The TV Set (2006) – 4/5

The TV Set (2006): “A place where dreams are canceled”

A humorous and honest/cynical look at the production of a TV show pilot.

It’s the story of a write working on a pilot dealing w/ the creative compromises necessary to turn art into business.

I’m not sure how the public these days manages to fool themselves into think good art can transition into boog business w/o compromise to the point of almost ruining whatever was good about the art.

Society at times will still claim it to be good and in some cases it is, but that might be in spite of the compromises (a good artist can work w/in that), just our opinion (which has to be questioned w/ some of the material out there succeeding) or it wasn’t corrupted which I’d say wd be an extreme exception.

Sorry to ramble.

The dialog is great. Weaver’s character has some incredible lines “He’s not coming!?!?!”

I like the way it’s so clearly split into 3 acts: pre-production, production and responses each separated by a few weeks. And each act is focused on just one or two long scenes. You get a tight view of the present and can fill in the blanks between.

SPOILERS:

It’s interesting that even though the bed-ridden writer looking at his pregnant wife holding baby #1 realizes he needs to make this work as a job (i.e., compromise his art), he’s still so upset about his work being altered that he’s driven to drink and pain killers (or so they wd have us believe).

Anyway, I wd rather have seen him buy into it all to a degree just in realizing this is what it takes to make art work in business (he can still do art for the sake of art on the side if that’s the point). Or he not cave to the compromise.

Haiku summary:
writer with pilot
compromises art to work
network inserts fart