As has been fairly well documented, I don't follow the development process much. Based on where my energies are, I don't see that changing. I could just be imagining it, but there seems to be more angst about the CW not picking up Body Politic than any show I can remember. That's based on comments here, articles I've seen, stuff on twitter, etc. I'd blame it on the echo chamber, but it's really the only show where that sort of sentiment is being echoed repeatedly. I mean sure, a few people expressed displeasure that FOX didn't pick up Ron Moore's Virtuality (by the way, the airing of the pilot has been moved up from July 4th to June 26th at 8pm ET), but it hasn't been on the same scale as what I've perceived with Body Politic.
With Body Politic, there seems to be some outrage. And its coming from both industry insiders and writers at some of the bigger entertainment sites. It's not just fans of Veronica Mars and Supernatural who will pretty much always sneer at The CW and Dawn Ostroff no matter what The CW does.
Today, Natalie Abrams at E! Online's Watch With Kristin began the lobbying process to get the show picked up as a mid-season replacement, calling Body Politic the best pilot you may never see:
Imagine a world in which a CW show has an actual chance of winning an Emmy. Thanks to network boss Dawn Ostroff, that world is slipping through her fingers.
We mean no disrespect to shows like Gossip Girl and Smallville, but if the CW ever wants us to take it seriously as a trademark network of our generation, it needs to branch out from its usual routine of picking up shows geared for a younger audience. The Body Politic is a cure to that problem.
In fact, The Body Politic would bring a new level of respect to the CW that we've yet to see since the network kicked off in 2006.
It will be interesting to see whether there's any kind of groundswell and whether it gets Dawn's attention. I think it's possible that it might as Dawn has very good radar, at least when it comes to buzz. While a lot of bloggers routinely take potshots at the CW and Ms. Ostroff, E! Online is in general friend, not foe, to both shows and networks. While for me and Bill, Natalie's words seem rather mild, they actually seem fairly harsh when it comes to what you'd normally see from a Watch With Kristin post on the CW.
I don't have any opinion on the show and haven't seen the pilot or read the script and unfortunately, growing up in Washington, D.C. left me loathing all things political, whether they air on the CW or not.
My observation is that there are more than a few people within the media who write about television and aren't happy that Body Politic wasn't picked up at the upfronts and it seems heightened compared to anything else I've seen. That observation could be wrong, but for now it has me curious about the show's ultimate fate.
I don’t know, I think I’ve seen more will they go/not go talk on Virtuality over than last year than I have with BP.
WB aired Jack and Bobby. It snagged them a Golden Globe nod (best actress). Two of the most talented young actors on that show. Covered some subjects that were chilling and tearful. Wished they had a season 2. Wished they started appealing to the older crowd. Cuz then you’d have a full week of… Gossip Girl and 90210′s.
Mind the fact that I’m 19. I hate teenfare.
I’m just a TV fan, and not a television blogger or critic by any means, but I’ve been championing this show for the last few months. And it’s because I read the script and genuinely enjoyed it, and I also read a lot of other pilot scripts and…didn’t. Being a fan of one of the actors is what got me excited about the show initially, but it was getting the script and seeing the potential on page that had be so up in arms.
I think this might just be a glimpse of what future pilot seasons are going to be like. I’ve seen comments that campaigning like this for passed over pilot is unprecedented, but I’m sure you’ll see it becoming more and more common as more scripts get leaked. I really do believe it was the script leak (and the promising cast) that is causing all of this upheaval.
@ John, you’re right when looking over the past year, but since upfronts it’s all BP outrage all the time. Even the NY Times did a piece highlighting the fact that the show wasn’t picked up. The NEW YORK FRIGGIN TIMES! It’s probably too late to save it now, but if not, man, what a story that would be. Do you think this gets Dawn O to rethink her decision, or just pisses her off, and gets her to dig in even further?
I hope not. The last thing we need is the Internet having a say in the development process.
Annie, while I do think this sort of campaigning is unprecedented, it’s not the first time that the internet had an effect on a pilot. I’m blanking on the name of it right now (edit: Nobody’s Watching!), but a few years back (like 2005 or 2006?) there was a sitcom pilot that was not picked up. The creators put it on YouTube and it got lots of views, though I can’t recall the number, but it was impressive at the time. NBC gave the creators some sort of deal and they did several online things, but never did get an actual series out of it.
Around the same time I read an article about another pilot that was not picked up. The creator asked fans who would pay money for a DVD of the series and there was a huge response. Again, nothing ever came of it, but people seemed to think the internet was going to become a deciding factor in pilot season. It will be interesting to see if that is finally coming to fruition.
Marco, I wondered about the reaction Dawn was having, too. She likes buzz, but a lot of the buzz around this is calling her out AND throwing the GG spinoff under the bus for it, and that’s still the show she’s publicly supporting. There was a buzz sugar website poll a few days ago asking which show would you watch, GG spinoff, BP, or neither. It had over 1300 votes, and 84% were in favor of BP. I know online polls don’t mean anything, but that’s still pretty crazy.
My only hope is that the buzz maybe helps for OTHER networks, because I think it’s dead on the CW and I don’t think Ostroff will take too kindly to this campaigning. Picking it up for midseason now after her GG spinoff comments at the Upfronts would make it seem like she was wrong for passing it over the first time (which she was!) and I don’t see her admitting that.
thank you for posting this. i really hope that cw pick this show, looks very very good and the cast is great!
Other than Brian Austin Green from TSCC being on the cast list, I wasn’t that much aware of this show other than as a pilot. However, I have noticed comments here and there about it, so apparently it does have its fans even before airing.
Personally I think a show about the navel gazing in Washington would go over like a lead balloon – unless it made efforts to ruffle feathers. I mean, we had West Wing, right?
I suppose a show about lobbyists and crooked types like Abramoff probably would be somewhat entertaining, as long as you mixed in a lot of hot babes.
However the plot as described by Wikipedia sounds dull to me:
“Body Politic focuses on a young woman (Minka Kelly) who moves to Washington to work for a senator and the other eager up-and-comers with whom she becomes friends.”
It sounds like “Friends in Washington” without the comedy.
I honestly don’t know if anything can save Dawn from her own stupidity. I don’t even know if I should want it to, especially if Dawn picks it up against her will, puts it in a crappy midseason timeslot, doesn’t market it, and then congratulates herself on her prescience when it fails. Can’t, you know, a GOOD network pick it up? Or at least one that is not a laughingstock?
As for the ‘net outrage over BP getting passed over, I think the cast is a big factor. Dohring, Kelly, and BAG all have distinct fanbases that love them and follow their careers. It just makes sense that those fans would be upset that this show got passed over, especially given all the CW scripts leaked (save for Melrose Place) and BP is universally recognized as the best among them. That every other show got a pick-up except for BP is appalling and an insult to this cast, their fans, and the entire 18-34 female demo Dawn purports to be targeting.
Thanks for putting the E! piece in context; I didn’t know they rarely criticize the CW. That certainly puts a new spin on it.
Some of the other sites lodging support for BP:
http://www.buzzsugar.com/3194030
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/arts/television/04dc.html?_r=2&ref=arts
http://blog.zap2it.com/frominsidethebox/2009/05/body-politic-the-best-pilot-you-wont-see-next-season.html
http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/that-gossip-girl-spinoff-dead-at-cw/
The last doesn’t actually mention the show, but the comments section is a good example of how it becomes all about Body Politic, even when it isn’t mentioned.
Considering the CW seems to be renewing and canceling shows based more on “buzz” than actual ratings now, how could they not eat this up? Other midseason series Parental Discretion Advised is going in with zero publicity. It’s a tough call, though. The Gossip Girl spin-off is said to be the CW’s second choice for midseason and it could give Politic a run buzz-wise. Word is the CW is tentative about the 80s conceit but I guess we’ll see which scares them more: modern politics or the Reagan years.
@Aimee: sorry, multiple links always wind up in our spam moderation folder and it took me a while to free it. I could be wrong about E! and its criticisms of CW (and other networks) but that is my general perception. Thanks for all the links.
wasn’t this just a 10-15 pilot presentation how can anyone base quality on that, besides i’m sure it wouldn’t do better than the current cdub shows, maybe Dawn can re-work the pilot and have the cast work at dr. pepper plant?
Everything I’ve heard seems to indicate it was a 30 minute presentation. They definitely had to make changes from the script to make things fit, but that’s only 12 minutes less than a full pilot for a one-hour drama.
BODY POLITIC IS JUST GREAT!!and every single day there are more and more articles about it!!!how dawn didnt want to pick it.she is all about buzz and BP is the buzziest pilot this year!!and instead she pick up Parental Discretion Adviced which no one ”talk about it”.does she wanted TV TO TALK ABOUT?so she need to pick up BODT POLITIC!!!
I only saw clips of Body Politic but… it has Jason Dohring. That’s enough for me. I’m also upset (I’m not sure that’s really the word, it isn’t, not even close, but let’s move on) about Valley Girls, because it seemed a great show. I loved the pilot on Gossip Girl.
The Body Politic hysteria is interesting.
I can’t say that the show particularly appeals to me personally but the reaction to The CW passing on it has been weird although I do wonder how much of this is out of love for Body Politic and how much of it is out of general frustration with The CW/Dawn O? Would the people within the industry who are criticising the decision not to pick up Body Politic have found something to bitch about when it comes to The CW schedule regardless of Politics fate? And ultimately it seems to me that the people within the industry are the ones spurring this on more so than ‘fans’.
Perhaps I’m just being cynical but this seems more like a ploy to ramp up more pressure on Dawn and ‘her’ slate of shows next season than really caring about the fate of Body Politic. But like I said I see this being born more out of frustration with Dawn and her vision of what The CW should be more than any real love for the show.
In terms of whether any of this changes the fate of the show its hard to call. I don’t think it will purely because I don’t think Dawn will back down on this one unless someone else forces her hand. She passed on the show originally because it didn’t fit her vision for the network and that’s not going to change no matter how hysterical the internet or people within the industry get about the show.
I do however wonder whether this will prompt someone else somewhere else to take a look at the show. Its unlikely that any of the other major networks would be interested in it but is it out of the question that a cable channel would like the free PR that would seemingly go hand in hand with picking the show up? ABCFamily were overjoyed with The Secret Life… beating Gossip Girl last season so maybe they’d consider putting the boot in and picking up Body Politic and hoping it’s a hit as well?
Alternatively if some level of hype can be sustained I wonder if The CW will take another look at the show next year when Dawn may or may not still be there…
I am one of the Veronica Mars fans who hate Dawn. And you would put Logan Echolls’ picture up just to cut deeper, lol.
I saw a clip from the pilot, and the show looks really good. But, it isn’t about rich airhead high school kids who like to participate in underage drinking, so it doesn’t fit their target demographic