What did you learn from your first job writing on "Dawson's Creek"?

There are a few things I try to avoid. On "Dawson's Creek," those kids were supposed to be outsider kids -- you know, wrong-side-of-the-track kids, weirdo kids. And I just felt like there's no universe out there where Katie Holmes isn't the prom queen, hottest girl in school. And the same could be true of Kristen Bell unless you really service the story, unless you really explain, unless you make it very clear and keep reinforcing why this person is a pariah, and give that some depth and some weight. So that was one thing I pulled away.

Also, "Dawson's Creek" was never a happy work environment. Lots of infighting, lots of upheaval at the top, so I've really tried to make the shows that I've done happy places to come to work.

Something that bothered people about "Dawson's Creek" but as a writer, I kind of dug: writing those kids as though they were college grad students. It was fun and liberating and made for a true sort of writer's show. It was a fun year for me, because I got to get out of debt with my first TV job, and I learned a ton.

You wrote for "Snoops" and then left the show. What was the issue there?

You know, I left before the season even started, really. I was supposed to be the show runner, and it was going to be the first show where David Kelley handed over a show to someone else, and he didn't write all the episodes and make all the decisions, and we just never -- he and I didn't get on the same page about what this detective show was going to be. And you know, in an article that came out at the time, when I left the show, I thought he was really fair about it. He told Entertainment Weekly, "Rob really wanted a sort of a comedy and character-driven show, and I really wanted a plotted, drama-driven show." Which is sort of accurate -- I did think that the show needed to wink. I felt like, you know, you've got three sexy women wearing a nipple cam, David, I think we have to play to the comedy a little bit. I had them making quips on the way to a rescue in an early episode, and he said, "Rob, that takes all of the drama out of it."

I felt like we were going to be closer to "Moonlighting," and he wanted, I suppose, to be closer to "Rockford Files" or something -- which still had a degree of comedy and was certainly a warm show. So that was a creative difference we couldn't get past. I will say that I'm actually happy that I got my female P.I. show on, because I'll put mine against his.

Well, that's the ultimate revenge, I guess.

Yeah, but it makes me feel like a small person to say it out loud.

We're all small people, I think. You said at the Paley presentation that you read Television Without Pity regularly. Have you ever taken a suggestion from its readers?

I haven't taken a plot idea, but we certainly react to what they're responding to. I mean, it does influence what we do here, without a doubt. We try to be really careful with our continuity and with our clues. They catch everything. So part of it is just that voice in the back of the head, when you could have a lazy TV moment, and you realize, "No, no, the fans notice." So it's good that they're there for that. And also, who are they reacting to? Who do they like? Who do they not like? It does make a difference. And certainly if they say something like, "This character's boring me," I notice. For me, it's like, well, we better give him something cool to do.

But it doesn't always have an effect. They've been pretty negative about Deputy Leo, and my belief is they're down on Deputy Leo because they want Veronica with somebody on the show -- they want her with Logan, they want her with Duncan. So they see Leo as delaying their satisfaction. And I think that's really the resentment, because I find him to be just an amazingly charming, fun great actor and great presence on the show.

Yeah, I love Leo.

Oh, well good. And so just because the viewers aren't raving about him, you know, I'm not going to write him out [of the show] just for that, because I think he's good, I think he makes the show better. I think it'll make a moment when Veronica does move on that much more satisfying.

Are we going to solve the mystery of Lilly Kane's murder by the end of this season?

Absolutely. It's shooting now. Actually, we're in the last couple days of shooting the second to last episode, in which we will find out what happened the night Veronica was raped. Then in the season finale, we find out who killed Lilly Kane. In these last seven [episodes], I think we're going to have three or four truly great episodes. And none of them are weak, but I think there are going to be a couple in here that blow people's minds.

Do you have an idea for the main mystery for the next season?

Yeah! It was a trick to find something that we felt would make Veronica as emotionally invested as she was with Lilly Kane, and to feel like something new and fresh that didn't feel like Season 1, and we think we've got it.

Would you say that the season-long narrative arc is one of the hardest things about doing a show like this?

Yeah. I can't imagine that any other TV show right now is harder to break than our show. Maybe "24"? But that would be the only one, and I even think ours may be harder, because we have two things going on. Detective shows are harder to break than any other kind of show in the first place. We want to do this in a way that the viewer gets access to the same clues as Veronica over the course of the episode. Unlike a lot of shows, we don't introduce you to the bad guy at the beginning and tell you whodunit, and in those shows the fun is catching them. In our show you find clue A, clue B, clue C, you meet people who might be a red herring, might be a suspect, might be a witness. You have to lay out the facts and the beats very carefully. We always want Veronica to do something very new and fresh and clever to get to this information, and that's always a challenge. So just doing the enclosed episode, that's one challenge that's hard.

How much of an idea do you have about whether or not the show will be brought back?

Um, I'm really confident -- I mean, I'm really confident, I have to say. I think we're coming back. I would be willing to wager a bunch that we're coming back. Even if the numbers don't warrant it, I think UPN is incredibly proud of the show. I think for them, it's a signal to other television writers, producers, actors, that they can do quality TV on that network.

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