Ira Glass felt a connection with High Maintenance in making its This American Life-themed episode

Vulture

High Maintenance creators Ben Sinclair and Katja Blichfeld wanted to team with Glass to delve into their own show’s creative engines via another show. They chose This American Life because both hew to an anthology format and share a comparable humanist outlook, which makes them durable. “We look for stories with characters and scenes and a story arc, and so do they,” says Glass. “It seemed like their basic mission was in the general neighborhood that we were in, even though they’re using the tools of fiction and we’re using the tools of fact.”