WATCH: ‘4 Days to Save the world’ was a reality show with big ambitions. See a preview of the Star’s investigation.
The show is named after the number of days Americans have to act or otherwise make “the world a little bit better” before President Obama can act: “4 Days to Save the World.”
4 Days was one of several projects hatched by the cable channel for which it had commissioned a pilot as a spinoff from another one of its dramas, “The Good Wife.” The network had already ordered a second pilot from “4 Days to Save the World” creator Jonathan Lien, who had been tapped from ABC.
“They wanted us to take it off the air, and I had to tell them no,” Lien said. (That pilot has yet to be picked up at any network.)
The producers of The Young and the Restless thought that a “4 Days” spinoff would give them the opportunity to showcase a fresh, untested star in their show and, perhaps, a fresh angle in their lineup. Lien was at the creative helm, though.
Lien said he had been approached by a “4 Days” executive two years ago but didn’t take the job that offered him $15,000 to pitch an idea for the show. He said that “this is how you do things,” after all, and “there are no guarantees.”
It was an uncharacteristically tough sell for Lien, who is a native of New Jersey’s Hudson County and whose childhood ambition was to get his doctorate in theater. He has directed and written for such shows as “The Shield,” “Smallville” and “The West Wing.” Yet somehow he turned his hand to writing the concept for “4 Days,” which revolves around a “bizarre” relationship between a high school student and a college student that leads to two teens who fall into an underground drug ring. The relationship between the characters is unconventional and unorthodox, something that “could make this very uncomfortable for viewers.”
To Lien’s credit, he created an emotionally charged, compelling new series with a young, untested lead. And maybe that’s what “4