- Going into 2000,
it was a cultural shift for television...
[both grunt]
In terms of the way people reacted to it
and the stories they could tell.
- You start to see the bar
get raised and raised and raised.
- It's an abstract.
- Not abstract enough.
- There's so many opportunities in television.
There's so many platforms.
- I don't think dramatic series television
has ever been stronger.
- I hate you all.
- Go! [traditional woodwind music]
- In the end, what we regret most
are the chances we never took.
[slowly building orchestral music]
♪ ♪
- This is the week when the major broadcast networks
unveil their fall lineup of shows,
and every executive in Hollywood
knows how well "The Sopranos" is doing on cable,
which is a network problem.
- I think HBO altered everything
for this reason alone, is there were no commercials.
- We are dependent on sponsors.
There is so much we can do in terms of language,
in terms of violence, and in terms of sex.
- To a large degree, a lot of executives
were just sanding off the edges of what was interesting.
[static hums]
[bright tone] - I think HBO is
looking at the world and going,
"Okay, how can we matter?"
For quite a long time,
movies and boxing where the bread and butter of HBO.
- People watch your show
because you're partly an asshole.
- And I think what we learned through shows
like "Larry Sanders Show"
or "Oz" is that we could do series television.
- There's something in the air...
and it ain't love.
- "Oz" was cutting-edge
in what it was willing to share with the audience.
- Hit me. Hit me!
[both grunt]
Hit me in the face, brother.
- Complicated characters, complicated issues,
and the way it was presented was so, uh...unique.
- Sentence: nine years. Up for parole in six.
- What they were doing at HBO
was exactly what the network wasn't doing.
They were breaking barriers.
- Innocent. - You get to "The Sopranos,"
and all of a sudden,
the villain is the hero.
- Have some eggplant.
- I told you, I'm not hungry.
- Now you won't even accept food from your own mother.
- "The Sopranos" was David Chase's invention
about this mob family--
something that people hadn't seen before,
the idea that a mobster is seeing a therapist.
- What ever happened to Gary Cooper?
The strong, silent type?
That was an American.
He wasn't in touch with his feelings.
He just did what he had to do.
See--see, what they didn't know was, once they got Gary Cooper
in touch with his feelings,
that they wouldn't be able to shut him up!
And then it's dysfunction this
and dysfunction that and dysfunction va fangoul!
- You have strong feelings about this.
- Every decade, you get somebody like Peter Falk
as Columbo or Carroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker--
somebody you just can't imagine anybody else afterwards.
And James Gandolfini is that in Tony Soprano.
- I think it's supposed to be a mafia story,
but, I mean, it's-- like I said, it's--
- It's also about everyday life.
- Did you know that an Italian invented the telephone?
- Alexander Graham Bell was Italian?
- You see?
You see what I'm talking-- Antonio Meucci
invented the telephone, and he got robbed!
Everybody knows that.
- Who invented the mafia?
- What?
- "The Sopranos" kind of took the mystery
out of being a mobster.
[Steely Dan's "Dirty Work" playing]
- ♪ I'm a fool ♪
♪ To do your dirty work ♪
♪ Oh, yeah ♪
- And it was somehow more mundane
than we guessed it would be and yet every bit as riveting
as "The Godfather."
- You were like a brother to me.
[wood creaking, water lapping]
- To all of us.
- The debate raged at HBO
about whether you could have a guy like this as your lead.
And David Chase was adamant that you have to--
this is who he is. And he was right.
- Can you assure me that Tony Soprano isn't going to become
a sensitive, nurturing, mellowing man?
- Yes. - Oh, good.
[laughs] - [chuckles]
- [giggling]
- [gasping]
Oh, my God.
- Mead, it's all right.
I'll be home in a couple hours. Don't worry.
- I'm graduating tomorrow!
- Carmela was a wife and a mother,
I think first and foremost.
I think as long as she kept going to church, she felt like,
"All right, I've taken care of my soul."
- Where's the rest of the money?
- It's everywhere.
She goes home to her husband who's got blood on him.
You know, there was no way to reconcile the two things.
- Towards the end where their marriage is falling apart...
- I used to fuck your husband.
- You have made a fool of me for years with these whores.
- Her performance in that fight is stunningly good.
- 'Cause she's jealous!
- Hey, hey. - Why, you fuck!
[wails] - [grunts]
- Let go of me! [panting, sobbing]
It mattered to people
what this couple was going through,
and I remember feeling a real sense
of responsibility about that,
and giving the weight to the scene that it deserves.
- What? - [breath hitches]
You know what I don't understand, Tony?
What does she have that I don't have?
- Suddenly, here's this TV show that everyone's talking about,
but you have to pay to watch it.
You know, that's how good "The Sopranos" was:
people were paying just to see that show.
- "The Sopranos" came along
and completely reestablished what the bar was.
I honestly couldn't quite believe
that television was communicating something
that you might only see in the darkest moments
and accurate moments in cinema.
[distant radio chatter]
[mystical drum music]
- You look at the year that "American Beauty"
won the Oscar, which is also the year
that "The Sopranos" debuted,
and almost immediately after that,
the two mediums diverged.
- I know what I must do, but I'm afraid to do it.
[epic music]
- Movies became much more focused
on big tent-pole things that can bring in
as much of an audience as you possibly can.
Meanwhile, TV, which had always been a big-tent medium,
started going smaller and more interior and saying,
"All right, we want to tell stories for grown-ups
"that maybe don't get the biggest audience
but get a really passionate one."
- ♪ I'll be home ♪
♪ For Christmas ♪
- I had an idea of doing a show about death.
- Are you smoking? - Nope.
- Yes, you are. I heard you.
- I'm not--no, I'm not.
- Look, forget you'll give yourself cancer and die
a slow and horrible death.
You should not be stinking up that new hearse.
- I met with Carolyn, and she said,
"I'd like to do a show
about a family that runs a funeral home,"
and something in my head just went, "Click."
I thought, "What a brilliant idea."
- I'm quitting right now. [spits]
I promise. [clears throat]
Okay? I'll see you tonight.
- ♪ I'll ♪
♪ Be home ♪
♪ For Christmas ♪
- Alan Ball comes up with a show
with a perfect structure.
Each episode starts with the death of a character,
and then that character's death
is dealt with in a local family funeral home mortuary.
[distant sobbing and screaming]
[screaming]
- Excuse me.
- This was one of my first--
and maybe it was my first--binge show,
which was long enough ago
that it was all on--somebody had recorded it on VCR.
- Have you been watching Mrs. Romano?
- Yeah.
I've been watching her all night.
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
both: Casket climber.
[gentle piano music]
- [gasps]
- I want to go with you!
- Mrs. Romano, Mrs. Romano! - I want to go with you!
- Whoa, whoa, whoa, Mrs. Romano.
- There's a whole new level of something going on
on television.
It was grittier than most shows you'd ever seen before,
and yet something magical about it.
- I think what our strategy at HBO was,
in terms of audiences:
not everybody has to watch a show...
- [yelps] [percussive music]
- But if we have different shows for different people...
- Taxi! - There is something
that makes you want to come back
and sign up month after month.
Maybe you don't watch "Sex and the City,"
but you watch "Entourage."
[crowd screaming]
There's something for you
to make it worth signing up for HBO
again and again and again.
- Who could have possibly guessed
a show about a bunch of backstabbing people
with body odor on an island off Borneo
would become the TV hit of the summer.
- "Survivor" was really the first truly
competitive reality format.
Go!
[dramatic music]
I started to really understand
what the show was going to be about
the first 20 minutes into day one.
- Let's see what we got. All right, before we
make any decisions, let's see what we got.
- Should we check the box and see if it's...
- There might be a blowtorch in there.
- Oh, we need a bathroom.
- Are you guys all done talking?
- Huh? - Richard Hatch was sitting
in a tree,
lecturing about what they should do as their group.
- Nobody's working toward
a particular goal--
not the silly little stuff
about, "Oh, who's gonna sleep where?
What are we gonna do?" but, "Why are we here?"
- And underneath him was this woman,
Sue Hawk, a truck driver.
- I'm a redneck, and I don't know corporate world at all,
And corporate world
ain't gonna work out here in the bush.
- That was the show.
- He walks around naked quite a bit.
I think it probably bugs some of the guys.
- Whatever it takes to win here is the point.
It's a game, and call it Machiavellian, sure.
- We had no idea that Richard Hatch
would be the best thing to ever happen to "Survivor."
[traditional woodwind music] [cheers]
- All around the country,
people were on the edge of their seats,
waiting for the final vote to be announced.
- The winner of the first "Survivor" competition is...
[tense music]
[all cheering]
- "Survivor" sort of legitimized the genre.
[upbeat music]
Simon Fuller came into my office,
and his vision was one long audition.
- ♪ Like a virgin ♪
♪ Touched for the very first time ♪
- I've never, ever heard anything like that in my life.
- ♪ She bangs! She bangs! ♪
- Thank you. - ♪ I'm wasted by the way-- ♪
- Thank you. - [scatting]
[laughter] - What was that?
And that is what you think we're looking for?
- The network was saying,
"We don't think we can put Simon on the promos."
- No, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no.
- "He'll scare little girls,
and we think that's our audience."
- That's one of the worst auditions
I've ever heard in my life.
- I'm like, "Well, that's the whole show,"
so, you know, without him, it's not gonna work,"
and it was a big fight internally.
And of course we got him on,
and of course that is what sparked the show.
[cheers and applause]
- Well, here they are.
The judges have made their choices.
Now, America, it's all up to you.
- "American Idol" reunited the family audience
in front of the TV.
- ♪ R-E-S-P-E-C-T ♪
♪ Find out what it means to me ♪
- 9-year-olds to 90-year-olds
could root for somebody on "American Idol."
It's not like it hadn't been done before, but the way that
the producers of these shows could manipulate drama,
the way they could find stories,
that was the core of making those shows successful.
- This is the weakest romance I've ever seen.
[laughter]
This romance is pathetic.
Was there a romance?
- Well, I think we just decided
we were meant to be very close friends.
- Very close friends. That's right.
- Good. I've had some very close friends too.
- Yeah, me too. [laughter]
Me too. - It's cost me a lot of money.
I'll tell you that.
[laughter and applause]
- "The Apprentice" has its lasting effect even today.
Donald Trump becomes a star...
- You're fired.
- All of it kind of reality-show fake.
People who worked on it have come forward and said,
"You know, we kind of made the whole thing up."
And yet it sells.
- And then there's just this explosion.
[rock music]
- You interested in tattoos?
Weight loss?
Plastic surgery?
- Breast augmentation, tummy tuck,
facial surgery.
- [laughing] I don't look like me! Oh, my...
- Hoarders?
Substance abuse?
Flipping your house? That's a big one.
Like, there's literally a reality show
for everyone now.
- The networks would be out of business without reality TV.
If you have to fill 40 hours of television
with scripted shows,
it costs you an arm and a leg.
You'll be out of business, because those scripted shows
most likely will do no better
and probably worse than the reality show did.
- Oh, Josh! [cheers and applause]
- Bravo starts doing things
aimed at gay viewers and women,
and so, you know, you have,
like, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy"...
- Bad taste kills. - And "Project Runway."
- This is a search for the next big fashion designer.
- "Project Runway" was not an instantaneous hit.
We sort of had this crisis where, like,
"Is anyone gonna want to sit around watching people sew?"
- I am feeling the race against time now, yes.
- Bravo played, like, three or four episodes
over the Christmas holidays,
and all of a sudden,
it just caught on like wildfire.
- Make it work.
- People have come into "Runway" and "Top Chef,"
and they know that this can change their lives.
- One of you is about to win the title of Top Chef.
- Rock and roll!
- MTV had "The Osbournes," and it was fun,
because, you know, the whole idea of,
you know, the guy who bit the heads off of bats,
you know, being domestic,
and his wife and his teenage kids...
- Please don't go out and get drunk or get stoned tonight.
- That sort of sparks this movement of,
"We can put celebrities on TV
and just let them do what they do."
- I've always heard that people hang out at Walmart.
- Why? - I don't know.
- What is Walmart?
[twangy guitar pluck, crickets chirp]
- Of course, that reaches its peak--or nadir,
depending on your opinion-- with the Kardashians.
- I hate you all.
[rock music]
Welcome to my family.
- There's something about watching someone
who's maybe slightly like yourself but more obnoxious...
- You're so evil. - There's a lot of baggage
that comes with us,
but it's like Louis Vuitton baggage.
You always want it.
- Or they're, you know, more of a disaster.
- Prostitution whore.
You were [bleep] engaged 19 times?
You [bleep] stupid bitch! [bleep]!
[shouting indistinctly]
[screaming]
You [bleep] bitch! - Stop. Teresa, stop.
- [bleep] whore! - Stop.
- There's something about watching that and going,
"Yeah, God, at least I'm not that."
[all shouting]
- I look over, and I see, like,
hair being pulled and all this [bleep].
I'm like, oh, my God, like, how do I get in?
- I used to get the critics asking me about,
"Well, why are people watching that reality show?"
I'm like, "Well, why are they watching the show?
'Cause they're entertained."
You are never going to meet someone
that's gonna say to you, "You know,
"I was watching 'The Bachelor' last night.
I loved it, but I wish I was watching a great drama."
- Karen... - I thought you'd never ask.
[laughter]
- You don't need to call it a guilty pleasure.
Just call it a pleasure.
It's something you love watching.
It could be a reality show, it could be a drama,
it could be a sitcom, it could be a documentary.
Whatever it is, you know,
I think great TV comes in many forms.
- I don't want to mess this up again.
- No, me neither, okay.
We are--we're done being stupid.
- Okay.
It's you and me, all right? This is it.
- This is it.
Unless we're on a break.
[audience laughter]
Don't make jokes now.
- By the time "Frasier" and "Friends" went off the air,
there was a feeling among the networks
that the multi-camera format
filmed in front of a live studio audience...
- So I guess this is it.
- Was getting kind of tired
and getting kind of stale.
- You guys play the most important part:
the live studio audience!
- Now, there is no form of television
that makes as much money for the networks
as multi-camera TV shows.
- Oh, Raymond! - Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom--
- Oh, my sweet Raymond! - [wailing] Mom!
- We write a four-camera show,
we write it, direct it, and perform it and rehearse it
like a play in front of a studio audience.
When someone gets a laugh on that stage,
they actually hold,
as you do not in real life, as you do not in single-camera.
You are holding for that laugh.
- Oh... [audience laughter]
- It's an abstract. - Not abstract enough.
- [chuckles]
You've done an amazing job.
- It looks like something, though.
What does it look like?
[audience laughter]
- You can get close. You can even touch it.
- I'm fine.
- We started studying what Phil Rosenthal
was doing with "Raymond," and he was embracing
the very best of what the genre could do,
which was interesting characters.
He provided me with a very, very loud reminder
that I didn't need to fix anything.
I didn't need to knock any boundaries or walls over.
I just needed to embrace what was there.
- ♪ Men, men, men, men, manly men, men, men ♪
- I had been in so many shows that had failed spectacularly
that I became known as the show killer.
- ♪ Men, men, men, men, manly men ♪
- And that's not a great thing
to be known as in show business.
- [vocalizing sweetly] both: ♪ Men, men, men, men ♪
- On the sly, I had him come in and read for me...
- [vocalizing] both: ♪ Men ♪
- And he was brilliant.
- How much is a hooker? - What?
Alan, what are you gonna do with a hooker?
- Well, I'd like to pay her to have sex with me.
- How much you looking to spend?
- Well, as you know, I am a bit of a bargain hunter.
- Yeah, but unfortunately, they don't stock hookers
at the 99¢ store. Give me a number.
- Okay, well, what could I get in the $200 range?
- Crabs...
and carjacked.
- I have an enormous sense of pride
to have done a multi-camera sitcom
that people really took to their hearts for 12 years.
- Okay, let's start in first position.
Jake, do you know first position?
- Is that like missionary position?
- I mean, that was the longest that a sitcom had been
on broadcast television
in the history of broadcast television at the time.
I think "Big Bang" is gonna beat it,
but still, that's amazing.
- Two people talking is the essence
of a four-camera sitcom.
Lighting is not really an issue.
There's no music that's gonna help the material.
- Checkmate. - [groans]
- There's no special effects. - Again?
- It's hopefully good words with good actors.
- It must be humbling to suck on so many different levels.
- "Big Bang" had this weird hurdle, it seemed,
of not only are you fighting the natural fight
that every show does about getting an audience,
trying to stay on the air, and keep your job,
yada-yada...
- Make way for the fastest man alive!
Oh, no!
- See, this is why I wanted to have a costume meeting.
But then there was also this weird wave
of energy coming like,
"You're in a genre that's passé," that,
"We're done with this.
We don't want to see this anymore."
- And the Emmy goes to...
- Jim Parsons, "The Big Bang Theory."
- Obviously we didn't go away,
and I believe very strongly that the multi-cam,
the way they're shot in front of the studio audience,
you hear the other people laughing...
I think it ignites something that's innate in all of us,
that's very primal, almost,
which is that desire to gather as a group and hear a story.
- Uh, hey, Lorne, look.
Live from New York, it's Saturday night!
- Every generation has their favorite
"Saturday Night Live," and it's usually the one
that was on when they were in high school.
So the people that were in high school
during the 2000s won the jackpot.
- It's true, you're so beautiful.
[smooching and talking rapidly] - Saying you're beautiful.
Why don't you look in the mirror sometime?
You should look in the mirror. You're beautiful too.
[both smooching]
- Because over the course of that decade,
you see some of the most extraordinary people
come through that show.
- We should mention that
although the waters above appear calm,
below the surface, there is a frenzy of activity.
- One of the hallmarks of "SNL"
is you need somebody to play the president,
and Will's W. was stellar.
- He went this way. - Will Ferrell's George Bush
was sort of a lovable dummy.
- How about a Lifesaver here? - Okay, yeah, that'd be nice.
- That a good idea? - Yeah.
- There you go. - While you're at it,
can I get those antlers too? - Yeah, all right.
There you go, son. - Yeah, I like these.
[antlers clicking] - No.
- And of course "more cowbell"
was also a Will Ferrell high point.
- ♪ All our times have come ♪
- "Cowbell" was fantastic,
not only because it's a great concept
but because Will really gets to be Will.
- The last time I checked, we don't have
a whole lot of songs that feature the cowbell.
- I got to have more cowbell, baby.
- And I'd be doing myself a disservice
and every member of this band
if I didn't perform the hell out of this!
- "SNL" in the 2000s is also a great time for women.
- It's my birthday!
- Because there is a strong group of women
that play off each other really well.
- What are you, part Indian? - You Cherokee?
- Look at those cheekbones.
What are you, Sioux? You Sioux? Got Sioux in you?
- Wait, you--you Chippewa?
- Yeah, you got a little Sioux? - Sioux?
- I believe that diplomacy should be the cornerstone
of any foreign policy.
- And I can see Russia from my house.
- ♪ I like waterfalls ♪
- ♪ I like butterflies ♪
- ♪ I like rainbows ♪
- ♪ I like chasing cars ♪
- You are seeing creativity...
and wacky left-field things
that you wouldn't have seen before.
- ♪ One ♪
- ♪ Cut a hole in a box ♪
- ♪ Two ♪
- ♪ Put your junk in that box ♪
- ♪ Three ♪
- ♪ Make her open the box ♪
both: ♪ And that's the way you do it ♪
♪ It's my [bleep] in a box ♪
- Welcome to fucking Deadwood.
[unsettling music]
- David Milch said,
"I have a great idea about ancient Rome."
- Uh, cops in ancient Rome at the time of Nero.
- And we're like, "Okay, just T.O., T.O., T.O.,"
because we're already doing this show about Rome.
- Thieves will be strangled. [whip cracking]
Deserters will be crucified.
- David basically took the underlying theme
of his Rome show and put it in Deadwood.
- No law at all in Deadwood.
Is that true?
- At the time of Nero, there was a lot of order
and no law, and Deadwood was a similar environment.
- Maybe you don't value keeping your fucking guts
inside your belly enough.
- Those are the days behind us. - No.
Those are the days to my fucking left.
- Ian McShane's character, Al Swearengen,
just steals the show,
just lock, stock, and barrel, away from everybody else.
[slow ragtime music]
You kind of want to go
in that saloon of his and have a drink
and try to engage him in conversation,
but then you think to yourself,
"That'd be a good idea. If I say something wrong,
am I gonna get my guts cut out with a Bowie knife?"
He's a fascinating character in that he scares you
and he attracts you at the same time.
That's kind of a rare thing.
- Can we see your fangs?
- Our old step-daddy hated vampires...
but we don't.
- I think that "True Blood" was an enjoyable beach read...
- Suck it.
- With blood all over it.
- [gasps, pants]
- You'd say, "Well, it wasn't meant to be taken seriously,
it wasn't taking itself seriously,"
except it was such a big allegory
for what was going on with the gay community,
with AIDS,
with political backlash.
- You use your tax-exempt religious institution
as an anti-vampire terrorist enclave.
- This is like, there's monsters all over,
- [hissing]
- But the scariest,
most deadly characters in the whole show
are the human beings.
[mysterious music]
[slap]
Showtime looked at Tony Soprano,
and they said, "You want an antihero?
How about a mass murderer who's the hero of our show?"
- "Dexter" is based on a series of novels
about a blood spatter expert who worked for the Miami PD
who is secretly a serial killer.
- Soon...
you'll be packed into
a few... - [whimpers]
- Neatly wrapped Heftys.
And my own small corner of the world...
will be a neater, happier place.
- He was raised by a policeman to channel
his sociopathic impulses to only kill other killers.
So he is a bad guy but also a good guy.
- The idea of the show is that you're invited
to identify with and maybe even root for
a serial killer. - That's right.
- He kills horrible people.
If I were just killing people willy-nilly,
I think all bets would be off.
- Yeah, that's--
where is the fun in that? - Yeah.
- In the 2000s,
the antihero really rose to prominence.
- [laughing] That's a fucking BB gun.
My nephew got the same one. Hey, don't point that there.
- This dick does nice work.
I'd hate to see it full of holes.
- And I think they were popular
because they were surprising.
- I told Pete...
[dramatic music]
to have you killed.
- And usually these antiheroes
had something about them
that was sympathetic.
It was a time in our world
where there was just so much confusion
and mixed signals
that I think people responded to characters
who dealt with similar issues.
♪ ♪
- [chokes] - All right, you're all right.
Sure, take my last one.
This'll help.
- Is this cab free?
- Are you fucking nuts?
- Oh!
- I have heard Nurse Jackie
referred to as an antihero.
She was at the mercy of her addiction
that always got her fullest attention.
What are you looking at?
But beyond that, I think she really cared
that there wasn't money in the budget
for extra blankets for someone who came in off the street,
and she would go and steal it from another department.
She really wanted to be a good nurse,
and she wanted to be married, and she wanted these kids,
and she wanted to be a good wife and mother.
- Why do you always have to work?
- Yeah. - And there was no way
she could do all of them. - Mommy!
- Edie Falco, for me, can do no wrong.
Here she is as the female antihero
that has her own show,
and she's the one whose morals are questionable...
- My back, my back, my back.
- Oh, Jesus. - She's having an affair.
She's stealing drugs and...
"Is she an unfit mother?" and all those things,
and yet you feel for her,
so I love that women now
get to be the antihero
and not just either the villain
or the good girl.
[ethereal vocalizing]
- The very interesting statistic:
people, their favorite shows, be it "CSI," be it "ER,"
the most faithful fan
still only watches that show two out of four weeks.
- At the time, there was just a general fear and anxiety,
and they had the data to back it up,
that shows that became increasingly serialized
would lose viewership over time.
- Lex, don't!
- Because if the audience misses an episode,
then they would be inclined to stop watching it
because they would feel like,
"I missed one and now I don't know what's happening."
[dramatic music]
- There had been amazing shows that had been sterilized.
They never had syndication value
because you couldn't revisit them,
but there's almost no better hook.
It's like a book you can't turn down, like,
"Okay, I'm just gonna watch a little bit more."
[dramatic music]
- "24" was set to debut in November of 2001.
The pilot climaxes with an assassin blowing up
a passenger jet in midair.
[explosion booms, people screaming]
Fox orders this. Fox schedules it.
9/11 happens.
[explosion booms]
Suddenly this show, which seemed like this goofy
thing about Kiefer Sutherland
chasing after Middle Eastern extremist terrorists
becomes the most timely show on television
because that is all that anyone in America
can talk about after September 11th.
- [grunts]
♪ ♪
- The name for the series comes from the idea
that it's 24 episodes in a season.
Each episode is one hour in a day,
and Jack Bauer just has the worst days.
- We are running out of time!
Pull the trigger! - Please don't make me do this.
- Chloe, I know how hard this is for you,
but if you care about me at all,
you will pull the trigger. Do it.
- I'm sorry, I can't. - Chloe, pull the trigger!
- No, Jack! - Pull the trigger!
- I'm not gonna do it. - Damn you!
- [screams]
- The commercial breaks in that show were almost welcome
so that you could catch your breath.
- "24" was really the first binge show
if you think about it.
There were a lot of people in the later years of "24"
that would only buy the DVDs.
- You think he'll come after you?
- Yes. - And a lot of the subtleties
and complexities that the storytellers
had been doing, you'd say, "My God,
"this is blowing my mind.
"I can see it now 'cause
I just watched three in a row."
- I think "Lost" is the first
huge cinematic TV show I saw.
I remember gathering at a friend's house to watch,
and it was long enough ago
and the internet was still young enough
and social media was-- I mean, not--
it was, what, Friendster?
- JJ Abrams' ambition for the "Lost" pilot was grandiose.
He always talked about it as making a movie every week.
I think when we say the word "cinematic,"
what we really mean is opening it up a little bit more,
but also, the ambition of an action set piece.
- Move! Move! - JJ was very aggressive.
He was like, "If you want me to do this pilot,
you're gonna need to give me
"the resource in order to do it,
"and I want to shoot it as a movie,
and then we've got to keep that bar up."
[explosion booms, people screaming]
- You start off, you think, "Yeah, all right, well,
"this is just a survival drama.
"Here's these people, their plane has crashed.
"How are they gonna get by?
How are they gonna find food, et cetera?"
- We hunt.
- And on top of that, there's this whole mystery:
"Where are we, why can't we get a rescue signal,
why is there a polar bear,
what is going on here?"
- The show averages more than 15 1/2 million viewers
each week and spawned countless web locations
where millions of avid fans can obsess.
- The fan base is saying, "When are you going to answer
these mysteries?"
Personally, I started feeling hamstrung,
story-wise, almost instantly,
because we had to do 25 hours of "Lost" in the first season.
- Hey! - So we started communicating
to ABC,
"We're gonna run out of flashback stories."
[electricity zaps]
[machine beeping]
- Call it, Jack.
- You call it.
- And ABC was adamant in saying,
"No," like, "the show is a hit show.
"People love the flashbacks. Don't worry.
You guys are great at it. Just keep it up."
- You okay, freckles?
- At the beginning of the third season of the show,
we had our characters locked in cages,
and I think looking back on it now, Damon and I are like,
"Well, I think that's metaphorically how we felt.
We felt we were locked in cages."
- Around halfway through the third season, ABC says,
"Okay, we will let you end the show,"
and we're like, "Yes, thank God,"
and they said, "After ten seasons."
[idyllic music]
- "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" launched the same year.
It really was a huge boost for the network.
They had two shows that everybody was talking about.
- In truth, I spent the day as I spent every other day:
quietly polishing the routine of my life
until it gleamed with perfection.
- I had a lot to say about women
who go into the iconic roles of wife and mother
and are unfulfilled.
[tense music]
[gunshot]
- I think the good news it brought
is women who are not perfect,
who are not young, are viable.
And the fan base was amazing.
And the--you know, there were T-shirts--
I remember going into a store, and there was, "I am Lynette."
- Are you saying I'm a bad mother?
- Ma'am, you need to get back in your car, please.
- "I am Gabby."
[lively Latin music]
"I am Susan." - [gasps] Oh!
- "I am Bree." - Are you at a bar?
- Shake it, baby.
- We stood on the shoulders of those
who came before--you know, strong women characters
in television--but in the wake of "Desperate Housewives,"
a lot more shows with older women came on the air.
- Uh, what you doing?
- Locked myself out, naked.
- Oh. - And then I fell.
So how are you?
- While it's tempting to play it safe,
the more we're willing to risk, the more alive we are.
In the end...
what we regret most are the chances we never took.
- There's an old showbiz axiom:
you got to get off the stage before somebody says,
"Hey, you should get off the stage."
- ♪ All, all that you dream ♪
♪ Comes to shine ♪
♪ In silver lining and clouds ♪
- Endings are hard in general,
and I think "The Sopranos"
was able to accomplish this thing
that everybody in television is always trying to accomplish,
which is do something that no one has ever seen before.
[bell dings]
[Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'"]
[uplifting classic rock]
- Tony is meeting the family at a restaurant,
and we're listening to a Journey song
and watching as, one by one, the family members come in,
and there's these sinister people lurking around.
- ♪ Strangers, waiting ♪
- You were wondering, "Is Tony gonna survive this?
"Was Tony gonna be shot?
What was gonna happen?"
[engine splutters]
- Shit.
- You're cutting to Meadow parking her car,
you know, all these things that are completely normal,
but they're imbued with this dread.
- ♪ Don't stop believing ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Hold on to that feeling ♪
- Nothing is happening. They're enjoying a family meal
and listening to Journey.
- ♪ People, oh-oh-oh ♪
- And it's building, and it's building.
- ♪ Oh ♪
[bell dings] ♪ Don't stop ♪
[silence]
- The long black, in which everybody said,
"Did I just lose my HBO signal?
What's going on there?"
I actually thought was kind of like the chord
at the end of "Sergeant Pepper"
in which nine pianos just hit this long, long major "bong,"
and it goes on and on and on and on and on and on
and on and on and on and on and on.
That black was sort of like
what the series needed in order to communicate
the fact that it is now officially over.
- As for "Sopranos" creator David Chase,
he got whacked in the headlines,
he got whacked by the "New York Post" cartoonist
who showed fans getting whacked,
and Chase literally got whacked online.
- Three or four days later, Carlton and I were in New York
talking to a couple of television critics
about how amazing it was,
and they were like, "Oh, you know,
there's a lot of controversy about the 'Sopranos' finale,"
and we were like, "What?" They were like,
"Oh, yeah, some people just absolutely hate it.
"Like, the whole cut to black, it's pretentious,
"nobody knows what it means, they're all discussing
whether Tony is alive or dead," and we were like, "What?
Those are all the things that make it brilliant!"
And right then, we realized that we're completely
and totally fucked.
[slow string music]
♪ ♪
- [chuckles wryly]
If you've been fortunate enough to be successful,
they've gone along for a long ride with you,
and the viewer has a through-line
for every character and the show
that you could never possibly have.
[tranquil music]
- You know I love you, right?
More than anything.
- Of course, honey.
- So it is a fool's errand
to try and please anyone but yourself
when you're writing a series finale.
- Finales have become increasingly more important.
You know, if you don't do a really good finale
to a really good series,
the series can sort of lose its luster.
But "Six Feet Under" comes up with a perfect ending,
and the show is actually even enhanced a little bit.
- The end of "Six Feet Under"
has the daughter just driving away in the car,
and music starts to play.
Its Sia's "Breathe Me."
[emotional piano music]
And she looks up in the rearview mirror,
so she's looking backwards,
but then the show looks ahead.
♪ ♪
- [sobbing]
- ♪ Ouch, I have lost myself ♪
♪ Again ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Lost ♪
♪ Myself and I am ♪
♪ Nowhere to be found ♪
- That season ended, and everybody died,
and I thought it was brilliant.
[stirring music]
- The work on TV is as good
as any work that's on a big screen,
and so that hierarchy of film and television, I think,
has been changed dramatically...
♪ ♪
Partially because of the great work
that people did at HBO
and also because of the work
they did at a lot of other places.
all: No! - What?
- Oh, yeah, you can't sit there.
- Why not? - That's where Sheldon sits.
- He can't sit somewhere else?
- Oh, no. No, you see, in the winter,
that seat is close enough to the radiator
so that he's warm, yet not so close that he sweats.
In the summer, it's directly in the path of a cross breeze
created by opening windows there and there.
It faces the television at an angle that isn't direct,
so he can still talk to everybody,
yet not so wide that the picture looks distorted.
- Perhaps there's hope for you after all.