You don't want to be on a show that no one wants to see, and then think your phone is going to be ringing off the hook to do other jobs. I'm not tethered to the fact that my demise may be reached this season or next season, or whatever.
The reason for certain shows not doing well or as per expectations is that they were not aired on not so popular channels.
'McHale's Navy' was a disaster. I'm not pretending it wasn't a disaster.
I've been involved in some movies that I really thought were going to take off that didn't. And then I've thought, 'This movie's not going anywhere,' and it worked. The same thing with television shows.
You can have a great script, and it can be a great show, but for whatever reason, it just doesn't take the public's interest.
There is a 90% failure rate for most shows. It's difficult for any show to write for the next season.
I feel incredibly passionate about 'Bunheads,' but the network was not supportive of the show, and you have to have that.
Networks can typically invest tens of millions of dollars in the development of a pilot. And if they put the show on the air and it fails, that's all lost money. There's no monetization of a broken series.
I was vested emotionally in 'Battlestar.' I really loved the thematic things. I don't feel it really got its shot, and I can't blame anyone else; I was at the center of that.
I love everybody at TNT, and they were totally behind 'Trust Me.' I totally loved that show. I feel like it should have had more life.
'Bionic Woman' changed direction too much from episode to episode, which I think is why it lost momentum.
I'm very sad 'Life' wasn't a big hit, But it was undone by politics at NBC. It was intense. I moved my wife, and we had two children back to back. So working those hours and living abroad in L.A. was a handful. But it was a great experience.
When a show fails to destroy the competition-and it can fail while attracting 20 million viewers-it is itself destroyed.
I was in 'Hair,' which didn't work in London, but it was a show we all believed in.
And generally the shows I'm in fail really big.
You know, they wanted to do a Broadway album and every show was kind of a bomb. There was no music at all.
When it is perceived that a show has gone awry, the pressure is staggering, and as a writer caught in that storm, it feels like you are being attacked by jackals.
If anything's going to go wrong, it'd go wrong during 'Peter Pan,' not 'The Sound of Music.'
I've done, like, eight pilots, and every time, everyone thinks it's going to go for 10 years.
We tried to do a show once every three weeks to a month. We'd always do a new show. It was not successful. It did not become the Matt & Ben show, but it taught me what I like to do as an actor and what I like to do comedically.
I've seen too many comics who got their own shows and were undone because they worked for an executive producer who didn't understand their comedy or their sensibility.
It's still word of mouth that is going to make or break a show, and while critics can't help a show, they can hurt it.
Season 4 can be deadly for a show that's been a hit show.
It's hard to know at any stage whether a show is going to work or not. Every few years, a different trend comes along.
Some shows do nosedive at the end, or some piece of content could become incredibly controversial and affect the way the show is seen.
