Firewall & Iceberg Podcast, episode 55: Press tour, 'Big Love' and 'Chuck' creators Josh Schwartz & Chris Fedak
More TCA anecdotes and a very long interview with Team 'Chuck'
It's been a while since we had a guest interview on the Firewall & Iceberg Podcast, and since I'm still in California for the TV critics' press tour, Dan and I decided to do the latest one in person. So Thursday afternoon we broke away from a series of TCA field trips in order to visit the office of "Chuck" co-creator Josh Schwartz, who joined us and co-creator Chris Fedak for a long, strange, at times informative, at times hopefully funny interview as "Chuck" prepares to return with new episodes on Monday. If you're a "Chuck" fan, hopefully you'll enjoy it, but it's also entirely possible that it has destroyed our relationship with the show. We really don't know.
In addition, Dan and I shared more anecdotes from the second half of press tour, and also offer a review of "Big Love" season 5. The run-down:
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January 14, 2011 at 5:37PM EST Reply to CommentSo about Big Love, Amanda Seyfreid is out and the eldest son is out? That is sad, for me the most compelling emotional entry point was when those two were trying to deal with the fact they were in a cult.
7s Tim
January 14, 2011 at 6:01PM EST Reply to CommentYou should have asked why Linda Hamilton is shot in such soft focus that every scene with her seems like a flashback.
Otherwise a fun podcast, although it seemed as though you had all been drinking. In a good way?
sepinwall I actually brought over a bottle of the wine from the Cougar Town set visit, but nobody in Schwartz's office had a corkscrew. Probably for the best, given how loose and rambling we all were while sober.
January 14, 2011 at 6:02PM ESTchudleycannonfodder Also, Chloë Sevigny.
January 14, 2011 at 8:15PM ESTRazorback She isn't shot like that... it is VFX.
January 15, 2011 at 3:00PM EST7s Tim Had noted that you had mentioned inability to drink during podcast. It just Seemed like you were all drunk, and I wasn't sure if that enhanced or detracted from the project as a whole. But yeah, probably for the best. Otherwise podcast might have taken a bad turn, a pair of villains for the Chuck finale might have ended up nicknamed Firewall & Iceberg, and next fall HitFix would have touted you as the critic who killed Chuck. (HitFix said as Kristin Schaal would say it)
January 15, 2011 at 7:08PM ESTsteven Fein
January 14, 2011 at 7:13PM EST Reply to CommentIn all seriousness, were Chris and Josh annoyed or pissed off at you for how the podcast went, or how "insulting" several of your questions seemed?
sepinwall Both of them are so sphinx-like, we have no idea. But probably things are still cool.
January 14, 2011 at 7:26PM ESTSteve Good to hear you think things are OK. You might want to send them some cookies or something, though!
January 14, 2011 at 9:44PM ESTThanks so much for all your writing and insights about Chuck. And your more pointed questions (thinly veiled insults!) were certainly questions that a lot of fans would have liked to ask but never could.
FoundNemo Josh Schwartz has tweeted about blocking out 'the whole podcast experience'. If he's not being facetious about the whole offended thing, it's slightly annoying. You guys asked reasonable questions that I was glad to have asked.
January 19, 2011 at 1:36AM ESTRazorback
January 15, 2011 at 2:59PM EST Reply to CommentIt is amazing how bad your podcast sounds... and how much fun it is to listen to it.
dan Razorback - Not that we're particularly satisfied with our technical execution, but we'll take that over the opposite any day!
January 15, 2011 at 3:45PM EST-Daniel
January 17, 2011 at 8:50AM ESTmaybe now that you've got some sponsors, you can get some better equipment! :)
Ed W
January 15, 2011 at 6:02PM EST Reply to CommentIt was a fun podcast. A little out of control at times but I'll take that over the dryer interviews you guys have done and quite frankly it's always a blessing when the show you are talking about is not one of those hardly anyone watches them FX series. I was glad it was Chuck even if I have no real pressing need to hear more about that show.
r1pvanw1nkl3
January 15, 2011 at 8:32PM EST Reply to CommentBest. Interview.
Ever.
January 16, 2011 at 3:42PM ESTMike
January 16, 2011 at 7:56PM EST Reply to CommentAlan is there anything you can tell us about tomorrow's episode except for to tune in. I mean did you like it or not? does the story progress in a nice or super fast way, how does it stack up against the rest of the season? Is it a standalone episode or is it lead into the last 2 as part of a 3 episode arc.....
Mike I am talking about chuck, should have started with that....
January 16, 2011 at 7:57PM ESTJoe
January 17, 2011 at 1:26AM EST Reply to CommentI hope the podcast has more interviews as fun as this one. Granted, I'm a Chuck fan (and if Mr. Schwartz is actually insulted, I'm not sure how he handles real Chuck fans), but I'd imagine it'd be an enjoyable podcast even if one was ignorant of all the inside baseball. It was loose and funny.
Now do one with some Community people or Bill Lawrence.
George P
January 18, 2011 at 9:12AM EST Reply to CommentReally fun interview, but it sounds so awful, goes lows, goes up, i usually hear podcast while commuting to or from work, but the audio of the interview was so bad that i had to stop it and listen to it with earphone when i got home, and even then it was hard to understand it all.. is there anyone posting a transcript ?
and is really frustrating, because i love you guys, and what i could hear was really fun.. maybe Allan can get some sound advise from Bill Simmons' camp the next time they podcast together.
anthonystrand
January 18, 2011 at 1:04PM EST Reply to CommentI don't remember which is Schwartz and which is Fedak, but man, one of those guys sounds exactly like Zach Braff.