S3E1: “The Bumpy Road to Love” with Nick Marck

Summary

Northern Disclosure – S3E1: “The Bumpy Road to Love” with Nick Marck

Podcast: Northern Disclosure (Evergreen Podcasts)
Date: September 9, 2025
Host(s): Rob Morrow & Janine Turner
Special Guest: Nick Marck (Director)

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Episode Overview

Season 3 kicks off with “The Bumpy Road to Love,” a deep-dive rewatch of the first episode of Northern Exposure’s third season. Hosts Rob Morrow and Janine Turner reminisce about their experiences filming the iconic series and are joined by director Nick Marck, who helmed nine episodes including this one. The discussion is equal parts nostalgia, insider filmmaking talk, actor’s perspective, and appreciation for late co-stars. This episode is a heartfelt tribute to the artistry—both in front of and behind the camera—that made Northern Exposure special.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. A Season of Firsts (01:22)

• Janine highlights that Season 3 marked a turning point in Northern Exposure:
  • First full 22+ episode order
  • First episode for director Nick Marck
  • First appearance by new cinematographer Frank Prinze
• Rob adds that Nick was among the few to direct nine episodes—a major feat.

2. Plot Recap – “The Bumpy Road to Love” (03:21)

• A surprisingly detailed synopsis from Rob covers all three major storylines:
  • Maggie unveils a statue for Rick, learns of his infidelity at his eulogy, then spirals.
  • Maurice's romantic pursuit of Officer Symanski derails over an accountant’s message.
  • Joel is abducted by Adam to treat Eve, is chained up, and ends up counseling their chaotic marriage.
• Quote: “That was almost too long. It gave away too much!” – Janine (06:31)

3. The Immortality of Actors & Remembering Co-Stars (06:34)

• Janine and Rob reflect movingly on Valerie Mahaffey (Eve), Diane Delano (Officer Symanski), and Peg Phillips (Ruthanne) who have all passed:
  • Janine: “There’s this glimmer of immortality… a bit of our heart and soul stays on the negative.” (07:52)
• Discussion of what it means to revisit these performances decades later.

4. Nick Marck’s Journey to Directing (10:00)

• Nick details his path from AD to director, starting with an influential film course under professor/critic Andrew Sarris:
  • Nick: “His whole point was, the director is creating an illusion… and that illusion gets the audience involved.” (11:00)
• His first break came via a magic-themed short film and The Wonder Years.

5. Crafting the Episode – Behind the Scenes

• Lighting & Cinematography (19:04)
  • Frank Prinze’s debut as cinematographer leads to a brighter, more detailed visual style:
    • Janine: “Frank finally lit my face, you know what I mean? … Everybody is a little brighter.” (17:11)
• Location & Production Details
  • Wind during the archery scenes noted for authenticity.
  • Attention to small details (like the wind in the trees outside Fleischman’s cabin window on set).

6. Directing Choices & The Balance of Comedy & Drama

• Comedy vs. Emotion (22:03)
  • Debate about how much emotion was allowed, particularly for Janine’s Maggie:
    • Janine: “Anytime I had emotion or depth or tears, they would always cut it. They never wanted it to be there.” (21:47)
    • Nick: “I think it’s about comedy.” (22:03)
• Rob on Slapstick: He’s more comfortable with comedy when it’s ‘earned’, not forced:
  • Rob: “It’s not that I hated slapstick comedy. It just needed to be earned, you know?” (26:20)

7. Favorite Moments & Standout Scenes

• Statue Scene:
  • Anecdote: Creator Josh Brand’s only instruction was “the statue should not look like a turd.” (23:13)
  • Gold lighting was a direct response to this request.
• Adam and Eve’s Chaotic Marriage (31:49)
  • Janine: “One of my favorite plays ever is Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? … And there you go: he sets it up. Bliss! Our wedding’s bliss. And it’s just…” (30:54)
  • Rob: Acting in chains “probably allowed me to just be that much more vulnerable.”
• Valerie Mahaffey’s Emmy-winning Performance
  • Both hosts rave about her comedic timing and energy as Eve.

8. Writing & the Married Writing Duo (36:11)

• Nick reveals: Writers Martin Sage and Sybil Adelman were a husband and wife team (35:14), with backgrounds such as Magnum PI.
• Rob: Mixed-gender writing teams capture both perspectives, lending richness to characterizations.

9. Editing & The Art of Assembly (52:05)

• Editing shaped performances and comedic timing:
  • Nick: “Sometimes it was the way I envisioned it, and sometimes it wasn’t… He (editor Tom Moore) was just fantastic.” (52:10)
  • Rob: “You can take a moment… and it can change everything. So, yay to the editor.” (52:50)
• Discussion of technical details: shooting on film, two-camera setups, and the shift to digital.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Immortality of Performance:
  “That’s, I think, why a lot of people love acting in movies and TV — there’s this glimmer of immortality. Right. And so here we are getting to rejoice in Valerie and Diane and Peg. And it’s a gift.”
  – Rob Morrow (07:52)

• On Directing Comedy:
  “My feeling as a director is when I get a script, I just sit down and I just read it and try to be the audience… and this script had me in stitches.”
  – Nick Marck (15:28)

• On Emotional Restraint:
  “They made me re-loop every piece of dialogue in the funeral scene because I was too emotional. I wasn’t funny enough.”
  – Janine Turner (21:47)

• On Small Details:
  “A lot of people say the devil’s in the details. But I say God is in the details.”
  – Janine Turner (17:11)

• On Editing:
  “Editing can make or break a performance, right, Rob? I mean, editing is just crucial. It can totally change your performance.”
  – Jeanine Turner (52:42)

• Josh Brand’s Note:
  “The statue should not look like a turd.”
  – Nick Marck, quoting show co-creator (23:13)

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Key Timestamps

• 01:22 – Janine sets up Season 3 as a season of firsts, introducing Nick Marck.
• 03:21 – Rob reads the detailed plot summary of “The Bumpy Road to Love.”
• 07:52 – Discussion about the immortality of actors through film/TV performances.
• 10:00 – Nick Marck joins; shares his early directing influences and beginnings.
• 17:11–18:01 – Conversation about the fresh lighting style brought by DP Frank Prinze.
• 19:04 – Nick notes the glowing lighting for Maggie’s hangover scene.
• 22:03–23:00 – Comedy vs. drama tension: what to show and what to cut.
• 23:13 – The saga of the not-brown statue (statue scene anecdote).
• 31:49 – Praise for the Adam & Eve storyline and comparisons to classic plays.
• 36:11 – The writing team behind the episode—married couple Martin Sage & Sybil Adelman.
• 41:33–42:00 – Reflections on last days of shooting on film, entering the digital age.
• 52:05–53:10 – Insights on editing with Tom Moore and its pivotal influence.
• 53:55 – Shout-out for Elaine Miles (Marilyn) and subtle performance moments.

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Closing Thoughts

• The episode is a loving, detailed tribute to what made Northern Exposure so special—writing, directing, performance, and technical artistry all in harmony.
• Nick Marck is praised as a director who knew how to let actors shine, especially in nuanced comedic scenes.
• Emotional subtlety, balance between comedy and drama, and authentic character relationships are recurring themes.
• The group expresses mutual affection and nostalgia, promising to reunite for future episode recaps, especially for Nick’s other directorial hits.

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For fans and newcomers alike, this episode is a masterclass in the interplay of performance, direction, and memory—with the playful banter and heart that made Cicely, Alaska such a magical TV destination.

Transcript

[Jeanine Turner]

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[Rob Morrow]

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[Nick Mark]

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[Rob Morrow]

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[Nick Mark]

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[Jeanine Turner]

Hi, everyone, I am Jeanine Turner. Welcome to Northern Disclosure, our watch podcast for the oh so fabulous show Northern Exposure. I'm here with my co host, Rob Morrow, looking very dapper this morning. Hello.

[Rob Morrow]

Thank you, Janine. Hello there. You look, you look lovely as always.

[Jeanine Turner]

Thank you. It's tricks of the trade, you know, Hollywood gave me a lot of light and a lot of makeup and welcome to the show. We're excited. We're now starting our third season and what I've realized is this is a season of first. It was a first episode for us back where we were sort of real players in the television before it was 8 and 8. We were kind of an experiment. This was our first season of 22, 23 episodes. So this is 301. So it was our first episode of the season. It was Nick Mark, our special guest today. I'm gonna introduce him in just a minute as a director. It was his first episode to direct with us. And there was another first. What's the other one, Rob? There's another one. Oh, it was Frank Prinze's first episode, our new cinematographer. So it's kind of a season of first and we're very excited to have Nick Mark. Nick Mark. I'll just talk about briefly and then I'll toss to you Rob to give us a synopsis. But Nick Mark is a first, fabulous, wonderful human being, a terrific director. He directed some of our most iconic shows which we are going to talk about with him. He directed nine episodes of Northern Exposure. He was a director on the Wonder years for 16 episodes. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I know there's a lot of Buffy the Vampire fans out there. Veronica Mars, he directed, I believe he can correct me if I'm wrong. Mr. And Mrs. Smith was Scott Bakula, with whom I worked on Quantum Leap. And we just think he's. He also worked on the Postman Always Rings Twice with Jessica Lang. So we will be asking him about that. And I asked him what he wanted me to say as credits to introduce him, and he said, father of three. So how do you like that? He is a father of three. Obviously, he puts his fatherhood up there at the top, and we love that. So we look forward to having Nick on in just a few minutes. And, Rob, Hello. Welcome to the show. Another great show to talk about. And how are you doing?

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah, I'm doing pretty good. I loved watching this episode. It's so much fun. There's a lot of comedy, and I want to talk to Nick about that because there's just little. Little touches that were clearly directorial that brought out the comedy. And, you know, I think it's. It's an interesting thing to remember. You know, we like to talk about the drama, but the comedy, when it, when it worked, it was really right up there in this episode with. We got Adam and Eve just slaying it. Eve. Valerie Mahaffey, who. RIP is the only one of us who actually won an Emmy. All of us were nominated or a lot of us were nominated, but she won an Emmy for. For playing Eve. And I thought maybe you. I'll read the plot. I know the audience loves to hear this. This one's actually long for some reason. They're usually pretty short, but this one's a little longer than normal. So this is the episode called the Bumpy Road to Love. And it was written by Martin Sage and Sybil Battlemen, who I don't really remember. They must have been guest writers. Okay, so it starts like this. Maggie has commissioned a statue in memory of Rick. At its unveiling, Maggie perceives that Joel thinks it looks like a hood ornament. She agrees when Chris asks if anyone wants to say any words. The event. Maggie is crushed to learn of his infidelity after a stranger's eulogy offers private details. Later at the Brick, she teases some details out of the women, out of the woman, Joanne. She learns they met in Juneau at her store that sells Native American stitched skin goods. To drown her dismay, Maggie imbibes way too much. Ruthanne takes her home to bed. Maggie claiming all men are swine. Maurice pursues Officer Symanski, inviting her down for some fun target practice and physical training. He has a very expensive Browning pistol engraved with her name. But she dumps him when she hears an answering machine message from his accountant. The accountant has found a tax loophole that will save him thousands of dollars. Barbara is so dedicated to lawful beh behavior that she cannot condone such actions. She leaves abruptly. Joel hears noises outside his house. It's Adam looking for him to come treat his wife Eve. He is forced to drive to a remote location, hearing on the way about the blissful relationship that Adam and Eve share. Once at the home, he finds that Eve is a hypochondriac who will not be denied her self diagnosed afflictions. Joel can find nothing wrong. He is a witness, however, to gargantuan arguments between the two. Adam, in a fit of anger, storms out of the the house. When Joel tries to do the same, Eve bops him on the head with a frying pan. When he regains consciousness, he finds himself bound with wrist and leg manacles. He is to be her 247 phys personal physician. Joel tries to pick the locks of his restraints with no luck. Eventually, he manages to facilitate a discussion between the two of them. They cut his chains with a hacksaw and leave him at home. He is still trying to pick the locks when Maggie arrives for a little visit and companionship. For a man, Joel is not a complete, complete squine.

[Jeanine Turner]

That was almost too long. It gave away too much.

[Rob Morrow]

I know. I don't know why. It's. They're never that long.

[Jeanine Turner]

Why watch? Why watch? It's like, okay, I know everything now. I think the first thing I want to say is, you know, there's I love you. And I both love metaphysics and portals and quantum physics and at least I do. I think you do too. And I think it's always best represented in Star wars where in holograms, you know, Princess Leah comes back and gives a message. And I'm always struck by what somebody would think in the 1800s or the seven and beyond, you know, 18 on to back to zero if they, if a loved one died and they could actually watch them, you know, on television or have a film or a memory of them. Back in the olden days, so to speak, they rarely even had a photo. And so as we were watching the show, the fact that we could still. I still sort of step back and I'm mesmerized by the fact that we've lost Valerie Mahaffy. God bless her, we lost her this year. Well, last year, this year. I think we lost Diane Delano this year as well. Diane played Maurice's girlfriend. Valerie played Eve. And of course, we lost Peg Phillips right after the show. So there were three iconic figures in the show. And on this episode especially, and they're gone.

[Rob Morrow]

It's a great point. You know, it's a really interesting point that you. That we can kind of. That's, I think, why a lot of people love acting in movies and TV is there's this glimmer of immortality. Right. And so here we are getting to rejoice in Valerie and Diane and Peg. And it's a gift, you know, their image that. What they're. They're. And, you know, and I believe that a little bit of our heart and souls comes out of us into these onto the negative in this case, and we can experience them again. It's a great point. Mm.

[Jeanine Turner]

And I just thought. I thought Diane, I. I sent Christmas. I sent Christmas cards. I sent Christmas card every year, and Diane would send me one. They were always hilarious. She was innately funny. I ran into Valerie at the airport once with her. I think she had a couple of kids and her husband were there, and she was from Texas. I never really realized she was. And so it was delightful to see her. And then Peg, of course, was just endearing and always wonderful and was pretty sweet in this episode. And then I ran into Nick, Mark at the museum. I think we were both at the Met or something. He and I can talk about that. I ran him about, I don't know, 10 years ago or so.

[Rob Morrow]

Oh, cool.

[Jeanine Turner]

Anyhoo, I think it's really fun to be able to watch these people, these incredible talents. And it was really beautiful what you said, Rob, about a little bit of our heart stays on the negative. And so in this episode, we're able to watch them. And the rest of the episode was just so obviously that was intertwined about the three love stories. And, you know, I have my thoughts about my performance in Maggie. To me, my. Well, it was either one of two things. Either my performance was the first performance out of the gate, which is always a little rusty, or they cut away all my emotion. Cause, you know, they never wanted me to be emotional.

[Rob Morrow]

Well, I have some questions about that, too. Let's get Nick in here and we can go through the episode.

[Jeanine Turner]

Okay. All right. Good deal. Well, ladies and gentlemen, here is the fabulous, the oh, so amazing. And, Nick, I'm not saying you cut my good scenes. I'm sure that would.

[Rob Morrow]

Mark.

[Jeanine Turner]

Good takes. Josh and John never wanted me to have any emotion, but welcome, Nick. Mark. Woo.

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah.

[Nick Mark]

Hi.

[Rob Morrow]

Hey, Nick. It's so nice to see you. You look, great.

[Nick Mark]

It's great to join you guys.

[Jeanine Turner]

Do you remember when we ran into each other at the museum?

[Nick Mark]

Yes. I think I was with my kids, and it was in a hallway in.

[Jeanine Turner]

The Met, right outside the bathroom, I think, in the water fountain. And I was. I'm sure I had Juliet with me. And you had your kids with you, and that was so much fun to see you. I was like, oh, my God, there he is.

[Nick Mark]

Yeah, I know.

[Rob Morrow]

I have such fond memories of you. I'm just looking at your sweet smile right now. You know, you were. You know, it's interesting. There's not a lot of people that directed nine of our episodes. I mean, there's maybe. I don't. I don't know if there's anyone else.

[Nick Mark]

But maybe Rob Thompson, probably.

[Rob Morrow]

I don't even know if he did nine, but. But anyway, it's a lot, and it's. You know, it's a testament to you and what you brought to the show. And as we'll talk about, you know, I think there was little flourishes of humor that were very specific that you brought. But I'd like to ask you a little bit about. So you. You came up through the ranks of. You were an ad, Right?

[Nick Mark]

That's right. I was at Columbia, and I took a course Wednesday night at the movies.

[Rob Morrow]

And that got you into the movies?

[Nick Mark]

Yeah, it got me. Andrew Sarris was the professor, of course.

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah. The great Andrew Sarris.

[Nick Mark]

Yeah. And he had.

[Jeanine Turner]

I don't know who Andrew Sarris is, so why don't we explain to the audience?

[Nick Mark]

He wrote these. The most important book about American directors called American Cinema, and it's about John Ford and Howard Hawks and George Cukor, all the. All the great Frank Capra.

[Rob Morrow]

And he was a great critic.

[Nick Mark]

He was a critic, and he. He said, these guys are great filmmakers, and we should respect them as that they're not just entertainment people.

[Rob Morrow]

Right.

[Nick Mark]

And that. That was. That was a big thing.

[Rob Morrow]

And so you worked your way into the business through being an AD Yeah, assistant director. That is.

[Nick Mark]

I didn't. I didn't really want to go to film school. I felt like I had. It was 1970 or 69 or 71, and I didn't want to go to school anymore. And I just started getting jobs in New York just doing anything on documentaries or short films or anything. And eventually in 76, I got on the Directors Guild training program, and what they did was put me on shows as an assistant director. But all along I was thinking I wanted a direct because the thing in Andrew Sarris class was he had us walk up to the screen and look at the screen closely, and all you see are shadows. You see flickers. You don't see any images. And his whole point was the director is creating an illusion. And that illusion, it gets the audience involved, and there's emotion and story and all this stuff, and it. But it's all an illusion. There's nothing really there.

[Jeanine Turner]

Well, that's what Plato would say, by the way.

[Rob Morrow]

Plato said Plato.

[Jeanine Turner]

Oh, of course.

[Rob Morrow]

In the cave. Yeah. Nick, how did you come to Northern Exposure?

[Nick Mark]

I made a short film when I was an assistant director to show that I could direct. And I wrote it and I made it. And it's about a taxicab driver that does magic tricks in his cab. And the purpose is to run up the meter.

[Rob Morrow]

Right. Oh, funny.

[Nick Mark]

He entertains his passengers. And I did that film, and it won a bunch of awards. A short film. And I used that and my assistant director skills to try to convince producers to give me a break to direct. And I had directed a couple of episodes of a show called Starman. And then I worked on the Wonder Years.

[Rob Morrow]

That you did a lot. You did 16 episodes. So you were established by then?

[Nick Mark]

Well, no, I only directed six.

[Rob Morrow]

Oh.

[Nick Mark]

Oh. I was an assistant director on ten.

[Rob Morrow]

Oh, I see.

[Nick Mark]

And then they. Then they gave me a shot.

[Rob Morrow]

Right.

[Jeanine Turner]

And that was before us, I guess, right?

[Nick Mark]

Yes.

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah.

[Nick Mark]

Yeah. I had directed one or maybe two. And then Matt Nodela.

[Rob Morrow]

Matt Nodela was our line producer up in Seattle. He was the one that kind of made the. The. The wheels move and the. And the trains go on time.

[Nick Mark]

Right. And I knew him from, I don't know, when he was a location manager at Universal or something, and I showed him my short film. And then I had directed a Wonder Years and. And then, I don't know, six or eight months later, he was on Northern Exposure, and he brought me in, and I met Cheryl Block.

[Rob Morrow]

Cheryl Block is our. One of our main producers.

[Jeanine Turner]

The whole time. The whole time.

[Nick Mark]

Yeah, yeah. And Josh Brand. And they gave me a shot. And the first. Actually, the first episode I did was all Is Vanity.

[Jeanine Turner]

Oh, that's right.

[Nick Mark]

Yeah. That was.

[Jeanine Turner]

That was a great episode, too.

[Nick Mark]

The show was just being born at that point.

[Rob Morrow]

You must have been so excited when you got these scripts, because they were just so rich.

[Nick Mark]

Oh, my God, this script. The Bumpy Road to Love. I also. I've never met these writers, but they were just so great.

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah.

[Nick Mark]

My feeling as a director is when I get a script, I just sit down and I Just read it and try to be the audience. I don't try to analyze it, I don't try to think about it. I just try to enjoy it. And this script had me in stitches.

[Rob Morrow]

That's such a smart way to look at it. You know, it's not just like what you want to express, but what is the audience experiencing.

[Jeanine Turner]

Yeah. And all his vanity was so good. That's when my father came to town and, you know, if. If I had to do a Janine Turner, you know, what they call archive type of thing. That shot that we did where I'm wearing that pink hat and I'm worried that I'm going to run into Fleischman and I'm running, walking down the street and looking. Looking at Fleis going to come out of the bar.

[Rob Morrow]

It's one of those hundred foot dolly tracks.

[Jeanine Turner]

Yeah, that was a great shot. That was a wonderful moment, Nick, that you did a terrific job with that. And in this particular episode, I thought it was fascinating. I would love to ask you so many questions because of the comedy and where sort of we as actors and the writers and we as actors step back and where the director steps in to make all the difference and the little nuances. The first thing that comes to my mind is the window. It was quite windy.

[Rob Morrow]

Oh, I noticed that too. Yeah. That when they were shooting the bow and arrows, Corbett and Barry, that must have.

[Jeanine Turner]

I'm sure that was all looped. I bet all that had to be looped.

[Nick Mark]

I don't know. But that was real wind.

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah.

[Jeanine Turner]

Yeah, I'm sure they had to loop everything. But as I was talking about Nick, this was also Frank Prinze's first episode as a cinematographer at Jim Heyman. We had him on, I guess, last week, according to how this flows. And he was terrific. Very sort of Rembrandt and that type of thing. But what I happy to see Frank as a woman, because Frank finally lit my face, you know what I mean? And we. We look at this episode and everybody is a little brighter, you know, you can see not flat. It wasn't flat. It wasn't. It wasn't that it didn't have character or richness, but Frank was really into those details, what with the lights and the lamps and the things in the background. And I noticed in one of the shots, I think it was in your house, Fleisch, Rob Fleischman. In the very. In the background of the tree, in the background of the window, the tree was blowing and that was on a set. And so someone thought about the continuity of that even the trees should be blowing through Fleischman's cabin's window. And I thought that was pretty brilliant. And a lot of people say God is in the. The devil's in the details. But I say God is in the details.

[Nick Mark]

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[Rob Morrow]

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[Nick Mark]

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[Nick Mark]

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[Nick Mark]

You mentioned the lighting. I. Going back and looking at it, I thought the lighting in your scene with Ruth Ann.

[Rob Morrow]

Beautiful.

[Nick Mark]

Was just beautiful. Like you're on the bed recovering from a hangover or whatever. But the way he lit you was just really. You were glowing.

[Jeanine Turner]

And I had a little tear, which you could actually see. And that's the thing that I always tried to bring to my character were these levels of emotion. And I thought, oh, it's just kind of missing. It's kind of missing. It's kind of missing. And then you kind of saw there.

[Rob Morrow]

So it's funny, Janine, you were talking about. I'm not sure exactly what you were talking about in terms of where they. You don't think they cut you some of your emotional scenes in. But I remember thinking watching the episode yesterday, that when you find out Rick is a philanderer, 2500 women. I know you find that out later, but at first you find out he was with another woman, you don't seem that upset, which I was, like, surprised. Like, you just kind of take it in stride. And then as the show progresses, as the episode progresses, you get more and more upset. But what do you. You think that they trimmed maybe? Cause I would imagine you would have been really upset. I don't know.

[Jeanine Turner]

I was thinking about it myself. I felt the same way. And then when she's finally drunk in the bar and telling the man he doesn't have a neck and things of that nature. And then that little moment with Ruthanne where she finally sheds a tear. And, Nick, it'd be interesting to hear your perspective about this, but, Rob, I was thinking the same thing out thought I would have liked to have seen that I was more undercurrent. But. So either I didn't have it or I was waiting for it to build, which would be number two to build to the right moment, which reminds me of a great Jack Nicholson story. Or the third is that they cut it. Because anytime I. Not you, Nick. But, you know, anytime I had emotion or depth or tears, they would always cut it. They never wanted it to be there. So it was either that, you know how you do about five take. And the first one's kind of a warmup. The second one's. And there's that third one. You've got all that emotion and then it's not used. So who knows? But it did escalate at least a little bit. But I know it was coming right off this episode where Rick died as a satellite. And they. We talked about it last week. They made me re loop every piece of dialogue in the funeral scene because I was too emotional. I wasn't funny enough. And I mentioned that last week, Rob, that it really bothered me, you know, because I just felt she was the only one in the room that would have been sad. And maybe it was coming off that, you know, that they just refused to let Maggie have any emotion.

[Rob Morrow]

Here's an interesting thought. So I get that you felt that it wasn't serving you, but ultimately the show worked. So in retrospect, do you think they were right?

[Jeanine Turner]

I don't know. Let's ask Nick. I mean, what did they tell you?

[Nick Mark]

I think it's about comedy.

[Jeanine Turner]

See, that's the thing. And yet it wasn't a comedy. And that's what's so nuts. So tell us what they told you and what you thought.

[Nick Mark]

I loved your expression in the first scene in front of the statue when you're just like, thinking, what? Who is this? What's she saying? What's happening?

[Rob Morrow]

Right. You're so taken aback.

[Nick Mark]

You went through all those, but you did it. It's all very tiny. It's like a growing sense of, oh, my God, what's going on here? And I thought that really worked well. There's a funny thing about that first scene. Josh Brand was always very. He didn't give a lot of instruction to me as a director before a show. If I had questions, he would answer them, but he didn't like, say, do it this way and do it that way. Like on some shows I've done, like on Buffy, the executive producers, the writers are very specific. Do that. Oh, you gotta have that. You gotta have that. The one thing he said is the statue should not look like a turd. He had a bad experience with something that the art department did. Some big piece, a big brown piece. Maybe it was. I don't know what it was. But he said, don't let them make a big brown turd out there. So when you see. When you see it, it's like, all lit up and it's kind of glistening.

[Rob Morrow]

It's gold.

[Nick Mark]

Because I said to Frank, can't look like a turd. Gotta have reflections on it. Gotta have light on it. Gotta. It's gotta be. You gotta be able to see what it is.

[Rob Morrow]

It's pretty bizarre looking either way. I mean, it's. It's definitely. I mean, you know, it's expensive to make a statue or a sculpture, but a hood ornament. But which. And I love that. I love that Maggie knows that Joel is thinking it's a hood ornament, and it would. And she's right. And then she agrees. That's a great little moment.

[Nick Mark]

I know. Well, you know what? That's kind of a precursor, or I don't know what the word is, but premonition. That you guys are on the same wavelength.

[Rob Morrow]

Right. Because, by the way, I'm at the.

[Nick Mark]

End of the show.

[Rob Morrow]

Exactly. We're right. Because I think that's our first. Just going on a date. Janine. Right. Everything else is inadvertent, but this time we're like. We go on a date, you asked me out to dinner, and I say yes.

[Jeanine Turner]

Yeah.

[Rob Morrow]

Right. It's an escalation.

[Jeanine Turner]

I was wondering, Nick, if we filmed that first. You know how you always film one thing first and the other? So often we filmed the very last scene first and. Because especially since that was an interior, and then we were obviously on exteriors.

[Nick Mark]

Yeah, that was out in Roslyn or Clay Ellum or something. You know, if all of my scripts hadn't perished in the Palisades fire, I could answer that question.

[Jeanine Turner]

So sad.

[Nick Mark]

I saved everything. All the call sheets, all the scripts, all my notes, all my sketches.

[Rob Morrow]

What's your background with comedy? Cause, like, I remember watching the show yesterday, I clocked this moment where Eve Valerie Mahaffey, wants to keep me in the. In. In their little hut in the middle of nowhere. And she takes a pan, which I remember, we got a rubber. A rubber iron Pan looking and. And she conks me on the head and I pass out, but I fall forward and then my feet pop up into the frame. Right. It's just a great like. And I can't. It's funny because I don't think I did that. I think I must have been told to do that or maybe I did it by accident, but it's so symmetrical that I think it looks like it was. But it's such a. Almost like a Bugs Bunny kind of cartoon moment. But it works.

[Jeanine Turner]

You always hated that, Rob, if I recall working with you, you hated slapstick comedy. Anytime you had to do something that seemed artificial. And there were some moments like that in this. So it's funny. I was, I. Those were of note to me as well in this episode.

[Rob Morrow]

Right. It's not that I hated slap to comedy. I just needed to be earned, you know, I didn't like it to be feel gratuitous or forced and that. That did, I think. You know, I'm wondering if the reason, Nick, you came around for nine episodes is because. Able to get those moments in a way, you know, And I don't remember tension with you. I'm sure we had a moment here and there, but it was like pretty copacetic. But what's your background with comedy?

[Nick Mark]

The way I started was in high school. I was in a magic company and we performed illusions. This was the connection to the illusion thing with Andrew Sarris. And part of that was comedy was like, you know, shtick with the audience about the disappearing girl and the handkerchiefs out of the sleeves and all that stuff. And so I had practiced that. And other than that, it was just sort of an instinctive thing. My feeling in that whole sequence in the house with you and chains and Adam and Eve was that you especially had been a little restrained by having to talk through everything all the time and having to be constrained in that way. And this was an opportunity where I thought you just kind of cut loose and you. You found your. Your chops just because this. I left the space open. You know, it's a big circular space.

[Rob Morrow]

Right.

[Nick Mark]

And we use that a bunch of times. You go in circles a bunch of.

[Rob Morrow]

Times and there's like three times where I fall off the table.

[Nick Mark]

I know, I know. And I. I felt like you kind of like you were really. And Adam, I think, was a big influence because he's so funny, so funny. But you felt free to just be physical.

[Rob Morrow]

Right. Interesting.

[Nick Mark]

Where normally you're not very physical in.

[Rob Morrow]

The show, it's all verbal oh, that's a good. That speaks to what Janine was saying. Maybe somehow you made it okay for me. But let's talk about a little bit about the Barry Corbin and Symansky relationship. It's such a sweet, kind of unusual, odd story. And I love when they're having din with. With Holling and Shelley and, and, and, and, and.

[Jeanine Turner]

And she starts to get honey.

[Rob Morrow]

Right? No, she's. I got the line right here. She says. She says, you can't compare Rollerblading and crouching in a duck blind with a shotgun next to your cheek. And Shelly. And Shelly gets jealous. Yeah.

[Jeanine Turner]

How come you never took me duck hunting? And then Colton says, do you want to go duck hunting? Did you want to go duck hunting?

[Nick Mark]

I think their whole thing was just all euphemistic sex. I mean, him petting the gun.

[Rob Morrow]

Totally.

[Nick Mark]

Oh, and I have another one back here for you. He says, right, right. He had the one engraved with her name. It's all sex.

[Rob Morrow]

Right? And then she breaks up with him over a loophole. Like, it's. Like. It's such a bizarre.

[Jeanine Turner]

No, I now see I'm gonna be the woman in this situation. I don't think it was all sex. I think he really. I mean, I think he really liked Barbara. Here was a woman who was tough, could shoot a gun, you know, and yet she. I think he really had a. Everything. And I. And kudos to Barry Corbin again. He always pulls out that emotion in such a beautiful way for being such a tough guy.

[Rob Morrow]

It's funny, I was just watching him right before I watched the episode. I was watching Better Call Saul, which I'm obsessed with lately. And he's. He's got a nice little run in Better Call Saul, but it's 30 years later, you know, and then, like, it kind of speaks to your thing, Janina, about the kind of immortality of actors on screen. Because, you know, here I was watching Barry at 84 or something, where he is now and now. And there he was, you know, 54. You know, it's just such a contrast. You see, our whole lives, we were.

[Jeanine Turner]

Talking about John Cullum. Started at our age. He was about 62 when he started Northern Exposure.

[Nick Mark]

But I worked with John about 10 years after the show.

[Jeanine Turner]

Oh, where'd you work with John? What did you do?

[Nick Mark]

I don't even remember.

[Jeanine Turner]

I think. I think we may get John. So everybody did over a hundred shows, so stay tuned. Well, Rob, I thought you did a great job in those scenes with. With Adam and Eve and what fabulous writing. One of my favorite Plays ever is who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? You know, and there you go. He sets it up. Bliss. Our wedding's completely bliss. And it's just. And then he looks at you and as Adam does. Have you ever been married, Joel? You know, which is sort of. But the way Rob, you had. You were just so vulnerable. And your face looked it. You really looked tired. You really. It was really honest. And I thought you did a great job in those scenes without again, being too angry or, you know, too dramatic. Cause they never wanted. It was a fine combo of both.

[Rob Morrow]

Thanks. It's interesting. You know, it's always. Always great as an actor, when you don't have to act. So, you know, they had me in these chains, you know, and they would put me in them at the beginning of a take, and we'd do a series of them. So I'd be in it for 20, 25 minutes or something. And it was, you know, I couldn't scratch myself. I couldn't do anything. And so it probably, you know, allowed me to just be that much more vulnerable because I was, you know, I needed people to help me do anything. And.

[Jeanine Turner]

A little method acting. There was a little method acting in that rod.

[Rob Morrow]

There you go. I call it nar. No acting required. But I love how Adam, you know, I love Adam's humor. I love both of their humor.

[Jeanine Turner]

But, like, Valerie was amazing, too.

[Rob Morrow]

I thought Valerie was amazing. She really was. But, like, how he. You know, his references, and they're references. You know, there's so many, you know, that that's where the show is so different than anything. They got the Robert Bly references, you know, that Valerie has. You have, you know, Adam saying. Talking the full. I said, what are you doing here? He's like, who do you think it was, the Fuller Brush man? You know, there's just so many great, great references.

[Jeanine Turner]

He. He talks about the cooking schools and.

[Rob Morrow]

Baden Baden, you know, that Eves and Bot. The contrast. You're just like, what are they talking about?

[Nick Mark]

I had to look up Z. What is it? Zabiglioni.

[Rob Morrow]

Right, right.

[Nick Mark]

He makes her Zabiglioni. I had to look that up. What the hell is that?

[Rob Morrow]

Right?

[Jeanine Turner]

Well, you did a great job, Nick, directing all of that. Because those scenes with Adam and Eve and Rob, you know, and Fleischman were superb.

[Rob Morrow]

I mean, okay, I used.

[Nick Mark]

I used John Corbett's thing in archery, his cayudo.

[Rob Morrow]

Right?

[Nick Mark]

Archery thing, the Zen thing. Don't aim at the target. Just let it happen. Be it. Be Zen. Because with Adam and with Valerie, I Was just Zen. Because they're so great. They're great. They could do no wrong.

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah, I agree. And they were so sweet to watch together.

[Nick Mark]

I do remember one time, I don't know if it was this show, or maybe it's a show where they got married or something. You and Adam, Rob. You and Adam got into a laughing thing.

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah. We talked about. We had animal. Well, it happened all the time. I. It was men. It was my fault. Except once. Once I went. He went, you know, but he would make me laugh. And it was. A lot of it had to do with. Because he had the same exact cadences as his dad, Adam Arkin, and. And who I grew up on. And whenever he would start yelling at me, it would make me laugh. We would get.

[Nick Mark]

And we were like. You were like, nick, help us get out of this. And I was like, what can I do? And it really held me up. And I was, like, getting nervous. And it was probably 2am in the morning.

[Rob Morrow]

Right.

[Jeanine Turner]

That's usually when it happens, when we're all completely exhausted.

[Nick Mark]

Everyone is tired. Yeah.

[Rob Morrow]

It's a great phenomenon.

[Jeanine Turner]

Frank was with you in those scenes, too, as his first. You know, it was. Once again, it was lit blue beautifully. I just hearkened back to God is in the details. And the two of you, and Rob and Adam and Eve and Valerie and Adam, you were just awesome. I thought those scenes were simply terrific. But we have to give credit to the writing.

[Nick Mark]

Yeah. I actually looked up the writers before our podcast, surprisingly, it's a man and woman. Married. Martin.

[Rob Morrow]

Oh, they're married.

[Nick Mark]

They're married. And she was very involved in Magnum PI of all things.

[Rob Morrow]

Huh.

[Nick Mark]

Which surprised me.

[Rob Morrow]

Interesting. You know, there's something about couples. I always think it's great when. When you have. Like, women are writing for women and men are writing for men. So it's a great thing that when. When a couple. A male, female couple, anyway, and together, Andy and Diane, Robin and Mitch. Robin and Mitch, because they can balance each other, you know, like, you know, you. Like Janine said, oh, you know, being the woman, you know, you want a woman, and woman knows what a woman goes through. It's not that men or women can't capture the other sex in their work, but not. Not the same way, you know, someone of the same gender can. So I think it's an interesting point.

[Nick Mark]

Looking back at it after 30 years or whatever, I was trying to think, well, what is. What is the nub of this that really makes this script work? And I kind of think it's Ruth Ann and her speech about her having an affair and oh yeah, she ends it by saying, we don't know each other and we don't know ourselves, but somehow we muddle through.

[Rob Morrow]

You're so right. That is the kind of the. The nub of it.

[Nick Mark]

As you say, we gotta just muddle through.

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah. The bumpy road to love. Hence the title.

[Jeanine Turner]

And then the little tear I had there. It was very sweet. It was sweet writing. And if you think about it, I guess as I try to muddle through the whole scenes of my performance in it, that that probably would have been the time when she would have shown a tear. She was owned. She would never have shown a tear to Fleischman over it.

[Rob Morrow]

But that's interesting. It may have been. It may have been as I think, you know, you said there were three options for why it wasn't so emotional. And I think that may have been it. It was the progression, you know, of emotion so that otherwise if you were so emotional at the beginning, then there would be nowhere for you to go, you know, so. So maybe that was kind of the right choice.

[Jeanine Turner]

Yeah.

[Rob Morrow]

You know.

[Jeanine Turner]

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[Rob Morrow]

Those close ups when Adam and Eve are fighting, you go to these incredible tight close ups. And it's just such a great choice because it's so dis. It's so you.

[Jeanine Turner]

You.

[Rob Morrow]

You don't know what's going on, but you're right in the middle of it. It was a really great choice. Do you remember anything about that?

[Nick Mark]

No, not really.

[Rob Morrow]

Do you like. Did you like it when you saw it, just.

[Nick Mark]

I don't like to use big close ups normally.

[Rob Morrow]

Right, but that. But you used them there.

[Nick Mark]

I used them there just because they were. They were yelling and they were so out of control. I think it was just kind of like a. Like a Hitchcock thing, you know?

[Rob Morrow]

So you think it was effective in retrospect?

[Nick Mark]

Yeah.

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah.

[Nick Mark]

I like the. I like the marriage counseling scene a lot.

[Rob Morrow]

The marriage counseling scene was fun. It was great. It was very. Yeah. The way you shot between. Although we jumped the line once or twice, I noticed by.

[Nick Mark]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Rob Morrow]

The line, by the way is. I'll just tell the audience is when, you know the grammar of filmmaking is that, you know, if you're on the right side, when you're looking at someone, they should be on the. The other side, and. And vice versa. But sometimes it gets mixed up and I think we probably were running two cameras, possibly because one time Eve looks to the wrong side of the camera.

[Nick Mark]

Yeah, I think I. I did both sides. So I had both.

[Rob Morrow]

Right.

[Nick Mark]

Sometimes the editor would pick. Would say, oh, no, this is better to do it like this.

[Jeanine Turner]

We didn't have two cameras, I think, at that point, did we? We really weren't doing a lot of two.

[Nick Mark]

I think we did. I think we did at the same time.

[Rob Morrow]

Not all the time. Not all the time. But we would bring them in, you know.

[Nick Mark]

Well, I think I remember Dave Frederick was the camera operator.

[Jeanine Turner]

Yes.

[Nick Mark]

I don't know who did the second camera.

[Rob Morrow]

And so was Jim. Jim. Jim Lebovitz.

[Jeanine Turner]

Nick. But Nick was the Nick who.

[Rob Morrow]

Who.

[Jeanine Turner]

Who ended up marrying our costume designer. What's in his name? Nick.

[Rob Morrow]

No, she didn't name.

[Jeanine Turner]

Not. Not. There were two female costume assistants at one point.

[Rob Morrow]

Well, there was Mimi.

[Nick Mark]

Mimi.

[Jeanine Turner]

And then the other one.

[Rob Morrow]

And then Sandra.

[Jeanine Turner]

Sandra. Sandra dated our camera pole. Focus.

[Rob Morrow]

That's right. Greg.

[Jeanine Turner]

Greg. That's it. I was calling him Nick. I don't know why.

[Rob Morrow]

Right. But we did run two cameras. And what would happen is if they. They would. You would. A director would, if they had a big sequence, would ask for a second camera. And then you. If you were finished with the sequence, you had the camera operator for the full day. So you would take advantage of them and put them into wherever you. You had them.

[Jeanine Turner]

But when we worked two cameras, wasn't it really more like all on the same side? Like the camera might be over me In a Master and a close, we weren't running two cameras. Like one on my face and one.

[Rob Morrow]

No, no, we rarely did. We rarely did that. But.

[Jeanine Turner]

But this is more of a modern technique. That's more of a modern technique that.

[Nick Mark]

I don't like that we should mention that it's probably one of the last series shot on film.

[Jeanine Turner]

Right?

[Rob Morrow]

That's right. I mean, the 90s were. The 90s were all film. It was really in the 2000, because I was on a show in 2000 on numbers in 2000, and we started shooting it in 2003. And in 2005, we switched over on Buffy.

[Nick Mark]

Buffy was all not filming, you know, an interesting thing on film. I know I was brought up, you know, be very stingy with the film, economical. Like if it's not working, cut, start over, you know. But when, when the digital came in, people would just let it go and you would go. And actually there were some directors that preferred that and they would just not cut and just say, okay, go back to number one and we'll just do it again. Don't cut. Everybody just, you know, regroup and we'll keep going.

[Rob Morrow]

There's advantages and disadvantages to both, I think. I mean, there's, there's, there's times where being able to do that is a great thing, but it's also it. The, you know, some would argue that the precision is lost.

[Jeanine Turner]

Yeah, I, I personally don't like it when you have the modern day, which is. They have a camera. Let's say I'm in a scene with Rob like this, and this is me and this is Rob. There's a camera over me and there's a camera over Rob. Because you can't light it.

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah, that's called cross shooting.

[Jeanine Turner]

I still miss film. I'm with you. I mean, I miss film. I think film is richer, deeper, more beautiful. That the takes were more concise. There was just kind of a. More of a. Of a. I don't know. God is in the details. I guess the theme of my show, this show for me, in film, than there is with letting things ramble and go on and on and on, because you can.

[Nick Mark]

I want to go back and watch the Jim Heyman episode.

[Rob Morrow]

It's really good. We, we had him on last week and it was. He did such a good job.

[Nick Mark]

That was the birth of the show and that was really a low budget operation at that point.

[Rob Morrow]

What do you mean, the birth of the show?

[Nick Mark]

Well, wasn't that the very first episodes?

[Rob Morrow]

No, no, Jim. Jim directed.

[Nick Mark]

No, I mean, when he was cameraman.

[Rob Morrow]

Oh, cameraman. Yes, he was. Yeah, he directed. It was, you know, he made his debut directing, but he, he was the original cameraman DP and established the look. And. And I thought just did, you know, really did great things because they wanted. They were determined to make the show look like. As indie movies, you know, not look like this, the classic tv. And I think they succeeded. And I also think, you know, I talk about the show being the cinematizing of television, and I think that that was a big part of it.

[Nick Mark]

Well, one thing I saw, looking. Looking at this again, that I had totally forgotten about, was in the archery scene and John Corbett's shooting bullseyes every time, right? There's one shot in there, and it was a double who was a real archer, and he really shoots a bullseye. And I didn't remember that we did that. That was fantastic.

[Jeanine Turner]

I thought John looked pretty good doing all that archery. I was like, wow, look at him doing that archery. So are you telling. Are you telling us it was a double doing some of that archery?

[Nick Mark]

For one shot over his shoulder, you see him pull the. You actually see him shoot right into a bullseye.

[Rob Morrow]

Right. Great shot.

[Nick Mark]

That was fun. That's the kind of thing I love about filmmaking where you can. It goes back to the illusion thing. You do something and the audience just accepts it and buys it. And it's totally fake, right?

[Rob Morrow]

It's amazing. It's amazing.

[Jeanine Turner]

Yeah. In the artistry of the shots and things of that nature. But it's. But from. And I guess, you know, we're actors, right? So we're pretending to be a particular character as well, which all goes back to Plato, who didn't. He wouldn't like us. He thought we were pretenders instead of the real thing. But we try to bring the real thing, real emotions to the aspect of the story that we're telling. And it's interesting to me. You know, I heard so many times, Rob, I'm sure you heard this and Nick, that in college classes, they were teaching classes about Northern Exposure. You know, writing classes, cinema classes, you know, all kinds of classes just about Northern Exposure. Did you hear that, Rob?

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah, there's. There's definitely books, too, on the. On the philosophy, the underlying philosophies that are kind of explored in Northern Exposure. But, you know, I was thinking that the. The. There's things that used to bug me. You're talking about illusions, Nick, that I learned. You get away with that, the audience accepts, as you say. So there would be shots in the show where, say, I take off my glasses, right? And then you cut back to me and I take off my glasses again. And I'd always be so upset I'd be like, guys, that's like a basic, fundamental rule of editing. It's like, if you saw something, don't repeat it because it breaks the illusion. But I would argue that with Josh, and he would say, it's funnier. The beat we used is funnier, you know? And he was right. The audience didn't care about the continuity.

[Nick Mark]

There's one of those in this episode. Where's that, Janine? When you're at the bar taking shots.

[Jeanine Turner]

Oh, and I do two.

[Nick Mark]

Yeah, you do two in a row. And there really isn't quite time to refill the glass.

[Rob Morrow]

Right.

[Nick Mark]

It's not jarring, but if you think about it, it's like, where did. What happened there?

[Rob Morrow]

Your performance is so good. Your performance is so good. You're such. You're so great being drunk and you know that you don't care about the continuity.

[Nick Mark]

Yeah. I love you. And Ed at the bar, and Ed is just, like, trying to figure out, well, what is the right reaction here?

[Rob Morrow]

Right.

[Nick Mark]

And then he finally says, well, I'm a man.

[Jeanine Turner]

I'm a man, too, but why do there have to be so many? And I was thinking about that lately. That's a hard line to deliver. Right. Why do there have to be so many? And it's funny. Rob and Nick, and especially as actors, you have lines that come naturally to you and flow. And there are other lines that you go, that's a really hard line to deliver.

[Rob Morrow]

Why is that so hard?

[Jeanine Turner]

Because why are there so many? You didn't want to insult Ed. Right. In other words, if I had been truly upset and mad and crying and what? And intense and angry. If I had said to Ed, you know, why did there have to be so many? Then it would have been really offensive to him. So it was kind of a hard line. It's like, how do you play that line with this whole comedic thing that everybody wanted, you know, this drama.

[Rob Morrow]

Well, it goes back to Josh's note about how you can get away with anything on the show. The characters can, as long as there's no. Not malevolence behind it.

[Jeanine Turner]

Yeah, but if I had delivered that. If I had delivered that in a really malicious way, it would have been jarring. You wouldn't have.

[Rob Morrow]

Well, that's my point.

[Jeanine Turner]

So I didn't.

[Nick Mark]

Josh had a real thing about anger. Yeah, he really did. And especially for you, Rob.

[Rob Morrow]

Right.

[Nick Mark]

Didn't want you to be angry.

[Rob Morrow]

Right.

[Jeanine Turner]

There you go.

[Nick Mark]

You're stuck in this situation, and I think that sometimes you bridled about that.

[Rob Morrow]

I absolutely did. I'm bridling now, talking, as you're talking about. I'm remembering that, you know.

[Nick Mark]

You remember that?

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah, because. But it's an interesting thing. First of all, he was right, you know, although there was occasions where it worked. But. But, you know, that's an easy color for me. And as a young actor, I like to go there. And so, you know, and I think that he was right, you know, because it. Because. Because anger is a weird thing to watch. It's like it needs to be. It's like the close up you talk about, it's got to be used very sparingly. And in the world of Northern Exposure, it just didn't. There wasn't a lot of anger. There was a lot of other things, but there wasn't a lot of anger.

[Nick Mark]

No, no.

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah.

[Nick Mark]

I mean, Adam. Adam is angry. Adam is, like, angry.

[Rob Morrow]

But Adam's anger is funny.

[Nick Mark]

It's.

[Rob Morrow]

Whereas mine is not. Well, he's just. There's something funny about Adam. No matter what he does, it's funny. Whereas if I were doing that, you'd be scared.

[Jeanine Turner]

Yeah, but think about it. His character, though, Rob and Nick, Adam's character is completely over the top. I mean, he's barefoot, he's got things coming out of his head. He's organically funny just from the costume, just the way he's set up as this kind of, you know, scary person. It's like you were a normal person and I was a normal person. So in a way, we were surrounded in this episode by these eccentric. You know, Valerie was so eccentric, and her character Eve was just so eccentric. Where we are trying to be kind of. We had eccentric aspects to our. To the writing, what we were supposed to say and what we were going through in life. But we're not eccentric characters, so we had to find a way to play that. And it's. When you can have all that eccentricity, it's easy in a way, to be funny. But Maggie and Joel were real.

[Rob Morrow]

Right? That's a good point.

[Jeanine Turner]

And we had to deliver those lines in a way that. I know there were takes. I know there were takes where I had more layers, more intensity, more tears, but they just cut away from all that. They just didn't want it. And it works. It works. But we had to deliver those things in a way that it wouldn't seem hostile when the language was actually really hostile. I mean, to say something like, and why are there so many men? You had to deliver it in such a way that it's so. It's interesting it was a real enigma.

[Nick Mark]

Well, right. You could be very angry in that scene at the bar. That would be a whole another way to play it. Men are swine. You say Men are swine. You could be very angry with that. But that's not funny.

[Rob Morrow]

Right? You're right.

[Jeanine Turner]

You had to play against it. You had to play against it. And if I'd been weeping, it just would have been so. At least she got to get drunk, you know? At least she had that.

[Rob Morrow]

Nick, what was the editing like in the.

[Jeanine Turner]

That's my question.

[Rob Morrow]

Did you get to go in the editing room or did they just kind of take it and.

[Nick Mark]

Yeah, no, I always went in the editing room. And Tom. Tom Moore was the editor, and he's just fantastic. Yeah, fantastic editor. And I would go in and, you know, sometimes it was the way I envisioned it and sometimes it wasn't. And then I'd put it the way I wanted it. And he was fine with that. But he's just so good. And he's so good about, you know, picking the performances, and I can't say enough nice things about him. We became pretty good friends at that point.

[Jeanine Turner]

Well, editing can make or break a performance, right, Rob? I mean, editing is just crucial. I can totally change your performance.

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah. I mean, you know, it. It's amazing how, you know, because I direct and. And, you know, we can take a moment from someone earlier in the scene and put it in later in the scene and take an eye, you know, a little gesture they made somewhere and move it, and it can change everything. So. So yay to the editor.

[Nick Mark]

Yeah, absolutely. I. You know, we had great writers, especially this episode. Great writers, great actors, great crew. And as a director, I had to practice Kyudo archery, stay at. Be very Zen and let it. Let it come out.

[Rob Morrow]

Yeah. And I just want to say, about editing, again, just, you know, I. I've done it. You know, I've never really had a bad editor. Have you ever had a bad one? No. They always kind of give you an assembly that's kind of in the ballpark now. It's going to be nuanced and stuff. But, like, editors are a real, real. The real driving force between, you know, making the things we do work well.

[Jeanine Turner]

And I have to give a shout out to Marilyn, you know, Elaine Miles. When you walk in with the chains and everything, and she looks up, she looks up and you're like, aren't you gonna ask? Don't you even care? And she's like, you know, you got new sponges, sterile sponges, or Something. And then you walk away. And then that little look. That little look on her face where she kind of rolls her eyes about.

[Nick Mark]

What was.

[Jeanine Turner]

That was like that. That was brilliant.

[Nick Mark]

That's very. I noticed that in this when I screened it too. We hang on her just a little longer than necessary just to get her going.

[Rob Morrow]

Doesn't care.

[Jeanine Turner]

She's just a little exasperation, her knowing. A little exasperated knowingness.

[Rob Morrow]

So I think we should wind it up here. What do you say there, Janine?

[Jeanine Turner]

Yeah, but, Nick, you'll have to come back because you did Animals R Us. I think that's when Rick came back as a dog.

[Nick Mark]

Right.

[Jeanine Turner]

And I know Josh loved that episode. And then I was looking to do another really big episode. Do you do our first love scene?

[Nick Mark]

I don't know.

[Jeanine Turner]

Maybe I was looking at your credits because there was another one later on. Anyway, please come back, because.

[Nick Mark]

The wedding of Adam and Eve. But I don't remember. In this, he says they're married, and I don't remember why we did a wedding of them.

[Rob Morrow]

Maybe it's like they do their vows again or something.

[Nick Mark]

Yeah.

[Rob Morrow]

Or it turns out they faked it. Or who knows? Everything. You never know what's true with it.

[Jeanine Turner]

In closing of the show, we can talk about that closing scene between Adam and Eve, which is. It comes very apparent that Adam lies about everything.

[Rob Morrow]

Right. He's pathological liars.

[Jeanine Turner]

He designed the sails of the sailboat. She's believing it, right. And then she's this, you know, always kind of, was she lying? A hypochondriac. But they were just so wildly eccentric. But that was kind of a funny moment when then Fleischmann. Rob. You look at him and go, okay. But that. That's another kind of moment of what we have to do as real characters. You could have been really pissed off, Fleischman.

[Rob Morrow]

Right, Right.

[Jeanine Turner]

You could have been exhausted, pissed off. You could have let him have it, told them they were all liars. But you don't. You just kind of go, okay, Right.

[Rob Morrow]

Which I'm sure Nick helped me. I'm sure I tried to be more angry.

[Jeanine Turner]

Well, Nick, you're. You're an awesome director. And it's. It's. Directors like you, Nick, are the ones that come in and find those little moments.

[Nick Mark]

Yeah. Well, I gotta thank you guys. For me, Northern Exposure was lifechanging and just a great experience. I always look forward to going up north and being with you guys. I would have loved to do nine more.

[Rob Morrow]

Ah. Well, it was. It was great. Thank you for coming on the show.

[Nick Mark]

Thanks for having me.

[Jeanine Turner]

So that's it for us. We'll see you again next week with o' Connell and Fly Fleischman.

[Rob Morrow]

Actually, I think it should be Fleischman o'.

[Jeanine Turner]

Connell. Yeah, right. In your dreams, Fleischman. Northern Disclosure is a production with Evergreen Podcasts and executive produced by Paul Anderson and Scott McCarthy for Workhouse Media.

[Rob Morrow]

We are Believing the Bizarre, a paranormal.

[Nick Mark]

Podcast that dives into the unknown and unusual every Tuesday. From cryptids and alien abductions to listener submitted hauntings, we bring you creepy stories every single week.

[Rob Morrow]

We try to keep each episode pretty lighthearted, but we always remain critical and.

[Nick Mark]

We rate every strange encounter on our believability scale. For your weekly dose of paranormal tales.

[Rob Morrow]

Search Spotify for Believing the Bizarre, a podcast as bizarre as you are.