Comedy TV Writers on the Importance of Filming in Los Angeles, Sharing Soundstages and the Power of the Will They/Won't They Relationship

For 'Nobody Wants This' creator/executive producer Erin Foster, when it came time to figure out where to shoot her Netflix comedy 'Nobody Wants This,' she had some leverage in her back pocket: Star Kristen Bell.
'Shooting in L.A. is hard and really expensive,' Foster told the audience on Thursday at Variety's A Night in the Writers Room event. 'We were only able to shoot in L.A. because Kristen Bell has kids here that are in school here. And she's like, 'I won't shoot anywhere else.''
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Foster said Netflix and 20th TV, which is behind 'Nobody Wants This,' quickly agreed. 'They're like, 'well, then we're shooting where you want to shoot,'' she told the A Night in the Writers' Room audience. 'We got very lucky that she wants to be home with her kids. She wants to come to work, she wants to live in LA. She picks her kids up from school and it's important to her.'
Four of the seven shows on the A Night in the Writers' Room comedy panel shoot in Los Angeles, which was heartening, given how important keeping production in Los Angeles has become a key topic in the industry right now.
On Season 4 of 'Hacks,' much of the action was located in Los Angeles — allowing the show the chance to showcase more of the city's landmarks.
'We are very proud that we have shot the show since day one in Los Angeles,' Statsky said. 'Our crew is based here, and feel really lucky to be here. It's really important to us to keep production here. And so it was really great to make a season that got to show LA, and got to show the Universal backlot. It was really lovely and important to get to do that.'
Shooting in L.A. alongside other local productions also allows for something else a bit unexpected: Surprise crossovers.
On Episode 4 of this season's 'Hacks,' Deborah (Jean Smart) is out late partying with her assistant Damien (Mark Indelicato) at a gay dance club — but after hitting her head while dancing in a cage, she's rushed to an emergency room.
Eagle-eyed viewers might have noticed that ER looked familiar: 'When Deborah goes to the emergency room, that's the 'St. Denis Medical' set,' 'Hacks co-creator, co-showrunner and EP Jen Statsky revealed. Both Max's 'Hacks' and NBC's 'St. Denis Medical' are Universal TV series that film on the Universal lot, so it made sense to borrow their stage.
'That's an exclusive!' quipped 'St. Denis Medical' exec producer Eric Ledgin. (And it wasn't the only crossover between the two shows this season: 'Hacks' star Rose Abdoo also guested as a nurse on 'St. Denis Medical.')
Among other unexpected crossovers revealed during A Night in the Writers' Room: Since they both shot in Toronto, it turns out 'What We Do in the Shadows' executive producer Sarah Naftalis and 'Overcompensating' creator/exec producer/star Benito Skinner shared the same crew.
The comedy panel opened with a discussion about the state of the sitcom — and how recent successes like 'Nobody Wants This' and 'St. Denis Medical' were positive signs that the genre still has legs. That momentum really began a few years ago with the success of 'Abbott Elementary' — and EP/co-showrunner Justin Halpern admitted it felt weird to have a hit broadcast comedy in the 2020s.
'We were told network TV was dead when we pitched the show and, you know, we're still on the air,' he said. 'It may be dead, but we're there among the corpses. There's a bunch of people out there who still like writing comedy, still like making comedy, and we've found each other. I always tell the writers it's like the zombie apocalypse and we're in a room where there's food. There's bloody hands going up against the wall, but we've made it so far.'
Fellow broadcast comedy EP Ledgin admitted that 'it's weird when you've worked in the business long enough to have been on canceled shows that would be a runaway hit now, by the numbers they got 10 years ago… it was more relief than anything to be like, 'thank God this worked. I'm not insane. I can keep doing this.' I'm grateful, but it also feels like you're in this weird bubble where I almost feel bad and guilty about having steady job!'
'Abbott' produced 22 episodes this season, while 'St. Denis' produces 18 — normal episodic orders for broadcast, but the kind of volume that stunned the producers on streaming series. 'That sounds really hard!' Foster said. 'Sick to my stomach. All I thought was, 'you make so much money than I do,' but it's so much more work!'
Comedy is also having a moment because of people are looking for a pleasant escape given the political nightmare currently gripping this nation. Plus, some of these shows boast multigenerational appeal — in particular, 'Abbott,' 'St. Denis' and 'Animal Control.'
'I'll sometimes forget that, and we'll have a racy storyline,' admitted Fox's 'Animal Control' showrunner/EP Tad Quill. 'Then some dad I know will be like, 'Hey dude, I was just watching that with my 7-year-old, that's not cool!'
Skinner said his deeply personal Prime Video comedy might not be for everyone. 'People are like, 'I can't watch this with my parents,'' he said. 'I was worried about some of the specificity of it, because this was my experience in the closet… instead, I'm being met with so many messages from people who I think saw themselves in the show and maybe saw themselves not only in my character, but in this nostalgic world of college, and being able to laugh at that cringe time in their life.'
Speaking of shows taken from personal experience, Foster wrote 'Nobody Wants This' based on her own experience marrying a Jewish man. The show follows Bell's character Joanne, as she starts dating a rabbi (Adam Brody). It all worked out for Foster and her husband, but will it work out for Bell's and Brody's couple? And how long can they tease that out?
'At some point she has to convert and say yes, and those things have to move forward,' Foster said. Netflix was concerned about that happening too soon, however, because, the thought went, 'then the show is over. But as someone who did convert to Judaism when I got married, there are so many things that come up once you say yes to this. That's just the beginning. Because then all of a sudden you're faced with all of these different philosophies and traditions. I'm excited to tell that next step of the story.'
Over at 'Abbott,' bringing Janine (Quinta Brunson) and Gregory (Tyler James Williams) together after a few seasons of 'will they or won't they?' meant chronicling what really was their first truly mature relationship. 'I think it was fun for us to be able to just write stories about, how do you exist in these relationships?' he said. 'Janine had only ever had sex with one person before she was with him. We make a big point of that in the show. She really has no life experience.'
'Animal Control' has juggled two 'will they or won't they,' while on 'Hacks,' it's been a question of whether Deborah and Ava (Hannah Einbinder) will ever truly be pals. 'It's a 'will they or won't they' in terms of, will Deborah allow herself to have one friend?' Statsky said.
On 'Overcompensating,' the question becomes, can Benny (played by Skinner) figure out how to be true to himself? 'In telling a coming out story, I also thought, it's TV so we have some time — but not that much time,' Skinner said. 'I liked that I could finally show just how confusing this felt for me and also have people who are not queer come to it and be like, 'that feels very similar to an experience of trying to find myself.''
As for 'What We Do In the Shadows,' if the question was whether the show's vampires would ever learn anything or exhibit any sort of growth, the series finale proved it was a resounding no. But that was the perfect way to end the show as well.
'How do you end a series about people who literally don't give a shit whether things continue or not? That lowers the stakes,' Naftalis said. That's when they came up with the idea of the show's documentary crew — the one that had been documenting the characters for the past six years — deciding to pack it up. 'We felt like having the documentary end gave us an opportunity to essentially work through all the things we as writers were feeling about the show ending.
'The conceptual joke of the whole series is they're making a documentary about an entire lifestyle that's supposed to be hidden,' she added. 'It felt like in the final season you sort of had to deal with that. We really wanted the finale to feel like we were just starting any old episode, and have it feel abrupt and remind the viewer that you have been watching a documentary the whole time.' The reviews for the finale were strong — and Naftalis said 'we feel really good about it.'
Watch the full panel above.
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