FACING REALITY
By Jenelle Riley

When asked his opinion about the current overload of reality programming on the airwaves, veteran comedian Mel Brooks said it most succinctly: "I'm a writer. Reality TV puts me out of business." If an established star like Brooks is concerned about job security, where does that leave the hundreds of television writers scrambling for work in an already competitive field? Back Stage West spoke with several writers currently working in television about the current state of the medium.
One of the most critically praised programs of the year was ABC's Miracles, an hour-long drama that creator Richard Hatem described as a hybrid of Touched By an Angel and X-Files. Starring Skeet Ulrich as a former seminary student who investigates paranormal occurrences, Miracles was cancelled after only six episodes, a casualty of low ratings on a network that needed a quick fix. While Hatem maintained that many people at ABC loved the program and were very supportive, he noted that there simply wasn't time for the quirky, offbeat show to build an audience. The constant preemptions didn't help. "We were on three weeks, than off two weeks," Hatem told Back Stage West. "Then on two weeks and off two weeks. Then on once, then cancelled."
While coverage of the war in Iraq was partially responsible for the downfall of Miracles, there was another juggernaut by the name of Joe Millionaire. "During sweeps ABC was terrified," Hatem recalled. "They took the Monday night line-up off and put on other stuff, hoping to wait out the Joe Millionaire thing." During the crucial sweeps period, in which ratings are used to determine advertising dollars, Miracles was bumped for reruns of a Michael Jackson special and The Bachelorette.
Reality TV is considerably cheaper to produce and may garner good ratings, but Hatem believes Miracles could have been a profitable investment for the network if given the opportunity to find viewers. "ABC is literally starving to death, and we walked up to them with Miracles and said, 'Here's a handful of magic beans. If you plant these and tend them well, in six months or a year you will have a bounty.' They took those beans and-as a starving man would-said, 'Screw this, we need a Twinkie and we need it now.' They threw the beans away and took a Twinkie, and ABC is now a network with a handful of Twinkies."
Still, Hatem understands ABC's position. "They need ratings and they need them yesterday. They're not worried about long-term right now. They have people they have to answer to. So it was an unfortunate confluence of events that brought them a show that aesthetically they appreciated and knew was good but for practical reasons they simply did not have the time [slot]. It was not pulling in the numbers they needed. I think they loved the show but were in a position where they could not justify keeping us on the air. We're talking about a network that has no laurels to rest on."

WB True to Scripts

A smaller network might be able to give a struggling show more room to grow. Two cases in point: The WB series What I Like About You and Greetings From Tucson. Both are half-hour sitcoms that have wrapped their first year and are awaiting word on a second season. Tucson creator and executive producer Peter Murrieta has been around the block before, as a writer on comedies including Jesse and Three Sisters. Conversely, Kirker Butler is writing for series television for the first time on What I Like About You. But both writers agree there are advantages to being on a smaller network.
"When we started, our show was one thing and now it's completely different," Butler said of the Amanda Bynes/Jennie Garth comedy. "It started being a very broad, slapstick-y show, and about seven episodes in we discovered that wasn't really what the show was, and they let us take it in a completely different direction, and the show is better for it. They let us do that, whereas some of the larger networks would have just cancelled us." Echoed Murietta, "They've been tremendous with us. Our show is about a family of Mexicans, and they've allowed us to be cultural when we want to be. We're not a teaching show by any stretch of the imagination; it's not like every week you turn into a culture play. But they let us do what we want to. And that's because we're on a smaller network."
The WB is also unique in that it has a specific policy regarding reality TV. Said Murietta: "Jordan Levin, the president, has spoken at a number of press conferences I've been at where he talks about how, while the WB does program reality, they always only look at it as a stopgap or special short run presentation, and he feels the bread and butter of the network is scripted entertainment. That's what gives the audience a chance to make long-term relationships with characters. They do still program it, but they don't go full-board like a lot of networks." Agreed Butler, "They haven't gone the way of Fox, which seems to be throwing everything at the screen. It seems to be very well thought out and planned."
Murietta admitted that some writers he knows have expressed concerns about the industry. "I have a lot of friends who say the business is shrinking every year and there are fewer and fewer sitcoms," noted Murietta. "And I know people who have not staffed up for two years in a row and are very nervous and freaked out about it." Murietta cited two articles he had seen that concerned him. "One was [Drew Carey Show creator] Bruce Helford quoted at some roundtable where he said it was good that there were fewer sitcoms because there were too many bad sitcom writers working and it was time to flush out the system and get rid of the bottom 15 percent. And then I saw an article that stated the reality shows are a good thing because it gets rid of all the bad sitcoms. And I don't agree with that. I think it's just cyclical, and people who are good writers will write."
"The business is shrinking," said Butler. "But I think that's only the case until there's another hit. Another Malcolm in the Middle or something big where they have 65 comedy pilots again instead of 35--which I think is this year's number. You just need that one hit, and then everybody will do knock-offs and everybody will be on television and everybody will work."

Writers Unite!--or Not

Most writers seem to harbor no ill will toward the reality genre. Butler admitted to watching Joe Millionaire and The Bachelorette, stating, "It's like anything else, scripted or unscripted: I'll watch if it's good."
And not all reality shows are success stories; programs like Are You Hot? are dwelling in the ratings basement. According to Murietta, it all comes down to concept. "There's a heart to Joe Millionaire," Murietta noted. "There's a core of an idea, and the idea is deception. Are You Hot?, there's nothing behind that. It's five minutes on the Howard Stern show blown up to a half hour."
Del Shores, who has written for Dharma & Greg and is currently on staff at Showtime's Queer as Folk, called American Idol an "addiction," to the point where his daughter dressed as winner Kelly Clarkson for Halloween.
But shouldn't writers be railing against reality programming as if it were the enemy? "I've never had it personally affect me, because I've been working since all of it happened," stated Shores. "I think there will always be trends in television, and this is just the latest one. Plus there are so many more opportunities for writers than there were when I started, thanks to cable, and I'm grateful for those opportunities. So why get bent out of shape over a few reality shows?"
Hatem agreed that the networks couldn't be blamed for giving people what they want. "The public loves reality shows; everyone watches them," he noted. "People complain about them on one hand and watch them on the other. It's an American tradition to badmouth what you love and your guilty pleasures."
Like it or not, reality TV seems here to stay. "It's cheap to do in the short term, and it gets viewers because it feels immediate and unique," said Hatem. "You know you can catch a repeat of The Practice, but you've got to be there to find out who the Bachelorette picks." However, that immediacy can work against reality shows. Reruns don't perform well, and shows like Survivor can't be sold into syndication, where networks make millions of dollars.

Cable Calls

In response to the reality threat, writers are finding places of refuge. In addition to smaller networks like the WB, many writers sing the praises of cable television. Said Shores, "I'm so grateful to work in cable, where you can be so uncensored. And there's some incredible programming on television now-look at an episode of The Sopranos or Sex and the City. These are wonderful shows where stories are being told in a sophisticated way." Networks are also trying out new experiments: NBC recently aired the six-episode series Kingpin, which revolved around a drug cartel. Kingpin writer Diego Gutierrez stated that the competition from reality TV and cable has people looking for newer ideas and trying different things. "Not to say that there wasn't a lot of quality stuff on before, but I think right now there are so many quality shows," said Gutierrez. "I'm sure that there would be more jobs if there was no such thing as reality television, and there's obviously more competition for airtime now, but I do think there are still a lot of jobs out there. There are many more outlets for writers thanks to cable. As much as reality has taken away from the market, cable has been there to help out."
Of course writers could always go the reality route. Murietta once "half-jokingly" pitched a series called You Catch It, You Keep It, in which participants tried to catch prizes of varying weights dropped from varying heights. "At the time it was considered too crazy, but I'm sure somebody could read this and decide they want to do it, and I'd say go for it," said Murietta. Shores remembered a manager who called him and said someone was looking for a show runner for a series called Who Wants to Marry a Gay Millionaire? Recalled Shores, "I said, 'You know what? I'm not that big of a whore.' That manager is no longer in my life."
Ultimately the writers agreed the only thing they could do was take pride in their work. Murietta keeps up with outside interests, including co-owning the bang! Improv Studio and writing a play. "I don't have anyone lined up to do my play, but I'm a writer so I'm writing. Not because somebody said we have a guy who wants to buy your thing. You just have to write."
Gutierrez agreed: "Seeing reality TV's success frustrates the side of me that's an idealist and wants America to watch quality programming. But that goes away after 30 seconds of stepping foot in Hollywood. If you're working in this industry, you need to be looking for satisfaction out of your day-to-day process. I look at Kingpin, and it was a phenomenal experience working with the people I did and coming up with the stories we did. I think, more than anything, as long as I feel good about what I'm putting out there and there's enough people watching it so that I can keep doing it, that's the bottom line."
Even after the cancellation of Miracles, Hatem remained upbeat. "I don't want to be put in the pitiable position of being the owner of the French restaurant, standing there watching people line up outside Burger King, but that is kind of how I feel," he said. "But I would love to work in TV again. I think it's a great place to work, and we had a magical group of nice people who really cared about the show. This is my first experience in TV, and a lot of the people I worked with had a lot of experience on other shows and told me it's not always like this. Usually you're embarrassed to say the name of the show you work on. We have people saying, 'We did 13 episodes, we got cancelled, and I've never been more proud.'"