Original subtitles

- Television on!

- What we're seeing

in the 2000s

is a lot of new voices,

new storytellers, a sort

of changing of the guard.

- Fire on my mark.

- Advertising is based on

one thing: happiness.

- [shouting excitedly]

- Is there any taboo

that you wouldn't break?

- Not if there was

a funny idea.

- What is wrong with you?

- You were seeing people

on television

that you had never

seen before.

And they would shock you.

- The good cop and the bad cop

left for the day.

- If it's creative, if it's

just not been done, go for it.

- Incoming!

- Who are the heroes?

The people who watch this show.

[epic music]

♪ ♪

- Two okay!

- One okay!

[explosion]

- I had a particular

connection

to the "Band of Brothers"

miniseries.

- Let's go!

- My father served in

the Second World War

and was in many of the places

where Airborne ended up.

- Incoming!

[explosion]

- And what he felt was real

about it

was that the emotions

were utterly true.

[gunshot]

- It was a bunch of ordinary

guys who,

by way of training

and volunteerism

and sacrifice,

both saved the world

and were forever changed

by what they did.

- [crying]

- A lot of those veterans

were still alive,

so we got to meet them.

We got to talk to them.

- I've seen...

my friends,

my men being killed.

And it doesn't take

too many days of that,

and you change dramatically.

- The show premiered

September 9th, 2001.

Two days later,

everything changes.

People were concerned.

"Should we stop airing it

because it's a war story

and now the country

is at war again?"

- It turned out to be

something that was necessary,

because now almost

every American, I think,

felt as though

they had enlisted in something

that they had

not enlisted in before.

After 9/11,

we were all part of something.

- We deserve long and happy

lives in peace.

- Do I know that face?

- Historical dramas of

the founding of the nation

have been overly rosy.

- When I go to the cupboard,

and I find no coffee, no sugar,

no pins, no meat,

am I not living politics?

- One of the things that was

amazing to me

about "John Adams"

was it was done as realism.

- People are hurt

when they fight

for what is rightfully theirs!

- You approve a brutal

and illegal act

to enforce

a political principle, Sam!

- Just the grittiness

of founding a nation.

- And liberty will reign

in America!

- And trying to figure out

what a president is.

- God bless George Washington,

president of the United States.

[cheers and applause]

- It's a gift to be given

12 hours on HBO.

God help you if you don't

have something to say.

- Let's understand each other.

I'm not Western District.

I'm not a narco.

I don't dirty people,

'cause I don't give a [bleep]

about a possession charge.

I'm a murder police.

I'm here about the bodies.

- David Simon was a newspaper

reporter in Baltimore.

He spent a year embedded with

the Baltimore homicide unit

to write a book.

He and Ed Burns,

who was a police officer,

got together and said,

"Well, what if we tell

"the whole story of the death

of the American city,

"the futility of

the war on drugs,

through the eyes of cops"...

- Bang!

- [laughing]

- "Of Drug dealers"...

- Y'all got the best territory

and no kind of product.

I got the best product,

but could stand

a little more territory.

- "Of teachers,

of politicians--

just make the entire city

into the character itself?"

- You follow drugs,

you get drug addicts

and drug dealers.

But you start

to follow the money,

and you don't know where the

[bleep] it's gonna take you.

- "The Wire" broke down

systemic racism

and the cycle of poverty like

no other television show had.

- Come on. Get up.

It's a school day.

Y'all are gonna be late.

- It wasn't just about, hey,

look at these black kids

chilling drugs on the street.

You were in the apartment

with them

where they had no parents,

where they were taking care

of their siblings,

where they were trying

to scrounge for food.

- Where's your book bag?

- Teacher didn't give

no homework.

- So you start to get

a much more realistic

three-dimensional picture

of what poverty

looks like in a city.

[sirens blaring]

- One of the things

about "The Wire"

that was so interesting

is it didn't rely on

this traditional representation

of gangsters.

It didn't rely on this

traditional representation

of cops.

It was like reading

a great novel

or a great series of novels.

- Something ain't right, yo.

- Watch out, man.

Here come that fool.

- [whistling]

- He's packing.

- I think "The Wire" showed

the architecture

of a full city

in the way it layered its

characters,

particularly Omar.

Omar was, by all

other facets of his life,

pretty awful.

- Yeah.

The cheese stands alone.

- But he had this code

that he lived by

that made him

very touchable and very human.

- Hey, yo, Mike.

Hook a sister up, yo.

[baby crying]

- He was openly gay,

but people were also

very afraid of him,

and his sexuality was

not necessarily weaponized

against him.

And for me,

I didn't see black gangsters

portrayed that way a lot.

- No matter what we call

heroin, it's gonna get sold.

The [bleep] is strong,

we're gonna sell it.

The [bleep] is weak,

we gonna sell twice as much.

You know why?

'Cause a fiend, he gonna chase

that [bleep] no matter what.

- It's the greatest TV show

of all time.

I know people always

argue about that.

It's the greatest TV show

to have

black people on it ever.

- David, what's the highest

compliment someone could

pay you about this show?

- "You didn't lie."

That would be it.

"You didn't cheat."

- The current crop of 18-

to 25-year-olds

is the most politically

apathetic generation

in American history.

- We had a lot of difficulty

getting "The West Wing"

on the air,

and part of that

was because a not unreasonable

belief on the part of NBC

that people didn't want

to deal with politics.

- Running for president

of the United States

without putting Social Security

front and center

is like running for president

of the Walt Disney Corporation

by saying you're gonna

fix the rides at Epcot.

- I think what made it so

different than any other show

I'd worked on was

the richness of character

and words and thoughts and

images that Aaron Sorkin wrote.

- I would love for people

to think

that I'm as quick and clever

as the characters that I write,

but you'd be disappointed

if you met me.

- Josh.

- Yeah.

- Six pages on English

as the national language.

- Meetings don't just

take place sitting down

and talking to people.

- And the--

- I didn't ask for a damn

social studies paper.

I wanted...

- Don't snap at me, Josh.

- Donna...

- Look at the memo.

I gave you what you asked for.

Don't snap at me.

- So we knew that was

the essence

of the show--this movement.

- What's wrong with

everyone today?

- The challenge of doing that

is, number one, lighting...

- What was the question?

- If you look at that set on

"The West Wing,"

there is a lot of glass.

Glass is reflective,

so there were a lot

of technical challenges

that existed,

but the biggest challenge

by far

was the performance challenge.

- 802, five votes

jumped the fence.

- Because they could go

beginning, middle,

and end of the scene

sometimes in one take,

and it was liberating,

and also intimidating.

- What the hell happened?

- We don't know.

- Give me names.

- We're finding out.

- I love "The West Wing"

because it's a complete fantasy

of a political world

that is so healthily bipartisan

and it shows people intensely

and emotionally grappling

with the hard questions.

- 40% of Americans

have a gun in their home.

- Only 16% believe gun

ownership is an absolute right.

Only 9% believe

it's an absolute wrong.

There's a middle.

We can win them.

- It presented both sides as

real human beings that cared.

- It's not easy being

my vice president, is it?

- [sighs]

No, sir.

- This was a Valentine's

towards public service

that I think people

were hungry for,

and so this was

a group of people

just trying to make

the world better.

- Alexander Hamilton

didn't think we should

have political parties.

Neither did John Adams.

They thought political parties

led to divisiveness.

- Day number 52 of

the socialism

that you've been waiting for...

- The Manchurian candidate

couldn't destroy us

faster than Barack Obama.

- Critics now claim

the administration is actually

pressuring certain

disabled veterans to, quote,

"Hurry up and die."

- What you saw in

the media universe

in the 2000s was the

splintering of the audience,

and in news, it splintered

largely along political lines.

- You're watching Fox News,

real journalism,

fair and balanced.

- Roger Ailes had

the brilliant idea

of creating a network for

conservatives, thus Fox News.

- Controversy over John Kerry

and his Vietnam War medals

has just gotten worse.

- MSNBC kind of stumbled

into the idea

of a liberal counterpart.

- People who watch Fox News

thinking that there is news

in it are tinfoil hatters,

conspiracy theorists,

paranoids, racists,

loons, and pinheads.

- There was no longer

a shared factual basis

for our political views.

We didn't all go home

and watch Walter Cronkite.

- "Crossfire."

On the left, James Carville

and Paul Begala.

On the right, Robert Novak

and Tucker Carlson.

In the crossfire...

- I remember when Jon Stewart

went on "Crossfire."

It was 2004.

John Kerry was the Democratic

presidential nominee

facing George W. Bush,

and I thought, you know,

watching it,

I said, "Well,

this could be a funny show."

- Can I say something

very quickly?

Why do we have to fight?

- [laughs]

- The two of you.

Can't we just--

say something nice

about John Kerry right now.

- I like John--I care

about John Kerry.

- And something about

President Bush.

- He'll be unemployed soon.

- [laughs]

- I think anyone who enjoyed

paying attention to the news

and watched "The Daily Show"

will forever remember

Jon Stewart

going on "Crossfire"

and reading those guys

the riot act.

- You're doing theater when you

should be doing debate,

which would be great.

- You do debate--

- It's not honest.

What you do is not honest.

What you do is partisan

hackery,

and I'll tell you

why I know it...

- You have John Kerry

on your show,

and you sniff his throne,

and you're accusing us

of partisan hackery?

- Absolutely, you're--

- You have got to be kidding!

- You're on CNN.

The show that leads in to me

is puppets making

crank phone calls.

- [laughs]

- What is wrong with you?

- Comedians and satire,

when done right,

will take on hypocrisy

no matter where it comes from.

- I think the vice president

and his wife

love their daughter.

I think they love her

very much,

and you can't have anything

but respect for the fact

that they're willing to talk

about the fact

that they have a gay daughter.

- Yes, we admire your love

for your gay daughter!

- If they've stepped in it,

a trusted comic will bring

that to the forefront,

and I think that

that's what people like

about "The Daily Show."

- There's an upcoming election,

evidently.

I didn't know that.

[laughter]

- You're our chief political

correspondent, Stephen.

I mean, every two years,

we elect a brand new

House of Representatives,

a third of the Senate.

It's called

the midterm elections.

- I only vote when the

big kahunas are up, you know?

El presidente.

I can't be running around

every two years voting.

I got a life.

- I could not have lived

without "The Daily Show,"

and Colbert then becomes

the companion show...

- C for Colbert.

- That is also so compelling

to watch--this hilarious,

pseudo-conservative

dumb guy...

- And who are the heroes?

The people who watch

this show--average,

hardworking Americans.

You're not the elites.

You're not

the country club crowd.

I know for a fact

that my country club

would never let you in.

- One of the things about being

on "The Colbert Report,"

and Stephen would say

it himself,

was he was playing a character.

- The book is "The Nine:

Inside the Secret,

Spooky World

of the Supreme Court."

- Stephen had to respond

in real time

to the guests as his

character, not as himself,

which was an incredible feat

of acting

as well as a kind

of quasi-journalism.

That's a big part of the book,

is, you know,

how much do the justices'

political views

play a role

in how they decide cases?

- How much--I mean, why would

political views go into it?

These guys are supposed to

be--except the activist judges,

the four liberal

activist judges.

I can understand why their

liberal bent would affect them,

because

they're activist judges.

- Right.

- But the conservative judges

are not activists.

They're inactivists.

- They... [stammers]

yeah, I guess

you're exactly right.

Yeah.

- Right?

- The moment

I remember is the moment

that Barack Obama was named

president of the United States.

- CNN projects that Barack

Obama is the next president

of the United States

of America.

It is now official.

He has passed

the 270 electoral votes.

[cheers and applause]

- When you watch the tape,

you can see that Colbert

begins to cry.

And that character can't cry,

because that's not

what the character does,

and Jon Stewart,

he loves Colbert so much

as a human being,

he covers for Colbert.

- It is now 297...

for Barack Obama,

- Do you want to know what the

best thing about childhood is?

At some point, it stops.

- In the year 2000, we get

"Malcolm in the Middle,"

and this is a pivotal show

for a lot of reasons...

- Dude.

- Not least of which because

it gives us Bryan Cranston,

but because this is

a single-camera comedy.

- Around here, being smart is

exactly like being radioactive.

- Single-camera comedies

were funny,

and the fact that you could

shoot them like movies,

and they could be

terrific every week...

- Yep, class president

felt really good.

but later that night,

I had a dream.

- You know, critics loved that

because it was something new.

It was something

that they weren't expecting.

[tense music]

- [screams]

- [shrieks]

- Oh, you should

see the traffic.

The only thing moving

is the carpool lane.

- Hey, daddy.

You want a date with mama?

- Get in the car.

- "Curb" came because

Larry wanted to do a special.

It was his, you know, just,

[as Larry David]

"Uh, follow my life," you know?

But he would only make it

with the stipulation that

if he didn't like it,

he could buy it back.

Lucky for us, he liked it.

- You trying to act

like you ain't with me?

- No, I'm not trying to act

like I'm not with you.

What are you saying?

- I will pull a [bleep]

out in this thing.

I will pull a [bleep] out...

- Don't you dare do that.

- You know, the actors

wouldn't get an outline

for the show.

They wouldn't even read

what the scene was about.

- Judy! See it?

- Yeah.

- Judy!

- Judy! Judy!

Oh, my God.

- By the way, that shelf

coming down was not planned.

That shelf really did

come down,

and Larry and Jeff just acted

their way through it.

- What do I do?

- Stick it in your jacket.

- Jeffrey!

- It's too big.

Where do I put it?

- Do something.

She's coming up.

- I think "Curb" in many ways

is the ultimate descendant

of "Seinfeld."

It's in a much more real,

truthful place where

morality is a gray area...

- Where's the [bleep] head?

- And everybody's redefining it

all the time.

- The kid is home hysterical

because her doll, Judy,

has been decapitated,

'cause you two sickos

took the head for God knows

what reason--some voodoo

[bleep] you're doing.

- Larry and I would play a game

of "worst case scenario."

- I was talking

to a friend of mine,

and he's a survivor,

and he would love to meet you.

Would it be possible?

I mean, for me to bring them

to dinner, and...

- Of course.

- You would take

the basic premise

from something

that actually happened

and then just exploit it...

- Where's this survivor?

- Well, he's the survivor.

From the--

from the television show.

- The guy from the "Survivor"

TV show

and the Holocaust survivor

get into an argument

about who had it worse.

- I'm saying we spent 42 days

trying to survive.

We had very little rations,

no snacks.

- Snacks?

What are you talking, snacks?

We didn't eat,

sometimes for a week,

for a month.

- Don't.

- We ate nothing.

I went from--

- I mean, I couldn't even

work out when I was over there.

They certainly

didn't have a gym.

- A what?

- I mean,

I wore my sneakers out, and

then the next thing you know,

I've got a pair of flip-flops.

- Flip-flops!

- We'd slip on the ground.

- That was, to me,

Larry David at his best,

because he managed

to take a subject

that no one

would really find funny

and make it hilarious

and palatable.

- I'm a survivor!

- I'm a survivor.

- I'm a survivor!

- I'm a survivor!

- I'm a sur--

- Is there any taboo

that you wouldn't break?

- No, not if there was

a funny idea.

- It's all about funny?

- Yeah.

- So, this is

the magic trick, huh?

- Illusion, Michael.

- Mm.

- A trick is something

a whore does for money.

- "Arrested Development"

was absolutely firing

on all cylinders from

the first episode to the last.

- Don't you judge me.

You're the selfish one.

You're the one who charged

his own brother

for a Bluth frozen banana.

I mean it's one banana,

Michael.

What could it cost?

$10?

- You've never actually

set foot

in a supermarket, have you?

- If you got it,

it was the funniest

thing you ever saw,

'cause it assumed its audience

was as smart as its writers.

- What have you got there?

"Don't be afraid to make a..."

- Well, I'm not gonna

beat myself up over that.

- It was so clever,

and more meta

than just about any show

that's ever been on television.

- Your average American male

is in a perpetual state

of adolescence--you know,

arrested development...

- Hey, that's the name

of the show.

- It was really smart

in the eye

that you can kind of break

all these rules,

and also have a lot

of characters on a comedy

who were extremely unlikable.

[mariachi music]

♪ ♪

- [screams]

- There are a lot more

important things

than jokes in a comedy.

Jokes aren't the most

important thing in a comedy.

- What's the most

important thing?

- Character.

[rolls tongue]

It's all down to it.

Just, like,

control of the body.

And it's all that now,

isn't it?

- Busy?

- Yeah, just keeping up

the morale.

- Can we have a chat?

- Yeah.

Ooh!

- I'd watched the British show

"The Office."

It's one of the greatest cringe

shows of all time.

- No, I don't have a great

many ethnic employees.

That's true.

But it's not company policy.

I haven't got a sign

on the door that says

"white people only."

You know, I don't care

if you're black, brown,

yellow, you know--Orientals

make very good workers.

- Wassap?

- Don't do that.

- When the decision was made

to make an American version...

- Wassap?

- Wassap?

- Wassap?

- There was a lot of

head-shaking of, like,

"Oh, God, American TV.

They're gonna ruin it."

- Are they breathing?

- No, Rose,

they are not breathing,

and they have no arms or legs.

- No, that's not part of it.

- Where are they?

- It used the same mockumentary

format that

the British show had...

- [grunts]

- And it went on to be

this hugely influential hit.

- [screams]

- What are you doing?

- We search for the organs.

Where's the heart?

The precious heart.

- That show works.

Everybody you go to

in that cast is hilarious.

- [slurping creepily]

- Oh, my God!

- Why would you--

- Oh, my God.

- Dwight!

- [as Hannibal Lecter]

Clarice...

- The mockumentary format,

it was different,

and all of a sudden,

it became something that you

just realized the audience

was very comfortable

and very conversant.

- Hey, park lady.

- Yeah?

- You suck.

- Hear that?

He called me "park lady."

- "The Office,"

"Parks and Rec,"

"Modern Family"--

the conceit is

they're making a documentary.

- [grunts]

I'm okay. I'm good.

I'm good.

- The idea of these shows is,

you know,

they sit down on the couch

or they catch them in

a separate part of the office,

and everybody

does a confessional

like reality television.

- I've gained a few

extra pounds

while we were expecting

the baby,

which has been very difficult,

but apparently your body does

a nesting, very maternal,

primal thing

where it retains nutrients--

some sort of molecular

physiology thing.

But that's science.

You can't--you can't fight it.

- We didn't need to explain

that there's a documentary,

'cause, like, yeah,

it's a documentary.

We don't need to know

who he's talking to.

I got it, and it's funny.

- This year's Emmy nominations

have been announced.

The comedy series "30 Rock"

was the top nominee.

- "30 Rock."

- "30 Rock"

is having

the last laugh again.

Last year's best comedy winner

pulled in 17 nominations,

the most in that category.

- Why are you wearing a tux?

- It's after 6:00.

What am I, a farmer?

- Tina Fey, I always felt,

was the best

joke writer in America.

- Would you describe yourself

as cat-competent?

- Oh, yes. I love cats.

I used to have two cats,

but then I moved to this place

with hardwood floors,

so we had to put them down.

- So here comes "30 Rock."

It's probably the densest

show ever, joke-wise.

[musical sting]

- [gasps]

No.

No high-def.

- "30 Rock" was a critical

success from minute one.

It had a very passionate,

very desirable audience

watching it, from even

an advertiser's standpoint,

but it was not

a highly rated show.

- Television on!

Pornography!

- But critical success

was a marker for,

"We're doing something

right there."

- All of my summer replacement

shows were big hits--

"America's Next Top Pirate,"

"Are You Stronger Than a Dog?"

"MILF Island."

- "MILF Island"?

- 25 super hot moms,

50 eighth-grade boys, no rules.

- Oh, yeah, didn't one

of those women

turn out to be a prostitute?

- That doesn't mean she's not

a wonderful, caring MILF.

- The bad boy appeal

of Tony Soprano

is giving broadcast network

executives fits.

As the networks announce their

fall lineups this week,

they are looking over

their shoulders

at the success

of the cable show

and the elements of it

that they cannot imitate.

- At the time, HBO was in

about 33 million homes.

Well, FX was going

to 110 million homes,

so that's a lot of people who

I think would like programming

like this who do not have HBO.

And then I just said,

"Well, there's got to be

a different version

of Tony Soprano,"

and that ultimately

was found

in Vic Mackey,

who is a cop.

- The good cop and the bad cop

left for the day.

I'm a different

kind of cop.

- The pilot of "The Shield"

is fascinating,

because you think that

the show is being set up

as a cat-and-mouse game.

Vic Mackey--he's secretly

in bed with all the gangs

and all the drug dealers

and making lots of money,

and then you're introduced

to Terry Crowley,

this undercover cop who has

been sent to bring him down,

and you think,

"Oh, that's the show.

I've seen this show before.

I've seen that movie before."

- We're talking about

making a case

that puts Mack behind bars

for a long time.

- Then you get to the end

of the pilot,

and Vic shoots Terry

in the face.

[rock music]

♪ ♪

- There was some thought that

HBO shows did well

because they had

no commercials.

so when a basic cable show

like "The Shield"

that did have commercials

found an audience,

all of a sudden,

it just opened the door,

and other original programming

sprung up,

like "Nip/Tuck."

- When you stop striving

for perfection,

you might as well be dead.

- And "Rescue Me."

[alarm ringing]

- You son of a bitch!

- And it was a whole

new playing field.

[lasers blasting]

- "Battlestar Galactica"

was a show made

in the late 1970s--not

a very good show,

but a show with

a really good idea,

which is civilization

has been destroyed,

humanity's on the run,

what happens next?

Years later, Sci-Fi Channel

looked at it and said,

"Well,

what if we take it seriously?"

- Madam President,

we have to eliminate

the "Olympic" carrier

immediately.

- There are 1,300 people

on that ship.

- "Star Wars"

feels like fantasy and fable

in the best possible sense.

This felt like war.

- Okay, fire on my mark.

- No fracking way, Lee.

- The photography was shot

very much like World War II

combat cameraman work.

It was as if someone was

floating in space

with an old World War II film

[inaudible] and,

"Oh, here comes a Cylon.

I want to get this shot."

Really was riveted by it.

- It's classic sci-fi in that

it's about using the robots

and the spaceships

and the clones to comment

on the world

we live in right now.

- I can't die.

When this body's destroyed,

my memory, my consciousness,

will be transmitted

to a new one.

- The Cylons look and act

and feel just like humans,

and by time you get

to the middle

of "Battlestar Galactica,"

you don't really know

who you're rooting for anymore.

- What other secrets

are rattling

around

inside that mechanical brain?

- It was like sort of

"The West Wing" in space.

- Madam President,

without you,

we wouldn't have made it.

- It was just

a very rich world.

It felt lived in, it felt real,

and the stakes

could not have been higher.

[jazzy big band music]

♪ ♪

- AMC.

You know, people forget

AMC stood for

"American Movie Classics,"

and then suddenly

they kind of figure out,

you know, "Let's stop paying

for these other movies.

Let's make our own content."

[brooding string music]

- I was called, in 2005,

to come in

and meet with the head of AMC,

because they were

looking to do

scripted programming

for the first time.

[groovy woodwind music]

A manager said,

"Oh, I have this great script

"set in the advertising world

in New York.

"It's been around for eight

years, and nobody's bought it.

Everybody's passed."

- Advertising is based

on one thing:

happiness.

- Don Draper is a master

of the universe

ad executive

in early 1960s Manhattan,

but he's actually secretly

a man named Dick Whitman.

He has stolen the identity

of the real Don Draper

due to an incident

during the Korean War,

so he's living

another man's life,

but he's battling his own

demons at the same time,

and we're seeing him rise

and fall

over the course of the 1960s.

[overlapping chatter]

- I think the heroes

of "Mad Men" were the women.

- In a lot of ways,

the most interesting arc

of the show is

Peggy Olson's career.

She goes from this little

church-mouse secretary

to a really tough and bold

and confident career woman...

- I like the way

she's handing out the pops.

- Who knows what she can do

and is gonna try to get it,

even during a really sexist

period for the industry

when it was so hard

for a woman to get anything.

- Peggy, can you get me

some coffee?

- No.

- The female characters

in "Mad Men" are great,

because they each kind of

represent different aspects

of what women were

going through at that time.

- The way you glide

around that office

like some magnificent ship.

- [giggles]

- I had this incredible

experience

of reading

"The Feminine Mystique"

and "Sex and the Single Girl"

in the same week.

And I said, "Oh, well,

this is my show."

[door shuts]

- Daddy!

- The heroes of "Mad Men"

were the women.

And the men were

all obstructions

of one kind or another.

- I'm here all day,

alone with him, outnumbered.

- What about Carla?

Doesn't she count?

- It's not her job

to raise our children.

- It was incorporating

the music of the times,

the images of the times,

the history of the times,

and the attitudes

of the times.

[laughter]

- You can tell me

or I can find out:

what color panties

are you wearing?

- What? [laughs]

- [laughing]

- [laughing]

- [grunts]

Ooh.

Blue!

Who had blue?

[all laughing]

Can I walk you home?

- "Mad Men" had absolutely

no nostalgia for the period.

It showed that people

were jerks and adulterers

and connivers even back

in the glory days of the 1960s.

- What are you doing?

- Christ.

Somebody shot the president.

- What?

- How they communicated

the Kennedy assassination

was actually exactly

as it came to pass.

- They drew their pistols,

but the damage was done.

The president was shot...

[all murmuring]

- Everything stopped, nothing

seemed important ever again,

and it just so happened

to be the weekend

that Roger's daughter

was getting married.

[laughing]

And there was a big wedding.

[TV playing indistinctly]

- [sobbing]

It's ruined.

- I would put "Mad Men"

and "Sopranos"

in a position

of the most important shows

in the history of television.

- It is game day, people,

and I have never felt

this kind of electricity,

not in years.

This town of Dillon, Texas,

is on fire.

- I loved

"Friday Night Lights."

I grew up in Colorado.

It's set in Texas,

but I knew every single person

who was on that show,

and they weren't

on the air anyplace else.

- Amen.

all: Amen.

- Clear eyes, full hearts.

all: Can't lose.

- Let's get them.

[all cheering]

- The pilot of

"Friday Night Lights"

is one of the best pilots

of any television show ever.

You're introduced

almost instantly to the fact

that Jason Street

is the greatest quarterback

that Dillon High School

has ever had.

- Mr. Street, I've been

scouting quarterbacks

for Notre Dame for 27 years,

and your son may be the best

I have ever seen.

- About 35 or 40 minutes

into the episode,

while trying

to make a tackle...

- Fumble on the play!

A fumble!

- Jason Street is hit

and he's paralyzed.

- No! Jason!

[siren wails]

- It is devastating because

you get just far enough

into the episode to think

that maybe the bad thing

will not happen

to this person...

[solemn music]

♪ ♪

[applause]

But then

the show wouldn't be the show.

- I am gonna stay in Dillon,

I'm gonna be a father to this

baby and to this family.

I'm gonna coach

high school football,

and you and I

are gonna stay together.

and that's the way it is.

Yes?

- No.

- What do you mean no?

- You've got to go to Austin.

This is your dream.

- That's what I'm telling you.

That's what I'm--

- What we wanted it to feel

like was that

the audience

was just being invited in

to a very small-town,

very intimate setting.

I don't want to be

responsible,

nor do I want to have

this baby be responsible

for you not

living out your dream.

- And that's what I'm saying.

- I have walked with you--

- You are my dream.

- I have walked with you

all these years

to get to this place--

you and I together.

This is about just

a couple trying

to actually be in a marriage

and make it work

instead of just,

like, what we always see

on television,

and then I felt

a very strong, deep desire

to not just have her be

the sidelined supporting wife.

It looks to me like

on your little sojourn,

Tim,

you missed yourself,

oh, two biology exams.

- Oh.

- And what looks like a pretty

important term paper

in your English lit class,

so let's start there.

- I don't know

what a sojourn is, ma'am.

- A sojourn is what's gonna

keep you back a year

if you don't get it together.

- That's right.

- Change your attitude.

That's what a sojourn is.

The rest of it you can look up.

[microphone feedback]

["Single Ladies" by

Beyoncé playing]

- ♪ All the single ladies ♪

- ♪ All the single ladies ♪

- "Glee" was a really

interesting show,

because it was

about high school,

and they take pop songs

that are already out there

and make them part

of the story.

- ♪ I'm dancing with myself ♪

- And it was about these

misfits at a high school...

- ♪ Well, there's nothing

to lose ♪

♪ And there's nothing

to prove ♪

- And they're

in the glee club.

There's a lot of themes about,

A, not fitting in,

but B, homophobia.

- ♪ I'm through with

playing ♪

♪ By the rules

of someone else's game ♪

- It was so specific

to my childhood,

and, like, who ever thought

that, you know,

a bunch of misfit

show choir losers

would become a global thing?

I never did.

all: ♪ Don't stop ♪

[quiet clapping]

- I think "Glee"

and Ryan Murphy

really got the general public

understanding that,

"Oh, there is a person

behind this,

"and there is

a person's sensibility

that is driving this show."

- Love you like a sister.

- This is the point at which

the showrunners

are almost as famous

or more famous

than some of the people

on their shows,

because we care so much

about the creative process.

- So is it the drama

and the story

that usually comes first?

- Yes.

- And then the medicine later?

- The theme of every episode

and the drama

of every episode comes first,

and then we try

to find medicine

that relates to

or reflects that theme.

- Mr. and Mrs. Glass,

I understand

how difficult this is.

- No disrespect,

but like hell you do.

- You're going to have to make

a decision

as to how you want to proceed.

- You mean my baby's life

or my own?

- Yes.

- "Grey's Anatomy" revealed

what a good storyteller

Shonda Rhimes is.

- I love you, in a...

really, really big,

"pretend to like your taste

in music, let you eat

"the last piece of cheesecake,

hold a radio over my head

outside your window,"

unfortunate way that

makes me hate you, love you.

So pick me.

- People like Shonda Rhimes,

these are the people who are

just the lifeblood

of broadcast networks.

And in Shonda's case,

it's fantastic,

because finally a woman,

finally a person of color

is doing this.

- Anything that opens doors

for more women

and more African-Americans

and more diverse casting

and more diverse crew

is a good thing.

- Shonda stood up and went,

"Yes, I am gonna be

a show-runner, and

I'm gonna be a juggernaut."

- Ten bucks says he messes up

the McBird.

- 15 says he cries.

- I'll put 20

on a total meltdown.

- 50 says he pulls

the whole thing off.

That's one of us down there--

the first one of us.

Where's your loyalty?

- Above and beyond

the cultural aspect,

which is important and great,

we need to remember that

she created a bunch of shows

that are terrific fun

to watch.

- You can do this, Meredith.

[dark music]

♪ ♪

- I was about to turn

40 years old,

and this is about 2004,

two years after the end

of "The X-Files,"

and I was kind of at sea.

I wasn't sure

what to do next.

I was having trouble

getting--frankly,

I was having trouble

getting employed.

My buddy Tom Schnauz

had been on "The X-Files" too,

and he said, "I think

we should put a meth lab

"in the back of an RV

"and, you know, see America,

make some dough on the side."

He's got a warped

sense of humor.

[laughing] But at any rate...

When I heard that idea...

- [retching]

- I thought to myself,

"You know, what if

I really did that?

What would it take?"

[machinery whirring]

And then I thought, "Well,

I'd need money really bad.

Why would I need money?"

- Lung cancer.

Inoperable.

- We pitched "Breaking Bad"

to not even

a handful of places.

Some people liked it,

some people not so much.

It'd kind of been dead

for about six months or a year

or something like that,

and suddenly I hear,

"Hey, would you like

to go meet the folks at AMC?

They're interested

in doing 'Breaking Bad.'"

all: Surprise!

[cheers and applause]

- Happy birthday, Dad.

- When we were making

the decision

to do "Breaking Bad,"

we absolutely were looking

for an antihero show,

and we wanted a guy that was

going against the grain.

- Dad, come check this out.

- Yeah, I see it.

- Come on, take it.

- Yeah, check it out, Wally.

- They always tell you

you need to have a good

one-sentence pitch...

- Nice.

- And I came up with,

"We're gonna take Mr. Chips,

and we're gonna turn him

into Scarface."

[gun fires, blood squelches]

- [gasps]

[panting]

What we were really

going for was change.

Walter White says it

in the first hour of the show.

- Electrons, they...

change their energy levels.

Molecules.

Molecules change

their bonds, huh?

- "Breaking Bad"

was a study in change.

- ♪ I'm from that

dirty, dirty ♪

♪ We 'bout that money, money ♪

♪ Better watch

yo' game, playa ♪

- The change that happens

to one character

as he devolves

from good to bad.

- You know the business...

and I know the chemistry.

It dawned on us

pretty early on

that the heart of the show

could simply be the endless...

[laughs] The endless

repercussions

of these bad decisions

Walter White makes.

- Turn around and look at me.

- Every action, to put it

in physics terms,

every action's gonna have

a reaction.

- You just really immediately

got onboard with this

character--

that even though he was doing

unlikeable things,

you understood 100%

why he was making

the decisions that he made.

There was definitely a shift

after "Mad Men"

and "Breaking Bad"

that the phones

started ringing

and a ton of feature people

wanted to start

making TV shows.

- Badass, Dad.

- And it now really has

taken over

what the indie feature was.

Now it's being made

in the TV sphere.

[eerie whirring]

- I've waited a long

time for this.

- Coming up as an actor,

film was the thing.

TV was, like, less-than.

- I said [bleep].

- So to suddenly be in an era

where we could tell

these rich stories...

- Entrance has been gained.

- And really create

the suspense of them

and that trajectory of them...

- Get over whatever it is

and do your job.

- In ways that maybe we

couldn't necessarily in film,

and I do think that led

to where we are now,

where everybody wants to do TV.

[chuckles]

[laughter]

- So I go to "Crossfire."

Now, let's face it,

I was dehydrated.

It's the Martin Lawrence

defense.

Um...

Hadn't had, perhaps,

my proper water that day,

and I had always, in the past,

mentioned to friends

and people that I meet

on the street

that I think that show blows.

Uh...

So I thought it was only

the right thing to do,

is to go say it to them

personally...

[laughter]

On their program, but here's

the thing about

confronting someone with that

on their show...

uh, they're there.

[laughter]

Uh...

uncomfortable.

[laughter]