Instead he studied Gregory Laz, a compact, dark-suited man with a reddish beard and deep, contemplative eyes, more the stereotype of a philosopher than a whiz kid from TV. While Jerry talked, Laz worked fastidiously at his food, separating the fish entirely from the bone before putting the fork to his mouth. He had the knack of appearing to take an intelligent interest in what was being said without contributing more than a few monosyllables. His gaze rarely shifted from his plate, so when he looked into space instead, it gave the impression that deep thoughts had been provoked.
Over coffee Don was suddenly conscious that Laz had addressed a question to him, cutting clean through what Jerry was saying.
“Do you watch TV, Don?”
“Not a lot.” He grinned. “There are other claims on my leisure time. Besides, I find that my research takes so much—”
“Yes. I heard about it from Professor Berlin.” Laz spoke as if Jerry, who had stopped in mid-sentence, were no longer there. His words came slowly and his voice was pitched low, so that you had to lean forward to listen. “Do you know anything at all about my work?”
“Practically nothing. I was told you made a highly successful series on human aggression. I missed it. I’m sorry.”
Laz made a dismissive gesture. “Okay. I’m not looking for fans. I’ll tell you about it, because it has some bearing on what I want to discuss with you. I’m an independent producer. Up to last year I sold exclusively to public television. You’ll appreciate that the commercial stations don’t go overboard for science documentaries. I guess my work for public TV would add up to forty or fifty hours of screen time. That was a good foundation, but I’m ambitious, Don. I wanted to reach a bigger audience. Last year I put together my series on aggression, Who’s Master? which I figured had enough muscle to try on one of the major networks. NBC agreed to run it as a pilot. The response was positive. The series was broadcast in fringe time and made an appreciable impact.”
“I’ll testify to that,” Jerry said. “I saw all but one of the programs myself. Boy, they were sensational. How you got your cameras in some of those places I’d give a lot to know.”
“We kept fifty-three percent of our audience over the six weeks, which is better than average,” said Laz to Don. “The secret is in the presentation. Program One was crucial, make-or-break night, so we planned it as the hard sell. We used all the best film sequences we had, covering the whole range of confrontation situations. It didn’t matter that we used them again in the later programs. They could stand a second showing. Programs Two to Six each covered aggression in a special context — among kids, in the family, at work, in sports, and in crime. We were shooting for a big audience, so we went for action sequences. I don’t use actors, Don. We showed them the real thing each time. People laying into each other is compulsive viewing. But this wasn’t gratuitous violence. Through the commentary we analyzed how circumstances influence aggressive behavior, and we showed the connection between one form of violence and another. I won’t pretend it was profound, but we made our points and we made them vividly.”
“It must be more effective than the discussion approach,” Don commented.
“A mass audience won’t watch stiff people in soft chairs,” said Laz, and it sounded like a slogan he had rehearsed to impress the chiefs at NBC. “My series did okay in the ratings and the advertisers liked it. The marketplace is everything in commercial TV, and this mix of real action and hard comment was just right for them. NBC liked it enough to commission another series.”
“You bet they did!” said Jerry.
“What’s your subject this time?” Don asked.
“Same formula,” answered Laz. “I want to stay in the area of human relations and touch them on a raw nerve. That’s why Who’s Master? succeeded.” He took a sip of coffee, then gave a faint smile. “Come on, Don. What’s the logical follow-up?”
The question that interested Don was why all this was addressed to him, but he hazarded a response. “Maybe aggression en masse. I mean, organized violence, through terrorist movements and guerrilla fighting to total war.”
Laz shook his head. “Good thinking, bad TV. That kind of thing has had saturation coverage. People are up to here with it. The same goes for sexual aggression, in case you thought of that. What is there left to say about sadism and rape? If you want to know, I’ve moved over from aggression. I’m on the other side of the coin. I mean fear.”
“You’re interested in the victim now?”
“Exactly.”
“I like it,” said Jerry.
Laz seemed not to be seeking approval, so Don gave none.
Jerry asked, “What’s your approach this time?”
“I start, as before, by giving them a foretaste of the series, using all my best footage. Program Two takes up where the last series left off, showing how fear can be a response to the aggression of other people — parents, school bullies, the boss, the police. In the next program we look at fear of self, the problems of guilt and responsibility. That’s difficult to film, but I have some ideas for it. Program Four is a surefire winner: fear of the unknown, the whole supernatural bit, the knock on the door at night and the creaking stairs. Then we move on to the fear of events outside our control, cataclysmic things like a plague, or nuclear war, or the Second Coming. That leaves one more, and I think you’ll see what I’ve been leading toward, because I plan to end the series with a program on unreasonable fears.”
“What do you mean — phobias?”
“You got it. Phobias.” Laz looked directly at Don and studied him for several seconds. “Beginning to see where you come in?”
Don held the look and said nothing. He didn’t particularly care for Laz or his ideas. There was an assumption in the question that might need to be challenged before much longer.
Laz looked away and said, “Phobias are a great subject for popular TV because they’re within everyone’s experience. It may be mice that have us running up the wall, or snakes, or cats. There are people who won’t go near the sea. Or walk down a particular street. Those are common phobias. Since we started researching this series, I’ve discovered people can be scared by the weirdest things. Would you believe indoor plants? Or shampoo? I’ll tell you mine. It’s cats. I’m uncomfortable anywhere near one. My friends who have them have learned to lock them up when I visit. That’s a minor inconvenience. In some people’s lives, the phobia dictates just about everything they do.”
“Like agoraphobia?” said Jerry.
“That’s an example, yes. It just has to be mentioned on a phone-in, doesn’t it, and the switchboard gets jammed. All those thousands across the nation serving a self-imposed prison sentence in their own homes. Incredible. It’s a big subject, Don. Part of the problem with a phobia is, things get out of proportion. It’s an isolating condition. You begin to think you’re the only creep in the world who is terrified by moths and butterflies. But if you saw a guy on TV with a thing about cigarette smoke or shadows, it could help you come to terms with your own problem. Let’s be candid: my series won’t be therapy, I’m simply letting some light into a dark area of people’s lives.”
“Greg, we’re all in the same business,” said Jerry, positively evangelistic. “Tell us how we can help.”
“You want to use the spiders?” said Don.
Laz nodded. “It’s probably the most common of all phobias. I have to include some spider sequences. You happen to have one of the best collections in New York.”