Kurt Sutter is insane. It’s easy to forget this, until you’re asked to recap the last season of Sons of Anarchy to two friends, as I did yesterday, and the sentence, “So, Sutter plays this one-eyed convict who instead of testifying against SAMCRO bites his own tongue off” comes up, in which case, you remember he’s cuckoo crazy pants all over again. And yet when it comes to defending his showrunner brothers, he’s shockingly reasonable.
Shortly after news broke that showrunner/executive producer Glen Mazzara departed from The Walking Dead, Sutter, whose Sons airs on FX, went on one of his wonderful Twitter rants, criticizing AMC for “disrespect[ing] writers, sh*t[ting] on their audience, and bury[ing] their network.” It gets better.
AMC is run by small-minded, bottom-line thinkers who have no appreciation or gratitude for the effort of its creative personnel. Time and time again we see events like what happened today with Glen Mazzara. They continue to disrespect writers, sh*t on their audience, and bury their network. Mazzara took the work-in-progress that was Walking Dead and turned it into a viable TV show with a future. Without him, that future is dim. Showrunners are not development executives, we’re not cookiecutter douchebags that you plug into a preexisting model. TWD will suffer. Even Zombies need consistency. Mad Men and Breaking Bad will be gone soon. So will AMC. I hope their f*cking stock takes a dive and the shareholders line up (Josh) Sapan, (Charles) Dolan and (Charlie) Collier and sh*t in their open hands. C*nts. (Via)
I imagine most of Sutter’s conversations with “c*nt.” Remember when AMC was THE network only two short years ago? It had its beloved award winners (Breaking Bad and Mad Men), its major hit (The Walking Dead), and a cult sensation (Rubicon). Then 2011 happened, as did showrunner scandals, series having their budgets slashed in favor of Mad Men, and The Killing existing, not to mention 2012′s Comic Book Men, Small Town Security, and all the other dumb shows we make fun of when their promos air during Breaking Bad. Ugh.
AMC is as much of a mess as Kurt Sutter is nuts, which is to say: very. C*nt.
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I do worry about the show once Mazzara leaves. Plus where do you go after the Governor?
AMC: We were good while we lasted
I think we maybe should wait and see what happens with TWD before making the claim that AMC sold the farm. I mean, sure they had some lame programming recently, but AMC is still bringing some of the best shows on TV. I think they’re doing A-okay.
AMC has only had 2 great shows, and they were their first two. TWD is good, but can’t be called a great show after only 8 episodes in a row without severely pissing most of their viewers off. not to mention this “parting ways” with Mazzara (let’s be real, he was most likely fired) is just another in a long line of not so secret battles between AMC and showrunners. they clearly treat them like shit. i think it’s safe to say AMC’s golden days are over.
I definitely agree with your evaluation of TWD, but whether it’s great or not, it’s current success is undeniable. Considering it’s popularity has maintained despite that atrocity that was Season 2, I think the fan base is rabid enough to follow it into the abyss. And while it’s unfortunate that Mazzara is headed out, it doesn’t mean the show automatically becomes shit. I won’t say its not possible or even likely, but it might maintain some quality, who knows. Look at Community, no one knows yet if it’s going to be any good without Harmon around, but I can safely say that everyone around here is gonna keep watching to find out before totally jumping ship. At the end of it, I still feel like AMC programming is still much higher quality than the vast majority of it’s competitors. We have a tendency to automatically blame the networks when people we like get fired or quit, but maybe we should consider that the split was caused in some part by Mazzara and not necessarily as simple as corporate short-sightedness.
If this happened on FX, i’d agree with you that it’s not fair to automatically assume the network fucked the showrunner over. But it happened at AMC where a precedent of bad behind the scenes decision making has been set, so I do think it’s fair to assume the worst and blame them.
AMC has shown it’s willingness to be hostile to showrunners no matter the level of success. If they can be vicious with Weiner and Gilligan, they’ll go after anyone.
I just feel so disoriented.
Like Zardoz in the crystal tabernacle.
I meant Zed, that’s how disoriented I felt.
Don’t forget that AMC is inexplicably bringing back The Killing for a third fucking season.
AMC is also THE WORST network for spoiling their own shows. A day after an episode airs they will reveal key plot points from that episode in their own promos. That speaks of a network doesn’t give a shit about their audience.
Season two wasn’t bad because of writers or staff, it was because the source material for that part of the comics was kinda slow, which made the prison ark all the better and gripping. I guess they could have shortened the eps on the farm or added new story lines. But overall I don’t think it deserves the hate it gets.