First Draft Episode #238: Sarah Watson
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Sarah Watson is a television writer, producer, and novelist. She’s the creator of the Freeform series, The Bold Type, and was a Writer and Executive Producer of the critically acclaimed NBC drama, Parenthood. She has also written for About A Boy, Lipstick Jungle,The Unusuals, and The Middleman, as well as other series. Her debut novel, Most Likely, is out now.
Links and Topics Mentioned In This Episode
Down a Dark Hall by Lois Duncan
Sarah basically wrote a book report for the movie War Games
Felicity (TV show) was a game changer for hour-long dramas, and Dawson’s Creek and Buffy. Before that there was mostly just Thirtysomething
Sarah was an intern with someone named Damon Lindeloff, who went on to create LOST, The Leftovers, and Watchmen
That’s so Raven was one of Sarah’s very first jobs out of college
Eileen Heisler (executive producer of How I Met Your Mother and The Middle) and DeAnn Heline (producer on Murphy Brown and executive producer Ellen), the women behind Lipstick Jungle
The Middleman is where Sarah met Javier Grillo-Marxuach
Jason Katims, showrunner and executive producer of Friday Night Lights (created by Peter Berg, based on the book Friday Night Lights written by Pulitzer Prize winner H.G. “Buzz” Bissinger [not for nothing but the documentary Buzz was fascinating]) was the creator, showrunner, and executive producer for Parenthood
The 1989 film Parenthood, written by Lowell Ganz (who also wrote Splash and A League of Their Own, among others) and Babaloo Mandel (who also wrote City Slickers, A League of Their Own, and Forget Paris)
In the writing room for Beyond the Break there were only three writers
Sarah shadowed Joanna Coles in researching for The Bold Type
The Bold Type was originally at NBC in a more West Wing style iteration before it settled into Sarah’s vision at Freeform
What Happened by Hilary Clinton
Kate Testerman at KT Literary is Sarah’s agent
The Deadline announcement for Sarah’s new TV show, about a The Goonies remake
Sarah got the chance to create her new TV show with Gail Berman, Chairman and CEO of The Jackal Group, an independent production entity formed in partnership with Fox Networks Group.
Richard Donner, the director of The Goonies, Superman, Lethal Weapon, Scrooged, and more
Greg Motolla, director of Superbad and Adventureland, is directing Sarah’s pilot
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