The Revolution Will
Not Be Televised
by Clarissa Coleman 

I hope everybody enjoyed the premiere of Archipelago Law on Thursday. It was the culmination of this year’s work for me, as well as a promising new moment in television. What’s that? You didn’t see it? You didn’t even know it was on? No shit.

This is what I’m getting at, folks—promotion. How the hell can a TV show become a hit on UPN when no one promotes it? Forget that it’s on UPN. Even shows with a chance for success need to have their potential audience informed that they’re going to be on. Am I wrong?

Archipelago Law was treated like third-rate crap from day one by the network. From making Pia Zadora our first episode’s big name guest star to forcing us to re-title the pilot from “Island Go-Round” to “Not Suitable for Air.” What I don’t get is why the UPN executives would spend hundreds of dollars on a potential new hit, think better of it, then refuse to sink more money into its promotion. Hit shows don’t make themselves.

And then, THEN, they go and stick the show in a timeslot up against a new ER—who thought they’d win that ratings war? Most UPN affiliates don’t even air 10 o’clock programming, they air the news or the farmer’s market report or something. So even if you wanted to watch Archipelago Law, the first network show about justice on a small peninsula, you don’t know when it’s on or if you can even get it.

I got a tape from a friend yesterday and was sorely disappointed to see the network sabotage ran even deeper. As if it wasn’t bad enough they tried to keep our show a secret like they were ashamed of it, I saw they completely replaced the lovable actor playing the red-haired kid “Tubby” with another rotund red-headed kid. I imagine he didn’t test well with focus groups, too many freckles or some weird focus group fetish thing. Then they edited our 2-hour pilot down to one confusing hour where I couldn’t figure out what was going on, and I starred in it. Then they cut at least half of my speaking lines, leaving me with just the one. Network executives may know what they’re doing when it comes to appeasing affiliates, but they have no idea what constitutes good island justice entertainment.

Needless to say, I haven’t seen the hard numbers yet, but I’m not waiting for them to call for more episodes. You just can’t work with major networks to make a good television show these days. If you ask me, and for the purpose of this diatribe let’s pretend you did, networks have grown fat and complacent, like Kelly Rippa. They need more competition, real fresh programming that comes into your house and shakes things up. Like HBO, without having to pay for it, and without showing The Mummy so much. But keep the nudity, strong language, and adult situations.

Believe me, if I had the money and general motivation to do anything constructive, I’d be the first to do it. Free TV! Like some kind of World War II radio station, broadcasting shows that challenge the paradigm and shift demographics and other pointless marketing lingo. Only for TV instead of radio. Something break up the monopoly, and knock all those little red hotels off the board.

That’s the TV of tomorrow, folks, and I’ll be proud to be a part of it. In the meantime, I’d better get a list of auditions together again.

Fight the Power
I’m sure the people of Iraqistan are grateful there’s a war going on there, they get all the free publicity they could use and every time we have a war we pay for it afterwards ‘cause we’re such good sports, but it doesn’t help me at all.

Dad on the Run
Sure, the cops will catch him, and he’ll probably get a lawyer who can plea-bargain him down to pushing a cop with extreme prejudice, but it just pisses me off.

Papa Was a Violent Stone-Thrower
They’ve already arraigned dad and denied bail. Not for the assault, but since the judge said dad was pretending to be black. Yeah, I didn’t even know judges could do that, it’s new to me.

Flying High with the Pilot
As if it needed saying, I did stupendous. I haven’t acted in a long, long time, and it really shows—I have boundless energy. There was even a few times the director had to stop the shoot to tell me to stop moving around in the background, or get out of the scene since I wasn’t in it.