Joshua Brand is worth following for dramas that give difficult people room to remain difficult. His work as a creator and writer tells us more than the directing credits alone, with St. Elsewhere a good place to start.
Fi1m perspective
The hospital in St. Elsewhere (1982) is decaying, and its staff are not made uniformly admirable to compensate. Brand co-created the series with John Masius, Mark Tinker and John Falsey, giving its large ensemble space to be fallible without making every shortcoming a problem to be solved. We warmed to these people because doing important work did not automatically excuse them or make them pleasant. That tolerance is the strongest reason to follow Brand's work. He helps establish a drama in which the actors have something more useful to play than professional competence.
He began writing for The White Shadow in the late 1970s, meeting Falsey there. On St. Elsewhere, the pair wrote most of the first-season stories, then left after a year. That matters when judging Brand: he helped set the programme going, but its entire run cannot fairly be treated as his personal statement. Our reservations about the series are the slow stretches and the tendency to keep teaching a lesson after we have understood it. The acting remains a substantial reason to stay, even when the writing insists a little too much.
The partnership continued through A Year in the Life (1987), Northern Exposure (1990) and I'll Fly Away (1991). Brand directed the pilot of I'll Fly Away, as well as episodes of Northern Exposure. His recurring interest is in groups of characters living or working within a particular community or institution. That suits the quality we value in St. Elsewhere: the willingness to spend time with flawed professionals, rather than making them earn our attention by being likeable. It also requires discipline, since giving characters room need not mean letting the pace drag.
Brand and Falsey split in 1994, and Brand's directing work included the feature A Pyromaniac's Love Story (1995). He later wrote multiple episodes of The Americans (2013–2018) and served as a consulting producer. That continuing emphasis on writing is why we would approach him through the people in his programmes before looking for a recognisable camera style. Start with St. Elsewhere for its difficult staff, and make allowances for the pace.
Biography
Joshua Brand is an American television writer, director and producer. Born on 29 November 1950 in Queens, New York City, he graduated from City College of New York and received a master's degree from Columbia University.
With his long-time writing partner John Falsey, Brand created the series St. Elsewhere (1982), A Year in the Life (1987), Northern Exposure (1990) and I'll Fly Away (1991). He has also written episodes of The Americans (2013) and directed episodes of Northern Exposure and thirtysomething (1987). The pair received the Writers Guild of America Television Laurel Award in 2013. Brand has won three Primetime Emmy Awards.
