Author Archives: Jason Lynch

How, and Why, Showtime Resurrected ‘Twin Peaks’

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showtime twin peaks

It’s happening, again! Showtime announced it is reviving Twin Peaks as a nine-episode limited series, airing in 2016. While many people spoke with co-creator Mark Frost about how his and David Lynch’s decision to return to the show, I took a different approach, talking with Showtime execs for this Quartz story about why this made sense for the network.

“In some ways, Twin Peaks was the precursor to all of the high-quality, provocative serialized drama that we all do now,” Gary Levine, Showtime’s executive vice president of original programming, told Quartz. “So to go back to the OG of provocative, serialized drama seemed like a no-brainer. Twin Peaks always did and always will define cool, and that was just too tempting to turn away from.”

There’s lots more from Levine and Showtime Networks President David Nevins about how they’ll avoid the train wreck that was Season 2, how much they know about the new season and whether there could be more stories to tell beyond those nine episodes.

How, and why, Showtime resurrected ‘Twin Peaks’

The TV Superhero Guru Behind ‘The Flash’

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berlanti the flash

Greg Berlanti and I have been Twitter friends since back in 2012, when I fell for his USA summer miniseries Political Animals. But we’d never actually met until we sat down together at TCA summer tour to do this Daily Beast profile.

One of TV’s most prolific producers — he’s co-showrunner on Arrow and The Flash, a producer on The Mysteries of Laura, has three series (and counting) in development for next season, and is also producing the bigscreen Peter Pan reboot Pan — Berlanti talked about what’s in store for The Flash, his obsession with comics, how he’s succeeded with TV comic adaptations where Marvel has failed and the disadvantage to having so many projects on his plate:

The only slight disadvantage to doing more and more things is you really have to be where the problems are. So you don’t get to be as much where things are going well. And so, if there’s two things that I’m working on that are going well, I’m not in that story room or on that set. I’m wherever we’re having some challenges. Then, by the time we take care of those, I go back to the other ones. So the disadvantage of having multiple things is on a day where everything is going badly on all things. You want to shoot yourself! The advantage is that’s usually not the case. Usually one or two things are going all right, and it buoys your spirits a little bit.

His take on The Flash is broadcast’s best pilot this fall. While almost all new shows take much of the first season to find their way, Flash arrives impressively fully-formed and self-assured. And, oh yeah, it’s a helluva lot of fun.

The TV Superhero Guru Behind ‘The Flash’

How Cristin Milioti Met Sitcom Stardom

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cristin milioti

What if How I Met Your Mother had actually been about, you know, how Ted met the Mother? The result would have been something like A to Z, the new NBC romantic comedy starring, yes, Cristin Milioti, who played the Mother in that show’s final season last year. At The Daily Beast, I spoke to the charming actress — who, it turns out, went to the same high school as I did (a full decade either before or after me; I’ll never tell) — about the controversial HIMYM finale, dropping out of college, what she learned from Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese on The Wolf of Wall Street and (spoiler alert) how she discovered the Mother’s fate:

Milioti first discovered Tracy’s fate late last year, at the show’s Christmas party. “I was sitting with Craig and we were like three cocktails in,” she says. “He’s very happy and giddy when he gets a little tipsy, and he said, ‘Do you want to know how the series ends?’ I was also tipsy and I was like, ‘What, do I die?’—as a joke. Then he got real serious and was like, ‘Wait, do you know?’ He told me how it happens, and I sat there bawling. I just didn’t see it coming.”

I did this interview with her at TCA summer tour; it was nice to be able to do this one in person and swap South Jersey memories.

How Cristin Milioti Met Sitcom Stardom

Netflix is Making an Original Movie—But It Won’t Come Cheap

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netflix crouching tiger

After upending the TV industry with shows like House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, Netflix is turning to movies. It is teaming up with The Weinstein Company for its first original movie, a sequel to 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which will premiere on Netflix (and in Imax theaters) next August. As I wrote at Quartz,

In other words, Netflix believes it can “save” the movie business by upending the traditional approach in which films are released exclusively to theaters first and not made available for home viewing until several months later. “What I am hoping is that it will be a proof point that the sky doesn’t fall,” Sarandos told the New York Times. “These are two different experiences, like going to a football game and watching a football game on TV.”

However, as I explain, saving the movie business will be an expensive proposition for Netflix. Still, Harvey Weinstein is betting that if anyone can pull it off, it’s Netflix.

Netflix is making an original movie—but it won’t come cheap

Disney is Using Star Wars to Drive People to Its Streaming Apps

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disney star wars streaming apps

As Disney prepares to unveil its first original content from the Star Wars Universe since buying Lucasfilm in 2012, it’s doing so via its three Disney Channel streaming apps, as I wrote at Quartz.

“It’s critical for us to make sure we’re on the platforms the kids are consuming content on. And we’re learning, the size of the screen doesn’t really matter, it’s the content that matters most,” Lauren DeVillier, Vice President of Digital Media at Disney Channels Worldwide, told Quartz. “There’s a lot of repeat viewing with kids content; they’ll watch the same episode a thousand times. So especially with that audience, it’s an opportunity to be on the platforms they’re on.”

While the Disney streaming apps are getting more popular each year, 94 percent of the Disney Channel audience still watch via live TV or DVR.

Disney is using Star Wars to drive people to its streaming apps

‘Melissa Harris-Perry’: The debuts of ‘How to Get Away With Murder’ and ‘Black-ish’

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I was very excited to make my debut on MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry, which is executive produced by one of my best friends, Eric Salzman. I joined Clarence Page and Alicia Quarles to talk with Melissa about fall TV, and the debuts of How to Get Away With Murder, Black-ish and the phenomenal Transparent.

We then spoke about Scandal’s season premiere, and its powerful message about sexual assault.

It was a great appearance and I look forward to returning soon!

Buzzworthy Fall Shows Make Their Debut

How Olivia Pope Schooled Roger Goodell

SNL’s Kim Kardashian Konundrum: Why Nasim Pedrad’s Exit Hurts So Much

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Kim Kardashian SNL

Every once in a while, one of my random tweets blossoms into its own story. That’s what happened during TCA summer tour, when I tweeted this during the panel for Mulaney, in which Nasim Pedrad talked about leaving Saturday Night Live to do the Fox sitcom.

I spoke with Pedrad later that day (she’d seen the tweet and loved it), and she talked about her Kim Kardashian impression, and mentioned that she would be open to popping up on SNL on occasion to perform it.

With SNL’s season premiere this weekend, the time seemed right to write this Daily Beast analysis of Pedrad’s exit (which was largely overlooked this summer amidst all the other firings and hirings), and how much she — and her Kim impersonation — will be missed. As I wrote,

For better or for worse—okay, for much worse—and in the face of all 15-minutes-of-fame logic, Kim Kardashian isn’t going anywhere, even after seven years in the spotlight. We’re still stuck seeing the reality star plastered on every tabloid cover, starring in endless iterations of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and instagramming and tweeting as if her life depended on it. Pedrad’s take on Kim has been our reward for having to put up with the real thing, and the only acceptable version of Kim Kardashian on television.

It’s also deceptively nuanced. Anyone could simply play Kim as a dim bulb. (Both Vanessa Bayer and Cecily Strong’s impressions of the other two Kardashian sisters—Kourtney and Khloe, respectively—are cut from the same cloth as their recurring “not-porn-stars-anymore” commercial models.) But Pedrad brought more layers to the role than even Kim herself actually has.

With no logical choices in the current cast to impersonate Kim, here’s hoping that SNL does the smart thing and brings back Pedrad for the occasional “Waking Up with Kimye” sketch. She’s the only Kardashian worth Keeping Up with.

SNL’s Kim Kardashian Konundrum: Why Nasim Pedrad’s Exit Hurts So Much

This is How Amazon Developed Its First Great TV Series

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amazons first great series

Transparent, which debuts Friday, is not just Amazon’s first great series, but it’s fall’s best new show. At TCA, I spoke with creator Jill Soloway and star Jeffrey Tambor for this Quartz piece about this important, moving series, and why Amazon was the only place for it:

“We have this absolutely unprecedented amount of creative freedom. So Amazon to me wasn’t necessarily like a TV network, it was a really vital and vibrant distribution system that would be able to get the stuff to the people quickly,” said Soloway, who was a writer and co-executive producer on Six Feet Under. “It feels more like I got to make a five-hour movie that already had distribution in place than it did like anything I would ever do for CBS that’s an episode to episode deal. There was none of that [network] interference: these stop signs that you constantly have to deal with, that really interrupt your flow and your connection to your inspiration, in any kind of TV. This is nothing like TV! It’s not TV, it’s not HBO, it’s Amazon!”

Soloway was also frank about being wary of Amazon’s decision to release Transparent’s entire first season at once, Netflix-style.

“That was Amazon’s decision,” said Soloway. “In some ways, I was excited because it makes us like House of Cards or Orange, and I’m happy to be compared to shows like that. But I think as a showrunner, I have to get over the idea that there’s not going to be a, ‘And then next Friday, they’ll see the next piece!’ That’s different.”

You’ll also want to read what prompted Tambor to channel his Larry Sanders Show alter ego, Hank Kingsley. But even more importantly, make sure you watch Transparent!

This is how Amazon developed its first great TV series

‘NCIS’s’ Mark Harmon is the World’s Biggest TV Star

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mark harmon

Sometimes, the best stories fall into your lap when you least expect them. At TCA summer tour, I was attending the CBS/Showtime/CW party when I unexpectedly was given face time with Mark Harmon, who very rarely grants interviews (I fact I know firsthand, after spending years unsuccessfully trying to land an interview with him while I was at People). The result is this somewhat unconventional Daily Beast profile of Harmon, who is the world’s biggest star, but also one of its most humble. As I wrote,

Harmon is an anomaly in today’s overshare-first-ask-questions-later pop culture: an anti-celeb. There’s no gushing about the secrets of his 27-year marriage to Mork & Mindy star Pam Dawber (which is more like 270 in Hollywood years), no off-the-cuff speeches about politics or anything else controversial; no statements, in fact, that aren’t in some way related to his show. And his actions speak just as softly as his words: When you search “Mark Harmon” on TMZ, not a single story comes up, which doesn’t even seem possible. He’s perhaps the only person in Hollywood who says he wants his work to speak for itself, and actually means it.

Harmon talks about his quiet approach to stardom, whether he feels pressure as the man at the center of a billion-dollar franchise, how he came to executive produce NCIS: New Orleans and how much longer he’ll stick around on NCIS, which is enterting its 12th season.

NCIS’s Mark Harmon is the World’s Biggest TV Star

The Leaner, Meaner Season 2 of ‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’

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agents of shield s2

Back in May, I wrote about how Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD had finally found its way. As the show prepares to kick off Season 2, I spoke with its two showrunners, Jed Whedon and Maurissa Tancharoen for this Daily Beast interview about balancing secrecy and spoilers, what they learned from Season 1’s rocky start and which Marvel Universe characters will (and won’t) be making appearances this season. After having her hands tied for much of last season, being forced to keep quiet about, and then react to, the big reveal from Captain America: The Winter Solider, Tancharoen talks about the freedom of Season 2:

Well, we have a very clear big bad. We have Hydra. It’s very nice and liberating to say “Hydra” and have it out in the open! Last season was definitely challenging, because we were not allowed to mention them or allude to a mole of any kind. So now, coming into Season 2, we exist in a new paradigm. S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra are viewed as one and the same.  So we’re putting our characters through a different sort of journey, where they still want to be out there and helping the world and the people through this world, but they have to do it from the shadows.

They also discuss the possible return of Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, Joss Whedon’s level in involvement in the show and — something of particular interest to me — if they will can finally take the periods out of SHIELD (which is something that I’ve already done on this site).

The Leaner, Meaner Season 2 of ‘Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’