Fairly Legal comes to both the USA network, and TV Fanatic, on January 20.

We'll be covering this series in depth, posting details recaps, reviews, photos and quotes every week. The show stars Sarah Shahi as Kate Reed, a mediator in San Francisco.

Why a mediator and not a lawyer? And why San Francisco? Creator Michael Sardo tackled these questions in a recent conference call.

Why make Kate a mediator?
There are no rules; it’s all about the personality of the mediator.  I thought that makes for very interesting drama.

I mean, it’s scary in a way.  As I said earlier, essentially the show is two people have a conflict, put them in a room, close the door, send in Kate Reed, and I just thought that was a great fundamental challenge for a dramatist of how do you make something happen with that. 

Why is the show set in San Francisco?
There were a lot of shows set in New York, but I wanted a place I thought in what kind of city what would be the crucible in which a character like Kate is formed.  It had to be a place where you weren’t spending your life in a car locked away from people.

I wanted a city that was multicultural, that had a wide range of economic strata so that you could have people from all walks of life, all cultures bouncing off each other. 

What was it like to write the main relationship of a woman and her ex-husband?
It was difficult, but it was fun, because so often you see a show you see a will they/won’t they sleep together, and I was just interested in they already have and what’s left when a relationship breaks apart. 

You have some interesting beats where it’s not the partner you expect who’s dissatisfied with the way things are going.  They switch the expected roles several times in the course of what you’d expect from a man, what you’d expect from a woman; they switch several times in the course of the season.

Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.