Are you a fan of Sci-fi? Do you like Mystery? Then check out what I have to say about ABC’s new show, The Crossing, which premieres tonight (April 2) at 9 pm CST. and my exclusive interview with the Executive Producers Dan Dworkin and Jay Beattie of The Crossing!
Disney & ABC invited me out to L.A. to interview the Executive Producers of The Crossing. All opinions are my own. Travel and accommodations were covered.
I got to watch a screening of the show and I was hooked within the first five minutes! As you’re introduced to each character, you want to know more about them. There’s a lot of guessing along the way and questions are answered as new questions arise. There are plenty of “edge of your seat” moments that will have you craving for more!
REFUGEES WASH UP IN A SMALL FISHING TOWN CLAIMING TO BE FROM A MOST UNEXPECTED PLACE: AMERICA, 180 YEARS IN THE FUTURE,
ON ABC’s ‘THE CROSSING,’ MONDAY, APRIL 2
After 47 refugees mysteriously wash up in a small fishing town, local sheriff Jude Ellis (Steve Zahn) teams with DHS agent Emma Ren (Sandrine Holt) to assess their unusual claim … that they’re fleeing a war 180 years in the future. The mystery deepens when Jude realizes that one of the new arrivals possesses heightened abilities and is a threat to his town, setting the two of them on a collision course. As the rest of the refugees acclimate to their unfamiliar surroundings, Emma learns that one has information that calls into question everything she thought she knew about our present time.
“The Crossing” stars Steve Zahn as Jude Ellis, Natalie Martinez as Reece, Sandrine Holt as Emma Ren, Georgina Haig as Dr. Sophie Forbin, Tommy Bastow as Marshall, Rob Campbell as Paul, Rick Gomez as Nestor Rosario, Marcuis W. Harris as Caleb, Grant Harvey as Roy Aronson, Jay Karnes as Craig Lindauer, Simone Kessell as Rebecca, Kelley Missal as Hannah, Luc Roderique as Bryce Foster and Bailey Skodje as Leah. Recurring guest star Luke Camilleri as Thomas.
Q: How did you come up with the concept for the show?
Jay Beattie: It all starts with an email, usually.
Dan Dworkin: It did. I tracked it down the other day, actually.
Dan Dworkin: Yeah, the Genesis email. It started with a photograph. It was 18 months ago or so. It was one of the many photos of refugees that were kind of besieged [upon] every day in the press. And it was very specifically a photo of a dad who had come from Syria to Greece, had crossed the Mediterranean in a raft and barely made it by the looks of him. The photo won a Pulitzer, actually, last year, so you guys would probably recognize it. It’s a father holding his little boy and just the look on the guy’s face, as a father, killed me. That was kind of the spark initially. That’s when I emailed Jay and said, ‘refugees.’ We don’t normally write kind of straight ahead, ripped-from-the-headlines dramas. We usually like to put a little spin on it. So, we figured out a way to put a spin on the refugee story, and that was this.
Q: It feels a lot like Lost. Are you guys fans of Lost or did you get any inspiration from it?
Dan Dworkin: Yeah, we’re definitely fans of Lost. I think in a greater sense, we’re both, especially myself, genre fans–fans of sci-fi. Another big inspiration for this idea was [science fiction writer] Ray Bradbury. There are a couple of stories he wrote about time travel that kind of factored into the idea a little bit. So, our influences kind of run the gamut.
Q: As far as the story arc goes, are we going to be getting answers in every episode?
Dan Dworkin: I think the way we structured it, it’s the perfect balance of getting something answered and another question being asked–in pretty much every episode. Obviously, there’s a lot going on; there are a lot of questions. So, we resisted the impulse to answer too much, too early. But, at the same time, we’ve watched shows where you don’t get anything answered and then at the end of the season you’re thinking, I was entertained, but I feel like I’ve been cheated. We don’t want that, so we’ll be giving people enough.
Q: Have you pulled anything from your personal lives and put it into the story?
Jay Beattie: Well, we’re both dads, so that kind of informs a lot. You’ve got father-son stories and a couple of different mom and daughter stories that are afloat. So, a lot of that is informed by being a parent and the notion of being separated from your child–the notion of having your child taken from you; the notion of not knowing what happened to your child. [Being a] dad informed some of the storytelling.
Dan Dworkin: Having a family fractured by separation, divorce and the desire to repair it, like Jude has with his son. What we explore in the show is Jude’s inability to repair his relationship with his son, which is transferred onto his ability to help this woman find her daughter as a sort of a surrogate for him.
Q: What type of research did you do for the show?
Dan Dworkin: All kinds, especially on the scientific end of things. Going forward, you’ll see a lot of that crystallize. We had a synthetic biologist as a consultant, who read all our scripts and who we talked to. His name is Andrew Hessel, who’s probably curing cancer at this very moment. I’m not kidding–that’s one of his pet projects. We talked to futurists about what the world might look like in 180 years, which was fascinating. We talked to a climatologist from NASA about what the weather might be like in 180 years. It was great because normally we’ve written on police procedurals or we’ve written on medical shows. That’s fine, but talking to a futurist, to me, is much more fertile and much more interesting. It was a lot of fun for us and the other writers to be able to get into that [subject matter].
Q: When you spoke to the futurists, was there anything else you weren’t expecting?
Jay Beattie: They are all very optimistic about how technology can solve the problems of the future and how it’s not politics that create change. It’s technology and the adoption of technology. So, that was heartening to hear. Every time we were on the phone with one of them, we’d hang up duly impressed, but also a little bit heartened by what they had to say from their point of view.
Dan Dworkin: [Some of what they said] wasn’t game-changing in terms of the storytelling, but just little fascinating curls that we would try to drop in. Like in the pilot, the notion that there won’t be real meat in the future, which is essentially right around the corner–they are already creating meat in labs. We were on the phone with futurist, Pablos Holman, and he said that in my daughter’s lifetime, she will look back on the fact that we actually used animals for meat with incredulity. She will think it’s the most absurd thing she’s ever heard. I never even thought of that but, according to him, it’ll be commonplace.
The series premiere of “The Crossing” airs MONDAY, APRIL 2 (10:00-11:00 p.m. EDT), on ABC
If you should miss an episode get caught up or rewatch past episodes via streaming or on the app after they air on ABC.
For more info and to follow along on social use hashtags #TheCrossing and #ABCTVEvent
https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingABC/
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http://abc.go.com/shows/the-crossing
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