ABC Was Scared Of The "Desperate" Pedophile Storyline

In an exclusive interview with Mary Murphy (you may see the second part on YouTube by following the link HERE), Marc Cherry has revealed he had to put extra effort into persuading ABC honchos to go ahead with 'the pedophile storyline'.

Marc Cherry, the creator, executive producer, showrunner and head writer of ABC's "Desperate Housewives" has revealed in an exclusive interview with Mary Murphy that ABC was initially afraid of the "Art Might Be A Pedophile" storyline and only after a special pitch he personally did for the network president Steve McPherson did they green-light the development.

As you know American television industry is highly dependent on ratings and unlike their more flexible counterparts on cable, free-to-air broadcast networks in the US are very skittish when it comes to controversial storylines as they might hamper the ratings and consequently byte into their income of ad dollars.

For this reason, the creative freedom of scriptwriters is treated with zero tolerance if it comes at the expense of advertising revenue and all major storyline developments are normally approved by the network management. If they deem a particular storyline offensive to any major segment of audience the network will nix it.

If one is to succeed as a writer in Hollywood, they need to look for work within the industry by pitching scripts on shows already on air. What networks are looking for are not people with original ideas, but rather a new crop of writers capable of recapturing and copying the unique voice and tone of a TV series that someone else had already created.

For this reason, only the well-established writers (such as Mr. Cherry) are capable of pitching original or risky ideas to the Hollywood powers that be who have the final say on whether a particular storyline will make it on the air or not.

According to Mr. Cherry, Mr. McPherson did approve 'the pedophile storyline' with a sigh. After all criticism the network and Mr. Cherry had received during the show's second season, which one critic at TV Guide branded "a creative collapse", playing it safe is probably the very last thing they want to be accused of.

As for the storyline itself, Mr. Cherry promises it will come to a surprising conclusion by the November 26 episode.

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