The entertainment business has been in the throes of change since the advent of streaming wrecked media companies’ traditional paths to making a reliable profit.

The covid-19 pandemic, dual writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023 and the perpetual threat of one media company gobbling up another (leading to massive job losses and fewer buyers for prospective films and TV series) only added to industry instability.

Given all that and the ability to have a Zoom meeting from anywhere, it’s understandable that TV writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach opted to move from Los Angeles to Pittsburgh to take a job teaching at his alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University.

Grillo-Marxuach, a veteran writer on “Lost,” “Medium,” “The Witcher” and his own creation, well-
reviewed but short-lived “The Middleman,” graduated in 1991 from CMU’s creative writing and literary and cultural studies programs. He’s been returning to campus to talk with students ever since.

In a 2006 visit, he walked students through the collaborative writing process of the “Lost” episode “All the Good Cowboys Have Daddy Issues” and how the script changed from Grillo-
Marxuach’s original draft to the completed episode that aired.

In July, Grillo-Marxuach addressed his decision to relocate to Pittsburgh in a first-person essay for TheAnkler.com titled, “I Gave L.A. 33 Years. Now I’m Leaving — Here’s Why.”

“For the past 33 years, I took it as gospel that if I ever left Los Angeles my career would die,” he wrote. “I now know that if I stay, what will die is my will to create.”

In a phone interview last week from his new home in Western Pennsylvania, Grillo-Marxuach said teaching screenwriting at CMU, which will begin in spring 2027, follows his “shadow career” of mentoring young writers on his visits back to CMU (where he endowed “a modest scholarship” for the English department), through the Writers Guild and on his educational podcast for screenwriters, “Children of Tendu.”

“I had reached a certain point in my career where I’ve done some things that I’m very proud of and some things that I’m not so proud of, and I’m kind of expensive at this point, and part of me thinks, ‘Well, why not get out of the way for other less expensive people to get their shot?’ ” Grillo-
Marxuach said. “But more than anything else, it’s really about teaching becoming a passion for me.”

He’s quick to add, this doesn’t mean he’s going to stop working in TV.

“It means that I can take a step back and dedicate myself to something like this while continuing to do what I really want to do in the entertainment industry, which is develop my own material,” said Grillo-Marxuach, who explained he’d become known as a “helper,” a frequent co-executive producer on others’ shows.

“If I’m working with a showrunner who’s more neophyte than I, it puts me in the position of being an educator,” he said.

It’s a necessary role these days. Even though the industry disruption of the past 16 years has resulted in some welcome and necessary strides — more TV writing opportunities for people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community — there’s also been a breakdown of the apprentice-
to-master path that existed during the network era.

During the first half
of his 33 years in the business, when Grillo-Marxuach worked on broadcast network shows, he was guaranteed to be involved in making 22 episodes of a series each season. Some streaming series get as few as six episodes per season and many broadcast shows make only 13 to 18 episodes each season.

Under the old network system, Grillo-Marxuach said, “You have a large staff of writers who are rotating in and out of the writers’ room and taking part in things like production, in post-production, and who are being
actively guided in the process of becoming producers.”

But with fewer episodes, that’s not always the case.

“Becoming a writer-producer in television, becoming a showrunner, is a process that takes a long time, and you have to get a lot of at-bats to do it,” Grillo-
Marxuach said. “As those at-bats start to get (fewer and fewer) for younger writers, it struck me that this would be a really good place to bring that passion for education that I have into a place where it’s very much needed, because people aren’t learning on the job the way that they used to.”

Grillo-Marxuach described meeting younger, high-ranking TV series producers who’ve never been on a set during filming.

“That was not something that ever happened (in the past), because by the time you’re made a co-EP you had produced dozens … of episodes that had your name on them that you’d written,” Grillo-Marxuach said. “You’ve been on set. You know how to talk to directors. You know how to talk to actors.”

As Grillo-Marxuach prepares to train a new generation of potential future showrunners, he’s still working to get shows made. He has two projects in active development.

“They’ve both been going on for over a year, and I don’t think I’ve met a single person (other than through Zoom),” Grillo-Marxuach said. “Technology and a lot of other things have made it possible for people like me to live in a place like this, and it’s, frankly, a beautiful place.”

If those projects come
to fruition, how Grillo-
Marxuach will juggle running a show with his teaching duties remains TBD.

“It’s understood that I’m a ‘professor of the practice,’ and part of it is the practice,” he said. “But the truth of the matter is that is a long way down the road for anybody. I’ve had projects in development that were in development for three years (before moving forward or getting scuttled).”

‘Pitt’ picks up Emmys

The big Emmy ceremony won’t air until 8 p.m. Monday on NBC, but the creative arts Emmys given out over the weekend recognized “The Pitt” for outstanding prosthetic makeup, casting for a drama series, original song and guest star Ernest Harden Jr., who played the patient Louie.

‘South Park’ returns

Comedy Central’s “South Park” returns for its 29th season next week with a new title: “South America.”

“Inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google, we are changing the name of ‘South Park’ to ‘South America,’” series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone announced in a statement mocking President Trump changing The Gulf of Mexico to The Gulf of America and Lake Ontario to Lake America. “We especially want to thank our parent company Paramount — a Skydance Capitulation.”

The new season’s episodes will air at 10 p.m. Wednesday beginning Sept. 16 with new episodes slated to air Sept. 30, Oct. 14, Oct. 28, Nov. 11 and Nov. 25.

In addition to “South America,” three new episodes of Comedy Central’s “Drunk History” begin rolling out Tuesday on the channel’s YouTube page, youtube.com/comedy central.

Kept/canceled/rebooted

Paramount+ renewed “MobLand” for a third season ahead of its Sept. 18 season two premiere.

Apple TV renewed “Silo” for a fourth and final season.

Amazon’s Prime Video canceled Nicolas Cage’s “Spider Noir” after a single season.

Netflix ordered a new version of “Lonesome Dove” based on the Larry McMurtry novel previously made into an Emmy-winning CBS miniseries in 1989.

Channel surfing

WTAE hired Melissa Meyers, who grew up watching the station, as a weekday morning news reporter beginning the week of Sept. 21. She previously worked at WBTW in Myrtle Beach, S.C., before taking a two-year break from TV news. … WTAE will introduce another new reporter later in September: Kaye Paddyfote joins Channel 4 after two years at the Fox affiliate in Hartford, Conn. … ABC’s “Good Morning America” weekend team will grow with the addition of ABC News senior political correspondent Rachel Scott as Saturday co-anchor and Rhiannon Ally joins as the Sunday broadcast’s co-anchor beginning this weekend. … Pittsburgh native Jeff Goldblum hosts the second season premiere of “SNL: UK,” streaming Sunday on Peacock in the U.S. … CBS will air a 90-minute, 30th anniversary tribute show, “Judge Judy: Unfiltered, Unforgettable” (8 p.m. Sept. 22, KDKA-TV). … A six-episode docu-series about fandom around the American version of “The Office,” “Fan Level Midnight: Devoted to The Office,” is now streaming on Peacock. … Major media companies were too scared of retribution from President Trump to stream “Ask E. Jean,” a 92-minute documentary film about E. Jean Carroll and her defamation battle against Trump, so five smaller companies teamed up to make the film available for streaming as a VOD title at Kinema.com for a $9 rental fee. … Norah O’Donnell returned to be an anchor on “CBS Mornings” this week, rejoining the broadcast she co-anchored prior to becoming “CBS Evening News” anchor in 2019. … NBC’s “The Tonight Show” will air four episodes this NFL season after “Sunday Night Football” on Sept. 27, Nov. 8, Nov. 15 (Steelers vs. Bengals) and Jan. 10.