"Hung," the new HBO series -- starring Thomas Jane as Ray, a middle aged high school basketball coach that feels he's lost everything so resorts to male prostitution because of his, well... no reason to shirk the facts with a well timed metaphor: the man has a large penis -- has just begun its first season on Sunday nights at 10 pm. We joined the husband and wife series creators -- Colette Burson and Dmitry Lipkin -- for a roundtable discussion (with other writers) as we asked them about the Detroit setting of the show.

Mike: The show takes place [outside of Detroit] Michigan. How did you guys decide to set it there? Was it on the aspect that this guy's life is falling apart; this is the quinticential American city falling apart, too?

Dmitry Lipkin: There's that. Detroit did, sort of, represent for us this great city that's fallen on hard times. There's also: We really wanted to set it with his house to be on a lake. That's something we wanted very early on. We didn't want to show suburbia the way it's been seen before. You know, we wanted something more in nature. In a way it's set as a hook to Ray's soul. You know, when he's drinking his beer on the backyard of his lake, that's when he's most at peace.

Michigan does have, you know, these great lakes. The houses open up right on them. It's pretty wild, it's not as sort of circumscribed as some of the other places. I think, also, just the sports angle of it all. Michigan is so in to its sports...

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Colette Burson: It's very D.I.Y.

Dmitry Lipkin: What?

Colette Burson: I said it's very D.I.Y. I mean there's a real Do It Yourself ethic there. Like the whole thing about Ray taking on his house... I do think, the thing you're saying about the lakes: We wanted it to be near a major metro area on a lake. We looked around Chicago but Illinois treats it's lakes very differently. There's concrete around them and a little grassy hill and the houses are all very neat. In Michigan, like everything around Detroit, it's wild. The houses go right on the water, the dock goes right out to the water and we wanted the economic disparity of the shack and the big house. And Alexander [Payne] was such a big help. I have to actually give Alexander a lot of credit for steering us to Detroit ... He, I think, in his movies brings a real rootedness of place. And then he spent hours out on this boat until he found that location -- which is a real location, it's not a set, we barley even dressed the house.

Another highlight of the group discussion we want to make clear was NOT our question:

When I watch the first episode of this show I immediately thought it might be "Weeds," except with a penis. The more I hear you guys as husband and wife, I just have this nagging question that's probably not fit for radio or television. But, who has the power in the relationship and how important is the size of the member?

Dmitry Lipkin: (Laughs) Wait, is the question who has the power?

Colette Burson: Is the size of Dmitry's penis relative to the power? Is that the question?

Well, if you want to get personal like that...

Colette Burson: I just wanted to clarify.

It just seems like that's sort of a nagging question when you kind of hit on it when talking about the quality of being hung and maybe you can expand on that in the answer.

Colette Burson: (Laughs) Well... Well, I would say in terms of power, it's interesting. It's interesting to me why you would wonder that ... essentially we both have veto power over the other...

You're avoiding the sex here. I really want to know...

Colette Burson: We have a great sex life.

No, no. With regard to the general question. Do you really believe there's some quality to being hung that you can hint at with regard to how that shapes your vision of the show?

Colette Burson: Oh, that's your question!



Dmitry Lipkin: There are advantages to being hung and I think we play that in the show. And then, also, I think we play... the burden is more of a metaphor than it is in reality. I do think that guys that are hung are... we do play with this idea that, perhaps, Ray was not as ambitious as he could have been because, hey, he never felt he had to struggle to get anything that he wanted to have. Perhaps that undercut a little of his drive growing up.

Colette Burson: He had everything going for him physically; he was the most hung guy in the room. Not a freak show, but always the most hung guy in the room. You'd imagine that brought him a certain level of confidence ... that sort of American myth that you peak in high school and never recapture it.

Dmitry Lipkin: Does that answer your question?

"Hung" airs Sunday nights at 10 pm on HBO


"Mike's Pulse" is a column written by transplanted Midwesterner and current New Yorker Mike Ryan. For any compliments or complaints -- preferably the former -- you may contact Mike directly at miker@starpulse.com or submit reader questions for celebrites to Mike on Twitter.

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