TCA 2015/6: Fox has X-Files, Empire, Rob Lowe, And John Stamos As Someone's Grandpa

Scream Queens

While I'm always a little leery of Ryan Murphy projects -- I feel they start so strong, hook me, then let me down like a bad boyfriend -- what I've seen of Scream Queens was funny! And looked so good! Jamie Lee Curtis! Lea Michele in a neck brace! Oh, fine, I'll watch. I'm codependently entwined with Ryan Murphy, I guess.

Jamie Lee is Everything in the pilot, BTW, as the newly-appointed dean who is out to shut down the Kappa house. "Brad [Falchuk] and Ian [Brennan] and I are, of course, big horror fans," Murphy said. "I asked to have a meeting with Jamie Lee....As it is with our company, there's no script [for her] to read. We just led with our love and said, 'If you don't do it, we won't do the show.' It really was a leap of faith, because at that point we were still writing the first episode. She brings such a sense of largesse, of strength...."

Curtis cut in: "And humor. It's meant to be funny." Because she is all the awesome, she had a lot of good points to make, since she's clearly thought more about this show than necessary to play her character. "It's a social satire, and we say what people think....It strips away, it flays the imagined behaviors of human beings and shows what people really are, which is inherently dark, inherently unhappy, frustrated human beings who are trying desperately to hold it together....Everyone here is wearing a mask." See?

Of course, the title alone makes you think of Scream the movie, or maybe (if you're desperate) Scream the MTV series, but Murphy was reluctantly going there and only by force. No, he threw The Walking Dead at us to throw us off. Look over there! Shiny! "This genre has really exploded since The Walking Dead," he said. "I do think more the merrier." And yes, finally, he mentioned MTV's Scream. "I think that show is a success in its own right. I think our show is funnier and more satirical." Which is not a high bar.

Thus far, the dialogue is funny and mean as all get out (but I already see some hacky, predictable storylines). Was it hard putting such ugly words into the mouths of cute little people like Emma Roberts? "It's the great joy of my life. It's been really, really enjoyable," says Brennan. And really, Roberts gives excellent mean, so there's no need to hold back with her. Girl won't break.

Best, most honest comment from Ryan Murphy: "When I direct them, I feel really fucking ancient." I get that.

While Curtis said she has to jam a pushpin or a toothpick into her palm to keep herself from laughing (note to self: must watch her hands in all scenes with Niecy Nash), she had more deep thoughts about the TV show. "Not to get heavy -- the show is not heavy; it's super-funny -- [but] it will ask questions about our obsession with Instagram and Snapchat, and it's going to expose that in a very big way. So parents are gonna love this show." It's a show the whole family can watch, bonded in fear and anxiety? Aww. I would suggest the guys let Curtis write an episode or two, because they're doing this and a lot of other stuff, and there are no female writers on staff. Ahem.

The Grinder

Rob Lowe is a good reason to watch almost anything, and The Grinder seems like it might be a decent anything. Lowe plays an actor who plays a lawyer on TV (a show within a show!), while Fred Savage plays his brother, an actual small-town lawyer. Conflict!

As to Lowe's character, the actor said pretty succinctly, "Let's just be clear: he's an idiot."

While everyone on the panel was more than happy to joke about how the show sounds like a sandwich or a gay sex app, I was thinking it's the worst name ever -- until Rob Lowe and the rest of the cast started making jokes, which made it totally okay. "I like telling people I'm going to grind with them on Tuesday nights on Fox," he said. Alrighty! Put that in a promo!

Savage wants to create an app "where you can find Rob Lowe anywhere and have sex with him... we're all of us a potential love interest for Rob." Although I'd kind of like to watch that show, Lowe is very clear this is not that: it's more warm and fuzzy. "It's a sibling show where one son can do no wrong while the other has to struggle for attention. That's 80% of the storytelling. The 'grinder' of it all is a really original spice we haven't seen in a family comedy before."

What I gleaned from the panel, mostly, is that Savage and Lowe are pretty funny without a script. If they can do as well with a potentially sappy "relatable" storyline stitched in: okay.

Grandfathered

While I am still quietly choking to death thinking of John Stamos as a grandfather, he is totally okay with it...more or less. "I guess there's some irony in it," he shrugged. "A lot of [older] people look good. When I was growing up, a fifty-year-old guy played Abe Vigoda. Now, everyone with a great, healthy attitude is looking great these days." But seriously, the word has to catch in his throat, right? "It still does. I remember the first call I got that was 'what do you think of grandfather?' [and the response was] 'what do you think of "fuck you"?'" Okay, that's better.

Apparently, it was necessary to make him a grandpa because he's already played a swinging dad in a previous project (otherwise known as "George Clooney before he turned against everything he believed in," as Stamos put it) and needed a twist. "We are treating age the way it is now, instead of the way it was when we were growing up," said creator Daniel Chun.

"The minute my mom joined Facebook, I knew we were in a new normal," added Josh Peck (who plays the son of Stamos's Jimmy). Eh. When your mom joins Snapchat, that's when you worry.

Paget Brewster, who plays the ex-girlfriend who got away and had the kid without telling Jimmy, is not interested. Doesn't have kids, doesn't want kids, and doesn't even want to hold the kids who are on the show. "You would have to show me how," she said. But who needs that? She's busy! (I think I watched two episodes of Another Period before I realized she was Dodo.) Brewster also said she won't be filling in on Criminal Minds when A.J. Cook has her baby, but she was totally willing to do it. This woman works hard. And she may not be back for another Another Period, because "it's not up to me." And to schedules and mean people who don't understand she should do everything always.

Stamos is also going to do more Galavant, though (it helps when your EP is Dan Fogelman for both shows) and he's super-excited about Full House on Netflix.

One relationship that looks like it could either be caustic fun or dive deep into offensive clichés is Jimmy's relationship with Annelise (Kelly Jenrette). She's his African-American, lesbian assistant. "Annelise keeps Jimmy in check. She runs [his life] because he can't. Even though they have this relationship that could at times seem combative, she loves him. She just doesn't show that in a very nice way." On the bright side, Jenrette is very funny onscreen.

Minority Report

You've seen the movie, right? There are these people who can see the future and they have to live in these baths with electrodes stuck on their heads and...look, if you watch the first few minutes of the first episode, you'll get it. "Once we get going with that character [Dash], it starts to become clear what his backstory is organically from his [behavior] and his trauma," said EP Max Borenstein. In short, there's lots of running.

This is not to say the TV series is just an extension of the movie. This time out, three precognitives (the people who can see the future) are integral to the plot, and they have a more involved role. "It's contemporary policing upgraded....There's always hacking. The fun for us is not just the expanded reach of surveillance, but how people are going to get around that," said Borenstein.

So, hacking and high-tech: yawn? Maybe, maybe not. "We've seen a lot of shows that have taken up the mantle of using extremely advanced investigative tools," he continued. "The idea of focusing on the precognitives, who are extremely traumatized and emerge in this embryonic state but as adults is just fascinating...and what responsibiity do they have to get involved? That's why we decided to switch focus from a police force that has pre-crime [as a tool] to the people who were the brains but almost slaves behind that." Traumatized sci-fi slaves. Got it.

Fun facts: Steven Spielberg handpicked everyone, and he's super-involved; he even sketched out notes on the first script "on a napkin" at the absolute last minute and almost caused the writer to have a nervous breakdown.

Stark Sands, who plays precog Dash, is a little precog-ish in his real life. He's a twin, and he was at a piano lesson when his arm started hurting -- and just then his twin broke his arm at his gymnastics class. "I've [long] believed that we are connected by a web of energy," he said.

Did I mention Wilmer Valderrama is in it? "The show is going to be epic," he said. "It's just ridiculously more fun that you're in this world that you watched in a movie as a kid that you wanted to be alive in." Why is that slightly disturbing to me?

Rosewood

It's a medical procedural with Morris Chestnut (The Best Manfranchise; Nurse Jackie), and it's set in Miami, which makes me think this should be on USA instead of Fox. Dr. Rosewood (Chestnut) is a private pathologist, but he pairs with Detective Annalise Villa (Jaina Lee Ortiz) to solve crimes and zzzzzzzz...sorry, if you sit in a dark room long enough it becomes a little hard to focus. Honestly, I just don't know if I can handle another procedural anything, even with Morris Chestnut and Lorraine Toussaint as his mom. Okay, maybe Lorraine Toussaint.

And, as you'd expect, Toussaint totally sells us on Donna Rosewood. "The character he described -- this fierce-loving, straight-talking, heart-open mother that is about to move into a place in her life of extraordinary vulnerability -- is a character I hadn't played before and was [desperate to play], because that's where I am in my life. Big love." Not sure what the "extraordinary vulnerability" is, but it sounds interesting.

Toussaint doesn't even mind that she's playing Morris Chestnut's mom...even though she's only 8 years older than him. "It's just going to be black don't crack," she said. "My mother, when she died, did not have a wrinkle. In the black community, it can be very difficult to tell who's who and what's what, because we age well."

One detail of the plot (I won't call it a twist, because it's not all that twisty) is that Dr. Rosewood has a baaaaad heart. "As far as a timeline for how long he'll stay alive: as long as we stay on the air," said creator Todd Harthan.

"He had Taye Diggs on speed dial. I could die at any time," Chestnut said.

Jokes! And there will be more of those, apparently. "This is supposed to be an incredibly fun show that makes you feel like you're having a cocktail on the beach," Harthan explained. He also said there will be incredibly dramatic moments, and soap opera moments, and serial moments, and it's a "hybrid." He's either got a really clear idea of what he's doing, or this is a mess.

The 67th Emmy Awards

The NFL will be walking the red carpet? Somehow, the Emmys just became less interesting to me. Even though people (like me, just now) bitch about awards show stuff, guess what? "People still watch awards shows, and if people stopped watching awards shows, there would probably be making less of them," says EP Don Mischer. Well played, Don. Well played.

Mischer explained that the current list of nominees has potential for surprises and, possibly, upsets. "We have a better chance of that this year. The diversity of this year's nominees is greater than ever before, and...the voting has been thrown over to hundreds of thousands more people." And: no pressure, Samberg. "In any awards show, your host is the critical element to making these evening go quickly. I don't mean to put you under pressure, Andy." Andy Samberg looked like he could take a nap onstage, so I don't think he's super-nervous.

Guess what? Mischer hates to play people off the stage, which is kind of nice to know. "This is a high point in their lives...and we're simply forced to do it. It's a very hard decision to make, and every time I have, it's always been wrong...." It turns out when the orchestra strikes up, that's when people start thanking dead relatives or saying something tearjerky.

"[The music] kind of supports the speech," Samberg said, admitting it can work in a Dawson's Creek kind of way. "Sometimes it times out really well.

We may see Lonely Island do something ("If there's something good, we'll go for it," Samberg said) and he's still feeling kind of embarrassed about his own Emmy acceptance speech. "It was somewhere between a surprise birthday party and a fever dream. It was really exciting, but as soon as I left the stage I'm thinking what just happened...and then it was just drinking." Sounds good to me, actually.

Empire

It's a monster hit and of course it's coming back for another season (premiering September 23), so this panel was really about just loving on Taraji P. Henson and Lee Daniels (and, to a lesser extent, EP Ilene Chaiken).

If you're wondering, Henson is acting. I know, crazy, right? "I'd say 80% is Cookie, and maybe 20% is Taraji," she said. "I'm not as bold as she is. I have to be politically correct. I can't fly off the handle, because you will quote me and I'll have to answer for it."

And yes, it's still on Fox, but apparently Henson's eyes are all about the R-rating. "It's almost like the cable formula. We're just not saying the words. But Cookie can say them with a look."

But here, everyone can swear with impunity, which I appreciated. To wit, Lee and Taraji told a story about Ilene Chaiken telling them to fuck shit up, and pretty much everything broke down for a little while. Last panel of the day? That happens.

While Daniels does joke that the only way to keep Henson's energy up is "you've got to punch her," everyone just ignores that because hey, not every joke can land. Then Henson sings the praises of the scripts and tells Daniels to kiss her and rub her feet, which is a little more appreciated by the crowd. Actually, he said that when he was transitioning into TV from film, he was a little worried about his cast. "They're not horses, you know? I was really concerned with the actors and the writers. But Fox has really put a schedule together that has me less terrified."

Daniels also isn't crying into his soup about not getting an Emmy nod: "We are lucky to be employed. We are blessed. I could be unemployed. So many of my peers, people I respect, are unemployed." In short, he's going to go home and cry into a big pile of money.

The important stuff: if you're hoping for loads and loads of celebrity cameos, because this show can so get them, look for something more subtle. "The more celebrities and the more stars I put on the show, the more it takes away from the family. If we can bedazzle you with a little Denzel, a little Oprah, that's okay. But the family is what it's about."

There's also going to be a director's cut of the pilot; plus Daniels promised, "There is going to be a spinoff from Empire, without question. There's so much bright story. Cookie's family...Lucious's story, what makes them them." Okay, time to come up with spinoff titles using the word "cookie" go! Points for double entrendres!