Tag Archives: The Good Wife

Turbulent times

July 26, 2019STAR POWERArchie Panjabi, Departure, NBCUniversal International Networks, The Good WifeMichael Pickard

Having made her name stateside in The Good Wife, British actor Archie Panjabi takes the lead in new thriller Departure. She speaks to DQ about her role in the series, being an executive producer and working in Hollywood.

For those afraid of flying, the first nine minutes of Departure are probably best avoided. After a succession of passengers strap in for a red-eye flight between New York and London, the tension rises rapidly as turbulence and an almighty explosion hit the aircraft somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, causing it to disappear from the radar.

Accident investigator Kendra Malley (Archie Panjabi) is subsequently ordered by her boss, Howard Lawson (Christopher Plummer), to investigate the disappearance of Flight 716. What follows is a twisting, pacy thriller that sees Kendra try to solve the mystery of why the plane vanished – terrorism, electrical faults and pilot error are all under suspicion – and the fate of its 256 passengers.

It was a setup that instantly appealed to Panjabi, best known for her six-season stint on CBS legal drama The Good Wife. “It was fun, it was thrilling. It’s a good script,” she tells DQ at the Monte Carlo TV Festival. “They sent me all six episodes, which is a rarity, and I couldn’t put them down. That’s a good sign! If I’m reading it, I want to know what happens and that’s the hook for the show. It’s about something deeply fascinating, particularly today, and I wanted to know what happened. Christopher was already attached to it, it’s a good story and it’s reflective of our time. I thought, ‘Let’s do it!’”

As well as attempting to uncover what happened to the plane, Kendra is also battling her grief over the death of her husband, which had seen her take a leave from work – only to be brought back to the coalface when Howard summons her to work on this new case.

“That’s also what drew me to it,” the actor explains. “On the one hand ,it is investigative because you want to find out the answers but, on the other hand, you have her story running in parallel. She’s gone through this awful accident. She hasn’t really dealt with her grief and this forces her to deal with it.

“That’s what gave me an added bonus to do the story. It wasn’t just about the plane; it was about how she, in trying to bring closure to the victims’ families, is faced with her own truths and has to deal with that, which is quite difficult for her because she’s quite good at helping other people but not dealing with her own past. You really get to see that in the later episodes where there’s some really quite heavy, emotional stuff.”

At the heart of the London-set story is the “great big wheel of suspects,” as Panjabi describes it, with numerous potential causes of the plane’s disappearance placed under the microscope by a supporting cast of characters played by Kris Holden-Tied, Tamara Duarte, Mark Rendall, Peter Mensah and Claire Forlani. Rebecca Liddiard plays Madelyn, one of the passengers who may be linked to the mystery.

“You just don’t know,” Panjabi says of the reason behind the aircraft’s fate. “But just when you think you’ve found evidence that points to one culprit, you find something else and that wheel just gets bigger and bigger. It gets quite scary in terms of what causes the flight to disappear.”

To play Kendra, Panjabi had to brush up on her aviation knowledge, including getting to grips with ACAS, the Airborne Collision Avoidance System. But the technicalities of Kendra’s day job are always balanced with the pressures the character faces at home, dealing with the loss of her husband and the ongoing conflict with her stepson.

Christopher Plummer (left) is among the British actor’s co-stars

The British actor’s role isn’t merely confined to the screen, however, as Panjabi is also an executive producer, working alongside director TJ Scott and production companies Shaftesbury in Canada and the UK’s Greenpoint Productions. She describes the partnership behind the scenes as a collaborative affair, where her ideas were taken on board and she was consulted about potential changes. “That made it a lot more fun and the way TV should be,” she says. “It didn’t feel like I had my EP hat on. It just felt like you could talk about ideas and the direction of the script.

“I was very open because there’s so much about making TV I don’t know. So for me, it was a very educational lesson. I feel like I come with the character study and instinctive stuff and that just adds to all the other wealth of talent you have.”

Panjabi built her career with roles in British series such as The Bill, Life on Mars and Silent Witness before heading to the US and joining the cast of The Good Wife in 2009. She went on to appear as investigator Kalinda Sharma in more than 130 episodes before she left the show in 2015. She has since starred in NBC drama Blindspot and returned to the UK for ITV thriller Next of Kin.

The actor says it was a dream come true to land work in Hollywood, noting: “As great as the British industry is, and I love it, Hollywood is just the ultimate for every actor. When I went there, I had no expectations but I was so excited to go. What’s really nice is you also get a lot more recognition in England so you can come back and still work.”

Discussing The Good Wife, Panjabi says she was “blessed” to work on the show and loved playing Kalinada for six years. “I was allowed to have an input on my character and she was just so fun to play because she was so mysterious,” she adds.

Panjabi spent six years playing Kalinda Sharma in the Good Wife

The strength of the British system, she says, is that the director is the “captain” of the production, rather than the hierarchy of producers more commonly found in the US. Her next production, HBO limited series I Know This Much is True, is led by writer/director Derek Cianfrance.

“I love that because, visually and creatively, he’s got the power to work with the actors,” she says of the series, which stars Mark Ruffalo as identical twins in a story about betrayal, sacrifice and forgiveness. “But when you have a whole hierarchy and you have to ask permission for every creative change, I think you lose some of the magic. Some of the more successful shows are going to the British model where you’re just working with the director. I love that way of working. It was a bit like that on Departure. TJ was the captain.”

Departure, which is created by Vincent Shiao with Malcolm MacRury as showrunner, was filmed across six weeks in Toronto, with further location shooting in London. “We had plane crashes, a submersible, a car crash – there are so many things that happened. I don’t know how we did that in 40 days. But TJ was always very calm and willing to adapt and compromise and chill. It was a really fun shoot,” Panjabi says.

With recent real-life disasters generating headlines about aviation security and safety around the world, Departure certainly taps into a topical subject. The actor describes the series as “unique” and notes that while a plane crash is “everybody’s worst fear,” the series does offer some hope to viewers in the end. “I just think a series like this has not been done,” she continues. “We’re witnessing the families and what they go through and how it also affects someone investigating it and how they deal with the politics of that, because you have the government on your shoulders, the press, the victims’ families – how do you cope with that?”

Departure will air on NBCUniversal International Networks across Europe and Africa, plus 13th Street in France, Spain and Poland, following deals with distributor Red Arrow Studios International. It is also due to air on Canada’s Global TV next year.

Now three episodes into its run on Universal TV in the UK, the show is proving to be intensely watchable, which proves Panjabi’s attitude to picking scripts is on the money: “I just read something and think instinctively, as a viewer, would I watch it? It’s all about the people, the character and the script.”

tagged in: Archie Panjabi, Departure, NBCUniversal International Networks, The Good Wife

Chain reaction

March 7, 2017WE NEED TO TALK ABOUTBBC, Doctor Who, Facebook, Social media, SS-GB, Stephen Moffat, Taboo, The Good Wife, The Walking Dead, TwitterStephen Arnell

Social media is having an increasing impact on the success or failure of television drama, as Stephen Arnell discovers.

For many broadcasters, the advent of social media has been a decidedly mixed blessing, especially in the world of TV drama.

A flurry of positive tweets can increase a new show’s profile – and viewership – but heavily negative reactions can have the effect of strangling it at birth.

Back in 2013, comedy writer Ben Elton’s comeback vehicle The Wright Way was effectively cancelled before the end of the first episode, such was the overwhelmingly poor social media response from critics and viewers alike.

BBC Comedy chief Shane Allen complained that instant social media criticism put paid to any chance of the show bedding in and improving, but those, as they say, are the breaks.

An apparently ‘bruised’ Elton (Blackadder, The Young Ones) returned to the fray with his Shakespeare comedy Upstart Crow (BBC2), so all’s well that ends well.

BBC1’s Jamaica Inn led to the so-called ‘Mumblegate’ inquiry

But with the exception of longer-running US dramas and soaps that are in production as the show is transmitted, there is little broadcasters can do after the event to combat social media flak until the next season.

The BBC in particular has come in for heavy criticism over recent years for what viewers perceive as ‘mumbling’ from actors and generally poor sound levels.

Back in 2014, BBC1’s two-part adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn made the front pages and caused a Twitter blowout due to ‘Mumblegate’ – viewers complaining in their droves about some of the actors’ unintelligible dialogue, particularly that of lead Sean Harris (Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation), and inferior sound quality.

Viewer numbers fell from 6.1 million for the first episode to 4.5 million for the second and the BBC swung into action with a Mumblegate inquiry, finding that “technical issues,” combined with overloud incidental music and Harris’s performance, rendered that drama a less than ideal experience for many viewers.

Some viewers complained of being unable to comprehend Tom Hardy’s dialogue in Taboo

Du Maurier’s son Christian ‘Kits’ Browning commented: “Thank God Sean Harris’ character gets killed. I blame the director and the sound man – and an actor who just mumbled. If anyone else feels the same way I just suggest you go and read the book. In the end I had to resort to subtitles.”

After this debacle, one would have thought the BBC would be alert to these kind of issues, but recent weeks have seen more Twitter meltdowns and tabloid headlines over mumbling – the culprits this time being serial murmurer Tom Hardy (Taboo, BBC1) and Sam Riley (SS-GB, BBC1).

Twitter reaction to the shows from viewers included: “I wish Tom Hardy would speak up a bit sometimes #Taboo,” “SS-GB – The subtitle department should have kept it up for all the dialogue. Head melted trying to understand this,” and “Why is Sam Riley playing Archer of the Yard with a voice like Patty and Selma?” – the latter referring the famously gravelly voiced Simpsons characters.

Taboo’s viewing figures decreased steadily over much of the show’s run, but it may be overstating the case to solely blame negative social media reaction for this.

Many fans were appalled when the The Walking Dead killed off two beloved characters in this scene

SS-GB (pictured top) has also seen a decline in viewing levels, with episode two falling by two million to record an audience of 3.9 million as complaints about Riley’s intonation continue.

After other complaints about dialogue clarity in the dramas Happy Valley, Rillington Place and Poldark last year, BBC director general Tony Hall told his chiefs to sort out “audibility issues.”

And good luck to the BBC executive assigned to tell Tom Hardy to speak up.

That said, there are more positive ways for social media reaction to actually benefit shows – for instance in the groundswell of support that caused Amazon to pick up the BBC’s Ripper Street and Netflix to revive cult comedy hit Arrested Development.

The Good Wife’s showrunners changed a storyline in response to audience disapproval

Studies show that positive Twitter buzz can boost viewership, which is said to have aided shows including Empire (Fox) and Modern Family (ABC).

Live twitter conversations during dramas such as Game of Thrones, Lucifer, The Walking Dead and Vikings are known to increase engagement with dramas.

On the other hand, negative social media feedback was felt to be a contributory factor in the cancellation of ABC’s The Muppets revival last year. High opening ratings declined precipitously as viewers thought early episodes unfunny or mean-spirited. Despite a talked-up midseason revamp, audiences continued to fall.

The deaths of popular characters Glen (Steven Yen) and Abraham (Michael Cudlitz) at the beginning of season seven of The Walking Dead, meanwhile, saw adverse Twitter reaction, followed by a viewing decline for the following episodes. But now, after its mid-season break, the drama is taking on a much more redemptive tone, which looks to be reflected in a ratings bump.

Episode 10’s reunion of fan favourites Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) saw an outpouring of emotion in social media.

Sherlock showrunner Stephen Moffat regularly responds to fan reaction

In hit legal drama The Good Wife (CBS), adverse reaction to character Kalinda’s storyline in the season four premiere saw showrunners Robert and Michelle King prematurely discontinue the arc.

Talking to TV Guide, Robert King said of the decision: “I do think the audience teaches the storyteller and this is a case of the audience teaching the storyteller.”

Viewers have also successfully changed show content in other instances, including Lena Dunham accepting criticism of her drama Girls’ all-white cast and adding a minority character to the HBO series in response.

Some writers are playful with social media, with Doctor Who and Sherlock showrunner Stephen Moffat actively responsive to fan reaction.

Doctor Who episode The Time of the Doctor included a plot device that gave the Time Lord another dozen ‘regenerations,’ resolving the problem, much discussed on fan sites, that the Doctor was permitted only 12 incarnations according to the original canons of the show.

Sherlock co-writer Mark Gatiss also included a continuing gag in the script for The Empty Hearse, teasing online speculation about how Holmes may have been able to fake his death at the end of the second season.

Social media is a double-edged sword for broadcasters, where the benefits of instant feedback in boosting some dramas are balanced by the premature deaths of others, which means there’s no real hiding place for either mediocre or just plain bad shows.

tagged in: BBC, Doctor Who, Facebook, Social media, SS-GB, Stephen Moffat, Taboo, The Good Wife, The Walking Dead, Twitter

The politics of TV writing

November 9, 2016The Writers RoomAaron Sorkin, Armando Iannucci, Barbara Hall, Beau Willimon, Boss, Commander In Chief, David Guggenheim, Designated Survivor, Farhad Safinia, Greg Berlanti, House of Cards, Jack and Bobby, Madam Secretary, Michelle King, Robert King, Rod Lurie, Scandal, Shonda Rhimes, The Good Wife, The West Wing, VeepAndy Fry

To mark Donald Trump’s shock victory over Hillary Clinton in the US presidential election, we look at the writers behind some of the country’s political TV drama series.

The West Wing: NBC’s inside view of the White House ran from 1999 to 2006, crossing over with the tail end of Bill Clinton’s time in office and most of George W Bush’s two terms. The show starred Martin Sheen as President Jed Bartlet and was created by Aaron Sorkin. It won three Golden Globes, 26 Emmys and was ranked at number 10 in The Writers Guild Of America’s 101 Best-Written Series list. Sorkin wrote or co-wrote 85 of the first 88 episodes and then side-shifted into movies, with films including Charlie Wilson’s War, The Social Network and Moneyball. He came back to TV with The Newsroom and then wrote the movie screenplay for Steve Jobs.

“Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don’t need little changes. We need gigantic monumental changes.”
-Sam Seaborn (played by Rob Lowe)

Veep: The Boston Globe calls HBO’s Veep “a show for our time, a portrait of the narcissism, malignant self-interest, banality, media self-pleasuring and congressional paralysis that seem to afflict American politics more than ever.” The show was brilliantly created by Armando Iannucci, who also blessed the world with British political satire The Thick of It. It is set in the office of Selina Meyer, a fictional VP who subsequently becomes president, played superbly by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. The show has been nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards every year, winning a number of them in high-profile categories. The fifth season of Veep ended in June 2016 and a sixth has been ordered.

“If men got pregnant, you could get an abortion at an ATM.”
-Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus)

House of Cards: This acclaimed Netflix series is a US reimagining of a British series of the same name, which was written by Andrew Davies and Michael Dobbs (the author of the novel on which both are based). The first four seasons of the US version were written by Beau Willimon, who then handed over the reins to Melissa James Gibson and Frank Pugliese (who are writing season five). Originally a theatre writer, Willimon’s crossover into screenwriting came with the George Clooney movie Ides of March in 2011. There’s no news yet on Willimon’s plans after House of Cards.

“The road to power is paved with hypocrisy, and casualties.”
-Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey)

Scandal: This ABC drama, which debuted in 2012, sees Kerry Washington star as press aide Olivia Pope, a character reported to be based on George W Bush’s aide Judy Smith. Created by Shonda Rhimes, the show focuses on Pope’s crisis-management firm. A sixth season launches on January 19, 2017. Rhimes, of course, is a powerhouse who continues to enjoy success with series such as How To Get Away With Murder.

“You can’t change the choice you made. All you can do is not let it ruin you.”
-Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington)

Madam Secretary: This CBS series sees Tea Leoni play Dr Elizabeth McCord, a secretary of state trying to balance her job with her family life. Launched in 2014, it is now up to three seasons and is rating fairly well (eight to nine million per episode). The show was created by Barbara Hall, whose previous credits include Judging Amy, Joan of Arcadia and Homeland (which she co-executive produced). She has also written a bunch of novels over the years. Apparently, Hillary Clinton is a fan and binge-watches with hubby Bill.

“I’m fully prepared to live with the consequences of my actions. What I couldn’t live with were the consequences of my inactions.”
-Dr Elizabeth McCord (Tea Leoni)

Commander In Chief: This ABC show didn’t really take off but is worthy of a mention because it saw Geena Davis cast as the first female president of the US. Launched in 2005, it was created by Rod Lurie. However, he was replaced mid-run by Steven Bochco of NYPD Blue fame. This also didn’t work out, with Bochco replaced by Dee Johnson. Johnson wasn’t able to turn things round either – but it’s interesting to note she popped up as executive producer on The Good Wife and Boss, both of which feature below.

“So I say to the people of this nation: I am humbled by your greatness. I am humbled by the history being made here today, humbled by the notion that I am the first woman to hold this office. I’m humbled by the responsibilities that rest with me.”
-Mackenzie Allen (Geena Davis).

Designated Survivor: Kiefer Sutherland (24) stars as a low-ranking cabinet member who unexpectedly becomes US president after an attack wipes out the administration. The show is currently in season one and, after a strong start, is slipping in the ratings for ABC. Episode five attracted 5.9 million, compared to the 10 million who tuned in for launch. Distributed globally by Entertainment One International, the show was created by David Guggenheim (Safe House) and hails from The Mark Gordon Company (Grey’s Anatomy, Ray Donovan, Quantico, Criminal Minds).

“Capitol’s been attacked. Congress, cabinet… Eagle is gone. Sir, you are now the president of the United States. “
-Mike Ritter (LaMonica Garrett)

The Good Wife: CBS’s hit show was a legal/political drama about a woman who returns to a career in law after her husband is involved in a political corruption scandal. Created by Robert and Michelle King, the show was a big awards winner, securing five Emmys during its run. The Kings also made political satire Braindead for CBS but the show was cancelled after one season.

“When the door you’ve been knocking at finally swings open, you don’t ask why. You run through.”
-Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski)

Jack & Bobby: This was a WB Network series that ran for one season in 2004/2005. The show’s interesting premise centred on two brothers – one of whom would grow up to be president from 2041 to 2049. So it was a way of looking at their formative years, encouraging the audience to guess which one would turn out to have presidential credentials. The show was created by Greg Berlanti, Vanessa Taylor, Stecen Cohen and Brad Metzler. Berlanti, of course, has gone on to have a number of DC Comics-based superhero hits with The CW network.

“Grace used to say Jack and Bobby were like two sides of a coin. Without Bobby, Jack might never have learned compassion. Without Jack, Bobby might never have gained strength.”
-Future Courtney McCallister (Brenda Wehle)

Boss: This Starz series starred Kelsey Grammer as a Chicago mayor struggling with dementia. Although it generated a good response from critics, low ratings meant it only lasted two seasons. Starz chief Chris Albrecht told The Hollywood Reporter that Boss “didn’t resonate enough with the two constituents that are important to us: our subscribers and our distributors.” The show was created by Farhad Safinia, an Iranian-American screenwriter whose other credits include the movie Apocalyto (written with Mel Gibson).

“Spectators stand on the sidelines shaking their heads, lacking the balls. You know what I mean? When Truman nuked Japan, when Lincoln sent boys out to kill their cousins… you think they gave a shit about their approval ratings? Fuck the spectators.”
-Tom Kane (Kelsey Grammer)

tagged in: Aaron Sorkin, Armando Iannucci, Barbara Hall, Beau Willimon, Boss, Commander In Chief, David Guggenheim, Designated Survivor, Farhad Safinia, Greg Berlanti, House of Cards, Jack and Bobby, Madam Secretary, Michelle King, Robert King, Rod Lurie, Scandal, Shonda Rhimes, The Good Wife, The West Wing, Veep

Amazon boards D83 sequel

October 18, 2016GreenlightAmazon, Chuck Lorre, Deutschland 86, Doctor Martov, Eccho Rights, FremantleMedia International, Girlfriends, ITV, Mad Dogs, MTV, Next of Kin, Polly Hill, RTL, Scream, Sony Pictures Television, SundanceTV, SyFy, Tangled Sisters, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Good Wife, Trauma, Unexpected Love, Van Helsing, Vera, White DragonAndy Fry

Deutschland 86 is set three years after its predecessor (pictured)

There are several reasons why the US scripted content business casts such a shadow over the international drama market.

The first is that the US produces so many great scripted shows. Barely a week goes by without an eye-catching new drama going into production or development. Even now, as dozens of new shows hit the US autumn schedules, it is noticeable that the next wave of scripted projects is already shooting down the pipeline.

Second, viewers around the world love US shows. While dramas from other territories tend to have fairly well-defined regional hot spots, US shows can be found on free TV, pay TV and SVoD almost anywhere. This widespread appeal is reinforced by the availability of so many titles on US-based thematic channels (Fox, AXN and so on).

The third reason is that so many producers around the world still see entry into the US market as the pinnacle of their creative ambition. This is particularly evident in the field of scripted formats, where IP owners’ relentless pursuit of localisation is matched by a voracious appetite for ideas among US channels.

And finally, there’s the fact that the US still dictates so many of the trends in the international scripted market. The rise of Netflix and Amazon, and all of the creative innovations this has brought about, is one example. But so is the shift towards day-and-date windowing – expertly introduced by major US rights owners.

Having said all this, Mipcom (which began yesterday in Cannes and runs until Thursday) is one point in the calendar where US shows have to fight for exposure alongside titles from around the world.

For example, one of the biggest stories of the week so far is that UFA Fiction and Amazon are joining forces to create a sequel to German-language series Deutschland 83 (D83). Called Deutschland 86, the new show will premiere exclusively on Amazon Prime Video in Germany in 2018. In addition, all episodes of D83 are available for streaming for Prime members in Germany and Austria.

As with the first series, Sundance in the US is a coproduction partner and FremantleMedia International handles international sales. RTL, the German broadcaster that commissioned D83, has acquired free TV rights to D86.

Created by Anna Winger (head writer) and Jörg Winger, D86 returns three years after D83, in 1986, and picks up the story of East German Agent Martin Rauch. Martin has been banished to Africa until he is recruited to fight for the last gasp of Communism abroad.

Set against the backdrop of real events during the last Summer of Anxiety, when terrorism raged across Western Europe, Martin’s mission takes him to Johannesburg, Tripoli, Paris, West Berlin and finally back to East Berlin, where he is forced to face new realities at home – and to make an impossible decision

Nico Hofmann, co-CEO of UFA, said: “With this latest collaboration between Amazon, RTL Television, FremantleMedia International and UFA, a long-awaited wish comes true. This deal is a milestone in coproduction history. It will be resetting standards for the upcoming years.”

Tangled Sisters is among the Indian shows acquired by Eccho Rights

Dr Christoph Schneider, MD of Amazon Prime Video Germany, added: “After the Amazon Original You Are Wanted with Matthias Schweighöfer and Michael Bully Herbig’s Bullyparade – Der Film, Deutschland 86 is the latest German-made production that will be available exclusively on Prime Video. German series and movies are important for our Prime members and we are happy to build on our engagement with German production industry and bring new shows to our customers.”

In another interesting new development, Sweden-based distributor Eccho Rights has picked up three drama scripts from Indian broadcaster Star for the global market. The titles involved are Vera (Ek Veer Ki Ardaas… Veera), Tangled Sisters (Ek Hazaaron Mein Meri Behena) and Unexpected Love (Diya Aur Baati Hum).

The deal is significant because Eccho has made a name for itself selling Turkish scripted formats to the international market. If it has anything like the same success with Indian titles, it will represent a major breakthrough in the global drama business. The titles are also interesting because they have so many episodes – meaning there is a lot of content for buyers to work with.

Nixon Yau Lim, head of Asia Pacific at Eccho Rights, commented: “The globalisation of drama is developing at a very interesting speed and one focus of Eccho Rights is to expand our partnership with producers to manage their script assets in new markets.”

Also of interest this week is the news that Sony Pictures Television has licensed three drama formats to Russian broadcasters, two of which are from the UK. The first is a local version of UK drama Doc Martin called Doctor Martov, which will air on Channel 1. The show is being produced by Lean-M Productions, which will also produce local versions of Mad Dogs and The Good Wife for NTV.

Away from Mipcom, UK broadcaster ITV announced a slate of news dramas this week, the first commissions by its new head of drama Polly Hill. The titles are Trauma by Mike Bartlett, Girlfriends by Kay Mellor, White Dragon by Mark Denton and Jonny Stockwood, and Next of Kin by Paul Rutman and Natasha Narayan.

Hill said: “All four are authored contemporary pieces, from wonderful writers who have a compelling story to tell. I think audiences are looking for drama with real authorship, and I am delighted that I start at ITV with a mix of great experience and new voices. This is just the start of what I hope will be an exciting journey for us and the audience.”

Trauma is a three-part story set in the trauma department of a central London hospital. It tells the story of a 15-year-old boy who dies under the care of trauma consultant Jon Stephens. Devastated and heartbroken, the boy’s father believes Jon is responsible for his death and as he strives for justice, he begins to unpick the fabric of Jon’s life.

“Trauma is a story about two fathers with very different lives, locked in conflict,” says Bartlett, creator of last year’s hit BBC drama Doctor Foster. “I hope the series will be moving, terrifying and timely. If we mistrust institutions and experts, what happens when we desperately need them?”

White Dragon, meanwhile, is a conspiracy thriller from screenwriting newcomers Mark Denton and Jonny Stockwood. Filmed on location in Asia, it will tell the story of Professor Jonah Mulray, whose life is turned upside down when his wife, Megan, is killed in a car-crash in Hong Kong. Not long after arriving in Hong Kong, Jonah makes a shocking discovery about his wife.

Finally, a few stories from the US. First up, US cable channel Syfy has ordered a second season of Van Helsing, a female take on the classic vampire hunter story. The hour-long drama will go into production in January 2017, with an additional 13 episodes planned.

Van Helsing has been given a second season

There are also reports this week that Amazon has teamed up with producer Chuck Lorre to make a TV series based on Tom Wolfe’s acclaimed 1980s novel The Bonfire of the Vanities. The book was turned into a movie in 1990 that failed to live up to the hype. However, its sprawling New York-based narrative is probably better-suited to a limited TV series treatment.

Finally, MTV has greenlit a shortened third run of its horror series Scream. Season one had 13 episodes and season two had 10. The new series will have six episodes and, given the show’s rapidly declining audience ratings, will probably also be its finale.

tagged in: Amazon, Chuck Lorre, Deutschland 86, Doctor Martov, Eccho Rights, FremantleMedia International, Girlfriends, ITV, Mad Dogs, MTV, Next of Kin, Polly Hill, RTL, Scream, Sony Pictures Television, SundanceTV, SyFy, Tangled Sisters, The Bonfire of the Vanities, The Good Wife, Trauma, Unexpected Love, Van Helsing, Vera, White Dragon

Drama royalty: The Good Wife creators Michelle and Robert King

September 23, 2016SHOWRUNNERBrainDead, CBS, Michelle King, Robert King, The Good WifeMichael Pickard

Michelle and Robert King reflect on seven years as showrunners of hit US drama The Good Wife and reveal how they overcame early setbacks to create one of the biggest shows on television.

When the curtain came down on the 2015/16 US TV season at the end of the summer, married showrunning duo Michelle and Robert King had overseen 35 hours of programming in a single year.

The creators of The Good Wife concluded the award-winning CBS legal drama with its seventh and final season this May, before launching their new 13-part political satire BrainDead on the same network the following month.

“It’s more than we’ll ever attempt again,” says Robert of the pair’s hectic year, before Michelle adds: “But it just felt like absolutely the right time to do BrainDead. You couldn’t ask for better timing than an election year, so we dove in.”

The series stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Laurel, a young, fresh-faced Capitol Hill staffer who discovers that the government has shut down – and bugs are eating the brains of congress members and Hill workers.

“It was harder to write, due to its serialised nature, but much more fun to edit than The Good Wife,” Robert says of the new show. “I think that’s because the jokes are more obviously placed. They’re not as subtle. We know when something hits in the BrainDead editing room, whereas in the editing room for The Good Wife, we were always feeling our way towards it.”

A spin-off from The Good Wife (pictured) is coming to CBS All Access in February 2017

Michelle admits to being slightly ambivalent about the end of The Good Wife, something CBS confirmed after the Kings had already revealed their intention to step down as co-showrunners.

“I very much miss the characters and I miss the people we were able to work with on a daily basis,” she explains, “but I feel very grateful we were able to bring the story to a close the way we wanted to.”

Robert continues: “On the human side, we stayed friends with everyone and I have a feeling that if this had dwindled on for another year or two, we’d have ended up hating each other.

“We knew from the second season that if we ever got picked up for more seasons, we’d only go seven seasons ourselves.”

The Good Wife follows Alicia Florrick (played by Julianna Margulies), who returns to her career as a defence attorney after a very public sex and political corruption scandal lands her husband in jail.

The Kings say the fact they had an ending point in mind made the drama better, as it meant they could tell a complete story instead of having to constantly drive characters forward towards a conclusion that never gets any closer.

“The only way you can stay sane is this idea that you’re telling a story that has a beginning, a middle and an end,” says Robert. “I think most people would say the fifth season was one of our best. One of the reasons it rose up so well is we could turn over a lot of plot cards, but also we knew we were in sight of the end game for (main character) Alicia. That allowed us to take more chances and tell more interesting stories. It’s not just taking jabs at life and trying to show something that may go on for 20 years.”

Coming from a career in features, the Kings didn’t find instant success in television. Legal drama In Justice, starring Kyle MacLachlan, ran on ABC in 2006 but was cancelled after its initial 13-episode run. The following year, the same network then rejected their pilot called Judy’s Got a Gun, which starred Louise Lombard as a woman balancing her life as a single mother and a detective who solves bizarre suburban crimes. The Good Wife then debuted in 2009.

Braindead — BrainDead centres on politicians being taken over by brain-eating bugs and stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead

“A lot of it is luck,” Michelle says of the TV drama business. “I liked In Justice. Those actors were terrific but, for whatever reason, it didn’t click at that time on that network. You just have to try as hard as you can every time you get a chance.”

Robert adds: “The lessons from those experiences kicked us in the ass so we knew that if we ever had the chance to do another show, we would grab it by the horns right from the beginning and never let up. The only thing we learned was not to let the show drift, to really grab hold of it and make it different right from the word go. That’s a good lesson to take into life and you probably need failures to get you there to do it.”

Robert attributes much of the credit for finally striking television gold with The Good Wife – which won five Emmys and one Golden Globe, among other awards – to the cast, which was headed by Margulies alongside Josh Charles, Christine Baranski, Archie Panjabi and Chris Noth.

“It was Julianna in tandem with a premise that people found interesting,” he says. “The premise brought true sympathy right from the off and engaged with a certain audience that wanted to see empowerment. On top of that, we just had a really good cast. The writing possibly helped it get into another year or two later on, but what started it off and made it commercial was that cast and that premise.”

The Good Wife employed a team of seven writers who scoured the news in the hope of finding stories that would make them stand out from other shows such as Law & Order. They also employed three staff lawyers to ensure the drama stayed on the right side of reality.

“So when we saw them getting red-faced and screaming at each other, we knew we had a fairly good story,” Robert reveals, “because if it created that much argument, you knew you were hitting a very interesting grey area of the law, which is what we really love.”

But will legal series continue to be one of the staples of television drama? The husband-and-wife team beg to differ. “I believe legal stories will continue to be popular,” Michelle insists. “They’re evergreen because there are high stakes and you can tell interesting human stories with a procedural element to it.”

The Good Wife's Christine Baranski will reprise her role in the forthcoming spin-off — The Good Wife’s Christine Baranski will reprise her role in the forthcoming spin-off

But Robert is unconvinced: “Can I disagree with Michelle? I’m not sure if they will continue. It’s a hard form to make interesting and I worry it will fall back to who gives the best speech in court. I don’t think I’ll ever watch those shows again. Courtrooms can also be tedious.”

The Kings will be back in court, however, following the announcement of a Good Wife spin-off that will launch on SVoD platform CBS All Access in February 2017. Returning as co-showrunners, they will oversee the as-yet-untitled series, which sees Baranski reprising her role as Diane Lockhart alongside Cush Jumbo as Lucca Quinn and Sarah Steele’s Marissa Gold.

The series will open one year after the final episode of The Good Wife and will revolve around an enormous financial scandal that has destroyed a young lawyer’s reputation, while simultaneously wiping out her mentor Lockhart’s savings.

Forced out of their firm, Lockhart & Lee, they join Quinn at one of Chicago’s pre-eminent law firms, where Gold begins as Diane’s secretary and soon discovers a passion for investigating.

It is produced by CBS Television Studios, Scott Free Productions and the Kings’ own prodco King Size Productions, and distributed by CBS Studios International – all of which formed the team behind both The Good Wife and BrainDead.

“There were two things that got us intrigued by it,” Robert says of the new show’s origins. “One is that Christine and Cush wanted to do it. Christine obviously has been there all seven seasons (of The Good Wife) and we’ve become close to her, while Cush, who we only met a year-and-a-half ago, we just fell in love with. Their involvement made us more intrigued about how this would turn out.

“The other thing was that we had created a very close family of crew, craftsmen, production designers, ADs, directors of photography – all these people created this really great unit and we had almost no one leave over seven years. In fact, some of the crew members met their loved ones at some of our cast parties and business parties, so it felt like a good idea to keep it going.”

Enjoying married life for 30 years, the couple reveal they have no fixed boundaries in how they split their showrunning duties, while Michelle admits their work and personal lives do have a habit of overlapping.

“It’s all hands on deck most of the time,” Robert reveals. “It’s just that when I might be in the editing room, Michelle will go to the casting sessions and so on. Michelle’s involvement is much more in wardrobe, the look of the show, in production design, those elements – and I bring the food!”

For their next project, the Kings are developing a pilot for Amazon called Vatican City. It tells the story of a new Pope who, knowing he cannot appoint any women as priests, decides to buck tradition by hiring a female American newsreader to become his spokesperson.

But with new dramas coming in 2016/17 including adaptations of films such as The Exorcist and Lethal Weapon and a reboot of detective classic MacGyver, are broadcasters still willing to take risks on original stories?

“There’s a worry that TV might start following what the feature business has done, pursuing only pre-existing ideas,” says Robert. “TV is changing almost year to year and it’s amazing to see – just over the course of The Good Wife – how ratings don’t seem to matter as much as they did, the advancement of streaming and Netflix being a massive producer of new content. And now writers are so in demand that it’s sometimes even hard to put a writing staff together. So I’m a little worried there might be an emphasis on pre-existing content – and the better those shows do, the more worrisome that becomes, because success is the best teacher of what to do next.”

He adds: “But that’s not what we’re doing. We have a production company and the next show we’re doing is Vatican City. So we’re trying to pursue original content. And most of the showrunners we admire – the likes of Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad) and Matthew Weiner (Mad Men) – are still pursuing original content as well.”

tagged in: BrainDead, CBS, Michelle King, Robert King, The Good Wife

HBO, FX dominate Emmy noms

July 15, 2016Hit & Miss11.22.63, AMC, American Crime, Bates Motel, BBC1, Better Call Saul, Black Sails, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Downton Abbey, Emmys, Empire, FX, Gotham, HBO, Homeland, Horace & Pete, House of Cards, Luther, Man In The High Castle, Masters of Sex, Minority Report, Mr Robot, Narcos, Netflix, Outlander, Penny Dreadful, Ray Donovan, Roots, Sherlock: The Abominable Bride, Silicon Valley, The Americans, The Good Wife, The Knick, The Man in the High Castle, The Night Manager, Transparent, USA Network, Veep, Vikings, VinylAndy Fry

Games of Thrones and The People vs OJ Simpson picked up a lot of Emmy nominations this week – but can they convert them into awards?

HBO’s Game of Thrones picked up 23 nominations

The 2016 Emmy Award nominees were announced this week. All told, nearly 50 scripted series (excluding comedies) picked up at least one nomination, although only a handful are likely to convert those nominations into awards when the winners are announced on September 16 at the Microsoft Theater in LA.

A few years ago, winning an Emmy would have been seen as a nice endorsement of a show but little more. These days, however, it has taken on added significance for a couple of reasons.

The first is that the quality of TV drama has risen so rapidly. Winning an Emmy now really is an impressive achievement, and in some categories is not really that different to winning an Oscar. The second is that it is increasingly difficult to gauge the success of a show purely on the basis of its ratings (in the case of SVoD shows, there are no ratings).

FX's The People vs OJ Simpson: American Crime Story — The People vs OJ Simpson: American Crime Story

So racking up Emmys is a way of alerting the industry to the quality of a show, something that probably converts into business at Mipcom, the first major programming market to follow the Emmy ceremony.

So which shows caught the eye in this year’s nominations? Well, it’s no real surprise to see HBO’s Game of Thrones is out in front with 23 nominations. Such is the quality and ambition of the show that the only thing likely to stop it winning awards this year is that it secured a record-breaking 12 Emmys last year, from 24 nominations.

Awards judges, sometimes deliberately, sometimes subconsciously, have a tendency to steer away from previous winners to make sure that everyone gets a fair share of acclaim.

At this stage, the biggest threat to HBO’s hit series comes from the FX camp, with The People vs OJ Simpson: American Crime Story securing 22 nominations and Fargo securing 18.

Netflix’s House of Cards secured 13 nominations but the biggest snub of the year went to the subscription VoD platform’s other flagship show Orange Is The New Black, with just one nomination.

The Night Manager was a huge hit on BBC1 in the UK but a modest performer on AMC in the US. However, the Emmys have rectified that situation slightly by granting the show 12 nominations.

After these shows, there is a huddle of titles securing multiple nominations, including Downton Abbey (10); All The Way and American Horror Story: Hotel (both eight); Better Call Saul and Roots (both seven); Mr Robot, Penny Dreadful and Sherlock: The Abominable Bride (all six); The Americans and Ray Donovan (both five); American Crime, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Good Wife, Homeland, The Knick and The Man in the High Castle (all four); and Empire, Gotham, Luther, Masters of Sex, Narcos and Vikings (all three).

BBC1 hit The Night Manager was only a modest performer on AMC

Of course, some categories are more prestigious than others. So it’s interesting to note that USA Network’s Mr Robot made its way on to both the Outstanding Drama series category and the Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series category (Sam Esmail).

The same is true for The Americans, which has been nominated for Emmys before but not usually in the most prestigious categories. Perhaps this is a sign that 2016 is the show’s year to come out on top. Worth noting also is that it is another FX series – evidence of a cable channel firing on all cylinders creatively.

The Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series category throws up another couple of interesting points. One is that it has included Marti Noxon and Sarah Gertrude Shapiro’s UnREAL, which airs on Lifetime.

This is quite an achievement given that the show didn’t really feature anywhere else in the Emmys list. The other is that two of the nominations are for writers of shows that are ending: Julian Fellowes’ Downton Abbey and Robert and Michelle King’s The Good Wife. That might be enough to swing votes their way.

The Americans has its first Outstanding Drama nom

The Outstanding Limited Series category is a face-off between American Crime, Fargo, The Night Manager, The People vs OJ Simpson and Roots. Once again we can see a decent level of diversity here both in front of and behind the camera. American Crime’s inclusion is a welcome nod for an ABC series that has been welcomed by critics but not done too well in the ratings.

As is evident from the above listings, the only serious non-US competition for Emmys comes from the Brits. The Night Manager and Downton Abbey are the UK’s frontrunners to win Emmys, but there were also decent showings from Penny Dreadful, Luther and Sherlock: The Abominable Bride.

With War & Peace picking up a music nomination, the BBC secured a total of 22, which is more than most. It’s also worth noting that Showtime’s US adaptation of Shameless picked up two comedy nominations.

Bryan Cranston plays Lyndon B Johnson in HBO's All The Way — Bryan Cranston plays Lyndon B Johnson in HBO’s All The Way

Looking more broadly at the scripted comedy categories, there were three top performers: HBO’s Veep with 17 noms, HBO’s Silicon Valley with 11 and Amazon’s Transparent with 10. Overall, the Emmys were pretty good for the major SVoD platforms, with established shows like House of Cards and Transparent the strongest performers.

Despite Man In The High Castle attracting four, it looks like Amazon came out just behind Netflix, which secured a smattering of nominations for its Marvel-based shows, Narcos, Bloodline and Sense8.

Cable channel AMC picked up a total of five nominations related to its Walking Dead universe and will take pleasure in the success of The Night Manager (which it aired) – but overall the network can expect a quiet year at the Emmys.

Other shows to score at least one flavour of Emmy nomination included 11.22.63, Bates Motel, Black Sails, Horace & Pete, Minority Report, Outlander and Vinyl.

The Oscars would do well to take note of the fact that the Lead Actor in a Limited Series category includes three black actors out of six, though on this occasion Idris Elba, Cuba Gooding Jr and the superb Courtney B Vance may find that Bryan Cranston’s impressive performance in HBO’s Lyndon B Johnson biopic All The Way proves hard for the Emmy judges to overlook. Black actress Kerry Washington also impressed in Confirmation and Viola Davis (How To Get Away With Murder) and Taraji P Henson (Empire) achieved nominations for Lead Actress in a Drama.

tagged in: 11.22.63, AMC, American Crime, Bates Motel, BBC1, Better Call Saul, Black Sails, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Downton Abbey, Emmys, Empire, FX, Gotham, HBO, Homeland, Horace & Pete, House of Cards, Luther, Man In The High Castle, Masters of Sex, Minority Report, Mr Robot, Narcos, Netflix, Outlander, Penny Dreadful, Ray Donovan, Roots, Sherlock: The Abominable Bride, Silicon Valley, The Americans, The Good Wife, The Knick, The Man in the High Castle, The Night Manager, Transparent, USA Network, Veep, Vikings, Vinyl

Screenwriters lay down the law

May 18, 2016The Writers RoomABC, AMC, Better Call Saul, CBS, Chicago Justice, Conviction, Dick Wolf, Doubt, Fox, How To Get Away With Murder, Katherine Heigl, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, NBC, Shonda Rhimes, Shots Fired, Suits, The Good Wife, The Grinder, USA NetworkAndy Fry

Perry Mason, Petrocelli, JAG, LA Law, Ally McBeal, Boston Legal, The Practice, Damages – no one does legal drama quite like the US. Here are 10 current and upcoming law-based series.

Suits focuses on slick New York City lawyers

Suits Season six of Suits will launch in July. Created by Aaron Korsh, it focuses on slick city lawyer Harvey Specter and his talented protégé Mike Ross. Now up to 76 episodes, it’s a big hit for USA Network and gets an impressive 8.7 rating on IMDb. Part of the appeal of this New York-set show is its fast-paced humour, which shouldn’t come as a surprise given Korsh’s background on successful comedies such as Everybody Loves Raymond.

The Good Wife This show, created by Robert and Michelle King, has just come to an end after seven seasons on CBS. It tells the story of Alicia Florrick, who returns to work as a Chicago-based litigator after 13 years as a stay-at-home mother. There is still a lot of affection for the show, which explains why CBS is planning a spin-off that will only be available via subscription. The Kings are expected to co-write the first episode but will not run it.

Law & Order: SVU, is still going after 17 seasons

Law & Order Created by Dick Wolf, this procedural juggernaut ran for 20 seasons until 2010 on NBC. The first half of every show focused on the investigation of a crime and the second half was the prosecution of the defendant in the New York courts. The show spawned four spin-offs including one set in LA. Another of these, Law & Order: SVU, is still running after 17 seasons. With more than 1,000 episodes in the archive, it’s no surprise that the franchise has also been a big seller in distribution and has been the basis of several adaptations in markets like the UK, France and Russia.

Chicago Justice Also from NBC and Dick Wolf, this show is the latest in a run of Chicago-based procedurals. It was soft launched during Chicago PD this month and is now being prepared for next season’s schedule. It’s early days but the basic line is that it will focus on lawyers in the Chicago area. The story for the Chicago PD launch of the show was created by Wolf but the teleplay was written by Michael Brandt, Derek Haas and Matt Olmstead, all of whom are exec producing the new show.

How-To-Get-Away-With-Murder-s2-ep13-1 — How To Get Away With Murder is unusual in that it’s set in a university

How To Get Away With Murder An interesting take on the genre, this ABC show focuses on a law professor at Philadelphia University (played by Viola Davis) who gets caught up in a murder plot along with five of her students. Davis has received a lot of plaudits, as has series creator Peter Nowalk, part of the team at Shondaland. Nowalk learned his trade on other Shondaland series (Grey’s Anatomy and Scandal) before taking the lead. The show has just completed season two and will be back next year.

Doubt Starring Katherine Heigl, this new CBS show will tell the story of a successful defence lawyer who starts to fall for her charismatic client, who may or may not be guilty of a brutal crime. The idea was actually developed for the season just gone but wasn’t picked up as a series. However, it has now been reworked and will feature in the network’s 2016/17 season. Tony Phelan, Joan Rater, Carl Beverly, Sarah Timberman and Adam Bernstein will serve as executive producers with the husband-and-wife team of Phelan and Rater sharing writing duties. Their credits include Madam Secretary, Grey’s Anatomy and Law & Order: Trial By Jury.

Better Call Saul It’s easy to forget this AMC series is a legal drama because of its quirky characterisation and links to Breaking Bad. It may not be a procedural in the Law & Order vein but it is a great insight into the machinations of US lawyers. Created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, the New Mexico-set show is a strong performer and was recently renewed for a third season.

Conviction This new drama for ABC from the Mark Gordon Company (Quantico) will debut in 2016/17. The pilot was written by Liz Friedman, who has made a name for herself with Jessica Jones and Elementary. The show tells the story of Carter Morrison, the brilliant but rebellious daughter of a former president who is blackmailed into taking a job as the head of Los Angeles’ newly created Conviction Integrity Unit. She examines cases where there’s suspicion that the wrong person may have been convicted of a crime.

The Grinder was cancelled just a week ago

The Grinder This Fox show makes our list though it was actually cancelled last week after one season. Created by Jarrad Paul and Andrew Mogel, it’s a comedy drama about an actor (played by Rob Lowe) who returns to his home town in Idaho after his TV series (The Grinder) ends. Having played a lawyer on TV he thinks he is equipped to work with his family law firm – cue comedy. Unfortunately, the ratings for the show were low.

Shots Fired Fox hasn’t given up on the law after the failure of The Grinder, but it has gone for something more serious. For next season it has lined up Shots Fired, an event series that follows the aftermath of a racially charged shooting in a fictional town in North Carolina. Sanaa Lathan, Helen Hunt and Richard Dreyfuss star. Gina Prince-Bythewood and Reggie Rock Bythewood are the series creators on this one. Their writing credits, respectively, include Before I Fall and Gun Hill. There are echoes in this project of the recent FX hit The People vs OJ Simpson, written by a team of six headed by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski.

tagged in: ABC, AMC, Better Call Saul, CBS, Chicago Justice, Conviction, Dick Wolf, Doubt, Fox, How To Get Away With Murder, Katherine Heigl, Law & Order, Law & Order: SVU, NBC, Shonda Rhimes, Shots Fired, Suits, The Good Wife, The Grinder, USA Network

Mercurio’s Duty calls for viewers

May 4, 2016The Writers RoomABC, Alex Cary, Amazon, BBC, David Guggenheim, Designated Survivor, Doctor Thorne, Fox, Han Sang-Woon, Jed Mercurio, Julian Fellowes, Lethal Weapon, Line of Duty, Matt Miller, NBC, Peaky Blinders, Taken, The Good Wife, tvNAndy Fry

Line of Duty has added viewers each season

BBC2 in the UK is having a great year in terms of its drama output. The first part of 2016 saw a solid performance for US acquisition American Crime Story: The People vs OJ Simpson, while tomorrow sees the much-anticipated return of Peaky Blinders for season three.

Sandwiched between the two was the third season of Line of Duty, which has proven to be a huge hit for the channel. So successful, in fact, there are reports that season four, which is scheduled to air in 2017, will move to flagship channel BBC1.

As the dust settles on Line of Duty’s ratings, various claims are being made, but probably the most eye-catching is that the series is BBC2’s most successful drama in 15 years. With an average audience of just under five million per episode (live+7 day ratings), it even managed to outperform Wolf Hall, which was a strong performer in 2015 with an average audience of 4.4 million.

Line of Duty focuses on the activities of an anti-corruption unit led by superintendent Ted Hastings (played by Adrian Dunbar). It is the latest masterpiece from Jed Mercurio, widely acknowledged as one of the top talents working in British TV.

Mercurio actually started out as a doctor before breaking into the business with acclaimed medical drama Cardiac Arrest in the mid-1990s. Since then he has had pretty consistent success as a TV writer while also carving out a decent career as a novelist. Indeed, his second TV series was an adaptation of his first novel, Bodies.

He has proven particularly adept at creating procedurals with a twist. Aside from Cardiac Arrest, Bodies and Line of Duty, for example, he also created Critical, a medical drama for Sky1 set in a fictional trauma centre.

He has also tried his hand at a number of other sub-genres of the scripted TV business. The Grimleys (1999-2001), for example, was a comedy drama, while Frankenstein (2007) was a modern-day re-imagination of Mary Shelley’s iconic gothic novel. He also set up Left Bank’s long-running action-adventure series Strike Back (2010) and adapted DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover for BBC1 last year.

Within the UK system, Mercurio is unusual in that he is more akin to a US showrunner than a European writer/auteur. Typically, he will write and produce his shows – sometimes directing as well. As a consequence of this level of control, Mercurio is well placed to ensure his creative vision hits the screen.

Mercurio recently gave a very insightful interview to Den of Geek in which he distinguished his work from procedurals that delve into the private lives of their protagonists. “Part of me isn’t that interested as a person and a viewer in people’s personal lives. I’m more interested in what people do in the workplace and what goals they set themselves. I guess that’s why I write a lot of precinct drama. (There’s often) an expectation, or pressure sometimes even, to feel that the way to succeed with drama is to see all sides of a character by going into their personal lives, even if you’ve got nothing to say.”

It’s interesting to note that Line of Duty’s ratings have been building across the first three seasons, giving it the feel of a show that slipped under the radar but is now attracting new swathes of fans. All of which augurs well for season four, regardless of the channel it airs on.

Liam Neeson starred in the Taken movie franchise

In the US, this is a critical time of year for the scripted business as the major networks decide which pilots to take forward to series. Most announcements will trickle through in the next few weeks, though a few new shows have already been given the go-ahead.

One of these is ABC’s Designated Survivor, which will star Kiefer Sutherland (24) and is being written by David Guggenheim (Safe House, Bad Boys 3). Another is Taken, a spin-off from the hit movie franchise. The TV version, for NBC, will be penned by Alex Cary (credits include Homeland, Lie To Me).

Not yet greenlit but looking good is Fox’s Lethal Weapon, another reboot of a movie franchise. This one is being scripted by Matt Miller, whose writing credits include ABC’s short-lived Forever.

Also, this week, DQ’s sister site C21 Media reports that long-running CBS drama The Good Wife is being adapted for the South Korean market by broadcaster TVN. The show, created by Robert and Michelle King, comes to the end of its seventh and final season in the US this week. All told, that means TVN will have 155 episodes to work with.

The Korean version of the show will be produced by Jung-Hyo Lee (I Need Romance, Heartless City) and written by Han Sang-Woon. Like the CBS original, it will centre on the complicated relationships of people in the legal system working against a backdrop of scandal and corruption.

The Good Wife is coming to an end in the US

Interestingly, this is not the first adaptation Han Sang-Woon has worked on. Last year, he wrote Spy for KBS2, based on Israeli drama The Gordin Cell. Previously, he wrote the movie My Ordinary Love Story. Commenting on the production, TVN parent company CJ E&M told C21: “For the Korean version of The Good Wife, we focused on the casting and were successful in casting Korea’s biggest actress, Jeon Do-Yeon – who has won many awards in her career, including best actress at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival – in the lead role, marking her return to television after 11 years.”

Finally, continuing the writers-as-brands theme we discussed in last week’s column, Amazon is about to air ITV period drama Doctor Thorne in the US (May 20). When it does, it will call the series Julian Fellowes Presents Doctor Thorne, another indicator of the marketing leverage that leading writers increasingly possess.

tagged in: ABC, Alex Cary, Amazon, BBC, David Guggenheim, Designated Survivor, Doctor Thorne, Fox, Han Sang-Woon, Jed Mercurio, Julian Fellowes, Lethal Weapon, Line of Duty, Matt Miller, NBC, Peaky Blinders, Taken, The Good Wife, tvN

Staying Power: Courtney Kemp Agboh

September 3, 2015SHOWRUNNERAtmosphere Television, CBS Television Studios, Courtney Kemp Agboh, Curtis Jackson, G-Unit Film and Television, Mark Canton, Mawuli Productions, Power, Starz, The Good WifeMichael Pickard

With a third season of her show Power confirmed and the ink still drying on her overall deal with Starz, Courtney Kemp Agboh tells DQ about her transformation from ‘failed’ comedy writer into one of drama’s big hitters.

For someone who started her television career writing for The Bernie Mac Show, Courtney Kemp Agboh (pictured above) is under no illusions about her power to make people laugh.

“I failed miserably,” she admits. “I was not funny. Comedy is not my thing. I sucked. I was terrible. I’m just not funny.”

But comedy’s loss has become television drama’s gain: the showrunner is currently winning critical and popular acclaim with hard-hitting Starz series Power.

Omari Hardwick as Power's main character, James ‘Ghost’ St Patrick — Omari Hardwick as Power’s main character, James ‘Ghost’ St Patrick

The debut episode of Power’s second season in June broke viewing records for the US premium cable network by attracting the largest ever audience for a Starz original drama season premiere episode (1.43 million). It also became the most watched episode ever for a Starz original drama across its opening weekend (3.62 million).

The impressive ratings opened a remarkable week for Agboh, who signed an exclusive overall deal with Starz just days after the network commissioned a 10-part third season of Power for 2016.

And there was more good news to come. Season two’s finale, which aired on August 15, set a Starz record for an episode premiere, drawing 2.39 million viewers (Live+3). This was also up 51% compared with the first run’s finale (1.59 million) and up 17% on the season two average (2.03 million)

Set between the glamorous New York club scene and the city’s brutal drug trade, Power tells the story of James ‘Ghost’ St Patrick (played by Omari Hardwick), who must juggle his life as a club boss with that as a major player in one of the city’s biggest illegal drug networks.

Kemp Agboh, who created the series, is an executive producer alongside Mark Canton, Randall Emmett and rapper Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson. The show is produced by CBS Television Studios, Jackson’s G-Unit Film and Television, Kemp Agboh’s Mawuli Productions and Canton’s Atmosphere Television.

Kemp Agboh was first exposed to the television industry while working as a journalist. An article she wrote for GQ, titled How to Date a Black Woman, caught the attention of two comedy producers, but the project didn’t move any further. Undeterred, and now with a taste for the business, she wrote a script on-spec for The Bernie Mac Show, landing a writing job on the series in 2005.

“I was very fortunate,” she says. “I moved to LA with no car, no apartment and no job, but I had a husband who had a job in New York and an agent. I was very fortunate because I was able to go to interviews and meetings, and I got a job as a writer.

The Good Wife, which gave Kemp Agboh her first experience of running a writers room

“I did all my assistant stuff and coffee-getting when I was working in magazines – I had that Devil Wears Prada experience – and because of that I had no attitude. I had been broken down in journalism. It really helped. Then I got in at Bernie Mac and failed miserably.”

With her comedy career put swiftly behind her, Kemp Agboh penned another spec script, this time for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which led to her joining the writing staff of In Justice, a short-lived police procedural run by married duo Robert and Michelle King. Credits followed on Fox drama Justice and ABC comedy-drama Eli Stone, among others, before Kemp Agboh was reunited with the Kings on CBS smash hit The Good Wife in 2011.

“That whole time I branded myself as a legal writer,” Kemp Agboh says. “I wrote legal drama for the most part. That helped me to continue to work. I worked every year and kept getting jobs. I was on The Good Wife for three seasons, and there I learned a lot about how to run a show.

“But I was always an action person, I was always someone who liked writing murders and death. The Good Wife isn’t an exceptionally violent show, so all this stuff was just busting out of me.”

It was when fellow Power exec producer Canton spoke to Jackson about doing a “hardcore, hard-hitting, music-driven show” that Kemp Agboh’s name was suggested, and after meeting Canton, she came up with the idea for the series.

She explains: “The main character became a mixture of 50 Cent’s upbringing – South Jamaica, dealing, and getting out of that life – and my father, who was not a criminal, but was a self-made man. He grew up with no money and made himself into this big advertising executive. It was a combo-platter of the two things.”

Kemp Agboh recalls pitching the series to Starz: “It was me and 50 and a ton of people, but I was the only one talking so it was quite scary. I don’t read a pitch; I only go in with cards with a few keywords on them. It’s a performance. You get passionate and excited about it and tell them the story. At the second meeting, 50 brought music so as I was pitching he was playing tracks from the show.”

Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson (right) and Joseph Sikora in Power. Rapper Jackson is an executive producer on the series

Power launched in 2014, but despite the show now heading towards a third season, Kemp Agboh says she never anticipated its success. “I try to live my life one day at a time, so the whole process for me has been going in to pitch the show, they say yes; writing the pilot, they say yes; they want a second script… it’s just been piece by piece. As each episode was airing and the audience was growing, I was just trying to be present for its success at each moment and really trying to interact with the fans. I’m thrilled with the response, but I can’t say it’s what I expected. I had no expectation of it.”

What she did expect, however, was the stark difference between writing for a broadcast network such as CBS and a premium cable channel – the former reliant on advertisers and the latter free to flex its creative muscles with added sex and violence. Kemp Agboh says: “In the Power pilot, we start in a beautiful way. There are shots of the city, you see Ghost getting dressed, everything’s gorgeous and wonderful. Then within nine minutes you’re downstairs in the basement and someone’s getting shot in the forehead. That’s the kind of show it is.

“I wanted to show the audience that it’s never going to be what you expect. You are never going to be safe in this show – you can never relax. I’m always going to be pulling the carpet out from under you. I was trying to make a point about storytelling and what we can do on cable that you can’t do in broadcast, and how just because I came from that world, it doesn’t mean it’s the only writing I can do.

“Broadcast is way harder, and anyone who tells you different, I don’t know what they’re talking about. Twenty-two episodes with no real sex and no real violence – forget it. I have to do 10 episodes and I can go anywhere.”

Power marks the first time Kemp Agboh has brought a show to television, but it isn’t her first spell in charge of a writers room. That milestone came during her final year on The Good Wife, when she was able to apply the lessons she had learnt from mentors including the Kings, Jeff Melvoin (In Justice) and Greg Berlanti (Eli Stone).

“What I took from them was that there can be no sexism and no hierarchy in the room, and that the best idea can come from anybody. Those are my rules. I don’t care how many years you’ve been doing this, your idea could suck and a person who just walked into the room to deliver lunch could have the greatest idea of all.

“One of the things I stress is that I don’t pay writers to sit there. I don’t pay for their chair, I pay for their ideas, so I want them. I don’t care how bad they are, they don’t have to be edited. Say whatever. There’s no reprisal for a bad idea. When I interview people for writing jobs, I stress to them if there are areas they don’t like to discuss, such as sex, this is the wrong job for them, because we go there. I want people to have a good time at work.”

Together with Fox’s breakout drama Empire, Power is also notable for having a diverse cast, led by Hardwick, Jackson, Lela Loren, Naturi Naughton, Joseph Sikora and Sinqua Walls.

But Kemp Agboh says the show simply aims to reflect the modern world. “The world looks like Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder; the world does not look like Friends,” she explains. “And when people put shows on TV now where everyone is white, it looks funny. That’s not what the world is. That’s not what America is. Nowhere is it all one thing, and if you’re going to make TV that’s going to be successful now, it needs to represent what the world really looks like.

“At one point we talked about doing Power in LA, but LA is way more segregated than New York and I didn’t want to do that. I wanted New York to be represented in all of its diversity. People are realising they can make a lot of money by making TV shows that look like what the world really is. At the end of the day, it’s not about black, brown, white, yellow, red. It’s about green. So as long as these shows do well, there will be more of them.”

But while racial diversity may be improving, Kemp Agboh believes it is still difficult for female writers to breakthrough as showrunners. “I believe it’s harder. I have had fewer experiences where I was the only person of colour in the room and more experiences creatively where I was the only woman,” she reveals. “People ask about race and showrunning, but what I think we actually need to pay attention to is women as showrunners.

“Most of the people I’ve worked with coming up the ranks have been men with stay-at-home wives. Most of the high-level writers I’ve met have been men whose wives don’t work, and the idea of trying to run a show and be a mummy – it’s so complicated and challenging because it really is giving birth to two things.

“I’ve decided I’m not going to have any more children because Power is my second child. I can’t do everything. Some people can do more than that, but I think there’s absolutely a trend. The world is full of women, so women have good perspectives on things and can write really well. People are now saying that if Shonda Rhimes can make so many billions of dollars for a network, maybe I can take a shot on this other chick and she might be good too. And that is absolutely happening.”

With Power set for a third run next year, Kemp Agboh is in no doubt that television will continue to tell great stories – at the expense of cinema. “We’re at a really great point in television drama, as there are more places to put content,” she says. “But I would also say it’s because the movie business got so weird. They stopped making middle-of-the-road movies. It’s all about blockbusters now and these very tiny indies. There’s nothing in the middle, so those stories that might have been told as features 20 years ago aren’t being told that way now. Right now, television is where those great stories are being told.”

tagged in: Atmosphere Television, CBS Television Studios, Courtney Kemp Agboh, Curtis Jackson, G-Unit Film and Television, Mark Canton, Mawuli Productions, Power, Starz, The Good Wife