Showrunners

Here’s something I’ve noticed about discussions of TV shows online: you don’t hear nearly as much about individual episode writers as you normally used to. The Christmas episode of Community was the first episode Dan Harmon has taken a writing credit on since the first two episodes of the series (he co-write it with legendary comedy veteran Dino Stamatopoulos), but — at least on the blogs and other discussions I read — the other episodes are usually held up as examples of his work, too. I rarely hear people singling out individual credited writers. Same with most other comedies and dramas on the air: the episodes of Boardwalk Empire are mostly discussed in terms of Terence Winter; How I Met Your Mother is considered primarily a Bays-Thomas joint; and so on. There’s a bit more of an individual-writer focus with science fiction shows, which have always had writer cults (and anti-cults, in the case of the Star Treks and Battlestar Galactica), but the showrunner usually plays a central role in online discussion of each episode.

Thanks to reader Zack for pointing me to this quote from Joss Whedon in his recent interview with Mo Ryan. The quote is about the difference between working for the WB/UPN and working for bigger networks, but it also sheds some light about why network TV goes through certain periods (like the late ’80s and parts of the ’90s) when it’s more open to weird ideas and approaches than it usually is.

In comments, Todd defends Marti Noxon: