The entire scene was muted, like a painting composed of feathery brushstrokes and a palette of grays and greens and browns, with the occasional dull orange speckles of hard hats, and I observed it as I would an ocean or a baby, the possibilities of all things past and future rolling and multiplying within it.

After several long minutes of staring, I turned away and went downstairs to the large kitchen and made myself a pot of coffee. On the counter was the thick three-ring binder I had started looking at the day before. PROGRESS REPORT was printed on the cover, as well as a bulleted list of its contents.

I had asked for all information on all branches of the ongoing project to be printed out when possible and served to me in these weekly reports. The results were delicious in their tangibility; I already had five or six of these binders stacking up, each one fatter than the last.

The one I was looking at that March morning had been left at the front door by someone named Brenda who had become my phantom assistant. I rarely saw her, but her name, Brenda Hollins, and the date were inscribed on the front pages of each of these binders, as well as any memos or emergency packets. She was my liaison to the caseworkers. I faintly remembered interviewing her and being amused by her pride in multitasking. She seemed to have little need of direction. There was something ominously efficient in the way I could provide her with a list of notes or tasks, and—poof!—she would have whatever I asked for the next morning.

As I drank my coffee I hunched over the counter and flipped through this binder, the beginning of which detailed the gathering of authentic Los Angeles Times newspapers dated from March 15, 1977, until September 18, 1984 (the trio and landlords had subscriptions to the LA Times throughout the series). In a few episodes there also appeared a few editions of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, a paper that went extinct in the late 1980s and was now almost impossible to find. I desired pristine editions—no signs of yellowing or decay were allowed. I didn’t want to smell any basements. I wanted them to be as fresh as they would have been on the first day they were printed. If authentic papers could not be located, I had instructed my workers to find a way to print the newspaper on era-specific printing presses and paper in order to convey the appropriate time period.

Digital materials could be used to create the necessary environment, such as re-creating the newspapers, but nothing of the modern era would be allowed in the actual experience of living in Apartment 201. That was one thing that I made sure all my workers knew. Smartphones, apps, tablets, computers—gone. The trio hadn’t even owned a microwave. The most high-tech devices the apartment building had (at least starting out) were the push-button phone and old television. Chrissy’s parents sent her a Canon Super 8 camera and film projector in Season 2, so that was permissible. The apartment also sported a record player and a portable radio.