What killed Chuck?
Ardent Aardvark
Writing my previous reply today, it helped crystallized something I’d been thinking about for awhile, so here it is:
When I look back at the whole run of the show and think about the many factors that probably led to the series’ decline and eventual decrepitude, I’m left with the conclusion that the writers’ strike in 2007 killed Chuck. It was the first pebble that started the avalanche. And most everything bad that happened to Chuck started from that.
Here’s a handy reference for those who like visual aids <grin>: http://tinyurl.com/7939mfh. (Thank you, SWFanGirls!)
How I believe things went down was roughly like this:
At the start, Chuck was a show birthed from a group of diverse talents and agendas. Schwartz, McG, NorBuck a strong (and experienced) team of writers and, yes, Fedak. The pilot was tonal perfection and while the first season had some uneven moments, that’s to be expected. By the end of the season it was starting to really find its strengths.
Then the writer’s strike happened. And this event catalyzed the exodus of scripted-series watching viewers to alternate entertainment. It’s perfectly clear from the numbers. The average A18-49 demo for S1 was 3.0. For the first five episodes of S2? 2.5. Did Chuck fall in quality substantially in the year between new episodes? No, quite the opposite. Those missing viewers were watching reality shows or just doing something else. But the industry really didn’t know this had happened yet. And NBC, excited by the screeners of the first five episodes of S2, extended Chuck’s second season from 13 to 22 before it even aired.
S2 went very well, in general, although some unevenness came about due to the season extension. The ratings, however, did not rise to S1 levels and the show was threatened by cancellation by a network who had not yet calibrated its expectations to the new reality. And this is where the wheels really came off. Everyone involved with the show got a whiff of their own mortality. The budget was being cut severely. It was a failing show. People started looking for lifeboats. This was pretty obvious from the events of S3: Rosenberg flat out left in the middle of the season out of despondency; new pilots (co-developed by Schwartz with Ali Adler and Matt Miller) were in the works on ABC and CBS; the show scripts got weaker. It all makes sense if you imagine the mood in the writers’ room with half of the writers preparing to leave. The net result of this was that Fedak, who had no other prospects, found those who would normally check him distracted by other priorities. He probably started listening to lesser voices or ignoring them altogether.
It just gets worse from here. The Chuck we knew was already dead, all of us just didn’t know it yet. Sure, there were a few good episodes in succeeding seasons, some arguably great. But that magical balance of creative forces that birthed the show and kept it on an even keel was gone.
So my hypothesis is that, without the writers’ strike, the decline in scripted-series viewing would have been much more gradual, giving the networks more time to adjust their expectations. Chuck might not have endured the massive loss of viewers that almost killed it post-S2, it wouldn’t have suffered the mortal exodus of creative talent in its ranks nor the catastrophic budget cut and the episode quality would not have fallen so drastically. More to the point, the entire S3 fiasco might have been averted. Of one thing I’m certain, the show would have been drastically different than the one we saw.
Comments?
dude029
the change in viewing trends including online viewing. Chuck had just
started finding it's groove mid-season one starting with Alma Mater
and continuing with the great Truth arc. We're talking about a show
that had it's highest ratings S1, S2 but was in danger of being
cancelled and subsequently survived two and a half more seasons as the
ratings and quality declined. The quality and look of the show before
the budget cuts are fantastic and I've always thought the loss of some
of the original creative forces were killer because as you stated it
allowed Fedak to run amok with nobody to temper his " vision" Though
some of the originals each had their duds individually, collectively
they were an impressive team. Some of the S1, S2 stuff is as good as
I've ever seen on television which always make me wonder if they
really knew what they had. You are right though, the first pebble in
the oncoming avalanche....the writers strike.
On Mar 18, 3:56 pm, "Ardent Aardvark" <aardvark7...@embarqmail.com>
wrote:
Bill Sweatland
I think that’s partly it. But all ratings have gone down. People are just watching less and less network TV. The economic model is obsolete.
But I also think they never dreamed of having a show that would last 5 seasons. They talk about 2.0 always being the plan, perhaps for the ending of S1. I call bull. If they had planned storyline for 5 seasons out of the box, then they are the worst planners in the history of television.
So I think the big difference after S1 was when they shifted from an episodic format to a serial one. They were horrible at the serial format. They simply never ever told a coherent story. They always claim that the late back orders were the cause. But in your planning, wouldn’t you account for that? Wouldn’t you know in advance what you would do if you got a back order? You would if you knew where the story was ultimately going. They didn’t. At the end they were making it up as they go along. If Fedak told me that there was always a plan from the beginning to tell the story of Chuck’s search for mom or Sarah’s mom’s back story, I’ll call him a liar to his face. If the characters Daniel Shaw, Alexi Volkoff, Becker, or Quinn were ever talked about prior to the pilot being shot, again, I’ll call him a liar to his face. The Ring? Made up after they realized that they needed a big bad after Fulcrum was defeated.
I’ve never seen a single episode of any of Schwartz’s shows. But from what I can tell, the O.C. and Gossip Girl are pretty much about a series of love triangles.
I think they knew at the end of S1 that the C/S love story was the main asset they had going for them. But how to play it? They could do a Bones, bring the relationship along slowly, ignore it for long stretches, and make it last unfulfilled that way. Or they could show substantial progress and keep putting obstacles in their way.
They clearly chose the latter. The problem was that they ran out of obstacles. So they felt increasingly manipulative. In S3 when Sarah was ready to be with him and he decided that he wanted to be a spy more, we were fed up. A lot of people kept watching out of habit more than anticipation. It was simply too painful to root for C/S because it was clear there was always going to be that next obstacle. Sarah losing her memories was simply the last obstacle they thought of.
Who believes that when Fedak pitched this idea to Schwartz and they stayed up all night talking it through, that they decided it ended with Sarah losing her memories on the beach just starting to remember? If you do believe that, would you be interested in joining me in an investment opportunity?
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anon4utu anon4utu
Now, all of that being said, I would pay $6 to watch a Chuck show, etc., as long as Yvonne had a prominent role. Of course, I would far prefer to see a ME movie with Yvonne.
Now, come to thing of it, I would pay $20 to see a continuing adventures movie of Farscape. (All they have to do is to film the next graphic novel in the Boom series instead of publishing it!)
--
Jimmy.j.vs.chuck
Sent from my iPad
--
Matthew Burkhardt
Ardent Aardvark
Google Groups seems to have become a little wonky as of late!
Thanks for taking care of that!
Ardent Aardvark
Bill, a couple of notes here:
First, there seems to be a subtle distinction in my point you may have missed. I wasn’t arguing that ratings wouldn’t have gone down across the board anyway. I was arguing that the writers’ strike created a discontinuity in the decline. A sudden acceleration of people leaving NBC and going off to watch other shows (as Jimmy pointed out, CBS was a big winner here because their shows came back new right after the strike while other networks waited until the following Fall). I’m arguing that this created too strong a dissonance between NBC’s expectations and their new reality, and that it was the resultant environment of desperation that drove the failed Leno-in-prime-time insanity and thrashing of underperforming new shows. I’m arguing that without the writers’ strike, the exodus of viewers would have been more gradual and more uniform across the networks and that this wouldn’t have necessarily caused Chuck’s near-death trauma at the end of S2.
Second, your focus on the writers not being able to execute serial story well has merit. But the thing is, it’s not a static problem. There are all kinds of situational forces that can affect the quality of the show, and they can change over time. What I am suggesting is that the team that put together S2 was distracted and in disarray during the development of S3, for reasons I already covered. They didn’t learn and improve from their S2 serial-story malfunctions. They got worse. I don’t think their hearts were in it. Of the four episodes I actually *liked* from S3, two of them were written by LeJudkins, one by Klemmer and one by Miller and Rosenberg. It’s no surprise to me that two of the best episodes of that season were written by brand new writers, to whom the Chuck gig was a great opportunity to learn and prove themselves. The messy, incoherent and uninspired ones? Those were written, generally, by the old guard.
The compelling idea I’m trying to convey is that, had the show simply marched forth into S3 without the almost-cancellation, S3 could have been a lot more like S2. They would have had most or all of their previous budget. The writers wouldn’t have been so desperate to find lifeboats. Schwedak wouldn’t have been so anxious to front-load every story idea they could come up with into the current season in a frantic attempt to ward off extinction.
They may never have gotten good at telling serial story. But with all of the other factors in play I don’t think they ever got a fair chance.
Bill Sweatland
I guess I’m not arguing that the strike didn’t hurt. It clearly did. Once people decide what they watch in a certain time slot, it’s very hard to change their minds. But I still believe the major decline was during S3. People forget that the first 3 episodes of S3 averaged 3.0. I believe (I’m too lazy to look it up) that’s the 3 highest rated consecutive episodes in the show’s 5 seasons. I think that its average made it NBC’s highest hour long show for a lot of S3. Not only was S4 renewed early, it was given more than a full season order. Chuck’s ratings were very respectable for S2. If the disaster that became the Leno experiment hadn’t taken 5 hours out of the schedule, it was a sure thing for renewal. I think TPTB were certain of it. Why else would you close the season with “To Be Continued?”
Here’s the thing about S3. We can blame the individual episode writers. But they were faced with an impossible task. Schwedak had decided that they needed to keep C/S apart for one more season when the story screamed for something else. So predictably the episodes became hard to write. How would you like the task that Fedak handed Ali Adler of writing an enjoyable episode at the point where the story was in Fake Name? It was impossible. Chuck went from fun to watch to painful to watch. And you can see the numbers directly reflect that.
Even the episodes that you like were no better story line wise. It’s just that the story was in a better spot. It was a lot easier to write an enjoyable episode with C/S cavorting on a train spending most of their time in bed. But the ratings damage had been done. People had stopped watching never to return. And really that story was just as butchered. There was no romantic transition. They closed Other Guy with them maybe making love for the first time and came back in Honeymooners with them firmly a couple, completely skipping that fertile story telling period of new relationship uncertainty. Not only that, what changed? Chuck spent all of S3 putting being the hero ahead of being with Sarah. Why now when he could have been with her in Three Words? Sarah spent the whole season afraid that he was changing and wanting him out of the spy life. So the very second he agrees to run with her, she changes her mind. Shaw coming back from floating face down in the Seine (Chuck must have simply left the body there floating in the river) and amazingly being put in charge again with zero explanation or questions being asked is silly. Not only that, they both needed the one governor. That’s what they fought over. Chuck took it. Shaw went to prison without it. Why didn’t Shaw die?
I really don’t think that NBC ever invested in Chuck. It wasn’t their show like Heroes was. So they put it in that brutal timeslot and left it to fend for itself. Since it was relatively cheap to produce and they didn’t have a better option, it kept getting renewed. Even at the end of S4, with ratings in the pooper, it was often winning the NBC Monday night. I think that says a lot more about the state of NBC than the show.
Ardent Aardvark
The major decline did come during S3. I’m not fighting you there and stated the same thing earlier. But the ratings panic absolutely came during the last half of S2. Yes, the Leno debacle made renewal challenging, but keep in mind the atmosphere at NBC during that time is what caused the Leno gamble.
While I called out individual writers, it wasn’t to lay the blame at their feet for their particular slices of the season, it was to try and illustrate the fracture in the team that allowed the entire broken story to emerge unchecked. With Rosenberg, Miller, Adler and who knows who else looking for safe haven elsewhere, I’m betting they didn’t have enough time or energy remaining to rein in Fedak’s reckless excess. Same goes for Schwartz. And who can say what team factions were poisoned as some writers got development deals and some didn’t?
So that entire paragraph you just wrote on broken things in the story? Nolo contendere. :) Yes, they were broken. I’m saying that at least part of the reason why they were broken was because of the aforementioned team dysfunction. A dysfunction that was birthed in the panic of potential cancellation.
Bill Sweatland
I’ve often said that I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in that writer’s room. Because it had to occur to these people that their story didn’t make any sense. Did they know that and not care? Or were they afraid to challenge Fedak?
I get the sense, with little to offer as solid evidence, that it rankled Fedak that everybody was so interested in the love story. He was writing a comic book. He wanted to blow stuff up. I think you were probably right before although you were kidding. He was writing for the 12 and under crowd. I even think the ending was perhaps a petty comeuppance on his part.
Pike16
tell you that maybe the writers were wary, gunning for any option to
escape the supposedly the 'burning' ship(not that it is really an
excuse but for the sake of the cause...so be it), not Schwartz, never
Schwartz.
He was sitting well on a few job opportunities, even if CHUCK would've
been canceled. despite everything he might have projected, he was
never in any occupational(or the loss of it) danger.
Which actually makes his response(co-joined with Fedak, of course) to
the "chuckpocalypse" of S3, even more annoying and vexing.
Alex
On Mar 20, 8:36 pm, "Ardent Aardvark" <aardvark7...@embarqmail.com>
wrote:
>
> read more »
TechNerd
I'll throw a couple of more into the mix.
Chuck vs The 3D - Probably THE WORST episode of all 5 seasons. Think
"Spock's Brain" in Star Trek - TOS. It was even more of a
disappointment given the hype NBC did during the Superbowl promoting
the show and the broadcast 3D gimmick. Instead of using it as an
opportunity to hook new viewers in, pull out all the stops to produce
a great episode, what did we get? One of Fedak's absolutely worst
stories and scripts ever. Any first time viewer of Chuck would never
become a fan after the mess that was 3D. And they didn't. The entire
event was a completely missed opportunity.
Reboots - The constant "rebooting" of the show's tone and story line
from season to season was a complete mistake. Starting with S2 and
Schwartz/Fedak's pronouncements on rebooting the show, I just feel
that somehow the show runners lost sight of what made Chuck special.
The rebooting of each season with a new tone, attitude ("We going for
a darker Chuck") or theme, while maybe seeming like great tactical
decisions, were strategically the wrong directions to take the show.
To see a show start its first season bright, witty, clever, and
romantic and then morph into a darker, brooding, angst-y show was a
total misfire.
Angst - The ratcheting up of angst that started in S2 with the Jill
and Beefcake arcs was a creative cop out. Carrying it on into S3 where
your two leads practically don't interact for half a season was
disastrous. What we got was angst for angst's sake. Nothing more.
Nothing that advanced the characters.
The serial format - Bill mentioned this and I strongly agree on this
point. The multi-episode arcs, while adding to the Chuck mythology,
also distanced the show from a lot of folks who otherwise might have
loved the series if they could jump right in. Instead, in some ways
Chuck became like Lost or 24 where unless you had knowledge of the
events and characters that preceded an episode (the "Here's what you
might of missed...." not withstanding), you felt you were missing
something. I had more than a few folks I tried to interest in Chuck
come back after seeing an S3 or S4 episode and tell me "I didn't get
it." It's hard to attract new viewers when the show itself doesn't
lend itself to a casual viewer getting hooked.
The Intersect 2.0 - Another missed opportunity. Here you have Chuck
with this new, advanced capability that gives him not only
informational flashes, but also physical abilities the user normally
did not possess. Did we get that? No. We got a few instances of
playing guitar, speaking a language and then the same tired and
repetitive flash on kung-fu skills. There were so many creative
possibilities the Intersect 2.0 brought and instead it just fell
flat.
The Monday at 8:00 PM Time Slot - NBC doomed Chuck season after season
by sticking with the Monday at 8 slot. It had to face not 1 but 2
incredibly strong shows on ABC with Dancing with the Stars and CBS
with The Big Bang Theory. Had NBC been a bit more daring and put Chuck
in with NBC's Thurs. night comedies and airing it at maybe 9 or even
10 PM, it might have found more of an audience with NBC's stronger
lead-in shows that had a better target demographic and would have been
a natural fit with a show like Chuck. Instead, Chuck got stuck being
pounded on 2 sides for 4 seasons without making a dent in drawing off
viewers from it's 2 rivals.
>
> read more »
anon4utu anon4utu
Ardent Aardvark
Bill, have you ever spent time doing collaborative creative design? When a team is clicking it can be the most energizing experience imaginable. But when things aren’t working it can be the most frustrating and demoralizing experience imaginable. In those instances it takes strong leadership to step in and do the hard and often ego-bruising things necessary to get forward motion. Without it, a group will often just settle for whatever compromise they’ve managed to achieve, however unfulfilling it is or how weak it seems.
This is the kind of situation that I envision produced S3.
The Chuck writers broke their season-long arcs as a group. When Fedak unveiled what he wanted to do in S3, I would imagine that the writers’ room got quite divisive. I cannot imagine that there could possibly have been unity behind his plan, at least nothing genuine. At some point, Rosenbaum just flat out refused to come to work, and finally quit to go to “V” before the season was even over. The other writers dutifully took on their assigned episodes but whatever battles they fought were probably just rear-guard actions; their victories, pyrrhic. The episodes themselves bear witness to each writer’s struggle to make sense of the arc. It’s no surprise to me that after this experience, all of the old guard writers left the show.
With his minders neutered, Fedak was firmly ensconced on the throne. The jumbled, inarticulate mess that was S4 probably reflects his vision best (does anyone actually remember what that season was about, anyway?) Had this vision been brilliant and universally lauded, we could conclude that the writers were wrong and he was right. But after what we’ve seen, I’d say the opposite is more likely to be true.
Ardent Aardvark
Chuck vs. the Third Dimension probably represents, on balance, what Fedak
thinks are the best things about his show. Sit for a bit and ponder the plot
of that episode with its mustache-twirling, comic book villain; the Casey
(stern father figure) and Sarah (domineering mother figure)
characterizations; the juvenile humor; Chuck's constant humiliation and
emasculation. Let it soak in.
Yeah.
--
Bill Sweatland
I’m not sure that 3D was the worst episode. But it certainly was the worst missed opportunity. The prime spot after the Super Bowl along with the hyped 3d gimmick guarantied a ton of new eyeballs. It was time to put the strength of the show on display. And it was all teed up. In the prior episode Chuck told Sarah that he loved her for the first time by giving her a family heirloom. He was horrified when he saw her shoot Mauser in cold blood. It was a perfect opportunity to move the relationship forward without resolving it. Yet amazingly Chuck and Sarah weren’t in the same scenes for almost the entire episode.
There was another opportunity to attract new viewers. Again a Fedak episode. Chuck had all the hype of coming back early to save NBC. It had the plumb Sunday night after football timeslot. It got a 3.1 demo. And what did they give us? Pink Slip. Chuck callously shoving his ticket back in Sarah’s hand and going off to fail at being a spy.
Fedak simply doesn’t think that the love story was the main draw of the show.
But for my money, the worst Fedak episode, and hence the worst of the series was First Class. Chuck is dispatched to retrieve a key that The Ring is somehow smuggling out of the country. Not sure why since they didn’t have the thing that the key opened. Then they hid it on a dead body to fool the customs officials who wouldn’t have looked at it twice instead of having it in the pocket of the big strong bad guy who was on the same plane. Then Chuck callously ignores Sarah’s plead to not go on this mission and amazingly comes home with another girlfriend who works as a Nerd Tech but flies first class to Paris. Other than those rather obvious flaws, the rest of the episode… well, it stunk too.
Bill Sweatland
See, that’s my main question. Was this a collaboration? Or was it a dictator giving out assignments?
It’s hard to speculate because the only spin we ever got was that of a big love fest sharing pizza. All we can do is judge the product. And let’s be honest, if we got that storyline from a high school creative writing assignment, we’d fail it.
But it still begs the question why. I refuse to believe that this group of professionals weren’t aware of the huge holes in their story. Did they question and get shot down? Were there network pressures that we’re unaware of? Did they just go with the flow and leave at the first chance? Because none of their reasons for leaving (Chuck’s chances for renewal) made sense. Chuck outlived all of their new shows, or at least the ones I know of (V, No Ordinary Family).
Ardent Aardvark
It’s Animal Farm. :)
In other words, a collaboration when you’re in sync with the boss, and a dictatorship when you’re not. Just like most human organizations. Having watched a lot of creative teams in action, I’ve come to understand that a team’s success and failure can be highly contextual—it depends on the details of the task their given and how that matches up with the passion and proclivities of the team members. In the case of Chuck, a team that sank its teeth in on the S1 and S2 arcs may have come apart trying to mesh together under S3’s. And a leader who deferred to more seasoned writers in the first couple of seasons due to inexperience may have “felt his oats” in S3 and pushed harder for his own vision.
You keep asking the question, “didn’t they see the holes in the story?” I’d say that yeah, they probably did see a lot of holes. What you don’t know is how bad things were before the version we got to see. You don’t know how much personal capital they expended arguing for what they got. In the end, they all want to remain employed, even if it’s clear that their boss is determined to destroy his own product. So they keep writing and start trying to setup something somewhere else. This, based on the writers’ exodus, looks like what happened. The new writers? I’m guessing Fedak hired them with an eye to whether they’d go along with his preferences. I think by and large they were mediocre. I’d have fired the lot of them except for LeJudkins and Newman. But not before firing Fedak. ;)
Oh, one last thing, are you kidding me with the “none of their reasons for leaving made sense”? Chuck was a potential casualty every season. Sure, we can look back now and see how it outlived a lot of shows, but that was certainly not the smart money at the time. Also, the severely restricted budget did not offer the prospect of increased compensation. Who’d want to stick with that if the grass was greener elsewhere?
Bill Sweatland
Oh, I don’t know. V only aired like 5 episodes, didn’t it? Did NOF have a 2nd season? I’m not sure that Chuck wasn’t always a better bet. I think that Ali Adler even took a demotion of sorts. She was an EP on Chuck.
Ardent Aardvark
Yeah, see, I don’t understand that PoV.
To me, it’s like:
· The boss seems destined to pursue story elements that I, personally, find unsatisfying and I believe will bring the show to ruin.
· The day to day battles in the writers’ room are painful and demoralizing.
· The budget has been slashed and there’s no realistic prospect for increased compensation.
· I can move to a show that could become a hit, who knows? Whatever chance one of these shows has, it’s better than Chuck’s, which has already proven not to be a hit.
To me, it’s a clear win to bolt asap.
Do you expect these people to have the ability to predict the future? Adler went to NOF during its first season. Miller went to Human Target as a replacement show runner for its second season, which is a huge opportunity for a former EP. Also, you can’t use Rosenbaum’s move to V as a model—he pretty much ejected from Chuck and was looking for somewhere to land. Working on V, whatever its prospects, was better than being unemployed.
I can easily imagine a situation where, all things considered, a smart writer could sense Chuck’s fortunes had settled into a downhill slide and it was time to head for the exits.
Bill Sweatland
But see, you’re assuming something that I’m trying to prove. We have no idea that there was discourse or discontentment in that room, just that it seems reasonable.
If Ali, et al made good career decisions, it sort of lessons the idea that they were so miserable on Chuck that any job would seem attractive.
I mean, I’ve been in the situation where the very next person to offer me a job, I was going to accept.
dude029
the incoherence of the story Bill and you're right. Chuck had likable
elements of fantasy but can we really name one damn thing after S2
that was believable and consistent to the story? Is there anything
that was satisfactory that happened after S2 ? Sure Chuck and Sarah
reconciled after the silliness of Prague, but to do it without
resolving killer issues made it seem forced to me. I loved Phase III,
Sarahs " great love for Chuck episode", but I also remember Sarah
freaking out, not wanting Shaw to sacrifice himself "alone" in
American Hero and racing to the site after Chuck had locked her in
Castle. Season 3 killed the romance of Chuck/Sarah for me. Timothy
Dalton notwithstanding, the Mama B/Volkoff arc was terrible and made
Mary Bartowski the worst mother in the history of television ( sorry
Linda ). Season 4 kills the mythology of Chuck. We can name countless
examples of inconsistency and incoherence but it all comes back to one
thing for me. What we saw on screen was Fedak's growing influence to
assert his vision. He didn't have the budget to execute it expansively
but I remember him fawning over the motorcycle and the paratroopers in
"Cliffhanger" ( as if anyone cared about that shit ) while Sarah lies
a dying in a hospital with nary a scene. This was a guy in charge who
appeared to be in constant conflict with the show he wanted to depict
and the show he knew the fans wanted. In the end, we both lost. Us
even moreso, with his four finger finale. If I'm sitting in the
writers room mid S3 watching this clusterf#*k happening onscreen in
conjunction with the declining ratings, I'm logically thinking "
Fedak has or will f*#k this shit up, because he is a clueless fuck.
This will never last. Hell, It's what we all were thinking . Had it
been on any network other than pathetic NBC, it would have dead mid
S3.
On Mar 21, 6:05 pm, "Bill Sweatland" <B...@GroupSCS.com> wrote:
> But see, you're assuming something that I'm trying to prove. We have no
> idea that there was discourse or discontentment in that room, just that it
> seems reasonable.
>
> If Ali, et al made good career decisions, it sort of lessons the idea that
> they were so miserable on Chuck that any job would seem attractive.
>
> I mean, I've been in the situation where the very next person to offer me a
> job, I was going to accept.
>
> _____
>
> Behalf Of Ardent Aardvark
> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 5:57 PM
> To: chuck...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: RE: [Chuck vs. the GoogleGroup] What killed Chuck?
>
> Yeah, see, I don't understand that PoV.
>
> To me, it's like:
>
>
> demoralizing.
>
> * The budget has been slashed and there's no realistic prospect for
> increased compensation.
>
> * I can move to a show that could become a hit, who knows? Whatever
> proven not to be a hit.
>
> To me, it's a clear win to bolt asap.
>
> Do you expect these people to have the ability to predict the future? Adler
> went to NOF during its first season. Miller went to Human Target as a
> replacement show runner for its second season, which is a huge opportunity
> Working on V, whatever its prospects, was better than being unemployed.
>
> I can easily imagine a situation where, all things considered, a smart
> writer could sense Chuck's fortunes had settled into a downhill slide and it
> was time to head for the exits.
>
> From: chuck...@googlegroups.com [mailto:chuck...@googlegroups.com] On
> Behalf Of Bill Sweatland
> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 5:36 PM
> To: chuck...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: RE: [Chuck vs. the GoogleGroup] What killed Chuck?
>
> Oh, I don't know. V only aired like 5 episodes, didn't it? Did NOF have a
> 2nd season? I'm not sure that Chuck wasn't always a better bet. I think
> that Ali Adler even took a demotion of sorts. She was an EP on Chuck.
>
> _____
>
> Behalf Of Ardent Aardvark
> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2012 4:32 PM
> To: chuck...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: RE: [Chuck vs. the GoogleGroup] What killed Chuck?
>
> It's Animal Farm. :)
>
> In other words, a collaboration when you're in sync with the boss, and a
> dictatorship when you're not. Just like most human organizations. Having
> watched a lot of creative teams in action, I've come to understand that a
> Behalf Of Ardent Aardvark
> Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2012 8:36 PM
> To: chuck...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: RE: [Chuck vs. the GoogleGroup] What killed Chuck?
>
> The major decline did come during S3. I'm not fighting you there and stated
> the same thing earlier. But the ratings panic absolutely came during the
> last half of S2. Yes, the Leno debacle made renewal challenging, but keep in
> mind the atmosphere at NBC during that time is what caused the Leno gamble.
>
> While I called out individual writers, it wasn't to lay the blame at their
> feet for their particular slices of the season, it was to try and illustrate
> the fracture in the team that allowed the entire broken story to emerge
> unchecked. With Rosenberg, Miller, Adler and who knows who else looking for
> safe haven elsewhere, I'm betting they didn't have enough time or energy
> remaining to rein in Fedak's reckless excess. Same goes for Schwartz. And
> who can say what team factions were poisoned as some writers got development
> deals and some didn't?
>
> So that entire paragraph you just wrote on broken things in the story? Nolo
> contendere. :) Yes, they were broken. I'm saying that at least part of the
> reason why they were broken was because of the aforementioned team
> dysfunction. A dysfunction that was birthed in the panic of potential
> cancellation.
>
>
> read more »
Ardent Aardvark
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V
-----Original Message-----
From: chuck...@googlegroups.com [mailto:chuck...@googlegroups.com] On
Behalf Of dude029
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2012 1:05 AM
To: Chuck vs. the GoogleGroup
--
Bill Sweatland
Yeah,
I think you are both missing my point.
I’m certainly not arguing that the storyline was a joke. I’m the one who has been consistently ranting about that for 3 years now.
I’m more curious why. You paint a picture of Fedak, the friend of the boss, as the bully in the room. Of him dishing out wild storylines with the main theme of blowing crap up… and the seasoned professionals around him looking at each other in embarrassed silence, vowing to find another job as soon as possible.
And it may well have happened that way.
Certainly we can probably safely deduce that there wasn’t a master plan. There are far too many scenes one can point to that are simply obsoleted by where the story went down the road. Dream Job is a classic example. Orion tells Chuck that he can’t imagine what a horror it would be to have all of those secrets trapped in his head and how he never imagined the Intersect would find his son. Nice poignant but throw-away scene. Except that a few episodes later we find out that Orion has his own intersect, and had been working with Bryce all along. Moreover, we later learn that Chuck downloaded the intersect as a little boy. Not only that, they undertook the dangerous and desperate move of breaking into Roark’s lap, when Orion knew that he had a device sitting in his secret basement lab that took away the intersect. No way were those future events known when they were sitting in the writer’s room developing Dream Job. Or they wouldn’t have done those things. They were clearly making it up as they went along.
I’m still curious about the dynamic in that room. Fedak was the least experienced one there. I know something about group dynamics. Egos rule in those situations. It’s hard for me to believe that the seasoned pros in that room wouldn’t have pointed out the inconsistencies. After all, those episodes became part of their resumes as well.
So it’s possible that Fedak wasn’t the emotional leader of that room. Perhaps someone else with a strong personality was.
We may never know.
Ardent Aardvark
Not a bully in the classical sense. More of a passive-aggressive, stubbornly insistent child.
If I had to guess, I’d say that the balance of forces at the show’s inception was between a wide-eyed Fedak who had never done anything like this before, and a group of seasoned professionals. He was suddenly put in the position of having to make a hundred decisions a day, all with six figures per-production day riding on it. It’s hard to imagine he didn’t defer to the more experienced team members. I’d think he’d have Schwartz on hot-dial for his producer duties and let the writers hash out their own meritocracy, with the stronger personalities (Rosenbaum?) leading the discussion. They probably treated Fedak like a newb. The ill-prepared son of the boss who skipped over apprenticeship out of nepotism.
Over time, as Fedak got more confident in his role, I’m sure he started throwing his weight around, pushing for storylines that the other writers disliked, forcing elements for “producer” or “network” reasons in a way the other writers couldn’t defend. And as these writers found themselves losing arguments that were more about story fundamentals than personal taste, I’m sure the dissatisfaction with their job grew. As you pointed out previously, and that I agree with, these writers didn’t get crappy suddenly in S3. They were just forced to eat a giant shit sandwich. Their uninspired, forced efforts were the result. I don’t blame them for this. It’s hard to participate in the tearing down of something you love.
There are various bits of circumstantial evidence that support this conjecture, from Adler’s rushed addition to the S2 finale to the leaked Dan Curry comments about Scott Rosenbaum, to the many interviews where Fedak seems preoccupied with the facile and juvenile, which the fan polls clearly demonstrated hardly anyone cared about. I’m probably forgetting many more. None of them are conclusive, but taken as a constellation of data points they do form a rough picture.
Circling back to my whole point of starting this thread, the Writers Strike began a chain of events that, I still strongly believe, exacerbated NBC’s panic, which instigated the Leno experiment, which cut the available prime-time hours, which forced the drastic budget cut, which produced the sudden aura of impending doom, which knocked the balance of creative forces on the show off kilter. It’s just a theory and I’m willing to accept I’m wrong. But I haven’t heard anything that directly disputes this yet. Arguing that the plots were crap misses my point. I know they were crap, there’s no debate there. All I’m arguing is that any hope they had of getting better was impacted severely by the environment post S2. The atmosphere changed from one of competitive conquest to one of desperate defense. In any emergency, most people put aside their personal agendas and focus on holding on to what they have. I think that in the vacuum left by this retraction, Fedak got his disastrous S3 plan past the other writers, who stopped trying to fight for Chuck and started looking for someplace else to work.
Bill Sweatland
Okay. I’m not really arguing with your point. I’m not sure what NBC’s mindset was and how the strike impacted it. I suspect that Chuck was not at the head of their worries. Nor was it high on their list of priorities.
But I do have a couple of facts to introduce into evidence.
Remember this video?
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/59432687/Chuck%20-%20Romantic%20Writer%20-%20Video%20-%20NBC.com.mpg
It is Ali Adler pleading with fans to give them a chance just before S3 aired.
If my memory serves, it was just before S3. Certainly after the first half of S3 was written. Remember, they started shooting in the fall so they could be ready if called upon early. It doesn’t seem like a frustrated person about to jump ship. Not that it is conclusive, she very well might have been whistling in the dark.
There are also at least 2 instances after S1 where NBC gave Chuck a chance.
The plum after-the-superbowl show with a highly publicized 3d gimmick. That episode attracted a lot of viewers. They quickly turned the channel. It’s already documented how bad the episode was.
S3 began early with a ton of hype and the plum Sunday Night Football time slot. I believe those first 3 episodes rated 3.1, 3.0, and 2.9. Thirty-five percent higher than it’s S2 average. Had we gotten even average Chuck episodes, who knows how many of those new people would have stuck?
Ardent Aardvark
Yes, I remember the video.
As I said, I think the writers loved the show and were hoping that what they were doing then would pan out. Maybe they just couldn’t see how the episodes would play until they were actually put together. Maybe they were in denial, I don’t know. I can easily see Ali putting that video together on what had come before and on faith.
If you want me to agree that a superbly written and produced Chuck in S3 could have swam upstream against the overall erosion of broadcast TV viewers, then yes, that’s easy to agree with. But that borders on the idealistic. What I do think is that if you remove the acute panic from the equation, and the writers go into S3 with the same budget and confidence in the future of the show (or at least with undiminished momentum from S2), you might get a substantially altered outcome.
It would still erode over time because of Fedak.
But my argument is that this would have happened at a slower pace, and some of the decisions on arcs might have gone differently.
As you said before, we’ll probably never know.
dude029
leader must emerge. As I stated earlier, the proof is in what we got
and what was depicted. It's like ChuckTV, where the great minds
attempt to convince us of what the runners really wanted to say with
the caveat that Chuck is a show for smart people so if you don't see
it their idealistic way....you don't belong. For the writers, it is
their profession, their livelihood, if you fight and lose your
visionary struggle you have two choices, acquiesce or leave. Fedak won
the struggle and Sarah Walker , who was killed in S3, was buried and
subsequently spat upon in S5. Yes, we enjoyed her journey,we
celebrated in the hope of seeing her obtain what she desired and what
we felt she deserved, but that wasn't what Fedak wanted and he wrote
the finale. All the red herrings laid out among each episode of a
happy ending, when the truth was he wanted to devastate and destroy
her just like Shaw did. I reject the notion that he wanted to set up a
continuation for Chuck. It could just as easily been done with a less
ambiguous ending. Chuck is the Intersect once again. A reset must
still be reconciled. He could have done the ending differently
couldn't he ? It's difficult for me to think about it in terms of
what I believe was his his intent ( of which I truly have no
confirmation) and what was actually depicted ( of which I do).
On Mar 22, 6:43 pm, "Ardent Aardvark" <aardvark7...@embarqmail.com>
wrote:
> 0-%20NBC.com.mpg
> It is Ali Adler pleading with fans to give them a chance just before S3
> aired.
>
> If my memory serves, it was just before S3. Certainly after the first half
> of S3 was written. Remember, they started shooting in the fall so they
> could be ready if called upon early. It doesn't seem like a frustrated
> person about to jump ship. Not that it is conclusive, she very well might
> have been whistling in the dark.
>
> There are also at least 2 instances after S1 where NBC gave Chuck a chance.
>
> The plum after-the-superbowl show with a highly publicized 3d gimmick. That
> episode attracted a lot of viewers. They quickly turned the channel. It's
> already documented how bad the episode was.
>
> S3 began early with a ton of hype and the plum Sunday Night Football time
> slot. I believe those first 3 episodes rated 3.1, 3.0, and 2.9.
> Thirty-five percent higher than it's S2 average. Had we gotten even average
> Chuck episodes, who knows how many of those new people would have stuck?
>
>
> read more »