BuzzSugar

Yvonne Strahovski on Playing a Nerd and Pining for Chuck

BuzzSugar — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:15:31 -0700

It's slightly unnerving to talk to Yvonne Strahovski after watching her for a full season on Chuck. She's proven herself so adept at spying, knife-throwing, and other forms of physical intimidation that it seems wise not to make any sudden movements.

Luckily for me, Strahovski didn't seem at all interested in beating back the line of reporters who wanted to talk to her about the upcoming season of Chuck at NBC's TCA press tour party last month. In fact, she was strikingly sweet as she talked about playing a teenaged Sarah in an upcoming episode, bringing out the romantic side of her character, and training for those fight scenes. Here are highlights:

It's been a while since we've seen Chuck. What can you tell me about where we are when the new season picks up?
We pick up with the same sort of dynamic between Chuck and Sarah - they have feelings for each other, but of course they have a job to do. We do get a taste of what it might be like if Chuck wasn't the intersect and if Sarah didn't have to protect him. And then we get to see into Sarah's past in episode four, when Nicole Richie's character comes into the show. She was like the mean girl at high school and Sarah has to deal with that all over again. And it brings up a lot of demons for her because Sarah wasn't the cool spy chick that she is [now], that we all know her to be. She was a daggy, dorky, braces, bad hair girl, and to see Nicole Richie's character come back in her life, you know, it's tormenting in some ways.

Do you get to play the young Sarah?
I do.

What was that like?
I had braces, as the 17-year-old Sarah Walker, and that kind of brought back old memories for me, because I used to wear braces when I was 12, and having them back on, you know, the fake ones - it was really weird. It's amazing how much younger i look with just the braces on. We put a wig on, as well, and had bangs and brown hair. Sarah wasn't so confident when she was in high school. We see how she evolved into the agent that she is today.

More from Strahovski about the future of Chuck and her favorite fights, so read more.

When the last season ended, things weren't looking so good for Chuck with the new intersect almost running. Is he in danger?
In the first couple of episodes when we return, that is addressed - when the new intersect is being built and we have to find the final chip to make the new intersect work. But, you know, a whole bunch of things happen, and things might not go the way people assume they might.

What were some of your favorite things to play in season one?
I loved, loved, loved the fight that I got to do with Matthew Bomer, who plays Bryce, when we did the fight scene that was back to back in the Buy More. I love the really intimate scenes between Chuck and Sarah; I love that Sarah can't say what she wants to say. Those sorts of scenes are great, they're heartbreaking and I love those.

What was it like working with Nicole Richie?
It was actually great. She was really nice, her baby is super cute, and actually my parents were visiting at the time and my parents really liked her too. They got on really well. I was really genuinely impressed. She has a dancing background as well, so learning those fight scenes, it didn't take very long. Sometimes it can take a while to shoot them, but we worked them out really quickly, she didn't miss a beat, and we had tons of fun.

We've heard a lot about Zachary Levi and Joshua Gomez playing video games on set. Have you gotten sucked into any of that?
No - while they play their video games I have to go train for my fight scenes.

I heard you have a new cover job this season. What's your new cover outfit like?
Let's just say, I prefer the outfit to the Weinerlicious one. I like this one better, and I like the color scheme better. It's an odd color scheme but it works.

Source and courtesy of NBC

Shopping at the Buy More . . . I Mean, Visiting the Set of Chuck

BuzzSugar — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 06:30:00 -0700

My first instinct upon stepping into the Buy More was to reach for the brochure for the store credit card. Hey, maybe I could get even better deals at the green-and-yellow big-box store if I just got one of the store-branded pieces of plastic . . .

I pulled my hand back just in time - the brochures, like everything else, were props on the set of Chuck during my visit on the TCA press tour. But it was hard to convince myself we were on a set, not just a Best Buy or CompUSA that had given the Warner Bros. TV crew the go-ahead to film there that day. As much as the set of ER felt like a real hospital, the set of Chuck felt even more like a place I might go to pick up some new DVDs and an extra controller for my Wii.

"We went to a lot of Best Buys, a lot of CompUSAs," said Paul Marks, the Chuck producer who oversees the set. "Just so it looked as real as possible."

There aren't a lot of signs that the 17,000-square-foot store isn't real, so to hear more about it, just read more.

The walls are lined with 50 TVs of various size and screen quality, all on. Every computer is functional, as are the video games. Even the DVD racks are full of real movies - "If you have so many choices, it doesn't feel like you're favoring one thing," said executive producer Josh Schwartz. When the show was first getting started, the producers needed an entire sound stage just for shipping and receiving, painstakingly cataloging each product for three weeks. To film the season one episode where there's a shootout at the Buy More, the crew took the entire store apart, transported it wholesale to a hangar at the Santa Monica Airport, and reassembled it in exactly the same layout.

Chuck embraces the geek love for Hello Kitty, with one whole end shelf dedicated to pink-and-white Sanrio products. There's also a big display for the RoboSapien and another with various guitars for Guitar Hero and Rock Band. It doesn't look like it would be a soul-sucking place to work. In fact, it looks . . . kinda awesome.

"We don't want it to feel like a bummer every time you go to the Buy More," Schwartz said. "For us, we go into a Best Buy and it's really fun - there's lots of cool new stuff you can buy, there's video games, there's music. It's a fun world. That's what we wanted to reflect here."

It certainly worked for this busload of critics, who wandered around flipping through CDs, checking out the HD TV displays, and reading the rules for deployment of a Nerd Herd car. I leaned in to read the fine print on one sign, which listed a special deal where you could have your own personal Buy More nerd set up your computer, and came across this little gem: "Additional Charges May Apply. Like Felony Possession of a Really Lame Computer."

Photos courtesy of Warner Bros. TV

Five Minutes With Connie Britton

BuzzSugar — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:30:06 -0700

One of the biggest Emmy snubs - now two years running! - is the exclusion of Connie Britton for her pitch-perfect performance as Tami Taylor in Friday Night Lights. For two years, she's played Tami's highs (helping troubled Tyra get her act together) and lows (slapping daughter Julie outside after a particularly troublesome act of teen rebellion) with just the right balance of drama and humor - and, when season three begins, she'll find Tami in a demanding new job.

At NBC's party at the TCA press tour, I stole a few minutes with Britton, who was just back from a trip to Uganda and Kenya with One and the Africa Children's Choir. Despite jet lag - and the fact that I was the only person between her and a glass of wine - Britton was still incredibly gracious in our chat (just as I'd always suspected she'd be). The first question is a wee bit spoilery, but if you want to see the highlights, just read more.

So, when the show comes back, you'll be principal. Will that create some sort of rift with Coach down the line?
Don't you think that that is going to rock Kyle Chandler's character to the core? His ego - do you really think he can take that kind of thing?

I mean, he wasn't even really cool with the guidance counselor thing.
Exactly - that's my point! So, we'll see.

Where's baby Gracie in all of this?
I don't know. I actually was talking to one of our directors last night, and I said "Is baby Gracie gonna still be there?" and he goes, "I'm hoping you have some real good child care." I think she probably will be in child care. But I love working with those babies [the triplets who play Grace], so hopefully they'll be around a lot.

Where do you think Tami's been in the past eight months?
I would like to think that maybe she just spent a lot of time getting her life kind of situated and trying to adjust to having two children instead of one and still have the career that she's fought so hard for. Obviously if she comes back as principal, she's been doing something right. I don't know how messed up and haggard she's going to be from the whole thing, but I think that she's probably been really trying to juggle a lot of different tasks.

How do you get at your relationship with Julie? It feels so real.
I think that the writing is so great - the writing just really kind of guides us. And then [Aimee Teegarden] and I have a great dynamic, so I feel like it just sort of unfolds. I'm actually not a mother, so I'm just kind of going with it, really.

What are some of your favorite parts of playing Tami?
I love playing her Southern-ness. That's a really important aspect of the character, and to me, she's sort of an amalgam of a lot of different Southern women. Also, what's important about that is [her] sense of humor, and so I love finding places where I can find her sense of humor. I think that's the way she deals with a lot of the things that come up in her life.

Source

A Heart-Pounding Trip to the Set of ER

BuzzSugar — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 05:30:34 -0700

The second we walk through the hospital doors, my palms start to sweat. Then I see the table stacked high with boxes of alcohol swabs, and then the rubber glove dispensers hanging from the walls, and then the blue-cloth-covered gurneys, and I swear my heart skips a beat. "This is definitely County General," someone says. And it is: I'm on the set of ER, hearing about the show's 15th and final season as part of the TCA press tour. But I might as well be in a real hospital, considering how anxious and uncomfortable I feel.

It's a testament to the show's property master - but also more than a little creepy - that the County General set on the Warner Bros. lot in Burbank feels exactly like a somewhat run-down county hospital in the Midwest. The floor tile is all pink linoleum; the walls and blinds are pale blue and seafoam green. The ceiling is low (low enough to make me feel claustrophobic, anyway), the plastic chairs in the waiting room look just as hard and unforgiving as real hospital chairs, and even the lighting tiles above my head are yellowed and flickering convincingly with age.

After 15 years of filming on the set, "it doesn't take a lot to make it look like crap," says Christopher Chulack, one of the show's executive producers, as a heart monitor flashes in the background and a half-filled bag of saline dangles from an IV pole over his shoulder. "It's worn out pretty good. We put a lot of effort into that - we take pride in keeping it aged."

To hear more about what County General looks like up close, and to see pictures of the ER cast from the past 14 years, just read more.

The County General world we see on TV, from the sliding curtains between the hospital beds to the long hallway that countless residents have urgently pushed gurneys through, is an exact replica of the hospital in East LA where John Wells and his crew shot the ER pilot back in 1994. When the pilot became a series, everything from that hospital had to be matched exactly on the set, from the color of the linens to the placement of the beds. (The only change: The hallways are two feet wider for easier filming.) And, except for the introduction of some new medical equipment (slowly - since it's a county hospital, "we get to pick up the technology two or three years after it comes into the marketplace," Wells says), it's stayed that way ever since.

Up close, it's insanely detailed, from the colorful stickers on the individual containers holding various medical implements to the post-it notes hanging from the big, translucent case board that features prominently in so many episodes. (One reads "CBC" - perhaps a reminder for some actor who somehow doesn't have the hang of yelling "CBC, chem 7, STAT!!" by now?) I spy a few members of the press team trying out the hospital beds, but no way am I going anywhere near them; it's a short leap from there to Dr. Tony Gates shooting me up with a syringe full of something. (Now, if you could get Clooney . . . )

What's going to happen to all the medical equipment when the show wraps up its run this coming season?

"I'm opening up my own clinic over in East LA, behind the laundromat," quips property master Rick Kerns. "You want an ultrasound?"

Does it work?

"Sure!" he replies, grinning. I feel my heart skip again.

View 14 Photos ›

Photos courtesy of Warner Bros. Television

The Office's Brian Baumgartner on Playing "Special Kevin"

BuzzSugar — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 05:45:34 -0700

So many of the funniest moments in the season finale of The Office came courtesy of Brian Baumgartner as Kevin, whose "special" relationship with Amy Ryan toed the politically incorrect line to hilarious effect. And Kevin's profile has only continued to grow this Summer, as he's starring in this year's series of Office webisodes. So it's no surprise that Baumgartner was a pretty popular guy at NBC's party at the TCA press tour. But I managed to snag a few minutes alone with him to talk about the finale, the show's rabid fans, and his hopes for his relationship with Holly. Some highlights:

On the "special Kevin" story: "It was sort of a joke that somebody said has been set up for four years, but the way that [Amy Ryan] played it was just so real and so earnest, and the the writers also. I felt like we were really successful in playing Kevin the way that he is, and it was just the notion of this idea being brought up that enabled people to have a different perception."
On hearing Ryan would be returning: "I was so excited. She's fantastic. I think she fits in really well. She gets the show. She's a smart, smart actor. I think we're really lucky to have her."
On whether Kevin will, indeed, "totally bang Holly": "I am totally going to bang her - I hope in the first episode so we can let that relationship go as long as possible. But we'll see."

To hear Baumgartner's thoughts on the webisodes and his show's passionate fans, just read more.

On working on the webisodes: "There's less money . . . We had the crew who work on our show, just a smaller version of it. So it is a little more guerrilla warfare-like, sort of getting stuff on the fly and trying to do stuff quicker. I think there may be some consideration given to closer shots with the idea that people are watching it on a smaller screen. But you know, it's pretty much the same."
On why The Office has such passionate fans: "I think it comes from the fact that our show was doing something different and unique from the very beginning. The people who got it got it and loved that we were doing something different, and it wasn't the cookie cutter same thing. They got it early on, before the 10 million people found it, and they were really psyched about that, and so I think that's part of it. I think we were also, quite frankly, pretty accessible online, which people really dug, especially early on."
On his upcoming return trip to Scranton: "I sheepishly agreed to do this Celebrity Family Feud game. We won 50,000 for this local Scranton charity. That was so great - it really made it worth the experience of doing it. So I'm going to go back [to Scranton] and have a good time."

Source

Selma Blair Hones Her Comedy Skills at TCA

BuzzSugar — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 05:30:34 -0700

Most of the cast of Kath and Kim is best known for comedy: Molly Shannon had all those years on Saturday Night Live, John Michael Higgins is one of Christopher Guest's regular players, and Mikey Day is a Groundlings grad who's also dipped a toe into Internet comedy. So how on earth does Selma Blair fit in?

Pretty well, actually, if her appearance at the TCA press tour is any indication. It was the last day of the tour, when reporters tend to get snippy. Blair, though, was ready to snipe right back, and her droll comments had much of the room in stitches. It basically confirmed my thoughts upon seeing the first promos that Blair's going to be the scene-stealer. Some of the goodies:

An early (and pretty expected) question was about what Blair and Shannon thought about playing a mother and daughter when in real life they're less than a decade apart. "Actresses play different people all the time," Blair said - and then just ran with it. "It's weird. It's this thing . . . called acting? And so you just, like, play different characters that aren't your age or anything? I mean, I think. I don't know." She also cracked that she only got the role because "Dakota Fanning was unavail."
On playing younger in the show: "If you squint your eyes when you're watching it, and you don't put it on high-def, if you're like squinting and put some Vaseline on your eyeballs - I look so young."
When a reporter asked about Ben Silverman, NBC's co-chairman for entertainment, also being an executive producer of the show, Blair broke in: "Quite. A. Catch. Yup. Eyes on the prize."
The real fun came when a reporter asked Blair, whose hair is short right now, how many wigs she'd be wearing. That time, she actually gave a serious answer, until breaking into her own response by saying "this is probably the most boring answer to a question you've ever had." Then, well, this happened:

"If I get a wig, it will be a three-quarter wig because apparently I have a very low forehead line, which a lot of people comment on all the time. I am apparently from the monkey family. I hear that all the time. People are either rats or monkeys. I'm a monkey. I know. Look at your friends. You're all either a rat or a monkey. It's true."

She then declared the monkey-vs.-rat status of all her costars: Monkey (Day), Monkey (Higgins), Rat (Shannon), "you're kind of monkey-rat" (executive producer Michelle Nader).

The whole thing felt like a Christopher Guest movie, which I suppose means her comedy skills are just fine.

For the record, Blair also did give some real answers. They just weren't nearly as fun.

Source

I Spy Some Chuck Season Two Info!

BuzzSugar — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 05:30:00 -0700

Of all the shows affected by the writers' strike, NBC's Chuck took one of the hardest hits. The show was just really hitting its stride when the strike cut it short, and its final two episodes aired in a sort of bizarre Chuck sandwich. My biggest question for the show heading into season two was whether people would even really remember it exists.

But Josh Schwartz, Zachary Levi, and company are setting out to make sure we remember the show Schwartz calls "my little baby." With a new framework for the series, and a bevy of guest stars - including Nicole Richie, who gets into a shower fight with Sarah - lined up for appearances, Chuck is looking to be back with a bang. Want to hear a little of what's coming up for the show? To hear what Schwartz, Levi, and Yvonne Strahovski spilled at the TCA press tour, just read more.

There will be no hesitation jumping right in to what's been happening with Chuck since we last saw him. "Our 'Previously On' is Chuck being dangled out of a window by Michael Clarke Duncan, telling the story of how he got there," Schwartz said.
After we're all caught up, the show will move quickly into determining Chuck's fate. Once the new Intersect is up, Chuck won't be so necessary anymore, and Casey will be asked to "disappear" him - a mission complicated by the fact that Casey is actually starting to like our nerdy antihero. The whole season will explore the show's mythology a bit more, with deeper story arcs to go along with the missions and villains of the week.

Another thing Chuck will have: romance, and not least because Chuck's college girlfriend Jill (played by Jordana Brewster) will be back in the picture. "We had planned to bring her back at the end of last season if it hadn't been for the strike," Schwartz said. "It's going to be a huge arc for us and really set the show off in a new direction." As for Sarah's feelings? "I love me a love triangle," Schwartz said. "This is somebody who has a legitimate threat - she is beautiful and cool and smart and dynamic. She gets some information about what Chuck may actually do for a living, which means he can have like a real relationship with her. So it's a real threat to the [Chuck/Sarah] romance."
Chuck's also going nuts with the guest stars - not just Richie and Brewster but also John Larroquette, Tony Hale, Michael Strahan, Michael Clarke Duncan, Melinda Clarke, and Ben Savage, who plays Richie's husband in the fourth episode. Oddly enough, I may be most excited about Strahan's episode, if only because it will introduce us to the Mighty Jocks, the Sports Authority-esque sales team that shares strip mall space with the Buy More. But there's also the hilarious idea of Larroquette as Roan Montgomery, legendary seducer of women, who may have had a relationship with hardened government operative General Beckman.
Sarah's getting a new cover job and a new cover uniform, Yvonne Strahovski told me - and while she was mum on the details (other than that she prefers the color scheme to her Weinerlicious getup), Levi said Sarah's newly employed at a Pinkberry-esque frozen yogurt joint.
Schwartz said there will be "11 percent more Captain Awesome," and he'll take his shirt off within the first seven minutes of the first episode. (Is that a threat or a promise?)

Are you ready for a Chuck with more guest stars, more story arcs, and more romance? I'm pretty sure I am. Sound off below!

Photos courtesy of NBC and Source

The Office Spinoff Lives! Plus More From NBC

BuzzSugar — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 12:34:20 -0700

It's the last day of sessions here at the TCA press tour, and it's NBC's turn to hawk its wares. Just a few minutes ago, NBC Entertainment Co-Chairman Ben Silverman took the stage to clarify a few things about The Office spinoff (and not-spinoff), the network's plans for late night, and more. Some highlights:

First and foremost: The show in which Amy Poehler was recently cast is not a spinoff of The Office. "Amy's character will never appear inside The Office world," Silverman said. Though the shows will be stylistically and creatively similar (in that Greg Daniels and Michael Schur will be behind both of them), "the show is not set up to emanate directly from The Office."
There is still the possibility of such a spinoff, though. When Daniels and Schur were developing concepts, they came up with two, Silverman said: One that would start inside The Office and one that was completely outside of it. When it looked like Amy Poehler could be available, they put all their energy into pursuing her for the non-spinoff show, which made it the top priority. But the true spinoff could still exist, "maybe involving characters that are already inside The Office," Silverman said.
As for details on either show? Not so much getting into those (including a title, a concept, or any other basics) - though there was a promise that Daniels, Schur, and Poehler would release more details soon. The one nugget of info is that because of Poehler's pregnancy, her show - which had been pegged for the post-Super Bowl time slot - will likely premiere in March instead. No idea what's going after the Super Bowl just yet.
This season will feature "26 to 28 awesome episodes of Heroes" - which we're finally getting some glimpses of. "This 'Villains' storyline that [Tim Kring] has introduced is just awesome," Silverman said. "It's really compelling - just big, fun, accessible stuff."

Some more - including about the Jay Leno/Jimmy Fallon/Conan O'Brien transition - if you read more.

Jay Leno's last show as the host of The Tonight Show will be May 29, 2009, with Conan O'Brien stepping into the chair on June 1. Conan's stint on Late Night will end sometime in the first three months of 2009, while the target for Fallon to appear on air is sometime around March or April. Fallon will prepare by doing online mini-episodes for a few months before the show launches.
Meanwhile, NBC still hasn't ruled out finding a way to get Leno to stay, despite a story last week that quoted him saying he was "definitely done next year" with NBC.
Silverman's co-chairman, Marc Graboff, said NBC was committed to airing Friday Night Lights no matter what - even if much of the audience has already watched on DirecTV or another way. (Graboff and Silverman also didn't accept that "another way" of downloading unlicensed versions of the show online might flourish, though, saying they'd be able to control it. We'll see about that.)
Last year, NBC tried sci-fi Mondays with Chuck, Heroes, and Journeyman. This year, it's all about "a kind of male hero sandwich," Silverman said, with the Christian Slater-starring My Own Worst Enemy taking over the old Journeyman slot. Before Enemy premieres, though, the Friday night series Life will get a couple of airings after Heroes to try to reset the season and attract an audience.
Little switcheroo in the Thursday comedy schedule: The new series Kath and Kim will follow My Name is Earl, with 30 Rock returning to the spot after The Office at 9:30.

Source and Source

TCA Tidbits: Bluths, The Ex List, Showtime Series, and More!

BuzzSugar — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 05:45:39 -0700

Wow, that was one whirlwind weekend here at the TCA press tour. CBS, Showtime, The CW, and NBC's cable networks have all been on stage, plus the Television Critics Association took a break from the panels to deliver some honors of its own. I've heard lots about the new 90210, been bowled over by the hilarity of The Ex List's showrunner, and heard references to The Wire and Arrested Development - in the same session! Here are some of my favorite bits:

First off, have you read about what's coming up on Friday Night Lights yet? Seeing the cast together again was hands-down one of the highlights of this press tour so far.

Another highlight: Seeing Showtime's trailers for both The United States of Tara and Nurse Jackie - the latter of which just got picked up as a series. Bottom line: I'm very curious to see more from both. Tara stars Toni Colette as a mother with multiple personalities (we saw at least three in the three-minute trailer) whose family alternately resents her disorder and appreciates how different it makes them. Jackie stars Edie Falco as a sharp-tongued, occasionally devious nurse whose motto seems to be "Make me good, God, but not yet" and has her turning to one controlled substance or another to quash her persistent back pain. The trailers were both extremely well-produced, which gives me great hope for the full-length versions.

One of the contenders for best quote of the press tour: Jessica Walter of 90210 on what makes her new character, grandmother Tabitha Wilson, different from Lucille Bluth. "Lucille liked vodka and Tabitha likes scotch." She went on to explain that the fact that she's gotten her family to move to Beverly Hills to help her stay sober is another difference: "I promised them I'm going to try," she said. "Lucille never really tried."
By the way, Walter once referred to the Bluths in the past tense, then corrected herself: "The Bluths were so dysfunctional - are still so dysfunctional. We hope they're going to be making a movie." Someone hurry up and confirm it already!

To see who the TCA honored at its awards, meet my new favorite woman in Hollywood, and get some news from Bravo and NBC's other cable networks, just read more.

Mad Men, 30 Rock, and John Adams were among the big winners at Saturday's TCA Awards. There are lots of great dispatches from the night; here's one funny one, and here's another.

I liked The Ex List well enough when I watched the pilot, but I will most definitely be paying attention now that showrunner Diane Ruggiero has completely won me over. She charmed the whole room on Friday during her session, telling stories about accidentally dumping an ex-boyfriend's Mount St. Helen's ashes all over his carpet ("That's when you go, 'I guess we broke up . . . '") and being cute ("kind-of-ish") in New Jersey but invisible in Los Angeles. When one of the many older male reporters here asked her why there was so much "vaginal humor" in the pilot, Ruggiero immediately responded "I actually let my vagina write half of the script." Zing!
Sunday's sessions with NBC's cable networks were dizzying for all their news, but here are just a few highlights: Make Me a Supermodel and The Real Housewives of New York City will both be getting second seasons on Bravo; The Rachael Zoe Project premieres Sept. 8; Top Chef: Masters and Fashion House, which sounds vaguely like it could be groomed into a Project Runway replacement, are both in development; USA has ordered a second season of In Plain Sight; Mark Feuerstein has signed on for a USA pilot about a doctor who becomes the MD for the rich and famous; and the new season of The Janet Dickinson Modeling Agency will start in August and have Janice living with the models in the same house for the first time. Whew!

Still to come: Lots of news from NBC, plus visits to the set of Pushing Daisies and Chuck, so stay tuned!

Photos courtesy of Showtime and Source

Friday Night Lights: A First Look at Season Three

BuzzSugar — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:48:50 -0700

Score! The Friday Night Lights crew stopped by the TCA press tour on Sunday to chat about their new deal with DirecTV and what's in store for the upcoming season three.

The show will begin shooting again in Austin in August, executive producer Jason Katims said, and it will premiere Oct. 1 on DirecTV before turning up up on NBC sometime in February. The cast all seemed grateful to be back for another season (not to mention back together - Taylor Kitsch couldn't stop calling Kyle Chandler "Chands," which prompted a few giggles). So what's happening when the show picks up? To find out (spoiler alert!), just read more.

The show will pick up about eight months after the last episode we saw. That'll put us in preparation for a new football season - and for senior year for many of the characters, including Lyla, Matt, Tyra, and Riggins. Are the Panthers still defending state champions? We'll find out in the first episode.
Tami's received a huge promotion, going from Dillon's guidance counselor to the school principal. Katims said the writers want to get her driving more stories and not being just the coach's wife, "but we also think that could be a really good way to turn it around and come back to the marriage, where maybe suddenly she finds herself on the opposite side of some issues." It'll also be good for Buddy, who's still leading the Boosters and now can lobby both Taylors about football issues.
As for Lyla, Minka Kelly revealed that the born-again phase of her life is mostly over - over enough, at least, that she's settled into a serious relationship with Tim Riggins. "It's one thing to have this passionate secret relationship," Katims said, "but once they're in a real relationship, then they see how different they are. They're completely like an odd couple. They're from different sides of the tracks. They have different ideas of the future. They have different ideas of personal hygiene!" And they're also possibly headed in different directions in life, so Lyla will spend some time trying to encourage Riggins to get into college, get a scholarship, and be the best Riggins he can be.
Jason Street and Smash will each have four-episode story arcs, and Katims said they'll be some of the show's strongest material. "We are not doing this in any unceremonious way," he said - and he's open to working with both of the actors in the future.
Also out: Santiago, the teacher Julie had a crush on, and Lyla's Christian-radio boyfriend.
With those departures, get ready for some new additions, ready to stir up conflict in Dillon (and also perhaps become a bit of FNL: The New Class if there's a season four after the old guard graduates). One will be a freshman quarterback, JD McCoy, who challenges Saracen for the QB1 spot. His family has moved from Dallas specifically so JD can play on the Panthers, and the story will also show how much pressure his wealthy father puts on Coach Taylor. JD hasn't been cast yet, but Katims said it would be "a very big guest star." Another new addition will be Cash, an old friend of Billy Riggins who's a local rodeo star - and who may be wooing Tyra.
Speaking of Tyra, she's started to feel like perhaps Landry isn't really "the one" - but that doesn't mean it's settled. "They had a conversation," Katims said. "Tyra's interpretation was, 'We broke up.' Landry's just, 'We're taking a break.'"
Since Landry's no longer going to be murdering anybody, he'll be able to get back to being Matt's fun sidekick a little more, too.
Matt and Julie are baby-stepping back into being friends - "and then we'll see how it goes from there," Katims said.
As for the 13th episode, "I'm definitely not going to write it as a series finale," Katims said, as the decision about whether to come back for another year will be made after the episodes have aired on DirecTV. It will have its share of resolution, he said, as well as "cliffhangers and questions that will make you wonder what's going to happen."

Photo courtesy of NBC