Everybody keeps falling back to the same patterns without doing too much dramaturgy.

If you've got a restaurant, you definitely want the line to be out the door the first night, but you're more interested in people continuing to come to the restaurant. And that's their outlook, a little bit. I think it allows for more creativity, in the process. It allows people to make interesting programming that maybe wouldn't have a place on broadcast networks, if you were just counting people.

Everybody keeps falling back to the same patterns without doing too much dramaturgy.

Character is what someone does, much more than who they are. I can be sarcastic or I can be fearful, but it doesn't really matter until there's a story - until someone comes in and holds us hostage.

I've never had a working relationship like I have with them. I developed a lot of the design of this show with them. That conversation was about, "What are your needs? What are you looking for? Will this work for you guys? Will a show work where you've got one episode per character?" They really were a creative partner.

They say to just write about what's happening in your backyard because that's where you find the most creativity. It's in the DNA of the show. There's no question.

Thanks to the critics and thanks to the Emmys, we got all sorts of great reviews and notices and awards, at the start. Part of it is that it's great fortune to have something to live up to, but as creative people, we all have to just put that aside and go forward, make the best product we can, have as joyous of an experience as we can, and really remember that the spirit of this was to surprise the fans with something that they didn't see coming.