I don't know how many of you actually stuck with watching American Heiress, and I hate to be the one who says this, but it's pretty painful. That pisses me off. A lot.When we wrote American Heiress we were quite excited. It was a stronger story than Fashion House, we had a stronger cast-- it was better on so many levels. But just before we ended shooting the production ran out of money, the new heads of MyNetworkTV weren't going to give any over so the execs cut 300+pages (about six episodes worth of scenes); that's why certain plots refer to scenes you never saw because they were never shot. Then someone placed the editors of Desire and Watch Over Me-- the "boyish" telenovelas-- onto our camp fest, those guys certainly didn't understand what we were doing with the show, and at that point everyone stopped caring.
So it sucks. That's why I haven't been promoting the show on the blog. It's like watching rough edits or dailies, the music is too loud, scenes drag on forever rather than inter-cutting, and everyone is made to look like a fool.
Let me just say, there is nothing more painful than seeing a show you loved turn into something like this.
MyNetworkTV will simply stop the shows in the fall, whether or not they stories are complete. My understanding is that they will play any remaining episodes online, but I wouldn't be surprised if that didn't pan out, either.
Look, people have shows canceled all the time, and I'm happy I had a year to work on these telenovelas because if nothing else they paid the bills. But it's like seeing your child or a loved one not allowed to reach full potential.
It's sad. Especially when you know what it could have been.
5 comments:
It stinks to hear this. I was really looking forward to the show when I first heard about it but it's been tough to stick with now that it's only on once a week. And I understand what you're saying about the "boyish" style because lately I'm annoyed with all the focus on the gun running and cia stuff and not enough on the crazy family or the romance (And there should be some romance, right? After all it is a soap.) Any chance JD & Liz get together soon? Or maybe Parker and Loren?
I'm curious - what scenes never got filmed? I bet the actors were pretty pissed about that one.
My fingers are crossed that they'll air the leftover episodes online but it wouldn't surprise me either if they didn't.
I'm sorry the show didn't fare too well. But, at least you have another writing credit under your belt. And you've experienced 'The Biz' so you have one up on the rest of us.
Hey Rick, maybe this is what you needed to clear the way for you to move on to bigger and better writing gigs. Your talent speaks for itself and now its time for you to be writing your emmy award winning material for a major network show, or a book, or a stage play. Just keep writing and take the lessons learned from dealing with "the Biz." Talent like yours can only go undiscovered for so long.
NBC just ordered an English language telenovela called "Without Breasts There Is No Paradise."
Wonders never cease.
http://nbcumv.com/telemundo/release_detail.nbc/entertainment-20070614000000-nbcuniversalscores.html
Wow Rick! I just read this(a friend on another message board referred me to the post).
I can't believe NewsCorp did that to this show and I had no idea this happened! I didn't watch(because I was upset about their efforts to scale back the telenovelas), but that makes me really, really sad.
I don't think I've seen the last of your name in a writing credit. You're a wonderful writer and I look forward to reading your blog and getting more of your updates. Good luck, Rick!
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