How Jerry Bruckheimer Made Your Television His Bitch (Without Really Trying)
Today's LAT finally figures out how überproducer Jerry Bruckheimer, whom after last week's upfronts eclipsed legends Aaron Spelling and Norman Lear by landing ten shows on primetime network schedules, has achieved such a staggering level of TV success in such a short amount of time: He gives amazing notes.
Ann Donahue, executive producer of CBS' "CSI: Miami," recalled that after the show's first-season finale was edited, Bruckheimer praised the episode overall but detected something missing from the climactic chase: "You needed more cops in that last scene," Donahue recalled him saying.
Over the course of the next week, Bruckheimer worked around the clock with the showrunners and editors, adding some cops here, subtracting one there, until cop-equilibrium was achieved. This heroic note called to mind the time Bruckheimer famously saved a key sweeps episode of the original CSI series by realizing that the fresh corpse of a rape victim needed "more semen," which would look "way cooler" under blacklights.