BusinessWeek
June 15, 2007
Hot Young CEOs With Time To Burn?
By Reena Jana
Americans can't get enough TV shows about cops and docs. Suits are another matter. The $treet, a stock-trader drama, was canceled after 12 episodes on Fox in 2001. Still, ABC will try the corporate setting with this fall's Big Shots, an hour-long drama series -- airing on Thursday nights after the popular Grey's Anatomy -- about the professional and personal problems of a quartet of CEOs.
Creator Jon Harmon Feldman, a writer and producer for The Wonder Years and Dawson's Creek, has the show's CEOs run outfits with real-enough names. James (Michael Vartan, formerly of Alias) heads up Amerimart, a thinly disguised Wal-Mart, and Duncan (Dylan McDermott, ex-star of The Practice) runs Reveal -- think Revlon Cosmetics. Then there's Karl (onetime West Wing actor Joshua Malina): He's chief of Fidelity Pharmaceuticals, which, in one scene, has a problem with a Viagra shipment. The only CEO who's not at a giant corporation, Brody (comedian Christopher Titus), heads his own consultancy, Alpha. "I thought it was great to not have to do another doctor or lawyer show," Feldman says. "I wanted to be 10 years ahead." (He may have competition sooner: Doug Ellin, who created HBO's Entourage, is planning a series for the cable network about a hedge fund tycoon.)
Snippets of the show provided by ABC contain some dialogue that might pass for C-suite talk: murmurs about insider-trading charges in a crowd scene and a reference to Herb Allen's annual Sun Valley conference. Still, this is Hollywood. All the Big Shots are in their late 30s. (According to executive search firm Spencer Stuart, the median age of CEOs of S&P 500 companies hovers around 55.) And buff. Their fictional jobs allow enough gym time for them to look great lounging poolside at the country club they use as a refuge from work and wives. As they talk about their steamy personal lives, they occasionally morph into Desperate Husbands. (Charles McDougall, a Desperate Housewives director, did this show's pilot.) Feldman makes no apologies for taking liberties. "It's not a documentary," he says. "Is there a hospital with doctors who look like the cast of Grey's Anatomy?"
© 2007 BusinessWeek
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