How does Fox keep scoring new TV shows from geniuses?
It is incredibly hard to sell a TV show, to say the least of sell it so well that the studio and the network both give you the push you need to have a good chance to be a hit. This dictates two basic principles: (1) you can’t get to the prom without a date — in most cases, the network that takes you is the only network that would take you. Maybe this doesn’t apply to Groening, but it certainly does to a Whedon. (2) you dance with the one that brung ya. The development and sale process takes a long time, many months in every case, a year or more in many if not most cases. You can’t just shop around a TV show like you can a movie — you try to hook up your baby idea with just the development executive at a studio and/or network who you think will believe in you, and you can’t just bail out half way through when you’ve got a hot commodity and go to the competition.
I think one key factor is that FOX does not have a 10 o’clock show like the big three. The triumvirate gets a lot of revenue from having hit dramas and newsmagazines in that time slot, and this forces some very conservative approaches to programming. You have to have a lead-in (a show with a big audience who doesn’t switch channels on a whim) and you have to have a particular rhythm and synergy to the other programs. FOX has a little more freedom to be experimental and edgy (or faux-edgy at least). As to why they keep coming back, many of those producers have multi-pilot deals with the network. When you do that you know — both sides know — that only a few of the ones you throw on the wall will stick. But it gives the producers the chance to try different ideas, even for just a little while. This is probably going to attract these more individualistic talents.
Joss Whedon: Has never had a hit show. Buffy and Angel barely hung on for most of their runs. This, and similar comments by other posters, fails to appreciate those shows’ value to two networks that were struggling to find an identity and an audience. Buffy put the WB on the map. It was the WB’s first breakout hit, when they needed a hit very badly. It broke that network’s ratings records. It brought in new advertisers. It established a whole new demographic niche (teen/college girls) for them which they successfully exploited and expanded with a host of followups including Angel. It was in fact so widely recognized as their biggest asset that UPN was willing to ridiculously overpay to buy the show, and even caved in to accepting Roswell in a package deal, all in hopes of imitating the success that it had made for WB. Yes, compared to the 100 or so shows that air per year, Whedon’s shows have always lingered near the bottom of the overall list.
Dollhouse was dreamt up by Whedon specifically for Eliza Dukshu, who has an exclusive development contract with Fox she just signed last August. So it’s not about a great deal, in that case. And while Whedon’s earlier shows were broadcast on WB and then UPN, Fox did the production. I imagine that has something to do with Fox handling production of the original Buffy film.
