HOSTAGES at TCA: Live-Blog

This fall, CBS is bringing HOSTAGES, a new serialized show to its schedule, starring Toni Collette and Dylan McDermott. HOSTAGES is about “a premiere surgeon thrust into a chilling political conspiracy when her family is taken hostage by rogue FBI Agent Duncan Carlisle (Dylan McDermott).”

I’ll be live-blogging the Television Critics Association panel, so be sure to follow along!

11:04 AM: Executive producer Jeffrey Nachmanoff says that when the show was brought to him, the question was whether this could be a network show. He says that because he’s here, obviously it is. He says that what makes great shows is putting ordinary scenes in extraordinary situations.

11:06 AM: “Is that true??” Toni Collette says when she hears that Dermot Mulroney is also doing a kidapping show.

11:08 AM: “It was a huge inspirational spurt to us,” Nachmanoff says of having to shoot scenes from upcoming episodes as part of the way to sell their show to CBS/to include in the sizzle reel. He says they’re not totally tied for absolutely doing what they showed in the very, very, very spoilery sizzle reel, but it gave them signposts to potentially reach along the way.

11:11 AM: “We have a lot of ideas of where season 2 could go,” EP Rick Eid says, but he stresses the very important thing is making the best possible show for the first season. Nachmanoff says the title, HOSTAGES, is not literal — they can be hostages in the figurative sense, tied to what they had to do, etc.

11:13 AM: Minor spoiler alert, but episode 2 will deal with the consequences of Collette’s character’s actions in the pilot. The family won’t be held hostage in the living room in the entire first season, and they’ll be going back to “normal” life in the second hour.

“Our goal is not to point a lot of guns we don’t fire,” Eid says of keeping suspense.

11:16 AM: Eid says Dylan McDermott’s character isn’t “too good” because at the end of the day he’s trying to kill the President. “I don’t think we run into the overly sympathetic” way. McDermott says the first season takes place over a two week period.

“There’s a lot of good and bad in him, and that’s what I respond to,” McDermott says of his character.

11:18 AM: Executive producer Jerry Bruckheimer reiterates this is not a mini-series. The intention is to do more, even if the season is shorter than other shows.

11:20 AM: “This is a great story and it lends itself to 15 [episodes],” Bruckheimer says. He also notes that some talent won’t do 22-episode seasons.

“It’s more appealing to me,” Collette says of the shorter schedule. She says it’s also about material and when she read this pilot script, it was a page-turner and she couldn’t put it down.

11:24 AM: “Here is a woman that has been toeing the line her whole life and she’s put in a situation where she has to walk across the line,” Collette says. Once she’s over the line, we find out who she is.

11:25 AM: Spoiler alert: Someone gets shot when the family tries to escape. Another character will get killed. “We’re not pulling punches,” Eid says. There won’t be constant delays about whether the president lives or dies, the delays are basically done.

11:27 AM: As the series goes on, we’ll learn more about Toni’s character’s backstory, we’ll learn more about the family sacrifices she’s had to make to make her professional goals. But Nachmanoff notes the dysfunctional family gets closer in this terrible situation.

11:30 AM: The EPs reiterate the first season is two weeks. Each episode will take approximately take place in one day.