Edward Zwick Quotes

And we do talk a lot about my past and my impression of things and how it relates to what we're doing now. The Brady Bunch, in its heyday, was really the genesis of when TV started to become the force that it is today.

When reality television really hit, I just had a backlash towards reality. It seemed like a cheap way to make a product. And then when music reality and 'Idol hit,' I just didn't watch it, it seemed novelty. And of course the story of 'Idol,' this is one of the greatest stories in television history.

Shows like 'All in the Family' and now 'Mom' - there's a tradition of tackling real issues.

Sitcoms, I always figured that would be an easy gig, but man, it is not.

When you watch the sitcoms that were the big hits when I was growing up, TV was still just TV. It was allowed to just be TV. There were three channels that were competing for the whole family and you couldn't take your business elsewhere.

Life goes on, and I'm moving on to the next thing, but I hope the soaps that are still running will thrive. They have millions of loyal viewers.

Working on 'Housewives' was very similar to 'Sex and the City.' Different cities, of course, but a high level of talent in the writing and acting on both!

You know as well as I do that the family sitcom was the stalwart of TV for God knows how many decades.

'The Simpsons' from the very beginning was based on our memories of brash '60s sitcoms - you had a main title theme that was bombastic and grabbed your attention - and when you look at TV shows of the 1970s and '80s, things got very mild and toned down and... obsequious.

People were fed up with reality shows about midgets getting married and weird Jerry Springer talk shows. There had been a real dry spell of intelligent family-oriented viewing: the type of program that Mom, Dad and the kids can all watch together. With 'Lost,' there are just so many characters for people to invest in.

Yeah, the sitcom world is dead. It's all reality.

In TV, kid roles are like this: You're either in a couple minutes of an episode playing somebody's kid, or you get in these procedurals where you're crying or you're playing a witness or you're playing a crazy person. Every once in a while you get a big guest star role, but there's a formula to those TV shows.

Growing up, I didn't just watch 'The Cosby Show.' I watched 'Growing Pains' and 'Family Ties,' too.

For so long, TV consisted of a limited number of shows a year, and those shows had to appeal to as many people as possible. The joy of TV now is that shows don't have to be broad anymore - they can be small, weird, and niche.

I think 'The Big Bang Theory' is one of the greatest written TV shows of all time.

I think TV is evolving, but on the other hand, there is a presence of regressive shows happening, but I choose to ignore that because I am part of a very different and challenging soap.

TV has changed so much, from the fact that there are so many channels available now to spoilers. There were no blogs when I was on Buffy. There were no weekly magazines, aside from People. Now, to be able keep your secrets for your show is so hard.

I love Modern Family but it's among a handful of favorite shows.

Tucker's Witch was the first television I'd done in a while. It was just before Moonlighting, and just before you could get a little more outrageous on TV. We had a great premise.

The TV season is a year-long thing now, and the networks are starting to look at it that way, thanks to cable, satellites, and competition.

It's not that writing staffs don't change at all, but they don't change very much. Directors are freelancers. There are directors who do five or 10 episodes of a show every year for years, but most directors are freelance, they come and go.

The thing about working on a TV show is that it becomes, very quickly, all consuming.

In the long term, you have to believe that movies and TV shows will be like the opera and the novel, pretty nichey businesses.

I binge-watched this show Damages. Glenn Close and Rose Byrne are so good. Lily Tomlin is in it. You see all these great actors and the writing is terrific. There are a lot of shows like that. And there are all these conversations right now about roles for women and being paid equally and all of that, but I think what it really is, is opportunity.

Television is also a great tool for women. As you know, the best female roles are often on television, so it's a very exciting time. I've really embraced it. The pace is great, but also not so great sometimes. You feel like you have to make sure to pay attention, at all times, to not let anything slip through.