What, if anything, do the creators of television shows owe the audience that has grown attached to their characters? And when it's time for the show to end, how much care must the writers take to let the fans down easy? Top writers from the recently canceled "Homicide," "Melrose Place" and "Another World" (may the shows rest in peace) discuss how to kill the series without injuring the viewers.
Fontana: When we shot the last episode of "Homicide," we were waiting to hear if the show would get picked up. But I wanted to give the audience closure, so for everything I closed, I opened another problem.
Laiman: My situation is exactly the opposite. When we first discussed how to end "Another World," we talked about having the actors say a few things about how they felt. In the end, I decided that the loyalty of the audience, some of whom have been watching for 35 years, was not to the actors, but to the characters. I wanted to give them what they've always wanted, which was a happy ending. So all the obvious couples that everyone wanted together ended up together. All the dead people whom everybody wanted back came back from the dead - having recovered from brain tumors.
Mendelsohn: On "Melrose," one of the first things we explored was bringing back some of the long-gone characters. When we killed Kimberly the first time - well, the second time - everybody said, "God, she took a breath." So we thought, Great, so she's not really dead.
Fontana: When you're doing a show called "Homicide" and you start bringing people back from the dead, it ruins the furniture. The thing is, you want to say, We started this journey here and now we're ending it here.
Pratt: On "Melrose," we wanted the audience to know not only where the characters were in the last frames of the last show, but that they would be O.K. or not O.K. for the rest of their lives. But everyone who saw the finale said, Great cliffhanger for next year. So much for closure.
Laiman: Right at the very end of "Another World," the villain was a deformed man who may or may not have been 200 years old with an elephant-man-like face. He disappeared into the spirit world, and a nice-looking guy appears, naked, covered in ectoplasm.
Pratt: Do you guys do a lot of drugs over there? Mushrooms?
Fontana: I think a writer has the responsibility to satisfy himself.
Pratt: In a strange way we are the most important audience members.
Fontana: Well, actually, my mother is the most important audience member.
Laiman: But we write for television, so we write the character that satisfies us, and the audience, and the Internet, and the network, and everybody's secretary in between.
Pratt: And none of them are ever satisfied anyway.
Fontana: I have yet to figure out Internet people. There is actually a "Why We Hate Tom Fontana" Web site, because I make choices for characters that people thought weren't the way to go. But they're my characters.
Laiman: On "General Hospital," we got a letter from an alcoholic woman who'd lost her family and given up all hope. Then she saw Blackie's alcoholic mother die and she turned herself around. No one in her life had been able to influence her - except this image on television. Why? I decided it was because these characters never talk back. You do anything you want, and Blackie is going to be there for you the next day on the tube.
Fontana: Any time you can surprise people, they're genuinely stoked.
Laiman: But you have to do it in a way that is true to your show. On the last episode of "Another World," we have a gorilla steal the bridegroom. The character of the gorilla has a history on "Another World," so I was being true to the show, which is important.
Pratt: In the case of "Melrose," Courtney Thorne-Smith expressed interest in being in the final show, but she didn't want any lines. Her character was an alcoholic, so I had a scene in which two people are dancing in an empty restaurant and the camera would just sort of hinge over, and there she would be, drunk, by a bottle of vodka for a second. But she got sick.
Fontana: The only time it ever really worked was when "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" went off the air and they brought Phyllis and Rhoda back for that one show.
Pratt: On "Melrose," I heard over and over, "Please don't kill them all, don't put them all in a bus and run it over." So we played with that. We gave them exactly what they didn't want and then what they did want.
Fontana: We didn't really know if the show was getting renewed, so I couldn't do anything as extreme as blowing up the precinct house. But with proper warning? I think I would have had them all move into the empty apartments at "Melrose Place." There's a lot of real estate available now.
-Melanie Rehak
SHOP TALK
