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It's no secret the pressure has never been greater on the broadcast networks to generate robust hits. After all, this past season broadcast TV was upstaged by nearly every other video provider: Netflix with its all-at-once release of 13 episodes of "House of Cards" (and the imminent revival of "Arrested Development"); public television's "Downton Abbey," boasting a 12-million-viewer finale and thunderous buzz; History's "The Bible" and AMC's "The Walking Dead," two cable series that dwarfed their broadcast rivals. Has broadcast television lost the ability to rise above the pack it once encompassed almost solely by itself? Has it forever relinquished its role as trendsetter to cable and online? Ask David S. Goyer, creator of the historical thriller "Da Vinci's Demons" currently airing on the Starz premium network. Four years ago, ABC picked up the pilot he had written for his sci-fi drama "FlashForward" and began heavy promotion for its fall 2009 launch. "But as soon as the pilot was finished," recalls Goyer, "we were hit by the network with this massive wave of market research of what the show
'should' be. It was completely at odds with what I and the other writers had set out to do." Goyer left after 10 episodes were shot. The series was canceled after one season. "I was so disheartened by that experience that I decided I wanted to try my hand at cable, because I'd heard that in cable they respect the creator more." That's what he says he found at Starz: "The eight episodes of 'Da Vinci's Demons' represents, by and large, the show that I want to make." From Marjorie Kaplan's perspective as president of Animal Planet, cable has become the go-to place for TV's most creative producers. "They see you can do 'The Shield,' 'The Walking Dead,' 'Game of Thrones,' and the network won't stop you," she says. "Cable has been great at creating an incubator environment for unbelievably talented, idiosyncratic creators who can't get their work done other places, or who don't want their work molested other places." Granted, the talented and prolific J.J. Abrams is a creator of NBC's "Revolution," and for next season he has not one but two pilots in the running: "Human" on Fox and "Believe" on NBC. But will either erupt with the power to shock or rock audiences the way his groundbreaking "Lost" did when it burst on ABC a dozen years ago? "Lost" was a glorious game-changer, a rare shock wave on broadcast TV. Now can broadcast, so practiced at serving up new rounds of the familiar, deliver the level of surprise viewers are coming to expect from cable? Broadcast's 104 pilots hold an answer to that question. But it may not be much of a surprise.
[Associated
Press;
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