Developing new series: what’s reality, what isn’t

The image of so-called reality overrunning prime time has added urgency to this annual rite of spring, along with the pursuit of worthy heirs to aging stalwarts like “Friends” and “NYPD Blue.” Yet series development has always been shrouded in mystery, as TV’s power players rub ideas and talent together hoping to create magic -- or at least series prototypes capable of tantalizing media buyers.

How well the alchemists fared will become clearer when their revised fall lineups are announced in May. Because the process is so fraught with anxiety, however, several myths -- and a few lies -- are in need of debunking, and fortunately, the debunk starts here:

With so much “reality,” networks will develop fewer scripted shows

Actually, it’s a larger contingent than usual, with more than 130 series prototypes, or pilots, in the works for the six broadcast networks, including almost 80 comedies.

Not that throwing a lot of shows at the wall means more of them will stick. If form holds, in fact, only about a quarter will find time slots in the fall. (Also, history suggests that at least one Fox pilot will die before Labor Day, as executives decide that a lovely swan they bought in May has somehow morphed into a turkey, as was the case with last year’s never-aired “The Grubbs” and “Septuplets.”)

Networks will offer more unscripted shows in the fall

Although plenty of staged reality shows will doubtless be ordered for next season, don’t be surprised if many of them don’t make the starting lineup in September. That’s because the May “upfront” presentations, when the networks unveil their lineups, are for the benefit of advertisers, many of whom are uncomfortable with buying time in unscripted shows.

As a result, the networks will likely play what amounts to a shell game, scheduling scripted programs that either don’t get on or arrive perched on a banana peel, knowing a “reality” show is ready to replace them.

Studios are all champing at the bit to sell pilots

In a relatively recent trend, studios are actually rejecting some pilot orders from the networks this year, saying “thanks but no thanks” if they fear the fee that the network pays them to produce a show won’t cover enough of their costs to give them the chance of turning a profit. This is especially true with dramas, in part because European countries -- once counted upon to consume even mediocre imports -- are producing more of their own programming and buying fewer from the U.S. In that respect, Germany and France have done their part to mess up American television without involving the United Nations.

For studios, this can nevertheless be risky and embarrassing. Consider Disney, which developed “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” for ABC, then balked at producing it when its sister network passed and CBS snatched up the project. Concerned the show would be too expensive, Disney let another producer step in and take its place -- a mistake, in hindsight, worth anywhere from $300 million to $500 million over the long term.

Fear of “reality” will lead to greater innovation

It’s always hard to tell much about pilots until they’re shot, since the lists published in the Hollywood trades make everything sound like a bad version of “CSI” or “Friends.” Still, sifting through descriptions of 2003 prototypes betrays the usual devotion to copying what has worked before.

In addition, Fox’s recent ouster of Larry Wilmore -- creator of “The Bernie Mac Show,” who criticized the network for seeking to homogenize the show -- has raised questions about the commitment to risk-taking. Granted, Wilmore didn’t do himself any favors by bashing Fox, most recently observing that networks are motivated by fear, greed and stupidity; still, seeing the producer of a critically lauded series get bounced has alarmed producers, sending a message about who’s in charge as surely as a well-placed horse’s head or dead fish.

Feature film talent is

coming to TV and

generating hits

Well, no, not in greater numbers than anyone else. Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has struck gold with “CSI,” its spinoff and “Without a Trace,” but for every success story you can ring up failures from marquee names like Ben Affleck (“Push, Nevada”) and Michael Mann (“Robbery Homicide Division”), as well as projects from directors Spike Lee and Edward Burns that never got off the ground.

This hasn’t cooled movie folk’s attraction to TV and vice versa, with this year’s crop including Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Tom Selleck, Rupert Everett, Will Smith (as a producer), and directors Phillip Noyce, Wes Craven, Rod Lurie, Tom Shadyac and Mike White.

Still, remember that two of the most heralded series in recent years, “The Sopranos” and “24,” came from veteran TV producers -- David Chase and the tandem of Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran, respectively -- who hadn’t created a hit before. Even “Six Feet Under’s” Alan Ball, who wrote the Oscar-winning “American Beauty,” preceded that with the forgettable ABC sitcom “Oh Grow Up.”

Much-admired, much-copied pay service HBO, meanwhile, has made separate deals for series from “NYPD Blue” co-creators Steven Bochco and David Milch -- neither of whom has a hot independent film on his resume, just a few hundred hours of great television.

Networks are more

welcoming to independent suppliers

ABC admitted going overboard on the “synergy” diet by ordering 90% of its series candidates from parent Disney last year, intimating that the network would open its doors to a wider variety of suppliers.

Well, it’s a year later, and two out of three ABC pilots still come from Disney, whose development savvy must expire at the studio’s gate, given that it can count the prototypes sold to other networks on one mouse hand. This isn’t meant to pick on Disney, by the way, since the ratio of “in-house” pilots is roughly the same at NBC or AOL Time Warner production units for the WB network. The ultimate test will come in May, when we see how many shows from unaffiliated studios make the cut, as opposed to the networks again harvesting a mostly home-grown crop.

“Reality” is here to stay. Wait, it’s fading; no, it’s....

Not surprisingly, “reality” is proving as vulnerable as other forms once you saturate the dial with it. In that respect, writers and actors owe a debt of gratitude to ABC, which with “All American Girl,” “Are You Hot?” and “I’m a Celebrity -- Get Me Out of Here!” appears to be doing its best to exhaust the genre with programs that appear cynical and derivative even by Hollywood’s standards.

This isn’t to say that actors and writers should drop their defenses. In fact, unless an army of elves is coming to reinforce them, they had better be prepared to light that script on fire and catapult it over the wall.

Brian Lowry’s column appears Wednesdays. He can be reached at brian.lowry@latimes.com.