Mike White and I were both nervous—I’d just written my first script for one of the most anticipated recent series of the 2001 TV season, and he was a
Mike White and I were both nervous—I’d just written my first script for one of the most anticipated recent series of the 2001 TV season, and he was about to take it away from me. A little awkward considering I was technically the showrunner, having been hired by Fox to oversee Mike’s first solo television creation, a now seemingly forgotten prime time soap opera/mystery called Pasadena. “Seemingly” because it didn’t rate a mention in a recent profile of Mike in The New Yorker. A baffling omission, considering Pasadena was a then high profile show, its pilot directed by Diane Keaton and featuring a dream cast, including Dana Delany, Alison Lohman, and Philip Baker Hall as three generations of the fictional Greeleys, a wealthy newspaper dynasty in the show’s eponymous city. Even then, the critics recognized Mike’s unique sensibility, with James Poniewozik, then at Time, writing, “…this smart, spooky, sly sudser is not just the best of its breed. It’s a breed apart, as much Chinatown as Dallas.”
I liked Mike the instant I met him, having only known of him by reputation as a quirky, gifted writer for Dawson’s Creek and Freaks and Geeks, as well as his deliciously uncomfortable indie movie Chuck & Buck. At the time, my biggest credits were The Wonder Years and Party of Five, and I was pigeonholed as a teen dramedy writer. Now the unlikely team of Mr. Wonder Years and Mr. Chuck & Buck were charged with bringing Mike’s offbeat recent show to life.
In Pasadena’s pilot, a man breaks into the Greeleys’ mansion and dies by suicide in front of teenaged Lily (Lohman), triggering her inner Nancy Drew and launching her first season arc investigating her family’s darkest secrets. Mike had managed to fuse something mainstream and unconventional into truly riveting entertainment. It was one of the best pilots I’d yet seen, so I was excited—and on edge—to be paddling in Mike’s idiosyncratic rapids. On edge, because it’s always a ticklish job to write the first episode not written by the show’s creator, though luckily Mike had already scripted the first three, giving me plenty of material to emulate. We had met daily with our writing staff to work out my story and fine-tune an outline for episode four that went through the usual studio and network notes before I was “sent off to script.”
Courtesy of Mark B. Perry.
My episode contained some boundary-pushing shenanigans. The stellar Delany, as Lily’s mother Catherine, was a vivacious charmer whose outgoing persona concealed a damaged sexual psyche with inappropriate boundaries. In my story, after a posh soiree, Delany plants a seductive kiss on the unsuspecting mouth of her daughter Lohman’s barely “of age” teenage love interest (Alan Simpson). Even all those years ago, we were firmly in Mike’s wheelhouse. Thrilled to be writing adult characters for a change, I’d poured all my heart and neuroses into that script and felt pretty confident when I gave it to Mike to take home and read.
The next morning, he sheepishly ambled into my office holding my now dog-eared script. We exchanged banalities as he sat down and, while idly rubbing his head and clutching at his hair in what looked like a nervous tic, dropped the bomb.
“Dude. I read your script and think it’s really good, and I loved how you nailed the humor, and I can tell you totally get what I’m trying to do and—.” Here he realized he’d pulled a few errant strands of hair from his scalp and flicked his fingers to release them. “—I hope it’s okay, but I need to rewrite this, and probably every other episode because it’s the only way I know how to do this, and I don’t want you to think I didn’t like your script because I really did, so it’s just me. Know what I mean?”
Now, like most writers, I triple-hate to be rewritten. But here’s the thing: Mike was as nervous as he was respectful, and his rush of words felt forthright and heartfelt. Writing every episode was unquestionably his prerogative, and even though I didn’t yet know he was going to grow up to be MIKE WHITE, I did know he could only make the episode more, well, MIKE WHITE. Plus, after the weeks we’d spent together, I was a little bit in awe of the guy.
When his draft came out, it wasn’t so much a rewrite as a reimagining. The gist of the episode was still there, but the script was pure Mike, and it was clear the entire series was percolating in his brain in a way another writer couldn’t duplicate. Our terrific and now superfluous writing staff was at first demoralized, but to Mike’s credit, they were all assigned an episode for which they received sole “written by” and full payment and residuals. It wasn’t an ego thing for Mike; it was, as he’d said, the only process he knew. Added bonus? We got lifetime bragging rights about working on Mike’s first show.
Pasadena went into production with Mike balancing soapy intrigue with Mike White-isms, such as shifty sexual tension between Delany and Mark Valley, who played her brother. Freed of my writing responsibilities, I embraced my producer role of keeping the trains running and managing network relations—a job not without its challenges.
While still in pre-production, we’d received a disheartening cost-cutting call from network brass informing us that our show, steeped in the singular aesthetic of the city for which it was named—Pasadena—was to be filmed in Vancouver, BC. That’s right, our titular city, a place known for historic mansions and palm trees silhouetted against warm amber sunsets would somehow have to be replicated on the Canadian coast where, by the time we were deep into our order, temperatures would turn our actors’ words to steam. As a protector of Mike’s vision, I passionately defended keeping Pasadena in Pasadena. There was no way in hell we were going to move!
Production relocated to Vancouver within days, and the show was thenceforth nicknamed “Pasacouver.” Having lost the city’s signature ambiance for the exteriors, we turned to salvaging what we could for the interiors. A Pasadena native, Mike had a specific look in mind—one best described as Old Money Architectural Digest with overstuffed furniture, oppressive paneling, and florid wallpaper—and as the sets were taking shape in Canada, I got a frantic call from him one morning that began with a question too peculiar to forget.
“Dude,” he said, his voice a quaver of stress, “do you have taste?”
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