When you make the judgement as a network that there are only three candidates, you are censoring points of view.
I think 'Teenage Wasteland' was one of those cult hits like 'My So-Called Life', something that came along and got a lot of viewers and then somehow fell into a bad timeslot that nobody ever watched, and then the network pulled the plug prematurely.
When E! ended the show, it wasn't because it was low-rated. It was because E! did not want to pay union rerun dues.
There was one family drama on television when we took out 'The Fosters' - 'Parenthood'. Everybody thought it sounded like a great show, but nobody thought there was a home for it.
When people look at the ratings and they're bad, I think people can get an idea of "Why would they even make the show?" And to a certain extent, original programming for any network is a loss leader to try to get you to keep the channel on your cable package.
Normally we go in, we do a series and then that's it, we're axed!
It'll be up to ESPN when I leave. And when ESPN says they're going to move in another direction, I'll say, 'Thank you very much. It's been a great run.' Because it has.
We did a version of 'You Bet' called 'Wanna Bet' in the U.S. a couple of years ago. It was a good little show but the network put it on over the summer on Mondays so nobody watched it.
'Pasadena' erred on the side being too dark. That was probably the one thing about it, in retrospect, why it didn't get picked up.
The show had run its course on the Fox network.
I don't know why it was canceled, but 'Mancuso, FBI,' it should have had a good long run, but it wasn't picked up. Maybe there was a problem with me. I have no idea.
Being in the industry, I've seen many situations where someone will get the call from the network where they say 'You guys have 5 episodes to wrap it up.' Then all your long-term story arcs gotta get wrapped up in five episodes because that's how many episodes you got left. I would hate to see that happen to 'Castle'.
Brimstone was great. That was another occasion when they called me in to do the pilot and it turned into a regular job, which made me quite happy. It was another really good experience and we were all so surprised when they pulled the plug on it.
The pilot of 'Seinfeld' was made and dropped. 'Seinfeld' was not supposed to go to series.
I mean, I gotta say one of the greatest victories on that show was when we got picked up for the back nine of the first season, and they made it a full order.
Year Two is a critical year for any television show.
When a network passes, you really mourn the show. The official state of grief in Hollywood is saying you're taking around a dead pilot.
There is a 90% failure rate for most shows. It's difficult for any show to write for the next season.
Nobody would let us do 'Crisis' again.
Basicly what I had to do was do a 7 minute board and pitch it to a room of big wigs from the network and based on that they determined if I would get a short or not.
I had developed a sitcom with UPN, but it wasn't picked up.
I once pitched this show that was just like 'Quantum Leap,' in terms of the set-up, and I got a pass because they said 'Quantum Leap' didn't work, even though it was on for six or seven seasons. You can't say 'Quantum Leap' didn't work!
I've been invited to do 'Dancing With the Stars' three times, but Lifetime said no.
Nothing's worse than telling your family you got a pilot, hearing the pilot got picked up, and then finding out it's not in the fall lineup.
There is no way, if I was running ABC, I would have kept me on the air.
