Stephen Nathan (Bones, Joan of Arcadia, Family Law) discusses career in executive producing sit-coms and one-hour drama series and offers a detailed look into a ten-year run on the hit comedy-procedural Bones.
We talk about:
- The future of consuming visual content
- Writing and executive producing Bones for a decade
- The special 200th “Hitchcock” episode of Bones in Technicolor
- The evolution of two central characters
- Balancing plot and character within episodes
- Social media fan support — the positive and the negative
- Transitioning from New York and the stage to LA and a role in Bonanza
- The demanding schedule of a showrunner
- Cross-training with playwriting
Quotes from the show:
“Ten years on one show… I could have become a doctor.”
“There are two characters; we pick them up at one part of their lives, and then, when the series ends, you leave them in another part of their lives.”
“The more controversial something is– or the more upset the audience was– the more they talked about it, and the more people wanted to see what they were talking about.”