This interview includes spoilers for Sunday’s series finale of “Shameless.” Before he created “Shameless,” the long-running family drama that ended Sunday night on Showtime, John Wells was the showrunner of “ER” and later seasons of “The West Wing,” both on NBC.
Though the shows are superficially dissimilar, Wells sees all of them as examinations of function — or dysfunction. “ER” is about how medicine works. “The West Wing” is about how government works.
And “Shameless”? “That’s about how the system doesn’t really work for families living near the poverty line,” Wells said. “Man, talk about that being underrepresented on television!