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Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show Page #6
And the script came in and I hated it.
It was terrible.
And I just said,
"I won't shoot the script."
And so the network said,
"Yes, you will."
And we had this big, ugly
conference call about it.
And, uh, there was this moment
on the call
where the network said,
"Well, if that's how you feel,
then maybe we should
just say goodbye."
And I realized, well,
this is it, this is the moment.
They're gonna call your bluff on this.
And I said,
"Then, okay, let's do that."
And then they said, "fine,"
and they hung up.
And then, hundreds of phone calls,
like everyone's calling each other.
"I can't believe he said that!
He's not really serious!"
Everyone was really, really upset,
but I really was serious.
I wasn't gonna shoot that script.
And, uh, the whole thing fell apart,
and it cost
a couple million dollars and, uh,
it was a disaster at the time.
It was a huge disappointment to me,
'cause I was very attached
to those books,
and I thought that we were gonna
And my agent at the time,
whether he believed it or not,
said, "No, no. This, you know...
Believe me, people like it
"when you say no,
and you'll get a reputation
as someone who has integrity
and, dah-dah-dah."
I chose at the time to believe that.
We always wanted
to reward the viewers
who watched week to week,
but not punish ones
who were coming new to the show.
That kind of self-contained
story of the week
just so happens to line up
really, really nicely
with the kinds of procedural-based
episodic crime shows
really well,
and then beyond that,
the story that we wanted to tell
is this larger novel-like story
that's similar
to the shows that are
flourishing right now on cable.
And I think the network
knows that, you know,
the audience's tastes are changing.
If you liken the procedural...
as a four-letter word,
we've always kind of embraced them.
I grew up watching
Magnum, P.I. and Miami Vice
and Hill Street Blues
But, the shows that are
flourishing right now
are these serialized
novel-like shows on cable.
But, broadcast was always
capable of doing both.
So, it's a different way of doing it.
You still have
a massive, massive audience,
far bigger, uh, than cable,
watching broadcast television.
We regularly have 14...15 million people
watching our show, which dwarfs
any of the audiences
There's that Tom and Jerry
cartoon effect,
where it's like
if Tom gets blown up by dynamite
and then you fade to black,
and then you come up,
and then he's just chasing Jerry again,
it's not as interesting to me as Tom
gets blown up by dynamite
and now in the next scene
he's in the hospital rehabilitating,
trying to figure out
where he went wrong.
Um, so, you know, I do feel like
life is serialized,
life is not a procedural,
and therefore,
that's the kind of storytelling
that I like to watch,
and it's the kind of storytelling
that I like to write.
That being said, I think that, um,
it's unfair to categorize
shows as procedural
or serialized, or one working
better than the other.
I think that that's what
networks like to do.
But, at the end of the day,
if you put something cool
in front of them, they don't care
whether it's a serialized
or a procedural
or a marriage of both, you know?
like The Good Wife now
that are procedural shows,
but are actually
stealth serialized shows,
and that's why
they're getting nominated for Emmys.
We would agree that it's a bit of a...
a wolf in sheep's clothing.
There are certain elements
that we have to satisfy
to be on CBS, to be show that has
a story that we tell within
the episode, has cases.
And so, it's partly that,
and partly characters
We don't do a lot of
just character scenes
or just personal scenes,
come on the procedural plot.
We do 23 episodes a year.
These other shows do 13 a year.
I wouldn't call it
bitterness on our part
that we have towards cable.
Cable is very much
"the grass is greener on that side."
I hope I'm at HBO for my entire career.
Um, I mean,
it's just been the best place
I've ever worked for
so many different reasons.
Creatively, it's great.
I mean, I could theoretically
work at a network.
I would never say never, but I know...
I know what that means.
That's one of the great
things about working
for HBO:
they let you do your job.And you know, it's not to say
there aren't conversations.
There are,
but they're never mandates,
and they're never...
They're never notes
that are born of cowardice,
where they're afraid
to alienate people
or offend people, or you know...
Because they're not trying to sell
commercial airtime or product.
So, it's based on,
"Just do the best show you can do."
We have an incredible
amount of freedom on premium cable.
So, going back to network
television would be difficult
on a creative level.
The tradeoff, of course,
is the amount of money
that you can make on
22 episodes of a show
in network is phenomenally large.
Uh, much larger than
I make on this show.
But, I do have that...
that taste of that freedom.
As much freedom
as you do have in cable
compared to network,
you know, the network is...
You know, they were up my ass
during the pilot process, you know,
and really, you know, micromanaging
pretty much every detail.
Because that's...
That's the time
that they feel like they have
the most input, you know?
And, and, and not that it...
Not that it f***ed me up
or strayed...
or made me stray off my vision.
But, they're very engaged
and very hands on.
Um, but the good thing
is that once the show
gets established and...
and you earn their trust,
that they honor that.
It's not like
groundhog day every season,
like you gotta prove yourself again.
I personally don't
see as big a difference
between network and cable
And I also think some
have kind of perpetuated
this myth that artists
have complete freedom
at these networks.
And yet, I've talked to
people and heard about
notes calls at these networks.
So, I'm not sure that's exactly it.
I think it's a case by case situation.
Does the network trust
you to do the job?
If they do you're gonna
get a lot of freedom.
If they sense a void in leadership,
they're gonna rush in to fill it,
no matter what network it's at.
Hello.
Uh, we're gonna have a set of, uh...
There's gonna be a quartet playing.
Piano, cello, violin, viola.
Once we get the okay to book them,
then I'll get sizes to you.
'Cause we'll have the stand-ins.
I think between casting the next episode,
being on set
for the episode you're shooting,
being in the writer's room
dealing with budgets and everything,
I would say that
showrunning is as much
a feat of choreography
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"Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Aug. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/showrunners:_the_art_of_running_a_tv_show_18064>.
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