On this week's episode, Writer/Executive Producer Alex Berger (Blindspot, Glen Martin D.D.S, Quantum Leap, and many many more) talks about his writing career, thoughts on breaking into the industry as well as his experiences taking a "Showrunners Course" through the studios.STORY NOTESAlex Berger on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1584238/Alex Berger on Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexbergerla?lang=enFree Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAUTOGENERATED TRANSCRIPTAlex Berger:They said, when you're interviewing a director, ask if you're the showrunner and you're interviewing somebody who's coming in to do an episode of your show, ask the director, do you cook? And if so, are you a person who uses a recipe or do you like to improvise? And there's no right answer to that, right? But if you cook and you're the person who is going to measure out the exact number of grams of flour and the exact number of grams of sugar, that's kind of how you're going to approach directing. If you're going to come in with a shot list, you're going to be going to stay on time. You're going to make sure that you move the set along. And if you're the person who likes to kind throw a little salt to throw a little sugar, you might be a little more improvisational on say you might be a little more, more. There's little things like that that you're going to how to dig in on this with those. NowMichael Jamin:You're listening to Screenwriters Need to Hear This with Michael Jamin.Hey everyone. Welcome back to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. Michael Jamin here. I have another wonderful guest today and this guest, we're going to talk about drama writing because he works primarily in drama and his story is fascinating how he broke in. And we're going to get to please welcome Mr. Alex Berger and he's worked on Alex. Let me introduce people to some of your amazing credits here and you can fill in in, I'm just going to go for some of the highlights. Well, I know you did Kil, you co-created Glen Martin d d s, which is the show. My partner ran Covert Affairs, the Assets Franklin and Bash the Mentalist Blind Spot. And currently you are a writer on Quantum Leap, so you got a lot of drama. Burger. Welcome, welcome to the podcast.Alex Berger:Thank you so much for having me. It's, it's good to be here. I've been enjoying listening to it.Michael Jamin:Oh man, I'm so happy you're doing this. Let's talk. Let's start from the beginning because I think it was so interesting about your background. So many people say, how do I get a showrunner attached to sell my show? And you kind of sold your show, your show, Glen Martin, d d s. You were pretty new to the scene and then you got a show on the air without much experience. So how did that happen?Alex Berger:Yeah, I'd been out here for probably five or six years and I'd had a couple of staff jobs. I'd had a job doing a sort of comedy variety show before that. That was a very sort of small potatoes thing. But that came about because Steve Cohen Cohen, who I know you've talked about before, was a friend of mine and had mentioned this idea that Michael Eisner had for a long time about a family who traveled the country in an rv and they had writers attached for a long time. Tim and Eric of Tim and Eric Show were attached to write the thing.Michael Jamin:I didn't know any of this.Alex Berger:They got a 60 episode order on their other show, and so they had to back out. And so Steve would come in and pitch a take. So I came in and I pitched a take, and Michael Eisner, who had just left basically running Hollywood, he was running, Disney had just started a company, and he had just had larynx surgery, so he couldn't talk. So every time I pitched something, he had to write his response on a computer, which was fun, but a litt