You used to have to make a choice. Is it a serialized television show, or is it a stand-alone or procedural? We were wildly influenced by The X-Files. Even when we created Fringe, it was the same thing. It's the gold standard of all gold standards, in genre television, and it was so wonderful because you felt so much for those characters.
Alex KurtzmanWe were such fans of Sleepy Hollow, in all of its iterations - growing up with the Disney show, and then Tim Burton's and, obviously, the most important being Washington Irving's short story. It evokes and invokes a very specific feeling and tone.
Alex KurtzmanBy actually taking Sleepy Hollow and the Rip Van Winkle story, and finding the spirit of what was great about both of them and putting them together. So it felt, actually, like one of those ideas that clicked for us, right away, on instinct.
Alex KurtzmanAs a director you have to be at 30,000 ft objectively looking at everything, wondering if you're making the right objective, emotional, story, character choices. As the writer, while you're asking all of those same questions, you're also forced by the nature of what writing is to be looking at everything under a microscope. That's the difference between the two jobs.
Alex Kurtzman