degrassi still propagates the idea of the bullied loner shooter. But this isn't a stand-alone affair. I've never seen an episode of Degrassi, but our shooter is a part of the ensemble, and he has relationships with many people in the cast (including Drake!). And this is a part one, we only see the terrible day (slimed at the trivia competiton, rejected by his crush, etc) that leads our loner to go to the closet and take out his parents' gun. Now we have to wait a week and see what happens to Drake or that girl from The LA Complex or any of these wholesome Canadian teens. Degrassi has the tone of an after-school special: very earnest and concerned with the big issues. But it's also so pulpy and serialized, which has earned it a dedicated fanbase among teens and adults. It's a potent combination.

This episode was written by Aaron Martin and Brendan Yorke. Martin wrote on Canadian classics Being Eria and Killjoys, Yorke wrote on Wynonna Earp and Lost Girl.

This episode was directed by Stefan Scaini. He is a prolific director in the world of Canadian television.

9:00 Ice Wars on CBS

Available on Youtube

For those not in the know, Ice Wars was a professional figure skating competition that aired around Thanksgiving from 1994 until 2006. It was birthed in the aftermath of the Tonya and Nancy scandal and was thus always regarded as the trashy but fun event. It was billed as the USA vs. the World, and the USA always won. Maybe they'd lose one year to make things exciting the next year, but everyone knew the script. Canada had its own version of Ice Wars called the World Team Challenge, and Canada always seemed to win. Today, Japan hosts the World Team Trophy, and the format basically guarantees Japan a medal every year. All the patriotic viewers and fans in the host country go home satisfied. And since all the skaters from around the world get to share in the profits, nobody minds.

But in the mid-2000s, the USA started losing Ice Wars. You can rig Ice Wars with generous judging for the host country, and you can stack the world team with less competitive skaters. But you can only do so much. And the USA losing Ice Wars was a problem.

Professional skating went bust in a big way in the mid-2000s. In 1994, there were around a dozen professional skating events broadcast on American television. Ten years later, it was just Ice Wars. I imagine that Ice Wars survived in part thanks to the patriotic nature of the enterprise. Ice Wars was the most jingoistic of all team competitions, as the name implies, and there was an appetite for that in the mid-2000s. People wanted to see America win. And if that couldn't happen in the Middle East, maybe it could happen on the field, or on the court, or on the ice. But on the ice, the US was losing.

The US's weakness was mostly in women, The punishing nature of the sport in general and in America in particular meant that women rarely stuck around long enough to grow professional careers. They got injured, they burned out, audiences turned against them, you name it. By 2004, the US only really had one big-time professional ladies skater: Nicole Bobek. I love Nicole Bobek and her pro programs (this year's "Whatever Lola Wants," choreographed by the great David Liu, is a personal favorite). But they contained no triple jumps and consequently scored poorly.

In 2003, Ice Wars handled the problem by making it "Team North America vs. the World." This allowed them to recreate the iconic Canada vs. Russia Salt Lake City pairs matchup. And by swapping out a lady for a pair, the US mitigated their weakness in that discipline. In 2005, they ditched the country format entirely for a "battle of the sexes." But in 2004, they brought Kristi Yamaguchi, Olympic Gold Medalist and the queen of American skating, out of retirement.

And it's Kristi's return that makes this event special. There are other great moments (two gorgeous triple axels from Todd Eldredge, Kurt Browning doing a double axel over a prop toybox, Brian Boitano dancing with a coat rack, Oksana Baiul's costume changes, Yuka Sato's edgework, Nicole Bobek's entire artistic program). But it's really about Kristi. The woman was a new mom and had (I suspect) been trying to retire from pro competition and pro skating since the late 90s. But no one else had the juice, so she showed up, and she came prepared with real technical content and choreography. Kristi was never one to rest on her laurels. Deep into her professional career, when she'd more than earned the right to take it easy, she was skating to spoken word Japanese poetry, doing a sexy program to a Janet Jackson deep cut, and doing a goddamn pairs program with Denis Petrov. Here she comes prepared with a gorgeous tribute to her daughter choreographed by Sandra Bezic and a super hard Triplets of Bellville number choreographed by Christopher Dean. The USA still lost: Yuka Sato did about four triple jumps to Nicole Bobek's zero, which sealed the deal for the World team.

But I'm sure that to a lot of people, that didn't matter. The best moment in the whole broadcast comes in the kiss and cry with Kristi and Oksana Baiul. Oksana says that "Kristi is the super sophisticated Olympic champion of 1992, and I am just the drama queen of 1994." It's a great moment for Oksana, but what makes it special is Kristi's big, good-natured laugh. America's figure skating queen was back on network television, even if only for a year. That was a win for America all by itself.

(For those interested in what was happening in competitive skating: this weekend was the first time that Mao Asada and Yuna Kim ever faced off. Mao Asada won, and landed her first triple axel in international competition to boot. Also, Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir won their first major international medal.).

Late Night

On Late Night, Conan does a segment making fun of all the award season movies, which reminds you of how hard most of this year's big Oscar hopefuls flopped. Later, Ryan Reynolds stops by to promote Blade: Trinity and you remember things weren't much better on the blockbuster front.

In the News

TV Week published an article about the future of FX, and did a rundown of everything they had in production.

Last week the network announced the first firm new addition to its schedule: a six-episode order of "30 Days," a reality series by "Super Size Me" director Morgan Spurlock. Other projects in development include the pilot "Channel 101" with actor Jack Black; the ensemble comedy "It's Always Sunny"; a Ten Commandments miniseries; the drama "Thief," a pilot starring Andre Braugher; the comedy "Human Animals," about married documentarians; and the comedy "Starved," about eating disorders.

So many big names! So many trendy topics! Yet it was the mere "ensemble comedy" with no stars that changed everything. Sometimes that's how it goes.

TiVo Status

The three-hour Masterpiece Theater miniseries The Lost Prince and The Office Christmas Special from across the pond (2 hours), A Christmas Carol: The Musical, and the TNT movie The Wool Cap. 9 hours with 19 hours of space left.