Nina Tassler Quotations

I think it will never really be resolved.

It started as a cultural phenomenon and has evolved into a consistent Top 10 show that leads off the most successful night of television on any network. We look forward to taking audiences to more exotic locations next season and introducing them to the next wave of ordinary citizens marooned as 'Survivor' castaways.

Rob Doherty has been a real superstar for us The Mentalist for years. He is an extremely talented writer, and he just tapped into the DNA of this character in a way that we'd not heard before. So, from the moment it walked in the door, and then we read the script, it was a definite player for us.

So many of the great detectives that we see on television now owe their origins to Sherlock Holmes. What was very exciting about Rob's pitch and script was that he is a real Holmes-ian expert. He knew all of the mythology. He was very well-versed in the genesis of Holmes and the stories. And the twist with Watson is something we jumped at immediately. It's a very forward-thinking way of doing the show.

We're big fans of the show on BBC, and some of the greatest actors in film and television have done this character, from Basil Rathbone to Nicol Williamson to Michael Caine. (Executive producer) Rob Doherty came in with the pitch last season, it was immediately a show that we gravitated towards.

Well, when you have an opportunity to build a show around one of the greatest detectives in all of literature, you're going to jump at that opportunity.

I think, clearly, there is something in the zeitgeist, ... but for us, it was based on producing the best pilot scripts that we had. . . . We don't literally go out to the community and say, 'Because that particular show is successful on another network, please bring us that.' We encourage writers. We encourage producers. We encourage directors. . . . They don't necessarily look to develop only based on what's successful at other networks. They sort of listen to their own inner voice.

We like to call it scheduling Darwinism. Survival of the fittest.

We like to call it scheduling Darwinism. It's survival of the fittest.

Clearly there is something in the zeitgeist ,