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.

Mercy is the mark of a great man! (stabs defeated opponent) I guess I'm just a good man. (stabs opponent again) Well ... I'm alright.

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

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.

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.

I recently had to wait two and a half hours in a doctor's office, just waiting to be seen. I literally was genuinely thinking 'Well, maybe this is a time loop.'

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