EW’s Television Visionaries Talk Sci-Fi and Pies
Yesterday, I told you about the rowdy panel of filmmaking greats I attended at Comic-Con. Today, I've got some notes from the television "Visionaries" event, which brought together showrunners Josh Schwartz (Chuck and Gossip Girl), Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (Lost), and Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies). Here are just a few of the highlights:
- A running joke throughout the panel was teasing Josh Schwartz about Gossip Girl in any way possible. At one point, when the show came up in a question, he said he thought that mentioning it was "a little verboten at Comic-Con," which led the — considerable! — GG fans in the audience to make their presence known. Later, in response to a question about so-called "genre" shows getting lots of buzz over the past few years, Schwartz quipped: "Serena is now a cyborg."
- On a related note, plenty of people (rightly) saw the Q&A portion of this panel as their best chance to ask questions of the Lost producers before the mad crush of the Lost-specific event the next day, prompting one panelist (I unfortunately couldn't see which one, as I was on the other side of the huge line) to point at the questioners and count them down, saying, "Lost, Lost, Lost, Piemaker, Piemaker, Lost . . . [mooney voice] Gossip Girl!"
- Bryan Fuller is just a big bundle of cotton candy and flowers and goodness. Some various quotes summing up the sweetness: "I am a very sensitive soul. I couldn't do a series like CSI or Criminal Minds where you have to be in a negative headspace all the time. I just wanted to cram a show with as many things that make me smile as possible, like puppies and pie." And, later, "I think we need more awe."
- Also, why is the piemaker not, say, a cake baker? "Cake is dry," Fuller said.
To find out which of these guys likes Project Runway, just
