Image Credit: Neil Jacobs/NBC
We’ve reached pilot season, the time of year when the networks start looking at candidates for this fall’s schedules. Thus, it is also the time of year when armchair quarterbacks like me say “You’re doing it wrong!” to which network executives usually reply “You think you could do better?” My answer: I watched 666 Park Avenue and Animal Practice and The Mob Doctor and Made in Jersey, and I hope you think you can do better. Every year, networks look at their pilots and ask the same questions. And every year, they’re the wrong questions. Here are the three that do real damage:
• ARE THE CHARACTERS LIKABLE OR RELATABLE?
There is exactly one TV-viewing demographic that still cares about this: development executives laboring under the delusion that they’ll eventually find the next Cheers or Friends (both of which, by the way, were full of characters who often behaved terribly). You know who doesn’t care about likability? People who watch Game of Thrones, or Breaking Bad, or Mad Men, or Archer. READ FULL STORY »
