11 Of Your Favourite Shows And The Crazy ‘Secrets’ Behind Them

Our favourite TV series make our world spin. Countless hours spent binge-watching all episodes and growing roots while lying on our bed: this is what our life seems like on most weekends. And if you’re anyway investing so much time here, why not take a step back and learn about the lesser-known facts that could explain what made these series such hits?

1. This Is Us

Did you know about the show’s Tangled connection? Randall says to his mom (Mandy Moore) ‘I love you.’ To this, Rebecca says, “I love you more,” and Randall replies with, “I love you most.’ This little exchange between mother and son comes from the Tangled song ‘Mother Knows Best.’ Incidentally, Mandy Moore is also the youngest actor in the main cast.

But the thing about the show that kills us the most, Jack Pearson’s (Milo Ventimiglia) unfortunate and unfair death, and the final moments that led to it had to be kept under wraps till the very end. The cast and crew weren’t even allowed to talk about it outside.

2. Mindhunter

(L-R): A still from Mindhunter; John E. Douglas

Make no mistake, mister. The also David Fincher-directed Mindhunter is based on the truth through and through. Holden Ford was created keeping real-life FBI profiler and author John E. Douglas in mind. Douglas also co-authored the book ‘Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit’. The character of Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs was also based on Douglas.

Coming to Dr. Wendy Carr, one episode has her asking “What’s in the box?” This particular scene seems to follow the one in David Fincher’s Se7en where Brad Pitt’s character is seen asking the same question.

3. Dark

Probably putting an end to all comparisons made by fans, the creators, Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, admitted that Dark was much closer to Twin Peaks than to Stranger Things. May be one of the things that explains the way the story took shape, in an interview Odar explained he’s from a small town in Germany, the kind of small town where people know each other and things are happy like that. Only there was a ‘creepy’ neighbour that his mother told him creepy stories about. “But my question was, like, was he actually bad or was my mum bad, telling these stories? I felt like, ‘Oh, behind those doors, there are dark secrets,'” Odar said. This, sort of, explains how secrets and then more secrets drive the show itself.

4. Breaking Bad

Jesse Pinkman, (Aaron Paul) one of the characters we came to really love and adore wasn’t supposed to have made it so far. It was originally planned he’d die off in the first season itself. In 2008, there was reportedly a writer’s strike and this incidentally that was when Vince Gilligan, the head writer, revisited the script.

5. The Walking Dead

Norman Reedus, who plays our favourite, Daryl Dixonon the show, was once bitten by a fan at a Walker Stalker convention who, in Reedus’ own words, turned in to a ‘werewolf’ at the very sight of him. Sweet of Reedus to not file charges.

6. Game Of Thrones

Considering the show created a whole new universe of separate kingdoms and separate kings, the question of having separate authentic-sounding languages for these regions must’ve arisen at some point. This is precisely why HBO hired known linguist David J. Peterson who went on to create nine whole new languages. Using Mongolian as the blueprint, he created the 2,000 words worth of Dothraki dialect including a White Walker language that is yet to be used on the show.

7. How To Get Away With Murder

Considering how awkward things can get on-set sometimes, Viola Davis who plays Annalise Keating on the show, has admitted to not telling her husband when the episodes with the sex scenes are running.

8. Grey’s Anatomy

You’re not the only one who felt that Grey’s Anatomy seemed similar to Sex and the City. Shonda Rhimes, the creator called Meredith’s take on things, “a more grounded version of Carrie’s articles in Sex and the City.” She admitted it wasn’t the best way to promote a show that was, in the end, different from SATC, “but it worked.”

9. The X-Files

Actor Gillian Anderson who plays Scully in the hit ’90s series is 5-foot-2, and David Duchovny who plays Fox Mulder, 6-feet tall. Now, imagine how that difference in height would’ve translated on screen had it not been for the production crew’s ingenious cover up. Gillian Anderson ended up filming most scenes standing on a box that, later, fondly came to be known as the ‘Scully box.’