My third day of season 13 of the ATX Television festival began with some early morning interviews with the producers and cast of MGM+’s upcoming series Hotel Cocaine. It is set at the Mutiny Hotel and its attached exclusive Mutiny Club in Miami in the late 70s/early 80s. Much like John Wick‘s Continental, the property is a neutral zone where drug dealers and DEA agents alike can hang out and have fun. The series follows Cuban exile Roman Compte (Danny Pino), the manager of the hotel, who finds himself sucked into a dangerous world when is pressed by a DEA agent (Michael Chiklis) to inform on his bother, Nestor Cabal (Yul Vazquez), the biggest drug dealer in Miami. The series also stars Mark Feuerstein as the wild, partying hotel/club owner Burton Greenberg. The series is created by executive producer Chris Brancato (Godfather of Harlem, Narcos) and co-executive produced by Maurice Compte (whose father actually was the manager of this famous hotel, just without the whole drug aspect). The series premieres June 16 on MGM+, and I will posts the interviews closer to then. But you can check out a clip with the cast joking around below.
After the interviews, I headed around the corner to the Paramount Theatre, to see the “Phil Rosenthal and Family” panel. I had a Fast Pass for this one, and was able to get a seat right up front. Phil has been to the festival many times, and I always enjoy his panels, where he talks about food, travel, and making his series Somebody Feel Phil. This time he brought along his family for the first time—children Lily & Ben, and brother Richard. They shared some fun stories about making Somebody Feed Phil, talked about the places they’d like to travel to, what food was like in their houses growing up, and more. They had the audience laughing throughout—you could tell that the rest of the family had heard Phil’s jokes many times, but they still smiled at the punchlines. I have always enjoyed this panel, but it was even nicer as a family affair.
Next, I headed over to the Driskill hotel for the microprogramming panel “Industry: Pitch to Series”, which was a really interesting and fun discussion with Industry creators Mickey Down & Konrad Kay, and HBO programming executive Kathleen McCaffrey. They talked about writing the original, not-so-good pilot for the series and talked about how that evolved into the show we now see. They discussed their pitch and writing process along the way, and shared some fun stories, such as one foreign director who wants to push the boundaries a bit too far, bordering on porn. They hinted at what’s to come in the third season, and talked about stepping into the directors chair for the final two episodes. McCaffrey said that the finale had her in tears, twice. I can’t wait for the new season, which premieres August 11 on HBO.
I had an hour to kill until my next panel, so I crossed the street to the Royal Sonesta hotel to check out what free lunch was being offered in both the Industry/Press and Badgeholder lounges. I ended up having some really good fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and chips/queso. After my quick but delicious meal, I returned to the same room at the Driskill for another microprogramming panel, “A Conversation with Annabeth Gish & Constance Zimmer. In this hilarious discussion, the two actresses talked about their careers and what it’s like being a working actress. Zimmer talked about her love of doing sitcoms and being starstruck when she got a job on Seinfeld. She also discussed her switch to drama, and failed first attempt to direct a film. She proclaimed that her philosophy in life is #WWMD (What Would Meryl Do?). Gish talked about finding a mentor and someone you like to work worth, and even got a “fan” question from the audience from writer/director Mike Flanagan, with whom she’s worked many times. The women had the audience laughing throughout as they shared their amusing stories and anecdotes.
After the Q&A, I rushed over to the Stateside Theatre where the screening for Orphan Black: Echoes was already underway. Following the episode was a Q&A with executive producers Anna Fishko & John Fawcett. The series is a follow-up to the hit original Orphan Black series. It does have a character connection to the the original show, but the series creators want it to be something that people can still watch even if they haven’t see the previous show. The new series definitely has a similar vibe, but there are no clones this time around, so we won’t see star Krysten Ritter playing multiple characters. The series involves some kind of 3D-printing of people, and looks like it could be interesting. I look forward to checking out more when it premieres Sunday, June 23 on AMC, AMC+ and BBC AMERICA.
I hadn’t seen any of the latest season of Pretty Little Liars: Summer School, but the ATX screening/panel was right next door, so I hopped over to the Stateside next. After an early showing of episode 6 of the season, the cast and creatives took the stage to discuss the series, the season’s big bad, and the show’s themes of inclusion and representation. The panel was moderated by longtime PLL star Annabeth Gish. On the panel were creators/showrunners Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa & Lindsay Calhoon Bring, and stars Bailee Madison, Chandler Kinney, Malia Pyles, Zaria & Mallory Bechtel. It was a fun an interesting discussion, and even though the panel got off to a late start, Gish ignored attempts to wrap things up and started the fan Q&A anyway—most of the “questions” ended up being people fanning out over Bailee Madison, but the cast and creators were very appreciative of these fans.
After the panel, I took the long walk over to the huge ACL Live venue for the big Closing Night event, “Norman Lear’s TV for the People: Script Readings and Conversation”, which was a celebration of the life and work of the accomplished and groundbreaking TV writer/producer. After an opening performance by a local band, several of the actors who were already here for the festival took the stage to do a script reading of the controversial abortion episode of Maude. Among the cast were Pamela Adlon (“Maude”), Haneefah Wood (“Florida Evans”), Phil Rosenthal (“Walter Findlay”), Danny Pino (“Dr. Arthur Harmon”), Constance Zimmer (“Vivian Cavender Harmon”), Abigail Spencer (“Carol Traynor”) & Yul Vazquez (Stage Directions).
After the episode, there was another brief musical performance and then another set of talented folks took the stage to do a script reading of a Good Times episode around the topic of racial bias in testing. The cast included Dulé Hill (“James Evans Sr.”), Haneefah Wood (“Florida Evans”), Daniel Kyri (“Michael Evans”), D.K. Uzoukwu (“James ‘JJ’ Evans”), Bria Samoné Henderson (“Thelma Evans”), Travina Springer (“Willona Woods” / “Secretary”), Mark Feuerstein (“Donald Hargrove”) & Yul Vazquez (Stage Directions).
It was quite fun to watch these performances. Even though it was just a script reading, the actors still made the characters come to life, and had the audience roaring with laughter. These episodes were written 40 years ago, but they still felt quite timely and relevant today. It’s amazing how ahead of his time Norman Lear was.
The final portion of this event was a conversation moderated by Rolling Stone‘s Alan Sepinwall with some of the folks who had worked or interacted with Norman Lear directly, including Pamela Adlon, Phil Rosenthal, Ranada Shepard (showrunner of the new adult animated Good Times reboot), and longtime Norman Lear collaborator Brent Miller. They discussed Lear’s legacy, and shared fun stories and memories of the time they spent with him.
I was not looking forward to another long walk back from the ACL Live venue, but fortunately, I saw one of the weekend’s free Pluto TV pedicabs outside the venue, and joined one of the ATX official photographers on a ride over to 800 Congress for the Game Show Night, a camp badge event. Upon entering the venue, they asked me if I wanted to participate—of course I did! And so they handed me a ticket. Only 48 tickets were given out, and it turned out that even numbered tickets were on the blue team, and odd meant you were on the red team. There were 4 games, each with 6 players on each team. It alternated between Family Feud and Wheel of Fortune (though they had non-copyrighted names like “Survey Squabble”). The first game was a Family Feud game, and I joined the Blue Team up on stage. We did four rounds, and so, since I was the fifth player on my team, I never got to step up to the buzzer. Though there was still a lot of pressure to come up with a correct answer just during the regular round. One of our categories was something illegal that everyone does, and fortunately my answer of “stealing” kept us in the game. For the Wheel of Fortune games, they had a big wheel to spin, and most of the puzzles were TV-related, though the audience comically booed every time it was movies or music instead. While my team ultimately lost (the prize was just “a sense of accomplishment” anyway), it was a fun night, and they also had various free food, such as chicken shawarma, and drinks available.
You can find our other daily recaps of Season 13 here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 4.
