Television
Tolan began his career writing for short-lived sitcoms Carol & Company and Wish You Were Here. After writing for and co-producing the first six episodes of Home Improvement he began writing for the hit series Murphy Brown, a three season tenure for which he would share an Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series (1992, as co-producer). In 1992 Tolan began writing for the HBO program The Larry Sanders Show, for which he received, in his capacity as co-/executive producer, three CableACE Awards for Comedy Series and an Emmy for co-writing (with series lead Garry Shandling) the series finale "Flip".
After writing for several more programs (Ellen, Buddies, Good Advice), and creating the short-lived sitcoms Style & Substance and The George Wendt Show, Tolan co-created the ABC satiric comedy The Job with comedian Denis Leary, who would also star as an amoral and hedonistic NYPD detective. Though critically lauded, the series languished in the ratings and was canceled after two short seasons. Tolan went on to create the similarly short-lived sitcom Wednesday 9:30 (8:30 Central), a mid-season replacement about an idealistic television executive who joins a struggling network, that was canceled by ABC after only five episodes aired. In 2004, however, Tolan found success with the FX drama Rescue Me, again starring co-creator Denis Leary as New York City firefighter Tommy Gavin, who bears many similarities to Leary's character from The Job. The series has been well received by both critics and audiences, garnering Emmy nominations for Tolan and Leary and averaging 2.7 and 2.8 million viewers for its first and second seasons, respectively. It is currently (as of 2010) in its sixth season. Tolan, with former Friends star Matthew Perry has produced a pilot called The End of Steve, a dark-comedy about a depressed, foul-mouthed talk show host. It is currently being shopped to cable networks.
In February, 2013, Entertainment Weekly reported that "Tolan landed Greg Kinnear to play a defense lawyer with 'zero filter'" on an upcoming Fox Broadcasting Company television program entitled Rake.
Read more about this topic: Peter Tolan
Famous quotes containing the word television:
“It is among the ranks of school-age children, those six- to twelve-year-olds who once avidly filled their free moments with childhood play, that the greatest change is evident. In the place of traditional, sometimes ancient childhood games that were still popular a generation ago, in the place of fantasy and make- believe play . . . today’s children have substituted television viewing and, most recently, video games.”
—Marie Winn (20th century)
“His [O.J. Simpson’s] supporters lined the freeway to cheer him on Friday and commentators talked about his tragedy. Did those people see the photographs of the crime scene and the great blackening pools of blood seeping into the sidewalk? Did battered women watch all this on television and realize more vividly than ever before that their lives were cheap and their pain inconsequential?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“So why do people keep on watching? The answer, by now, should be perfectly obvious: we love television because television brings us a world in which television does not exist. In fact, deep in their hearts, this is what the spuds crave most: a rich, new, participatory life.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)