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[03/14/11 - 12:01 PM]
Live at the Paley Festival: The CW's "Supernatural"
By Brian Ford Sullivan (TFC)

Please note: As a courtesy, please do not reproduce these comments to newsgroups, forums or other online places. Links only please.

2:58 PM - Night (or afternoon rather) nine of the 28th Annual Paley Festival kicks off with the classic 1950 Chevrolet commercial featuring "See The U.S.A. In Your Chevrolet."

3:03 PM - TV Guide's Debra Birnbaum welcomes us and brings out today's moderator, AOL's Maureen Ryan. In a cute intro, she reads the lyrics from Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" which amusingly hit all the touchstone from the series.

3:08 PM - Executive producer Sera Gamble likewise thanks everyone for coming. She says we'll be seeing a clip reel from this season as well as two treats: an extended version of "The French Mistake" in which "Jared Padalecki" and "Jensen Ackles" try to act as well as a preview of an upcoming episode set in the Old West. Fun stuff!

3:19 PM - Mo returns to bring out today's panelists: Ben Edlund! Jim Beaver (Bobby)! Misha Collins (Castiel)! Jensen Ackles (Dean)! Jared Padalecki (Sam)! Sera Gamble! And of course, creator Eric Kripke!

3:23 PM - "We're in the sixth season of [the show], at this point like the network lets us do... whatever the hell we want," Kripke says about "The French Mistake." Ackles adds that the episode marked the first time they've ever been asked to come to the writers' room to hear the pitch. This leads Ackles to launch into an impression of the always excitable Kripke: "It's going to be great!"

3:25 PM - "We loved the idea, but can we not play Jared and Jensen?" Padalecki says about his reaction. "I'm not interesting," Ackles follows. "He's not," Padalecki quips. This leads to a solid 30 seconds of Ackles rolling his eyes at Padalecki. "They're not talking again," Mo quips.

3:29 PM - Collins's suggestion for the episode: "Can you please make the Misha character a total douchebag?" He complains that the end result was a "watered down" douchebag.

3:31 PM - "This is an episode right now," Kripke jokes about the show's frequently meta nature.

3:33 PM - Mo asks Beaver how far in advance he hears about major developments for his character. "Well with the wheelchair thing, I showed up on set and they said, 'Sit down.' And a season later they said, 'Stand up.' I'm a pretty good actor so I did."

3:35 PM - Mo notes Edlund will be directing the show's 20th episode this season. "I think [the episode]'s very emotional," Edlund says. "I think like the fourth act is a one act play and it really has performance. To me, it's the fruition of like some serious friendships... where they are and where they go." He adds that traditionally the 20th episode of each season is the "emotional tee up" for the last two episodes.

3:37 PM - Padalecki teases Edlund about the thoughtfulness of his direction: "A lot of directors will come in [and go], 'Okay, I want you over there, hit this mark [etc.]' And Ben, God love him, [he'd say], 'When you're walking you can think about like how tough it's been...'"

3:39 PM - Regarding the endless body count on the show, Kripke says he's especially happy about how "Eric Kripke" died. He e-mailed Charles Beeson, the director of "The French Mistake," saying, "Thank you so much for letting me die in such a manly way."

3:41 PM - "When Bob [Singer] pitched Sam coming back from hell without a soul," Gamble says was a twist she didn't see coming. When asked the same question, Padalecki and Ackles stay quiet. "They're on good behavior because there's a few curveballs coming," Kripke says.

3:45 PM - Kripke reveals he's turned in his draft for the season finale, which Singer is set to direct.

3:48 PM - Mo asks if we'll ever see a Castiel-centric episode. Coincidentally, that's exactly what Edlund's upcoming episode is. Gamble adds that we're going to meet an angel named Rachel, who's Castiel's second in command.

3:49 PM - "42 years in this business and on my tombstone it's going to say, 'He kissed Crowley,'" Beaver quips about his infamous liplock. "I've had better," he says with regards to its quality. "[But] not recently."

3:51 PM - Padalecki says he really misses playing soul-less Sam. "I've not been shy about my love of playing the darker [stuff]," he notes.

3:54 PM - Mo asks Kripke if, looking back, there's anything he wishes he could change. "All I can actually see are things that I wish I did something differently," he says about the writing. "It's very rare I'm able to watch a complete episode [and be happy]." He adds that's even going back to the pilot as there's a needless exposition scene there between Sam and Dean in which they tell each other their histories for the audience's benefit, a conversation no human being would ever have.

3:58 PM - "I may be running into medical problems," Collins says about Castiel's gravely voice, an acting choice he blames himself for making in his first episode. This leads the boys to start piling on Collins. "After the first take I turned to our camera department and went, 'What is he doing? Did he audition?'" says Ackles. "I didn't have a scene with him," Padalecki adds. "And I was like [to Jensen], 'Hey, how's the new guy?' He's like, 'Really nice... what the hell is he doing? He's, you know, really strange.'"

4:01 PM - Edlund brings up how Dean's "fight the fairies" proclamation was an odd trending topic on Twitter the night the episode aired. He hopes the gay community didn't see that and think something else was going on.

4:03 PM - Mo opens the floor to Q&A. Someone asks if the two-hour finale will feel like a movie or two episodes back-to-back. "In 21 there's so many mythology threads we need to tie up and 22 there's so many other mythology threads, so it was hard to kind of actually combine the two." He wondered if they might need a "one week later" title card because "it doesn't feel [seamless], it feels like two episodes that each have their own story. So, it'll be awesome in reruns."

4:07 PM - A fan praises the character of Ruby (to which Jared applauds) and asks if we'll see more morally-grey demons and/or a regular female character that isn't evil. "They're charming and enjoyable and they can have moments of helping you," Gamble says about the show's demons. "But I don't know if we'll ever to pull that off to the extent we did with Ruby again. We've probably played that card out."

4:10 PM - "We looked like a couple of... idiots", Ackles notes about the first and last time we saw Sam and Dean use umbrellas in the episode "Bugs."

4:13 PM - Kripke reveals the rules about using the words "dick," "crap" and "balls" on broadcast television: "You can use the word 'dick' as long as you're not talking about a dick. You can say the word 'crap' as long as you're not referencing taking a crap. You can say the word 'balls' as long as you're not referencing balls."

4:15 PM - Someone asks if we'll ever see the character of Missouri Mosely (played by Loretta Devine) again. Kripke reveals that Devine's lack of availability for the season one finale led them to create a new character, a certain Bobby Singer, to fill said void. Kripke adds that he was originally called Bobby Manners (after executive producer Bobby Singer and the late Kim Manners), however legal couldn't clear the name so they just switched it to Bobby Singer, much to Bobby's (who was out that day) chagrin.

4:18 PM - A fan wonders if Jared and Jensen will ever become executive producers on the show, as the stars of many long running series frequently do. This leads the duo to give her a standing ovation. Kripke quips that the questioner must be the actors' manager.

4:21 PM - Turns out "Swan Song" didn't use all of Kripke's ideas for a series finale. "There was no doubt a lot of the plot elements that I always visualized [as being] the series finale I put in 'Swan Song,'" Kripke says. "But I will say there's a very specific coda that we have in mind... and we didn't use that. So that's still there and I'm sure when we get there... 15 years from now, [we'll use it]."

4:23 PM - That's a wrap! Jim will be back tomorrow night with "American Idol!"

And for more PaleyFest coverage - past and present - visit our Paley Center topic page.





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· PALEY CENTER (TFC)
· SUPERNATURAL (CW)





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