Bill Lawrence

I like the end of the year to be about something. Especially with younger shows, the network pushes you to make self-contained episodes; they don't like them to be serialized: 'We want this one to be funny for someone who's never watched it and will never watch again.' And I go 'Why would anyone want to do it like that?'

The historical novelist has to consider what has actually happened, while the SF writer is dealing in possibilities, but they are both in the business of imagining a world unlike our own and yet connected to it.