Keep things fresh for the audience. Love the characters. And, no matter what, no reruns allowed.
Veteran TV creator and producer Darren Star still makes a point to adhere to those rules each time he opens his laptop and starts tapping the keyboard. “When I find a new idea that I love and a great cast and a world that I want to live in, I just want to write about it and keep going,” he says. “There’s an alchemy that happens when it all comes together.”
Star is especially enthused about the fourth season of Emily In Paris, which premiered August 15 on Netflix. “It’s the richest one yet in terms of how everyone has evolved,” says Star, the creator, producer and showrunner of the frothy comedy about a wide-eyed Chicago marketing executive sent to work overseas. The romantic fantasy between Emily (Lily Collins) and chef Gabriel (Lucas Bravo), he adds, “goes away a little bit and reality sets in. There are complications. And there are twists and turns that Emily didn’t foresee when she left to be this expat in Paris.”
The episodes also feature independent and fierce women, a love triangle, snappy dialogue and relatable-yet-dishy melodrama. Star didn’t invent these narrative traits, but he’s mixed the concoction to perfection for more than 30 years. This is the man, after all, who brought us cultural mega-sensations Beverly Hills, 90210, Melrose Place and Sex and the City before his fortieth birthday. And though the teen superfans from the 90210 era are now well into middle age, Star has stayed youthful — and even created the 2015-21 hit, Younger. “It’s still great to take an audience on a journey,” Star says. “If a story feels new to me, then I think it will feel new to them. That’s the reason why I don’t do remakes of shows I’ve done before. That’s not as exciting to me.”
Star even wanted his My Seven Shows list to be surprising and fun. “It’s too easy to just talk about my own shows!” he says. True to form, he delivered the goods for The Television Academy.
Bewitched (1964-72, ABC)
Oh my god, I loved it. It was on when I was really little, and I watched every episode even though it was in black and white — I never wanted to see anything in black and white! I think I loved the wish fulfillment. There was something about Elizabeth Montgomery that I just loved. The show also touched into a tiny bit of New York sophistication because [Samantha’s husband] Darren was in advertising. I once went back and rewatched the pilot, and the show was actually funny and really well-constructed. And I think that stuff gets in your head; there's something so appealing about old-school writing and crafting comedy for, like, 32 episodes a season.
Star Trek (1966-69, NBC)
I was a real devoted Trekkie. I even went to the first Star Trek convention! I just felt that the storytelling was amazing. I love science and I loved science fiction as a kid, but Star Trek was just the best of all the shows in that genre. Even as a kid, it blew me away because it was so well done. Every week, they just pulled off these smart stories. I have a son, and I’ve made him watch it. I’ll go back and watch a few episodes, too.
The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970-77, CBS)
I pitched Sex and the City as a show that would have existed if The Mary Tyler Moore Show were in the '90s. It’s this classic comedy and really groundbreaking because you have this independent and really funny woman as a lead. As a kid, I loved how well written it was. It really made an impression on me and obviously influenced me.
The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd (1987-88, NBC; 1989-91, Lifetime)
This was a really great and smart show starring Blair Brown. It was a single-camera [series] shot on film with no laugh track. It wasn't on for very long, but it really impressed me. I liked that it was grounded storytelling and set in New York. It felt more cinematic to me than almost anything else on TV at the time.
Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990-2000, Fox) and Grosse Pointe (2000-01, The WB)
It was my first show, and it was like getting thrown into the deep end. I sold my first screenplay when I was very young and then got the opportunity to pair up [with] Aaron Spelling, who was the producer. I was very involved from the beginning and realized that as a writer, I was suddenly the creative auteur of what I was doing. I wrote nine episodes that first season, and I was in the editing room all the time and dealt with casting and being on the set and directing. I was a kid in a candy store just discovering all this creative expression! And then I have to include Grosse Pointe because it was my sort-of behind-the-scenes comedy about doing 90210. But that was underseen.
Sex and the City (1998-2004, HBO)
I conceived it almost like an independent film for television — like an antidote to network shows. After doing Melrose Place and Central Park West [for CBS from 1995-97], I just thought, “I want to do something that feels authentic to me.” It wasn't about being commercial; it was about telling stories that meant something to me in a cinematic way that would be compatible with the movies on HBO. But I never thought it could ever become a hit.
I think the earlier seasons were just a little rougher and more raw that way. They eventually got bigger budgets, but it still had the essence of cinema to me. I plead the fifth on which character was the most fun to write for — but I’ll say [author] Candace Bushnell created a wonderful character with Carrie Bradshaw.
Succession (2018-23, HBO)
I don’t watch a lot of TV now, but I did watch all of Succession from beginning to end. I thought it was so smart. I love shows where I think, “Wow, how did they do that?” The writing was so sharp. It just kept me completely entertained with all that terrific acting. It wasn't a show that, at the beginning, that I thought I was going to actually get involved in. But once I started, it was like suddenly I couldn’t wait until the next episode. I love those kinds of shows.
Emily In Paris is streaming now on Netflix.
