‘Veep’ in VR? It would never work, showrunner David Mandel says.

VR has been rising on the periphery of Hollywood for years; initially led by independent filmmakers, the medium is now attracting its first crop of big-name directors, such as “Iron Man” and “The Jungle Book” director Jon Favreau. But not everyone is ready to jump in headfirst.

“A lot of times the tech arrives before they figure everything out,” said David Mandel, the showrunner of HBO’s “Veep,” on the latest Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher. “What we’re seeing now with the virtual reality stuff isn’t really where it’s going to be, and in some cases, maybe they should have held it back a little bit longer.”

Mandel, who took over the political satire in Season 5 after creator Armando Iannucci left, said “interactive ‘Veep’” would be an “awful” experience. Giving viewers the freedom to see scenes from the show from any angle they choose would undercut a lot of the comedy, he explained.

You can listen to Recode Decode on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn, Stitcher and SoundCloud.

“A lot of shows, standard sitcoms, we’re going to cut to you saying the funny line,” Mandel said. “On ‘Veep,’ the camera’s moving, so we’re over here during the funny line, or maybe we’re going to go way back there, to just take a little of the edge off the ba-dum-bump of the joke.”

“That notion would be ruined if you’re strapping something onto your head and coming up really close to the joke,” he added. “There’s a rhyme and a reason to our world. But I do think there are stories to come, not necessarily ‘Veep,’ where you could see how that could work.”

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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