Category: Interviews

Interviews with writers, actors, and other notable television people.

  • The Fixer – Indie in the Making

    fixerTwitter is an awesome thing indeed. Not only did I make my way to Dreamloom through Twitter, I also made the acquaintance of Jon F. Merz, a published sci-fi author, of such titles as “The Fixer” and “Parallax”, his latest thriller. What popped out at me about Jon was his endeavor to push his vampire chronicles to the small screen as an Indie production. With all my favorite shows (at the time) dropping like flies, I was interested in the process of what he hoped to accomplish, especially considering the fact Jon is aiming for production standard quality versus a more typical Indie, budget on a shoestring-type affair. (more…)

  • Interview with Jonathan Frakes about Leverage

    Leverage Episode 110

    Tomorrow night’s episode of Leverage, “The Juror #6 Job”, was directed by TV veteran Jonathan Frakes and reunites him with Star Trek alums Brent Spiner, Armin Shimerman, and Kitty Swink. I had a chance to talk with Frakes about his experience on this episode and with the Leverage team in general (he’s directed two episodes so far.) We also talked a bit about the present and future of television.

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  • Interview with Leverage creators

    This fall has not been a great season for TV. New shows have been painful letdowns, old shows have come up short, and the few standouts have either been canceled – Pushing Daisies – or ended their runs in heart stopping fashion like The Shield. So even when something’s been great, we won’t be seeing it any longer. ((Yes, I know there’s still Friday Night Lights. And, um…what else?))

    Into that vast wasteland comes a breath of fresh, stylish air on TNT. Leverage marks the return of the superstar thief to the airwaves to fight back the onslaught of reality programming and forensic procedurals. You can read my preview here. It’s a tight, snappy show with a stellar cast having a lot of fun with what they’re doing. Which makes it a great change of pace from a lot of the somber and downright glum people littering the dial.

    I was able to ask the creators a few questions about the show. I hope you enjoy their answers as much as I did.

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  • EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Charlie Jade’s Michael Filipowich

    01boxer01

    Sometimes cool stuff happens when you’re not even looking for it. Like how Mike and Jason were looking for writers to expand the roster here on Pop Critics just a couple weeks before one of my favorite shows was premiering. And how even though Sci Fi saw fit to bury Charlie Jade after two episodes, we’ve managed to keep a nice little group of fans coming back each week to talk about the show.

    A couple weeks back, Mike forwarded me an email he’d gotten from someone who’d worked on the show and wanted to thank us for taking an interest in it: Michael Filipowich.

    We weren’t actively looking for another interview, but if we had been, he would have been top of my list. His take on 01 Boxer is…well…crazy. But after exchanging a series of emails with him, I’ll tell you this is about the most carefully crafted, well-planned crazy I’ve seen in a long time. He knew exactly what 01 was doing, why he was doing it, and what his endgame was. He took a character who had initially been written as a one-dimensional psycho and fleshed him out into the crazy, funny, scary dimension hopper we know and love.

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  • EXCLUSIVE: Interview with Charlie Jade Headwriter Alex Epstein

    charliejade

    It’s no mystery that I’m a huge Charlie Jade fan. I don’t write those insanely long and detailed recaps on a show relegated to the 2am time slot for fame and fortune, that’s for sure. What is a little surprising is how I came to know and love the show.

    Like many others, I’m an aspiring screenwriter. In some ways it’s harder to break in today because there are more competitors for the few available slots; however, we have resources that weren’t available even five or ten years ago. There are dozens of accomplished writers blogging about their experiences as staff writers, writers’ assistants, and show runners. Some write from decades of experience and some give us play-by-play as they learn on the job. One of the longest-blogging writers out there is Alex Epstein, who keeps an ongoing conversation with fans, newbie writers, and others at Complications Ensue. I’ve been reading Alex’s blog for at least two years now and also own his book “Crafty TV Writing”. If you want to write for television, I highly recommend it.

    Once I started reading Alex on craft, I realized this was a guy who not only could teach me a lot, but who had similar sensibilities to mine. Odds were high that stuff he did, I’d like. And having seen a decent-sized chunk of his work now, I can tell you my instinct was right. Alex frequently discusses Charlie Jade, even using it to demonstrate how to break and beat a story in “Crafty TV Writing”. I’ve got to tell you, when I read about Charlie hopping dimensions, I knew this was a show for me.

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