Please note, this podcast was released on 3/3/06, but the interview was done on February 16th and was pre-taped.
TVG: On the phone with us now is Shaun Cassidy, creator and executive producer of Invasion, Wednesdays at 10 p.m. on ABC. Shaun, welcome to the podcast.
SC: Thank you, it’s good to be here.
TVG: Let’s just dive into the water...ha, ha...and say that Elisabeth Moss as Christina last night really kicked some butt. It’s so great to see her break out of that boring, first daughter role on West Wing. Are you having as much fun writing that character as she seems to have playing it?
SC: Absolutely. She’s awesome and you know, we cast her in an episode 5 or 6 shows ago, and she just sort of lit everything up for us and we wrote this 3 episode arc for her so she’s going to be in the next 2 as well.
TVG: And another great actor on the show since the beginning has been William Fichtner who, as you know, just so under-utilized in the past. Did you create the character of Sheriff Underlay around him, or did it just happen that he got cast in that?
SC: Well I had written the pilot already before he was cast, but when I met Bill and talked to Bill he brought a lot to the party and a lot of the dimension that Underlay has; a lot of the subtlety and I think a lot of the interest that the audience has about the character, they’re never quite sure what side of the fence he’s on, and I think that great. It keeps it interesting and I think it’s real, you know? Nobody’s good or bad, we’re sort of in the middle.
TVG: When you were coming up with this idea for Invasion, what came first; the invasion part or the idea of having step-siblings and the thought of exploring the sort of extended family, step-parents and all that?
SC: Well, you know, I’m a fan of sort of heightened reality. My family’s from musicals and I’ve worked in this genre before, but I think that for me, the stuff that’s most interesting is the stuff that’s most grounded and most plausible and the scariest stuff is actually the stuff that seems the most possible. So, although we try and do fantastic stuff, and we try and push the envelope, I really try and keep it as real and in the realm of my own experience and other people’s experience, which is why all the family business is there. We try and take the sci-fi elements and metaphorically apply them to ‘Is my mom and alien?’
TVG: And how far in your head or on paper do you have sort of the mythology of this show sketched out? I mean do you know where it’s all going to end up yet?
SC: Well I certainly know where this year is going to end up and that was planned from the beginning. This is a novel and each episode is a chapter in the novel and I think I view the series as a series of novels, like a big saga. So next year, although we’ll have many of the same characters, we’ll be telling a different story.
TVG: And Shaun, what happens if there isn’t a next year? Will you have time to maybe change course and revise the Season 1 ending to sort of wrap up the story? Or will you not do that?
SC: I’m cautiously optimistic there will be a second year, but if there isn’t I don’t think we have to change a thing. We have an ending and, again, I think like a good book you want a payoff for the audience that’s given you their time and commitment for your story. You want to give them a satisfactory ending, but you also want to leave enough cards on the table so that they want to come back next year.
TVG: And is your cautious optimism based on anything other than gut? Is ABC giving you an indication that, hey, you know, we think this is going to be back?
SC: They have publicly...very publicly...proclaimed their support for our show from McPherson down and they continue to do it on a weekly basis. I think they have also realized that what seemed like a brilliant programming move, at the outset, putting us on after Lost, may not have actually been such a great idea because our shows are similar in tone and they require a similar commitment on the part of the audience. They’re dense and they’re serialized and hopefully they’re intelligent and I think, and I think the network agrees at this point, that putting something lighter on after Lost would serve that timeslot better and putting us on somewhere at 9:00 on a different night might serve us better.
TVG: Do you have a preference? Where would you like to be ideally?
SC: On TV! [laughter]
TVG: So Saturday is okay with you then Shaun?
SC: You know what? It’s so hard to get a show on and it’s so hard to sustain a show and it’s so hard to do a quality show and my attitude is one show at a time, you know? If I’m on Saturday, I’m on television so I’ll do the best I can on Saturday.
TVG: Shaun, a show like Invasion is almost tailor-made for the sort of phenomenon of the internet. Do you check out what fans are saying and does that...is that flattering or is that scrutiny kind of just adding more pressure on you?
SC: I don’t view it as pressure. I actually think there is stuff to be learned from it. You have to take it all with a grain of salt. I think that a lot of the people that are doing the posting are a real small select group. I think that people that do the reading is a very large group and I’m more interested in what people are reading and perhaps taking away from it and I’m also interested in what kind of messages are being received. If we have a specific intention with a story and it’s being perceived very differently, I have to take notice of that and maybe I’ll make an adjustment accordingly.
TVG: And you guys of course have your own Invasion site that’s sort of done in the voice of Dave’s character.
SC: mmm hmmm
TVG: Were you surprised or did you expect the kind of fan response to that character? Because he’s sort of the one character you kind of really love on the show.
SC: Dave’s the "everyman" and I think a lot of people in the audience relate to him. You know, the audience point of view shifts from week to week. We always try to have an audience member in the scene asking the questions and audience member might. Dave, more often than not, is that person, but sometimes it’s Russell, sometimes it’s Rose. Lately it’s actually Underlay. I mean, Underlay thought he knew everything about everything and he’s suddenly finding that he doesn’t know much about nothing.
TVG: And especially you know last night’s episode, he was so concerned for his daughter and he’s becoming much more sympathetic than we might have thought awhile ago.
SC: Well, to me he’s always been sympathetic. I mean, I suspect Carl Rhodes’ children love him too. [laughter] Somebody who is powerful and manipulative and ambitious and controlling; all of which Underlay is, does not necessarily mean he is not a loving father. He is genetically pre-disposed to survive. That is the hybrid advantage, if you will. They must survive and they must survive before anyone else, so something I said to Bill early on, I said ‘you may have to do horrible things based on whatever your moral compass is. You might be asked to do wonderful things, but know that what differentiates you, particularly from Russell, is that if they point the gun and you and your kid is in the way, or your kid isn’t in the way, you are going to put your kid in the way to save yourself.
TVG: I love the idea of the camp that Underlay has sort of created. This quote unquote work camp. Are we going to see a lot more of that as well in future episodes?
SC: Absolutely. We’re going there in a couple of shows. You’ve seen Derek and Christina got off and that is going to lead Russell and Dave back there and ultimately Underlay back there to Szura; the character who has been mentioned, but yet to be introduced.
TVG: Will there be any casualties among the cast as we head toward the end of this season?
SC: ahhhhhhh....stay tuned!
TVG: Oh come on. Can you say...will any...are there going to be any major deaths or anything?
SC: Stay tuned! [laughter]
TVG: Well Shaun in the past you’ve been known for shows like American Gothic and Roar as well as other things. Where does this interest in sci-fi/fantasy/supernatural as a genre come from? Who were some of your literary/cinematic influences in that?
SC: Well, I know this is weird. I said this earlier. I actually think it comes from growing up on musicals. Musicals are a heightened reality. They’re very operatic; literally operatic and my shows...and this is just something I realized...I didn’t intend to do this, but when I look back at the shows I’ve worked on, I like reality that’s heightened. I like a certain operatic quality. The show last night had it. I mean, Christina’s character is very big.
TVG: Oh definitely.
SC: And she’s wonderful. Elisabeth Moss plays her great. She plays her very honestly. But she’s very big and the stakes are very big and you’ve got a big fancy operatic score when Kira’s walking into the ocean to perhaps take her own life and these are not every day drama situations so my goal when I’m working in this area is that I try and keep it as plausible as possible even if you’re in a little heightened world. I used to be a magician. I loved magic and the idea of misdirection. You’re doing something with your left hand while the right is doing something completely different. I love doing that with an audience. I love leading them down a path and letting them think they’re going to go left and suddenly we go right and they’re surprised.
TVG: In preparing for this interview I was looking up some stuff about Roar and I suddenly remembered that Heath Ledger was the star of that. Did you get to know him at all when you guys were working on that show? And are you surprised or not surprised that he became what he became?
SC: Not surprised at all. He’s a great guy. I think I gave him his first job. I know I gave him his first plane ticket to America. We found him on tape. He was in Perth, Australia. I saw him on video when he was 17 or 18 and Ron Koslow, who created that show with me, and I put him on an airplane. He came out to LA and we tested him and he got the part and he was great and everybody thought he was going to be a big star and sure enough, here he is. So I’m not surprised at all.
TVG: What do you think of this recent phenomenon of shows being available on iTunes almost a day after they air? ABC’s had some success with that with Desperate Housewives and Lost. Evidence says that it boosts ratings, gets new viewers involved. Why isn’t Invasion available like that?
SC: Because Warner Bros. and ABC have not worked out an ownership agreement. Believe me, this is a question I’ve asked many times. The shows that you referenced on ABC are also Touchstone shows so who owns the downloading rights isn’t a question. Because this is all new for all these multi-conglomerates, and what the end game is is yet to be revealed, they have a thousand lawyers trying to figure things out. Unfortunately, that’s not helping our show right now. Because I think that our show, more than most, would actually benefit from this. If you are watching a drama that’s serialized and miss an episode, the opportunity to catch up on iPod the next day is great.
TVG: Right, and...
SC: Anyway I know our show is very popular at colleges and there’s a lot of iPods at colleges so hopefully that’ll be resolved and that’ll happen, but again, the reason a show like ours is on and the reason they’re buying more serialized dramas, aside from the success of shows like 24 and Lost is because there are all these ancillary that didn’t exist a few years ago. Which is why all of the procedural shows went into vogue, because they didn’t think that people would tune in for serialized television, and they don’t repeat well. I mean Lost doesn’t usually repeat all that well and ER never did and there is still some truth to that, the closed-end dramas are easier to repeat. But with all these other options, and with DVD coming out...our DVD will be out in the summer and, God willing, if we have a second year, I think that will help.
TVG: And finally Shaun, you didn’t want to tell us too much about what’s happening later in the season, but can you at least give us a tease on the March 8th episode, because last night’s episode ended with a couple of possible pregnancies I guess. Give us a little hint of what’s coming up in the next new episode.
SC: Well, if it wasn’t clear, Christina is pregnant with something; Mariel is not pregnant, but she certainly has the tools now to get pregnant in a way perhaps she never anticipated. And the parallel story of Christina’s situation and Mariel’s is intentional. We will learn very quickly that the gestation time for hybrid pregnancies is considerably faster than that of a human pregnancy. And why Derek is so committed to this seemingly insane woman, although I guess we’ve all been guilty of that, will be explained and I think the trip to the island is upon us. I don’t know if it’s next week or the following, but it’s comin.
TVG: Alright well Shaun, thank you so much for your time and let’s remind our listeners that Invasion will be airing March 8th, Wednesday at 10 p.m. eastern on ABC. Shaun Cassidy thank you so much for your time.
SC: Thank you guys.
TVG: Thank you and good luck.