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When is the new season of Cold Case starting?

When starting a new show series (for example on HBO, where there's a constant story line to follow), do the writers work on it a season at a time, or do they know how the whole series will play out? Surely they wait a little bit in case the first season doesn't do well. Anyone have any experience wi

  • HBO's Game of Thrones is based on a book series, so they likely have the extent of the series planned. But any show on USA, for example, can really be watched in any order since the episodes don't depend on each other to move the story along.

  • Answer:

    That's a good question, and the short answer is that it really does depend. In general, if you've ever listened to interviews with TV show creators, they often have a very general idea of where they want to go with their storytelling, but rarely know specifics. However, this type of thing can even vary within a season of a show - for instance, season 2 of AMC's Breaking Bad was planned out from start to finish, and as a result of this the show does creative flashforwards and bookending within that season; meanwhile, season 3 of the very same show was written very much in the moment - Vince Gilligan has spoken at length about how they wrote each episode without knowing where things would go, and that changed the entire story of the season. With all that said, however, a show like Suits on USA, which tends to be very procedural, doesn't need to have a lot of advance planning.

Ron Ackner at Quora Visit the source

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Like Ron Ackner said, it depends on the show and the writers. In Lost, the writers said after season two that they had no idea of where the show was going. For the first couple of seasons they threw in seemingly unrelated themes of polar bears, ghosts, disappearing charcters, etc. After season 2, the writers had to figure out how to tie it all together - something that took several more seasons. That is also why the last episode was kind of a let down. The writers built a series they couldn't possibly foresee wrapping up. Many shows will have lots of writers and will swap them out regularly to add new perspective. The downside is that short-term writers may not have the long term vision in mind.

William Thomsen

I don't have any experience but from my understanding (while it does depend on the show) it works a little in both ways. There are certain ideas that may have already been decided or an overall direction they have in mind but as the episodes/season progresses things change.

Lindsey Shea

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