Another reason so many writer-producers hate TV network executives:
by Ken Levine
As a peek behind the curtain in television, I thought I’d share with you the backstory to th[e] whole sordid concept change [and demise of the TV series ALMOST PERFECT].
ALMOST PERFECT was created in 1995 by Robin Schiff, David Isaacs, and myself. The premise very quickly: A young single woman in her 30s is struggling in her career and love life. And then on the day she gets the job of her life she meets the guy of her life, and both are fulltime jobs. How does she juggle both?
We cast Nancy Travis and Kevin Kilner as the couple. When we first brought Kevin to CBS to get him approved, the then-president thanked us for finding him. He was over-the-moon thrilled. As were we.
But during our first season there was a regime change at CBS. You see where this is going.
Our numbers the first year were decent – not spectacular but not Mindy-like either. We were originally on Sunday night, traditionally not a good night for comedy, and then moved to Monday where we fared much better.
Still, we were a show on the bubble.
So David, Robin, and I flew back to New York when CBS was cobbling together its fall schedule. That’s when we got the mandate to drop Kevin. There was no arguing the point. We fire Kevin or the entire show in cancelled and everybody is fired. And even firing Kevin was no guarantee we’d get a second year pick-up.