{"id":5481,"date":"2015-02-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore-3\/"},"modified":"2016-01-19T14:02:33","modified_gmt":"2016-01-19T19:02:33","slug":"david-shore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore\/","title":{"rendered":"David Shore"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"This interview originally appeared in the MIPCOM 2014 issue of <\/em>World Screen.<\/em><\/p>\n

For eight years, with the brilliant yet damaged Dr. Gregory House at its helm, the medical drama House<\/em> made audiences ponder ethical issues and why people do what they do. The showrunner David Shore will once again place human behavior under the microscope, but with a bit more optimism, in the new series Battle Creek<\/em>.<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>I can\u2019t even imagine what life was like immediately after House<\/em>, saying goodbye to those characters and those actors.
\nSHORE: <\/strong>You don\u2019t feel like you\u2019re saying goodbye to the characters because they\u2019re still living and they\u2019re kind of in my head somewhere. There are moments afterwards, where something happens and you go, Oh God, I want House to do that. Or, I want House to say that. But the whole thing, it was such a great group of really talented, really nice people. I remember in the last episode working, the first AD [assistant director] announces, That\u2019s a wrap on Omar Epps [who played Dr. Foreman]. And you go, Oh God, that\u2019s a wrap on Omar Epps. Eight years I\u2019ve been working with this guy. And then, That\u2019s a wrap on Jesse Spencer [who played Dr. Chase]. And you\u2019ve got your head down and you\u2019re working and you\u2019re working and you\u2019re working hard, and then all of a sudden you realize, Oh God, it is ending. And it is tough.<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>I\u2019m lucky because I can still see House<\/em> in reruns. It\u2019s interesting, when I watch an episode I haven\u2019t seen for a while and I notice something, I think, wow, how could I have missed that?
\nSHORE: <\/strong>I remember going to some seminar and there was a lecturer who teaches television writing, and he says, The rule of thumb is you say everything three times. And I thought to myself, What? That\u2019s not the rule of thumb. On House<\/em>, we said something once and we prided ourselves on being subtle and forcing our audience to be smart and pay attention. I don\u2019t really want them missing anything. But it shouldn\u2019t all be just spoon-fed.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> How did Battle Creek<\/em> come about? How did you team up with Breaking Bad<\/em>\u2019s Vince Gilligan?
\nSHORE:<\/strong> Well, 12 years ago, Vince Gilligan wrote a pilot script for Sony and for CBS, and they almost made it. Apparently they had gone all through the casting process and then they pulled the plug for myriad reasons, I\u2019m sure. Who knows what reasons, there\u2019re always reasons, and never good ones! Apparently Nina Tassler [the chairman of CBS Entertainment] has been sitting on that script all these years thinking, I still want to make that show. Vince has obviously been very busy. The people at Sony went to Vince and he said he didn\u2019t have time. So they said to Vince, Would you mind if David Shore took a look at this, and if he\u2019s interested, would you mind if he ran with it a bit? Vince said he\u2019d be thrilled, which I was very flattered by. So I read the script. I liked it and I really liked these characters and I had the audacity to rewrite the pilot and Vince seems very happy with it, and that\u2019s what\u2019s happened.<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>Tell us about the two main characters. Who are they?
\nSHORE: <\/strong>Dean Winters plays Russ Agnew, who\u2019s a local detective born and bred in Battle Creek, Michigan, a cynical cop who\u2019s got a bit of a chip on his shoulder, but a good cop who really cares about his community. But things don\u2019t go his way. They\u2019re either under resourced, under staffed and as much as he cares, things tend to blow up on him, much to his frustration. Into town comes Josh Duhamel, who plays Milt Chamberlain, and he is an FBI agent who\u2019s a bit of a golden boy. He\u2019s got a very different attitude towards life, very positive, very sunny, believes in people, trusts people, even criminals. He thinks people are fundamentally good. The two of them just have a very, very different view of the world. This is often the case with people with positive attitudes, good things happen for them, which frustrates the hell out of Russ. We all know people who we believe don\u2019t deserve all the good things that have come their way. On the other hand, there\u2019s this constant, overhanging question of, Why the hell is Milt in Battle Creek? What happened? What\u2019s his back-story?<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>I remember interviewing Hugh Laurie, who said that he firmly believed that you<\/em> were House. Are you going to be one of the characters in Battle Creek<\/em>?
\nSHORE: <\/strong>No, I think it\u2019s impossible\u2014well it\u2019s impossible for me\u2014to write without aspects of me leaking through. House was me. I\u2019m not sure either of these guys is me in the same way. Look, I hope I\u2019m not House exactly and at the same time I wish I was House. I\u2019m not as smart as him, but certainly, those speeches House made, those [represented] my attitude. So, I think I\u2019ve been bifurcated in this. Russ and Milt are both half of me, and the two halves are arguing inside my head. There\u2019s the optimist and the cynic.<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>House<\/em> made viewers ponder big ethical issues. Right or wrong, why people behave in certain ways. Will we see some of that in Battle Creek<\/em> as well?
\nSHORE: <\/strong>I hope so. That\u2019s exactly why I write. I write to explore those issues and explore the nature of who we are and why we do the things we do, and fundamentally, what is the right thing to do in a given situation.<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>One of the themes in House<\/em> was that everyone has something to hide and everybody lies. What themes are you going to explore in Battle Creek<\/em>?
\nSHORE:<\/strong> Cynicism versus optimism. Should we approach life assuming the best or should we approach life assuming the worst? I explored cynicism to a great extent in House<\/em>, and I think I plan on exploring optimism to a certain extent in this show.<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>Has something changed in your life to make you want to look at the other side?
\nSHORE: <\/strong>[Laughs<\/em>] Certainly it\u2019s more pleasant to live with an optimist than a cynic, even when you\u2019re writing them.<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>What are the responsibilities of a showrunner?
\nSHORE: <\/strong>It\u2019s a vague title, but boss is kind of what it is. You obviously delegate a lot and you need extremely good people and you need people you can trust everywhere. To me, it\u2019s an extension of the writing. The beginning of it is the writing, and then to some extent the end of it is the writing, in my opinion. When I write or rewrite a script, I have in mind what I want there. So, it\u2019s all about meeting with the director to make sure that he\u2019s implementing that vision. Meeting with the casting people to make sure the casting is consistent with that vision. Being in editing to make sure that the editing tells the story you wanted to tell. Your responsibilities are for the entire process. There are certain things you can delegate a little easier than others, but it\u2019s to make sure that that episode, when it winds up on the air, is what you wanted when you sat down at the keyboard.<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>You\u2019re staying with broadcast television instead of working for a cable network. At FOX, did you have the freedom to follow your vision for the show? Do you expect a similar setting at CBS?
\nSHORE: <\/strong>I absolutely had that freedom. I hope I have that freedom again. The division between cable and network scares me a little bit because, look, I couldn\u2019t show nudity on FOX, I couldn\u2019t swear and I had to come in at exactly 42 minutes and 43 seconds, or something like that. In terms of the topics I explored, there was never a time when they said no. And I worry that the networks are running away from shows they think are cable shows. Good TV is good TV. Good storytelling is good storytelling. And a show like NYPD Blue<\/em>, which was just a great, great show, probably wouldn\u2019t be put on a network today. There\u2019s no reason it shouldn\u2019t be. Even going back to a show like All in the Family<\/em>, [if it were pitched to] a network today. It worries me, this division we constantly talk about, because I don\u2019t think there needs to be such a division.<\/p>\n

WS:<\/strong> How did House<\/em> advance the drama genre?
\nSHORE: <\/strong>Oh come on, that\u2019s for other people to answer.<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>You must have some idea about it\u2026
\nSHORE: <\/strong>No, you know, I honestly don\u2019t. I\u2019m thrilled that that question\u2019s even being asked. I never looked at it that way. I just tried to do a good show and a show I found interesting. Its success, along with the success of a lot of other shows, made writers more apt to do what they want to do anyway, which is write flawed, difficult characters, difficult heroes, and center shows around them. It wasn\u2019t just House<\/em>. It may have made networks more apt to put those shows on the air. So I think I rode a bit of a wave with other shows of characters like that\u2014characters that were different than what you\u2019d seen at the center of a show before. If there are other ways that we\u2019ve done things, God, thank you. But it\u2019s not productive thinking for me to think, What is my place here? I just go, What is interesting? What do I want to do in this show? And do I like this show? Let\u2019s do that one.<\/p>\n

WS: <\/strong>House<\/em> really made us think about issues that other shows didn\u2019t, other than news or documentaries.
\nSHORE:<\/strong> Well, that\u2019s what attracts me to writing. It\u2019s philosophical issues that attract me to writing. I\u2019m not interested in whodunits as whodunits; I\u2019m interested in \u201cwhydunits.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This interview originally appeared in the MIPCOM 2014 issue of World Screen. For eight years, with the brilliant yet damaged Dr. Gregory House at its helm, the medical drama House made audiences ponder ethical issues and why people do what they do. The showrunner David Shore will once again place human behavior under the microscope, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[152],"class_list":["post-5481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-interviews","tag-david-shore","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nDavid Shore - TVDRAMA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"David Shore - TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This interview originally appeared in the MIPCOM 2014 issue of World Screen. For eight years, with the brilliant yet damaged Dr. Gregory House at its helm, the medical drama House made audiences ponder ethical issues and why people do what they do. The showrunner David Shore will once again place human behavior under the microscope, …\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVDRAMA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-02-23T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-01-19T19:02:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/09\/49187.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"World Screen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"World Screen\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore\/\",\"name\":\"David Shore - TVDRAMA\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-02-23T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-01-19T19:02:33+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/48d5d8caeca98083bf34512b4ce8c4c7\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"David Shore\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/\",\"name\":\"TVDRAMA\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/48d5d8caeca98083bf34512b4ce8c4c7\",\"name\":\"World Screen\",\"description\":\"The leading source of information for the international media business.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/author\/admin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"David Shore - TVDRAMA","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"David Shore - TVDRAMA","og_description":"This interview originally appeared in the MIPCOM 2014 issue of World Screen. For eight years, with the brilliant yet damaged Dr. Gregory House at its helm, the medical drama House made audiences ponder ethical issues and why people do what they do. The showrunner David Shore will once again place human behavior under the microscope, …","og_url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore\/","og_site_name":"TVDRAMA","article_published_time":"2015-02-23T00:00:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-01-19T19:02:33+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2015\/09\/49187.jpg","width":1,"height":1,"type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"World Screen","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"World Screen","Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore\/","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore\/","name":"David Shore - TVDRAMA","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-02-23T00:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2016-01-19T19:02:33+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/48d5d8caeca98083bf34512b4ce8c4c7"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/david-shore\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"David Shore"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#website","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/","name":"TVDRAMA","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/#\/schema\/person\/48d5d8caeca98083bf34512b4ce8c4c7","name":"World Screen","description":"The leading source of information for the international media business.","url":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvdrama\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}