Creator Bryan Fuller on Pushing Daisies, Dead Like Me, and Being Cancelled

Okay, so your show getting cancelled isn’t the end of the world. But we’ve never heard of one solitary writer-producer who doesn’t feel like he and his team and their creation just took a bullet to the brain. For example:

So this is what Bryan Fuller looks like...
So this is what Bryan Fuller looks like…

by Jennifer M. Wood

With Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, and Hannibal, Bryan Fuller has made a career out of finding both the humor and humanity in what would largely be considered the darkest of subject matters: death. And it’s a good thing. Because up until this year, a third season of any one series has eluded Fuller.

Sure, Fuller’s work has been widely acclaimed and recognized. Pushing Daisies alone was nominated for three Golden Globes and won seven of its 17 Emmy nominations during its too-short life. But for just about every series that he has actually gotten on the air (add Wonderfalls, which was canceled after four episodes), Fuller has had another one of his small-screen creations stopped in its tracks (a planned reboot of The Munsters called Mockingbird Lane, which only aired a specialan adaptation of Augusten Burroughs’s first novel; No Kill, a pet project of Fuller’s and his first bona fide sitcom). While Fuller admits that he always takes rejection personally, he’s not about to write off any one project or character. He’s famously written characters from his past series into his current ones, and he already knows what he would do if given a second chance to breathe new life into any one of his dearly departed earlier shows. (Are you listening, Netflix?)… read article

MARC ALAN FISHMAN: GOTHAM GETS BETTER

Remember when the GOTHAM TV series was first announced? Comic book fans were all “Oh wow!” about seeing the U.S.’s most crime-riddled city (pre-Batman) on the home screen. The joy turned to angst – a common development when it comes to moving comics from their home turf – and then the bad feelings kind of leveled off. If, like us, you’ve been wondering where GOTHAM stands now, here’s one comics pro’s take:

by Marc Alan Fishman

Gotham-penguinBack in November I lamented that Gotham was a train-wreck with glimmers of hope peaking out amongst the smoldering boxcars abandoned near Arkham Asylum. Well, here we are, a large smattering of episodes later, and I’m starting to change my outlook on Fox’s proto-Batman dramedy. Hear me out, skeptics.

My turn of opinion first peeked its tepid head out into the light when I came to the realization that the show was not, nor would it ever be, Gotham Central by way of Ed Brubaker. The fact is I’ve circled my wagons around the ideology that business and the boardroom will always help dictate the creative endeavors of the Big Two™’s creations. That means that as critically acclaimed a graphic novel may be, at the end of the day all Warner Bros is going to care about is ratings and the potential syndication of Gotham. Hence, the fact that producers are making a show that by-and-large is built to appeal to the widest audience possible by way of brazen continuity-shattering canon-damning characterizations was bound to happen. Or in lesser terms, we were never ever ever going to not get interpretations of Batman’s rogue gallery. So I got over it. read article

Speaking of Mark Duplass…

Speaking of Mark Duplass, he and his brother Jay have even more wisdom to impart, this time explicitly about TV:

duplassbrosby Ben Travers

The Duplass brothers were doing more than fine working in the indie film world, so what was it that pushed them to create the delightful and deep HBO series “Togetherness”?

The first real question I have for you guys is, and I know it sounds simple, but why did you decide to do TV now? What made you make the leap from film? read article

Leesa Dean: Making Some Ch-Ch-Changes

tipsAdventures in Digital Series Land #98
by Leesa Dean

A few changes:

First, as you can see, I’ve changed the name of this blog from Adventures of a Web Series Newbie to Adventures in Digital Series Land.  Not only to reflect a new way to describe web series, but also because, let’s face it, I’m no longer a newbie. I’ve been doing this for two years.

Plus, since I’m designing the new website, I wanted this blog to reflect that change.  New times, new site, new series, new blog name. read article

From Dallas to Spoiler Alerts, the Rise and Fall of the Cliffhanger

The world didn’t start in 2010, gang, no matter how much it may seem like it did.

Especially the TV world:

JRby David Sims

35 years ago, the Texas oil baron J.R. Ewing was working late at his office when he was shot twice by a mysterious assailant. J.R. crumpled to the ground with his fate unknown, and every member of the cast a plausible suspect in the shooting. With that, the third season of CBS’s Dallas concluded, but at the same time, it also graduated from hit network show to nationwide phenomenon. read article