Going long: taking the show into multiple seasons

BY Cheryl Binning

Numerous Canadian TV series are stretching into multiple seasons.  And while this is great news, long-running series also come with their share of challenges. Cheryl Binning revisits three shows featured with Canadian Screenwriter cover stories in their rookie year – Flashpoint, Heartland and Sanctuary. She talks to the showrunner Mark Ellis, Stephanie Morgenstern, Heather Conkie and Damian Kindler about how they’ve taken their shows into the long game – how they have expanded the world of their show to build room for more stories without diluting the concept or core that is the basis of the show’s success in the first place.

Strategic Response - Flashpoint

No one appreciates the challenges and opportunities of going long better than Stephanie Morgenstern and Mark Ellis. Just over six years ago they were newbie writers pitching to CTV the idea of a TV movie about an emergency task force. Fast forward, and that pitch has built a series going into its fourth season. Ellis and Morgenstern are now the showrunners on Flashpoint, and the hit police drama has amassed fans on both sides of the Canada-US border. And this year, the pair also took home the WGC Screenwriting Award in TV Drama for one of their Flashpoint scripts.

Yet when Flashpoint was greenlit for production, neither writer had TV showrunning experience. In season one, Morgenstern and Ellis learned the ropes under Tassie Cameron (2011’s WGC Showrunner Award winner – see cover story). In season two and three, the creators undertook all the script rewrites with the support of strong writers like Russ Cochrane, Ian Weir, Bob Carney, Melissa Byer and Treena Hancock. “Adam Barken,” notes Ellis, “has been a terrific constant throughout the series.” Now, in season four, Morgenstern and Ellis are running the room.

But from the outset, they say that the producers, networks and veteran writers have all respected their vision as creators. “It has always been collaborative, and Bill Mustos and Anne Marie La Traverse, the series’ producers, have always been very supportive of us and our vision,” says Ellis. “They have always believed that the stories start and end with our voices.”

But stretching to four seasons has not only meant a steep learning curve for the pair, the show itself has also felt its share of growing pains. The series follows an elite police team, called the Strategic Response Unit, which resolves extreme situations such as hostage takings.

The initial formula of the series had the unit following a single incident at a single location and often culminated in an emotional talk-down by the team negotiator. The Who, What, and Where of each incident was established at the outset, so the team concentrated primarily on discovering what led the person to this extreme behaviour so they could solve the crisis peacefully.

But in season two it became clear that this formula couldn’t carry the show forward over the episode count of numerous seasons. “It wasn’t sustainable because there just weren’t that many places where we could go creatively,” says Ellis. “If we didn’t shift the ground, the show would become repetitive and boring.”

For the complete article, including Flashpoint, Heartland and Sanctuary, please see the print edition.