The key to a great television show is a great writers room. For a show like Starz’s “Survivor’s Remorse,” currently in its third season, “great” means much more than talent. For the show’s creator, actor-writer Mike O’Malley, it means diversity — in age, race, religion and gender, among other things — and authenticity.

“Not only was it intentional to find younger writers and people of color who could write about what people in their 20s are going through — which is four of the five main characters in the show — (but it was critical having them) talk about what’s important to them, as relatable to these characters,” he said.

And that means, says the self-described “white, Irish Catholic with three kids,” sitting back and fostering a space where the young folk and those of different backgrounds have room to meaningfully contribute to a show about a black family.

“Survivor’s Remorse” follows the sudden prosperity of the Calloways when Cam, played by Jessie T. Usher, is signed to a major basketball team. Uprooted from the projects of Boston and plopped in the high-rises of Atlanta, Cam brings along his cousin-manager (RonReaco Lee), mom (Tichina Arnold), older sister (Erica Ash) and his cousin’s wife (Teyonah Parris).

The show is executive produced by basketball icon Lebron James and his business partner Maverick Carter. Their lives, and the lives of others in the sports and entertainment industries, inspired the concept: how people who’ve never had money, and those around them, react when they suddenly make it big.

James and Carter hatched the idea for the show, and O’Malley came on board as its show runner, aided by veteran producer Tom Werner. The pair looked for an experienced writer who understood that all black people are not the same, because this show needed to be different.

“It was about making a show that stood for something and meant something to people,” said Carter. “(It needed) to be authentic to the story we wrote and the people and places we knew and had been.”

O’Malley, known for his Emmy-nominated turn as Kurt Hummel’s dad on “Glee” and boasting a resume with extensive writing credits including work on Showtime’s “Shameless,” was a perfect fit, Carter said.

“Mike’s professional enough and smart enough and sophisticated enough to add to the project,” he said. “He also understood that he would need a team around him to help with certain nuances (of black culture), but that there’s not one way to do it, not one version of black people.”

O’Malley said he staffed that way to ensure different perspectives were not only in the room but at the table and with the pen.

“I would write, ‘Hey, I’m totally psyched to go out tonight,’” he said with a smile, noting his age, 50. “But you don’t say that anymore. I needed guys who could write about what young people are doing right now.”

Once the room was filled, O’Malley made his expectations known.

“He opened week one and said he didn’t want to do a show that was derivative of another, that he wants something fresh and said that if there were ideas he hadn’t thought about, as a white guy from Boston, to put everything out on the table,” said Tracy Oliver, a two-season writer who went on to co-pen “Barbershop: The Next Cut.” “He set the tone for ‘let’s go crazy and do something interesting and personal.’ That’s why the show touches on race and issues you haven’t seen before, because Mike creates an environment in which people feel like sharing.”

This dialogue brought forth nuanced takes on uniquely black phenomena. For instance, the episode airing Sunday titled “The Photoshoot” details how colorism affects African Americans and entertainment industry.

Another story line addressed the journey some black women take to return their chemically treated hair to its natural state. Occurring at the start of Season 2, it was the brainchild of Oliver (and Parris, who both made the decision to embrace their natural hair) and is an example of writers being empowered to speak up and identify conversations that aren’t being had on television.

The way O’Malley and “Survivor’s Remorse” incorporated the natural hair bit is also perhaps a greater illustration of the importance of having black people, and a black woman in this case, writing the words black characters say.

Earlier this year, the writers room of Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black” received criticism for what viewers assumed was a lack of diversity in what they deemed questionable plot points around race in the show’s most recent fourth season.

Particularly at issue was the death of a beloved character at the hands of a guard in the penultimate episode. The death, and resulting “Black Lives Matter”-esque sentiment that swept the prison, left viewers uneasy. Though often difficult to put into words what exactly troubled them, many, including April Reign, creator of the viral hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, strongly sensed that black people weren’t writing the story. A subsequent study by the media company Fusion found that of 16 people who have writing credits on all four seasons of the show, none is black.

Therein lies a broader industry problem that puts the “Survivor’s Remorse” writers room ahead of the curve. Along with a number of minority-led shows on broadcast and cable, this show’s diverse staff is attempting incisive conversations about race in a way that is authentic.

O’Malley’s matter-of-fact approach to writers room diversity, Oliver said, is what helps “Survivor’s Remorse” thrive, from the script to the screen.

“That created a difference of opinion on what blackness is,” she said. “As a group of writers, we would argue about certain things, but we were open to learning about people’s (varying) points of views.”

And that conversation is the key.