Darci Interviews TV Writers

Home Town: Alexandria, Louisiana  Current Town: Santa Monica, CA What are you working on now?: I’m working on an adult animated sci-fi drama for HBOMax that… hasn’t been announced yet! Story from childhood that explains who I am as a writer?: My mother claims that as a toddler I once sat in a mound of red fire-ants and let them sting me because I thought they were interesting. This may be a good metaphor for my love of probing the dark and scary in my writing. If I could change one thing about TV?: I would love a return to bigger episode orders! Who are/were my television heroes?: Jane Espenson, Damon Lindelof, Glen Mazzara (why was Damien cancelled?!), Sera Gamble, Akela Cooper, Javi Grillo-Marxuach, Jose Molina, and like a squillion friends who are keeping it real on writing staffs all over town. What kind of television excites me?: I love anything that scratches that itch of humans behaving badly without realizing why. We the audience can see it’s because of their past trau...

Current Town: Los Angeles, CA What are you working on now?: A story about murder. And chicken. But not chicken murder.  Tell me, if you will, a story that explains who you are as a writer or as a person: I was living in NYC, and one night, an old friend invited me to join her at a theater I’d never heard of. I walked into the dark basement of a Gristedes grocery store, which housed the Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theatre, saw an improv show (I think it was an ASSSCAT 3000, with some of the 30 Rock cast) and I fell in love with the form. I needed to do that; improvisational comedy. I took every class I could, wrote sketches, made musical parodies and put them on YouTube. I was trying to leave a legal career, unsure how or what to do instead, but being silly with a group of strangers for three hours a week completely saved me. My “ah ha!” moment was watching a show featuring a sketch I wrote and hearing the laughs from my words that the actors so magically brought to life. It was suc...

Home Town: Arlington, VA Current Town: Los Angeles, CA What are you working on now?: Star Trek: Picard on Paramount + Tell me, if you will, a story from your childhood that explains who you are as a writer or as a person:  I grew up in the DC area, so always had a lot of friends from other countries. Some were from financially struggling immigrant families, some were ambassadors' kids who were used to a certainly worldly privilege. But I remember a million little culture clash moments where I realized my American way of doing things didn't have to be the "norm." Some people eat dinner at 10pm. Some people take siestas. Socialism can be great. We don't have to buy so much stuff. A lot of people speak more than two languages. Work isn't everything. Old people are valuable. True "freedom" is never really what society tells you it is. All of these little moments opened my mind and heart to a bigger world out there I was dying to see. It made me feel so...

I thought I'd wrap up the year by posting two blogs featuring all the shows in their entirety (that I can remember anyways). This list of the 24 hour shows that I watched - dramas, dramedies, thrillers - from both 2021, and I also included older shows that I watched too - because, well, what is time these days? In a year of uncertainty and not going out as much as I usually do, I turned to old friends that I often turn to when I need a laugh, or just an escape, and I created new friends - fell in love with new worlds. I love binge watching TV series' and getting lost in other worlds, getting to know characters as they make stupid decisions, discover who they are, find love, fall out of love. I always end up getting so sucked into the worlds that when I finish a series, I always feel a sense of sadness feel like I am leaving my friends behind. I love television and getting to life a thousand lives vicariously through these complex, living, breathing characters that feel like so ...

  When I interviewed Michael, I chatted with him on the phone for an hour. He spent a lot of time reminiscing about his days in TV. I thought the really interesting and fun things he said were unrelated to the interview, so I wanted to share the rest of our conversation unfiltered on this last Monday of 2021! If you enjoy classic sitcoms as much as me, I think you'll enjoy reading this! Darci: I'm curious what made you want to write for theater now after working in TV for so long? Michael: Well, that's the exact reason. Because I've worked in TV for so long, that there isn't anything that I can think of that I haven't done in TV. I mean, I've worked for sitcoms, and I produced Sesame Street for 10 years. And I mean, and I've worked on pilots, and I've done everything. And of course, the classes that I taught at BU [Boston University] were about television script writing. So I think I've had my fill of television. I'd rather read a book at nig...