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And the award for first network to set its fall schedule goes to…NBC.

Today the Peacock leaped out of the gate with a first look at its fall premiere schedule. We’re calling it a first look because at this early in the game, it’s inevitable that some premiere dates will shift. That said, NBC is in a dominant position in the ratings for the first time in years, so what you’re seeing today probably won’t change all that much.

For example, you can count on “The Blacklist‘s” 10pm return on Monday, September 22, to remain in place regardless of what the competition serves up against it. Ditto on “Parenthood’s” 10pm premiere in Thursday night timeslot, which will be a challenge but marks the beginning of its final run. The drama’s last, sixth season starts on September 25.

Meanwhile, “Chicago Fire” makes its season premiere at 10pm Tuesday, September 23. A month later, “Grimm” and “Constantine” join the schedule Friday nights at 9pm and 10pm respectively, starting on October 24. And as previously reported, Katherine Heigl‘s “State of Affairs” does not join the schedule until 10pm Monday, November 17 — a very late start, and one that challenges the series to stand out during the holiday season in addition to successfully taking over the timeslot from its previous occupant, ”The Blacklist”. Best of luck with that.

Keep reading for the full schedule of premiere dates from NBC.

Thursday, Sept. 11

8pm: “The Biggest Loser”

Monday, Sept. 22

8pm: “The Voice”

10pm:  ”The Blacklist”

Tuesday, Sept. 23

8pm: “The Voice”

10pm: “Chicago Fire”

Wednesday, Sept. 24

8pm:”The Mysteries of Laura”

9pm: “Law & Order: SVU”

10pm:”Chicago PD”

Thursday, Sept. 25

10pm: “Parenthood”

Friday, Sept. 26

8pm: “Dateline NBC”

Thursday, Oct. 2

8pm: “The Biggest Loser”

9pm: “Bad Judge”

9:30pm: “A to Z”

Tuesday, Oct. 14

8pm: “The Voice”

9pm: “Marry Me”

9:30pm: “About a Boy”

Friday, Oct. 24

8pm: “Dateline NBC” (Time Period Premiere)

9pm: “Grimm”

10pm: “Constantine”

Monday, Nov. 17

10pm: “State of Affairs“

When Lee Pace was a kid, his father bought his mother an Adam Osborne personal computer. It was advertised as a portable system, weighing in at a feather-light 24 pounds. “My mom was convinced that it was a fad and a waste of money,” the actor recalls. “Now she’s addicted to her iPhone.”

Pace has been thinking a lot about the evolution of personal technology lately, thanks to his starring role in AMC’s new drama “Halt and Catch Fire”, premiering Sunday, June 1 at 10pm. As Joe MacMillan, a slick former IBM executive, he blows into Texas’s Silicon Prairie in his fast sports car and is holstering an even faster sales pitch. Joe seduces his way into Cardiff Electric, a smaller software company he aims to use as a vehicle to develop a personal computer that is less expensive and better than IBM’s. In those days, that was a dangerous proposition.

Joe knows exactly what he’s doing and what the stakes are. But he also sells confidence, and sells it well, which is how he’s able to enlist the help of Cardiff drone Gordon Clark (Scoot McNairy), a brilliant engineer knocked sideways by his past failures, and young computer prodigy Cameron Howe (Mackenzie Davis), in spite of the fact that what Joe is doing to could destroy everyone around him.

In reading this description of Joe, one might think that AMC is trying to introduce another well-dressed, emotionally flawed hero to its audience in order to help ease the pain of losing “Mad Men”. There’s some truth in that assessment; the network needs to replenish its drama stable. If “Halt” not only ignites an audience but inspires young professionals to start wearing skinny ties with their suits, all the better.

But Pace warns against thinking of Joe as Don Draper’s replacement. “When I think of how far Joe comes in this first season, I almost don’t even recognize the man in the pilot, “ he says. “I think of how different he is at the end, how much this experience has transformed him.”

In a recent phone conversation, Pace chatted with us about the Joe/Don thing, the show’s examination of the personal computing boom, and why he turned to one of Richard Gere’s signature 1980s roles as part of creating “Halt and Catch Fire’s” Joe.

IMDbTV: One of my first thoughts upon watching the premiere was that I can foresee people looking at this and saying, “It’s ‘80s Don Draper” – that is, at first blush. But moving deeper into the episode, one can see that your character has a much harder edge. What would you say to someone who might be tempted to compare Joe MacMillan to Don Draper?

Lee Pace: I would say, stick around until episode three, and then answer the question for yourself. I’m such a huge fan of that show [“Mad Men”]. It’s a true, true achievement of fiction. But with this, the subject matter is different and the man is fundamentally different. Yes, it’s a man in a suit in an office who is competent at what he does, and doesn’t necessarily get along with everyone that he’s working with. There are certain similarities.

And I felt the same way when I read [the script] the first time, when I read the pilot. But the more I investigated this guy, and the more I looked for influences not only in the tech world, but within that time, it’s very different. I was looking at not only some of the young hustlers who then became tech titans but, you know… some of those corporate raiders who defined the culture of the ‘80s. Get more. Make more money. Have more sex. Go harder. Go tougher. That’s kind of the path I started down with Joe McMillan.

IMDbTV: You were quite young during this era. … What was your earliest memory of interacting this kind of technology ?

Pace: …I remember video games…Video games play a really interesting part in the role of technology – not only because people our age were playing those video games, but it became such an integrated part of how we grew up, and how we thought. Then video games graduated to [computers] being in school.

…We’re a part of that generation of people that grew up as computers grew up, basically. In a way, those machines have been designed to make our lives happen. Whether it be learning, or playing, or connecting with one another. Our generation, in particular, has a very interesting insight into the world of personal technology, which is specifically what Joe is interested in. Somehow getting this technology into the hands of civilians, for lack of a better word. Out of business.

You have to understand, in the late ‘70s, computers were the size of refrigerators and they served massive companies where people would do their business at terminals that fed into these computers. This is a turning point, where the computers got smaller and smart innovators like Steve Jobs and many, many others…everyone was trying to figure out a personal computer.

That’s what Joe is interested in. Joe is trying to connect the dots between the video games, between Atari and the fact that people want these machines in their homes. Back at IBM, everyone is buying these things. Every year, millions more people are buying them.

In the pilot when I say the line, “The computer’s not the thing, it’s the thing that gets us to the thing”, what Joe is excited about is the change in the culture.

IMDbTV: It’s an interesting series both in terms of its content and, for lack of a better term, stylistically. It’s taking this era that’s seen as very sexy and at the forefront of what will become our modern technological age, and yet, all of these things that we take for granted now are seen at their very beginning, and actually very clunky looking. But Joe, he looks like he could live in the current era and not necessarily be a step behind.

Pace: Well, it’s not that distant a history, really. It’s in our lifetime. Joe McMillan is the same age my father was in 1983, which is the age I am right now. That’s an interesting opportunity, personally, for me to get to play. But here we are in a time when, because of innovators like Joe and his contemporaries, innovation has become one of the most exciting things that we live with. The people who create these technologies – Steve Jobs in particular, because he’s one of the most successful at it and the most exciting ideas came from that man – are rock stars. This little time, I actually found it to be a very unexplored dark zone in our recent history. I didn’t really know much about this turning point in our history, and it’s such a significant change.

IMDbTV: What was the most interesting thing that you learned about the corporate politics going on behind the scenes of this boom, when there was still room for other companies besides IBM and Apple to make their mark?

Pace: Oh God, it’s such a huge subject. But when I mentioned those corporate raiders, that’s something that is in Joe’s blood, that idea that you have to be the winner. That there’s only one winner, and it’s gotta be you. Because if it’s not you, it’s going to be someone else. And nobody really cares how you got there. If you are uncompromising, if you win, then people look back on your actions and judge you as a risk-taker, bold and ahead of your time. If you lose, you’re just an a–hole.

Joe knows that, and he comes ready to fight in every way. He’s ready to fight IBM, he’s ready to fight Gordon. He’s ready to push Gordon to make this machine what it needs to be. Because there’s only going to be one machine that makes it into the history books, and that’s the machine that Joe wants to make. This is before the Macintosh came out.

IMDbTV:  Is Joe going to be the kind of guy who people are going to, in some ways, aspire to be? You know how influential television characters can be, for better or for worse.

Pace:  I’ve learned a lot about Joe. I’ve learned a lot about myself, playing Joe. Some of the research I did was looking at leadership theory… And I think Joe, in his blood, has got some very good skills at being a leader and some very questionable skills. But the fact is, he is effective. He is going to reach his goals. He is going to complete the mission he set out to complete at any cost. That is the basic component of Joe. He’s that machine… He will remove obstacles, get around them and change the rules to make sure that the mission is complete. Because he believes in it. He believes in the mission more than he believes in anyone’s feelings. He’s not going to validate someone’s hurt feelings when he’s got a million people who need a computer that’s faster, cheaper and smaller.

…Some part of me responds to me by thinking, “Wow, that guy’s a winner. That guy’s a real leader.” And some part of me responds to him and thinks, “That guy is a sociopath.”

IMDbTV: Yes, there’s an element of Joe that is almost devilishly seductive, especially in his interactions with Gordon. He inspires him to do what he does best and to become the person that he wants to be. But you know that he’s only doing it as a means to an end, and he’s going to ditch him as soon as he can. That must be interesting to play.

Pace: It is. It’s simple. I always think about this computer that they’re endeavoring to make is Joe. He is … designed to add value to your life, just like a computer. He is designed to do the things that you need done to make you more money, to get it done quickly, to operate on all systems. Fully compatible. But there are bugs in that machine, and the program is still new and flawed. It’s in that zone that I believe we found the really interesting story of Joe.

IMDbTV: Let’s step back for a bit, even outside of the series, to talk about what’s been going on with you. You’ve had a really interesting couple of years, bouncing back and forth between some incredibly high profile movies. There was a time when all of the movies that you were in at that moment, that were released and in theaters, were in the Top Five [of highest grossing movies at the domestic box office of the day].

Pace:  Oh yeah! That was, not last November but the November before that [2012].  I remember my mother taking a picture of IMDb’s Box Office [listing] and saying, “Lee, this is unbelievable!” I had Lincoln, The Hobbit [ An Unexpected Journey] and Twilight. Totally a moment when I was like, “Oh my god…I’m going to remember this.”

IMDbTV:  That’s great! So I have to ask, with that experience in movies and this – you’ve done a lot of television, like “Pushing Daisies” and “Wonderfalls”– which process do you enjoy more?

Pace:  I mean…I’ve also done theater. I’ve done a play, like, about every other year. The more I do this, the less difference I see between them all. It all becomes interesting in different ways, but it’s still always playing a character. All the characters are different, obviously. Joe is very different than the elven king, who is different than Ronan the Accuser. I mean, that’s really the fundamental difference.

The difference between TV and everything else is, and I find this fascinating, you’re still making it while everyone is watching it. Like, when you’re doing a play, you’ve got the performance, you’ve got control of the performance, and you’re in the same room with your audience. There’s the immediate kind of communication happening.

IMDbTV:  And you have the social aspect with television, too.

Pace:  Which is so fascinating, especially in our time of TV right now. Yeah, the way people talk on Twitter, Tumblr, live tweet during a show. Awfully exciting, because the show is one thing, but just like Joe says, the computer isn’t the thing, it’s the thing that gets us to the thing. The show is one thing, but the way the culture can respond to a show is something completely different and very exciting.

IMDbTV:  One more question. Were there any particular films or television series, when either when you were building this character or dipping into the series experience, that informed your performance or your approach to “Halt and Catch Fire”?

Pace:  American Gigolo. Nine 1/2 Weeks. What else? Oh yes – The Triumph of the Nerds. That was an incredibly informative documentary about this world and the way that these personal computers evolved.

IMDbTV:  Hold on, let’s go back for a minute…what is it about American Gigolo? It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that movie.

Pace:   Watch it again, you’ll be amazed. First of all, he’s just about the coolest thing you’ve ever seen. I don’t know, there are so many things. I loved his performance – he was so cocky and so seductive, and yet so needy, so needy of the people around him. He kind of puts on this mask – there are these gorgeous suits, the Armanis. It was that kind of quality of cool. I’m a far cry from Richard Gere in that. But I think about these people, and I imagine Joe, in his own self-creation, seeing that movie and saying, “Yeah, that’s cool. I like that.” Seeing those suits he wore and saying, “I’m gonna get myself one of those. I want that effect on people that he has. I want my hair to look like that.”… It’s definitely a movie you couldn’t imagine being made today.

AMC’s new drama “Halt and Catch Fire” premieres Sunday, June 1 at 10pm.

FX is coming on stronger than ever for summer, led by “The Strain”, a vampire thriller co-executive produced by Carlton Cuse and Guillermo del Toro. So far the network has maintained an air of mystery around the highly anticipated series, based on a popular series of books authored by del Toro.  FX even took its sweet time in revealing a premiere date, and now we know why: It is using the series to stake a claim on Sunday nights, the most competitive piece of primetime real estate on the schedule.

Make space on your DVRs, folks. “The Strain” premieres at 10pm Sunday, July 13.

This marks the first time that FX has scheduled any original programming on a Sunday night. It also means the channel is coming out swinging not only against its basic cable competition on AMC (which airs “Halt and Catch Fire” in that timeslot starting June 1) and TNT (which has “Falling Skies” ), but HBO as well.  Whether it takes a chomp out of HBO’s live audience for its big new series ”The Leftovers”, remains to be seen. The premium cable channel’s post-Rapture drama gets a two-week head start on “The Strain” by premiering on June 29. And interestingly enough, thanks to this scheduling, this means FX  is pitting Cuse’s series against that of his “Lost” creative partner, Damon Lindelof.

Ladies and gentlemen, we officially have an old-fashioned summertime street fight on our hands.

FX announced premiere dates for other new and returning series today as well. The new hour-long drama “Tyrant” premieres 10pm Tuesday, June 24. It follows a Middle Eastern-born physician who has made a life for himself and his family in the United States, only to be lured back home by his despot ruler of a father and terrifying brother.

Meanwhile, the second season of “The Bridge” debuts at 10pm Wednesday, July 9

On the comedy side –  i.e. FXX — “Wilfred” returns at 10pm Wednesday, June 25, paving the way for the launch of a pair of  new anti-romantic comedies in July. “Married,” a comedy about how gloriously miserable it is to have a ring on it, which stars Nat Faxon and Judy Greer, premieres at 10pm Thursday July 17. “You’re the Worst” follows a pair of toxic, destructive people who attempt to make a go at a relationship, and it’ll follow “Married” on Thursdays at 10:30pm.

Like CBS, the biggest news at The CW’s Thursday morning upfronts presentation wasn’t which shows were picked up, but the spinoff that wasn’t. Following a great deal of hoopla about a proposed spinoff for “Supernatural“, the littlest broadcast network’s longest running scripted show, The CW chose to pass on the Chicago-set monster mafia offshoot “Supernatural: Bloodlines“, introduced via a backdoor pilot (and underwhelming) episode within the most recent season.

But according to reports, CW president Mark Pedowitz isn’t done with trying to grow the “Supernatural” franchise — which, if you examine both the network’s history and its current roster of successes, is completely understandable. Consider this: “Supernatural” is older than The CW. When UPN and The WB merged in 2006, it was one of the few genre series to make the cut from The WB’s side, along with “Smallville”. And when UPN launched, the network’s branding clearly emphasized that it was targeting young women. “Supernatural” and “Smallville” were treated as vestigial programming to appease the geek viewers who were never, ever going to watch “Top Model”.

Jump ahead nearly a decade, and according to Pedowitz, The CW is enjoying its most-watched season in nearly a decade thanks to the success of – what? – its genre programming, anchored in no small part by the continued success of “Supernatural”.

However, while The CW’s other main breadwinner “The Vampire Diaries” spawned a successful spinoff with “The Originals“, as has “Arrow” with the highly-anticipated new fall series “The Flash“, The CW still hasn’t found a way to expand the Winchesters’ family tree, from a brand perspective. You can bet it’ll keep on trying.

Besides “The Flash,” only one other new series joins The CW’s fall line-up, and that is “Jane the Virgin“. Based on the description, “Jane” builds its plot on a device that seems to defy logic. But what do we know? On a network with only 10 primetime hours of fill, six of which are devoted to tales of meta-humans, vampires and demon hunters, it’s probably not that big of a deal.

The CW’s other new series, “iZombie” and “The Messengers“, join the schedule in midseason, along with the returns of “Beauty and the Beast” and “Hart of Dixie “.

Read the official descriptions of “Jane the Virgin” and “The Flash” on our list, Fall TV 2014-2015: The New Series, by clicking here.

For a quick list of CW shows that have been renewed or cancelled, click here.

Monday

8pm: “The Originals”

9pm: “Jane the Virgin”

Tuesday

8pm: “The Flash”

9pm: “Supernatural”

Wednesday

8pm:  “Arrow”

9pm: “The 100”

Thursday

8pm: “The Vampire Diaries”

9pm: “Reign”

Friday

8pm: “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”

8:30pm: “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”

9pm: ”America’s Next Top Model“

We interrupt our regularly scheduled news blasts from Network Upfronts Week to bring you this announcement: Amazon Studios has set premiere dates for “Tumble Leaf,” “Annedroids” and “Creative Galaxy“, its first three children’s series.

According to a Studios release that went out this morning, the first six episodes of each show will debut this summer, beginning with “Tumble Leaf” on May 23, followed by ”Creative Galaxy” on June 27, and live-action series ”Annedroids” on July 25. Additional episodes of the shows will follow later this year. Prime subscribers can watch all of these shows for free on Prime Instant Video.

Click here to watch a clip from “Tumble Leaf”. Read details about each series, taken directly from the Amazon Studios press release:

“Tumble Leaf  (for preschool-aged children)

Tumble Leaf debuts May 23 and comes from Emmy Award-winning director Drew Hodges and award-winning studio Bix Pix Entertainment. The preschool aged show follows Fig the Fox and his best friend Stick as they discover adventure, friendship and love around every bend. Themes found in the show promote exploration and scientific thinking through play. The talent behind the characters includes Christopher Downs as “Fig” and “Stick,” Zac McDowell as “Hedge,” Addie Zintel as “Pine,” Brooke Wolloff as “Maple” and Alex Trugman as “Ginkgo.”

Creative Galaxy (for preschool-aged children)

On June 27, Amazon Studios will introduce Creative Galaxy from acclaimed creator Angela Santomero  and Out of the Blue (Super Why!, Blue’s Clues, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood), and features Samantha Bee (The Daily Show), Christian Distefano, Jason Jones (The Daily Show), Cloris Leachman (Malcolm in the Middle), and Jason Priestley (Beverly Hills 90210). In this make-along, create-along, interactive art adventure series for preschoolers, characters Arty and Epiphany travel around the galaxy to solve problems with art, inspiring creative thinking through crafts, music and dance. To give kids and parents the real-life tools they need to re-create Arty’s experience, a live-action piece at the end of each animated episode will take viewers through the craft project that Arty showcased in the galaxy.

Annedroids (for children ages 4 to 7 years)

Annedroids, about a young scientist, will be available starting July 25. Created by Emmy-nominated JJ Johnson (Dino Dan) and Sinking Ship Entertainment, and aimed at children aged four through seven, Annedroids is a live-action adventure series about a young female genius, her human friends, android assistants and the amazing scientific discoveries they make while undertaking the biggest experiment of them all: growing up. Addison Holley (Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood) stars as “Anne,” Adrianna Di Liello (Stage Fright) plays her friend “Shania,” and Jadiel Dowlin plays “Nick.”

All Amazon Original children’s series will be available for unlimited streaming through Prime Instant Video on Fire TV, Kindle Fire, iPad, iPhone, Roku, Xbox, PlayStation, Wii and Wii U, and other connected devices, and online at www.amazon.com/PIV. The series will also be available through Amazon’s Kindle FreeTime app and via Kindle FreeTime Unlimited. “

Kids, remember when we told you that CBS had a “How I Met Your Mother” spinoff in the works titled…wait for it… wait for it… “How I Met Your Dad”? Remember how a number of you thought that was not the greatest idea?

As it turns out, CBS agrees with you. When the Eye unveiled its fall programming plans this morning, the “HIMYM” offshoot was neither on the schedule nor on its list of midseason pick-ups. That does not mean the network is spinoff-phobic. Among the eight new CBS shows joining the 2014-2015 season lineup, two of them grew out of the network’s signature procedurals: “NCIS: New Orleans”, which takes the 9pm Tuesday timeslot; and ”CSI: Cyber”, which premieres later in the season at 10pm Sundays – the new home for the “CSI” flagship series.

That means three hours of CBS primetime will be “NCIS” related, and if “Cyber” takes off, the long-in-the-tooth “CSI” will have spawned a new generation to reinvigorate the franchise.

Viewers who care enough to whine about the lack of changes to CBS’s schedule for 2014-2015 will surely do so, but it has long since shrugged off that criticism. That’s what happens when a network has a dominant formula. There’s no reason to change things around very much.

Indeed, CBS has one of the most strategically sound schedules on television: Twenty one veteran shows are returning to the schedule, which means few potholes to fill. Only five of the new series will premiere in the fall.  It boasts having broadcast television’s most successful roster of comedies, adding only one new sitcom, ”The McCarthys”, to Thursday nights. If that fails, CBS has “Mike & Molly” ready to jump in; if a new drama crashes and burns, the network will simply send in “The Mentalist”.

With the addition of NFL games on Thursday nights through the end of October, the Eye remains poised to stay in the pole position as the new season’s ratings race gets underway. To prevent audience erosion for its hit comedy “The Big Bang Theory” while simultaneously keeping its Monday night comedy brand alive and kicking, Sheldon and Leonard will open the season at 8pm Mondays before ceding the timeslot to “2 Broke Girls” post-football. Conceivably this could also bolster the audience for “Mom” – important, given that Chuck Lorre’s longest running sitcom on CBS, “Two and a Half Men”, is officially entering its final season.

Besides the spinoffs, two of the new dramas joining the crimetime network are, you guessed it, procedurals. “Stalker” follows Los Angeles Police Department detectives who investigate stalking incidents, and stars Maggie Q and Dylan McDermott. (Make what you will of the fact that “Criminal Minds”, a show that loves depicting people in peril, and in cages, and in basements, and in boxes, is its lead-in.) “Scorpion” is about a team within Homeland Security that investigates “complex, high-tech threats of the modern age.”

The third, “Madam Secretary”, stars Téa Leoni as a fictionalized Secretary of State and serves as bridge programming to retain the “60 Minutes” crowd on Sundays, while theoretically and thematically pairing well with “The Good Wife”.

Two previously announced new series will premiere later in the season: CBS’s reboot of “The Odd Couple” starring Matthew Perry and Thomas Lennon as Oscar and Felix, and “Battle Creek”, the new series from Vince Gilligan (“Breaking Bad”) and David Shore (“House M.D.”).

To read the official descriptions of new series, check out our list, Fall TV 2014-2015: The New Series, by clicking here.

For a quick list of CBS shows that have been renewed or cancelled, click here.

Monday

8pm: “The Big Bang Theory“/ “2 Broke Girls”

8:30pm: “Mom”

9pm: “Scorpion”

10pm: “NCIS: Los Angeles”

Tuesday

8pm: “NCIS”

9pm: “NCIS: New Orleans”

10pm: “Person of Interest”

Wednesday

8pm:  “Survivor”

9pm: “Criminal Minds”

10pm: “Stalker”

Thursday

8pm: “The Big Bang Theory” (starting Oct. 30)

8:30pm: “The Millers” (starting Oct. 30)

9pm: “Two and a Half Men” (starting Oct. 30)

9:30pm: “The McCarthys” (starting Oct. 30)

10pm: “Elementary” (starting Oct. 30)

Friday

8pm: “The Amazing Race”

9pm: ”Hawaii Five-0”

10pm: ”Blue Bloods”

Sunday

7pm: “60 Minutes”

8pm: “Madam Secretary”

9pm: “The Good Wife”

10pm: “CSI“/ “CSI: Cyber”

Surely ABC will figure out some way to let the world know that its Thursday nights officially belong to executive producer Shonda Rhimes , the name behind “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal“. Now that Rhimes has taken over the 10 o’clock slot with the new series “How to Get Away with Murder“, they should just call it ShondaLand, or ShonDay, and be done with it.

While it may seem that ABC executives handed the keys to the network over to Rhimes as it unveiled its fall schedule – when you’re fourth place in the ratings, any strategy has to be better than what’s going on now — that’s not quite the case. However, Rhimes’s ascent is just one example of the Alphabet’s very visible commitment to diversity this season. “Murder” and “Black-ish” star African-American actors, and ABC’s new Friday night comedy, “Cristela“, is a vehicle for Latina comedian Cristela Alonzo. “Selfie” and “Manhattan Love Story” both feature diverse casts.

That means that out of the six new series that ABC is rolling out for fall, five of them feature minority leads or co-stars…and that doesn’t even count midseason comedy “Fresh Off the Boat“.

The sixth fall show, “Forever“, stars Ioan Gruffudd as an immortal doctor, and that’s just fine because Gruffudd is British. As television and film have taught us, British people can do many whimsical, otherworldly things that we clunky Americans cannot. (On a side note, did you know that the president of ABC, Paul Lee, is British?)

Anyway.

“Forever” represents ABC’s efforts to get a toehold at 10pm Tuesdays, something is hasn’t been able to do in quite some time. To give it a chance, ABC has moved “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” to 9pm and is opening the evening with a pair of new comedies, “Selfie” and “Manhattan Love Story“. That means “The Goldbergs” moves to a much more compatible slot on Wednesday nights at 8:30pm, where it serves as the hammock between “The Middle” and “Modern Family“. If all goes as planned, this will strengthen the network’s Wednesday night comedy block and provide a strong launchpad for “Black-ish“, a new half-hour starring Anthony Anderson and Laurence Fishburne.*

To read the official descriptions of new series, check out our list, Fall TV 2014-2015: The New Series, by clicking here.

For a quick list of ABC shows that have been renewed or cancelled, click here.

Monday

8pm: “Dancing with the Stars”

10pm: “Castle”

Tuesday

8pm: “Selfie”

8:30pm: “Manhattan Love Story”

9pm: “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”

10pm: “Forever”

Wednesday

8pm:  “The Middle”

8:30pm: “The Goldbergs”

9pm: “Modern Family”

9:30pm: “Black-ish”

10pm: “Nashville”

Thursday

8pm: “Grey’s Anatomy”

9pm: “Scandal”

10pm: “How to Get Away with Murder”

Friday

8pm: “Last Man Standing”

8:30pm: “Cristela”

9pm: ”Shark Tank”

10pm: ”20/20”

Sunday

7pm: “America’s Funniest Home Videos”

8pm: “Once Upon a Time”

9pm: “Resurrection”

10pm: “Revenge”

*We don’t know for certain whether this means Fishburne is done with “Hannibal“. If it gives fans any comfort, remember that “Hannibal” only runs for 13 episodes per season, and Fishburne’s character has been designated as a recurring role on “Black-ish”. He’s also one of the ABC comedy’s executive producers, so he would be hanging around in some capacity anyway.

Not long ago, NBC wasn’t just a joke among the major broadcasters, it was a punchline. Make that, the punchline. Mired in fourth place with no bonafide hits to speak of, the best that the Peacock could offer in defense of its existence was that two of its Thursday night comedies, “Parks and Recreation” and “30 Rock“, were critically-beloved and multiple award winners. Critics praised NBC for sticking with these well-made comedies in spite of the fact that their ratings were perennially, criminally low.

Cut to the end of the 2013-2014 television season, and NBC is poised to finish on top. Yes, part of that is due to the boost that the Olympics afforded the network in midseason. Another part is due to the fact that the competition has suffered declines in the same-day audiences for their shows. If the Sochi games taught us anything, it is this: In a race downhill, the winner tends to be the guy who wipes out the least.

Even so, the power of “The Voice” was apparent long before the Winter Games. Not only did the reality competition show successfully help to launch “The Blacklist“, it also has eclipsed Fox’s “American Idol” in cultural relevance and ratings dominance. NBC added Dick Wolf’s “Chicago PD” to the schedule on the heels of “Chicago Fire“, which keeps Wolf on NBC’s payroll even as “Law & Order: SVU’s” potency is waning. Friday, though low-rated, is solidly branded with “Grimm” as a 9pm tentpole leading into “Constantine” in the fall and “Hannibal” in midseason.

NBC has a long way to go before it can celebrate a renaissance, however. Thursday nights remain a struggle, and the network still hasn’t figured out how to get into the Sunday night game. (Adieu, “Believe“, and so long, “Crisis“.) The good news is that NBC is much more realistic about its situation these days. Just as importantly, it is more open to killing its low-rated darlings than it has been in the past. While that’s not particularly great news for fans of “Revolution” and “Community“, it signals that the Peacock is ready to take bold steps to ensure that its climb continues.  And before you accuse the bird of cruelty, remember that it renewed both “Parenthood” and “Parks and Recreation” (which will premiere in midseason), granting each of them farewell seasons to create proper send-offs.

NBC appears to have finally admitted to itself that CBS has claimed the comedy crown on Thursdays, slimming down its comedy block to the 9 o’clock hour to get out of “The Big Bang Theory’s” way – that is, at least until midseason. Most notable is its intent to move “The Blacklist” to the highly-competitive 9pm Thursday timeslot when that show returns from its midwinter hiatus in February.

Notice that we’re talking a lot about existing series here. That is because for the first time in eons, NBC has enough going in its favor to keep its schedule relatively stable. You’ll be able to find your old faves – great news! Now the question is whether audiences will look for the new shows joining the schedule, including “State of Affairs“, also known as the Great Re-Awakening of Katherine Heigl’s Television Career.

Below is the full NBC schedule for the fall 2014-2015, taken from the press release. Note that these line-ups are subject to change, especially after the competition reveals their plans.

To read the official descriptions of new series, check out our list, Fall TV 2014-2015: The New Series, by clicking here.

For a quick list of NBC shows that have been renewed or cancelled, click here.

Monday
8pm: “The Voice”
10pm:  ”The Blacklist“/ “State of Affairs” (beginning Nov. 17)

Tuesday

8 pm: “The Voice”
9 pm: “Marry Me”
9:30 pm: “About a Boy“.
10 pm: “Chicago Fire”

Wednesday
8 pm:”The Mysteries of Laura”
9 pm: “Law & Order: SVU”
10 pm:”Chicago PD”

Thursday
8pm: “The Biggest Loser”
9 pm: “Bad Judge” (“The Blacklist“beginning Feb. 5)
9:30 pm: “A to Z”
10 pm: “Parenthood”

Friday
8 pm: “Dateline NBC”
9 pm: “Grimm”
10 pm: “Constantine”

Sunday
7-8:20 pm: “Football Night in America”
8:20-11:30 pm:  “NBC Sunday Night Football”

The broadcast networks’ annual dog-and-pony shows, also known as the upfront presentations, have officially kicked off. Monday, Fox and NBC revealed their fall schedules to advertisers – and, thanks to numerous reports like this one, the average folks who buy the products they’re selling.

Mainly, the upfronts exist to secure advertiser spending commitments for airtime far ahead of the fall season’s premiere. The more attractive the programming schedule, the more money will be spent to secure plum slots for commercial time. But for Average Jane and Joe Couch Surfer, upfronts week is commonly known as the week that we find whether our favorite shows are coming back for another season, have been cancelled, or perhaps have suffered a more precarious fate by being benched or moved.

It’s also fun to find out when highly-anticipated new series are premiering, of course. From that perspective, if you’re a genre fan, the night to watch Fox will be Mondays: The highly-anticipated Batman origin story “Gotham” will open the night at 8pm, followed by the second season of “Sleepy Hollow” at 9pm.

There’s always a mixed bag of news to report with every network, but Fox is getting the week off to a bold start by tossing its schedule like a salad. Not one weeknight has been left untouched for fall 2014-2015… not even Sunday’s block, previously branded as the Animation Domination line-up.

“Brooklyn Nine-Nine“, the only successful new half-hour among Fox’s freshman comedies, will move from Tuesday nights to Sundays at 8:30pm, the slot currently occupied by “Family Guy“. The Griffins move to 9pm, serving as a lead-in to new comedy “Mulaney“, a vehicle for comic and writer John Mulaney (“Saturday Night Live “).  (The fate of the 9pm Sunday timeslot’s current occupant, “Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey“, is yet to be confirmed.)

Meanwhile on Tuesdays, “Brooklyn Nine-Nine’s” former home (along with cancelled “comedy” “Dads“),  Fox is introducing its version of the Dutch unscripted series “Utopia“. Like the European series, which has streamed live on the internet since January 2014, “Utopia” will challenge fifteen people to move to an isolated, undeveloped location for a year, where they must create their own civilization from the ground up. It serves as the new lead-in to “New Girl” at 9pm, following by “The Mindy Project” at 9:30pm, signaling the end of genre-consistent line-ups on Tuesday as well.

Fox’s workhorse procedural “Bones” continues its peripatetic journey around the schedule. During the current season, it aired on Mondays and Fridays. In the fall it will move to Thursdays at 8pm, where it will be paired with “Gracepoint”, the American adaptation of the critically-acclaimed U.K. crime drama “Broadchurch” (which aired in the U.S. last summer on BBC America). “Doctor Who’s” David Tennant, who starred in the U.K. version, co-stars in “Gracepont” alongside Anna Gunn (“Breaking Bad“).

Thursdays are always a tough night for any network that isn’t CBS, but depending on what kind of reception “Gracepoint” gets, this one-two punch of murder mysteries could become one of Fox’s most solid evenings on the schedule. It also must be noted that this is the first time in several seasons that Fox hasn’t counter-programmed with unscripted on that night during the fall, thanks to the cancellation of “The X Factor“.

Fox also scheduled the hospital dramedy “Red Band Society”, starring Octavia Spencer, at 9pm Wednesdays after “Hell’s Kitchen“.

Other previously announced new series pick-ups, including “Backstrom”, “Hieroglyph”, “Empire”, “Bordertown”, “Last Man on Earth”, “Wayward Pines” and “Weird Loners” will join the schedule in 2015. Returning in midseason are “American Idol“, “The Following” and “Glee“, along with other series to be announced at a later date.

Below is the full Fox schedule for the fall 2014-2015 season, taken from the press release. Note that these line-ups are subject to change, especially after the competition reveals their plans.

To read the official descriptions of the new series, check out our list, Fall TV 2014-2015: The New Series, by clicking here.

For a quick list of Fox shows that have been renewed or cancelled, click here.

Monday

8 pm: “Gotham” 

9 pm:  “Sleepy Hollow”

Tuesday

8 pm: “Utopia“

9 pm:  “New Girl”

9:30pm: “The Mindy Project”

Wednesday

8 pm: “Hell’s Kitchen”

9pm:  “Red Band Society”

Thursday

8 pm: “Bones”

9pm:  “Gracepoint”

Friday

8 pm:  “MasterChef Junior”

9 pm: “Utopia“

Sunday

7 pm:  “NFL on Fox”

7:30pm:  “The OT” / “Bob’s Burgers”

8 pm:  “The Simpsons”

8:30 pm:  “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”

9 pm:  “Family Guy”

9:30 pm: “Mulaney”

Half the thrill of successful horror is in seeing the ways that the storyteller plays with our assumptions. Twists are fine and good, but the most interesting scary tales take everything we know about a place, character, or theme, and flip it on its head.

That promise is woven into the DNA of Showtime’s new series “Penny Dreadful”, which plays upon our familiarity with some of the greatest Gothic horror figures in literature and the silver screen. Premiering at 10pm Sunday, May 11 on Showtime, “Penny” also serves up plenty frights; the opening minutes of the first episode, “Night Work” (which you can screen online right now) is a veritable stew of horror movie tropes, starting with an unseen, vicious force unleashing terror on innocent, screaming victims.

Soon after that, the camera follows heroes stalking supernatural prey through tunnels filled with human viscera.

Then, everything slows down considerably as this premium cable series does what other of its ilk do – that is, it marinates in character development and style.

Decreasing the storytelling velocity isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Executive producer John Logan is introducing what feels like a full utility sink’s worth of characters by the end of the second episode, giving the audience a lot to sort through.

Not to worry, this isn’t a show that requires you to keep reference materials containing family trees nearby. Still, it’s a lot to take in.  The good news is, as stated above, most “Penny Dreadful” viewers will recognize a few of the names Logan has inserted into this world, and will likely appreciate his take.

It’s the ones we don’t know, the figures who are original to the series, who require more intricate study. Foremost among them is Miss Vanessa Ives (Eva Green), a mysterious woman with an icy gaze and powers that extend beyond her obvious talents as a medium and soothsayer. Miss Ives sees things in people that others cannot, which initially attracts her to Ethan Chandler (Josh Hartnett) an American gunslinger visiting London with a touring Western show.

Miss Ives recruits Chandler to help her and her partner Sir Malcolm Murray (Timothy Dalton) with a job that she’ll only characterize as, yes, “night work”.  She’s beautiful and doesn’t initially give up her name; Ethan, a red-blooded adventurer, is intrigued. Soon they’re trudging through Nosferatu-infested catacombs on a quest to find a missing girl.

Opening “Penny Dreadful” with a taste of blazing gunplay, swords and our heroes dealing with nasty business could be a wise move in the long run. But in the short term, it’s tough to ignore the sensation of the story’s adrenaline flow decreasing to a trickle as the urgency of the mission on which Sir Malcolm, Chandler and Miss Ives are initially engaged falls by the wayside, for no other good reason than to dive deeper into what makes these people tick. The exposition is intricate, but also feels a bit forced.

Fortunately Ethan, Miss Ives and Sir Malcolm are interesting people. It’s particularly nice to see Dalton in this statesman explorer role; he wears it well, particularly when we find out more about what’s driving Malcolm. Both he and Vanessa Ives are linked to and fascinated by the place Miss Ives refers to as the “demi-monde,” and with the two of them as guides, you’ll want to spend more time there.

Hartnett’s ex-pat cowboy fits in more quickly than one might imagine, mostly because Logan and his writers establish him as a man who finds a way to be comfortably out of place in strange lands.  He makes it easy for the audience to warm up to Ethan Chandler, especially after he establishes a platonic relationship with down-and-out working class girl Brona Croft (Billie Piper), a woman who has reached the end of her rope and simply wants the comfort of friendship. Their budding connection provides a nice counterpoint to another storyline involving an emotionally detached young physician (Harry Treadaway) Malcolm employs to help his team study the odd specimens they encounter.

But playing in the demi-monde can be wearying and dangerous. In the second episode, we find out just how damaging it can be, as we get a glimpse of Miss Ives’ and Sir Malcolm’s profound scars.  One incident that starts out as an innocent parlor game gives us details of Sir Malcolm backstory while also allowing the audience to gain deeper appreciation for Green’s theatrical versatility. Watching her drop her ladylike comportment to twist into a demonic frenzy is downright shocking, and it also grants this expository episode the jolt it needs.

It’s worth noting that in spite of the gore and Victorian grime displayed before our eyes, “Penny Dreadful” is beautiful to watch. J.A. Bayona directs the first two episodes, and the camera makes the most of the lush costumes and gracious parlors, capturing the Romanticism of the period with the same brilliance as the blood and claws.

Methodically-paced though it may be, the performances, scenery and the promise of a good, twisty tale may be enough to buy one’s patience with “Penny Dreadful”. At the very least, hang in there through the end of episode two; the second hour shows us all the ways in which Logan intends to court your attention and steal your heart, only to earn a terrified gasp the very instant that we become too comfortable.   In that moment Logan throws open the door to that demi-monde nice and wide, inviting the audience to explore its marvelous, terrifying depths. Join them, won’t you?

“Penny Dreadful” premieres at 10pm Sunday, May 11, on Showtime.

SPOILER ALERT: This interview contains major details about the second season finale of History’s “Vikings,” which aired for the first time Thursday night. If you haven’t seen it yet, leave this page and raid elsewhere. You have been warned.

Former best friends can make the most venomous of enemies. Stories of great friendships turning sour can create epic entertainment, of course, but “Vikings” viewers may have found the apparent rift developing between Ragnar Lothbrok and Floki over the course of season two to be more alarming than anything else. Think of the history these two have — Floki has been truer to Ragnar than Ragnar’s own brother, Rollo, in life and on the battlefield. Floki has been Ragnar’s most vocal champion and his most honest adviser.  In the first season, when Ragnar (Travis Fimmel) was being hunted by his former liege lord, Earl Haraldson (Gabriel Byrne), Floki risked his neck to keep his bestie hidden.

Because of all of this, and because of the unique flair that Swedish actor Gustaf Skarsgård has lent to the role, Floki is a beloved character, a man who is equal parts warrior, sage and sinister clown. He’s fierce, funny, scary… and loyal. Or so we thought.

Seemingly overnight during season two, Floki grew fickle. He proposed marriage to his lover Helga (Maude Hirst), only to declare he did not want Ragnar at the wedding in his next breath. He appeared to entertain King Horik’s (Donal Logue) offer to grant him greater prestige, and didn’t blink when Horik proposed that they kill Ragnar’s son, Bjorn (Alexander Ludwig). Heck, Floki all but telegraphed his willingness to knife his friend in the back in the season premiere when he observed, “Who needs a reason for betrayal? One must always think the worst, Ragnar, even of your own kin. That way you avoid too much disappointment in life.”

So when Floki appeared to have poisoned a bedridden Rollo (Clive Standen) and trusted fellow warrior Torstein (Jefferson Hall) to earn King Horik’s blessing,  and when Horik’s men stormed Kattegat with the mission of killing Ragnar, Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick), Aslaug (Alyssa Sutherland) and all their children and kin…one can be forgiven for cursing that treacherous boat-builder.

And when all of that poisonous intrigue turned out to be a ruse, Skarsgård and executive producer Michael Hirst probably earned that much more love from the show’s fans.

This “Vikings’” finale stands as a superb ending to a riveting second season. Good times were had by all — except, obviously, for Horik.  It must not have been pleasant to go out with former allies slicing and stabbing him before Ragnar bashed in Horik’s skull with his own. Then again, one imagines that death by forehead beating is far preferable to death by blood eagle.

In the final frame, Ragnar holds the sword of the King, and Floki once again stands by his side. All is right with the world. Or is it? In a recent phone conversation, Skarsgård discussed the role Floki played in his friend’s political ascent and spoke to the question of his character’s trustworthiness.

IMDbTV: Have you gotten any feedback about Floki’s actions this season from the fans?

Gustaf Skarsgård: It’s been over this last season that Floki has been on this crazy journey. He supposedly turns very dark and is about to betray Ragnar, you know. That has had the fans very agitated with Floki. But then of course in the end, we realize he never did betray his friend.

IMDbTV: Yeah, let’s talk about that a little bit… There’s that scene where Floki is discussing with King Horik the possibility of killing Bjorn. Was Floki really just playing King Horik this entire time? Because in a private moment with Helga, he talked about how King Horik understood the dark gods better than Ragnar and that he would have more possibilities with him.

Skarsgård: Floki, he’s going so far and deep into the part. Everything he said, there’s grains in truth in all of it – his slight disappointment with Ragnar, and his kinship with Horik in terms of the gods. But I think he exaggerates all this to play the part, to get close to Horik.

Basically, Floki is method acting his double-agent thing, and he doesn’t let Helga in on it to protect her. What we see, when he tells her that he won’t invite Ragnar to the wedding, he knows that she will go and tell that to her friend Siggy. He knows that King Horik will pick up on this and try to get in closer. So it’s not that he doesn’t trust Helga. But if he knew she could get tortured to tell the truth, it’s better to keep everyone out of it. I think it was just between Ragnar and Floki. They’re the only ones that had known the whole time.

Having said that, I’m not sure that they actually planned to kill and get rid of King Horik, but they definitely planned for Floki to get close to him. I think there is a kinship between Floki and Horik, for sure. The way I see it, the turning point for Floki is when he realized that Horik is actually after Bjorn, to kill Bjorn and get rid of Ragnar. That’s was the turning point, the point beyond return. You don’t f**k with my family, basically.

IMDbTV: Wait, so the entire time Ragnar was in on it ? This was a plan between Ragnar and Floki?

Skarsgård: That’s the way I see it, yes.

IMDbTV:  I ask this for a number of reasons, firstly because I noticed in discussions on our site, people were mourning the dissolution of this friendship. But the way the finale played out, and everything leading up to it, there is that matter of whether we as viewers can actually trust that what we’re seeing is true, that Floki has, indeed, always been loyal to Ragnar.

Skarsgård: Well, that’s an interesting question. We don’t want to give all the answers, but the way I see it, he always was. I also think that, for me, it’s a classic mafia thing… they planted him to get close to the enemy. But also, in the end, there was a true kinship between Horik and Floki. That’s why when everybody is taking a hit on Horik in the end, Floki doesn’t. He walks away and he’s kind of like, ‘I’m sorry, dude, but you f**ked with my family. It didn’t have to go this way.’

IMDbTV:  Floki is almost a very dangerous jester in a way…he’s charming and frightening at the same time.

Skarsgård: That was my goal the whole time. It’s a very interesting balance to tread. On one hand, he’s weird and cute and adorable, and on the other hand, he’s a brutal, crazy killer. And very dark, he has this thread of darkness in him that’s very true. When he names his daughter after a giantess, that’s no act.

IMDbTV:  His reaction to having a daughter, or a child at all, was very conflicted, too. What are we to read from that? Is it actually genuine, or is it part of the method acting we were talking about?

Skarsgård: I think it’s both, but I think that Floki… I think he’s kind of bipolar as well. He bounces between full-on hubris and self-loathing, he goes in one of those two extremes. It’s either like, “I’m chosen by the gods and the gods love my boat!’ or, ‘I’m worthless with my gods and the gods are angry with me and my boats are going to sink.’ It’s either, ‘I’m going to become the greatest father in the world!’ or, ‘I’m going to be an awful father.’ ‘I’m going to have the most beautiful daughter in the world,’ or ‘I’m gonna have a monster.’ He’s always torn between those two extremes.

IMDbTV:  Is that tough to play? It sounds like it would have an effect on you, to play that role.

Skarsgård: I guess so?… I always strive to keep my own balance and sanity, but of course it can be more challenging at times. For me, it’s very fun to have that extreme of a character to play with, especially this season, with all these layers. I am this guy, who’s playing this guy, who’s playing this other character, to get close to this other person. There are so many layers, it’s been so interesting. For people who re-watch this season, and especially the last couple of episodes, knowing that Floki was always true to Ragnar, they would see what little things that I do that is revealing only if you know it. I couldn’t be too apparent with it, because people would know. I had to lead the audience on to think that I actually would betray Ragnar…and still keep it believable that I’d play it this way.

IMDbTV:  Well, it worked.

Skarsgård: Good, good!

IMDbTV: That leads me to the question of going into season three… There’s that scene where Floki tells Ragnar, “I’m a trustworthy person,” and Ragnar responds with this look that says, “C’mon. We both know what’s going on.”

Skarsgård: Yes, but remember, in that shot when we have that argument, there’s a person in the middle who is observing all of this: King Horik. That whole scene is just an act for him.

IMDbTV:  But is Floki, at this point, someone that can be trusted? As you said, half of what he says is the truth.

Skarsgård: We always want to keep everyone on their toes, but… it’s up to you really, how you feel about him. But the way I see it, he’s always been loyal to Ragnar – and especially to Bjorn, the kid. He’s always seen the greatness in Bjorn… so I think that Floki is very loyal, if not only to Ragnar, then especially to Bjorn.

IMDbTV: How much were these stories and this aspect of Scandinavian culture part of your upbringing, and the things that you learned about growing up?

Skarsgård: I would say there’s some, for sure. I would read some books about Vikings and get taught some of it in school. But not nearly as much knowledge as I have for it now, working on the show and doing all the research. It’s fascinating to me on a strictly personal level, because I get to learn so much about the culture.

But then it’s like, this is our history. It’s what we come from. There are so many small details in our society today that come straight from Viking society, in terms of our rituals and traditions… I’ve learned now that there’s so much of our like, say, “Viking-ness”, that we just take for granted because that’s just a part of us. Whereas in Ireland, for example, they have more Viking activities than we have here – they have Viking tours, Viking this and that, because of the Vikings going there. But we take our “Viking-ness” for granted, because that’s just who we were.

IMDbTV:  What’s an example that you’ve noticed is part of culture that is taken for granted?

Skarsgård: Just, like, our word for ‘Cheers.’ We say, “Skol.” That comes from the bowl that they would drink from around these long tables, they would drink from the same bowl. That bowl is called a skol. …Also, places, the names of places stem from the Viking gods. And our names. My third name is Orm — it means ‘snake,’ which is a very old Viking name. There’s so much from Viking culture that comes straight down to our culture.

IMDbTV:  And maybe this is obvious, since Floki and Loki seem similar in behavior in my imagining of what Loki would be like, but did any of that mythology influence your performance?

Skarsgård: Oh definitely. Definitely.

IMDbTV:  What were some other influences that you drew upon?

Skarsgård: It’s hard to describe what inspires you. I would never attempt to copy any other person’s performance, because it’s not subjective and therefore not truthful. Having said that, I keep the inspirational flow completely open. I’m sure I’ve been inspired by many other actors’ performance in terms of how I portrayed this character. But there were so many things that were crucial for me in forming the character – his physicality, his quirkiness, his unpredictability. I also got a lot of help from Johan Renck, who directed the first three episodes from season 1. He set the tone, because he really inspired me to really go for it. I’m so happy that I did, because if I would have half-assed it, it might have just become embarrassing. But I’m going so all-out with the character, because he’s such an extreme character. So I’m glad that he inspired me to dare to go all the way.

IMDbTV:  Where did you get that laugh from? That laugh, and that little dance that you do.

Skarsgård: Yeah! Actually, I was working on it, I was working out this laugh. I was sitting in my hotel room in Ireland and I was like, ‘I gotta find a giggle, this guy needs a giggle.’ I want to keep him at a bubbly level, he’s always up there and ready to giggle. So I was actually sitting in my hotel room, working on different high-pitched, falsetto giggles.

IMDbTV:  It’s rare to be able to do that and not put the audience off. Yet it’s very signature to the character.

Skarsgård: It’s a balancing act. But that’s also what’s interesting about working on a TV show – sometimes I get sick of myself, just standing in the background giggling. I get tired of myself doing it sometimes, so then I might play a scene completely differently. For me it’s important that Floki doesn’t just become the jester, doesn’t just become the fool, which is why I’m so grateful about how this second season came out in terms of the last episode. You really get to see, oh this guy, he’s really smart. He’s a force to be reckoned with. He’s no fool.

IMDbTV:  Since the beginning, there have been a number of great guest stars on this show: Gabriel Byrne, Linus Roache, Donal Logue. I have to ask…We see a lot of Skarsgårds being cast in projects here at IMDb.

(Skarsgård laughs.)

IMDbTV:  Has anyone else in your family expressed interest in coming on the show? Have you guys talked about it at all?

Skarsgård: No, we haven’t. I spoke to my youngest brother Valter [Skarsgård] about it, though.  He’s 18 years old. It would be great fun if he could find something in the show.

Prime subscribers can watch season one of “Vikings” for free on Amazon Instant Video.

Among seasoned channel surfers, History’s “Vikings” is the television explorer’s equivalent of Northumbria. Newcomers stumbled upon episodes much in the way Ragnar Lothbrok (Travis Fimmel) and his Northmen blindly navigated the rough seas before making their virgin landing on unknown shores. Like those exploring warriors, their efforts were richly rewarded.

As for how season two ends, tune at 10pm tonight (Thursday) to see for yourself – and prepare to be left with a lot questions. We can answer a couple of the big ones for you right now: Yes, there will be a season three, and reportedly Earl Ragnar will raiding a new territory, France.

Other queries likely will have to do with two of this season’s most bewildering figures, Siggy (Jessalyn Gilsig) and Floki (Gustaf Skarsgård). Going into the finale, each is flirting with the idea of betraying Ragnar to improve their respective stations.

For the moment, however, let us consider Siggy.

“Vikings” features some of the most interesting portrayals of gender roles on television. Men and shield maidens fight side by side, and if a man dishonors his respected wife, she is welcome to end the marriage with her blade.  On TV, the battle-hardened heroine is a much-loved archetype; here, we have Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick). Beauty and devotion, the central virtues of Aslaug (Alyssa Sutherland), also carry weight. There’s a woman newly freed from being a slave, reveling in choice. There are mothers. And there is Siggy.

In Kattegat’s tight-knit community, Siggy hovers around the edges. When the series began, she was the star of the place, the wife of the previous Earl with a beautiful daughter. But her husband got greedy, challenged Ragnar and was killed in combat. Sickness took what family she had left. Now, Siggy is obsessed with regaining her station. Having hooked Ragnar’s brother Rollo (Clive Standen), she decided to cover her bases by also seducing King Horik (Donal Logue), a man who makes pretty promises but also treats her like a pawn. When the chips are down, it’s hard to say whose side will Siggy choose, and at what cost.

We chatted with Jessalyn Gilsig on the phone about Siggy, the finale, and how far she thinks Siggy will go in season three.

IMDbTV: It has been interesting to watch Siggy’s evolution…When you first opened those scripts and saw where she was headed over the course of season two, what was your reaction?

Jessalyn Gilsig:  She is a woman who is capitalizing on whatever she can find…It’s such an interesting world to live in, because you have to really, I think, separate yourself from what we think of as traditional gender roles.  I get the Lady Macbeth thing a lot. And I get, “Oh, I don’t like Siggy because she’s so ambitious.’ One of the things that’s so unique about this time period that we’re trying to explore is that ambition isn’t gender specific.

This is a woman who has experienced power, who knows how to work with power, how to execute power, and has none at this point. But I always think of her every time I have a scene in the Great Hall. From just watching and observing, I’m always thinking, ‘She’s seen everything before. Nothing is new information for her.’ She has already experienced this, because she’s been the wife to an Earl. So I really like the idea that she’s left with these scraps, and she knows how to generate them and try to set things in place so that she has some options moving forward.

IMDbTV: I find it interesting that people have told you that they don’t like Siggy because she’s ambitious, especially this season. We had Lagertha struggling to balance these ideas of duty to husband and her will as a shield-maiden…then, next thing we know, she’s a Earl.

Gilsig: That’s interesting to hear you say that… there’s the sense that Lagertha is untouchable, she’s driven by the heart. I think people have trouble seeing a woman who is driven by something different than that. Siggy is capable of caring, obviously. She had a family, but she’s calculated and driven by other interests that maybe worked before, over her emotions.

IMDbTV: And she’s lost her family.

Gilsig: Yes, that’s it. What Michael [Hirst] has given me is this woman who is an orphan. Her entire family has been decimated, and she has to find some purpose to go on… I think that in more contemporary storytelling, we would expect this woman to just curl into a ball and be defined by this loss. But it’s a loss that propels her, because she lives on with the legacy she created with the Earl. These are the things that I think about, because what mother could go forward after losing a child? But it’s a bigger calling, I think, that was reflective of the era. There was so much ambition, so much to be discovered, so much of the unknown that everybody wanted to reach. And the women are as driven by that as the men in this series.

IMDbTV: Where do you see Siggy going in the third season?

Gilsig: For me, the finale generates more questions. …When Siggy makes the decision that she makes, how far back does that go? Was it in the moment? Was it always going to be that way? We don’t know. That’s the question going into season three. What has been motivating her this entire time, and how many moves ahead was she? To me, that’s what I want to know, because I think she’s many moves ahead of Ragnar. There’s no way she isn’t, because she’s seen it all. I think she’s being underestimated. But I think that will be the question: How far back does the calculation go?

IMDbTV: We’ve seen Siggy attach herself to several men: first her husband, then Rollo and King Horik. At this point, there isn’t a clear person to ally herself with next season.

Gilsig: I’m going to say this for the sake of conversation: It’s so funny that we think we have to pair up the women with a guy. She may or may not have a guy in the third season…that’s what I like so much about Siggy, because she’s so autonomous. It’s a new idea… She’s still kind of a separate entity, moving through on her own path. …Usually, every other character I’ve ever played wants a guy. That’s not where these women start. They’re capable of love and they experience love and are driven by love, as we all are, but they’re also driven by other things.

IMDbTV: Here’s something I was wondering…Aslaug is based on a figure on history and legend, as is Lagertha. What about Siggy?

Gilsig: She isn’t, and that’s kind of funny….Like, Clive will say, “Oh, I’m gonna invade France.” And I was talking to Alyssa the other day and she says, “Well, my character’s had all her babies.” Everybody knows what their trajectory is going to be, based on what history says. Whereas Siggy, she’s completely fictionalized.

IMDbTV:Is that a refreshing thing to know, or does that make you say, “…At any time I can open the script and find out ‘that’s it for me!’’”

Gilsig: Well, I do think that some of the actors think they have job security based on history, which is a unique position to be in. But I feel like we’re still trying to find the motivation to the people in this world that Michael has created, which has a completely new vocabulary. Think of Travis’s performance – he’s playing a figure in history, but he’s putting texture into him. It’s his own interpretation.

IMDbTV: Speaking of putting textures into characters, were there any performances or figures you drew upon while shaping or evolving Siggy’s character?

Gilsig: I did think about women in power. I thought a lot about Queen Elizabeth, but I also thought about Hillary Clinton, or Condoleezza Rice, women in our contemporary world who are comfortable with power and unapologetic about holding it. And that’s a little bit foreign to me… maybe I can have an assertive thought, but I might it couch in a way to gently deliver it. I play a lot of characters like that too, and I wanted to really see if I could explore that feeling over being comfortable knowing that you’re a person of importance. It’s kind of a different body to sit in for me.

IMDbTV: What about figures in film and TV?

Gilsig: Definitely Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth, and also because Michael had written that, so immediately when I got the job I looked at it. I had seen it of course, but she does such a phenomenal job with that. It’s unquestionable. Of course she has these more vulnerable feminine moments… but it’s fascinating to me when you see it, when you think of Hillary Clinton or Madeleine Albright, these women who don’t feel like they need to the microphone and say, “Heeey… how’s everybody doing?” And, like, crack a joke and make it soft. They just come in with the information. That’s so different from what it’s like to be a woman in Hollywood. I don’t know, maybe I’m going to try it more often. I think I will.

The season finale of “Vikings” airs at 10pm tonight on History. Check back tomorrow for our post-finale chat with Gustaf Skarsgård, the man behind Floki.

A scene in the second episode of “24: Live Another Day” provides a deliciously quintessential Jack Bauer moment, one of those exchanges tailored to elicit a Pavlovian response among fans: Jack is facing down a group of heavily goons, with a pistol to the head of one of their gang. Not counting Jack’s human shield, the odds are three to one.

“Look, I can tell you consider yourself a pretty intimidating group,” Jack tells his adversaries in a calm, confident growl. “You probably think I’m at a disadvantage. I promise you I’m not.”

As you probably know by now, Jack Bauer is a man who delivers on his promises.

“24 ” marked the end of Agent Bauer’s bone-breaking exploits, fading out a television series that left an indelible mark on our culture, for good or ill. In its finest hours, it was a ridiculous thrill ride that asked viewers to overlook plot twists and developments that defied reality. Jack, always in pursuit of super-villains armed with weapon of mass destruction who also to assassinate the president, managed to criss-cross Los Angeles in a matter of minutes. In rush hour traffic. By the way, did we mention that during one of these adventures, he also kicked heroin cold-turkey?

Jack’s never-ending war on terror and Energizer Bunny vitality hooked us for nearly a decade, even though the show overstayed its welcome by a season or two.  Then there were “24’s” unwelcome side-effects, including accusations of stoking Islamophobia and bolstering the idea of torture as a necessary tool in military missions. The “24” series finale attracted slightly more than 9 million viewers when it aired in May 2010, a modest audience for the end of a drama once considered to be groundbreaking.

Nevertheless, those of us buoyed by the promise of continuing the franchise have good reason to be excited by Kiefer Sutherland’s return to television in his signature role.

The opening hours of “24: Live Another Day” deliver precisely the sort of action payload people loved about the original series with a fresher take. Bringing a post 9/11 hero into the cyber-age, the story picks up where the finale left us, with Jack branded as an outlaw. But in a time when dirty bombs are perceived as less of an immediate threat than rogue technology, and computer hackers are both the new heroes and the villains, Jack Bauer is far from obsolete.

One only has to watch a few minutes of Day 9 to realize how much we’ve missed the partnership between Jack and Chloe (Mary Lynn Rajskub), who has transformed into a charmingly mopey version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Sure, Chloe’s makeover from grumpy wallflower into a digital anarchist with kohl-rimmed eyes seems a little forced. Considering other schemes Robert Cochran, Joel Surnow, Howard Gordon and the rest of the executive producers presented us with before, asking us to buy Chloe in runny eyeliner isn’t a terrible stretch.

“24: Live Another Day” also brings back a number of familiar faces (including Kim Raver and William Devane) without transforming into a nostalgia parade, while adding a number of new characters to the mix played by Benjamin Bratt, Yvonne Strahovski, Michelle Fairley and up-and-coming star John Boyega, who was just announced as one of the leads in Star Wars: Episode VII.

Yes, there’s good reason to be hopeful that this limited series will deliver everything “24” fans want. But bear in mind, this positive assessment is based on two episodes, the action that takes place between 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM. “24’s” frequent flyers know that each season tended to serve up its finest episodes at the beginning and closer to the finale. And those middle-of-the-season episodes? Beware, for here there be cougars.

Fortunately “24: Live Another Day’s” mission consists of a lean 12 episodes – half as many as each season of the series. Meaning, less time for flabby storylines and filler, more urgency for Jack to do what he does best. The clock is ticking again, and we couldn’t be more excited.

“24: Live Another Day” makes its two-hour premiere 8pm Monday, May 5, on Fox. Need a refresher before the premiere? Prime subscribers can view every episode of “24” for free on Amazon Instant Video right now.  

Television teaches us that good witches are a great asset to any neighborhood. As for bad witches, hell hath no fury like Jessica Lange when she’s out for blood. From “Bewitched“  to “Charmed” to “American Horror Story: Coven”, numerous interpretations of witches and witchcraft have been brewed up for the small screen over the years.

Would we ever want to go back? As in, all the way back to the Puritans? As WGN America’s new series “Salem” proves, absolutely.

Premiering at 10pm Sunday, “Salem” is WGN America’s first original, and the channel is not gingerly stepping into basic cable’s scripted arena. Sinister, sexed-up and at times downright freaky, this is a show that turns any dry ideas of the Puritan era on its head and shows us a Salem that may be wound up tightly by oppressive laws and practices but, behind closed doors, really does house an occult threat that affords its participants a measure of power and pleasure, at a price.

At the center of the story are Mary Sibley (Janet Montgomery) and John Alden (Shane West), lovers torn apart by Alden’s duties as a soldier and the disapproval of Salem’s leaders. Alden heads off to fight in the French and Indian War, and returns to a greatly changed Salem, and a very different Mary.

Co-starring with West and Montgomery are Seth Gabel, Xander Berkeley and Ashley Madekwe, who plays Tituba, one of several names anyone with a passing familiarity with Salem’s real history will recognize.

That said, a historical drama this is not. Making viewers jump with fright is the main goal here, and creators Adam Simon and Brannon Braga kick off the action with the tragic case of poor Mercy Lewis (Elise Eberle), a possessed girl who becomes a pawn in Salem’s hunt to ferret out witches – and the witches’ quest to turn the townsfolk upon one another.

We recently spoke with Braga about what inspired “Salem”, and whether TV’s current spate of witch-related series is a blessing or a curse.

IMDbTV: One of the major observations that Adam made at press to tour is that the history at work in the series is fantasy, but the magic portrayed is real… How much historical fact did you use to develop this story?

Brannon Braga: We drew upon history quite liberally, both in terms of characters and events and even the magic we depict, because this time and place and these events are virtually uncharted territory dramatically. Countless books have been written about Salem, but when it comes to movies and television, there’s basically just ’The Crucible’.

These witch trials were transcribed in meticulous detail, all of them. They’re fascinating to read, what people thought was happening. A lot of the characters are based on people who really lived. We’ve altered those characters. We’ve taken the attributes historically that we wanted to use and then we change them in other ways. In certain incidents, like in the pilot, a man really was pressed to death. In fact, that is where the phrase “pressed for an answer” comes from. The Fifth Amendment… that case was pointed to by the founding fathers as the reason why we should have the right to remain silent.

…So there’s stuff in the show, even the magic – like the suckling of a toad on [a woman’s] thigh, and using it to put her husband into a coma, that’s stuff that was described in detail in the actual witch trial journals. There’s just an abundance of material that’s weirder than any of the stuff you might see in a modern-day horror movie.

IMDbTV: Those were the details that I saw that seemed incredibly period specific, but I had to wonder where you got the idea for them. You say there were so many transcripts available, but our culture’s idea of what a witch is seems to be descended from something between modern Wicca and “Bewitched”.

Braga: Yeah. …Puritans were at two with nature – famous Woody Allen line. They did not like it. They did not like the woods. They were ashamed of their bodies. They were terrified of the Indians that were slaughtering them on a daily basis. And this fear, and this oppression, manifests itself in some horrific imagery… So it’s really tantalizing, these images. Some of them we make up, but a lot of them we’re getting from the transcripts.

IMDbTV: One imagines you were developing these scripts at the same time that “American Horror Story’s” latest season was on. Did you ever check it out and see its presentation of witches?

Braga: No, I consciously avoided it. I didn’t want to – I’m a big Ryan Murphy fan. I love “American Horror Story,” and I just wanted to be careful that nothing was subconsciously absorbed. I wanted to stick to my hermetically sealed, imagined reality. But I actually did watch the show once I was deep enough into [this project]. They’re very different tonally. I was relieved to see that.

IMDbTV: Yes, they are quite different.

Braga: And I loved it, I thought it was awesome. But it’s a very different tone, I think, and I hope there won’t be too many comparisons. I think they each stand on their own.

IMDbTV: It does make me wonder, though… there’s always a time that writers and pop culture consumers look at different waves of popularity in horror and genre. People have said, “Vampires are over, now it’s all about zombies.” Now we’re seeing lots of witches – we just talked about “Coven,” and witches play a significant role on “The Originals”…Is there any concern as to whether this trend could saturate the TV landscape?

Braga: Well, when we started developing this show there weren’t a whole lot of witches around. Then all of a sudden, they flew in on their broomsticks like crazy. I can’t really say. It remind me of… I did this alien invasion show for CBS many years ago, and a whole bunch of alien invasion shows came on that year. They all didn’t do well.

IMDbTV: Are you talking about “Threshold”?

Braga: Yeah. …I think there’s much more room now on the TV landscape for multiple witch series, and I think there’s much more acceptance of genre. If you said to me, “Go pitch a period show about witches” ten years ago… No way! Most executives would have said, “People don’t like period.” So things have changed so much, and there just seems to be a hunger at the moment for these types of shows. Why, I don’t know. I’m not worried about it, because at the end of the day, like any show as you know … really it’s, do you like the characters? Do you enjoy watching it? It really shouldn’t matter, in a way, whether it’s a witch or a vampire.

IMDbTV: One of the things you also said in a previous presentation is that the central story is actually the romance. How do you maintain a balance between the romance and the supernatural in these episodes?

Braga: It seems to fit in with the time period. I think the key to it is just saying, how did people think back then? Keeping it true to the time, and knowing that we cast the roles with the right chemistry. A lot of things had to work for that romance to work. I’ve said before, it’s an old quote, that it’s Wuthering Heights meets The Exorcist.

…The balancing of horror and romance on this show is not an issue. The issue is sustaining the tension of these two characters who have no idea that they’re still in love, and they have no idea that they’re on a collision course – they’re either going to destroy each other or they’re going to run away together.

That kind of exquisite agony that these two characters are going through every week is the trickiest thing to sustain, because you kind of want to set that coin on its edge just so, and keep it from falling over the whole time, because that’s what works about it. And so far, so good.

IMDbTV: You’ve also said that the witches are not the only supernatural beings to be part of this world. How often are we going to see the other things in the woods that are threatening Salem? Are those going to be part of close-ended story each week or are we looking at arcs?

Braga: …There are close-ended aspects to each episode, for sure, and yet there are threads that will continue to run through all of them and culminate at the end of the season into hopefully something great.

You asked about other supernatural beings…you aren’t going to be seeing werewolves or anything like that. But there are terrors in the worlds that scared the citizens of Salem just as much as the witches. Like the Indians, and the French — the French and Indian War was going on. We’re going to get some tastes of that. People felt going into those woods was certain death. You were either going to be killed by an Indian, a French soldier, an animal or, in their minds, a demon. You’re going to be seeing all of that.

IMDbTV: You’ve also said that the witches are going to be the witch hunters. Can you explain that a little bit more?

Braga: Of course you’re going to find out a lot more as things go on…If you don’t say “witches are real and they’re running the trials,” that’s the hook. Saying “witches are real” isn’t quite enough. If we say that they’re running the trials, what does that mean? Why? That’s what you’ll learn as the series goes on.

IMDbTV: When you were developing this series, was there are particular piece of cinema, television or even literature that you drew upon — besides the transcripts — to inform the tone of this series?

Braga: You’re the only person who asked me that, and it’s an important question, because tone is everything, isn’t it? If there’s one style of filmmaking that I can point to, in talking with Richard Shepard , our director on the pilot, I’d say Roman Polanski, probably. Controversial figure, but still a brilliant filmmaker. I look to the directing in Rosemary’s Baby, it’s just utterly timeless and simple and really, really scary and psychological. I’d put The Exorcist up there, in terms of a raw, ominous tones. Hopefully people will be drawn to the romantic aspects of the show, but also that feeling of dread that the show can evoke. We want to scare people.

Those would be the two movies that we talked about. But a lot of stuff also is just coming from the time, because as I said, this is just so unexplored, this whole world. You read these transcripts of the witch trials and you’re just like, “Holy cow, we’ve got to use that.” I was reading one the other day – at one point, they put a pig on trial. They thought at one point that a pig was a witch and they had evidence as to why the pig was a witch!… It’s just insane, what was happening. And so a lot of this, I can’t really point to anything. It’s kind of its own weird thing.

IMDbTV: This makes me wonder, a) how did the pig testify on its own behalf? And b), did they eat the pig afterward? I’m guessing that was not part of the transcript.

Braga: (laughs) Yeah…I don’t know the answer to that.

“Salem” premieres at 10pm Sunday, April 20, on WGN America.

 There’s a sense that “Fargo” star Martin Freeman is one of us. Not just a movie and TV star, but an easy-going guy who we’d love to get a drink with. Or, sure, he’ll hang out on your couch with you. Wanna stay for dinner, Martin? Why not.

This overwhelming likability is just part of the reason that when Freeman was cast in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, his name quickly surged to the top of STARmeter to clinch the number one spot. It’s not as if he was a total unknown at the time; Freeman already had gained acclaim thanks to his TV roles in “Sherlock” and the original UK version of “The Office”. Genre fans enjoyed him as Arthur Dent in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as well. But that made it quite clear that the actor had lots of fans.

“Those were proud days,” Freeman joked during a recent interview. “Proud days indeed! Then I went back down to number 5004.”

For the record, at the time of this post’s writing, he’s ranked at 393. But don’t be surprised if Freeman’s name climbs the chart again closer to the premiere of FX’s true crime series “Fargo,” debuting April 15 at 10pm.

The flavor of The Coen Brothers‘s classic “homespun murder mystery” is deeply infused into this 10-episode limited series, which follows a new cast of characters trudging through a completely fresh tale. It begins with a botched hit, becoming increasingly bizarre from there thanks to a crime of passion that has unforeseen connections and complications.

Though the bulk of the action is set in the town of Bemidji, Minnesota, “Fargo” was shot in Calgary, in the deep, frigid mid-winter. Consider this when you watch Freeman’s portrayal of Lester Nygaard, a meek, frequently-abused insurance salesman whose life takes a remarkable turn for the worse when he meets a hilariously amoral man named Lorne Malvo (Billy Bob Thornton). Not only is Freeman convincingly speaking in a regional accent that’s difficult for most Americans to imitate, he’s doing it as part of a shocking, thoroughly entertaining performance, all while appearing to be perfectly comfortable in weather that would make an ice cube say, “Thanks, but I’ll pass.”

We sat down with Freeman during a recent press event to talk about “Fargo” and the challenge of being perceived as an Everyman, for better or worse.

IMDBTV: You’ve had a very busy time since The Hobbit: First, jumping from that into “Sherlock,” then coming into “Fargo”. What made you decide to take on another TV project?

Martin Freeman: Various things. It was the slight difference of it, the different nature of it. I get fewer offers from the States for television than I do for other things. There aren’t as many just straight offers, because I’m less known here than I am in the U.K.

That doesn’t mean that you’ll do something, because you’re flattered into it. But, well, it’s a vote of confidence. They trust I can play this part, and this is not a part that people often associate me with. The whole arc of what goes on with Lester Nygaard is pretty broad, and it covers ground that I don’t think a lot of people would be familiar with associating with me… It’s a fantastically written script. I read the next one, and that was fantastic. And I thought, well, Billy Bob’s in it, so yeah. I’d be silly not to do it.

IMDBTV: Maybe I’m wrong, and admittedly it’s been a while since I’ve seen [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy], but I saw a little bit of, “What if Arthur Dent loses it?” in Lester Nygaard. Just the aspect of this Everyman who is pushed, and pushed…

Freeman: Yeah, I suppose so. If he had a hammer nearby, maybe… I don’t know how Dent-y Lester is.  I don’t think you would think that was Arthur Dent if it was someone else playing the part.

IMDBTV: I don’t mean that part, specifically. It’s the Everyman aspect of the role.

Freeman: But you know what? I think people see “Everyman” in relationship to me, because of me. Every show has an Everyman at some point, if you know what I mean… I’ve been called an Everyman a lot since “The Office”. I spent, like, twelve years as an Everyman, you know. I don’t know what I’m doing to call that, other than acting in a way that is sort of natural and believable…empathetic, I suppose.

IMDBTV: I would say that you’re the person, in your roles, that leads people into these worlds of oddity and still seems to maintain his distinct sense of self.

Freeman: Well…Arthur Dent is kind of a distant relation to Bilbo Baggins, in that kind of just being ripped out of a cozy situation into an insane situation. Douglas Adams probably owed something to Tolkien, in that archetype of a character. Beyond that, in all honestly, I don’t really see it in the playing of it, when I’m doing it. But unless I’m playing a French Senegalese lesbian with a limp, I don’t really know what else I can do.

IMDBTV: Of course, the charm in Fargo, the film, is in all of these characters who are so genuine but seem foreign and heightened, in a way. What is it that attracted you to playing Lester, this man who just gets pushed too far?

Freeman: To me, it wasn’t because it was “Fargo”. It could have been riding on the coattails of a very good film and be shoddy. It has to stand up on its own as a script, and I thought it did that very well… Technically, what comes out of his mouth is in an accent that I’ve never covered before and most people can’t do…All the things that we think we know about that accent, and we think we know about that culture, is basically disseminated through the movie. Most people haven’t heard that accent before. Certainly most people outside of the States haven’t.

IMDBTV: Some Minnesotans would say that’s a heightened version of how they sound as well.

Freeman: Absolutely. And A, that’s true. But B, none of us want to think we have an accent either. Most of us want to think we’re neutral and we don’t realize we have an accent. All of us do.

Also, we’re making something like a 10-hour movie. If all 10 hours were as, if you like, as heightened as that accent in that film was, the feeling was that by hour three people would begin to think that’s too brutal. So there’s been a slight evening out of that…if it were a sketch, you’d know where you are. We’re easing back on that a little bit, the sort of comedic value of that, to make it more character based, more situation based.

…Every stereotype, there is a kernel of truth in it. Otherwise they don’t get to be stereotypes. I’ve been on the Internet and seen enough footage of Minnesotans to know what they sound like.

IMDBTV: Were you prepared for the cold?

Freeman: I was prepared mentally. But I’ve never lived in a place like that, where it’s cold all the time. This is a different ballgame in Calgary, where it gets minus 30, minus 35 not that infrequently. In England, if things got to minus 35, everything would stop working. It would be on the news. So I’m not used to being that cold. We’re not used to having snow on the ground for that long, either…Here [in Calgary], it’s just this lovely virginal snow everywhere. It’s a different ballgame. You have to wrap up.

IMDBTV: Have you found that to be an advantage in terms of just being recognized on the street?

Freeman: Yes, I have actually. Because you are just bundled up. The novelty value of being recognized, it wears off for me. It wore off a while ago, because you want to go about your business. And a lot of the time, you actually can’t. I’m a big believer in trying to live the life that you demand, that you want to live. There are ways of not creating madness around yourself. If you don’t want to be super famous, you can kind of get away with it. You try and stay, to some extent, the person you were when you were 19. If you carry that around with you, then you can manage it. But if that person has got 12 people around them, then of course you’re going to f—king notice that person coming in the room.

IMDBTV: I imagine that with “Sherlock” those instances of being recognized must have hit a new height for you.

Freeman: It did. And the fact that it came as the same period as The Hobbit, those things converging at the same time. That went up a notch.

It’s different as well here, because [“Sherlock”] is not as known, it’s not as watched. So it’s not as visible here. But it’s easier to go a bit under the radar here.

IMDBTV: That must be a relief.

Freeman: It is.

IMDBTV: In preparation for this role, did you re-watch Fargo?

Freeman: I did not. Absolutely not. 100 percent no. I want no part of it in my head. It doesn’t help me. It might help other departments…I’m sure as far as the look, other tonal elements of it might help. Doesn’t help me. The nearest thing to me, in that film, is Bill Macy. He’s really good and he’s an amazing actor who I thoroughly admire. I don’t need him in my head.

IMDBTV: You can do a palate cleanser and see him in this season of “Shameless,” so there’s that. But what are some of the other films and TV series that you’ve been amazed by in the past few years?

Freeman:  “Breaking Bad,” of course. I’m slightly late to that. My missus kind of caught on to that before I did and said, ‘You’ve got to watch.’ And you know what it’s like – you hear enough people say you’ve got to watch something and you resist it.

IMDBTV: And your character in “Fargo,” by the way, will bring some comparisons to Walter White.

Freeman: Absolutely. And I understand why. That’s one of the great modern characters, so I’m OK with that.

Claiming to be a geek or a nerd is fashionable these days… although as real-life nerds will tell you, life as a nerd is not as crazy-sexy-cool as pop culture leads the world to believe.

The vast gulf between perception and reality notwithstanding, if there’s social currency in being a geek, that’s partly because the cause has some pretty cool advocates. We’ve got people like Felicia Day, Patton Oswalt, “Talking Dead” host Chris Hardwick and Wil Wheaton in our corner. Shiny.

Hardwick, in particular, has built an empire out of geekery. He grew his Nerdist podcast in a powerful brand, and now he even has comedy panel/faux game show on Comedy Central, “@midnight”. But though we’re mentioning Hardwick for a reason, this post is not about him.

No, today we praise Wil Wheaton, the actor still known to many for his portrayal of Wesley Crusher on “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, and as Sheldon’s former nemesis on “The Big Bang Theory“. Geek & Sundry visitors also are quite familiar with Wheaton himself, and his winning personality as the host of “TableTop,” a celebration of board game fun with celebrity guests. He also won the Internet this week when this touching YouTube video posted in June 2013 made the rounds.

But it was a recent episode of “@midnight” where it became stunningly clear to me that Wheaton should have his own honest-to-goodness TV show. Flanked by a pair of professional comedians and challenged to craft funny one-liners on the fly, Wheaton didn’t just hold his own. Wesley crushed it, y’all. It was a beautiful sight, one that made me hope we’d see more of his quick wit and wry humor in action.

Wish granted! This morning, Wheaton announced on Twitter that he has a new series, currently known as “The Wil Wheaton Project”, premiering at 10pm Tuesday, May 27 on Syfy. The channel has ordered 12 episodes, scheduled to run through the summer.

“The ‘Wil Wheaton Project’ is a weekly roundup of the things I love on television and on the Internet, with commentary and jokes, and the occasional visit from interesting people who make those things happen,” Wheaton explained in a blog post he tweeted out to his followers.  “It’s sort of like Talk Soup for geeks, with a heavy focus on those hilariously bad paranormal reality shows.”

We can’t wait.

To read Wheaton’s full blog post, in which he explains the process of how his “Project” came to fruition, click here.

Look at what you did.

Many of you watched the latest original pilots released by Amazon Studios in early February. Afterward, you thoughtfully and passionately weighed in on them. Informed by your feedback, today Amazon Studios officially confirms that “Transparent”, “Mozart in the Jungle”, “Bosch” and “The After” have received full series orders.

Amazon also is moving two of its children’s pilots to series, “Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street” and “Wishenpoof!”

That means four out of the five comedy and drama pilots Amazon showcased earlier this year will become series – a significant commitment, considering that Studios picked up only two titles from its first pilot season round, granting a second season to just one of them so far, “Alpha House”.

These series orders aren’t merely a matter of Amazon Studios beefing up its stable of originals, all of which will available exclusively on Prime Instant Video. Picking up “Transparent”, “Mozart in the Jungle”, “Bosch” and “The After”  also makes sense from a business point of view.

“Bosch”, which follows an LAPD homicide detective working a murder case while standing trial for shooting a serial murderer, has a hardcore literary fanbase already built in. Readers who love Michael Connelly ’s Harry Bosch novels could evangelize on the show’s behalf, if it passes muster.

That’s a valuable asset for any new series to possess. As a person unfamiliar with Connelly’s books, the pilot felt like a typical cop show to me. Granted, the fact that “Bosch” is a police drama will be a selling point for many; lots of people love shows set within that world. But with certain notable exceptions such as “The Shield”,“The Wire” and “True Detective”, which were character studies more than procedurals, I am not one of those people. However, reading a few assessments of the pilot by fans of the novels, as well as Titus Welliver being cast in the title role, is enough to buy “Bosch” more rope with me.

“The After” represents a return to the serialized content game for Chris Carter, the man who gave us “The X-Files”. That legacy in itself has stoked excitement in those still entranced by that seminal series and the universe of weirdness Carter and his writers created. The fact that Carter has been away from the TV realm for such a long time adds an extra mystique to “The After,” which already starts with an incredibly odd if familiar story. It also helps that the pilot’s cliffhanger reveal demands explanation, regardless of what one thinks of the 50 minutes that preceded it.

One also has high hopes for what “The After” can do to raise the profile of Aldis Hodge (“Leverage”) whose performance in the pilot proves he has the chops to carry a series.

Series that invite critical and intellectual dissection also are great for any production house’s profile, which is where “Mozart” and “Transparent” come in.

Between these two comedies, one suspects “Mozart” has the potential to earn a broader fan base. It’s glamorous, grants sex appeal to the classical music world  — a setting that the average person may see as stuffy — and boasts an impressive cast including  Saffron Burrows, Malcolm McDowell, Bernadette Peters, Gael García Bernal, and Lola Kirke. “Mozart” also trades in arch (if accessible) humor, and teased us with a nice exploration of the various social strata existing within the fine arts realm. From the up-and-comers living bohemian lives as they chase their dreams, to the stars hatching political schemes in the backseats of limos, there’s a lot of story to explore here.

“Transparent”, which received a series order of at least nine additional episodes, is daring in a different way — a thought-provoking meditation on identity, loyalty and the fine line between self-realization and behaving selfishly, all told through the prism of family dramedy. Jill Soloway, a producer on “Six Feet Under”, employs a style of storytelling which imbues every scene with gently simmering emotion, and its stars Gaby Hoffmann, Jay Duplass, Amy Landecker and Jeffrey Tambor, have tremendous chemistry.

Are these comedies critic bait? Sure. They’re also “social” bait: Not only is it conceivable that people will be talking about “Transparent” and “Mozart,” but the content of both shows sounds intriguing enough to persuade newcomers to watch in order to join the conversation.

Amazon Studios’ announcement also includes a Cinderella story: the pick-up of “Gortimer Gibbon’s Life on Normal Street”, a live-action children’s show about a boy named Gortimer who enjoys adventures with his friends in a suburban neighborhood. It was created by pre-school teacher and first-time writer David Anaxagoras, who submitted the pilot through Amazon Studios’ open-door submission process.

Meanwhile, “Wishenpoof!” is the second Amazon Original from Angela Santomero, creator of “Super Why!” and a co-creator of “Blue’s Clues”. It revolves around Bianca, a girl who uses “Wish Magic” to help others and learns to solve life’s problems creatively. Santomero’s other Amazon Original series “Creative Galaxy” premieres on Prime Instant Video this summer, along with previously announced children’s series pick-ups “TumbLeaf” and “Annebots”.  Premiere dates for the latest slate Amazon Originals were not included in today’s announcement.

Unfortunately, today’s announcement also means sad news for “The Rebels”, the story of a hard-partying, gun-toting monkey and the down-and-out football team that loved him.

Poor little fella. While the rest of “The Rebels” cast, including Natalie Zea, Hayes MacArthur, Affion Crockett and Billy Dee Williams will likely continue to pop up on screens large and small (Zea is back on “The Following,” and Williams is participating in this round of “Dancing with the Stars”), that monkey must return to the relentless grind of auditions and call-backs. Bananas may grow on trees, but they ain’t free.

Every new season of “Mad Men” begins with the audience re-joining the lives of Don Draper and the rest of the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Advertising Agency staff midflight. Where they are in the voyage, where they’ll land by season’s end, how rough that touchdown will be  – all of that is part of the mystery surrounding each new chapter of the story, which is by the design of its creator Matthew Weiner.

As “Mad Men” heads into its final 14 episode season at 10pm Sunday, April 13, there isn’t much that those of us who have seen the premiere can tell you. No, really – Weiner sends out a note at the beginning of every season indicating which of the key storylines left dangling in the previous season’s finale he’d like to be kept a secret.  Spoiler alert: It’s pretty much all of them.

What we can tell you is that Don Draper (Jon Hamm), Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks), and Roger Sterling (John Slattery) are all as fascinating to watch as ever. At the end of season six Don, Peggy and Pete were each at their own interesting crossroads, as Joan came to embrace a new paradigm that comes with having gained a certain amount of power in the work place. Meanwhile Roger, in particular, has taken a very interesting turn in life that… well, you’ll just have to see for yourself to believe it.

In a phone conversation with reporters, Weiner revealed that he has finished writing the first nine scripts of “Mad Men’s” two-part swan song season, but emphasized that many of them are just drafts. He and his writers are working from a clear roadmap as they head toward the finale, but they’re still breaking stories, even now.

“I didn’t make this up, but drama is made out of conflict,” Weiner said. “People’s lives being good is never good drama. So we’re always looking for more problems for these people.”

Here are the highlights of Weiner’s more than hour-long conversation on Monday afternoon.

On the final season’s main theme:

It’s really a theme that goes for the entire last season… which is about the consequences in life, and if change is possible. … When your needs are met, you start thinking about other things. There’s a real growth, over the course of this last season, from what are the material concerns of your life to the immaterial concerns of your life. That’s really what the end of the show is about: What are the material things in your life, versus the immaterial things in your life?

On the marked change in Don and Megan’s relationship:

I think Megan Draper (Jessica Paré) is a classic second wife, where Don is finding that he has an opportunity to be seen the way he wants to be seen. The power has shifted as Megan has matured. The story of season five was about Don’s romantic fantasy being destroyed by her having a will of her own, or her own dreams.

I don’t know what a power relationship is in a romantic relationship, I guess. Is it who loves who more? It’s given us a lot of fodder and a lot of story, especially because Don’s concept of what a woman can do for him … You see a guy who has a really hard time with where romance fits in his life, and love. There’s conflict in it, which I love, but I don’t really think that [Megan] is a symbol of anything other than a fresh start for him.

And it really didn’t turn out that way. He re-committed to her in the finale last year, because he had finished with his affair and he had hit bottom in his drinking, and he had to renege on his “re-proposal” to her to go to California. It really felt like he was asking her to marry him again. But he just couldn’t follow through on it.

Are there repercussions for that? Yes. That is the story of the season for me.  I think he really loves her, but for whatever reason — guilt, shame, the desire for love, the desire to restore that love –she is in a slightly more powerful position, in the way somebody who can bestow forgiveness always has more power than the person who’s apologizing.

On the character who has changed the most, in his point of view:

It’s a weird thing, because somehow they haven’t changed at all, right? I think Don, Don has changed the most. …When you talk about a guy who couldn’t even consider continuing on in advertising because he didn’t want his name on a building, to someone who is forced to be open with his past to his daughter. He was forced to do that. And that change in that man is a huge thing.

But they’ve all changed. Pete showed a lot of growth last year. Just in his interaction with Bob Benson (James Wolk) alone. When Bob Benson was revealed to be similar to Don as someone who had made up his past, and Pete realized that he shouldn’t tangle with him? To me that’s, like, some of the only growth that we’ve seen on this show. It didn’t last long, as soon as he thought Bob killed his mother.

And Betty has changed a lot. But let’s be honest, the person who’s changed the most is Kiernan (Shipka), is Sally. We’ve had the character and the actress mature right in front of us. Changing her attitudes, from precocious child, to adolescent, to someone who really grew up in a hurry, lost her innocence in terms of her father.

On the Peggy’s evolution through “Mad Men’s” prior six seasons, and the 1960s:

It’s interesting to see that Peggy is still earnest and naïve about certain things, but what a powerful person she’s become in terms of knowing her gifts and making decisions. I think she would probably still say that she’s not a political person, but everything she does is pioneering. To see her sort of, you know, ending up stabbing her boyfriend and having an affair with her boss the same year that she is clearly excelling, creatively and in status…I think the story of the time, for last season, is that she didn’t have any decisions to make.  Hopefully she’s reaching a point in her life where she going to start to actually have some choices.

On Joan’s evolution through the series:

Joan has definitely changed a lot. We’ve seen Joan going from the person who was watching Peggy with almost pity… but this young woman has a different endgame. And then we see her choosing to have a child, having the strength to get out of her marriage, which was never good but was a fantasy marriage. I think the thing that happened to Joan is that she stopped caring – and what a freedom in life! — she stopped caring a little bit about how things look. Women of that generation, and maybe today too, men as well, they were really raised that that was the most important thing. And so, how does Betty Draper marry Don Draper? You check off a bunch of boxes, right? All of the flaws are ignored.

Joan, we see expressing her desire to take advantage of the bad things that have happened and make the best of them, and also to be a little bit more of her own person. She started the show with a very clear philosophy, which is have a lot of fun, and we’ve all loved her sexual confidence…and then find a husband,  then get married and have children and move to the country. We see now that her interests are very different than that now.

On the evolution of Roger Sterling from the face of the old establishment at the agency to a guy who drops acid:

I always felt that Roger has a lot of things Don doesn’t have. He was born with privilege and position. He’s a patrician person anyway. But he also has been indulged, so he’s got a kind of childlike attitude towards things. The fact that he took LSD and was able to learn something that most of us already know – that was his enlightenment, that other people have thoughts that he doesn’t know about, or aren’t the same as him – it sounds really silly, but he’s undergone a bit of an education. And I think what we found when we got to the beginning of last year is that he, even despite searching, is starting to have a bit of an existential crisis. Even Roger Sterling is starting to see a little darkness in the repetitive nature of hedonism. And I think that’s been the biggest change, is that he’s been open to everything. You know, everyone at the beginning of the show, they’re like, “Are we going to Don in love beads and a Nehru jacket?” And I was like, “No, but Roger will probably get there.”

On whether there are aspects of the story that they’re not going to be able to do within the remaining 14 episodes:

Yes. There are things we will not be able to do, and you know… I think that because I am surrounded by such talented writers, I think that everything that is really good, or that I really had faith in, we’ll get through, and that everything that we have to say as a group will get through. But… I don’t know. It’s such a mysterious process. When I heard people’s theories about Bob Benson last year I was like, “Wow. Maybe we didn’t work hard enough to make that more interesting.”

On how we’ll see the relationship between Sally and Don evolve in the final season:

We made a concerted effort – also with Mason, who plays Bobby – to show that in this world for Don…to be pushed toward those children as a chance to be more the way he wants to be, and then at least in Sally’s case, ruin that, it’s made everyone accountable. There’s only so much lying that you can do. And once somebody knows that about you, you still have to be the parent, I suppose. But Sally is a person who knows him in a very special way that is really not very positive. Part of it is just, what is the relationship between a father and a child? As you get older, you start to see them more as a person. I don’t think she’s old enough to be magnanimous about it. It continues to be an essential part of the show.

On whether Don can possibly achieve true change in his life:

Honestly, that is the question. The great thing about this show is that I have these incredibly talented writers with me, where we get to investigate that question. Is making an effort enough? Announcing to the world that you’ve changed, that changes you. Does it do anything else? I think that what you’re really seeing is a turning inward for Don at the end of [last] season. I mean, it’s a turning outward to share his life with his daughter, and to come clean in a Hershey meeting, but it’s a turning inward to say, ‘Oh, I’ve been acting impulsively and trying not to think about why I’m doing what I’m doing.’ It said in the premiere last year that people will do anything to alleviate their anxiety. Don definitely changed last year. It was not the same old behavior. It was amplified, by a lot. And his failure resulted in…some kind of reconciliation, no matter how small.

…That, to me, is one of the most interesting questions that I face in my life, and that everyone faces… You do something bad. You want to be different. You are different. Does anybody else care?

On whether the late ‘60s era is more challenging to portray:

A lot of reasons that I started the show in 1960 was because it was so much the height of the ‘50s. I felt that there was a sort of constricted social environment based on manners that we’ve watched disintegrate and erode throughout the decade. The weirdest thing about getting to the late ‘60s is that it feels more like today. Other than saying “groovy” once in a while…there is not, in either watching the movies, or reading books, or reading interviews, or watching the news, it does not feel even slightly anachronistic. There is nothing to laugh at by the time you’re in the late ‘60s. It is very similar to right now, with the exception of technology.

The other thing is, 1968 in particular was the climax for me of the intersection of national and world events in the private lives of the characters. …1968 was a chance when I felt, OK, people are reading the paper, it was 9/11 for an entire year, of just being inundated with a social catastrophe. And I felt that by the end of it, Richard Nixon’s election and a kind of return to… a state of normalcy…It really feels like all of the radicalization of that period just retracted all the way through until we get to my childhood, which was in the ‘80s.

…The very first season someone said, ‘What’s Don Draper gonna think about Woodstock?’…Don Draper grew up in rural poverty during the Great Depression. I don’t know that this is going to be a particularly impressive event for him. He’s going to be happy that the music’s good, maybe.

On breaking the season into two parts and how he likes having a split final season:

First of all it was not my idea, but there seems to be a problem with saying that without sounding critical of it. Honestly, 92 episodes into the show, anything that … gives me a challenge is very exciting. Not that it’s not challenging enough to end the show, I’ve never said that before!

The other thing is that they [AMC] had success doing this with “Breaking Bad”.  I don’t even know if they did that willingly with “Breaking Bad,” I think they had to because of the schedule. But it was so good for the growth of the show and for the way that the ending was received. So I wasn’t going to argue with that… It’s been a challenge. We did not have a big break in between. I’m writing and shooting them straight through. It’s something new. I’m not someone who’s afraid of that.

On how “Mad Men’s” expanded bi-coastal presence affects the show’s tone:

For Don in particular, he is a different kind of person when he’s in California. We know that. It started off being the place where he could be himself. For me, that has always been the story of moving Westward.

…Place is one of your tools as a writer. So when you talk about someone going any place new, especially West in the United States, you’re talking about the frontier. You’re talking about an opportunity to reinvent yourself, you’re talking about better weather. You’re talking about opportunity. That was kind of where we left off in the finale last year. The challenge is to say, who does that work for, who doesn’t it work for?…It doesn’t always work out, the fantasy versus the reality. For me, it’s just interesting because it means one thing to Don and I don’t know if it means everything to the country. But it did at that time. It was what New York was in 1960, it was the number one destination in the imaginations of Americans as a place desirable to live that was filled with glamour and opportunity. That’s part of the story we’re telling.

On how setting “Mad Men” in the advertising world ultimately shaped the show’s central themes:

It’s been a great environment. It’s been great to sort of investigate all of the personalities of the workplace, because they’re all there in an advertising…It yielded more fruit than I thought it would. It’s the kind of thing where, literally, every time I would think about something that was going on, either in my own life, or in the writers’ lives, that we wanted to tell a story about, we would be able to find something in the advertising world that could support that story.

I didn’t set out to make a show about advertising — and on some level, it really isn’t — but as an environment to tell the story, just the idea of how important buying things is, and selling things, as an American pastime. An identity. Living through the last eight years of what’s happened economically in this country, what a great chance to talk about just the forensics of American business.  I was very lucky to find it and to bond with it in some way and find people who understood it, and to use it as an environment to tell the story.  And apparently, traditionally it doesn’t work that often, so that was even more of a miracle.

On which characters he will be the saddest to leave behind:

All of them.  I’m going to miss all of them. That’s the greatest gift about this show, is that they’re so different from each other and they are so many different voices, and when you are in the mood, whatever mood you’re in, you have every flavor there is. It’s hard for me to imagine not writing these characters any more. I can’t even imagine it, actually. I don’t even want to think about it.

Season seven of “Mad Men” premieres at 10pm Sunday, April 13, on AMC. The first of seven episodes of its final season will air in 2014, with the remainder airing in 2015.

“There is a greater story here, still being written.” So declares Leonardo Da Vinci in the opening moments of the second season of “Da Vinci’s Demons”, which kicks off at 9pm Saturday on Starz.  It’s a statement typical of David S. Goyer’s reimagined Da Vinci, a swashbuckling hero informed by a fascination with design, and physics, driven by limitless imagination and his adoration of freedom.

As season two opens, it’s that last part – freedom – that Da Vinci is having a spot of trouble with. He is bedraggled, exhausted and unexpectedly down for the count, in strange company, and in an even stranger locale: Peru. Particularly odd, given that the final moments of season one left viewers with a cliffhanger in Renaissance-era Florence.

Don’t fret. Though season two stars in medias res, this is just a glimpse at the next chapter in Da Vinci’s labyrinthine pursuit of the legendary Book of Leaves. For anyone who was spellbound by season one, “Da Vinci’s Demons’” expansion of its lush palette from the various visual feasts offered by Old World into the New opens up an array of possibilities. Not only will we meet lots of new characters in season two, but viewers will also be treated to the drama’s vision of a completely different world.

“We really do try to take the characters to a very different place from where they began,” said series star Tom Riley, who plays Da Vinci.  “By the end of the season, everyone ends up with a very different world view. For me, it’s always been a case of pacing his growth from an arrogant boy child — who has a genius but can’t deal with it and is socially inept and rude and can be charming, but doesn’t feel the need to be – to gradually coming of age and realizing that his genius comes with a certain amount of responsibility.

“As the season progresses, he’s going to continue in this quest for The Book of Leaves, to the detriment of the people around him and to the detriment of himself,” Riley added. “So it’s all going to come back and bite him in the ass.”

We recently sat down with Riley and Goyer to talk about what’s in store for our inventive Renaissance hero in season two. (Please note that the two were interviewed separately at the same event but answered the several of the same questions. Their responses have been collated into this Q&A; in a few places.)

IMDbTV: (To David S. Goyer) When you were first talking about this series, there were a lot of comparisons, for obvious reasons, between this character and Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins. You observed that you think of Leonardo as the superhero of this particular age. We saw a lot of those super-heroic qualities in the first season. But as the second season begins, there’s a great deal of reversal. Of course, this is not out of line with the typical superhero’s journey, but can we expect that to be the overarching theme of the season?

David S. Goyer: It is. Very much so. Most of that is a just function of me, as a creator, not wanting to do the same thing.

IMDbTV: (To Tom Riley) So it’s a big season of not just reversal, but of decline as well.

Tom Riley: It really is, but also a reversal of relationships. People come together who shouldn’t necessarily be together because they have to be. People change and grow – people who you assume are bad, such as in Lucrezia’s (Laura Haddock) case, you realize are far more pure than you could have ever expected. It’s great to have that kind of arc, to really feel like you’re doing something meaty. And we don’t need to introduce the world anymore. We can just let the characters live in the crazy.

IMDbTV: That must be a relief.

Tom Riley: It is, because most people are still saying, “So he fights demons, then? It’s like Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer? (sic) ” No, it’s not…maybe we should have gone with a different title. …It does tend to take a while to get into the show. I think we took four or five episodes to find our tone. In season two, the storytelling confidence helps it become richer and deeper. You start to learn about the characters and invest more. You begin to care, which is nice.

IMDbTV: I disagree, by the way.  I think the title is great. It draws people in. It’s not “Cougar Town.”

Riley: (laughs) That cast, they’ve said in public , “We hate our title!”  I love our title. But I do think there is a certain segment of the audience that got alienated by just assuming that it’s something that it’s not. It would be nice to pull them back. It’s funny, word of mouth is something I didn’t expect on this show. The people who watch it love it with a passion that I haven’t experienced with anything I’ve done before. People will start weeping in the street. I don’t know how to react. I always have to carry a tissue! But those people, they tell their friends to watch it, which is really in our favor.

Goyer: One thing I knew that I didn’t want to do in season two is to just have Da Vinci stay in the house of Medici and keep building war machines and turning back Rome. I thought that would become really repetitive… so I wanted to take him, and Lorenzo (Elliot Cowan) and Riario (Blake Ritson), out of their comfort zones.  Throw the characters up in to the air, and reassemble them into different alliances.

…I remember working with one of my writers on “Flash Forward” who used to be on “Prison Break,” and he’d said that what they did at the end of the first season was, they sat down and they just said as an exercise, “Which characters in our show haven’t had any scenes or meaningful interactions with other characters?” And they drew up a list. We did the same exercise on our show… and that just opens itself up to some interesting storytelling.

IMDbTV: That must have changed the trajectory of the story to a certain extent.

Goyer: Yes. Sometimes I’ll do that in the writers room. I’ll say, “Let’s just go through an exercise in thinking about things differently. What is the craziest thing we can possibly do?”  So we opened season two not where we finished season one. When I first proposed that, everybody just said “You’re insane.” I got some push back, but eventually they agreed it was kind of cool.

Riley:  We knew about [the opening of season two] when we were filming the finale of season one… which was a very exciting idea. And then, that kind of begets the idea of, maybe this will work for everyone else, because if they’ve got to be there [in the New World], who else has to be elsewhere in order for this to happen? Midseason, there’s some more absolutely crazy, batsh-t, nexus-of-madness stuff that happens… but always within the realms that we understand and the boundaries that we set up.

IMDbTV: (To David S. Goyer) You have said that there will be more historical figures introduced in season two, much in the way that you reimagined Vlad the Impaler in season one. One name that was listed quite early on IMDb is Amerigo Vespucci (played by Lee Boardman). Are there other figures that we should be looking out for?

Goyer:  Later on in the season we’re going to meet some of the players in the Ottoman Empire, which is something we’ve hinted at here and there in the show. …We introduce another real life person, King Ferrante, who was famous for embalming his enemies in what was known as the Black Museum. He supposedly had, in his dungeon, a number of his enemies propped around in sort of lifelike positions, like mummies. We’ll meet him and his son. And Hippolyta, who was married to Prince of Naples, and coincidentally happened to have been Lorenzo’s girlfriend before Clarice (Orsini, played by Lara Pulver)…  So yes, we’ll be meeting a variety of characters like that.

IMDbTV: As you’ve been researching different possibilities for the show, it must be interesting to come up with ways to connect the vastly different players in this era.

Goyer:  I love that. One of the players we introduce… Carlo de’ Medici? The reason he came about, well, it was two reasons. One, I was bummed at the lack of ethnic diversity in the first season. But then, almost all of those figures were Caucasians in Europe… We were in Florence, touring the Medici palace, and we were looking at this mural that the Medicis have in their chapel. There’s a bunch of white guys on the mural, and there’s one black guy. I said to the guide, “Who’s that?” One guide didn’t know, and the other told me he was Carlo Medici, a half-African, bastard son of Cosimo Medici… I did some research, and he’s mentioned a couple of times. He kind of appears and disappears, and we don’t know what happened to him.

For a writer like myself, I love that he’s a bastard son, and Riario’s a bastard son, and Da Vinci’s a bastard son. That’s a perfect example – it’s someone you can learn about from history, but he’s also kind of a blank slate.

IMDbTV: That’s perfect for your purposes.

Goyer:  Yeah. We introduce him in the third episode. He’s played by Ray Fearon, he’s a fantastic actor. I guess that’s an example of how real life leads to some interesting story. He’s a real guy, but not a lot is known about him, which means we can kind of do whatever we want with him.

IMDbTV:  Is the main plot of the series always going to be about Leonardo questing for The Book of Leaves?

Goyer:  I once told Starz that the day Da Vinci gets The Book of Leaves is the day the show will end. Having said that, there’s a giant thing that happens at the end of season two that, in a million years, I never thought we would do in season two. I always thought it’s something that, if we were lucky enough to get six or seven seasons, we would do. I said, “F—k it, let’s do it.” … I deviated from my own plan.

IMDbTV:  But that opens up the world, right? You can go in all different kinds of directions.

Goyer:  Right. You go in with a plan, and one of the beauties of doing a television show is that … there’s kind of a feedback loop. Certain actors surprise you. Certain actors that are recurring become series regulars, and it does change and evolve.

IMDbTV:  You’re bringing your own cinematic sensibilities into this series, your own particular style. But as you’re developing the story, are there other films or performances, or other works that are informing your choices?

Goyer:  Sure. Of course Assassin’s Creed was an influence. I would say Shakespeare in Love is an influence. The modern “Sherlock” is an influence. A lot more influence came from writing and novels than, perhaps, film or television. I think these sort of historical prestiges are done much more in novels, a ton of novels sparked ideas for us.

Season two of “Da Vinci’s Demons” premieres 9pm Saturday, March 22 on Starz.

WARNING: This article contains explicit details about the season two finale of the Cinemax series “Banshee,” which debuted at 10pm Friday, March 14. If you have not seen the finale or the series itself, and you don’t want to be spoiled, please stop reading this article now.

Last chance to take the highway out of *SPOILER* town…you’ve been warned.

The fictional Pennsylvania town of Banshee is a place of extreme dualities. It is small town where gentle people gather for Spirit Festivals and Amish girls sell pies; it is a den to which criminals are drawn to hide out, and other men create lucrative empires out of preying on weaker souls.

In the world of Cinemax’s “Banshee,” it’s also the kind of town where an ex-convict master thief can assume the identity of a sheriff and keep the law with his fists, bullets and explosives. But even that disguise has its limits. In season two our mystery man received a surprise visit from the son of the dead guy whose identity he is assuming, and quickly discovered how much trouble having a kid can be. Our fake sheriff felt the weight of losing that surrogate son, too, when Banshee’s crime boss decided to disappear the young man.

The woman the fake sheriff loved –loves? – nearly lost her family, did time in jail, and still faced retribution from the sadistic mobster father she didn’t quite kill in the season one finale. Oh, and that bag of diamonds she and her lover stole together? The payday supposedly valued at millions of dollars, enough to make the trouble of going to prison, changing identities and dodging assassins worth their while? Like the sheriff, those stones are also completely fake.

In spite of all this, the mysterious man known as Lucas Hood (Antony Starr) is in a better place than he’s ever been at the end of season two. The Ukrainian mobster hunting him, Rabbit (Ben Cross), is dead. His former lover, Carrie Hopewell (Ivana Milicevic), is on the path to reuniting with her husband and children. For better or worse, Hood’s biological daughter, the one Carrie is raising with her husband Gordon (Rus Blackwell), knows that Hood is her father. “Banshee” even reconnected Hood with one of his former partners in crime, Fat Au.

Also, all of the people mentioned above, along with most of Hood’s current co-workers in Banshee’s sheriff’s department and Carrie and Hood’s closest friends Job (Hoon Lee) and Sugar (Frankie Faison), are alive and mostly well.   In this town, breathing is a precious commodity.

On the poorer side of the equation, the God-fearing Emmett Yawners (Demetrius Grosse) found out that surrendering his badge and gun and leaving town wasn’t enough to keep him or his wife alive. The white supremacists who attacked his pregnant spouse, killing their unborn son, came back to finish the job after Emmett repaid their violence with violence and Proctor killed their leader.

“Banshee” fans also may be mourning  Alex Longshadow (Anthony Ruivivar), the young chief of the Kinaho tribe who could not maintain political power with his actions and, instead, made a deal with the town’s devil, Kai Proctor (Ulrich Thomsen). Kai helped him hold his position by intimidating his political foes, a dirty debt Alex was never going to be able to pay off. One can’t blame the Chief for seizing upon the opportunity to put away Proctor once Hood had constructed a case against him.

In the final analysis,  Alex Longshadow’s greatest enemy was Alex Longshadow… more specifically, his own hubris. By revealing his plans to take down her Uncle Kai to Rebecca (Lili Simmons), Alex underestimated Rebecca’s allegiance to family as well as her burgeoning addiction to power. The shunned Amish girl responded to his advances by adding a new move to her seduction routine — one that involved a gun, a knife and a lot of her enemy’s blood.

“Banshee’s” saga began long ago in New York, with Hood and Ana stealing kisses and diamonds. That plotline came to a close on a church bench in the season finale, aptly titled “Bullets and Tears”. The next, more treacherous chapters are being refined as we speak.

Prior to the finale, “Banshee’s” executive producer and showrunner Greg Yaitanes , and executive producer Jonathan Tropper, who co-created the series, spoke with IMDbTV about the episode and their plans for season three.

IMDbTV: This season began as very emotional, deep and quiet. But by the end, you’ve violently killed off several really key characters. How did you find that balance, in terms of really establishing those characters and delving into lots of emotional depth while still dealing out a lot of death, both inside and outside of the town?

Jonathan Tropper: Because we get into the characters in that way, ultimately it sort of dictates to us who will live and who will die. If you keep everything pretty superficial, you can keep each character spinning in its own orbit for endless seasons. But we’re not a procedural. That’s not what we do. So as we go into each character’s story arc, because of the way they’re all interconnected, sometimes it becomes very obvious that this character, his story is going to end this season. We actually really try to be open and let what happens in the writers room and in our brainstorming sessions dictate if that’s really going to be the case. We try not to get sentimental about it, because it’s all about story.

IMDbTV: So it sounds like you knew that this was really it for Emmett this season. That he wasn’t just going to leave town, but there was no way that he was coming back.

Tropper: Yes. There’s an underlying premise in our show, which is that not too many people are going to get out alive, and that everything that happens in Banshee corrupts what’s pure.

Emmett was pure. But ultimately Banshee corrupted him and that resulted in his death. So yeah, that just seemed like a pretty straightforward storyline that is true to the underlying premise of the show.

IMDbTV:  It also seemed as if, if it were possible for Banshee to have a moral center… Emmett was it. So I guess while it didn’t surprise me that he left… that 11^th hour execution was shocking.

Greg Yaitanes: Yes, we had a conversation about that. The thing that we wanted to show is that “Banshee” is a show where there aren’t always happy endings. It is a show where anybody can go at any time. But also, it was evil for evil. We kind of told everybody in episode 8 how that was going to end. Just because they [the white supremacists] did something bad and a like response was met, that doesn’t mean that’s the end of the story. We wanted to show there was a real consequence to the action. That was not the end. It’s very powerful that way, because it’s obviously going to fuel us at the front of the season next year. But I know it was very powerful choice for that season.

IMDbTV: So that part of the show’s storyline isn’t over?

Tropper: Well, the death of one our major characters at the end of this season is obviously going to have repercussions moving into season three.

Yaitanes: Evil for evil.

IMDbTV:  It also makes me curious as to how that decision-making process played out with Alex.  His death is more understandable in a sense…he was warned by his sister Nola (Odette Annable) , and went ahead and got in bed with Proctor anyway, which was of course repaid. Does that mean that we can expect Nola will come back?

Tropper:  Well, we’re not going to really give away anything about season three too much. But obviously what we’re teeing up is that the battle between Proctor and the Native Americans is heating up, which will have far-ranging repercussions for everybody in the town.

IMDbTV:  So there’s a big storm coming, between that and everything that’s going on with Lucas Hood as well.

Tropper: We always try to make sure that all of our stories are interconnected. So nothing can happen between Proctor and the Native Americans that doesn’t affect Hood, and nothing can happen between Hood and Proctor that doesn’t affect the Amish and the Native Americans. It’s a bunch of dominoes set up in concentric circles.

IMDbTV:  Is it safe to assume that we haven’t seen the last of Job?

Tropper: (laughs) Yes, that’s a pretty safe assumption.

Yaitanes: When and how, that’s part of the fun of next year. I’m going to say something about scripts for season three, because we’re getting scripts for season three right now. The way Jonathan ends next season blew my mind. I cannot wait until season four. It is the ultimate fan finale coming up at the end of season three.

IMDbTV: That’s amazing to hear right at the end of season two. Speaking of the second season, one of the things we spoke about earlier is that this season was all about the resolution of identity. Not just with Ana, but with Hood and to a certain extent, with Sugar and Proctor.  What is the overarching theme with season three, then? Can you give us a hint about that?

Tropper: We’re basically exploring the same thing. In every season we’re exploring the evolution identity. And in season three what Lucas is really struggling with is, ‘If I’m sitting in the sheriff’s chair, I’m wearing this uniform and I’m doing this job, at some point am I not in fact the sheriff of this town? And am I then, in some way, now responsible for it?’ It is that kind of “Man Who Would Be King” struggle of, ‘Maybe I was meant to be here’ and ‘Maybe this is my true path’.

It’s just a further exploration of who is he is and, you know, whether it’s Lucas Hood or Kai Proctor, are they fated to always be these men? Are they somehow able to change the people they are? Or are they always fated to be these killers and these warriors? Existential sh*t!

Yaitanes: What we try to do is, we sit and have that process of what the next season would be about before this season aired. We try to preserve and keep the process as pure as we can, based on what we think will work and where we can take the story. I really love my creative marriage to Jonathan because we build on each other’s thoughts in a very supportive way.

IMDbTV: Do you have an ideal number of seasons that it would take for the story to properly play out?

Yaitanes: I’ve always said it’s five. I think Jonathan feels the same… Personally, I never want to be the show that overstays its welcome. I think we feel that we can deliver five unbelievable, high-quality, where-every-episode-is-good, seasons.

Tropper: We’ve always discussed the fact that there is a natural arc to this, and that there’s also simply a limited amount of time that we can pull off this ruse where the sheriff is a criminal. Every season, we’re picking at more threads and more people are finding out. At some point, we’re going to have to blow that whole story out of the water. And that’s not necessarily the very end of the show. But we’re definitely getting you there. What we don’t want to do is find artificial ways of preserving the ruse, because then it will just start to feel stale.

IMDbTV: It seems that once some shows hit a certain stride, their network grants them a little more leeway in terms of bringing in more prominent guest stars. You’ve had Ben Cross, but his arc is over, as well as Julian Sands’. Going in to the third season, do you have a wish list as who you’d like to bring on?

Yaitanes: We’re actively exploring that right now. One of the things we like is that, whoever comes in isn’t really bringing a lot of baggage or overtaking the show with their presence. The thing that I like about our guest stars so far is that they’re phenomenal, but Cinemax has always been confident in the fact that we can work with new faces everywhere on the show, which is enormously empowering. I never want this show to feel like “The Love Boat”. …We’re still a scrappy show. We don’t have an enormous budget, and we just want to be smart. That’s how we find great new faces like Fat Au. In a way that adds to our credibility, in the fact that you really haven’t seen these people a lot.

Tropper: We don’t want to take you out of the show. Suddenly you’re a little less in Banshee now because you’re seeing somebody whose face you see on magazine covers all the time. We want to keep the feeling that this town is its own place.

IMDbTV: OK, a very basic question: The diamonds are fake, so the main reason for Lucas hiding out in Banshee is gone. Rabbit is dead. Job is in New York, for the time being. It seems the only thing that’s left for Lucas right now in Banshee is conflict. …Why does he stay? Why does he keep coming back?

Tropper: We do deal with that, from a story perspective… Once the threat of Rabbit is over, well, you know, his daughter [Deva, played by Ryann Shane] now knows that he’s her father. This guy, he’s never had anything else in his life and now there’s a girl who knows he’s her father. Events just keep conspiring to keep him there, even though the best thing he could do for all concerned is get out of dodge.

IMDbTV: Do you have a clear vision of what the final scene of the series is going to be?

Tropper:  We’ve always talked about what the last scene is. But we’ll certainly never reveal it. We’ve always kind of known, in theory, where this show ends. But of course, once you’ve spent years of working with characters and becoming very attached to them, I think you have to be open to letting the story tell you, in some way, where it’s going to end.

The end of Captain Flint’s journey is nowhere in sight, but as of Saturday night, season one of “Black Sails” will pull in to port with its finale. Here’s an exclusive photo from “VIII.”, the last new episode for now. Fortunately Starz has already renewed “Black Sails” for a second season, so even if the Walrus crew’s pursuit of the elusive Urca de Lima does not bear fruit this week, we’ll find out what happens eventually.

The season finale of “Black Sails” airs at 9pm Saturday on Starz.

It’s up, up and away for AMC’s brand-defining drama “Mad Men“, launching its final season on Sunday, April 13 at 10pm.

Earlier this week the network released three gallery images from the upcoming season, depicting characters arriving — or waiting — at the airport. Perhaps tellingly, one image featured Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and Megan (Jessica Paré) standing beneath a Trans World Airline sign, looking beautiful and somewhat concerned about something unidentifiable in the distance — but not looking at each other.

In this exclusive photo from AMC, Megan is stepping out solo…from a taxicab. Click on the link to see a full-sized version of the image.

As a reminder, the final season of “Mad Men” will air in two seven-episode segments, with final boarding starting in 2015.

Sexy vampires. Likable outlaws. A heist gone wrong, and a crusading lawman with a score to settle. Many a television series has been draped from these plot devices over the years. Some have become hits, others barely saw the light of day. Few, if any, arrived with a network built specifically for the kind of audience that would watch it.

That is the plum slot in which “From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series” finds itself. Based on the 1996 film directed by Robert Rodriguez, the 10-episode action series makes its debut tonight at 9pm on the cable channel El Rey.

Rodriguez, a man best known for directing a diverse range of films, from Sin City (and its upcoming sequel, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For) to the Spy Kids franchise, founded El Rey with the vision of appealing to second- and third-generation, largely English-speaking Hispanics in the 18-49 age demographic.

“We wanted to cater towards a male demographic at first, because they had limited choices in this arena,” Rodriguez said. “Maybe I should say, men and kick-ass females, from 18-49… millennials, leaning toward Hispanic as well. All of that. We wanted… to see what range of an audience we can bring.”

Although it launched December 2013, you may not have heard of El Rey. But if “Dusk” makes the kind of noise that Rodriguez believes that it will, the burgeoning channel may soon occupy a few slots on your DVR list of recordings, especially if you happen to be a particular type of film fan.

Meaning, the kind of fan who would happily surrender hours of his or her day to a marathon of Sonny Chiba films. Or one who would cry out with glee upon finding, say, Switchblade Sisters while channel surfing. Those viewers made the film version of From Dusk Till Dawn a cult classic, and could become the perfect evangelists for the series.

They’re also the sort of people who can appreciate the campy brilliance of casting Don Johnson as a Texas Ranger, and Wilmer Valderrama as a crime kingpin.

“Film lovers and people who love cool, kickass stuff should really come to the network and feel like they’re treated like a king,” he continued. “Like, you turn on your TV, and everything you could possibly want is right there. And you don’t even have to change the channel – personalities have curated it to actually be [about] things that they say is cool. You’re not going to be asking, ‘Why am I watching this?’ It’ll all make sense.”

We sat down with Rodriguez recently to talk about his vision for El Rey and how “Dusk” could infuse new blood into the vampire genre on television.

IMDb: Are you going to do something along the line of what Robert Osborne does with Turner Classic Movies and have curators and hosts?

Rodriguez: We’ll have introductions for some of our movies, for sure.  They won’t be quite as stiff. But they most certainly will be about passion and what moves people. I’m going to be introducing some, Bob Orci, Harry Knowles, and we have a bunch of other guests we haven’t announced yet, but they’ll be introducing their favorite films.

IMDb: Can you tease me with just one?

Rodriguez: Ha. No, we’ll probably be saving that for another announcement. But other people, you can probably figure it out.

IMDb: Maybe somebody whose name starts with a Q?

Rodriguez: Possibly. There’s a long list of different people. But this is fun, as it grows, there’s already so much great content out there that we already have, and that we will get as the windows open up on that content later.

IMDb: You talked about expanding the mythology of From the Dusk Till Dawn. But this TV show is arriving at time when, in popular culture, vampires have just about come and gone in popularity. Now everything is about zombies. What does this show bring that’s new to a trend that people are saying is fading out? What’s left that this show is going to cater to that hasn’t been seen recently?

Rodriguez: One, this show has the best characters in the world. So you come for the characters first. They’re great: The Gecko Brothers, Santanico, Earl McGraw…all of the Fuller family. You’re just into it for them. But then you’ll realize there’s this whole thing that’s being built up, that’s much different from the movie.

I did a lot Aztec and Mayan research for the original film, trying to find an actual cult that existed that could have been vampire-like, that would have had traditional vampires. And there’s a lot of interesting stuff there. So I put pieces of it in the movie, but we just had traditional monster makeup and we didn’t really get to explore it and didn’t have a story built around it. This time we’re getting to go in there and delve into something that has much more authenticity and is different than anything anyone has ever seen. I’m excited about that difference…I don’t even know if we could even call them vampires, I don’t want confuse people by calling them something else. But they’re not traditional vampires.

IMDb: The other big vampire franchise I can think of that’s very seminal on TV, particularly for millennials, is “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. You and Joss Whedon have something in common, in that he wrote the movie script….

(Rodriguez starts laughing.)

IMDb: …and then he created the series. However, he didn’t direct it –

Rodriguez: Yep.

IMDb: –so it ended up being exactly what he didn’t want to do.

Rodriguez: Yes.

IMDb: Then he went back to do the series, and it became this epic, inter-generationally affecting work.  One of the benefits, and the main differences, between that and this series is that you directed the original work and now you’re returning to it and expanding on it. But what are other things with this series that you’ll be able to take to a different level for the television medium?

Rodriguez: Part of it was knowing how high we had set the bar originally. We cast George Clooney and Salma Hayek, and other stars for that. We wouldn’t settle for anything less than amazing casting of this to bring these characters to life, because they’re really rich, fantastic characters. And then the mythology that we wanted to delve into, in order to re-tell the story in a way that set us up to sustain it for future seasons. It had to be extremely intricate, evolved and rich. That’s what was cool about exploring Hispanic themes, is that it’s untouched. It’s just sitting there, waiting to be explored. It’s new! Nobody’s even thought to make anything like this before. It’s just ours to go and make it our own.

That’s exciting, to create a world that’s going to be all about exploring themes, ideas and story elements that nobody’s seen before because no one’s thought in that direction. They just repetitively imitate other versions of it but not do anything really new.

IMDb: A few years ago, the networks tried and failed to expand telenovelas to an American audience. This might seem like a silly question, but is that something you could see El Rey putting its own spin on and doing for the network? I ask because when the average American viewer thinks about Hispanic television, it’s one of the first things that come to mind.

Rodriguez: Right. They think about the Spanish counterpart. But I think what we want to invent is something completely new, something that anybody can watch and not even realize it has a Hispanic touch to it. People are surprised to realize, sometimes, that Spy Kids is actually a Hispanic film, because it doesn’t seem like it. But it is. It’s just so mainstream, and it taps into a universal quality. That’s what we want to do. I think if we just looked at Spanish television and said, “Let’s just adapt that to English!” we’d fail, just like if we took “CSI” and said, “Let’s do the Hispanic ‘CSI’,” we’d fail. So it has to be completely new, and it has to feel mainstream and original, and not feel like it’s translated.

In general, we always knew that wasn’t the key. We have to make something for everybody.

“From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series” premieres at 9pm Tuesday,  March 11, on El Rey.

Life can be tough for an Object of Unknown Origin, better known to “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” viewers as a 0-8-4. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say life looks tough for living Objects. This observation is based on what has happened so far to Skye (Chloe Bennet), the S.H.I.E.L.D. team’s newest member and its resident 0-8-4.  A superior hacker with a wry sense of humor, Skye has been thrust into a number of highly dangerous situations, the most recent of which left her clinging to life in a hyperbaric chamber.

Having spoken to Bennet on the “S.H.I.E.L.D” set a few episodes after the cast had filmed the shocking incident that nearly killed her, we could have told you that she would recover. But where would the fun lie in spoiling that?

The entire “S.H.I.E.L.D” team does everything it can to spoiler-proof the series, and Bennet is no exception. The actress did not give up significant scoop about what was in store for her character. Nor did she drop many hints about where the show’s “Uprising” arc is leading, beyond sharing fan excitement for next Tuesday’s episode: Earth is getting another visit from Asgard, this time from Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander).

Indeed, sharing any “S.H.I.E.L.D”-related information passed along by a member of the cast is to understand that she can’t tell you very much, and only half of what she does say will be true. Everything about this show is cloaked in secrecy – so much so that in order to gain access to the set, reporters were asked not to reveal the name of the studio or its location. Having established that, here’s the information we were able to decode from Bennet during a recent classified set visit.

IMDbTV:  What’s it like to be a part of a production that is surrounded by so much security and so much secrecy?

Chloe Bennet: It’s interesting. I came from doing “Nashville,” where you can just tweet anything and talk about anything. Then, here…well, you know. It makes it feel very cool because you’re like, ‘Well, I can’t talk about that.’ But then it gets kind of annoying because I have a lot of friends who are excited and they want to know about things! It’s kept this way for a reason, so that people can be surprised. Even though people say they want to know, you don’t really want to know. You want to find out when you see the episode. It’ll be better for you. It’s like eating your vegetables. You don’t really want to, but you do it because you want to feel good. I think of it that way. It helps me. It’s good for you to wait to see it.

IMDbTV: I know you can’t reveal anything, but there’s been a lot of speculation about what’s going on with your character. Do you know what’s happening with Skye?

Bennet: I know a little bit more than what you guys know, but that’s about it. What we found out in a recent episode is that she’s an 0-8-4. And everyone’s like, oh, what’s it like to find out all of this new information? Well, that information opens so many more doors… there’s even more unknown about her. So, I could be an alien. I could be an Asgardian. I could be…Spider-Woman! Who knows? There’s so many different things.  I’m very excited to find out. I’m waiting for the next script like it’s my birthday!

IMDbTV: So it’s not like you decided to sit down with Maurissa and Jed and say, “All right, I need to know what’s going on now.”

Bennet: No. Oh, I try to trick them all the time. I’ll be like, “Oh yeah, yeah…Act 1! So funny! What happened there?” And they say, “Nice try.”

IMDbTV: Since it was announced that Sif was going to appear on the show, there was some online speculation that she may be related to Skye.

Bennet: Yeah…I didn’t put that together…Sif is a very loyal soldier to Asgard. So whenever she comes down, I think she’s cleaning up a bit of a mess for Odin.

IMDb: Is that a hint?

Bennet: Maybe. That’s all I can give you.

IMDb: Well, “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” is part of the The Avengers universe, but from the very beginning one thing that the producers were careful to say was that there wouldn’t be many crossovers… However, one main Avengers subplot is that there are powerful, intergalactic objects that have been kept separate from each other. Have you heard anything about whether that plot will possibly play a part in the show?

Bennet: I have…but… I can’t! I can’t say anything.

IMDb: Wait, you have?

Bennet: Maybe I have, but it’s all top secret. I’m very good at digging myself in a hole. Clark was just talking to me about getting out of questions like that. Was that smooth?

IMDb:  Not at all. But even if it’s nothing, at least you gave me a red herring.

Bennet: You’re welcome.

IMDb:  Are there things you can talk about?

Bennet: It’s tough, because I’m just as much of a fan as the viewers are, and I want to yell what happens in the next couple of episodes… From here on out, it is nonstop.

New episodes of “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” air 8pm Tuesdays on ABC.

Let’s get this warning out of the way, shall we? “Hannibal” creator and executive producer Bryan Fuller is a man who doesn’t unnecessarily stretch out storylines or hoard nail-biting thrills in the bottom of the freezer. Like his main character, Dr. Lecter, Fuller would rather serve up his stories fresh, pulsing and rare enough to bleed.

So if you don’t want to be spoiled regarding any twist coming this season on “Hannibal”… well, we hope you haven’t seen any of the ads for it on NBC, and you’d better stop reading this story now.

Consider yourself warned.

Those who have seen commercials for the drama, returning at 10pm Friday, February 28 on NBC, already know that Hannibal’s mask is going to drop, forcing at least two key characters to fight for their lives. Even if you’ve somehow managed to avoid those ads, Fuller won’t make you wait to witness one of the season’s most brutal conflicts: Friday’s premiere opens with a grueling fight scene previewed in the trailer, with Dr. Lecter (Mads Mikkelsen) viciously attempting to fillet Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) in his kitchen.

Fuller’s decision to kick off this season with that adrenaline-spiking sequence came in part from knowing the show’s fan base could handle it, while also being aware of the wider culture’s familiarity with Hannibal Lecter’s curriculum vitae.

“The audience knows that he’s going to be incarcerated, eventually,” Fuller explained in a recent interview.  “I wanted to see this fight sequence from the get-go. The other part was, it’s kind of good to tell the audience, ‘You’re not going to be jerked around. We have an end game. We’re not just making it up as we go along. We have a plan.’

“It goes back to that idea of, the bomb is under the table,” the executive producer added. “It’s the basics of Hitchcock: Show the audience the bomb. Don’t just have it go ‘boom’. Show the audience the bomb and make them nervous. There’s something very exciting about telling the audience that this is going to be ending horribly for all of these characters in different ways.”

As if anyone believed anything different.

“Hannibal” is one of those surprising television entries that could have vaporized into ratings oblivion in its freshman run. Tough as it is to get any series off the ground, it’s infinitely harder for new shows to find lasting purchase on a broadcast network in the midseason.

But “Hannibal” passed the test with a devoted portion of viewers, whether they were fans of Thomas Harris’s iconic characters or coming in cold.  “There was so much perception of, like, ‘Oh God, another Hannibal Lecter story,’” Fuller recalled. “… I thought there was an opportunity to do something with Hannibal Lecter that hasn’t been done before. There are chapters in his life that we haven’t really seen and explored. That was exciting for me.  What was also exciting was creating a visual vocabulary for the show that was very distinct. I love cinema, and I love beautiful imagery.”

Fuller’s reverence for the cinematic medium and aesthetics is front and center in “Hannibal,” which is presented in a style he’s frequently characterized as operatic and “purple.”

Like Mikkelsen’s impeccably dressed, emotionally cool Lecter, the show itself is a work of elegance, inviting the audience to indulge in lush visuals and not simply consume the story, but digest every morsel of it.  Every moment consciously plays with the juxtaposition of gorgeousness and visceral terror with the effect, at times, of slowly luring the audience into a sense of being in collusion with Hannibal.

“It’s breaking down those moments and trying to make them sensual, and finding ways to tell story purely with cinema,” Fuller explained. “We have an episode where a major character dies, and almost half the act is non-dialogue, with just people reacting. Part of it was, do we really want to write another scene where somebody says, ‘Oh it’s sad’? When those things happen, words aren’t your tools for communication. It is so internalized and traumatized. I just wanted to see people’s devastated reactions, because that’s how you feel. You don’t feel words. That was kind of the impetus there.”

Taken in concert, the vision realized by “Hannibal’s” production staff, as well as nuanced, powerful performances by Fishburne, Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy, Caroline Dhavernas and an array of portrayals by guest stars including Gillian Anderson (returning this season as Lecter’s confidante and fellow therapist Dr. Bedelia Du Maurier) blend perfectly to create a very quiet, thought-provoking show that never drags.

Within the first two episodes of this season, for example, is a scene that is as pleasing to the eye as it is horrendous to see. This is intentional, Fuller explains. When the writers are weaving story, he invites them to be inspired by great filmmakers like David Kronenberg, David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick…as well as other cinematic sources one might not expect.

“Taking inspiration from Busby Berkeley and coming away with a human mural is part of how our brains work in the writers room,” Fuller says with a laugh. “I’m approaching the story from a place of filmmaking and psychology. I always forget that the audience isn’t in on the process of creating it, so they don’t know how we got there. So it is much more abrupt and visceral for the audience than it is for us…I guess that’s my apology.”

Not that any fan is for asking for it. On the contrary, some may wonder why we aren’t getting longer seasons of “Hannibal”.  Season one and season two are each only 13 episodes long, and Fuller is happy to hold to that commitment.

“When I watch a show, you know the episodes that are treading water. You’re like, ‘Okay, nothing really happened in that episode. There’s interesting character development, but where are the big plot points?’ In this season, we were very adamant about…needing to keep things moving, keep things exciting for ourselves.

“I think in terms of chapters,” he added. “Season one was one chapter. Season two is actually two chapters, and season three may be two chapters as well. Originally I was thinking, ‘Season four is going to be Red Dragon.’ But then I thought, ‘Oh gee, how do you spread Red Dragon over 13 episodes and keep it effective and keep the momentum? Wouldn’t it be interesting if we compressed it to seven episodes, to six episodes?’ Then we could…not waste any time or mess around. So it’s really about the gift of doing fewer episodes and being able to strategize what’s going to be the most impactful.”

Fuller was careful to add that NBC hasn’t given the official word that season three is being picked up. There’s no harm in being prepared for that scenario, of course. On the off-chance that – perish the thought – “Hannibal’s” road were to end with the season two finale, however, wouldn’t it be interesting to see Fuller add his signature to the list of producers and directors who brought the character to be big screen? Anything is possible. For the moment, though, Fuller seems content to explore the limits of of television’s palette.

“We’re in the Golden Era of television right now, but we’re kind of in a Tin Era of cinema,” he observed. “Television is kind of running circles around most movies.”

The second season of “Hannibal” premieres at 10pm Friday on NBC.

If Michael Hirst’s work has a calling card, it is passion. The heat of it made Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of Elizabeth I glow with power and sensuality in Elizabeth, and made Henry VIII believably seductive and lusty in “The Tudors”.

Watching Hirst imbue his signature sense of passion into the world of History’s “Vikings” is a completely different feat.  In building the world of “Vikings” Hirst, the drama’s creator and executive producer, had no documentation of court intrigue or parlor games to call upon. Nor did he have much in the way of preserved gowns or suits of armor in museums from which to draw inspiration.

“Vikings” has challenged Hirst to delve into largely unexplored historical territory, the Dark Ages, to bring us the perspective of a culture portrayed as savages by the Christian monks who recorded their encounters with them.  Much in the way the drama’s hero Ragnar Lothbrok dares to raid and explore other lands and their cultures, Hirst is looking beyond the overwhelmingly negative portrayals passed down in written records of the Vikings to create characters who are spiritual, thoughtful, flawed and heroic.

“Vikings have always been the bad guys. They’ve always been the ‘other’,” Hirst explained in a recent phone interview. “They’re always the guys who break into your house at night, and rape and pillage,” Hirst added. “So it seemed a big challenge to have them as the heroes, or the lead guys. But they are a wonderful culture, and I have had very, very little historical criticism about the show, which has been amazing.”

Listening to Hirst chat about “Vikings” is to hear a man in love with a treasure trove of unfamiliar stories he’s discovering for the first time – and not just the ones in history books. There’s an electric thrill in his voice as he talks about upcoming episodes, challenges his heroes will be made to face and transformative plot twists. When he refers to an upcoming confrontation as “one of the best things ever seen on television”, you can hear the belief and unshakable confidence in his voice.

Interpret that bravado as you will, but odds are the fans will agree with him. They’re a fiery, loyal bunch. The first season of “Vikings” averaged 4.3 million viewers over the course of its run, with 3.6 tuning in for the season finale in April, and made a rising star out of the man viewers know as Ragnar, Travis Fimmel.

Much of the success of “Vikings” may be credited to its action sequences; no other show on basic cable right now features bloody swordfights on the battlefields and life-or-death duels. The season two premiere gives us all that in addition to a moment of family strife that makes soap opera squabbles look like playground slap-fights.

At the same time, a central part of the story revolves around deep discussions about the role the Norse gods play in the lives of these characters, and that belief system’s stark contrasts with Christianity.

“The funny thing to me is that, of course, [to Viking culture] the Saxons were the enemy, the Saxons were the ‘other’. That’s our culture. We’ve always thought of ourselves as much more cultured and religious and spiritual and good,” Hirst said.  “So I’m messing around with stereotypes, and I’m doing that quite deliberately, because I love many aspects of Viking culture. I love their gods. I love the fact that their treatment of women is much more enlightened by the Saxons and the Franks, and they’re much more democratic.”

Indeed, the women in “Vikings”, particularly Ragnar’s wife, the shieldmaiden Lagertha (Katheryn Winnick) and the ambitious Siggy (Jessalyn Gilsig), the wife of a deposed ruler desperate to regain power, provide the focal point of significant family drama and romantic entanglements in the series – especially the clashes coming up in season two.

Hirst had not counted on that aspect of “Vikings” catching on when he first started writing the series. Initially, Lagertha’s role was not as significant as it is now, he admits. “But when we cast Katheryn and when I started to worth further on the script, she became a huge character and someone who brought a big female audience to the History Channel and to the show.

“That was fantastic to me, because one of the things I do is write female characters – from Elizabeth to Lagertha,” he continued. “I realized I had something totally unusual on American TV: I had a female character who is a mother and wife, and who kicked ass.”

She’ll be challenged to call upon all of her strengths in season two. Without giving away too much, both Lagertha and Siggy must contend with a new player on the scene, the mysterious and demanding princess Aslaug (Alyssa Sutherland).

Anyone who watched season one knows that Aslaug’s arrival in Ragnar’s Great Hall is going to be quite problematic… for Aslaug.  Lagertha’s fan base is quite vocal on social media, and at last year’s San Diego Comic-Con the mention of a transgression committed against her led to a chorus of booing from the crowd.

“In the second season, I take Lagertha to darker places, where she still has to prove that she’s a very strong character,” Hirst said. “But also, Aslaug, who in theory is a much more sort of bourgeois or obvious female character, she faces dilemmas later down the line – probably around episode six or seven – in which she shows totally unexpected strength, a new sense of who she really is.

“Actually, by the end of the second season, you will really respect Aslaug in a way that you never thought you would while still thinking that Katheryn is the best thing since sliced bread. Which, of course, she is.”

It’s too early in its lifespan to prophesy what kind of impact “Vikings” will have on television’s pantheon; season two of “Vikings” starts this week, and although nothing has been officially announced by History, Hirst is currently writing the roadmap for season three.  But at the very least, History and Hirst can be satisfied with shedding light and sparking deeper interest in an under-appreciated culture in a way that’s respectful, exciting and entertaining.

“If you walk out of your office in New York or Los Angeles, you get three blocks, you’ve passed about 30 Vikings,” Hirst said. “They’ve left an indelible legacy, and I’m just trying in a way to plug into that legacy and at least explain a little bit about the impact that they’ve had.”

The second season of “Vikings” premieres at 10pm Thursday on History.

In SundanceTV’s upcoming drama “The Red Road,” the clash between the people of a Lenape Native American tribe and the non-Native American occupants of Walpole, NJ, a small town close to New York City, creates drama all by itself.

But when town pariah Phillip Kopus returns home, the very sight of him sets the place on edge. In “The Red Road,” which premieres at 9pm Thursday, February 27, on SundanceTV,  that sensation of foreboding is palpable from the moment that Kopus (Jason Momoa) first casually strolls past a tribal gathering.

It’s been a long journey to get to a project of “The Red Road’s” caliber for Momoa, who was first introduced to television viewers via “Baywatch”. He would go on to play Ronon Dex on “Stargate: Atlantis” and star in Conan the Barbarian, updating a role that made Arnold Schwarzenegger into an action flick legend. Of course, that role is now eclipsed by the character that changed everything for the actor: Khal Drogo, Daenerys Targaryen’s fierce husband, a horse lord who was only featured in one full season of “Game of Thrones” but whose spirit still rides within the hearts of millions.

If you’re one of those still-smitten “Thrones” fans, take note:  As deeply as Momoa respects that universe and the role it had in transforming his career, he recently told a group of reporters attending a press conference that “Red Road” is “the greatest thing, (the) greatest scripts I’ve ever read.”

“As far as, like, fantasy, ‘Game of Thrones’ is amazing,” Momoa said. “… But I’ve never yelled at a script and been like, “No!” And flipping to the next page and just freaking out that I’m so excited by just reading the script…I’m really pumped for everyone to see it! And it burns. They burn story. It’s fun.”

Within the first few scenes, “Red Road” paints Walpole as a town of blended and dueling traditions, containing a dark history of cultural tension and tragedy simmering just beneath the surface. When that tension is exacerbated by a shocking crime that weighs heavily on the town’s sheriff, Harold Jensen (Martin Henderson), the tenuous peace within the town starts to crumble.

Kopus’s return does nothing to calm the place. Quite the opposite – soon, he’s asserting himself within the local underworld and stepping in to make Sheriff Jensen an offer he is in no position to refuse.

Momoa’s enigmatic portrayal of Phillip Kopus challenges the viewer’s perception of who is truly the antagonist. He’s an outsider among outsiders, an imposing man whose face seems to be incapable of softness, whose nature is predatory but whose spirit radiates pain from a deep, open wound.  Momoa makes him unnerving, dangerous and tragic all at once, which ultimately makes a person curious to see how — and if — Kopus will evolve.

“A lot of things, when you see the story unfold, you just see why he was done wrong, and why he is the way that he is. Like ‘Game of Thrones’, you assume that Drogo’s a bad guy. But you’re going to find out what Phillip Kopus is made of.”

Speaking to the question of whether redemption is possible for Phillip Kopus, Momoa said, “It’s going to find him. Some of the best lessons in life are when life teaches you, and not when you are searching for something and you don’t find it. He’s definitely not searching for it.”

In addition to his starring role in “The Red Road,” Momoa has also spent the last couple of years writing and directing Road to Paloma, a film about two bikers on a journey to the Teton Mountains.  Both projects also gave the actor the opportunity to work with his wife Lisa Bonet, who plays a tribal lawyer in “The Red Road” and his love interest in Paloma.

“It’s an honor, and I always wanted to work with her,” he said. “It was great, because she’s my love interest in that. …I think Sundance, when they saw that, they really liked the chemistry. We’ve got a good chemistry. We’ve got two kids to show for that chemistry.”

The challenge of working with his wife on “The Red Road,” Momoa observed, was throwing cold water on that chemistry. “Even though (our characters) grew up together, and we’re kind of smitten with each other, he won’t cross that boundary. He’s a pretty complicated guy. Who doesn’t want to go be with her? He’s messed up. He won’t cross that line, being that she’s on the other side of it and he’s just in this grey area.”

For the present, Momoa can rest in knowing he no longer has to search for another peak in his career. “I knew I was going to get here,” he said. “It was just a matter of convincing you guys that I had it in me.”

“The Red Road” premieres 9pm Thursday, February 27, on SundanceTV.

Last week, “The Walking Dead” returned to the air with another grim episode, as Carl (Chandler Riggs) blamed Rick’s refusal to claim his leadership position for The Governor’s attack on the prison. Meanwhile, Rick (Andrew Lincoln) was barely able to breathe, and Michonne (Danai Gurira) was left wandering alone in the wild with only a pair of armless, toothless walkers and nightmares of a beautiful life ripped to shreds to keep her company.

In this exclusive image from Sunday’s episode “Inmates,” it looks like Beth (Emily Kinney) is fortunate to have Daryl (Norman Reedus) as her guardian.  AMC’s official description of the episode reads, “The group encounters many obstacles in their quest to find stability and safety, but sometimes all they have to guide them is hope.”

What do you think has happened to the rest of the group? Do you believe Judith is still alive? Will we see Carol again? Share your theories with us in the comments section!

A new episode “The Walking Dead” airs 9pm Sunday at AMC.

While spending time in the Midwest over the holidays, the subject of Jay Leno’s exit from “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” happened to come up in conversation. My mother-in-law, a lady who is very friendly with her television, described herself as a Leno viewer who tunes in just about every night. However—and this is important—she made of point of saying she is not a Leno fan. She found him to be dull.

That said, when it came to hosting “The Tonight Show,” my mother-in-law unequivocally preferred Leno to Conan O’Brien. “All that carrying on with that masturbating bear,” she sighed, shaking her head and wrinkling her nose. “I don’t get it. It went on and on. Was that supposed to be funny?”

Then, without prompting, she weighed in on Jimmy Fallon—what a nice young man he appears to be, how accurate his impersonations are. To her, Fallon simply exudes entertainment and fun.

There, in a nutshell, is the main reason that Leno’s second passing of “The Tonight Show” torch to a new host—now, it’s Jimmy Fallon—will take this time. Fallon trades in the kind of fun that goes down easy, especially from the warmth under one’s comforter at bedtime, while being keenly aware of the importance of taking his best bits viral the morning after.

All signs point to “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”, premiering at midnight Monday night on NBC,  before settling into its regular timeslot (11:35 p.m.-12:35 a.m. ET/PT Mondays-Fridays )* being anything but dull. In addition to moving “The Tonight Show” back to New York, Fallon is adding a full moon to its logo and the “Starring” back to its title, as Jack Paar and Johnny Carson did before him. The very first guests on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” will be Will Smith and U2. Later in the week, the show will feature performances by Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire, Tim McGraw and Justin Timberlake, with Jerry Seinfeld, Kristen Wiig, Will Ferrell, Michelle Obama and Bradley Cooper scheduled to sit in the guest chairs.

Indeed, Fallon could be just the man to take “The Tonight Show” franchise back to what it was in its heyday—spiritually speaking—when Carson was the King of Late Night.

Fallon knows that fun can be harmless and have broad appeal while still highlighting creativity, edge and intelligence. Think of his “Classroom Instruments” series, or his recurring “Let Us Play With Your Look” skits. But Fallon, at 39, is very much attuned to pop culture trends both lasting and ephemeral. Some of his most successful “Late Night” bits call upon very distinct slices of pop culture know-how. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a Neil Young fan, or if you’ve don’t know any of his work. All that matters is whether watching a crunchy folk singer cover the theme to “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” with all the earnestness of a mourning song makes you laugh. That kind of thing generally hits on a broad scale.

Mind you, this is not to disparage O’Brien’s talent or to insinuate that “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” would not have eventually flourished. Yes, the ratings took a hit during O’Brien’s seven months in the “Tonight Show” chair, a situation which was not helped by NBC’s terrible decision to schedule “The Jay Leno Show,” a talk show vehicle that failed out of the gate, at 10pm. Had O’Brien been given the time to tweak his style to suit the timeslot’s audience, we would not be writing this blog post.

But what O’Brien never got a chance to perfect, Fallon is already doing. He has found a way to bridge the gap between young viewers and old, by bringing back entertainment variety to the format. Just as Carson gave us characters like Art Fern and Carnac the Magnificent, Fallon employs the skills he honed on “Saturday Night Live” to execute flawless celebrity impersonations. Fallon showcases his wide-ranging musical tastes and abilities in incredibly creative ways, starting by naming The Roots as his house band when he assumed control of NBC’s “Late Night” franchise.

Like Carson before him, Fallon also has a tremendous talent for bringing A-list celebrities down to Earth simply by getting them to play along with him. Can you think of any other host who could have persuaded Tom Cruise to break an egg over his head and not look like he wanted to kill the guy who made him do it?

Those same ingredients, mixed in perfect amounts, are a significant part of made Carson a legend, as I previously wrote in 2005:

“In contrast to the showy emcees before him, the low-key Carson and his sidekick, Ed McMahon, made us feel comfortable enough to hang out with them in rumpled pajamas. Calming as he was, though, the man was rarely a snore.”

Fallon seems to understand that. “I wish that Steve Allen and Johnny Carson were still around just to see what we’re going to do with the show because I think, when they invented this show, it was all about being fun and silly and goofy… It should be goofy and fun and make everyone laugh,” Fallon recently told critics at a press conference in California. “Everyone works too hard, and we’re the first thing after your local news. You watch us, and you get a good laugh, and you go to bed with a smile on your face. And that’s our job.”

But the days of late night television viewers coming together under one big tent are long gone. There are “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” viewers, David Letterman devotees, fans of “The Colbert Report,” “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and, yes, TBS’s weeknight talk show “Conan”. Fallon has the advantage of entering the fray as the host of the top-rated show in late night, and his debut is expected to enjoy a nice boost from all the promotional time he’s been getting during NBC’s coverage of the XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi. He will certainly enjoy a large slice of that pie.

Long after the novelty of his new kid status on “The Tonight Show” fades away, viewers will have a better sense of what Fallon’s “Tonight Show” legacy will be. Jay Leno, for all of his flaws, is a workhorse who lasted 22 years in the job. The guy before Fallon lasted seven months. Even if Fallon’s reign ends up falling somewhere in between, if he can restore a sense of classic, Carson-style fun to “The Tonight Show,” that can be considered to be the real win. More than a few mothers-in-law will be counting on him to do so.

*This post has been updated from an earlier version that incorrectly listed the premiere time for “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”.

That John Silver is a cheeky schemer, isn’t he? At this point in “Black Sails,” we can’t say for certain whether he’ll be a worthwhile addition to Captain Flynt’s crew, but at the very least Silver (Luke Arnold) has made sure that he’s more valuable to Flint (Toby Stephens) alive than dead. In this exclusive photo of a scene from Saturday’s episode of “Black Sails,” Silver seems to be assisting Flint plan his mission to find and pillage the Urca d’Lima…but who knows?

What do you think is happening around that table? Weigh in with your comments, and check out a new episode of “Black Sails” 9pm Saturday on Starz.