Take 48 - Showrunner David Shore, House, The Good Doctor

SPEAKER_01 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 literature.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

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

SPEAKER_00 0:20

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

SPEAKER_02 0:31

That's the moment you would have to be able to persevere.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

I was being told by my manager it's yours to lose, 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 from that moment is it's never one big shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. As ever, I am your English non-entertainment co-host, Dan Rutstein, and we have Noah at the other end of the Zoom.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Hey Dan, how are you doing? Uh, today I'd like to welcome our next guest onto the podcast, the Emmy Award-winning TV writer and showrunner David Shore, is best known for creating The Good Doctor in House, but he also created Sneaky Pete and Battle Creek, as well as worked on Law and Order, The Practice, Family Law, NYPD Blue, and many others. Welcome, David. We're beyond excited to have you on today.

SPEAKER_03 1:36

Beyond excited. Wow. Wow, that is just inappropriate. But thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

So we're in we're in the fun position here where obviously Noah's read your credits. Everyone in the industry knows who you are and how successful you are. So obviously, we've got to find a way into the rejection, failure, and adversity part of this. So probably the best place to start is at the is at the beginning of your career before all of these fabulous successes. Tell us about sort of how you got in and how quickly you got success and how you dealt with those early failures.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

But not like I was writing and had success. I I just knew I wouldn't write unless I forced myself to write. So I quit my job, got in my car. I'd written nothing. Quit my job, got in my car, drove to LA and started writing, thinking, well, I'll find out if I can do it or not. And um it took me about a year to get an age. I was afraid to send my stuff to anybody. My in my mind, and perhaps rightly. So I mean, you you learn a lot that you learn a lot by writing, you get better by writing. And my first stuff was pretty awful. And I was afraid that I would send it out to agents or whatever. And the agents would, you know, that they had a bin of, you know, mark this name down. If we ever see this name again, I don't want to see it. You know, I don't want to see anything that comes with it. Um, and I felt like that was the level of my writing was not only would they reject me, they would reject me forever. So I was uh I only sent my stuff to people where I thought I had a personal connection, which of course is to a sad extent how Hollywood runs. I didn't have a lot of connections. I come from Canada. Um I was, you know, so I sent it to, well, because I come from Canada, I was playing hockey with a guy who worked in a mailroom. Uh I ran into somebody at lunch who worked in a mail room, you know, I got and then uh so I sent it to like three agencies. And so it took me about a year to get an agent, another year to get an assignment, and then another year of nothing. Um, which in Hollywood is pretty quick. It was, you know, three years after I moved down there. I I had a um I had a staff job on a Canadian show called Do South. But uh that was that that's how it started.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Did you have a time when it when did you sort of have time and money? Like I'm gonna give this three and a half years and then I'm gonna I I had given it two years.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

Um and I'm a big believer in following your dreams. I'm also a big believer in giving up on your dreams at a certain point. You know, I I don't believe there's only one route to happiness and uh or whatever, however, close we can come to that. That's uh that's an aspiration and that maybe out of reach in in the best of circumstances. Um I got my first job, that first assignment, a freelance assignment on a syndicated show called The Untouchables. That was the first thing I got paid for. And I got that, I think like two years and two weeks after I'd gone there. So I'd already broken my my time limit. I I I'd gone a little beyond, but I was I'd been a lawyer in Canada, which was nice. I had that too, and I had no personal obligations, I had no family, and you know, had I had that, I might not have given given it the two years. But I I get if you know, I wanted to try it. And if it failed, I'd go back to Toronto and be a lawyer again. And and I was aware that five years later it would just be an amusing story. You know, it it people say, Oh, how brave. It really, I really don't think it was brave. Um I I knew that if I failed, you know, time would mean that it was just, you spent two years in Hollywood trying to be a writer? Ha ha ha. You know, that it's not the end of the world having those stories.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

I have a I have a couple of connected questions. You you you opened this by saying you hadn't done a lot of writing before you moved to Hollywood. And so my question, my connected questions are these is A, what made you think that this was something that that you could do? B, what did your parents think when you gave up your law career to get in your car and drive to Hollywood to follow this train?

SPEAKER_03 6:15

Um, first of all, when I said I hadn't done much writing, I hadn't done any writing. It really was an asinine choice that worked out. Um I I had, I hate even opening this up, but I had done a tiny amount of stand-up comedy. And so that was part of what opened it up to me a little bit. And I had a friend from law school who'd moved to LA and been a writer. And before that, it hadn't even like that kind of where I'd grown up and how I'd grown up, you know, you were going to be a lawyer, an accountant, whatever. You'd get a job, responsible job, and do something responsible. There's nothing wrong with that, but there was just that's the way I looked at the world. And it wasn't like I rejected the idea of Hollywood, it just hadn't even occurred to me. And so him doing that made me go, oh, wait, that's allowed. And so for several years that percolated. And then at a certain point, I mentioned it to my parents, and they were not thrilled. And then a year after that, I mentioned it to them again. At which point I think they thought, oh, this isn't just some passing fancy. This is something that's that's living in his head. And it was a year after that still that I left. And so um they were pretty good. They were pretty good. Um the story since then has become that you know, in their mind, they never hesitated, that they were always they were supportive from the the get-go, which but it it wasn't, and I had saved up some money. I look, I I was not young, young. I was uh I was I had I was 30 or 31, and I had saved up some money. So I was being responsible and I and I could go back. It was it was the most responsible uh midlife crisis you've ever seen, but early midlife crisis.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Obviously, I know it's only a small sample size, but we've had somewhere in the region of 47, 48 people on this podcast, and I think now we're up to half a dozen very serious showrunners who were versions of stand-up comedians at some point. Um so I I mean I there's a book somebody could write about the link between the two things. Um so once you started getting some success, did you think obviously casting your mind back, but did you think, oh, right, now I'm in this is my career for the next 20 years, or you're like, right, this is a job I'm gonna do, and when it's finished, I can say I was a writer and then I can go back and become a partner in my Canadian law firm.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

That's it's funny because at the beginning of this, I remember doing the math in my head at a certain point where like uh I'm on this show, I'm stuck on the show. It's probably gonna allow me to get another job. This is probably gonna open up a door for a next job, I think, because they like me here. And I would do math in my head, like I think I've had enough experience now that I could be employed for another two years. And and then then it's they're gonna figure me out, they're gonna realize I'm a fraud and just throw me out, and that'll be the end of my career. But I remember even like a couple of years into house, I think, you know, I remember thinking, okay, I think I got five more years. I think I've guaranteed myself five more years of employment. And I was thrilled by that, you know, that that was amazing, that um that it would that even if I screwed everything up, which there was a good chance I would, I would still have employment for five years in this business, was my calculation.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

I love that you say that because we don't talk about that math that goes on so often, I think, in all of our heads. How long can I afford to be here? Did this job give me one year, two years, three years? And we're constantly calculating, assuming that you were going to hit a wall at some point and maybe have to leave. Now, you know, you know, thank God I haven't had to leave yet either. But was there a moment in your career? I'm obviously before house, I think kind of like obviously transformed things, and you were on some amazing shows up to house, where you thought, I'm at the end of my year, I'm at the end of my two years, I might not actually make it to a third.

SPEAKER_03 10:38

Oh, I know this doesn't fit the theme of your podcast, but after I was pretty steadily, the the jobs came after my first job, getting in and getting due south, an old Canadian show, but that which was just a huge hit in Canada. And anybody associated with that had this glow about them in the Canadian, like that's very much what got me my second job, and and then that got me my my third job. So the jobs were coming at the beginning, and then I had enough people in there, you know. I I what and then once I got hired by David Kelly, like once I got that, I was going, okay, okay, you know, I've got the David E. Kelly seal of approval in my resume. That's gonna open up doors for a little while. Um there was never a point during that where I felt I'm not gonna work again. Now there was when you you talk about the year, like it and it was not about financial stuff or anything like that. Uh it was it was they're gonna figure me out. They're they're just going to figure me out, but they're not gonna figure me out that quickly. Um since then I've learned they're not that bright, you know, collectively. So they're just not gonna figure you out. If they haven't figured it out yet, they're not gonna figure me out. I remember a little part of me after I handed in the last episode of House, and I got notes on it, and the notes were like, This is great. I remember thinking, I got away with it.

SPEAKER_02 12:14

Well, well, that that that leads me to my next question. You obviously, you know, let's talk about a little bit higher level pain then, where we, you know, but besides the pain that we all feel and the anxiety in the beginnings of our career. Uh, you you create house. I mean, and house is this iconic just just smash, right? You kind of redefined an anti-hero, redefined what a medical show is. Uh, and then you have you done, you turn in your last thing, and you now need to do the next thing. And, you know, obviously the good doctor's on the horizon, and we but we don't know that we're there yet. Another big medical show smash. And you have two in between, as far as I can tell: Battle Creek and Sneaky Pete. Were those harder shows to manage? Were those like creatively what was going through your head as you're trying to get launched these things off the ground?

SPEAKER_03 13:04

I uh Sony's been very good to me, but uh arguably I made a mistake going to Sony, because I mean I not Sony in particular, just making any deal afterwards because there's expectations and and the there's self-imposed expectations and there's externally imposed expectations, and self-imposed expectations are uh are going to be there no matter what. Externally imposed expectations you can deal with. Sony wanted a hit from me, you know. So I felt that I I acutely felt that um they made a deal with me because of house, and it was it was weird. I I it was really eye-opening to me. Uh and it made me reassess the house process because uh house was easy. I that sounds insane, but I was kind of nobody when it started, but that sailed through the process like nothing I've done since then. You know, we I I handed in that script to the network on a Friday and Monday morning. They they said we want to then the this the network said we want to make it. That just doesn't happen. It hasn't happened to me since then. I've had to jump through way more hoops getting my shows on the air after house than I did to get house on the air. And I'm not sure what happened. I'm not sure if I to a certain extent, I'm sure it was just dumb luck that that it was the right place at the right time and everything fell into place. And if I do say it was good, it was it was quite good. Um, but part of it I think is just the industry's changing. And it doesn't matter who you are, they're you know, um because I've had, you know, I did a pilot, uh, in addition to those ones you mentioned, I did a pilot called called Doubt, which starred Steve Coogan and had Tommy Schlani directing. And and I thought it was fantastic and I couldn't get it on the air. Yeah, it it just it never went on the air. And um and then Steve, and then Coogan wins an Oscar a month or two later. You know, it it was it was crazy that they wouldn't put that on. Um, and I did Rockford Files at the end, which which had its its its problems so there are issues there, but I just I came out of house thinking they're gonna let me do whatever I want to do, and that has not been the case at all.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

I think as as Noah learned by setting up this podcast, collaborating with a clever and funny British person is normally the secret to success, I think. Obviously, that explains the house part. But what once you've well, I repeated that.

SPEAKER_03 15:50

I've got you know, I I've got Freddie Hymore on the Good Doctor. It's uh uh it was just Coogan couldn't do it for me.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Um so just in terms I I find this quite interesting. So house is a success. Now the the bars moved for you in terms of you know thinking one or two years ahead. You had this big show, and as you said, the pressure was very different afterwards because of success. Do you measure everything since house against house, including the good doctor, which has been a success? Do you compare the two and say, well, it didn't do quite as well as my first big one?

SPEAKER_03 16:28

Freddie is Freddie Hymore has referred to it as my first wife. Um, yeah, it's um yeah, a little bit. I try not to because it's that's not a that's not a formula for mental health. Um it's different. Uh, I'm proud of them both. It's like children, was your favorite child? It's it's it's not a good question to answer. So um it's not a good place to go. Uh you you keep trying to do your best with each of the shows. One of the great things about this job is you get to do new things all the time, explore new characters, new worlds. And so I'm having fun with it. There is no point in comparing the two. There are obviously comparisons that I try not to think about too much, except when I'm being interviewed.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

In terms of sort of what success looks like now, so obviously, you're probably a bit old to go back and try and do lore in Canada now. Um so you obviously, you know, you've made a success of it here, very obviously. In terms of what a success in the future looks like, is it a show that does the the ratings and the popularity of house again? Is it actually maybe this time around, maybe something that, you know, there's there's an idea that you've had for a show you want to make which is more meaningful to you? And regardless of if it's an enormous commercial success, for you to get it on the air has a different sort of value. Now that you've sort of been successful, are you looking for different things to define what now success looks like?

SPEAKER_03 18:10

A little bit. Um I the fact that I came to this career a little later, I think had one huge advantage to me, which is I was never I don't think I was ever willing to take a job just because it was a job. I was always just doing the stuff that I found interesting. It it's more acute now. It is more acute now. There was, I can't say that it was a hundred percent that, but I had no even remote dream that house would be the success it was. I I just found that character interesting, I found that world interesting, and I thought it would find a niche audience of people who think a little bit like I do. And I just never imagined it would be like that. So I I just I think that's just I I I think it's artistically foolhardy, but I also think it's commercially foolhardy. You've got to write stuff that you find interesting and hope it finds an audience rather than trying to target an audience. Um, and if you fail, you fail, but I think you're much more likely to do something good. And ironically, I think you're much more likely to find an audience that way.

SPEAKER_02 19:30

And it this is a question about sort of today versus the past. And I'm not asking you to compare the good doctor to house, but it's just the eras are a bit different because house was a success, a smashing success in a time where you had more eyeballs on a TV show. Good Doctor is a smashing success in a time where you had you have less eyeballs on TV shows because there's more TV shows. What do you think about sort of the changing landscape of TV and the changing pressures on a showrunner to be a water cooler show in the time of social media, which House kind of bridged in many ways?

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Yeah, I kind of don't know what to say. I gotta, I don't have good answers. And I think that's a very good question. I don't think I have good answers. I think you're 100% right that the world is different, the landscape is different, the the the pressure to be relevant on social media. I I like to think doesn't matter. I I like I I have this feeling that they're pushing us to get social media, social media, social media as an excuse for them to not actually advertise the show and to for them to be able to save money that way. But I think that is somewhat self-serving from a guy who really doesn't have a huge interest in social media. Um it is the the landscape has absolutely changed. The the audience is much more diffuse. You that's good and bad, but um you um you can stay on the air on the network with a much smaller audience, but you do you just have to beat your competitors, is the irony, you know. Um you don't actually, there's no threshold number. It's just uh you don't have to outrun the bear, you have to outrun your buddy, you know.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Um we we we've been having these conversations on the show that I'm on too about sort of eyeballs, social media. We've been having all the same conversations about cast being able to promote the shows through social media. Uh, this is just sort of a general landscape question because we're talking about though, as a showrunner, as someone who hires cast and writers and directors, are you getting, you know, is there any pressure to have get people involved who are those self-advertisers who have profiles that are big that can push out uh content for you? Or is it like that's not what makes a good TV show? What makes a good TV show is everything that's always made a good TV show, and we got to ignore all those other things?

SPEAKER_03 21:50

Um basically the latter. Every now and again, something will come up and say so and so wants to do the show. This could this could be really talked about.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

social media it's but that's uh pretty rare it's it's never been it's pretty rare it's pretty rare for them but it does happen so can we talk about just a bit of I guess leadership because we we've talked a lot about on this show over the episodes we have a lot of showrunners on and a lot of people sort of say that you know the skill set required for a showrunner is very broad plus no one really gives you sort of official training for it and so on. When you obviously you were in rooms before you went up to the top level are there things that you saw along the way that you a thought I'm when I when it's my turn I'm definitely going to do it like this and more interestingly probably you saw things done by people where you're like well if I ever get to the top I'm definitely not going to do versions of this obviously no names but as you got there and then when you got to the top were you able to do the things you thought you would do when you got there and not do the things you tried to avoid oh um I've always hated the room I I just want to write I just want to be on my own I I recognize the value of the room I I think I I'm gonna state this state this very starkly and it's not as simple as I'm stating it but I think there's only one skill that matters in a writer in a showrunner and that's writing it's as I said it's not that simple but in network TV you got to deliver 20 scripts a year and you are responsible for all of them and you want a writing staff that can that can help you get there but ultimately every single script is your responsibility um and I I've got a great staff and I have no tolerance for assholes and I've got great people that help me and I've always had that but my job the showrunner's job is to you hopefully have a staff that gets you 95% of the way there but that 5% can be huge and it can be very significant.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

And it doesn't matter what percentage they get you there, they're not going to get you 100% there and nothing matters except you getting the show 100% there in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

Noah you should respond to this as someone in the room yeah no I I I I was I'm sort of mulling over the the question about management because it's you know we have we've we've had showrunners talk about management and how unprepared they were to manage. And I've worked with so many showrunners both both good and bad and I think you're right at the end of the day the writing is the most important do you have to remind yourself that because you you know your day could get sucked into not saying HR but people management and crew management.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

Oh it drives me crazy. I always feel like I am playing hooky when I'm doing anything other than the writing or the rewriting or or noting um if I'm in casting if I'm in editing and all that stuff's important but I know I've got 10 hours of writing to do in a given day or whatever. I'm exaggerating to for self-aggrandizement purposes. So if I've got five hours of other stuff I've got a 15 hour day and if I've got half an hour of the other stuff then I've got a manageable day. And the rest of the stuff is stuff that I can hopefully delegate. The rest of the stuff is stuff that somebody else can hopefully take I just I don't want to be making wardrobe decisions. All that stuff is important. All that stuff is important to implement the vision but it's you are just not going to get well if you've got a mediocre script your best you're gonna have is a mediocre episode no matter how everybody does their job. The other thing the other little confession here is if if an episode comes out mediocre and I and you work very hard to not have that happen. If it comes out mediocre because the director screwed up or because wardrobe screwed up or because casting screwed up I can live with myself if it's mediocre because the script wasn't very good that is much tougher for me.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

So probably slightly unfairly I'm gonna ask the question let's just say house because keep it in one place.

SPEAKER_03 26:31

So house big success of all of the episodes of house given with time looking back how many of them do you think were only mediocre and based on what you've just said either because of you or not because of you as a split um I don't really I haven't watched too many of them much and maybe time has softened things because I and when I do catch them on TV I enough time has gone by that I'm going oh that's pretty good. That's not bad. Yeah I'm kind of happy with that which is nice. My first job was due south and it was Paul Haggins I remember him saying to me if you get 20 you know because back then we were doing 24 episodes in a year and I'm saying if there's eight you're really happy with an eight you're okay with an eight you hate that's not a terrible year. My ratio is not that at all and maybe that's why I why I've been miserable for years. I I'm maybe that's why I'm working too hard. I I like to think there were very very few episodes of House or the good doctor that I am not very happy with.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

Does does these good episodes can they exist in a vacuum for you? I mean I'm finding that on my show the episodes that we all think are good episodes are actually the episodes that everyone tends to really like like it's all the way we we followed it from the beginning it was a good script and the cast did a good great job and they shot the hell out of it and then people like it. Is there ever a situation where you wrote what you thought was a great episode and and it just I don't think it fell flat because again good doctor and house are huge success you have lots of people watching and commenting but like maybe didn't get the response you wanted or just sort of fell into the quiet middle episodes where people weren't talking about it as much and you're like that was an amazing episode all around you know as opposed to like a finale or a premiere or you know something the press is really focusing on yeah um it's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

Um not everything about me is healthy. One of the things that is probably healthy about me is I'm very good at forgetting things and moving on after I'm done with them. I can't name one I I genuinely can't I mean I'm not sure I would tell you now if I could but but I know that is true. I know what you're describing I experienced. I can't give you the specifics I can't remember when but I know I have been very excited about a script and then it hasn't come together quite the way I wanted it to um on on a handful occasions. It's it is rare though though because when you do have a special script the director tends to get a little more excited about that one and the crew tends to get a little more excited about it and the cast gets a little more excited about it. Not that's not always a good thing. Sometimes that's a little too excited and and it becomes different. I I know on house once or twice a year we would do kind of departure type episodes and people would get really excited about those and the audience would too and I think people got too excited about particularly the writers they would constantly want to do those and in order to do a departure episode you need to have established the roadway. And so I the standard episode I was incredibly grateful for the ones that were just very very standard but very very good.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Those were my favorites kind of so I mean you said you commented from the very beginning of this from how the the very first episode of House you wrote that kind of on a Monday they started to make it and you know you felt like it was something special. There is something interesting about a script that feels special from the very beginning and and goes all the way through to being a special episode I guess something equally disheartening about a script that you feel is special and it doesn't actually get to where you're going. But um and I get I could talk I can get to the weeds with you all day about this but this unfortunately you know is leading us to our final question that we that we ask every single person that comes on here. And if you had one piece of advice that you could give an aspiring TV writer who's just getting into the business uh what would it be?

SPEAKER_03 30:52

It's what I've already said um it's all about nothing matters but the writing they will forgive you any yeah that's not true anymore nor should it be true. I'm not talking about really egregious behavior or egregious behavior generally I'm talking about you know if you don't know what your lenses are if you don't know if if you don't know anything if you are a good writer you will do fine. If you write nothing matters but the script and you have to understand your script and understand your episode nothing matters but that um I it's so simple and yet it's of course not I mean everybody gets excited about all the other stuff but uh you know if somebody's no good on the set but a great but writes a great script they're gonna stay on my show forever if somebody doesn't know editing if somebody doesn't know casting I mean all those things are wonderful and good and useful if you become a showrunner which hopefully you will so you should pay attention to that stuff. But even when you become a showrunner if you're delivering good script after good script after good script they will find people to help you with the rest of it super I I expect here's the story I expected to tell during this okay if you because you because I feel like I haven't given you any failures. And I was I I had come off another CBS show which nobody remembers went for three years called Family Law and CBS loved me even though they canceled the show apparently and CBS kind of forced the producers to hire me. It was the best negotiating position I've been in in my life forced the producers to hire me and I I I did well and then six months later CBS hates me and the producers like me. And I it was it was a miserable experience. They want here this is the thing you have to maybe this should have been the advice if the network and studio are doing the same show you are it'll be okay and your star too and that's not always the case you are very frequently trying to do a different show than your star wants to do and even more frequently a different show than your studio or your network wants to do they want something softer or harder or whatever it is. And um I remember and uh and CBS wanted I don't know if you remember the show hack it was David Morris and Andre Brower and and I was brought in to run it. David Kepp had written the pilot I was brought in to run it and and it was it was kind it was a it was a very it was kind of a broad concept but it was dark at the same time and then CBS kind of told me they wanted to do touched by a cabbie and that's not what I wanted to do. That they did say that somebody said that um and I remember I handed in my first script and I got a lot of notes and then I handed my second I was very look I'm very aware of the fact that I'm playing with their money. It's it's their series they own the series I can leave and I and when they hire me they're getting a product and they can't expect that product be something different than what it is but they're entitled to do it without me obviously um but I so I try very hard to please both of us I try very hard to find that middle ground where they're happy but I'm happy I think it's a big mistake to just make them happy because they don't actually know what they want I don't think you you should have a vision for your show and you should be working very hard to fulfill that vision. And if they get that I'm covering a lot of territory if they get that they will like you even though they don't like that they don't think that way but they will feel more comfortable if they know that you have a vision um but they wanted the show this one direction and I thought I was finding this happy medium and then they called me up and I was like you didn't make as many changes as I as we expected and I went I don't know why you expected more but um I really thought I was meeting them I thought I was making them happy and I just wasn't and I'm the show runner on the show. And then we we were filming in Philadelphia and we didn't have a directing producer and so on this is going on for months and months months and months and I'm just miserable I'm just absolutely miserable and I remember driving to work thinking can I just quit and I decided I can't I can't I made a commitment. I took on a responsibility and the job's making me miserable but I took on a responsibility I have to live up to it. And then I get to work and I get a phone call from the network saying we hired a directing producer in Philadelphia and I said that's great that's great we needed somebody um I'm happy we hired somebody I'm a little confused by why you hired the person without consulting with me and there was a silence I went unless of course there was no need to consult with me um and I wasn't getting fired but I was clearly no longer the showrunner they I was answerable to this person now. And we think you're gonna get along great we think you're gonna get along great and I'm going but let's say we don't get along great what happens then no your visions are good. No just so um I said I got to think about this it's a tough decision but the more I thought about it the more I realized it's not a tough decision. I had wanted to quit and was only staying because I felt an obligation and suddenly they just lifted that obligation because um I can memorise showrunner um that was and the I had taken that job I it was you know when it wasn't a bad show I and it was a good show and I liked David Morrison I like Andre Brown and I like I've liked the show but I had basically taken the show because because of the money and because CBS loved me and so it was it was very flattering to my ego. But what I had wanted to do was do my own show. I'd come off somebody else's show that I had executive produced at the end and I wanted to do my own show and instead I did hack uh which we had you know I remember walking the office one day and hearing my assistant answer the phone hack writer's office which we then caps with hack writer on it but I took it for that reason and I but I had wanted to do my own show. And so the next year I didn't take a job and instead did my own show and that was house so it it worked out.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

Fantastic wraps it up very nicely that that's that's exactly the whole point of the podcast a adversity stroke failure led to your biggest success. And also I'm very pleased we've reached a stage of this podcast where if we don't ask a good question our guests will now just give an answer a brilliant answer to a question we haven't asked which makes his job a lot easier. So thank you very much for that David and also um so it's a bit of a joke between Noah and I but I I often haven't watched the shows that our guests have made but we watched a lot of House so thank you for everything you taught me about lupus um I think I need to come up at least once every uh every season um but thank you very much for being part of our podcast it's uh been fascinating to hear your story so thank you it was my pleasure thank you very much thank you so much David and I loved how your answer segued from giving advice to an aspiring writer to giving advice to showrunner level writers you know make sure you have your vision and you stay true to it. Thanks again thank you thank you thank you for listening to another one of our fantastic episodes yet again I think you'll find that I ask better questions than Noah. Noah have you got anything to say?

SPEAKER_02 39:17

As always uh since you've done most of the talking I'm just gonna sit here quietly again. Surely there's some people to thank all right right right right uh I would love to thank James Launch for doing all of our outro music. As always I think we owe a big thank you to both of our wives who support us through this endeavor that started in our basement and seems to be ever growing and if you want to reach out to either Dan or I I am at atnebsilin on Twitter. I'm not sure Dan has a Twitter account. Dan do you have a Twitter account?

SPEAKER_00 39:48

I mean I I do but no one cares all I care about is being on Noah's podcast so well done Noah for conceiving producing editing writing and asking the best questions of the two of us because you've done all this work and well done you