The Challenge and Triumph of ‘ER’ Live

As the writer-producer and the director of the Sept. 25 “live episode” of “ER,” we object to Times TV critic Howard Rosenberg’s brief review of what for us was a memorable, creative experience (“Now That the Hype-odermic Has Worn Off . . . So What?,” Calendar, Sept. 27). Certainly, Rosenberg is not obliged to like or respect our work. But on two counts, we must correct his false impressions.

A majority of Rosenberg’s comments were about what he perceived to be a cynical ratings ploy. In Rosenberg’s rationale for a live “ER,” greedy network executives, plotting a ratings coup, played a key role. That’s not true.

The two of us have separately worked on plenty of television projects where less-than-artistic urges for higher ratings pushed what should have been creative decisions. In this case, that never happened.

“ER” is at the top of the ratings heap. From the beginning, we felt we had nothing to gain (in the way of numbers), and everything to lose. But the actors and producers and crew members of “ER” didn’t want to rest on their creative laurels. In our fourth year, we wanted to whip away the security blanket of success and take a huge, heart-stopping challenge.

We were grateful throughout the process that our studio and network partners attempted to keep us grounded and voiced their honest concerns, while at the same time allowing us to follow our impulses. The entire four-month process of writing and rehearsing the episode, “Ambush,” was so unbelievably infused with high hopes and hard work, and so devoid of cynicism, that Rosenberg’s review will stand alone in that category, when we remember working on this project.

Our second objection involves Rosenberg’s quoting of John Frankenheimer’s radio remarks about the history of live television. Yes, Frankenheimer said, in an irascibly quotable way, that early television was done live because they had no choice. But anyone with even a layman’s notion of television’s first decade would understand that Frankenheimer’s remarks were not intended to be taken as a history lesson.

For close to a decade in the 1950s, and well after the advent of filmed television, a vigorous debate ensued in the arts and entertainment sections of major newspapers and professional journals about the pros and cons of live television. Respected giants of early television criticism such as Jack Gould of the New York Times wrote eloquently about live television’s unique ability to fuse immediacy with technology and provide a media experience that films could never replicate. When Gould spoke of the audience being “at the cameraman’s side,” we felt this was an experience we would like to attempt to give our viewers.

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As Rod Serling described in 1957, when “canned dramas” began to take over television, many of the artists of television’s golden age--including Paddy Chayefsky, Reginald Rose, Horton Foote and others--continued to work in live television in spite of the lure of higher fees in filmed television ventures.

They did this in part because, Serling wrote, “in the golden days of live television’s ascendancy, its filmed counterparts on the West Coast were pretty much uninspired, formulated, hackneyed assembly-line products that could boast fast production and fast profit but little strain on the creative process.”

Indeed, an argument could be made (and often was in the literature of the period) that economics had more to do with the move away from live production than the quest for quality. Sponsors and producers discovered the cheaper production costs of filmed television and the economic rewards of reruns. Artists jumped on the bandwagon with the promise of residuals. Talk about a heyday for cynics.

Assuming Rosenberg was aware of this rich critical legacy, why did he choose to ignore it?

On Sept. 25, we did an hour drama live on television, and we’re proud of it. If Rosenberg isn’t inspired by our efforts, that’s his prerogative.

But if he doesn’t take the time to accurately present the history of live television, then we believe readers have the right to ask: Why does his opinion carry any weight at all?

Carol Flint is an executive producer of “ER” and writer of the “Ambush” episode. Thomas Schlamme directed “Ambush.”