Tag Archives: TCA

TCA 13: FX’s ‘The Americans’ will have you rooting for the KGB

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FX has an intriguing drama up their sleeves ready to premiere at the end of the month. The Americans stars Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys as Russian KGB spies undercover living in Washington, D.C. married with two children set in ’80s during the Cold War. During a TCA gathering, creator Joe Weisberg said that his new series is inspired by the fairly recent real-life story about the sleeper Russian agents living in America that were exposed in 2010. “That was absolutely the inspiration for the show,” he said. “I got a call from DreamWorks TV about trying to create a TV show from that event.” The show really started coming together when Weisberg made the decision to plant the KGB spies not in modern day but rather in the 1980s, “a time when we were really enemies with that nation.”

Then executive producer Joe Fields landed this one on the audience: “It might be a little different to believe and get used to, but we want you to root for the KGB,” he said. “They’re going to try to get the Soviets to win the Cold War.” Can U.S. audiences sympathize with the KGB? “If you tried to tell a story like this about al-Qaeda now, it would be impossible no one would want to hear it,” Fields added. “I feel even the same could have been said up to ten years after the cold war ended.” The producers believe that “Enough time has passed where people are willing to look with their hearts and try to understand.”

Weisberg, a former CIA agent, will work in some of the most emotionally delicate experiences he faced during his years working for the government. “One specific thing that I never really got over in a way, is how CIA officers can’t tell their kids what they do,” he said. Even if they live abroad, they can’t tell their kid because the kid would go and blab it to all of his friends and blow their cover. Then maybe when they’re teenagers and old enough to know what mom and dad do for a living, it’s like this big day where they get sat down and told, ‘This is what we’ve kept from you your whole life: We work for the CIA.’ Sometimes, the kids are fine with finding out. Sometimes, it turns their lives into a big mess. But I’d always just found the whole idea incredibly powerful and made me want to go tell the story about the impact this has on a family.” He went on to say that “The show is about marriage, and that marriage in an allegory for international relations. And international relations are an allegory for marriage.”

The Americans will have you rooting for the KGB spies, but at the same time Weisberg and Fields do want viewers to take into consideration both sides of the coin. “These were these really competing value systems,” said Weisberg. “And there’s no question that repressive socialism failed, but unbridled consumption hasn’t exactly led to great satisfaction — and one problem is how do we express that dramatically.”

The Americans premieres Wednesday, January 30 at 10PM. Watch a trailer embedded above.

[Via THR; Deadline]

TCA 13: Preview Netflix original series ‘Hemlock Grove’ from author Brian McGreevy and Eli Roth

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Arrested Development isn’t the only Netflix original programming heading to the streaming service this year. In addition to David Fincher’s House of Cards which debuts the first of next month, a supernatural series from horror master Eli Roth is on tap for spring. Hemlock Grove, based on the 2012 novel of the same name written by Brian McGreevy, revolves around the murder of a young high school girl in Hemlock Grove, a former steel community, and centers on the bizarre collection of characters connected to it — who each have varying reasons for getting caught up in it. Roth, McGreevy, Lee Shipman, and Mark Verheiden (Battlestar Galactica) serve as executive producers. Famke Janssen, Bill Skarsgård, Landon Liboiron, Penelope Mitchell, Freya Tingley, and Dougray Scott star.

At the TCAs McGreevy hyped his new series by saying that the emotional violence will play just as big a role as the physical violence on screen. “There’s no shortage of monsters on the show and they tend to fall on different varieties — like what separates a human from a monster,” he expanded. “The short answer to how supernatural the show is, is very.” He went on to describe the show like this: “This is like Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? with more people getting mauled, actually.”

Working with Netflix to bring the adaptation to life ultimately ended up being the perfect decision, McGreevy shared. He admitted that he and his team originally pitched the series to the “more conventional premium networks, but we were holding out for Netflix because they were the most exciting partners.” The levels of violence, nudity, and other risque material featured in Hemlock Grove is comparable to what viewers come to expect on premium networks like Showtime and HBO, he said.

“The architecture of Netflix’s model, when you’re writing a pilot and trying to get that sold, you approach story different than when you’re looking at essentially a 13-hour movie,” McGreevy said. “It’s novel for TV to have a beginning, middle and end when you start out and we really embraced that. It’s like a long 13-hour movie as opposed to episodic television,” Verheiden added. Shipman later revealed that the 13 episode first season deals with most everything that goes down in McGreevy’s book and that there are plans to expand on the story in additional seasons if Netflix approves.

Hemlock Grove premieres on Netflix with all the episodes available for streaming simultaneously as is the Netflix way starting April 19. Watch the trailer embedded above.

[Via THR; Deadline]

TCA 13: Creator Kevin Williamson discusses his serial killer thriller ‘The Following’

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The Following is arguably the most anticipated new drama this television season. In so many words, it’s an edgy, fast-paced thriller from Kevin Williamson (The Vampire Diaries) that stars Kevin Bacon as an FBI agent attempting to stop a Edgar Allen Poe-obsessed jailed serial killer played by James Purefoy from recruiting a cult of followers who are committing violent acts on behalf of Purefoy’s intellectual but deadly character. Phew! At the TCAs Williamson talked up his new show for FOX, maintaining its integrity even when bombarded with questions fueled by the recent acts of violence in real life including the theatre shooting in Aurora, Colorado and the mass killing at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut.

“Who wasn’t affected by Sandy Hook? I’m still disturbed by Aurora,” Williamson shared. “I think we all worry about it. We sat in the writer’s room and we were all traumatized by it. There’s a moment where it becomes too real.” But he went on to assure the audience that The Following is, in fact, a work of fiction. It’s a story, he admits, that is influenced by previous works like The Silence of the Lambs and real-life terrors such as the Columbine incident. “I know what happens in the real world affects me,” he said. “It finds its way into what I do.” Later: “We don’t sit around and think of ways to kill people. I’m sitting around thinking of the drama…[After writing] some episodes, I’m like, ‘Wow a lot of people died this week.’ And then no one will die the next!” He noted that FOX has not asked him to fiddle with the amount of violence in the show; for now, it is what it is. Continue reading TCA 13: Creator Kevin Williamson discusses his serial killer thriller ‘The Following’ →

TCA 13: FOX’s Kevin Reilly admits a poor fall, plans for a bolder future

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FOX’s entertainment chairman Kevin Reilly took the stage today at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour in Pasadena, California to discuss his network’s programming slate. The tides have turned against FOX this round; while The Voice and Revolution helped NBC jump to #1 in the coveted 18-49 demo this fall, FOX’s dead-out-of-the-gate Mob Doctor and its creatively sound but low rated Tuesday night comedy block (including Raising Hope, Ben and Kate, New Girl, and The Mindy Project) contributed to the net’s 24 percent decline in ratings (falling from #1 to #3) for the 18-49 crowd. Reilly came out and admitted the obvious after a critic messed up a question aimed at the network exec: “We all screw up — look at my fall,” he said and the audience erupted in laughter. “Here at FOX we are leaping into the new year, [and] no one is happier than us to turn the page.” And with that he focused the remainder of the session on specific shows like The X Factor, Glee, the upcoming thriller The Following and the violent themes surrounding it, and he shared the fate of the In Living Color reboot and when you can expect The Goodwin Games to air. Follow the bullet-points after the break. Continue reading TCA 13: FOX’s Kevin Reilly admits a poor fall, plans for a bolder future →

TCA 13: ‘Smash’s new leader Josh Safran injects NBC’s musical with new life (season 2 preview inside)

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When Smash returns for its second season this February, it won’t feel all that different but you should know that the musical drama has undergone significant behind-the-scenes changes in the interim. Right off the bat, Smash creator and Broadway vet Theresa Rebeck has stepped away as showrunner and taking her place is former Gossip Girl executive producer Josh Safran. Also, you will surely notice the absence of many season one characters including Raza Jaffrey (Karen’s boyfriend Dev), Jaime Cepero (Eileen’s annoying assistant Ellis), Brian d’Arcy James (Julia’s husband Frank), and Will Chase (Julia’s old-time crush Michael). But even with all of these players out of the picture, the show won’t deviate from its roots.

“I don’t think its changed that much,” said Safran. “It’s still the same Smash, just bigger with more music and younger in regard to some cast members.” New additions include Andy Mientus (from Broadway’s Carrie) who plays a poor kid from Brooklyn with dreams of writing for Broadway; Jeremy Jordan (from Broadway’s Newsies) plays a Brooklyn-born singer with a self-destructive streak, Krysta Rodriguez (from Broadway’s The Addams Family) plays Karen’s fun and spunky new roommate who is looking for her big break on Broadway; and Julian Ovenden (from TV’s Foyle’s War) will be Bombshell‘s John F. Kennedy. The season will also welcome many talented and musically-inclined stars including Jennifer Hudson (as Veronica Moore, a threat to Karen and Ivy), Liza Minnelli (as herself), Sean Hayes (can you say Will & Grace reunion!?), Nikki Blonsky (Hairspray), Jesse L. Martin (Law & Order), and Daniel Sunjata (Rescue Me). Also, Bernadette Peters returns as Ivy’s mom.

“There’s more than one original song per episode: bigger [and] more is something we played with,” added Safran. “We have more original songs [per episode] and diverse musical styles. I kind of wanted to represent the bigger theatrical worldview on the show this season.”

Executive producer Neil Meron admitted that the first season had its ups and its downs. “First seasons of shows need time to find themselves, to lock into what they are, especially with a show like Smash,” he said. “There are so many moving parts to figure out the mechanism. It’s a fantastic machine. When certain moments worked in season one, I dare anybody to say what could be better.” Then: “There were certain story lines that were pinpointed that you’d say, ‘Yeah, they’re right it could be a little bit more impactful.” Confirmed at a previous junction: Debra Messing’s hideous scarf collection has been tossed in the garage (and the crowd went wild). Now only if they’d get rid of her depressing son… at least Ellis the terrible has made an exit stage right.

Will Smash‘s Broadway musical Bombshell actually inspire a real show in New York City? “When we watch Bombshell moments, we think wouldn’t that be great on Broadway? But that’s where we leave it,” Meron said. “Our first priority is to make the show. It will inspire more conversation, but have we done anything about it? No.” Take that as a maybe! Announced at TCA panel was a soundtrack featuring 22 cast-recorded songs from Bombshell that will release February 12.

Smash returns Tuesday, February 5 with a two-hour installment. The space after the break is home to a brand new season 2 preview and a behind-the-scenes clip. Continue reading TCA 13: ‘Smash’s new leader Josh Safran injects NBC’s musical with new life (season 2 preview inside) →

TCA 13: J.J. Abrams and Eric Kripke promise a bigger, better, more surprising ‘Revolution’ this spring (new trailer inside)

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Revolution is on break until March and executive producers J.J. Abrams and Eric Kripke accept the extended with a positive attitude and they think viewers should as well. “When we were doing Lost, that [scheduling] helped us enormously,” Abrams said. “So when the idea came up for Revolution I was really relieved. I thought, and still think, that it will get us to a place where it will be the best possible way for the viewer to watch the show.” Added Kripke: “The little break has afforded us the ability to take a breath, look at what we’ve done, really analyze it, and make adjustments. It also supplied us a natural break point between the season’s first half and second half, and the second half sort of lives as its own continuous piece.” While Kripke maintained that “we learned that we did a lot of things right,” he also admitted that “the pace of the shocking surprises were a little too slow.” So what can viewers expect next?  The “second [half will be] bigger, better, more exciting and [with] more revelations–at the same time maintaining the format.” The shock factor will increase as well.

What else? When Revolution returns this spring, the action will continue “exactly” where we left off. “Giving [Monroe] power was more about making him an unstoppable force,” said Kripke. “We start to deliver on the promise of the title. The revolution begins.” Kripke fed the questions, “Can [the Matheson family] stick together in the face of these overwhelming odds and danger? And can you maintain your soul when you’re a warrior?”

Kripke went on to say that he’s definitely planning ahead for upcoming seasons of the show, but they’re at the “cocktail napkin sketches” state at the moment. “Because [the world is] so expansive, there’s no end to the stories we can tell,” he said.

Revolution returns March 25. Get a glimpse of what’s to come in a new trailer after the break. Continue reading TCA 13: J.J. Abrams and Eric Kripke promise a bigger, better, more surprising ‘Revolution’ this spring (new trailer inside) →

TCA 13: Exec prod David Schulner hypes NBC’s ‘Do No Harm’ (new trailer inside)

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Do No Harm is a high-concept show coming to NBC later this month that can be viewed as a modern take on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In short, it follows protagonist Dr. Jason Cole (say it fast: “Doctor J. Cole”–get it?) who has a mysterious dual-personality. Every day at 8:25PM his dangerous, adventure seeking alter ego Ian Price consumes his body; 12 hours later he returns to his “normal” self. At the TCAs today, executive producer David Schulner talked about his new series which he originally pitched as “Dexter meets House.”

“I think ultimately you can only write the show that you want to watch, and this was a show that I wanted to see on TV,” Schulner said. “I wanted it to be fun. I wanted it to be thrilling. I wanted it to be a roller-coaster ride. And I wanted it to have stakes. I also wanted there to be a love story at the center of it. Hopefully those ingredients will make it different than what has come before.”

What has come before are NBC shows that ring similar to Do No Harm and they are last season’s fantastic but short lived Awake and before that there was My Own Worst Enemy with Christian Slater. “I took lessons from those shows, and this is a show you’re going to want to watch. It’s thrilling and fun. That’s the big difference.” I’d say that Awake was all of those things as well, so you’ll have to tune into Schulner’s take on the fractured personality theme to see how it really compares.

How will Steven Pasquale’s Jason Cole/Ian Price interact with one another? “Ian’s a little bit like a cat,” Schulner proposed. “The cat wants to play with the mouse. It’s a constant cat-and-mouse and chess match.”

Determine if Do No Harm is a show you want to watch when it premieres January 31. Click after the break to watch a new trailer.

Update (1/7): Today David Schulner announced that actor James Cromwell (who is coming off his stint as American Horror Story: Asylum‘s Dr. Arthur Adren) will be joining the cast of Do No Harm as “Jason’s mentor, who may or may not have his best interests at heart.” Just another reason to tune in. Continue reading TCA 13: Exec prod David Schulner hypes NBC’s ‘Do No Harm’ (new trailer inside) →

TCA 13: NBC’s Bob Greenblatt pats own back for hugely successful fall season

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The Television Critics Association is back for its winter tour. It’s the time of year when the major networks and their shows talk about their fall performance and preview what’s to come midseason and beyond. Of the big four networks, NBC was up first today and man-o-man was the Peacock’s chairman of entertainment Bob Greenblatt happy to see a sea of press because this marks the first time in a long time that his network has something positive to really talk about. NBC’s had a great fall as they currently find themselves the #1 network in the adults 18-49 demographic and #2 in total viewers (still trailing CBS). “What a difference a year makes, right?” he exclaimed toward the crowd packed with press and critics. “I’m going to bore you with statistics because I’m not sure when I’m going to have the chance to do this again.” The major stats are as follows: for the first half of the season, NBC is up 24 percent and 19 percent in the 18-49 demo and total viewers, respectively. The net can thank the ultimate Monday pairing of The Voice and Revolution for their recent success, as well as high ratings for Sunday Night Football and their surging sitcom Go On. In 2012 FOX entertainment president Kevin Reilly accused the heads of the other major nets of having their heads up their asses. Greenblatt responded directly today with the most publicist quote to come out of his panel: “I can guarantee you, we don’t have our heads up our asses,” he said.

Greenblatt and NBC entertainment president Jennifer Salke used the rest of their time to discuss specific shows, new ones and old. Jump after the break for the bullet-point breakdown. Continue reading TCA 13: NBC’s Bob Greenblatt pats own back for hugely successful fall season →

TCA 13: Carlton Cuse talks ‘Bates Motel’, series premiere date revealed

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If you aren’t amped for the Psycho prequel series Bates Motel from Carlton Cuse (Lost) and Kerry Ehrin (Friday Night Lights), you should be. Today at the launch of the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour, the showrunners and some of the cast talked about A&E’s upcoming psychological thriller.

First and foremost, Cuse made it a point to say that Bates Motel is inspired by but does not serve as an homage to Hitchcock’s classic film. “We did not want to do an homage to Psycho, we wanted to take these characters and setup as inspiration,” Cuse said specifically. “We don’t really view any of [the original movie] as canon,” he added. “The idea of an homage was just not going to be engaging to me. Making the fundamental decision to make it contemporary gave us the freedom to take these characters wherever we wanted. There’s a certain amount of baggage that comes with taking on ‘Psycho’ … making it contemporary made it become liberated from the original movie.”

Mystery and intrigue line the modernized story of Norman Bates (Freddy Highmore) and his mother Norma (Vera Farmiga). “The mythology that you think is what dictates the relationship between Norma and Norman is not what it’s going to turn out to be,” tantalized Cuse. The former Lost showrunner mentioned that his new series will not feature out-of-this-world characters or scenarios. “No polar bears, no smoke monsters — just say no right off the top. There’s no supernatural elements in play. We view this as a psychological thriller.” He confirmed that the show is in fact of the serialized sort, and it will tell a contained story with a defined beginning, middle, and end. “There is an endpoint to this narrative, absolutely. … In some general form we are going to catch up with a version of [Norman] from the movie.” Additionally: “Like all the best serialized shows, whether Breaking Bad or Homeland, it’s a kind of a story that takes ten episodes to unfold. And there’s some hooks that will hopefully carry us into a second season. We’re not just solving one particular crime. There’s a number of mysteries.” Continue reading TCA 13: Carlton Cuse talks ‘Bates Motel’, series premiere date revealed →

2012 Winter TCAs: Tim Kring & Kiefer Sutherland on the upcoming “profound” FOX drama ‘Touch’

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At the center of Touch is Martin Bohm (Kiefer Sutherland), a widower and single father, haunted by an inability to connect to his mute 11-year-old son, Jake (David Mazouz). After multiple failed attempts at keeping Jake in school, Martin is visited by Clea Hopkins (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), a social worker sent to evaluate Jake’s well-being. Everything changes when Martin discovers that Jake possesses the gift of staggering genius – the ability to see things that no one else can and the patterns that connect seemingly unrelated events. Jake is indeed communicating. But it’s not with words, it’s with numbers. Martin meets Arthur Dewitt (Danny Glover), a professor and an expert on children who possess special gifts when it comes to numbers. Now, it’s up to Martin to decipher the meaning and connect the numbers to the cast of characters whose lives they affect.

At the TCA winter press tour, Heroes creator Tim Kring shared his enthusiasm about his upcoming FOX drama Touch. “I can’t say enough about [FOX entertainment president] Kevin [Reilly]’s support. It was a script that I thought was a challenging one for a network to want to do to, I frankly didn’t think it would be done at a network. And Kevin read it and believed in it instantly and has absolutely been its tireless champion within the company. So I’m hugely indebted.”

Series star Kiefer Sutherland was also on hand to shed some light on how he landed the lead role and what exactly drew him to a show involving “global unity” and interconnectedness among human lives. Kring admits that he did not write the Martin Bohm character with Sutherland in mind. Additionally, Sutherland wasn’t so much interested in returning to TV after his long run on 24 which only concluded two years ago. But when he read the pilot script he was going to make an exception here. “I remember getting to Page 35 and thinking, ‘Shit. I’m in real trouble here,’ ” Sutherland shared. “The character is so vastly different [from that of 24‘s Jack Bauer], the tone of the piece is so vastly different. And that’s part of its appeal.” He continued, “I had to read the script twice to make sure that all the things that were affecting me were affecting me on a personal level as opposed to trying to manage a career. Does it happen to be a nice diversion from 24? Yes. I just couldn’t turn this down because it spoke to me on a really profound level.” He added, “My choice to do this had nothing to do with trying to get away from 24. It was because I want to spend hopefully the next seven or eight years sinking my teeth into something interesting.”

Sutherland made a comparison between his iconic 24 role and the new shoes he’s about to fill. “The one parallel between the two characters is Jack Bauer was asked to save the day, and there was always going to be casualties. Martin will never have an idyllic relationship with his son. With both characters, they’ll never completely win, and that’s something I’m drawn to as an actor.” At one point he described the father/son relationship between Martin and Jake as “really beautiful.”

After discussing how and why he positioned himself in the lead role, Sutherland described the logistics of Touch. “Some characters will be woven over [multi-episode] arcs, but Tim and I both learned – he from Heroes and me from 24 — that there is great value in a procedural drama. So every week there will be a set of circumstances set about by Jake that will put Martin in a situation to deal with someone new, and that situation will be resolved. There will be a beginning, a middle and an end, in theory, to every episode.”

Later, it was revealed that Kring’s son is autistic and that he is an inspiration for the show. Touch will explore the facets of autism and “Tim feels very responsible to stay true to [autism] in that regard,” says Sutherland. “So we’re not go to be making stuff up to explain stuff. We’re going to deal with the medicine and what doctors know.”

Before the panel could conclude, critics asked Sutherland about the current status of the 24 movie. He confirmed rumors that shooting will begin “at the end of April, beginning of May.” He teased that the movie is “relatively a direct continuation” of the series finale that aired on FOX in May 2010. We’re talking maybe six months from the end of that episode.” As previously reported, the movie will cover a 24-hour period in about two hours, so obviously it will not be told in real-time like the show was. Last, it was recently announced that Mary Lynn Rajskub’s Chloe will factor into the movie.

Touch premieres March 19. FOX will be airing a preview later this month on January 25 at 9PM.

[Via Deadline; TVLine 1, 2]

2012 Winter TCAs: FOX’s Kevin Reilly on future of ‘House’, ‘Glee’, ‘Terra Nova’ & ‘Fringe’

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Today at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour, FOX became the second big network to address its current status. Network president Kevin Reilly spent most of his time on stage addressing the future of FOX’s staple shows like House and Glee. He also made sure to feed critics with status updates on newbie Terra Nova and cult-hit Fringe. While NBC’s Greenblatt made it his mission to address head-on the ratings woes at his panel, Deadline reports that FOX’s Reilly barely had time to discuss his network’s 14 percent year-to-year ratings increase because so many of his shows are on the bubble. Let’s dive in.

Reilly on House: “It’s hard to imagine the network without House. This is not going to be the pink slip goes out and this is the end of House. We haven’t had the big meeting [with the producers] about what we want to do. It is no secret that it will be a close call, we said in May that it would probably be the show’s last year, but we just haven’t made the decision. Should it be the last season, this is not going to be an unceremonious finish, I can tell you that…It will absolutely have a satisfying conclusion on FOX. There’s no way [series creator] David Shore isn’t going to let fans feel it wasn’t properly capped off.” Though there was a period when Reilly and Shore discussed a potential House spinoff, Reilly confirms “that time has come and gone.”

On Glee: Reilly confirms that there will not be a Glee spinoff following Rachel and Kurt to New York City. In a nutshell he explained, “We’re graduating the characters that are arcing toward graduation. What’s come out of it is [series co-creator] Ryan Murphy has come up with a really cool idea. There will not be a Glee spinoff. But those characters will graduate and that’s led to a really interesting idea that I think will give us something to dig into next season, and it [starts with] the spring batch of episodes. That’s all I can say about it now.” He added that Lea Michele is definitely back next season (should Glee be renewed and it will), but he wouldn’t confirm the return of Chris Colfer and some other actors. “What I said before is creatively, we’d want everybody back,” he explained. “I’ve got to look at the contractual situation for all of those. And we will…I’m just trying to whet your appetite. But I think [what’s planned] is going to be a good thing for the show…It’s cool. It’s different.”

On Terra Nova: “It was an exciting bet to take, and it’s proven it was worthwhile. It is the second highest-rated new drama, one of the highest-rated new shows of the season. It has a distinct audience [and they] enjoyed it; they had amble opportunity to reject it and they didn’t. There’s a show there to bring back, there’s an audience to access. There were a lot of chefs in the kitchen. The show was hunting for itself creatively through the season. Creatively it was hunting. I loved some of the episodes. If this is all we make [of Terra Nova], we made money on it, the studio made money on it, and it seems to have resonated with the family audience. If we had more holes in our network, we’d be thrilled to lock that right in.” He admitted that “we won’t be able to drag our feet for much longer because it does need to get back into production in the next month” if it’s granted season 2 renewal.

On Fringe: You take the good and take the bad. First, the good: “Fringe has been a point of pride for me, I share the fans’ passion for the show. I love the fact that with it FOX put genre back on the network. I’m grateful to the fans who followed the show to Fridays, and with Fringe there, we have a real Friday night for the first time.” And now, the bad: “We lose a lot of money on the show. At that rating on that night it’s almost impossible for us to make money. We are not in the business of losing money, so we’re trying to figure out if there is a number at which we can continue with the series. He added, “I do not want to drop the ball on the end and let the fans down. Please don’t start the letter writing campaign now. I can’t take it. We haven’t even sat down with the producers and the studio yet. I hope we get some credit with the fans for seeing through a great show.”

Series co-creator J.J. Abrams even through in his two cents on the matter. “For some sick reason I’m hopeful,” Abrams said. “There’s some stuff coming up this season that’s so great. Maybe it’s dumb optimism that the good work [of the Fringe showrunners] will be rewarded. “And if not on FOX, maybe somewhere else,” he teased. Executive producer Jeff Pinkner addressed fans of the show as well. “Worst case scenario, if this were the last aired season of Fringe — and as we’ve said before, there are other outlets where we could continue our stories, be they graphic novels or webisodes — we know what the end of this season is going to be, and it can function as a series finale.” He matter-of-factly shared that even last season’s finale could have rightfully served as a proper series finale. “Had Peter, the lynchpin for the reason the show existed, been the one to sacrifice himself heroically to save the two universes and the woman he loved, it would have been a very authentic end.” And it seems like things will go the same way this time around, too. Reilly says that Pinkner and fellow exec producer J.H. Wyman will not know if the show is coming back as they come up with the season 4 finale. The episode will be written before FOX and Warner Bros. talk about a potential renewal. But if there’s anything we’ve learned from the Fringe creators thus far, it is that we can trust them.

Reilly wrapped up the panel by touching on failed animated series Allen Gregory, the fate of Ryan Seacrest on American Idol, and changes to The X Factor. On Allen Gregory: “We will not be making more Allen Gregory. Our goal was to keep as many as possible of our the legacy shows intact but continue to take shots with the next-generation (animated) shows. It turned out Allen Gregory wasn’t one of them.” On a related note, Reilly sees Bob’s Burgers joining FOX’s next generation of animated shows. On Ryan Seacrest: “As we know it is a much harder job than meets the eye. I think everyone has come to realize the value of Ryan Seacrest. It’s very hard to imagine American Idol without Ryan. We certainly want to keep him.” Seacrest’s contract is up after this upcoming season of American Idol and the network is working hard to land a new deal with him. On The X Factor, Reilly teases that “there will be some changes” and one of them might be replacing host Steve Jones with someone new. Says Reilly, “Whether Steve is the guy or not, it comes under the heading of growth in general.”

All in all, many of FOX’s shows are up in the air concerning their renewal status. With Alcatraz, Touch, The Finder, and Napoleon Dynamite still waiting to be thrown into the midseason schedule, Reilly has many things to take into consideration before making final decisions to bring back the aging House, the potential hit Terra Nova, and the genre darling Fringe.

[Via Deadline; EW 1, 2; TVLine 1, 2]

2012 Winter TCAs: Kyle Killen & Howard Gordon talk trippy NBC drama ‘Awake’

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After Detective Michael Britten wakes up from a car accident with his wife and teenage son, he learns the devastating news that his wife died in the crash. Trying to put the pieces of his life back together, he wakes up a few days later to realize that his wife is very much alive and his son died in the accident! Did he lose his wife or his son? Or neither of them?? What if your life split in two in the face of a situation like this, and you could actually have everything you wanted, just not all at the same time? Michael goes back to work solving crimes while trying to put things back on a “normal” track, alternating between realities.”

At the TCA winter press tour, creator of the ill-fated FOX series Lone Star Kyle Killen talked up his latest project Awake. After reading the summary above above, do you feel confused? The creative team behind the sci-fi crime drama assures once you see the pilot and fall into the groove of the show confusion will not be one of the feelings you’re left with each week. “It is a fairly gettable concept once you sit down and actually pay attention to it,” executive producer Howard Gordon (24) said. “And whatever learning curve there might be, we hope it’s a shallow one.” Gordon went on to give his even briefer summary of the show. “He’s a guy who goes to sleep, wakes up, he’s with his wife, goes to sleep, wakes up, and he’s with his son.  And he’s a cop who sees clues and details that crossover from one world to the next, and he uses that insight to solve crimes.” Not that doesn’t sound so confusing, now does it?

Killen compared the writing process for this show to “putting together a Rubik’s Cube every eight days.” Intriguing. “It’s a dramatic procedural. On a week‑to‑week basis, there is a self‑contained question and answer. There’s a puzzle every week. At its heart, it’s a unique twist on the procedural dramas that you are actually very used to.”

He doesn’t make it a secret that he’s learning from his past mistakes, too. “I think there were aspects of Lone Star that were more difficult to get a wider, broader audience interested in. [The main character] was somebody that you couldn’t decide if you liked or hated, and I think that [Detective] Britten’s dilemma is something that we’re not only sympathetic for, but somehow we want him to win.”

The series creator concluded the panel by saying that the show will not end like this: “It was all a dream.” He went on, “There are 100 ways out, but 99 of them are probably unsatisfying to most of the population. I personally believe ‘It was all a dream’ is not particularly satisfying. We will work hard to avoid frustrating ourselves and you if we have the opportunity to wrap it all up 8 or 9 years from now.” Awake star Jason Isaacs confirmed that they do know how things will end. “We have a plan, and we’re never going to tell anyone, so stop asking us.”

Awake is set to premiere this midseason on NBC; a specific date and timeslot still haven’t been confirmed.

[Via Deadline; EW]