Here’s another quote from Pamela Douglas’s Writing the TV Drama Series. This one is about series creation and why only the most experienced writers get to do it in L.A.:
You’re not likely to get an original show made if you’re a beginner. At least, you’re not going to do it by yourself. For decades, the custom has been to climb the ladder: You’d join a staff and go up the ranks until a network invites you to propose a series of your own. By then, the reasoning goes, you’d understand the way things work so you could reliably deliver an episode every week. No novice could have enough experience. Simply, no one would listen to you no matter how interesting your idea might be.
So let’s back up and understand why beginners don’t create new series” Consider what a drama series does: It manufactures hour-long films that air every week and continue (the producers hope) for years. Your ability to come up with a pilot (the first episode) doesn’t prove you can write episode seven, or 20 or the 88th episode at the end of four years. It doesn’t necessarily demonstrate that the series has the “legs” for anyone else to drive a full season, either. ” And it surely doesn’t guarantee that you would know how to run a multi-million dollar business with hundreds of specialized employees (actors, set-builders, editors, office staff, directors, truckers, camera-people, electricians, composers” without even counting writers).
Television series aren’t bought or sold on ideas, but the ability to deliver on those ideas.
That’s the situation in the U.S.
Here in Canada? Not so much.
However, if you look at last season’s most successful new series there were usually veterans at the helm. For example, David Barlow and Janet MacLean on The Border, Brent Piaskoski on The Latest Buzz and Cal Coons on Murdoch Mysteries.
Thoughts?
Joe Clark
What the hell is _The Latest Buzz_? It got none, apparently.
admin
The Latest Buzz is an extremely popular kids show. Despite the fact that the pre-teen crowd love it, it’s extremely watchable and laugh out loud funny — an enormous accomplishment. You can watch it on Family.
Leila Basen
Hi Jill,
I notice in your list of hit series run by veterans, you fail to mention Heartland. Run by Heather Conkie and staffed by experienced writers, Heartland’s ratings were consistently high throughout season one and we’re coming back for season two with an order of 18 episodes.
Anyway – FYI
Leila
admin
I knew there was one more I wanted to mention. Thanks for reminding me, Leila. Heartland’s Heather Conkie is definitely the kind of experienced showrunner that can bring home a hit. And the pilot was written by two more well-seasoned writers Leila Bassen & David Preston, who also serve in the story department. No wonder the show is drawing a growing audience every week.
The New Guard
Why don’t you mention which series were created and showran by newbies that were complete failures? As far as I can tell, every broadcaster in canada insists on bringing on an experienced showrunner to helm any show created by anyone they deem to be less than properly experienced. Isn’t it less a question of whether newbies can create shows, but more of whether newbies can actually run shows?
M Foster
Mike Clattenburg did pretty good for a noob. So did Anthony Zuiker, creator of CSI.
Plenty of unadulterated crap has been created by experienced writers.
Nobody knows anything.
admin
Mike Clattenburg did a lot of series work before Trailer Park. Among his credits: Sesame Street, Pitt Pony and Street Cents.
Although Zuiker is quite a phenomenon, he had Jerry Bruckheimer at his side, who’s the kind of crutch a first timer can really depend on.
I don’t have a definitive answer on this. I’m certainly not going to go through the list of shows that have failed and blame it on the showrunner’s lack of experience because there are so many other factors at play. I do think it’s interesting that in the US the deal is based less on the premise and more on who that talent is that’s going to deliver it.
Bill Cunningham
Zuiker had a full cadre of experienced writers in the room as well as the Bruckenheimer magic.
Stories like Zuiker’s do happen – but they happen because the studio “surrounded” the person with vision with ground troops who have mud on their boots and blood on their bayonets.
C Wallace
To add to the geek out trivia:
Zuiker pitched the show to Bruck, and they brought on Carol Mendelsohn to showrun. I saw Zuiker give a talk at Banff a few years back, and he didn’t actually get to show run until CSI NY.
Josh Shwartz is another interesting one: apparently it was tough to get an experienced showrunner to work with him on the OC, as the producers insisted it was his vision driving the show. They eventually found someone, and Shwartz wrote or co-wrote practically all the first season. Jury’s out as whether or not that was a good or bad thing, but the OC did establish itself as an iconic symbol of TV for a good two and a half years there, and now every teen on TV (and in the movies, thank you Diablo Cody) talks like Seth Coen.
I don’t think anyone will dispute that broadcasters will pair up newbies with experienced showrunners, so what are we really talking about here? Is it that emerging shouldn’t be allowed to pitch new shows?
Little Mosque, Flashpoint, and Less Than Kind were all shows that were pitched by emerging writers and put into development by broadcasters before experienced showrunners came on board.
And we haven’t even started talking about Pilots…
Denis McGrath
…and that strategy fails as often as it succeeds. In Canada, what’s slightly different is a lack of experience *all across the board.*
…network execs that haven’t picked hits and don’t have a lot of exp. developing stuff.
…writer/creators who don’t see the “system” or the “how to get 80 eps” out (franchise issues)
…producers who are either used to a) being service producers and not really calling the shots b) want to be creative themselves but don’t have the tools c) bad managers.
There’s much that can go wrong in a show. At the showrunner level, being able to write it is the thing that’s ASSUMED. It’s actually the management/solving problems stuff that’s way more important.
What often happens here is a collision of passive-aggressive agendas that result in bad paste.
TV production abhors the passive aggressive. The best definition I ever heard of a producer:
“someone who can have any argument that needs to be had in under five minutes.”
The unfortunate thing is that a noob is a noob – they’re not SUPPOSED to know any better. But it’s only after a noob gets burned and chewed up that they either realize the mistakes they made that they now have to wear weren’t their fault, OR they actually believe their own shit and enter the Peter Principle Bataan Death March to Canadian Film and TV mediocracy.
Denis McGrath
The problem with the Zuiker stories is that people point to the “official version” and think that has insight. But it’s a constructed mythology, too. Americans, very, very, very good at the constructed mythology.
Zuiker and CSI: NY — absolutely true.
And as much as Josh S. does get a tip of the hat for The O.C. — there’s a show that will go down in history as the best seven season show that burned out in two, evah. Part of that construction thing is that they burned through so much story in S.1 they flailed for another season and a half before trying to right it and finish strong. The show cratered and burned out before its time because of…lack of experience. Vision is only one part.
As for your Canadian examples, LTK is an interesting example, like TPB, of when you get the forces together that worked. The creators (good friends of mine) were lucky and smart in the sense that they brought on Mark McKinney, and Gary Campbell — who had years and years and years of experience and they all worked as a tight unit. And presto, they have a great show.
Flashpoint is another matter. Jury’s still out on ultimate quality — but the “newbies” who created that show a) worked the script for five years b) had both been in the business for about twenty years.
As for Little Mosque, well, right place, right time — and yet it still took a phalanx of experience to take it from idea bad execution to a solid footing.
Remember always that what we do in this business is sell dreams — and that extends to creation myths, too. The worst thing you can do is believe the “official story” going in. Never err on the side of conservatism in your ideas; but in terms of the conduct of your career and building experience and reputation? Always.
Frank Dillon
I’m of two minds about this. Back in the late 80’s early 90’s I felt that the people who should get to make and “showrun” TV should be young. fresh blood with new and creative ideas that were unsullied by years of TV experience. Now I feel that people who get to make and “showrun” TV should be writers with years of experience under their belt.
Funny that.
admin
Trust Mr Dillon to hit the nail on the head on this one.
C Wallace
I believe the title of the blog post was “Is Series Creation a Game Newbies Can Play?”, not “Can Newbies Showrun?”.
Considering that no broadcaster in Canada is ever going to let a newbie showrun, and the examples we’ve talked about (The OC and CSI in the US, and Less than Kind and Flashpoint in Canada) all had senior writers showrunning, then isn’t the question whether newbies can create a show that has legs?
Frank Dillon
continued execution and expansion of the original idea is what gives the show legs so i don’t know if one can answer your question.
admin
I think this is ultimately a question about networks not showrunners or creators because the quote that interested me was about the broadcaster’s point of view. Pamela Douglas characterizes the American broadcaster as being interested in the ability to execute more than the idea; they buy the showrunner not the series idea. Here in Canada, it seems, they buy the idea and then find someone to execute it.
The showrunner or senior writer has to take an idea that is not their own and make it their own which can lead to heartache for everyone involved.