The TV Showrunner's Roadmap

by Neil Landau

  Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), another brilliant pariah, relies on his one main confidant, Dr. James Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) to be his moral compass. Dr. House routinely butts heads with his supervisor, Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) who, invariably, is as ready to dismantle House’s hubris and insubordination as he is to undermine her authority. House is able to perform his job with such precision in spite of Cuddy, whereas his professional friendship with Dr. Wilson actually helps fuel his effectiveness.

  In The Killing, Homicide Detective Sarah Linden (Mireille Enos) is fiercely driven and single goal-minded—often going to self-destructive extremes. But it’s her unconventional, irreverent partner Stephen Holder (Joel Kinnaman) who simultaneously challenges and supports her out in the field. As good as she is at her job, she wouldn’t be nearly as proficient without Holder in her corner—and they both know it. There’s a tacit respect and trust between them that ebbs and flows with the highs and lows of the murder case(s).

  In Royal Pains, two brothers, Dr. Hank Lawson (Mark Feuerstein) and Evan Lawson (Paulo Costanzo) run a thriving “concierge doctor” practice in the form of discreet house calls to the rich and famous. In the pilot episode, Hank is essentially exiled to the tony beachside playground of the Hamptons after being accused of fatally botching the surgery of a wealthy hospital benefactor in New York City. As the series progresses, Hank is an easy-going, down-to-earth physician with an excellent bedside manner, but he lacks the business acumen and spontaneity of his younger, wheeler-dealer brother. Together, these brothers are a dynamic duo, even though Evan is often more of a liability than an asset. And, after all, Evan is the one who came up with the idea of HankMed in the first place. Like most brothers, the two can bring out the best and worst in one another because they know each other’s weaknesses so well. But, when the chips are down, they’ve got each other’s backs.

  Dominant lead character surrounded by ensemble. The following series are examples of how a leader is only as strong as the team he or she guides, chastises, empowers, and inspires.

  In Scandal, Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) is a gorgeous, wicked smart, savvy public relations and damage control expert. The best in the biz—she’s a cunning, charming, always impeccably dressed and discreet Beltway insider with a flawless reputation. But behind the scenes, she’s also a micromanaging control freak whose personal life is usually spinning out of control. Olivia has super sharp political instincts, knows how to play the Washington power game, and very rarely loses because she has an elite group of specialists on her staff. What makes Olivia so good at her job is she knows she can trust her staff implicitly because they were each “wounded birds”—hand-picked, rescued, and trained by Olivia. She essentially saved their lives and now there is no doubt that there is nothing they wouldn’t do to protect and serve their boss.

  On Mad Men, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) begins as the agency’s creative director and the driving force of its success. With the uncanny ability to perform his job best after too much debauchery, Don is equally adept at impressing hard-to-please clients and alienating his bosses and colleagues. Don is a self-destructive genius. For a time, he was able to keep up appearances in the office and at home despite his crumbling marriage to Betty (January Jones). And after his fall from grace, Don manages, once again, to rebrand and reinvent himself with a new (younger model) wife, Megan (Jessica Paré).

  Don Draper is the glue of Mad Men. The conceit of the series works so well because it is based on the central question: Who is Don Draper really— and will he ever truly change? While each of his main colleagues (Roger, Peggy, Pete, Joan, Ken, Harry, and big boss Bertram) has his/her own aspirations and desires and plotlines each season, they mainly serve as the prism through which we view the many facets of Don Draper. If Don weren’t so good at spinning his version of the truth, he wouldn’t be such a rock star in the ad world. Advertising is designed to sell us stuff we don’t really need, based upon the illusion that a product will fill the void in our lives and make us happy. Don may be too cynical to believe in the idea of lasting happiness; he knows what it’s supposed to look like and sound like, but he may be too numb to feel it.

  Sex and the City, Girls, and Entourage all focus on one main protagonist (Carrie, Hannah, Vince) and her or his three best friends. Whereas Sex and the City and Entourage embodied the slick, materialistic excesses of Manhattan and L.A., Girls revolves around four besties who are struggling in their careers and love lives. What differentiates each of these series from being pure “ensemble” dramedies is the dominance of their lead character’s POV. Sex and the City begins and ends with Carrie’s newspaper column, told via V.O. and setting up each episode’s main theme. Girls is about Hannah and her three friends. And while we follow art gallery assistant Marnie (Allison Williams), and cousins Jessa (Jemima Kirke) and Shoshanna (Zosia Mamet) into their separate plotlines, Hannah is the nexus of the series. Everyone reports back to Hannah, and the series is as much about how their lives impact Hannah’s narcissism as it’s about the actual lives of her friends.

  Entourage (creator/showrunner Doug Ellin) is based upon the real-life exploits of Mark Wahlberg as he and his buddies moved from Boston to Los Angeles to pursue fame, fortune, fast cars, and femmes. Wahlberg’s alter ego from Queens, New York is Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier). He may not be the most dynamic or noisy character in the series, but he’s the sun around which his friends’ and colleagues’ lives all orbit.

  A good litmus test for this type of POV paradigm is this: if you remove the dominant protagonist and just leave the ensemble, would the series still sustain and continue to exist? Vince is the ideal blossoming movie star precisely because he’s so laid back and indifferent to fame. His super agent Ari (Jeremy Piven) requires power and money like a vampire needs blood, whereas Vince is a simple, humble guy who could take it or leave it, as long as he’s got his buddies, good weed, and gets laid. Of course, Vince likes the fame and money, but his life doesn’t depend upon it. Vince is the star and the moral center of the show’s universe. Everyone around him is a social climber: Vince’s best friend, Eric Murphy (Kevin Connolly) ambitiously manages Vince’s career; Vince’s elder half-brother Johnny “Drama” Chase (Kevin Dillon) is an aspiring actor; even pothead slacker Salvatore “Turtle” Assante (Jerry Ferrara) is an entrepreneur with big dreams. But Vince’s POV enables us to recognize the absurdity, pretension, and phoniness of show business. Ari is, by far, the loudest, showiest role in Entourage. His shallowness, greed, thirst for power, hysteria and hubris, shocks, provokes and makes us laugh out loud, and yet Ari is best in small doses. To prove my point, if you remove Vince from the ensemble, what you’re left with is a series about selfish, soulless Hollywood players. Ironically, Vince makes us care because he doesn’t.

  See also Sons of Anarchy, The Mentalist, The Good Wife, The Sopranos, The Shield, Weeds, Veep, Boardwalk Empire, and True Blood.

  Voice-over (VO) narration as running commentary on current action. Generally used to widen perspective and place events in a thematic or ironic context.

  Sex and the City used Carrie Bradshaw’s (Sarah Jessica Parker) magazine column to articulate (via V.O.) each episode’s thematic question. In a season 1 episode (“Secret Sex” written by creator/showrunner Darren Star), Carrie poses this thematic question:

  Carrie (V.O.)

  How many of us out there are having great sex with people we’re ashamed to introduce to our friends?

  In this episode, Carrie goes out on her first date with “Mr. Big” (Chris Noth), but he’s reticent to introduce her into his social circle and just wants to stay in (bed) with her, leading Carrie to believe that he’s somehow ashamed of her. Should she withhold sex in this context or just go for it? Meanwhile, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) meets a hunky guy at the gym who seems to be hiding something from her. When she discovers a “spanking” video in his apartment, she has to decide whether she should dump him or walk on the wild side and tell no one. At the same time, Charlotte (Kristen Davis) divulges to her girl
friends that she’s having sex with a rabbi. Samantha, at the other end of the spectrum, has no issues with broadcasting her sex-capades with anyone, anytime, anywhere, and believes that sex should not be delayed for moral reasons. In Sex and the City, Carrie’s quest is always the A story, and her girlfriends’ plotlines are the corresponding B, C, and D stories that are all on the same theme.

  In the pilot episode of Grey’s Anatomy, titled “A Hard Day’s Night” and written by creator/showrunner Shonda Rhimes, we’re introduced to the dominant main character of the ensemble. We know she’s the lead character because her last name is “Grey,” the episode begins and ends with her, and it’s her voice in the teaser—in which we also witness Meredith as she tries to gracefully depart from last night’s one-night stand with a handsome but more or less anonymous stranger—who, to her mortification, will later turn out to be her boss: Dr. Derek Shepherd aka McDreamy (played by Patrick Dempsey).

  Meredith (V.O.)

  The Game. They say a person either has what it takes to play, or they don’t. My mother was one of the greats. Me on the other hand … I’m kinda screwed. Like I said I’m screwed. I can’t think of any one reason why I want to be a surgeon. But I can think of a thousand reasons why I should quit. They make it hard on purpose. There are lives in our hands. There comes a moment when it’s more than just a game. And you either take that step forward or turn around and walk away. I could quit, but here’s the thing … I love the playing field.

  As the pilot episode unfolds, Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo) begins her residency at Seattle Grace Hospital. She encounters her follow interns: tough perfectionist Cristina (Sandra Oh); introverted George (T. R. Knight); ex-model Izzie (Katherine Heigl), and arrogant Lothario Alex (Justin Chambers). They’re all introduced to their supervisor, Dr. Miranda Bailey (Chandra Wilson) who’s unaffectionately referred to as “The Nazi.” During their first long, grueling, exhilarating and intensely challenging shift, each intern grapples with personal demons and the fear that he/she isn’t good enough to succeed. And if life and death stakes at every turn aren’t high enough, we learn that Meredith is living in the shadow of her mother, Dr. Ellis Grey (Kate Burton) who was a prominent Seattle surgeon in her heyday. At the conclusion of the pilot episode, Meredith visits her mother in an assisted living facility, and we discover that Meredith’s voice-over was actually a one-sided chat she was having with her mother—who is now suffering from Alzheimer’s and barely even recognizes her daughter. In the touching grace note to the pilot, Meredith realizes that life is hard and offers no guarantees of success. But if you don’t play, you can’t win; the risk offers its own reward.

  While each intern has his/her own specific challenge as a newbie doctor, every medical case is linked to Meredith as our guide. In season 1, this series focused first and foremost on Meredith. However, as the series progresses and other regular characters became more popular (and some left the series to pursue other opportunities), Meredith became less prominent and a more equal member of the ensemble.

  In Dexter, Dexter Morgan’s (Michael C. Hall) voice-over narrative is crucial to our deeper understanding of his motives. We can see with our own eyes who, how, when, and where he kills. But it’s the articulation of his inner psychology in voice-over which enables us to grasp at why.

  Unlike Sex and the City, Grey’s Anatomy, and Enlightened, Dexter’s V.O. is less thematic and more of an examination of his psyche. Dexter lives by his own (secret) code as taught to him by his late, adoptive father, Harry. Dexter is incredibly smart, but fastidious, emotionless, cold, calculating, and trusts no one (at least not in the early episodes). He maintains a double life: by day, a hardworking blood spatter pattern analyst for the Miami police department; by night a vigilante serial killer who metes out justice and punishment on his own terms. The V.O. keeps the audience inside Dexter’s head and tries to help us reconcile his violent actions. His emotionless voice lulls us and draws us in. And, even though, his killing sprees compel us to turn away— we keep watching again and again—because while Dexter is a monster, he’s a well-intentioned monster.

  He also has a dry, funny, droll wit, so while we’re repelled by his actions, we’re also in on the joke. He disposes of miscreants and societal douche bags. Sure, it’s dead wrong. But it’s human nature to have thoughts of getting even—and Dexter acts out the fantasy of getting away with murder. Sure, he’s a sick puppy and his actions are reprehensible, but in Dexter’s world, that’s entertainment.

  See also Enlightened.

  Dual leads POV. Another POV option is a dual focus. In Homeland, we spend an equal amount of time with Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) and Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis). She’s a CIA agent in the antiterrorism unit; he’s a former POW soldier who’s returned to Washington, D.C., as a war hero. Or maybe he was “turned” (brainwashed) by Islamic extremist Abu Nazir (Navid Negahban), while being held captive for eight years, and is now a terrorist. Or maybe he wasn’t brainwashed at all, but instead has come to see the value of retribution against the United States for its hawkish imperialism? Carrie suspects the latter, but her POV is unreliable because she has no hard proof, coupled with her erratic behavior caused by her going off her bipolar medication. Is Carrie’s commitment to U.S. Homeland Security so devout that she’s willing to have sex with the married Brody to earn his trust? Or is she actually falling in love with and sleeping with the enemy?

  The brilliance of season 1, in particular, of Homeland was how much we did not know. Each episode presented us with different perspectives and theories as to Carrie and Brody’s motives—but then the next episode would demolish our expectations and send us back to trying to predict the next plot development. Homeland exists in the moral gray areas, and so Abu Nazir’s vendetta against the vice president of the United States is rooted in Nazir’s heartbreak of losing his son in a U.S. drone attack. And Brody, who is also a father, can completely empathize and relate to Nazir’s grief. Homeland proves that well-developed “good guys” are flawed, complex, and possess dark sides, and well-drawn villains also have sympathetic points of view. The challenge in such a dual focus is shifting the pendulum of our sympathy from one character to another without alienating the audience or making us feel manipulated.

  In The Americans, the dual POV is not just written as “us” (United States) versus “them” (USSR), which would have been too simplistic for this smart series. Instead, we are treated to the distinctive points of view of Elizabeth (a Soviet loyalist who’s committed to her mission) and Phillip (who has started to question his mission). We also get to witness scenes from this arranged marriage as their true feelings surface, as their kids mature and rebel against parental expectations, and as neighbors and KGB cohorts start to become suspicious. If this were a series solely depicting moles and espionage, it would probably flatten out and flat-line fast. Fortunately, the astute series creator (Joe Weisberg knows that all great series are about families. Cold War espionage plotlines can start to feel repetitive and limited, whereas family dramas are universally relatable and can provide unlimited story engines).

  The Americans also expands its POV to include Elizabeth and Phillip’s new neighbors, the Beemans, along with the added tension that Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) is a counterintelligence agent in the FBI; this provides us with a secondary POV as counterpoint to Elizabeth and Phillip’s—when they’re aligned—and further expands the POV when they’re all at odds. This added layer and POV affords us the opportunity to experience how unsuspecting neighbors Stan and Sandra (Susan Misner) get to know Elizabeth and Phillip. We get the sense that, if not for their backstories, these two couples would become good friends. (I’m looking forward to the episode when they all go camping together.) At this early point in this new series, Stan and Sandra, along with Paige and Henry, are all totally clueless about Elizabeth and Phillip’s double duties. The “sweet spot” of the show is that the couple of spies Stan is hunting for are right under his nose. This is a series about keeping your friends close and
your enemies even closer.

  Dual protagonist POVs are almost always improved and enhanced when each of the equal protagonists have different opinions, values, and perspectives, as well as their symbiotic, complementary strengths and weaknesses. The basic idea behind this theory is that if you put two incomplete people together you get one whole, perfectly well-rounded individual.

  Examples:

  In The X-Files, FBI special agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) believes in paranormal phenomena, while his partner, Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), is a skeptic.

  In Bones, FBI special agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) is paired with forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel). Booth represents the law, while Bones represents science; together they form a powerful investigative team. The dynamic is even more richly delineated as Booth believes in faith and God, while Brennan believes in science, evidence, and atheism.

  In Castle, Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion), a best-selling mystery author, is teamed with NYPD detective Kate Beckett (Stana Katic). Their dynamic is represented by their sexual tension and differing approaches to criminal cases.

  Rizzoli & Isles pairs Boston detective Jane Rizzoli (Angie Harmon) with medical examiner Maura Isles (Sasha Alexander) to solve crimes. Mirroring the Bones dynamic of law and science, the characters play different halves, as Rizzoli is a tomboy and Isles is more of a girly-girl.

  In Nip/Tuck, plastic surgeon Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) is a straight-laced, married-with-kids type, while his partner, Christian Troy (Julian McMahon) is the show’s charming bad boy.

  While an ensemble, the strongest dynamic in The Big Bang Theory is between roommates Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons). Both are brilliant, yet Leonard is functional in society, while Sheldon is so trapped in his mind that it makes him a social misfit.