Tue, March 16, 2004

A couple of weeks back, Arksie devoted his "Average Mulder" column over at the Athletic Reporter to a review of ESPN's reality series Dream Job. It caught my attention for a number of reasons, and I won't insult your intelligence and pretend that the primary one wasn't the fact that he generously used a parenthetical paragraph of that column to attempt to set me up with Maggie Haskins, a sassy, energetic, and adorable contestant on that show. But, running a close second to that was the usual Arksie style and class. Like myself, he's at his best when he's giving you a peek into how his mind works, and that's why AvgM columns like "Dream Jobbed" and "Why Super Bowl XXXVIII Is Going To Be a Blowout" are so great. (Don't hold it against him that it wasn't – it's still a phenomenal column.) Also excellent is "The Worst-Dressed List," his run-down of the myriad violations of decency and good taste that have been perpetrated on sports fans by the designs of NFL uniforms. (Or, if you prefer, outfits.) So, "Dream Jobbed," which not only critiques the show, but recounts Arksie's experience trying out for the show (and attempts to set me up with Maggie Haskins, let's not forget – Maggie, email me) is definitely worth a read – hop on over to the 'Porter and check it out.

Anyway, after gleefully reading "Dream Jobbed" about five times through, I decided I had to check out this Dream Job show. Not to spoil the ending (of the first sentence), but Arksie found it not to his liking. I appreciate ESPN in a very different way than he does, however. He appreciates the sports coverage, while I can't really comment one way or the other on that. I'm not exactly what you'd call an avid sports fan. I enjoy watching sports when they're on, but I've never mustered the enthusiasm to devote much time to learning enough about all the teams to get very much, content-wise, out of an episode of SportsCenter. But I still love ESPN. They have some of the best graphics people in the business, and – Edward Tufte will tell you – when you deal in giant volumes of information, you learn rather quickly how to present information in a highly efficient manner. SportsCenter is a great example of that, but ESPNews is the ultimate. I love watching ESPNews when I've got nothing else to do, because their bottom-of-the-screen crawl is better than anybody else's on television. (In fact, if I were in charge, it's the only one I wouldn't abolish.) It features little tabs across the top of the ticker, which indicate the sports that are coming up next in the ticker content area. (NBA, NHL, NCAA, etc.) Then, within the content area, there's a little arrow next to the text if there's more text coming on that subject (their text comes up a line at a time rather than streaking past like certain tickers I could name), and there's a thin yellow bar which shrinks each time the content is updated – that bar's job is to tell you how much longer it will be until the next sport appears. So, if you're watching ESPNews and you want to see the score of, say, a Braves game, and the current tab is NHL and the next tab is MLB, and the yellow bar is just about full-length, you know you have a while to go. If the yellow bar shrinks a lot between one hockey team and the next, you know hockey is pretty light that day and baseball is coming up soon. If it shrinks in tiny increments, you know there are a lot of hockey scores to get to, and you can go grab a soda and come back without missing the Braves score. They get all this across in an absolutely tiny amount of space, and that's just the information about the information. The actual scores, stats, and news highlights are packed in there ingeniously. It's something to behold. So, while Dream Job may not necessarily capture the attention of a typical sports fan, it offers a behind-the-scenes look at ESPN, which tantalizes me as a fan of ESPN's production values and creative choices – and also a fan of Sports Night.

Anyway, getting to the point, I decided to check out Dream Job, and around a week later I actually remembered to act on that decision, and TiVo was ordered to fetch me an episode. The first episode I saw (episode three of the series) featured the contestants anchoring a pretend SportsCenter in teams of two, writing their own copy and providing narration for the highlights. I loved it. I ate it up. Because I wasn't paying attention to the sports at all. I don't know Villanova from Valpo, but I loved the behind-the-scenes feel and the in-depth understanding of the basic concepts that comes from watching five different teams try it out. You don't just see "too much comedy" vs. "too serious." You can actually see "way too much comedy", "just a little more comedy than necessary" all the way down the spectrum to "dull." By contrasting the different attempts you can really see what works and why, in a way that listening to the Dream Job panel of judges could never convey. (Arksie's absolutely right about them, by the way. With the exception of Al Jaffe – ESPN's VP in charge of talent – everyone on the panel is useless. I have a crush on Kit Hoover, but still, Jaffe should be the only judge.) Also, the way Dream Job parcels out the different tasks that make up anchoring SportsCenter, you get a real idea of why the competition is so fierce. What looks fairly simple is actually complex and painstaking – in part because, as I mentioned before, SportsCenter is working very near the upper bound of information transfer rate. You can get a very precise view of skills like being aware of the camera, improvising to fill time or cover a segue, and timing (both in presentation and in having an internal clock that will get you to the end of your narration right when your 15 seconds are up).

This makes it part reality show/part behind-the-scenes documentary, which is interesting and informative while being entertaining. The added benefit is, the reality show part is better than most. As Arksie pointed out, the prize on Dream Job is essentially a career, just like American Idol. Contrast this with reality game shows which offer money (Survivor) or nothing at all (Temptation Island). I'd say Dream Job is a cut above the American Idol model, and closer to Last Comic Standing – the career you're vying for is one that requires skill and intelligence, and so it's a tougher competition than American Idol would be. The singers don't have to write a song in an afternoon or improvise a melody on-the-fly. Dream Job rewards wit, charisma, intelligence, charm, and writing skills (good god, why didn't Arksie win this thing?) and those are all characteristics I hold in high regard, so that's why I love the show.

They've also got great contestants, who make it interesting. After a nationwide search, these people are all very near the top of their game, so the differences in their approach are subtle yet important. Six are left this week, and there are three who I'm really pulling for.

First, of course, is Maggie Haskins. (We're going to be married, so I had better be supportive!) She's occasionally a little too animated on camera, but her sports knowledge is solid and she's attractive, funny, and quick-witted. In episode three I think she was pulled down a little by being teamed with Lori Rubinson (now eliminated), who is one of those dominating personalities that tends to get all their ideas through no matter what the rest of the team thinks. Lori wasn't as funny as Maggie is, and so I think some of the corny ideas that she brought to the table made Maggie look bad. This week, with Lori out of the way, Maggie showed herself to be a studied and intrepid journalist, and relaxed her approach to the camera a little (although more is needed). I'm hoping that – as the only remaining woman – she'll get a little advantage, since the panel doesn't want to have only men on their hands too early in the game.

Also a favorite is Zach Selwyn, whom ESPN has cast as the "bad boy," although that's sort of silly. He's very funny, quick on his feet, and is probably the most composed and poised on-camera. He beams with self-confidence, and has a very natural voice and manner for television. Zach won my heart when he rapped his "closing argument" at the end of episode two (TiVo found me a repeat) and I didn't feel embarrassed for him. Usually in situations like this – it happens a lot on SNL – I have to look away because I'm just embarrassed at someone who's clearly trying their best but just failing miserably and looking really stupid. The Nick & Jessica variety show number at the start of SNL comes to mind, but there are better examples. Zach's rap felt like that at first, but then I realized that it was really good. And he delivered it with such fearless commitment that I couldn't help but be won over. (You'll notice he had exactly the same effect on curmudgeonly judge and bad combover poster boy Tony Kornheiser.) Zach may not have "the look" of an ESPN anchor, but he is more than qualified for the job.

Also, I'm a fan of Casey Stern. He's half the height of the other contestants, but he's really good on camera and he works hard to maintain a professional respect for the position he's in. He also wants this really, really, really (really) bad. In interviews, that's the only thing he talks about is how bad he wants this. Which is understandable. Hell, at this point, I want it. (I don't think you can start at 26 and study really hard and become a sports buff, though.) Casey was actually very near tears this week when the judges weren't favorable towards his piece. If he can turn that passion into results on the screen, he may win this. (He really wants to.) (Really.)

Those are my favorites, which is not to say that the other's aren't good, too. In fact, Casey, Mike Hall, Aaron Levine (and the recently eliminated Nick Stevens) are essentially the same guy. Clean-cut, well spoken, narrow young chuckleheads. They've already eliminated the truly terrible: Michael Quigley – who repeatedly insisted that his interview subject (Dhani Jones) had been slapped in the face without letting up, so much that I feared "Quigs" would slap Dhani in the face just to prove it – and wild-card winner Alvin Williams (who really seemed like he was on SNL's "Wake Up Wakefield" junior high TV sketch). So now it's basically anyone's game. Whether these three similar lads will split each other's vote remains to be seen, but any of them could ultimately step into the role, as could Kelly Milligan, who's older and heftier but still very much has the look of a SportsCenter personality. I doubt that Maggie will make it overall, because I think that unpolished quality that I adore in her will probably seem not-ready-for-prime-time. She'd do great replacing Kit Hoover on Cold Pizza or something, where she'd be free to have more fun. Probably the same for Zach, which is not to say that either can't play it straight – I just feel that they lack a certain crispness that ESPN usually embodies. They're all pretty fun, though, and it's interesting to watch them cut their teeth on the sports anchoring biz, and put yourself in their place from time to time to wonder if you could handle the pressure.

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