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Firewall & Iceberg Podcast, episode 169: 'Zero Hour,' 'Cult,' 'Scandal' & more

Dan and Alan also review Beyonce's HBO documentary, discuss the dire state of NBC and ask: who gets to end a show?

By Alan Sepinwall Wednesday, Feb 13, 2013 3:30 PM

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Travel has impacted the Firewall & Iceberg Podcast schedule of late. Dan was in London earlier this week, so you get a Wednesday show, and I'll be on vacation next week, which means no show at all. But in this one, we discuss "Zero Hour," "Cult," Beyonce, "Scandal," Super Bowl showcases and more. The lineup: 

"Zero Hour" (00:01:10 - 00:13:40)
"Cult" (00:13:40 - 00:28:30)
"Beyonce: Life Is But a Dream" (00:28:30 - 00:36:25)
NBC's return to suckage (00:36:25 - 00:53:50)
Listener Mail - The Rise of "Scandal" (00:55:05 - 01:11:30)
Listener Mail - Who gets to end shows? (01:11:30 - 01:18:20)
Listener Mail - post-Super Bowl "Elementary" (01:18:25 - 01:24:30)
 
As always, you can subscribe to The Firewall & Iceberg Podcast over at the iTunes Store, where you can also rate us and comment on us. Or you can always follow our RSS Feed, download the MP3 file or stream it on Dan's blog.

And as always, feel free to e-mail us questions for the podcast.

Alan-sepinwall-sm
Alan Sepinwall
Sr. Editor, What's Alan Watching
Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com
Related Searches: Firewall & Iceberg, scandal, cult, Zero Hour, Beyonce

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    rugman11

    With respect to the HIMYM discussion, I think a lot of it can boil down to two things: First, and most obviously, as we've seen, showrunners are expendable. If Bays/Thomas decided to leave, CBS could have replaced them.

    The other thing, which I'm surprised you didn't make a bigger deal of, is the fact that this is their job. And, in contrast to Carlton Cuse and Ronald D. Moore, this was Bays's and Thomas's first steady gig and could very well be the best paying job they ever have. If my employer gave me a $1 million one-year contract (I have no idea what they make) and my other option is to try and create a whole new product that will probably never be successful as this one, I'm probably taking the money. I mean, look at Ronald Moore's post BSG career. Here's a guy with 20 years experience in show biz (including long runs on long-running shows) and his last three years have looked like this:

    2009 - Caprica (Pilot picked up, didn't run the show, canceled after one season)
    2009 - Virtuality (Pilot not picked up)
    2009 - The Things (Script scrapped)
    2010 - Wild Wild West remake (Stalled in development)
    2010 - McCullough (Stalled in development)
    2011 - 17th Precinct (Pilot not picked up)
    2011 - Hangtown (Stalled in development)
    2012 - Outlander (Picked up by Starz)
    2012 - Helix (Picked up by Syfy)

    If a guy with 20 years experience running good (and occasionally popular) shows can spend four years without his work appearing on air, I can understand the hesitation of a couple of guys with little more than Letterman sketches and a handful of Oliver Beene episodes on the resume to leave their first hit show.

    I think that we as viewers tend to view television as art without also realizing that, at the same time, it's these people's jobs. Maybe Jason Segel or Alec Baldwin can feel comfortable about landing on their feet after the leave, but for writers I don't think that's as much the case.

    February 14, 2013 at 12:49PM EST Reply to Comment
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      joel That's a terrible comparison. Ronald Moore does genre TV, and usually he's doing sci-fi. Genre TV is hard to sell, but Sci-fi is really hard to sell, even on SyFy, let alone any other network. Plus, even his "hit" shows have had extremely limited and specific audiences versus their costs to produce. If I were a network executive, I'd be very leery of getting into business with Ronald Moore. On paper, nothing about BSG said "successful" or "hit" before it aired. In fact, it was being widely and openly mocked by its target audience. The fact that it even went to series was sheer luck as much as it was the quality of the actual mini-series. SyFy was desperate for a new series, preferably a hit, and the timing worked out great.

      February 14, 2013 at 7:34PM EST
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      rugman11 Perhaps, but I think the point still stands that it's one thing for established television showrunners to set end dates for their shows (especially serialized genre shows that by nature need to have time for closure) and another thing entirely to suggest that two showrunners who've never really had steady gigs before this one should just up and say "we're done."

      And even while lamenting his failures, Moore still had a steady job developing shows for Sony (thanks to his past success) during this period. Could Bays/Thomas get this kind of gig instead of just shopping new ideas? Maybe. But I can understand why they'd be reluctant to stop making more HIMYM.

      February 14, 2013 at 7:58PM EST
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    Tom

    No Southland discussion? No screeners? Dan's travel schedule?

    February 14, 2013 at 7:00PM EST Reply to Comment

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