With the fall season of primetime television underway, the knives are out and the chopping blocks ready as critics, network heads, and, most importantly, the general viewing public, collectively decide which new shows will survive and which will be buried.

It’s always a bloody affair, one that can become as much a spectacle as the Roman amphitheater, fans waiting with bated breath to see which direction the ruling thumbs will point.

Personally, it was never something I attended much from the stands. Professionally, though, it is my line of work as a writer/producer in the arena of one-hour drama, which regularly puts me in the ring among pen-wielding colleagues and hungry lions.

The job description is hardly gladiatorial, but in an “empire of illusion” like ours, to quote the author Chris Hedges, the virtual comparison stands.

As one who ended up in the business despite my predisposed cynicism towards it, I was humbled early on by seeing from the inside what an extraordinary burden it is to run a television show. [Read more...]