We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars. Now we just look down, and worry about our place in the dirt.

Each week the machine is spitting out a number for a new person or a new world within New York that you get to know. And the idea from the beginning was that some of the characters would stick around and become part of the lives of the show, and the world of the show itself will continue to grow.

One of the things with our show is posing a lot of questions, but getting a lot of answers too.

You know, we certainly have a great budget on the show, but the expansions to world of the show really arise because, and this is kind of the idea of the premise of the show, where is each week you're kind of meeting . . . It's random access.

Typically with HBO shows, the ninth episode often winds up being a big one and when lots of exciting stuff happens. And then the tenth one is the more placid, character-based one.

You'd have a quality insurance department, where they're making sure there aren't any glitches or weird things, and that the guests have a great experience and seamless experience. You'd also have security. So, we laid out the corporate structure, and then we cherry-picked from that the people who would be brought into the most conflict and the most day-to-day relationship with each other and with the hosts.

TV is, as I'm discovering now, a marathon. You have to keep going and going and going.