A daily chronicle of creativity in film, TV, music, arts, and entertainment, produced by Southern California Public Radio and broadcast from November 2014 – March 2020. Host John Horn leads the conversation, accompanied by the nation's most plugged-in cultural journalists.
The new CBS series “Battle Creek” offers a new twist on the buddy cop story. It stars Dean Winters as a skeptical detective toiling away in an underfunded police department in Battle Creek, Michigan, and Josh Duhamel as the slick FBI agent mysteriously re-assigned to the town.
But unlike the show’s two main characters, the two co-creators of “Battle Creek" seem to get along.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PamMt9ZkwNE
The show was originally the brainchild of Vince Gilligan — famous for creating "Breaking Bad." He sold it to CBS 12 years ago, but it had been languishing at the network all this time. Then David Shore, the creator of Fox’s hit show, “House,” agreed to revive the series.
Shore spoke with The Frame's host, John Horn, to talk about the timelessness of the show, its success, and how "House" helped him write "Battle Creek."
Does the fact that "Battle Creek" was written, or pitched, 12 years ago actually make it unique? You're not responding to ideas that are popular now, but that you have this well preserved idea that maybe would've been less anomalous back then?
I think that's true. I also think it was influenced by the idea of, Oh what do I do now?, after, in [Gilligan's] case, "Breaking Bad," and my case, "House." There was no sense of trying to prove anything. It was just a story he wanted to tell, and a story I've read and liked. I think you're absolutely right that there is a timelessness to it, and I think the way I said it before made it sound dated. It's not about current events, it's just about people in a situation and about crimes. Those have always been with us and will always be with us.
Television is obviously judged minute-by-minute and rating-by-rating. Does the success you enjoyed on "House" mean that you are no longer judged that way?
The success I've had, and the success Vince has had, gives us a certain amount of power to disagree with notes — to listen to the notes, respect the notes, but not be afraid of the notes, and to know that CBS does value us and does respect us. Hopefully, they will accept that they know what they're doing, but we know what we're doing too. If the ratings aren't good, maybe they will give us a little longer to find an audience, but they're not going to keep anything on if it's not doing well.
Outside of taking credit for all the good ideas, and blaming Vince for the bad ones, how would you describe your relationship with him on this show?
Aside from launching it with the original script, he's been the guy that — when I find myself in a situation where I don't feel comfortable — it's nice to have him on the phone call [with network executives] to say, "I support David, and I think what he is doing here is great." I don't even know if he means it when he says it, but it helps either way.
Were you looking to do something like this after "House?" What was the progression from the end of that show to the start of this one?
I made a deal with Sony to develop TV shows for them, and they specifically wanted network shows. I did develop one the previous year called "Doubt," which is a legal show with Steve Coogan that I was very proud of. I wish it had been picked up, and I still don't know why it wasn't because I thought it was very good. So, that's how much my previous success has bought me. Since my show wasn't picked up, I was looking for what to do next. I was going to have lunch with Nina Tassler, the president of CBS. [Executives] from Sony called me up and said, "There's this old Vince Gilligan script that CBS owns, and we sold it to them years ago. Nina's interested in it. Do you want to take a look and see if your interested?" I took a look at it and thought it was pretty good.
Did you have any idea why it had been sitting around for so long?
It was because he hadn't made "Breaking Bad." He became a genius after that. If only it was that simple. That is absolutely true, and it was almost made. ... and I'm not sure why it wasn't. Once something is not made in this industry, it kind of disappears and is forgotten because nobody gains by dredging it up again: If it's great, then you should've made it the first time, but if it stinks, then why did you dredge it up? There is no real good outcome for them.
So it is very rare, in other words, that if something is shelved, everybody assumes rightly or wrongly that it was shelved for a reason?
Yes, and Nina told me right away that she had this [pilot] sitting in her drawer, and has been wanting to make it every year since then. I am sure that is partially true, but I'm also sure it became much more true once "Breaking Bad" became such a big success. I am also sure that she did like it — she wouldn't do it if she didn't like it.
When you become involved, how do you change it and how do you maintain it?
In a weird way, I made a quite a few changes, but in a sense those changes were embracing what was already there. The largest change I made was making sure that [the two main characters] interact more. That was the core of this show, and oddly enough there wasn't a lot of that in Vince's original script. It set it up, but we didn't see a lot of it in the pilot.
The set-up for this show is both kind of "Odd Couple-ish" and "bro-mancy," but I suspect that you are not going to have them become best friends. Was it that relationship you were most attracted to when you first read this script?
Yes, it was that dynamic of these two characters that saw the world so differently, and obviously I've had a great deal of experience with a cynic over the previous eight years in "House." The idea of one of these characters being so optimistic, and a character that looks at life and humanity so positively without being naive and simplistic was interesting to explore. When you're writing for these shows, you really do live with these characters. And it's fascinating, but it takes a toll on you to a certain extent. So the idea of exploring optimism seemed attractive to me.
You talked about the Hugh Laurie character on "House." Having spent so much time with a show and with a character, how easy, or difficult, is it for you to set all of that aside and recreate your idea of what a TV show should look like? In other words, how did "House" help this show, and how did it maybe hinder it?
I am a limited human being, and I fall into certain traps here and there. There were moments where I would write a line and go, Yeah, that is a "House" line. And then I would ask myself, Should I move it, or should I leave it because it is a good "House" line? [laughs] You fall into different traps, but you ultimately have to be true to your characters. I hate to be too serious here, but that is the bottom line. As long as you are true to your characters, then you are going to be fine.
I read that Sony television has sold "Battle Creek" to countries around the world. How do you greet that news as a creator?
I'm going to get very pollyanna-ish on you for a moment. It doesn't affect the types of stories I tell because I want to tell universal stories, particularly in this show. The show is set in the Midwest, and there is a real Midwestern value to it ... I think that sense of community, sense of place, and sense of optimism in the face of adversity is so much the case in Michigan right now. I think it is a universal value that people from everywhere can relate to.
When "House" became an international hit, it was such a thrill for me, but not for the obvious reasons. You know you're going on the air in America, but you don't think of the rest of the world. This unique story about a weird guy with weird reactions to weird situations is very personal to me. People in Chile are responding to it in exactly the same way that people in Serbia are reacting to it, and in the exact same way that people in Singapore are reacting to it. I'm turning into an old-fashioned Coke commercial, but that is pretty cool.