The TV Showrunner's Roadmap

by Neil Landau

  The Killing is an example of a crime drama serialized over the course of two seasons (at its own peril) but is returning from cancellation (licking its wounds), and the revamped series will now resolve by the end of the same season.

  Lost, Game of Thrones, Once Upon a Time, and The Walking Dead explore an actively unfolding central mystery that’s heavily linked to each series’ mythology. These shows use a serialized structure that tends to leave viewers with more questions than answers by the end of each episode.

  Hybrid series (also referred to as “semi-serialized”): This type of series seems to be the most prevalent in today’s marketplace. The hybrid series offers an A story that reaches some kind of resolution, but the more personal stories unfold slowly as extended subplots over the course of the entire season. The rules of the structure are much looser. Sometimes a case or plotline will resolve by the end of an episode, but even as one element is resolved, there will often be fallout that will spill into subsequent episodes. The Good Wife is a good example of a hybrid legal series. In the early episodes, Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies) would work on a case which would be settled by the end of the episode. But, as this series has progressed, the single-case, closed-ended episodes took a back-seat to the more serialized personal drama stories. You could say that the A stories became the B stories, and vice versa.

  Grey’s Anatomy tends to offer closed-ended medical cases at the fore-front of each episode, but the characters’ love lives are the core of this series.

  Scandal is another series that started out with “scandal of the week” A stories that Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and her associates managed to resolve by the end of each episode. But, as the show has developed, the ongoing scandals inside the White House and the accompanying political machinations have taken center stage. I suppose this was to be expected given that Olivia was having an affair with the president of the United States. Scandal doesn’t seem to be foreclosed on returning to closed-ended cases from time to time, but the show has evolved into one of the juiciest political intrigue shows on television. See also: House of Cards.

  As you can see, hybrid and serialized series are much more complicated than their closed-ended counterparts. The truth is subjective depending on point of view. Walter White operates according to his own moral compass, so Breaking Bad is never about good versus evil or right and wrong. It’s all a matter of perspective. When you play by your own rules, you can always win.

  Similarly, Dexter Morgan on Dexter, Don Draper on Mad Men, and Nancy Botwin on Weeds are skilled liars and manipulators, justifying their actions to suit their needs—often motivated by good intentions. They’re antiheroes because they’re not ruled by conscience; they’re ruled by impulse. And if the show is going to be “must-see” TV, their impulses must override our impulse to change the channel.

  Predicting the Future of Television

  Up until 2010, the broadcast and cable networks tended to prefer closed-ended, self-contained episodes to retain viewers who may have missed an episode from time to time. The conventional wisdom was that it’s hard enough to launch a new series, so why make it even harder by airing a series that’s dependent upon loyal, dedicated viewership? Broadcast networks were always skittish during premiere week in September because they were concerned that if an audience didn’t tune in for the pilot episode, would they be able to follow the action in episodes 2 through 22? Networks were also able to rerun series with closed-ended episodes and post decent ratings. Conversely, if viewers missed too many episodes of a serialized series like Lost, then ABC ran the risk of alienating and losing their viewers.

  But audience trends have changed significantly in the past few years— and continue to evolve even as I write this. Viewers don’t need to make an appointment with their favorite shows anymore when they can watch them on their DVRs or download them on Hulu or Amazon or even via the broadcast and cable networks’ own websites. Rather than being daunted by a serialized story, viewers seem to like making the time investment and even look forward to “binge viewing” many episodes back to back. For decades, networks would offer “marathons” of The Twilight Zone during the winter holidays, showing every episode in a twenty-four-hour cycle. Now it’s Christmas all year long.

  In 2013, most networks and TV studios are still partial to closed-ended episodes because they sell better and more reliably in foreign television markets. Outside the United States, audiences are more likely to watch series in their predesignated time slots (without the benefit of a DVR). Furthermore, closed-ended episodes can be watched in any order and easily understood and digested—even if the foreign broadcaster arbitrarily places commercial breaks at dramatically inopportune times.

  No matter the format—closed-ended, serialized, hybrid—all compelling TV characters in all genres share a common denominator: we tune in to see them get into and out of trouble.

  Interview: Michelle and Robert King

  Michelle and Robert King Credits

  Best known for:

  The Good Wife (Creators/Executive Producers/Writers/Director—Robert King) 2009–2012

  Emmy Nominated (Outstanding Drama Series) 2010–2011

  Emmy Nominated (Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series) 2010

  WGA Nominated (Drama Series) 2012

  WGA Nominated (New Series) 2010

  In Justice (Executive Producers/Writers) 2006

  Vertical Limit (Screenplay—Robert King) 2000

  Red Corner (Screenplay—Robert King) 1997

  NL: This chapter is about crafting an inevitable, but surprising conclusion. I also want to discuss the specific challenges of working on a legal series. But before we even get into that, I wanted to talk to you about the pilot. You made very specific choices in the pilot in that you started with the scandal and then cut ahead six months. How did you decide that that would be your way in to the series?

  RK: Our spark for this series, and what we initially pitched to the studio and network was that first image of the political scandals—that would usually involve a candidate at a podium talking to reporters. Then, there would always be this cosmetic attachment—this wife who was there to share his shame—even though she was this innocent party. Is there anything more sympathetic in this world than this woman who is being dragged through the mud even though she didn’t do a single thing wrong? In fact, she was just as injured, if not more injured, than anyone else. And yet, she had to swallow her pride and do this. We felt that (1) this was a character that we couldn’t help but sympathize with and (2) that this was an opening that you could get hooked into the situation even without knowing what was going on in the woman’s head because you were so drawn in by that image and knew it from the news.

  MK: And in terms of the next scene [jumping ahead six months] of Alicia [Julianna Margulies] as with almost everything in the series, it’s Alicia driven. And what is the reality? How long would it take this woman to recover her bearings, find a position, and get her life in order to start work? So that was the reason behind that choice.

  NL: Obviously, you could have decided to have her wake up the morning after that scandalous press conference and show her slowly picking up the pieces of her life. But you chose to cut to six months later, I would imagine, in order to launch the legal franchise of the show: getting her in a courtroom, getting her first legal case, and getting her first verdict.

  MK/RK: Yes, that’s right.

  NL: My favorite thing on the pilot teaser is that little piece of thread in Peter’s (Chris Noth) sport jacket and her instinct to reach out. It’s just such a wonderful detail. When I teach Writing the One-Hour Drama Pilot at UCLA, I always show that scene. It’s just beautifully shot.

  RK: What’s fun is that TV is becoming more cinematic where you can do things like that. What we find fun with it is that old TV shows might have had a monologue about the woman being a housecleaner or the wife as caretaker to this husband and she was worried about his wardrobe or that it’s the moment where she’s trying to remo
ve herself from her surroundings because they’re so embarrassing. But if all you do is show this little image—it does tell you everything you need to know in that moment.

  NL: When the series first went on the air, I know that at CBS, in particular, they were very much interested in closed-ended A stories. Their wheelhouse is procedurals, but what seemed to happen with The Good Wife pretty early on was that the personal stories and the love stories started to take over. While you still have the case of the week, the serialized elements became much more pronounced. Did that shiftfrom the original intention of the show? Are A stories still your cases or have A stories become more of the personal stories?

  MK: For the most part, even in the fourth season, we still think of the case as the A story. Very occasionally, we’ll speak in the room in terms of twin A stories where a personal story will rise up in significance.

  RK: I think part of the reason for that is that it’s easier to talk about it that way in the room. Writers’ rooms are built on talking about very specific logical aspects of the story. That’s what we find most helpful and I’m sure the writers themselves find the most helpful. Usually the best way to access emotion and character is by starting with what is the most concrete aspect of your story which then allows you to put flesh on it. Regarding whether we moved from cases toward emotion, there was a very great moment in development with CBS where we got notes from Nina Tassler [President of CBS Entertainment] where she asked for more emotion out of the scene. She asked for an additional scene that showed Alicia’s mindset now that it’s six months later. We added a scene which was not in the original script, where Alicia talked to the Mary Beth Peil character playing her mother-in-law, Jackie, who was this Eisenhower-type wife who thought Alicia was being a little bit rebellious and dismissive over her husband and dwelling on his interlude with prostitutes. It was a good scene, but what was really great for us was to hear the executive say, “Could you go in more of an emotional direction?” Because there was a split personality up until that point where some executives said, “You’ve got to do more with the case,” which usually means you’ve got to explain more. It felt like we could get away with a lot because everyone is so fucking familiar with the genre of the courtroom, so that they could fill in the gaps with anything they’ve seen. What that gave us was the freedom to do less with the procedural. TV is all about real estate. You only have forty-two minutes to tell your story. So if you do less with the procedural, it opens the door to do more with character.

  NL: Starting with the pilot, you also seem to structure your shows differently. The pilot has a sixteen-page teaser, and your teasers tend to be quite long—almost like first acts. Where did that come from?

  RK: With the pilot, before our first commercial break, we wanted to set up all the main characters. And I think all of the characters, except for Chris Noth’s character, were set up in the teaser and we wanted to establish relationships. It’s not enough to say he works in the office and that he’s garbage. It’s more about, “What is the relationship?” You need to set up that it was Will [Josh Charles] who brought Alicia in and that Cary [Matt Czuchry] is a little suspicious of Alicia because they’re going for the same job. All of that needed to be done which meant that it had to be a fairly long teaser because if they go away on commercial break … you kind of have to bring them along kicking and screaming into what you’re trying to entertain them with.

  MK: In terms of calling it a teaser, that’s really just a remnant of what studios and networks call it. As far as we’re concerned, it’s an act.

  NL: So it’s like a five-act structure?

  RK: Yeah, I think so. You know that ABC and even NBC are doing a sixact structure because they don’t want to have a commercial between the end of one show and the beginning of another. When we were at ABC that was a nightmare. You should talk to Damon Lindelof about that. The six-act structure, I think, is sort of killing drama on other shows. Just because each act out … they say they don’t mind softact outs, but when you do one, they say, “Oh, that’s not a very good act out.” It keeps you from getting a rhythm going.

  NL: When you’re breaking your stories, you’re very cognizant of where those act breaks need to be, right?

  MK: We are.

  RK: That’s the first move. After we decide what the case is, we ask, “Where are the highpoints in the story?” If you have two highpoints right next to each other, there needs to be some drama that leads up to one another and that’s clearly an act out. We’re a little traditional that way.

  NL: Do you sometimes start with the verdict? Knowing who done it?

  MK: I don’t think we’ve done that even once.

  RK: We’re doing a law show, but we kind of hate law shows. The usual predictability of there’s a case that comes through the door, you’re in court, and “oh, oh,” the witness is not working for you, then another witness collapses on the stand, and then the jury goes away and comes in with a verdict. So bullshitty. It’s either guilty or not guilty and it’s just what the screenwriter wants it to be. We’ve always tried to avoid it. I think we’ve had a verdict maybe four times over four years.

  NL: And also in reality, those verdicts would not come within one or two days that the episode is taking place.

  RK: Yeah, I know.

  MK: That’s the other thing. What we’ve tried to do is suggest that sometimes justice or the lack of justice is accomplished through the negotiations of the lawyers while the trial is going on which feels a little bit closer to life. We try to honor the fact that lawyers are often not just waiting for the jury to come in, they’re trying to negotiate a plea bargain or, in a civil case, reach a financial settlement. Some of our shows are just about the depositions because those are interesting and have their own sort of verdict, in that if you reach a settlement, that is the verdict. Also, then the verdicts don’t have to be yea or nay. They can be about whether this is a financial amount that is good for us or there can be more split verdicts where we lose something financially or there’s a gag order. Just gives you more options to make it surprising for the audience.

  NL: Do you have a legal consultant on staf for do either of you have a law background?

  MK: Neither Robert nor I are lawyers. However, we’re very fortunate. There are eight other writers on the staff this season, and four of them are attorneys. In addition to that, we have a legal consultant in Illinois.

  NL: Right, because it is so specific to Cook County. I was thinking about other metaphorical verdicts on the show which are more like central questions for each season. There’s always the one about whether Alicia and Peter are ever going to get back together which, with the current state of things, it looks like yes, they are going to. Then you have Peter’s campaign and where that is going to go. Do you map out a whole season in broad strokes on where you want to take each character? Or do you do it in blocks of seven episodes or thirteen? What’s the strategy?

  RK: We split the year in two. The first part of the year usually goes to episode 13, but that varies. This is based on the first year when you never were sure you were going to go past episode 13. We wrote toward knowing that we could end a story by episode 13. Our years have been both twenty-two and twenty-three episodes. We’ve been putting the back nine or back ten as their own self-contained arc. After our first year, we plotted out for a big reveal somewhere within the second half of the show which was the milestone we needed to build toward. In the second year, it was the discovery that Kalinda [Archie Panjabi] slept with Peter which was episode 17. So you could then have the first half of the year build up toward that. What we’re trying to give the audience is a sense of completion when they reach the end of the story. But what we have found is as much as we want to be like cable, we have such a long year. Instead of their eight, ten, or thirteen episodes, we know our years are twenty-two and twenty-three episodes, that’s why we’ve split it up into two. What we’re trying to do is tell two seasons worth of cable stuff in one year. Again, so that the audience
doesn’t get lost in the idea of where is the beginning of the story and where is the end. There’s always something tending to conclusion or coming from the beginning. You’re always within reach of one or the other, no matter where you are in the year. We do have a very big roadmap for ourselves of what the year is. It’s complex though because there’s one for the first thirteen and one for the back ten.

  NL: Because you’re doing so many episodes, can you talk about the challenges of pacing—how much story you reveal at one time? I don’t know if you’re watching Homeland, but I’m amazed by how they’re burning through story. I would imagine that would be incredibly dangerous for a network show because you’d start to run out of story quickly when you have to spread things out over so many episodes.

  RK: I think that’s right, and the difficulty in network is network tends toward melodrama because there are so many events you have to have happen. The bottom line is no matter how complicated somebody’s life is—it would never be as much as happens on a network show. You just get exhausted by the end of the year with how many events have to happen in twenty-two episodes. That’s the advantage of cable of telling a little more self-contained stories. You can tell a story that is more mimicking reality. We get around that by playing characterization really slow. We’re trying to juggle a lot of balls at the same time. A lot happens in theory, but a lot happens across five characters. Alicia is not ripped from place to place every episode. Sometimes it’s Cary’s problem or Kalinda’s.