If I watch an episode of SNL, and there’s one thing that I liked, then that’s a good episode.
I love nineties stuff like Alice in Chains and Nine Inch Nails. It’d be my dream to have a Radiohead-themed episode of ‘Glee.’ I also love jazz greats like Coltrane, Miles Davis, and Herbie Hancock.
Most sitcoms and cartoons, especially, you can rely on, because they go back to square one at the beginning of every episode.
I think audiences can feel when they’re being served a filler episode.
We would go on ‘The Voice,’ and we’d get kicked off of the first episode, probably.
I haven’t seen one second of any episode of ‘Lost,’ ever.
In TV, when you come in to direct an episode, you are effectively learning an established language; you then have to try to learn to speak it really well. But on a movie, you are the guy. You are creating the language; you make most of the decisions.
Typically on a TV series, the writers on a show are writing for their life almost every episode. When someone sits down to write a Netflix show, they know there’s going to be a 13th hour.
The interpretive element of ‘Lost’ – the fact that you immediately need, as soon as the episode is over, to seek out a community of people to express your own thoughts about it, understand what they thought about it and form an opinion – that’s the bread and butter of the show.
I’m very proud of the Rome episode of ‘No Reservations’ because it violated all the conventional wisdom about making television. You’re never, ever supposed to do a food or travel show in black and white.
You’ve got to find a way to relate to people. I just did an improvised episode for Joe Swanberg’s new Netflix show, ‘Easy,’ and it was a huge learning curve for me and taught me so much about fear and courage. But when you’re present in the moment, the audience, it’s incomparable.
In terms of my Indianness, I try not to rely on it nor deny it. When it comes up organically in my writing, we can address it. About five years ago, we wrote this episode of ‘The Office,’ called ‘Diwali,’ which seemed like an organic way of using it.
I’ve never seen an episode of ‘Downton Abbey.’
I can’t say that the ending of a story is always the best part of the story, and yet there’s sort of this implicit idea that the finale is somehow supposed to be the mind-blowing best episode of a show. The question is: Why is that? Why do people make that assumption?
I like a decent funeral, and God knows in my family we’ve seen enough of them. Looking through family photographs now is like watching an episode of ‘Dad’s Army.’
When something changes in Episode 7, you have to then begin moving things around, shuffling things backwards. Once you start moving material into it, that can derail your whole arc.
Indian audiences these days aren’t really interested in watching a character on screen evolve. They don’t want to see a young girl evolve into being a partner and enter motherhood – they are only really concerned about the story. As long as the story is getting interesting with every passing episode, they want more.
If you’re an English actor, and you’re asked to do an episode – especially the Christmas episode – of ‘Downton Abbey,’ you can’t turn it down. It’s like, ‘Of course!’
I had a great start in television; the first thing I did was an episode of ‘Performance’ called ‘The Entertainer’ with Michael Gambon playing Archie Rice.
I can understand why guys wouldn’t be into ‘Glee.’ You know, that’s a pretty heavy musical show. That show does, like, six songs in an episode.
I love making ‘iCarly’ – it’s so much fun, and I love getting the script every week and not really knowing what insane thing I’m going to be doing. It’s just like an adventure every episode; that’s really fun.
I think the fact that Brock Lesnar is not on the road 52 weeks a year, is not on ‘Monday Night Raw’ every episode, is not performing 300 matches per year… I think that dictates to the public, ‘Brock Lesnar is special.’ That an appearance by Brock Lesnar in an of itself is newsworthy. It’s not commonplace.
I did a ‘Hart of Dixie’ episode, and I was so excited for that.
I did an episode of ‘Law & Order,’ where I literally didn’t move my neck because I thought you couldn’t move your head on camera.
I’ve seen every episode of ‘Sopranos.’
I was watching ‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch’ – the episode where Sabrina and her friend make a vampire movie for college. I wanted to see if it would be fun to make a horror movie.
You don’t have a lot of time; you have to get it right. It’s amazing how they create these episodes in such a short amount of time. They lavish a lot of care and money on each episode, and they just look terrific.
Television is a lot more fast-paced, where with films, you really have the ability to get to know your characters. When I was doing guest star roles, I was only one, like, one episode of a thirty minute to an hour show, so you don’t really have time to get to know my characters.
My first proper credit was a small voice-over on an episode of ‘The Sopranos’ when I was, like, 11 or 12.
My agent said that every Monday after an episode of ‘Entourage,’ at the staff meeting at the agency, that’s all they do is talk about the episode the night before.
The centerpiece of ‘Law and Order’ is the crime, and it starts with the writing. There’s a beginning, a middle and an end. It allows the audience to watch any given episode and can drop right in and not feel lost. I think the stark, raw structure has a lot to do with its longevity.
As a child, I would watch ‘Frasier’ a lot, and there was one episode with Derek Jacobi where he was playing this Shakespearean actor that was a terrible Hamlet. And he reenacted the performance, and for days I went on. I’d perform and do that, and I knew I wanted to do something kind of like that as a kid for awhile.
I’ve done things I was miserable doing, and then I watched the episode and I’m proud of how fun and funny it is.
I’m from Mexico, and I’ve heard some horror stories about cast members who can’t stand each other. What we have on ‘Jane’ is a blessing. We do table reads for every single episode one day before it starts to shoot.
With TV, your structure is determined by the series not the episode. You can have incident without consequence to the character, but keep your eye on the ticking clock of the series.
Usually, if I can’t fall asleep, you will find me catching up on a good book or zoning out with an episode of ‘The Real Housewives.’ I always have a couple books on my bedside table in various stages of completion.
Well, I just finished starring in a new episode of the new The Twilight Zone television series.
We know that slow-motion renovations in tight jeans make for a great episode.
After my episode of ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ ran, Larry David and JJ Abrams were like, ‘I discovered her,’ but I was like ‘Hold up. Please. I’m from ‘Next Friday.’ Everybody knows me!’
Jessica Simpson is the youth ambassador for Operation Smile, and an episode of The Apprentice featured a team managing a charity concert she put on. Donald Trump came on stage and pledged a donation.
We’ve definitely talked about making a musical episode. We definitely need to make that happen. Let’s get Lin-Manuel Miranda on the phone. He’s a Star Trek’ fan, so I feel we can make this happen.
When you’re not the lead on a series, you work intermittently, even if you’re in every episode.
I did ‘The Commish’ and an episode of ‘Neon Rider,’ and then I got the series called ‘Street Justice,’ which I ended up doing about 18 episodes of.
I was a writer. I wrote on the show. We were in the writer’s room and by about episode five, I started to think: ‘I really understand Roy Kent. I really understand Roy Kent. I think Roy Kent is within me.’
I really like ‘Community.’ I like the way they’re allowed to have a week when they go crazy and use stop-frame animation or a different pastiche. There’s an episode with a fake clip show.
The thing about ‘On the Doll,’ I was doing ‘Nip/Tuck’ at the time, and I was doing only 5 or 6 scenes an episode. So I had some free time, and I wanted to do something completely different than what I’ve ever done before.
Most TV shows are writing the next episode while you’re directing the one you’re doing, and they’re trying to figure out what they’re going to do, and they’re putting it all together.
In ‘Queer as Folk,’ we had three or four sex scenes in every episode, so I got used to doing that very early on. Those kinds of scenes can be challenging. They take a bit of time, and everyone’s a bit nervous.
Technically, Trump and Putin did appear on the same episode of ’60 Minutes.’ In two completely unrelated segments, that were shot in different cities, in different countries, on different continents.
Every year, I looked forward to Oprah Winfrey’s Favorite Things episode. I watched with my notebook computer in my lap so I could Google the items and order them for the friends and family on my holiday gift-giving list.
I can’t imagine not playing Wynonna, because I get to play so many different things. In any given episode, I get drama and comedy and horror and all the notes of life, and very few shows or movies give you that opportunity.
Of course I loved ‘I Love Lucy’ and saw every episode over and over again. I found it heartbreaking that Ricky got to be famous and have an exciting life at the Tropicana while Lucy was stuck in that terrible apartment with the Mertzes.
