A million years ago, when doing research about the world of municipal government, one thing that struck me is how often people's job titles changed - from one department to another, from the public to the private sector and back again. People move around a lot, everyone has her eye on some other, slightly better situation in some other corner of city hall. Plus governments are constantly shuffling and reorganizing and shuttering or condensing departments - they are often byzantine hodge-podges of fractured org charts lying atop a bed of shifting sand.

It's all about media culture and people on television, and that feeling comfortable, friendly, or warm toward a candidate [in the elections] is a reason people would emotionally attach themselves to that candidate. I get the mechanics of it, I just hate that it's true.

I would far rather add a character who generates strong feelings than someone who just kind of floats along, generating medium-warmth smiles of gentle affirmation.

All of comedy at some level is trial-and-error, whether it's a stand-up trying out jokes or a comedy show trying stories.

With mockumentaries, the conceit is that the characters are being interviewed, so you can start a scene and cut to a character looking at the camera and saying, "I'm working on this project," instead of having to figure out ways for people to talk naturally about what they're doing. You see this problem in pilots - people end up explaining things to each other that they'd never explain in real life.

Rule number one for the writers when we committed to the jump was: no hoverboards. No one is allowed to pitch that everyone is on hoverboards. It's going to be very very gently sci-fi.

I am of the opinion that there is more high-quality television being produced than at any time in the history of television.