Diane Kristine over at Unified Theory of Nothing Much continues her peerless reportage of all things TV with this Q&A with Scrubs creator Bill Lawrence.
My favorite part, of course, because I'm a sad, sad narcissist, is where she picks up on an earlier post of mine. Lawrence's answer to that question is particularly interesting:
BL: Here's the deal. Hollywood, especially networks and studios, they love to see what the trends are. Most recently, one of the things people have been saying is the sitcom's dead, three-camera sitcoms are dead. Before that, it was dramas are dead. And before that, it was sitcoms are dead. Now it's going to be reality is dead. It's a never-ending cycle.
It's all just hogwash, first of all. The only thing that's really changed in television is that people have so many options. My dad, who's 60, has 150 channels and will tell me about shows he likes that I've never heard of before. The one thing you have to realize is that sitcoms aren't dead. It's just that crappy television is dead. I think it's so competitive out there right now that a middle-of-the-road show that's just OK, nothing special, isn't going to survive the way it used to.
Because of that, I think you have one of two options. If you're super, super lucky, you have one of those giant hits that just grabs the public zeitgeist, whether it's Grey's Anatomy or American Idol or one of those shows that seems like a giant steamroller that everybody in the world watches. In which case, you get to sit back and celebrate. If you aren't that, I feel the only way to survive is to become a cult show, in the sense that your core audience is so loyal that they will follow you and stick with you and truly keep your show alive and successful for the network.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a great example of this. It was never a huge hit, but had such a loyal cult following that it basically drove that show into long-term success. The Family Guy, their cult following put that show back on the air. For us, for Scrubs, that's what we're so grateful for. Because we weren't a huge financial asset for NBC, the show's had I think seven or eight timeslots in five years. Luckily our fans are so loyal, that same core group has followed us from timeslot to timeslot and from evening to evening and really helped to keep the show going.
Long before I got into television, I remember the last time the "sitcom was dead."
There were all these articles talking about how the sitcom was over. Then, that fall -- The Cosby Show premiered. The last time the drama was dead, I believe, E.R. premiered that fall.
Let pundits and TV writers make the prognostications. If you're an artist and a writer, I think at the end of the day, your only choice is to play the long game.
1 comment:
Thanks for making me look all smart and stuff - he really sunk his teeth into that question.
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