There are story-room sessions where you think about the big picture, like a novel, but once you have certain things in place, you have to treat each episode like an hour of TV, and think that maybe this will be the only episode that anyone will ever watch. You want to have some sort of beginning, middle, and end to the episode, even if you have storylines that are carrying over. You still want it to feel like a cohesive hour of entertainment. And you can't think about both at the same time.

I don't ever want to have a weak episode of television with my name on it.

Working as a showrunner has made it tougher to watch other shows and movies.

The payment for sins can be delayed. But they cant be avoided.

Cheers was one of the first shows where I paid attention to the writers because their [work] was better than everything else I was watching. The writers weren't afraid to let a joke fall slightly flat if it advanced the characters.

I still feel driven to try to make great shows and to make each episode great.

I think the bar is higher these days in terms of audience expectations of authenticity.