Survival, whether in the form of a green card or simply a roof over one's head, is the basic element at stake in most of the stories they contain.
"One of the things we talk about in the writers' room is that these people love each other, and we always throw out stories that have an element of 'Our friendship is at stake!'" co-creator and executive producer Bill Lawrence said last week in an interview after a Los Angeles event promoting the show.
The ideas about radio journalism that Glass taught them, they said, included having something at stake, having an element of surprise, having a larger story and smaller anecdotes that support it, and having moments of authentic emotion.
Similarly, adverse effects have been described for education [ 7, 13], suggesting that more upstream elements determining the quality of life are at stake in oil-driven development.
"It is knowing what's at stake and knowing the different elements of it, I believe, that puts me in a different position".
"There are very technical issues at stake; it is important to have clear understanding on technical elements in order to ensure a robust and viable agreement.
Dobozy laces the narratives with elements of the fantastical but falls victim to the temptation to offer too much explanation about what's at stake.
"Ubik," from 1969, also repeats elements from "Palmer Eldritch" and "Counter-Clock World," an earlier Dick novel, and it feels as if even less is at stake.
"Everything is at stake".
