{"id":17107,"date":"2022-06-28T10:33:47","date_gmt":"2022-06-28T14:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/howard-gordon-talks-accused\/"},"modified":"2022-06-28T11:22:11","modified_gmt":"2022-06-28T15:22:11","slug":"howard-gordon-talks-accused","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/howard-gordon-talks-accused\/","title":{"rendered":"Howard Gordon Talks Accused"},"content":{"rendered":"

Acclaimed writer, producer and showrunner Howard Gordon delivered the opening keynote speech at the TV Drama Festival today, discussing how he adapted the British drama Accused<\/em> into a new anthology for FOX in the U.S.<\/p>\n

Gordon\u2019s keynote conversation with TV Drama<\/em>\u2019s Anna Carugati, which can be viewed here<\/a><\/strong>, began with him discussing the background of Accused<\/em>, the first show ordered out of his and Alex Gansa\u2019s broad overall deal at Sony Pictures Television.<\/p>\n

David Shore had begun to adapt the Jimmy McGovern-created BBC One show, but with his schedule preoccupied with the hit ABC series The Good Doctor<\/em>, \u201che kindly handed it over to my development,\u201d Gordon said. \u201cIt was kind of a pandemic catharsis for me. It felt like an amazing opportunity to tell stories about my own anxiety about living in the world today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Each episode focuses on a new storyline and character, exploring the backstory of someone accused of a crime. \u201cIt has the trappings of a pretty classic courtroom story. But it\u2019s about so much more than that. It is about very human stories, relatable, small-scale stories, but told against all the fault lines in the world that we\u2019re living with: The corrosive impact of social media, identity, race, inequality. There\u2019s something very deep at the bottom of every one of these stories that I\u2019m extremely proud of. They\u2019re complicated and simple at the same time. It shows us how exquisitely vulnerable we all are at this moment. It\u2019s an empathy engine. We\u2019re kind of in a revolutionary moment, an inflection point. These stories all exist somewhere on one of those fault lines.\u201d<\/p>\n

On working with the source material from the U.K. show, Gordon noted, \u201cYou got to see what worked and what didn\u2019t and how something could be made, in my opinion, better. The format is Jimmy McGovern\u2019s, and it\u2019s one of those; how come this hasn\u2019t happened before?\u201d<\/p>\n

While the British original was deeply rooted in its location, resulting in what Gordon described as a \u201cnorthern England, industrial Manchester cobalt blue,\u201d the version for FOX spreads across the U.S. \u201cWe\u2019re taking advantage of the bigness and the diversity of this country. There\u2019s a diversity of stories.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cI slowed some of the stories down and created characters. We\u2019re doing one or two of his stories\u2014the rest are all original. His came out in 2010; the world is a different place, so profoundly different from how it was then. The stories, by definition, are quite different.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the creative opportunities of doing self-contained episodes in an anthology versus a serialized show, Gordon said: \u201cAt the time I took this on, I thought, Wow, this is going to be so much easier. It was a great pandemic writing experience. It has been a very challenging production experience. You have to cast a new set of characters every single time. Our thesis was that the scripts are good; they will draw talent. And it has.\u201d Cast members include Michael Chiklis, Jill Hennessy, Abigail Breslin, Margo Martindale and Wendell Pierce, with Billy Porter and Marlee Matlin among those on board as directors. \u201cWe have managed to draw some amazing, amazing talent to this show because of the material.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the role of broadcast TV today, Gordon noted, \u201cI have strong feelings about the culture and the abnegation of curating content. There was a moment when you knew Monday night was Thirtysomething<\/em> or Thursday was ER<\/em>. You created a sense of anticipation and couldn\u2019t wait for the next week. Now, an entire thing is dumped. It\u2019s like eating breakfast, lunch and dinner again and again and again. And you\u2019re left bleary-eyed. It doesn\u2019t live in your imagination, heart or mind for long. Structurally, we\u2019re in a curious place. The broadcast networks\u2019 ratings are a fraction of what they were. But they remain the most durable place for people to gather at the same time and watch a story. That\u2019s what I\u2019m encouraged by.\u201d Gordon added that the show will also be available on a catch-up basis on Hulu and Tubi.<\/p>\n

Gordon then noted that his show 24<\/em> was the last network series to win the Primetime Emmy for best drama back in 2006. \u201cSince then, it\u2019s been streamers and premium cable. The business model is a curious thing, but I\u2019m more interested in how it\u2019s impacted our capacity to tell a story where enough people watch it at the same time to spark some kind of conversation and impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gordon continued: \u201cI know there\u2019s something subversive and challenging about this material. 24<\/em> premiered right after 9\/11, and the conventional wisdom was that nobody would want to watch this. I think what made it a much more meaningful experience for people, in the end, were the events of the world. In this show\u2026we are hitting everything. You asked before, what\u2019s the challenge of an anthology? In a serialized show, you can expand on and grow the story novelistically. This is much more like a short story. The discipline and the exercise and the learning curve have been about how to thrust you into a situation quickly. You\u2019re in a place and you meet these characters. The real challenge and the fun has been, how do I make this so recognizable, so legible, so almost instantly gettable, so that you can\u2019t stop watching?\u201d<\/p>\n

Carugati then asked Gordon if it is harder to pitch and get projects greenlit today as the landscape fragments. \u201cWe went to Sony under the premise that they were agnostic and could find business deals with everyone. But it is getting harder. Players are going to be drafted by these monoliths, by these vertically integrated [companies and platforms]. It feels as though lines are being drawn that are harder and harder to cross. They are disincentivized now to take a show from an independent producer. Everything is sort of in flux always. I know for my TV critic friends whose job it is to stay on top of things that it has become a firehose of stuff that is overwhelming. How do you pick and choose and curate your own consumption and your own TV watching? Throw in the movies, which are now up in the air. I mean, what is a movie anymore? What is theatrical distribution? It is an interesting and revolutionary time. I hope there will always be a home for me. What the appetites and the algorithm are dictating don\u2019t always seem to be in sync with what interests me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Acclaimed writer, producer and showrunner Howard Gordon delivered the opening keynote speech at the TV Drama Festival today, discussing how he adapted the British drama Accused into a new anthology for FOX in the U.S.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":17109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70],"tags":[2326,4460,4964],"class_list":["post-17107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-top-stories","tag-accused","tag-howard-gordon","tag-tv-drama-festival-2022","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nHoward Gordon Talks Accused - TVDRAMA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/howard-gordon-talks-accused\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Howard Gordon Talks Accused - TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Acclaimed writer, producer and showrunner Howard Gordon delivered the opening keynote speech at the TV Drama Festival today, discussing how he adapted the British drama Accused into a new anthology for FOX in the U.S.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/howard-gordon-talks-accused\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-06-28T14:33:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-06-28T15:22:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2022\/06\/2022-06-28-HowardGordon-2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"360\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/howard-gordon-talks-accused\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/howard-gordon-talks-accused\/\",\"name\":\"Howard Gordon Talks Accused - TVDRAMA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-06-28T14:33:47+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-06-28T15:22:11+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/howard-gordon-talks-accused\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/howard-gordon-talks-accused\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/howard-gordon-talks-accused\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Howard Gordon Talks Accused\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\",\"name\":\"TVDRAMA\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. 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