When news broke two weeks ago that the creators of "Once Upon a Time" were mulling a possible spinoff built around the Mad Hatter character, only without original actor Sebastian Stan, there was minor tumult amongst the show's passionate fans.

 

"Once Upon a Time" creators Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis are "Lost" veterans, so they know the advantages and disadvantages of a passionate audience all too well.

 

When I talked with the guys on the PaleyFest red carpet on Sunday, they accentuated the positives that come from having viewers always trying to guess your every move. But when it comes to the Mad Hatter spinoff, they emphasized a common point.

 

"It was very premature. To be honest, it was the two of us in our laboratory, but in today's world, whatever's in your laboratory gets out. We don't have plans to recast anyone and spinoff is premature," Kitsis says.

 

In the conversation, posted above, Kitsis and Horowitz hint a bit more about what they were cooking up on that laboratory, but they take great pains to share their appreciation for the busy Sebastian Stan.

 

"We love Sebastian," Kitsis raves. "If we could make him a regular, I would fly anywhere [in] the world to do it. We knew when we got him that he had movie after movie and everyone loved him."

 

More spinoff talk and Sebastian Stan love above, plus a big hint regarding the arcing of the second "Once Upon a Time" season.

 

Check it out!

Happy Monday, Boys & Girls.

 

This was going to be a relatively short podcast, since there are no new shows or notable premieres this week. 

 

Instead, it became a strangely long podcast, as we talked about the finales of "Enlightened" and "Bunheads," caught up with "The Americans," "Shameless" and "The Mindy Project," did Dan's Reality Roundup and answered some mail.

 

Today's breakdown:

Slow Week (00:00:30 - 00:08:00)

"The Americans" (00:08:05 - 00:17:05)

"Shameless" (00:17:05 - 00:28:35)

"The Mindy Project" (00:28:40 - 00:37:50)

Midseason Struggles (00:37:55 - 00:47:25)

Listener Mail - Uneven Shows like "Suburgatory" (00:47:30 - 00:56:45)

Listener Mail - "Top Chef," leading into Dan's Reality Roundup - (01:02:10 - 01:22:25)

"Enlightened" finale - (01:22:50 - 01:36:50)

"Bunheads" finale - (01:36:50 - 01:47:40)

 

The cast of HBO's " The Newsroom" gathered at Beverly Hills' Saban Theater on Sunday (March 3) night to moderate An Evening With Piers Morgan.

 

Over the course of 80 minutes, the stars and producers of HBO's Golden Globe nominated drama coaxed Morgan out of his shy shell and got him to tell stories about his recent interactions with new CNN boss Jeff Zucker, an unfortunate power outage in Atlanta during the Oscars red carpet and, most importantly, his opinions on the sequester. 

 

Morgan was so self-effacing an uncomfortable in the spotlight that periodically he attempted to turn the questions around on his interrogators to get the cast of "Newsroom" to discuss their own opinions on their fictional version of cable news, but those moments were the exceptions, rather than the rule. So embarrassed was Morgan to be in the spotlight and to have all of this attention directed at him, that he periodically recited interview quotes back at the actors on the panel or confused actors with the characters they play on TV or inquired about where Dev Patel gets his cardigans or initiated gambits like, "Olivia [Munn]. Let's talk about sex for a moment."

 

After an hour, when the cast of "Newroom" opened the floor to questions from the audience, a confused audience attempted to revolt and ask questions of the "Newroom" team, but that's just the danger of a democratized event like this.

 

I contemplated doing a 20 things we learned about Piers Morgan from the "Newroom" PaleyFest Panel blog post, but that would actually be far easier than doing 20 things we learned about "Newroom." And I prefer to take on the big challenges. Because I'm a journalist. Like Piers Morgan. 

 

Click through for the 20... And yes. There will be minor spoilers.

 

This is going to be a Predictable Dan Recap, because if you've read my "Amazing Race" coverage for the past five or six years, you know how I feel about nearly everything in Sunday's (March 3) episode. 

 

Click through, because I'm gonna dispatch with this recap fairly quickly...

 

Melissa Rosenberg's new ABC drama is titled "Red Widow" and it uses "No Time To Mourn" as its tag line.

 

So when we meet Radha Mitchell's Marta Walraven and she's mostly happily married to a scruffy pot-smuggler played by Anson Mount, we kinda have suspicions regarding where things are heading.

 

Based on the Dutch series "Penoza," "Red Widow" is really about a San Francisco wife and mother who finds herself forced into the criminal world occupied by her husband, but also her Russian mobster father. It's a network drama, but it feels a lot like it belongs on cable, which I discussed with Rosenberg last year when she was promoting "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2," the last film in a wildly popular franchise that ABC is name-dropping aggressively in promotions.

 

Concentrating on "Red Widow" in this interview, Rosenberg and I discussed the challenges of doing a show like this with a female protagonist like this on network TV, including some comparisons between this drama and AMC's "Breaking Bad." We also discussed the ethos of Rosenberg's Tall Girl Productions banner and how "Red Widow" and the theme park-based pilot "Big Thunder" fit into that brand.

 

Click through for the full conversation.

 

After Friday night's spoiler-free PaleyFest panel for "The Walking Dead," Saturday night's (March 2) panel for "Revolution" was practically the opposite.

 

Eric Kripke, J.J. Abrams and the cast were fairly forthcoming about what fans can expect both when "Revolution" returns to NBC on March 25 and beyond.

 

That, of course, means that if you want to go in with a completely clean slate, you really don't want to read the information after the break. 

 

So click through for 20 things we learned from the 'Revolution' PaleyFest Panel.

 

Regular TV viewers have definitely seen Katheryn Winnick around.

 

She caused a spiritual quandary for the generally skeptical doctor on "House."

 

She provided a temporary romantic roadblock for the show's central duo on "Bones."

 

She's guested on several versions of "Law & Order" and a couple shows in the "CSI" family. 

 

The 35-year-old Canadian actress could be on the verge of a breakout role in History's "Vikings," in which she plays Lagertha, wife to Travis Fimmel's adventurous Ragnar. But this isn't a pairing in which the man goes off to explore untouched corners of the globe, while the woman stays behind and minds the kids. No, Lagertha is a Viking shield maiden and when the Norsemen ready for battle, she's another ferocious warrior on the frontline. 

 

It's a chance for Winnick to showcase a physicality that the trained bodyguard and karate blackbelt takes quite seriously. In our conversation, she discusses which parts of the role came naturally for her, how much research she put into Viking history and the lure of working with series creator Michael Hirst.

 

Click through for the full conversation...

 

BEVERLY HILLS - Friday (March 1) night's panel for "The Walking Dead" was one of this year's only PaleyFest panels that wasn't live-streamed to the world. The reason? Fathom Events and the Paley Center are bringing the panel to movie theaters next Thursday night.

 

In order to make sure that theater-goers get value for their ticket bucks, the "Walking Dead" panel was short on footage and long on talk. The audience at the Saban Theatre got to see the first 10 minutes of Sunday's episode and some behind-the-scenes DVD extras, but a solid 80+ minutes was spent on Q&A, with moderator Chris Hardwick orchestrating the bulk of that discussion.

 

That's far more Q&A time than you get at typical PaleyFest panels, which sometimes can yield well under an hour of conversation from the stage. From an audience standpoint, that's terrific. From a blogger's standpoint, that's a challenge, because I have to synthesize all of that information down to some bite-sized highlights. 

 

That's why if you click through, you'll get 20 Things We Learned from the "Walking Dead" PaleyFest, featuring facts, quotes and other tidbits. If you aren't caught up on "Walking Dead" or you're thinking of paying to see the panel theatrically, turn back!

 

Another week, another "Survivor: Caramoan" exit interview with a member of the Fans tribe shocked that they were sent packing while aggressively belligerent Shamar remains.

 

This week's victim was Hope Driskill, who follows in the footsteps of alliance-mate Allie, who went home last week. 

 

Of course, with Hope there was a catch. The majority alliance, worried that Reynold might attempt to give Hope his Immunity Idol, decided to split votes between Hope and Eddie. Shamar, not a fan of Eddie, sat in the water and hinted strongly that Hope might want to split with her alliance and write Eddie's name down. Had Hope done that, Eddie would have been eliminated after one Tribal Council vote, instead of a tie that went against Hope in the revote. 

 

Hope's decision was one of several things that I found confusing in Wednesday's episode, so we covered a lot of that in this week's exit interview.

 

Click through for the full conversation...