If one reads enough books, one has a fighting chance.
TV is just such a fast-moving medium that you do what you can do, and what you can't do, you don't worry about too much.
I've worked in network and cable on and off for a number of years, and you just understand what your parameters are. A lot of times, I think the best work that my team has come up with comes from having to deal with certain boundaries.
In order to appeal to a wider audience on network in order to survive, generally your characters need to be, at a base level, a little bit more likable.
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.
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.
Obviously there are different standards and practices that are allowed on cable versus network. You just have to embrace what your network is going to allow.
I'm trying to get in the habit of, you know, picking up a book and learning how to write my feelings down, not my feelings but my thoughts, about things, and hopefully I'll moving toward the writing and directing thing soon.
Henry Ford, who despite his immense wealth never owned a Cadillac. Never got a dinner!
I think I'm aware of entering my late 30s versus being in my late 20s, when the web was coming out as this new thing. It reminds me of how people used to tell me about my great-grandmother and how they used to gather around a radio listening to soap operas.
I've had a little bad, bad media luck the new year. Well, apparently I'm dating Bill Clinton, which makes me nervous. I didn't know, though.