The Revolution Was Televised - read a free excerpt!

7/30/2019 The Revolution Was Televised - read a free excerpt!

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THE

REVOLUTIONWAS

TELEVISED

The Cops, Crooks, Slingers, and Slayers

Who Changed TV Drama Forever

Alan Sepinwall

A ouchstone Book

Published by Simon & Schuster

New York London oronto Sydney New Delhi


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OUCHSONE

A Division o Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Copyright 2012 by Alan Sepinwall

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or portions thereo in any orm whatsoever. For inormation address

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INTRODUCTION

And they pay you or this?Once upon a time, any conversation I had with a strangerabout my job as a television critic led to that question. Some were

amused that this was the way I made my living. Others were dis-

dainul, insisting that they didnt watch much television (or even

own a V). More oten than not, the conversation would hit adead end when I said that I didnt also write about movies.

But i my job didnt make sense to these strangers, it made per-

ect sense to me. I had stumbled onto the best gig in the world.

I was being paid to watch television. I was, o course, also being

paid to writeabout television, which not everyone could do, and

there were times where it wasnt so much that Igotto watch tele-vision or a living, but that I had to watch it (where have you

gone, Homeboys From Outer Space?), but overall, it was a dream

come true.

It was a dream I had allen into by continually being in the right

place at the right time or someone with my interests. I matricu-

lated at the University o Pennsylvania with the rst class o non-

engineers to receive an email address and a Unix shell account, and

I began using both to write obsessively about NYPD Blue, rst on


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2 INTRODUCTION

Usenet, then on a website I set up on the campus server (where it

still sits, a monument to cutting-edge web design circa 1994). On-

line reviews o anything were still a novelty when I graduated in96, and that website helped me land a eatures internship at Te

Star-Ledgero northern New Jerseymy hometown newspaper

in a summer when the papers longtime V critic couldnt make it

to the V critics press tour in LA. My editors gambled on sending

me in his place, I didnt embarrass mysel, and they oered me a

ull-time job as the back-up V writer. In college, Id been told Iwould be extraordinarily ortunate to land a ull-time job as an en-

tertainment critic at a small paper within ve years; Id lucked into

one at a big paper within ve weeks.

Even better, it seemed like the best time in entertainment his-

tory to be a television critic. From where I sat, V was in the

middle o another golden age, lled with smart comedies and,

more importantly, dramas like NYPD Blueand Homicide that I

elt tapped into what I had seen or years as the limitless potential

o V storytelling. I loved movies, but Id also seen in shows like

Hill Street Bluesand St. Elsewherethat the small screen had certain

advantages over its bigger, more prestigious cousin. It could tell

very long stories. It could allow characters to grow over extended

periods o time. And by coming into my home rather than mak-ing me go to it, it could orge a more intimate bond with me. As

I grew up, very ew shows were willing or able to exploit those ad-

vantages to the ullest, but by the time I arrived at Te Star-Ledger,

more and more were guring it out.

I was, I said to mysel oten, privileged to be covering a medium

that had become as good as I had always dreamed it would be

that was, possibly, as good as it could ever possibly be.


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4 INTRODUCTION

original programmingand the mass audience that had been the

bread and butter o television began to racture into a group o

ever-smaller niches.Commercially, this presented a huge problem or a busi-

ness built on a big-tent philosophy, where you succeeded with

the broadest, most palatable, least challenging work. Creatively,

though, the ragmented audience was the best thing that could

have happened to television. Certainly, some corners o the V

business leaned heavily on programming that was as broad and/orcheap as possible (the year ater Te Sopranos, Survivorset o the

reality V boom). But many smart executives realized that they

could do very well making shows those smaller audiences would

care passionately about. You can make money on a show watched

by three million people, i theyre the right three million people,

paying close attention.

Many o these shows came rom veteran producers still stinging

rom mistakes made in past projects. Oten, these modern master-

pieces were rst written under the assumption that no one would

ever see them. Tat combination o regret and abandon led to a

wave o bold and exciting new dramas the likes o which V had

never seen beore.

And as Te Sopranoswas ollowed byTe Wire, Te Shield, andall the rest, an interesting role reversal happened with the movie

business, which was dealing with some audience uncertainty o

its own. Where once there had been blockbusters, art lms, and a

large swath o movies in betweenmany o that last group geared

to adultsthe 21st century slowly saw the extinction o the mid-

dle-class movie. I a lm couldnt either be made on the cheap or

guarantee an opening weekend o $50 million or more, it was out.


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6 INTRODUCTION

were great and the role they played in the larger story; Ill also let

the creators, executives, and actors responsible or that greatness

explain how these shows came to be.It was a unique time, and there was a new generation taking

over in television, says Deadwoodcreator David Milch. And tele-

vision, in its own way, the best o it was as good as anything.


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PROLOGUE

Lets be careful out there

The shows that paved the way

heres already a school o thoughtone that a book like thisadmittedly plays intoarguing that true quality televisiondidnt exist beore Te Sopranos. But while the adventures o ony

Soprano and the many complicated characters who ollowed him

elevated V to another level o both quality and cultural respect,

they didnt come out o thin air. Te millennial wave o revolu-

tionary dramas was built on the work put in by a group o other

series, particularly the ones created rom the early 80s onward(*).

Here are some o the crucial building blocks or the revolution:

(*) And even there, I would accept the argument rom older Vhistoriansthat Im leaving out signifcant even-earlier work. David

Chase learned his crat writing orTe Rockord Files, or instance,

even iTe Sopranos has only a passing resemblance to it, and there

were many important dramas in the 50s and 60s. But rom my

point o view, theres a more tangible connection between, say, Hill

Street Blues andTe Wire than between Te Deenders andBreak-

ing Bad.


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8 ALAN SEPINWALL

Hill Street Blues(NBC, 19811987): One night in our college

dorm, a riend o ours admitted she had never seen Casablanca, a

hole in her cultural memory we aimed to ll in as quickly as pos-sible. o our dismay, she spent most o the movie complaining

about how predictable and clichd it all was, and our arguments

that it had inventedmost o those clichs ell on dea ears.

Tats the danger with coming to a classic late: i a work is good

enough, the rest o the entertainment industry will strip-mine it

until the original work somehow seems derivative o the othersthat blatantly copied it. And I imagine i you were to show an

episode oHill Street Bluesto someone who came o age with Te

Wire, theyd react to it about as avorably as our riend did to Cas-

ablanca. But in 1981, Steven Bochco and Michael Kozolland,

later, writers like David Milch and Jerey Lewistook every as-

sumption viewers had about primetime dramas in general and cop

shows in particular and turned each one on its ear.

Previous V dramas tended to tell simple, easily digestible sto-

ries that began and ended within the space o an hour, eaturing

clear good guys and bad guys, that played on your emotions but

rarely taxed your brain or your moral compass. With Hill Street

Blues, nothing was ever simple.

Te series took place in a run-down police precinct where thecops were ghting a holding action against the ever-increasing

amount o gang violence and other brutal crime, while the police

commissioner and local politicians preerred to act like the entire

neighborhood would be better o orgotten. Stories didnt begin

and end neatly within the space o an hour, but would continue

or weeks on end, sometimes over an entire season. Tough there

was a clear central character in Daniel J. ravantis righteous pre-

cinct captain Frank Furillo, the narrative bounced around con-


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9THE REVOLUTION WAS TELEVISED

stantly among a huge, diverse cast. Scenes might begin by ocusing

on one character, then immediately shit their attention to a di-

erent character who passed him in the hallway, then ip aroundto yet a third set o characters beore cutting away to the next loca-

tion. Furillo was or the most part a virtuous hero, but the other

characters existed along a wide moral spectrum, and even Frank

had his moments o weakness. Te show mixed bleak drama with

a twisted sense o humor (undercover cop Mick Belker had a ten-

dency to growl and bite suspects), and the violence, language, andsex scenes were all considered airly graphic or V o the period.

Much oHill Streetwould seem incredibly tame today, yet it

eels less dated than a 30-year-old drama should. It was such a huge

step orward in terms o what V drama could do with complex

narratives o moral shades o grey that you can still nd strands o

its DNA in many dramas being made todayboth the ones Ill be

talking about in this book, and less edgy material like Greys Anat-

omyand the CSIshowsso it still eels very much a part o the

current era. Without Hill Street Blues, maybe another show makes

the evolutionary leap that eventually brings us to Don Draper and

Walter White. Or maybe were still watching simplistic, easy-to-

digest dramas, even on HBO.

St. Elsewhere (NBC, 19821988): Tis hospital drama was so

close in its chaotic style and cynicism to Hill Street Blues that it

could have been a spin-o. But where St. Elsewheredistinguished

itsel, and blazed a trail or many that ollowed, was with its will-

ingness to experiment with its own structure and even level o real-

ity. At various points, St. Elsewheredid a two-parter ashing back

over 50 years o history at the hospital; an episode involving a pa-

tient who believed himsel to be Mary Richards rom Te Mary


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10 ALAN SEPINWALL

yler Moore Show(who ran into both Betty White playing a new

role and Jack Riley as his character rom Te Bob Newhart Show);

an episode where the doctors went to Cheers to have a beer andbe insulted by Carla; and another where Howie Mandels charac-

ter was shot and journeyed between Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven

(where he met a God who looked an awul lot like Howie Mandel).

St. Elsewherenot only proved that the ormal chaos oHill Street

Bluescould be transplanted to another setting and creative team,

but that your characters, your stories, and your world didnt haveto be conned to a amiliar box. You could take your audience

anywhere, i you did it well enough. St. Elsewherealso set the bar

very highor very low, depending on your point o viewor

memorable, challenging series nales. Te closing scene revealed

that the entire series had been the antasy o the autistic son o the

shows main character, who spent his days staring at a snow globe

containing the hospitals amiliar exterior. Some ans were dazzled

by it; others elt it was the show judging them harshly or having

watched it all these years. (ommy even places the globe on top o

the V set right beore we ade out.) It neatly presaged many o the

anger-inducing nales to come in the 21st century.

Cheers (NBC, 19821993): Stick with me on this one. Tethrough line rom Sam Malone to Al Swearengen might seem

tenuous, other than that they both ran bars, but I believe Glen

and Les Charles and their writing sta were responsible or a cru-

cial step in the evolution o how people watched television. Hill

Street Bluesand St. Elsewherewere critical darlings, but modestly

rated. Cheerswas a op itsel at rst, but eventually became one

o the most popular sitcoms o all timeand it did it while hook-

ing viewers on an ongoing narrative about the on-again, o-again,


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on-again relationship between Sam and Diane, and later Sam and

Rebecca, Rebecca and Robin Colcord, etc. Cheerswasnt weaving

some kind o elaborate tapestry where you would be lost i youhadnt seen the previous 13 episodes. But the sitcom as a genre had

to that pointwith rare exceptions (like the seasons oI Love Lucy

where they traveled through Europe or stayed in Hollywood)

been a orm where each episode was sel-contained, designed to

exist independently rom the one beore and the one ater. Cheers

was a show that was always aware o what had already happenedto its characters, and that built both jokes and important char-

acter beats serially on that. Te shows success paved the way or

even more heavily serialized sitcoms like Friendsand Seineld(and

later many o the HBO comedies,Arrested Development, Te O-

fce, Parks and Recreation, etc.). It also helped condition viewers to

the basic idea that their V shows werent disposable, that it was

possible to see characters transorm beyond just seeing sitcom kids

get older with each season.

Miami Vice (NBC, 19841989): Tere are so many creation

myths around Miami Vicethe most amous o them involving

NBC president Brandon artiko writing the phrase MV cops

on a napkin and handing it to writer Anthony Yerkovich and di-rector Michael Mannthat its become all but impossible to sep-

arate the acts rom the legend. Whats indisputable is that the

show Yerkovich and Mann went on to make demonstrated that

you could adopt a cinematic look (and yes, music-video-style edit-

ing) on the budget and schedule o a weekly V drama.

Wiseguy(CBS, 19871990): Stephen J. Cannell built a long, lu-

crative career as a master o V drama as comort ood. Te shows


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12 ALAN SEPINWALL

he created were well-crated (Te Rockord Filesis still the best pri-

vate-eye show ever) but never taxing on the brain. You tuned in

or an hour and got a complete story that was easy to ollow, usu-ally with some combination o a catchy theme song, good jokes, a

car chase and/or a shootout. But just because Cannell didnt oten

do complex didnt mean he couldnt. In 1987, Cannell and Frank

Lupowho had previously teamed up on the proudly lowbrow

Te A-eamcreated Wiseguy, a dark, moody intelligent drama

starring Ken Wahl as Vinnie erranova, a ederal agent assigned toinltrate dierent criminal organizations.

What distinguished Wiseguyrom similar shows that came be-

ore itand makes it eel 20 years ahead o its timewas the du-

ration o these assignments. Vinnie didnt bust the bad guys at the

end o each episode. It took him many episodes to close each case,

with one story arc taking a dozen hours to complete and others

clocking in at a hal-dozen hours or more. Many other dramas had

eatured recurring villainseven something as simple as Hawaii

Five-0would bring back arch-nemesis Wo Fat now and again

but not even Hill Street Blueshad devoted so many episodes in a

row to a single storyline this way. Te ormat allowed Cannell and

Lupo to dig deep with the characterization, and to give unlikely

guest starsa young, unknown Kevin Spacey as an incestuous,heroin-addicted mobster or Jerry Lewis as a garment-industry ex-

ecutiveamong the best dramatic roles o their careers.

Te idea o villains lasting long enough or both the protagonist

and the audience to really get to know them is one that translated

well to the revolutionary cable dramas, whether it was Te Sopranos

(where ony seemed to have a new nemesis each season), Breaking

Bad(which employed Wiseguyalum Jonathan Banks, and cast Gus

Fring very much in the mold o aWiseguyvillain) or even Dexter


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(which also brings in a new major antagonist each year), to name

just three.

(In between, there was also BochcosMurder One, a mid-90slegal drama or ABC that devoted its rst season to a single case,

and its second to three long arcs. Murder One mainly demon-

strated how dicult it was to pull something like that o, but24

would be ar more successul in the next decade.)

win Peaks(ABC, 19901991):

As strange as St. Elsewhereandsome other 80s shows had been, nothing quite prepared audiences

or win Peaks, a baroque mix o murder mystery, soap opera, 50s

movie melodrama, and the 100% pure weirdness that comes with

any project rom the shows co-creator, David Lynch. Lynch, com-

ing o the cult classic lm Blue Velvet, was given carte blanche by

ABC to see i his style would translate to television, and boy did

itor a little while. Te series took place in an overcast corner o

the Pacic Northwest where everything was slightly askew, includ-

ing a local resident who wandered around town carrying a small

log in her armsas the local sheri (named Harry ruman, o

course) explained simply, We call her the Log Lady.

Into this peculiar setting, Lynch and co-creator Mark Frost

who, like many o the producers in this book, made a show theyassumed no one would ever watch, and that wouldnt last long

enough or them to deal with the consequences o their creative

decisionsdropped the body o a dead teenage girl, wrapped in

plastic, and then a handsome but eccentric FBI agent to investi-

gate her murder, and eventually a dancing dwar who spoke back-

wards, a one-armed man, a malevolent spirit named BOB, and

even an alternate dimension lled with evil doppelgangers o all

our heroes.


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14 ALAN SEPINWALL

It was a bizarre show on nearly every leveland yet, or a short

while, it was also a hit. For a ew weeks in the spring o 1990, view-

ers went nuts over who killed Laura Palmer, what the Log Ladysdeal was, why there was a sh in the percolator, and whether Au-

drey Horne had a saxophone player ollowing her at all times. It

helped that all the quirkiness was married to a sense o real orward

momentum or the investigation and all the personal drama in

the town. But when the shows success led to an unexpected sec-

ond season, Lynch and Frost had no idea what to do other than todial up the weirdness at the expense o the plot, and everyone lost

interest long beore we ound out that BOB had murdered Laura

while controlling the body o her ather.

But the show was an obvious inuence on Te X-Files, onAlias

and Lostand Fringeand many other millennial dramas, including

something as relatively straightorward as AMCs Te Killing. It

showed that strangeness didnt have to be a barrier or entry; i you

told your story well enough and put interesting enough characters

inside that strangeness, you could do very well with an audience.

Homicide: Life on the Street (NBC, 19931999): IHomicide

had done nothing but provide David Simon a transition rom his

newspaper job to V writing, it would still likely merit mentionhere. But the Baltimore-based drama, like the New Yorkset one

that would debut a ew months later, was an important transi-

tional step, in addition to being one o the best cop shows ever

made. Run by om Fontanathe man behind the St. Elsewhere

nale and many o that shows other lunatic momentsHomicide

was a cop drama that was rarely araid to sacrice plot in avor

o character, or to sacrice action or good dialogue. I cases got

closedusually through the silver-tongued salesmanship o Andre


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Braughers master interrogator Frank Pembletonso be it. And i

they didntas in the story o murdered girl Adena Watson, which

played out or much o the rst season and haunted the rest o theseriesthat was oten even more interesting. Homicidewas never

a hit, but it lasted seven seasons, and expanded the level o artistry

that was possible in such a traditional, largely standalone ormat.

NYPD Blue (ABC, 19932005): Steven Bochco and David

Milch, together again, this time looking to push the outer edgeo the envelope even arther than they did on Hill Street Blues. In

the early 90s, Bochco looked at a V landscape where more and

more homes were getting cable, and where his shows had to com-

pete with racy movies on HBO, and decided that the only way or

the networks to stay relevant would be to introduce their own pro-

gramming with mature content.

Enter NYPD Blue, a cop drama that, i not quite R-rated, was

still more adult in its use o language and nudity than anything

beore it. Te graphic content helped pave the way or Te Sopra-

nosand company, but so did cop Andy Sipowicz: a deeply awed

character who, in an earlier age, would have been the villain, but

instead was portrayed with such shading, depth, and empathy that

we began rooting or him despite ourselves.

Te X-Files(FOX, 19932002): V science ction is always an

iy commercial proposition, because no matter how great a par-

ticular series may be, theres still a stigma attached to the genre that

will keep some people rom watching. Te genius o Chris Carters

X-Fileswas in the way it drew in an audience that would ordinar-

ily run screaming rom stories o aliens and monsters. X-Fileswas

a sci- series, but because the two main characters were FBI agents


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16 ALAN SEPINWALL

in plain business suitsone o them a skeptic who thought all this

stu was ridiculousit gave a mainstream audience an out: Im not

watching some nerd-est; this is just a cop show where weird things hap-pen. Te series was able to borrow the bizarre atmosphere owin

Peaksand make it more sustainable, and in the process paved the

way or the likes oLost, which also essentially tricked viewers into

watching science ction by introducing it in the guise o a mystery.

X-Filesalso pioneered the concept o mythology, in which a

show has a complex backstory and elaborate ongoing story arc,parceled out to viewers a little bit at a time. O course, X-Files

also became the rst show to disappoint its viewers when it be-

came clear that the mythology didnt make any sense. Writers on

the showalums include Breaking Badcreator Vince Gilligan and

longtime24showrunner Howard Gordoninsist that, early on,

Carter did have a plan, but the huge success o the series (including

a eature lm that debuted ater the th V season) orced him

to elongate and tinker with the story until it eventually became

gibberish. And as the mythology unraveled, it prepared the next

generation o anboys and -girls or the rustration they would eel

when Lost, Battlestar Galactica, and other iconic sci- series didnt

always pay things o in a satisying manner.

ER(NBC, 19942009): On a commercial level, ERwas the end

o the era that preceded the one Ill be discussing in this book: a

mass-appeal scripted drama that at its George-Clooney second-

season height was averaging 32 million viewers a week, and once

did an episode that attracted 48 million. On an artistic level, it was

an important link in the chain, because o what it did to increase

both the pace o the V drama and the amount o trust shows

could place in their audience.


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ERwas a hospital drama by genre, but an action movie in style.

Even compared to something like Hill Street Bluesor, the year be-

ore, NYPD Blue, this sucker movedrom doctor to doctor, pa-tient to patient, oten throwing the audience right into the middle

o a story without bothering to explain anything about what was

happening or what all the medical lingo meant. I you go back and

look at the dramas leading up to it, there was a lot o over-explain-

ing o the minutiae o these proessionstheres a retrospectively

hilarious Hill Streetepisode where Furillo and the other cops arebafed to learn o a legal concept called ruits o the poisonous

treebut ERassumed that its viewers would be smart enough

to keep up. Te ratings proved them right, which gave license to

other ambitious network dramas (Te West Wingshared producer

John Wells) to do the same, and helped inorm what was about to

happen on cable.

And though many accounts o the cable-driven revolution tend

to begin with Sex and the Cityor Te Sopranos, this story begins

earlier, with a show whose title evoked the phrase theres no place

like home, that was unlike anything seen on television beore.


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