History Never Repeats

Sometimes I pop over to Cinematical or TV Squad and run across something that just demands a response. I like how eager and committed the folks at both sites are to their respective mediums. They do a great job collecting news as well. But sometimes... occasionally... they drive me somewhat barmy.

Jay Black has a nicely written piece about the auteur theory, and how it should apply to television. Now, if you're for the auteur theory in general, you're a fucking idiot. We can get into an argument about why that is so but I warn you, you'll probably have to tangle with Mr. Olson and YOU DO NOT WANT TO DO THAT.

Anyway, Jay Black is a fan of American auteurs but not European auteurs which is fine, because the whole theory's just bunk anyway so I won't quibble with him. He defends this by saying that most movies are bland, dull and formless because of the myriad writers, producers, executives and the notes they generate. That's hard to argue with. But... if the auteur theory is that the movie is the vision of the director, and all these movies are directed by a director... shouldn't they all be great?

The auteur theory's cute, in that "hey, let's write an article for a French film monthly while we suck on our Galoises" way but like many theories, it doesn't hold water when it's applied on a practical level. Scientific, it is not. Is it always necessary to try and find ONE reason something works? Why do people do that? For example, I don't just blame Bush for the current American disaster. I blame ALL of them. So why isn't the same said for a medium like film? Even with a novel, the writer has the help of an editor and many novelists will credit their editor as a valued partner.

Jay Black tries to tie the filmic auteur theory to the reason TeeVee writers have no respect. It's a bit puzzling. The auteur theory has nothing to do with writers, which is one of its biggest problems. So even if you believe in it like you believe in Xenu and engrams, it can't be applied to TeeVee. That said, he makes a few misstatements about how television even works, and I'd like to address them here.

Most erroneously, he claims that TeeVee writers have no respect and that the reason for that is the lack of the auteur. He does that Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln thing of assuming his theories (that the auteur makes all collaborative art better, and that TeeVee totally lacks a singular creative vision) are true, and then going on from there. His belief, which he states, is that TeeVee is created by teams of writers, not by one particular writer. And as we all know, a bunch of people cannot make one auteur. But TeeVee CAN be created by one person. It cannot be produced by one person. So he needs to decide where he's going with this -- is he talking about it purely from a creative standpoint, or from a production standpoint?

Like most people who aren't inside the business, he removes the business from the equation, instead blaming blah TeeVee on writing staffs that water everything down. I think that everybody who's critical of TeeVee and puts the onus all on the writers and that particular process needs to sit in on the myriad notes sessions. I believe some eyes would be opened.

There are also differences between film and TeeVee, differences he doesn't satisfactorily note. A director has several years to make his film. Sometimes a year to prep it, that long to film it, and a long-ass time to cut it and make it perfect. With TeeVee, you're making 22 movies in a one year period. Every eight days, you start over. And while many directors are also producers, they normally don't produce to the extent that a showrunner does. A showrunner is not only the creative vision behind the show, he/she is also a manager. A showrunner is responsible for hiring the crew and the staff, for managing the people under him/her, for setting the creative path for the show, for keeping the show on budget and on time, for breaking the stories, supervising/writing scripts, making sure the scripts get in on time, managing production, sitting in editing (something people don't do much of anymore, which makes me sad), for handling publicity and promotion, dealing with actors... the list really does go on.

See, it's not possible to ascribe an impractical theory like the auteur theory to such a complex job.

TeeVee is not a theory. It's not a passion project taken on by one dude ('cause isn't it always a dude?) in a garrote somewhere. You're creating a commercial enterprise. You're selling soap. It's incumbent upon the writers to sell soap in the most entertaining way possible but at the end of the day, we are there to sell soap. We're there to make the networks and studios piles of dosh.

But let's keep going and see where Jay Black is headed. He thinks one thing that will change television, that will make it better, is by making creators more visible with the viewing audiences. But what the viewing audience thinks of Joss Whedon or Chris Carter or JJ Abrams is irrelevant. No matter how brilliant the fans think the creators are, that is not going to keep the shows on the air.

A show succeeds, like a movie does, for everchanging reasons. One reason shows fail is because, as discussed in the last post, the executives try to predict success based on a made-up formula, a formula that can change with the wind. If a show is creatively as well as financially successful, that's a bonus. Because it is a business, TeeVee is always going to be more objective than subjective. And for it to be objective, there have to be constants. Ergo, how financially successful is a show? If X works once, they will continue trying X until it's no longer financially viable to do so.

Jay seems to be under the impression that once a showrunner (he keeps using "creator" and "showrunner" interchangeably, which muddles his point) has the public behind him/her, the studios and networks will just hand blank checks to the showrunners to create whatever they want. Eliminating, I suppose, the need for a network programming department and any executives whatsoever.

I would like to live in that dream castle, but let's be real here. It's not possible.

He alternates between blaming the networks and studios, and blaming the writers. He is operating under a popular fallacy -- there's no individuality in TeeVee. Nobody will step up to the plate and do something interesting. But the truth is, nobody twists an audience member's arm and forces them to watch Dancing With The Stars. They do that all on their own. If an audience doesn't want to watch Battlestar Galactica, then they won't and that show won't be financially viable. It's a tribute, actually, to the people who hold the purse strings in TeeVee that they think so much of the Galactica creative team they continue to give them opportunities to marry the creative with the financial. And I would like nothing more than for Ron Moore to create a huge, worldwide mega-hit. I don't think I'm alone.

Most writers set out to write something that speaks to them but when you're talking about the business of TeeVee, you have to understand that it just isn't that simple or pure. It's a remarkable achievement for a writer to create something with a singular vision. Why don't we celebrate that and accept the TeeVee biz for what it is, instead of trying to radically change something that simply isn't going to change?

Jay Black doesn't make the most important point -- TeeVee IS a writer-driven medium. Although creators have writing staffs, they have final say over EVERYTHING. A showrunner/creator who doesn't take that as gospel is a weak visionary and a bad manager.

On Saturday, the Guild held a one-day seminar on the pilot process, for Showrunner Training Program alumni. We got great insight from a network exec-turned-producer, and two showrunners -- John Wells and Stephen Cannell. Listening to Cannell speak, I figured something out. It's not up to the fans of TeeVee to make the stellar showrunners/creators important. It's up to US, the people who work in it. The auteur theory is accepted because the directors it namechecks are stars. And these stars are recognized by their colleagues and their industry. There's a sense of history in film, one that doesn't seem to exist as strongly in TeeVee. People in TeeVee don't seem to care much about its history, how the current system developed, what the different methods of showrunning are, how things have changed. This is detrimental to our business. And it's great that the Guild sees this and is, in its own small way, trying to change it.

Stephen Cannell, who has created over forty series, was well known (at the time) for the way he taught his writers to produce, and for the creative ways in which he ran his shows. Cannell namechecked Roy Huggins as his mentor. Huggins created "The Fugitive," among other shows. But probably most people haven't heard of Huggins, and an alarmingly large number of people don't know how influential Cannell has been. That whole Canada thing? Cannell.

There are always interviews with famous directors. There are documentaries. And God bless TV Land, which has made attempts at discussing the history of TeeVee. But unless you've heard Cannell speak, you don't really know how rich the history of TeeVee is. And a lot of these men and women are gone. They can't talk about how they did things or give advice, and they weren't interviewed. They didn't get documentaries made about them. TeeVee is not just Rod Serling and CSI. There's so much more there that we, as TeeVee professionals, could know and use to work more effectively in the medium.

Part of the problem with that is that there's no longer a strong lineage from the pioneers of TV drama to the present. There's no "system" in place, like there used to be when kingpins created multiple shows and taught their writers how to produce. Currently, only John Wells has the stability to do anything like that. Of course, it's a lot harder now. There's an even greater sense of uncertainty in the business. Shows don't stay on long enough. Writers rarely stay with a show more than a season and instead, shuttle from new show to new show. These shows are frequently created by people who don't have a lot of TeeVee experience and it's rare that you can work for someone like Glen Morgan or John Wirth long enough for it to make an impact. David Kelley isn't going to teach someone how to produce. Nor is Aaron Sorkin.

And the writers breaking in now are going to be taught bad habits by stressed people who were not themselves taught. Ironically, given its "lone wolf" status, there seems to be a greater sense of community amongst film directors than there does amongst TeeVee producers. Even though you're on staff, you're more often than not by yourself, trying to survive in this landscape. I vigorously disagree with the auteur theory and all it represents, but I do think that a greater sense of history and respect and examination of what came before can only help TeeVee.

Many of the people no longer with us can be accessed via the TV Academy's "Archive of American Television." Some of those videos can be seen at Google video. And here's a link to the archive's blog. You can spend a lot of time there. Trust me. But we also need to make sure that people like Stephen Cannell are heard on a wider scale. Interviews, seminars, books... whatever it takes. I'm hoping that one of you gentle readers will huff in with a "Jesus Christ, you're stupid. Here's a perfectly fantastic documentary series/book on that very subject, which will answer everybody's questions."

Now onto a horse racing sidebar, which I put at the end so all of you except Devon Ellington can skip it. I, too, was a fan of Georgie Boy. Seemed to me that the injury is quite minor and the decision to skip the Derby is a cautious one. But damn, I REALLY wanted to see him run. And I wanted Kathy Walsh to have a Derby horse. She deserves it. I'm encouraged by how well the West Coast horses are holding form when they travel. Maybe this is the year they kick Eastern ass. Pyro's disaster in the Blue Grass seems to be driving people absolutely mad. I think they're too caught up in the whole Polytrack/dirt thing, frankly. Because really, a good horse is a good horse. And before synthetics, good horses have been known to hate particular dirt tracks. So it's essentially the same thing. They're all trying to outthink it, which is why these horses are only getting two Derby preps. It may make a Derby winner, but it won't make a Triple Crown winner. Retards.

I'll get to more comments in the next post, which I swear will be shorter.

np -- Mark Geary, "Gingerman"