from variety
TV series take a dramatic pause
Hiatus triggers some shows to polish, rethink
By MICHAEL SCHNEIDER
The writers strike just might be the best thing to have happened to
ABC's "Pu****ng Daisies."
With its vibrant but intricate production values, the critically
acclaimed "Daisies" was falling terribly behind schedule last fall.
But then came the strike, a production shutdown and a chance for TV's
primetime producers to come up for air.
Now, many of those producers have been handed several more months of
deep breaths.
Rather than relaunch rookie shows like "Daisies" this spring, the
broadcast nets have decided to give a handful of promising frosh
entries the rest of this season off.
The good news: "Daisies" and such fellow newbies as NBC's "Chuck" and
"Life" and ABC's "Dirty ***y Money" and "Private Practice" have
already been picked up for next September, so their futures are at
least secure (for now).
But that long time off could kill any momentum those promising skeins
were starting to generate last fall. And the nets will have to spend
more money than usual to relaunch.
"All of these shows were starting to get a foothold, but then they
went away so quickly," says "Pu****ng Daisies" creator/exec producer
Bryan Fuller.
The delayed starts of "Daisies" and the other frosh skeins comes at a
price: Crew members, who were out of work during the strike, don't yet
have jobs to return to. Some have found other work and won't be able
to return once the shows do, at least for several weeks.
Fuller says the inability to bring back the crew immediately is
"frustrating and disappointing."
"It's one of the unfortunate realities of the strike," says Fuller,
who's in constant contact with crew members and plotting out how to
eventually get them all back in the fold. In some cases, second-unit
crew members will carry the ball for an episode or two.
In the networks' eyes, relaunching these shows next fall as if they're
new entries may not be such a bad thing. After a brutal fall -- which
saw ratings declines for most of the big hits and no new breakout
successes among the rookie class -- webheads were ready for a do-over.
In the case of these new shows, the networks decided that it wouldn't
make much sense to bring them back just for five or so more episodes.
"You'd love to have 52 episodes of these great shows and always keep
them in front of the conciousness of the viewing public," says Mitch
Metcalf, NBC's exec VP of program planning and scheduling. "But the
next best thing is to reload for next season and be as strong as we
can be when we regroup in September."
Unlike self-starting returnees like "Grey's Anatomy," the frosh skeins
are just developing an audience, and would require big-budget
marketing campaigns this spring to draw viewers back to the screen.
"You look at the big shows like 'Grey's' and 'Desperate Housewives,'
and they have their audience already built in," Fuller says. "We're
still earning that. We're a modest success, but I don't think anybody
would deign to brag that we're a big hit."
From a creative standpoint, these shows have also stumbled into a rare
first-year op****tunity: the chance to re*****s, early in the show's
run, what's working and what's not.
"I like having more time upfront to think about the show, and sit with
the writers and brainstorm and freestyle on things without the
thundering anxiety of production deadlines," says "Chuck" creator/exec
producer Josh Schwartz, "or the stomach-churning, soul-killing ratings
game being in play."
On "Pu****ng Daisies," the extra time off gave Fuller the op****tunity
to completely rethink where his show was going.
"When you're in the middle of a TV season, you are Indiana Jones, and
there's a boulder at your heels," Fuller says of the struggle to keep
up with the frenzied pace of a series. "If you stumble, you go
squish."
In the case of Fuller and company, that boulder was threatening to
flatten them pre-strike.
The frosh ABC skein had earned critical raves last fall for its
quirky, colorful take on a pie man who could bring people back to life
with the touch of his finger.
But "Pu****ng Daisies" was also struggling to maintain the high
production values of the show's pilot, as directed by Barry
Sonnenfeld. It didn't take long for "Daisies" to go over budget and
fall dramatically behind schedule. Warner Bros. TV even yanked
Sonnenfeld off directing more episodes, then reinstated him (but by
then his schedule had filled up).
"We needed a longer post- production time than we initially
anticipated," Fuller says. "We were bumping against air dates, and
were hemorrhaging money to pay for accelerated post production costs."
At the same time, the show's storyline was heading toward a direction
that ultimately wasn't right for the show -- but there was no time to
push "Daisies" on the right track.
For the final pre-strike episode, which aired Dec. 12, Fuller managed
to throw in a cliffhanger, in case the episode wound up doubling as a
season finale.
That reveal -- that the woman Anna Friel's character thought was her
aunt (Swoosie Kurtz) is actually her mother -- originally was going to
be resolved midway through season one. Now, it will inform much of
next season's direction.
"The time off during the break allowed me to rethink where we were
going and flush out a more dramatic story," Fuller says. "It came out
of a realization that if that's our cliffhanger, it couldn't go the
direction it was going. Now it will have a much broader impact on the
characters and the series. It's much richer than the original plan."
Now, with production resuming in June, Fuller says he expects
"Daisies" to move forward at a more normal pace.
Ditto Schwartz, who says "Chuck" will head back into production in
May, giving the show eight weeks to plan the season.
"It may not be the luxurious cable schedule, but it's a more humane
version of the broadcast network schedule," Schwartz says.
The extra hiatus has also given Schwartz a chance to spend more time
on his other show, the CW's "Gossip Girl," which immediately went back
to work in order to crank out new segs this season.
"It made for a smoother transition for me out of the complete brain
paralysis that was the strike," he says.
Same benefit is also being felt by Shonda Rhimes, whose "Grey's
Anatomy" is back to work, but "Private Practice" won't be back on air
until fall; and Greg Berlanti, whose "Dirty ***y Money" won't be back
until fall (but whose "Brothers & Sisters" returns in spring).
Frosh skeins aren't the only ones getting a break. Heavily serialized
entries "24" and "Heroes" are also being held for next season ("24,"
until January) because of the inability to produce enough episodes
before the end of the year.
Both of those shows are also taking advantage of the extra time to
craft their complicated plots.
Meanwhile, the shortened season hasn't been good news for bubble
shows, some of which went off the air with the strike and won't come
back. Skeins like CBS' "Moonlight" and the CW's "Reaper" are going to
be waiting an awful long time to hear their fates; normally, had their
back nine episodes not been picked up, they would have had a pretty
good idea by now.
Indeed, with such an unusual season, it will never be known for sure
how skeins were helped or hurt by the work stoppage. "Daisies," for
example, could have turned into a megahit in the spring -- or been
slaughtered by "American Idol," which has a reputation for killing
promising scripted series in midseason.
"This was the best possible result," he said. "We look at this year's
nine episodes as a 'teaser season.' ... It's a huge risk, but then it
falls in the network's hands to really sup****t the show and relaunch
it. They made such a spectacular investment in the show creatively
that I have every confidence they'll continue to stand behind us."
Of course, with so much extra time to plot out season two, the
pressure's on to show that the hiatus was well spent.
"Being off the air for so long means we have to come back focused,"
Schwartz says. "No sophomore slumps allowed."
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