'Unforgettable' Producer: This is Not Another 'Gimmicky Procedural' (Q&A)

Ed Redlich had one stipulation in coming back to CBS. The Without a Trace executive producer was not interested in doing another straight-up procedural, the bread and butter of the most watched network.our editor recommends'Unforgettable' Is Not Your Typical Procedural, Says Executive Producer'Unforgettable': Marilu Henner and Sherlock Holmes Inform Poppy Montgomery's Character When he and his childhood friend-turned-writing partner, John Bellucci, serve up Unforgettable on Sept. 20, viewers will see a character-based procedural in the vein of CBS' The Good Wife. Theseries centers on Poppy Montgomery's Carrie Wells, a former detective with a rare condition that makes her memory so flawless that every moment is forever embedded in her mind. The only thing that she can't remember are thedetails that would help solve her sister's murder long ago. Unable to detach from that troubling past, Carrie is unexpectedly reunited with her ex-boyfriend and partner, NYPD Detective Al Burns (Dylan Walsh), when the pair consults on a homicide case. PHOTOS: Fall's 12 Most Anticipated Shows The producers caught up with The Hollywood Reporter to discuss his original pitch, the tussles with the network and what this show would have looked like elsewhere. The Hollywood Reporter: This series is two years in the making. What took so long? Ed Redlich: Yeah, literally two years ago my wife, SarahTimberman, who's one of the executive producers on this and [CBS' new series]A Gifted Man, found a short story, The Rememberer. John and I read it and were just taken by this notion of what it would be like to live with inability to forget. I had done procedural stuff at CBS withWithout a Trace, and I wasn't really looking to go back into doing procedural TV. But given that CBS is now doing shows like The Good Wife, which are really open to more character stuff, we said, "let's take this character and explore what it's like to be her and put her in this crime-solving situation." We felt that her ability -it's a gift, burden and ability - sort of lent itself to that kind of storytelling. We wrote it, and CBS apparently liked it very much but we couldn't cast it that pilot season. [CBS entertainment chief] Nina Tassler said, "We're just going to continue to call this ordered and as soon as you find the right person we will make it." You're never sure whether to believe the network when it says something like that, but that's what happened. Then [Without a Trace star]Poppy Montgomery became available, sort of at the same time that60 Minutesindependently ran this huge story on highly superior autobiographical memory and identified Marilu Henner as someone who has the condition. Suddenly, we had this confluence of events and we were ordered. THR: While CBS is exploring more character-based fare with The Good Wife, that is not what the network is known for. What did that conversation with CBS entail? Redlich: It really wasn't much of one. It was more of a conversation with my wife and with John because I may have some sort of gift for telling twisty-turn-y stories and that kind of storytelling that you could see onWithout a Trace...but if you're just doing that it can tend to be creatively stifling. So when we came in and pitched this to Nina, we didn't talk about crimes. We talked about nothing but what it would be like to have this condition. And this was before the 60 Minutes piece, so it was a condition that no one had heard of. THR: What was your pitch? Redlich: I literally brought my journal to the pitch. I've known Sarah, my wife, since 1976, when we were at summer camp together. The journal was from 1983, and I was very frustrated in love with her at various points when she was my girlfriend. I read some outrageous things that I had written out of anger and frustration to Nina Tassler and then I said, 'Imagine what it would be like if I could never have gotten over these feelings. I couldn't be married to this woman. The fact that I was able to selectively remember and forget has allowed this relationship to happen.' CBS has promised us that what they are really interested in is developing this character and we hopefully have the room now to get away from what I call the Bruckheimer model of twisty-turn-y procedurals and really get a chance to hang out with Poppy andDylan Walsh's character. It's a really tough balance: part of me wants to make the stories even more twisty and turn-y and the other part wants to find time to just hang out with her and explore the way she views the world. We went back and forth with CBS on how much of a burden versus a gift or how much fun versus angst there would be. THR: Which side were you on? Redlich: Not to be pretentious, but we were interested initially in the drama --what makes life in some ways difficult-- because we knew we could always find the fun of this condition. The fun of it you see in the pilot: she can count cards, and she knows all kinds of information. But we were interested in trying to be real about the other side of it, so we were drawn to that and it's been about trying to get everything into the show. THR: What's the most challenging piece about being a showrunner in today's TV's landscape? Redlich: I've been a showrunner many times and I've made many pilots, but this is the first time that I've been doing a show that I created. There's a big difference between helping someone else achieve their vision and keeping track of your own vision, and there's so much to get done that it's very easy to lose track of what you're trying to do just because of the deadlines and everything that's coming at you. So it's sort of being able to step back and say, 'Hey, why are we doing this in the first place?' I know it's cliché, but John and I don't watch that much TV and you'd like to think that you're making something that if you came across it, you'd go, 'Hey, there's something cool there, I'd watch that.'The challenge of doing that on network television and not on cable is what's interesting to us. We're interested in pushing this as far as we can in the CBS universe. For more of the Q&A, go on to the next page. Related Topics CBS Unforgettable Fall TV Preview Poppy Montgomery 1 2 next last

Watch Harry Potter 7