William Goldman's famous adage about Hollywood, "nobody knows anything," could have been an unofficial theme of the series creators and network executives who participated in the Banff World Television Festival. War stories about getting shows on the air, and finding enough of an audience to keep them on, were as common as comments about the spectacular Rocky Mountain setting.
Paul Haggis - EZ Streets vs. Walker, Texas Ranger
Paul Haggis is now more famous for the Oscar-winning movies Crash and Million Dollar Baby, but his NBC series The Black Donnellys is bringing him back to television in January. At his festival session, he claimed to have "failed his way to the top." He initially worked on sitcoms he couldn't relate to, and was demoted from his brief position as executive producer of The Facts of Life after suggesting an innovation: "Let's try making it funny."
After moderate success creating the shows Due South and Family Law, he saw his critically acclaimed pet project EZ Streets swiftly cancelled. That ambitious and morally ambiguous show is credited with paving the way for The Sopranos, a show Haggis hasn't watched out of pettiness, he declared with a laugh.
Proving that success can come at the expense of pride, Haggis worked for eight days rewriting the first installment of the less-than-acclaimed Walker, Texas Ranger, and had his co-creator credit flash on viewers' screens for 10 years. "The gods of television are cruel motherfuckers," said the London, Ontario-born writer when accepting the NBC Universal Canada Award of Distinction at the festival.
David Shore - House
House creator David Shore was also honoured in Banff, with an Award of Excellence. "Growing up in London, Ontario, it just didn't even register, the idea of going into the entertainment industry or being successful or coming back here to receive an award. Or of being the second most successful writer from London, Ontario. That guy's annoying," Shore jokingly grumbled during his acceptance speech, though he later sincerely thanked Haggis for giving him his first staff writing job (on Due South) and his first executive producing job (on Family Law).
With House, executive producer Shore was the naysayer, not the network or studio. "The typical story of getting something on the air is painful, painful, painful and this just wasn't. It was painful for me because I really was scared of this idea," he said at his Master Class session.
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