Jim Halterman: You’ve worked on ‘Lost,’ ‘Buffy The Vampire Slayer’ and ‘Angel’ before ’24.’ Since those were very different genres, how did you make that transition?
David Fury: It was definitely a big difference going to ’24’ from the others shows I had been on. ’24’ is a runaway train of action, conspiracies with interweaving in [and] it was a challenge. They brought me in to try to find the more human stories within all the action and to try to track and find emotional life in these characters even while they’re disparaging orders in CTU. By the time I came on in year 5 of ’24,’ Jack had been through so much. One of the reasons I was there – [Co-Creator/Executive Producer] Joel Surnow told me – was they had watched one of my ‘Lost’ episodes and I did so much with nothing. What he was referring to was there was no real plot in the elements of ‘Lost.’ It might just be a scene between two characters and he found that compelling.
JH: How’s the process been with ‘Terra Nova’ after spending so much time on ’24?’
DF: It’s pretty amazing after five years to go back to writing a script of a different kind. I’ve been stuck writing in the real time of ’24’ and to be able to use flashbacks, time cuts, being able to add different perspectives… it’s almost like relearning the craft of writing because ’24’ beat it out of me.
