Astrof said he immediately fell for the concept floated by Horgan. “Sharon said, ‘I want to do something really scary. Do you think you can do horror and comedy together?’ And I said yes, because every time you go to a horror movie, after you scream, you laugh,” Astrof said. “I’ve been doing this long enough [that] I’m always looking for fresh ways to tell jokes.”

And Horgan, he said, pushed him far out of the comfort zone of familiar sitcom rhythms as they collaborated from different continents. “When she’s speaking in person, you get the Irish brogue and it’s beautiful, it’s lilting and it’s poetic and you’re like, ‘You’re right,’” he laughed. “But when she just writes in the long email, ‘Are you really doing this? It’s sitcom crap. Are you really doing a callback?’ I’m like, ‘My house is built on callbacks!’ Sharon didn’t write that much, but every one of her notes made me a better writer.”

(Excerpt) Read more in: Variety