Before TV shows air, they have to survive ... The Lab

The seats have fold-up tabletops. Velcroed to the side is a pencil and the wired dial pad with five degrees of "like" to "dislike" on its face. We also have a phone pad of buttons on which I find the red button telling ASI that if I were home, I'd hit the remote.

But that's only two minutes or so into the show, which turns out to be an unaired (gee, really?) UPN pilot called "I Spike," from the 2000 season. The show speeds on, full of silly car chases, scantily clad young women, and lots of serious posing and pouting reminiscent of early Aaron Spelling fare. By the time the show finishes, the room has dissolved into banks of hoots and snickers. A graph with falling stock-market-type spider lines shows up on the screen. Mr. Castler explains that the red line represents the women's responses while the blue line shows the men's. When this graph is superimposed in real time over the show itself, the clients can actually see, second by second, exactly which bits the audience liked/disliked.

"This is probably one of the worst scores I've seen," Castler says, laughing. "The good news is, you're not going to see this on television."

The graph tells the story the clients want to know – who likes what (actors, relationships, dialogue, setting, etc). Within two minutes, more than two-thirds of the women in the group had changed the channel. Most of the men, however, hung in to the bitter end. Not surprisingly, women in bathing suits score higher with men, notes Castler. Women's scores, by contrast, tend to rise when characters develop relationships (because women like to watch that sort of interaction).

In an actual test with real clients, we would break to fill out questionnaires and then head into a focus-group room to answer specific questions. A TV team will use the data specifics to retool the show, as they did with "Happy Hour." Often, the networks will bring episodes back for another test. They might bring in subsequent episodes to ensure that the series is delivering on the promise of the pilot.

"We're here to tell you where the weakness is – what we see as the problems, and what we see as the area for development," says Castler.

Testing is not infallible. The creative types who shiver at the mere mention of audience testing tell stories about world-altering hits that bombed in the testing barracks. "'Seinfeld' and 'Roseanne' are two good examples," says TV vet Werner, adding that it was only his clout as the producer of "The Cosby Show" that put "Roseanne" on the air relatively unchanged.

ASI freely acknowledges this industry truth. "Norman Lear's 'All in the Family' bombed in testing," Castler reveals. But that's part of the point. The TV producers took some of the tips, warmed up the Archie-Edith Bunker relationship a bit, and went on to become perhaps the biggest sitcom in history.

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