TV Tuesday: Showrunners As Stars

[yourlibrarian]

Saw an article recently about how due to the strikes, film directors are having to do publicity for their projects. On the TV side this would be more equivalent to the showrunners.

Does it matter to you who the showrunner is? What do you think of showrunners who engage with fans online?

Comments

[feurioo]

Neil Gaiman is the only showrunner I follow online. That's mainly because, for whatever reason, Good Omens (TV) remains my fixation of the month. After irrationally disliking the man for years, I now actually find his Tumblr quite amusing.

I usually do not care about showrunners. They sort of disappear behind the project unless, of course, it's a situation like Bill Hader doing Barry. But even in that case, I didn't particularly care about his vision.

[yourlibrarian]

Your comment about Gaiman reminds me of how sometimes writers move from book to show. Someone has been discussing taking up Justified and Elmore Leonard's son ended up being a producer for it. I suspect that these sorts of ties can be considered to give credibility to different projects.

[olivermoss]

I think showrunners are very important. I am not aware of them on all the shows I watch, but one of my favorite writers is John Rogers who was showrunner on Leverage and has talked a lot about showrunning. Show runners have a ton of influence and how good they are has a major impact on shows, it's just not always a visible one.

That the state of the industry was making it impossible for people to get the training they needed to become good showrunners is one of the issues in the WGA strike. (Present tense because there is a deal, but it's not ratified.)

[yourlibrarian]

Yes, let's hope it ends up being a good deal for them!

[olivermoss]

It's been unanimously ratified and the strike is set to end at midnight! Sounds like they got what they wanted

[senmut]

I think because I can recall tales of Roddenberry at conventions, this makes sense to me?

But also, some showrunners have more brand recognition than others. Like Dick Wolf, Donald Bellisario, and Gene Roddenberry were actual household names for my tv-mad family growing up.

Then I looked at it from my adulthood, and realized it's kind of been here? The X-Files' Chris Carter was frequently engaging the fans when he had a hand on the show, for instance.

That said, there's probably far more shows that I have NO IDEA who is behind it, and don't need to know.

And you get the reverse of Chris Carter when you look at Game of Thrones' showrunners, who fans seem to uniformly dislike for butting in to fan commentary.

[yourlibrarian]

Yeah it does seem to vary but as you point out, it's not new so much as perhaps more of a selling point? For example, Dick Wolf shows or Shonda Rhimes shows can be sold by just being their shows. And back in the 70s, Aaron Spelling had a bit of a reputation too with a string of hits (which reached all the way into the 90s if we consider 90210).

However you're right that very often one knows nothing about the production side of most shows on TV. Maybe part of that is also because there's so many now!

[shadowkat]

Depends? Some shows are more ensemble efforts - and the showrunner is important but it's kind of irrelevant, and they turn-over with each season. Other shows are "auteur" or the show-runner pretty much is the dictator or sole writer of the enterprise. And every script has their fingerprints on it.
That matters. If it's ensemble with a lot of turn-over, not so much.

Procedurals or episodic series tend to have multiple writers, the producers matter more, and the writers aren't that big a deal. For example? I doubt most people know who writes NCIS or cares.

But a show like Fargo is all Noah Hawley. Or Babylon 5 - that JS. Or BSG v.2 - Ron Moore.
They have their fingerprints on it. The writers matter on those shows. Same with Good Omens - if you don't like Neil Gaiman - skip Good Omens. Or Doctor Who - the show-runner of Doctor Who sets the tone of that series.

Serials - it matters more. Daytime Soaps - the showrunners are a big deal. Same with any serial for that matter. Taylor Sheridan is Yellowstone. Joss Whedon controls all his series with an iron fist.
So, depends.

[yourlibrarian]

Yeah the branding seems to make a difference. Your comment about Sheridan makes me think about the dispute with Costner and who the fans would likely back.

[kalloway]

I unfortunately only tend to know who showrunners are when they're someone whose work I'd actually prefer to avoid.

I think the ship has long since sailed on interactions with fans, but it's not something I'd look for/expect. I've seen it go poorly too many times.

[misbegotten]

>>I've seen it go poorly too many times.<<

Right? Most recently, I saw a showrunner bad mouthing fans on Tumblr for liking a certain ship. Wow.

[feurioo]

Deets?

[misbegotten]

I don't have the link but it was the guy from The Bear.

[feurioo]

Yikes! Please tell me it wasn't about Carmy/Syd. That's the most popular ship in the fandom, afaik. (If I'm annoying you, please ignore! I just can't find anything recent about this and I *love* following fandom drama like this.)

[misbegotten]

I don't actually watch The Bear, so I can't tel you. I think it was the main character and a Black female character that he was objecting to shipping, on the grounds that he only meant for them to be friends. Whatevs. Showrunners shouldn't wade into that sort of stuff.

[kalloway]

Oh wow. Well now I both want to spite-ship it and avoid anything that showrunner ever touches.

[jo]

I honestly didn't even know what a showrunner was until fairly recently (the last year or two maybe?). So it would never occur to me that someone like Gene Roddenberry or Chris Carter were showrunners, because that term didn't exist back when they were active (dunno -- is Chris Carter still doing things?). The only such people I've ever paid the slightest attention to on Twitter are the folks behind Outlander (Matt B Roberts and Maril Davis). So basically, I don't care about showrunners at all.

[yourlibrarian]

I know that certain showrunners can get a program launched, but it's also the case that they're either not very hands on or else they can change partway through a series. Sometimes this can make a significant difference in its direction (I'm thinking ST: Discovery) but in others, the show continues on a pretty similar track.