Issue 1. March 2014.

3001199111
The Last
Stand Of
Walter White
Shonda Rhimes On
Scandal And Immorality
Review: Those Who Kill
Madhavi Nair
C
o
n
t
e
n
t
s
FROM HOUSE OF CARDS TO ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK
Madhavi Nair
C
o
n
t
e
n
t
s
R
e
m
e
m
b
e
r

H
i
s

N
a
m
e
Bryan Cranston talks about
his long and winding career,
the importance of luck and the
crazy journey that has been
Breaking Bad.
Page 6
On the cover: Bryan Cranston.
Photo Courtesy: AMC Network
Madhavi Nair
Notes on a
Scandal
Page 4
Scandal creator Shonda
Rhimes on her addictive
TV show, and racial
diversity on television.
Major Crimes
Forges Its
Own Identity
Page 14
Captain Sharon
Raydor and her team
of detectives find their
footing without Brenda on
TNTs popular drama.
Review: Those Who Kill
Page 16
Will the American version of Den Som Drber
manage to hold our attention?
Did I Ever Tell You
About The Time...?
Page 19
Think yourself a Whovian? Read
these Doctor Who Trivia and see just
how much you know.
Coming Up
Page 2
The latest news from the industry
CREDITS
CONTENTS
The Five Most
Anticipated Shows of
This Year
Page 17
From Soderberg to Shyamalan, this
years TV line up is sure to keep you
on the edge of your seat.
Madhavi Nair
L
orem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing
elit. Pellentesque sit amet ligula euismod, volutpat
nibh ut, lacinia nulla. Nam neque massa, iaculis a
ultrices nec, sodales ac justo. Etiam tristique nisi
vel ipsum semper, non dictum dui luctus. Duis euismod
nunc metus, nec fringilla mi accumsan quis. Curabitur
dictum blandit faucibus. Aliquam et nulla ornare, lacinia
felis adipiscing, pulvinar nisl. Duis placerat, magna eget
tristique semper, purus est mollis neque, nec dictum
lectus felis nec leo. Maecenas placerat adipiscing dolor ut
imperdiet. Curabitur quis vestibulum est. Proin gravida
euismod magna non fringilla. Pellentesque habitant morbi
tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis
egestas. Aliquam eu neque id urna dignissim adipiscing.
Sed tristique, mi aliquet porttitor vestibulum, turpis nibh
tincidunt quam, quis vestibulum massa orci eget diam.
Vivamus bibendum est non porta ultrices. Nullam luctus
nec nisl eu tempus.
Vestibulum congue ultricies nunc sed condimentum.
Ut tristique eu dolor in volutpat. Sed ut arcu hendrerit
lacus tempor ultrices aliquam non velit. Lorem ipsum
dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer egestas
magna et sem elementum euismod. Nam vestibulum
enim eros, non aliquam augue porttitor a. Morbi vitae
justo scelerisque, convallis turpis eget, sagittis lacus. Sed
tempus nisi et sapien bibendum, a faucibus libero rutrum.
Pellentesque vestibulum arcu sit amet arcu commodo
consectetur. Aenean velit velit, condimentum quis arcu
ut, bibendum sagittis justo. Proin elementum sem eu arcu
mollis, ac tincidunt orci porta. Suspendisse tempus metus
posuere, porta arcu at, blandit arcu. Donec non nulla
egestas urna ornare dictum at vitae lacus.
Nulla pharetra felis lacus, eu condimentum sapien
eleifend in. Curabitur feugiat velit quis sem tincidunt
sollicitudin at sed dui. Etiam vitae convallis urna.
Vestibulum sed quam nec velit sollicitudin blandit. Sed
aliquam turpis ut convallis pharetra. Pellentesque ut risus
ut sapien dignissim venenatis a vitae magna. Praesent
sagittis vestibulum ligula, et ultrices nibh. Ut ornare dolor
sit amet hendrerit pharetra. Nullam non lobortis nisi. Ut
imperdiet mauris sit amet porta hendrerit.
Live long and prosper,
Madhavi Nair
For the
Love of
Television
March 2014 |Inside The Box | 1
EDITORIAL
Madhavi Nair
DEAN WINTERS LANDS A NEW ROLE
Dean Winters (Law & Order: SVU, Oz, 30
Rock) has landed a starring role in CBS
promising drama Battle Creek. Winters will
play Detective Russ Agnew of the Battle
Creek PD, one of the two lead detectives with
very different world views who are teamed
up to solve crimes. He joins previously
announced co-stars Kal Penn, Janet McTeer,
Edward Fordham Jr., and Aubrey Dollar. The
show comes from the heavy-hitting producing
team of Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan,
and House creator David Shore.
MURPHYS FILM GETS A RELEASE
DATE
Ryan Murphys sure-to-devastate film The
Normal Heart has a premiere date Sunday,
May 25 of this year. The star-packed project
based on Larry Kramers Tony Award-
winning play of the same name tells the
story of the onset of the HIV-AIDS crisis in
New York City in the early 1980s. The cast
includes Mark Ruffalo, Matt Bomer, Taylor
Kitsch, Jim Parsons and Julia Roberts.
SIX MINUTES IN A DAY AND A HALF
In a recent interview, True Detective Season
1 director Cary Fukunaga spoke about the
impressive six minute long take in the shows
fourth episode. We had assistant directors
all over the neighborhood because we had to
release extras, crowd running background,
police cars, stunt drivers. There were actual
gun shots and stones being thrown through
windows. There were a lot of things to put
together, Fukunaga said. Even the action,
the stunt sequences were complicated. We
only had a day and a half to get Matthew and
everyone else on the same page.
2 | Inside The Box | March 2014
COMING UP
Madhavi Nair
APATOW TO BE HONOURED AT PALEY
CENTRE
Comedic screenwriter, director, and producer
Judd Apatow will be this years recipient
of the Paley Center for Medias 2014 Icon
Award. Apatow, beloved for his cult-hit TV
classics like Freaks & Geeks, will receive the
award on when PaleyFest kicks off. Apatow
will be the second recipient of the award,
following in the footsteps of Glees Ryan
Murphy, who received the award last year.
HEROES LIVES
NBC helped kickstart the superhero TV
trend in 2006 with Heroes, an X-Men-ish
action-drama about a group of people with
superhuman powers. Now the network is
bringing back the show for a 13-episode event
series to air in 2015. Original series creator
Tim Kring is on board to run the show.
Titled Heroes Reborn, the project is billed as a
stand-alone story; the characters have not yet
been announced.
HELL BE BACK
Netflix has pulled a Starz and handed out
an early renewal to one of its biggest hits.
The streaming service has renewed House of
Cards for Season 3. But an early renewal isnt
anything new for House of Cards; when the
series was first announced, Netflix picked up
two seasons right off the bat. No premiere
date has been announced for Season 3, but
2015 is a safe bet. With the exception of Starz
renewing shows in advance is a rarity.
March 2014 |Inside The Box | 3
COMING UP
Madhavi Nair
S
honda Rhimes, the creator
of ABCs Greys Anatomy,
Scandal and the recently
ended Private Practice, is
one of the most prolific and powerful
creative forces working in network
television. In its ninth season,
Greys remains one of the most
highly rated dramas on television. In
its third, Scandal has hit its bonkers
creative stride. It is simultaneously
ultra-cynical and overly romantic,
and week in and week out, the
ballsiest show on television (and
by far the most fun to talk about).
Rhimes spoke with me about why
everyone keeps insisting Olivia Pope
is a good guy, how much she hates it
when people call Scandal a guilty
pleasure, and her bafflement by the
lack of racial diversity on TV in 2013.
So you recently said no one on
Scandal was 100 percent good,
which seems like an extreme
understatement. How rotten do you
think they are?
I think that people are really
determined that these people be
good. People seem very shocked that
these people are not good or that
they would do something bad. To
me thats very interesting because in
the very first episode of the show,
Olivia is purchasing a baby and shes
having an affair with the president.
Im not sure why people felt like she
was the queen of all goodness. I feel
like its really a) awesome, frankly
revolutionary to have a black female
character on television who is the
lead of the show who is not a saint.
Because, frankly, thats what happens,
they always make them a saint, and
its really boring and nobody cares.
But b) theres something about
these characters that none of them
can be all good. The whole point of
the show is that everybody has dirty
little secrets. Everybody has things
that theyve covered up, everybody
has things that theyre ashamed
of. Everybody has committed their
own personal crimes. And were
still unfolding, and unpacking, and
figuring out what everyones little
crimes are. So theres nobody good.
So the rooting for is subjective.
Have you been surprised by just
what you said, that people are filling
in the blanks as if these characters
are good?
Yes! I love how passionate people
are about this show; its been really
gratifying to see how passionate fans
are about the show.
Do you watch Breaking Bad?
I do watch Breaking Bad.
So on Breaking Bad, it took a
long time, but it has convinced us
most of us, I think that Walter
White is a shithead. People didnt
want to believe that for way longer
than made sense, but it happened
eventually, and he had to do so
many horrible things to get us there.
It seems like Liv would have to do
things that are much more terrible
than the stuff shes done to get
people to think she is a bad person.
You would almost have to make that
the point of the show, as it is on
Breaking Bad.
Yeah, and Im not interested in that.
Im not interested in forcing down
the audiences throats that Liv is a
shithead [laughs]. For instance, part
of the thing about Liv being in love
with this married man that we all
seem to accept and find very romantic
that they love each other is that
youre going to fall in love with this
relationship because youre watching
it from Olivias point of view. Its
wrong, and its flawed, and shes got
a really messed up view of what love
is, but were watching her fall in love
from her point of view. So were in it.
Were with her on that, as opposed
to Breaking Bad, where I feel a lot
of the times, youre not always with
him, youre standing outside, gulping,
watching him, going, I cant believe
hes doing that.
Right. But that, telling the story
only from her point of view, that is
why people think shes the hero
Yeah!
So you are encouraging us to think
that a little.
The creator of Greys Anatomy and Scandal explores the ethos of immorality
-- and the insult she really hates.
By WILLA PASKIN
4 | Inside The Box | March 2014
DIALOGUE
Madhavi Nair
I guess we are encouraging it. Whats
interesting is the big twist of the
recent episode, where she agreed to
fix the election, was one you knew
all along. And yet, the big twist of
the episode was that she fixed the
election. The entire time youre
watching the show youre like, She
couldnt possibly have done that. She
couldnt possibly have done that. Oh,
but, theres gotta be a way that she
didnt really do it. When we got to
it in the table read and Olivia Pope
agreed to fix the election, the entire
cast gasped. I was like, Why are you
all gasping? You knew that she did
this! And everyone was like, We
didnt think she really did it. I dont
know what it is.
How much do you like these
characters?
I adore them. Honestly. You cant tell
stories and really walk in someones
shoes and not have a love for them,
even if theyre doing horrible things.
I feel great sympathy for Cyrus, who
I know is a murderer. I know hes
a murderer. I feel great sympathy
for him. Hes one of my favorite
characters because as far as hes
concerned, hes the biggest patriot
out there, hes just doing what is best
for the country. Huck really,
really does love to kill people.
And you adore him. Hes so
sweet and so kind, and killing
people is his favorite things
to do. I love these characters.
Somehow you have to stand
in their shoes and find their
humanity in order to make
them feel lovable and real.
Youve said that you hate when the
show is called a guilty pleasure.
Its so annoying. Its like saying the
show is a piece of crap but I cant
stop watching it. To me, thats
what a guilty pleasure is. The Real
Housewives is a guilty pleasure. To
me, its an insulting thing to say.
Calling a show a guilty pleasure
is like saying Im embarrassed to
say I watch it but I cant stop. That
is not a compliment! That is not a
compliment! Then dont watch it.
How much pride do you take in the
fact that your casts are much more
racially diverse than most other
shows?
I dont take pride in it at all. I think
its sad, and weird, and strange that
its still a thing, nine years after we
did Greys, that its still a thing. Its
creepy to me that its still an issue,
that there arent enough people of
color on television. Why is that still
happening? Its 2013. Somebody else
needs to get their act together. And
oh, by the way it works. Ratings-
wise, it works. People like to see it. I
dont understand why people dont
understand that the world of TV
should look like the world outside
of TV.
Do you feel like thats because it is
mostly white guys making TV?
I dont think its about that. I really
dont. J.J. Abrams is a white guy, he
does it. Norman Lear, years and years
and years and years ago, did it. I think
its ridiculous, that the networks
dont demand it more. I think its
crazy that the person who everybody
asks this question of is me. Everyone
always says to me, Why arent there
more people of color on television?
Im like, Why dont you ask a bunch
of people who arent putting people
of color on television why there arent
more people of color on television.
Youre right. But you know why
were asking, its not because youre
not doing it.
But, you know what I mean? Like,
but I cant tell you why. I dont know
why the white guys arent putting
people of color on television, maybe
we should ask them. And if you ask
them all the time, after a while they
might start thinking about putting
people of color on television. I think
Deception is a good moment in
television. I feel like theres a person
of color as the lead of that show
and that wasnt, like, a thing. There
was no conversation about the fact
that I was going to have an African-
American lead on Scandal. ABC
wasnt like, We need to discuss this.
They were just like, Great, thats
fine, wonderful. Move on.
Does the show feel outrageous to
you sometimes? Watching it, it feels
outrageous, like theres nothing you
wont do.
I think the interesting thing
for me is that and Betsy
Beers and I have talked about
this every once in a while with
each other I am making a
television show the way you
make a television show when
you have absolutely nothing
to lose. Not because Im so
special, its because I have another
job. I have another job, so I knew in
the beginning that if they didnt like
Scandal and they axed it Id still
have another job to go to. And I also
felt I had the capital that comes from
having done Greys to say, Screw
it, Im going to make the show I want
to make and this is the show I want
to make. Im going to make the show
I want to make and you guys can say
whatever you want, but Im just going
to make it anyway, come hell or high
water. And I got to do that. And yeah
it feels a little crazy, but also its just
the show I want to watch.
I am making a television show
the way you make a television
show when you have absolutely
nothing to lose.
March 2014 |Inside The Box | 5
DIALOGUE
Madhavi Nair
6 | Inside The Box | March 2014
COVER STORY
Madhavi Nair
By BRETT MARTIN
March 2014 |Inside The Box | 7
COVER STORY
Madhavi Nair
Y
ears ago, in another lifetimelong before
the hat, the goatee, the shaved head, before
He,the Unholy Ghost, came into Bryan
Cranstons lifethe writers on the sitcom
Malcolm in the Middle used to play a game in which they
invented increasingly violent, absurd, and physically
humiliating stunts for Cranstons character, Hal, to enact.
They called it What wont Bryan do? When the game
culminated in Hal covered by thousands of live bees, with
no protest from Cranston forthcoming, it was deemed
unwise to continue.
Instead, a second, corollary game sprang up: What
cant Bryan do? Here, too, the writers imaginative powers
proved inadequate to the task, whether the challenge was
roller-dancing or using his body as an enormous nude
paintbrush. Even they, though, might have been surprised
to know what we now know about what Bryan can do: how
hes transformed himself into Him.
He, of course, is Walter White, whose journey from
depressed, terminally ill chemistry teacher to murderous
meth manufacturer on Breaking Bad ended last year.
In an era rife with seductive antiheroes, Walt Whites
transformation from, as creator Vince Gilligan likes to
say, Mr. Chips to Scarface has arguably been the most
harrowingin part because weve watched the creation
of Heisenberg, as White is known on the street, step by
mostly well-calibrated step. When I first read the script,
thats what struck me: I thought, Tony Soprano, Dexter,
Vic Mackey. When we were introduced to them, they were
already that kind of person, says Cranston. But Im not
sure this has happened before: Where we take one kind of
personbright, depressed, just turned 50, dying of cancer
and say, For the next two years, hes going to go on the
greatest roller-coaster ride of his life.
He smiles wryly and adds, quite unnecessarily,
Greatest meaning biggest. Not necessarily good.
Indeed, Breaking Bads most impressive
accomplishment has been the ruthless commitment
with which its creators, Cranston included, have stuck
to prosecuting the series original mission. One by one,
Gilligan and his fellow writers have taken away Walts
justifications, starting with the cancer, which went into
remission, while also giving him something Tony Soprano
never had: an adversary and victims you care about with
equal depth and fervor. The former is Whites DEA-
agent brother-in-law, Hank, with whom White appears
to be locked in a zero-sum game; the latter,
his family, including his partner and former
student, Jesse Pinkman, to whom he plays a
poisonous surrogate father. White has emerged
as a monstrous distortion of the American
fetish for self-actualization, a natural answer to Oprahs
demand to Live your best life. What, Breaking Bad asks, if
your best life happens to be as a drug kingpin?
Were all sophisticated people here. We understand
the profession of acting, the concept of make-believe. And
yet eyes are eyes. Visual data is visual data. And sometimes
the eyes are more powerful than the brain. People who
do Cranstons job count on that; its part of what makes
acting work. So one hopes its forgivable to sit here in the
living room of Cranstons Los Angeles house, across from
the intimately familiar face that is also Walter Whites, and
to look for signs. To stare and to wonder: Does it ever leave
a mark?
A MAN OF MANY CHARACTERS
Lord, but the man would have made a handsome cop.
Almost did, in fact. He was first in his class with the LAPD
Law Enforcement Explorers, pointed toward the academy
and a career with the police force. Watching him now, at
ease, its impossible not to see it. The Scotch-Irish features;
the lithe, compact body: They would have been perfect for
some twinkly-eyed kindly officer, walking his beat in blue.
Its been a couple of months since Breaking Bad wrapped
and the hair has come back, salt-and-peppering but plenty
thick for a 57-year-old. The cheeks, hollowed out for Walt,
have filled in. Hes wearing a gray T-shirt and worn slip-on
shoes. He is relaxed.
Cranston has spent his professional life tamping down
his good looks, if not always his charm. The poor man has
never been allowed to wear decent clothes on-screenfrom
the brocaded shirts of Tim Whatley, his recurring smarmy-
dentist role on Seinfeld, to Hals short-sleeve dress shirts,
which one imagined coming in a ten-pack from JCPenney.
It is safe to say that no other great American actor has
spent as much time appearing in his tighty-whities.
Actually, hes insisted on appearing in them. While
shooting the Breaking Bad pilot, Vince Gilligan had a crisis
of conscience watching his star thus dressed in the freezing
New Mexico desert. I wimped out, Gilligan says. I took
him aside and said, Would you be more comfortable
in sweatpants? Or boxers? He said, Yeah, Id be more
comfortable. Whats your point? So youre okay with
the tighty-whities? Well, whats the most pathetic thing
I could be wearing here? I said, Tighty-whities. And he
I genuinely could not
8 | Inside The Box | March 2014
COVER STORY
Madhavi Nair
said, Well, what else do we need to talk about?
I genuinely could not care less how I look, Cranston
says now.
Such is the attitude of an actor who spent almost
twenty years racking up lunchpail gigsfrom Preparation
H commercials to Murder, She Wrotebefore achieving
anything approaching fame. Moreover, he is the child of
actors: a mother who gave the profession up to raise her
children and a father, Joe, who was handsome and talented
but struggled to keep his head above water. Hed get a
job and say, Oh, good! and then no job and, Oh, no.
Ultimately it was more Oh, no than Oh, good. And
he couldnt take the uncertainty of it. When Joe left the
business in frustration, his son learned the lesson well:
It doesnt matter if youre good. If youre just good, you
wont succeed. If you have patience and persistence and
talent and thats it, you will not have a successful career as
an actor. The elusive thing you need is luck.
Early on, at least, that seemed in short supply. Joes
departure from show business was part of a larger family
breakdown. When Bryan was 12, Cranstons parents split.
The family house was lost, and Cranston and his elder
brother, Kyle, lived with their grandparents for a year.
He wouldnt see his father again for a decade. Though
theyve long since reunited, Cranston has never gotten
a full accounting of that period in his fathers life and
doubts even Joe has faced it head-on. Hes actually said,
Id rather stick needles in my eyes than get on a therapists
couch, Cranston says. Hes of that generation.
At L.A.s Canoga Park High School, Cranston was a
confused nebbish, a wannabe jockbaseball was his sport
without an ounce of jock swagger. It was not a great time
for me. I was really quiet and unassuming and insecure.
And my timidity pushed me to the sidelines, literally and
figuratively, he says.
Potential salvation arrived from a strange direction for
a teenager growing up in countercultural 1968, just a few
years and freeway miles removed from the Watts riots. Kyle
had joined the Law Enforcement Explorerssomething
between a fitness program, a recruitment tool, and the Boy
Scoutsthat included summer trips to Japan and Hawaii.
That looked pretty good to a boy from the suburbs of the
San Fernando Valley, and Cranston joined up as soon as
he was old enough, at 16. That year he was the number
one student in the program and, sure enough, got to
spend several weeks in Europe, where he tapped into other
new sources of power. I lost my virginity on that trip, in
Austria, he says. And then I lost it in Switzerland, I lost it
in Luxembourg, I lost it in France.
Everything seemed on track for a degree in police
science and a career rising through the ranks. Instead,
a guidance counselor at his junior college intervened,
insisting that he take at least one elective. Cranston claims
it was as much a function of the alphabetthe options were
listed in alphabetical orderas any filial impulse that drove
him to choose his fathers profession. If acting had been
called shmacting, he says, I may have wound up taking
archery. Whatever the impetus, he soon discovered that
the performing arts, in addition to offering an even more
frequent and varied range of virginity-losing opportunities,
were another thing he was surprisingly good at.
WHAT CAN BRYAN DO?
Just about anything, it seems. Hes a gifted storyteller, an
inspired mimic. His next major project will be a play, All
the Way, by Robert Schenkkan, which chronicles the first
year in the presidency of Lyndon Johnson and will open
in Boston this fall. Discussing LBJ, he suddenly slips into a
pitch-perfect Texas drawl; you can almost swear you see his
jowls swell and droop.
Gilligan, as a writer on The X-Files, learned the extent
of Cranstons abilities when he cast the actor, who had
by then had a solid but unspectacular run of mostly TV
guest roles. The part was an anti-Semitic lowlife that
the audience nevertheless had to grow to care about.
You needed an actor who could play this guy who is an
asshole, an unpleasant redneck creep, yet at the end of
the hour you need to feel bad that the guy dies, Gilligan
says. Casting bad guys is easy. Casting a bad guy you feel
sympathy for is much harder.
In 2000, Malcolm in the Middle came along. The role in
the pilot of Hal, the father to four rambunctious boys, was
all but an afterthought. I imagined him as just remote,
distant, remembers creator Linwood Boomer. It was a
writers conceit that just lay there on the page like a turd.
The part was so underwritten that Cranstons audition,
held on the set as it was being constructed, consisted
mostly of listening to a fight between the mom and one
of her sons. Cranston pulled out a pipe and just watched,
head swiveling back and forth between the readers.
Boomer fell off his chair laughing.
People say that, but I literally fell off my
metal chair, he says. He just had this vast inner
life going on. You realize, This guy looks like hes
listening, but hes actually building a rocket ship in
care less how I look.
March 2014 |Inside The Box | 9
COVER STORY
Madhavi Nair
his head.
If you havent seen Malcolm lately, its worth dipping
in for the performance that inspired
What cant Bryan do? It is almost
as sublime as Cranstons work on
Breaking Bad. Hal and Walter White,
in fact, could almost be very estranged
cousins; not for nothing is there a
joke making the rounds that the end
of Breaking Bad should have been
White entering the witness-protection
program and becoming Hal.
Together, the two performances
speak to something else essential about
Cranston. Hes an immensely physical actor, almost
a clown: sometimes a funny clown; other times a very
scary clown indeed. The most memorable Walter White
moments could almost take place in a silent film: Walt
sitting by his stagnant pool, flicking lit matches onto its
surface; Walt watching as Gus Fring slits a henchmans
throat with a box cutter; Walt fixing himself lunch. The
man makes a sandwich like Chaplin roller-skated.
Hes telepathic, Gilligan says. I cant tell you how
much dialogue weve cut out of this show over the years in
the editing room, stuff that we wrote and really liked, that
when we got to the editing room and we said to ourselves,
You know, we dont need this line. Its not necessary,
because I see exactly what hes thinking.
That natural style is perfectly in keeping with a
show that has always placed the highest value on visual
storytelling, that revels in the physical world of significant
objects and chemical processes. (Midway through season
three, a writer-producer, Peter Gould, approached Gilligan,
beaming. Look at my script, he said. Ive counted
and theres five uninterrupted pages where not a word
of dialogue is spoken!) This has made Breaking Bad the
perfect complement to its hyperverbal network-mate
Mad Men; it also might explain why Breaking Bad has
never been nominated for a writing Emmyand, for that
matter, why Cranston has thrice beaten out Jon Hamm for
Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series.
And its the thing that the movies havent seemed
to figure out. Cranston has worked
steadily in featuresin everything
from Oscar-winning Argo and Nicolas
Winding Refns Drive to next years
Godzillabut nothing has found the
resonance of his two transcendent
TV roles. Film, by and large, has
consigned him to the role of talky,
exposition-giving supporting player
when his natural position is as silent,
magnetic center.
Out in the spacious backyard of Cranstons
house, located on a quiet corner of a residential
L.A. neighborhood, he ticks off the names of the trees,
including the threesweetgum, cork oak, and elmthat
form the bases for intense family Wiffle-ball games.
Theres an outdoor Ping-Pong table that Cranston
grooms as though it were Roland Garros before proceeding
to wipe the floor with a visitor in two straight games, the
balls darting and spinning like iron filings yanked from the
air by a magnet. One kill shot seems to hover in space before
dropping to the left, barely nicking the edge of the table.
I told you, he says, breathing slightly hard, face
flushed with victory. You need that little bit of luck.
Gilligan, casting Breaking Bads pilot, remembered
Cranston from The X-Files. He, too, had a sense there was
nothing Bryan couldnt do, including, he told skeptical
AMC and Sony executives, transforming himself from
bumbling Hal to Walter White. Cranston, for his part,
knew immediately what he had. I told my agent, Get me
in there as fast as you can, because I know other actors are
going to want to lift their leg on this. Its like, I want to
mark it. I want to spray it with my scent.
That meant coming in to his audition with a crystal-
clear picture of Walt. I actually thought of my father,
how he stands hunched, burdened, he says, slumping
his shoulders. We didnt have Walt stand erect until
he became Heisenberg. He also had a precise vision
Soap Opera Loving
(1983)
Saving Private Ryan
(1998)
Seinfeld (1994-95,
1997)
King of Queens
(1999-2001)
A Career Landscape
I told you, you
need that little bit
of luck.
10 | Inside The Box | March 2014
COVER STORY
Madhavi Nair
of everything from Walts weight (186 pounds) to his
mustache. I said, I want his mustache to look impotent.
I want people to look at it and go, Why bother? I thought
he should wear clothes that blend into the wall: beige,
sand, taupe, khaki. His hair should be a mop. Nothings
remarkable about this man. The meeting with Gilligan,
scheduled for fifteen minutes, lasted an hour and a half;
Gilligan emerged committed to fighting for Cranston
to get the role. And the Walter White of that pilot
humiliated by his students, receiving a halfhearted birthday
hand job from Skyler as she surfs eBaywas so convincing,
so fully hatched in his pathos, that its impossible even
now not to root for him to get up and find his inner
Heisenberg.
Cranston has remained in the odd position of both
author and consumer of Breaking Bad.Hes an unusually
involved actor, directing three episodes himself (including
last summers premiere) and acting as a producer since
season four. Before each season, he would send out a group
e-mail exhorting the ensemble to get ready to do their best
work. His overall message to his fellow actors, says Dean
Norris, who plays Hank, delivered by example day after
day, is clear: That every second in front of the camera is
the most important second you have. Leadership, on a
show as frequently grim as Breaking Bad, has also meant
knowing when its necessary to lighten the mood.
Remember, I spent six years seeing the man in his
underwear. Sometimes less than his underwear, says Anna
Gunn, who plays Walts wife, Skyler. He would constantly
try to appear with various...things on his...situation.
At the same time, Cranston has followed Walter White
much like the rest of us, in single-episode increments. He
refused to see scripts, at least those hes not directing, until
four or five days before shootinga policy that continued
right up until the end: I was enjoying it too much. Asking
how it ends would have been like saying, All right, tell me
what you got me for my birthday and then Ill open it.
That left him with the same questions, speculations,
and excited expectations as any viewer.
I had notions, he says, of The End. Like, What if
he created this toxic world around him and, because of his
actions, everybody he loved died and he had to stay alive?
But then Id think, Hes wrought so much, he has to die.
Doesnt he? But if he dies, what does he die of? Maybe
he dies of cancer. After all this other danger! But my true
answer of how I wanted it to end, my honest answer, is
this: however Vince Gilligan wants it to end.
THE END IS NIGH
The offices of Breaking Bad have, for the past six years,
been located in an almost aggressively nondescript
building on a bright and barren corner of Burbank, across
from a 7-Eleven. There, among the dentists and private
investigators listed on the lobby directory, you will find a
suite assigned to Delphi Information Sciences Corp. It was
the name of the previous tenant, but sufficiently oblique
and ominous to retain for the shows use. It may be the
power of association, but everything in the building has
a way of taking on a surreal, Breaking Badlike cast: The
elevator doors open on a nervous-looking man hauling a
box of documents; a work crew silently paints the hallway
trim as though cleaning up after a terrible crime.
Behind the door for Delphi Information Sciences
Corp., the Breaking Bad offices are in the process of being
emptied. The corkboards in the writers room, once
fluttering with index cards carefully printed with each
twist and turn of Walter Whites descent, are empty.
Elsewhere on the wall there are a few remnants: a large
map of Albuquerque; detailed plans for Walts meth
super lab; an adoring fan letter from Henry Winkler,
the Fonz himselfthe circuit of TV history closing in an
electric sizzle of cool. On a bookshelf sits a very specialized
reference libraryMoney Laundering, Methland, Secrets
of Methamphetamine Manufactureas well as a Play-Doh
model of one of season twos most indelible images: a
tortoise carrying a severed mustachioed head.
For a man responsible for some of the grisliest
moments to ever appear on TV, Vince Gilligan is
Malcolm in the
Middle (2000-06)
Little Miss Sun-
shine (2006)
Breaking Bad
(2008-13)
Drive (2011)
Argo (2012)
March 2014 |Inside The Box | 11
COVER STORY
Madhavi Nair
From left to right:
Cranston at the SAG
Awards 2014 after his win;
with wife Robin Dearden at
the premiere of Argo; with his
fellow Breaking Bad co-stars
after their last Emmy
wins.
startlingly genteel. Even after six years of the considerable
burdens of showrunning, his face remains poised at some
pivot point between Virginia gentleman and freshman film
student with a huge backpack strapped on both shoulders.
If theres a feel here of the carnival being packed up,
theres also a current of excitementa distinct, promising
sense of having nailed it.
Maybe Im too close to it, but I think these final eight
episodes have a real chance of satisfying...not everybody
theres no way to satisfy every last viewerbut the bulk
of our viewers, Gilligan says. I certainly hope so. They
satisfy me, and thats saying a lot.
The Breaking Bad writers room was known as one of
the more collaborative in television. (The worst thing the
French ever gave us was the auteur theory, Gilligan said.
Its horseshit.) That spirit applied even to crafting The
End, the exact nature of which was undecided for longer
than you might expect. A lot was still in play. Youd be
surprised at how much, he says. There were moments
that we thought would be very provocative and evocative
and interesting, but we didnt know their exact full
meaning yet. We figured wed make it up later.
As had happened several times over the course of
seasons, the group had set themselves a destinationin the
first episode of season five, a flash-forward, we see Walt
far from home, with a full head of hair, on his fifty-second
birthdaywithout a clear sense of how they were going to
get there. Think of it as Chekhov, with his imprecation
about guns appearing in the first act needing to be fired
by the third, as hair-raising hedge against writers block.
In this case, the gun was entirely literal: an M60 assault
weapon in Walts trunk.
Endings have been among the most contentious
aspects of this golden age of cable drama: from the open-
ended (The Sopranos) to the generally disappointing (season
five of The Wire) to the shows that have not been allowed
an ending at all (Deadwood). For Breaking Bad, which always
had the tightest narrative intent of all these shows, getting
it right may even be more important. The result, not to
put too fine a point on it, will determine where the show
ultimately ranks in the discussion of the best ever on TV.
People have been asking me if Im nervous, Cranston
says. I say, No, Im fine. But go see Vincehes tearing his
hair out.
We sat around this table talking about every possible
kind of ending, Gilligan says. Sometimes you start
talking really macro. Like, What kind of responsibility do
we have to find a moral in all this? Is this a just universe
that he lives in, or is it a chaotic universe which is more
in keeping with the one we seem to live in? Is there really
karma in the world? Or is it just that the mechanisms,
the clockwork, of the universe is so huge and subtle in its
operation that we dont see karma happening? We talk
about all that stuff, and then, at a certain point, you stop
and say, Lets just tell a good story.
The writers spent hours discussing the endings of
other series, of movies, of books. Surprise or innovation
wasnt necessarily the criteria. I keep coming back to the
M*A*S*H episode. From the first episode, these people sit
around and say, All I want to do is go hom. Sometimes
the best moment in a TV show is an unpredictable
moment, but sometimes its actually being predictable,
Gilligan says, rather poignantly.
By that measure, for thosewho were obsessed with
guessing ahead, it may have been worthwhile to remember
Breaking Bads first principles, the nature of the project
charting a mans free fall into the hell of his own worst
impulses. And to count the number of endings free falls
usually have.
OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS
There are two conditions that affect longtime dwellers
in dark characters like Walter Whiteoccupational
hazards. The first is a creeping association with the
character and, inevitably, an insidious desire to protect
him or her from looking or acting too bad. Cranston, it
seems, is immune to this particular disease.
12 | Inside The Box | March 2014
COVER STORY
Madhavi Nair
When we say Camera. Rolling. Action, he can be
in his underpants, he can be buck naked, he can look like
hell warmed over; he doesnt worry. He lacks all of that
vanity shit, says Gilligan. And forget the physicality: We
could have had an actor who would have said, You know,
my character is kind of an asshole. Why cant he give his
meth earnings to an orphanage in Mexico? If we had hired
an actor like that, you and I wouldnt be talking. Because
you would have never heard of this show.
The other condition is that the role slowly drives the
actor mad.
The late-afternoon sun slants through the window now,
as he sits in his kitchen with a glass of wine. His wife of
twenty-four years, the actress Robin Dearden, is across the
table, and their 13-year-old dog, Sugar, is asleep on the floor.
He never brings it home, Dearden says. Never.
Well, I think, though, that sometimes I brought
home a sense of character, he says. When Walt was
getting more and more powerful, I think Id come home
more...
Crabby? Dearden offers, with a chuckle.
No.... Feeling more powerful, you know.
He was expanding the room, filling the
breadth of himself.
Still, Cranston admits its
occasionally been exhausting, and there
have been times on set when it couldnt
help but get to him. After a climactic
season-two episode in which White,
rather than intervene, stands by and
watches Jesses girlfriend, a junkie, choke
on her own vomit, the actor broke down in
tears. And no matter how well-adjusted and virtuosic
the actor, playing a character like White is inevitably an
uncomfortably intimate dance.
When you first start working on a character, it
remains outside of you, says Cranston, holding his hands
far apart. And then, the more you work on it, its like you
start dating, getting to know each other, and then trusting
each other, feeling confident in each others company,
until, pretty soon...you kind of glide in. His fingers, slowly
moving toward one another, slide into an embrace. The
best condition is when the character seeps inside of you,
where you almost ingest it.
Does that mean you can sympathize with Walter White?
What happened to Walt is something I related to, if
Im truly honest with myself. Ive come to realize that I think
everybody is capable of that. If you came into a condition
where you were under tremendous stress. And if I knew
what buttons to push that threatened you and yours... You
could become an extremely dangerous person.
Do you believe in evil?
Yeah. I think its right next to good, inside every
person. And have you encountered it yourself?
I had one girlfriend I wanted to kill.
It was a woman he dated after his short-lived first
marriage. She was a drug addict, terribly unstable, and
she followed Cranston to New York when he left L.A. to
work on the soap opera Loving. She stalked him, leaving
messages on his answering machine: Im gonna kill you. Im
gonna cut your balls off. Im gonna have your dick sawed off.
Finally, one day, the woman showed up at Cranstons Upper
West Side apartment, banging on the door.
And I envisioned myself killing her. It was so
clear. My apartment had a brick wall on one side, and I
envisioned opening the door, grabbing her by the hair,
dragging her inside, and shoving her head into that brick
wall until brain matter was dripping down the sides of
it. Then I shuddered and realized how clearly I saw that
happening. And I called the police because I was so afraid.
I was temporarily insanecapable of doing tremendous
damage to her and to myself.
UNDER THE SKIN
But the question remains, does it leave a mark?
Cranston and Dearden exchange a
conspiratorial smile across the table. Well,
Cranston says, warming up a story, after the
last day of shooting in Albuquerque, a bunch
of cast and crew gathered at the hotel bar
for a good-bye. The productions medic and
one of the set decorators, a tattoo artist, had
the idea of giving a commemorative tattoo
to anybody who wanted one. The gear was
wheeled in. One camera assistant got an enormous
show logo on his ass. Aaron Paul, who played Jesse
Pinkman, had no half measures printed along the inside of
his biceps.
Bryans not a tattoo guy, Dearden says. Hes the last
person who would ever do it.
But I wanted something...something that would give
me private personal pleasure, like when I pass by and catch
a glimpse of a picture of my mom, or my old manager.
People who are gone now, Cranston says. And it seemed
appropriate. I mean, Breaking Bad changed my life.
So, did you get one?
He grins, nods.
Can I see it? Hes grinning wider now, nodding more
giddily, like a kid with a great secret.
He cant see it, Dearden says, laughing.
Am I looking at it RIGHT NOW?
Cranston leans forward, holding out his spread
fingers. And there it is, not much bigger than a pair of
beauty marks, tucked into the inside of his right ring finger
like a shadow wedding band, forever and ever, for better or
for worse:
I had one
girlfriend I
wanted to
kill.
Br
Ba
March 2014 |Inside The Box | 13
COVER STORY
Madhavi Nair
C
R
IM
E
S
C
E
N
E
D
O
N
O
T
C
R
O
S
S
C
R
IM
E
S
C
E
N
E
D
O
N
O
T
C
R
O
S
S
C
R
I
M
E

S
C
E
N
E

D
O

N
O
T

C
R
O
S
S
C
R
I
M
E

S
C
E
N
E

D
O

N
O
T

C
R
O
S
S
A
fter two seasons of Major Crimes, Series Creator
and Executive Producer James Duff cant help
but reminisce about the difference between
when The Closer first premiered on TNT in
2005, and in 2012, when Major Crimes debuted directly
after its series finale. Its a very different environment
than when The Closer first started. Because there were
only two shows on the air that season, and TNT was just
beginning its thrust to original content. And now a new
season has arrived and they have several one hour dramas
on the air- almost a full network schedule. Of promoting
the series premiere of Major Crimes last year, he says it was
problematic because, as the spin-off to The Closer, it relied
on launching directly after that shows final episode- and to
say almost anything about the new show would give away
the details of how The Closer would end. It was a market-
ing nightmare, but we managed.
They did more than just manage. Major Crimes set a
new record as basic cables most-watched series launch ever
and averaged 7 million viewers in its freshman season.
Duff is excited about the new storytelling opportunities
that are being presented in Major Crimes, and while
comparisons to The Closer are inevitable, he says that Major
Crimes has truly developed into its own unique franchise.
Because Brenda was just about getting the confession
and that was the end of things. And we cant afford to do
that anymore. There is a limit to how much justice we can
afford right now. And we cant just arrest people and end
things there. We have an obligation to try and make the
justice system work without trials if we can avoid them.
And its the suspect who has the right to trials, by the way,
not the state. So the state isnt really giving up anything by
trying to maneuver people into accepting whats in their
best interest usually.
The other big difference is that the heart of The Closer
was the emotional relationship between the husband and
wife. Fritz and Brenda and their marriage formed sort of
the emotional center of The Closer, and now that center
is occupied by Sharon Raydor and Rusty Beck (Mary
McDonnell and Graham Patrick Martin). Its a mother and
child relationship at the center of a homicide investigation,
which I dont think weve ever seen on television. And
thats largely because the mother figure as a homicide
detective is very hard to keep up.
While Duff says that initially he did receive some
negative feedback about introducing the Rusty character
into the show, that reaction has now shifted quite starkly
to where the character and his relationship with Sharon
Raydor and the rest of the squad have become a beloved
core of the show. I think its because hes not your
ordinary teenager. And hes not living an ordinary teenage
life. Thats what makes it really interesting. And also, its
a way of discussing what happens to witnesses in ongoing
murder investigations. Its an unexplored area of the law,
and it gives us another way of looking at crime and at the
justice system, which Im always into.
By M. SHARPE
14 | Inside The Box | March 2014
PARLEY
Madhavi Nair
C
R
IM
E
S
C
E
N
E
D
O
N
O
T
C
R
O
S
S
C
R
IM
E
S
C
E
N
E
D
O
N
O
T
C
R
O
S
S
C
R
I
M
E

S
C
E
N
E

D
O

N
O
T

C
R
O
S
S
C
R
I
M
E

S
C
E
N
E

D
O

N
O
T

C
R
O
S
S
Rustys story is also pivotal to a shift in the way the
show itself is structured. Where The Closer tended to have
more closed-ended stories that tended to resolve by the end
of every episode, Major Crimes has progressed into having
sustained storylines that weave through many episodes, or
even seasons.
The Rusty storyline has also paved the way for more
exploration into the characters and yes, identities of the
rest of the Major Crimes squad. Of that, Duff says that
it has given the writers an opportunity to explore the
dynamics of the other characters through their interactions
with Rusty. They form a family unit for him, and they
have a special place in their hearts for him. This often
happens in police work where you find a witness in a
trial, or a person who has helped you, and you know they
need you, and theyre going to have a long road ahead of
them and theyre going to have to say some terrible things
eventually about themselves in order to get to the truth.
Another relationship that has gotten much attention is
that of Sharon Raydor and her estranged husband, played
by Tom Berenger. Its a very interesting relationship.
Theyve been married for over thirty years, and theyve only
lived together for ten, and they never divorced, and hes
still trying to kind of get back into her good graces. There
are moments when they still do make a great couple, but
ultimately, he is not probably capable of being the person
she demands in a relationship.
Oscar Wilde said many years ago, and more wisely,
that men often get remarried because theyre willing to
try their luck again, and women often dont get remarried
because they are ready to cut their losses. And I think that
theres some truth in that. So I think the relationship that
Sharon has with her husband is interesting. Id like to see
him come back.
Regarding the addition of Nadine Velazquez to the
cast as Emma Rios, the new D.D.A. assigned to the Phillip
Stroh case (and thus overseeing Rusty as a witness), Duff
agrees that in a way, the character is an antagonist to
Sharon Raydor- much the way Sharon herself was once
the antagonist to Brenda Leigh Johnson on The Closer.
(Emma) is a bit of a non-edited personality. Shes always
looking at the endgame. From the moment she steps onto
a crime scene, shes thinking of what it would be like to
be in a courtroom with the murderer and how to avoid it.
And the rest of them are just trying to solve the murder.
And also she has her own interests in terms of how the
state should work, versus how Raydor wants to do things.
Emmas point of view is very valid. She starts out
attacking Rusty living with Sharon, and shes not wrong.
Shes 100% right that it creates an issue, and it really is
something that I bet the audience hasnt thought of, and
that concern will continue. So she is, I guess, in broader
terms, she is an antagonist for Sharon, and thats what
Sharon was to Brenda, so in a way, she does have her own
antagonist now, but its a different kind of antagonism.
Its a different point of view on the justice system, which
is what Brenda and Sharon also experienced. That none
of the viewpoints are necessarily wrong is going to become
a problem for Sharon Raydor, and the decisions she must
grapple with. Raydors superpower is just automatically
knowing whats right, says Duff. She has an instinct for
whats right. But what happens when you have two right
paths in front of you? How do you choose between two
right answers? Thats a very deep question, I think.
Left: Nadine Velasquez (centre) plays DDA Emma Rios.
Above: Tony Denison, Graham Patrick Martin and Mary
McDonnell on the set.
March 2014 |Inside The Box | 15
PARLEY
Madhavi Nair
O
ne of the weirdest phenomena of
the past TV decade has been the
improbable rise and influence
of the Nordic noir. Usually
highlighted by unflinching looks at
the depths of human depravity and
often driven by storytelling thats
highly coincidental in nature,
Nordic noir blended together a
series of unlikely inspirations
Twin Peaks, Thomas Harris
Hannibal Lecter novels, and 24
chief among themto slowly
engulf first the United Kingdom,
and then the world.
If the trend had any life
in it whatsoever, then that life
is slowly being leeched out by
endless repetition. Filled with
talented people both behind the
scenes and in front of the camera,
A&Es new Nordic noir remake
Those Who Kill is a needlessly grim
slog most viewers will be able to fill
in the blanks for from memory. It has
a tough-as-nails female cop who pairs
with a brilliant criminology professor
who lacks in social graces. It has a gruff
chief with a heart of gold. It has fellow
detectives who bristle at the rookie
female cops rapid advancement. And
it has serial killers. Ho boy, does it
have serial killers.
The structure of Den Som Drber,
the Danish series that gave rise to
Those Who Kill, was subtly different
from many other Nordic noirs,
coming closer to something like
The X-Files or Hannibal. There were
often cases of the week (or of every
other week, as the series has aired
in most countries as a series of two-
hour movies), but there was also an
overriding mythology to guide the
characters and their backstories.
Those Who Kill borrows this
structure, more or less, spending
a little time making it seem like
it will be about the identity of one
particular killer, before revealing his
identity about halfway through the
pilot. Theres a larger game Those Who Kill
is playing, though, and its only revealed
at the very end. Sadly, thats about the only
thing interesting or unexpected in the pilot,
and its so heavily foreshadowed from scene
one on that most viewers will have
guessed it as soon as they get a good
look at the protagonists apartment.
Said protagonist is Catherine
Jensen, played by Chlo Sevigny.
Sevignys television work hasnt
always been perfect, but its tended
toward the adventurous, and her
work on Big Love is one of the finest
female performances ever aired on
television. That makes it all the more
depressing to have her pop up in
such an ultra-generic role here, one
that she cant liven up, no matter
how hard she tries.
Catherine teams up with
criminologist Thomas Schaeffer,
played by James DArcy, and
the scenes between Sevigny and
DArcy are the sole highlights
of the pilot. The two have a
surprisingly crackling chemistry, one
that makes the viewer wish Schaeffer
werent married to a wife (played by a
thoroughly wasted Anne Dudek) who
seems to have wandered in from an 1980s
cop drama to worry about her non-cop
husband getting too close to the cases.
Other than that, though, the series
colors solidly within the lines. Making this
all the more disappointing is that Those Who
Kill has been shepherded to the screen by
Glen Morgan (The X-Files and Space: Above
And Beyond), the kind of writer who doesnt
always connect when he takes a swing but is
always aiming for something more than a quick
bunt up the middle. Theres little to no life to his
writing here, and what excitement there is comes
from director Joe Carnahan, who finds some nice
images and uses the Pittsburgh locations well. The
world has so many series about dark humans doing
dark things that it becomes all the more difficult to
stand out, and Those Who Kill is so generic it doesnt
even seem interested in trying.
GRADE: C
By TODD VANDERWERFF
Those
Who
Kill
16 | Inside The Box | March 2014
REVIEW
Madhavi Nair
The Five Most
Anticipated TV Shows
of This Year
Wayward Pines
Synopsis: A Secret Service agent heads to the mysterious
Wayward Pines, Indiana to find two missing federal agents,
only to find that something is very, very wrong with the
picturesque town.
M. Night Shyamalan executive produced and directed
the pilot (excitingly, Sound Of My Voice helmer Zal Batmanglij
worked on two other episodes), and hes assembled a
legitimately movie-quality cast for this series: Matt Dillon
plays the Secret Service agent lead, with Melissa Leo, Terrence
Howard, Carla Gugino, Shannyn Sossamon, Juliette Lewis and
Toby Jones joining him.
Airdate: Likely to be held for the summer where Under The
Dome found success for CBS, but could land sooner if Fox start
wielding the ax on any of their existing dramas.
Penny Dreadful
Synopsis: A number of horrors most famous creations,
including Dr. Frankenstein, Dorian Gray and Dracula, cross
paths in Victorian London.
The next big show could be this Showtime project, which
has some huge names involved. From the duo behind billion-
dollar Bond flick Skyfall, Sam Mendes and John Logan, and
with a pilot directed by The Impossible and The Orphanage
helmer Juan Antonio Bayona. The cast is toplined by Josh
Hartnett and Eva Green, with Billie Piper, Rory Kinnear,
Harry Treadaway, Timothy Dalton, Helen McCrory and Simon
Russell Beale among the supporting players.
Airdate: Filming of the eight-part series commenced in
Octoberour guess is that Showtime will make this their
replacement for Dexter in the summer, but it could end up
airing much sooner than that.
March 2014 |Inside The Box | 17
CHECKLIST
Madhavi Nair
Halt & Catch Fire
Synopsis: A look at the personal computing boom in Texas
so-called Silicon Prarie in the 1980s, seen through the eyes of a
visionary, an engineer and a prodigy.
Newcomer creators Christopher Cantwell and Christopher
C. Rogers have assembled a highly promising cast, with Lee
Pace (The Hobbit, Lincoln), Scoot McNairy ( Argo, Killing Them
Softly ), Kerry Bishe ( Argo ) and Mackenzie Davis ( Breathe In )
as the leads, whose computing start-up sets out to take on the
big dogs. Juan Jose Campanella, director of the Oscar-winning
The Secret In Your Eyes, helmed the pilot.
Airdate: Debuting it alongside Mad Men in the spring would
be the obvious move, but it risks unflattering comparisons.
It might be smarter to hold it for the summer to fill that old
Breaking Bad slot.
Togetherness
Synopsis: A woman moves in with her sister and her sisters
husband, along with their unemployed, aging actor friend.
The latest to make the jump (after recurring acting roles on
The Mindy Project and Marks regular gig on The League ) are the
Duplass Brothers, the men behind The Puffy Chair, Baghead,
Cyrus and Jeff Who Lives At Home, whove written and directed
(in their usual improvisational style, presumably) this eight-part
comedy season for HBO. Amanda Peet takes the lead role,
with the great Melanie Lynskey as her sister, Mark Duplass as
the husband, and the brothers regular collaborator Steve Zissis
as the actor roommate (Ken Marino is also in the cast).
Airdate: Production is only just getting underway now, so we
probably wont see until the fallmaybe replacing Eastbound
& Down and Hello Ladies (unless the latter gets an unexpected
renewal).
The Knick
Synopsis: The lives of the doctors and nurses at New Yorks
Knickerbocker Hospital in the early 20th century.
After his final film Behind the Candelabra screened at
Cannes, he was shooting again, directing all ten episodes of
The Knick, backed by HBO subsidiary Cinemax. The show is
penned by Big Miracle writer Jack Amiel and Clive Owen leads
the series, with Juliet Rylance and Michael Angarano backing
him up.
Airdate: Soderbergh wrapped up the shoot late last year, so
this could arrive as soon as the summer, though the fall may be
more likely.
18 | Inside The Box | March 2014
CHECKLIST
Madhavi Nair
the
doctor
is in
Doctor Who Producer Russell T. Davies had
Christopher Ecclestons name on a shortlist for the
role of the Doctor but didnt really think that he
would accept the role. Coincidentally, Davies soon
received an email from Eccleston asking if he could
audition for the part.
Matt Smith actually owns the tweed jacket his
eleventh Doctor usually wears
Jon Pertwee and Sylvester McCoy are the only two
doctors not to have regenerated on screen using
the actor from his previous incarnation. Colin
Baker refused to appear in the sequence involving
him regenerating into Sylvester McCoy, so McCoy
performed both parts of the sequence wearing a wig
to resemble Baker.
The TARDIS prop used for the first series with
Christopher Eccleston was put up for auction by
Bonhams of London in 2010 and sold for 10,800.
Recurring characters Capt. Jack Harkness and Dr.
River Song are played by actors who share March
11th birthdays: John Barrowman, born in 1967, and
Alex Kingston, born in 1963.
Names thrown out who were considered to play
the Eleventh Doctor include James Nesbitt, Robert
Carlyle, Bill Nighy (who expressed interest), David
Walliams (who also expressed interest and came
extremely close to being cast, but conflicts with
Little Britain USA forced him to turn it down),
Harry Lloyd, David Morrissey, Paterson Joseph,
David Knijnenburg, Daniel Radcliffe, Catherine
Zeta-Jones, John Simm, Russell Tovey, Sean Pertwee,
Russell Crowe and Randy Orton.
March 2014 |Inside The Box | 19
TRIVIA
Madhavi Nair
Madhavi Nair