Friday question of the week

From Chicago: It’s Friday question time. Keep ‘em coming in.

From Eve J:

I have two questions for you, Ken. This is in reaction to the news that Jon Harmon Feldman has become the new showrunner for Dirty Sexy Money, despite the debacle that was Big Shots. Since Big Shots had a talented cast yet some silly storylines and tone issues, I've assumed the problems were related to the writing.

So for my first question: How can you tell when a problem with a lousy show is the writing vs other factors?

My second question: how does a showrunner who managed to waste such a talented cast (and a decent concept) manage to get hired onto another struggling show as the showrunner?

Here’s what you don’t know – how much interference was there on BIG SHOTS? From the network? Studio? Research? Actors? Craft Services Guy? How many battles did he have and how many did he win? How many of those actors were his choice and how many were foisted upon him by the network? How many were monsters? Were there other producers submarining him behind his back? Whatever his original vision, was it remotely realized when the pilot was finally done? Did he have to make any compromises after the pilot to get the series on the air? I never saw the show nor I do know Jon Harmon Feldman. I just imdb’ed him (imdb is now a verb) and he seems to have decent credits. But I have no idea how good he is as a showrunner. That position requires special management and social skills, and those are two traits not normally used to describe writers.

It’s easier to tell whether the problem is acting or writing in television where the writer has (in theory) more of a say as opposed to features where the Craft Services Guy is higher up on the food chain. Normally you can tell if the dialogue is crisp and just being trampled but not always. Are the actors changing the dialogue?

If the story is bad you can usually blame the writing. But bad editing could also be the culprit. If the show is miscast then William Shakespeare, Paddy Chayevsky, and Larry Gelbart locked together in a room couldn’t make it work.

And this topic harkens back to my post of yesterday. Baseball managers get fired and go on to other teams and lead them to the World Series. And then get fired again. I’d venture to say that most successful showrunners have one or two clams in their past. Thank God the industry didn’t hold AfterMASH against me. I'd be that guy outside the hotel here yelling at people if they don't give him a dollar.