Wine and...TV: SEVERANCE Season 1, Part 5 - Interview w/ Chris Black

Chris is an Exec Producer and Writer on Severance Season 1. He's been writing TV since the mid-90's! Weird Science, Sliders, Cleopatra 2525, Star Trek: Enterprise, Desperate Housewives, Mad Men, Ugly Betty, Lone Star, Outcast, Invincible, Severance (which is why he's here today), and most recently, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.

Chris oversaw the Severance Season 1 writer's room and is the credited writer on Episode 8 (though as you'll learn in today's interview, which parts of which episode which writer actually wrote gets a bit complicated.)

Part 1: How Did This Get Made?
Part 2: Episodes 1-3 (and wine pairings with those episodes)
Part 3: Episodes 4-6 (and wine pairings with those episodes)
Part 4: Episodes 7-9 (and wine pairings with those episodes)
Part 5: Interview with Chris Black, Executive Producer and Writer on Severance

CHRIS' BEVERAGE PAIRING:
Cali Squeeze Blood Orange Wheat Ale, Firestone Walker Brewing Company, San Louis Obispo, California
Brewed with real blood orange for maximum refreshment. A crisp, ruby red beer with juicy orange and fresh citrus flavors, that always go down easy. Cali Squeeze is a Hefeweizen (wheat ale) that includes barley malt, malted wheat, toasted wheat, and Cara-malt. Refreshing, low in bitterness, pale yellow, and slightly hazy.
5% ABV, 15 IBU

Chapters

• 3:02 Red Carpet Roll Out: Chris Black!
• 8:24 Writing TV for Streamers vs. Network TV
• 21:41 Which Movies/Shows Did Young Chris Watch?
• 29:54 Making Niche Content For Wide Audiences
• 33:02 Working With Robert Kirkman and Matt Fraction
• 42:39 Severance!
• 52:40 Appointment TV vs. Bingewatching
• 1:00:09 LumEn
• 1:02:36 Masterminds
• 1:05:31 Chris' Beverage Pairing - CaliSqueeze Blood Orange Wheat Ale

Transcript

0:16

He's Dave and I'm Dallas and we have opinions on just about everything. Sometimes they're on point and sometimes they go down better with a glass of wine. Join us. This is the Wine and Podcast. Welcome back, everybody, to the wrap up of our coverage of Severance Season One. This is, of course, as always, Wine and the show where we pair wine with movies, TV, music, books and comics. And maybe one day we'll pair it with, I don't know, hard working screenwriters. They could use a glass or two. Or three. fuck it, give them the bottle. You won't see them for a little while after that, but that's OK. They've earned it. They've earned a day. They've earned a night. Actually, no, don't give it during the day. That could be bad. But maybe at night, you know, a little GoPuff delivery at the end of the day. Just like that'll be that'll be a nice little something. I've seen Barton Fink. know how hard their are. Some special brownies. Exactly. this is going to be about TV writing we're going be talking about tonight. So maybe UHF. I've seen UHF and I'm pretty sure that's how works. exactly how Weird Al did everything on that station. So you you need some alcohol to do stuff like that. So I think we got to send that their way. All right. But before we get there, once again, as always, everybody, if you like what you hear today, please make sure to hit that follow or subscribe button. It really helps the podcast grow. Reach new listeners until one day instead of saying Hail Lumen, we'll all say Hail Dave and Dallas. I would really like that. But if you love us, please leave a five star review. If you don't love us, send us an email and tell us why you don't love us. I don't want to hail some random podcaster. Do you how many podcasters are out there these days? What makes you so special? OK, well, send that exact email to Wine, the letter N as in not going to stop podcasting, POD as in podium, is in the podium I'm on right now, wine, npod, at gmail .com. We are also on Substack. Substack subscribers are the first to know when new episodes drop, can interact with us there, gain access to bonus pairings, articles, interactive polls, pairing directories, which are coming very soon, and more. We're working on it, but there will be more. And that is wineand .substack. That's right. We would love to see and hear from you there. And since you're already doom scrolling, go ahead and find us on all the socials under our profile name, Wine and Pod. That is wine, the full and in that situation. So Wine, A -N -D -P -O -D, Wine and Pod. We're on IG threads, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. And to wrap this up, know that most of the time we discuss things we love, though sometimes we dissect something that we quote unquote hate. But whatever it is you love, whatever it is you hate, there is a wine. that pairs with that. That's right. Okay, today we are wrapping up our coverage of season one of what we think is the best TV show of 2022. It is. Severance. Yeah. We've already covered the history of Severance season one, at least what's available to the public. We then covered episodes one through three, four through six, and seven through nine. And now today we are wrapping it all up in style with a super -califragilistic ex -Bialo Doshia's guest, Chris Bla Chris is a screenwriter and showrunner on an insane list of TV shows you know and at least mostly love including but not limited to Weird Science, Sliders, Xenowarrior Princess, Cleopatra 2525, if anyone remembers that one that double billed with the jack of all trades in the same hour slot until it took over the hour slot. was a fun bit. And Desperate Housewives. Yes, that actually happened. He wrote on Desperate Housewives. Hawaii. Where are all my other Hawaii fans at? Just the one. There's just the one. I'm joking. Fuck you guys. Ugly Betty Lone Star. Outcast invincible the animated show severance, is why he's here with us today and most recently monarch legacy of Monsters, which he is the co -creator and showrunner of alongside Matt fraction one of the king gods of comics by the way Chris We're just going to say this right now. You have to promise to return so we can do an episode on The monster series. I'm just saying The kaiju freak this is kind of like tweaking me out right now, so Working with Matt fraction Matt fraction is one of the greatest human beings I've ever met Not only just an unbelievably creative and talented dude, but just Just the sweetest nicest guy probably I mean he and Dan Erickson are probably neck and a while for those like this guys I've ever worked with in this business. Working on Monarch, well there were two things. One, being able to kind of play in the kaiju universe. Iconic characters too, yeah. Going back to Toho is our partners in the show and we got to go to Japan, we went to Toho's studios, where Akira Kawa made his movies and where the original Just so you know Chris, this is pornographic for me, so go on. no, it's amazing! The honor of working in that arena and then just the absolute joy and pleasure of working with Met Fraction made that just one of the best jobs I ever had. Literally you were just reading my MDV page. they hit the highlights like the good shows. You just went all over the Trust me, I skipped quite a few. It's pretty long. Well, no, I'm amazed that you, do you know, did you watch Cleopatra 2525? Back in the day, yes I did. Alongside Chackavalt, I was so bummed when Chackavalt Trades got canceled because that was my hour. I was really into it back in the day. That was like one of the most fun hours on television, truly. Those two worlds back to back. Well, it's funny how the business had changed. mean, that was the mid -90s and that's we started. my career and I started on Weird Science and I was talking to someone about this the other day about my career was kind of spanned, you know, the evolution of television in the last, you know, 25 years. started out on Weird Science was on USA, was in Seattle. And then worked in syndication, know, Zena, which was a great experience in Cleopatra. mean, Rob Tapper, who's married to Lucy Lawless, who was the producer of Zena, had like five shows on there at the same time. mean, he had Zena, Cleo, Jack Waltrade. He was one of the most successful television producers working at the time. And that whole syndicated model is gone. And I worked in broadcast. I did shows. mean, like you ravelled off a few of them. I sent my... my time at ABC on Desperate and Ugly Betty. Ugly Betty was a great experience. loved working on that. That seemed like a lot of fun just all around, actually. lot of fun. Silvio Orta, who isn't with us anymore, was just one of the best showrunners I ever worked with. that cast, working with that cast was a dream. I was there the last two seasons when we shot it in New York, which was just in the past. And then out of broadcast, I did outcast with Robert Kirkman, also a great guy. that was premium cable with HBO Cinemax and then, and now I'm into in the last few years I've been working on streaming stuff. So it's like, feels like it's, I've sort of been there. mean, maybe it's just, you know, how old I am or how long I've been in business, I, Actually that brings a really interesting question to my mind in terms of the comparison of working with a streamer and working with network and then basic cable. How do those experiences sort of. as a boots on the ground writer and showrunner. Well, it's funny because you were hearing those credits. They're very eclectic. mean, was a lot of, early in my career, was a lot of genre, and I loved genre. I worked on Star Trek for three seasons. There's like a lot of, I love science fiction, I love genre material, I love horror and fantasy, and that was a lot of fun. But I never wanted to be pigeonholed as that kind of a writer. And it was one of the reasons I went up on desk, well, first Hawaii, which was an then kind of failed NBC cop show and then Desperate Housewives, was I had gone to my agent at the time and I said, I just don't want to get pigeonholed as this kind of writer. want to do other, I want to do other stuff. And to answer your question, or as best I can, I guess, is the business model changes a lot, but the process doesn't really change. people ask me sometimes, how can you write on Star Trek and Desperate Housewives? It's like, writing's writing, dramatic writing. if you have a great set of characters and an interesting story to tell, it doesn't really matter if it's the bridge of the enterprise or with your length. Human drama is human drama, right? Yeah. the process, the job is the same. I think it's become a lot more corporatized. I feel... there was a new era and I don't think this is limited to streaming necessarily. think it's sort of just a generational evolution of the business. think there's a new generation of younger executives coming in who learned the business differently, know, who they do their jobs differently. There was the group of people I came in with were much more sort of in the trenches, like we're going to make a show. And you didn't have these kinds of layers of corporate, it's kind of loom -in -like. Right, right. You know, kind of things. You didn't have to fill out a form to take a walk down the hallway. the one thing I will say is doing 10 episodes or 13 or 8 or 9, creatively it's a lot more satisfying than doing those full, those full freight network season of 22. When I was doing school, I think we did 24 in a year. And I look at it now, I go, it was crushing. And we had much bigger staff. You might have a staff of 13 or 14 or 15 people. You'd run two writers rooms at the same time. But it was like pushing out product on an assembly line and trying to stay ahead of the freight train of production. Versus doing something for streaming where you're only doing eight or ten episodes where it feels like it's much more a kind of a an artisanal Handcrafted product. I mean you you really have the time you can take the care and attention to make it right I mean there were shows I worked on and I don't want to I mean I always brought my a game and worked my hardest on everything I ever did but there were times where doing it literally became tree ops where you like you had a Script where you like this doesn't work This is not going to be a good episode, but we have to move on. I mean, we have to, if we don't push this one through and move on to the next one, then you know, show's going to shut down. Yeah, you're just out of time. It becomes, at that point, becomes a math problem. know, you're just, you know, the physics just don't work anymore. But so in that sense, the new, the streaming model, I think it's why there's an incredible explosion of shows, great. great quality drama. was blown away by Apple's production value and it makes sense when you think about the price tag and their access to technology and their ability to court really good talent, know, know, present company included. And it's amazing that they've kind of positioned themselves unintentionally or intentionally as this kind of sci -fi, sci -fi adjacent sphere. And it's, it's, it's a little magical. Yeah, there's a magic they're a tech company so it kind of makes sense, right? There's a magic happen. yeah. Well, and it's because I talk to them when I talk to certain people who work there, they don't seem like big sci -fi people. And I kind of want to say sometimes, look, you should look at your menu screen sometimes. almost like, I mean, even stuff like sugar, which I thought was a terrific Yeah, lots of fun. It's like... It's like, yeah, he's, don't want to give a spoiler to those who haven't seen it, but there's a big, there's a big sci -fi Twitter. wait, don't tell me that. Hold on. I've only, I've only episode three. No. Well, you'll get there. You know that, you know, there is a twist. don't know what That's right. That's right. Yeah. I will, I will date myself here a little bit by saying, so when I went to college, just on your point of how much television has changed in the style of television, the storytelling style of American TV, right? Right. Where. When I went to college, it was the late 90s to 00s and I didn't have a TV when I was in college. So I just kind of stopped watching television. Just wasn't in the cards for me. And when I got out, it took me a while to really ramp back up again. And it probably wasn't until the 2010s that I started to heavily get into television again, because somewhere like right around like 97, 98. That's when I started to fall off and I would poke my head and I had friends that would watch television all the time. So I got some X -Files. I got some of the ongoing Xena and Hercules and things like that that were going on at the time. But I wasn't watching watching American TV. And by the time I came back, that prestige TV had taken off. Like Sopranos had happened. Oz had happened. The Wire had happened. Yeah. And so that was almost my entry point back in where I was like, Yeah, it doesn't have to be episodic. It doesn't just have to be like this episode is good, this episode is not. And you just sort of like curate your own episode stash per show that you you love to revisit and then you skip the ones you're not so into. But the show itself, you would love the characters, you would love the concept, but there almost wasn't a story to a lot of them, like overarching wise. And I do think that Prestige TV, for better or for worse, like it did change television and it has changed us because one thing that I did start to get back into before American TV started doing this was anime. And anime is one of those things where, you know, nine out of 10 animes are actually very finite and have an arc. it's they're in there to get the job done. Like they're usually based on a manga. The manga had a beginning, middle and end. They're telling that story. They're not padding it too much. And then they're getting to the... And that blew my mind. I did not realize episodic TV could be just a story. And when American TV started doing that, that really brought me back to the fold. I, for one, am a huge fan of Where We've Gone. Yeah, it was kind of a British model or European model. That's true. You take as many episodes as it takes to tell the story and then you're done. It's like when six episodes you're done. Exactly. Like how many episodes was it? Well, how many did take the story? We did five or six or seven and then the story ended and so they go in. But I think it will. And it was funny because, you know, there was an I go home older than you. It was very much in the X -Files. I was a huge X -Files fan. The X -Files was a cop procedure. That's right. A perfect cop procedural, actually. Yeah, it was. Yeah, you know, if it didn't have the sort of mythology in the alien element, you know, it have, it could have been like two beat cops in LA, you know, or something like that. But it was that evolution towards a season long overarching story that it wasn't, you know, they, they, talk about it a lot, you know, crime of the week or monster of the week or, know, mystery of the week, whatever it was like, you could have those episodic elements. where, and in separate, it's that way too, that this is the episode about this. This is the episode where this happens. This is the episode where this person discovers this, episode, the hour or so that you watch it has a beginning and a middle and an end, but the story, the larger, it's more like a chapter in a book. The larger story that you're watching is the totality of the season or the series. know, the funny thing is a lot of times you don't know where that story is going. well, Deferred Housewives is a great example. the first, I worked on the first two seasons of that show, which I, in my opinion, are the best two seasons. Without a question. But that first season, the reason that first season, whether it's your cup of tea or not, the reason that first season is so good is because Mark Cherry knew what that story was. knew exactly where he was going. He knew what the mystery was. It's about these these friends trying to figure out why their friend Mary Alice killed herself. And he knew why. He knew when we got to the end of those 20 some odd episodes, the mystery would be revealed. And I don't think Mark or anyone else or anyone at ABC realized what a phenomenon that show was going to be. And then suddenly it was like, well, you've got to do another season. You have to do more. And I don't think, I'm positive because I was there, Mark had not given a ton of thought to what the second. Yeah, that happens. So you see that happening so often in really good shows that kind of surprise you and hook you. It's like sometimes those really great creators know exactly where that first arc is going. And it's seamless. The math is just perfect. It's just a great arc. And then the studio or the audience is say, hey, this is phenomenal. We need you to recreate that magic. And then it just kind of goes off the rails sometimes and sort of meanders. Unless you're doing, I won't blame it all on the audience or the studio or the network because unless you're doing a limited series, unless you're saying, by design, this is eight episodes or 10 episodes and I'm done, everybody wants a successful show. You want people to love it and want more of it. But a lot of us, I can only really speak for myself, but certainly a lot of people I know and work with, you're not thinking that far ahead. You get so into it now, like the job. and I'm sure you've had other people on your podcast who have talked about this, probably people associated with Severance included, the job of writing and producing an hour long television series is a soul crushing amount of work. is an all consuming, you don't see your family, you don't see your kids. It is a constant, I had to put my phone on silent to talk to you guys. And so you're not necessarily, all you're thinking about is the now. Like, I gotta get to this episode. I gotta get to this season. If I can just get to next week without the show shutting down, I'm gonna take that win. You're not thinking about, well, I wonder what season two is. Season three. And then it kind of sneaks up on you and they go. can you do 10 more? And you're like, yeah, sure. Yes, and. You're not going to say no, but then it's like, well, now we got to over this hill. Yeah. Then you go down some Jack and Coke and cry and move on with that life. Whenever an actor is up for a job, if they, whatever they ask you, can do. It's like, you Sure. And then, and then, and then you went out and learned before you. Right. Right. But yeah, it's, It is a golden age, know, and that they I can't and I mean, I just said the job takes a tremendous amount of my time, but I love television. love watching television. I love good television and there is so much good television right now that I'm so far behind on everything that people are going. have you watched industry? Are you watching? You know, are you? Yeah, I know. I haven't made it all the way through succession yet. Yeah. Not because I don't want to, but because I just don't have the time. of course. I mean, now that we, honestly, we created this podcast half because it forces us to consume the media that we've just been sitting on for forever. And I'm like, now we have an excuse. We're doing something productive with our time. And everyone's like, you a You've seen everything. I'm like, no, not unless you've seen an episode about it. I list my infinite. So, so you mentioned. Are you in there watching TV? I'm doing it you mentioned Chris, the X -Files, and I'm curious, we'll jump back on track to Severance here in a moment, but I want to go back a little bit and hear what Young Chris was watching. What's Chris's, Young Chris's fan boy sphere? What were you into? As much anything you want to talk about. You are the subject here, my friend. I grew up in Ohio. My mom loved movies. I mean, her generation, she loved horror movies. mean, she... Good mom. She dragged me when I was a teenager in 1979. My mother dragged me to see Alien. didn't want to go. Good mom. And she really kind of instilled this, you know, this love of film in me. It was the sort of transformative thing for me was, I mean, it's a common enough story, was Star Wars. was, what was that, 77? I was, I think, 13, 14 that summer. And I went and saw the movie. My dad kept driving me to movie theater. was like, haven't you seen this movie? It's like, and I thought, I've gotten it 10, 12, 15 times. And I came out of the movie theater and I was like, where did that guy go to And George Lucas went to USC, so I applied to USC, I went to USC film school, moved to California. We all thought at that time we were all gonna be Steven Spielberg, you know, we were gonna be directors. And I had a couple of buddies in mind, some writer producers, very talented writer producers who I'd gone to film school with named Tom Spezielli and Alan Cross, who started working in TV. and they were doing this show called Parker Lewis. And they just kept telling me. I thought I was going to sell. I thought I was going to be Shane Black. I was going to sell my million dollars. I still think that actually. still think that about myself every day. But they were like, do TV. They were like TVs like being back in film school. They were, know, we get to do, we do. You know, with all your buds and make stuff up. Your friends and I don't remember. I don't know what the budget on Parker was, but they were like, they give us a half a million dollars a week to make a student film. I was like, that sounds OK. So then they they wound up running, creating or developing and running Weird Science. I went to work for them and I was like, they were right. It was great. You know, I just loved working in television and I started out in I'm trying to think, well, if that would have been 95, I want to say. And I guess X -Files was on. I was a huge X -Files fan. I was a big genre fan. started when I was younger. I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction. love them. And I don't know if it's the Golden Age or Silver Age, but like Robert Heinlein and R .C. Clark and Larry Hibbin. you know, all those paperbacks that I would buy at the local mall and I loved sci -fi and I was a huge Star Trek fan. I loved Star Trek. I just wasn't old enough to watch the original series in prime time, but it was in syndication. So I loved Star Trek and then I loved Next Gen. And then when I got the opportunity to work on Enterprise, which was the show I worked on, one of the less successful Star Trek franchises, but it was... It was like a dream come true. mean, we shot it at Paramount on the same stages that they shot the other Star Trek shows on and you would walk onto those sets and you could sit in a cabin chair on the Bridgian Air Pride. was like there were people running around the stage with some pointed ears. was like every day. I never take my career for granted. mean, it's like that they still let me do this. Every day they let me on a studio lot. I feel like I should shut my hands and knees and kiss the ass. It's like they're still letting me do it. So I was a fan, it's like I'm trying to think of specific, I mean a lot of the shows we talked about, know, like The Sopranos, The Wire, Oz, like all that, you know, that kind of, you know, The Davids, know, David Chase, David Milch, know, all those guys. I worked on, you know, I worked briefly on Mad Men was one of my favorite shows. Another one I haven't started yet, which I want to start soon. It's good. Look, I mean, here's the thing about Mad Men. I worked there on season five. It's not. It's a great show. It is one of the great shows of television, one of the great achievements of television. It's one of the single best and I would put Severance up there. It's one of the single best television pilot scripts and pilot episodes. I think that that would then be, you know, and I have a handful of them, think. It certainly has that reputation. Yeah. And I think it's well. deserved. I would I look at like the greatest pilots ever. mean, like Brian Fuller, my favorite pilot. yeah. We're commenting on it I think me and Dallas have not seen Mad Men yet. That's one of those shows that passed us all. I can't talk intelligently about it, but I'm going to take it. But its reputation is as one of the greats. but I guess the caveat I was going say is it's not everybody's cup of tea. not everybody loves it. It's very funny. It's very smart. It's also very cynical and very dark. Has a specific sense of humor. It has a very specific sensibility that I think as brilliant as it is, and Matt Weiner is a brilliant, brilliant writer, and that is one of those shows where like, you can't pull a single piece of it out without it's like, it's perfect. But you know, something can be good and you can still not like it. You know, that's just that's subjectivity. That's it. But it's definitely worth your time. It's a terrific show. It's like but but and there's a lot of great stuff on now. Like I like I said, I just watched all of Sugar. There's what else am I watching? I I watched the bear I was watching. You know, the stuff, all the stuff. We're horrific mind nerds. So we have we have to shout out drops of God. If you haven't if you haven't. Yeah, that yet. thought the pilot I watched the first episode, I thought was great and then did not. Yeah, not because I didn't like it because I want. That's part of the course around here. yeah, yeah. I love I was a big fan of fallout. I thought was yeah, I was surprised I enjoyed that as a person who did not like the game. Yeah, I did. I'm not a gamer and so it wasn't I wasn't familiar with game. hadn't played games so I wasn't. fully sure what to expect. And it was one of those ones that was really watching the first couple episodes because it's very funny, but it's very violent. And you're kind of one of those ones where you're like, how am I supposed to be feeling when I'm watching this? Because I'm not sure. Right. Well, and that was, think, Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, think, who I was also thinking of Westworld, the first couple seasons of Westworld, I thought were great. And there's so much good stuff. It's like more than I could ever, more than I could ever. Yeah, more than we can too. But Fallout just that's a sign of a good show. Like you are not a gamer. I'm not a gamer either. So it's like you have no idea. You have no connection to the property, to the IP, quote unquote. And yet the show just works on its own. You you go right into it and it's like it wins you over. has it has that reputation now. I think so many people. There's only so many gamers out there. And that show is a huge smash success. So. I think that just sort of, yeah, that is the spotlight. What's the testament to the adaptation and the writer's room and making sure that it stands on its own? Well, you have to. And that was one of the, for the people who did like it on the show, I'm Now Monarch, the best compliments that we got were from people who went, you know, I wasn't a big Godzilla guy. wasn't, I'm not a Monster's not a big sci -fi guy, but I really liked that. It really surprised me. It wasn't the show I expected. Yeah. You know, and we took that as a great compliment because we tried as much affection and enthusiasm as Dan and I have for the kaiju genre in these films and the Monsterverse franchise. We knew we couldn't make a TV show about monsters. It's like we have to make a show about people who live in a world where monsters are real. that's... Which is why I would not have been great on that show, because it just would have been one guy running away from all the monsters. I couldn't sustain that. no. Everyone else would. I would, but everyone else would. And also, know, Godzilla's expensive, man. We couldn't afford that. It's like you have to sort of choose the story you want to tell. And it's funny, because I talk to people, Godzilla, it's 10 episodes. Godzilla only actually appears on camera in about four minutes of screen time. But because he's hugely expensive, and we have a visual effects supervisor who insists quite rightly that every frame of it be feature caliber, that we couldn't do... the TV version of the show. is it ever. I was blown away by the quality of that production. We had an amazing team. Sean Conrad is his name, who's our visual effects supervisor. And he had worked on the 2014 Godzilla. He's phenomenal and an incredible perfectionist and never settled for anything, you know, less than excellence and a great partner and a great guy to work with. you It's that becomes kind of the tricky. How do you tell the story? How do you make it feel like Godzilla's presence? Right. Yeah. Is all over that. It's about him when he's not there. Yeah. When he's not at. And we did it by having this lead character who was traumatized by the attack on. It's Godzilla in the psyche, which is brilliant. Brilliant. Yeah. It's monster. He's the monster of her nightmare. You know, who's listening to her. And and. know, Matt Fraction used to talk about it was, we would say it was supposed to be kind of like a 9 -11 show. Fraction would say it was more like a 9 -12 show. The day after, yeah. But was about what happened after. Like how does your life change? How does your world change? know, when suddenly the monsters Which now that you say that is a great title and theme for show, 9 -12, but go on. I mean, not that I need another pilot to write, because God knows in my head is sweating. You'll have to take that one off. Out of curiosity, Chris, because in this later part of your career now, you've fallen in, of course, with Robert Kirkman and Skybound and done Outcast and Invincible, and now Mav Fraction. So did you follow all these comic guys? Was it a chain of events throughout all the comic folks? Or how did you meet Fraction? How did you guys come to co -create this together? It was a happy, it's kind of a series of happy accidents, really. wasn't through, I know, like, I'm a comic fan. I wouldn't say I'm a, I'm not an obsessive deep dive comic guy. I don't, you know, I don't know every issue of every spin -off of every title, you know, but I was always a, I was more of a kind of a, you know, like an 80s, 90s Frank Miller guy was kind of my heyday. But the outcast job, was just a job I was up for. was looking for, the comic wasn't even out yet. They were developing it as a show. They had sold it to Cinemax, series, at the same time Robert was working on writing the comic. And I just got a meeting. came to me through my agents and they said this is set up at Fox. And Fox was the studio, Cinemax was the network. And they said it's looking. For someone it was a great pilot. was another great, you know, Robert has written a pilot. It was another fantastic pilot script and they sent it to me and said, do you want to meet on this? And I said, yeah. And I went in, I took the meeting and I met with a bunch of the producers and then I sat down with Robert and Robert and I just got along great. And Robert was like, all right, here we go. It's like, know, and so I did that and then kind of the same thing. and then the, the invisible thing was, Robert, the show got picked up at Amazon and they didn't have a writer's room per se. It's being run by this wonderful writer named Simon Rasiopa, who's incredibly talented and another big guy, it's writer, who here now. And he and Robert just said, let's just get a bunch of people in a room and we'll figure out the first half dozen episodes or so. So Robert called and said, hey, I want to... It's crazy. I love it. like you want to come down to the Skybound offices he goes you want to come down for a week and hang out and we'll break an episode and write one I was like sure. It's still like college, still like film school. I had never done animation before. it was great, it was great fun I wrote I think it's the third episode of the first season and it was a blast it was really fun Simon was awesome it was fun work with Robert again. Did you find any difference on the subject of animation? Was there anything distinct about writing for animation from your POV? The funny thing for me, and I had only done that one episode, what was surprising to me was how not different it was. I thought, you can do anything you want, just draw. I thought it was going to be so much easier than doing, you don't have to worry about sets or locations. It's like I can make this thing anything I want. And Simon was like, no, actually, because designing and drawing those sets, it's like building a set. It's like, it costs money. can't just change it. So it's like, you, you know, it was what the surprising revelation for me was, was, it really wasn't that different from doing a live action show, all the same kind of production limitations. The one thing that was a big deal was the lead time though, for, cause from the I wrote that episode to the time it finally aired. I tried, I'd have to ask time. It was like at least two years. Yeah. Yeah. It may have been longer than that. So, and then, and then the same thing with meeting Matt, Fraction was like, I, the project had been, was set up legendary who does and produces and owns the big, you know, feature franchise, the big feature movies. and ironically, Adam Wingard, who directed the last two big guns movies. I know Adam because he directed the pilot. I did not know that. But it was the same kind of just not through me chasing a project or chasing wanting to work with a particular person. was like I had been friends with one of the executives at Legendary and we'd known each other for years. And he's like, we're trying to develop our feature franchise as a TV series. And it's set up at Apple. We're working with this great writer, Matt Fraction, but for whatever reason, we just can't get it across the finish line at Apple. They're just not, it doesn't feel like an Apple show. They won't commit to it. They're afraid of the Taiju element or whatever. He said, do you want to come in and talk to Matt? And I was like, sure. So I came in and met Matt. We hit it off. You know, we started pitching ideas. We kind of came up with, this idea of this young woman who discovers her father has a second family and then she goes off on this quest to find out what his secrets were, which then leads her into the world of, of, of, of Godzilla and Kaiju and Monarch. that's, once we kind of came up with sort of the human character into it, Apple was like, that's, that's the kind of show we're doing. Family drama. We get this, we get this. Totally. And so. So they were all, it was funny, I wound up working with these incredible luminaries of the comic book world. For sure. Not like chasing comics, it was all through just kind of weird trying to get and keep a job in Hollywood and calling my agent out there. Well I think that's again a kind of testament to both sides because what happens with these comic book storytellers often is You know, these worlds are just so vast and almost infinite that you do need someone who is well -versed in the art of movie making, of the business, the math, of getting it done in order to find a way to make it kind of, you know, native to television, for lack of a better term. it sounds like a paradigm. It will certainly happen thus far for me. You know, writing television is a specific skill. is, you know, and there are certain brilliant shows that kind of break out to do things differently and break out of the mold. But there is a specific craft and skill set to doing television, you know. And I think what worked great, like in a lot of those parents, me working with Robert and me working with Matt, is They brought that kind of imagination and brilliance and comic book thinking and I was the guy, I was like the old TV grizzled TV hack. was like, okay, here's how you make a TV. Well, I mean, you got them past the pitch. Which is what they were looking for. Yeah, yeah, Just to wrap it up, it has been the pleasure of my career to work with so many great people. have had a chance to work with guys like Robert or Matt, you know, if I hadn't found my way into this. I love to hear that the people you're working with now are some of the nicest people, that as far as you can tell, like you're like, I love the people I'm working with now even more, like as wonderful as the people were that you worked with before you're like, and I just keep it just keeps getting better, which is not always rare. So Bravo, my friend. yeah. And what did you take? What have you kept from the Xena set? That's all I want to know. I don't have anything from Xena. I do have... I have this thing. There was an episode of Weird Science that was a parody of the X And there was a character from the X -Files who was like the bounty hunter and he had this little ice kick thing where the little... So we had a bit, built this prop where every time he pushed the button, something different would come out. so the one I got was He would keep it like he'd go to kill someone and it would be a spoon or, and I kept the, kept the The true deadly one. Okay. That's going up as a short. know for sure. That is beautiful. I have my Godzilla water bottle. nice. You guys let me know where you're at. send you. I have a bunch of these. had the art department. I don't if you've seen the show, but in the beginning of Monarch, there's a whole bit where there's like a monster alert. Beautiful. The art department made all these great signs like Kaiju shelters, and they have pictures of, you know. God please. Please send me one of those. We will definitely, God, please send me one of those. Dallas is on the East Coast right now. I'm in LA with you, if you're in LA right now, which I'm assuming you probably are, beautiful. yeah, and Dallas is usually in LA. He's just been trapped on the East Coast for a better part of a year at this point. But in any event, segueing into Well, without all the stuff we discussed, we wouldn't make it to Severance. you know, that's what we would do. So yeah, and how did you come? of course, the first question, how did you come to be involved in Severance? And when you first became involved in, actually, we'll start there and then we'll see, you might answer this next question just by telling me how you came to be involved in Severance. So go with that. Well, it was the same, kind of the same answer to like how I wound up working with Robert and with Matt. I was looking, as all of us always are, looking for your next gig. And I had written some pilots and I wasn't, you know, You know, I wasn't working at the time and I was always looking for stuff and I have a really good agent who's always had this ear to the ground for me and he said the script came in and they're looking, it's set up at Apple and they're looking, it was written by a young first time writer and they're looking for someone to come in and kind of help him hire writers, set up the room, break the season, just kind of show him the ropes and... you do you want to read the script? said, sure. And so it was Dan's script, the Severance, and I read it and I was like, this is one of the most brilliant hours of television I've So you felt that from the first reading? see that was... reading! What I mean too is I will say that of all, in my career, that first script, what Dan wrote, you know, it's like that scene in Amadeus when, like, you Calvary realizes... There was no corrections on the page. It just poured out of Mozart's head on the page. I feel like that's like dance. That script changed less from the version of what I first read to what that pilot episode is. changed almost anything I've ever seen because it was just so good you didn't want to mess with it. You there were one so many people over to get the show made that it's like, right, you you extrapolate from there, but leave that as is because that's what everyone's excited to work on. Right. Well, that was kind of one of the things that I was most proud of in working with Dan, because he was so he was to some extent such a babe in the woods that, know, it was like I really sort of I felt part of my job was to sort of protect his vision, you know, and You would go through a notes process or a development process. And there's a lot of, not that people aren't smart or talented, but you're pulled in a lot of different directions. mean, there's a lot of chefs in the kitchen. You're getting notes from producers, you're getting notes from the network. Some of which are good, some of which are not so good. Or not true to Dan's vision, or not what makes that show unique and special. And I remember having conversations with Dan, where we're getting set of notes that we didn't necessarily agree with, and him being like, what are we going to do? he would be kind of panicked. it was like, you know, and I would be like, don't panic, we're not going to do this. And he would be like, well, what do mean? We have to do the notes. And I'm like, no, we don't. We don't have to do all the notes. We'll do the good notes. And then everything else becomes a conversation and we'll talk to them. And if there's stuff that we want to fight, we'll fight. It's like, but we have to fight. you know, we have to fight for your vision of the show because it was such a special and unique piece of material that to some extent, I don't think everybody understood it. I think a of the pressure, I won't even necessarily say pressure, but a lot of the kind of guidance we were getting felt like it was sanding kind of the sharp edges of it. how do we make this feel like a more recognizable, normal hour of television. And I think what I was really proud of was kind of having Dan's back and basically saying, don't let them fuck with this. And one of the things I'm really proud of is we spent, so Dan and I met, we hit it off. They hired me on the show. We hired a great group of writers, a lot of whom I still work with and have worked with in the past. Amanda Overton, Andy Colville, Kerry Drake, Helen Lay, who's on Invincible Now, just this incredible talented group of writers. And we all came together and we broke that season. We had 24 weeks in the writers' room. Dan wrote the first two episodes. Dan, the writers of record broke drafts of all those scripts, but at the end of the day, they all kind of ran through Dan's. It was brilliant. Everything was like, once Dan laid hands on it, it became separate. But after the room ended and then the show moved to New York and the writers disbanded and we were not necessarily invited to continue to participate in that process. And Dan went and I think Anna went and they had a very small, contained group of people. And I moved on. went and did, I went and started developing Monarch. then when the show, and it was a long process, there was COVID. I think I wasn't there. I think there were production challenges. It was a very expensive show. And when it finally aired, I was talking to Andy Colville about it. And it was like, Andy was going, you the thing that surprised me most was how not surprised I was. It was the show we wrote. It was all the work we did in the room. was the episodes we put on the board. the end of the day... remained the same. The structure really remained. It was funny. think ironically, the episode that changed the most was the one that has my name on it. Okay. I don't want to get into plot details, but there was a big swing plot move. that happened in episode eight. was that when the alien arrived? No. I cannot confirm. But it clearly, at the end of the day, it didn't fly, which was totally fine. And it wound up, and stuff moved around too. That would be our thing. Like the original draft of episode eight that I wrote had Burt's retirement. It had the scene where Irving. goes looking for Bird and he goes and he walks in the party and he realizes and he kind of blows up and he goes, you're just going to let him die. It was like that was in my head. then it got... The one before, Yeah. That's a great scene. a great scene. Yeah. but then it got to the end and it was funny because the order was originally for, I don't know if Dan told you this, the order was originally for 10. Yes. And what is now episode 10? was Dan's episode nine. it was the cliffhanger kind of end of the season was originally the cliffhanger episode of episode number nine. was nine and 10 was kind of like a two -part finale. There was like whole episode that came after that. So. And I wasn't, again, I don't want to speak for the production or for Dan or Ben, because I wasn't there. But at some point, a decision was made to just not produce that. Do think they knew they would have another season and maybe that made them braver to have a cliffhanger in that regard? No, think probably they may have had a sense internally that they really had something special and that they were betting on success as they should have. But I don't know what the process was. I don't know what the... as the was, but it was it ends. The funny thing is, is it ends beautifully where it does. It's like, yeah, it's a great even. It's a great even finale. But it was never designed to be the season finale. Right. But it's funny because most of the commentary online, like for anyone who finishes that show is just people being like, are you shitting me? That's where it ends. Like you're literally going to leave it off there and make me wait at this point years for the next one because of, of course, the strikes and whatnot. Everyone's been waiting an extra long time for that continuation. We originally weren't going to. Originally there was a tenth episode. There was another episode after. To be fair, also ended on a cliffhanger. there... Whether it had ended at nine or ten, there still would have been that, you shitting me like Which is good. mean, people say that in a good way. They don't mean they're upset. I mean, they're upset, quote unquote, but... in that they're so like, have to know, have to give me the net, I want to binge season two now, right? Yeah. Yeah. Also, I, you know, when we come across these shows, we're talking about sort of the difference between the shows of the 90s, early off and the knots and, and now in streaming, I tell you, this is the show I absolutely would have waited two weeks between episodes in or because I've been to this one, of course, because I didn't I came to the party late. You know, I, I would have checked in every week to watch this show and not a lot of streaming shows have that kind of inertia that kind of staying power I suppose because it just satisfies every desire I have in a narrative. Form so it's fantastic Dallas is a tough audience. I will freely call him out on that He is he is tough to find things to enjoy with him and the fact that he watched Severance and came to me and was like this We need to talk about this show. I was like, okay, that's unlike you. All right, let's do this He is a man of disappointment television and appointment television doesn't really exist anymore. I mean, think for me probably I to play on television was probably Game of Thrones where it was like, whenever they were on Sunday nights or whatever. like, then you're like, my God, I to wait a You know, it's like, can't, you know, I, you know, and and I was a big fan. The show, think ran really hot and cold. There were great seasons and not great seasons, but I was a big fan of 24. And so in 24 was another one of those shows where it would be like, you just had to, you just had to wait. It's like, you know, but yeah, you don't, I, I am, and maybe it's just my age or I'm a little old school, but I'm with you, Dallas. I like the idea of public knowledge. It's like It slows things down. It doesn't, you you get a chance to kind of just sit in it and discuss it. And the other thing is, sorry, go. No, that's exactly, you can discuss it. And we were watching Game of Thrones was still running when we were in the Severance Rivals room. So when we would come in on a board game, literally the first hour of Monday, every day in the seventh writer's room, was arguing about that shit. And that was part of the joy and the experience of watching a show like that. So true. Well, and I think even though we can binge the things these days, still shows like Succession, right, will still capture people that way. where even if they're binging a whole season, then of course you gotta discuss that season while you're waiting for the next season and that becomes what everyone talks about for five or six months or what have you. But I do feel like the binging thing, like I'm not a big binging fan either. I'm like, you can watch it as fast as you want, one episode a week is two episodes a week. Like slow down, let it, and I think especially something like Severance, let it percolate, let it, digest it and then move on to the next one. Like it's so much, it gets so much more out of it that way. Yeah, take it. And it is, it really is an extraordinary show. mean, it, it, it was, it was a uniquely brilliant idea. So, so rare in this business. And I've been in this business a while where everything is derivative of something else. Yes, yes, yes, yes. And you know, it's diehard, whatever. It's like, you know, this was like, there were no comps. for severance. There was like, it was to read something and it was one of those just, the sort of the purity of that idea was one of those ones you were like, why did I not think of this? How did I not think of that? This is so brilliant and so just crystalline in its perfection, you know, it's like it was, and you obviously know the story that, Dan told him many times that he was working in a door factory and he just hated his job so much that he just imagined if only I could take this part of my day and just. compartmentalize it and put it away and never have to think about it. And that was, you know, the genesis of the idea. But it's just to see something that's astonishingly original in this business. mean, it's a cliche to compare it to something like Twin Peaks, but it's really hard to find anything else on TV to directly compare it to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then to give credit where credit is due, Ben, who's like a really brilliant director, you know, kind of visualize that show. I mean, a lot of the look of the show is what's from Dan's script. I mean, the sort of the lighting and the low ceilings and the cubicles and this idea of this kind of infinite kind of back rooms labyrinth that they live, that they work in and the severed floors and all that stuff. It's all really vividly described in the script about it. And even the tap where Mark lives and. you know, the place where he finds Petey hiding out in the woods and all the stuff. It's, you know, it's all in the script. But, but Ben really, he's a brilliant director, it's beautifully shot. The production design is gorgeous. It's, it's, that, that cast is just, incredible cast. The casting is just out of this world. I can't even imagine anyone else in any of the roles. can't even imagine. Well, and that was really fun. I mean, Ben knew You know, he had obviously, he had worked with most of those actors before, know, just on Dan Amora with Patricia Arquette. He knew Adam from Walter Mitty and it was like, he knew what these actors could do and he knew what they would bring to the parts. And Ben Stiller is the kind of guy too, where if you go, you know who should play this? Christopher Walton. your life. Inspired, that relationship between those two, it's just inspired. Well, you're like, not sure, great, yeah, well, Christopher Walken and then Dan Stiller makes a phone It really is just a beautiful, thoughtful, extraordinary piece of work. And it started with Dan's writing, but it was, I mean, it was really, you know, every component of it. It's just... it's just really I have no idea that Ben Stiller was even associated with the show until I was like in episode three I was like this is Ben Stiller well there must be another Ben Stiller no they were the ones who discovered it and I'm sure you know Dan had written it as a fact and it it wound up on this thing called the list which just went away last year I think ended this past yeah One of the executives at Red Hour, which is Ben's company, had read it and they attached themselves to it with Ben to produce and direct and they got it set up at Apple. So it was really Ben and his company. Well, yeah. And according to Dan, was Ben's response to it. Like everywhere else he took meetings with, it was all like, yeah, this is interesting. Let's talk about another show for you to write on type of a thing. And Ben was the first one that was like this, I wanna make this. Yeah. And I can hear those meanings where it's like, is really, you're a really interesting writer, what else do you have? Absolutely. It's like we're not - Interesting is interesting, but we're not making it. But it was like, was a ballsy move. It was a ballsy move on Red Hour's part, on Ben's part, on Apple's part. And there were people inside, you know, Ben obviously, but people inside Red Hour and Apple who knew what this was, who knew how special. And there were people who didn't get it. I mean, there were people who were, we were working through this process. There were people who clearly, who respected Dan's talent and respected Ben. and who wanted to be in business with those people, but didn't get it. And there were other people who did. There were other people who just saw it for like Twin Peaks, think is a great example. It's like, it's something like Right. You need some champ, you need some cheerleaders to get into the finish line. Yeah. Always. Yeah. Yeah. So quick question for you, Chris. Just out of curiosity, I have no idea if this is any relation or if it was you that snuck this in to the show. but you did write a pilot back in 2015 directed by Joe Johnson that was called Lumen. I have to wonder, you like, you're like, as a legacy, me pluck that name and like, I think this is gonna fit nicely. Have you dropped the keister eggs your entire career Chris? Here's a prop. gorgeous. That's cool. But you know, it's like a movie. Yes, yes. No, I don't. was that is total coincidence. Dan. Sure, Chris. Sure. Dan, that was in, Dan had written that. That was in the script. That was the Lumix. And I think it was, I think in his original script it was spelled with an E and then it didn't clear legally that they had to change it. No, I had done that pilot. was for TNT, Amblin produced it and Joe, was huge. Working with Joe was like, Like, you're the dude who designed the Millennium Falcon. It's like, you're the guy who put the dent in Boba Fett's helmet. It's like, you know, like that was one of those kind of eke out moments. And Joe was great and I loved working with Joe and I loved his movies. I loved The Rocketeer and October Sky. you know, I think he's an enormously talented guy and just a really nice guy. it was weird. It was, we developed it. It was a big kind of family, very Spielbergian kind of family friendly. fantasy show it was supposed to TNT have the show called falling sky that was going on and they were looking for Like a sci -fi temple show another very good pilot as far as I remember falling skies. I think yeah, yeah It was and and so we did this thing and in the middle we shot at New Zealand It was it was great. It was it's a good it was a nice little piece. I was really proud of it, but literally in the middle of production, there was a big regime change at TNT and people who would commission the pilot were out and there was whole new group of in. And so it just kind of quietly went away, which was disappointing. That was it. I loved it. That was a lot of fun. But no, I could take no credit for Lumen. was completely... was Dan's script. Beautiful. And one more kind of going way, way back for you to the beginning. I have a question for you. one of my like near and dear to my heart things that your name is on and I'm very curious as to what this story is for you. But you have a story by credit on this movie called Masterminds. That was something me and my college bestie like rented back in the day and we're just like, this is great. This is so much fun. And we just watched it and I was like, okay, now you wanted to be a movie guy originally by any chance was that one, was that just one of the ones that actually went somewhere like they might've, because you only have Story by Credit, maybe someone else rewrote it, but you got the story, or was that one of your scripts, or no? It's not one of my scripts. That was a really funny story. was working, before I got my first writing job in TV, I was working as a story analyst, as a script reader in the feature department at 20th Century Fox. And through a friend of mine who was an executive, there was a writer, guy named Floyd Byers, who had written, want to say like desperately seeking Susan. I can't remember. He had some big credit. He had some big credit from like the eighties. I can't remember what it have to look it up. But he was trying to do this kind of action movie. Like it was Die Hard Jr. It was basically Die Hard in a private, know, school, Rich Kids Boarding School. And he didn't really do action. And I was like a big action movie guy, you know, and this friend of ours that said you should talk to and see if you can help him. So I met with Floyd and I just read his script and gave him a bunch of notes. I literally did my job. I was like, read the script and I gave him a bunch of script notes and he paid me a little money. I think I bought a new computer with it at the time. But then he said, when I get this movie made, I'm going to give you a credit on it. And I was like, you know, sure. great. Thanks. And he went out and got Patrick Seward attached and got the movie made. joke Floyd Byers, last honest man in Hollywood. He got the movie made and put my name on it and gave me a sword and on it. And I was, which I totally do not deserve, but he, he was a man of integrity. said he was going to do it. did. That's awesome. God. All right. Beautiful. The Last Honest Man in Hollywood is another great title. There it is. But no, I'm glad you enjoy it. If I ever run into Floyd, I'll tell him you did. But some of us don't. Yes, please do. Please do. And then tell him to come on the podcast. That's right. That's right. We would. You would run into him again. All right. Well, I think that pretty much wraps us up here. We're a little over an hour. So that's our perfect timing. Thank you so much for being here, Chris, and giving us some insight on your job in Severance. I mean, this TV show, you should be so proud of everything, no matter how much you can or cannot claim to every little detail that's on that screen. It's like that show, you oversaw it, it came together, and I think we're all excited for season two and to figure out how this, where this goes from here. I'm sure even you're chomping at the bit to know what they do for season two. Me too. had a drink with Dan a few weeks ago and he was really into it. That's the worst. Chris, I'm sorry. We forgot. We forgot your drink. So we always ask our guests. so we did it. No, go ahead. We do. We do. We did ask Chris. We're to see what he does here. But we always ask our guests to, of course, pair a beverage with the show. We asked him, look, Severance. Chris basically already said he's like, by the time you're done making one of these things and you've seen it over and over and over again, it's certainly not a drink worthy experience anymore. But nevertheless, to the best of your ability, what would you drink while watching Severance, Chris? Well, it's funny because there's two answers to that question. It's like, what is a Severance drink? What is a of a thematically appropriate drink to watch the show? Like, what pairs with the show? which is not the same question as what do I drink? I'm not a big wine guy. I like if someone says, this is good, you should drink it. I'll go, okay. Is that all you got? Sure. I'm more of a beer guy and I've been drinking me. yeah, Cali Squeeze. Cali Squeeze from SLO Brewery at the family of Zabisco. nice. Which I think are refreshing and delicious. That's what I've been drinking. Beautiful. So there you go guys, give it a try. That's right. That's right. What do you got coming up? What's besides the next seasons of the Monarch series? We're working on season two of Monarch Legacy of Monsters. We've been in the writers room, we were interrupted by the strike. we're back, we're working on scripts. We just started production. We're shooting season two now in Australia. and, it should be out. I mean, the, the time between these seasons on these things is the same, but it's going to be out in like, like towards the end of next year. I think November, we don't have an official air date, but I think it'll probably November, 2025. but yeah, we're very excited. The show did, did very well. Apple was very pleased with it and I'm more than happy to spend more time with you. Yeah. So once again everybody go get an Apple TV Plus subscription because Monarch Season 2 and Severance Season 2, are both upcoming... fast -ish. But have your subscription ready to go and watch Season 1 while you're waiting. Thanks so much for being here, Chris. We will be back next week everybody with another wine and entertainment pairing for your entertainment. But this concludes our coverage of Severance Season 1. Ciao for now, we will catch you later. Thanks to all the listeners. Thanks guys. you you