Some things about Suzanne Sommers on Three’s Company that you might not know.
The original contract the cast signed said that Sommers and Dewitt would get the same salary and Ritter would get triple that, being the established star when the series started.
B. Sommers fired her agent and hired her husband as her agent. He had no experience and made unrealistic salary demands for Sommers. He didn’t realize for the Network to agree to his demands, they’d have to bump the others salaries.
III. Sommers started calling in sick during 3C tapings. They had to start preparing 2 scripts for each episode, one with her character and one without.
4th. Sommers’ very recurring illnesses didn’t seem to effect her ability to perform in her Las Vegas show on weekends, when 3C was not taping.
Her publicity whoring to be the new Farrah Fawcett annoyed to no end her co-stars.
[del]||||[/del] |. The production company and network decided she wasn’t worth the hassle. She was banned from the studio where they taped and they set up a small set for her to tape her cameo phone calls to the others until her contract ran out.
It seems to me they’re just asking for a bigger cut of a bigger pie. With viewership going up, I don’t see that a raise is taking money out of the producers’ pockets. And as for letting any of the Lead 3 leave, remember how well The Office did after Steve Carell left. I’m sure the CBS, Lorre, and Prady remember that.
While that’s true, they’re bankable stars now. Any show or movie touting the services of “The Big Bang Theory’s Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons” would get a huge bump in viewers (at least at first) and producers would pay accordingly.
I’m not convinced the show has ‘jumped the shark’ or that it doesn’t have anywhere else to go.
It’s a sitcom, in the traditional sense, where there may be a sort of overarching thread (Leonard going after Penny), but fundamentally, it’s an episodic show, so there’s nothing stopping them from changing the direction like there would be in a scripted arc show like “Battlestar Galactica”, “Game of Thrones” or “Breaking Bad”.
The trick is not pissing off the existing fan base by doing something too crazy a-la Laverne and Shirley moving to California.
Well, there’s the end of Penny and Leonard’s engagement, which will end either in a marriage or broken hearts, and whatever comes after that.
If a marriage happens, there’s the new living arrangements. Can Leonard afford the rent on his current apt without sharing with Sheldon? Except for CHANGE, I think Sheldon might be happier living alone.
There’s the physical consummation of Shamy. For her sake, I hope it happens.
And there’s the actresses who play Bernadette and Alex sneaking into my bedroom to have their way with me for an extended weekend. Individually preferably, but I’d be willing to go along. I hope that happens, but I’m not going to hold my breath.
Sheldon winning a Nobel Prize wouldn’t be fun. Much more fun would be his reaction to Leonard, Kripke or someone else he knows winning one. But it wouldn’t be very realistic. Most of the recent winners are much older than anyone on the show.
Also, the Nobel Prize in Physics hasn’t gone to a single winner since 1985. Though it would be wonderful if Sheldon and Kripke had to share one. Or Sheldon and Howard.
The average age of Nobel Science winners is going up steadily. They are finding themselves in the position of trying to figure out who is closest to dying so they can award worthy people. (They cannot be awarded posthumously.)
By the time Sheldon could get to the top of the list, we better have reached the singularity.
The show is in obvious decline. Last season had a lot of duds. The Thanksgiving episode in particular was inane. There hasn’t been a “jumping the shark” moment yet, but the shark’s in the tank and Fonzie is revving up the motorcycle.
Cast bloat, hammering poorly thought out ideas into the ground (making Stewart a pathetic loser), “borrowing” plots from decades old shows, etc., all are the standard signal that the end is near.
Of course, once the end approaches, a huge bump in salary for the cast and a multi-year renewal ensure that the network loses as much money as possible.
I agree with rest of your post, but this can’t be defended. TBBT is often the number one show on network television and ranks regularly among the top shows on cable. Every new episode is worth millions to everybody. They are not losing any money at all, even with million dollar salaries, because the totality is worth somewhere near a billion in the long term. It’s a cash cow that doesn’t have to be good. It just has to be there.
Why so? I’m honestly interested in your reasoning on this one. Alex wouldn’t challenge Leonard, and he would remain exactly as he was if they started dating. With Penny, Leonard has to change, as does Penny when she’s with Leonard. Their relationship is full of conflicts that have to be resolved, which results in ‘character growth’ throughout the course of the series. Basic Scriptwriting 101.
I also disagree with ftg’s assertion that the show is in obvious decline. Said statement given zero support, mainly because the evidence suggests the exact opposite.
Which could be turned into a total plus by adapting some of the ideas we’ve batted around in this forum. I’m sure the writer’s have thought of them as well - it’s not like they were that amazing. Penny gets a series gig on a science-fiction show. Sheldon backs Stuart in a new comic book store. Leonard has jealousy issues about Penny’s popularity. Everybody rants about the scientific goofs the show makes. Penny asks Sheldon for help with her part on the show. Sheldon and Leonard’s mothers visit. There’s 2 seasons of shows right there.
Oh, yeah. Midway through the next season Raj gets mauled by a jaguar and dies.
Nope. The producers have stated that it’s going to be a long engagement. The in-show reason is that Penny wants to prove to her family that she isn’t pregnant.
But the decline could be compared to a slight downward trend before he left and falling off a cliff after he left.
I had previously never seen anything so bad as that season with James Spader. I still have never been able to figure out what the intent there was. It never made any sense to me. The only thing I know for certain about that season is that it was absolutely terrible.
I could have sworn the producers and writers had all taken LSD or some other similar drug while they wrote and produced that season.
