Interview With Eileen Gallagher

AE: Can you give me an example of something — a story line, perhaps — something you're looking forward to a second chance on?
EG: I think toward the end of the series we took too much of it outside the prison. Some of the stories of maybe the — I don't want to speak out of turn — but maybe we went too far with the relationship of Neil Grayling, the prison governor, and Jack Ellis [who played Jim Fenner]. I just think sometimes we went a bit too far away from the original core values, which is the women in the prison. There's something about the atmosphere of Larkhall Prison, and you don't really want to spend too much time outside of there because it sort of breaks the magic.

And another part of it is, we love the camp elements, but if it gets too campy, that doesn't work, and maybe in later seasons it got a bit over the top, too camp.

It can also be very small things. In the very first episode, we introduced a new story three-quarters of the way in with an older woman coming into the prison with hygiene problems, and that story structure, that story at the end, didn't merge with the other stories particularly well. We can see how we could do Episode 1 a little more successfully. There are small things like that, and then there are big directional things towards the end in Series 5, and I think 7 and 8.

But for my money, I think the first three series in particular, which were the Nikki-Helen years, defined it. The tone was perfect, and I'd like to see that reproduced as far as we can. These are really fantastic writers — you know their work — and if anyone can enhance it, I think they will.

AE: With the Nikki and Helen story line, you had to make adjustments as you went along, based on the actresses and their contracts and various other issues. Is it your plan to follow the story line as it turned out, or is there leeway in that?
EG: Well, there's leeway. You're right, the reason we wrote out Helen and Nikki was that the actress who played Helen, Simone Lahbib, wanted to do other things, as actresses do. And we don't have the same system in America — you tend to have the budget to sign actors on for seven years. In the U.K., we don't have that ability. In the U.S. version, there'd be the opportunity of keeping the characters longer and keeping them in and not writing them out, if we're lucky enough that it goes that long.

I think you know that when Simone decided to leave, we were really keen that for the first time in television, a lesbian love story would end happily. The history of lesbian love stories in movies and television is that they end in tragedy because they're punished for being lesbians, and we wanted to end our story happily.

We did discuss keeping Nikki on and have Helen in the background, and we just couldn't find a way that would be believable and happy. The only alternative was that we have them going off in the sunset together. It was a good run of 39 hours. But absolutely we don't have to do that the same way again.

Simone Lahbib (left) and Mandana Jones

AE: I believe Alan Ball once said that it used to require courage for actors to portray gay characters, and now it reveals a distinct lack of courage if they're not willing to portray gay characters. It seems to me your show and Simone and Mandana [Jones'] portrayals may have helped make that statement true.
EG: That's very interesting and a great compliment to us and to the actresses who played those characters. Bad Girls came on the air in 1999 and it was on at peak time, 9 o'clock, on what was the biggest channel, ITV.

It's interesting. I always think that broadcasters are much more behind the curve than the audience. Broadcasters are more nervous about the audience's reaction, and we got the most fantastic audience reaction to Bad Girls from day one. And to be fair, ITV didn't try to tone it down at all. They thought it was very brave. They were probably nervous about the reaction, but they never tried to tone it down.

We had live web chats all the time, and hundreds of people writing in, and the ones that made me most proud were the middle-aged women writing in who said, "I never thought I'd be so tolerant towards lesbians and prisoners and feel the connections and sympathy I have." And mothers talking to daughters about being gay, and daughters talking to mothers. We're just really proud of creating that. It's amazing what drama can do.

AE: Speaking of the fans, you create very big characters in general, and certainly with Nikki and Helen you created iconic characters. Are you concerned about the comparisons when you bring those characters directly over to American TV?
EG: I think that's always the tough task. I think for fans who have loved Nikki and Helen, it will be a little tense, wondering how they'll appear in the American version. … It will take just a little bit of adjustment and a bit of making yourself readjust to the new actresses, but I think before a very short time, people will accept that this is the new Helen and Nikki.

AE: A number of shows have been transferred from Britain to the U.S. Do you have any models that you look to for how to do it right, or perhaps what to avoid?
EG: The biggest success I know of is The Office. I think what is good and brave about The Office is that it's very true to the British show, but it's still got the very good American feel to it, so that's the kind of model we'd be looking for. It's faithful without being slavishly tied to the U.K. version.