The cast of Lost

PASADENA, Calif. -- Want to know how to make a hit television show?

Some of today's hottest producers shared their secrets Sunday at the TV critics press tour.

The panel included Marc Cherry from Desperate Housewives, Shonda Rhimes from Grey's Anatomy, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof from Lost, Silvio Horta from Ugly Betty, Jenny Bicks from Men In Trees and Jon Robin Baitz and Greg Berlanti from Brothers & Sisters. (All of these shows are on the ABC network.)

Here are the categories:

VISION

Cherry said Housewives works because he bypassed the development process by pitching his show on spec.

"I didn't let it go through the blender," he said.

Most successful TV shows, he feels, "bypass the blender where stuff gets kind of blanded out or too many cooks have put in their opinions."

Lost's Lindelof, on the other hand, suggested vision wasn't everything.

"You really are finding the show over the course of the first season," he said.

Lost came together quickly and the initial vision "was very cloudy," he admitted.

"Our vision is constantly evolving, and I think when you stop listening to what your show is telling you, that's when you're going to lie splattered over the rocks."

CASTING

Apparently, Rob Lowe originally was offered the part of Dr. McDreamy on Grey's Anatomy -- and turned it down.

Rhimes told critics that it was only after seeing Dempsey in the role that the nickname stuck and the character emerged.

"I do think that every actor brings their own individual self and style and whatever to a role," she said.

Cherry thought he would have no problem casting the part of Gabrielle Solis on Housewives.

"There aren't that many people writing leads for Latino females," he reasoned.

That's when his casting director said, "You want her to be gorgeous and to be able to act and do comedy. You're going to get three people auditioning." Cherry says he lucked out because one of them was Eva Longoria.

HANDLING TALENT

Cuse said the Lost producers were nervous when it came time to tell the network they were going to kill off two of their main characters.

His partner Lindelof blurted, "They're like, 'As long as one of them is Michelle Rodriquez, we're cool.' "

STANDARDS & PRACTISES

It's getting stricter, Lindelof said. "You could say things on NYPD Blue in 1991 that you can no longer say at 10 o'clock in 2007," he said.

"Thank you, Janet Jackson," Cherry said.

Added Horta, "You don't know what I had to go through to get the word 'douchey' in the (Ugly Betty) pilot."

On Trees, Bicks had the word "ass" twice in a script and was told by ABC censors that she could trade "an 'ass' for a 'crap.'"

"This wasn't even the show," Lindeloff said.

"This was last night at the bar," Cherry cracked.

Cherry said the worst note he ever got was about something in the pilot.

"Eva Longoria is having afterglow with her 17-year-old gardener," he said, "and the censor looked and said, 'Does she have to smoke?' And I went, 'So you're good with the statutory rape thing?' "

Cherry also complained that he has to spend "$100,000 a week taking nipples out of my show, because I've got a couple of actresses who refuse to wear bras."

Seems unfair, Cherry said. "I'll turn on Friends, and it's a nipple fest. I don't understand the difference."

TAKE NOTES

Brothers & Sisters' Baitz said getting notes from the network "feels sort of like having your mom talk to you, a lot."

Lindelof, on the other hand, says it's not always a bad thing. ABC president Stephen McPherson read the original Lost script and gave the producers four words of advice: "You can't kill Jack."

The producers were offended at first because they wanted to throw this fabulous curve.

"It was going to be shocking, like Janet Leigh in Psycho," Lindelof said. "And he said, 'Look, guys, you can do whatever you want to do, but it would just be a huge mistake to kill Jack, and here's why: If you kill him, the audience will never trust you again.' "

Best advice he ever got, Lindelof said. "The show probably would not have gone beyond 13 episodes if we had ignored that note."

PROTECT YOUR SHOW

Cherry said he learned his lesson after Season Two when he cut back his workload. Now he is back, and all over it again. "ABC can't bulldoze me out of that show," he said.

He gives Housewives seven years. "And the moment seven years is past," he said, "I will personally take down the sets.

"I'm only going to have one major hit. I'm only going to catch lightning in a bottle once. I wish I had the energy to develop and write at the same time, but I don't. This is going to be on my tombstone. I'll be damned if I don't protect it."

BE OPEN TO CREATIVE INPUT

When one critic suggested that executive producer titles are handed out like candy, Lindelof said, "You want one? It's yours. Welcome to Lost. Now, what the f--- is the island?"