David E Kelley hates five acts, too.

I realize that out here on the hustings, in faraway Canada, we hear things a little late sometimes. But it seems like the move to five act hour dramas doesn't have lotsa fans in the creative community, either.

Exhibit A: David E. Kelley, speaking at the ABC panel on the Summer Press Tour back on June 27th:

"I don't like the five-act structure at all," Kelley said. "I think it is terrible. If there's anything that makes me envious of cable television and wanting to run to that world, it's the intrusion of commercial breaks. When we're down to eight minute acts before a Dodge Ram commercial comes pounding in, it's out a burden on us to try to compete with these commercials. We've got to now bang in after those commercials to try and get the viewer's attention back."

Kelley said the more commercial breaks there are in a one-hour drama, the more difficult it becomes to tell a story, "especially when you're trying to tell quiet stories, emotional storylines. It's easy to come in after a commercial break and have someone stab someone with a knife, and get back the viewer's attention. But when you're trying to come in with a softer scene, a scene that's maybe based more on character, it's just getting harder and harder."

Kelley called on the networks to come up with a solution to both the number of breaks and the number of commercial minutes, which have cut down on the storytelling time in each show. "When I was doing L.A. Law (in the '80s), I think we had 48 minutes [of storytelling time] per hour. Now we're down to 41 minutes to the hour, and it's a terrible trend."

Source is Mediaweek. Link's here.

How I missed this, I'll never know. Must be the Guinness.