MONDO EXTRAS

GL: Yeah, you've sort of nailed us on one of our tricks that does sort of help you get through an hour, when one disease obscures another disease. But out of all the scripts that still have not aired yet, we still have managed to come up with fresh things. You keep expecting [that] you're gonna run out each successive episode but then they keep coming up with them. Most of the way through Season 3, we have the diseases, and so far they're still unique to one another.

SM: Do you watch those shows on Discovery Health Channel to find ideas for diseases?

GL: A lot of the writers do. I have sort of shied away from it because it feels like a bit like the snake eating its own tail. I feel like those shows came about because of House and then if House is watching those shows to come up with stories...so we try [to] look, I don't even know exactly where. Sometimes we'll be reading an obscure medical article that's hard to make sense of and hard to stay awake through, quite frankly, and five pages into this garbled nonsense, there's a sentence that inspires an entire episode. So that's where we're digging now.

SM: Do you find yourself becoming more interested in medical stuff because of this show, or less?

GL: I have a unique skill to study it, learn it, know it, and then flush it and it's gone. I cannot retain that stuff, and I'm quite okay with that. When I leave work, I'm happy to be away from it.

SM: Okay, so, my grandma is a fan of the show and I told her I was doing this interview and asked if she had any questions for you. She wants me to tell you to please make the characters speak louder and slower. Although I don't think that's a problem for viewers under seventy.

GL: I have been on Hugh about that -- I did tell him your grandma said that already today. And he said, "Tell her to use the closed captioning."

SM: Unfortunately, my grandma hasn't yet mastered that technology. Much like she doesn't seem to have mastered the technology of her hearing aid...

GL: Well, there are pretty pictures to look at. You don't need to hear anything.

SM: Yes, there are some beautiful pictures. Like balls exploding.

GL: Yes, yes. So she can watch for that. And I'll tell Hugh tomorrow and I'll continue telling him every day after.