Tossing Out the First Pitch

The upcoming Showtime series “Beggars and Choosers” quotes Brandon Tartikoff, the late NBC programming chief, describing the three kinds of network executives: “Those who see the glass as half full. Those who see it as half empty. And those who ask: Does it have to be a glass?”

Having chafed at times under that third mind-set, television producers and studios are increasingly opting to brew and bottle their own shows, offering them to networks once they have been fully conceived and in some instances produced. This eschews the more traditional development approach in which producers “pitch” an idea to the network, which then makes suggestions--or issues demands--through the gestation process.

Companies such as Paramount, DreamWorks and Studios USA have all experimented with series prototypes that initially keep networks

out of the creative loop. Pearson Television, meanwhile, relied on Canadian and European financing to produce a science-fiction series, “First Wave,” not shopping the program to U.S. networks until production was completed on 18 episodes.

Produced in concert with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola’s company, “First Wave” stars Sebastian Spence as a man who uncovers an alien conspiracy within our midst who must fight to expose the threat. The show was eventually sold to cable’s Sci-Fi Channel, which not only ordered the series but committed to an unprecedented 66 episodes--three full seasons of production--before its premiere.

Various factors have made this strategy more viable, among them growth in overseas markets and home video, allowing companies to generate revenue from sources other than a domestic network. In addition, some producers feel greater incentive to skirt the networks, grumbling about heightened control in terms of dictating story elements, casting and even where programs are shot.

“I don’t mind notes and ‘interference’ if it’s done in a way that’s helpful to a show, and it’s a collaborative process,” said Chris Brancato, who created “First Wave.” “The problem is when people are demanding changes . . . and you have to fight with your own team. You get paid a lot of money to deliver a show, and then you’re told by some 27-year-old who has never written a show in his life how you should fix it.”

“It cuts out another voice that sometimes you don’t want to listen to,” added Larry Sugar, the program’s other executive producer. “Anybody who tells you they wouldn’t rather have one person involved in giving you their opinion than three is just lying.”

While “First Wave” proved an unorthodox means of creating and selling a series, others are toying with variations on the accepted formula as the annual ritual of giving birth to new shows for the coming prime-time season winds down.

Paramount, for example, opted to go ahead with a two-hour pilot for “L.A. Sheriff’s Homicide”--a proposed series created by crime novelist James Ellroy, who worked with that department researching his book “My Dark Places”--after NBC passed on the project.

In similar fashion, DreamWorks and “Spin City” producer Gary David Goldberg assembled a script and cast Charlie Sheen, Duane Martin and Joe Pantoliano in a comedy series candidate, “Sugar Hill,” before offering the show to networks and lining up a deal at ABC. Studios USA tried the same with “Beat Cops,” a comedy using the low-cost production techniques of Fox’s “Cops.”

Paramount has contemplated producing a prototype without a network on board for awhile, also nurturing a concept by “JAG” producer Donald Bellisario.

“You get a little frustrated,” said Paramount Network Television President Garry Hart. “You feel that some of the best material doesn’t get ordered. You feel like, ‘If we could just get someone to look at this, they would want it.’ ”

Studio officials concede such projects might face a disadvantage because network executives won’t have as much emotionally invested in concepts they didn’t shepherd along from the beginning. On the plus side, a studio could also find itself with a property several networks want, affording them more negotiating leverage.

Hart admitted the strategy represents something of a gamble but said the risk on “L.A. Sheriff’s” is somewhat hedged because the two-hour production can be sold as a TV movie even if it doesn’t become a series. Moreover, Ellroy’s name has considerable cache by virtue of the Oscar-nominated film based on his book “L.A. Confidential.”

Robert Nathan, a former “ER” and “Law & Order” producer who is writing the project with Ellroy, said the real luxury is not a lack of network input but more time to craft the show (production begins next month), instead of hurrying to finish in hopes of earning a spot on the fall schedule.

“If there’s any benefit to not doing this for a network, it’s that we don’t have to rush something that begs not to be rushed,” he said, citing the story’s complexity. “To [Paramount], it was ‘Make the movie work, don’t make the schedule work.’ ”

The studio has given the producers similar latitude in casting, saying to hire the most talented actors available, not the best-known ones. “Not once has anybody here said, ‘Go out and find a TV name who a network will love,’ ” Nathan said.

Some in the industry have likened developing TV shows outside the traditional network framework to independent filmmaking, citing a need to explore different avenues of production from both from a creative and economic standpoint.

“If you get too locked into rules or conventional wisdom, there’s not going to be any innovation,” said David Tenzer, an agent at Creative Artists Agency who represents “First Wave’s” Brancato. “You want to give creative people as much leeway as possible.”

Smaller companies are also looking for ways to gain a leg up in getting shows on the air, in part because the networks have made a priority of producing more of their own programming. Disney, 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros. supplied roughly half the new series hopefuls this year for their respective networks--ABC, Fox and the WB.

“We can’t compete with Disney,” said Matt Loze, Pearson’s executive vice president. “[But] here’s a way we can actually have an impact and control our own destiny a little bit.” He added that producing multiple episodes of “First Wave” before trying to sell it freed Brancato to gradually develop plot points, “rather than pack them all into a pilot that you live and die by.”

Given that two sci-fi series, ABC’s “Strange World” and UPN’s “Mercy Point,” were yanked from the schedule this season after three telecasts each, Brancato noted that he feels particularly liberated by the long-term commitment from Sci-Fi.

“My moves aren’t dictated by ‘Oh my God, is someone going to not like what we do this week and pull us off the air?’ ” he said. “It’s an enormous amount of security for a writer.”

Comedy by Jake: Ex-fitness guru Jake Steinfeld is developing his own proposed action-comedy television series. F30