How much of a TV show season is taped beforehand?

April 12, 2007 6:48 AM

How much of a TV season is filmed before the season begins to be shown on TV?

After following a few shows for a while on TV, and also being somewhat familiar with fan sites, etc, I was wondering how much of a season is "in the can" before the season starts. Is the whole season taped, or just X number of episodes? I guess I'm mostly curious because I wonder how much fan reaction can change the course of any specific TV show during its running season.

I realize this may vary greatly from show to show, but if anyone has specifics for any particular shows, I'd appreciate it. Two shows I follow regularly are House and Heroes, so specific info on those shows would be great.

posted by sherlockt to media & arts (9 comments total)

Like you said it really does vary. If you read the spoiler/blog sites like Ask Ausiello or tvsquad or Futon Critic (etc.) you will also get little tidbits about what is filming. For example yesterday I read somewhere a couple of leaked details about the Lost 2 hour finale from the casting calls, and I think they either just started or just finished filming it. And I've read that South Park is made the-week-of, and it often gets down to the wire, i.e. finishing within the day of airtime. But they can do that because they have the production infrastructure to do that. Shows like The Simpsons that are hand drawn take forever to produce; I seem to recall that there is something like a 6 month delay between when they send an episode off to the Korean animators and when they get it back, so in that case there is a huge lag.
posted by Rhomboid at 7:01 AM on April 12, 2007

I believe it's somewhere in the neighborhood of three or four episodes. Definitely not the entire season. Takes about eight days to shoot an episode, then it takes another week, two weeks to edit, and then it's on the air. So if you imagine that it takes three/four weeks to create a show from beginning of production to broadcast (one-hour drama like you mention), then they will only be ahead of the curve by three or four shows. That way, if/when they decide to cancel, they don't have ten shows they paid to produce sitting on a shelf somewhere. I'm not a tv writer but my buddy is and I can ask him if no one else chimes in.
posted by billysumday at 7:03 AM on April 12, 2007

A good friend of mine works on the CBS show Criminal Minds, and as far as I can tell, they've only got, at most, 2 or 3 episodes shot in full before they start airing each season. On average, it seems like they're about 2 weeks ahead at any given time, meaning the episode that they're shooting today will air 2 or 3 weeks later.
posted by saladin at 7:03 AM on April 12, 2007

Like Rhomboid said, it varies a lot, but reality shows are often completely shot before the first episode airs. Exceptions to this would be the live finale episode or for shows that unfold before the viewer in real time (e.g. Big Brother).
posted by mmascolino at 7:05 AM on April 12, 2007

As you realize, it varies greatly. The last season of HBO's "The Wire" was completely finished before any episodes aired. In my experience, this is not terribly unusual for HBO shows - "Unscripted" had 5 episodes finished, and instead of airing them, they produced 5 more - I don't recall if they were completely done before any aired. The half-hour network comedy I work on now usually gets about 4 or 5 epsiodes ahead of airing. That said, sometimes things are shot out of order and we air something as quickly as three weeks after the last day of shooting. HBO's "K Street" each episode was conceived, written, shot, edited, and then aired in a 7-day period.
posted by mzurer at 7:08 AM on April 12, 2007

The two six-week breaks Heroes took are part of what looks to be a trend in how the traditional network "seasons" are constructed. We'll probably see more of that, which means a more flexible, but in some ways probably tighter, writing and shooting schedule. Some details from last month:

Kring said he and his writers have already started outlining the next season of "Heroes," even as they put the finishing touches on this season's final episode.

So, for Heroes, it seems like they're writing it fairly close to the air date and shooting it even closer.
posted by mediareport at 7:10 AM on April 12, 2007

Heroes is only about 4 episodes ahead at most times. If you want to get a really intimate look on where they are, you can check out director/producer Greg Beeman's blog here. He uses spoiler warnings, and he happily answers questions.
posted by headspace at 8:21 AM on April 12, 2007

It absolutely depends. We critics were sent the entire season of Showtime's "Brotherhood" before it ever aired, but it was only like 8-10 episodes.
posted by GaelFC at 10:58 AM on April 12, 2007

For a multi-threaded show like Heroes that is also dependent on special effects development pipelines, realize that some of the show threads can be farther along than others in development. In other words, while the cheerleader is on set doing her thing, Hiro the Japanese guy could have his next six episodes wrapped up, or vice versa.

House will be very different, as each show is more-or-less a self-contained unit.
posted by frogan at 1:52 PM on April 12, 2007