Post by Rianne on Feb 13, 2006 15:11:27 GMT 1
Another Charmed Cliffhanger
By Daniel Robert Epstein
Usually, a show runner has the last word on their program’s fate. But for the second year in a row, Charmed producer Brad Kern has no idea if this season is his last.
When FilmStew recently caught up with Brad Kern, the producer who has been overseeing the TV series Charmed since its inception in 1998, the merger between its broadcast home, The WB, and UPN had just occurred. But ironically, that doesn’t make things potentially any stranger than they were in the winter of 2005.
“Last year, I wasn’t told whether we were coming back or not until after I had written the last episode,” he recalls. “So I had to do a hybrid episode that was half season finale, half series finale. That was very unfulfilling for me and I think on some level for the fans. So this year, I just unilaterally decided I won’t do that. I’m doing a series finale because the fans deserve it.”
At this point, a year later, Kern once again doesn’t know – again – whether or not this is the final curtain for Charmed. In other words, here we go again. “I couldn’t get an answer out of the WB when they still existed, [so] I certainly can’t get an answer out of anybody now,” he says only half jokingly. “Therefore, I am gearing up for and setting up a series finale.”
Asked how his new network home now answers the phone, he replies, “Frankly, the phone usually just keeps ringing.”
One thing Kern can safely predict is that the complete fourth season of the show, which ran from 2001 through 2002, will be hitting DVD at the end of this month (February 28th). At that point in the tale of three sisters (Shannen Doherty, Holly Marie Combs, Alyssa Milano) who use their occult powers to battle demons and warlocks, Doherty, in her usual fashion, bolted from a show at the height of its popularity.
Kern, his fellow producers and The WB made the choice to cast in her place Rose McGowan, who already had a strong edgy fan base due to her roles in Scream, Jawbreaker and, tangentially, additional appeal as a witch because her boyfriend at the time was Marilyn Manson. Eight years later, Kern insists being a show runner for this program remains no easier or any more predictable than it was when he first started.
“I really can’t imagine a scenario where Charmed is on the air next year,” he predicts of his future on the newly merged CW. “We don’t have any contracts on the girls after this season. My understanding is that the WB still exists and will continue to exist until this September. But clearly as things shake out, with Dawn Ostroff the head of UPN now running what people are calling the Country Western channel, she has a steep learning curve with catching up to what all the WB shows are.”
Prior to working as a show runner on Charmed and New York Undercover, Kern made his living as a TV writer and story editor, spanning the likes of Hill Street Blues, Remington Steele and The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.. Although he admits he is somewhat ignorant of the way reality TV has eroded the world he once toiled in as a TV writer, he has at least a half dozen show ideas that he is looking forward to peddling.
These include an edgy romantic comedy and a science-fiction cop show that travels back and forth through time. Meanwhile, although Kern recently had great fun recording Audio Commentary for an upcoming Brisco disc, and is getting ready to contribute soon to a similar compilation for his first big break, Remington Steele, he has no answer for Charmed fans who will complain once again with the release of the fourth season on February 28th that the show is criminally short on DVD Extras.
“Believe me, if I had an answer, I’d be the first one to share it with the fans,” he reveals. “I’ve gone blue in the face yelling, screaming and barking; it’s a huge frustration of mine. I know the fans are clamoring for extras, and one of the reasons why I’m making a big of a deal out of it now is because if this is the end of Charmed, we only have three months left of filming.”
“This is the time to film the extras; this is the time to get the stars, while they’re still on the home sets,” Kern continues, indicating for example that he also has an unaired 20-minute presentation in which the Alyssa Milano role of Phoebe was played by another actress. “There’s so much that we can do now that we won’t be able to do in three short months, and I just can’t get a solid answer out of anybody. With pure speculation, I can say that Paramount [Home Entertainment] doesn’t think that they can make enough money to warrant the extra expense of the extras.”
“I think that’s ludicrous, because the DVDs of Charmed, Season One, made millions and millions of dollars.”
Another time Kern felt he was out of the loop was in the midst of the filming of Season Four, when the time came to decide who was going to replace Shannen Doherty. Executives from The WB and Spelling Television went after big stars such as Tiffani Thiessen and Jennifer Love Hewitt, something Kern wasn’t necessarily too thrilled about.
He was hoping for someone a little quirkier, not to mention a gal who also matched the requisite TV biology criteria: a physical resemblance to co-stars Milano and Holly Marie Combs; no taller than five feet, six inches; and in her early 20s. Actress Rose McGowan was in the end part of a very short list of suitable candidates, so Kern was thrilled when she indicated an immediate interest.
“Everybody knew that in losing Shannen [Doherty], we were putting the show at great risk,” he explains. “Tinkering with a hit show is always a risk, especially when you do a show about three sisters and one of the sisters no longer is there. It’s not like you can just put somebody else in and say, ‘Don’t worry audience, it’s still sisters.’”
“There was a lot of anxiety for the fourth season, because a new sister changed all the dynamics of the old sisterhood,” Kern admits. “Piper was no longer the middle sister, she suddenly became the oldest sister, and Phoebe was now the middle sister. Through trial and error, we figured out what Rose brings to the party.”
Asked what it’s like dealing with the sliding scale of TV executive acumen, Kern replies with a laugh, “Oh, you’re going to get me in trouble.” But you don’t put together a twenty-year plus network career without being diplomatic, and so he begins by singling out WB executive John Litvack, who he says was instrumental in helping shape the creative direction of Charmed.
Overall, Kern says the ever-expanding vertical integration of the media conglomerates that run Hollywood can create some interesting, pressure cooker environments. “There are so many executives at so many different levels that have so much to keep track of and so many bosses to answer to, that they spend half of their time just scrambling and struggling just to stay above the fray,” he suggests. “I can’t even imagine being in those positions, because if you offer an opinion, you risk losing your job.”
“If your immediate superior disagrees and if that idea leads to the failure of a show, then you’re to blame,” he continues. “So how do you even commit to an idea unless you really have the courage? That’s the difficult thing in this environment, to show that kind of courage and the strength of conviction in all those internal meetings. There are precious few executives that do that, and God bless them, because they’re the reasons why I think television is as good as it is.”
Perhaps the rumored film version of Remington Steele will be one of those efforts lucky enough to be graced by such creative vision. Although Pierce Brosnan recently told FilmStew he would limit his participation to a cameo, it potentially could be a wonderful though brief return to the genre that used to dominate TV, before the CSI and Law & Order procedurals.
“Pierce was a genius, because he had that wonderful flair and élan that just made it work so well,” Kern recalls. “Of course, Michael Gleason was a genius in his ability to write it in such a way that it was the same kind of thing that people enjoyed in the 1940’s with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. It absolutely could work beautifully as a movie.”
By Daniel Robert Epstein
Usually, a show runner has the last word on their program’s fate. But for the second year in a row, Charmed producer Brad Kern has no idea if this season is his last.
When FilmStew recently caught up with Brad Kern, the producer who has been overseeing the TV series Charmed since its inception in 1998, the merger between its broadcast home, The WB, and UPN had just occurred. But ironically, that doesn’t make things potentially any stranger than they were in the winter of 2005.
“Last year, I wasn’t told whether we were coming back or not until after I had written the last episode,” he recalls. “So I had to do a hybrid episode that was half season finale, half series finale. That was very unfulfilling for me and I think on some level for the fans. So this year, I just unilaterally decided I won’t do that. I’m doing a series finale because the fans deserve it.”
At this point, a year later, Kern once again doesn’t know – again – whether or not this is the final curtain for Charmed. In other words, here we go again. “I couldn’t get an answer out of the WB when they still existed, [so] I certainly can’t get an answer out of anybody now,” he says only half jokingly. “Therefore, I am gearing up for and setting up a series finale.”
Asked how his new network home now answers the phone, he replies, “Frankly, the phone usually just keeps ringing.”
One thing Kern can safely predict is that the complete fourth season of the show, which ran from 2001 through 2002, will be hitting DVD at the end of this month (February 28th). At that point in the tale of three sisters (Shannen Doherty, Holly Marie Combs, Alyssa Milano) who use their occult powers to battle demons and warlocks, Doherty, in her usual fashion, bolted from a show at the height of its popularity.
Kern, his fellow producers and The WB made the choice to cast in her place Rose McGowan, who already had a strong edgy fan base due to her roles in Scream, Jawbreaker and, tangentially, additional appeal as a witch because her boyfriend at the time was Marilyn Manson. Eight years later, Kern insists being a show runner for this program remains no easier or any more predictable than it was when he first started.
“I really can’t imagine a scenario where Charmed is on the air next year,” he predicts of his future on the newly merged CW. “We don’t have any contracts on the girls after this season. My understanding is that the WB still exists and will continue to exist until this September. But clearly as things shake out, with Dawn Ostroff the head of UPN now running what people are calling the Country Western channel, she has a steep learning curve with catching up to what all the WB shows are.”
Prior to working as a show runner on Charmed and New York Undercover, Kern made his living as a TV writer and story editor, spanning the likes of Hill Street Blues, Remington Steele and The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.. Although he admits he is somewhat ignorant of the way reality TV has eroded the world he once toiled in as a TV writer, he has at least a half dozen show ideas that he is looking forward to peddling.
These include an edgy romantic comedy and a science-fiction cop show that travels back and forth through time. Meanwhile, although Kern recently had great fun recording Audio Commentary for an upcoming Brisco disc, and is getting ready to contribute soon to a similar compilation for his first big break, Remington Steele, he has no answer for Charmed fans who will complain once again with the release of the fourth season on February 28th that the show is criminally short on DVD Extras.
“Believe me, if I had an answer, I’d be the first one to share it with the fans,” he reveals. “I’ve gone blue in the face yelling, screaming and barking; it’s a huge frustration of mine. I know the fans are clamoring for extras, and one of the reasons why I’m making a big of a deal out of it now is because if this is the end of Charmed, we only have three months left of filming.”
“This is the time to film the extras; this is the time to get the stars, while they’re still on the home sets,” Kern continues, indicating for example that he also has an unaired 20-minute presentation in which the Alyssa Milano role of Phoebe was played by another actress. “There’s so much that we can do now that we won’t be able to do in three short months, and I just can’t get a solid answer out of anybody. With pure speculation, I can say that Paramount [Home Entertainment] doesn’t think that they can make enough money to warrant the extra expense of the extras.”
“I think that’s ludicrous, because the DVDs of Charmed, Season One, made millions and millions of dollars.”
Another time Kern felt he was out of the loop was in the midst of the filming of Season Four, when the time came to decide who was going to replace Shannen Doherty. Executives from The WB and Spelling Television went after big stars such as Tiffani Thiessen and Jennifer Love Hewitt, something Kern wasn’t necessarily too thrilled about.
He was hoping for someone a little quirkier, not to mention a gal who also matched the requisite TV biology criteria: a physical resemblance to co-stars Milano and Holly Marie Combs; no taller than five feet, six inches; and in her early 20s. Actress Rose McGowan was in the end part of a very short list of suitable candidates, so Kern was thrilled when she indicated an immediate interest.
“Everybody knew that in losing Shannen [Doherty], we were putting the show at great risk,” he explains. “Tinkering with a hit show is always a risk, especially when you do a show about three sisters and one of the sisters no longer is there. It’s not like you can just put somebody else in and say, ‘Don’t worry audience, it’s still sisters.’”
“There was a lot of anxiety for the fourth season, because a new sister changed all the dynamics of the old sisterhood,” Kern admits. “Piper was no longer the middle sister, she suddenly became the oldest sister, and Phoebe was now the middle sister. Through trial and error, we figured out what Rose brings to the party.”
Asked what it’s like dealing with the sliding scale of TV executive acumen, Kern replies with a laugh, “Oh, you’re going to get me in trouble.” But you don’t put together a twenty-year plus network career without being diplomatic, and so he begins by singling out WB executive John Litvack, who he says was instrumental in helping shape the creative direction of Charmed.
Overall, Kern says the ever-expanding vertical integration of the media conglomerates that run Hollywood can create some interesting, pressure cooker environments. “There are so many executives at so many different levels that have so much to keep track of and so many bosses to answer to, that they spend half of their time just scrambling and struggling just to stay above the fray,” he suggests. “I can’t even imagine being in those positions, because if you offer an opinion, you risk losing your job.”
“If your immediate superior disagrees and if that idea leads to the failure of a show, then you’re to blame,” he continues. “So how do you even commit to an idea unless you really have the courage? That’s the difficult thing in this environment, to show that kind of courage and the strength of conviction in all those internal meetings. There are precious few executives that do that, and God bless them, because they’re the reasons why I think television is as good as it is.”
Perhaps the rumored film version of Remington Steele will be one of those efforts lucky enough to be graced by such creative vision. Although Pierce Brosnan recently told FilmStew he would limit his participation to a cameo, it potentially could be a wonderful though brief return to the genre that used to dominate TV, before the CSI and Law & Order procedurals.
“Pierce was a genius, because he had that wonderful flair and élan that just made it work so well,” Kern recalls. “Of course, Michael Gleason was a genius in his ability to write it in such a way that it was the same kind of thing that people enjoyed in the 1940’s with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. It absolutely could work beautifully as a movie.”
