The TV Showrunner's Roadmap

by Neil Landau

  I cannot encourage you enough to dig deeper and mine the specifics of your intended arena. Not only will it provide you with character quirks and possible story ideas, it will also make you an authority in the network executives’ offices. When you conclude your pitch and they start bombarding you with questions about the world of your series, you’re already succeeding. When they read your pilot script and are captivated by the tip of the iceberg of your series’ arena, they just might hire you to continue on the path of discovery.

  Analyzing Popular Settings

  Some TV series emerge from the creative marriage between a unique, iconic protagonist and an intriguing setting. Placing Sherlock Holmes in present-day London gives you a fresh take on the mystery genre. Taking neurotic former San Francisco police detective, Adrian Monk (Tony Shaloub), a man who developed severe OCD and phobias following the death of his wife—and making him a private investigator with a caretaker nurse as his partner—gave us a new spin on the police procedural (Monk). The one-hour drama series Justified features Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) whose swagger and quick draw suggests the 1870’s Wild West—only he’s in present day. Then uproot him from Miami (where he killed a mob hit man) to a backwoods coal mining town in Harlan County, Kentucky—which happens to be Givens’ hometown to which he vowed never to return. As the hard-living, womanizing Givens metes out his unique brand of cowboy justice, he becomes the target of criminals and incurs the rancor of his U.S. Marshals superiors.

  The arenas of some series are no-brainers: Boardwalk Empire is set in and all about the infamous heyday of Atlantic City; Northern Exposure dropped a New York physician into a quirky Alaskan outpost (the fictional town of Cicely) as he faced culture shock amidst its quirky denizens. Mad Men is as much about the epicenter of American lifestyles—New York in the 1960s—as it is about Madison Avenue ad execs; NYPD Blue, CSI: NY, Law & Order, Rescue Me are all about New York’s finest and bravest; L.A. Law, Entourage, The Shield, The Closer, and NCIS: LA are all steeped in the socially and racially diverse Hollywood culture. Nip/Tuck’s arena was a plastic surgery clinic in a city propped up by beauty and sunshine: Miami, and later Los Angeles. Scandal, Homeland, and Bones are embedded in and around Washington, D.C., as was The West Wing, for obvious reasons. Scandal is about a political image consultant; Homeland is about a former POW with national political aspirations—who may be a “turned” terrorist; Bones centers around a forensic anthropologist who works out of the fictional Jefferson Institute (a stand in for the Smithsonian). For each of the preceding shows, the setting is intrinsically linked to the premise.

  When it comes to hospital shows, it can be argued that the hospital is the arena, and its zip code is more random. ER, Grey’s Anatomy, and Chicago Hope (despite its eponymous title) could all easily be relocated to different cities and still be dramatically satisfying. Because hospitals tend to be their own mini-cities or microcosms, they offer unlimited story engines—which can be influenced by specific settings—but tend not to be wholly dependent upon their locales.

  The Killing could have been set in any city, but the dark, wet, and brooding weather and geography of the Pacific Northwest certainly added an ominous layer to the proceedings—which was based upon a Danish series.

  In Friday Night Lights, high school football is like a religious experience for the citizens of the fictional, rural town of Dillon, Texas. As kickoff nears, businesses close early, the streets empty out, and everything revolves around the big game. While the economy sputters and families struggle to make ends meet, these football games provide the people of Dillon with a cathartic experience. They cheer for victory or vow to bounce back from a crushing defeat. Football isn’t just a game; it’s a metaphor for hope in their lives. The series could have been set in any number of small towns across America, but the series remained faithful to its inspiration from the non-fiction book Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, and A Dream by H. G. “Buzz” Bissinger and the 2004 film based on it. Published in 1990, the book documents the 1988 football season of the Permian Panthers in Odessa, Texas. The movie was directed by Bissinger’s second cousin, Peter Berg, who developed the TV series, and wrote and directed the pilot episode. To protect the privacy of the real life Odessa residents, Berg and his producers chose to rename the town Dillon, but local texture, nuance, and inspiration emerged from Odessa. What makes this such a groundbreaking, emotionally satisfying TV series is its documentary, cinéma vérité style. The handheld camera is our POV, so when it darts and weaves and participates in the action, it provides us with the sensation that these characters are our friends and family—that we’re sitting in the bleachers watching every game, making Dillon our town, too.

  The phenomenally successful showrunner, David E. Kelley, has rooted many of his one-hour drama series in Boston: The Practice, Ally McBeal, Boston Public, and Boston Legal. This was not a random choice. While Kelley was born in Waterville, Maine, he was raised in Belmont, Massachusetts, and is the son of legendary Boston University Terriers and New England Whalers hockey coach, Jack Kelley. David E. Kelley received his law degree from Boston University and later worked for a Boston law firm. Kelley’s four most popular shows are not generic legal dramas set in Anytown, USA. Boston is a city that Kelley knows inside and out which adds a layer of verisimilitude to the fictional court cases—even when the verdicts come too quickly and tax our willing suspension of disbelief. While most of the court proceedings take dramatic license in service of humor and suspense, the legal jargon and specifics of setting keep us rooted in—and tuned in—to what feels like a real place.

  Don’t try to fake these details. Sure, the Hamptons setting in the USA series Royal Pains embellishes and idealizes this playground for the rich and powerful on the eastern seaboard, but it also successfully captures many of the real hangouts and traditions of the place. The premise of this series: a handsome “concierge doctor” and his business partner/brother cater to and make house calls at the beachfront mansions of elite Long Islanders. But these aren’t merely generic millionaires and billionaires, they’re a specific breed of privileged, wired New Yorkers who venture out from the city to “relax” in their weekend and summer homes. Their manner of speaking, sense of entitlement, and interactions with regular residents who keep this place running all year round, not only ground this series in a playfully exuberant reality, but also provide the show with a multitude of “story engines.” The fun of this blue-sky series is its elements of fantasy and escapism, but the true-to-life stakes of its medical cases also serve to remind us that rich people have problems, too, and that while money can certainly make life more luxurious and easy, it certainly doesn’t buy you happiness. If you’re going to set a series in the Hamptons (Revenge is also set there), it’s your duty to visit the place. Go and see for yourself.

  Setting also plays an important role in wholly fantastical series. Game of Thrones, based upon a series of fantasy novels by George R. R. Martin, is set on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos at the end of a decade-long summer. The series weaves together several plotlines, encompassing three different arenas: the civil war for the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms; the threat of the impending winter on the mythical creatures of the North; and the banished last scion’s desperate scheme to reclaim the throne. Each realm offers its own geography, rules, and power structures—and yet demonstrates how their destinies are intertwined.

  In Once Upon a Time, there are two separate realms: the fairy-tale world from a legendary medieval time, and Storybrooke, USA—which feels all at once current, anachronistic, and frozen in time. Both settings are magical realms where wishes can come true, evil curses can overshadow happy endings, and virtually anything imaginable can happen.

  What’s essential in conjuring up supernatural and magical realms is to keep the rules of each world simple, clearly defined, and consistent. The landmark series Lost was challenged—and many would say compromised by—an ever-expanding rulebook. There were flashbacks in s
eason 1, followed in subsequent seasons by flash-forwards and flash-sideways. For fans of the series (this author being among them), the unpredictable storytelling was thrilling, but for detractors, Lost had “jumped the shark”1 by that point, reading like a bumper sticker that says: Don’t follow me, I’m lost, too! Evolving and expanding the rules of fantasy and supernatural series is par for the course of a super successful series. Dr. Frankenstein may have created the monster, but, at some point, the monster develops a will of his own. And so, even though the brilliant co-creators of Lost (J. J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and Jeffrey Lieber) may have known how their series was going to end from the beginning, they were overwhelmed by the longevity and enormous popularity of their creation. How do you expand a finite series concept into one that could run indefinitely? Their choice was to expand the world—and sometimes that includes quantum leaps of time and space.

  See interview with Steven S. DeKnight on the companion website: http://www.focalpress.com/cw/landau

  The best fiction is inspired by real life—and each setting exists in its own bubble of reality. If the world of the series is gritty and dangerous, we might watch the show hoping for someone to break free; if the bubble is elitist and materialistic, we’re watching to see when it’s going to burst. Without a spiritual and/or moral center, the arena of a series, just like any real-life environment, is unsustainable. For first-rate evidence of this decree, see also The Wire, Deadwood, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, and Boardwalk Empire.

  Note

  1 When a series steps outside the confines of its conception and taxes the goodwill of its loyal audience. The term originated in an episode of the classic sitcom Happy Days, when the Fonz (Henry Winkler) attempted to jump over a shark on water skis.

  3

  Service your Franchise

  When I think about a franchise, I immediately think of McDonald’s and Starbucks. And that’s not too far from the context of how “franchise” is used in the TV development business. I travel a lot, so I can tell you firsthand that a McDonald’s is pretty much the same in most cities across the globe.

  The McDonald’s corporation serves around 68 million customers daily in 119 countries. The language and alphabet on the Golden Arches sign may differ from country to country, but the McDonald’s trademark colors, décor, logo, management styles, and menu options are virtually always intact. Even in India where cows are sacred, you can order a Big Mac—but instead of getting a beefy Big Mac, you’ll get a veggie Maharaja Mac. Using this analogy, the definition of franchise is “the same, only different.”

  If each McDonald’s across the globe is similar in design, menu, and function, then what’s the difference? The most obvious answer is geography. Location.

  The deeper answer is humanity. People. You can dress the employees in identical uniforms, but no two will ever be exactly the same. You can interview the customers who might order the same items, but their taste in fast food doesn’t dominate or define their unique personalities. You can eavesdrop on conversations from the kitchen to the dining area, and you’ll get as many different, highly specific variations on the human experience as there are hamburgers sold. Billions and billions.

  To summarize my extended analogy, the most substantive difference between the original prototype for any chain restaurant, coffee house, or retail store is not its menu items or products sold, it’s the unique stories that emerge from under their roofs.

  In the TV business, the original prototype for a television series is called the “pilot.” Each episode that follows this first episode is an extension and gradual exploration of the basic circumstances, characters, and themes established in the pilot. In this way, all pilots are origin stories. They set up a world and then invite us to drop in and bond with its inhabitants over an extended period of time.

  In general, the main difference between a movie and a TV pilot is that a movie is intended to have a beginning, middle, and end; it’s designed to be finite. A TV pilot, on the other hand, is conceived and constructed to be infinite—or last for as long as loyal viewership and solid ratings continue.

  In conceiving a TV pilot, your initial creative process might be very similar to writing a screenplay for a feature-length movie: premise, setting, character development—but the tricky part is recognizing that you’re not writing toward the ultimate payoff at the climax anymore. Instead, you’re getting your audience up to speed on the “arena” (setting, logistics, characters) of your series—and then setting the stage for what your series is going to be from episode to episode and week to week.

  In other words, the end of a TV pilot is just the beginning of your series.

  The Promise of Your Premise

  A pilot is a promise you make with the viewer—call it a marriage contract— that tacitly lets them know what they’re going to be getting when they decide to commit to watching your show every week. You’re not promising them abject predictability and repetition. You are promising them that you are going to love, honor, and obey what you set up in your pilot episode. In TV writing parlance, this is what’s known as servicing your franchise.

  Successfully servicing the franchise of your series means that you’re going to present your loyal viewers with a show that’s fundamentally the same, only different. The basic setting and premise of your series genre will remain mostly unchanged, but the particulars of the stories will, it is hoped, change and surprise us each week. In many series, the main characters (aka series “regulars”) will also remain the same from episode to episode, but in other series, the characters will evolve from episode to episode and from season to season.

  When a TV executive or producer asks you, “What’s the franchise?” of your intended TV series, what they’re really asking you is, What are your main characters going to be doing each week? What are the “story engines” that keep your plotlines moving forward? Like a shark, a TV series must keep swimming or perish.

  Franchise Types

  Case of the Week

  The most basic type of series franchise is case of the week, which is why there are so many shows about doctors, lawyers, and cops. In a medical drama, these are the medical cases for each new patient. In a law show, these are the legal cases of the plaintiffs and defendants. In a crime show, these are the police and other law enforcement cases.

  The franchises in case of the week shows are inherently procedural. In each new episode, we’re going to get a new client, patient, or perp, and by the end of the episode, our devoted team of specialists has worked hard, overcoming external and internal conflicts, to solve the case.

  In trying to determine the specific franchise of your new TV series, focus on the verbs. What are your characters doing each week: they’re investigating, discovering, uncovering, diagnosing, healing, litigating, prosecuting, confronting, arresting, indicting, avenging, killing, and so on.

  Most series regulars on the four broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC) are wholly positive, more or less heroic characters. Sure, they’re flawed and wrestle with their internal demons, but they’re seeking justice— whatever that means to them in their field of expertise.

  Some of these series offer us closed-ended cases with fast, dependable resolutions (diagnosis/cure, proof/verdict, arrest/justice) in the same episode. Just as many series offer open-ended cases with more oblique, gradual, serialized resolutions over the course of the whole season.

  The X-Files was a paranormal procedural that offered case of the week with a twist: more than one possible explanation for otherworldly phenomena and resolutions that were provocatively inconclusive.

  Scandal centers on a high-powered Washington, D.C., public relations firm run by the indomitable Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington). Her specialty is getting politicians and Beltway power players out of trouble. She and her associates are not lawyers or cops; they’re spin doctors who diagnose and manage political scandals through any means necessary, including subterfuge. Failure is not an option for this team. Olivia Pope is labeled a “gl
adiator in a suit” in the pilot episode. The cases of the week are always appropriately scandalous, provocative, morally complex, and often both salacious and controversial. Nevertheless, in season 1, Scandal offered closed-ended cases that resolved by the end of each episode. Meanwhile, the personal stories, such as Olivia’s passionate affair with the President of the United States, Fitzgerald Grant (aka “Fitz”), along with the myriad of subplots for Olivia’s team, are ongoing and heavily serialized, as are most current episodes.

  The primary goal for each showrunner is to meet its audience’s expectations of the types of cases and basic tone of his or her given series. New cases need to be fresh and even break new ground—but within the wheelhouse of that particular show. In other words, a series can break new ground with a new case without breaking the entire mold for the show itself. Audiences tune in to their favorite programs with a relative comfort level for what that show is going to deliver to them. If you’re watching a scary/creepy cop procedural series, such as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, you know what you’re going to get: hard-edged, perverse, dark crimes. Yes. But you also know that the violence and sexual content is going to stop short of gratuitous, graphic, and pornographic. And even though the detectives are going to prevail, it’s not a show you’re going to want to watch with your kids.