“Bible documents are French for ‘Can we trust you?’”
—TOM NUNAN, FORMER NETWORK PRESIDENT AND PRODUCER OF THE ACADEMY AWARD-WINNING FILM CRASH
Chapter 12
The Show Bible as an Essential Sales Tool
In 2000, veteran TV writers/producers Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran (who’d worked together on USA’s La Femme Nikita) went into the Fox network offices with a groundbreaking new format for a one-hour political conspiracy/drama series. It was a simple pitch: What if each season is comprised of 24 episodes—with each episode constituting one hour in a single 24-hour day?
When Surnow first discussed the idea over the phone with Cochran, his initial response was, “Forget it, that’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard, it will never work and it’s too hard.” Nevertheless, the two met the next day at an IHOP in the San Fernando Valley to discuss the idea of this action-espionage series that used the format of real time to generate dramatic intensity with a race against the digital clock.
Based on one pitch meeting, bolstered by Surnow and Cochran’s track records and reputations, the Fox network commissioned the pilot script. And then, on the strength of that script, according to Surnow: “They ordered the pilot film. We did not have to pitch anything more to them until after the series was ordered.”1 The rest is multiple Emmy and Golden Globe Award-winning history.
Back then, there was one path to selling an original series: You had to pay your dues working your way up the totem pole on a writing staff and amass a list of reputable credits as writer/producer. Only then would the networks even consider inviting you to pitch your series. And despite the development ratio at the networks being roughly 10 to 1, it was still a long shot to sell a pitch, much less get a green-lit pilot episode.
Pilots were sold on the basis of a verbal pitch and were seldom written on spec, and broadcast networks rarely bought spec pilots; the big four were almost exclusively in the business of working with established TV writer/producers and, occasionally, an A-list screenwriter crossing over from movies into TV (which was considered slumming only a couple of decades ago). The chances of an unknown writer, with few or no TV credits, selling a pilot to a network were slim to none. And virtually all pilot scripts were developed from pitches, so the network execs could participate in the development process from the get-go according to their current mandates. Of course, those mandates were almost always based on what worked last season. Viewers being notoriously fickle and picky, it’s why most of the new series that premiered in the fall were summarily canceled by Christmas. It was trial and error every season.
In those days, the primary network development strategy was creative auspices first, premise second. In fact, many shows were produced under lucrative “blind” development deals for top TV writers. In a blind pilot deal, the network or studio enters into an arrangement with a hot writer to come up with series ideas and then, by mutual agreement, the writer/producer is commissioned to further develop one of these ideas into a pilot script. This tends to be more of a political strategy than a purely artistic one; when studio and network executives are working with established creators/showrunners, this insulates the execs from failure. Hey, it’s always easier to blame the biggest name on the call sheet.
Before Google and Wikipedia, the “series bible” was simply a big binder (or many binders) kept in the writers’ office to keep track of each episode; it usually contained episode synopses compiled by the show’s Script Coordinator, and it was referred to for continuity. The original use for the series bible was actually to help new staff writers and producers quickly get up to speed on every past episode.
That Was Then. This Is Now.
Today, the series bible is often used as a selling tool. Many networks are asking to see a bible along with a one-hour drama spec pilot before buying it. (For half-hour situation comedies, it’s a different process and may only involve a treatment or “story area document”; more details to follow.)
Now, spec pilots are all the rage, with new writers selling their speculative pilots to broadcast, cable and streaming networks and, in many cases, starting their TV careers at the Co-Executive Producer (or, in rare cases, at Executive Producer) level. In these instances, the network recruits an experienced showrunner to oversee the writers’ room and production, so the nascent writer/creator can learn and grow into the eventual showrunner.
In the case of Mr. Robot, creator/writer/director/showrunner Sam Esmail was granted the opportunity to run his own show—despite his complete lack of any TV writing experience. As Esmail tells it, when the executives at UCP (Universal Cable Productions) first read his Mr. Robot pilot script, “They didn’t get it and passed.” But the young assistants at UCP were so enamored with the script that they all rallied to their bosses to pick up the show for the USA Network. Even though USA was still airing light comedy “blue sky” series (à la Royal Pains, White Collar, Suits, Psych, Burn Notice), the assistants’ passion convinced management to green-light the show. And Esmail had such a strong vision for his series that he and his powerhouse managers at Anonymous Content (Steve Golin and Chad Hamilton, who serve as Executive Producers on the show) further convinced USA to allow him to direct the Season 1 finale entitled “eps1.0_zer0-day.avi.”
Esmail had originally conceived Mr. Robot as a feature film. But when his work-in-progress ballooned to an untenable 190+ pages at the midpoint, his managers suggested he consider turning it into a TV series. Having such a detailed blueprint certainly worked in Esmail’s favor when he closed the deal at UCP. He already had most, if not all, of the Season 1 character arcs worked out. He’d inadvertently written a series bible to bolster what would become his 64-page pilot script. Even though it would ultimately air on the basic cable, advertiser-supported USA Network, Esmail’s pilot had no teaser, no act breaks, and was written like a movie. The two quotes in the epigraph established the tone for the show:
“Our democracy has been hacked.
The operating system has been taken over and turned to uses that are somewhat different than the ones our founders intended to emerge.”
—Al Gore, 2013
“Give a man a gun, and he can rob a bank.
Give a man a bank, and he can rob the world.”
—Internet Meme, c. 2011
I met Sam Esmail just after the conclusion of Season 1, when he appeared at an event sponsored by the Writers Guild. During the Q&A, someone asked him if he’d known from the start that Elliot Alderson (Rami Malek) was delusional, or was that something that emerged in the writers’ room? Esmail’s response was just short of “Duh!” It was there from the get-go, the entire basis of both his original screenplay and the TV series: a cyber hacker with dissociative personality disorder takes on E Corp in an effort to cripple the financial markets and topple “the 1% of the 1%.”
This was baked into his whole concept. Without Elliot’s delusions, there is no Mr. Robot. The Season 1 plot twists and turns were all premeditated, à la Fight Club. Mr. Robot wasn’t a case of one-premise pilot that was sold on its own steam. Rather, it was a fully imagined world, and Esmail knew where it was going. He had vision and confidence. He was also adamant that the show be shot on location in New York City. He won just about every battle, and the critical and artistic success of the series has helped pave the way for other blossoming writer/creators.2
In the midst of the Digital Television Revolution, the spec pilot has even more value than a great pitch, with emerging, first-time showrunners and series creators catapulting to the top, in seemingly overnight success. Of course, in most cases, these writer/creators were toiling in the trenches for years writing unsold and/or unproduced material, until one day, the anticipated “No” turned into a “Yes.” Zander Lehmann (Casual on Hulu) and Sarah Gertrude Shapiro (UnREAL) have similar success stories, but they were both shepherded through the process by Academy Award-nominated writer/producer/director Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer alumna Marti Noxon, respectively.
The Need for Reassurance
From Closed-Ended, Stand-Alone Procedurals to Open-Ended, Slower-Burn Serials
Once upon a time, broadcast networks strongly favored series with episodes that could be watched in any order and assiduously avoided “premise pilots.”3 The reigning programming philosophy was building an audience, and before on-demand viewership, networks were justifiably fearful that, if the audience missed the premise pilot or one or more episodes of a serialized show, they’d never come back. It was hard to catch up, back then, as reruns were offered outside Network Sweeps4 periods and during the summer.
Today, given that most shows are serialized and that audiences tend to watch series on-demand, at their own pace (often binge viewing), TV networks take a different approach to development. Of course, this approach varies from network to network, and broadcast networks, like CBS and NBC, are still programming closed-ended, case-of-the week, plot-driven procedurals (Code Black, Criminal Minds, Hawaii Five-0, Chicago Fire). The majority of networks are seeking not only a great pilot script, but also a roadmap as to where the series is heading. If the series creators have a solid track record, the intended Season 1 character arcs and principal plotlines (which almost always change once the writers’ room is up and running) can be discussed in a meeting or conference call.
If the show is sold on the basis of a verbal pitch, then the big four broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC) will next ask for a story area document that describes, in a fair amount of detail, the A, B, and C stories for the pilot episode. In the movie business, this document is referred to as a treatment.
If the series creator is relatively inexperienced, then the network may further ask for a series bible to elaborate on the world of the series, character backstories, character arcs and future story engines. The goal for the series bible, or in many cases, a mini-bible (5 to 10 pages, maximum) is to convince the buyer that you have a vision as to where your series is going post-pilot.
Producing television is costly and notoriously inefficient, even wasteful. Of the dozens of pilots produced each year at a cost of tens of millions of dollars, most never see the light of day. Produced and abandoned. Orphaned. Busted pilots. Call them whatever you want. They’re developed, nurtured and, more often than not, shelved. (Semantics are important in politically savvy Hollywood; at CBS, they never “pass” on a pilot, they “push” it off for future consideration—which is a diplomatic form of rejection that leaves less blood on anyone’s hands, lest the rejected creator/writer becomes the next Shonda Rhimes or Ryan Murphy.)
If There’s a Central Mystery, There Needs to Be a Series Bible
Serialized one-hour dramas that contain a central mystery require series creators to know whodunit—the solution to the mystery—in advance, before the network green-lights the series. You can’t simply say, “I don’t know yet.”
As mentioned in Chapter 2, there are two kinds of mysteries: open mysteries that reveal who the perpetrator is from the get-go (The Fall, Fargo, Bloodline, Hannibal, Happy Valley) and closed mysteries—which present myriad suspects, but it’s up to the investigators (and us) to figure out whodunit (True Detective, The Night Of, Big Little Lies, Twin Peaks). The anticipation of the big discovery by the hero in an open mystery, or the revelation of the perp in a closed mystery (ideally by the end of Season 1), is tantalizing to viewers. But when a series creator doesn’t know the answer to the central mystery, it doesn’t inspire confidence in a buyer. In fact, it’s just the opposite. The series mini-bible is designed to communicate both setups and payoffs. Can the payoff change after the series is ordered? Of course! But only if the new direction is better, more satisfying, and network-approved.
Audiences love surprises. Networks don’t. They’re paying you a large sum of money, so they want to be in on the process. When in doubt, communicate with your producer and/or network/studio executive. The TV business is highly collaborative. Be a good team player and engage in a dialogue. It never pays to be recalcitrant or adversarial. You need them on your side; they’re your investors.
Below you’ll find the current business development models at many of the leading networks (subject to change as the business continues to evolve). I’ve divided them into those networks that still make and test pilots versus those that go straight to full series production order.
It should also be noted that the days of the 22- or 24-episode series are rapidly disappearing, in favor of shorter orders of 10 to 13 episodes. This translates into smaller writing staffs, lower salaries, fewer and much lower residuals (royalties for TV writers based on reruns), and shorter story arcs. With shorter orders, the networks are less likely to simply trust that the show will eventually find itself in the writers’ room, and more likely to ask for either a series (mini-)bible and/or story area documents to assuage their anxieties.
In the old days, success was determined by the overnight Nielsen ratings system. Today, the metric is breaking through all the noise and capturing an audience—which might not happen overnight, or even in the subsequent three days (known as LIVE+3 in the TV biz). In many instances, viewers don’t discover a “new” series until it’s been on the air for several weeks, months or even years. But when they do, a few passionate fans can create a word-of-mouth buzz that turns a sleeper show into a hit.
Networks That Circumvent the Pilot Process (Tend to) Commission Series Bibles
These networks include:
• NETFLIX
Game-changing, trailblazing, global streaming giant Netflix eschews the traditional network pilot process because, as Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos puts it:
The pilot process is the dumbest thing in the whole business. Of all the things wrong with the creative process, that’s the most broken. The only thing worse than a survey is to use it to create; use this unscientific methodology to make decisions on peoples’ lives. What people will get to see, whether people will work or not based on 17 people in a focus group—it’s crazy…. Seinfeld took four years to hit its stride. In today’s landscape it wouldn’t last.5
Given that Netflix circumvents the pilot process and goes straight to series, I asked Sarandos how much written material is submitted before he green-lights a series. Sarandos replied:
It depends. Orange Is the New Black was a pitch—it was Jenji’s track record and unique voice, and the book [the memoir written by former inmate Piper Kerman]. Jenji came in and said, ‘Here is what I’m going to do with the source material and how it’s not going to be a typical prison show.’ [In addition to the success of the British version], House of Cards was three scripts, a bible that laid out the show for five or six seasons, and a very strong package. From directors, producers, writers—it was a fully formed package. Hemlock Grove was a book. Lilyhammer we acquired after we watched the produced pilot.6
The bottom line: Netflix, which now owns and produces most of its new “Originals” in-house (via Netflix Productions), puts less emphasis on development, and more on acquisitions of both I.P. and original material. It also works with its existing I.P.; a House of Cards spinoff may be on the way, possibly focusing on Doug Stamper (Michael Kelly) and penned by Eric Roth, who’s an executive producer on the show. The company tends to buy packaged series from established movie and TV writers, directors and producers. It’s highly unlikely that they’ll buy something that’s half-baked.
• AMAZON
The world’s largest retailer, Amazon reinvented the traditional network pilot season, but may be moving away from that model. Each new season, their Amazon Prime audience rates the new batch of pilots and votes online for the finalists in different categories. A spokesperson for Amazon Studios explained their online, interactive approach to pilot season:
Over the course of the year, we have a look at a lot of ideas and scripts, and the most important thing we do, prior to online voting, is which deals to make in the first place, and which projects warrant further script development. And then we have to decide ultimately which ones we’re going to make. Most of the year, when we’re not producing pilots, we are focusing on pitches and scripts and so on. And then we get to the point where we want to pick pilots, and we choose them, taking into account the strength of the script or scripts, who the team is, what the show’s about—and then we just go into production.
Casting is always a factor:
When you say that you’re green-lighting a pilot, you’re just doing that on the assumption that you’re not going to be disappointed in the casting process. Because if that doesn’t work out right, you’re not going to be shooting the pilot.
Going forward, Amazon is making more orders straight to series, and shifting focus to bigger, event series. It’s common knowledge that they’re looking for the next Game of Thrones and also appointed an executive dedicated to this area. Their Head of Event Series, Sharon Tal Yguado, is a Fox TV veteran. There are however mixed feelings about Amazon’s decision to develop such event series as Lord of the Rings (an even slower burn?).
Why, when the behemoth is doing extremely well in e-commerce, does it persist in developing TV shows and movies? When Amazon reported successful earnings in late 2017 that were well above market expectations, CFO Brian Olsavsky shed some light on the question. Amazon Prime members spend more than other shoppers and are more active on the site. “We have a lot of data. We see viewing patterns and sales patterns. We can see which video resonates with Prime members, and which doesn’t…. We’re always looking for more impactful shows, more shows that resonate with our customer base and what they want to see.” Apparently, their data will help determine both their programming and overall approach to cyber commerce. Amazon remains “very bullish on the video business … we will continue to invest in video in 2018,” Olsavsky confirmed.7
One of the main reasons I believe the broadcast network pilot model is defective is that they’re all on the same schedule and everybody’s chasing after all of the same actors, all at the same time; it creates gridlock and diminishes choice. But Netflix and Amazon are not on that timeline; they can make as many pilots as they want, when they want, and they’re not beholden to network affiliates and advertisers. Amazon’s affiliates are their e-commerce shoppers and subscribers. In the pilot process, the consumer gets to vote and chime in—which may or may not be a factor in a series going forward. And then it’s not a 22-episode commitment, but rather 6 to 13 episodes. That freedom helps enormously in securing talent both in front of and behind the camera.
Arcs and overall direction remain important. In order to get the green light for shooting his pilot for Patriot, creator/director/showrunner Steven Conrad had to prove to Amazon Studios that he knew how many seasons he was planning and that he had a clear payoff in mind at the end of each season, as well as at the end of the whole series. Morgan Wandell was the Head of Drama Series at the time. From Wandell’s experience of working in a similar capacity at ABC during the run of Lost, he knew he wanted to avoid having Patriot be open-ended with no clear-cut endgame. Wandell has since moved to Apple as their Head of International Content Development.
Conrad verbally pitched the main arcs and intended plotlines for several seasons for Patriot (without a written series bible document) and convinced Amazon he knew where he was going and what he was doing. But had he not known the full trajectory up front, he would never have been granted the go-ahead.
The bottom line: Amazon Studios makes pilots based upon both pitches and spec pilot scripts. Mini-bibles are appreciated but not mandatory, depending on the creative auspices of the creator(s). David E. Kelley’s Goliath received a straight- to-series, eight-episode order in late 2015, premiered on Amazon in the fall of 2016 and by early 2017 had already been renewed for a second season. More shows will continue to be ordered straight to season. On the other hand, Amy Sherman-Palladino’s pilot for The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which debuted in Amazon’s spring 2017 pilot season, was such a huge hit with its customers that it got an unprecedented two season order. Amazon has signed a deal with The Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman; the more niche I Love Dick was not renewed. The young studio is evidently in flux. Will Amazon Studios soon end their interactive approach to pilot season? Given their deep pockets and that they seem to have all the data they need to make decisions on green-lighting, they may well do.
• AMC
“We don’t ask for [a series bible] upfront. Usually it’s something we ask toward the end of the development cycle/process of a project, if we feel that project has potential to move forward,” says Stefano Agosto, AMC’s Manager of Scripted Programming. He continued:
It’s not unusual for cable/digital platforms to ask for a mini-bible. Unlike [the broadcast networks], you have more chances to get a show picked up or renewed on Netflix or Hulu. And since they need content and places like Netflix do straight-to-series orders, it’s important for them to have that mini-bible. They [the big broadcast networks] still shoot pilots, so for them the series bible is less relevant.9
Matthew Weiner, creator/showrunner of AMC’s Mad Men, has said that his process is not to break more than five episodes at a time (i.e., no long-form story arcs) to allow for the creative discovery process. Weiner and many other series creators/showrunners have expressed that they don’t want to lock themselves into a rigid long-range plan. Each episode we “break” in the writers’ room leads to new discoveries about the characters, so it has to be an organic, fluid process; even on The Walking Dead, where the zombies never change, but the living, breathing humans do.
The bottom line: AMC buys both pitches and spec pilots and appreciates series bibles for dramas.
• HULU ORIGINALS
Beatrice Springborn, Head of Originals, reports that Hulu goes straight to series:
With 11.22.63, which came to us as a book [by Stephen King], as well as a pitch and a series bible [by series adapter/showrunner Bridget Carpenter], we went straight to series because it was J.J. Abrams and Stephen King. With the Jason Reitman project [Casual, created by Zander Lehmann], what was really interesting was that they came to us with two scripts. It’s much easier to go straight to series if you have a second script. The pilot’s one thing, but the second script shows you that they can deliver. It’s not a magic 8-ball that predicts what the series will be, but shows you they can carry on the arcs. So we went straight to series after seeing a second episode with first-time writer [Lehmann] and Jason overseeing.
On Difficult People, we got that as a rough pilot that came out of turnaround from USA [Network] because they stopped doing comedies. It’s always good to see that proof of concept, but if there are auspices who can deliver and bring in an audience, we’ll typically go straight to series. We do have a development process. We haven’t shot a pilot yet. If we did it’d be for a variety show, which we’ve been talking about or something that we need to tweak the format of before we launched it. And I don’t know that we’d call it a pilot. It would be shooting some episodes to get the format right and then go.10
The bottom line: Depending on the creator(s)’s reputation and bona fides, Hulu wants at least a pilot script and a mini-bible. A second episode is also a big plus. Incidentally, their big hit The Handmaid’s Tale easily warranted a second season, but Season 1 has already burned through the source material of Margaret Atwood’s sensational novel. Now they’re—more or less—creating from scratch.
In 2017, Hulu hired Fox television executive Randy Freer as CEO, taking over from Mike Hopkins, who moved to head up Sony Pictures TV. Hopkins, also a former Fox executive, shepherded Hulu to Emmy glory in 2017. I look forward to seeing where Freer takes Hulu next.
• SONY CRACKLE
I’ve been working with Sony Crackle for five years as an instructor/facilitator for a one-hour drama development workshop in the MFA Screenwriting Program at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. The class operates as an incubator to generate potential drama series for Crackle, according to their current programming needs. Crackle executives play an active role in the class, listening to and approving pitches, reading and commenting on outlines, and reading and considering the pilot scripts and mini-bibles for further development and production. Each year, TV-focused UCLA graduate students apply (via written pitches and writing samples) for one of the eight coveted slots in the class; those accepted sign first-look deal agreements with Crackle that basically grant Sony Television a six-month first right of refusal from the date they first receive the completed pilot script and mini-bible.
The bottom line: The UCLA/Crackle workshop operates according to Crackle’s “real-world” professional mandates: pitch, outline, pilot script, and mini-bible OR a spec pilot script and mini-bible are all mandatory. Sony Crackle does not make and test pilots and instead goes straight to series, with 10-episode seasons, launched all at once (a/k/a the full episode drop). Crackle is an AVOD (Advertiser Supported TV On-Demand) digital network—which means it’s free but you need to watch commercials. (I’m happy to report that Crackle has acquired several pilots from this highly productive UCLA initiative for further development. Stay tuned.)
The Following Networks Still Make Pilots, But Do They Require Series Bibles?
• ABC
At ABC, the need for a series bible is on a case-by-case basis, reports ABC network President Channing Dungey-Power:
With some projects, where it’s less clear where the series will be going, a bible is requested at the same time as the pilot. The bible gives the showrunner and producers a chance to sell the overall series which, with some high-concept premise pilots, can be hard to glean from just the first episode. That said, the bible at this stage is more of a selling tool than anything else. Once the writers get into the writers’ room, many things can change. The initial Lost bible is famous for bearing little or no resemblance to the series that ultimately followed.11
Did superstar showrunner Shonda Rhimes need to provide an extensive series bible to convince the network brass to green-light her shows? More likely it’s a conversation, because Rhimes is a story wizard and has been known to walk into the writers’ room at the beginning of the season and lay out the character arcs, major plotlines and themes to be explored over the course of the full season. And, just like everybody else, she changes her mind and stays open to new, better discoveries—sometimes blessed by the story gods, and sometimes necessitated by production demands (such as Kerry Washington’s pregnancy on Scandal ). Or both. Now over at Netflix, Rhimes is likely to have even more creative freedom.
• CBS
“We do not ask or pay for bibles in the traditional development cycle,” says CBS Executive Vice-President of Drama Development, Christina Davis. “We do, however, ask for six episode ideas (that can include character arcs) with delivery of the series creator/executive producer’s rough cut. For our summer series, we do ask for a roadmap of where the series will go. Those series have been exclusively serialized and we go straight to series off of a pilot script so we need to know what we’re buying,” she added.
• THE CW
The network produces 13 to 22 episodes per season and makes and tests pilots before going to series.
According to Gary Pearl, Executive Producer of Jane the Virgin, adapter/creator/showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman wrote a series bible document before the show was picked up. Pearl adds:
Because all CW shows are serialized, a bible is a natural product. On the pilots I’m working on, I’m the one asking writers for bibles ahead of the studios and networks because I want to see if the versions that are being written on my behalf have the legs to go five seasons or more.12
This is consistent with the rest of the The CW. But thriving showrunner/impresario Greg Berlanti (Arrow, The Flash, Blindspot, Riverdale) falls into a similar category as Shonda Rhimes and Ryan Murphy and can be granted more latitude and autonomy. Instead of providing a written series bible document that lays out all the character arcs and subplots, Berlanti can choose to verbally pitch a series’ intended trajectory to the network for their approval. Of course, as always, the path can and will change as individual episodes are “broken” (structured, expanded into acts) in the writers’ room.
• FOX
A newer trend is for networks to first put together a writers’ room as an incubator to expand and further develop the pilot into at least half a season of scripts before deciding on the initial production order. This is a more cautious and cost-effective approach that I wholeheartedly support. The Fox network, which began as a disrupter to the holy trinity of broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC), likes to shake things up and find new approaches to traditional development and programming models. Fox used this approach for their series Wayward Pines and others. Syfy and AMC have also been known to use this approach. Fox has also bucked the trend of pilot season and likes to develop shows year-round. Still, Fox makes and tests pilots and promotes them at the Upfronts each May in New York.
The bottom line: Fox asks for series bibles on a case-by-case basis for their serialized dramas—but not for their sitcoms, where the emphasis is on the laughs, not necessarily on the long story arcs.
• FX
Unless you’re mega-writer/producer/showrunner/impresario Ryan Murphy, FX still makes, tests and reshoots pilots. I’m thrilled and delighted to report that one of my talented past grad students, Steven Canals, wrote the initial pilot for the forthcoming new FX Original series, Pose, in one of my one-hour drama series workshops at UCLA. The musical drama is set in the world of New York City drag queen bars in the 1980s (think Paris Is Burning meets Madonna’s “Vogue”). Ryan Murphy acquired Canals’ original pilot script and came on board for some retooling as co-creator/showrunner/head writer (with his longtime producing partner Brad Falchuk) for the 10-episode, straight-to-series order. No pilot episode was shot to warrant the green-light to series. No series bible was required. Canals’ first staff writing gig was on the Freeform limited series Dead of Summer, but Pose is his official, well-deserved big break. He serves as first-time co-executive producer on the series.
Ryan Murphy is the exception over at FX, not the rule—which is not to say that FX has a flawed system. On the contrary, network chief John Landgraf is a programming genius, and they’ve been absolutely competitive with HBO and Netflix with some of the best and most provocative series on TV.
Nevertheless, they still make and test pilots, and the process can either go smoothly (Fargo, Legion) or encounter some speed bumps along the way. Snowfall is one example, as Deadline described in 2016:
FX is moving ahead with Snowfall, giving a 10-episode series order to John Singleton’s [Boyz in the Hood] drama inspired by the early days of the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles in the early 1980s. The series pickup comes after the cable network saw the second pilot for the project, originally piloted last year. The first pilot was written/executive produced by … director Singleton and Eric Amadio, and directed by Singleton. Dave Andron was then brought in as executive producer/showrunner. He co-wrote the new pilot with Singleton and Amadio. It was directed by the Belgian directing team of Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah (Black, Image), with veteran Thomas Schlamme joining as executive producer. There were also casting changes, with new actors brought in alongside returning leads Damson Idris and Sergio Peris-Mencheta.
Snowfall is executive produced by Dave Andron [Justified ], who will continue as showrunner, [and] Thomas Schlamme, John Singleton, Eric Amadio, Michael London, and Trevor Engelson. Evan Silverberg is producer. […] Snowfall joins several other FX drama pilots that have scored series pickups after undergoing rewrites, reshoots and sometime recastings. The list includes hits Sons of Anarchy, Justified and Rescue Me.13
• NBC
According to Robert Greenblatt, Chairman of Comcast NBCUniversal, NBC never formally commissions series bibles. It’s more of a conversation between development executives and series creators. To Greenblatt, all decisions are made on the strength of the pilot script and the creative auspices of the creator and/or showrunner. The real magic happens in the writers’ room after the series has been picked up. To Greenblatt, it’s ridiculous to develop a long-range series bible for multiple seasons because no one ever adheres to it. To him, and most content creators, it’s an evolving, mysterious creative process that can’t be preordained by a series bible. But remember, NBC still makes 22 episodes per season, with many of their one-hour procedurals (Law & Order, Chicago Fire) offering closed-ended, non-serialized episodes.
The big exception, of course, is 2017’s breakout hit drama series This Is Us; Season 1 offered us 18 time-jumping episodes, heavily serialized, but with a central mystery (what happened to Jack?) as a long, ongoing story arc.
Did This Is Us creator/showrunner, Dan Fogelman, have a long-range plan? According to Fogelman,
We’ve had a plan since the beginning. The last three episodes of this season were very much the plan. In the same way, the where and how of Jack’s death is in our heads about how the audience is going to watch that.
The episode revealed Jack’s ties to the Vietnam War. Has Fogelman considered going that far back in a future episode?
We can go really far back should we want to; it depends on where we want to live. The show has now opened people up to our former story time and that gives you a wide berth to fly around in time in different ages, as long as we think we can execute it well. I don’t put it beyond us that we might want to go and see a young Dr. K (Gerald McRaney) at some point. That’s very much thematically in thinking with the show…. It’s a little open-ended since it’s not just my decision but I definitely have a number in my head: 100 seasons. (Laughs.)”14
• HBO and SHOWTIME
Both still make pilots, and with so many series in the development pipeline, these networks tend to offer the stiffest competition among content creators. They’re still the gold standard (along with Netflix). One veteran TV writer referred to HBO’s process as a “bake off.” Or consider this circuitous pathway to series pickup of The Chi over at Showtime:
Showtime has given a series pickup to the Fox 21 drama The Chi, a coming-of-age story revolving around a group of people living on the South Side of Chicago. Jason Mitchell ( Straight Outta Compton ) has joined the cast, playing a young man with ambitions of opening a restaurant but conflicted by his responsibilities to his mother and teenaged brother in Chicago. The series hails from Emmy award-winning writer Lena Waithe ( Bones, Master of None ), who will exec produce and serve as showrunner with Elwood Reid [ The Bridge ]. A pilot was shot last year that was redeveloped. Dope helmer Rick Famuyiwa has come onboard to direct the first episode. Common, Famuyiwa and Aaron Kaplan are also exec producers. The Chi is based on Waithe’s experiences growing up in Chicago [and was] one of several new projects in contention for series orders at Showtime, including comedies SMILF and Mating.15 The former, by actress Frankie Shaw, premiered in October 2017.
To avoid what she feared would be a long, drawn-out development process at HBO, Transparent creator/showrunner Jill Soloway decided to steer clear of an HBO pilot deal in favor of a series commitment at Amazon Studios.
A premium cable network with critically acclaimed, award-winning, provocative shows is only beholden to its loyal subscribers. Unlike broadcast and basic cable networks that still need to fill timeslots, premium cable outlets can make shows whenever they choose and air them in any format that fits their needs. HBO’s Olive Kitteridge offered only four one-hour episodes. Big Little Lies spanned eight one-hour episodes. But the traditional order remains at 10 to 13 episodes, and a series bible is usually required—even though, in every case at every network, once the writers’ room is up and running, the story always changes course in favor of new discoveries and creative breakthroughs.
Half-Hour Sitcoms Rarely, If Ever, Require a Series Bible …
If you’re looking for an example of a sitcom series bible, don’t bother. For a sitcom, the networks are most likely seeking a hilarious pilot script and, perhaps, three to six potential future episode ideas—and these can be brief one-sentence loglines. Barring that, networks may commission story area documents—several pages for pilot and potential future episodes. If you can get your hands on Kenya Barris’ story area document for ABC’s Black-ish, it’s an excellent example.
In this respect, it’s important to make the distinction between serialized drama series, procedural drama series (doctors, lawyers, cops); multi-camera situation comedies (Big Bang Theory, Mom, Two Broke Girls, Fuller House); single-camera sitcoms (Modern Family, Black-ish, Silicon Valley, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Master of None); and half-hour dramedies (Transparent, Baskets, Louie, Atlanta, Better Things, Insecure). In general, as we consider in Chapter 1, characters on multi-camera sitcoms, including animated series, change little if at all from season to season. (On the longest-running sitcom of all time, The Simpsons, not only do the characters not change; they also don’t age.) Given the lack of or slow character evolution, sitcoms tend to be about indelible, set in their ways, flawed but lovable characters getting into and out of trouble from episode to episode. At the end of each episode, it’s as if someone hits the reset button and all is right in the world again.
Make ’em laugh, but don’t forget to make them feel.
These characters humorously drive each other crazy and push each other’s buttons, but there’s never any doubt that in spite of everything, they truly care about each other. The only expectation of a great sitcom is that it’s going to make you laugh and that the characters are going to maintain their core personality traits. Even if they yearn for better lives and want to change, we don’t want them to—because their foibles make them funny, relatable and dependable. Multi-camera sitcoms are designed to be comfort food, with the occasional controversial episode that hopes to tackle an important issue. But comedy is about the escalation of chaos. It’s the characters’ desperate need to be accepted on their own terms—failing and flailing—that makes us laugh. And what makes us come back for more is our emotional connection. We empathize and care for them.
Single-camera sitcoms tend to offer more character development and season-long relationship arcs, but if the characters change, it’s usually temporary, and they boomerang back or “revert to form.” We don’t want them to overcome their problems because then there’s no show. But some do change: Detective Jake Peralta (Andy Samberg) on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, who has matured since the start of the series, for example.
Given sitcoms’ more or less “fixed” nature, sitcom creators are usually not tasked with crafting a series bible but instead are asked to pitch potential future episode ideas via story area documents.
According to veteran Emmy Award-winning comedy writer/producer/showrunner Ellen Kreamer (Friends, The New Adventures of Old Christine, I Hate My Teenage Daughter, Trial & Error), she and her longtime writing partner, Sherry Bilsing-Graham, have never written a series bible.
Many comedy writers I talked to, including Kreamer, had no idea what a series bible is, because they’ve never been asked for one. She recounts:
Here’s what we’ve had to do in the past. When you’ve finished the pilot [script] and they’re trying to decide if they’re going to pick it up or not, they ask for a story doc. It’s about six to eight pages. You start with what the ‘theme’ of the show is overall. Then you write up four or five potential stories [future episode ideas]. Some people think this is a waste of time because you never really use them, but Sherry and I work hard on them. They [broadcast networks] also like potential arcs for the characters, where they are headed for the season, etc., just to show them that there is a potential show here, that can go the distance.
I’ve been told that, at the Fox network, the story area document itself is tested (market research with a focus group) along with the pilot.
Dramedies vary, and tend to operate on a season-long theme, as characters face their problems in more grounded (a/k/a nuanced, realistic) ways. In dramedies, it’s less about three jokes per page and more about authenticity. Check out today’s dramedies, and you’ll notice they’ll go for the emotionally raw moment over the laugh. Sitcoms can do this too, but funny always trumps drama. Many comedy writers I talked to for this book had disdain for dramedies. One disparaged the lack of traditional plotting in favor of cringe and quirk—“that adds up to a whole lot of nothing.”
For me, dramedies are among the most compelling series on TV today for their edgy, audacious, provocative premises and the creators’ willingness to take risks. If sitcoms on broadcast networks need to appeal to the widest possible audience and play it safe, most dramedies find their sweet spot appealing to a niche audience.
In today’s TV landscape, niche is the new mainstream, and a series need not appeal to everyone as long as it appeals to a loyal core audience. We now live in an on-demand world of choice. And niche shows operate on the specificity and authenticity of a unique, niche setting: a women’s prison (Orange Is the New Black), a struggling hip-hop producer and his rising-star cousin and client in Atlanta, a n’er-do-well rodeo clown and his selfish identical twin brother in Bakersfield, California (Baskets), and on the superhero scale, even the contrasting idyll of camp-like Summerland and the horror of Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital in Legion. These aren’t your “typical” dysfunctional families. But we’re pulled into their struggles based upon the universality of the human condition.
Drafting the Series Mini-Bible
Some series bibles and mini-bibles include visuals or pitch decks to bolster the presentation and further entice the network. Networks enjoy visual aids (a/k/a “look books”), but the words must carry the day. Even though TV has become increasingly cinematic, TV is still a writer’s medium, whereas film remains a director’s medium.
Longer-form series bibles (a/k/a maxi-bibles) can be extensive documents. David Simon’s series bible for The Wire is just shy of 80 pages! Bridget Carpenter’s highly absorbing series bible for 11.22.63, adapted from Stephen King’s 830-page novel into an eight-episode limited series for Hulu, is 53 pages long. Nic Pizzolatto’s series bible for True Detective, Season 1, is also rich and multilayered. If you can find The Wire or True Detective series bibles, they are well worth reading.
If the series you’re creating has heavy mythology and/or supernatural rules, I always encourage my students to draft a 1- to 2-page mythology document. For more on this, see “Dystopias, Multiverses, Magic Realism” (Chapter 4) and “Trips, Traps, Tropes” (Chapter 13).
The bottom line for all content creators: When in doubt, simplify. Stay on point and on theme. Have a roadmap—a series bible or story area document(s)—as a selling tool but prepare for the inevitable, delicious detours that follow.
Bonus Content
To consult examples of series mini-bibles by UCLA MFA Screenwriting alums Chris Grillot (one-hour drama, Deluge) and Alice Dennard (half-hour dramedy, Junked), plus my guidance on how to create a story area document, visit www.routledge.com/cw/landau.