"Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner (far right) talks about the show's legacy; if Harry Shearer leaves "The Simpsons," what would Ned Flanders, Kent Brockman and Mr. Burns say?; Chad Hodge sheds some light on his confusing new series, "Wayward Pines."
TV network upfronts: Colbert selfies, Supergirl rules and Miley Cyrus in pasties
The TV network upfronts presentations, where the networks sell advertisers on next season's TV, are wrapping up, and we broke it all town with Los Angeles Times reporter Stephen Battaglio.
Stephen Colbert taking "The Late Show" throne
"The big question about Stephen Colbert is, who is he outside of the character that we saw on 'The Colbert Report'?" Battaglio said. "And I would say, outside of the politics, he's pretty much the same guy — or at least his comedy persona is pretty much the same."
Colbert wowed the crowd, Battaglio says, offering more of a personal connection than the outgoing David Letterman.
"He posed for selfies with pretty much every advertiser and agency executive that was lined up to see him," Battaglio says. "David Letterman, who Colbert is replacing, really comes from this era where the host was this distant figure, who talked and the audience listened, and that was kind of the end of the relationship. We're in a different time now with late night hosts. You have to make a connection with the audience. You have to be there for them. They want to know a lot more about you, they want to engage with you in every way that they can, and Colbert is comfortable with all that."
Supergirl
The DC Comics superhero show "Supergirl" looks like a bit of a departure for CBS, which normally programs procedurals and goes after an older audience, but Battaglio says it looks great and plays broader than some of DC's other shows.
"It didn't have a heavy scientific or mythological feel to it, which is what you would I think expect if you saw the show on CW, which is a little bit more geek-oriented. 'Supergirl' is a very blue sky kind of show. It's outside, it's fun, it's optimistic — there's nothing dark about it, which is what you see in a lot of the other comic superhero shows."
Battaglio says he thinks there's no problem with the show being on CBS, and that "Supergirl" was one of the shows that impressed those in attendance, along with ABC's introduction of "The Muppets" in primetime.
"Everything else becomes kind of a crap shoot, because the audiences are so small today."
NBC offers a head scratcher: Dolly Parton
The most out there idea: NBC going big on Dolly Parton.
"People were really wondering why NBC would be doing a series of TV movies based on Dolly Parton songs and stories. That really sent people out of Radio City Music Hall wondering if they have a steady hand on what's going on over there."
Miley Cyrus + Adult Swim
The one big disappointment for Battaglio: Missing the Adult Swim upfronts party, which featured a concert by Miley Cyrus.
"She apparently performed 'A Boy Named Sue,' the Johnny Cash song, while wearing pasties. And I don't think that there would have been another experience like that in my lifetime, so it's some regret that I'm going to live with for a while."
An excerpt from that performance:
Miley Cyrus "A Boy Named Sue" excerpt
Cyrus playing "Tiger Dreams" at the party with the Flaming Lips:
Miley Cyrus & Flaming Lips: Tiger Dreams
Miley's done that "A Boy Named Sue" cover before — here she is doing the full song:
The pop star has been doing a number of pop covers lately — she also recently covered Crowded House classic "Don't Dream It's Over" with Ariana Grande while wearing a unicorn outfit:
Miley did a number of other covers and also performed with the Flaming Lips. Her full set (via Stereogum):
“#GETITRIGHT”
“SMS (Bangerz)”
“Do My Thang”
“A Boy Named Sue” (Johnny Cash cover)
“4×4″
“50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” (Paul Simon cover)
“No Freedom” (Dido Cover)
“Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You” (Led Zeppelin cover)
“Drive”
“Tiger Dreams” (w/ the Flaming Lips)
“A Day In The Life” (The Beatles cover) (w/ the Flaming Lips)
“My Neck, My Back” (Khia cover)
“We Can’t Stop”
“Love Money Party”
'Mad Men': Showrunner Matthew Weiner talks about the show's legacy and his sense of loss
"Mad Men" comes to an end Sunday after seven seasons, so we talked with showrunner Matthew Weiner about what everything coming to an end feels like, what the show's legacy is and what's next for him. (You can also check out the first part of our interview with Weiner talking about the show's writing, reaction on social media and more.)
"It feels like — God, it's a weird thing, because I was a terrible student, even in college — but it definitely had the feeling of graduation. In the sense that this conglomeration of people will never be together again," Weiner says.
Weiner says that doing press can be difficult for him, because he infamously never reveals anything about the show's story. That's made the press tour for "Mad Men's" finale surprisingly psychological.
"I've had so many people ask me about my feelings — which is usually not an issue when you're out there promoting the show," Weiner says. "But there's a sense of loss. I mean, I've never gone through this before. So, it is my show that I did by myself at the beginning, and then went through this seven-year process to make it a show, and then I've been surrounded by amazing people for seven years."
There were between 200 and 300 people who Weiner would interact with due to the show over the course of a year, and he's had to say goodbye to all of them.
"It got winnowed down to me again, and that's kind of mortal, in a way," Weiner says. "I was the big cheerleader in the last seven episodes, reminding everybody of how much we're going to miss all of it. Quite selfishly, I'm going to miss my relationship with all those people."
He hopes to not lose touch, but knows that his relationships will forever be different.
"It's up to me to maintain those relationships, and we can see each other, but we'll never be forced to go to work together every day like that, and that was amazing. And you can't reconstruct that. The people that I worked with, especially by the end of the show — you've got to imagine that no one was there who did not stand the test of excellence, reliability, and kindness."
Weiner tried to set the tone for how the show was going to be made immediately.
"I said right away, in the pilot, there's no cool kids here. I did not want people, because their job was in a different list in the credits, to not feel ownership of the show, and I didn't want anyone else to pretend like they weren't as important."
At the premiere for "Mad Men's" final season, Weiner said, "Once this is all over, I'm a writer alone at his computer again." He says that he has begun to move on from the show, even as it still airs.
"I definitely am ahead of the audience in the sense that I've had plenty of downtime already, for me. And it's been nice to be around my home, and my oldest son's in college, and be there for his Christmas break, and go on vacations, and things that — I'm not complaining, but I didn't really do much of [that during the show].
Weiner says that a writer is always working, but that while he's started to dip his toes into a variety of projects, he's still not sure what the exact next thing will be — his future remains about as unclear as the weekly "Next on 'Mad Men'" clips that never told you much about what the next episode would be about.
As for the show's legacy, Weiner hopes that "Mad Men" lasts.
"I hope it'll be around and that people will watch it. I hope that it'll be seen as part of this period, because there's obviously a reason why it struck a cord. That the changes going on 50 years ago are relevant to whatever's going on right now, otherwise people wouldn't be watching it."
The future of television itself is in flux — Weiner says he doesn't know what his grandchildren will even think TV is — but he's glad it's secured a place for itself.
"I'm so thrilled it's going to be in museums. It's going to be on the field trip. I am proud of the fact that we did not try to imitate anything, and that it had an organic honesty to it. If it's known for that, that would be the most important thing for me."
The show's final episode airs Sunday night on AMC. (Be sure to check out our look at the Southern California stores that supplied "Mad Men" with its distinctive look, from clothing to cars to glasses and everything else.)
'Wayward Pines' showrunner: It's like 'Lost' but with answers and airtight logic
Chad Hodge is the showrunner of "Wayward Pines," a twisty, turny show that moves at an incredibly fast pace.
A mystery with an actual good ending
Hodge first read the book the show is based on in 2012.
"I read that book in a day and a half, tore through the whole thing, couldn't believe what I was reading. All the sort of twists and turns, and compounding mysteries, and things that didn't make sense. I thought, 'There is no way that this is going to have a good ending.'"
Hodge's pleasant surprise: The ending wasn't "total BS."
"When I got to the end and realized where he was going, and what the reveal was, and what the truth of this whole story was, I was so blown away."
He talked with the producer who gave him the book and told him he wanted to write it immediately. Hodge was so excited that he offered to write it for free, which the producer gave the thumbs up to do.
"Even if nobody buys this, this is what I want to do with the next four weeks of my life."
"Wayward Pines" wasn't something Hodge wanted to just go around and pitch to network executives, he says, because he thought trying to explain it in that way would take away what's great about it.
"If I had to sit there and explain what everything meant, and why there was a confusion about time, and why there was a confusion about why he can't get in touch with the outside world, and all of these things that you'll see in the show, it would ruin it. Also, I felt that I had such a clear vision of what I wanted to do in the adaptation, it sort of just came to me the moment I read the book."
Getting M. Night Shyamalan on board
Hodge spent four weeks putting it together, and after he had a spec pilot, both he and the producer agreed that it was pretty good. They knew they needed something else to sell it, so they made a list of directors they thought could execute the show's tone. On that list: M. Night Shyamalan.
"We both thought, well, there's no real way he's going to do this, because he's never done television."
It was also 2012, before feature directors like David Fincher and Steven Soderbergh had started focusing on television.
"It's much, much harder to make a film these days, and a lot of film directors are finding that they can tell the stories they want to tell in television."
While they were at the beginning of that trend, they sent Shyamalan the script. They thought they'd have to wait four weeks — but they heard back the next day.
"He loved the script, and he said to me, 'All right — as long as they're not all dead, I'm in.' And then I got on a plane and went to meet him at his farm compound in Philadelphia."
Hodge was getting a tour when he made a funny discovery.
"It's a beautiful, beautiful place, and I said, 'Well your home is amazing,' and he said,
Oh this isn't my house, my house is three miles up the road.' This was his office."
No plot holes and airtight logic
The episodes raise more questions than they answer, and some cast members on the show may get to clean out their trailers before the season ends.
"If there was any design to it, it was that every time something is answered, another question is raised. And I think that the best writing for thrillers and mysteries essentially can be boiled down to that: asking questions, and then answering them later. But answering them, and that I think is the key to this show that makes it different."
Hodge promises you'll never see logic problems in "Wayward Pines."
"There's never going to be, 'Ohhhh, there's a plot hole there, I could drive a truck through that thing.' It is absolutely airtight."
While Hodge says he loved "Lost," he wanted to make a different kind of show. Rather than waiting for even the end of the 10-episode limited run, Hodge put the big reveal of "Wayward Pines'" mysteries halfway through at the end of episode 5.
"Let's take a show that feels like something you're going to have to sit around and wait forever for, and give you that answer, and then because that answer is so insane — what you find out 'Wayward Pines' is, the story only becomes more interesting, and so I wanted to keep going after that."
The show has taken hits from frustrated critics who want the answer sooner, but Hodge thinks it's worth the wait.
He's been involved in other shows that haven't worked, including "Runaway" on the CW and "The Playboy Club" on NBC, and Hodge says it comes down to the hardest part of a showrunner's job: balancing vision with making the studio and the network happy.
"You're told they want a creator with a vision and a passion and a clear understanding of what they want and of the story and all that, and that you should fight tooth and nail to get everything that you want. And then you have the other thing, which is you have to play with the network, and they're paying for it, and the studio, and they have ideas, and all of that. So finding the balance of that, and being able to give them the show that they're telling you they want, which is in your brain, and that's why they're paying you to do this, but they also have their own agendas."
Hodge says that finding that balance is something that he's learning and will likely continue to learn until he stops making television. Watch how that balance came out on "Wayward Pines," premiering Thursday night on Fox.
What do Ned Flanders and Mr. Burns think of Harry Shearer leaving 'The Simpsons'?
After 26 seasons of voicing dozens of characters on “The Simpsons,” Harry Shearer is leaving the show. Shearer voiced a huge number of characters on the show, including Ned Flanders, Kent Brockman and, of course, Mr. Burns.
He's been with the show from the beginning, but Fox wasn't able to hold onto him — and Shearer made the disagreement public on Twitter.
The split looks to have been contentious, with Shearer quoting a lawyer for one of the show's producer's saying that the show would go on without him.
from James L. Brooks' lawyer: "show will go on, Harry will not be part of it, wish him the best.". (1/2)
— Harry Shearer (@theharryshearer)
from James L. Brooks' lawyer: "show will go on, Harry will not be part of it, wish him the best.". (1/2)
— Harry Shearer (@theharryshearer) May 14, 2015
This because I wanted what we've always had: the freedom to do other work. Of course, I wish him the very best. (2/2)
— Harry Shearer (@theharryshearer)
This because I wanted what we've always had: the freedom to do other work.
— Harry Shearer (@theharryshearer) May 14, 2015
Of course, I wish him the very best. (2/2)
Shearer said the split isn't over money, but over his right to do other work. While Shearer said his departure isn’t set in stone, it looks unlikely that he'll return.
Hey, we tried. We're still trying. Harry, no kidding, let's talk.
— james l. brooks (@canyonjim)
Hey, we tried. We're still trying. Harry, no kidding, let's talk.
— james l. brooks (@canyonjim) May 14, 2015
Fox has said that the characters voiced by Shearer will continue.
A happier Simpsons news note for the day — they're crossing over with "Rick and Morty." Watch the crossover couch gag here: