Emerging Writers Network

Book Review 2012-017: The Revolution Was Televised by Alan Sepinwall

Book Review 2012-017
The Revolution was Televised by Alan Sepinwall
202 by What's Alan Watching, 306 pages

(I bought this via kindle two days ago)

 

 

I check in on Grantland fairly regularly and not just for the sports related posts. The other day there was an excerpt from The Revolution was Televised, by Alan Sepinwall. It was a portion of the chapter from this book about the television show Lost. It was a fascinating explanation of how the show came together--and  just how crazy and unlikely it was that it did, and even more unlikely that it became a hit. Being a television junkie, I did some searching online and find out that the author of the book has been a prolific television critic since the days of NYPD Blue. Not only that, but the list of shows he's written about in this book (a quick look showed me not only Lost, but The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, The Shield, Friday Night Lights, and more) looked like a laundry list of those piled up collected season DVD's on my bookshelves. A purchase was inevitable.

Just as inevitable was how fast I was going to go through the book--and I don't think that will just happen to me. The way Sepinwall has put the book together--one big chapter on a dozen different television shows, shows that he shows were revolutionary in one way or another, in a style somewhere between narrative and oral history, with plenty of interviews of the creators of the shows, as well as network executives, has the book read like an easily downed box of chocolates; you might mean to simply eat one or maybe two, but a few hours later you're staring at little paper wrappers and an empty box.

Sepinwall was a newspaper critic in New Jersey, and at least of portion of the reason he got that initial job was the website he'd created for covering NYPD Blue when he was in college. At the time he felt like he was witnessing a golden age of television watching the aforementioned NYPD Blue, Homicide, as well as their predecessor, Hill Street Blues. What Sepinwall comes to realize is that while those shows began pushing boundaries, the shows that he focuses full chapters on all took bigger steps than simply pushing a boundary or two--they bounded forward, doing something revolutionary in how they changed television.

Sepinwall shows his historical knowledge by starting off not with The Sopranos, but with its HBO predecessor, Oz. HBO had done some of their own shows prior to Oz, but they really hadn't invested hard into their own scripted series. Oz was their first real launch into this, and as a series set in an experimental ward of prison, with creators Tom Fontana and Barry Levinson, there were plenty of story angles and methods of telling them, that could simply not be told on network television.

Each chapter has a similar way of being told--the reader is given a bit of history of the show, how the creators came up with it and pitched it, how the network took it on and in some cases, why. These are done with either new interviews,  or in a few cases, pieced together from prior interviews Sepinwall had done with these individuals. There would be an explanation as to the revolutionary aspect about the show.

The Sopranos giving us an anti-hero; The Wire as television in novel form; Deadwood as television via auteur via David Milch; Buffy the Vampire Slayer as sci-fi/horror breaking down our expectations--the monsters needing to be scared of the pretty blonde for once, and how these "monster" stories really told tales of high school angst with an entertaining flair; and so on for each show right on through two shows still currently running, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad. And each of these explanations are more than plausible and feel exactly right. And again, they're put together in both fascinating and entertaining ways.

Not only all of that, but he gives Terriers a couple of positive nods. If he needed it, this would have been worth half a star alone. He didn't need it.

If you have any interest in television, especially in the most critically acclaimed shows of the past fifteen years, this book should be on your shelf, right there with all of your DVD's of these wonderful shows.

5 stars

Source of Lit - The New York Tyrant V 4 N 1

The latest issue of New York Tyrant (Volume 4 Issue 1) arrived a few weeks ago and I finally took some time to sit and read it early this morning and as usual, it delivers the goods.

This issue was guest edited by Luke Goebel, and  designed by Adam Robinson and they both do well to continue the fine tradition that publisher Giancarlo Ditripano set forth with the first eight issues.

I've not finished the issue yet, but skipped around and enjoyed the opening works by Cooper Renner, a couple of solid flash  fictions, an interesting short story from Brandon Hobson, a two and a half page from Gordon Lish with not a word out of place (as expected).

As noted, I still have more works from within these great pages to read, but so far some standouts include Pamela Ryder's wonderful father/daughter story, David McLendon's story (the first of his that I've read, though I'm familiar with his writing and his tastes which are incredible), and Robert Lopez's story/confessional (not his confession, the story itself feels like a confessional).  Also the longer stories by Paula Bomer and Amber Sparks. It's a nice mix so far, between shorter works and longer works. I'm looking forward to reading  the rest of the issue.

Book Review 2012-016: The Rebel League by Ed Willis

Book Review 2012-016
The Rebel League by Ed Willis
2004 by McClelland and Stewart, 277 pages

(I bought this a couple of months ago)

 

 

I've always beena big fan of rival sports leagues--eventhough I believe the USFL is really the only one that was ongoing and local to me during my active sports fandom. The 70's saw three sports leagues pop up to contend with the NBA (the American Basketball Association), the NHL (the World Hockey Association), and the NFL (the World Football League) that saw many of the same players involved in the behind the scenes motions, and early ownership groups. While the WFL fizzled pretty quickly and without even the fanfare that the USFL would see nearly two decades later, both the ABA and the WHA were responsible for quite a few changes to the sports landscape in general, and to their respective rival leagues in particular, and both ended with a handful of teams being assimilated into the longer standing rival leagues.

While Terry Pluto's oral history of the ABA, Loose Balls, might never get knocked out of its spot as the top literary recording of one of these leagues, Ed Willis has done an excellent job with The Rebel League. There are times within that I wish he'd have gone the route Pluto did with the oral history--but that's probably more due to my love of that format than because of anything lacking in this book--there are a couple of minor instances that I'm just not sure who his source for a story is.

One gets a great sense of how amazing it was that the league ever worked--you had guys that were lawyers that had some involvement in the first three years of the ABA (which began in the late 60's) getting together and deciding hockey was in need of a competitive league. That is, guys that knew very little about hockey--Bill Hunter, President of the Western Canada Junior Hockey League was brought in early on to discuss the idea:

"I was impressed with them only as promoters," said Hunter. "They knew nothing about hockey. Absolutely zero."

And so it began with many of the money guys simply wanting a shiny new toy to play with. The league established itself quickly by signing legendary superstar Bobby Hull away from the Chicago Black Hawks of the NHL--this is a high point in the book as Willis talked to everybody involved from the Winnipeg Jets owners to the WHA hierarchy to Bobby Hull and his agents, etc. and the story ofthe back and forth discussions, the way that the league had each team kick in money and not just Winnipeg as they knew getting somebody like Hull could make their league viable immediately, Hull's waiting to verify the check cleared before he officially signed his contracts (he had to sign one in the US and then one in Winnipeg for publicity reasons), etc. has a fantastic suspense factor to it.

It's scenarios like this one, where Willis has had access to multiple players and owners and personnel, that the book really shines. There are some minor negatives--there are entire teams that might see one or two very small mentions (the Michigan Stags, for instance, are mentioned on half a page of the book), and the appendix simply shows what  teams played in each year--this could pretty easily have been bulked up to show their records, show the playoff series results and even show what teams moved from one city to another.

But those are minor, and even moreso when compared to the Hull story, the setting up of the league stories, the in-depth sections on Gordie Howe and his sons playing together, the Birmingham (Baby) Bulls and how one team signing a handful of 18 year olds helped push the NHL over the edge into agreeing to a merger, and many other stories like these. Willis writes with knowledge of the sport and it's clear that he had a great time talking to the many players quoted directly in the book.

If you're a fan of hockey, or of sports in general, this one belongs on your shelf.

4 stars