Logan on Logan Action: Take One!

I wish I was Kristin V of E!Online. The lucky gal got to become a Logan on Logan sandwich at the CW TCA. You have to watch the clips. It is freaking amazing. So amazing, I was giggly. However, 2 questions: what is up with Matt Czuchry's hair and Jason Dohring's dark locks? Me not liking it at all!!! If you can't seem to get the stream online, you can check the transcripts here.

What makes me think that KV is having her best week ever? She got to interview Rob Thomas of Veronica Mars. On this interview, he wasn't as tight lipped as he used to be. Warning: If you don't want to know any big spoilers, don't read. Don't let me hear you say that I didn't warn you.

Here's the transcript:

Q: Veronica’s off to college this year! How will college Veronica be different than high school Veronica, if at all?


R: I think she’ll lose some of the outsider baggage. Whereas Neptune High School was very rigidly divided --you’re either the child of a millionaire or you work for millionaires -- that chip on her shoulder will be lessened. There will be other interesting social situations we can put her in. In episode two this year, one of the girls who was raped, we find out that the night she was raped, she went to a sorority rush function, and so Veronica goes undercover into sorority rush, which I love. You know, it’s the last place in the world that she would want to be, and so she’s putting on the floral dress and going through rush. So we’ll still have situations where she’ll feel out of place.


Q: So that’s going to be the first mystery of the year?

R: Yes, which I’m not trying to keep a secret. We sort of introduced it last year, and it wasn’t solved, so--


Q: Is Alia Shawkat coming back?


R: I hope so. We don’t have Ali booked yet, but we want to. We know that in our mapping out of the mystery, that around [episode] 5, 6 or 7, we would want to see her again, so we hope. Michael Cera, we asked, but he booked a movie, so we lost him.


Q: Have you decided yet what the second and third mystery are going to be?


R: Yes.


Q: Any clues?


R: No! I will say that all three mysteries will have decidedly different feels. We know what they are. With the second one, I know who did it. You know, we’re setting all that up. I will say that the second one was largely inspired by that Steven Soderbergh indie low budget digital film, Bubble, in which all the creative energy felt like it went into the set up, into the motives. And the nice thing is that for the second mystery, we’ve got these first nine episodes to lay in motives, so it should be interesting. I’m excited about that idea.


Q: Because there will be three different mysteries this year, it seems like the mysteries will have to be somewhat lighter or less serious I guess. Does that mean we’re going to see a somewhat lighter, different Veronica Mars this season?


R: Well, yes, the first season was all about Lily’s murder and the second season a whole bus full of kids [were killed]. I mean, people have said that Veronica Mars is a 21 episode drama series and 1 episode a thriller! It seems to have turned out that way! We spent so much money, relative to our tiny show on the series finales to turn out these great episodes, and because of the logistics of having three mysteries and not having the budget to turn out three big finales like that, yes, it will be somewhat different and that’s the downside, but I hope people will still lock in [to the storylines we have planned]. One of the upsides is to have a mystery play out over just nine episodes, you can give much bigger clues in each episode. You don’t have to do as much dilly dallying. You don’t have to do as much faking over here, there’s not as many red herrings. You can get to the crux of it faster. The danger of it is, suddenly are we easy to solve? And we haven’t done it over nine episodes, so I’m a little nervous, but so far we’re five episodes into the breaking of stories and I’m liking how it’s feeling right now. And one of the things the network has suggested we do -- and this is an idea that I really am embracing, and I think it’s a good idea for our show, and it continues in the same mode as the idea of the shorter mysteries -- is, in an effort to be more inviting to new viewers or to casual viewers, to really amp up the mystery of the weeks, and to put slightly less emphasis into the ongoing mystery. But when I say less emphasis, what I’m really talking about -- And I love this. It’s a strange note to get from a network -- is not worry about the casual viewer with our ongoing mystery, so [for example] with the serial rapist, we’re going to put those themes into each episode like we always do, but we’re not going to put any effort into catching people up. It will be there for the fans who are watching us every week. So with that extra space that we have, we’re going to dial up the mystery of the week. What [the network] is saying ‘Give us that one thing that we can put on the air and promote,’ i.e. Veronica’s going undercover in a sorority. That’s the thing that they can put in their promos, and they can sell the mystery of the week now rather than the big, overarching mystery.


Q: Will the class warfare still be a theme on the show this season, or as they get older, is it not quite as bad?


R: It’s going to be lessened this year. I mean, certainly, rather than ‘Here are the popular rich kids and here are the kids who aren’t,’ in college I think we’re going to play it much more as a series of clumps, which might be more reflective of college life. Instead of being ‘ins’ and ‘outs,’ there will be different groups on campus. I think those boys who, in high school, were kind of geeky and put upon, sort of like in real life, they get to college and sort of blossom and suddenly smart guys are kind of cooler and kids like Dick Casablancas are having a little trouble adjusting!


Q: What’s happening with Weevil?


R: He’ll reappear in episode three. We’ll find out that he went to prison briefly for assault. They didn’t get him for Thumper’s murder, but they did get him for assault, and when we first see him, he’ll be working at a car wash, which he will tell Veronica isn’t quite as fun as the song makes it sound. It’s sort of a mandated job, and Veronica just runs into him by accident, and shortly after that, Weevil pins his boss to a coke machine and he loses that job, and suddenly he needs Veronica’s help. So that’s episode three and then he gets worked back into [the regular storylines].


Q: So will Weevil be sticking around as a recurring character?


R: He will be. Yes.


Q: When will he start working as the campus janitor or something, so he will be around everybody?


R: That would be the end of episode three! Yeah, there’s no foolin’ you there!


Q: And will the Thumper murder ever be solved or…


R: The Thumper murder is in the unsolved case file there at the Neptune Sherriff Department.


Q: Will Keith ever be Sherriff again?


R: Well, not for another four years. There are no plans for that.


Q: So Lamb is still Sherriff?


R: Right. And Sherriff Lamb, by the way, is officially a series regular now, so you’ll see him in the main titles this year.


Q: What guest stars will we see this season?


R: Well, I can tell you ones that we might see, that aren’t confirmed. We immediately, before we’d even written the role, asked Patty Hearst’s agents if she would play a member of the Hearst Board of Trustees. They said ‘yes, absolutely,’ so of course when we got that [response], we started thinking ‘Well, what if a member of the board of trustees was kidnapped?!’ That’s gone though our minds as well, so look for Patty Hearst on our show! We asked Stephen King if he would play a professor this year, and we had an idea for him early in the year, and his people said he was booked then, but he loved the show, and to [ask again] later. And now we’re going after [Daily Show comedian] Lewis Black to play a professor who’s running an experiment about prisoner abuse that Wallace and Logan get involved in, and his scene is like a page and a half rant that we just think Lewis Black would be phenomenal for. The nice thing is sometimes we have these ideas for guest stars that the network is like ‘Who?! What’re you talking about?’ and I was afraid that might happen with Lewis Black, but they were totally into the idea, so I think the offer is out and we’re just waiting for him to decide on it.


Q: What are Logan and Wallace doing mixed up in a prisoner abuse experiment?


R: They’re both in the same sociology class, and the professor gives them a choice of either participating in this experiment or writing a lengthy paper, and they choose to participate in the experiment.


Q: Will we see Lisa Rinna again?


R: I don’t think so.


Q: No? We didn’t see a body.


R: I know. Believe me when I say that if you don’t see a body, you should always expect that they might come back. But there are no plans to bring her back.


Q: What about Alyson Hannigan?


R: We’d like to.


Q: I just talked to her. She said ‘I would love to [go back and do more Veronica].’


R: Alright! Well, that’s good news. It’s just that it’s tough working in, because we have to plan an episode and hope that it falls in her week off, and that’s really difficult to do, but we love Alyson. It’s just tough to make it work.


Q: When will the season two DVD be out?


R: Early, this year. August, I think. Like August 22nd?


Q: Did you guys get a chance to do more commentary?


R: Unfortunately, no. It continues to be the same thing. We can release it in January, with everything, or we can release it early, and right now our show needs viewers early, so we released it early. Last year, I did a pilot episode commentary that I posted on my website, and I’ll probably do that again, I’d imagine, with the episode I directed.


Lastly, here's a little tidbit to expect from Gilmore Girls this year. I wasn't going to repost what David Rosenthal told KV since it's pretty much verbatim to what he told Mike Ausiello but here's something KV scooped from Rina Mimoun that MA wasn't able to get:

K: ... Let’s talk about Gilmore for a sec. I’m sure you’re excited about it.


R: Honestly, I’m totally unnecessary. [David Rosenthal]’s got it all covered. I don’t need to be there frankly! It’s off and running. I had not really known the show before. But I got really excited as I was watching it -- I watched like 50 hours of Gilmore on DVD. That’s a lot of fast talking -- and the stories that they want to tell this year I am happy about. It seems a little more provocative and thought provoking, and really fun and funny. It’s the most amazing group of writers, I have to say. We start shooting on Thursday. It’s crazy. I haven’t even met [most of the actors]. I just met Kirk. I’m very excited. Frankly, the Tai Chi moment is my favorite moment on the show, so yeah, I’m looking forward to it.

Happy Friday!