We all know that television shows appreciate their audiences—they must, right? Without home viewers there's no show. But the relationships we as TV fans form with the shows we love can often feel very one-sided: we make a date once a week, we laugh, we cry, we 'ship, we get PISSED at stupid plot contrivances and NO WHY ARE YOU RUINING MY SHOW? We read articles, we form crushes on stars. We defend our show to haters and we in turn hate on shows that get better ratings in our show’s time slot. When our shows are threatened with cancellation we protest and we send things in to networks: letters, peanuts, felt beards.
But all of this time and devotion we pour into our favorite series is done in relative obscurity. Nobody who works on the show would even know if they lost you, unless maybe you’re a member of a Nielson family which honestly I doubt because I don’t believe they exist.
What I’d like to talk about here is Cougar Town which took fan appreciation way up a notch from the standard “Thanks to the fans!” shout out at the Teen Choice Awards, or “You know, for me it’s all about the fans” confession on daytime TV talk shows. When Cougar Town’s release was pushed back to midseason this year, the show rewarded its fans by sending its principal actors out to be extras on other shows. It was a small gesture that likely took a decent amount of planning and finagling between the different shows, but to the viewers waiting for their show to come back read as sort of a postcard that said "Hi! We haven't forgotten about you, please don't forget about us!"
...And then ABC pushed back Cougar Town's release again to make room for Work It (Don't. EVEN. Get. Me. Started.) and cut their episode order from 22 down to 15--after 10 episodes had already been filmed (ok again, don't get me started...this is not what this is supposed to be about...stop getting angry...) While this move is both ridiculous and infuriating, it has done one extremely positive thing for those of us who are Cougar Town fans: it has given the folks over at Cougar Town the inspiration to do a cross-country viewing party tour.
I was lucky enough to go with my best friend Kyrsten to the first viewing party that was held at the Culver Studios in Los Angeles where Cougar Town films, and honestly it was one of the most incredible experiences I've had. I'll try my best to suppress the fangirl in me (it wasn't that easy at the event either!), but let me share a quick anecdote to illustrate just how much going to this party meant to me:
Aforementioned friend Kyrsten and I were absolutely obsessed with Scrubs in high school. (This is relevant because Scrubs and Cougar Town share a few cast members as well as creator/show runner/writer Bill Lawrence who is a personal hero of mine. So, incidentally, does Spin City but that’s not crucial to this story.) Anyway, I had gotten the season 1 DVD set of Scrubs as a gift and Kyrsten and I were going to watch it when I spent the night at her house one weekend.
We absolutely swore that we wouldn't watch more than one disc so that we could make the set last but by the wee hours of the morning we had finished the entire season and had moved on to the special features. It must have been 5 or 6 am, but there we were, bloodshot eyes fixed to the screen telling each other THESE are the people we should be hanging out with, THESE are the people we should work with someday. It must be about ten years later, but those are still dreams that I harbor.
These parties are so extremely validating as a fan—to know that the series creators Bill
Lawrence and Kevin Biegel put in their own time, money and staff because they believe in their show and want to thank their fans so much is something that is completely unheard of. Everyone involved was so gracious and really seemed to be interested in meeting and interacting with their fans.
The format of the party was a little like a reverse of the set up at PaleyFest, which until this party was my favorite thing ever. Now it’s a close second. At PaleyFest, you buy tickets for each show that you’d like to see, you get together in a theater where an episode is screened, then the cast/creators come out for a panel discussion. If you buy super ridiculously expensive tickets (like bucket list expensive) you can also go to an after party with the cast and creators. For the Cougar Town viewing parties tickets were free, you show up to the party first with the cast and creators, then go to a screening, then do an informal panel discussion.
Walking into the event, it really just looked like a casual outdoor party…that happened to be held on the show’s major outdoor set piece. The show’s bar set was stocked with free beer and wine (nice beer too! I was drinking Stellas all night--I know, it's kind of blasphemous not to drink wine at a Cougar Town event. You don't have to tell me). People were spread around the set, talking amongst themselves, playing the show’s invented game Penny Can, or congregated in little circles around the actors or Bill Lawrence.
We of course bee-lined it to Bill Lawrence. After I calmed my fangirl-ass down, he was incredibly easy to talk to, fielding questions about the show's shifted premise, the actors, his writing experience, even accepted criticism and joked about that one last, kind of crappy season of Scrubs. (There's actually a story about it...and no, Bill Lawrence really wasn't involved with Scrubs: Interns at all. 
Good to know!) He talked about how awards shows are a scam, but when he was working on Spin City they bought into it to win Michael J. Fox an Emmy in his final year. I asked him about a new pilot he's working on and HE HIGH-FIVED ME! (Calm down, fangirl...) When people's questions waned a little he started asking people what other shows they were watching (he addressed the Community/Cougar Town crossovers! We both agreed how satisfying it is for a fan to know that two shows you love apparently love each other too. We laughed about the Downton Abbey/Cougarton Abbey thing!)
And seriously, everyone else we met there was just as welcoming and kind:
· Christa Miller (Ellie Torres) talked about how involved she is with picking the music; she's also not really as scary as you might think.
· Jos
h Hopkins (Grayson Ellis) invited me to take a picture with him so I didn't have to feel awkward about it, and he laughed when I said I never would have noticed his tiny eyes had they not written it into the show.
· Brian Van Holt (Bobby Cobb) yelled "get me the ribs...BITCH!" with us in a picture (you know…as a substitute for "cheese!") (That's my favorite line of the whole show!)
· Bob Clendenin (Tom) talked to Kyrsten and me for a good half hour in the party, then sat with us when they screened the episodes. It feels kind of awful watching all of the characters on Cougar Town be mean to him once you've met him in real life and especially while you're sitting right next to him, he's a super-nice guy!)
· Sanjay Shah (writer) gave us each a shirt when we asked nicely for one even though we were missing all of the trivia questions because we were (kinda) drunk and (way too) excited.
· Mary Fitzgerald (writer) became our BFF and we discussed at length how the girl in a relationship should never say "I love you" first (She wrote the episode where Jules tells Grayson she loves him; she also has a really funny story about it). She also helped us make Dan Byrd (Travis Cobb) super uncomfortable while we were cracking penis jokes.
ABC’s treatment of Cougar Town this year left a lot to be desired, but the same could never be said of Cougar Town’s treatment of its fans. Whether this show will gain any viewers or even stay on the air past season 3 is still yet to be seen, but one goal has certainly been met already: keeping their show in the viewer's minds. I'll say this much as well, if I were a lukewarm fan to begin with an event like this would COMPLETELY win me over. As it happens I was a pretty strong fan anyway but the obvious care that the people behind Cougar TownCougar Town: Interns, you can count me in. have for their fans and their own show will keep me watching pretty much no matter what. Even if eventually this show is
I have the greatest hopes that this campaign will pay off for Cougar Town once the third season finally starts. Maybe if Bill Lawrence and Kevin Biegel see some success, this can be the start of a whole new way for viewers to interact with the television shows they watch, or a tool for struggling shows to reinforce and grow their fan base. Either way, television history has been made here thanks to a couple of guys who refused to take “Work It” as an answer.
