The complete title of the television series which is an amalgam of female-led thrillers, is The Woman In The House Across The Street From The Window – but nobody expects you to remember all of that. You can simply refer to this darkly comedic crime thriller as The one starring Kristen Bell as Anna. As with most earnest tongue in cheek TV shows, there are familiar tropes – Anna collects corks, or more specifically, after she’s drunk the wine from the bottles they came from. She also likes pills, preferably from screw top orange bottles. Sometimes she washes them down with wine depending on her mood. She’s suffered unimaginable loss, when her psychiatrist husband leaves their daughter in a cell with a serial killer to take a call during ‘take your daughter to work day.’ Could happen to anyone right?

Then, one night, (or was it day?) in another drunken haze (she’s getting help from a therapist) Anna witnesses a murder; or does she? Anna heroically sleuths the case to the end of the season because law enforcement won’t believe her.

The one starring Kristen Bell as Anna, is not played so much for laughs, but more for its earnest and absurd tone. We spoke to its brainchildren Hugh Davidson, Larry Dorf (with an f not a k) and Rachel Ramras about getting this show right rather than over the top.

“This story stems from my love of these books – these female centric thrillers,” confessed Rachel. “We started with Gone Girl, which led to Girl On A Train, which led to Woman In The Window, which led to Woman In Cabin 10.” The show could have been named with all these titles smooshed together, but they reached their character limit. Incidentally, our revised title was still too long, so it renamed Woman – one word. Bold and iconic.

Poking fun at the genre is in the trio’s wheelhouse. “We really like absurd humor. We like things that are unexpected,” declared Larry. The comedy isn’t joke-driven and relies on introducing the mystery and continuing in a slow-burn style of storytelling. Then the audience can decide if it’s a thriller or a comedy. “There’s something weird going on here. Some of the characters are taking themselves way too seriously.”

Rachel Ramras

Woman also suffers from bouts of purposely bad writing to make its comedic point, according to Dorf. “When you get further into the series, it gets more absurd.”

Ramras also noted that our screens are saturated with this type of mystery crime material that audiences are already beginning to parody it on some level. She quotes The Undoing (David E. Kelley) as an example. “Most of our friends were laughing at its absurdity. The main suspect was Jonathan Fraser (Hugh Grant) and the murderer ended up being the same person.” This cheeky approach to the whodunnit genre means anything can happen.

The writing trio declined to nominate a prevailing genre for Woman. “The main thing that audiences find funny is people taking themselves too seriously in an over-dramatic way,” said Hugh, despite Woman containing a string of murders. He feels the books which inspired the show were funnier than their respective films for the same reason.

When The Undoing was released, it wasn’t just its ludicrous nature that created buzz. “Everyone was commenting about everything – hairstyles, clothes, and the outlandish behavior.” Occasionally, the murder was discussed.”The comedy came from people over-reacting to stuff, which carried through to our show.”

The writers didn’t avoid certain clichés either. Scenes like being watched through a window were amplified in Woman. Anna was also constantly exhausted and suffered from ombrophobia (a fear of rain not a fear of hombres) which was also inherently funny.

Whodunnit Anna?

Despite giving Anna lashings of common thriller tropes, she also needed to be grounded and real. “I’m drawn to female-led stories because I find that, interwoven between the mysteries and the thriller, there is always emotion,” said Rachel. Anna’s fears, traumas, and sadness were authentic. “This is not always the case with male protagonists.” Woman explored Anna’s loss and her unhealthy way of grieving via excessive drinking and medication to numb pain. These heart-wrenching actions encourage the audience to emotionally invest in Anna.

In committing to solving a murder or two, Anna gradually got her life back. “There is beauty in that despite the absurdity,” continued Anna. “Audiences need to invest in both the mystery and the emotions in order to keep watching.”

Since Woman isn’t ostensibly a comedy, there was no desire to adhere to the three jokes per page template. Careful consideration was given to how the comedy played. “We didn’t want a funny scene followed by a sad scene,” said Larry. The entire tone had to be integrated. “We pushed the sadness to the level of silliness.” The situation should be funny, although the characters most definitely don’t think so.

Larry Dorf

Despite its unconventional take, Woman needed to feel grounded. The story had to balance dropping legitimate clues eventually leading to an organic unveiling of the killer with the unnerving nature of Anna’s mind so they never knew whether someone was alive or not.

They worked with Marti Noxon (Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Sharp Objects) to properly structure the mystery. “We had our signposts and we knew our beginning, middle, and end,” said Larry. “We didn’t how long it would be or how Anna would react to build the tension especially if the audience didn’t know if it was real or not.” Marti also helped them decide how much of the mystery needed to be resolved and how much guesswork the audience could tolerate. “We couldn’t end it with the whole thing being entirely inside Anna’s head.”

We had to decide how much firm ground the audience needs

In keeping with the traditional whodunnit genre, the writers opted for a Ten Little Indians by Agatha Christie approach where every character is a viable suspect until the end. “We let the audience believe the murderer was one character and let them believe that for a while. Then we’d move to the next character,” continued Larry. They didn’t want a Knives Out structure where clues were strategically positioned in the film. “We wanted it to be less of a guessing game and more of this is who we want you to think it likely is.”

When the killer’s identity was finally revealed, there was never a sense of “it was obvious all along.” The killer didn’t occupy an outsized amount of screen time, but was always a viable candidate. As a mild spoiler, Rachel indicated that “people are already trained to think it’s the least obvious suspect.”

Davidson, Dorf, and Ramras operate as a three-lobed brain in the TV writers’ room. “We write our outlines together. They are our bible. They are so dense, so when we write, the process is quick,” said Ramras.

Hugh Davidson

It’s just the three of them in the writers’ room. “There’s not a lot of mass to it. It’s more of a feel,” said Davidson. This intuitive style dictated how much time each character has on screen.

Despite the writers working in unison, disagreements and conflicts arise in the writers’ room. Having an uneven number pf writers allows for a deciding vote when an idea is floated. It’s a good barometer of the strength of an idea.

Not every idea from the initial outline for the show made it to the final cut. “Some ideas were just too comedic,” declared Dorf. This isn’t a “laugh out loud show.” Reining them in ultimately worked to the benefit of Woman.

“You can’t undercut the tension by giving the audience a big laugh. You have to be circumspect in chasing laughter.“