We had all been feeling this, about the Buffy/Riley relationship. It never had the fire that Buffy/Angel did. It wasn't really meant to.

I watch a lot of TV, but I find that recently it's largely oddball stuff. Scripted stuff sometimes feels like homework, like I'm scoping out the competition or something.

You embraced what was already on the page, worked with it, massaged it.

Forgive my rudeness. I cannot abide useless people.

In the case of judges, I wouldn't be shocked to find out the number on television exceeds the number in real life — what is it about those black robes that makes us think ovaries?

I hope I am pigeonholed with comedy. I'm really not interested in writing the darker stuff, the emotional stuff.

Any story worth telling relates to real life in some meaningful way. Scifi allows you to tell meaningful stories without seeming too preachy - it adds a metaphorical layer between the story and the real world. Scifi is dismissed as ungrounded fluff, but it's actually the opposite.