Mel Giedroyc Quotes

There is a 90% failure rate for most shows. It's difficult for any show to write for the next season.

Year Two is a critical year for any television show.

I've always had a show that went seven episodes or 13 episodes or whatever. And I've never had a show that's gone past a first season. It really is a lot of work.

I believe that 99 percent of successful TV shows change an immense amount from the pilot to the tenth or twelfth episode.

It's such a process to get a show off the ground initially. And then, to already have a second season announced is a dream come true for any actor.

I had 'Breaking In' at Fox, and that was a constant stopping and starting of getting canceled and picked up again.

Writing pilots is such a specific thing. It's not even really writing TV shows. A pilot is its own beast.

Pilot season in L.A. is just this blood bath. They make so many pilots, and such a small percentage are picked up. And then if you are picked up, there are so many variables. You have to get a good time slot, and you have to get promoted. And then you have to thrive in that time slot.

Yeah, I'd done a bunch of pilots. Some that had gone for a while. One that went for 13 episodes. But I had never been on a show that had lasted more than that.

Television and movies just take so long. If you pitch a show or develop a project, it can be a year before your show even gets on the air, if it gets picked up.

The first season of a show is kind of like an extended pilot. You're only really on the map if it goes a second season.

The pilot of 'Seinfeld' was made and dropped. 'Seinfeld' was not supposed to go to series.

More and more, I've started to understand that no show is dead unless somebody decrees it's dead at a studio.

Like, to do a pilot, you don't know what's going to happen with it.

I had done a directing producing job before on 'Big Day' and 'Jake in Progress,' and those are two shows where I directed the pilot and stayed with it in series.

The lifespan of any show is to end in cancellation.

As actors, if you get a pilot on HBO or on USA, your odds are good that it's going to get picked up.

I am currently talking to one of the studios about making American Star as a TV series.

There are shows that have been prematurely canceled, but I don't know if 'Smash' was one of them.

It's rare to get a part in a show that's greenlit, let alone two shows that have been greenlit.

A lot of shows, like 'Cupid,' that I loved with all my heart, it shouldn't have been canceled.

In the movies, you typically do get to see the script beforehand. TV is different because there are a lot of scripts in the future that you haven't seen. You commit to a show, and you have to believe in the showrunner and their team and the stories they're going to tell.

Any show in its first season goes through multiple changes. There is little or no difference to changing the cast on a talk show.

Things end in this business. Shows get canceled, or you walk away from them - but most likely, things get canceled.

I want 'Chicago Fire' to go as long as 'SVU.'