When you start a show, the plans are not set in stone. They're really mutable, cocktail napkin sketches.

What I think networks do so well are big, fun, accessible, invite everybody into the tent kinds of storytelling, akin to an early Spielberg movie or a Michael Crichton novel. That's not to say that there aren't scary parts 'cause there are, and that there aren't sexy parts and edgy parts, just like early Spielberg would have, but there's a lot of heart, a lot of emotion and complicated characters.

Your half-caff double vanilla latte is getting cold over here, Francis.

Mythologies become exhausting burdens, from a writer's perspective.

I have a bad habit, in the shows that I run, of killing off the people that I love.

I like to find ideas where the research is going to be fun.

If I had a worldview, and I don't know if I do, but if I did, it's one that's intensely humanistic. [That worldview] is that the only thing that matters is family and personal connection, and that's the only thing that gives life meaning. Religion and gods and beliefs - for me, it all comes down to your brother. And your brother might be the brother in your family, or it might be the guy next to you in the foxhole, it's about human connections.