Author: Emma Loggins
Date: 2008-05-07

Interview:
In Plain Sight follows the story of a Federal Marshall with the Witness Protection program who must hide her high-risk, high-impact job from her family. To those that know her, Mary Shannon is a glorified meter maid, but her real job is much more dangerous. She must oversee federal witnesses who have been relocated through the Witness Protection program and make sure that they stay safe.

We had the honor of sitting down with Creator/Writer/Executive Producer David Maples and Executive Producer Paul Stupin to chat about the series. Here's what they had to say:

There seems to be a lot of buzz about this show. I was wondering if the two of you could talk about the show, and kind of in your own words and tell us what it's about, the plot. Sometimes it's good to hear the creators and the producers talk about the show rather than just reading the marketing material.

D. Maples: Okay, this is David speaking. Pretty much what you have heard, I think thus far, is accurate. It's about Mary Shannon, played by Mary McCormack. She is a marshal attached to the Witness Protection Program in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The official title of such people are WITSEC inspectors, and WITSEC stands for Witness Security.

And the show is about from week to week we have a new witness, and Mary has to deal with whatever problems arise out of people, some criminals, some innocent witnesses to crimes who have had to testify and leave their lives behind. Mary has to deal with the problems of people having their lives yanked away from them and completely reinvent themselves from scratch, something she's very good at. She deals with other people's problems really, really well.

And that's played in contrast to her seemingly total lack of ability at dealing with her own problems in her own personal life, which is also a strong component in almost every episode. There's some element of Mary's person life confounding her. And we try to thematically, as much as we can, although we don't do it in a really overbearing way I don't think, we try to tie those two story lines together somewhat thematically between the witness story and their problem and Mary's personal problem, and the problem of her family and the other people in her life.

P. Stupin: Just to take one other element of the show and bring that up as well, it takes place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, which is, I think, a particularly interesting locale for our series in which to occur. It's got a visual look and a sense of texture and feel and blue sky that I don't really think you'd see on television right now. And so we're hoping to have something visually unique as our characters.

D. Maples: And we try to use the city of Albuquerque and the surrounding area almost like a character in the show. We really, really try to use that environment and it really does, we think, give the show a unique flavor and texture that I don't think any other show has.