It’s not a particularly egregious throat clearing. It’s not wet with phlegm from a bronchial infection; the kind that makes seatmates on the plane jump for the Purell. Nor is it loud and dry like that of a severely under-caffeinated customer who’s annoyed that the barista is holding up the line to chat with a regular.
Honestly, most strangers probably wouldn’t notice it at all. But what if you happen to be partnered with the person making the sound, stuck in a room with him for hours on end like your very livelihood depends on it? Well, then the sound of television writer Joe Wiseman clearing his throat over and over again might as well be Gilbert Gottfried’s laugh scratching against a chalkboard. At least that’s how Wiseman’s writing partner, Joe Port, began to see it.
Luckily, because Wiseman and Port are comedy writers, they used this annoyance for good. It became the basis for “Eternally Yours,” their new CBS comedy that premieres Thursday. (In addition to being co-creators, they co-showrun and are executive producers.) Its premise is that a vampire couple maybe didn’t think it through when they pledged to be together forever.
“This is totally ‘Twilight’ 500 years later,” says Port with a laugh during a recent interview alongside Wiseman in the “Eternally Yours” writers room. He adds that, while some may see immortal love as the depths of romance, the idea “always seemed funny to us. What are the down-the-line implications of that?”
The show opens in 1526 Austria with the beautiful and bodiced Liz (Allegra Edwards) asking her vampire paramour Charles (Ed Weeks) to turn her into one too because “even your quirks I cannot get enough of.” But now, it’s modern-day Seattle. They’re still together. He is still prone to raspy itches in the back of his throat. And that’s just one of his many irksome peculiarities.
“Part of the push-pull between Liz and Charles is that Charles very much pines for the olden days, and it’s a little old-fashioned,” says Wiseman, who would like it known both that he has acid reflux and that his wife, TV executive Jane Wiseman, is not bothered by his throat clearing.
He adds that the central point of conflict is Charles “wishes it was a few hundred years ago,” whereas Liz tries to be with the times, progressive and welcomes change.
Port compares them to Peter Boyle and Doris Roberts’ bickering Frank and Marie on “Everybody Loves Raymond,” except, he says “they’ve been married way longer and they look way younger.”
Their coven has also grown in size over time. Other vampires now in their orbit include their adopted daughter Emma (Helen J. Shen), a veterinarian, and fitness bro Jesse (Parker Young). This is a family chosen by forces not always under their control who are mostly carrying out a mundane existence in peace until Emma’s human boyfriend Max (Jaren Lewison) gets involved.
Wiseman and Port understand the confusion if, on paper, this show sounds like their other CBS comedy, “Ghosts.” That one’s about spirits from different eras who were forced to cohabitate mostly alone until a living human couple moved into their mansion. It was actually a draft of “Eternally Yours” that convinced CBS to let them adapt “Ghosts” from a U.K. format.
“‘Ghosts’ is, obviously, about a found family, and we do have a married couple at the center of it,” Port says. “But ‘Eternally Yours’ is sort of a hybrid of that.”
It was also a chance for the creators to develop their own take on vampire mythology. Their characters, they’ve decided, can go out in the daytime as long as it’s under heavy fog and if they wear a certain kind of sunscreen. Male vampires can even procreate with human women: Jesse has two half-vampire sons with his living wife, Phyllis, played by Rose Abdoo. The kids age normally, can eat food and drink blood, and have inherited some of their dad’s special powers. (All of this would be news to Phyllis because Jesse has the power to “wipe” her mind whenever questions arise. She thinks her husband, who was proteinmaxxing way before he was on an all-blood diet, is just aging really well.)
“When we started researching and looking at other books, TV shows and movies about vampires, none of them were consistent,” Wiseman says. “Like probably the most consistent thing is they all have fangs.”
Other vampire stories also dial up the lust and passion, which these creators acknowledge is hard to do on a CBS sitcom (even if “Ghosts” is full of innuendos). They also don’t have set rules on what a vampire must look like.
“One thing I like about our show is that it establishes that maybe the vampires who were turned hundreds of years ago in Eastern Europe have that sort-of traditional vibe, but there’s vampires being created now who look and sound like people from all over the world,” Wiseman says. “Even with the older vampires, they’re different ethnicities; diverse backgrounds.”
Vampires are, according to legend, more known to inspire terror than laughs. Wiseman says the show has yet to specifically talk about Bram Stoker’s bloodthirsty Count Dracula, but Port says the Halloween episode will discuss the coven’s distaste for vampire stereotypes.
“They’re trying to be good vampires; they’re trying to not hurt people,” Wiseman says. His vampires’ sustenance comes from Steve (Steve Berg), a random guy they met on Craigslist who is totally cool with donating bags of his blood to strangers.
Wiseman says Charles probably misses the thrill of the hunt more than Liz, but “we want them to be likable. So if the idea of killing anyone ever came up, we would want them to do it in a way that’s [humane].”
The creators know their show will draw comparisons to FX’s “What We Do in the Shadows,” another, albeit much raunchier, vampire comedy — especially since both shows acknowledge other possibly supernatural creatures like witches and werewolves.
“I love ‘Shadows.’ I wouldn’t watch it with my 5-year-old, but I do show him episodes of ‘Eternally Yours,’” Port says, adding that “I think ours is much more about relationships and marriage and family. And I think there’s room for people to like both of those shows.”
They’re also not immune to a “Ghosts” crossover episode, although there are some logistics to figure out. Both Edwards and Abdoo have appeared on that show as other characters and the whole point of “Ghosts” is that most of them can’t leave that property. Port says they’ve decided that the two exist in the same world and that “ghosts can see vampires but vampires cannot see ghosts — otherwise we’d see ghosts all the time on ‘Eternally Yours.’”
But the cultural fandom for ghosts is not as intense as it is for vampires. Like “Eternally Yours’” Liz, there are humans who romanticize this world. Are Wiseman and Port ready for that kind of fandom?
“I think if people are really into the show, that’s a problem we’re ready for and welcome,” Port says.
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