Jane Espenson, the former showrunner of Caprica who joined late into the first half of the debut season at the top and abdicated yesterday in favour of ex-Reaper chief Kevin Murphy, has explained her reasoning behind the move.

Speaking to io9, Espenson clarified that she would be stepping down as a showrunner, but would remain an executive producer on the show. Murphy had been hired as a co-producer in October, and promoted to executive producer recently. “Running the room was very intensive and took a lot of time away from actually writing this amazing ambitious show,” the writer explained. “I missed the writing more than I expected and this was my decision to concentrate on that as we put together the big end of season one.”

Originally a writer on Caprica, Espenson was promoted to showrunner around the fourth episode. Her previous writing credits include Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel.