Live TV drama
Live television may have been a necessity in the past. But it’s proving popular today.
“Will & Grace” opened its eighth and final season this year with a live broadcast. And it was such a hit, the sitcom will do it again, according to executive producer Jim Burrows, who directed the episode.
“It was lightning in a bottle,” he said. “Everyone (in the cast) came to play.
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to say this,” he added, “but right after the … show, (NBC entertainment head) Kevin Reilly was e-mailing (me) with his BlackBerry, saying, ‘Oh my God, we have to do another one of these!’ “
Burrows and his cast are hoping to go live again by early next year.
Sunday’s “West Wing” (9 p.m. on NBC) will present a live debate between its presidential candidates, Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) and Arnold Vinick (Alan Alda). Real-life newsman Forrest Sawyer will moderate.
Although they have a script, Alda and Smits also received a crash course in debate strategy and issues that will allow them to veer off the page.
“It’s loose enough that it will be exciting to the audience,” Smits told The Associated Press.
The intention, said executive producer John Wells, is to hark back to the era when political candidates were less slickly packaged.
“We’re dealing with fictional characters, and so it’s difficult to convey to the audience the sense of urgency,” Wells said. “This is the right thing to do for the cast and the audience and the material.”
Wells is no stranger to the concept. He produced a live episode of “ER” in 1997, when George Clooney was still wearing scrubs and a stethoscope.
A few years later, Clooney produced his own live project, a remake of the Cold War drama “Fail Safe” for CBS. And he’s working on a live remake of Paddy Chayefsky’s classic film “Network,” according to published reports. (Both films originally were directed by Sidney Lumet.)
Other live shots have included CBS’ “On Golden Pond,” starring Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer, and several episodes of “The Drew Carey Show.”
For the actors, live television is an alternately terrifying and invigorating proposition.
“I love the idea of being out there with little or no net,” Alda said.
Burrows’ cast – Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Sean Hayes, Megan Mullally and guest star Alec Baldwin – “had a ball,” he said, “but they also dreaded it.”
Going live evokes the immediacy of theater.
“When you tell actors who have theater backgrounds that we’re doing a live (TV) show,” said Smits, “it’s like total elation.”
But live television presents a host of logistical issues that cannot be covered up in the editing room.
For instance, shortly before the “Will & Grace” episode, Mullally injured her knee, leaving her unable to walk without crutches. So at the 11th hour, the writers put her character in a cast and motorized scooter, ostensibly because she was recovering from an operation to correct a webbed toe.
Finding the right structure is also imperative.
“It helps if the episode takes place in real time,” said Burrows.
For “ER,” the story was framed around a film crew documenting a day in the life of the Chicago Memorial doctors.
But the raw look of live can be jarring.
“If you go back and watch (the live episode of ‘ER’) on the Season 4 DVD set,” said Wells, “it’s hard to imagine what all the excitement was about.
“All television at one point was live, and there was a reason why people moved toward film,” he continued. “It’s much more difficult to get that highly polished quality that you expect from television dramas now.”
With Sunday’s “West Wing,” the point is to skip style in favor of substance.
“There are certain circumstances where you don’t want it to have that gloss,” Wells said.
The episode – with separate live versions for Eastern and Western time zones and with just two commercial breaks – could be the highlight of a resurgent year for “The West Wing,” which is drawing lavish critical praise after being dinged in recent seasons for a creative slump.
Ratings for the series need a jolt. In the first few weeks of the season, and with a move from Wednesday to Sunday, it lost more than 30 percent of its audience (while ABC’s new Oval Office drama “Commander in Chief” jumped into the top 10).
The producers are claiming they have yet to decide whether Vinick or Santos prevails; maybe Sunday’s show will offer clues.
“Everybody is saying … ‘What’s going to happen? What’s it going to be like?’ ” said Alda.
“And there seems to be an incredible interest in it. It may be that the primary reason for doing (this) is that it piques people’s curiosity.”
And that curiosity goes beyond just what’s supposed to happen on screen, Burrows said.
“People like to watch live shows because people screw up,” he said. “Someone may say a bad word. It’s just like home.”