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This Is Us ended after its sixth season on May 24. Throughout those six seasons, other producers tried to replicate its success with other ensemble family dramas. Shows like Council of Dads, Almost Family or The Kids Are All Right didn’t last long. Only A Million Little Things lasted multiple seasons. This Is Us creator Dan Fogelman thinks he knows why. 

'This Is Us' cast pose in a studio, and Dan Fogelman considered them his secret wepaon
L-R: Sterling K. Brown, Susan Kelechi Watson, Milo Ventimiglia, Mandy Moore, Justin Hartley, Chrissy Metz, and Chris Sullivan | Joe Pugliese/NBC

Fogelman was on a Television Critics Association panel for This Is Us Season 2 on Aug. 3, 2017. Already he was faced with the question of copycats, but Fogelman wasn’t worried. He knew This Is Us had a secret weapon. 

Not even Dan Fogelman can copy ‘This Is Us’

Fogelman acknowledged what a special show he’d created with This Is Us. By season 2 he was on his way to telling a complete story about the Pearson family from the triplets’ childhood through the death of their parents. He would ultimately succeed in completing his six season plan, but Fogelman admits even he can’t replicate this success.

“It’s hard,” Fogelman said. “It is a hard thing to accomplish, to get somebody to laugh at a scene and then feel something, be moved by a scene. That’s something I’ve been chasing my entire career and often failing, sometimes succeeding, in varying degrees. So I think that’s a really hard thing to execute.”

‘This Is Us’ has 1 asset other shows do not 

Fogelman wouldn’t take credit for the success of This Is Us himself. Of course he has a staff of talented writers who helped shape the story of the Pearsons. However, Fogelman did single out one asset This Is Us had over its imitators.

“The reason it works here, and the reason it will be hard for other people to copycat is because they don’t have these eight guys,” Fogelman said. “We’ve got them under contract and locked up. The cast is what makes this work.”

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Sitting on the TCA panel with Fogelman were Sterling K. Brown, Justin Hartley, Chrissy Metz, Mandy Moore, Milo Ventimiglia, Susan Kelechi Watson, Chris Sullivan and Ron Cephas Jones. 

The cast sold it for six seasons 

When This Is Us became a hit in its first season, television writers came up with all sorts of theories on why it connected. It was the fall of 2016 during a volatile election cycle. Fogelman thought it was as simple as the talented cast selling the emotion he and This Is Us writers gave them. 

“I get all these questions about our political climate and what’s been making this show work,” Fogelman said. “And I really don’t have an answer for it other than I think people really enjoy watching these eight guys playing these eight characters. To me, I don’t analyze it a lot more than that.  We all do our jobs and get out of their way, and I think that’s the big reason.”

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