Directing episodic television is like jumping on a freight train in motion. As a director, you have to jump on and not break your legs. Once you've boarded it, you must climb on top of the train and run across, get into the engine and take over running it. Much of what happens is that before you can bring anything personal to a story -- which you have to do -- you have to get acquainted with who the people are. That's not in terms of who you want them to be but who they already are, because you catch them as ongoing, already established characters. You do that and then you can start to find the warts and different things to do, finding outlets and ways that you can extend and expand.
