I would say on a creative level I put a lot of pressure on myself.

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

I've always read a lot of historical books and I'm a big fan of documentaries, and I've always thought of ways to do it.

You can make a good show, but you still need some magical alchemy to get people to watch.

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

One of the tricky things about running a TV show is that you just never know how good the guest stars you cast on a weekly basis, how good they're going to be in the episode. Sometimes they surprise you in good ways and sometimes they surprise you in disappointing ways.

Series finales have that responsibility to leave you feeling good about entire series. You want to feel like the viewer closes the book satisfied. And if you strike out on the finale it skews how you feel about the entire series.