TV series take a dramatic pause

[Sylph]

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 "Pushing 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 Sexy 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 "Pushing 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 opportunity: the chance to reassess, 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 "Pushing Daisies," the extra time off gave Fuller the opportunity 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 "Pushing 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 Sexy 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 support 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."

[Laurie]

Interesting article

Using the Aunt Lily cliffhanger as a driving force for next season, could be good for Pushing Daisies. Really hope it becomes a megahit next season-I love love the show(as you can tell from my avatar/banner. lol), really want it to kick some arse