Last call on 'The Guardian'

From:Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Date:May 27, 2004
By Rob Owen

Folks, I've been happy to be your emissary for "The Guardian," but CBS CEO Leslie Moonves has officially tired of my questions. In a post-sweeps conference call Tuesday, Moonves was dismissive when I tried to ask about the decision to cancel the show. I'm afraid he's lost all patience with me and, by extension, with your concerns.

"It's over. I loved it. It wasn't catching fire," he said quickly and testily. "We had three great years in a great time period. Tell your Pittsburgh readers we're very sorry, we loved it and we're not against doing [another show] again [in Pittsburgh]."

When I tried to ask at what point he gave up on "The Guardian," Moonves said, "I don't know. It's always a process; we just decided in that time period we needed something new."

'The Guardian' sprang from creator's diverse background

From:Pittsburgh Post gazette
Date:Sunday, May 23, 2004
By Brian O'Neill

When David Hollander was growing up in Mt. Lebanon in the 1970s and '80s, Pittsburgh was winning big with the Steelers and losing big with steel, and he was seeing every side of life daily.

His father, Tom, a lawyer who had grown up in Monessen, was sending his son to Sewickley Academy. So in the span of 24 hours, the teenage Hollander might visit family in the Mon Valley, play a soccer game in Shadyside, and then end up "partying in some ridiculous mansion in Sewickley Heights.''

All those shades of Pittsburgh were in "The Guardian," the television drama set in Pittsburgh that Hollander created and wrote. CBS announced last week that this past season, its third, also would be its last. I reached Hollander in California , but he didn't sound down. He's already working on a movie set in the South Side.

"I'm permanently stunted as a 14-year-old boy," Hollander, 36, said. "A lot of my world view was formed around that time."

That was a time of "insularity, enormous civic pride and decay," all of which inform the characters of "The Guardian." It was a show that I'd always try to watch if we could get the kids to sleep by 9 on Tuesday nights. (Full disclosure: I'm friends with David's brother, Scott, who heads KidsVoice, which provides legal aid to 5,000 children in Pittsburgh each year. That work was central to the show, to which Scott Hollander was technical consultant.)

But if his brother had written a bad show, I wouldn't have watched. As our TV critic Rob Owen said in his post-mortem on "The Guardian," Pittsburgh was not just the setting, it was a secondary character. Its quirks, wrinkles, slang, sores, warts and beauty marks were out in the open each week.

"The very, very old wealth that sort of sits so quietly in the city," Hollander said. "The toughness of the people, the toughness of those kids. If it isn't really the culture, it's the fantasy of the culture. The puffed-up chest, the big upper body, the skinny legs"

You'd see things on "The Guardian" you wouldn't see on other network shows. The main character, Nick Fallin, and his father, Burton, had as many failings as strengths. A pair of lawyers leading a high-powered firm, they punched and kicked a guy in a Downtown garage into unconsciousness one night in a moment of rage after he'd brazenly stolen their space.

Not your usual behavior for a father and son on their way to the symphony, but Burton Fallin had grown up in the Mon Valley throwing punches. The younger Fallin, Nick, the child of privilege, generally got beat up if he got into a scrape alone.

"Both my grandfathers were tough guys," Hollander said. "They had to be tough guys. If it came down to stuff, then it came down to stuff."

Hollander rarely allowed viewers to see a character do absolutely the right thing, but viewers knew why choices were made. Its goodness or badness was left up to them. And while "The Guardian" did not show much of the quiet family life generally associated with this town, the show's heroes tried to find that for children each week.

Because it was fiction, Hollander was free to create the Pittsburgh he needed. One week he might make up a record label, Keystone Records, to give a character a chance to talk about our storied jazz history. Another week he'd turn a memory of latent racism on the 41C bus into a dramatic confrontation that tears two families in half.

Burton Fallin, "conservative, tricky and emotionally inaccessible," was nothing like Hollander's real father, who is "liberal and emotional as they come, a pretty sensitive cat." Scott Hollander, 40, executive director of KidsVoice, is nothing like Nick Fallin, either.

Coincident with the run of "The Guardian," KidsVoice has about tripled in size. There are now more than 60 staff members, 23 of them lawyers. Funding from foundations and individuals has soared. The people at KidsVoice are much better able to serve 5,000 children annually, and don't have to spend so much time explaining what they do. Because people stop them in midsentence and say, "Oh, like 'The Guardian'."

From Pittsburgh Post gazette

Many factors led to 'Guardian' demise

In 2002, Mayor Tom Murphy presented the key to the city to Pittsburgh native David Hollander, executive producer and creator of "The Guardian." In background are Wendy Moniz and Simon Baker.

From:
We ran an obituary for CBS's canceled series "The Guardian" on the front of Thursday's Post-Gazette, now it's time for the post-mortem (I'm feeling a little like Dr. Cyril Wecht today).

First to answer some repeated questions and address some reactions from viewers:

No, a campaign to save "The Guardian" will not work. No, another network will not pick up the show and produce new episodes. It's possible reruns could show up on a cable network or maybe the show will be released on DVD, but no such deals have been made.

It's irrational to take out your frustration about the cancellation of "The Guardian" on its replacement, "Clubhouse," about a 16-year-old batboy for a professional baseball team. "Clubhouse" had nothing to do with the demise of "The Guardian" and sight unseen, it's too early to know whether it deserves the enmity some viewers have expressed.

Blaming CBS alone, in this particular case, is too easy. Yes, the network canceled the show, but why? I know of quality series that have been canceled for many reasons other than the stated "ratings."

A CBS fantasy show a few years back died because the showrunner never managed to get scripts in on time and wouldn't listen to anything network executives had to say. An acclaimed ABC high school drama was killed in large part because the lead actress didn't want to continue with the show.

Let's look at some of the possible factors that led to the show's demise.


Ratings


Nationally, "The Guardian" ranked a respectable No. 38 out of 217 prime-time broadcast network series for the 2003-04 season with a 7.1 rating (percentage of TV households) and an 11 share (percentage of sets in use), averaging 10.3 million viewers each week. Locally on KDKA, the show ranked No. 12 for the season with a 15.5 rating and 21 share.

Where the show fell down was in the national demographic ratings, where it lingered in fourth place in the time period among the 18 to 49 demographic. Why is that demo important? Because that's the age group advertisers have told CBS and all the networks they're most interested in reaching with their ads. CBS is just giving its No. 1 customer -- yes, it's advertisers, not viewers -- what they want.


Promotability


Why were those ratings low? Let's face it, "The Guardian" was not a warm, fuzzy, easy-to-watch show. It challenged viewers and that sort of show is not easy to promote.

The best way to promote a series of this nature is through its star, but "Guardian" lead Simon Baker was not someone who liked to do publicity (co-stars Alan Rosenberg and Raphael Sbarge did). When CBS first put "The Guardian" on its schedule, it counted on Baker to break out as a star, but his reluctance to promote the show probably hurt it dearly (he rarely showed up as a talk show guest).

If you get to the third year and have a show that's marginal and a star who's not interested in part of the job -- and doing publicity is part of an actor's job -- it's hard for a network to muster enthusiasm.


The conspiracy theory


Some die-hard fans are convinced series creator David Hollander's decision to sign a new deal with Sony Pictures Television and not CBS Productions angered CBS CEO Leslie Moonves to the point that he took it out on "The Guardian" by canceling it. At one point, I also bought into that theory on some level.

There's no question Moonves is a shrewd businessman and he probably didn't like Hollander's decision, but was it the sole reason behind the cancellation decision? I doubt it; in Hollywood, a ratings-winning show trumps all.

Multiple factors contributed to a lack of enthusiasm for "The Guardian" within CBS. When a show loses network support, because of many factors that include ratings, cancellation becomes a much easier option.


The creative side


Mt. Lebanon native Hollander was obviously unhappy with CBS's decision Wednesday, but he also made efforts to praise CBS programming executives David Stapf and Glenn Geller.

"They were unbelievably supportive of this show, both of them are class acts," Hollander said. "I cannot believe how supportive they were of my writing and style of storytelling."

Had "The Guardian" been renewed, it would have become more procedural and less character-based, "which fans may have loved or hated," Hollander said. "I was kind of interested in doing a year of plot first and character second."

More stories would have been centered in the world of Legal Services of Pittsburgh, where Nick Fallin (Baker) took over as director and new characters would have been added. Hollander declined to say whether Nick and Lulu (Wendy Moniz), the mother of Nick's newborn daughter, would have ever become a stable couple.

Hollander said he never considered a cliffhanger for the season finale, a move some TV producers use even for an on-the-bubble show to try to entice the network to continue it (see: "The Agency," "Fastlane," "Now and Again" etc.).

"I felt like my audience is more important to me than the network. Why frustrate your audience when they've been so loyal?" Hollander said. "I don't think the network would have rewarded this show for [doing a cliffhanger]."

Hollander said he felt CBS was "killing us slowly with a butter knife" for a year with multiple pre-emptions ("Cupid," "Century City") and a lack of promotion. But he also acknowledged that he's not the kind of writer who will create TV's next "CSI" or "Law & Order."

"I've never looked at what I do as just entertainment, not that 'just entertainment' is a bad thing, I was just raised in such a way that wasting your time watching TV was illegal in my household growing up. It's hard to shake that feeling. When I sit down to write, I think, am I giving the audience something that may exhilarate them or frustrate them, but at least it's done those things as opposed to keeping them in their seats for an hour and then give them the simple answer that 'the butcher did it.' Unfortunately, the procedural and reality shows where the simple answer is at the end of the episode has become the core style of storytelling on the networks. Maybe that makes me less appealing [as a TV producer], we'll see."

Hollander also appreciated the feedback to the show he created, the kind of responsiveness that can come only from writing a weekly television series. But he said he might ultimately return to working in film.

"It might be a great time to get back to movies for me, where my life was before and probably rests later, but I will miss this amazing connection to an audience on a weekly basis, should I do that," Hollander said. "It's been a privilege to write for so many people and have them experience the show. They've been vocal and consistent and it's truly been an honor."

From Pittsburgh Post gazette

City's TV showcase, 'Guardian,' is canceled by CBS

Actor Simon Baker, right, films a scene from the pilot of the CBS TV series "The Guardian" on Grant Street in April of 2001.


From:Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Date:Thursday, May 20, 2004
By Rob Owen


CBS canceled the Pittsburgh-set legal drama "The Guardian" yesterday after a three-year run.

The program was done in by multiple factors, including low ratings among young viewers. CBS, moreover, has so many other higher-rated shows it can afford to drop a moderately successful series to try something new. The network felt it could do better by placing "Clubhouse," a new drama about a 16-year-old batboy for a professional baseball team, in "The Guardian" time slot.

Until "The Guardian," Pittsburgh either looked good in bad movies ("Striking Distance") or dreary in good movies ("Wonder Boys"). On television, it was often a setting in name only ("Hope & Gloria," "My So-Called Life") with no sense of the local culture.

But with "The Guardian," Pittsburgh looked beautiful in a quality program. Each week, the show's opening credits offered a postcard-perfect view of the city's skyscrapers and bridges, exporting a positive impression of the city to roughly 10 million viewers each week. It burnished Pittsburgh's image in ways any number of civic groups could only dream about.

Perhaps more importantly, Pittsburgh was not just a setting for the series, but series creator David Hollander made Pittsburgh a secondary character. Many producers profess the idea of sense of place as a character, but Hollander, a Mt. Lebanon native, made it a reality. And not just with references to Western Pennsylvania towns and neighborhoods.

Hollander took a page from reality even in the show's shaky, slightly unformed pilot episode when corporate lawyer Nick Fallin (Simon Baker) persuaded a gaggle of computer nerds to accept a business deal contingent on an apartment in Budapest for one of the young man's relatives. Many of the court cases in the series were reconstructions of actual cases that played out in Western Pennsylvania courtrooms.

"I'm just a Pittsburgher writing a show," Hollander said when he was presented with the key to the city at a ceremony at the City-County Building in October 2002. "This city gets in you and inspires you every day."

Both the good and the bad of it.

"The Guardian" also dealt, sometimes in a painfully realistic way, with racism. An episode filmed partially in Donora last August included use of the N-word in the script, although it was ultimately replaced by a less harsh epithet when shown on TV.

The series depicted the decline of once-prosperous steel towns in the Mon Valley and what economic decline has done to those places. Aching in Appalachia? Not a subject any other prime-time series would address.

Pittsburghese was in short supply on "The Guardian" -- just a few instances of it throughout the show's 67-episode run. But whenever it did occur, Western Pennsylvanians appreciated the attempt at verisimilitude.

"The Guardian" also provided infrequent employment for local film workers. The series filmed with cast members in Pittsburgh four times -- two multiday shoots, two single-day shoots -- in addition to newly filmed stock footage that showed off some of Pittsburgh's most architecturally distinctive buildings.

Getting Pittsburgh on the prime-time TV map had an effect, even if just a small one. A group of female fans who call themselves "The Guardian Angels" traveled to Pittsburgh several times during the series run, both to watch filming and to just soak up the city. Earlier this month, one of the women said they intend to continue their yearly visits to Pittsburgh even when "The Guardian" is off the air.

"Looking at the whole picture, I have yet to get perspective on it to quite understand why it got canceled," Hollander said yesterday. "I think the ratings are a piece of it. I think the opportunity costs and certain obligations and promises made to other shows run into it, too. We found ourselves in an equation that had so many factors."

The politics of television also may have played a role in the show's demise. CBS Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves began referring to "The Guardian" as a "bubble show" -- meaning it was on the fence for renewal -- in January, around the same time Hollander signed a new deal with Sony Pictures Television. Hollander previously had a deal with CBS Productions and the two entities produced "The Guardian" together.

"In my wildest imagining, I don't believe Les would come gunning for me over my new deal at Sony," Hollander said.

Although "The Guardian" was frequently No. 1 in its time period in total viewers and fared much better than the canceled "Century City," which briefly replaced it earlier this year, ratings for it among young viewers were low. Among 18- to 49-year-old viewers, it typically ranked No. 4 out of series airing on the six major broadcast networks at that hour.

In the past, CBS gave less consideration to demographic ratings, but as its overall fortunes have improved, ratings among the 18-to-49 demo have come to play a larger role in the network's decision-making.

CBS spokesman Chris Ender denied internal politics had anything to do with the show's cancellation.

"It simply had to do with ratings," Ender said yesterday. "We just didn't see the audience growth from year to year that we were hoping for with the series. It's a solid show, it's well-produced, we think David Hollander is a talented and rising star producer, but we were just hoping for more audience growth."

The series focused on an emotionally-closed lawyer, Fallin, who was convicted of drug possession and sentenced to work at Legal Services of Pittsburgh, helping poor clients with their legal troubles.

In the last episode of the series, which aired earlier this month, Fallin celebrated the birth of his daughter with on-again, off-again love interest Lulu Archer (Wendy Moniz). Fallin left his corporate job and took over as boss at Legal Services.

"Creatively, I'm happy with where it was when it went," Hollander said. "There's a lot more to tell, but it's not a bad stopping point. We weren't stopped in mid-sentence; I feel like we finished a phrase."

Hollander is writing a film set in Pittsburgh and he has a deal to develop a pilot for another TV series that he'll work on over the next year. He said his goal will be to set that show in Pittsburgh, too.

"I'll always have a fight on my hands because no one wants to set anything in Pittsburgh," Hollander said. "It's a combination of city image and cost. To shoot in Los Angeles [doubling] for Pittsburgh is an expensive, tricky thing to make work with lighting and location and costumes.

"But I think having established the city so nicely in 'The Guardian' and to have it function well on a national level, I think the fight will be a lot easier this time."

From Pittsburgh Post gazette

Guardian angles

From:The Star-Ledger
Date:May 04, 2004
By Alan Sepinwall

NICK FALLIN is running out of time to mess around. His girlfriend Lulu is on the verge of giving birth to their child. His boss Alvin is guilting him into assisting on an 11th hour appeal for a Death Row inmate. His friend Jake has just booted him out of his own law firm.

And, oh yeah, his show might be on the verge of cancellation.

This late in the season, that fence between renewal and cancellation is getting mighty lonely, with only a couple of shows still teetering there. "The Guardian" is one of them; tonight's finale (9 p.m., Ch. 2) either could end the series on a surprising but appropriate note, or it could spin the show off into a bold new direction next year.

Even though Simon Baker is one of CBS' few young stars, there's a sense at the network that "The Guardian" is too downbeat to ever become a big hit. It's hard to argue with that assessment: If presented with two ways for a story to end, one happy and one sad, 'Guardian" creator David Hollander will inevitably go for the bleaker option.

Nick and Lulu are having a baby, but it has Down syndrome, and Lulu isn't sure she wants Nick to be involved in her life anymore. Alvin's Death Row appeal is obviously hopeless -- and he has a death sentence of his own, since he was recently diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease.

There ain't a lot of hugs, smiles or puppies to be found here.

But does every show have to feature hugs, smiles and puppies? When Hollander takes Nick down a dark path, it isn't with the kind of sadistic glee that makes "ER" so depressing; there's a gentle, understated tone to most of the "Guardian" tragedy that makes it seem real, not manipulative. And the worse life gets for Nick Fallin, the better Simon Baker's layered performance gets.

As TV's most-watched network, CBS doesn't have a lot of scheduling holes. "The Guardian" isn't doing badly, but it's at best a reliable singles hitter in a lineup that could use some more doubles and triples. But the current regime at CBS also has a better sense than any other network of how to program with variety. If the choice comes down to "The Guardian" or another cookie-cutter police procedural from the Jerry Bruckheimer factory, it might be nice to go with the one CBS drama that doesn't resemble any other show on television.

''Ring 2'' cattle call: Firm is hiring extras in Astoria

From:Oregonlive
Date:4,May,2004


Would you like to work alongside Oscar-nominated actress Naomi Watts
("21 Grams") and Golden Globe-nominated actor Simon Baker (TV's "The
Guardian") -- and get paid for it?

The feature film "The Ring 2" will be filming in Astoria next month,
and director Hideo Nakata needs some extras.

Extras Only Casting will be holding an open casting call from 1 to 4
p.m. Saturday at Astoria Middle School, 1100 Klaskanine Ave., in
Astoria. Casting director Danny Stoltz said between 100 and 300
extras will be cast.

No acting experience is necessary; filmmakers are looking for real
people of all ages. Those selected to be extras will make $57 for each 8-hour day.

"The Ring 2," which will also star Sissy Spacek and 11-year-old David
Dorfman, is the sequel to the 2002 hit film about a mysterious videotape that proves fatal to viewers. For details, call 503-299- 4776 in Portland or 503-345-9848 in Astoria.

'Guardian' episode makes fitting farewell

Nick Fallin (Simon Baker) kisses his newborn daughter, Anne, on the season finale of "The Guardian."


From:Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Date:May 04, 2004
By Rob Owen

If tonight's season finale proves to be the series finale for "The Guardian" (9 p.m., CBS), it's a satisfying conclusion.

Not everything is smiles and rainbows, but for a series as consistently dark as "The Guardian," the episode is pretty darn upbeat, leaving most but not all of its characters entering positive new phases of their lives.

The hour, directed by series creator David Hollander and titled "Antarctica," is not the best episode of the series -- actually, I think I liked the propulsive drama in last week's show more -- but it features many sweeps month staples (birth, potential death, major life changes) without leaving viewers with a mega-cliffhanger that may never be resolved (CBS will announce the show's fate in two weeks).

Some will no doubt debate whether or not selfish Nick Fallin (Simon Baker) would truly end up on the path he takes -- and if the show returns, I suspect he may jump off that path pretty fast -- but there's been enough growth in the character that his choice doesn't stretch credulity too much. And the ending montage, set to the song "Dead Melodies" by Beck from his "Mutations" album, features two brief scenes filmed in Pittsburgh on a sunny day last month. (I'm convinced that if Pittsburgh's weather were as sunny as it is whenever "The Guardian" crew is in town to film, the city could actually stand a chance of becoming Hollywood East.)

Critics continually sing the praises of "The Sopranos," calling it "psychologically rich" and "emotionally provocative." That's an apt description of "The Guardian," too, but few critics ever write about this show. Honestly, if not for the Pittsburgh connection, I probably wouldn't have watched beyond the flawed pilot myself. TV critics simply don't have time to keep tabs on every series. Conscientious critics will give a TV program more of a chance than a single episode, and contrary to popular opinion, we're not monolithic in our thinking. But for whatever reason, my critical peers wrote off "The Guardian" around the time of its premiere, classifying it as another older-skewing CBS show along the lines of "The District," "Family Law" and "Hack."

What they missed by skipping "The Guardian" was a series featuring a lead character who's the antithesis of the archetypal TV hero. Nick Fallin wasn't even a morally ambiguous character in the mold of thuggish Tony Soprano or Vic Mackey. Nick is not prone to throwing a punch, except on rare occasions, but he's far more vulnerable to even the tiniest slights. He's a damaged character with an extreme lack of self-awareness, stunted social skills and a really bad case of emotional constipation. He is both fascinating and frustrating to watch.

But it took time in the show's early days to really get a feel for Nick's character, and by the time that was established, most critics had checked out. But the series improved as Hollander, who was new to writing episodic television, learned how to better utilize the supporting characters and build ongoing story arcs. Then I was happy to sing its praises, not because it was the hometown show, but because "The Guardian" evolved into a quality series.

The show had its ups and downs, which will happen when a show runner takes the flying-by-the-seat-of-our-pants path to plotting as opposed to the plan-it-out-a-season-at-a-time approach. Characters were introduced and then disappeared without explanation, a frustrating exercise for loyal viewers. But just about every time I thought Hollander had painted himself into an unsatisfying corner, he surprised me with an unexpected resolution, the kind that only comes out of allowing for natural spontaneity in the creative process. For anyone who watches copious amounts of television, surprise twists are the rarest of TV gifts.


From Pittsburgh Post gazette