The TV Showrunner's Roadmap

by Neil Landau

  NL: It’s terrific and, I think, groundbreaking for network television in that Kerry Washington is just so gorgeous and likeable walking into a room, but also so tough, initially, because she’s such a “gladiator in a suit” and she’s having an affair with the president of the United States (!)—a lot of things which would come under the category of “unsympathetic” or “not likeable.” And, then we start to see much more of her vulnerability as the show progresses. I think it’s in episode 4 that we actually understand the circumstances of her affair with President Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) in a completely different light. How important is it for the main character to be likeable?

  SR: It’s fascinating because I get that note a lot. A lot. I sat in a room with an executive who is no longer with the network who basically said to me with regard to Meredith Grey that “nobody is going to like a woman who sleeps with a man the night before she’s supposed to start work. That makes her completely unlikeable—you should change that fact.” And, I thought, but that’s who the character is, it doesn’t change that fact. And then, I sat in the same room years later with somebody else who said, “Can Olivia not be having an affair with the President?” Someone else who is no longer with the network. And, I remember saying, “Olivia Pope’s going to have sex with the president in the Oval Office on his desk—on the Resolute desk—by episode 4. If you all can’t get behind that, then I don’t want to make this show.” And what I meant by that was I really like flawed characters, but I also feel very strongly that flawed people can be likeable. I feel like cable has shown that time and again—and the networks have been afraid to show that. I mean Dexter is a freakin’ serial killer, but we love him and we want to watch what he does next. I don’t think you have to be kind to be interesting. I think that especially with female characters people want that to be true. I feel like there’s something great about being unapologetic about who you are and being flawed and fucked up. It’s all those things that make TV worth writing, frankly, not just worth watching, but worth writing for a writer.

  NL: What I tell my students about flawed characters is that they don’t have to be likeable, if we can see a vulnerability, we can connect to them. There’s a great Lily Tomlin quote I read recently where she said, “In private, we’re all misfits.” The idea that none of us is perfect. That we all make mistakes. To me, it all goes back to the first question I asked you which is why your characters are so magnetic. People watch TV and see that other people have problems and flaws.

  SR: The idea that we’re going to watch perfect people live perfect lives perfectly that just makes me depressed. I don’t want to watch that. I always say Breaking Bad is my favorite example—that’s such a flawed world and I can’t get enough of it.

  NL: Back to the family idea, there’s a Tolstoy quote that says, “Happy families are all alike and unhappy families are unhappy in their own way.” Arguably your ensembles are extended families, it seems that their unhappiness or their imperfections are what make them so fascinating.

  SR: I’ve always said there is a sense for Meredith Grey that she’s the mother of these people. She’s always trying to keep everyone together. If you look at Olivia Pope in that way, as somebody who is trying to hold everyone together, there’s something there, too. There’s literally a quote in Private Practice at the beginning of season 2 or 3 that says, “Our family becomes your family.”

  NL: That’s right, I wrote that down from the promo video that they made.

  SR: We are, in fact, creating them as families. In that sense, we have family drama happening, and, in that sense, that’s interesting.

  NL: I wrote down that tagline, and then I wrote, “At worst, dysfunctional and, at best, coming together as a team to solve problems.” Even the most dysfunctional family will come together when there’s a crisis, and it will bring out that strength and resolve in each person.

  What’s interesting is that there aren’t any healthy biological families in a lot of ways. That’s true with Meredith, and Olivia seems to spring from nowhere. Mellie [Bellamy Young] and Fitz are the most disturbing family in the world. Meredith’s got the mother; Addison’s [Kate Walsh] got the mother who’s secretly a lesbian and the father who drinks too much … but the families they’ve created are the families that work for them.

  Now, you’ve forced me to examine it and now I’m not going to be able to write it anymore! (Laughs.)

  NL: Two more questions. It seems like your A and B stories usually dovetail and there’s kind of a thematic, but the most polarizing question from my last book for movie screenwriters was about theme. Half said it’s everything and the other half said you should never consciously write about it. It seems in Grey’s with the use of voice-over that theme is pretty upfront. When you’re breaking story in the room—whether it’s a theme for a season or a theme for each episode—are you consciously thinking about it or is it more subliminal?

  SR: It’s different for every show. It’s very interesting because people always say to me that all three of my shows feel like they’re run by different people. Grey’s is thematic both season long and episodically, and it’s very important to me that the stories fall into that theme. Private Practice is thematic in a season-long way. There’s no rule that says that each episode has to fall into a specific theme. Although last season, we fooled around with Addison doing a voice-over when she’s in therapy and that’s a little bit thematic, but it’s not thematic for every character. With Scandal, there’s no theme for each episode and there’s no theme for the characters, and yet, somehow whatever’s happening in our A story dovetails with our B story, but it’s not necessarily purposeful. We don’t sit in the room and talk about it; we just do it.

  NL: Last question. What’s the best thing about being a showrunner and what’s the worst?

  SR: I think the best thing about being a showrunner is I write, “INT. OVAL OFFICE—DAY,” and then eight weeks later, I go down to the stage and I walk into an exact replica of the oval office and I sit behind an exact replica of the Resolute desk and I pretend to be the president. Or, I sit in an O.R. that someone built for me because I wrote, “INT. O.R. GALLERY—DAY,” and I pretend to do surgery. And, every single time that’s happened, I’ve gone down to the stage and sat down on that set and played for like forty-five minutes. That’s the best part. You’re the god of your own world in a way that is not healthy for anybody, but it’s fantastic. The worst part is feeling responsible for the jobs of hundreds of people. I don’t want to fuck up my job and ruin the ability of hundreds of other people to make a living. There are like eight hundred people who have jobs because I wrote these pilot scripts—that’s serious and I don’t want to put anybody out of work. I feel an extraordinary sense of responsibility for everyone. It keeps me awake at night.

  NL: That’s what Shondaland is all about.

  SR: It’s probably why Grey’s has gone ten seasons, because I really refused to let the show get boring because we’ve got to keep going. This is family. The crew is my family. And I want them to keep having jobs. I want us to stay together.

  7

  Fuel your Story Engine

  Why are most new shows cancelled after a few episodes and others become cultural phenomena? No one knows how to catch lightning in a bottle or else every series would be a hit right out of the gate. The best prognosticating tool we have is to examine series which have endured for the long haul to seek out their commonalities as indicators of success.

  In the TV business, when a new series has the touchstones of a long-running show, we say that it “has legs.” If you’re getting a mental picture of Forrest Gump running a long-distance marathon, then you’ve got the right idea. TV is a longevity business. Any new series isn’t about a quick sprint. The show has to endure and outrun the competition—or it’s going to get sidelined, shifted to another timeslot, or more likely, axed. In the TV business today, second chances are rare. A new series must start strong and sustain by either holding steady from its initially strong ratings
or, better yet, building momentum from word of mouth as it moves toward the finish line. However, in TV, the finish line keeps marching forward. You can be king of season 1, but will the ratings stay up in season 2 and beyond? Yes, it’s a super-competitive industry, not for the weak of heart or those with a delicate stomach. No matter how great your success last year, the TV networks are always looking ahead and wondering…

  What Have You Done for Me Lately?

  When a new series concept is pitched, one of the key factors TV executives are considering are the show’s chances for long-term survival. Bottom line: they’re not apt to buy, develop, or green-light a new series that doesn’t have the potential to run for at least five seasons (or more than one hundred episodes). Investing in a new series requires a giant leap of faith on the part of the studio, which has to deficit finance it, meaning that they can only recoup their costs if the show becomes a long-running series. A critically acclaimed, award-winning series only has value for a TV studio and network if it translates into relatively solid viewership ratings. I’m using the word “relatively” because a basic cable show is usually only going to garner a fraction of the viewers of a big broadcast network, so the numbers for a successful series, such as Mad Men on AMC, are not going to rival the numbers for NCIS on CBS. But the elite Mad Men demographic is coveted by many high-end advertisers, so this business model makes sense for AMC. (If Mad Men aired on CBS, it would have been cancelled within its first season for low ratings, but on AMC, it’s a modest hit compared to AMC’s juggernaut series The Walking Dead which nabs four times the ratings points and kills scads more zombies—albeit with considerably less Emmy awards—than Mad Men.)

  Keeping It All in the Family: Infinite Family Plots

  In terms of longevity, the current champion is The Simpsons with more than five hundred episodes over twenty-five (?!) seasons. Now that’s a cultural phenomenon. Endlessly inventive and genuinely funny, this series has the genius of Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and a roster of ridiculously talented comedy writers. But, at the core, this is a show about a crazy, dysfunctional family. Now let’s look at some other long-running series about crazy families, and we can discern that series about families provide us with the potential for unlimited “story engines,” because as long as each family member has a problem, the show has the potential for new conflicts and new storylines.

  All series specifically about families are serialized, as family lives continue to evolve week after week. But one of the main differences is that drama series offer us cliffhangers at the end of each episode to keep us coming back for more, while sitcoms tend to bring each episode’s self-contained storyline to a thematic conclusion (often with a subtle moral) to highlight a specific lesson learned. The stakes on family series tend to rest on power dynamics within relationships. In some cases, the serialized dramas gave us life and death stakes—especially after the blockbuster cliffhanger on Dallas hinging on the mysterious murder of J. R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) that hatched the iconic cliffhanger question: Who shot J. R.? Desperate Housewives and many other serialized dramas about families have also centered around a murder-mystery season arc. These darker, edgier, more provocative dramas about families should not to be confused with softer, G-rated “family dramas,” such as 7th Heaven, which are labeled “family dramas” because they’re intended to be watched by parents and their kids.

  I’ll Be There for You: Enduring Friendships

  Series about complicated, layered, and often funny friendships—including BFFs (best friends forever), bromances, and frenemies—also offer the potential for unlimited story engines. But these shows live or die based upon their iconic characters and fresh storylines (aka, fortunate casting + great writing).

  Most friendship shows are heavily dependent on their arenas. Desperate Housewives was rooted on Wisteria Lane and we, as viewers, felt as if we lived there, too. One Tree Hill and Friday Night Lights have/had their respective basketball and football games to anchor their plot lines with the formula of: friendship + rivalry = suspense.

  Most of these series orbit around two to three main “regular” locations. We know their (often bizarrely upscale) apartments intimately, as if we live there, too. Archie Bunker’s chair is permanently ensconced in the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. And the “M” on Mary Richard’s wall is as iconic as her soaring hat in the Minneapolis wind. And, naturally, these friend ensembles enjoy their favorite hangouts. Beverly Hills, 90210 had the Peach Pit. Friends had Central Perk. How I Met Your Mother has MacLaren’s bar.

  The durability of shows revolving around friendships also depends upon additional possibilities for story engines, such as each cast member of Friends and Sex and the City’s workplace antics, new love interests, and new sources of internal and external strife or forces of antagonism to upset the harmony.

  Sex, Power, and the Search for “True Love”

  There’s a tacit understanding that friendships and familial relationships go through ups and downs but eventually return to the status quo; we learn to accept each other’s shortcomings because we’ve seen each other through good and bad times. Intellectually, we know we’re not going to change each other, but we still offer our well intentioned yet unsolicited advice and insinuate ourselves at inopportune times. We embrace and endure all of this from our family and best friends because there’s a comfort level that allows it. When we negotiate vacations and holiday dinners and special events, we might experience feelings of resentment or animosity from past hurts, but we’re usually able to gather around the turkey together and put aside our differences for the sake of the family or friendship. Yes, I’m oversimplifying and generalizing in order to make a point—which is that when you add sex to any relationship, all bets are off.

  Oh, the agony and ecstasy of romantic relationships—especially on television! Of course there’s a big distinction to be made between infatuation, sex, lust, passion, intimacy, commitment, marriage, and love. But for the sake of discussion, let’s start with the physical act of two naked bodies letting down their defenses and being open to the intimacy of another’s touch—coupled with the power dynamics that go along with it. There is dominance and submission in negotiating who’s going to do what to whom and where and when and how. And the post-coital negotiations. Spend the night or vamoose? Cigarette or no cigarette? Is breakfast together “taking the next step” or just a meal? Is he or she going to call? Is he or she going to say yes? Are his or her friends and family going to approve of his/her friends and family? And do we approve of each other’s wardrobes and hairstyles and pop culture references or lack thereof and where/if we went to college or how much money he or she makes, not to mention spiritual and political beliefs and how we want to raise our kids and do we both even want kids—and we haven’t even gotten to our music playlists and favorite movies and TV shows yet. You know what, this just isn’t going to work out. It’s not you; it’s me. Can we just be friends?

  Suffice it to say, in romantic (sexual) relationships, everything counts in large amounts. We tend to cut our friends and family a whole lot more slack in pretty much every department because what they do is much less of a reflection on us. Or, to put it another way…

  Romantic Love Tends to Bring Out the Best and Worst in All of Us

  Romantic love makes us feel most vulnerable. Sex turns us on, but the prospect of “true love” can just as easily shut us down. Love pushes us to the edge of reason. It makes us cry. It breaks our hearts. It terrifies us.

  And yet, with few exceptions, we all want it—and that’s why it’s so essential to a great TV series. It’s the intersection between desire and fear—the core of all good drama (and comedy). We long for someone “special” to help enhance our existence, to help us feel less alone, to make us feel worthy and attractive and loveable. At the same time, romantic love is chemical. You could meet Mr. or Ms. Right and everything looks perfect in their profile— but if there’s something missing, it’s a lack of chemistry which is that vital link that’s
tangible when it exists and indefinable when it doesn’t. In a TV series, some of this is written on the page, but most of it depends on casting. It’s either there or it isn’t, and it’s rare, and often ephemeral, especially on TV.

  As TV viewers, we’re voyeurs. We seek titillation and escapism, but also find ourselves enraptured by the vicarious thrill of TV couples and their on-again/off-again tempestuous relationships. If there’s no heat between them, we tune out—but we also can’t resist the simmer of the slow burn between two people who can’t be together for so many reasons and yet, those lips, those eyes. Animals emit scents and make mating calls. Humans flirt, charm, and seduce.

  Following are examples of different subcategories of romantic love (as opposed to platonic love) on hit shows.

  Happily Married

  Hey, it happens. And not just as a form of punishment on Married … with Children. Parenthood, Friday Night Lights, Modern Family, The West Wing, How I Met Your Mother, Everybody Loves Raymond, Home Improvement, and Downton Abbey all feature functional couples. Sure they argue and get on each other’s nerves from time to time, but there is never any doubt that they’re partners in love and fully committed.

  Unfaithfully Yours

  Always involves the conflict of secrets and lies which is often accompanied by separation, couple’s counseling, and sometimes eventually divorce. On Breaking Bad, Walter White initially gets into the meth drug trade for the sake of his family—ironically, it’s what tears them apart. See also The Sopranos, The Good Wife, Scandal, Mad Men, Desperate Housewives, Homeland, Nip/Tuck, Rescue Me, The Americans, House of Cards, and Boardwalk Empire.