The Point Radio: Another Demise For DROP DEAD DIVA
Transcript
The Point Radio. Hey, it's Mike Raub. Well, in a wildly ironic story, the Lifetime series, Rob Dead Divas, gets cancelled again. Or is it really gone? We go to the one guy who know, creator and executive producer Josh Berman.
Plus more on the second season of Da Vinci's Demons with Laura Haddock and Tom Riley. Howard finally gets a home on TV and Flappy Birds is coming back. Let's get to The Point. This is The Point. The Point Radio.
Get The Point Radio. After five seasons and a couple of cancellations, Lifetime is bringing the curtain down on Rob Dead Diva with a final season six rolling right now on the network. I talked to creator and executive producer Josh Berman about when he got the news. We were at the end of season five.
I was actually writing the finale for season five when we got words that Lifetime wanted us to make this the final season. Their point of view was they wanted to give us enough time to really bring closure to our characters lives into the story. We also had written a pretty fantastic cliffhanger at the end of season five where Grayson realizes
that Jane may not be Jane, Jane may in fact be Deb. Season six begins eight hours later. We continue that storyline. The truth is out there so to speak and the characters have to deal with the fact that Jane hasn't always been honest with the fact that she is really Deb.
Certainly those reasons make sense to the writers and to the character of Jane but Grayson may not be so sympathetic to the truth. So was he prepared to wrap things up? Absolutely writing the show. I mean the nice thing about getting the word that it's the final season it allows us the
writers and the actors to really prepare and give a final chapter to the Drop Dead Diva saga. I think even those viewers that just watched occasionally or the ones that watched every episode this is going to be a very satisfying season where all the ends are tied up. With so many great guest stars over the past five seasons it has to be impossible to pick
the best one. But I asked Siri Starbrook Elliott to give it a try. That's a perfect way to say it. It is impossible to judge a favorite. We've been so lucky.
It's amazing the amount of people that have wanted to be a part of our show and have lent their talent and their time. Every single one of them I learned something from. I should write it all down. I should sit down one day and write down what I learned from each guest star because I really
did and I'm so lucky as I move forward in my life I will have had this experience. They've all been tremendous and it is impossible to kind of pick a favorite. But I've enjoyed every one of them. So for Jaij is it really over? You know Lifetime has said this is the final season and we're certainly using the first
five seasons to platform an amazing chapter in Diva's history. I guess in my experience with the show I've realized that anything is possible but they are telling me right now that this is the last season. It's funny though because I'm already reading the petitions online to bring it back. So I guess anything is possible.
Catch up on past episodes of Drop Dead Diva right now at lifetime.com and the new season the final one runs right now on Lifetime. Here we go with the latest in pop culture. It looks like the powers television show has finally found a home. Sony has ordered it for the first original series for their PlayStation Network.
To compete head on with the one announced a few months back by Xbox that'll be the one with the Halo series that they're developing at Microsoft. No word yet on exactly when production would begin on a power series or if it would include any of the original cast or plans for the one that Fox shot as a pilot about a year and a half ago.
This news is spreading fast but if you hear it you can be assured it is true. Flappy Bird will take flight again soon. The creator Doug Noonyan said that he's bringing a better version of the game back to stores sometime in the near future. He said the game was a little bit too addictive and he took it down from the app stores a
few months ago after it was making him about $50,000 a day in ad revenue. The Walking Dead or at least a version of it is coming to broadcast television AMC and Fox have announced a deal that coming up in the fall two episodes of the series will air back to back on one night of the week. That week night is yet to be determined.
It'll be on the Fox by network stations which reach a pretty good percentage of the US population. Of course to be on broadcast television there will be some changes including editing a certain violent scene so you won't see exactly what you saw on AMC. Look for an announcement on when the official premiere date will take place in the fall coming sometime over the next couple of weeks from Fox.
Finale dates for a bunch of ABC shows have been announced including Scandal which will end on the 17th of April. Resurrection winds up on the 4th of May. Once Upon a Time has a two hour season finale. On May the 11th the next night Castle ends on May the 12th and Agents of Shield wraps
up its first season on Tuesday May 13th on ABC. Some bits and pieces have leaked out about the new Star Wars project from Disney. Mostly that JJ Abrams will get the camera set up to begin the project in May and that Star Wars Episode 7 will take place 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi. According to the President of Disney it will feature some very familiar faces along with
some new cast members as well. Among those cast members who are rumored to be part of the project is Adam Driver who you may know from the HBO series Girls who is reportedly in line to play a villain in the new Star Wars series. IDW is doing their best to keep the X-Files franchise alive and how they've taken it
into a different direction with the release of the X-Files Big Box Board Game coming in a few months from IDW. The game will focus heavily on material from the first three seasons of the TV series and is designed and part by Kevin Wilson who did the Arkham Horror Project. The game will retail for just under $60 and be in stores in July.
And also speaking of games and comics, Catalyst has now licensed the Valiant Properties and will begin producing role playing and tabletop games featuring Valiant's library of superheroes. It will begin with a Valiant Universe RPG that will be released sometime later this year. Here's a heads up about at least one thing you can look forward to on April Fool's Day.
Craig Ferguson and Drew Carrier trading places. Next Drew will move into the late late show Chair that Night. And earlier that day Craig will move into the job of hosting The Price is Right and bring along his robot skeleton sidekick as well. Again, it takes place on April 1st on CBS.
There will be an Incredibles 2 and Brad Bird will be part of the Disney's announce that there will be a sequel to the classic 2004 superhero comedy and Bird who wrote and directed the original will also be writing this sequel as well. No production schedule has been announced yet. Despite a little bit of dark cold news for the comic book, the graphic novel didn't do
too bad in comic book store sales in February. They were actually up a little bit, just about two, almost 3%, which gives them a total of being down about 6.69% so far for the year of 2014, especially when you compare it to last year. All that being said on the graphic novel shelves, interestingly enough, just like in the book
stores, Marvel and DC didn't hold down a lot of spots. Three total for the big two. And the top ten best-selling graphic novels in February in comic stores started at number ten with the flash volume two, Rogue's Revolution. At number nine, the third volume of Revival from Image.
At number eight, My Little Pony Tales volume two, The Trade from IDW. At number seven, Marvel's Infinity Hardcover. At number six, Star Lord, The Annihilation Conquest from Marvel. At number five, Saga, the first volume from Image. At number four, the 19th volume of Invincible, The War at Home, also from Image.
Boom comes in at number three with Adventure Time number four. At number two, Fatale volume four, Pray for Rain, Trade Paperback from Image. And at number one, best-selling graphic novel in comic stores was Locke & Key, volume six, Alpha and Omega. The Hardcover from IDW.
The point, the point. I first met actress Laura Haddock right before she began or stood as Lucretia on the Star's original series, Da Vinci's Demons. And she was excited about playing a historical character, especially when it came to wearing all the period clothes.
So after a year of long gowns and corsets, I caught up with her to see if it was still as much fun. No, I mean, you know, you get to do your dream job every day. So that's pretty, it's pretty cool. It's still really cool.
This year, the costumes were slightly different. Last year they were, I guess she had to use her sexuality a bit more and her femininity. And so we cut, but a lot of her clothes were designed, you know, and cut to accentuate her body. Whereas this year, they've been, the cuts are slightly more practical.
They're still beautiful and feminine, but she's on a journey this year. So they feel a lot more robust, a lot more practical. If she gets herself into a scrape, she can get herself out of it. That's kind of where we went this year with her wardrobe, but still unbelievable designs, you know, beautiful pieces.
And I know I love this show, Tom. I am definitely still excited. Leonardo's played by actor Tom Riley. And I asked him if playing the character for a year has given him even more insight to who Leonardo Da Vinci really was.
Yeah, I mean, how much of a troublemaker he was. I had just had no, I just assumed he popped out the womb. I was just shouting philosophical bon-mos to everyone that he saw. And actually, you know, I read these, I read a letter just the other week that he wrote to the Duke of, I think it was the Ben Duke of Naples, basically saying, look, I am so
good. I'm incredible. You're a fool, you know, writing to royalty, saying how amazing he was. And I thought this, you know, if someone wrote this, if this was a Sinead O'Connor open letter right now, people would be, people would be disgusted.
People would be appalled by the arrogance. But actually, that was the stuff I didn't know, you know, that, and that's the stuff that you can bring because that kind of self-loathing and the self, all the constant quest for perfectionism or the over, the unearned self-belief, that's the stuff that you can bring as an actor, if you can't naturally bring the gigantic intellect, because no one can.
So are there any little nuances he's brought to the part? I use the thing that, when I was researching this stuff about autism, I spent some time with a young, a very inspirational young autistic lad who did this thing with his fingers when he was trying to work something out, just ever so slightly twitch them. And I then did some research into what that was and found a TV report on another autistic
child who did that, who was moving an imaginary apicus with his fingers when he was working out, usually working out mathematical problems, but he did so much, it translated to the rest of his life. So I brought that into DaVinci. I mean, he did them in front of his face, which would have been really distracting on
camera. So I sort of did it very small as I could, and I think the camera focused on it quite a lot. But that occasionally I find myself doing when I'm working something out, like what route I'm going to take on the subway now.
And that I did not expect to just how I thought, what are you doing? Stop doing Leonardo in your real life, you freak. Tom's very adamant about saying how proud he is of where the show has gone over the first year. It's certainly very liberating to know that we are, we're in something that is, that isn't
afraid to push the boundaries. And stars are very, they're a very generous network to their showrunners. They listen, they don't, they, I mean, they argue, don't get me wrong, of course they do, but they also, they allow a greater deal of freedom than a lot of cable people. So I think it, I think being there you feel like, okay, and especially for the second
season where people know what they're going to get, that this show is kind of wacky. And we're freer to just run with that in a way that perhaps without network tests, results and the audiences, and this character's not testing well, get rid of them. David just said, I don't care. This is a show I want to make and this is what's going to happen.
And stars and cables support it. And an audience goes with it eventually. I think it's, yeah, it's a good free place to be. In addition to Da Vinci's Demons, Laura is also part of the new Marvel film Guardians of the Galaxy said to be released this summer.
Of course I had to see if I'd get her to tell me a little bit about that. I wish I can't say too much, but it's quite a small part, but it's sort of vital to the story. And I had such a wonderful time shooting that James Gunn is just such a fantastic director. He, even though he was working on something that was essentially almost 100% green screened
and you know, his actors were just doing such incredible job, such incredible job at making that world come alive and become a reality. James and I had an opportunity to do something quite small, quite intimate, realistic based in reality. And James was very sensitive and took the time to make it as truthful as possible.
So even to the point where I wasn't, I never met the actor that I was working with. We never met each other until the cameras were rolling on our faces. So that was pretty cool. He's, I'm excited to see it. It looks like it's going to be a lot of fun.
In a wake of the Oscars with so many great roles for actresses in movies, I asked Laura who she admires. I love Mel Street. I'm a big Diane Keaton fan and Susan Sarand and Goldie Horn, that kind of, that kind of group of actresses.
And then as my generation, I love Emily Blunt and Hathaway, Carrie Mulligan, Jennifer Lawrence. I think that, yeah, it feels like it's an exciting, exciting time to be an actor at the moment. There are lots of people that I'm inspired by and enjoying. I think Elizabeth Olsen is a lovely actress. Yeah, there's a lot, I mean, the list is endless.
I really, you know, and then also the Christian Wigs of this world, Comedy Girls, I think, you can take my after them, amazing, amazing treasure and actresses. I think, yeah, there are so many actions that I'm inspired by. Especially if I, you know, have to, I think Mel's thesis probably, the absolute ideal when it comes to being inspired by an actress.
There are so many actions that I'm inspired by. If you missed any of the first season of Da Vinci's Demons, Stars has made it available to binge watch right now at stars.com. I talked to Laura about how much fun that is. I'm definitely a binge watcher.
I love buying the DVD or jumping on Netflix and doing a whole series all in one go. I hate waiting, you know, a week for the next episode. So, at the, what about, oh, well, I mean, Breaking Bad, I binge watched 24. I remember when that came out, I binge watched that. The Good Wives, Modern Family I love, recently just classic watching The Looking Girls I
Love, Mad Men. Oh my goodness, there's so many, there's so many things that I love that I'm into. Broadchurch which was back in the UK, I thought was fantastic. Loofah, I loved The Wire. There's loads.
I'm a Nashville I love. I'm like really eclectic with my taste as well. It goes all over the shop. Season two of Da Vinci's Demons right now on Stars. Catch up on anything you may have missed at stars.com.
That's it for right now, but you know you can always find the podcast on websites like ComicMakes.com and MichaelDavisWorld.com and we've got a whole bunch of them waiting for you right now on the iTunes podcast directory as well. Just subscribe because we like that. In the meantime, we cover pop culture 24-7 at GetThePointRadio.com.
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Season 6, episode 1, seriously, harboring someone on a terrorist list? Who stole from a military base? almost had to just turn it off.