Best and Worst Showrunner Switches
The enthusiasm over Netflix’s quick renewal of their freshman Marvel series Daredevil was tempered somewhat by the news of behind-the-scenes creative changes. Specifically, creator Drew Goddard and showrunner Steven S. DeKnight will not be part of Season 2, replaced by the team of Doug Petrie and Marco Ramirez. On the one hand, both of the new guys were closely involved in the first season as writers, so they’re well-groomed to succeed their outgoing bosses. At the same time, it’s always a little nerve-racking to mess with success, even when shows wind up benefitting from a change at the top. We’ll have a year to wait until we see what Petrie and Ramirez’s Daredevil looks like. In the meantime, here’s a quick recap of some of the best and worst showrunner changes from the past few years.
Best: Scott M. Gimple (The Walking Dead)
AMC’s zombie series has changed hands multiple times, with original creator and showrunner Frank Darabont being supplanted by Glen Mazzara at the network’s request before Season 2 premiered. Then Mazzara ran the series — some would say, into a ditch — for the next two years, before Gimple inherited the series in Season 4. And, based on how consistently great the show has been since then, he’s got the job for as long as he wants it. At this point, The Walking Dead is a case study in how fresh blood (and brains) can reanimate a previously moribund series.
Worst: Mark Hudis (True Blood)
Granted, True Blood had already started sliding into irrelevant silliness by the time creator Alan Ball left after Season 5. But his immediate replacement, Mark Hudis, dropped the um… ball early in his tenure with an equally shaky sixth season. HBO actually wound up replacing Hudis before Season 6 wrapped, promoting writer/producer Brian Buckner to the top spot. But neither switch ultimately restored the show’s life blood.
Best: Steven Moffat (Doctor Who)
This is a controversial position to take, as there are plenty of people who haven’t been especially happy with the way Moffat has steered the Doctor’s time-hopping TARDIS since he inherited the storied franchise from Russell T Davies in 2010. But to his credit, the Sherlock creator did bring a wealth of new fans to the series during Matt Smith’s tenure and the transition to the Peter Capaldi era went off fairly seamlessly. For Who fandom, the great Davies vs. Moffat debate will probably rage until the end of time or the end of the show’s run… whichever comes first.
Worst: David Rosenthal (Gilmore Girls)
One of the many things that made Gilmore Girls great was its voice — the snappy, speedy patter of pop culture shout-outs and emotional confessions and confrontations that creator Amy Sherman-Palladino scribbled into every episode. When she and her husband Daniel left the show in 2006 following a contract dispute with the network, they took that voice with them. So when viewers tuned into the seventh (and final) season premiere, they saw the same characters and the same town, but didn’t hear the same words, even as Sherman-Palladino replacement David Rosenthal worked overtime to try to mimic his predecessors. With that essential ingredient missing, Gilmore Girls simply wasn’t Gilmore Girls anymore.
Best: John Wells (The West Wing)
Aaron Sorkin’s White House series was a sensation upon its debut, but there were frequent rumors that the creator and NBC clashed over rising budgets and delays caused by the writer’s obsessive perfectionism. When Sorkin resigned after the fourth season, the network replaced him with someone they knew had a steadier hand — former ER showrunner John Wells. From the sound of things, Wells ran a tight ship and successfully guided the show through three more years on the air. Those latter seasons may not always have had great onscreen drama, but at least there was less behind-the-scenes drama.
Worst: Steven Bochco (Commander in Chief)
Production delays also led to an Oval Office re-shuffling on another political drama — the Rod Lurie-created series Commander in Chief. A film director enjoying his first taste of TV success, Lurie apparently fell so far behind that ABC decided to entrust the fledgling hit to an established veteran, NYPD Blue’s Steven Bochco. But in this case, experience didn’t save the day. Viewers rejected Bochco’s take on the material, and Chief’s approval ratings continued to fall through the tenure of his replacement, Dee Johnson. The show was history by the end of its freshman season.
