0:00:02 > 0:00:04Television is most certainly here to stay.
0:00:27 > 0:00:29New eyes, new vision for the world.
0:00:40 > 0:00:42'All right, take it easy, just take it easy.'
0:00:59 > 0:01:03Primetime is the showcase for the best in American television -
0:01:03 > 0:01:06the place where the most popular dramas and sitcoms
0:01:06 > 0:01:08are seen by tens of millions of viewers.
0:01:08 > 0:01:12It's also the place where America manufactures its fictional heroes
0:01:12 > 0:01:16crusaders who seek the truth, protect the innocent
0:01:16 > 0:01:18and do the right thing.
0:01:18 > 0:01:22But the line that separates the hero from the vigilante,
0:01:22 > 0:01:25the lawman from the outlaw, can sometimes be a fine one.
0:01:25 > 0:01:28And this ambiguity at the heart of heroism
0:01:28 > 0:01:33has inspired some of primetime's most potent shows.
0:01:38 > 0:01:40We're drawn to heroic characters,
0:01:40 > 0:01:44whether they're more traditional or otherwise,
0:01:44 > 0:01:48because there's a fundamental appetite for a saviour.
0:01:48 > 0:01:50He's part hero, he's part everyman.
0:01:50 > 0:01:53He's definitely one of those people who believes
0:01:53 > 0:01:56that if you don't stand for something you fall for anything.
0:01:56 > 0:02:00He is that American trope of, "I will not take no for an answer,
0:02:00 > 0:02:02"I will do what I think is justifiable."
0:02:02 > 0:02:06Part, sort of, righteous do-gooder.
0:02:23 > 0:02:27Jack dramatised, in one person, those issues and questions
0:02:27 > 0:02:31that the country has been, and continues, to wrestle with.
0:02:31 > 0:02:35He was a lone gun, a man with his shotty, you know?
0:02:35 > 0:02:40And he took on, you know, whoever he wanted to take on.
0:02:40 > 0:02:44You need to open this door, man, 'fore I huff and puff.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47He's on the side of the angels without being an angel.
0:02:49 > 0:02:53He's not easily broken down into a simple mathematical formula.
0:02:53 > 0:02:58And that, after all, is how human beings are.
0:02:58 > 0:03:00Dexter is a sociopathic killer,
0:03:00 > 0:03:03he had this unquenchable thirst to kill.
0:03:03 > 0:03:08And ultimately, Dexter's killing is compelling only because
0:03:08 > 0:03:10he can justify why he's killing that person.
0:03:22 > 0:03:28How far can you go in fighting evil without becoming evil?
0:03:31 > 0:03:36As it turns out, Jack Bauer will always go as far as he has to.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38But he always pays a price for that.
0:03:40 > 0:03:43It's one horrible decision after another,
0:03:43 > 0:03:45is what Jack Bauer's life is about.
0:03:45 > 0:03:48I gave him my word that we would protect him.
0:03:48 > 0:03:49- I- didn't.
0:03:49 > 0:03:51Curtis, please, don't do this.
0:03:51 > 0:03:55'So, he does a lot of very, very difficult things.'
0:03:57 > 0:03:58Please.
0:03:58 > 0:04:00'He is a dark character.'
0:04:01 > 0:04:04But in another way, he's a very pure character.
0:04:05 > 0:04:07I can't let this animal live.
0:04:07 > 0:04:08GUNSHOT
0:04:12 > 0:04:16He will always do what needs to be done for the greater good.
0:04:16 > 0:04:18He will always do that.
0:04:18 > 0:04:20This is a man who's tortured,
0:04:20 > 0:04:24who's fighting inside himself as well as outside himself.
0:04:39 > 0:04:41I guess the only advice I can give you is...
0:04:44 > 0:04:47..try to make choices that you can live with.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51We tried tap into that,
0:04:51 > 0:04:53those complications - those emotional complications
0:04:53 > 0:04:55and psychological complications
0:04:55 > 0:04:59that come along with doing things that normally are forbidden.
0:05:04 > 0:05:06Did you torture Mr Haddad?
0:05:07 > 0:05:12According to the definition set forth by the Geneva Convention, yes, I did.
0:05:17 > 0:05:21We were several episodes into the season when 9/11 happened.
0:05:21 > 0:05:22And we asked ourselves,
0:05:22 > 0:05:28first of all, is it even appropriate to have a show on this topic on TV,
0:05:28 > 0:05:33when the real thing is happening, so tragically and so shockingly?
0:05:33 > 0:05:36And second of all, will people watch?
0:05:36 > 0:05:40The truth, Senator, is I stopped that attack from happening.
0:05:40 > 0:05:41By torturing Mr Haddad.
0:05:41 > 0:05:45By doing what I deemed necessary to protect innocent lives.
0:05:45 > 0:05:49Jack dramatised, in one person, those issues and questions
0:05:49 > 0:05:54that the country has been, and continues, to wrestle with.
0:05:58 > 0:06:01When crazy things are happening in the world
0:06:01 > 0:06:03or terrible things or shocking things,
0:06:03 > 0:06:05one of the ways we make sense out of
0:06:05 > 0:06:08it is by telling ourselves stories about it.
0:06:08 > 0:06:10Sorry, Ryan, we've got to do this.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16I don't think you've seen traditional heroes
0:06:16 > 0:06:18go as far as Jack has gone.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21All right, there's no way around this, right, Jack?
0:06:21 > 0:06:23We don't have any outs here.
0:06:24 > 0:06:25Not that I can see.
0:06:25 > 0:06:30Jack Bauer has to kill Paul Schulze to stop a bomb from going off.
0:06:30 > 0:06:33You can almost say he takes the sins of the community on himself.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36He does things that have to be done but no-one else will do,
0:06:36 > 0:06:38in order to keep everyone safe.
0:06:38 > 0:06:39God forgive me.
0:06:45 > 0:06:49Poor old Jack! Things used to be so much simpler.
0:06:49 > 0:06:52In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War,
0:06:52 > 0:06:55American TV knew what a hero looked like
0:06:55 > 0:06:58and how a hero was supposed to behave.
0:06:58 > 0:07:00In America's first age of television,
0:07:00 > 0:07:04there were white hats and black hats and few shades of grey in between.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08Never fired a gun, or seen the ocean, or been off the ground...
0:07:13 > 0:07:16It's an accident of history that television came of age
0:07:16 > 0:07:21in 1948, 1949, 1950, just after World War II.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29To me, the 15 years after World War II
0:07:29 > 0:07:33was a very strange cultural backwash
0:07:33 > 0:07:36about what took place in World War II.
0:07:36 > 0:07:38And certain things were accepted as a given
0:07:38 > 0:07:40that, in fact, needed to be questioned.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43One of them had to do with the ideal of male heroism,
0:07:43 > 0:07:48the fact that television was overtaken by westerns in the 1950s
0:07:48 > 0:07:50and all these guys were these rugged heroes.
0:07:50 > 0:07:52Am I breaking the law?
0:07:52 > 0:07:54Am I doing something wrong?
0:07:54 > 0:07:56Just your being here is wrong.
0:07:56 > 0:07:58'I was growing up in the '50s.
0:07:58 > 0:08:01'At that point in America, we were feeling so muscular'
0:08:01 > 0:08:05after World War II, and that the American way of life
0:08:05 > 0:08:10was the only way of life, and the best way of life.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13Truth, justice, and the American way.
0:08:13 > 0:08:15There were these expectations,
0:08:15 > 0:08:18since we had won the war and we had acted heroically and all of that,
0:08:18 > 0:08:21that all men were supposed to be heroic.
0:08:21 > 0:08:23Kind of, I think, reinforced
0:08:23 > 0:08:27what we all believed about America at that point.
0:08:30 > 0:08:31That's what a man was.
0:08:31 > 0:08:34He was a guy who did the upright thing and stood up
0:08:34 > 0:08:37and was brave and strong and knew everything.
0:08:37 > 0:08:40But I think most men did not experience that in their lives.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43Matt Dillon, John Wayne, you know -
0:08:43 > 0:08:46you did what you had to do and you didn't worry about it.
0:08:46 > 0:08:47But I don't know how realistic that is.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50And that's probably why they were popular,
0:08:50 > 0:08:55because we wanted our folk heroes, our TV heroes to be reflective
0:08:55 > 0:08:59of our own image of ourselves as a country.
0:09:04 > 0:09:07I was a boy during the Second World War.
0:09:07 > 0:09:11And pretty much what you saw in the movies was the heroics.
0:09:13 > 0:09:18It simply would not be done to show an image
0:09:18 > 0:09:22of the day-to-day suffering that goes into it.
0:09:22 > 0:09:25They say that we are mired in stalemate.
0:09:25 > 0:09:29Seems the only realistic if unsatisfactory conclusion.
0:09:43 > 0:09:45But it wasn't just reporters and anchormen
0:09:45 > 0:09:48who helped to shape perceptions of the war.
0:09:48 > 0:09:52An off-beat sitcom, one of the most popular in the history of primetime,
0:09:52 > 0:09:56used a conflict from another time and place - Korea in the 1950s -
0:09:56 > 0:10:01to deliver some timeless truths about the real heroics of war.
0:10:01 > 0:10:04M*A*S*H is, to me, still a phenomenon.
0:10:04 > 0:10:07That in the middle of the Vietnam War,
0:10:07 > 0:10:10we would watch a show about another war,
0:10:10 > 0:10:14set in Asia, as brutal as Vietnam was.
0:10:14 > 0:10:19I was watching M*A*S*H at five or six years old.
0:10:19 > 0:10:23And it was all about war and people dying
0:10:23 > 0:10:26and I wonder how I interpreted it.
0:10:26 > 0:10:29I'll take him first. Put him ahead of him.
0:10:29 > 0:10:33Hawkeye didn't want people to die, he tried to keep them from dying.
0:10:33 > 0:10:36- Step on it. - How dare you contradict me!
0:10:36 > 0:10:38Hey, hold it, he's a commie, that's North Korean.
0:10:38 > 0:10:40- What's he doing ahead of my buddy?- Dying.
0:10:40 > 0:10:42'It was very anti-war,'
0:10:42 > 0:10:46but with this character who was like Groucho.
0:10:46 > 0:10:47I loved Groucho.
0:10:47 > 0:10:49That goon tried to kill us and now you're going to save him?
0:10:49 > 0:10:52Yeah, the whole thing's ridiculous, isn't it?
0:11:04 > 0:11:05On some level I knew,
0:11:05 > 0:11:08"This is someone who's speaking out against hypocrisy
0:11:08 > 0:11:10"and that it's wrong to hurt people."
0:11:10 > 0:11:12And I assume it just wired my brain
0:11:12 > 0:11:16for almost a compassionate way of looking at the world.
0:11:16 > 0:11:20That seems kind of...full of crap, but it is true.
0:11:20 > 0:11:23When you're watching Mash two times a day
0:11:23 > 0:11:26from the time you're like five years old, for ten or 12 years,
0:11:26 > 0:11:30what you're soaking in is the humanity of Larry Gelbart
0:11:30 > 0:11:33and his way of looking at the world.
0:11:33 > 0:11:39When the BBC showed M*A*S*H, they showed it without laughter.
0:11:39 > 0:11:44there was no laugh track on it, so I suppose an English audience,
0:11:44 > 0:11:48we tended to look at it in a rather more dramatic way.
0:11:48 > 0:11:51Some people think he was very liberal.
0:11:51 > 0:11:53But he was also a traditional conservative.
0:11:53 > 0:11:57I mean, he wanted nothing more than to have people leave him alone
0:11:57 > 0:11:59so he could enjoy his martini, you know?
0:11:59 > 0:12:03Government should get out of his liquor cabinet.
0:12:03 > 0:12:04Oh, this is sensational.
0:12:07 > 0:12:09You're my kind of girl, Nancy -
0:12:09 > 0:12:11drunk.
0:12:12 > 0:12:14There's no better doctor than Hawkeye.
0:12:14 > 0:12:16I remember thinking, even him drunk,
0:12:16 > 0:12:19I'd rather him be my doctor than somebody sober.
0:12:19 > 0:12:24When authority got ridiculous, he reacted to that.
0:12:27 > 0:12:29He didn't like the idea that he was sewing them up
0:12:29 > 0:12:33so they could be sent back into the sausage mill and get shot up again.
0:12:33 > 0:12:35We're really not so far apart.
0:12:35 > 0:12:38No, he's got a point. We're all in the same business.
0:12:38 > 0:12:42As surgeons we'll sacrifice some tissue to save the whole body,
0:12:42 > 0:12:45and you'll sacrifice a few men in order to, er... To, er...
0:12:45 > 0:12:46'There was an officer'
0:12:46 > 0:12:50that kept taking his soldiers into battle unnecessarily.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54So we took out his appendix just to keep him sidelined for a while.
0:12:54 > 0:12:58At the rehearsal for this, Mike Farrell said,
0:12:58 > 0:13:02"I'm playing a doctor who takes this seriously,
0:13:02 > 0:13:05"and I will not operate on a patient
0:13:05 > 0:13:09"who doesn't need the operation, that's mutilation."
0:13:09 > 0:13:12And we started an argument that lasted about an hour that day.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15And at a certain point, we said,
0:13:15 > 0:13:18"You know what, this is what we ought to be doing on camera,
0:13:18 > 0:13:20"because this is a serious conflict."
0:13:20 > 0:13:23Suppose you get him relieved of his command, what about the guy who replaces him?
0:13:23 > 0:13:27- He's going to be better than this guy, he's got to be.- You don't know that for sure! Do you?
0:13:27 > 0:13:30I'll take them one at a time, what have I got to lose?
0:13:30 > 0:13:31Just your self-respect, that's all.
0:13:31 > 0:13:34You're a doctor of medicine. You cut into a healthy body
0:13:34 > 0:13:36and you'll hate yourself for the rest of your life.
0:13:36 > 0:13:38I hate myself right now.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41I hate me, and I hate you, and I hate this whole life here.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45And if I can keep that maniac off the line by a simple appendectomy,
0:13:45 > 0:13:47I'll be able to hate myself with a clear conscience.
0:13:47 > 0:13:51'The ongoing appeal of the show, beyond the great characters,
0:13:51 > 0:13:57'was that it sort of stayed in pace'
0:13:57 > 0:13:59with the zeitgeist of the country,
0:13:59 > 0:14:03and was asking the same questions that we were all asking.
0:14:03 > 0:14:09We openly dealt with all the sides of the war.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12We were exploring things that were not neat.
0:14:12 > 0:14:14There was no right, and there was no wrong.
0:14:14 > 0:14:17But it came out of passion and disgust and anger
0:14:17 > 0:14:19and upset at being where they were
0:14:19 > 0:14:22and going through what they were going through.
0:14:22 > 0:14:26And that's, I think, more useful to know
0:14:26 > 0:14:31than to see what I saw as a kid,
0:14:31 > 0:14:36where, when they would shoot down an enemy plane,
0:14:36 > 0:14:38then they'd all laugh and cheer.
0:14:38 > 0:14:40There's more interest,
0:14:40 > 0:14:44human interest, in looking at the real cost
0:14:44 > 0:14:48than there is in just skimming across the surface.
0:14:51 > 0:14:52Yeah, I loved Hawkeye.
0:14:54 > 0:14:56You know, people fall in love with characters,
0:14:56 > 0:14:59people fall in love with shows.
0:14:59 > 0:15:01And when that happens,
0:15:01 > 0:15:03people then become fierce in their devotion.
0:15:10 > 0:15:12I think we all want to believe
0:15:12 > 0:15:15that those people that are protecting us
0:15:15 > 0:15:17and saving our lives are really...
0:15:17 > 0:15:20Are really extraordinary and that they'll be there
0:15:20 > 0:15:23when I'm faced with that same problem.
0:15:31 > 0:15:33Pick up the New York Times.
0:15:33 > 0:15:36It's enough to drive anybody crazy, if you read the first three pages.
0:15:36 > 0:15:38I mean, there's so much out of our control.
0:15:38 > 0:15:40So, when you are creating an environment,
0:15:40 > 0:15:42at least fictionally speaking,
0:15:42 > 0:15:45you know, somebody has to be in control of that environment.
0:15:46 > 0:15:49Hello, sick people, and their loved ones.
0:15:49 > 0:15:51In the interests of saving time
0:15:51 > 0:15:53and avoiding a lot of boring chitchat later,
0:15:53 > 0:15:55I'm Doctor Gregory House. You can call me Greg.
0:15:55 > 0:15:58If you just sort of read the specifications of the character,
0:15:58 > 0:16:03the sort of design brief, you would think, you know,
0:16:03 > 0:16:05this is a character who's going to be hard to love.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08The thing is, though, that I loved him right from the first moment.
0:16:08 > 0:16:11Just take a swab and get it tested, OK?
0:16:11 > 0:16:13Sorry, already met this month's quota
0:16:13 > 0:16:15of useless tests for stubborn idiots.
0:16:24 > 0:16:26Would you rather have a doctor
0:16:26 > 0:16:28who holds your hand while you die
0:16:28 > 0:16:30or who ignores you while you get better?
0:16:30 > 0:16:33We should start broad spectrum antibiotics.
0:16:33 > 0:16:35Yeah, you might want to add some chicken soup.
0:16:35 > 0:16:37It'd be just as useless, but it's got chicken.
0:16:37 > 0:16:40This is a very odd and unusual combination
0:16:40 > 0:16:44of characteristics and emotions driving this character.
0:16:48 > 0:16:50The man's in a coma.
0:16:50 > 0:16:52He doesn't mind.
0:16:52 > 0:16:54Not only does he not care when people don't like him,
0:16:54 > 0:16:56he doesn't care when people like him.
0:16:56 > 0:16:59I didn't mean him to be a dislikeable guy,
0:16:59 > 0:17:02but he clearly has very, very antisocial qualities.
0:17:06 > 0:17:10What drives this guy? I don't think there's a simple answer.
0:17:10 > 0:17:12I hate simple answers.
0:17:12 > 0:17:14And I rationalised - very effectively to myself,
0:17:14 > 0:17:16I'm still convinced of this -
0:17:16 > 0:17:19that once I'm able to summarise the character in a brief period of time
0:17:19 > 0:17:20then the character's dead.
0:17:20 > 0:17:24In some film and television drama, there's a...
0:17:24 > 0:17:27Can be a tendency to paint the people in single colours
0:17:27 > 0:17:29to assume that the...
0:17:30 > 0:17:32The hero is unendingly heroic.
0:17:37 > 0:17:38I can't do it.
0:17:38 > 0:17:46Nobody I've ever met conforms to that sort of...simplicity.
0:17:49 > 0:17:51You son of a bitch!
0:17:52 > 0:17:56He's on the side of the angels without being an angel.
0:17:57 > 0:18:01He's not easily broken down into a simple mathematical formula.
0:18:01 > 0:18:04And that's part of the fun of it, because...
0:18:04 > 0:18:09And part of the truth of it as well, because that, after all,
0:18:09 > 0:18:11is how human beings are.
0:18:15 > 0:18:18I think, ultimately, the only thing drives House
0:18:18 > 0:18:19is a search for the truth.
0:18:19 > 0:18:21An individual truth, and a broad truth,
0:18:21 > 0:18:23and truth about everything.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26The thing that rouses him from his slumbers in the morning
0:18:26 > 0:18:28and propels him through the day
0:18:28 > 0:18:30is the solving of problems.
0:18:30 > 0:18:33He wants people to see their own nature.
0:18:33 > 0:18:36He wants people to see their own predicament.
0:18:36 > 0:18:39I just want to die with a little dignity.
0:18:39 > 0:18:40There's no such thing.
0:18:41 > 0:18:42Our bodies break down,
0:18:42 > 0:18:45sometimes when we're 90, sometimes before we're even born.
0:18:45 > 0:18:48But it always happens. And there's never any dignity in it.
0:18:48 > 0:18:52I don't care if you can walk, see, wipe your own ass. It's always ugly.
0:18:52 > 0:18:53Always.
0:18:57 > 0:19:00You can live with dignity, you can't die with it.
0:19:00 > 0:19:04All heroic deeds require a cost, otherwise they're not really heroic.
0:19:04 > 0:19:07There has to be a dragon, there has to be a risk,
0:19:07 > 0:19:08there has to be pain.
0:19:08 > 0:19:13And he endures that pain and fights that dragon.
0:19:13 > 0:19:15He pays that price in lots of different ways
0:19:15 > 0:19:19and he pays it for the sake of seeking after this bigger truth.
0:19:21 > 0:19:23I don't believe in relative morality.
0:19:23 > 0:19:25I do believe there is a truth.
0:19:25 > 0:19:28And I do believe there is a right way and a wrong way.
0:19:28 > 0:19:30What I don't believe is that it's simple.
0:19:30 > 0:19:34There's something still, I find, very exciting about his...
0:19:36 > 0:19:38His bravery, his solitariness,
0:19:38 > 0:19:42the fact that he is prepared to sort of stride out
0:19:42 > 0:19:44into the lonely cosmos without...
0:19:44 > 0:19:51Without a partner, without an ally, without a friend, and...take it on.
0:19:51 > 0:19:53I find that...
0:19:53 > 0:19:55admirable and compelling.
0:19:59 > 0:20:00And roll sound.
0:20:04 > 0:20:06Who...
0:20:08 > 0:20:13..do you work for, you pretty little girl?
0:20:18 > 0:20:21I think it's possible that you don't see
0:20:21 > 0:20:23as many lone female crusaders because...
0:20:25 > 0:20:27..maybe there's a perception that these stories
0:20:27 > 0:20:29speak mostly to men.
0:20:40 > 0:20:43Not to get all Women's Studies on you,
0:20:43 > 0:20:46but maybe the idea of a hero with a straightforward goal
0:20:46 > 0:20:48is particularly male.
0:20:50 > 0:20:54The female crusader may not have found a home in primetime
0:20:54 > 0:20:56as readily as her male counterpart,
0:20:56 > 0:20:59but this makes the exceptions to the men-only rule
0:20:59 > 0:21:02all the more remarkable. One of the most notable
0:21:02 > 0:21:05owes her inspiration to a very British prototype.
0:21:11 > 0:21:14The Avengers was a show that I loved.
0:21:14 > 0:21:17And, in a way, you can sort of see a little bit of the similarity
0:21:17 > 0:21:20between Mulder and Scully and John Steed and Emma Peel.
0:21:23 > 0:21:29At the very beginning, not sure many people know this,
0:21:29 > 0:21:33but I was meant to walk a few paces behind Mulder,
0:21:33 > 0:21:35when we got out of our cars,
0:21:35 > 0:21:40when were going up to a house to expose our FBI badges,
0:21:40 > 0:21:43I was meant to be a few paces behind him
0:21:43 > 0:21:46as he walked up the steps to the house.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49You think, "You've got to be kidding me."
0:21:49 > 0:21:54That was the antithesis of the character that Chris Carter created,
0:21:54 > 0:21:58which was this young woman with incredible chutzpah
0:21:58 > 0:22:02and, eventually, over time, it just became natural
0:22:02 > 0:22:05that we reached the front door at the same time.
0:22:21 > 0:22:24Even though Mulder is really the sort of hero in the show,
0:22:24 > 0:22:28it's really Scully's point of view in which the stories are told from.
0:22:28 > 0:22:30It's the sceptic's point of view.
0:22:30 > 0:22:31It's the rational point of view.
0:22:31 > 0:22:34She's a medical doctor. She's a scientist.
0:22:34 > 0:22:38She's a forensic pathologist. She's sure of herself.
0:22:38 > 0:22:42Her belief about the world of the paranormal
0:22:42 > 0:22:45or extraterrestrials, or whatever it was,
0:22:45 > 0:22:47it was just... It was not real.
0:22:47 > 0:22:49There was no question about it.
0:22:49 > 0:22:52You don't honestly believe this is some kind of extraterrestrial?
0:22:52 > 0:22:55This is somebody's sick joke.
0:22:55 > 0:22:59I'm not crazy, Scully. I have the same doubts you do.
0:23:02 > 0:23:06People talk about the '90s and the paranoid '90s.
0:23:06 > 0:23:07The fallout from Watergate,
0:23:07 > 0:23:10the fallout from the '70s and '80s
0:23:10 > 0:23:12was still apparent in the '90s.
0:23:12 > 0:23:14And we were still distrusting of our government.
0:23:16 > 0:23:22At the base of... Of these two very different,
0:23:22 > 0:23:25very disparate characters,
0:23:25 > 0:23:29was, you know, ultimately a desire to get to the bottom of something,
0:23:29 > 0:23:31to get to the truth of the matter.
0:23:31 > 0:23:35We are interested by the Don Quixote characters
0:23:35 > 0:23:38who have great passion, great drive to do something.
0:23:38 > 0:23:43And against all odds, they proceed toward their goals.
0:23:43 > 0:23:46I think that is always going to be interesting to an audience,
0:23:46 > 0:23:51whether it was back in the '50s, or the '30s, or...
0:23:51 > 0:23:543,000 years ago, or today, or tomorrow,
0:23:54 > 0:23:55or 1,000 years from now.
0:23:55 > 0:23:57It's over, Scully.
0:23:57 > 0:24:01- But you have to lodge a protest. They can't...- Yes, they can.
0:24:03 > 0:24:04What are you going to do?
0:24:05 > 0:24:07I'm...
0:24:09 > 0:24:12..not going to give up. I can't give up.
0:24:16 > 0:24:19Not as long as the truth is out there.
0:24:19 > 0:24:22We saw them, despite their differences,
0:24:22 > 0:24:25drawing closer and closer together,
0:24:25 > 0:24:29to the point where they were each the only person
0:24:29 > 0:24:31that the other could trust.
0:24:31 > 0:24:34There was something very romantic
0:24:34 > 0:24:38about this platonic - mostly platonic - duo.
0:24:38 > 0:24:42I've always said that the secret to The X-Files was simply this -
0:24:42 > 0:24:44Mulder loves Scully and Scully loves Mulder.
0:24:44 > 0:24:49You know, just the image of seeing them
0:24:49 > 0:24:53in their two different apartments on opposite sides of town.
0:24:53 > 0:24:58What it did is it developed this longing.
0:24:59 > 0:25:02It added to the desire for the two of them
0:25:02 > 0:25:06to come closer together in that loneliness.
0:25:15 > 0:25:20There's an old saying on Broadway that happiness writes in white ink.
0:25:20 > 0:25:22It leaves no trace, in other words.
0:25:22 > 0:25:26That's why one of the most successful drama series of all time,
0:25:26 > 0:25:2912 seasons in all, wrote in darker colours.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33Blacks, greys, and NYPD Blue.
0:25:38 > 0:25:41Loneliness is a very compelling element
0:25:41 > 0:25:42to a lot of lead characters.
0:25:45 > 0:25:48There's not a ton of drama in happiness.
0:25:52 > 0:25:54And you see that in life all the time.
0:25:54 > 0:25:59You see people who just don't know how to get out of their own way.
0:25:59 > 0:26:02There was a wonderful poem by Stanley Kunitz who said,
0:26:02 > 0:26:06"At times like ours, the heart breaks and breaks
0:26:06 > 0:26:09"and lives by breaking."
0:26:10 > 0:26:14And it's not an accident that, over time,
0:26:14 > 0:26:18the most compelling character in NYPD Blue
0:26:18 > 0:26:24was the one guy who was always trying to connect to life
0:26:24 > 0:26:26and always coming up short.
0:26:26 > 0:26:30Leon. Hurt me - twice.
0:26:34 > 0:26:35This has got to stop, Andy.
0:26:37 > 0:26:38- What's got to stop?- This.
0:26:38 > 0:26:40You're getting stiff every afternoon now.
0:26:40 > 0:26:42Hey, look, I don't recall
0:26:42 > 0:26:45requesting any career counselling session from you.
0:26:45 > 0:26:51Sipowicz was a guy who, er... Was a trailblazer
0:26:51 > 0:26:55in some very old clothes...
0:26:55 > 0:27:00I think it's pretty apparent that he is not your average hero.
0:27:00 > 0:27:03..with some very bad habits.
0:27:03 > 0:27:05He comes across as such a schnook.
0:27:05 > 0:27:09I mean, he's a alcoholic, he's a womaniser, he's...
0:27:09 > 0:27:10a racist.
0:27:10 > 0:27:13That's not your typical hero.
0:27:13 > 0:27:17He's a bigot and he's a slob and he's a drunk.
0:27:17 > 0:27:20Well, I'm a bigot and a slob and a drunk,
0:27:20 > 0:27:24so it was very easy for me to...write the character.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27But, which is to say...
0:27:29 > 0:27:33Let me retract so that I'm allowed into my home tonight.
0:27:33 > 0:27:38I am capable of imagining myself as a bigot and a slob and a drunk.
0:27:38 > 0:27:40I have been all of those things.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43But I try not to be them simultaneously
0:27:43 > 0:27:44because it's just too busy a world.
0:27:44 > 0:27:48Get your hands off me. Get your hands off me!
0:27:48 > 0:27:49Let's go somewhere.
0:27:58 > 0:28:02David Milch had such a sense of that character,
0:28:02 > 0:28:04and such an affinity for him.
0:28:04 > 0:28:10I make my living not only hearing what people say
0:28:10 > 0:28:14but simultaneously having a sense of what they mean.
0:28:14 > 0:28:16Are you saying I queered that guy's tyre?
0:28:16 > 0:28:19I'd say "res ipsa loquitur" if I thought you knew what it meant.
0:28:20 > 0:28:25Hey! Ipsa this, you pissy little bitch.
0:28:28 > 0:28:33Andy Sipowicz is representative of a certain kind of cop.
0:28:33 > 0:28:37They're not tolerant of the politics...
0:28:37 > 0:28:39of police work.
0:28:39 > 0:28:42A little girl was taken from Washington Square Park this morning.
0:28:42 > 0:28:44We know you were involved.
0:28:44 > 0:28:46I don't know what you're talking about!
0:28:46 > 0:28:49You're going to tell me what happened to that little girl.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52- I want a lawyer, you can't do this! - No, this is just us, Ken.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55There ain't going to be no lawyer. No court, no wrongful conviction.
0:28:55 > 0:28:57Cos you're going to take care of this right here!
0:28:57 > 0:28:59He's not, under certain circumstances,
0:28:59 > 0:29:02averse to beating a suspect.
0:29:02 > 0:29:04And he'll justify it on the grounds
0:29:04 > 0:29:08that he never beats a suspect that he doesn't know did the crime.
0:29:08 > 0:29:13Cops are asked to shield society
0:29:13 > 0:29:19from certain of its most fundamental contradictions.
0:29:19 > 0:29:21You know, we hold these truths to be self-evident.
0:29:21 > 0:29:23All people are created equal -
0:29:23 > 0:29:25we know what that means.
0:29:27 > 0:29:30So you going to tell me the truth now?
0:29:30 > 0:29:32Or are you going to make me happy?
0:29:34 > 0:29:36Tick-tock, Victor, what's it going to be?
0:29:39 > 0:29:41I'm missing happy hour.
0:29:41 > 0:29:45The truth is - and what a cop is taught is -
0:29:45 > 0:29:50you know, if the guy says, "I want a lawyer," you know?
0:29:50 > 0:29:54And the cop says, "I always wanted to bang Marilyn Monroe, you know?
0:29:54 > 0:29:56"I never got to bang Marilyn Monroe.
0:29:56 > 0:29:57"And you ain't gettin' a lawyer."
0:29:58 > 0:30:01Now, that isn't what always happens,
0:30:01 > 0:30:03but it's been known to happen.
0:30:03 > 0:30:09A soul pays the price for that sort of thing.
0:30:10 > 0:30:14The exposure to that reality
0:30:14 > 0:30:19grinds characters,
0:30:19 > 0:30:20you know, like stones.
0:30:22 > 0:30:27People were able to recognise, in Sipowicz,
0:30:27 > 0:30:32a spirit which spun against the way it drove.
0:30:33 > 0:30:41It was the portrayal of a soul very much in conflict with itself.
0:30:41 > 0:30:46In his irreconcilable complexities
0:30:46 > 0:30:50we came close to experiencing
0:30:50 > 0:30:54a character as a member of our family.
0:31:04 > 0:31:07In primetime, only the strong survive,
0:31:07 > 0:31:11and by virtue of returning season after season, episode after episode,
0:31:11 > 0:31:14they only get stronger.
0:31:14 > 0:31:16Eternal themes are re-examined
0:31:16 > 0:31:19and topical themes are opened up for exploration.
0:31:19 > 0:31:22Mainstay characters mature or retire.
0:31:22 > 0:31:25Supporting players come to the fore.
0:31:25 > 0:31:27New characters are introduced.
0:31:27 > 0:31:30And it ain't over till the Nielsen ratings say it's over.
0:31:30 > 0:31:33For the creators of these open-ended shows,
0:31:33 > 0:31:35the long haul has attractions
0:31:35 > 0:31:39that go far beyond the reassurance of a regular paycheque.
0:31:43 > 0:31:44I make my living in television,
0:31:44 > 0:31:46so take what I say with a grain of salt,
0:31:46 > 0:31:48because I'm biased and I admit it.
0:31:48 > 0:31:49But I think we are indeed
0:31:49 > 0:31:51in a new golden age of television.
0:31:51 > 0:31:56I think TV today, pound for pound, storytelling-wise,
0:31:56 > 0:31:59is more interesting - there, I say it -
0:31:59 > 0:32:01than Hollywood movies.
0:32:01 > 0:32:02And I think it's because
0:32:02 > 0:32:06television is first and foremost about storytelling.
0:32:06 > 0:32:07When you create a TV show,
0:32:07 > 0:32:10what you hope is that, by virtue of the writing,
0:32:10 > 0:32:13by virtue of the actors you have cast,
0:32:13 > 0:32:16or the situations the characters find themselves in
0:32:16 > 0:32:18are so interesting, so dramatic and perilous
0:32:18 > 0:32:20that you want to keep coming back for more.
0:32:21 > 0:32:24TV has been where the great drama is.
0:32:24 > 0:32:26It's where you can write characters,
0:32:26 > 0:32:29and you can explore them over multiple episodes.
0:32:29 > 0:32:34One of the things I love about being able to write on a series,
0:32:34 > 0:32:35a long-running series,
0:32:35 > 0:32:38as opposed to writing a movie or a play
0:32:38 > 0:32:41is that the scope is so much bigger.
0:32:41 > 0:32:42In a way, it's superior to film.
0:32:42 > 0:32:44I mean, how much can you learn about a character
0:32:44 > 0:32:45in two hours of a movie?
0:32:45 > 0:32:48It's the difference between a well-written novel
0:32:48 > 0:32:49and a well-written short story.
0:32:49 > 0:32:51Five years of a bunch of characters
0:32:51 > 0:32:55is better than two and a half hours. Why?
0:32:56 > 0:32:59You really do have the time to spend with people
0:32:59 > 0:33:02and see them actually grow and evolve and change.
0:33:02 > 0:33:05We say that television is more novelistic
0:33:05 > 0:33:07and it lets us go into those characters in such a deep way.
0:33:07 > 0:33:11But, you know... Mildred Pierce...
0:33:12 > 0:33:14You weren't deep in that character?
0:33:14 > 0:33:15Of course you were.
0:33:15 > 0:33:17We used to be deep into movies all the time.
0:33:17 > 0:33:20And movies in two hours, and two hours and a half,
0:33:20 > 0:33:23told us everything we needed to know about every character in it.
0:33:23 > 0:33:28We didn't ask for Casablanca One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six.
0:33:28 > 0:33:31We knew about Rick. We knew about Ilsa. End of story.
0:33:31 > 0:33:35The big screen is being more and more reserved
0:33:35 > 0:33:39for the 3-D spectacle.
0:33:39 > 0:33:42Movies have stopped trying to make these kinds of films
0:33:42 > 0:33:45because I think TV's doing it better.
0:33:45 > 0:33:47I think TV's better than movies.
0:33:47 > 0:33:50And, you know, I think we are living in a golden age of TV.
0:33:50 > 0:33:53I also love the fact that TV gets produced.
0:33:53 > 0:33:54It gets done.
0:33:54 > 0:33:57I produced and directed a movie
0:33:57 > 0:34:00that I wrote between Six Feet Under and True Blood
0:34:00 > 0:34:03and it took about three years.
0:34:03 > 0:34:06And I just was sort of baffled by the amount of time it took
0:34:06 > 0:34:09because I'd been spoiled by working in TV.
0:34:16 > 0:34:20The place in primetime that was once reserved for the cowboy
0:34:20 > 0:34:21is now occupied by the cop.
0:34:21 > 0:34:25Back in the 1950s, cop shows were simple affairs.
0:34:25 > 0:34:30After the crime, the car chase and the confession, it was case closed.
0:34:30 > 0:34:33But the modern cop show aims to leave their audiences
0:34:33 > 0:34:36with the uneasy feeling that things are rarely that clear cut.
0:34:40 > 0:34:43Television has a long history of cop dramas, you know,
0:34:43 > 0:34:45going back to Dragnet.
0:34:46 > 0:34:50There is a reason why those kinds of shows dominated TV for a long time.
0:34:50 > 0:34:54There's a wish-fulfilment factor. In an unpredictable world,
0:34:54 > 0:34:57you can turn it on and you can feel pretty comfortable
0:34:57 > 0:35:01that Joe Friday is going to handle that situation
0:35:01 > 0:35:02in the next half an hour.
0:35:02 > 0:35:05You know something, Cop, I think I play the part better than you do.
0:35:05 > 0:35:07I'm going to tell you something, mister...
0:35:07 > 0:35:10'They want to watch a character who's not going to let them down.
0:35:10 > 0:35:12'There was some comfort in watching that.
0:35:12 > 0:35:15'And I think that's one of the bigger differences
0:35:15 > 0:35:19'between TV of the last 15 to 20 years and TV that preceded it.'
0:35:19 > 0:35:21I would say that the TV that preceded it
0:35:21 > 0:35:26oftentimes showed its heroes making a choice between right and wrong.
0:35:26 > 0:35:29And the audience knew that the choice would be right.
0:35:29 > 0:35:32You didn't watch Gunsmoke thinking, "These guys are going to
0:35:32 > 0:35:33"make the wrong choice
0:35:33 > 0:35:36"and sort of steal some cattle today." You know?
0:35:36 > 0:35:39You watched it knowing that they were going to do the right thing.
0:35:39 > 0:35:40Must be a hard choice.
0:35:41 > 0:35:43To turn against your own kind.
0:35:44 > 0:35:46I'd like to know what makes a man do that.
0:35:46 > 0:35:49It's far more interesting to put your main character
0:35:49 > 0:35:52in a position where he or she has to choose between two wrongs.
0:35:52 > 0:35:55Whatever I did, it would've been wrong.
0:35:55 > 0:35:58Those are the questions within the shows that get me excited.
0:35:58 > 0:36:01It's like you said, Marshall, a man makes his choice.
0:36:01 > 0:36:04When you're on the edge, when you're on those ethical boundaries,
0:36:04 > 0:36:07what is the right thing to do?
0:36:16 > 0:36:19Without setting that table
0:36:19 > 0:36:22and without setting that as the model,
0:36:22 > 0:36:25you couldn't have shows later on break the model.
0:36:25 > 0:36:29I think there's something in the last 15 years going on in this country
0:36:29 > 0:36:32where these new kinds of shows
0:36:32 > 0:36:34speak to the audience in that way.
0:36:34 > 0:36:40There's only so much of that clear-cut, good guy versus bad guy
0:36:40 > 0:36:44that you can watch before it all becomes predictable.
0:36:44 > 0:36:49For a more sophisticated audience, certainly, people want more.
0:36:49 > 0:36:52They want to peel away layers of an onion.
0:36:54 > 0:36:56You shot at me!
0:36:56 > 0:36:58I'm done!
0:36:58 > 0:37:03We were always trying to examine whether pure evil existed,
0:37:03 > 0:37:07or can you blame it all on something psychological?
0:37:07 > 0:37:12Or is there something much more inherent, much more tribal
0:37:12 > 0:37:14about violence and murder?
0:37:17 > 0:37:20I like to believe that, and certainly the shows I do,
0:37:20 > 0:37:23that character trumps everything.
0:37:23 > 0:37:28For me, the process of discovering who that character is,
0:37:28 > 0:37:32is you have to go, "OK, how does he or she think,
0:37:32 > 0:37:36"what kind of education, lack of education?"
0:37:36 > 0:37:39You start here, you go here, what do they believe?
0:37:39 > 0:37:42What makes them cry, what makes them laugh?
0:37:42 > 0:37:44And then, you go a little lower,
0:37:44 > 0:37:47and you go, "Well, who do they want to sleep with?"
0:37:47 > 0:37:52And, you know, if you can answer those three pieces of a character,
0:37:52 > 0:37:55you pretty much can write him or her after that.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58The work itself is the most important thing.
0:37:58 > 0:38:00What we do is important.
0:38:00 > 0:38:04We speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves.
0:38:19 > 0:38:22We were dealing with some characters who were quite interesting,
0:38:22 > 0:38:24and were motivated by things
0:38:24 > 0:38:26that weren't on the surface
0:38:26 > 0:38:31and didn't seem to be kind of archetypes, cop archetypes, you know.
0:38:31 > 0:38:34They were moody and suspicious and petulant.
0:38:34 > 0:38:37And, you know, and sort of like, very much like real people.
0:38:37 > 0:38:40I'll meet you in the garage.
0:38:40 > 0:38:41Oh, happy day(!)
0:38:41 > 0:38:43Pembleton doesn't play well with others.
0:38:43 > 0:38:46He's prickly, you know what I mean, and self-righteous and stuck-up.
0:38:46 > 0:38:49He is the kind of most righteous,
0:38:49 > 0:38:53you know, blindly righteous character that we have.
0:38:57 > 0:39:00Deus nobiscum quis contra.
0:39:00 > 0:39:03What's that?
0:39:03 > 0:39:07With God on our side, who can stand against us?
0:39:08 > 0:39:13'Pembleton's sense of justice evolved over the life of the series.
0:39:13 > 0:39:15'He started out'
0:39:15 > 0:39:16being there for the dead,
0:39:16 > 0:39:19'bringing justice to those who had been murdered.'
0:39:19 > 0:39:21'There's a kind of, um...
0:39:21 > 0:39:25youthful belief in right and wrong.
0:39:25 > 0:39:32And a belief somehow that Pembleton has the power to make things right.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35'His need to speak for the dead
0:39:35 > 0:39:38'comes out of his own sense of inquiry
0:39:38 > 0:39:40'about the meaning of life.'
0:39:40 > 0:39:46And so each death is a reflection of his own search.
0:39:48 > 0:39:51There's something about the fact
0:39:51 > 0:39:54that you believe that you know what's right.
0:39:55 > 0:39:58And life is just so complex
0:39:58 > 0:40:02that it can't be what you think it is.
0:40:02 > 0:40:03It's not simple.
0:40:05 > 0:40:07God, please.
0:40:08 > 0:40:11I swear I will do anything.
0:40:11 > 0:40:13'We were trying to explore...'
0:40:13 > 0:40:15Let him live.
0:40:15 > 0:40:18..what is the moment where they go, "I can't do this anymore."
0:40:21 > 0:40:23I'm done.
0:40:23 > 0:40:25"I've seen too much, I know too much,
0:40:25 > 0:40:27"I don't want to know any more."
0:40:27 > 0:40:30Look, this is not your fault.
0:40:30 > 0:40:32Yeah, it's mine. And I'll carry it.
0:40:32 > 0:40:35He's so certain about what's right and wrong,
0:40:35 > 0:40:40and each and every one of these episodes reveal to him...
0:40:40 > 0:40:45more depth about our human journey.
0:40:45 > 0:40:49'He had ended up becoming'
0:40:49 > 0:40:52the ultimate priest who people went to confession to,
0:40:52 > 0:40:54but he could not absolve them,
0:40:54 > 0:40:56all he could do was give them prison time.
0:40:56 > 0:41:00The fixation on the belief that we're powerful,
0:41:00 > 0:41:03that we can do anything. Like, I can keep crime down.
0:41:03 > 0:41:08He began to understand that justice is not an absolute,
0:41:08 > 0:41:09that it is an imperfect thing.
0:41:09 > 0:41:13I can avenge, you know? That I'm doing God's work.
0:41:13 > 0:41:17That somehow I'm an instrument of His will on Earth.
0:41:17 > 0:41:21Well, I'm too fragile a vessel for that, you know?
0:41:21 > 0:41:22It's not possible.
0:41:37 > 0:41:39We were very lucky with Homicide,
0:41:39 > 0:41:43that David Simon wrote a non-fiction book called
0:41:43 > 0:41:46Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets.
0:41:46 > 0:41:47Homicide was the show
0:41:47 > 0:41:49on which I learned to write television.
0:41:49 > 0:41:52And I learned it at the foot of Tom Fontana.
0:41:52 > 0:41:53Tom is a playwright.
0:41:53 > 0:41:54And the guys working for him
0:41:54 > 0:41:57were either playwrights or television writers...
0:41:57 > 0:41:58They knew drama.
0:41:58 > 0:42:01And what they were trying to do is get to the human condition.
0:42:01 > 0:42:03And I really respect the end product.
0:42:03 > 0:42:06But Tom's impulse was not journalistic. And mine kind of is.
0:42:06 > 0:42:08What I'm interested in
0:42:08 > 0:42:10is politics and sociology and economics.
0:42:12 > 0:42:16The Wire is an argument about who we've become as a people,
0:42:16 > 0:42:19and what we're capable of, and what we're no longer capable of.
0:42:19 > 0:42:23That sounds highfalutin, but we were left alone
0:42:23 > 0:42:26and given 60 hours of television.
0:42:26 > 0:42:28And at that point
0:42:28 > 0:42:31it's kind of incumbent on you to have something to say.
0:42:31 > 0:42:34You the man with them jumbo sixes?
0:42:34 > 0:42:36How many you fuckin' want?
0:42:36 > 0:42:40I'll take about three or four, honey.
0:42:40 > 0:42:42Damn!
0:42:42 > 0:42:44HE LAUGHS
0:42:46 > 0:42:48All in the game, yo.
0:43:00 > 0:43:03It was a show about the rigged game of modern life.
0:43:04 > 0:43:06Omar coming! Omar coming!
0:43:06 > 0:43:09Everybody was a participant in something of a fraud,
0:43:09 > 0:43:11and Omar seems to recognise this,
0:43:11 > 0:43:15and he insists on operating on his own terms, for his own purposes.
0:43:15 > 0:43:18He's a guy who robs drug dealers. He's a gunslinger.
0:43:18 > 0:43:22He was a lone gun, a man with a shotty, you know?
0:43:22 > 0:43:25And he took on, you know...
0:43:25 > 0:43:26whoever he wanted to take on.
0:43:26 > 0:43:30You'd better open this door, man, 'fore I huff and puff.
0:43:31 > 0:43:34Come on now, by the hairs of your chinny-chin-chin.
0:43:34 > 0:43:37Omar, you best roll out. We're up in here with a MAC-10.
0:43:37 > 0:43:39Oh, I thinks not, Terrell. I thinks not.
0:43:39 > 0:43:42And he's the most romanticised character
0:43:42 > 0:43:44because he is unbeholden to any institution
0:43:44 > 0:43:47in a show that's about people being beholden to institutions.
0:43:47 > 0:43:50Whether it was the police department or a drug organisation
0:43:50 > 0:43:52or the school system or City Hall,
0:43:52 > 0:43:56the institutional imperative triumphed over human dignity
0:43:56 > 0:43:58at almost all points.
0:44:01 > 0:44:05It's pimps and hos, you know? It's straight-up pimps and hos.
0:44:05 > 0:44:08You've either got somebody in the corner, or you're on the corner.
0:44:08 > 0:44:12He was like, "You know what, since the game has been rigged
0:44:12 > 0:44:15"to take, take, take, take from people, let me take from the game."
0:44:15 > 0:44:21So you're my eyeball witness? So why'd you step up on this?
0:44:22 > 0:44:26Bird trifling, basically. Killing everyday working man and all.
0:44:26 > 0:44:29I mean, don't get it twisted, I do some dirt, too,
0:44:29 > 0:44:33but I ain't never put my gun on nobody who wasn't in the game.
0:44:33 > 0:44:35A man must have a code.
0:44:36 > 0:44:38Oh, no doubt.
0:44:39 > 0:44:43He's beholden to nothing, other than Omar, and his own code.
0:44:43 > 0:44:45Without a code, he's a sociopath.
0:44:45 > 0:44:49"I have not put my gun on anyone who doesn't deserve it.
0:44:49 > 0:44:52"If my gun is aimed at you, you're in the game.
0:44:52 > 0:44:54"And if you're in the game,
0:44:54 > 0:44:58"then we're playing, and you can't complain.
0:44:58 > 0:45:01"And your moral code is not superior to mine."
0:45:01 > 0:45:02He never robs a civilian,
0:45:02 > 0:45:05and he never shoots anybody for whom violence
0:45:05 > 0:45:07is not a last resort as well.
0:45:07 > 0:45:10He's playing by the code of the West. He's playing fair.
0:45:10 > 0:45:12He's playing by the rules such as they are.
0:45:12 > 0:45:15'Having a code, having something that you believe in, that you live by.
0:45:15 > 0:45:19'Let's be clear, Omar, you know, he killed people.
0:45:19 > 0:45:23'Some people may feel he was cleaning up the streets,'
0:45:23 > 0:45:25but, you know, murder is murder.
0:45:26 > 0:45:28Well, get on with it, motherf...
0:45:31 > 0:45:34'We start from the real when we're creating characters -
0:45:34 > 0:45:35'that's our rule on all these shows.'
0:45:35 > 0:45:37Write to the people who know the event.
0:45:37 > 0:45:39Write to the homicide detectives,
0:45:39 > 0:45:41write to the corner boys, if you're writing The Wire.
0:45:41 > 0:45:43Unfortunately, growing up,
0:45:43 > 0:45:46I've seen death in my neighbourhood, growing up in Brooklyn.
0:45:46 > 0:45:49You have to desensitise yourself or you won't be able to deal with it.
0:45:49 > 0:45:53I remember the last friend that I lost, that got murdered,
0:45:53 > 0:45:56I was coming home from the movies and I saw him and his girlfriend -
0:45:56 > 0:45:57it was the classic scene.
0:45:57 > 0:45:59She's screaming over his body,
0:45:59 > 0:46:02he caught a couple in the head and he was laid out.
0:46:02 > 0:46:04There's no music playing in the background,
0:46:04 > 0:46:05or dramatic music to push the emotion.
0:46:05 > 0:46:08He's on the floor, you know - blood, they chalk him out,
0:46:08 > 0:46:11they put the yellow tape up and you keep it moving.
0:46:11 > 0:46:15The fairy tale of American existence is the transcendent individual.
0:46:15 > 0:46:19I mean, going back to our view of our own manifest destiny.
0:46:19 > 0:46:23It's the guy who blazes the trail out West, or who vanquishes the bad guy.
0:46:29 > 0:46:30There were moments where
0:46:30 > 0:46:33we actually used the Western motif of the stand-off
0:46:33 > 0:46:35because Omar is of that world.
0:46:35 > 0:46:39And in a way, it's as if we placed the myth of the American individual
0:46:39 > 0:46:41in the actual America, and then said,
0:46:41 > 0:46:44"Let the chips fall where they may."
0:46:44 > 0:46:47And for a while he has a pretty good run.
0:46:47 > 0:46:49But eventually, what happens has to happen.
0:46:49 > 0:46:53He's not living in 1860, you know, Indian territory.
0:46:53 > 0:46:55He's living in Baltimore in the 21st century.
0:46:55 > 0:47:00I need a pack of Newport. Soft pack.
0:47:00 > 0:47:02The way Omar went out, you know,
0:47:02 > 0:47:06it goes back to that classic Western saying, "Live by the gun."
0:47:06 > 0:47:09I think that if had he done anything different it would have rang false.
0:47:12 > 0:47:14- Let me get one of them, too. - GUNSHOT
0:47:14 > 0:47:16CASHIER SCREAMS
0:47:20 > 0:47:23What I've tried to do is have violence be abrupt
0:47:23 > 0:47:27and uncertain and disturbing.
0:47:27 > 0:47:29I have no problem with the depiction of violence,
0:47:29 > 0:47:32but I want it to mean something.
0:47:32 > 0:47:34You know, the reality of the fact
0:47:34 > 0:47:37is that you have 12, 13-year-olds in Baltimore
0:47:37 > 0:47:39running around with bodies on their belt.
0:47:39 > 0:47:42It's not... It's not fiction.
0:47:42 > 0:47:46It's a different America. It's not the America of manifest destiny.
0:47:46 > 0:47:50Omar, he's doing all the things that usually triumph in an American story.
0:47:50 > 0:47:55He doesn't get to win because few of us do in this world any more.
0:47:55 > 0:47:58There's a better streak and more sophisticated streak
0:47:58 > 0:48:00in American storytelling
0:48:00 > 0:48:03than the good guy beats the bad guy and gets the girl.
0:48:06 > 0:48:10This world is no longer kind of so simple, you know? It's changed.
0:48:10 > 0:48:13This is my own theory, but I believe there's almost a passivity
0:48:13 > 0:48:15that's going on in America right now,
0:48:15 > 0:48:18where people actually enjoy seeing a very, very active character
0:48:18 > 0:48:20being put into situations. I mean, let's face it.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23Everybody's lives - or so many people's lives, I should say -
0:48:23 > 0:48:25are kind of consumed by, you know,
0:48:25 > 0:48:28Facebook-ing, or Twitter-ing, or whatever they do.
0:48:28 > 0:48:30This kind of networking, which really makes you wonder
0:48:30 > 0:48:33how much they're actually producing. What are they really creating?
0:48:33 > 0:48:36And when you've got a character as compelling as Dexter or Jack Bauer,
0:48:36 > 0:48:38or Vic Mackey or Tony Soprano,
0:48:38 > 0:48:41who are actually involved in the world
0:48:41 > 0:48:42in a very intimate kind of way,
0:48:42 > 0:48:45and are making decisions that will impact everybody else,
0:48:45 > 0:48:48that's a hell of a lot more active and interesting
0:48:48 > 0:48:50than just calling up somebody you met 20 years ago
0:48:50 > 0:48:53and you decided that you want to reinvigorate a relationship
0:48:53 > 0:48:56that you probably should've forgotten 20 years ago anyway.
0:49:01 > 0:49:05In this age without heroes, the antihero is king
0:49:05 > 0:49:09and they don't come much more anti than Dexter Morgan,
0:49:09 > 0:49:13a forensics expert who is also a serial killer.
0:49:13 > 0:49:18His one saving grace is that he only kills other serial killers.
0:49:18 > 0:49:20We've come a very long way indeed
0:49:20 > 0:49:23from the world of black hats and white hats.
0:49:30 > 0:49:34We live in a world that's greyer, less black and white.
0:49:34 > 0:49:36There's a value in that
0:49:36 > 0:49:37that you don't get
0:49:37 > 0:49:41if you're being presented with a pure villain or a pure hero.
0:49:43 > 0:49:45Everybody has a shadow self.
0:49:45 > 0:49:48everybody lies in bed thinking, "Oh, what if?
0:49:48 > 0:49:53"What if I could get my revenge? "What if I could get even?"
0:49:53 > 0:49:54We've all thought that,
0:49:54 > 0:49:56the difference is we don't act upon that.
0:49:56 > 0:49:58Dexter is a character that does act upon that.
0:50:11 > 0:50:15His shadow side is pretty significant.
0:50:15 > 0:50:17- You'd better be a cop. - No, forensics.
0:50:17 > 0:50:21I don't think Dexter, initially, is targeting criminals
0:50:21 > 0:50:24because of some sort of sense of himself as a crusader.
0:50:24 > 0:50:28But Dexter could be seen that way -
0:50:28 > 0:50:32cleaning up the messes that the justice system leaves behind.
0:50:32 > 0:50:35Dexter, in many ways, is Batman.
0:50:39 > 0:50:42Can't tell the truth about who he is,
0:50:42 > 0:50:44was forged in the death of a parent,
0:50:44 > 0:50:49and is channelling his rage and compulsion for good.
0:50:49 > 0:50:53The mask he wears is more during his day-to-day life.
0:50:53 > 0:50:57He's unmasked when he's doing his thing.
0:50:57 > 0:51:01All of the great comic book superheroes
0:51:01 > 0:51:03are a throwback to the classics.
0:51:03 > 0:51:07They are all very flawed characters. They all have their kryptonite.
0:51:07 > 0:51:12They all have been born out of some horrible tragedy.
0:51:15 > 0:51:19Watching his mother get chain-sawed into pieces in front of him
0:51:19 > 0:51:22when he was basically four or five years old -
0:51:22 > 0:51:24from that point on in his life,
0:51:24 > 0:51:27how do you make your life make sense?
0:51:27 > 0:51:30Dexter recognises this darkness in him,
0:51:30 > 0:51:33and instead of taking his own life,
0:51:33 > 0:51:35he takes the lives of people
0:51:35 > 0:51:39who haven't taken the responsibility for their impulses
0:51:39 > 0:51:41in the way he imagines he has.
0:51:41 > 0:51:46So he's arguably saving more lives than he's ending and he's also...
0:51:47 > 0:51:51..extinguishing the darkest part of himself.
0:51:51 > 0:51:54There's a bluntness about the character being
0:51:54 > 0:51:55an overt serial killer.
0:51:55 > 0:51:58You know, there's no kind of hiding behind that fact.
0:51:58 > 0:52:00Dexter is a sociopathic killer,
0:52:00 > 0:52:03he had this unquenchable thirst to kill.
0:52:03 > 0:52:07And ultimately, Dexter's killing is compelling
0:52:07 > 0:52:10only because he can justify why he's killing that person.
0:52:10 > 0:52:14I think audiences relish being given the opportunity
0:52:14 > 0:52:19to identify with someone who is, on paper at least, reprehensible.
0:52:19 > 0:52:24All bets would be off if he was killing indiscriminately.
0:52:24 > 0:52:28The fact that he targets terrible people opens the door
0:52:28 > 0:52:31for the audience to identify with him in some way.
0:52:34 > 0:52:38Don't test me, Sergeant. I could have killed you.
0:52:39 > 0:52:40I didn't.
0:52:42 > 0:52:44You didn't because you can't.
0:52:45 > 0:52:47I've had time to think about this, Morgan.
0:52:47 > 0:52:49I don't fit that code you were talking about, do I?
0:52:52 > 0:52:57He needs to know that he's doing the right thing to the right person.
0:52:57 > 0:53:02Not letting the people who deserve justice slip through the cracks.
0:53:02 > 0:53:05He is finding those bad people and getting rid of them.
0:53:05 > 0:53:07Who doesn't want to get rid of the detritus?
0:53:07 > 0:53:10Who doesn't want to get rid of all this kind of seemingly madness
0:53:10 > 0:53:12that goes on every once in a while?
0:53:22 > 0:53:24You leave pain wherever you go.
0:53:30 > 0:53:31You kill me...
0:53:32 > 0:53:34what do you leave behind?
0:53:35 > 0:53:36A world without you.
0:53:37 > 0:53:39Look at that - steady as a surgeon.
0:53:58 > 0:54:02You know, it's a very, very intriguing television series,
0:54:02 > 0:54:05but it's one of those shows you go, like, "Eeeh."
0:54:05 > 0:54:11Early on in the show, people who were watching it would approach me
0:54:11 > 0:54:15and say that they kind of felt guilty about the fact they liked the show.
0:54:18 > 0:54:22God knows, I've written a lot of serial killers in my time.
0:54:22 > 0:54:24But I've never asked the audience
0:54:24 > 0:54:28to believe in the triumph of a serial killer.
0:54:28 > 0:54:30There's nothing wrong with depicting violence -
0:54:30 > 0:54:32it's part of the human condition.
0:54:32 > 0:54:35I understand that their tongue is in their cheek, in a way,
0:54:35 > 0:54:37and I understand it's an inside-out show,
0:54:37 > 0:54:39but, frankly, as well as it may be made,
0:54:39 > 0:54:44I don't want to be part of any show that would suggest
0:54:44 > 0:54:50that there is a catharsis in violence and in serial killing.
0:54:50 > 0:54:52People talk about the moral ambiguity these days
0:54:52 > 0:54:56of the antihero and all that, but that's the world we're living in
0:54:56 > 0:54:58and I think Dexter's argument is innately valid anyway,
0:54:58 > 0:55:01since there are a lot of bad people out there who have escaped justice,
0:55:01 > 0:55:04and he's just making sure that they don't.
0:55:04 > 0:55:07I don't care how well you tell that tale,
0:55:07 > 0:55:11there's nothing to commend that as an idea,
0:55:11 > 0:55:13and ideas are important to me.
0:55:13 > 0:55:17Do some people deserve to die?
0:55:17 > 0:55:21And I don't know that the show comes down one way or another,
0:55:21 > 0:55:25but it certainly tempts you into perhaps feeling that some people do,
0:55:25 > 0:55:29and then you have to wrestle with the fact that you felt that way.
0:55:30 > 0:55:32The coin never really lands.
0:55:32 > 0:55:34It's just sort of spinning in the air.
0:55:42 > 0:55:44I'd like to know what makes a man do that.
0:55:44 > 0:55:49Audiences create these guidelines by what they choose to watch.
0:55:50 > 0:55:55Artists need to be in the position to sort of push the boundaries
0:55:55 > 0:55:58and let the audience speak back to them.
0:55:58 > 0:56:00Most writers have always wanted to delve into the soul
0:56:00 > 0:56:02and what makes us tick.
0:56:02 > 0:56:04Bad guys don't think they're bad guys.
0:56:06 > 0:56:07Good guys are good guys,
0:56:07 > 0:56:11but they're human beings too, and they're complicated.
0:56:11 > 0:56:15It doesn't really matter to an audience as much as it used to,
0:56:15 > 0:56:18whether the character is a hero or a villain.
0:56:18 > 0:56:20Full of sin or full of virtue -
0:56:20 > 0:56:23it doesn't even matter what they are trying to do
0:56:23 > 0:56:25as long as we feel their passion.
0:56:25 > 0:56:33Storytelling is like making everyone part of a big family.
0:56:34 > 0:56:38So that members of the audience
0:56:38 > 0:56:45are able to identify with characters in their full complexity.
0:56:45 > 0:56:48Television is part drug, it's part stimulation,
0:56:48 > 0:56:51it's part love, it's part affection.
0:56:51 > 0:56:55That type of deep emotional attachment
0:56:55 > 0:56:59is what television at its best is capable of generating.
0:56:59 > 0:57:06Ultimately, every great story is, "Know thyself and discover thyself".
0:57:06 > 0:57:10We're all trying to figure out if we're living this life fully,
0:57:10 > 0:57:13but also if we're living it meaningfully.
0:57:13 > 0:57:16That's the way it works. That's the way art is supposed to work.
0:57:47 > 0:57:51Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd