How To Write A Hit Primetime Television Show

I have made it my duty to know if a show will be garbage before or after it comes out. There have been many TV shows that I have loved, but have failed due to the studio taking a huge deuce on it because of timing, bad advertising, bad writing and bad planning. One example of such a great show is the sci-fi western Firefly. It holds a special place in my heart because it was so different, and it blended old timey western elements with futuristic space opera themes. It was cancelled after 13 episodes, but managed to get a movie to wrap up storylines titled Serenity. Great show, but mismanaged by studio execs that had no idea what to do with it.

The first episode they show on-air wasn’t even the pilot. So, from the get go, you had no idea who these people were because it’s the pilot’s job to introduce all the elements that set the plot. I watched it when it was on, but gave up because I had no idea what was happening. It wasn’t until later that I started the series in chronological order and it made me angry that a studio could f*ck up something so bad, but they did.

THE USUAL SUSPECTS

All of that being said, it’s hard to find truly original shows on television anymore. If you look at any network, you may seem to think a show is different, but when you remove all the elements of it, there are usually only a few main skeletons of a plot that these shows follow. Here are a few I found:

Castle

Sleepy Hollow

Minority Report

Hannibal

Elementary

Sherlock

Blindspot

Person of Interest

Bones

iZombie

The Blacklist

The X-Files

12 Monkeys

Forever

Almost Human

Chuck

The Mentalist

I’m sure there are more than that, but I kept it to shows that are on, have just finished, or are coming back. What do you see as you run down the list of shows that I have named? Really look at each show and think about what the show is based on. I mean REALLY look at each show. Got it? Two main characters: One with a special skill(s), the other is usually the normal person that follows along. Let’s take a look at the list again:

Castle (Best selling horror writer with special skills of knowing how killings ends due to his knowledge of story teams with a straightedge cop/love interest)

(Best selling horror writer with special skills of knowing how killings ends due to his knowledge of story teams with a straightedge cop/love interest) Sleepy Hollow (Man frozen in the past wakes up and can shed details of the supernatural things happening in their town by teaming up with a straightedge cop)

(Man frozen in the past wakes up and can shed details of the supernatural things happening in their town by teaming up with a straightedge cop) Minority Report (A former member of the precog group in Minority report continues to stop murders with the help of a straightedge cop)

(A former member of the precog group in Minority report continues to stop murders with the help of a straightedge cop) Hannibal (An FBI agent/consultant teams with a psychologist to solve murders… obviously it gets more complicated)

(An FBI agent/consultant teams with a psychologist to solve murders… obviously it gets more complicated) Elementary (A hyper-observant police consultant teams with a doctor to solve crimes)

(A hyper-observant police consultant teams with a doctor to solve crimes) Sherlock (Like the one above, but a million times better and based on the stories that started all of this)

(Like the one above, but a million times better and based on the stories that started all of this) Blindspot (A women with no memory, Navy Seal abilities and covered in tattoo clues teams up with a straightedge FBI agent to solve the clues)

(A women with no memory, Navy Seal abilities and covered in tattoo clues teams up with a straightedge FBI agent to solve the clues) Person of Interest (A former special ops guy teams up with a mystery billionaire that created a supercomputer that predicts crimes)

(A former special ops guy teams up with a mystery billionaire that created a supercomputer that predicts crimes) Bones (A talented and world-famous forensic anthropologist teams with a straightedge FBI agent to solve crimes)

(A talented and world-famous forensic anthropologist teams with a straightedge FBI agent to solve crimes) iZombie (A zombie that eats brains of dead murder victims helps solve their murders with the help of a straightedge cop)

(A zombie that eats brains of dead murder victims helps solve their murders with the help of a straightedge cop) The Blacklist (A world-renowned criminal turns himself in with a list of bad guys and works with a straightedge FBI agent to stop them)

(A world-renowned criminal turns himself in with a list of bad guys and works with a straightedge FBI agent to stop them) The X-Files (An FBI agent that is a joke to his co-workers and believes in aliens is teamed with a straightedge FBI doctor to stop obvious alien and supernatural crimes which she seems to forget every week)

(An FBI agent that is a joke to his co-workers and believes in aliens is teamed with a straightedge FBI doctor to stop obvious alien and supernatural crimes which she seems to forget every week) 12 Monkeys (A time-traveler from a hellish future travels back to team up with a straightedge doctor to try to stop a virus from killing most of humanity)

(A time-traveler from a hellish future travels back to team up with a straightedge doctor to try to stop a virus from killing most of humanity) Forever (A man who cannot die no matter how many times he dies uses his extensive knowledge of history and experience being a doctor to help solve crimes with a straightedge cop and love interest)

(A man who cannot die no matter how many times he dies uses his extensive knowledge of history and experience being a doctor to help solve crimes with a straightedge cop and love interest) Almost Human (A robot that can think for himself and have feelings is teamed up with straightedge cop that doesn’t trust robots)

(A robot that can think for himself and have feelings is teamed up with straightedge cop that doesn’t trust robots) Chuck (Local computer tech is sent a stream of videos that give him all the secrets of the Gov’t, the ability to fight, and an assortment of many other things. He teams up with a straightedge beautiful bombshell agent that instantly becomes his love interest)

(Local computer tech is sent a stream of videos that give him all the secrets of the Gov’t, the ability to fight, and an assortment of many other things. He teams up with a straightedge beautiful bombshell agent that instantly becomes his love interest) The Mentalist (Fake psychic uses his skills of magic and persuasion to help a straightedge FBI agent solve crimes)

Every single one of these shows has the same premise, but each has a slightly different take on the same concept. You mix it up, add a long-arch mystery with a weekly story, sprinkle in some secondary characters you can use in later seasons for stories about them, and you have yourself a show.

The problem is with the format is that it’s overused. I mean, these are just the shows from that last year that I could find. I don’t even want to try to think of the amount of movies based on this type of premise, but I’m sure there are thousands.

DEVELOP YOUR CHARACTERS

The trick to writing a show like this is that you have to start with the two main characters. If you don’t know them inside and out, you will keep fumbling as the show goes on. You’ll make up details that contradict details mentioned in eaarlier episodes. It may be hard to create a character from thin air, but it’s not as long as you have you basic idea down. If you want to put a background to your main characters, I suggest you use this handy chart from EPIGUIDE. It will give you just about every single detail to fill out about your main characters and secondary characters. Since many shows go the way of having a male and female duo, you can mix in mutual interests that can slowly be unveiled as you go along.

THE LOVE INTEREST

The hardest part of a show is to keep a “will they or won’t they” thing going without ruining it. The thing about the love interest is that it can make or kill a series. If you go for 6 seasons and they haven’t kissed or done anything, the viewer starts getting pissed off. If they finally do it, and they are together, a part of the show loses it’s viewers want to keep watching since the main objective is reached. This was the problem with Chuck. The show kept getting them together, mostly because they thought the show was getting cancelled so they tied it up neatly, but then NBC ordered a back 9 set of episodes, and they had to basically reboot the show. They did this a lot since the show was nearly axed so much. By the end of the show, they had to get partial funding from Subway, and within each episode was literally an ad for Subway with secondary characters eating subs and talking about how good they were.

Seriously, look at this clip.

Bones wasn’t innocent of this crap either. After the main characters hooked up (despite ZERO chemistry), they started with car advertisements within the show:

For shame.

THE STORY BIBLE

The thing is about writing a show where one character is the one with the weird skills and the other is the normal serious type, you must have a good enough set-up to keep it going for a couple of seasons. You can do this by having an extensive mystery to solve that will take a while to solve while they get to know each other (Blindspot, The X-Files, 12 Monkeys), or you can start amazingly, but then have the stupid execs throw you off track and have you recreate the show 5 times after ending it (Chuck).

What many shows do to screw up their flow is to not know the flow. When you create a show, you MUST have a story bible that all the main plot points of the show for at least 5 seasons. Each season should be mapped out with changes that could be included if it is necessary. If you know your show is getting bad ratings, try to have backup plans in place to wrap up the story that will give a satisfying ending. Most first seasons with a love interest between the first two characters should end with a hopeful ending that gives the viewers the ending they hoped for but haven’t seen. Keep that on the back burner that you can end with when you know the show is getting it’s ass kicked in ratings because it was advertised badly to potential viewers.

Know where the characters are going to end up, or else it’s just making shit up as you go along. Do you know why LOST started out so good, but then went off into insane crap that led people to wonder what the hell they were watching? No story bible. It’s why they were basically making it up as they were going along because they never thought it would last that long. So many questions were left unanswered and I wasted years of my life waiting for the answers to come, only for them to be answered with idiotic extensions to those questions. Never create a show without a story bible.

Have your main characters end the way you want them to end. If they get together and marry at the end? End it there. If they aren’t the romantic partners in the show, have them solve to long-arch at the end and then end the series. It’s more satisfying. It gets taxing when the two characters get married, and then the next season would have to watch them solve crimes while apartment hunting. Chase down a murder while shopping for strollers at Walmart. Creating a whole new bad guy that was really behind the events of the long-arch just to continue the show. The Mentalist faked out who Red John was multiple times, and then they revealed it. Show should’ve been over, right? No, they kept going for some reason and everyone tuned out. Know your ending! If the studio wants to keep pushing you to extend a story you never had any intention of going that far: bow out. Remember the first 4 season of Dexter? Amazing! Remember the last 4? Awful. The creator and showrunner left after the first 4. You can see why.

Know your story, know your characters, know how it ends, and know what works. If you have to, I dunno, turn Matthew Fox’s real tattoo’s into a flashback for an episode of LOST, you should probably throw in the towel.

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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post,UPROXX,BGR and by just looking up his name.

Contact: jeff@socialunderground.com