No snot for 'Aquarius'?

[Bob Jersey]

The David Duchovny-starrer had its whole first season tossed online straight after the b'cast premiere last night... only 'cuz they could, Bob Greenblatt told TheWrap (link)... you'll only have a few weeks to view the streamed version...

B
(I don't regret leaving regular daily viewing of Wrap... the pop-stories list is still mostly the TLC folks...)

[PGage]

Maybe this was clear to everyone else, but it took me a little reading to realize that what NBC has done is made the entire series available on all its platforms (at least for several weeks), not just online but also On Demand, in addition to broadcasting it once a week.

I don't see it in the linked article - are they going to include all views in the ratings?

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[Bob Jersey]

PGage, in part, to moi:

Maybe this was clear to everyone else, but it took me a little reading to realize that what NBC has done is made the entire series available on all its platforms (at least for several weeks), not just online but also On Demand, in addition to broadcasting it once a week.

I figured folks were ignoring it, after the piece on Duchovny's music.

I don't see it in the linked article - are they going to include all views in the ratings?

No clear indication from what I've seen either.

B

[Kevin M.]

I watched the pilot.

Does Manson have any legal recourse as a felon for the use of his name and a comic book version of himself in the series? I was reminded of the Wonder woman episode featuring Martin Mull as the beatnick/hippie Pied Piper who used his flute to control women. It was that campy.

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Bob Jersey]

Kevin, to moi:

I watched the pilot.

Does Manson have any legal recourse as a felon for the use of his name and a comic book version of himself in the series? I was reminded of the Wonder woman episode featuring Martin Mull as the beatnick/hippie Pied Piper who used his flute to control women. It was that campy.

I'd think they'd have to have cleared that in advance...

B

[Tom Wolper]

I would really want to hear from an attorney or someone in the industry who is experienced in the issue. I can easily see both sides of it.

[Kevin M.]

I confess I've been preoccupied by this all day. I don't know if there was ever a civil suit against Manson by families of victims who might subsequently have a say in the "rights" to the use of and/or profit from his likeness or his name. I know convicts can't earn money off of their convictions while incarcerated, but I don't know how much say they have in unauthorized works of fiction about themselves. It just struck me watching it that if Manson was lucid enough to sit through a one-hour NBC drama (and let's face it, one doesn't have to be Manson to struggle doing that), he'd be annoyed at how he was portrayed.

Many years ago when I was in junior high, we watched a documentary in school about Jonestown. If you can imagine how watered down Jonestown has to be for it to be shown in a Christian junior high classroom, that's basically how Manson was portrayed in the pilot of Aquarius. Strumming a guitar while doe-eyed girls fawned over him, not really doing anything until the end of the episode in the parking garage, at which point I remembered that Manson famously got others to do his dirty work, so the parking garage scene only served to rip me out of the story. 

Manson has to be a hard character to write, since he was a puppet master, but nobody could ever quite explain how he pulled so many strings beyond getting people so full of drugs they lost all their senses. He didn't take direct action, wasn't conventionally attractive, things he said rarely if ever made sense, so you can't get Hannibal Lector style quotes from him. In "Aquarius," he looks like every male Starbucks barrista I've ever seen and speaks in "beat" poetry. 

I don't know. I guess I just need to let it go and wait until the new X-Files episodes to get my Duchovny fix.

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Tom Wolper]

On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 7:12 PM, Kevin M. <drunkba...@gmail.com> wrote:

I confess I've been preoccupied by this all day. I don't know if there was ever a civil suit against Manson by families of victims who might subsequently have a say in the "rights" to the use of and/or profit from his likeness or his name. I know convicts can't earn money off of their convictions while incarcerated, but I don't know how much say they have in unauthorized works of fiction about themselves. It just struck me watching it that if Manson was lucid enough to sit through a one-hour NBC drama (and let's face it, one doesn't have to be Manson to struggle doing that), he'd be annoyed at how he was portrayed.

Many years ago when I was in junior high, we watched a documentary in school about Jonestown. If you can imagine how watered down Jonestown has to be for it to be shown in a Christian junior high classroom, that's basically how Manson was portrayed in the pilot of Aquarius. Strumming a guitar while doe-eyed girls fawned over him, not really doing anything until the end of the episode in the parking garage, at which point I remembered that Manson famously got others to do his dirty work, so the parking garage scene only served to rip me out of the story. 

Manson has to be a hard character to write, since he was a puppet master, but nobody could ever quite explain how he pulled so many strings beyond getting people so full of drugs they lost all their senses. He didn't take direct action, wasn't conventionally attractive, things he said rarely if ever made sense, so you can't get Hannibal Lector style quotes from him. In "Aquarius," he looks like every male Starbucks barrista I've ever seen and speaks in "beat" poetry. 

I don't know. I guess I just need to let it go and wait until the new X-Files episodes to get my Duchovny fix.

Manson happened to get blown up by the media in 1969 because he represented an evil dark side to the hippie experience. As he went defiantly through the justice system with his co-defendants he provided fodder for a narrative of how dangerous nonconformism can be. So he was not only a public figure in 1969-70, he became a central figure and that is why I could see that a work of historical fiction for that era could use his name and likeness without compensation.

I think Manson is a hard character to write because he just is not a significant person. The media echoes of the consequences of the Tate/LaBianco murders destroyed all proportions of the crimes and built a small industry around the "mystique" of Manson. A fictional Manson character has to embody that mystique even if the actual Manson did not.

[Dave Sikula]

Sidenote on Mr. Manson:

Years and years ago, the late Spaulding Grey did a series of shows called "Interviewing the Audience," where (in theory) he would bring a random sample of people on stage and bring out their stories. The night I saw it, the first guest was a cleaning woman who didn't speak English -- which made for an awkward conversation at best -- and a man who turned out to have been Manson's lawyer. (The first guest led me to believe the format was as promised; the second made me wonder.)

Regardless, the lawyer said that Manson, when the cameras are off, was a meek and charming guy who compensated for his lack of size and strength with an uncanny ability to win people over. It was only when the media were around that he turned on the crazy. Given his ability to assemble a "family" and his interviews (I particularly remember the one with Tom Snyder), I completely believed him -- and do to this day.

--Dave Sikula

[Bob Jersey]

Moi, May 29th 2015:

The David Duchovny-starrer had its whole first season tossed online straight after the b'cast premiere last night... only 'cuz they could, Bob Greenblatt told TheWrap (link)... you'll only have a few weeks to view the streamed version...

Your chance is over; several cast were given notices months ago, insiders told Variety (link), and today, the ax dropped...

B