Stephen J. Cannell

Once you put something like 'The A-Team' on the map, it does become part of the DNA of television. People grab little pieces of it. I certainly grabbed little pieces of other people's shows when I was creating my shows.

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.