Joss Whedon

’Desperate Housewives’ will run seven seasons (and other showrunner secrets)

Points to ABC for doing something a little different on Sunday (Jan. 14). Rather than doing yet another actor-driven panel for a show that critics have written about dozens of times (or letting us see even a second of the already-truncated Traveler), the network brought out the showrunners for Brothers & Sisters, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy, Lost, Men in Trees and Ugly Betty for the rare producer-centric deconstruction of the state of the industry.

Without the pressure of sitting, thumbs a-twiddle, while one thespian after another describes how they’re alike and different from their characters, the showrunners were able to let loose a little bit, leading to an unusually open and quotable press tour panel.

That’s why when a question of network notes comes up, Lost producer Carlton Cuse begins with, "And I think that Lost would not be half the show it is if it wasn’t for the willingness of the studio and the network to embrace the crazy ideas that we’ve come up with on the show. When you say, ’Oh, well, we’re going to have Michael shoot two of our other characters. He’s one of our leads, and he’s going to murder two of our other leads. How do you feel about that?’ And they..."

Here, Damon Lindelof interrupts, "They’re like, ’As long as one of them is Michelle Rodriguez, we’re cool.’"

After the laughter dies down, Lindelof adds, "And that’s a joke."

To that, Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry notes, "I’m sure none of them will write that in their story."

See? There you go.

Some other highlights:

Cherry on his show’s occasionally problems with standards and practices:

Do you guys have the nipple problem? I spend like $100,000 a week taking nipples out of my show, because I’ve got a couple of actresses who refuse to wear bras, and the standards and practices go, ’Can’t see that.’ So what’s interesting is then I’ll turn on Friends, and it’s a nipple-fest. I don’t understand the difference.

Lindelof, responding to a question about the proliferation of mysterious "executive producer" credits on television:

You want one? It’s yours. Welcome to Lost. Now, what the f*** is the island?

Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes on the importance of casting:

Here’s the thing that I think is interesting — Dr. McDreamy wasn’t Dr. McDreamy until we cast Patrick Dempsey. We never called him Dr. McDreamy. The character wasn’t considered Dr. McDreamy. It was watching Patrick play the character that made him Dr. McDreamy. I do think that every actor brings their own individual self and style and whatever to a role.

Cherry on whether or not he plans to leave his show:

I took a little step back season two because of exhaustion a little bit. I don’t think I was quite as present there. Things didn’t go as well. It kind of really hurt me in a deep place. ABC can’t bulldoze me out of that show. What’s sad is, I want it to run seven years. And the moment seven years is past, I will personally take down the sets. For me, it’s like that’s how protective I am of this. I’m only going to have one major hit. I’m only going to catch lightning in a bottle once. I wish I had the energy to develop and write at the same time, but I don’t. This is going to be on my tombstone. I’ll be damn if I don’t protect it.

Cuse on the trickiness of expectations:

We were talking about it. Joss Whedon had said, you know, the funny thing was that every season he would do his show, ’Well, you know, God, why is the third season not as good as the second season?’ And then, the fourth season would come on and ’Why is the fourth season not as good as the third season?’ I think that some of that is just endemic to doing the kind of show that we’re doing.