In television, the 60-minute series, 'The Wire' and 'Mad Men' and so on, the writer is the primary creative artist.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'm consistently blown away by 'Mad Men.' Having spent so much time in the writers' room, I'm cursed in that anytime I watch something, I'm always calculating what the writers are up to.
I don't usually watch a lot of TV, but 'Mad Men' changed my perspective. I admire Matthew Weiner who came up with the idea and wrote such a great TV series, and the broadcasting company for being bold enough to air such a series.
'Mad Men' still lives in my life as the best job that I've ever had because I thought the character was genius. It was so well-written.
I guess working on 'Mad Men' turned me onto AMC and really got me watching the network, and so with that I got a good idea of the type of show they like to produce.
'The Wire' really drew on a lot of real-life situations and real-life organizations - it created fiction to make a social statement about reality.
What makes 'The Wire' a beautiful story is how true to life it is. In other shows, you have a good guy and a bad guy. In 'The Wire,' bad guys are trying to be good, good guys are doing bad. You have real life. The people who do bad get bad things done to them.
In the industry, I got a lot of attention for 'Mad Men,' because everyone in the industry watches it.
The producers of 'Mad Men,' you know, think I hate their show, which is true.
I think television keeps on being a place where writers can go, and if they're successful, they can have their way, and they can have creative freedom.
'Mad Men' is the greatest example of a perfect cast uniting with a perfect group of writers and creators to create a show that is bold, brutal, and brilliant.