Beverly Hills, Calif. — The Blacklist executive producer John Eisendrath acknowledged his disappointment that the show received only one Primetime Emmy nomination, for stunt coordination.
“I wouldn’t be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed, and I think he’s completely deserving of it,” Eisendrath said, referring to his series’ lead actor, James Spader. “Competition is fierce and that’s the reality of it.”
Eisendrath fielded questions alongside fellow NBC showrunners David Greenwalt (Grimm), Jason Katims (Parenthood, About a Boy) and Matt Olmstead (Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D.) Sunday at the TCA summer press tour.
Highlights from the panel included:
• Asked whether they are jealous of cable showrunners, who are asked to produce seasons of much shorter episode length than typically found on broadcast, Olmstead said, “I’ll say that I’ve done two years of cable. We did 12 episodes one season and 10 the next. I missed doing 22, the big canvas.”
Greenwalt offered a different take. “Having never done 12-episode order, I’m jealous,” he said to Olmstead.
• Noting that Parenthood “has always been a bubble show,” Katims said that the show will benefit creatively from him and his writers knowing that they’ll be able to draft a proper ending for the show. “One of the things that I wanted to do with this season was find one larger story that influences all of the show, has a huge effect on all of the characters on the show.”
• Olmstead plans to do more crossovers between Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D. “It’s a natural progression to go from a fire incident to a cop investigation,” he said.
• "We were very pleased that we got to stay on Monday for as long as we're going to be on," said Eisendrath, whose show will move at midseason from Mondays, where it will have The Voice as a lead-in, to Thursdays, where the network hopes it becomes an anchor show on a night where NBC has struggled recently. "We weren't sure that that was going to happen."
