TV Keeps a Secret--Who Knew?

If you were surprised when George Clooney appeared on Thursday’s “ER” to literally sweep a misty-eyed Julianna Margulies off her feet, you weren’t alone, as the program’s producers went to extraordinary lengths to keep the reunion of Dr. Ross and Nurse Hathaway from even high-ranking NBC executives.

The scene represented the sort of heavily promotable event networks normally rely upon to reel in viewers, especially during sweeps periods, the months stations use to negotiate advertising rates. In this case, though, the story line wasn’t promoted.

Rather, “ER” executive producer John Wells labored to keep the moment secret, even providing the minimal crew on hand for Clooney’s scene an incentive not to divulge information to the tabloids.

“John gave everyone checks and said, ‘If no one finds out, these checks are good,’ ” said Clooney, reached at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday.

The actual strategy was even more elaborate: The scene was shot on Lake Washington near Seattle and staffed by local technical personnel, who were promised bonuses if word didn’t leak out.

Wells then kept the footage in his refrigerator. The scene wasn’t in the script presented to NBC and the film wasn’t processed. Post-production work was finished Tuesday, and top network executives weren’t notified about Clooney’s appearance until late Wednesday evening.

Clooney--who was paid only union scale--said he didn’t want to do anything to detract from Margulies’ farewell episode or siphon attention away from the other cast members.

“That wasn’t what it was about,” he said. “It was not to publicize the show. It was to complete her character.”

Still, keeping such flourishes under wraps has become increasingly difficult to achieve. Not only are network promotion departments desperate to attract viewers--in some instances alienating producers with their on-air spots--but an expanded entertainment press, armed with new outlets for gossip like the Internet, seems hungry to expose the most minute aspects of high-profile series.

“Ally McBeal” creator David E. Kelley was said to be furious when People magazine leaked an item in March about the death of Billy (Gil Bellows), undermining the surprise he had planned for viewers. It was Kelley, after all, who in 1991 stunned “L.A. Law” fans when a central character, Rosalind Shays (the ruthless attorney played by Diana Muldaur), abruptly plummeted to her death down an open elevator shaft.

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The producers of NBC’s “Must-See TV” Thursday lineup, meanwhile, have consistently chafed over what they consider excessively revealing and sometimes even misleading promos cobbled together by the network.

Last year, for example, the producers of “Frasier” withheld an episode from NBC specifically so the network couldn’t give away too much in its ads. NBC ran promos saying the episode was so funny they couldn’t show it to you.

“Frasier” executive producer Christopher Lloyd has also complained about NBC’s habit of inflating events in the Niles-Daphne relationship as a come-on to viewers, at one point saying the practice had “moved beyond teasing into downright lying about what’s in the shows.” The network had no comment about those remarks.

Wells employed extraordinary measures to keep NBC and all but the highest-level executives at Warner Bros. Television, which produces the show, in the dark about Clooney’s cameo. Publicity and promotion executives were kept out of the loop entirely.

Taking a much-needed vacation after producing three concurrent NBC dramas this season (the others being “The West Wing” and “Third Watch”), Wells said the pressure to uncover what happens in such series does a disservice to the audience in the same way exposing magic tricks robs magicians of their mystique.

“It does diminish our enjoyment a bit to know everything about what it is we’re going to see,” he said. “It’s so difficult to keep anything quiet anymore.”

Beyond magazines and newspapers, online gossip and a host of daily TV programs clamor for such details--a relatively recent occurrence that has altered the relationship between storytellers and those who cover entertainment.

Even a decade ago, Wells noted, “there wasn’t 35 minutes to an hour of entertainment news [on TV] to fill every day. Once that happened, everything became a story.”

“ER” didn’t suffer at all for the lack of promoting Clooney’s involvement. According to Nielsen Media Research, the episode attracted 32.7 million viewers--its second-biggest audience this season, behind only the February installment where Kellie Martin’s character was killed.

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Tired of fending off questions about when departed stars will return, the producers of “ER” issued a statement saying definitively that neither Clooney nor Margulies would appear on “ER” again.

“We’re going to be concentrating on the characters who are with the show,” Wells said. “Our attention is focused on the future.”

The question lingers, meanwhile, as to what is fair game in relation to what happens in upcoming programs. CBS has been struggling for weeks to keep secret who survives “Survivor,” a weekly reality series that premieres later this month. The voyeuristic format monitors the exploits of 16 strangers isolated on a remote island.

Preventing eager publications from trying to sleuth out the identity of the winner (chosen after contestants are gradually voted out) has been a challenge for CBS--complicated when one of the “players” was arrested after his return for alleged child abuse. Network executives have likened the program to a sporting event, saying it would be unfair to the audience to report the outcome of a game shown on a delayed basis.