Inside the Gray Area -- "The Demon Hunters"

Our showrunner Edward Champion, fortified with a glass of wine and while impersonating William Shatner at one point, discusses “The Demon Hunters” – the most sprawling epic story he's made so far! He discusses how the Coronavirus pandemic impacted production, narratives with seemingly sinister characters who are slowly revealed to have more depth, Mike Leigh's masterpiece Naked, the need for empathy and compassion in regular life (and how the show dramatizes this), capital punishment, rehabilitation, the British TV series Back to Life, the importance of believing in something during the darkest times, how Gene Wolfe inspired this space opera, why working stiffs and outliers are the best hope in a failed government, the value of improvisational instinct, why innovators are often castigated, Nikola Tesla, when outliers become compromised in their morality, the additional Tellestian Empire story partially written and pushed into Season 3, the joys of space opera, Star Wars vs. Star Trek, why it's vital to depict realistic human behavior in genre, why people are inexplicably hostile to Baby Yoda, his near visit to a gun range to record sound effects, some of the Easter eggs in the show, the secret prototype binder containing the four season plan that is now hidden in Brooklyn, balancing planned story with unplanned plot twists that emerge while writing, why the Harris role was so tricky, how Sigourney Weaver influenced the casting of Ramirez, Fenella Fielding's influence on Carol Jacobanis's role in the series, John Carpenter, and balancing satire and a behavioral study.  (Running time: 19 minutes, 42 seconds.)