Accused Creator Howard Gordon on the Broadcast Model, Weekly Episodes, and If 24 Could Return
Photo Courtesy of Fox
We’re still in the early days of 2023, but the future of the modern television landscape is actually pointing backwards more than ever. With streamers like Netflix, Disney+, Paramount+, and Peacock adding cheaper subscription tiers that include forced ads, while free, ad-based apps like Pluto and Tubi become more popular, it seems the traditional broadcast model that everyone shunned is suddenly back in vogue once more. For long-time series creators like Howard Gordon—who went from writing on modern classics like The X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 24 to co-creating shows like Awake and Homeland—the constant changes have felt like a bit of whiplash.
In fact, Gordon’s latest series, Accused (an adaptation of Jimmy McGovern’s 2020 BBC1 series of the same name), brings him back to the broadcast network he spent a lot of time with as the later-years showrunner of 24. Having created a multi-season hit for premium cable with Homeland on Showtime, Gordon has been able to shift across television models successfully. Curious about what it’s like to navigate the new world order of pitching TV shows, and to what home, as well as how difficult it was crafting a throwback procedural for 2023, Paste TV got on the phone with Gordon to talk about all those things and more.
Paste: With the waning eyes on broadcast and the tightening of the belts at all streamers, how do you make choices about where you want your story ideas to live now?
Howard Gordon:The business has been so disrupted. And when I say business, not just how we write and tell stories, but how we monetize them and how we watch them, how we distribute them, it’s very disorienting. I’ll use 24 or even The X-Files as an example; there was something to curating the audience’s experience and delivering them “must see TV” on a Thursday, or where you knew you had to watch The X-Files on Friday at 9pm. It became a thing. That center has not held, and something’s been lost in the culture. It’s all changed because people’s habits have changed. I miss it. And it’s given rise to words like “bingeing” which I find a disgusting word. I don’t want to “binge” my meals. I want to order from the menu, savor them, and then be hungry again.
With Accused, the people at FOX were the most aggressive in terms of pursuing this. It was nice that [president of entertainment at FOX] Michael Thorn, who I’ve known for 20 years, really championed it. There are certain shows that are meant for streaming, or maybe for premium cable. This feels to me like it’s a challenging show that really doesn’t pander to the audience. It doesn’t talk down to them. I hope it is as smart and interesting as any show. Perhaps it could have gone on streaming and on cable, and actually it is, I guess, on Hulu [where it streams the next day]. But I really liked the idea of being on a linear network and delivering once a week. And I even think commercials are good in this case, as it’s a nice respite from some of the stuff that happens.
Paste: It sounds like you don’t mind being a salmon swimming upstream in making a show for broadcast. Do you think about the home first when developing?
Gordon: I would say it was less strategic. At this point in my life and in my career, I have to do something that I’m passionate about. Jimmy’s format really spoke to me as an opportunity to tell some stories. When I pitched the show, I said to everyone who listened to the pitch, “The Chinese curse says ‘may you live in interesting times.’” We’re living in a really revolutionary moment. Even before the pandemic, which is certainly part of it and which has changed everything, whether it’s race or gender, power or inclusion, diversity or the truth itself. You’re a journalist, and look at your business. It doesn’t resemble what it was five years ago. To me, I’m confused as a human being, forget as a writer or producer. This show feels to me like a way for me to work through some of the questions I have about what it means to be alive in 2023. And a lot of the stories are stories that really could only have happened today. Like what social media has done, in all its iterations, to our culture and to our society is absolutely a character in several of these stories. And as a causal. So some of the consequences, and the collateral damage of social media, actually plays a big role in some of these stories.
Paste: Let’s talk about this iteration of the series, which consists of stories that are very U.S. centric in terms of addressing our unique issues like gun control, which is core to the pilot episode you wrote, “Scott’s Story.” What’s the ratio of stories that you ported over from the UK series and how much is entirely original?
Gordon: First of all, most of them are original stories. I think three of the original episodes of 15 are roughly based on, although very much changed. I’m a giant fan of [McGovern’s] and I’m really looking forward to hearing his response to this. I hope he likes it. But I think the stories that he told were, I don’t know how to say it… the world has changed, even in 12 years. It was a format acquisition more than a story acquisition, although some of the stories were really compelling, and I think, adaptable.
Paste: “Scott’s Story” is about a parent (Michael Chiklis) who considers murdering his own son to prevent him from committing possible violence. That’s a very “us” problem to explore.
Gordon: For the first [episode], it was feeling helpless as the parent of adult children and then imagining what that would be like. There was an article that really sparked it for me about a Japanese diplomat, who had been arrested for killing his adult son who was living at home because he feared he was going to commit this knife attack. That was a dramatic question that I kept coming back to, so that was an example of what sparked my first episode.
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