Who are the very worst TV showrunners ever - Page 6 - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

TMC · 03-02-2021, 11:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Schmo

On what shows did the lead actor or actress also serve as show runner?

I don't know if she was the out and out showrunner but I believe that Doris Day did manage to secure creative control over her sitcom, The Doris Day Show. This pretty much explained why it was essentially a different show from season to season.

TMC · 03-19-2021, 01:21 AM

Mayans M.C. star Clayton Cardenas on Kurt Sutter's exit: "It's like the best thing that could have ever happened for the show"

"It's night and day," Cardenas tells GameSpot of Sutter, who was fired in 2019 over his abrasive behavior, paving the way for co-creator Elgin James to become sole showrunner. "It's like the best thing that could have ever happened for the show. The environment that we get to work (in), it's such a fun--it's a welcoming, comforting environment. You know, everybody's excited to come to work. I personally feel like I'm at an advantage, finally. I feel like I'm put in the position to succeed. I feel like the writing is meant for me. I feel like I'm not having to force dialogue, you know? I feel like the writing just rolls off my tongue now." Cardenas also points out that the show's new leadership structure under James allows everyone's work to shine. "Elgin is such an amazing creator and writer and, you know, he creates this familial bond on set," Cardenas said. "So again, it makes it welcoming. And everybody's proud of what's being done, everybody feels their voice is heard. And what more could you want? You know, what more could you want from a creator and director?"

factsoflife · 03-26-2021, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by catsrule

Aaron Spelling was credited as an executive producer all of the 10 seasons he was alive right at the end of every episode, along with E. Duke Vincent.

Yes, but that doesn't mean he had much creative influence. He was more of a figurehead by the time the show was up and running. Most of the day to day control was done by Brenda and her team of producers.

Aaron's name (and money) was great for getting a show on air but he rarely had much to do with the day to day, especially by the time the 90's rolled around.

TMC · 04-26-2021, 02:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TMC

TMC · 09-28-2021, 07:14 AM

Examples that would make a bad showrunner a "bad showrunner":

Having a great story/concept premise, but getting very ambitious/overwhelmed with certain crazy plots. This ends up being badly executed and causing a major hit on the shows (while alienating the audience/loyal fans along the way). What's followed next is cancellation.
Playing favorites with the actors/actresses at the expense of the storylines.
Being more concerned about making the show cinematic rather than focusing on the plot, character development, and writing.
Subjecting viewers with little more than storylines that were just confusing illogical.
The shows consistently have sloppy writing and bad direction.
Has great storylines, but the execution and attention to detail is rocky.
Being willing to poison their own show for the sake of "getting back at" an actor or group of fans that ticked them off, or propping up an actor they like.
Being over indulgent to the point of having overblown budgets for their shows.
When they don't get their way with the network or cable channel, they up and run.
Having big ideas that fall apart because they can't plot out the details and have an ego.
Using stereotypes and having people saying offensive stuff for shock value.

king of comedy · 09-28-2021, 07:49 AM

Seth MacFarland

TMC · 09-30-2021, 05:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by king of comedy

Seth MacFarland

If you're basing that strictly or mostly on Family Guy, keep in mind that Seth McFarlane form my understanding, hasn't written for the show since 2010, but he's still credited as an executive producer. So I don't now if he's still the main creative force or his really a figurehead.

TMC · 10-23-2021, 02:34 AM

EP247: The Art of Showrunning

Quote:

Ken continues his chat with comedy writer, Dave Hackel. This week they delve into what a showrunner really does. It’s a unique and rigorous responsibility. And Dave is one of the best. They also discuss BECKER, a show Dave created and ran for five years. Lots of great info here.

TMC · 11-22-2021, 01:34 AM

On the other side of the coin, are there any shows that managed to continue in their level of quality despite changing showrunners? Of course, usually, there are shows where once the showrunner left, the quality either dropped or shifted to what just did not feel right. But are there any shows that changed showrunners in-between seasons, and yet the transition was seamless?

70s show watcher · 11-26-2021, 06:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TMC

On the other side of the coin, are there any shows that managed to continue in their level of quality despite changing showrunners? Of course, usually, there are shows where once the showrunner left, the quality either dropped or shifted to what just did not feel right. But are there any shows that changed showrunners in-between seasons, and yet the transition was seamless?

la law was a good example of this when steven bocho left and david e Kelly took over it was a very smooth changeover that really does not happen with most shows

TMC · 12-28-2021, 12:49 AM

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa - According to chatter online, he has good ideas for potential storylines but they are horribly executed. His shows such as Riverdale and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina in particular, have so much potential but while watching them, you can tell that he’s just making it up as he goes along. And he likely doesn’t even remember what he wrote in prior seasons, so there are plot holes.

TMC · 01-22-2022, 04:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adamantium

I LOVE SLiders but I HATE what David Peckinah did with the series. He was someone who simply didn't care about the show he was running. And it showed.

To describe things in a nutshell, when David Peckinpah took over Sliders for Season 3, the show under his watch, turned into a brainless 'movie pastiche of the week' series, which led to John Rhys-Davis being fired and his character lobotomized/killed off.

TMC · 01-22-2022, 04:31 AM

Glenn Gordon Caron - When he was the showrunner for Bull, he was once quoted saying that Eliza Dushku ought to not mind sexual harassment since she had once posed for Maxim. Caron was problematic as far back as his Moonlighting days. To put things as nicely as possible, he was a perfectionist and held up production a lot because of his demands. Scripts were twice as long as typical one hour show scripts because of the intricate dialogue, and they took 2-3 times as long to shoot as one hour shows typically did. Producer Jay Daniel did an interview where he was as diplomatic as can be:

Quote:

"You know, I love Glenn Caron. There’s nothing bad I can say about the man. Even in the heat of battle when his back was against the wall, he kept a sense of humor about it, very self-denigrating humor. Oh, he had his moments, but for the most part he was a great, great pleasure to work with. The one criticism would be that he really did need to have to have his back to the wall and guns pointed at his head to get a script out. But that was because he’d set the bar so very high on Moonlighting. You get nominated for sixteen Emmys, you know the bar gets higher. He was a real perfectionist in terms of wanting the scripts to be as good as they could possibly be. He would go to the very last possible second to make a script better. Bruce and Cybill would get ten pages of dialogue they'd never seen first thing in the morning and they were going to shoot it in another hour or so. It was very difficult for them. Some of the tension on the set was because of that. But other than the lateness of the scripts, I have no criticism of Glenn whatsoever. He’s very, very talented, not just as a writer, but he's a great producer and a talented director as well."

Adam F. Goldberg - Mostly due to his presumed indifference over Jeff Garlin's alleged abusive behavior on the set of The Goldbergs. This is what some people who claim to have worked on the show said in the comments section of the linked Deadline article so take it with grain of salt if you want:

Quote:

on December 16, 2021 10:51 am
Goldberg was the biggest part of the problem on Goldbergs because he was terrified of Jeff. He chose to do nothing to wrangle Jeff. David ran a tight ship and has no fear of upsetting actors o there were very few problems on Curbed. Difference in leadership. One show had strong leadership and one show had none.

on December 16, 2021 3:22 pm
I’m not the same anonymous poster. But I was there. Adam helped create the problem. He did zero to rein Jeff in, just hid in his office and ignored pleas from the stage for help with Jeff. We had some guest crew from Curbed that were astonished at the difference between Jeff’s behavior on Goldbergs vs Curbed. The difference is that Larry looks out for the crew and Adam doesn’t give a single s*** about them. Jeff could do whatever he wanted as long as Adam was happy with his performance. So it just kept escalating. You’re only hearing about minor things on set. It was far far worse than it sounds from reading these articles.

on December 17, 2021 12:20 am
I had a friend on the show and she said Adam was the abusive one. Maybe Mo Ryne should look into him. Seems it took him getting fired for an HR investigation to even begin.

on December 17, 2021 11:10 am
Adam was tremendously abusive. But not a yeller, screamer, harasser. He just worked people at every level – from PAs to writers – to the brink of collapse, often just for a personal whim or to feed his ego. He loved the power of completely rewriting scenes the day before shooting and watching the stage and production office scramble to make it happen. He purposefully made the days endless so he could avoid going home. He was a pathological liar and pretty much everybody despised him and was relieved when he left. He created the Jeff situation then left it in the lap of the people who followed. But, it’s obvious that he was talented and the quality of the show went down following his departure.

on December 16, 2021 10:33 pm
That is not what happened. Adam let Jeff be horrible without any fear of repercussions. That emboldened Jeff to steadily get worse. He was a monster by the time Adam left. The current show runners worked under Adam before he left. There was no way they could get Jeff back in line. They’re totally good people, better than Adam, but they were grandfathered in to the Jeff situation.

TMC · 01-24-2022, 03:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TMC

In fairness to Fred Freiberger, who is often looked at as the fall guy for drop in quality in the original Star Trek come the third season, he was going in, dealt a severely bad hand: a slashed budget, worse timeslot, and the departure of some of the best writers after Season 2. If Freiberger is at any real fault, it's that he really wasn't an ideal fit as the showrunner or line producer for a rather novel production like Star Trek.

In theory, Bob Justman, who had been a major producer on the show for its entire run, would've been a better fit to become the showrunner. But it appears that Gene Roddenberry didn't fight hard enough for his promotion. So this ultimately, meant that Roddenberry's series was now being overseen by someone lacking the necessary know how in terms of making stories work.

TMC · 01-29-2022, 05:56 AM

Not a scripted show but Entertainment Tonight when Linda Bell Blue was the executive producer (from 1995-2014). Simply put, ET under her watch went from being a classy, respectable infotainment program that strived to cover all bases of the world of show business, to a hyper-active, sensationalistic, melodramatic, borderline trashy tabloid show. It went from bad to worse when Hard Copy was cancelled in 1999 and that show's staff was absorbed into ET's. Linda Bell Blue also by most accounts, had a very hectic and chaotic managerial style, where you virtually had to walk on egg-shells. She could be described as like Meryl Streep's character in The Devil Wears Prada.

09-28-2021, 07:14 AM	#80
TMC Member Forum Idol Join Date: Jan 09, 2001 Posts: 124,578	Examples that would make a bad showrunner a "bad showrunner": Having a great story/concept premise, but getting very ambitious/overwhelmed with certain crazy plots. This ends up being badly executed and causing a major hit on the shows (while alienating the audience/loyal fans along the way). What's followed next is cancellation. Playing favorites with the actors/actresses at the expense of the storylines. Being more concerned about making the show cinematic rather than focusing on the plot, character development, and writing. Subjecting viewers with little more than storylines that were just confusing illogical. The shows consistently have sloppy writing and bad direction. Has great storylines, but the execution and attention to detail is rocky. Being willing to poison their own show for the sake of "getting back at" an actor or group of fans that ticked them off, or propping up an actor they like. Being over indulgent to the point of having overblown budgets for their shows. When they don't get their way with the network or cable channel, they up and run. Having big ideas that fall apart because they can't plot out the details and have an ego. Using stereotypes and having people saying offensive stuff for shock value.
	Last edited by TMC; 01-22-2022 at 04:12 AM.

12-28-2021, 12:49 AM	#86
TMC Member Forum Idol Join Date: Jan 09, 2001 Posts: 124,578	Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa - According to chatter online, he has good ideas for potential storylines but they are horribly executed. His shows such as Riverdale and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina in particular, have so much potential but while watching them, you can tell that he’s just making it up as he goes along. And he likely doesn’t even remember what he wrote in prior seasons, so there are plot holes.
	Last edited by TMC; 01-22-2022 at 04:13 AM.

01-29-2022, 05:56 AM	#90
TMC Member Forum Idol Join Date: Jan 09, 2001 Posts: 124,578	Not a scripted show but Entertainment Tonight when Linda Bell Blue was the executive producer (from 1995-2014). Simply put, ET under her watch went from being a classy, respectable infotainment program that strived to cover all bases of the world of show business, to a hyper-active, sensationalistic, melodramatic, borderline trashy tabloid show. It went from bad to worse when Hard Copy was cancelled in 1999 and that show's staff was absorbed into ET's. Linda Bell Blue also by most accounts, had a very hectic and chaotic managerial style, where you virtually had to walk on egg-shells. She could be described as like Meryl Streep's character in The Devil Wears Prada.
	Last edited by TMC; 05-04-2022 at 06:52 AM.

03-19-2021, 01:21 AM	#77
TMC Member Forum Idol Join Date: Jan 09, 2001 Posts: 124,578	Mayans M.C. star Clayton Cardenas on Kurt Sutter's exit: "It's like the best thing that could have ever happened for the show" "It's night and day," Cardenas tells GameSpot of Sutter, who was fired in 2019 over his abrasive behavior, paving the way for co-creator Elgin James to become sole showrunner. "It's like the best thing that could have ever happened for the show. The environment that we get to work (in), it's such a fun--it's a welcoming, comforting environment. You know, everybody's excited to come to work. I personally feel like I'm at an advantage, finally. I feel like I'm put in the position to succeed. I feel like the writing is meant for me. I feel like I'm not having to force dialogue, you know? I feel like the writing just rolls off my tongue now." Cardenas also points out that the show's new leadership structure under James allows everyone's work to shine. "Elgin is such an amazing creator and writer and, you know, he creates this familial bond on set," Cardenas said. "So again, it makes it welcoming. And everybody's proud of what's being done, everybody feels their voice is heard. And what more could you want? You know, what more could you want from a creator and director?"

09-28-2021, 07:49 AM	#81
king of comedy Member Forum Veteran Join Date: Aug 31, 2012 Location: New Jersey Posts: 5,140	Seth MacFarland

11-22-2021, 01:34 AM	#84
TMC Member Forum Idol Join Date: Jan 09, 2001 Posts: 124,578	On the other side of the coin, are there any shows that managed to continue in their level of quality despite changing showrunners? Of course, usually, there are shows where once the showrunner left, the quality either dropped or shifted to what just did not feel right. But are there any shows that changed showrunners in-between seasons, and yet the transition was seamless?