How Vince Gilligan designed ‘Pluribus’ to destroy every sci-fi trope

Vince Gilligan spent a decade ruminating about his next TV series before he had a clear vision of what it was going to be. But through all that time, the writer/director, who is best known for creating Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul , knew one thing for sure: it had to be entirely different from what he’d made before. In fact, it had to be completely unlike any other show, period. “As far as a prime directive, it is always: A) how can we make this show look different than any other show on TV? That’s the most important one,” Gilligan told me during a recent call. “And B, how can we make the show look and sound and feel different from the other shows we’ve already done?” Gilligan made good on his promise to himself. The resulting show, Pluribus , really is a wholly unique take on the sci-fi genre. Massive in scope, yet intimate at its core, it’s a deep study of a character who is going through an impossibly hard situation that affects the entire planet. Before Gilligan told anyone about his idea for Pluribus , he wanted to get his idea onto paper. “I wait as long as I can, and I have as much figured out, at least with the first episode, as possible,” he says. “And in this case, I had the luxury of having a completely written first script, I think actually, possibly a completely written first two scripts.” Vince Gilligan (center) [Image: Apple] That’s what he showed to Rhea Seehorn, who played Kim Wexler opposite Bob Odenkirk’s Saul Goodman in Better Call Saul . Initially, Gilligan thought about a male protagonist for Pluribus but, after working with Seehorn , he decided to write the series for her. “I talked to Rhea first because I wanted to make sure Rhea would star in the show,” he says. It was only after Seehorn agreed to play Carol Sturka—the grumpy bestseller romance author who becomes the hero—that he got the production ball rolling. “I started talking to our department heads, our wonderful crew people that I’ve been working with for years,” he tells me. “And that makes it a lot easier.” [Photo: courtesy of Apple] Gilligan—together with series’ writer/director Gordon Smith and writer Alison Tatlock—says the show’s premise is meant to be the opposite of every “alien invasion film” you’ve seen up to this point. Having first worked as a writer on The X-Files, which embodied and invented many of the universal sci-fi tropes, Gilligan knew that Pluribus needed to serve the premise with no cracks in the story, which resulted in flipping, subverting, and ultimately destroying every single sci-fi trope wedged into our collective mind since The Twilight Zone . For Gilligan, Pluribus is the culmination of decades of work in TV. Filmed in Albuquerque (where most of the crew lives), Gilligan says the show is a direct result of working with the same reliable team he’s been with since Breaking Bad ....

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