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UPFRONTS 2013: The Overachievers 
Just two weeks ago, TV networks’ infatuation with period Westerns seemed to have waned. Of the slew of such projects put in development by the broadcast networks last season, only one, NBC’s The Frontier, had been picked up to pilot, and it didn’t make the cut to series. At the same time, TNT passed on its own period Western pilot, Tin Star. Two weeks later, History’s Hatfields & McCoys burst into the scene, drawing huge crowds. Yes, its viewership skewed older, which is understandable given the historic subject matter, but there were plenty of 18-49-year-olds among the 13-14 million who tuned in for each episode to get the broadcast networks’ attention. And the timing is perfect as pitch season is just around the corner.
Related: History’s ‘Hatfields & McCoys’ Breaks More Cable Records
NBC may be the first to jump in with the Kerry Ehrin Western originally developed this past season. The network has been the most aggressive among the broadcast networks in the arena, ordering period Western drama pilots for two consecutive years: The Crossing in 2011 and The Frontier this year. The network developed a total of three Western scripts and its executives were happy with all of them, eventually narrowing the field to The Frontier and the Kerry Ehrin project and ultimately going with The Frontier. I hear NBC is now revisiting the Kerry Ehrin drama, produced by Universal TV and Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner’s Hazy Mills. Coincidentally, the project’s producers and NBC brass met on Tuesday morning, when the big ratings for the first night of Hatfields & McCoys came out. Set in the 1880s, the Kerry Ehrin project centers on Jacob Morris, a young, eccentric East Coast doctor of mental disorders who moves to a primitive Western town at the foot of the Colorado Rockies. I hear NBC executives are open to ordering the script to pilot if a name actor and/or director are attached. Other high-profile Westerns that were developed at the broadcast networks last season included The Rifleman reboot at CBS with Laeta Kalogridis, Chris Columbus and Carol Mendelsohn; a Wyatt Earp Western at Fox penned by John Hlavin; and Ron Moore’s Hangtown, set in the early 1900s, and David Zabel’s Gunslinger, both at ABC. With TV business being notoriously reactive, look for some of those to be revisited too and new Western concepts to start coming fast and furious once the floodgates at the broadcast networks open.
The only true Western series on the air right now is AMC’s Hell On Wheels on Sunday. CBS has period drama Vegas coming out in the fall but despite its protagonist, played by Dennis Quaid, being a cowboy-type sheriff, the drama deals with the mob’s 1960s takeover of Las Vegas. Ditto for FX’s Justified, despite the lead’s penchant for wearing cowboy hats. Another highly-rated Western miniseries, AMC’s Broken Trail, didn’t have a major impact on series development. But the success of Hatfields & McCoys comes as the Western genre has already built a strong momentum, making a new period Western series order within the next year a strong possibility.
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H & M is considered to be a western because it is set in the same time period and people are shooting guns? That’s all I can figure out. It certainly is not a western in any traditional sense, being set in the east.
In the mid 19th century Kentucky/West Virginia would still probably have been considered the near West.
Uh…no, not at all. You might be thinking of the mid-18th C. By the Civil War, the “western” part of the country corresponded to our notion of the Midwest – Missouri, Kansas, Wisconsin, Michigan etc.
The real question is will the success spur a wave of network mini-series? In today’s network system I think strong stories would work in that format. With the collective ADHD in America today, a good story told over 6 hours would bring viewers in bulk and their insatiable appetite for immediate answers would be had in 3 days.
As long as there is not Cowboy “Teen Dramas” or any thing with a scifi element.
Maybe this explains the strange programming decisions made by network executives. Hatfields & McCoys is not a western, more of a docu-drama using a historical event in the South as its plot line. I really think it’s a stretch to justify a decision or speculation on ordering Westerns, which deal with events and locations west of the Mississippi River. It’s two different cultures, two different story lines, and two different sets of historical motivations.
H&C appeals to older males who enjoy seeing scruffy, semi-inebriated guys running around the woods and shooting at each other, then angsting over The Meaning of It All, for about five seconds, and then saying f*ck it and starting all over again.
So what we want is a Civil War series, not a Western.
Bring back Firefly!!
When was the last time a network ordered a pilot and a series after the schedule was announced?
Set in the 1880s, the Kerry Ehrin project centers on Jacob Morris, a young, eccentric East Coast doctor of mental disorders who moves to a primitive Western town at the foot of the Colorado Rockies.
So, Doctor Quinn with a male psychiatrist instead of a female MD?
This mini-series isn’t drawing viewers because of its setting. There’s nothing cool or sexy about post-Civil War West Virginia. A slew of knee-jerk, copycat Westerns is precisely the wrong reaction. How about you make more mini-series with solid casts instead?
It’s not the Western aspect, it’s the family conflict and bloodlust that everybody in America knows is built into the legend of Hatfield/McCoy, plus a bit of thinking you’ll see “who started it.”
Westerns, people could still give a f**k.
A statement like that — “Westerns, people could still give a f–k” — is silly unless you have some evidence of a Western failing to get an audience in, oh, the 21st century. Broken Trail and Hell On Wheels brought in good enough numbers to make AMC happy. Let’s see the networks at least TRY a Western and see how it does.
Sorry, I forgot two other elements: movie stars and mini-series. Like Broken Trail.
Check the ratings, people could give a f**k about Hell on Wheels.
YOU check the ratings — for AMC “successes” like Mad Men and Breaking Bad. Hell On Wheels is in the same ratings neighborhood.
Classic TV executive move; One show is a hit, try to replicate it, fail miserably.
Just because millions tuned in to see a re-telling of a classic American story, featuring genuine star actors, doesn’t mean America is clamoring to see poorly executed Westerns now.
H&M had more of a Civil War feel to it than Western per se. Either genre would be hugely popular.
For the Civil War, the dilemma is how to avoid having battle scenes break the budget. They might have to get creative, for instance focus on the activities of spies on both sides, rather than exclusively on soldiers.
NBC should have greenlit their Western pilot, The Frontier, a wagon train story. That’s a good way to do a Western that hasn’t been overexposed recently. Maybe cable can revisit that idea.
Can we please get a final season of Deadwood?
deadwood available in HBO archives- on HBOGO
YES, PLEASE final season of Deadwood or at least the wrap-up movies which were promised.
True, Dave. Sadly true. However, if the western has an interesting spin, it may have a chance. Not Cowboys and Aliens, though.
Not true Dave. A lot of people still love westerns, but very few quality westerns are released. They’ll never pull in Transformers numbers, but look at True Grit, Open Range, 5:10 to Yuma. The key is keep production costs low because there is a limited chance for crossover. Also western fans like true westerns not modernized mashups like cowboys and aliens. Keep it dirty and violent with a great story and fans will come. The above pilot plot about a mental health doctor sounds stupid. Sounds like they are trying to make a modern show in a western setting. They should watch Deadwood, that’s how its done!
It’s not the “Western” that succeeded here.
It was the BRAND.
The next successful western on TV will also have well known name recognition to the general public.
And History Channel will be successful with its future productions that have name recognition for viewers also regardless of genre.
F’ing loved Hatfields & McCoys. I really don’t think it’s cowboys we’re in love with overall, it’s how the modern boring stuff like warrants and DNA testing and legal procedure does not exist back then. This stuff is very important to our safety and happiness today, but you know what, it makes storytelling very boring. The idea that any time a Hatfield and a McCoy were on-screen together, one was liable to kill the other, made every scene entertaining,even if they were only talking about pigs.
A&E has a modern western staring this sunday…
I’m sure they’ll find away to have Vampires and Zombies in them.
I’m looking forward to a third Goodnight for Justice movie.
I think the Western is ripe for a big comeback. I’m hoping NBC can still greenlight The Frontier as a series. It’s getting a bit tiresome of the same programming spread over the 5 nets & another genre I’d love to see come back is Sci Fi.
Now that they have worked out the rights to the series-the original was being shown on the Encore Western Channel-I think that Have Gun, Will Travel would be an idea that modern audiences could find interesting. I think that Paladin-as the surprisingly sophisticated and progressive trouble-shooting, 19th century private eye, whose “office” was a fancy SF hotel-could be a western “hero” that could possibly work with a modern audience that has all sorts of choices for their viewing pleasure. Even “back in the day” star Richard Boone played the character as a guy who had a core sense of moral values, but had an unusual understanding of human frailty, and often made allowances for it-even when he still had to be judge, jury, and executioner, he took no pleasure in it.
It’s no wonder all of the cable networks passed on this turkey…the kevin costner produced drama is stultifyingly boring, tedious needlessly violent poorly written & performed…next time, get julian fellowes to write. produce & hugh laurie to play the costner lead…believe me, HBO wouldn’t have passed on that one…
HBO passed on consecutive nights of 13.9 million, 13.2 million, and 14.8 million viewers? If so they’re out of touch with mass audience tastes ( as the under 600,000 total viewers for Hemingway and Gellhorn proved) and need to be fired. Plus H and G was called a horrible, self-indulgent piece by at least half of the critics that reviewed it.
Your post is exactly why HBO movies and series are in trouble. Hugh Laurie has zero Western credibility with male audiences and such a Hugh Laurie Western would not appeal to men who want their Westerns gritty and violent. You cast Tommy Lee Jones, or Kevin Costner in an event Western. And yes, I know Hatfields is technically and Eastern but its in the same time period and has horses, guns, and shootouts. Julian Fellowes may write a good Downton Abbey but would right a mind numbing Western. As for it being a turkey, the New York and LA Times disagree with you, as will Emmy Voters. Maybe put down the brandy sniffer and the copy of the New Yorker, drive out of the Palisades, and meet some regular folks.
Why is this being classified as a Western? It takes place in Kentucky/West Virginia. By the 1860s – when the feud began – California was already a state. So Kentucky and West Virginia were hardly the American West by the height of the feud in the 1870s and 1880s. Hatfields and McCoys didn’t succeed because it was a “Western,” the show succeeded because of good writing, a well-known story in American history, and the fact that A-list actors populated the cast list. If there is an interesting story to be told from American history, and that story is told and done right, it doesn’t matter if the show is a Western or not. People will watch.
i think it’s the hats.
CBS is lightyears smarter than the other broadcast networks when it comes to programming mass appeal shows. I wonder why they are sitting on the 60′s super hit, The Rifleman. If any western is going to succeed, CBS’ has the most potential. Gunslinger and Hangtown also could be huge but ABC can’t do straight male dramas well if at all. Gunslinger and Hangtown type westerns were huge back in the 50′s and 60′s on CBS. ABC pulling off a testosterone fueled show is something I just can’t see happening but good luck to them.
Hatfields and McCoys isn’t a western. It takes place during that time, but west Virginia and Kentucky r obviously east of the Mississippi river, so it’s not a western. It is post civil war south, based on real events.