Take 141 - Arika Lisanne Mittman, Writer, Showrunner, Timeless, La Brea, The Irrational

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Any of us who've been in it for long enough, our entire career has been littered with jobs that we didn't get, projects that we thought were gonna go for shore, dozens of unproduced scripts littering the floor.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

All of us are running into both major and minor failures in Hollywood every single day.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

For every success, there is most sometimes even failure. This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

That's the door.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

That box is that one overnight. I was being told by my manager, yours delivered. And I promptly lost it. And I remember thinking like, well, that's it for me. I blew my one big shot. What I've realized with that word is it's never one big shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry, brought to you by the Emmy Award-winning annotation software scriptation. As ever, I am Dan Rutstein, your non-entertainment co-host.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

And I am your still in the entertainment business, co-host Noah Epslin. On today's Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, I'm thrilled to introduce TV writer, showrunner, and show creator Erica Lizanne Mitman to the podcast. Don't mind the credit envy in my voice as I list out some of the shows she's worked on, which includes but is not limited to Medium, Dexter, Elementary, Elementary, La Brea, Timeless, and Paradise Lost. The last two she was also the showrunner of, and most recently, The Irrational, which she created and currently showruns. Welcome, Erica.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

That's a long list. That's you must be Noah likes to tell people he's like on 130 episodes of television. Are you you are you into does your number begin with two, do you think?

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Oh my gosh. Um I have never counted, and I'm terrible with numbers.

SPEAKER_03 2:17

Excellent. Good start.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

Uh there I didn't I was told there was no math on this test.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Well, I'm gonna work it out afterwards uh from your credits. I was I was gonna correct Dan real quickly and say I was on like 280, but I haven't been counting either, Erica, so I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

Um but look, that's uh obviously that's a lot of television, uh including obviously quite a lot of showrunning as well. Um uh so there's gonna be plenty to talk about from all of that part. So have you had time in between all of this to also be fired and be out of work? Or are you one of those people that Noah really doesn't like who actually has been successful all the way along?

SPEAKER_00 3:00

No, I have not been successful all the way along. First of all, I will say that um I worked for I was an assistant for 10 years before I got my first staff writing job. So um, and every every show that I was hired on as an assistant, I would be told, oh, we're gonna staff you in the back nine or we're gonna staff you next season only to have the shows get canceled, uh only to have that not work out. So um I had um I did have a lot of years of not getting work as a writer before I started getting work as a writer. Um and in terms of getting fired, I'm told that you're not a real writer if you've never been fired. So um I definitely will count myself in the club of real writer. How about that?

SPEAKER_03 3:49

Excellent. What so when did you realize that you could actually have a full and successful career as a writer? Was it when you got your first staff job or was it your third slaughter job? Is it not happened yet? But where where are you on the sort of when did you realize that it was sort of safe and this was now what you were going to be doing on the writing side?

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Oh my gosh. Does anybody ever really feel safe? I mean, I think we all feel like we're like one, you know, bad career move away from never working again. Is that I mean, do you agree with that, Noah?

SPEAKER_01 4:31

A hundred percent. I you it's a podcast that you can't see, but I was definitely uh shaking my head. No, no, you never feel safe.

SPEAKER_00 4:38

So, but that being said, um, you know, it's definitely um, you know, I think um, you know, you you you do enough writing jobs that you start to you start to at least tell yourself, like, you know, it'll it uh it'll work out. Like, you know, if this job doesn't work out, you know, there will be other jobs. I will keep working. Um, and um, but I don't definitely don't wouldn't say that there was a moment where I felt like this is safe, this is good, I'm gonna be able to do this forever, no problem. I mean, you just you just don't know. The business is too unpredictable, um, you know, work is too unpredictable, and it is the kind of career where you are always going from job to job. It's just not like a corporate position where, and I guess you just get used to that. You get used to the fact that like this is not the kind of career where you, you know, get your promotion and then you have a job for 50 years and you collect your pension and go on your merry way. Like, I don't know if those jobs exist anymore anyway, but like this is not that kind of field. Like you're always you're always looking for your next thing. So I I tend to just focus on that. I tend to just focus on the work and not think about not think about these things.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

You have an amazing uh list of credits uh that I again was trying to keep the envy out of my voice. I've I've been in network television for a lot of my career too, and I never worked obviously on the shows you have, but there was a lot of really great, great procedurals, including your most recent one, which we're gonna talk about uh later on in the podcast. But I want to rewind all the way back to the beginning because you mentioned being an assistant for 10 years, and I was looking at your credits, going, and I saw that you were a script coordinator for a number of years. And I want to do a quick shout out to script coordinators because it's one of the hardest jobs and most sort of like underappreciated jobs if you're not in the industry. It's really, really hard. And even people who are in the industry, I was just listening to another podcast from with showrunners who don't fully understand what the script coordinator does. And I was like, no, their job is much bigger than what you just described normally. It's a very difficult job. So, but it's and it's also notoriously and somewhat surprisingly difficult to get out of. Uh when you once you're a script coordinator, it can be hard to move on to staff. Uh and obviously I have some questions. I'm from Hawaii, you worked on North Shore, Jason Momoa, you know, shout out to all of that. But did you feel like 10 years of, you know, you weren't only a script coordinator. Did you feel trapped, you know, when you were a script coordinator? And how did you sort of negotiate your way out of that into your first staff job?

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Absolutely. You know, I I I lucked out in that my first, you know, my first job on a TV show was um on the series Dawson's Creek. And um, I started out as a showrunner's assistant on that show, then became the writer's assistant on that show, and it was like, this is great. Like, you know, you start out a show, nobody's ever heard of it, it goes on the air, it's a huge hit, it runs for five seasons, you know. And um, you know, it there there was a point where I thought I was gonna get staffed on that show, and then the whole writing staff changed out, and there were different people involved. And, you know, I I didn't get staffed on that show. And um, but I did um end up sort of I ended up writing the um the website for the show, which at the time this was a brand new thing, like that rewind yourself back to like 1998 or so. And um, you know, having a web extension of a show was a brand new thing, and like it was like you were at Dawson's computer and you could read his emails and all that sort of thing. And I was the the online Dawson for a while. And um, so I got to get a taste of, you know, writing, not for the show, but for the website. And um, so I kind of thought at the time that I was, you know, moving up and moving towards writing. Well, then um I was doing some digital stuff and and I I created a web series for um uh for Sony's, uh, then their online network at the time. And I thought I was sort of moving toward, you know, the next step, getting a job on a, you know, was writing on a series, but then 9-11 happened and they stopped doing, you know, web writing. And I was like, I gotta get back into TV. And I got an opportunity to um, as you mentioned, to script coordinate. And I really wanted back into television at that point. And so I took the job script coordinating. And yes, to answer your question, it's definitely something I gradually learned, like, oh, right, this is that, you know, it it the trick of it is that when you're a writer's assistant, you're generally in the room with the writers. So you are kind of in that jump seat to get that next staff writing job. Um the script coordinator is there all the time. It's theoretically a step up from writer's assistant, at least in terms of like the pay. Um, but um, and it's as you said, it's a much more, you know, it's it's a very specific position that has, you know, certain requirements that you have to know how to do. You have to know final draft inside and out and you know, work with production. There's a lot more, you know, that the job requires, but you don't have as much FaceTime with the writers, and you're kind of down several rungs in terms of, you know, getting that script or getting that, you know, staff writing position and all that. And um, so I I did it for a while, and then I started to realize like, all this is this is getting me, people love me and think I'm the best script coordinator they've ever had, but all it's getting me is more script coordinator jobs, and that's not what I want to do with my life. And so I finally was like, okay, I have to start getting back to the writer's assistant job, even though it was kind of a step back. It's actually the trick of it is that's actually a step forward. But you learn a lot in everything you do. I mean, I would say that all of the all of the assistant jobs that I've done were my grad school, were, you know, what helped me prepare for writing television, because you learn a lot during doing both of those jobs.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Did did did any of this sort of because obviously and I've been there too. So like I've been in the assistant role, I've been in the researcher role, I did the web series stuff, right? You get you're you're constantly trying to figure out how to get in, right? Because you're in, but you're not in. You're not you're not on staff, but you're on staff, right? You're you're you're getting you know, you're an assistant. And uh and so you're scheming, maybe you have reps, maybe you don't, you maybe you have friends, but you're kind of trying to figure out a plan in a way in. And did your planning work or was it serendipitous? Like did the actual break happen because you did a series of steps, or was it you know, luck meets the prepared and you something fell in your lap and it created a job opening for you?

SPEAKER_00 11:13

I will say um both. My first job was exactly what you said. It was luck meets, you know, it was it was timing and luck and preparedness. Um, you know, uh a family friend who had gotten me my, you know, my one of my very first jobs had a job opening right at the time when um, you know, I kind of needed one and um uh you know had, you know, like because I had known this person a long time, he uh hired me for my very first staff gig. Um, but I then um, you know, my the jobs that I got after that, like the jobs that you mentioned, like Medium, Dexter, like I got those jobs precisely because I had worked on um, I had worked as an assistant on another show. One actually, you know, on North Shore, I met a whole bunch of writers there. And like the people who knew me from that show, you know, recommended me for these jobs and hired me later. So it was the kind of thing where you um, you know, like you I felt like everything that I had done led up to me getting um those jobs in the future because all of my assistant work and stuff ultimately paid off. Because the truth is, people would rather hire someone that they know than someone that they don't know and someone that they know and like. And so if you're going to hire a staff writer and you see, oh yeah, I worked with her, you know, she was great on that show rather than here's a stranger, they might turn out to be, can I say asshole on the show? Like they might turn out to be a total asshole. Like, I don't know, I'm gonna hire and give a shot to that person I know. So um, you know, because of all the work I had put in as an assistant, I think it um I it both prepared me in terms of what I had learned for the opportunities, and it provided me the all of the connections that I made to get those jobs.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

So that that sort of links to what I was gonna say next, actually. So look, we've had people on this show who became showrunners without doing without climbing the ladder. You know, they created a show, they ended up as a showrunner, maybe with a co-showrunner, but they they sort of skipped the room part. Um now, you definitely did the opposite. It sounds like you've done almost every job that there is in a room. Um are you a better showrunner because you understand what everyone is doing and you've done it and you can be patient with it and you know where the frictions are and the roadblocks and so on? Um or are you too knowing because you almost know too much, does it lessen your ability to lead everybody else?

SPEAKER_00 13:56

I definitely think that it makes me a better showrunner and it would make everyone a better showrunner nowadays because of the sort of structure of screen streaming, you have a lot of people who come up in the streaming world and they just do writers' rooms and they don't go to set or they don't, you know, and they've they and you have people becoming showrunners who've never, you know, stood on a set a day in their life. And, you know, you can only imagine how well that will go. You know, you're suddenly in charge of a millions of multimillion dollar enterprise with 300 people that work for you and you don't really know what you're doing. I think all of the work that I did in advance, not just being an assistant, but the work that I, you know, coming up in broadcast television, coming up on shows where I got to go to set and you know, learn about that part of the process prepared me for the showrunning positions, prepared me for being a set. I got to learn from so many different showrunners who have so many different styles. Some of the best showrunners in the business are people who I learned from. And um, so I definitely, you know, and and when I meet with young writers, you know, who are so eager to like sell their new next script to Netflix, I'm like, when they ask, you know, what I recommend, I always say, work as an assistant, get in a room as an assistant, learn first. Like, you know, don't don't try to skip over that part of the journey because it it only benefits you. I mean, I don't necessarily recommend doing it for 10 years, by the way, but like I do think that it there is value in doing that, taking that step and learning from it.

SPEAKER_03 15:29

So I think I have a sort of new favorite question I've been asking recently, which is a sort of two-parter, and uh I think you'll be good at answering this one, which is what what is the the bit of show running that you are you think you are best at? And and what is the bit of show running that you think you are least best at?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Sure. Okay. Um, what I think I am best at is running a writer's room. Um, because I've been in so many writers' rooms and um I watched different people's styles, and you know, by the time I got to the place in my career where I was going to be running a writer's room, I was itching to do it. I felt like, you know, I know how this works. Um a lot of writers had come to, you know, showrunners, showrunners on previous shows I'd been on had started to rely on me to run the room when they weren't there. And so I feel very comfortable running the writer's room. Um, the place I feel least comfortable um as a showrunner is funny. I'm um I'm not great with um the I'm I'm not a super visual person in terms of like how should this look? Like when I write, it's you know, I hear it all, I hear the dialogue. Like I'm not as visual. And so when it comes to like assessing how something looks visually, when it comes to assessing the, you know, what do I think of these costumes? Like I always have to outsource that. I'm like, can someone else please deal with costumes? Because I don't know, they look like clothes, you know? Like they look like people wearing clothes to me. I don't know what to say. Like, and there are people who have very strong and specific opinions on the costumes, on the lighting, on the all of that. And like, for me, I'm not a very aesthetic person. So, like, those are the areas where I'm often looking for looking for second opinions on. And I've I've learned that a big part of showrunning is delegating properly. So um, I delegate to the proper people who know certain areas better than I do.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

That's so fascinating. There, I've seen all these online discussions about people talking about, you know, when you're writing, do you see the thing for see the scene first? And some writers say yes and some writers say no in your head. I mean, are you watching the movie in your head, or are you hearing something clearly? You are on the hearing side of things while I'm kind of on the watching side of things. But uh I I I have a I have a question I've never asked, but it's in line with what Dan, in a similar type question that Dan has asked, and you are also a great person to answer this because of your experience. What you you've had this career that's expanded multiple decades. Uh, you've been on many, many shows, both as an assistant and now and as a staff writer and as a showrunner. What is your sort of your biggest, doesn't, you know, your biggest failure or sort of horror moment, uh, like just like the thing that maybe you still think about now, many years later, uh, as an assistant. And what is your sort of biggest, you know, failure or kind of like horrific moment or or thing you had to work through as a showrunner? And you don't have to give names or be too specific, but just in general.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

Um, oh my gosh. As an assistant, um as a very good assistant, um, which is a problem in and of itself. You get to be too good of an assistant, you know, nobody promotes you for a while because they just like you where you are. But there was definitely a show um when I was an assistant, um, that actually it was when I was a script coordinator, and I didn't expect it was a job that I didn't expect. You know, it kind of came up suddenly as these jobs sometimes tend to do, and it was like, great, can you start tomorrow? And I was in the middle of directing a play, actually. I was directing a stage play at the time, um, you know, and I um and I found out this job started tomorrow, and I thought I could direct a stage play and script coordinate at the same time. Um, that is a very difficult thing to do because uh shows, when you're on a series, they really do take your time, you you know, and you have to give 100%, which I generally do and I'm always used to doing, and you know, but it was one of those things where I had this other commitment and I couldn't bail on the commitment. And I remember my first week script recording on that show, I left typos in things. Like I messed up so much that the showrunner was calling me and yelling at me. This had never happened to me before, you know, because I was like, I was trying to juggle too many things. And I managed to stick it out, finish the show the following month, and like put all my energy into the series. But um, that was probably um my worst moment as an assistant. I've never been fired as an assistant, um, but um, but I I did get um get a bit of a talking to that time. Um there was also, I suddenly just remembered this, there was a time when um there was a version of um there was a there was a version of the script that like the showrunner had rewritten and somehow like in the communication channels I messed up in sending it and like the uh the the the old version got filmed and it sort of you know l set some mythology forever that like I didn't because uh you know because I messed up and did not you know get the changes in properly. Um so those were my horror moments as like a script coordinator. Um but they're really just moments because generally speaking, like like I said, I was very good at those jobs, sometimes too good where it gets hard to get you know promoted out of them because people want, you know, like once somebody finds a good assistant, they don't want to lose them. So they kind of want you to keep doing what you're doing. Um as a showrunner, um, without uh without naming any names, um, you know, I did do a show, like I had, I had done um, you know, I had I had done Timeless and I had the privilege of working um with Eric Kripke and Sean Ryan on my first showrunning experience. And like that because I had the privilege of working with these two brilliant and seasoned showrunners, um, and because they had run season one, like see season two, you know, my first showrunning experience, it was kind of a situation where everything went right. You know, it was like by I had all the tools, everything went right. And I came out of that thinking, I know how to showrun. Like, I'm great at this, I know what I'm doing, you know? And then, you know, I did a project where, like, um, where I, you know, I was in charge of the showrunner. I was co-hosting. Show running with someone else that I hadn't worked with before. And without getting into details, I will say everything went wrong. And I came out of that, you know, sort of bruised and battered and like um and yes, sort of fired. And it, you know, it was the kind of thing where I, you know, at the time I was miserable, I was devastated. Like I thought I was so good at this, like what happened? And it turned out, I I like to say that, you know, I mean, as as I'm sure you guys say on the show all the time, like you learn more from your failures sometimes than from your successes. And like by doing the show where everything went wrong, you know, I felt like I had learned so much more in a way. Like I had learned so much from um from the working with great showrunners, but it also, you know, like, you know, I didn't realize how hard some things would be if you aren't set up properly. And um, so I learned a lot from um from that show um where everything, you know, where everything went wrong, where, you know, people were, you know, people, you know, directors weren't um as good as the directors I had worked with before. Like we uh, you know, we had problems with casting, we had problems with um, you know, uh just every everything you can name, we had problems with. And um, but I learned from it. I learned from it. And going forward, like it was like, okay, I know what not to do now.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

This this story epitomizes why we do the podcast. Uh you know, learning from your failures and growing uh from them, hopefully, while maybe having to do a little bit of therapy along the way. Okay, so uh let's let's move you now to the current your current show, right? And and my question uh about the irrational is about you you were, you know, you've again assistant, staff, uh showrunner under great showrunners, co-showrunner on a show, a different show that that had some challenges, but you're learning all the way through. And you're also, I think, and I could be wrong, you didn't create those shows, so you're still mimicking the voice of somebody else while you're running the show and you're the leader. I want to talk a little bit about the sort of some of the challenges in that, but more importantly, with the irrational, based on a book, but it's your your show. You wrote it, it's your created it, right? So you it's your voice that now everyone else is is mimicking. And uh and but yet there's nothing for you to hide behind anymore, right? It's like, well, this isn't my voice, this isn't my show, this is your show. Can you talk about some of the maybe anxiety or or in you know excitement when you're finally there? This is your words, your show, you're gonna sink or swim on your own merit.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

I have lots of anxiety. Um I I have that in spades, but um, I mean, I still think even with all that anxiety, because you're right, like, you know, you you get your show there, and like when when it's somebody else's show, whether it succeeds or fails, it's not on you. You know, it's not, you know, when you're you know coming up as a staff writer, even a co-EP, it's like, you know, the the when you're a showrunner, the buck stops here. And like, you know, I've had I've had scripts that um you know that I thought came in great and you know, or that that I've taken a pass on and they come in great, and the network is like, we need you to take a voice pass on it. And like, I don't want to say like, uh, I already did that, but um, you know, I'll but uh sure, sure, I'll I'll I'll I'll do another one. Um but um you know it it's definitely um you know I I definitely I would rather I would rather I would rather sink knowing that I've made the choices that I want to make creatively than um you know than not than you know be then fail on someone else's choices and then be like, oh but if only I had done this, you know, like it's sort of like at least at least it's it's my at least it's my work, you know. Does that make any sense?

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Real quick, no, no, absolutely, uh just one bit of color. I do want to add, you know, I'm sure we have a lot of fans of the irrational out here. This show has not sunk. It's it's very well, it's doing very well, and it's continuing to do very well. So you've you've you've managed to succeed in in in in huge ways. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 26:24

So I Noah's not allowed to ask this question because it would be it would be weird and almost a career failure for Noah to ask this. But I'm not in the industry, and so I've I've I've never really written a script and I don't fully understand everything. Which uh what I always find amazing is I watch shows and they're they're very good and they find a different way of telling a story when you think you've already seen every different version of telling a story, at least as a sort of naive non-writing TV viewer. So For your for the irrational, talk me through I guess the pitching part of this. Like when you when you sat down in a room to to pitch this, what was your uh description of your way in that makes this different from obviously not only all the other procedurals that you've worked in, but all the other procedurals that everybody else has done over the years?

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Um, well, that was definitely the um you know the the the human behavior angle, you know, the um behavioral psychology angle, I should say. Like that we have somebody approaching crime from a very different perspective than what you've seen before. Um, you know, he's not a cop, he's not a detective, he is essentially a scientist, a professor, you know, and so he has a different way he looks at crime from a human behavior basis. And from this basis of this notion, you know, what inspired me, um, and really what I took from Dan Ariel's book, because, you know, I don't know if you guys have read the book, but you know, it is not, it's not a novel. It doesn't have a narrative, you know, it's just a book about um, you know, uh, about human behavior. And what interested me about it was that um our irrational, our our irrational behavior is predictable. We all do the same things, even though it's irrational. You know, we're all more afraid of flying than we are of driving, even though, you know, you're much likely more likely to get in an accident and die driving than you are on a plane. Like we all have the same irrationalities. And that's what Alec uses to figure out these crimes, is not, you know, when we when I did elementary, for instance, you know, those villains, their motives are very rational. They're almost always greed. I mean, you know, there were there were rules about it. Like greed was the main motive. It's almost always like, oh, I am a logical psychopath, and I would like, you know, $10 million. And if I kill this person, I get $10 million. And you kind of just have to figure out how they get there and how this person profited. And it's all very rational. These killers are all almost diabolically rational. Um, and in real life, we make stupid mistakes all the time. We kill people for emotional reasons. We uh, you know, we do things that don't make logical sense. And so Alec is coming into crime from that very different basis. And so that's what I think is interesting about it.

SPEAKER_03 29:27

Um and again, uh maybe it's like it's this is either a really clever question or actually a really obviously bad question from someone who doesn't work in the industry. But you have been in a lot of rooms doing crime, albeit different different types of crime, you know, whether it's the elementary version of it or the sort of dexter version of it, but all sorts of different crimes. How do you, I guess probably more subconsciously than consciously, avoid using a storyline or a trick that you used in one of the other hundred episodes of crime solved in a different way for when you're doing these ones? Because presumably there are devices or things that worked, and you might end up how do you stop yourself using things again? And do you have to sort of go back to the street? I don't.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

If it worked before, if it worked before, it'll work great now. Uh look, I don't get hung up on, you know. I mean, obviously I'm not gonna tell the same exact episode twice. That would be bor both boring for me to do and boring for viewers who, you know, watch both shows. But um, you know, if there was a moment, you know, if we're in the room and we're trying to figure out a plot point, I might well say, oh, there was this episode that we did of this show and this happened, and you take a little piece of like uh of that for inspiration, um, or movies, or, you know, I mean, I think that, you know, everything that you've seen and watched, you know, can kind of um come into your stories in one way or another. And you do it in a different form and you do it in a slightly different way. But um, you know, if there's something that um, you know, that worked in another episode um and we can fit it in into this context and make it a little, you know, and make it something different because it's a different episode, it's a different we're telling a different story, then I'm not I'm not averse to remember that time we did this, that would totally work here.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

I was gonna add that to like all of the procedural crime shows I've been on as well. So one of the value added of having people on the show that have been on a bunch of crime shows is you can say, remember in cold case or member in this, there was this great episode. Obviously, we can't do that, but there's components, and when you have new characters, it's gonna feel like a new story. You don't want to do, we had we had Hart Hanson on the show. Uh, if you're listening, Hey Hart, great supporter of the show. There was a case on bones, I think, where someone did the exact episode. Now, obviously, you don't want to do, or or it was maybe taking from bones. I can't quite remember. It was, but it was uh uh it was, I think it had to do with bones. It was like the uh, you know, you don't want to steal like moments from an old episode, but crime is crime, and sometimes there was something really interesting in a kidnap that you would do. But question, you know, we're uh we're talking about most of your career has been uh in in network television. Um, I think there was a long time for probably both of us where it felt like the grass was a little greener on the streaming side, where there's a little bit more prestigious, there was more awards, but the definitely financially the network side was better. And now I'm feeling like there's a shift where it because jobs are so hard to get these days, that the network, I'm hearing rumors, not even rumors, I'm hearing about 2,700 to 3,000 application uh uh like writers applying for different jobs that are staffing right now for two or three positions. Like they're network jobs. There are so few jobs out there that that the network job with its you know 18 to 24 episode orders are are kind of where people want to be financially. What do you how do you feel right now about the world of network television, the shows that you want to create, the future of network television? Are you just sort of focusing on the irrational while it's going or think about it in the future, or are you preparing new pitches? And do you think there's sort of a rosy outlook is not the right word, but will still be a path forward for all the TV that we want to create?

SPEAKER_00 33:11

I hope so. I mean, I don't, I don't know the future, and I don't I don't spend a lot of time thinking about like the future of the industry because like, you know, you know, or like whether AI is gonna take over all our jobs, or like I don't I try not to spend too much time thinking about those existential things. But um, I do love writing for broadcast and I love writing for, I mean, I've never I've never done a streaming show. Um, I've done cable, I've done, you know, I did Dexter for Showtime, I've done cable and uh broadcast, but um I haven't done streaming. But what I do think it's interesting, the resurgence of people realizing how great network television is. And it's a little bit like when um when I first started making television, like they wanted all these feature people to come in because features were seen as prestige and television was kind of seen as less than. Now we have all this prestige television, and you know, everybody wants these prestige writers, these prestige writers are coming in to uh, you know, to to broadcast because you know, everybody, it's like, you know, I think the strikes brought out a lot of the downsides of working in streaming. It sort of exposed, like, hey, you know, there, you know, I learned a lot during the strikes. It was like, wait a minute, like they're they're doing their shows this way, like they're not getting residuals really. They're not, you know, sending their writers to set, they're not, um, you know, there's a lot of, there's, there's uh, you know, a lot of benefits in the way that we traditionally make broadcast television. And look, I'm happy, I love the creative freedoms that you get outside of the broadcast medium and the things that you can do. You can be a little braver, you can be, you can do a little bit more that you can't always get away with on broadcast, um, because we're looking toward a very mainstream, you know, American audience. But um, but I do think that um, you know, the structure, the way that we make broadcast television and the procedural structure that really can give you those 24 episodes a season if you want them, five seasons, 10 seasons, 20 seasons if you're law and order, you know, like that that kind of structure really has staying power. And people had kind of moved away from it and looked toward these very, very serialized shows that go on streaming the last two seasons and then they're done, you know. And I think people are realizing that there are benefits to that structure, that, that sort of, you know, procedural structure and that people really like them, you know, and that people really continue to enjoy those shows. They are it endlessly rewatchable. People are watching old episodes of Murder She Wrote as We Speak, you know. Um, and so I think there is a resurgence in um at least the broadcast format. And I think the streamers are eventually going to all realize that, oh, you know what we could do? We could make broadcasts, we could, sorry, we could make procedural shows and put commercials on. And, you know, they will eventually find their way back to the way that this business, you know, functions well and makes money. And there's a reason that we did things a certain way for a hundred years before the streamers came along. And it's that they work financially and, you know, it's a very good process making a pilot first, you know, like doing a uh, you know, doing your show, make it writing your show and posting your show while you're shooting your show. It sounds crazy, but it actually works because you can change course mid-season if like, you know, you have a couple whose chemistry isn't working, or if you have an actor that's not working out, and all of that, and you know, all of the things that streaming tried to kind of undercut the whole, you know, change the whole system. And it's like it actually, I don't think it works quite as well. So I think the streamers are gonna start doing things the way broadcasters do eventually.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

You're gonna rediscover television, how to make television. I 100% agree. Going to set, seeing what's not working, see making adjustments on the fly, all things that you can't do when you're so far ahead. And another comment that I'm just you made me think about too is about how network television really wanted, you know, streamer, streamer writers to come and join the network staff just like they wanted feature writers. We've we had some great, you know, we've had a succession writer on the show, and I I have the succession screenplays at home in a book, and some of those scenes are 17 pages long. Just trying to imagine like a show like yours or the shows I've worked on where there's like a writer comes in who's really gifted, and suddenly you have a 22-page you know interrogation scene come into your script. The the mediums are still slightly different, although yes, both writers can write, you know, network TV writers can write streaming, streamers can write network television. But in a show, you know, our our we're we're heading sort of to the back end of this episode, this podcast episode with you today. And uh our show's bread and butter is failure stories, rejection stories. And a question that we don't get asked enough is, you know, is there a story? You know, we let these conversations sort of organically find the stories from from our the people we have on as guests, but is there a rejection or a failure or adversity story from your career that we haven't touched upon yet in this episode that you'd like to share that you think maybe you you found it difficult and then ultimately inspirational, or maybe just difficult and you yet you made it through and you're a showrunner today?

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Absolutely. Um well, I told you the story of like the the inspirational story, and I can tell you the one that was just flat out, you know, like bummer. Um, but uh though I'm sure I learned something from it. But um I um had I I was doing development on a pilot, and um I had been, you know, it was an ad without giving any you know specifics, but it was an adaptation of a book, and um I had come in with what I thought was, you know, with a you know a great take on it. They bought it, you know, I was gonna write this pilot. And then um I had the misfortune of um when I was doing the sort of full pitch out of um one of the, you know, the heads of the book company was in town and wanted to hear the the pitch. And um he heard my pitch and it was like, wait a second, why did you change this thing from the book? And you know, if you've done any book adaptations, you know that generally the rule is take what's useful, don't take what's not useful, you know, change whatever you want. Um, you know, it's that that's generally the rule when you're adapting books. I've adapted a number of books, um, and that had always been the rule. And um, they wound up upset that I had not, and it was like, well, that thing in the book doesn't really work for series. And I had a number of reasons why. Um, and um, but they were like, you gotta put it in. And then the, you know, they everybody weighed in. It was like, you have to put it in. And so I then started trying to develop this show from a very different place because everything I had, I I had pitched for it was basically thrown out. And I had to kind of come up with a different show. And I remember trying to, you know, write an outline of this, not sure what the show was. And um, it got to, uh, you know, we it got to very late in the season. And this was when this was a broadcast show and it was on a very strict, this is back when the schedules were very strict, not, you know, not today, where everything's kind of on its own random timeline. But, you know, it was getting late into the year. We didn't pitch it until Halloween, which was late for the you know, pitching season. And um, I was trying to get this outline ready, and it was um, it was now Thanksgiving, and I kept getting the outline kicked back to me. The producers weren't happy with it, the studio wasn't happy with it, and I just was like, that's because like this is not what I pitched you, and I don't really know what this is supposed to be like anymore. I was I was very confused and I was trying to be a good soldier, and this is where you know, I think you do learn something. I will, I will take, I will get to the takeaway in a minute, but I was trying to be a good soldier and do what they told me to do, but it wasn't organic, it wasn't what I was inspired by, and I I didn't really know what it was supposed to, what you know, what they wanted this show to be. And I was very focused on I just give them what they want, just give them what they want. And I don't know what that is. And I remember calling my producers over Thanksgiving as I was working through this, and the producers were like, Oh, my mom's calling me to dinner, I gotta go. And there was nobody to help me. And I also, in the midst of this, I had a trip planned with my family, with my kids to um Hawaii. And I knew I was gonna be working through the trip, but um, I was like, okay, I'm gonna be working through this Hawaii trip, but I'll go so I can, you know, be where my family is. And um I had turned in, I had turned in the outline, not knowing what it was, hopped on a plane to Hawaii, got to Hawaii to find a million messages, and that's when I found out I had been kicked off the project. Like I was, I was literally being putting, they were putting lays around my neck. Welcome to Hawaii. And like I was finding out that I was off the project. And um, it was devastating at the time. Devastating, I mean, I really wanted this project, and um, but um, but what I learned from it was that you can't, you can't always just give them what they want. Your answer can't always be, oh, you know, if I am so inclined to be that good soldier and be like, you wanna, you want to make it a musical, I'll make it a musical. I'll make it whatever you want it to be, you know. Like I'm I'm that kind of you know team player. And there are times when you have to say, that's not what it is. If you want me to do this, I've got to do this thing that I pitched you. Like, otherwise, you know, you are not gonna, you are not gonna be happy with this because I don't know, you know, what this is. Go to some other writer. And I didn't have the, you know, the guts to do that then. I was a younger writer, I wasn't, you know, at the level that I'm at. I didn't feel comfortable with you know saying that. It was just like, oh, you want it to be this? Okay, I'll try, I'll try that, I can do that. And it ended up really being nothing because you know it was coming from a place of how do I please studio rather than a place of like, here's a great story to tell.

SPEAKER_03 42:54

So that is such a Hollywood story, and it it reminds No, no, I can help you. We had a guy, Jim Piddock, was on a while ago, and he told a story. He'd written a coming-of-age drama about two boys at a boarding school, uh, which was a book adaptation, and then the the guy from the studio says, Can we make the the uh headmaster of the school a serial killer? Um and they're like, No, that's not what this is. And in the end, the project died because it was such a ridiculous request, and then suddenly the thing isn't a thing anymore. Um if you're far enough into your career, you can say no, thank you. And if you're not, then you end up with a bad project because you're trying to please people who are unpleasable.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

Yep. So it was like being given, it was like being handed a crossword puzzle that there's no solution to, you know, like it because I was like, if you make me do this, this isn't going to if you make me do this, like I, you know, I don't know how to make this work. Maybe somebody else does, but it's never going to, you know, it's never going to work.

SPEAKER_03 44:01

So I I'm gonna do two quick more questions if I may, and then we'll we'll we'll wrap. So um I could obviously be wrong about this, but from the last 40-something minutes we spent together, you seem nice. Um Are you good at firing people?

SPEAKER_00 44:20

No, I'm terrible at firing people. Oh my god, I'm the worst at firing people. Um I mean, I couldn't even like, you know, like I I mean uh we like we had like a babysitter that we needed to fire, and I make my wife do it. Like I I am terrible at firing people. Um I have not um I don't think I've had to do it in the um I'm trying to think when I've had to fire people in like in my career in an actual professional context. Um I don't know that I have yet. Um like we've had people who didn't work out, but like somehow they left of their own accord. Like somehow it like it managed to work itself out. So that will come, that will happen, and it will be terrible, and I will have to do it and I will learn from it.

SPEAKER_03 45:12

So I I I don't I I I don't I get the sense you might not want to go into specifics about this, but you did mention that you are a real writer and you had been fired. Um were you when you were fired, were you fired nicely or meanly?

SPEAKER_00 45:25

Very nicely. And I say fi well, I mean, I say fired. Like I was like I was let go from that project that we just talked about. That is a time that um that I was fired. And that time, you know, I didn't I mean I heard about it from my reps. Like my reps called me and they were like, Well, they're you know, they're letting you off this project. And I never heard from the people involved. So I didn't get directly fired by anybody. Nobody called, nobody, you know, it was they they just went through my reps because nobody likes to fire people. Um but um, you know, there was a there was a show that um, you know, that I had worked on that um I mean it's it's a question of like I consider, you know, most people in in your head you consider this fired. Technically it wasn't fired because it was just an option didn't get picked up, you know, for a subsequent season, and um couldn't have been nicer about it, you know. So um it was just the option didn't get picked up.

SPEAKER_03 46:18

But um so look, we are we are definitely now at the wrong end of the podcast. So we have to ask the final question which we ask every guest, which is um if you were to give a single piece of advice to somebody wanting to enter the industry, what would that single piece of advice be?

SPEAKER_00 46:41

A single piece of advice would be if you can do anything else, do that. If this is the thing that you have to do, then keep going and do not give up and do not uh let yourself be broken. Do not, you know, I mean that this industry spits people out who like, you know, who go home to work for their dad's insurance company after six weeks of not making it. You know, if you can do something else, if that's okay with you, then go do that. If you can't, and this is your passion and this is what you want to do, then be patient and work hard and you know, keep trying and you'll get there. It takes persistence.

SPEAKER_03 47:17

Is that yeah, great. I love that. Well I love the answer. Um, look, um uh Erica Mittmann, thank you very much indeed for for coming on our show. Um, none of your answers were irrational. Um so um but I'm sorry to disappoint. But thank you very much indeed. We appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_00 47:36

Thanks for having me, guys. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Thank you so much for listening, and thank you, GamePlange, for the music. And our wives are not the command. As always, each episode is brought to you by Scriptation, my favorite screenwriting annotation software. If you want to support the show, please download a copy at www.scriptation.com backslash.

SPEAKER_03 48:03

Or perhaps even better, www.scriptation.com backslash Dan. Dan is called Dan.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

If you want to find me on social media, I'm at Twitter at n Epsilon and more recently on threads at no epsilon.

SPEAKER_03 48:22

Don't worry about me on social media because all you people seem to care about.