#were the showrunners limited by the network or something? they had to be because it's not as dark and serious as seasons 1-5

[turtlecleric]

03!TMNT really be traumatizing Donnie over and over again... SAINW, Good Genes, and now at the beginning of season seven with him blaming himself for [redacted]... this poor boy.

[bekolxeram]

Good morning! (Well, at my place) I've just read your take on fandom, and while I'm personally avoiding most of the cast interviews and stuff, I see your point. I'm just afraid that's too much a voice of reason. Something spread all over the world today, facts do not matter very much. And people really forget that fandom is fun. Anyway, would love to see more of those posts :)

I too usually avoid interviews and stuff, I'm mostly in it for the excuse to unite my love for aviation, disaster documentaries and gay stuff. I'm sure you've stumbled across fandom discourse before and asked yourself "are we watching the same show?" Well, I saw a post about one of the actors "confirming a character's sexual orientation" and I was just wondering if we were reading the same words.

I've seen media literacy, canon vs fanon being brought up numerous times for the last 2 months, but I think I've finally found the right words to describe my gripes with the fandom: the confusion of implication and interpretation.

Maddie pulling Chimney out of the frame in that hotel room then ending up pregnant a few episodes later, implication, it's not the network or the show for explicit sex scenes. Buck making a dirty face while saying the ring cutter was for "other stuff", well what other stuff can you think of? Hen and Chimney hanging out with Tommy at the bar in Bobby Begins Again, would Hen and Chimney knowingly become friends with someone who was still racist and misogynist that they had a problem with? These are all hardly refutable facts that just weren't shown explicitly on screen for whatever reasons.

A male character being emotionally repressed and having trouble dating women on the other hand, could be because he is attracted to men without knowing it, but it also could be due to all sorts of reasons like childhood trauma, religious trauma, trauma from the battlefield, unprocessed grief from on-and-off ex-wife suddenly dying in an accident so any sort of closure is no longer possible etc. Another male character looking after a good kid when his father is trying his best to juggle between raising him and being a first responder, could be because he is romantically interested in said single father and wants to become part of a traditional type of nuclear family unit with the kid, but it also could be just him being kind and empathetic, as he himself grew up with emotionally neglectful and absent parents. You can interpret these things all sorts of ways based on your personal experience, but the show itself doesn't tell you how to frame it, nor does it limits you. Though at the end of the day, other people may interpret the same piece of media in different ways, and that includes the showrunner, the writers and even the actors themselves.

And then there's conflating interpretation with irrefutable explicit fact, like I demonstrated in some of my posts. Like the moment after 7x10 came out, the whole fandom was enshrouded by debates over daddy kink. One side painted Tommy as a sexual predator who exploited Buck's moment of vulnerability to satisfy his own kinks (again, Buck started the daddy thing), the other side defended the rights for gay men to explore sexually whenever they like. Yes, the I know daddy kink is very common among the gay community, but the concept itself has become so mainstream the past few years (I blame Pedro Pascal) that it now vaguely means "an older man who is hot".

After a few weeks of thinking I'm crazy and I lack verbal and reading comprehensions, I finally read the source material behind most of the controversies, and I got things completely different from the mainstream discourse out there? I've never seen anyone from the production of the show explicitly stating or even imply a certain ship would come true? At most, they respect and validate fans' own interpretations of the story, that's it. It doesn't necessarily mean they agree with said interpretation, and it certainly does not invalidate other possibilities.

So here we are, some fans feel betrayed even though they were never promised anything. Other fans get nervous over stuff that is actually just an interpretation of a cast member's interview, which in itself is also an interpretation of their own character, but tutted as absolute fact by some.

Enjoying a piece of media is supposed to be about enjoyment, not like a part-time job, so enjoy the parts you like and ignore the rest. But if you want to participate in the fandom, and you feel anxious anytime there's rumors brewing, tracking down the source might actually bring you more peace.

[canonicallyobserving911]

Eddie Diaz: 7x7, 7x9 and 7x10

Eddie Diaz is my favorite character but I still don't like the storyline they gave him for the end of the season.

(Full disclosure: I did a similar post about Bobby's storyline but before 7x9 airs, I decided to do one about Eddie too.)

It's been a couple of weeks since the plot or whatever TM (showrunner) is trying to do with Eddie's character was revealed (man is obsessed with his deceased wife's doppelgänger but he ignores the woman who's been by his side the entire time) and I still HATE it. Therefore, I'm not looking forward to whatever this raggedy "Vertigo" storyline is supposed to be for multiple reasons.

The main reason why I don't like it is because IMO, Eddie's storylines have always taken a backseat to those written for other main characters and the truth is he hasn't had a storyline all his own since he was involved in the illegal fight club in season 3. All of his other storylines were made to be about someone else or they weren't given adequate room to be developed, i.e., the shooting, his PTSD and his return to the 118 at the end of season 5. His breakdown was shoved into the last 5 minutes of 5x13 then he went to therapy once afterwards but the audience didn't see any more of his sessions.

Also, if his storyline didn't take a backseat, he was sidelined for the majority of a season (for most of season 6, he was treated like a side character with nothing to do for 13 out of the 18 episodes and the ones they gave him in 6x7, 6x14, 6x15, 6x17 and 6x18 were lackluster at best) and they were treated like "This will do" for his character while other mains got-well thought-out storylines that didn't make the audience dislike them.

Three things that have been magnified about Eddie since 7x5 aired is (1) people who already didn't like him (it's possible they're jealous of him because he's so beautiful and Buck's in love with him) despise him even more without a valid reason; (2) people who hate cheating storylines have already dismissed him and are now classifying him as irredeemable and for whatever reason they don't think he deserves redemption or to work through it even though others (Hen and Buck) have cheated too; and (3) those who shipped Buddie before, no longer believe Buck should wait around for Eddie since Buck's in a relationship with a discount dollar store version of Eddie. I mean let's be real here for a minute because the show literally wrote the character of T*mmy to be a cheap bargain basement version of Eddie Diaz.

Aside from him emotionally cheating with his dead wife's doppelgänger 🙄, it appears there was no real thought put into his season 7 arc and for those who've seen the movie "Vertigo", they might be interested but I am not. I get it, he's grieving the "relationship" he thought he could have had with Shannon but wouldn't it have made more sense to let him deal with his grief in therapy LAST SEASON WHEN THEY DIDN'T GIVE HIM ANYTHING ELSE TO DO?

YES! They could have used those 13 episodes to allow him to go to therapy so he could have already worked through this situation with his deceased wife instead of shoving it into the end of an already robust and limited season. Or was the F*X network against letting him move past it too? I think it was poor planning and lazy storytelling but that's just me. Also, why is Maris*l still around? Eddie's storyline could have worked without her so what's the real goal here? It's unclear if his storyline will end the way it did in season 5 with him sliding down the firefighter's pole and rejoining the team like everything had been fixed but hopefully that won't happen this time and he'll get the help he needs.

Finally, as a Buddie shipper, I WILL NOT SETTLE FOR A KNOCKOFF VERSION OF A RELATIONSHIP FOR EDDIE OR BUCK BECAUSE THEY BOTH DESERVE BETTER. Therefore, why should Eddie or Buck settle for something that doesn't compare to EVERYTHING THEY'VE BUILT TOGETHER FOR THE PAST SIX YEARS?

IMO, they shouldn't and it's time for the show to stop delaying their CANON love story. I for one don't want to sit through another season of LIs being thrown at them like javelins and hoping one will stick. This is EXHAUSTING just like season 5 was and I'll watch the episode after it airs so I can fast foward through the parts I don't want to see.

I ONLY SHIP BUDDIE!

[dystopiandramaqueen]

"One of the biggest casting challenges of the show presented itself when it came time to find the actor who would play Nick, Commander Waterford's driver, June's engmatic lover, and a potential Eye of Gilead.

Despite the showrunner's plans for the character, his presence in the pilot episode was limited to only a few lines.

Thomas recalls "For anybody who had that question, we said, "Look, we haven't felt like this since the infamous Breaking Bad. This is something special. This will be something great. You need to trust us."

And that led to actors getting on the phone with Bruce and talking it through, because they were making a commitment based on maybe one or two lines in the script...and Max Minghella saw through all of that and came in and read, in a climate where he doesn't have to come in and read if he doesn't want to."

It was a commitment that was easy to make for Minghella. "The truth is that before I even read the pilot script, it was sent to me with real support from people I worked with who...really believed it was something I should be part of. And then when I read it... it was genuinely just in a different league to anything I'd read in quite some time."

"For me, the most interesting thing about playing Nick is the element of spy on spy on spy," he says. '"That ambiguity in the book is compelling, and then even more so in the TV show, where we have to live with these characters for a very long time. I don't want to give all my cards away that quickly, so I thought it was a less-is-more situation.

"Nick in the book is very much a cipher," explains Kira Snyder, co-executive producer and writer of the episode where we learn more about Nick's history. "Nick is part of the political structure, he's part of the power apparatus...but how did he get there? Part of the fun of that episode was to kind of peel back the mystery of this young man and see where he came from, how he got recruited, and how his idealism was turned against him, how it was curdled by the corrupt system of Gilead. How he keeps trying to find something to believe in, some way to make things work, make things good. Which is what we see with his becoming an Eye; he doesn't have alot of ways to strike back at the Commander, but through his role as part of the secret police informer network he has the ability to try to keep a check on the man."

-The Art and Making of The Handmaid's Tale

[lemonhemlock]

I can’t find the post now, but recently you reblogged something about how the show didn’t think through the implications of making the Velaryons black- it phrased mte very well! I love the actors chosen to portray all these characters- Steve Toussaint is wonderful, and as you said, Wil Johnson absolutely maximized his time as Vaemond. Both actresses for Laena were criminally underused, and Phoebe and Bethany are excellent! I have no complaints about casting! But the writing for the Velaryons specifically just makes it so uncomfortably obvious. For one, in F&B, this family is already shafted by team black. Laenor cuckolded and eventually killed, Vaemond murdered and the cousins mutilated- in the context of the show, for saying the very obvious truth! Like I’m shocked they didn’t think through how this would play on TV, aside from allowing Laenor to live (which is its own thing that has weird ripples they also didn’t seem to think through)

The show then takes it a step further and makes Rhaena and Baela little more than set dressing for the first season. In F&B, we know both girls have plenty of significant moments to come, and if they were white characters played by white actresses, it wouldn’t seem so glaring. But obviously they aren’t, and it instead reads like black characters getting shelved in favor of white leads. It’s just so frustrating to see major showrunners not seem to comprehend how these choices will be viewed by modern audiences. Sorry to rant in your ask! It was the first time I’d seen that touched on in a way that really spelled out the problem here.

Hello there, thanks for dropping by. I'm torn on the issue of the Velaryons, because, on the one hand, for all the criticism, it does make a difference, especially for the actors. You have to question whether HotD would have really been improved upon if everyone were white. It's a ridiculous question to ask, because networks trying to be more inclusive and hire more actors of colour is always going to be a good thing at least for said actors' careers. And the Velaryon actors really hit it out of the park with their limited screen time. Even so, the visibility spike they must have had by appearing in a very popular show watched by millions can't hurt, no matter how mangled their character's development is. So, ultimately, are we really worse off with making the Velaryons black? Not saying I have the answer to these problems, but it's not as easy as just dismissing this decision for diversity points.

On the other hand, there's really no way to say this differently, but not only are the Velaryons shafted hard by the Targaryens in the book, they also end up shafting each other. Corlys does his darnest to prevent his granddaughters from inheriting, Baela and Rhaena bring their 6-year-old cousin Daenaera to marry her off to their brother, Alyn cheats on Baela etc. It's very messy. All of these characters are flawed and meant to be critiqued, but race-swapping them has also geared the conversation away from that, since they already suffer from being shelved in favour of white leads, like you said, so fans are perhaps more wary of being critical of them.

It's true that Baela and Rhaena are reduced to set dressing in the show, but their participation in the war is very limited in the books too. I've criticised their acquiescence to Rhaenyra's betrothal plot in the show, but they're content to be the consorts and not heiresses in the books, as well. So this is not just a show-only thing, it's in line with their book behaviour.

There is also a popular interpretation of Rhaena's character as a symbol of hope and reconciliation for the Targaryen dynasty. It's true that she is the more diplomatic and gentle of the sisters, but, in the wake of HotD... how do you chime into the conversation to point out that ultimately this is a character that was designed to be a white Targaryen girl who just hatched a fire-breathing monster and could very well partake in that supernatural power? (Baela is worried she might use Morning to avenge her first husband's death) I realise that mine is decidedly the unpopular interpretation, but for a corner of the fandom that is so hellbent on criticising the Targaryens for their use of dragons and wholeheartedly agrees that Westeros is better off without them, Rhaena gets off the hook a lot for perpetuating this very system.

In addition, no one bothers to point out that Morning also dies pretty shortly afterwards (for a dragon). Where exactly is the hope here and for whom? Not for the King, certainly, as Rhaena leaves court because her brother cannot stand to be in the presence of dragons (she says she feels unwelcome). He is known to history as dragonbane as the last known dragon dies in 153 AC, so there's no way Morning was older than 24 when she died. After that, House Targaryen's obsession to bring dragons back will haunt them for the rest of their history.

[This is more of an aside, not criticism, but indicative of the same environment. Rhaena's marriage to Garmund Hightower is also seen through rose-tinted glassed. Fans like to think that her six daughters are indicative of a happy relationship, but they do not take the Lady Sam situation into account. If you look at the Hightower family tree, the High Septon refused to marry Lyonel, the heir, to Lady Sam and for a good chunk of time, all their six children were illegitimate. Martyn, the second son, had no issue. Which means that the High Tower would pass to Garmund's line. Perhaps we should interrogate if the reason they had so many children was because what Garmund needed/wanted was a boy, but they just kept having girls. In any case, this exercise was rendered futile at one point, as the new High Septon did indeed agree to marry Lyonel and Lady Sam, after which they got their children legitimized.]

[in-between-2-spaces]

About it:

The show.

This was something that was bound to happen.

I had already said so much about that show it may seem redundant to talk about so I'll limit myself. since it died and I will say... What did HE expect?

I know it was made with good Intentions and in part by their own pocket money to make it but you can't expect a show that had a topic or story that many people in fandom felt that it was already told about and an idea that wasn't well received to survived today's industry you know?

It was an "announced death" you could say.

Because...

why. would. you. do. this???

I don't wanna say it was the wife's idea all along because I am sure that he also could be blind enough in fandom " faith " to make this show as an excuse to just to get the "mothership" show going. But something tells me he sat with her, he told her how much he will miss everything about the old show and she was like "lets do it then!" thinking it would be easy.

She has shown sometimes she is not that bright but has alot of the spirit and motivation to make things happen, so the show got pitched.

One fair theory i have was that they had a few ideas in mind to keep the show going, they got in contact with some people of the network to have a sort of safety net on what works and what not, they went back to them and said "none of those will convince them unless it has to do directly with the main characters of the show". they both were bummed out but kept thinking, thought that the parents story wasn't told enough (which the show actually did "enough" but again, not that bright) and went "lets make a story about them and try to link it with the main story!" they got one of the writers that made good OCs and eps in the last seasons, told them their idea and said "do your magic", the writer wrote the pitch including one of the beloved characters (good hook) and sent it to the network and got approved, just because it had to do with the main characters in a way.

A bait and switch.

But this is one of my theories, not factual( don't go around saying I have real tea or something, I have jackshit) To fill up the plot, they added 3 diverse characters (one to appease gay community) with the parents and did like a hunter/mystery gang that later some of the fandom named them the "scoobies".

Now, another theory I have with this gang concept was that, the actor showrunner wanted just J and M to be the show and go around meeting people and fighting along side with them, just like the old show. Lots of action.

But the wife...wanted also heart in it (romance) and how they fell in love the series.

Nothing wrong with adding romance because almost all shows have them, but the way it was portrayed in the show was ...dumb and boring. Unless that they used it to keep the show very low budget which make sense how the final product turned out to be. And not to mention that the way they were a match wasn't like that at all. For those who haven't watched the original, do you know how they got together?

By Force.

(Spoilers Season 4)

Cupid made them a couple as a request from heaven to make the perfect vessels for Michael and Lucifer.

That's it. no special encounter or meaningful fate. It was forced.

They just took the idea of J and M meeting up as the main plot of the show... ...that turns out to be BS in the end because it was an alternative universe (LMAO)

which makes me think this was just made to please the wife and fandom, not himself. He never gets to enjoy what he likes I believe. But again, he loves his wife and his too good so doesn't surprise me he puts himself second before others.

But this cost the quality of the product and gave a mediocre series (sorry dude, it was pure GARBAGE)

Which makes me go to my next question: Did they really made a production company just for this show? Because they haven't released anything else since then and this show was announced 2 years ago.

The wife HAS a project with one of the other actors, but whatever it is, it is probably just the 2 of them, the other actor wont be involved (like always). So there you go. The fandom finally died that day. And like always, please stay dead, you guys were annoying and narcissistic like you always claim to not be.

Do something productive with your lonely lives. Fuck Off.

[thechanelmuse]

TW: rape

‘I May Destroy You,’ Michaela Coel’s gimlet-eyed exploration of trauma and its myriad ripple effects follows Arabella (Coel) — a funny, messy, sharp-as-hell London writer — after a dizzying night in which she’s drugged and raped by a stranger. At first, she dismisses the hazy memory as just an upsetting image in her head. Soon enough, though, Arabella reluctantly comes to understand it as the truth, and tries to work through that horrifying reality without coming apart. [...]

Not every part of Arabella has a direct line to Coel, but the series’ catalyzing experience, unfortunately, does. In 2016, Coel took a break from a marathon writing session for the second season of “Chewing Gum” to grab a drink with a friend, and was drugged and assaulted by a stranger. She’s been sifting through the emotional wreckage ever since to find some kind of clarity, if not peace. Now, with “I May Destroy You,” she’s doing it for all the world to see. “As a fellow android exploring what it means to be human,” says Coel’s friend Janelle Monáe, “watching Michaela be vulnerable on-screen as she walks in her truth gives me and so many the bravery to walk in ours.” [...]

Coel began writing “I May Destroy You” in February 2017, in between acting in TV projects like the “USS Callister” episode of “Black Mirror” and Netflix’s limited series “Black Earth Rising.” She took solo mountain trips and wrote draft after draft of what would eventually become “I May Destroy You,” spilling her stories and tangled guts onto the page, rearranging them into shapes she could better recognize. In August 2018, she spoke about her trauma publicly while delivering the Edinburgh International Television Festival’s James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture, a prestigious assignment the festival has otherwise bestowed on a cadre of white British television mainstays (as well as no fewer than three Murdochs). 

The majority of Coel’s speech, delivered to a room of the U.K.’s most powerful entertainment brokers, traced the constant racism and classism she endured on the way to that Edinburgh stage — a theme subtextually underlined by the fact that Coel was, and remains, the only Black woman to have that platform. She spoke about turning her solo play “Chewing Gum Dreams” into a “Chewing Gum” TV series (which aired 2015-17 on the U.K.’s Channel 4), a transformative time that taught her the technicalities of making television and confirmed just how disinclined certain white gatekeepers are to trust a poorer Black woman’s vision. Toward the end of the 50-minute lecture, Coel revealed her assault and elucidated the industry’s inability — or unwillingness — to handle such a human emergency when pages are due. As for her recovery, she said, “It’s been therapeutic to write about it, and actively twist a narrative of pain into something with more hope, and even humor.”

When it finally came time to translate it all to the screen, “I May Destroy You” was so close to her bruised heart that Coel took on the challenge of playing several roles throughout the series’ development: creator, writer, actor, producer, director. Netflix offered her a total fee of a cool $1 million to make and star in the show, but the proposed contract wouldn’t grant Coel even a tiny percentage of the rights. She hadn’t fully realized how much claiming legal proprietorship over her work mattered to her until the prospect of not being able to emerged, at which point it became crucial. 

Then, after some Googling, she realized that her CAA agents would also be profiting from the deal via the endangered practice of packaging. Stung and surprised, Coel walked away from both her agents and the offer. “I’m not anti-Netflix,” she’s quick to say now, “but I am pro-‘the creator, writer, director, actor should probably have a right.’” She’s hyper-aware of how much this project required of her, and how comparatively little granting her “a right” might cost a powerful network like Netflix. “That’s not quite fair, is it?” Coel muses. Creating the show, after all, took almost everything she had.

With the BBC, a million-dollar paycheck might not have been in the cards, but more important to Coel, she didn’t have to fight half as hard to claim ownership. (As a matter of industry course, it’s far more common for British studios to afford creators rights to their work than it is for American equivalents.) They struck a deal, and Coel got to work.[...]

“When you’re restricted,” she explains, “sometimes that’s where you find great things: in the lack of possibility.” She attributes this rather Zen approach to Hugo Blick, the “Black Earth Rising” showrunner who showed her the value of keeping a cool, empathetic head on set. Blick’s ability to step away from a gnarly situation for even 30 calming seconds is one that Coel has worked to hone for herself, especially while steering a series with such fraught ties to her history. No matter how sideways things might go, she never wants to forget just how much she loves the collaborative act of building a television show, wild complications and all. 

Read more

From Forbes:

I May Destroy You’s Michaela Coel Rejected Netflix’s $1 Million Offer In Favor Of The BBC Because Of Ownership

The creative, who stars as Arabella and wrote all 12 episodes, started pitching the programme in the spring of 2017 with one of her first ports of call being Netflix who picked up her prior series Chewing Gum.

Though Netflix offered a generous upfront fee of $1 million (£800,000), the sum had strings attached, including full rights ownership away from the creator, something Coel pushed back against. Coel recalls a moment during the interview where she is speaking with a Netflix development executive on the phone, asking if she could retain even a very small 0.5% of the copyright to her show.

“There was just silence on the phone. And she said, ‘It’s not how we do things here. Nobody does that, it’s not a big deal,’” Coel recollected. “I said, ‘If it’s not a big deal, then I’d really like to have 5 % of my rights,’” Coel added, stating that she even went down to 2%, and then 1% and even as a final compromise to 0.5%.

Coel remembers that the executive said she would have to run it passed her superiors, before adding, “‘Michaela? I just want you to know I’m really proud of you. You’re doing the right thing.'”

“I remember thinking, I’ve been going down rabbit holes in my head, like people thinking I’m paranoid, I’m acting sketchy, I’m killing off all my agents,” Coel says. “And then she said those words to me, and I finally realized — I’m not crazy. This is crazy.”

Coel discovered her agents, Creative Artists Agency (CAA) were set to make an undisclosed amount from the series if she took the deal with Netflix. She reveals that the agency pushed her to take the deal prior to her finding out and their subsequent dismissal as her U.S. representation.

Taking the project to British broadcaster the BBC later in 2017, Coel found the corporation to be supportive with her maintaining creative control even with the explicit depictions of sex, sexual assault and drug use. Plus, as the broadcaster had to adhere to terms of trade, Coel had no problem with retaining the rights also. The broadcaster also brought HBO to the table as another co-producer to help subsidise a portion of the budget.

Read more

This isn’t about just “knowing your worth;” it’s about knowing the business (your business) and never settling just to secure “something.” A million dollar offer, no copyright ownership and no creative control is beyond disrespectful. Learn the business in whatever field you’re in and stay acclimated with jargon and new, current and old practices. Know your shit. 

It’s like when people say “Get a lawyer” to handle negotiations and look over your paperwork. You pay a lawyer to do a job, but it does not mean you should be oblivious to aspects of law and contract jargon among other things because “that’s what they’re there to do.” You can’t say someone (sometimes lawyers included) screwed you over after you’ve signed the dotted line. They’re protecting and looking out for themselves. Commit to do the same for yourself.

[addictedtostorytelling]

how come do you think they never showed GSR having kinda a love scene ? Bc they showed Catherine and that detective having one in 11x03??

hi, anon!

so for its first nine seasons, csi aired at 9pm est, which was during "primetime viewing hours."

in the us, there was in the early 2000s and is still—even in 2022—a fairly strict set of regulations set down by the federal communications commission, or fcc, regarding what kinds of things can and cannot be depicted during primetime hours on the "big three standard television networks" (abc, nbc, and the home of csi cbs).

while cable channels and steaming services can pretty much show whatever they want whenever they want (as long as they're not marketed to children), the networks must abide by certain prohibitions which limit how much sex, violence, nudity, coarse language, drug usage, and "adult themes" their shows are allowed to include.

the assumption is that families tend to watch television together during this kind of "after dinner, before bed" window of time, so there shouldn't be anything too terribly risqué shown on the standard channels that almost every us television owner has access to, lest little children happen to see something untoward.

insert discussion about america's lingering puritan inclinations here.

as a general rule, the later a show comes on in the night, the more "adult" it is allowed to be.

however, even then, not all "adult content" is considered equal in the eyes of the fcc (or your average american primetime viewer).

in the us, it is typically much more acceptable to depict a graphically violent scene—like, say, a shootout—than it is to show even a little bit of sex.

that so, as a show that aired toward the latter end of the primetime dayparting during its first nine seasons, csi was generally allowed to depict violence—which of course it did in spades—however, there were still limits on what it could "get away with" showing in terms of actual sex scenes.

could we see characters making out while clothed? sure. might the show even "telegraph" the idea that sex would happen by having said characters fall onto a bed together, laughing and/or moaning? occasionally, yes.

but if they wanted to go further than that, they had to slap a content warning onto the episode in question, per the fcc.

episode 02x08 "slaves of las vegas" was the first csi episode to feature such a content warning—this one specifically for partial nudity.

and there was a quota to how many "advisory" episodes they could feature per season in their timeslot.

that so, the showrunners had to be judicious about how they made use of these "very special sexy episodes"—and especially because they knew that if they ever featured too many in short succession, they risked offending the sensibilities of their american audience to the point that they'd stop watching.

while they could maybe occasionally pull off having an episode set at a glitzy fetish club (as long as they had an advisory warning on it), for the most part, they needed to stick to what both the viewing public and the fcc would tolerate during the 9pm est primetime timeslot: i.e., copious violence laced with more the suggestion of sex than actual images of it.

so.

all of the above is to say that for the whole time grissom and sara were together and on the show concurrently, there was just never much of a chance for a real, honest-to-god sex scene between them.

csi was not during that period in the habit of showing its main characters having full-on sex.

during s1-s9, the closest thing there is to sex involving main characters is maybe nick fooling around with kristy hopkins in episode 01x13 “boom,” though all we really see there is them lying in bed together, kissing, OR perhaps warrick hooking up with candy the stripper in episode 08x09 “cockroaches,” though, again, the most that’s shown in that scene is warrick taking off his shirt and kissing candy’s neck.

while maybe in theory there could have been a kind of "grissom and sara mack on each other as they undress and fall onto the bed together before the scene abruptly changes" hard cut (rated pg-13 instead of r), even that kind of more-sensual-than-sexual love scene was a longshot on this particular show not only because of the broadcast regulations for its timeslot but also because of the show's creative vision.

before the great writer and showrunner turnover between s8-s10, the csi production team had very little interest in showing too much of the characters' home lives.

a hint here.

a standalone scene there.

but tptb were never really about following the characters home and showing us everything they did in their off time—and especially not with gsr, where the theory was always "less is more."

if they were going to show us grissom and sara at home together, it was always going to be more of a brief, tantalizing glimpse into their private world rather than a full window showing us a prolonged interaction.

and, of course, lest we forget, the only real period of the show where we saw any of these glimpses at all was between the events of episode 06x24 “way to go” and episode 09x02 “the happy place,” so there was only ever a very limited opportunity to see any “gsr home life” stuff just in general.  

tack on the fact that for as much as they love depicting gsr, i don't think either billy or jorja really wanted to film a sex scene—jorja used to joke about how they both would have had to start exercising, which neither one of them wanted to do—and i think that's kind of the threefold reason why there was never any gsr sex shown on screen overall:

because fcc regulations wouldn't have really allowed for it (without special permissions being secured),

because the showrunners weren't interested in incorporating those kinds of interactions into the narrative,

and because the actors didn't want to film it.

as for why catherine and vartann did get a sex scene later on in s11, it's simple:

at the start of s10, csi moved timeslots to be shown at 10pm est.

while still technically on during primetime, the regulations of what could and couldn't be shown at this hour were much looser than the ones for what could be shown at 9pm est (the theory being that younger children tend to go to bed earlier and therefore there is less need for discretion later on in the night).

while they still couldn't depict full frontal nudity or actual acts of penetration, they could show catherine in lingerie and vartann shirtless, writhing around moaning together until they come to climax, because the later viewing hour allowed for it.

—and by this point, the whole csi production team (from writers to crew to producers) had changed so much that the entire production philosophy of the show was ultimately different.

whereas the original powers never would have shown main characters having actual sex on screen, the new folks felt more comfortable with that idea, not necessarily because they were actually interested in developing the characters' home lives but because they were all about showing the titillation.

so since marg helgenberger and alex carter were ostensibly up for filming the scene, they decided to go for it.

the csi of s11 was such a very different fictional world than the csi of s1-s9, and the willingness to "go there" with sex scenes was just part of that difference.

so that's the full thing of it: actual, on-camera gsr sex was just never on the table during the era when grissom and sara were both on the show together; the possibility to depict main characters having sex only really developed after their heyday, after the timeslot jump, which is why catherine and vartann could be shown having sex in s11.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Chimerical

Chimerical’s stories aren’t at Gossamer, but you can now find them at AO3. If you have not read them, are you in for a treat! For instance, Regular People and Regular People Still are some of the X-Files fics I have read and re-read. You may also know Chimerical from her site Chimerical Publications, which was an extensive Mulder and David Duchovny fansite. Big thanks to Chimerical for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

I’m not surprised at all that X-Files fandom is still popular, it was an amazing, creative show with iconic characters. Aside from just being entertaining, like all good Sci-Fi it asked deep, profound questions about the nature of relationships and humanity. It’s these things that people remember more than the MOWs.

However, I’m surprised to hear that my stories are still read, mostly because there is always something new, someone has a new take, and of course, we have the more recent episodes which provides all new fodder for writers, which is wonderful. But it’s super nice to hear that stories from the classic show still mean something. Also, I wasn’t a prolific writer, there are only 12 stories, but perhaps they struck a chord and people like to revisit them the way you like to re-watch a favorite episode or movie.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

Fanfic is certainly not new, but The X-Files was absolutely at the right place, at the right time. The internet was just really taking off, and it enabled fans to connect instantly in ways that hadn’t before. I remember that Fox used to send out Cease & Desist letters in an ill-considered attempt to stem fanfic because the Suits just didn’t understand what it was. Nowadays, of course, they embrace much of it, encourage it, even. Supernatural wrote whole episodes about it. But in the early days they were really stupid about it.

But what I took away from it was that great community can exist with people you have never met in person. There is a great sharing of ideas and love of great characters.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

It’s true, no Facebook, twitter, tiktok – it seems strange!

But I connected to fandom though the old Usenet message boards, you couldn’t wait until the episode was over until you could leap on and start discussing the episode. And it was painful if you were on the west coast as I was because you would get spoiled. In truth, it wasn’t must different than Twitter, just without the character limitation. But it was rather the wild, wild, west, no moderators and no terms of service. It could be a free-for-all, and some of the disagreements were legendary! For writing, certainly ATXC was the big dog for fic, and of course alt.tv.x-files for discussion. There were many different Yahoo Groups and AOL mailing lists, that catered to interests in fanfic (Friendship/Adult/Slash) or to the characters and/or actors.

But frankly, the main thing I remember was what a complete PITA it was to just get anything posted. There were all these size limitations and ASCII issues that don’t exist today, you had font and formatting limitations, which cause people to get weirdly creative with italics, bolding, quotes and so on. And you had to break your story up in weird way simply to jam it into the email because there were size limitations. And it never failed that no matter how many Beta Reads you had, you didn’t see that last damn typo until AFTER you hit the send button. There was no edit button, all you could do resend the whole damn thing. It was the fanfic version of the 20 mile walk to school through the snow……Kids today have it so easy!  LOL….

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

Actors are, and always will be, the face of the show. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are amazing actors, and the nuance they brought each week was a wonder.

But one of the things that the X-Files also did was make people aware of the people behind the scenes, the showrunners, the writers, the directors. This was also something new. For most TV dramas, most people couldn’t tell you who wrote an episode if you had a gun to their head.

But people knew the writers like Vince Gilligan, James Wong, Darin Morgan, and of course Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz. And they knew the directors, Rob, Chris and the late great, Kim Manners.. It was like a repertory company. You could count on Morgan & Wong for the creepy, you could count of Vince Gilligan for the humor and relationship stuff, you could count on Darin Morgan for the “what the hell was that, but I loved it.”

So I guess what I took away was a deep appreciation for the craft, for the work. This carried over to other fandoms. I’m more aware of the creative team beyond the actors.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

Believe it not, I didn’t watch at the beginning. I’ve always been a Sci-Fi fan but for some reason this wasn’t on my radar. I came in about the middle of Season 1. I was channel surfing and stopped the X-Files, it was the episode “Ice.”  I won’t lie, I stopped because I saw David Duchovny in a henley and I’m never one to pass by an attractive man. But as I watched, I became intrigued by these two characters, and their conflicted relationship with each other, even though I didn’t really know what was really going on. But I had to know more. That’s good writing, where you can walk in half-way through an episode and be captured.

I immediately checked out the old AOL Service forums and found a group. Of course, back then, there was no streaming, there was no BitTorrent. So, you just had to wait until when and if the network decided to show a repeat, which meant you were screwed if you were trying to catch up. But someone on one of the boards offered to send me VHS tapes of the episodes of missed. That’s fandom as its best - I’m excited about this and I want to share it with you. So in about a week I was caught up and hooked. I had to see how these two people’s story turned out.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I’ve always written as a hobby, taken many writing classes, have always written short stories, worked on a novel or two. I’ve got friends who are writers by profession. But the closest I ever came to doing it professionally was co-writing a play that ran for a month off Broadway many years ago, so I’m a dabbler, at best. I’m a big reader, and good stories always make me think, “well, what if this happened….”

So, X-Files wasn’t my first fanfic rodeo. I had been involved in Quantum Leap fandom and Beauty and the Beast, some Star Trek. Once I good hooked on the show, I immediately began searching out fanfic. But it took me a long time before I wrote anything. I’m not sure why, perhaps I was waiting to see where the story went. But X-Files was different in that it blended one of my favorite genres with a truly compelling relationship story. And I don’t just mean romance, it was a melding of two entirely different ways of looking at the world that was captivating. Scully was so strong and Mulder so complex, how could you not love them.

So, I enjoy writing, I learn from it. I learn from the feedback, both good and bad. I’ve never understood fanfic writers who say “just sent me nice feedback.”  No one loves criticism, and not all criticism is valid. But you learn from it. I’ve had people tell me they hadn’t looked at an episode from that point of view and they like it - and I’ve had people tell me that I didn’t know what I was doing, everyone knew that Scully would never cuss (to which I say, please, she grew up on military bases!)  But it helps you improve.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

It was a period of my life I cherish because I met some friends who are still my friends to this day, all these years later because we found other things in common besides a show. It was great to share ideas and debate storylines. And it was a fun, creative, and exciting time. Each episode was must-see and then talking to my friends about it later was the best part.

I started to drift away when David Duchovny left the show. I thought then, and still think, they should have called it a day because the beating heart of that show was Mulder and Scully together. You can’t rip out half the heart and expect the patient to live. On an intellectual level, I got why Duchovny left, I got why Anderson stayed and I got that Fox was a fledging network back then and XF was a cash cow. But on an emotional level, it all turned upside down, especially when the much-promised “search for Mulder” never really happened.

Fans got angry. They were angry at David for leaving, they were angry at Gillian for staying, and they were angry at poor Robert Patrick, perfectly decent person, for merely existing. It got ugly and I got up caught up in that. Frankly, I was as much to blame as anyone in carrying on stupid arguments about crap that didn’t matter. And one day I just realized I’d let all the joy be sucked away, and this just wasn’t who I wanted to be, or how I wanted to spend my time. So, I took a break, I still watched the show as it limped on, but I disconnected from the fandom part of it. And by the time I’d had my break, the show was done!

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I’m always a fan. There are many shows I’ve followed and liked, Supernatural, Fringe, Walking Dead, but I don’t get involved in the internet drama. So, I don’t get as invested.

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

I assume you mean besides Mulder and Scully!  In literature, My favorite writer is John Steinbeck and every character he created was indelible and singular. East of Eden is my favorite book and the characters of Adam & Caleb Trask, as well as Cathy Ames are so well drawn.  Of Mice and Men, Cannery Row, they’re all perfect.  Another favorite book and character is Alexandre’s Demas, The Count of Monte Cristo.  The arc that Edmond Dantès’ life take is quite Mulder-esque.  And of course, Harry Potter, I’m a sucker for a character fighting against overwhelming odds.

On TV, Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap.  That was an amazingly well-crafted series, also featuring a female show runner, Deborah Pratt.  I love the character of Raymond Reddington on The Blacklist, there is something about a completely unapologetic bad guy. I would have once said Dean and Sam Winchester, but sadly that turned into a case of staying too long at the fair and I stopped watching a couple seasons ago - But the early seasons rocked. Literally every single character in M*A*S*H was golden, and they knew when to call it quits. Thomas Magnum from the original Magnum PI. (People my age will still remember the “Did you see the Sun Rise, Ivan” episode!)

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

Oddly enough, a few weeks before you reached out to me, I watched the X-Files movie again. I remembered the incredible excitement when it came out. Fox did this tour across the county; it was like a mini-con. But I remember they had the trailer on a loop and my friends and I sat through it so many times we could recite the entire thing by heart. TV shows, such as Star Trek, had made the leap to movie, but I don’t believe a TV show had ever made the leap to films while the show was still on TV. But damn, it was good.

I watched the two recent XF mini-series. They did much to revive the old feeling, especially the episodes by Darin Morgan, who is a national treasure. And it was wonderful to see David, Gillian and Mitch. I’m sorry there won’t be more.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I haven’t in quite a while. Mostly because real life has interfered (work, personal stuff, Covid) over this last year and I have trouble concentrating. But I would certainly return to it, you need the escape of a good story.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

Oh yes! But they were all from the time I was writing. Lydia Bower, DashaK, BlueSwirl, XFBandit, Paula Graves, Taverl, Prufrock’s Love, and dozens of other are still on my PC.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

Like children, they each have their virtues but some may be harder to love than others. While I love a good smutty MSR, I was also a big fan of conflict resolution. So, I’m going to cheat and split the baby here. Based on feedback, I’d have to day my most popular story was Regular People and its sequel. And I really enjoyed writing that. It’s simple, it’s sweet, it’s what I hope for Mulder and Scully. The chance to just BE, if only for a while.

I wanted to try a slash story, so Wind River. That story was inspired by the murder of Matthew Shepard. I have dear friends in the gay community and I was so angry that this could happen in this country, so that one was about the need to treat people compassionately and who better to do that than Mulder and Scully.

But in truth, my own favorite is one that didn’t get much attention, called Rock Bottom. I wanted to explore that the fact Mulder and Scully, were, on occasion, just truly awful to each other and yet still reason to come back together.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

I have a couple unfinished stories. There’s one from Quantum Leap, I want to finish first and when that’s done, I would like to finish the two X-Files that are half-baked.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I do legal writing as a profession now, so I write all day long, but analyzing a case or a legal matter is not the same creatively and I do miss that, so I see returning someday, you need to feed your soul.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

Well that’s all over the place, much like my mind! Often I was inspired by something I thought was unaddressed in the episodes. That’s where the Just One series came from. Or it’s a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern kind of thing -- That is, what’s happening off screen while the main action is going on. I find that intriguing, and that’s where Risking Everything came from. The incident in By Coincidence actually happened to a friend of a friend and I thought it would make good fodder. Pentimento came to me following a lecture I attended at a gallery, what happens when you peel back the layers you thought were true. You never know what’s going to connect.

What's the story behind your pen name?

“Chimerical” means existing  as the product of unchecked imagination, given to unrealistic flights of fantasy- which seemed right for a fiction writer, especially for XF. In the early days, it became the phonetic “KiMeriKal” when I was on the old AOL service simply because Chimerical wasn’t available as a screen name! But I’m finally Chimerical1975@gmail.com!

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

Yes, my friends are aware, some of them have been my betas over the years. My brother knows I write, but I don’t think he’s ever read anything because he would find the smut elements uncomfortable coming from his little sister!

Is there a place online (Tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

The most recent versions of my stories are at AO3. If I ever get around to anything new it will be posted there as well.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

Thanks for reading, thanks for remembering me, and it was a great time in my life. Fandoms are great communities as long as we can always remember there’s a human being at the other end of the keyboard.  Be kind, be compassionate, and never stop imagining the possibilities.

(Posted by Lilydale on February 23, 2021)

[dotthings]

The original concept info coming out of Misha’s M&G is even worse than the disasterfinale we got on screen. Which I am now pushed into having to accept more than I did simply because the pre-covid version hurt even worse. 

Having Dean see Jimmy Novak in heaven and not Cas is outright cruel. To Dean, to Cas’s story -- so what was the original Cas plan, just leave him vanished? He becomes incorporeal? Dean would never have seen him again? At least in the disasterfinale we got we are left with implication that they can be together in heaven.

And doing the big all-family reunion in heaven scene at Harvelles Roadhouse yet they never approached Sam Ferris or Chad Lindberg. Harvelles without Harvelles, pre-covid or covid.

Enough’s enough. 

It’s not covid regulation adjustments that are to blame.

There may be corporate fuckery, I do strongly smell it on the air, but there were so many things in the disasterfinale that could have been fixed so easily without explicit reciprocated Destiel, without erasing Eileen, without cutting off Cas this severely.

Reading M&G reports I read about Misha saying that if Cas had been planned to be there of course he would have hugged Sam and Dean on the bridge, and Misha saying how sad he feels about not getting to be there last day with his friends. This show he and his character have been so crucial on for 12 seasons.  

I was already gutted and it just keeps getting more gutting. 

This on top of how I am still hurting at how Dean’s characterization was handled.

There were too many good things in S15 for me to just go oh wow it all sucks now. It doesn’t. My metas were right. Lots of people’s metas were right. 

Also the writing team deserved better. I don’t like Bucklemming scripts but everyone else turned out winning ep after winning ep for me and made this joy. They built the arcing. They wrote the lines, they told me a story week to week.

Something went horribly wrong at the end, in an episode they are not responsible for.

I’ve defended Dabb, and I can’t say for sure what happened, but there is only so much I can take. Dabb & Singer are the top showrunners. And when external factors interfere with a creative plan, it’s showrunners’ jobs to adapt and think around the problem and find a way to make it workable, and there are plenty of tv shows where this leads to some wonderful creative solutions that pushed the story higher. They didn’t manage to do this for the script as aired, and the original concept for it pre-covid hurts even worse. Could there be corporate fuckery? Sure. But corporate fuckery doesn’t explain all the issues any more than covid regulations do.

I was bullied for several seasons just for loving the story, just for not turning on Dabb, but unlike the kinds of people who act like that, I’m capable of admitting I was wrong, and I think I misjudged something here. I misjudged how Dabb sees the show overall and the characters. While the writing team are the ones far more in line with my sensibility. The day-to-day week-to-week scripting. 

There is a list of things Bobo especially advocated for that has been screwed over on: Wayward Sisters (confirmed as network and parent company at fault) Destiel Eileen Leahy Dean as a multifaceted character

The S15 story made sense until the very end. So I’m standing by the writers still and standing on my own metas but I’ve otherwise hit my limit. 

I hope something does emerge eventually to make sense of it and maybe I won’t always feel like this.

[archivingspn]

Entertainment Weekly Special Edition: The Ultimate Guide to Supernatural 2017

SAM AND DEAN WINCHESTER KNOW "WEIRD." Their entire life has been weird, ever since the moment a demon claimed their mother's life. In case anyone has forgotten over the course of the show's past 12 seasons, Supernatural tells the story of the Winchester brothers, portrayed by Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, who fell into the family business of hunting creatures after their mother's murder. What began as their father's journey for revenge has evolved into endless monster slayings, near-death experiences and more than a few actual deaths.

By this point the Winchesters have been to Hell and back, killed Death himself, come face-to-face with God and prevented the Apocalypse. But perhaps more impressively, the series has survived three network presidents, five showrunners, a writers' strike and five different time slots. Turns out the only thing harder to kill than the Winchesters is the series itself. "It's one of those shows that has moved a lot, and yet each time it has found that core audience and built on it," Warner Bros. Television president Peter Roth says. "It's been an unsung hero."

If anyone knows about being an unsung hero, it's Sam (Padalecki) and Dean (Ackles), who've dedicated their lives to saving others and asked for nothing in return. Seriously, how many nights have they spent sleeping in their car?And yet that on-the-road lifestyle has paved the way for a number of the show's riskier episodes, which play a crucial role in keeping the audience engaged. In 2015 "Baby" was told entirely from the perspective of their beloved 1967 Impala, and that's not even close to the craziest thing the show's tried.

Aside from the rules the show creates within its canon—yes, they have a historian in the writers' room to keep them honest—not even the sky is the limit when it comes to story ideas. “[Show creator] Eric [Kripke] used to say, 'Smoke 'em if you've got 'em,' which meant: Anything crazy, don't be afraid to run it by us," executive producer Robert Singer says.

That motto led most famously to season 6's "The French Mistake," in which Sam and Dean found themselves in an alternate universe where everyone mistook them for Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles, the stars of a show called Supernatural. "Our show's not bound by reality," Ackles, 39, says. "We're rooted in reality, but we're not bound by it. That gives us a fifth wall almost."

But Supernatural's season 12 finale managed to raise the stakes by somehow introducing the boys to something they'd never seen before: a world in which they don't exist and Heaven and Hell are locked in an eternal war. By episode's end, their allies Castiel (Misha Collins) and Crowley (Mark Sheppard) were dead, and their mother, Mary (Samantha Smith), who was resurrected-by God's sister!-in the season 11 finale, found herself trapped in this new reality with the Archangel Lucifer (Mark Pellegrino). If that doesn't seem bad enough, the birth of Lucifer's son is the very thing that opened the rift to this apocalyptic realm. "The world in which Sam and Dean were never born is not a good world," showrunner Andrew Dabb says. "It speaks to the importance of our guys. The world Sam and Dean live in is certainly not perfect, but it's a whole hell of a lot better than the alternative."

Dabb describes the new run of episodes as more melancholy than last year's, with new threats including some long-dead characters. And somehow Scooby-Doo has a role to play. (More on that later.)

"Last season was, in some ways, a very upbeat season for us," says Dabb, who goes on to explain that season 13 will be "darker." In their grief the boys will butt heads when it comes to both Lucifer's son Jack—Dean wants nothing to do with him; Sam thinks he's worth trying to save— and Mary, whom Sam refuses to give up on despite Dean's having lost hope that she's still alive. "The Apocalypse world hangs over our guys a little bit like a sword of Damocles," Dabb says of the season's beginning. "We're definitely going to spend a little time there."

And of course Sam and Dean have this new responsibility thrust upon them before they've had the chance to properly grieve their many losses, including Castiel, who Dabb says will appear, though maybe not the way fans are expecting. "We're not looking to hit the reset button," Dabb says. "We want to give both our guys an opportunity to react to that and ask the question: How would that affect them if their closest friend sacrifices himself for them? There is a certain amount, especially when you look at Dean, of survivor's guilt."

That being said, there will be at least one (animated!) moment of levity, though it's in the season's back half. Episode 16 will be a much-anticipated Scooby-Doo crossover, for which Ackles, Padalecki and Collins have already recorded the audio. "They've often talked about Supernatural crossing over into something." Ackles says. "I love that it's Scooby-Doo."

But even with exciting new ideas on the agenda, there's always the lingering question of how much longer the show can continue. According to CW president Mark Pedowitz, the answer is as long as the guys are happy and the ratings are relatively stable. As for Ackles and Padalecki, they are focusing on the next milestone: hitting 300 episodes (something that would take them 13 episodes into season 14). However, if Sam and Dean have taught the actors anything, it's that Death can be lurking around every corner (and he's usually eating pizza). "If we don't make it to 300, I think Ackles and I will both be truly bummed," Padalecki, 35, says.

Ackles adds, "They're paying us to bring that little bit of magic to what they wrote, and I still feel that magic. The day that I don't feel that magic will be a very sad day, and I hope that day never comes. I'd like to get to 300 before that day comes."

One thing everyone can agree on is that they want to know when the end is nigh. "I think it would be bad for this show to just ride off into the sunset without a finale," Singer says. "I think we've earned that." Ultimately the only thing that's certain about Supernatural's eventual end is the fate of Sam and Dean's Impala, Baby. "He gets Baby," Padalecki says of Ackles. "I get Baby Two." Ackles makes one correction: "No, you'll get Three. Two is a stunt car. It's beat to s---.”

But nobody gets Baby just yet. For now they'll need all the Impalas they can get as they try to solve the problems of not one world but two.

[pg 10-12]

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

Stars Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki and Misha Collins have rolled with rapid changes and some surprising detours during the series' remarkable run. BY SAMANTHA HIGHFILL

JARED PADALECKI CAN STILL REMEMBER THE exact pitch for Supernatural's first season: “Route 66 meets X-Files, brothers on the back roads of America hunting things that go bump in the night.” That was how he and costar Jensen Ackles were told to promote the show, which, in its first year, was just that-Sam and Dean Winchester chasing urban legends from state to state.

But over time that original pitch added a few sentences. Much like with any good road trip, there have been quite a few turns—and the occasional crossroads along the way. Although the show remains about two brothers on the back roads of America hunting things, those "things'' now include everything from vengeful spirits to imaginary friends and even Lucifer himself. After all, a show doesn't last 13 seasons without adjusting its game plan. For Supernatural that has meant an ever expanding mythology, some shocking deaths, resurrected characters, breaking the fourth wall and so much more.

Yet all the while, one thing has remained true: Sam and Dean Winchester will do whatever it takes to save the world and, even more so, to save each other. And they'll do it while navigating those seemingly endless back roads in their 1967 Impala.

Finding John Winchester (portrayed by Jeffrey Dean Morgan) was the boys' goal in season 1, though that ended up being about as difficult as getting John to stick around once he was finally discovered. The Winchester family reunion was short-lived: Season 1 closed with a car crash and the fates of all three men up in the air. And then there was that demonic deal John made with the same monster they had been hunting.

JENSEN ACKLES Everything up until that point was about finding Dad. We found Dad, we continued to fight as a unit, and then we lost Dad, and now we were two orphans.

JARED PADALECKI And I think that was the first time we ever brought back somebody from the dead, and it was you [to Ackles].

ACKLES I died in the car crash, and he traded his life with Azazel.

PADALECKI I think that was the first time we ever saw a major character die and come back. And that was a total leap of faith. So we told the story of Reapers and the veil and what happens to your soul.

ACKLES That's when we got into afterlife.

PADALECKI That was a big title shift in what Supernatural could do...

ACKLES With the introduction of Hell and making deals with demons—which is funny, because you think about that now, and [creator] Eric [Kripke] must've always known because Mom made the deal with the yellow-eyed demon.

The next shift would come later in season 2, laying the groundwork for the introduction of angels far before Castiel spread his wings in that abandoned barn in season 4.

PADALECKI "Houses of the Holy” was the first time we ever talked about angels on Supernatural. [Jensen] and I both were like, “Whatever your religious beliefs, whatever ours, we're not here to proselytize. We're here to make a serialized television show, but we want it to be universal.” So we actually had a conference call with Eric Kripke, and we were like, "Hey, man, we don't know how we feel about this.”

ACKLES We didn't want to be a mouthpiece for writers' religious views, because it wasn't the show that we had signed up for. Our argument was: “We trust you. You've done good by us so far. However, this is our one concern, and we're just bringing it to the table so that we can discuss it.”

PADALECKI And they heard us out, and I think that's why they waited another year and a half before introducing our second and most famous angel. I think it's the one time we've ever called them together with a complaint. Because I'm not a writer. I don't want to be a writer. I enjoy my job as an actor. But that was legitimately like, “Listen, if you're going here about religion, I don't want to be a part of it.”

MISHA COLLINS And now amazingly, 11 years later, so much of the show has been hung on biblical lore and mythology that is actually drawn from the Bible. One interesting thing for us is that we end up talking along the way to priests and pastors and ministers, or even nuns, who love the show.

(...)

ACKLES It was amazing, but my point being that we're in one of the most religious places on earth, and they're catering to people from a show that deals with religiously inspired story lines.

PADALECKI But not telling the story that the Bible tells.

ACKLES That's the out. That's where we get a pass is that we're not trying to tell the story of the Bible. The writers take inspiration from biblical elements and then elaborate on them. So when we got into that original discussion, Eric came back with: “We're not here to tell the story of Jesus Christ. We're here to take that element and use it as inspiration for the story.” I think that alleviated any concerns that he and I had. And at the same time we really trusted Eric and still do to this day.

Another leap of faith came with season 2's "Hollywood Babylon,” which can be considered the show's first meta episode. It opened the door for everything from season 6's “The French Mistake” to the upcoming season 13 Scooby-Doo crossover.

ACKLES “Babylon” was the first time we took the piss out of ourselves and were poking fun at the industry.

COLLINS That has been a huge [help to know] that you can go to these absurd lengths and break conventions. Reading the script where we are doing a Scooby-Doo episode makes me feel proud. Where else can you do that?

Padalecki What other show does that and has the fandom at large excited that they’re going to do that? Can you imagine if JAG or NCIS did a Scooby-Doo episode? People would be like, “What?” Not only do we break the fourth wall, do we go meta, but those end up being some of our best episodes.

The season 5 finale holds the No. 1 spot on EW's episode ranking, but that hour was important for many reasons, one of which being that it was creator Kripke’s farewell.

COLLINS “Swan Song" was another milestone because that marked the culmination of Eric's original vision for the show. He had a five-season arc in mind that tied up perfectly with a bow, and then he moved on and handed the reins over to Sera [Gamble]. That became, “Okay, guys, now let's figure out how to start a new chapter or a new volume in a series of chapters.”

PADALECKI It's the story that we were all born from, those of us who were introduced in the first five years. So to have the creator step away? I would argue that it was the largest shift.

Gamble served as showrunner for seasons 6 and 7, the latter containing another major show moment: the death of Bobby (Jim Beaver), Sam and Dean's father figure.

PADALECKI Bobby was such a big part. Jeffrey Dean [Morgan] was never as much a part of the show. He was obviously a huge part of the story, but he did [just a few] episodes, and Jim Beaver did 60 or something. And there was something about his death that we knew it was final...or final for Supernatural.

ACKLES Because his character said, “I'm done.” So it wasn't like he got killed accidentally and we found a way to bring Bobby back. He was like, “I'm hanging it up, guys." It was heavy.

PADALECKI That probably was the first big death of someone who'd been there for years...

ACKLES [Interrupting] A fan favorite...

PADALECKI Yeah, and I remember [CW president] Mark Pedowitz saying something to the effect of “As a fan, I hated when Bobby died, but it was great television.” That's how I feel. 

ACKLES Like when Sam Winchester dies for good, it's going to be good television. But when Dean Winchester lives on, it's going to be great television. [Everyone laughs]

The season 12 finale saw the introduction of an apocalyptic alternate world in which Sam and Dean Winchester were never born and Heaven and Hell are locked in an eternal war. And with that world comes the possibility for a number of character returns. But does it feel like a turning point? 

COLLINS Well, I think the rift and the fact that you can go into the apocalypse world and you can all of a sudden revisit every character in a different iteration—there could be a different version of every character—it opens up this incredible panoply.

(...)

PADALECKI And if an alternate universe exists, then how many alternate universes exist? It's hard to say, because I feel like it's impossible to identify a turning point during the turn. In hindsight it will reveal how this story will affect the show, the canon at large and the way we move forward. But I certainly feel like we're opening up doors with the rift and with the son of Lucifer.

(...)

[pg 20-26]

THE CORONER'S VAN JUST PULLED INTO THE driveway. It's the middle of August in 2016, and Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles are filming a scene for Supernatural's 12th season at a farmhouse in the Vancouver countryside, which is standing in for Iowa. Sam and Dean Winchester have ditched their flannels and jeans for sweaters and slacks in order to pose as social workers. They're doing what the two brothers do best: lying about their jobs in order to solve mysteries and kill monsters—in other words, saving people, hunting things.

When Supernatural premiered, Sam and Dean Winchester were born into the family business of hunting creatures, and it's a lifestyle that, over the years, has left them with very few people they love. Turns out, when you spend your days battling shape-shifters, witches and the occasional angel—they're not all nice, you know—nothing is guaranteed, especially not tomorrow.

But no matter how crazy the Winchesters' world gets—or how many worlds they have to face—one thing remains unchanged: At the center of it all are Ackles and Padalecki, whose Dean and Sam are the beating heart of the show (whether theirs are beating or not).

(...)

(...) even pulling up their favorite scenes on their phones to watch at the table. Padalecki can easily name the scripts that made him cry—“Heart,” “Sacrifice" and "Baby" all land on the list. The common thread is a heartfelt moment between the brothers where they get to talk about their crazy life as if, say, having visions of Lucifer is normal. “I feel like those situations where we treat the abstract and the fantastical as just part of life is where the show thrives,” Padalecki says. Ackles adds, “I think the show is truly at its best when it doesn't take itself too seriously, then it does take itself seriously, and it gets scary as s---,”.

But whether Supernatural is making fun of itself, scaring the living daylights out of its fans, or just letting the brothers have a moment on the hood of the Impala, it all works because of our central heroes. “It's about the Winchesters," says Crowley actor Mark Sheppard. “We really do care, and it's a testament to the boys that we still care."

(...)

As the sun sets on the Vancouver countryside, Sam and Dean ditch their slacks for jeans and send the coroner's van on its way. It won't be needed—this show, and the brotherly bond that holds it all together, has a lot of life left in it. Not that death has ever stopped it before.

[pg 32-34]

(...)

DEAN WINCHESTER Jensen Ackles

He was always the good son. Dean embraced the hunter's lifestyle, and he idolized his father despite John's many faults. But with the senior Winchester devoted to tracking down demons, it fell to Dean to help parent Sam, and he went to great lengths to protect his younger sibling-at one point even making a deal with a Crossroads demon (at the cost of his own life) to resurrect Sam from the dead. The two have had their differences, but throughout, Dean's brother was his first priority. "Watching out for you, it's kinda been my job, you know? But more than that, it's kinda who I am." Cynical and initially skeptical of the existence of God, Dean has nonetheless managed to become best buds with the angel Castiel (and on first name terms with both God and God's sister Amara). His self-sacrificing nature means he would do literally anything for those he considers family-and that's a short list: Sam, Mary and Castiel.

[pg 38]

Sympathy for the Devil

EVERY HERO NEEDS A HELL, BUT SUPERNATURAL HAS JUST TWO PROTAGONISTS AND HUNDREDS OF VILLAINS. HERE’S HOW THE SHOWRUNNERS APPROACHED SAM AND DEAN’S MANY FOES, FROM WELL-KNOWN URBAN LEGENDS TO SATAN HIMSELF. By Samantha Highfill

[pg 51]

Stairway to Heaven

SAM AND DEAN MET CASTIEL. AN ANGEL OF THE LORD, IN SEASON 4, AND IT CHANGED THE COURSE OF THE SHOW. BECAUSE ANGELS WEREN’T ALWAYS THE PLAN— AND CASTIEL WAS ONLY THE FIRST. By Samantha Highfill

(on page 57 there’s a small box of print on the corner that says: In what executive producer Robert Singer calls one of the series’ most “iconic images,” Castiel (Misha Collins) is introduced as the show’s first real angel.)

WHILE OTHER CHILDREN WERE LEARNING multiplication tables, Sam and Dean Winchester were hunting monsters. “When I told Dad I was scared of the thing in my closet, he gave me a .45!” says Sam to Dean in the Supernatural pilot, recalling an episode when he was 9 years old. Clearly creature encounters were par for the course in the Winchester way of life. And when you grow up battling all the evil in the world, it's hard to believe in the good. But in the show's season 4 premiere, Dean would come face-to-face with the one supernatural entity he didn't think existed: angels.

“[Show creator] Eric [Kripke] wasn't in love with the idea of doing angels,” executive producer Robert Singer says of the early days. “But as things went on and we were getting into demons, I would say to him, 'I don't know how we do demons without doing angels.’”

The show tested the waters in season 2's “Houses of the Holy,” when Sam and Dean worked a case that appeared to involve angels then went in a different direction. It wasn't until late in the next season that the seraphim were finally embraced. When Dean was dragged to Hell, they needed to get him out. And if there's a Hell, it stands to reason there has to be a Heaven. "[The season 3 finale] was the gateway into this whole other world of angels and demons," executive producer Andrew Dabb says.

When it came time to spring Dean from Hell, it was Castiel, the show's first angel, who gripped him tight and raised him from perdition. But Castiel quickly established that he wasn't a typical cherubic angel. Many of the show's angels were, as Sam and Dean would put it, real dicks. “We have our own brand of angels and the idea that they were these warriors of God,” Singer says. “We introduced Castiel, and we just went from there. Heaven opened up different levels of angels.”

The moment Castiel spread his wings, the show expanded its universe. Castiel came bearing news of something much bigger: the Apocalypse, the ultimate showdown between good and evil-or more specifically between Archangels Michael and Lucifer. “We started with archangels and the idea that Lucifer was an archangel and was cast out of Heaven,” Singer says. “We certainly took some license, but it was all biblically grounded. We just took those things and went a step further to make them work for our story.”

From there the show explored all kinds of angels, from Zachariah and Naomi to Gabriel and Metatron, and, of course, it eventually arrived at God-or Chuck, if you prefer. “We didn't really know that Chuck was God when we first started with him," Singer says of introducing the character in season 4. (He wouldn't be revealed as God until season 11.) “That evolved. We wanted a relatable God, a God with foibles.”

Nine seasons later, what started as one angel in a trench coat has evolved into Lucifer, God, Leviathan and even a sister for God. “We play a little fast and loose with religion, but no one has really complained about it,” Singer says with a laugh. “So we'll just keep going.”

[pg 56-58]

CASTIEL Misha Collins

What can you say about the only member of Team Free Will who wears an overcoat? Cas has become a true member of the Winchester family.

[pg 61]

[alcalavicci]

So there’s a really interesting interview with Deborah Pratt here. If you don’t want to pay for it, I’ll paste what I can below, but a few points first. 

Deborah says she doesn’t know where Dean is, and says she misses him. I guess she hasn’t had contact with him since he left for NZ? And with Russ Tamblyn saying Dean’s hanging in there in answer to a recent Twitter question, that brings up more questions about his condition.

Deborah claims she came up with the idea of Quantum Leap, which I’ve never seen come up before. Also Don wanted to send Sam home?? I feel like she’s misremembering a lot of details/making herself seem better than she is.

“Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished… He woke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time tht his next leap will be the leap home…”

The premise of Quantum Leap succinctly and empathetically explained by a voice that spoke to viewers week to week, setting the scene at the opening of the episode. It is a voice that left an indelible print on the show, from its inception to its finale. This is the voice of its Head Writer. No, not Donald P. Bellisario, but a woman of color who was leaps ahead of her time – co-executive producer and uncredited co-creator, Deborah M. Pratt.

Deborah wrote or co-wrote 40 episodes of this sci-fi gem and her authorship of the show runs deep through its five seasons. Aside from the opening narration, Deborah is audible as the voice of Admiral Al Calavicci’s pocket computer, Ziggy. She also guest stars in the episode ‘A Portrait for Troian’ (S2, Ep11) as a grieving widow who hears the voice of her husband calling her.

Deeper still, Quantum Leap was a family affair. It was co-created with her husband at the time, Bellisario, and their daughter, also named Troian, appears as a little girl in ‘Another Mother’ (S2, Ep13, who can not only see Al, but also sees Sam as he really is, rather than as her recently divorced mom.

Prior to helming Quantum Leap, Deborah rose through the ranks as an actress, racing the screen in Happy Days, CHiPS, The Dean Martin Show and many more, and was also a writer on shows such as Airwolf and Magnum P.I. She is a five-time Emmy nominee, Golden Globe nominee and winner of countless other awards. She went on to produce CBS comedy cop show, Tequila and Bonetti, and then to co-create and produce the TV series adaptation of Sandra Bullock tech thriller, The Net. But Quantum Leap was Deborah’s brainchild – one which is emblazoned on the hearts of its faithful fans.

Deborah has since moved into directing, including on hit show Grey’s Anatomy (2020), but was generous with her time when spoke in late 2020 to leap back into the past.

It does seem that you were really ahead of your time as a female head writer and a showrunner in the ’90s, especially in science fiction TV. Was it hard for you to progress and to get Quantum Leap made?

“Usually women were relegated to comedy, very rarely was it drama or heavy drama. It’s changed, finally, with people like Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Bridgerton, Scandal). But yes, I was a true pioneer, even though I don’t have a ‘created by’ credit, it was a ‘co-created by’ show – with Don. I brought him the original concept, and we were married, and he said ‘Let me just run with this. I can get it made.’ And to his credit, he understands how to tell a story to the audience. He simplified it in a way that you could welcome Quantum Leap into the world. But it was still a tough show to sell.

“I think we went back three times to pitch it to the network. It was complicated to explain. Brandon Tartikoff [the executive] said ‘It’s a great idea – It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen on TV. Let me think about it.’ Then he asked us to come back, ‘I want you to pitch it to me like I’m six years old, then pitch it to me like I’m 80 years old’ and finally he took it. Then even after the show first aired, they decided to introduce that opening where I tell the story. That was created to explain every week to a new viewer what was going on and it worked really well.”

On rewatch now, the best part of three decades later, the show feels groundbreaking in terms of the subjects you cover. Did you feel like you were pushing the envelope?

“I feel we got to do so much on that show. I remember when I did ‘Black on White on Fire’ [S3, Ep7], the networks in the South in the United States wouldn’t air it because it was a black/white relationship. Even though there is no scene where you see a black person and a white person being intimate.

You saw Sam, who was white, and the girl who was white, but because he was playing someone who was black, it was an issue. They wouldn’t air the show in the South. This was around 1992.

“It was challenging for sure. I think we pushed the limits.

“The beauty of the show too, was that it was about hope, which I see so little of on television today. Everything’s so dark, so mean, so vicious, bloody – how many people can you kill? How mean can you make your lead characters and antiheroes. I think it’s why I didn’t work as much afterwards. A) I was a woman, and B) a black woman. There weren’t any black female executive producers that I knew of in drama. I got to do <em>The Net</em> because it had a female lead, but that was almost ten years after <em>Quantum Leap</em> was created. Any show I brought in that had a black lead was never bought, or a female lead, was never bought. 

“I remember I wrote a big action piece – like an Indiana Jones, but female-driven, feature film – and pitched it and the studio executive said, ‘Yeah, yeah, but when did the guy come and rescue her?’ And I said, ‘She doesn’t – she rescues him.’ The look on his face. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.”

The show darted around TV schedules, but the fans remained with it, and still to this day hold it dear to their hearts. Was that palpable at the time, or has that grown since?

“I think near the end of the first season, Harriet Margulies [Production Assistant on the show] found a chat room after an episode where people from across the country talked about it and it became the ‘watercooler.’ We were the first television show that had a chat room as a watercooler. Before that, it was literally you going into your office and standing around the watercooler and talking about movies or TV shows you were watching. Suddenly, it was online. So we started to go into the chat room and talk to people about what they liked and what they didn’t. Not necessarily telling them who we were, but that fan base is what kept us on the air because the network didn’t know what to do with us. There was no show like it, so they couldn’t like pair us with anybody.

“In the five years we were on, I think they moved the show six times and the fans still found it, they followed it, they watched it. That’s how we knew we had something unique and special. To this day, I’ll go into a meeting with a young executive who’ll go, ‘I have to tell you, I loved Quantum Leap. I used to watch it with my mom and dad’.”

Scott Bakula was such a great hero and heartthrob as Dr. Sam. What was he like to work with?

“He was so approachable, you know, in the sense that he had this great, easy acting style. He took chances and he was likeable – in a way that he could be a man’s man and a woman’s man at the same time. He’s really a brilliant actor. I am saddened by the fact that he has not had the opportunity to do movies in the way that could really have lifted his career. He’s had an incredibly successful television career. He’s a good actor. He’s a kind man. I’ve always admired him and felt like when we were working together, I had a friend that I loved to write for because he was always so giving and willing and wanting to take chances as an actor. So it was fun to go down to the trailer and say, ‘Guess what? You’re going to be pregnant this week’.

He does everything in the show from sing and dance to baseball, football, hopping over car bonnets to fights and martial arts. Did you know he had such a wide skill set from the outset, or did you write the challenges for him to rise to?

“I think we had conversations with him about that. I also knew that he had been on Broadway doing musicals. I knew he could sing and dance. When I wrote ‘Sea Bride’ [S2, Ep20], I wrote a tango number – that was unique for him. When Don knew that he could play the guitar… We asked Scott, ‘What do you want to do?’ And he said he wanted to do a musical and I think that’s how the ‘Catch a Falling Star’ episode [S2, Ep10] came about, which involves a performance of ‘Man of LaMancha’.”

Admiral Al Calavicci – he’s so much more than wisecracking and surface jokes or flirtation. There’s so much depth to his character. Was that fleshed out early on with an end to end journey for him in mind, or did his character evolve through the seasons?

“It was a little bit of both. Dean Stockwell had been on Broadway at five-years-old and had been a major child movie star. I remember when we wrote the show where Sam had the chance to save Al – ‘The Leap B4, Ep1] – he was so good in that. I’ll never forget how beautiful that was. And then in the very, very end, I love the fact that Sam did change history and Al ended up wih his beautiful wife with five kids.

“I remember once asking Dean, ‘Do you want us to write more drama for you? Big dramatic moments?’ And he said, ‘I want you to look at me right now. I want you to tell me what you see.’ And I said, ‘Well, your performance, the pain, fear and loss and all that, because you’re such an incredible actor.’ And he said ‘For me to perform that, I have to be it and live it. So don’t do too many.’ 

“He had that depth of acting talent. He is so good – Dean,  wherever you are, I love you. I miss you.”

The episodes that follow later in the seasons involving celebrities – Sam as Elvis, Dr. Ruth, or Lee Harvey Oswald, was that kind of a direction that you always foresaw? It feels like a sea change as the show progressed.

“The stories were designed, for the most part, to be so, so simple in that they were everyday stories. They weren’t change-the-world stories. I think the biggest one was Lee Harvey Oswald, and maybe the one involving Marilyn Monroe – those were with people that could have had a ripple effect.

“But there were other little kisses with history in the show, but they were very hard to do. They ran into a child version of Donald Trump in a taxi cab, [‘It’s A Wonderful Leap’ – S4, Ep18], then they ran into a little boy who is supposed to be Michael Jackson – Sam teaches him to moonwalk [‘Camikazi Kid’ – S1, Ep8]. The first time I did a kiss with history was ‘Star-Crossed’ [S1, Ep3] – Sam meets up with the woman that left him at the altar and they’re at the Watergate Hotel. That was fun stuff.”

Sam managed to awkwardly kiss lots of ladies in that sense of ‘Oh God, they’re going to kiss me and I’ve got to be this person, what am I supposed to do.’

“We never, ever really discussed what happened to Sam. We didn’t want him to be encumbered by a relationship. But I didn’t get to kiss him. My husband wouldn’t leave the set on the episode I was in!”

Your move into directing – from your TV drama Cora Unashamed back in 2000, to Grey’s Anatomy just last year. Is that something you wanted to do sooner? Were there barriers prohibiting you?

“I was supposed to direct on Quantum Leap four times. Every time it was coming up, something would happen. The only women who directed on the show were two black women – Debi Allen [Fame, Everybody Hate Chris, Jane the Virgin] and the other was a woman named Anita Addison. They each did two shows.

I said, ‘If I’m not doing this, I want black women.’ There were no other black women. And it was a fight. I tried to get black women directors on the show, but I could never get them past.

Then when I went to do The Net, the studio blocked it. I give huge amounts of credit for executive producing to Shonda Rhimes and what she has been able to do. She did what I thought I was going to be able to do. She’s so talented and I’m such a fan of her and her shows. I’m looking forward to what she’s going to do on Netflix. And it was an honour to do Grey’s Anatomy because I’m a fan of the show and I’m really grateful to have that opportunity.”

Has there been progress in terms of female directors and filmmakers being given opportunities?

“It’s very hard for women because there aren’t a lot of women executives at the studios. There are more now. And so there is an evolution that’s happening, but it still feels slow. There were shows run by people I gave opportunities to back in the day, but when I said, “hey, I want to direct on your show,” the response was, “oh, there’s too much machismo. There’s too many male hormones around here. They’ll eat you alive.” And I went, “no, they won’t, you’ll protect me. How about if I do my job?” And that was only last year. But there are more opportunities. There are more women making decisions, but we have to do more because women’s stories and women’s voices are more than half the population – we need to hear those stories. The historic ones as well as the contemporary ones.”

Is there a leap that was your favourite overall? That you feel made you made your mark with?

“’The Color of Truth’ [S1, Ep7] touched so many people and it opened a dialogue. I remember we got a letter from a teacher who said she brought the VHS in and she played it to her class, up until Jesse [Sam as an ageing black chauffeur in ’50s Deep South] goes and sits down at the counter in the restaurant. Then she stopped it and asked the students what they thought happened next. They thought that he just ordered lunch. And then she played the rest and that hostility and the animosity he endures and the fact that he had to get up and leave really incensed these children. They had never heard of or experienced racism. They didn’t want to believe that it really happened. This is how history gets buried and why television is so powerful and important. It opened a conversation that she could not have necessarily had in her classroom, according to her, had she not brought that show in to share with her students.

“We had another letter that was very moving, and I want to say it might’ve been ‘The Leap Home’ [S2, Ep1-2]. There was a couple who wrote and said they had a child that was on a cancer ward and every Thursday the whole ward would watch Quantum Leap. Their child was dying and they had kind of given up and it was just time to help that child transition out of this world. They watched the show and she said, ‘We realized we gave up hope. When we watched the show, we realized we didn’t have to give up hope and we wanted to write to you. It’s now six months later and the crisis has passed. The cancer is in remission. Our child is up and going back to school. And we just want to thank you for reminding us that hope has its own power’.”

Its power and poignancy has never diminished. Though the final episode, ‘Mirror Image’ (S5, Ep22), with the caption saying Sam doesn’t get to go home, does leave a sucker punch.

“That was our last fight. Don was going to send him home. And I said, ‘You can’t, you can’t send him home. If you ever, ever, which we’ve not ever been able to get Universal to let us do it, want to do a movie… If you want to keep the story going, you have to leave Sam out there in the hearts of people, leaving people thinking he could leap into their lives’. And at first Don said, ‘No, no, we need to bring him home’. And I said, ‘Do not bring him home. Or you will end the show. If you leave the hope out there, that Sam is out there and he could leap into your life and make a difference’. You keep the show alive in the hearts and the minds of the fans. And I think I was right.”

The ending was poetic for me as a viewer, but your point about Sam still being out there – Is there a leap back to the future for Quantum Leap?

“I started writing a project called <em>Time Child</em> about Sammy Jo Fuller. I actually wrote a trilogy in Season 5 where Sam leapt back three times into the same family and the second time he leapt he ended up in bed with this character and conceived a child. Then the third time he leapt in, he met her at 10 years old – a girl named Sammy Jo Fuller. So in my vision, Sammy Jo Fuller grows up. I actually have Al say, ‘Sammy is in the future with me. We’re trying to bring you home.’ That was my set-up way back in 1993, in Season 5, to say someday, Sammy Jo being his daughter might take over…. 

“This was the ’90s. Women heroes didn’t exist really – other than comic books – Wonder Woman was there, Super Girl was there. But I set it up in the show that Sammy Jo was going to bring him home. Sadly, I have not been able to get Don and the studio to give me the green light for Time Child. It might happen someday.”

Right now, it feels like we need more shows that offer hope. Is there a place for a reboot on streaming platforms?

“Universal keep saying they want to bring it back. They’re not going to give it up to Netflix because they have [US streaming service] Peacock now and still have NBC. I personally think it should be on a full blown network. The hard part would be that it would have to be recast if there was a female version using my character Sammy Jo Fuller. Or if they just redid the show, it would be interesting in the sense that there was such an innocence about the show. I still believe that there is an audience out there that wants it, that longs for looking at the past through the eyes of somebody in the present. But who would that person be if you did the show now, what are those eyes like? 

“We’re living in the time of COVID and suddenly you go back in time. How do you warn people that this is going to happen? How do you warn people about 9/11? How do you warn people about things in the future?

“I mean, one of the beauties of that innocence too, and I thought that was a great gift from Don to the concept, was that Sam’s memory as Swiss cheese – he didn’t remember things and that made it a lot easier, and Al was not allowed to tell him what was happening in the present. There’s a lot of detail woven into the mythology that allowed it to be innocent and in the moment of time travel. You didn’t have to drag the future back with you.”

Do you have an actress in mind to play Sammy Jo in a reboot?

“Oh my gosh, Jennifer Garner. I always felt she would be a great female Sam. She’s an ‘every woman.’ She’s funny. She does great drama. When I think of a female Sam or even Sammy Jo, I think Jennifer – in a heartbeat. She’s so great in Alias. That show just never stopped. You couldn’t take a breath. If I had to go younger, somebody that would have that kind of believable humour that you think could actually rescue you – maybe Jennifer Lawrence. She’s pretty formidable in that sense.”

“To bring Quantum Leap back. If they’re thinking about it, now’s the time to happen. Tell people to write to Universal! Write for the attention of Pearlena Igbokwe – if anyone can bring it back, she can do it. Write! Write to Pearlena – she’s the one that’ll make it happen. That’s how we stayed on the air for five and a half years. Fans unite and write!”

[wearevillaneve]

Some people think s4 will be the last season of KE and I don’t think so. The creator of my other favorite show, when his show was renewed for a sixth season, he decided to end the show & sent an announcement via social media saying that the show was renewed for a sixth & final season. KE would have already announced s4 being the last season when they announced its renewal. I think s5 will be the last season. I want sandra to work on a project where her character is respected & properly developed

There’s two points here and I’ll get to your first one first.  Nothing has been publicly stated by the stars or producers whether or not the next season of Killing Eve will be the last one.  There are and were reasons to think it might. In the U.S. the third season debuted to solid, if not spectacular ratings.   There’s no danger to the show being canceled by BBC America and AMC as it is both a critical darling (though not so much in S3), and has taken up residence as an award magnet for the BAFTA’s, Emmys, Golden Globes among others.   Don’t believe for a minute that these networks don’t enjoy showing off trophies in their offices.  What hasn’t received much attention from the KE fandom is the departure of Sarah Barnett as president of the AMC Networks.  Barnett, a British expatriate, has been with AMC since 2008 and was a champion of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s gender bending subversive little take on the tired spy vs. assassin trope.   With filming for Season 4 indefinitely delayed due to the global pandemic and Barnett gone, will the new president of AMC be the same champion for Killing Eve that Barnett was?   We don’t know what goes on behind the curtain at AMC, but the longer the shooting schedule is up in the air, the greater the pressure is going to be to fill that 9:00 pm time slot with something.  Killing Eve’s European locations makes it more authentic, but also more expensive than Unnamed Show X that shoots in the U.S. or Canada and all the talent in front and behind the camera is homegrown.  

(Sarah Barnett and Sandra Oh in 2018/ photo credit:  Getty Images for BAFTA LA )

Do not think for one second there are not other producers of other shows waiting for Killing Eve to delay its 2021 return  so they can grab that sweet prime time spot.  Should Unnamed Show X be a ratings and critical juggernaut KE was in 2018, do not be shocked if when Season 4 does finally drop, it ends up in a different time slot, or worse, an entirely different day than it’s previously occupied.   Most KE fans wouldn’t know Barnett if they bumped into her on the street, but being where she was and doing the job she did meant a lot when it came to getting behind a TV show shot in Europe produced by a showrunner who never had done the job before and starring an Asian lead who had never held that spot previously and and a talented young Scouser who had established herself in England, but was a total unknown in Hollywood.

Barnett might never have been the most powerful television executive in Hollywood, but that was never her game. Her programming philosophy was always about risk, discovery, and resisting the obvious. It’s the kind of philosophy that flourished during the Golden Age of TV, and it’s now out of fashion. Scale is everything, data is king, and the streaming wars must be fought at all costs. Where Barnett goes next is a mystery, but her tenure at AMC will fondly be remembered as we reminisce a now bygone era of television.

There’s always competition for a prime-time slot, so you might have to ask yourself it you would be in your feelings should  Killing Eve 2021 aired at 9:00 pm on Wednesday and not Sunday?    It never hurts to have a powerful ally in the suites, and KE has lost one.   I tend to agree with you that it will get a fifth (and hopefully final) season.   To repeat myself, I hold firm to my belief  most TV shows hit their peak at five seasons.   After that, contracts expire, actors move on, and the churn of talent exiting behind the scenes begins to show up on-screen. 

Let’s look at this way:  do you really want to watch Killing Eve when it reaches’ 22nd seasons like Law and Order: SUV?

To your second point, I too want to see Sandra Oh move on to other projects beyond playing a bisexual mouse chasing a bisexual cat.  Not that she’s bad at it, but Oh’s talents were squandered in S3.   Killing Eve would be better cutting the cord than seeing its lead actress treated as an accessory to the co-lead a second time. 

The pandemic has reset the clock for nearly every form of entertainment and with it the best laid plans of Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh’s agents.  Clearly, Comer is aching to respond to Hollywood’s calls.   She won’t continue to blow off opportunities like Death On the Nile and a chance to raise her profile to an international audience for eight episodes of a TV show that eats up months of her time.    She’s going to have to eventually choose her exit strategy should KE go beyond a fourth season.

She hasn’t asked for my advice and she’s got well-compensated pros she can do it far better, but should J.C. drop me an anonymous question, my answer would hinge upon when her KE contract expires.  If it ends after Season 4, then demand a hefty pay raise (especially should she score a second Emmy) and then head for the exit  as soon as Season 5 wraps.  

This is business. Not personal, and there’s zero chance Comer is at all interested in playing Villanelle for a decade.   Her future is too bright to be limited to simply playing a fashionable assassin for too long. 

Oh’s career opportunities diverge from Comer’s and there aren’t a lot of feature films in the future for a 49-year-old Korean Canadian actress.   I know it, you know it and you best believe she knows it better than we do.

Beyond The Chair, her Netflix comedy produced by Amanda Peet, there’s nothing else upcoming on her schedule besides voice overs in two animated projects.   Despite her equivalent skills, due to her ethnicity and age, Oh will never receive the same opportunities as Comer.   That’s not a complaint.  This is an indisputable truth.  

Oh will never stop working in TV and films as long as she is willing to take parts as the best buddy to the White lead, as Season 3 of KE reduced her to, but she isn’t going to pivot toward directing or writing.   Sandra Oh is an actress.   It’s really that simple and she is respected as a damn good one as her 12th Emmy award nomination and third consecutive for perfectly playing the hot-ass mess than is Eve Polastri.

I share with you the hope that Oh will find roles in a post-Killing Eve world that honors and validates her incredible acting chops.    “Hope” is a vague word and more than likely Oh will find her career arc is similar to than of one of her contemporaries and one of my queens, Viola Davis when she said, “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is an opportunity.”

Oh and Comer have vastly different opportunities.  

The post-Killing Eve path for Comer is far clearly defined and brightly lit because the world reacts in radically different ways to a 27-year-old White woman than a 49-year-old Asian woman, and anyone who wants to claim otherwise can kindly fuck all the way off because you don’t know what you’re talking about and I got nothing for you but scorn and contempt. 

The pie is not cut in equal slices for Actresses of Color.  Never has been, and there’s little reason to believe that will change in any of ours lifetime. Women of Color in the entertainment industry are still fighting battles thought long won decades ago.  

Yet here we are.  Knowing the playing field ain’t close to being level and not particularly giving a shit as long as our needs are being met. 

Sorry for going so long, Anonymous.   You caught me stuck in a moment I wasn’t quite ready to get out of.   U2 fans will get the reference and everybody else will have to use their Google-Fu.     

[fandomshatelgbtqpeople]

Legend of Korra is going up on Netflix in four days now. I’ve seen a lot of misconceptions about the show floating around, and since I was in the fandom back in 2014, I thought I would clear them up.

1. The last few episodes of Legend of Korra were streaming only because execs didn’t want the Korrasami endgame to air on Nickelodeon

Legend of Korra became online-only starting five episodes from the end of Book 3, more than a full season before the show ended. In his post-finale statement, Bryan Konietzko suggests that they didn’t seek approval from Nickelodeon to make Korrasami canon until they were almost finished writing the finale. I haven’t been able to track down a timeline for what episodes would have been airing at the time and Books 3 and 4 aired almost back to back, so it’s possible that the decision to take LoK off the air was made after they’d already had that conversation. That said, the last five episodes of Book 3 are easily the most brutal in the entire series, including several on screen deaths and a pretty rough sequence involving a character being poisoned, so I think it’s more likely that the show was taken off the air because of that. Bryan Konietzko also described Nickelodeon’s reaction as “supportive” but with limitations, which doesn’t really jive with the idea of taking the show off the air as a punishment, although it’s possible he sugar-coated things because they still have a working relationship. 

2. The showrunners were pressured into doing Korrasami by the fandom

Bryan Konietzko says in his statement that the writers had discussed Korrasami as a romantic pairing as early as during production for Book 1 but assumed they’d never be allowed to do it. Janet Varney (Korra) and Seychelle Gabriel (Asami) also discussed this on Janet Varney’s podcast in 2015. They speculated that fan interpretation of the relationship may have been what caused the showrunners to see the potential there, but said unequivocally that no one working on the show ever felt pressured to do Korrasami. This is a myth that was started by the more unreasonable members of the Makorra fandom in the aftermath of the finale because they were upset that they’d “lost” what was a pretty brutal ship war and were looking to invalidate the relationship in any way they could. 

3. The fandom was shocked when Korrasami happened because it didn’t have any build-up

This is another one that started with the worst parts of the Makorra fandom in an attempt to prove that Korrasami wasn’t the endgame the showrunners really wanted to do. The fact is that while the ship tease is mostly subtextual, the Korrasami fandom saw a huge increase in size over the course of Book 3 because LoK fans were noticing it, and most of the Korrasami fandom had started to suspect that the writers were intentionally taking the relationship in a romantic direction by the end of Book 3. We were surprised that it happened, but only because LoK was a kids’ show, and no major character on a kids’ show had ever been shown in a same-gender relationship before. The general consensus was that there was intentional romantic subtext between Korra and Asami that was unlikely to become text because Nickelodeon would never allow it. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to see this myth being repeated by queer fans who are apparently unaware of its homophobic (Yes.) origin.

4. The Korrasami endgame is so subtle that no one would have known it was canon if it hadn’t been confirmed by the showrunners

Lo and behold, another myth that started in the Makorra fandom as an attempt to prove that Korrasami was forced and shouldn’t have happened. I don’t know what to tell you other than that there were three days between when the finale dropped and when Korra and Asami’s relationship was confirmed by the showrunners and we all knew it was canon during that time. The only people who were denying it were, again, the worst parts of the Makorra fandom. Here are some articles and reviews that talk about Korrasami becoming canon that predate the confirmation by the showrunners (one is linked above, the other is here). Going back to the previous point, several of those articles also discuss how fans had long suspected they were hinting at a romantic relationship.

5. The showrunners shoehorned Korrasami in at the last minute to get “representation points” 

I’ve already addressed the myth that Korrasami wasn’t the intended endgame until the last minute, so I’ll move on to the myth that it was done for “representation points.” Neither of the showrunners ever capitalized on Korrasami. I know we’re all primed to expect this now because of the shit Dreamworks and Disney have been pulling for the past couple of years, but the Korrasami endgame was not publicized at all prior to the finale. Nickelodeon never did press around it, and the showrunners didn’t really participate in the publicity it got after it aired. If you look at articles about the Korrasami endgame that were published in 2014, none of them even have quotes from the showrunners other than the ones taken from their confirmation statements. Bryan Konietzko admitted in his statement that, due to corporate censoring, he thought the final product fell short of a “slam dunk” for queer representation and apologized for not having queer representation in the Avatar universe sooner. Those are not the words of someone who’s patting themselves on the back. Additionally, the Legend of Korra comics and Kyoshi novels, which the showrunners are directly involved in (the comics are written by Michael Dante DiMartino himself) and which don’t receive much if any oversight from Nickelodeon, are both unflinching in their depictions of same-gender relationships, which speaks to the idea that having that representation in the Avatar universe is something the showrunners deeply care about.

6. Korrasami was queerbaiting

This myth actually just comes from as misconception about what queerbaiting is. Queerbaiting is a phenomena in which creators of a piece of media intentionally lead queer fans to believe they can expect queer representation that the creators have no intention of ever delivering, just to get them to consume the media. Not being able to make a relationship as overt as you want to because of network censors is not queerbaiting, nor is intentionally queercoding a character in order to try to get around censorship (this was once the only way we ever got representation, and accusing older shows of queerbaiting because they were doing their best within the rules they were given is a bad look). By definition, The Legend of Korra cannot queerbait because the characters are canonically bisexual. Even if the network had put the kibosh on the Korrasami ending altogether, Legend of Korra couldn’t have queerbaited because Korra and Asami were genuinely intended to be queer. 

Thanks for reading. I hope you all learned something that will make you less likely to buy into myths that started during a ship war with origins that were more than a little homophobic. I can’t tell you how trying it is to see this stuff get spread around in queer fandom as a queer fan who (1) knows where it came from and (2) knows that it’s factually wrong.

mod k

[lesbianrabbithole]

Regarding TBT i would really love to know the thought process or lack there of in the writers room for Kats story line these past couple of seasons. Kat and Adeans relationship was one i’ve never seen. Adena’s character alone had the potential to be a beckon of hope and change in tv and films. kadena had the potential to display a love never seen for people to finally be able to see themselves represented. Tbt writers failed their POC viewers. i wish the cast the best but lost me as a viewer S2

I would love to know it too. I would love to know a lot of behind the scenes things that marked The Bold Type’s decisions after Season 1.  I think it’s a combination of factors. I have no proof, but I really think part of the shift was network mandated. They wanted a more white, straight, female audience, and they wanted the show to focus more on the straight ships. It worked, I think nowadays most of TBT audience is straight women. 

It’s possible that was the showrunners doing, and I’m sure they do have a lot to do with certain decisions. But I feel like there also has to be something bigger at play. Unfortunately, we know that even today showrunners that want to do diverse representation really have to fight for it. She-Ra is an example.

For those not familiar, Noelle, the showrunner, knew from the start she wanted Catra and Adora to be in love, but she didn’t know if the network would allow it and tried to be subtle about it on the first couple seasons, hoping she could get her vision at the end. 

She also said recently that she wanted Adora to be a WOC, and she wasn’t allowed to do it. So there is always a lot of things behind the scenes that can limit a showrunner's and writers vision, but at the same time how willing were they to fight for Kat and Adena is also definitely a factor.

I think Sarah was willing to, but after she left, I don’t think anyone there cared that much about Adena in particular. It was more something they were stuck with and had to do because Nikohl had a contract, and fans were passionate, but it never seemed like she was a priority or a character they were interested in exploring. 

When it comes to Kat, I think it goes deeper. Because Kat is one of their 3 main characters. I’m sure they love her and think they are doing her storyline justice. That’s the saddest part. That they probably don’t realize how there is a clear difference in the treatment of Jane’s and Sutton’s Storylines get compared to Kat’s.

Even after they were called out and tried to do better about the representation of Kat as a Black woman in season 2, it was not a matter of fixing 1 or 2 points or have her talk about it once or twice. It goes deeper than that. And it’s hard work. 

For 3 seasons now it just looks like they have no idea what to do with their Black Female protagonist. They claim she has been trying to find herself. But Sutton and Jane are allowed to mess up and find themselves while still growing and advancing.

They have spent 4 seasons growing Suttard. Spent 3 seasons with Pinstripe, even when he wasn’t with Jane, even after he cheated. They spent 10 episodes breaking them up. We got an off-screen break up after a mess of a season. The differences are glaring. 

And sadly I just think it is because their worldview and lived experiences are different and while lead to having different priorities. Even if they genuinely are trying to care and do better, their own view of what is a story worth exploring is marked by their lives and bias. Even if they don’t realize it. 

I don’t know. I don’t even know if I have a point with this rant. But yeah it’s sad. And a lot of us kept hoping and giving them chances, but we can’t anymore. I believe their intentions may be good, but they are just not enough.  

[calzona-ga]

Showrunner Krista Vernoff talks with The Hollywood Reporter about wrapping Alex's storyline, being the first show to shut down production and the episode that serves as its season ender.

[This story contains spoilers from episode 1621, "Put on a Happy Face."]

ABC's Grey's Anatomy concluded its 16th season Thursday with an episode that wasn't designed to be a finale but, as showrunner Krista Vernoff admits, was lucky to have doubled as one.

The Shondaland medical drama had four episodes left to produce before Vernoff made the call to shut down — the first series to do so amid the coronavirus crisis — in a move she says was designed with the crew's health in mind. The series was also the first to publicly confirm that those four episodes would never be produced as Vernoff and her team will use their extended hiatus as a way to incorporate those events into the drama's previously announced 17th season.

As for the episode, here's what happened: Richard (Jim Pickens) is cured, but rejects his estranged wife, Catherine (Debbie Allen). Owen (Kevin McKidd) and Teddy (Kim Raver) are … on pause. Amelia (Caterina Scorsone) and Link (Chris Carmack) have their son. DeLuca (Giacomo Gianniotti) saves the day with Richard but has a breakdown. Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) now finds herself in a love triangle (again).

Below, Vernoff talks with The Hollywood Reporter about making the call to shut down, how she's approaching season 17 and, yes, how she and the Grey's writers wrote out Justin Chambers' Alex.

First, how are you doing with the state of the TV industry right now? I'm worried about everybody in the world, including our industry. I'm really lucky to have continued work. I have a writers room for [ABC pilot] Rebel and I'm doing post on Station 19. I have some semblance of normalcy and I'm hopeful that there will be some return to normalcy in the not too distant future.

Grey's was the first show to shut down production. What went into that decision and was what has ensued since what you were expecting at the time? What went into that decision for me and why I pushed for that shutdown is we have been on the air for so long that so many of our crew members were in that high-risk category. Many of them are over 60 or even 70. There was a day when someone was saying, "Maybe you should go to set and give a pep talk," and I had a feeling of like, "No, I don't want to go to set." I called the network and said if I don't want to go to that set space, you can't keep asking the crew — who are all high-risk — to go. Like anyone else, did I expect the whole world to shut down? No. This is all so unprecedented in our world. I didn't expect this. I just knew in that moment that what I was reading that was happening in Italy meant we were in danger here and I wanted to protect our crew.

You lost four episodes from this season. What was the cast's response to that? What are you considering doing with the remaining four unproduced episodes? Rolling them to next season? Or waiting to see what happens with the world before you plot out what comes next? We're waiting to see what happens with the world. I will start a season 17 writers room in May, and, at that point, I imagine our conversation will be about starting our story from where we left off in season 16. But I don't think we can take unproduced scripts that we didn't shoot and shoot them. We're going to have had a break and have new ideas. We've been texting each other ideas already. Some of those things that we had decided, we're changing because we'll have had a break and have come up with better ideas. And some of it is going to have to change because you're taking what was going to be a regular episode and have to turn it into a season premiere and that will require some reimagining.

As a medical drama, and one with a global audience — you air in something like 250 markets across the globe — have you talked about if you're going to incorporate coronavirus into your storyline? I haven't talked to anyone about anything yet because we're not in the room right now. We're on what would have been our hiatus. But once the writers room gathers in early May, we'll begin to have those conversations. I've been thinking, are we incorporating coronavirus into the storytelling and also does that dictate what kind of stories we can tell? Are we, for example, limiting the number of people in a room? If we're doing a story where 60 people were sitting in a theater, are we no longer doing that story? Those are the things I'm thinking about because I don't think this is going to be totally over when we come back to shoot in July. I don't know.

Have you thought about what it would take for you guys to feel safe enough — given the crew you have — to go back into production? The Writers Guild is thinking about all of those things. There are conversations about, will testing be more widely available by that point? Are you testing people when they go to work? Are you taking temperatures of people before they go to work? I'm addicted to silver linings and an idealist and fantasy thinker because I am a writer, so I keep thinking maybe some miraculous vaccine or cure or somebody will figure out a medicine we use for this can be effective. I'm trying not to think about it too much because no one knows anything and next week everything could change.

This episode was fortunate to work as a season finale. Can you say anything about what would have happened in those four episodes? Or are those ideas that you're holding on to for now? I'm going to holdon to them for now because I imagine we'll play out a fair amount of them in season 17. It's not lucky that there's a pandemic and we had to stop our storytelling four episodes short, but it's lucky that where we had to stop wound up as a pretty perfect season finale.

One thing watching this episode that I'm very eager to know: What do Amelia and Link name their son? Grey's does have a way of honoring the past when it comes to baby names … The name the baby storyline was in episode 22 [which won't be produced]. I suspect it will play in the [season 17] premiere.

Any clues if the name has any special significance? Derek, maybe… I will tell you that the name is not Derek (laughing). I'll give you that the line in 1622 about Derek was that Link pitched it and Amelia said, "I don't want to cry every time I look at my baby, so no." But the name is meaningful, yes.

Owen tells his mother that he's postponing the wedding but doesn't tell Teddy. He obviously has that pretty awful voicemail in which he hears Teddy sleep with Tom. Why doesn't he break things off? The cruelest thing that Owen could do in that moment is to call his mother and not Teddy. That didn't come from anything magnanimous. Letting Teddy suffer in that silence and fear … if everything is OK, you call your partner and say we can't do it. I honestly think Owen is in too much pain to talk to Teddy at this point. It's a major storyline for us to play in season 17: are they over? Is there a way for him to come back from this? Owen has cheated himself and been forgiven, so he would be a hypocrite to not allow for possibility that there could be some forgiveness here. Yet what he heard was really damning and man. That OR scene was my favorite scene of the season. It was really beautiful.

DeLuca, who should be celebrating a big professional victory, realizes he has a problem after diagnosing Richard. What are you looking forward to exploring with his storyline? Everyone interprets that last scene differently. What I believe happens to DeLuca in that last scene is that he's been manic for so long that his brain chemicals have shifted and he's gone into a depression and that's what you're seeing. It's not that he's making any kind of realization; it's that he can't get up off the floor and he doesn't know why. We're telling a story of a mental health crisis with DeLuca and I think he does have the disease his father has. What's kind of beautiful about where we ended the season is that you see that a person who is struggling with mental health crisis can still be an incredibly productive member of society. He diagnoses Richard and saves the day — and he goes into a hole. Where we go from here … you'll see in season 17.

There's a great scene during Richard's surgery when DeLuca looks up at Meredith and gives her this nod, which feels like he's thinking that maybe now he is on her level professionally — and maybe now she can see him in that way. Meredith, meanwhile, tells Cormac Hayes (Richard Flood) that she wants him to ask her out again. This episode also had a lot of foreshadowing that Hayes and Meredith seem destined to be together. What's the larger idea or theme you're looking to explore with this … triangle of sorts? It kind of is a triangle at this point. There are so many pieces to making television: there's the conversation in the writers room, then the script on the page. It's like what you think it will be vs. what's on the page. And then there's what the actors do with it. That story has emerged in a way where I never expected it to be a triangle but feels like it very much is one right now. That's because DeLuca has been so heroic and so dynamic in his mental health storyline that, in a strange way, I expected that storyline would illuminate him as a love interest for Meredith and it ironically feels like it's done the opposite. It's been amazing to watch Giacomo resonate with that storyline. The story ended up better than what I expected it was going to be because now I don't know who I'm rooting for Meredith to be with. There's a part of me that feels like DeLuca, if he gets the right kind of treatment, could be becoming a human being with life experience that helps him rise to Meredith's level and yet there's this man, who is co-signed by Cristina and we've seen the pain he's survived and how, in so many ways, his life experience mirrors Meredith's. Where this goes now is really anybody's guess. I'm excited to see how it unfolds.

I'd be remiss if I didn't ask about something else that happened earlier this season: Justin Chambers exited this season. While Alex had a big send-off, it felt like Chambers left quietly and suddenly. What can you say about happened and the way that all transpired? I decline comment.

From a planning standpoint, how much notice did you have that Chambers wasn't returning? Chambers' last episode aired in November… I don't want to talk about it.

Can you talk a bit about how the Grey's team came up with how you concluded Alex's storyline, reuniting him with Izzie (Katherine Heigl)? I love that episode. I thought it was beautiful, romantic, heartbreaking, painful and the perfect combination of the way so many stories happen in Shondaland, where you're simultaneously crying for joy and crying for grief. It was perfectly imperfect and it was perfectly messy. It allowed for Alex to have grown as a human in a variety of ways and to still be imperfect and to disappoint a woman he has loved greatly. It allows for Jo to have been a person who really healed him and in so many ways that he's now able to go be this wonderful dad to these kids. And it allowed for the characters who are still at Grey Sloan to not have to go through another massive chapter of grief. I thought it was beautiful and I'm really proud of it. It was an amazing thing to get to watch 16 seasons worth of material. To get to go backwards on a character's timeline, 16 seasons, and to have it actually be stuff we shot on the show? That's rare in TV. Usually if you're flashing back, you're using VFX to de-age a character.

Wrapping things up, I always ask you the same two questions at the end of every season. Will there be any cast departures ahead of season 17? There are no notable cast member departures happening between seasons.

And are there any conversations about season 17 being the last one for Grey's? And in terms of 17 being the end, I never believe it's the end until they tell me it's the end for real.