[4] He eventually began freelance work for the BBC World Service, where he was a presenter and producer for the magazine programmes On Screen and Outlook.
[7] He was inspired in particular by the American television series Hill Street Blues (a show he "cancelled [his] social life for"[8]) and Thirtysomething.
Believing that there was nothing on British television for people in his age group that was not a soap opera or a costume drama, Bullen wrote a script entitled The Perfect Match, about a man who proposes to his girlfriend using the screen at Wembley Stadium during the FA Cup Final.
He secured an agent, who managed to sell the script on spec to Andy Harries, controller of comedy at Granada Television.
[5] Harries described the writing as "impressive—cleverly constructed dialogue, very funny, well observed"[10] and commissioned it as part of his drive to move away from making traditional-style sitcoms.
[10] Bullen described the moment he walked onto the set of The Perfect Match as "gobsmacking […] wandering around a room which had previously only existed in my head".
Bullen pitched the idea of a traditional "boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, boy-wins-girl-back" story told from both sides of the relationship but using elements of fantasy and flashback to distort events to fit a character's point of view.
Initially commissioned as a pilot for ITV's Comedy Premieres programming strand,[5] the prospect of a full television series was given to Bullen.
During the hiatus, he wrote a romantic comedy feature film script for Granada and developed a pilot for London Weekend Television,[5] neither of which were picked up.
[14] Throughout 1998, he retained his job at the BBC, working on three radio shows per week at the same time as writing Cold Feet.
His inspiration from American television continued; following the premiere of The West Wing in 1999, he began outlining a British version, The Firm, that would be set in Buckingham Palace.
At the same time, NBC and Granada Entertainment USA commissioned a pilot script from Bullen entitled Small Beer, which centred on a group of people who take over a microbrewery in the north-western United States.
Bullen believed that the production team had covered all potential storylines in the first two series, so declined to write any more episodes.
The series was designed as a vehicle for actress Sarah Lancashire, who had signed an exclusive "golden handcuffs" deal with ITV.
[22] Life Begins concerns Maggie Mee, who believes she is in a loving relationship with her husband Phil (Alexander Armstrong).
As with Cold Feet, he integrated events from his own life into the storylines; Maggie's father suffers from Alzheimer's disease as does one of Bullen's own relatives.
On the return leg, after 12 hours of seeing nothing but the Nullarbor Plain through the train window, he began developing a short subject on infidelity at television conferences.
"[24] He formerly expressed interest in directing an episode of Cold Feet, but decided against it on the basis that his inexperience would make him "inadequate" and that the job was best left to professional directors.
[26] The short was produced by Pommie Granite Productions, a company set up by Bullen after his exclusive contract with Granada ended in September 2004.
In 2007, Bullen was approached by David Maher, a Fox World producer, who commissioned him to write a television pilot for UKTV.
Continuing his trend for taking ideas from real life, he decided to write about a family moving from the UK to Australia.
[21] British actor Robson Green had recently completed work on "Prayer of the Bone", a one-off special episode of Wire in the Blood set in the United States.
As the pilot was Bullen's first attempt at directing television, he sought advice from the experienced production crew, in particular the director of photography.
[29] Bullen and Fox World sought financial investment from a UK production company to develop a full-length series.
Bullen admitted that his career was "declining" before he made Reunited, and he even moved back to the UK for five months while it was produced.