Fame Forever
Main > Series > Q & A > Michael McGreevey

Was the episode "Savage Streets" supposed to be a tribute to "Carmen" by Carlos Saura or something else? Was there some special meaning behind this episode compared to any others?

Yes, this episode was based on "Carmen." We often did episodes based on classic stories -- "The Incident" was based on the Kurosawa film, "Rashomon"; "Double Exposure" was a homage to "Jekyll and Hyde"; "Danny DeBergerac" was formed from "Cyrano DeBergerac"; "Not in Kansas Anymore" paid tribute to "Wizard of Oz"; "Ebenezer Morloch" was modeled after Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"; "To Tilt at Windmills" was derived from "Don Quixote"; "Holmes Sweet Holmes" was a send-up of "Sherlock Holmes". The "Savage Streets" episode had no special meaning. Patricia Jones, one of our Executive Producers, had always loved "Carmen" and felt that it was a perfect story-telling template to tell a story about Jesse's battle to survive in the streets of NYC. I think this episode was personally very dear to Patricia's heart. "The Incident" (which I wrote) was very special to me because I've always been a big Kurosawa fan.

Why was Nicole "killed" off? (She could have just left which would have made it possible for a return).

I think this was the biggest mistake we made during my four years on the series. We really blew it! I realized the extent of our blunder when I sat down to write the last episode, "Baby, Remember My Name," and was confronted with the fact that I couldn't bring Nicole back for the reunion Nia Peeples had been one of our most popular cast members and I couldn't put her in the last show (even though she was engaged to Carlo Imperato at the time and really wanted to come back). (I later realized that I could have "brought her back" in Jesse's mind, his memories of Nicole). In retrospect, I think the decision to "kill" Nicole was made for the wrong reasons. We were developing the story for "Go Softly into Morning" and we all felt that the impact of the issue of teenage drunk driving would not be felt or communicated to our audience strongly enough unless we had somebody die. In our research, we discovered that many of the victims were not drinkers themselves. They made the fatal mistake of getting into a car with a drunk driver. We liked the idea of killing off an "innocent." But would killing off a Guest Star have enough impact? Would it shock the audience enough? Would our audience identify enough with this character to have his/hers sudden death mean something to them? As we were struggling with this writer's dilemma, we got news that Nia Peeples was leaving the show. I don't remember who first came up with the idea, but somebody suggested that we use Nia's departure as a way of solving our story problem. Kill off Nicole. Great! Nobody would ever expect it and the message of the show would be driven home with an emotional sledgehammer. At the time, we all loved the idea, but we knew that we had to check it out with Nia. I truly believed that Nia would say no, but, to my surprise, she endorsed he! r character's untimely death. Nia actually felt good about the idea that her exit from the show might "save some lives." Typically, Nia was cooperative in order to make the show work. For three years, she had been the most hard-working and selfless member of the cast -- always on time, brimming over with talent and enthusiasm, willing to make any sacrifice for the good of the show. Looking back, I regret that we didn't give her a better send-off. She deserved a huge "Thank You" and a positive "Good Bye." But we killed her off instead. I will always regret it. Actually, I thought "Go Softly into Morning" was a pretty good episode. But the mail from our audience was mostly negative. They were damn mad that we had so recklessly killed off America's Sweetheart, Nicole Chapman. It was a daring move at the time, but I think the whole thing backfired on us.