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In early January, a bunch of bleary-eyed journalists shuffled into a grand ballroom in Pasadena for Hulu’s 8 AM 2016 Winter TCA presentation. The streaming platform-turned-television studio had a trio of panels planned, but one was clearly generating the most hype. 11.22.63 wouldn’t debut for another month, but journalists were already drawn to its star power. The series was a Stephen King adaptation, produced by J.J. Abrams, and starring James Franco. But as questions were lobbed at the panel, a trend emerged. While it was clear that a lot of collaboration had taken place behind the scenes, one person had been clearly in charge — and it was not Abrams, Franco, nor the absent King.

It was executive producer and showrunner Bridget Carpenter.

Carpenter may have not the same name recognition as J.J. Abrams, James Franco, or Stephen King, but she has the respect of all those men. During a scrum after the panel, Abrams told journalists that his production company Bad Robot “had wanted to work with Bridget for a long time.” While he was off editing Star Wars: The Force Awakens, she was the one entrusted with bringing Stephen King’s novel to life. Carpenter was the real force behind 11.22.63.

Later, when the producers and stars of Hulu’s upcoming original drama The Path took the stage, the same thing happened. While all the buzz was focused on Friday Night Lights alum Jason Katims and Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul, executive producer Jessica Goldberg was running the literal show. The whole series came out of an idea that she had fostered in the year following her divorce and father’s death.

If you zoom out and look at the bigger picture, a trend emerges. Hulu’s biggest original programming success stories are all tied to strong women working behind-the-scenes. The brash showbiz sitcom Difficult People boasts Amy Poehler as an executive producer and is defined by the unique comic worldview of creator and star Julie Klausner. Casual was have been created by Zander Lehman, but its been shepherded to success by its showrunner, television veteran Liz Tigelaar. And though it didn’t start its trail-blazing journey at Hulu, The Mindy Project has blossomed there as a sterling example of how current female stars and showrunners like Mindy Kaling are changing comedy forever.

It quickly became obvious to me that while Hulu was investing huge amounts of money to secure the talents of Hollywood’s most-esteemed male producers, women were morphing into the most potent creative forces behind their new original content slate. Realizing this made me sit up for one big reason: It’s not the norm. For decades, the narrative has been that Hollywood — whether we’re talking television or film, comedy or drama — is a hostile environment for creative female forces. Hulu had quietly assembled a programming slate where women were not only equal to men behind-the-scenes, but often in charge of them.

A scene from the explosive *11.22.63* finale, which was meticulously overseen by Bridget Carpenter.

THE ACCIDENTAL REVOLUTION

Bridget Carpenter started her career on the stage. That is to say she is an internationally-renowned playwright. Then, in 2003, she made the leap to television when she became a story editor, and later a producer, on Bryan Fuller’s ground-breaking drama Dead Like Me. From there, she went on to Friday Night Lights and Parenthood, before being cherry-picked by J.J. Abrams to run 11.22.63.

When we spoke to Carpenter a few months back about 11.22.63, we asked if she felt like Hulu was going out of its way to create a balanced playing field for male and female writers. She said, “I know the folks at Hulu pretty well at this point and we’ve never had a specific conversation about a drive for inclusion, but I have a feeling that’s very ingrained in there for them. I’m sure their drive to succeed is not anything about tokenism. You know, I think that they are listening and focusing, going ‘This is the person that can get the job done and can do the best job.’”

Indeed, it seems like Hulu has accidentally wound up in this revolutionary position. The person in charge of assembling Hulu’s programming “portfolio” — a term she prefers to line up or programming slate — is Head of Originals Beatrice Springborn. When we asked her about the unique number of women wielding power on these shows, she confirmed that there was no official mandate to hire women at Hulu.

“I think in a lot of these cases, it happened naturally,” said Springborn. “Obviously, we’re conscious of it and it’s something that we promote and encourage, but for us, we also just happened to have the best material that came through had female showrunners. And that was fantastic.”

Jessica Scott, a Hulu drama development executive, confirmed that it’s all “a natural occurrence.” She said, “It’s not an outside mandate for us. It’s the material that’s always driving everything.”

“I do think there’s something intangible about having these different voices that have been historically less prominent in the landscape,” Scott added. “When you’re looking for things you haven’t seen before, that are sort of fresh or new and sort of authentic in a different way, things like that can happen where you have ‘new’ and ‘different’ showrunners coming forward.”

Hulu’s approach to hiring showrunners sounds fairly straight-forward — pick the best idea and the person with the best ideas for the job — but it exists outside of the hyper-political bubble that defines most networks’ cultures today. The hiring system in Hollywood tends to favor cronyism and advancing up-and-comers who agree with the establishment’s take on things. If Hulu has managed to think outside the box on this score that’s probably because Hulu, like its primary competitors Netflix and Amazon, grew out of the start-up culture of Silicon Valley.

Hulu’s first drama series, *The Path*, focuses on life inside a religious cult called “The Meyerist Movement.” It was created by Jessica Goldberg.

THE HULU “MOVEMENT”

Jessica Goldberg is the creator and showrunner of Hulu’s latest scripted drama series The Path, which premiered on the service this week. The show takes a hard look at life inside of a cult that refers to itself euphemistically as a “Movement.” That word works better with the religion’s cozy and camp-like aesthetic. When we chatted with Goldberg over the phone ahead of the show’s premiere, she wryly compared the service’s corporate culture to her own fictional religious group.

“In a weird way, it’s its own kind of ‘Movement,’” she joked. “If you go to the Hulu building, you feel a sort of Silicon Valley-ish, cultish thing that’s very comforting. You know, everyone’s picture is on the wall and they have beer on tap and a screening room. It’s full of energy and positivity so it’s so fun to be a part of.”

Before heading up Hulu’s original programming, Beatrice Springborn cut her teeth as an executive at Pixar, another studio known for marching to the beat of its own drum. “I think Hulu and Pixar share a lot of similar qualities,” she said. “We have no offices here. We encourage a lot of discussion and conversation and everyone has a voice. There’s a lot of democracy.”

That feeling of democracy might have been born out of Silicon Valley’s all-consuming quest to discover the next big idea in tech, but it’s a philosophy that has a lot to offer creatives in other professions long hampered by the stresses of the system.

Writer and producer Liz Tigelaar has a long career reaching back to Dawson’s Creek and including stints on Once and Again, Brothers & Sisters, Once Upon A Time, and Nashville. In 2009, she created the show Life Unexpected and spent a few years working on various projects for ABC. When Hulu bought the modern romantic comedy Casual from first-time creator Zander Lehmann and executive producer Jason Reitman, Tigelaar was recruited to be showrunner Casual’s first season earned it a Golden Globe nomination for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy, a first for Hulu.

Tigelaar specifically singled out an event that Hulu held at their headquarters ahead of Casual’s debut. “There was a kind of sweetness and the way you kind of feel on a movie set. Everyone was sequestered and it felt like camp. I was very touched by it because in this business people can be cynical and having people asking specific questions about your show and feeling it was their show. It was very sweet.”

Tigelaar practically gushed. “There’s just an energy to Hulu — and maybe it’s because of the newness comparatively — that feels really amazing and supportive and collaborative.”

Writer & Comic Julie Klausner draws upon her own experiences in NYC comedy in *Difficult People*.

POPPING THE PROGRAMMING CHERRY

Netflix gets the lion’s share of the credit for bringing original programming to streaming, but Hulu was actually one of the very first streaming services to experiment with the idea of original content. In early 2011 — more than a year before Netflix would add their first “Netflix Original,” Lilyhammer, to its service — Hulu debuted a daily show called The Morning After. More series like East Los High, Deadbeat, and Quick Draw followed, but Hulu didn’t really make a big splash with their original content until last summer.

Difficult People kicked off a slate of brand new programming on Hulu that sought to up the ante on how the service’s original series were perceived. The comedy follows the misadventures of comedian Julie Klausner’s alter ego “Julie Kessler” and her best friend Billy Epstein (played by Billy Eichner). The show’s humor is derived from a blend of sly satire, broad humor, and some very niche pop culture references.

During a recent visit to the Difficult People set, I got a chance to chat with Klausner about working with Hulu on the first season and she had a very potent metaphor to describe her experience. “As a new network they were just figuring out who they are, while we were still figuring out who we were last season. So it was really nice, mutual, like…two virgins making love for the first time,” Klausner quipped with a massive laugh. “And of course that’s like the best sex ever!”

Klausner immediately joked to the journalists assembled that we shouldn’t publish that, but the Hulu PR rep on hand was joyously taking it down as a sound bite the company could use later. Clearly, Hulu has a sense of humor about itself.

“It’s like a dream,” Klausner added. “But on the other hand, I’ve never been the writer, creator, and star of the show on another network so I can’t really speak to the exact parallel of it except for the fact that every note we’ve gotten has made sense — and we’ve gotten very few notes that would alter intentions. They’ve just been great and ideal in that way, so I’ve just been delighted.”

The Path’s Jessica Goldberg echoed this sentiment. “What seems unique, just talking to my friends and working at Hulu, is just the faith that they have in us. They want to push the limits of what we can do here. They challenge us to tell meatier stories. We’re given a lot of freedom. They believe in it. And it’s not a culture of fear, which you do get often in network television. “

Hulu made headlines last year when they poached The Mindy Project after Fox canceled it. The show was already a popular title in the streaming service’s video library and the move gave creator, star, and executive producer Mindy Kaling the opportunity to approach her pet project with more support than ever before. Kaling spilled the beans on the move last fall with The Los Angeles Times, saying:

I feel the glow. You know, like that glow when you’re in this great new relationship? That’s the only way I can describe it, is to use the analogy of being in a healthy relationship…It has been a very liberating feeling creatively. To not have to create under the sense that you have to be constantly pleasing people who can be mercurial, or they didn’t develop the show so they don’t have the same attachment. But just people who are fans and want you to do it and want to see it succeed, it’s fantastic.

Since joining Hulu’s slate, The Mindy Project has received almost universal praise from critics for pushing narrative and comedic boundaries at its new home. By working with Hulu’s more elastic release schedule, the show also wasn’t bound by network conventions of storytelling. For instance, the episode where Mindy Lahiri had her baby was timed where it fit narratively, and not where it could garner the most advertiser dollars during sweeps.

Showrunner Liz Tigelaar helped shepherd Casual to its first Golden Globe nomination for Best Series – Musical or Comedy — also a first for Hulu.

Friends Refer Friends To Hulu

If it seems a bit like everyone working with Hulu is having a super great time and they want everyone to know — well, you wouldn’t be wrong. Nearly everyone we spoke to not only sung Hulu’s praises, but dished on how they’ve been spreading the word to others.

“It’s definitely been an interesting referral system seeing the creators we’ve worked with referring other talent to us,” Beatrice Springborn said.

Later this year, Alexandra Cunningham will be joining the roster of female showrunners at Hulu. She and Kem Nunn are working on the psychological thriller Chance. The series stars House vet Hugh Laurie and has already nabbed a two-season order. As it turns out, Cunningham vetted the company before signing on.

“Alex Cunningham is doing a show there and she texted me [before]: ‘What’s it like doing a show over at Hulu?’ It’s fantastic!” Liz Tigelaar told us. “Obviously, they’re doing an amazing job and people are noticing and writers are wanting to bring stuff there. So, it’s great. Every writer wants a great experience.”

“I’ve had people calling me and saying, ‘I’m pitching Hulu. What’s it like?’ And I couldn’t praise it more,” added Jessica Goldberg. “I feel deeply lucky to be there. They are so invested in the show. They care so much. They’re very smart and they’re will to push the envelope and I think it’s such great place for a writer to be, especially right now when there’s such a flood of television.”

Even though she’s focused on Casual right now, Tigelaar told us that she would love to bring her own original material to Hulu in the future. “I plan to! 100% I love working at Hulu. I’m doing my own development right now. I mean, Hulu’s probably the first place I would want to bring something if and when I have something.”

*The Mindy Project*, starring writer/producer Mindy Kaling, is due to return with new episodes on Hulu on Tuesday, April 12.

THE FUTURE OF HULU

While Hulu is making huge strides to include female voices behind-the-scenes, that’s not the only type of diversity Hollywood needs. As it stands now, with the exception of East Los High and The Mindy Project, Hulu’s programming slate is very — what’s the word? — white.

When asked about this, Springborn defended Hulu’s casting record, pointing out that Casual’s fourth lead, Nyasha Hatendi, is black and that Difficult People features Academy Award nominee Gabourey Sidibe. She also listed off a number of recently greenlit shows that focus on black and Latino characters.

“We’re doing a pilot called Citizen that’s an all-Latino cast shot in Los Angeles. It’s a superhero story from the director of Me & Earl & The Dying Girl. We’re shooting a pilot called Crushed that’s about an African-American family opening a vineyard in Napa.”

Those shows are still a year or two off and right now Hulu is primarily concerned with getting their portfolio of shows off the ground. Jessica Scott said, “Hulu has a lot of television content already available on the site, so we’re trying to look for things that will pop amongst all the other stuff we have.”

Springborn has a snappy way to describe Hulu’s voice as a network. “I think our shows have a popcorn, fun, entertaining element to them, but then they have an element that elevates them.” Springborn elaborated, “We say we have these New York Post stories wrapped in a New Yorker cover.”

2016 is set to be a big year for Hulu. The streaming service has made a number of major deals to nab exclusive streaming rights to popular shows like Empire, Seinfeld, and Blindspot, as well as nostalgia-drenched “classics” like Dawson’s Creek and The O.C. Their originals slate is also looking more robust than ever. In addition to launching 11.22.63 and The Path this spring, The Mindy Project, Difficult People, and Casual are all returning for new seasons. Later on the docket: the aforementioned Chance and Les Bohem and Melissa Bernstein’s Shut Eye.

When people talk about how the proliferation of streaming services is changing television, they’re often only referring to viewing habits or long-form narrative storytelling structure. The rise of these Silicon Valley studios is also sparking massive transformations behind-the-scenes at the production level. Hollywood’s infrastructure for creating TV doesn’t get challenged very often, but Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon are creating environments where outsiders and outliers have a chance to get their voices heard.

In order to create fun original fare for their subscribers, Hulu is fostering a creative ecosystem where writers, producers, and executives are encouraged to raise their voices. It’s a space that doesn’t just favor female creators, but all creators. Every show I’ve run through also has a talented man or two offering his guidance behind the scenes, but women are given equal, if not, greater power in the process. It’s never been Hulu’s goal to appeal to female viewers with female voices; They want to get everyone watching — men and women. The irony, though, is that Hulu’s tactic for getting there, by fishing for the best idea out there, is revealing that women have always had amazing, innovative, and ground-breaking ideas for television. Women are just as smart, just as capable, and just as brilliant behind-the-scenes as men. Hulu’s just willing to treat them as such.