Commercials sink Top of the Lake
It’s like Elmore Leonard said. “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”
Whether it’s a book, a movie or a television show, the creative gears grinding away beneath the surface should labour in silence, unseen and unheard. The experience should seem effortless, seamless, real. Don’t pull back the curtain to show us the wizard, guys, just let us suspend our disbelief and be transported to another place or time.
That’s what’s so jarring about the hatchet job Bravo has unleashed on Top of the Lake when it cuts to commercials. The critically acclaimed series from Oscar-winner Jane Campion details the investigation of a missing 12-year-old who happens to be pregnant.
When police officer Robin Griffin (an Emmy-nominated Elisabeth Moss) returns to her smalltown stomping grounds, she’s pulled into the disappearance, which stirs up her troubled past.
It’s moody, masterful and, at times, mesmerizing. The characters are well-drawn and have depth, the story gripping. The acting is top-notch across the board, to say nothing of the directing and breathtaking cinematography. This is what we talk about when we debate the “golden age” of TV.
I’m wondering how many viewers are sticking around for Saturday’s finale, though. During last week’s penultimate episode, the show went to commercial in the middle of a line of dialogue, for Pete’s sake.
That’s akin to cropping an Ansel Adams photograph, adding salt to a JeanGeorges Vongerichten dish or creating a new colour palette for a Mondrian print.
The amateur-hour move left grubby fingerprints all over the screen, reminding viewers that this was a false construct flashing before their eyes, rather than an authentic moment. If the jarring editing only happened once, it could just be chalked up to an honest mistake. But this is an ongoing issue.
Bravo’s nonsensical cutaways are maddening, really. After a particularly brutal cut in Part 5 — we leave a group of thugs manhandling a group of tweens in an isolated location only to return to people throwing plastic chairs into a waterfall — I shouted at the TV, “What? Where are we? Who are those people?” because it was such a sharp departure from the previous, unresolved scene.
Bravo declined an interview request on the topic, but did supply a statement via e-mail.
It reads, in part (because I am editing some out for brevity, oh, the irony): “Editing commercial time into programming that have not been scripted for natural breaks is not always ideal. On occasion, editors are required to insert breaks into dialogue-heavy material. However, Bravo strives to bring subscribers the best viewing experience possible, including presenting Top of the Lake in its entirety as 75-minute episodes.”
I was going to ask someone at Bravo about those promos during the commercial breaks. I counted 20 during last week’s episode, much of it touting fare from Bravo’s parent company, Bell Media. There was the ever-present promos for homegrown shows such as The Listener (oooh, a telepathic paramedic turned investigator!) and Flashpoint (which isn’t even being made any more). There were ads for the upcoming Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the beautiful people soap opera Graceland.
All well and good, except shoehorning in all that self-promotional material came at the expense of the artistic integrity of Top of the Lake. The joint production from BBC Two, UKTV and the Sundance Channel is up for eight Emmys, including Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing and Outstanding Miniseries or Movie. Moments of transcendent beauty and heartbreaking truth are interspersed with a cracking mystery. Who got 12-year-old Tui pregnant and what happened to her? As a viewer, I am genuinely invested in finding out.
Part of my job is to twig people to up-and-coming series, to point out a maybe not-so-well-known show that they might enjoy. And with that great burden comes great responsibility. (Seriously, stand in line by me at the concession line at the movies and I will come up with three shows for you to try, whether you want my input or not.) So, I’ve told people about Top of the Lake, raved about its pedigree (Campion co-writes and directs; Holly Hunter co-stars) and urged them to give it a try.
Then Bravo goes and bungles it. While I can appreciate that the miniseries originally aired without commercials, there are natural breaks to insert those ads. Bravo found most of them, but then stomped all over the rhythm of the series to toot its own horn.
So if you haven’t watched Top of the Lake yet, don’t. (That actually hurt to write because I love this show so much and want to share its awesomeness with the world.) Wait for it to come out on DVD. Then you can appreciate it for the wellcrafted, nuanced piece of art it is, with nary a cut to commercial to be found.