Paul Reiser On Formulating The Ending For ‘Mad About You’

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http://uproxx.com/tv/2015/07/paul-re...ied-interview/

What was your experience figuring out how to end Mad About You? Was it more based on satisfying the vision of the creative team, or was it more about what you thought the audience wanted?

Well, I think we just tried to come up with the ending that would satisfy, basically, everybody. I think, what would be creatively fun to do and what would be gratifying to an audience. You don’t want to take for granted the fact that you have millions of people who have invested in this for seven years, and when you land it, you want to stick the landing. You don’t want to leave people unsatisfied, and you don’t want to shock them.

You know, we had a long process of trying to figure out what we wanted to do, and we had a whole bunch of stories, and we ended up doing what I thought was a really ambitious finale. I don’t think I have ever seen this done before or since. We kind of jumped ahead, and we gave the audience, “Here’s what we think happened to these people over the next 25 years,” because we jumped back and forth through time. One of the things was, it was half a joke and half true. It’s like we don’t want to be tempted to come back for the 20-year reunion show and see how they’re doing. Let’s answer all those questions now. Part of that was to give to audience, “Here. Here’s what we think,” and even there, we were very determined to not make it “they live happily ever after.” Ultimately, yes, they do, but it wasn’t smooth sailing. It never is ever smooth sailing, which isn’t to be pessimistic.

It’s really just to be realistic and say, “The minute you stop trying or really working at this, you’re going to drop the ball.” Even in the best of relationships… [like with] Mad About You, we even had a bit at some point when they actually split up 10 years down the road and found their way back to each other later, so we sort of had our cake and ate it, too. It wasn’t great, but they did walk out, ultimately, into the sunset. To answer your question, I think we wanted to try and have our cake and eat it, too. We wanted to satisfy ourselves and give the audience something to hold onto.