Sunday, October 10, 2010

Digging Haven and chatting with the creators

Haven just finished it's first season on Syfy and I have to say I was very pleasantly surprised with the way it turned out. I loved the finale because it really tied up the season nicely and then hit us with a cliffhanger that gave the series a new direction to go in next season.

Emily Rose as F.B.I. Agent Audrey Parker was fantastic in the lead, and the other characters, especially Lucas Bryant's Nathan Wuornos grew on me.

It was great that Syfy renewed Haven for a second season of 13 episodes. I talked to creators and executive producers Jim Dunn and Sam Ernst this summer while they were still working on the season.

According to Ernst, "unfolding the mythology is really a lot of fun, because we know where we are going. We know exactly where we are going and we have very long and deep histories for elements of this. If we are fortunate enough to have a second season and then a third season, we know the big story elements that we want to unfold. For us it is fascinating to watch them slowly unfold and see how powerful they are, the small pieces as they come into each episode. And sometimes we wonder are we telling the audience enough or are we telling the audience to much. And the answer basically is in our opinion you can't tell the audience too much," he said with a laugh.

"It's funny. It's tricky to be engaged in a story of the week where there are events unfolding and you have to be in the midst of that and trudging forth," added Dunn. "There are things you have to follow up on, and finding the moments to drop in as much of the mythology [as we can]. You can't take a timeout and go have a scene someplace that doesn't involve things that aren't in the main story."

The first season is one big piece of this puzzle and there's a lot going on, said Ernst. "There are some episodes we only give away a little bit of stuff, that we really focus on the story of the week. By the end of 13 when the credits come up on 13, we know everything that is going to happen, and it accelerates, by the way, towards the end of the season in terms of what we give away and there is just more and more and more. By the 13th episode our real hope is to basically rock everybody's world as much as were going to rock the world of the four or five characters that were focusing on. We're going to just upend everything by the end of season."

I agree they did manage to do that, which is one of the things that really made this series come to life. It was a slow build, but a fantastic one.

Ernst added, "I don't know if we told you last time, but we genuinely do know the very last scene in series. We know exactly where were going and were really excited about it."

I'm really excited about it too. Now how long do we have to wait for more? Yikes, most likely until next summer!

What did you think about Haven?

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