For those considering a career as a TV writer...

[guanin]

Read Hello, Lied the Agent by Ian Gurvitz. It will boggle your mind just how fucked up the tv industry is. With so much network interference, I'm shocked that anything of quality ever makes it onscreen. So I'm kinda glad that I haven't gotten any tv ideas so far, because probably no one would buy them anyway and then they would note it to death

Comments

[lotus0kid]

I've wondered that about Heroes for quite a while. I find it hard to believe that Sylar getting not one but TWO storylines closely followed Star Trek's release completely by accident. Some exec was like "They liked Spock! Give Quinto more screentime! Ratings, ratings, ratings!" And I think the extreme Claire-focus has always been blamed on execs' fondness for sixteen-year-old cheerleaders. Overall, it seems like Heroes got away with only a little meddling in S1, and then they were caught. It sucks.

[guanin]

Oh, that was so not a coincidence. ZQ almost became stunt casting after Star Trek. The execs just care about what shiny thing might make money with the advertisers, not about quality. All the examples Gurvitz gave about quality shows that lasted were shows where the execs for some miraculous reason decided to leave the writers to their vision.

[c_quinn]

And I think the extreme Claire-focus has always been blamed on execs' fondness for sixteen-year-old cheerleaders.

So now I know who to despise....

[guanin]

They're probably thinking, "The fanboys love drooling all over Claire. More Claire! Make this the Claire show!"

[rampant_chaos8]

Oh man, TV is so crazy. One of my teachers this semester is a director who has done work for episodic television, both network and cable... and I've heard so many stories now. I actually have an idea for a pilot, and I've written a tiny bit of it... but yeah.

[guanin]

I'm figuring you have to be a little masochistic to got into this. Then again, it's that way with movies, too, especially if you don't have commercial ideas like me.