Episode 2: Storm? What Storm?

It's time for the second episode recap, and I feel the need for something of a preface.  I am concerned that I may have hurt or offended some people last week.  Naturally, this was not my intention.  Recapping is a new internet art form, and it's still in development.  This may be the first time the recapper has personally known the participants, and it may, therefore seem more…well…personal.  I admit, it's a little weird, even for me.  I swear it isn't meant to be cruel.

    It's a very time consuming process, and you need to understand the aesthetic is that you are watching the show with your very snarkiest friend.  You know the one, the one whose motto is "If you can't say anything nice, sit right down here next to me".  Still, you understand, you are watching this show together every week.  Clearly, you must have a strong emotional investment in the show.
   
So please, everyone, especially Todd and Faust, on whom I have been, and, I expect, will continue to be ragging upon, understand that this comes from a deep love.
  
I love the people I met during the taping.  I love the camera guys and production staff who made it and designed the show.  I love that the show was made at all.  I love the whole thing in a very family based way.

   But still, you know, your sister's reality show married a doctor.  Also are you sure you're okay?  Do you need some money?  You look tired.

   So I'm ribbing, and saying what I think is wrong with it, but it's love.  I swear.

   Also, I'm a little pissed off at Book TV.  I don't like what they've done in waiting so long, and Im not wild about the compression.  I am not wild about the way in which I think they have misunderstood some things.  And I may vent a little.

    So yeah.  Anyway.  Please stop hating me, if you do.  And if you can't, then by all means defend yourself :)

    And James, while having your website link to Guinness amused me greatly, surely you could drop me a line with a better place to point those who want to learn more about you?  I'm just saying.

    Onward...

This episode opens with a brief restatement of the show, and finally, we get to see some of the behind the scenes people rolling out wire and placing lights. This pleases me because they had a big part to play, obviously, in the proceedings. We then see some quick replays of the contestants arriving. They move the camera in a big sweep around the table.

The first contestant singled out by name in the review is Gayleen, who as the Parasite says "came prepared for anything". We see my huge, huge ass, and then the shot of her pulling out turkey jerky, and every legal stimulant under God's blue heaven. And her tent pole. And rightly so, for this is an excellent way to define her for the viewers.

Incidentally, it does need to be said that what I did actually like about the first episode was the introductions to everyone. In a very short period of time we got a taste of everyone. This was a pretty amazing confluence of good footage and good editing. Would that the whole show had been devoted to that instead of devoting so much time to the challenge and the pontification of the judges.

But back to this week's episode, they cut to a quick replay of the pitch challenge from last week, starting with Faust telling the writers that they are "nobodies sitting on the street corner" and cutting, once again, to James' ass. It's a very nice bottom, but does it need more screen time? Oh well, I prefer it to his pitch, which is what we hear next. I'd have probably done the same thing. So if I sounded harsh last week about it, and let's be real, I did, it's probably because I hate myself.

We cut to Paul's wonderful pitch and unjust excoriation, and a replay of his confession booth decision to destroy his outline and start anew with his insane and delightful second idea.

Rachel's countdown is replayed, and the Parasite asks the question, "Can 12 writers living in a bookstore write 12 novels in just 72 hours?"

Yes.

"Who will achieve literary acclaim," he continues,"and who will fail? Whose novel will get published and who is destined to keep trying?"

Wow, there's a lot wrong there. First of all, and I don't mean to belittle the contest, but literary acclaim? That's a pretty hefty thing to throw out there. Who will fail? Considering that they KNOW everyone finishes, I'd probably choose not to pursue that path. Whose novel will get published? Now, if I remember, the winner of the contest was supposed to be serialized in the Alberta Writer's Guild magazine. That does count as publishing. However, it feels to me like the new team editing the show have confused the overall contest for the show here. Also? What of the five thousand dollars? The twelve of them were competing for five grand. Somebody won it. We saw it, we were there.

It seems pretty peculiar not to mention that. What the hell is up with that? Anyone have any ideas why? I mean, bad enough that they're sort of pretending this happened in September 2009, but to not mention the prize? Why? I admit, this had to be pointed out to me, and now that I've seen it, it's really bugging me.

But I digress.

The parasite closes with "Some of these questions will be answered in this segment of the 3 day novel contest."

But that is an utter lie. None of those questions are resolved in this episode. Why would they be? Nonsense.

And we're into the credits, slightly expanded from last episode, but gratefully they haven't decided to use the cute labels that each contestant was given. I've forgotten most of them. Poor Matthew, they saddled him with "The Toronto." I remember that. I'm like, way to cast him as the villain to half the country while saying nothing about him. Headshake. At least he is allowed to look properly smoking hot in his credit roll after the unfortunate intro segment of last episode.

The Parasite sets the scene, it's early, early in the morning, after the store is locked. Now my attention is rapt because this is the part of the show I actually wasn't there to see. So, like, now, I'm just a viewer like the rest of you.

Gayleen's eyes are bloodshot as hell, and we cut to Jennifer. In sweats.

Record scratch. I back it up.

"Jennifer," I exclaim to Gayleen, a foot away, "is in SWEATS."

"Oh yeah," she says, "Once the crowds were gone, she totally dressed down."

I feel a little cheated, as I liked to picture her at 3 am typing in a cocktail dress, while those around her grew more and more subhuman and disheveled. And of course, this was her cunning plan.

By 1 a.m. or thereabouts we find Paul has written 1500 words. Not too bad considering he's making it up out of whole cloth. Marty does a confessional around this time and lets us know he's done the first section of twenty-two and is heading to bed.

He's not the only one, and we see James in his bunk shirtless and wearing a sleep mask. I like to think he does that at home too, but I'm guessing it was a special occasion.

On her way to the bunk room, Nancy is asked by the camera person if she got a good start. Nancy responds that she doesn't know, and they'll have to get back to her in the morning. I know that feeling pretty well.

We see Gordon's confessional, taped at an undetermined time. He's at 1100 words, which is 700 ahead of where he thought he'd be. For all of that, he sure doesn't look like a guy having fun. He looks like a guy who needs to go to bed. He looked like that come the morning too. I don't know if he actually DID sleep. I can't remember. Perhaps this episode will refresh me.

The camera person asks Rebecca if she's still feeling energetic. The answer, in short is no. She's looking pretty good, but there's a waver of exhaustion that voice. I recommend sleep.

We're back to Gordon's confessional, and he tells us that if the rest of the weekend goes this well, he's feeling pretty good about it. I'd hate to see him feeling rough about it.

Paul decides to retire after finishing his first chapter at 2200 words. He seems really delighted with his new toy, and I'm happy to see that. I think the secret to the contest, honestly, is to fall in love with your book regardless of its warts. I think he already has. Good for him.

Joe, conversely feels that her book is going in a "workman-like flow" and she hasn't really got it where she wants it, but that it will come when she's not so tired.

Rebecca tells us that she started off with just a few notes and then looked up to see an hour and a half had gone by. That's also probably a good sign.

Okay, Paul appears to, instead still be up. He is concerned about the tone of his book. He is afraid he might be making it too serious. His book. About a squad of elite tap-dancing soldiers. I wouldn't sweat it big guy. The more serious you play that the funnier and sillier it will be. Oh, that's sweet. We see him at the typewriter laughing at something he just wrote. See, that's love. And yeah, okay, maybe laughing at your own material is a little shameful but it is, as the clock on his computer says, 3:41 a.m. Come on.

Apparently his protagonist is suffering from a tap-dance-induced delirium called "tap fever". Jesus I want to read Paul's book. Paul? Buddy? Please?

It's raining outside, and we see Paul is now going to bed. It is 4:30 am, and he doesn't look too tired. Gordon and Rebecca are still up. Gordon. Go to bed. Jesus.

Jennifer gets up at around this point. In sweats. It seems she had a character perking away in her mind, and had to get up to develop her. We see her workspace, and it has little lights on it. We see her screen, and the word "kinky" front and center. She claims motherhood and nursing babies have prepared her for this event. Probably true.

Tracy is still up, and she is in a foul little mood. She seems VERY hostile to the camera, but at least she is honest about it.

At 4:45 Jennifer is in confessional. She is the only one up. She explains that Tracy is drifting in and out. She comes out, writes a couple of lines down, and heads off to get more sleep. In and out, in and out.

I bet the others loved that. I'm amazed she wasn't strung up by a lynch mob.

The camera man is in her face again. It turns out she's just back from a 5 minute sleep. Apparently she just had a good idea and needed to write it down. I understand that process, but we also find that her computer has crashed all the way out. This is a plot thread left to dangle. Apparently it all turned out for the best. At this point it looks as though she may have lost her files. She seems awfully at peace with that, considering.

We cut to Jennifer, apparently sleeping in her chair, feet up on the table, head in hands. ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Sympathy evoked. Ah. She tells us she grabbed a catnap. She's a little too aware of everyone else's breathing pattern. On that topic, Gordon is, at this point, asleep. I'm a little astonished, from what the contestants told me, that we can't hear his snoring in these scenes.

Outside it's early dawn, and inside we see Matthew carrying a change of clothing someplace, presumably the bathroom. It must be nice to look that cute when you first wake up in the morning. I don't look that cute at…I never look that cute. I think I hate him a little here.

Nancy is unspeakably chipper as she turns on her computer. Tracy seems to be both amused and horrified at the sight of it.

Gordon looks like a man who slept for an hour, and now has a camera in his face.

Out in the parking lot, Jennifer is skipping rope and being interviewed. She describes the first night as surreal, and says that the contestants seemed to be experiencing angst. I'd call it exhaustion. But you call it what you like, and just keep skipping. Eye candy, baby. This is great television. She says the cardio helps her brain fire more accurately. Hooray for cardio.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, we cut to Gayleen by her tent, which is labeled in black as "Gayleen's Happy Place". It is 9:30 in the morning. She has chosen, wisely, to sleep long enough to not be destroyed physically. Rachel is interviewing her. She is using, also wisely, her don't poke the bear voice. She asks how Gayleen slept. Gayleen says she doesn't know how she slept. She slept about three hours and doesn't know why. I can't tell if she is being funny here, and pretending not to realize that Rachel was inquiring as to the quality of her sleep and how the tent worked to that goal, or if she is just being hilarious by accident. Gayleen informs me that she intended to be funny, here. Okay.

Rachel asks about Gayleen's setup. Gayleen demonstrates basic literacy by reading the sign on her tent, and then explaining that it is a tent. Rachel asks if the organization is going to translate to Gayleen's writing. Gayleen says she doesn't know but is reassured to be prepared for every eventuality. Ha! I'd like to see her cope with the other contestants turning into flesh hungry slavering undead monsters! Ha! Didn't prepare for that, did you?

Oh, earthquake, flood, and tornado, sure. But let's see your precious SAS Survival handbook save you from brain feasting!

We go to a preview of what's coming up after the break. A fucking challenge. Faust is, at least, wearing a suit. See, the suit works. The tie adds a nice African feel, but it's restrained and cool. Also, he is blessed with a very appealing bald head. Show that cue ball off, my friend.

The challenge will be to produce a scene with conflict involving their main character. Well, at least that isn't some totally bogus thing like the last challenge, but I don't see it being such great TV. We'll find out in just a moment.

Let me take a moment while we're here in commercials to go off for a second again about why the challenges are so useless. Up until this point, eight minutes or so into the episode I am engaged in the narrative of the weekend. We've been meeting people and seeing them in the act of the work itself and it has NOT been dull. Now we're going to cut to them sitting perfectly static in 3 rows of four, scribbling for a few minutes and then reading. Some will be good readers, and some not, but it will be the same shot over and over. THAT is boring and static. It's the opposite of what these should be. The only tension comes from the potential punishments. Winning doesn't really have an effect on the process. So, aiming for the middle is a good option. That's dreadfully Canadian, but in the worst way.

Also, I don't think that writers should have to be performers. I know they picked this crew to be a little more alive than most writers on camera, and good, but, again. I don't like penalizing the meek. Glowing prose, badly read is going to lose to bad prose well performed in a setup like this. It's human nature.

But I digress.

Back from the break, the contestants are sharing the ages at which they decided to be writers. All of them were very young. So was I. James reveals a very adorable thing. His decision to become a writer was a film about Hans Christian Andersen. I think I've seen that movie, and can understand where he was coming from.

Some very nice editing now ensues in which we cut from contestant to contestant, each of them adding words to what seems like a perfectly coherent narrative as to how they became writers. It's tough to recap, but good for you, whoever you are, and I hope it's Bill. Marty and Paul both come from a theatre background.

It is now nine a.m. and we see a long shot of the group. I am there, looking only slightly less corpulent and terrible holding one of Gayleen's dogs, who has come to visit. That footage was shot in the early afternoon. The Parasite is lying to us, people. What's his game?

They decide to check in on the writing process. Gordon explains that a couple of his characters are having some different ideas from what he planned, and that it ticks him off when fictional people talk back. Secretly, I think he loves it. Every writer I know loves it when that's what happens. It helps foster, I think, the idea of the writer as priest and channeller.

Paul is just plugging away typing and waiting to be told which way it wants to go. See? I told you. He's waiting for the miracle.

Gordon is at 3728, and by the end of the day is aiming for 20,000. Joe is more cautious. She expects to do a ragged five pages while the store is open and twenty after closing. That seems entirely sensible from what I could see of the demands of the show. It seems to have been the way of it. Joe seems moderately more comfortable with a camera up her nose than Tracy, but still not wild about it. And, seriously, camera dude, why ask that question? Do you like to get your feelings hurt?

Here we go. Challenge time. Three minutes to write a scene of conflict. Faust is looking for character, plot and language. Faust explains you may have to hook a publisher with three pages. Which is true. Much truer than the last one. So which is it, huh? HUH?

Oh right, there WAS a prize for this challenge. The winner gets their manuscript professionally edited by the Alberta Writer's Guild. Aim for the middle, team. You have no idea who you're getting there. You might get the best editor in Western Canada. On the other hand you might get your manuscript edited by a writer of cat poetry who has been revising the same 35 page poem called "My Precious Perfect" since 1973. Anyway.

The loser is going to have to write on an antique manual typewriter by the front door for two hours, or give up the last three pages. I would give up those three pages... but whatever.

Let's zoom and move the camera for a while to try and make the physical act of writing interesting, and cut to Marty in progress. Zombie attack! Cut to Matthew, bear hug attack! Cut to Gordon, sardonic dead hairdresser found! Cut to Nancy, um…moment without context attack! Cut to Jennifer, mild disagreement about bridal show! Um.. I mean mild disagreement about bridal show. Cut to Joe, pod person attack misunderstood as transgendering attack! Ha. Cut to Paul, Nazi chorus boys attack! Boffo! Cut to Rebecca, unintentional overuse of adverb attack! Cut to Gayleen, domestic abuse attack! Cut to James, catty bitch attack!

The editors wisely jumped quickly from writer to writer, not always showing the whole bit. Aside from Paul and Joe's there's really nothing that jumped out here as great. No slight against the writers, it's hard to have conflict without context. That said, Jennifer and Nancy seem to have a different sense of conflict than I do. Rebecca's was, I'm sorry, just not well written. It was sloppy. None of the others were flat out sloppy.

Why were Lorna and Tracy not even shown? What's up with that? Oh well. On to the judging.

Nancy and Rebecca are singled out as the losers, but Faust is fairly merciful. Rebecca is selected for the punishment, and she is clearly disappointed, but sucks it back, and plays it with a lot of grace in the next few seconds. Good for her, embracing the thing as just one more part of the game.

The top three were Paul, Jennifer, and James. I don't get you Minister Faust. Paul, of course, is a given here. His was a stand out scene that made everyone laugh, was written in the perfect tone, and stood on its own without the need for propping up. Jennifer's was not a scene of conflict in this reporter's opinion. I think Joe would have placed top three, but James is a better reader. This isn't a dig at James, just pointing out the problem I mentioned before. James' bit isn't bad or anything, but it's not better than Joe's. He just performs it, where Joe doesn't. One minor thing, "Crack Whore Monthly" is a cliche in need of retiring.

So we get our first contest: In the comments section I invite you to come up with a more insulting magazine to feature on. The winner will receive a very small prize. The loser will receive nothing but scorn.

I won't bitch too much, because Faust does get the actual winner right, and Paul is vindicated in the eyes of show for jumping to a new idea, and succeeding at it.

Paul is a graceful winner. Rebecca is a graceful loser. Minister Faust is not entirely infuriating this time. Bonus points all around.

Rebecca has chosen the typewriter over losing the three pages, because she's very attached to them. Fair enough.

Coming up, the Parasite tells us, the contest is taking its toll.

Back from the break, We are with Marty, who discusses his hobbies. Apparently, he's a nerd. If he isn't writing, then he's writing. James likes to make films. Matthew acts and does improv. Nancy apparently has done a lot of TV commercials, some in Japan, and we see a lot of shots her in her home. Oh saucy librarian lady, you delight me. Gayleen reveals that SHE is in fact the biggest nerd, and talks about D&D and LARP. This causes her physical pain to watch because everyone else, she thinks, is coming off as doing worthwhile things. Whatever. I'm just glad to see her flying that freak flag high. Gamers can use some more positive role models out there. There are some shots of our gamer buddies in costume. Hee.

Paul discusses that his whole life is either consuming entertainment and pop culture. Hence the loneliness. And, again, we're not seeing a lot of the others. I guess they were just too damned boring for this wacky compressed 22 minute version of the show. We wouldn't want to lose those challenges though, boy howdy are they great.

Grumble.

Paul and Marty and James are in confessionals happy not to have lost the challenge. Marty takes the time to thank the mystery fans that left him the gift of a head band at his computer. Marty is just the nicest guy in the world. I bet he eats babies in his off hours. He must do.

Gordon describes the challenges as "interrupting". I can tell he feels as I do. I could tell this even if he hadn't loudly proclaimed his hate for them a thousand times over the weekend. He was on a roll and feels his train of thought was broken. He hopes to burn on and hope exhaustion doesn't hit.

Rebecca is tip-tap-typing away with a smile, and tells us she hopes the sound is distracting the hell out of the others. Sadly, hon, they could barely hear you, but if it makes you feel better, they all felt bad for you. I remember this very acutely. There was no gloating. Her pace is slow, but she does seem to be progressing.

We cut to Joe who is lying on her back with a bag of ice, dealing with a nosebleed. This was fucking terrible and, for obvious reasons, show can't talk about it much. The show had a hotel room and the contestants were given leave to go there and shower periodically in shifts. During Joe's shift, something happened and she got a terrible nosebleed. She asked the hotel staff at the DELTA EDMONTON SOUTH to help her, and they basically half-ass threw her out of the hotel as an annoyance. No concern, no compassion. None. Just take your bleeding elsewhere. I wanted to go down there with a baseball bat and start fucking the place up X-Men style. I refrained. We were all very upset by it though.

Anyway. This is after the worst of it, and for some reason the camera guy is right up her nose. I guess I can't blame him. It's drama. However the guy taunts her, asking how tough this will make it to meet her goal. Instead of springing to her feet, grabbing the camera and beating the man to death with it, she simply says that she expects it won't help. God love the graceful. She even manages a stiff upper lip laugh.

Hey, there's Lorna, who we see NOTHING of this episode. She has had an okay first night and it feels like a strange camping trip. Matthew says he's stayed in hostels worse than this. I'd be curious to hear some of those stories. Did they film you in those hostels? Because if they did, I bet they weren't really hostels. Nancy tells us that the experience has been odd, and not in the ways she expected. Lorna says her ideas are starting to flow more smoothly now.

Joe is back at the keys, bleary eyed, and exhausted talking about washing the blood off her face and gives a smile that is genuinely adorable and open. Nancy finds that the rhythm of her writing has been affected by the situation. Tracy says she's found her niche and the writing is going well. She then says she is running on nothing but "adrenaline and cr- (slight pause)caffeine" Oh dear. She says that she may be crying by the end of the day.

Having lost two hours to the nosebleed, Joe gets back to it. we cut to Matthew who reminds us, ironically that the loser of the challenge also lost two hours. He is grateful not to have lost precious time.

Rebecca, we see, has found a groove and is doing well. An adorable moppet is standing several feet away watching her. Go role model Rebecca! Woo! And bonus points for the inappropriate use of Negro spirituals to complain about mild inconvenience!

She and her seven pages are warmly welcomed back to the table by Matthew.

We see Joe and Matthew both saying the first day was harder than anticipated. Matthew describes the challenges as "fierce" which is, I'm sorry, too gay even for him. James hopes for pleasant mediocrity from this point out. This is Canada, I'd bet on that, Jamie. Heh.

And now we're into the previews of next week. There are many shots of people stating their word counts with a fair amount of consistency across the board. Rebecca is about nine hundred words behind, and no wonder. We see a taste of the next challenge, as James screams "Good Evening Edmonton", like a very civil rock star. We see the penalty for this challenge is to spend the night sleeping in the parking lot. Therein lies a tale I hope we see a lot of next week.

There are some obligatory shots of tired people, and then James thanks Book TV for making the weekend dreadful, Rebecca sneaks to bed, and we see Jennifer getting her dress zipped up for her.

And we're out.

So, that wasn't so bad now, was it?

See you next week.