Executive Producer/Star Melissa Rauch talks to The Inside Reel about empathy, heart and surprises leading into the finale of Season 3 of her reboot of "Night Court" on NBC.
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00:00good morning great to talk to you again and uh it continues it's hard to keep the energy going
00:24as much as you guys have and you really have done that with with dicord especially you know
00:29trying to pull both the empathy and the heart but also you know these silly things that really work
00:36whether it be richard whether it be you know brent spiner all these deep cuts could you sort of talk
00:42about finding that balance between you know honoring obviously what came before but making
00:48it completely your own oh thank you so much for saying that i mean one of the things that i love
00:54so much about the original was this irreverent left of center comedy that also had these emotional
01:00pockets that were um these beautiful moments of horror sort of nestled in this vaudevillian
01:06heightened comedy um and that's really always been our north star in when we're thinking about taking
01:13the dna from the original and um and reconstructing it into this night court 2.0 um and a lot of that
01:20has been making sure that we find these little nostalgia nuggets that we can um place in every
01:26episode um and then making sure that we're taking any of the sort of connective tissue from the
01:33original um and bring that over which john larroquette is obviously the the guiding force on everything
01:39sort of centers around um him coming back in um and then we've been lucky enough to have this revolving
01:46door of incredible comedians um that have come into the courthouse um and we're all able to interact
01:54with um which is very much in line with the original um and whether those be people that were from the
02:00first incarnation or just people in the spirit of the original um and that's been something that's been
02:06really important to us and it's been really cool that it's sort of become this destination place for um
02:11amazingly gifted comedic actors to come in and play with us kids we'll call your parents or forget this
02:18ever happened if you just give us your real names our real names are on our ids i'm pretty sure you
02:23don't live in the state of belaska at one million fort lane hey wait she's a judge maybe she can marry us
02:35what do you mean marry you that's how we came to new york yeah we're here to see the original olive
02:39garden and get hitched it's like the breadsticks our love is bottomless but it's also you know and
02:47you know if your your approach also has to be finding those those nuggets those uh surprises i
02:53want to give away these surprises that are happening soon but it's also taking in the your myth your
02:59legacy of stuff that you've done over the years but finding because you know for example like your
03:05your character on big bang theory there are these little nuggets that you see and obviously i'm
03:10trying not to give anything away so oh no no we thank you so much but we could absolutely talk about
03:16it um i so appreciate you being careful about it um we it's something that i've been really excited
03:22about that we've been able to do um throughout the series so far is bring in these um wonderful
03:28friends of mine from the big bang theory universe um starting out with canal and mayam and um and then
03:35in our season finale we're lucky enough to have reagan rayford um from the big bang universe who was
03:41who played missy on young sheldon and then we also have um my wonderful tv husband from the big bang
03:48theory simon helbert coming back um and he joins us in our season finale and um in a role that i will not
03:56give away any spoilers because i don't want to ruin it for everyone but i have to say it's the best
04:00season finale i've ever had the pleasure of being a part of um and it was just so wildly special to
04:06get simon um to come to our night court set and to be reunited with him he's just so amazing both as
04:13an actor and as a human being it just felt like uh like going home getting to work with him again okay
04:19i'm not gonna let two kids with pocket bread get married i think we need a five minute recess
04:23sick dodgeball it's not that kind of recess some of us have asked
04:32these kids are not your problem do not get sucked in you have a very big date tonight
04:38don't worry it won't take long i got a talking stick a feelings chart and the two best hugging
04:43arms in new york city see you in my chambers you should have chosen adult prison
04:51well you know what's so great about abby the way you play her there's so much going on underneath
04:57the surface that you can sort of whether you're inferring stuff or it's just like body movement or
05:03it's just small things you say so much about the character sometimes she talks a bit of course but
05:08you know but you there's so many different levels and layers with her within her can you talk about that
05:14and finding those little details finding those little moments with her as you move on within
05:19the series because it's sort of just building her oh thank you so much for saying that you know our
05:24writers have done such a wonderful job layering all these characters with uh complexities um and abby is
05:32um a very interesting character in that you know she presents as this like eternal optimist um but
05:38something that we really wanted to make sure was happening was that it wasn't optimism just for
05:44the sake of being um sunny and happy all the time um or because she just didn't know any better that um
05:53she hadn't experienced life and it was just coming from a naivete we set up with abby that she's um
06:00she's experienced some hardships in life not only the loss of her father but had dealt with demons of
06:05her own she's in recovery and the optimism is something that she chooses on a daily basis because
06:12she knows the other is um not for her anymore and so it's an active decision to choose the light
06:19um and that's a decision that she gets up and makes every morning and i think um so much of what
06:25she does with trying to help people at the court is coming from the fact that um when you're in
06:30recovery it's um helping others is a big part of that and i think that it's um something
06:35that really grounded abby's character um from the first season