
“I think this golden age everyone is talking about is already gone. […] There’s an awful lot of bad TV now that is unremarkable and easily forgotten. At the same time, there’s probably more good shows than there have ever been, just because so much work is being done. I think the challenge now is that it’s very difficult to stand out and to have the impact that television used to have back in the old days when it was broadcast over the airwaves,” says the television writer and executive producer Frank Spotnitz, whose résumé includes work on The X-Files and The Man in the High Castle.
Dariusz Kuźma: I know that you do not like using the term ‘showrunner’ to describe your work as a screenwriter and producer, but it became so popular that I would like to start our conversation with defining what exactly a ‘showrunner’ is.
Frank Spotnitz: The term ‘showrunner’ came about in the US in the 1990s and means the lead writer/producer. The reason I don’t like the word is because it feels a little bit too self-congratulatory to me. To say that you are a person who runs the show. I may be the lead writer and producer, but there’s a lot of other writers and producers working alongside me who also run the show. It is true, however, that if you’re the showrunner, you’re in charge; you are the decision maker. What’s unique about the showrunner system in Hollywood is that the lead producer is also a writer. Whereas in Europe the lead producer is