Posted on 07/29/2013 6:43:34 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
With Sean Hayes' gay sitcom on the way, executives try to explain why Ryan Murphy's comedy failed
Even with Fox's "Glee" and FX's "American Horror Story" under his belt, Ryan Murphy wasn't able to score another hit with his NBC comedy, "The New Normal."
Why didn't it find its audience? NBC's top executives seemed to grapple with the answer to that question themselves Saturday in a Television Critics Association press tour panel.
"We really wanted to get behind Ryan Murphy," NBC entertainment president Jennifer Salke said. "Maybe, something about the tone of it. It's really one of those things where you look at each other and think, 'Why didn't this show do better than it did?' It was the time for it. It was smart. It was original. It felt like it had breakthrough tone and originality to it. It got people talking and we thought it would build into something."
More Americans, and politicians on both sides of the aisle, are supporting gay marriage. But not enough people backed "The New Normal," about a gay couple who adopt a child.
When it premiered in September, the pilot episode banked 6.88 million total viewers. Its finale in April scored around half that number.
"I don't believe it didn't work because it had gay characters," NBC Entertainment chairman Bob Greenblatt said. He pointed to the success of 90s series "Will & Grace."
"It was in a different time and in a different lineup of stronger shows and stronger lead-ins and things like that," he continued. "Like Jen said, we think the country is moving in the right direction, the Supreme Court is doing the right thing and there's a growing support for gay relationships and gay marriages in this country. It may have been slightly ahead of its time, because that really was the focus of it: The gay marriage and the baby. But, we feel no regret whatsoever about putting it out there, and feel enormously proud of it."
With Sean Hayes' new sitcom, "Sean Saves the World," premiering this fall, the network will again feature a gay parent, but take a different approach.
"We're drafting off a little bit on the 'Will & Grace' thing," Greenblatt said. "It’s a brightly lit situation comedy. He's single, so maybe it will feel more universal to people who aren't gay and don't have people in their lives in gay relationships."
"That show is trying to be a family show in its essence," Salke interjected. "Ryan Murphy, in his shows, likes to push an idea in every episode, something he's grappling with and thinks people should be thinking about and is more issue-oriented in that way. And maybe that didn't help it. Still again, something we would stand by. But the DNA of the other show is completely different only based on in its creative origins, not in that we're guiding it in a way that is less gay or issue-oriented."
Try watching the gay guy on Million Dollar Listings New York at his wedding. I thought the show was about real estate; silly me.
It took it to another level what with the make out scenes and all.
it’s way less than that if the truth be known - most gays & lesbians have no desire to be in a homosexual version of traditional normal heterosexual monogamous life. These shows are meant to propagandize and portray a lie.
Please observe the various terms used in this thread to identify homosexual actions, and those who engage in them.
Gee dumbasses could it be Will and Grace didn't try and cram down America's throats that being gay was "The NEW NORMAL"?
But hey let's just set that thought aside for a moment and consider Maybe the New Normal sucked because the actors weren't as good and the writing sucked.
But instead they go on and on about it couldn't be the gay thing.
Then again maybe it could you idiots. EVERY DAMN SHOW HAS SOME GAYBERT PRANCING AROUND. Its like Hollyweird is trying to make us think there is a third sex just a numerous as the two normal sexes we are all familiar with.
Well did you ever think America just ain't buying it?
I remember that when I was a kid. Petticoat Junction and Green Acres were axed as well. The network execs decided that wholesome shows with country bumpkins was passe to a generation of newly socially and sexually liberated millions.
And on a completely different note, Ellen Barkin is old now. She used to be hot about 20 or more years ago, but time has not been her friend.
It’s been gradual indoctrination. Even as kids we knew that Paul Lynde, Charles Nelson Reilly, Liberace, Jim Nabors and Jm J Bullock were flaming. Robert Reed caught us by surprise. The difference was that they weren’t portrayed as homosexual, flaunting their “partners” and pushing a political and social agenda. As for gays in the military, I wonder how Lieutenant Hanley and Sergeant Saunders would have handled it.
because a sitcom about child abusers was not funny?
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
Wait a minute, you're saying that Jm J Bullock is gay? I'm shocked...he always seemed so butch.
Network execs were not thinking much differently when they canceled Hee-Haw and The Beverly Hillbillies four decades ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_purge
So what’s their excuse for “American Ninja Warrior”?
Most interesting thing from that entry:
“The backlash from the purge prompted CBS to commission, perhaps somewhat facetiously, a rural family drama for its fall 1972 schedule, but the network scheduled it in what it thought would be a death slot against popular series The Flip Wilson Show and The Mod Squad, allegedly hoping the show would underperform and head to a quick cancellation. Instead, The Waltons went on to run for nine seasons, reaching as high as second in the Nielsens and finishing in the top thirty shows for seven of its nine years on air.”
“The numerous cancellations prompted Pat Buttram (”Mr. Haney” on one of the cancelled shows, Green Acres) to make the observation: “It was the year CBS cancelled everything with a tree—including Lassie”.”
Rural purge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_purge
It failed because you are wrong. Americans DO NOT support homosexual marriage. Americans are sick and tired of this homosexual crap being forced on us and our children. The tide is turning...
It was crap.
new sitcom “normals”
child abusers are normal.
Fathers are just a checkbook
Dad is an idiot.
Mom is a promiscuous.
Mom or Dad is a four letter word.
Children are just little adults with all the brains of adults.
Fetishes are normal.
Normal Marriage is a problem.
cheating is ok.
crony insider advancement is ok.
Feelings can work instead of logic.
Blame the white guy.
Corporations and their officers are evil. Unless it is a woman ceo.
The military is bad unless it is an abnormal female general.
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