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Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - Just How Did The Pilot Land At The CW?

May 15, 2015

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About two months ago, Kate Adler and Jim Donnelly, comedy executives at CBS TV Studios, which produced the musical comedy pilot for Showtime, reached out to Gaye Hirsch and Joanna Klein, co-heads of scripted development for the CW, asking them whether they would take a look at the pilot, recently passed over by the premium cable network, as a potential companion to Jane The Virgin. (CBS Studios, the CW and Showtime are all part of the CBS family.) Hirsch and Klein watched it, loved it, showed it to their boss, CW EVP development Thom Sherman who also loved it and, in turn, showed it to the CW president Mark Pedowitz, who also gave it thumbs-up. In Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, a driven young woman (Rachel Bloom) leaves abruptly her successful career as a lawyer in Manhattan to follow her ex-boyfriend to West Covina, California. In addition to having a similar sensibility to Jane The Virgin, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend features a star– actress-comedian Bloom — who is in her 20s, right in the CW’s lead actor sweet spot. She also happens to be a viral star with the music videos of her songs drawing millions of streams.

Sherman next called CBS TV Studios David Stapf and asked him whether the studio would consider doing the show for them as an hourlong comedy. I hear the first reaction in the studio’s executive suit was that of deep skepticism as the show was a premium cable half-hour, with the content and the high price tag that go with that.

Still, a meeting was set up at the CW between the CW’s Pedowitz and Sherman, Stapf, Adler, Donnelly as well as Ex-Crazy Girlfriend creators Bloom and Aline Brosh McKenna and the pilot’s director Marc Webb. The network made its pitch, and the two sides discussed ways to expand the show from half-hour to one-hour and adjust it to broadcast standards.

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31 comments:

  1. I will check this show out but tbh the promo looks horrible in my opinion. For all the HoD fans to get replaced by this...I have to watch the Pilot first to really judge, but after the Promo, I don't have much hope but we will see :)

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  2. I didn't hate the promo, but it doesn't look like a show I'll watch.
    JtV had a decent lead-in when it premiered, and hence got decent ratings, but CW expects this show to self start and I think it will be DOA.

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  3. Christopher DeBonoMay 15, 2015 at 12:00 PM

    Yeah I think it's very likely this'll be DOA. The only thing I think that might save it would be the song sales if they plan to sell them digitally.

    If they wanted something to pair with Jane I think they should've ordered First Lady to pilot. It sounds like something that would have fit well and have the potential benefit of being award bait.

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  4. Actually, it has been shown rather often that in the CW's case, local programming lead-in tends to be a better lead-in than a large chunck of their programs, which is why you tend to see their most promising shows at 8. This is probably not true if we are talking about Arrow or what the vampire diaries used to be, and certainly not the flash, but it should still be better than the 0.6/0.7 the originals was pulling in the fall.

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  5. Christopher DeBonoMay 15, 2015 at 12:02 PM

    Huh, that's an interesting CW fact to know. I wonder if this show can defy expectations then?

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  6. I still do not think it will succeed but the definition of success on the CW is blurred more and more. By all accounts, Jane the Virgin could have been cancelled this season - was it really a success ratings wise? It had nice W18-34 numbers, but even those weren't spectacular.

    Anyway, back to topic, I am skeptical about this working and the CW will need the room, but I dunno. It's hard to bet against their sole fall newbie and that is a CBS one especially.

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  7. I will give it a try, but the songs aren't as clever as Galavant that I do like. Not sure a season of comedy stalker girlfriend will hold up.

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  8. I love the idea of musical comedies but based on the trailer it was just plain terrible, not very good songs, not at all funny and plays into the very boring tropes of women being crazy over men.

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  9. I didn't watch the long trailer just the short one vut I really don't know about this one.
    It seems quirky, but how cheesy will the musical part be? But at least CW released me from Mondays, making space for SG and Blindspot.
    I'm surprised by the comment in deadline's comment section that CDS test so poor, like the worst score in CW history.

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  10. Good thing that it seems like they will start things again from scratch as part of the show's retooling as an hour-long. I think it's a given at this point that what we got from this trailer will not be the same one we'll be seeing in the fall.

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  11. I will give it a chance, remember a lot of people was hating on JtV and turned out to be a good show.
    Question si how it it fare, it doesnt have a lead in and it's going agains strong shows at 8.
    Cw it's taking it's chance, i really hope it works
    I wanted CDS but it didnt happened and iw as surprised about this one cause we never heard anything about it. Now we know why.

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  12. Based on the trailer I reckon dump it and you'll have more room to pick up Constantine.

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  13. So in short:


    a CBS pilot didn't get picked up by a CBS network but its CBS producers approached a CBS co-owned company to flex their CBS corporate muscles to get it picked up anyway?


    This is a comically obvious situation, clearly there was some effort put into the pilot from the production companys side and seeing it not picked up made them approach the one place they could still hold somewhat hostage to pick it up

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  14. I kinda hate that they bypassed a lot of the usual pilot process at the cost of other more series-worthy projects that should have made the cut.


    Of course, Ringer is an exception as it's been clear how off-brand it was to CBS. Crazy Ex- seem like it could work for Showtime with a few tweaks.

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  15. Where did you come up with the idea that Pedowitz is a patsy who can be manipulated by a couple of producers? Pilots get shopped around all the time. It also makes particularly good sense to shop one around in a setting where you have some connections. There's no sinister conspiracy happening here.

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  16. I think the problem was that the show was never a part of the development slate for the upcomings season even though it took a lot of going up the corporate ladder to get itself approved by the CW brass (with permission to do so from Showtime).

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  17. Conspiracy? Certainly not.

    What is going on her is a classic case of using corporate ties to get a project to fruition on your own terms. Especially with a show that had a completely different format in the first place.


    CBS holds an iron grip on theCW and WB, so it's just natural that they use that grip to get THEIR shows on the air.

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  18. The first project Pedowitz undertook after taking over at the CW was to talk CBS into reviving BATB. That was hardly conventional. So, I doubt if he would have minded having the CEG producers coming straight to his door. I'll also give Showtime credit for knowing what works on their network. Showtime has reinvented itself in a very short time and features an impressive lineup of original programs.

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  19. They said they're not picking up Constatine

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  20. Oh, I still remember fondly that particular pilot season when BATB and an actual fantasy-based pilot of the same working title from ABC Studios where essentially competing a spot in the fall despite them each courting a specific network.


    I wouldn't exactly call BATB's case then as extremely unconventional, revived formats seem to happen a lot these past few years. In the most recent past, we got revivals/reboots of shows such as 90210, Cupid, Melrose Place, and Parenthood that all come from their respective in-house studio's respective libraries. However, the support the show gets to the point of getting a fourth-season renewal in advance is telling how much support the show gets if ther studio has found a viable model that brings in revenues for CBS.

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  21. Using terms like "iron grip" and "corporate muscle" and "hostage" is too melodramatic. It's just as likely that Pedowitz was happy to take advantage of a potential windfall. Moreover, there's recently been some discussion in the media about the CW wanting to break out of its scripted drama mold. So, creating a comedy block by picking up CEG makes sense.

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  22. Come on, you haven't heard me use words like "this is a fiasco of apocalyptic proportions" regarding this pickup yet ;)


    IF the CW wanted to go into scripted comedy the would add a half hour comedy block. Not stretch a half hour comedy into an hour long drama to fit theCWs expectations.


    Know what they could`ve done? Pick up How I met your Dad to series as a half hour show and paired it up with this one.


    But the way they're tweaking this shows formula makes it seem like it's a desperate move to have the show going because some contracts were signed beforehand

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  23. Expanding this comedy to an hour probably has something to do with their Netflix/syndication business model. Currently, the CW's only half hour programs are the unscripted ones on scheduled on Fridays .

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  24. I didn't like the trailer, but I'll check it anyway. I was wrong about JTV last year, so I'm giving a chance to every CW show.

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  25. It's too bad we can't see aggregate 7:30 numbers for each network. The whole premise of self-starter isn't entirely accurate because there is an audience that is watching before the affiliates turn if over to network programming. Unfortunately, because it's a patchwork of different local or syndicated programming, it's not consistent enough to draw any real conclusions. For example in some CW markets (Denver & St Louis for example) news is on at 7 and CW run at 8 & 9 an hour later than normal.

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  27. But tell me, how do you really feel?

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  28. Ah! Corporate synergy...


    Anyhoo... I enjoyed the trailer more than I thought I would, but my standards were very low.

    And I agree that it does look like a good companion for JtV which looks so out of place on the CW currently.

    I'm willing to give it a go. It might be fun...

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  29. Yeah but if they dumped this crap they might be able to. :)

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  30. They're not gonna pick it up,no matter if cancel Girlfriend or not.If they really wanted to pick it up,they would've.Pedowitz said it was just runors anyway,CW had no real unrest in Constatine.

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