It was a chance to try to answer that age-old question, can you have it all? And I connected very personally with the idea of a wife and mom who misses her wild child single days and can't help but wonder, where did that girl go? What was exciting to me was a chance to create a show that was this nostalgia-fueled, sparkly, fever-dream version of the past, and those incredible single-girl-on-the-town nights, but it's also rooted in this deeper exploration of what happens to us as we grow up and become, allegedly, responsible grownups and all the things that we are expected to give up along the way. STACY RUKEYSER: Yeah, so it is inspired by the book, not necessarily based on, but inspired by the book.
#THE OFFICE SEASON 1 EPISODE 1 FULL SERIES#
To start off, I know the series is based on a book, but how did you come to the project and what inspired you to work on it? When Collider spoke with showrunner Stacy Rukeyser about that choice, she had plenty to say about why it was the right place to end the story (for now), with Mad Men as a reference point, and we also dug into Rukeyser's original inspiration for the series, how Shahi fought to be cast as Billie, and that moment in Episode 3 which might be best described as "big." While not greenlit yet for a second season, the first season ends with a dramatic twist - after eight episodes of struggling with her desires, she goes to Brad for sex, but not for love. Instead, she's becoming fixated on memories of her previous life, especially memories of her ex-boyfriend Brad ( Adam Demos), and when those memories start to intersect with the present day in unexpected ways, her entire world gets turned upside down.
The show focuses on Billie ( Sarah Shahi), a woman confronting the fact that while she's a wife and mother of two living in a beautiful house in the suburbs, she's not satisfied by her life with Cooper ( Mike Vogel). Let's be very clear about it: If you were worried that Sex/Life would be found lacking in the first part of its title, the first season of the new Netflix drama will quickly prove you wrong.