For me, the final day of season 13 of the ATX Television festival began with a panel for the Hallmark series The Way Home. While I hadn’t seen the show myself, for the past three days I had heard people raving about it. The series mixes the trademark Hallmark family drama with time travel—who doesn’t love time travel?! Plus, I saw that “Lexie Grey” was going to be on the panel. So I was curious to check out this session.
It was a packed room, and the panel, which was moderated by Variety‘s Emily Longeretta, included showrunners/co-creators Heather Conkie & Alexandra, co-creator Marly Reed, and stars Chyler Leigh, Evan Williams & Sadie Laflamme-Snow. Everyone on the panel seemed so happy to be there to discuss the series, and was getting so much love from the packed room. There were even some tears from the panel during some of the clips they showed. The series had just finished airing its second season, and not having seen the series, I didn’t fully understand everything being talked about. But based on the gasps and tears, there seemed to be some big shocking reveal at the end of the season. The show looks really interesting, and the cast was so much fun, and had great chemistry on stage. This is definitely a show I’ll be adding to my list to check out.
The panelists were very secretive about the upcoming third season, but sounds like fans will be pleased. And based on the re-grams and likes on various platforms I’ve been getting to the photos I posted, this is easily one of the most popular shows I saw this weekend.
After this discussion finished, I rushed to another room across the hallway at the Driskill for the Mystery Guest Conversation. I just barely managed to get in for a standing room only spot in the back of the room. The mystery guest turned out to be plural, Austin Nichols & Adrianne Palicki. The actors discussed their first roles, mentorship, working with Peter Berg, what they’re currently watching, and more. Sticking with the theme of the panel, they each revealed a mystery item about themselves—for Austin it was that he likes jet skis, and for Adrianne it was her obsession with the Hallmark channel (though she hadn’t heard of The Way Home). The pair also talked about the film they had just started shooting in Austin—a small indie comedy being directed by Nichols.
After this panel, I headed over to the Royal Sonesta to grab some food. The brunch at the Pluto TV badgeholder lounge was already wiped out, so I headed downstairs to the Industry/Press lounge where they had sliders and french fries. After the quick meal, I headed over to the Paramount for the final event of the festival. Fortunately I had a fast pass for this one, and got a seat right up front for the Suits Retrospective, presented in partnership with TUDUM by Netflix.
They opened the panel by announcing that the final season of Suits will finally be making its way to Netflix in July. So Netflix subscribers who don’t have access to Peacock will soon be able to watch the entire series of Suits! They also announced that this panel will be exclusively available on the TUDUM website, though no specific date was given.
The panel was moderated by Ariana Romero of Tudum, and it was easy to see that she was a superfan of the show. The panelists included stars Patrick J. Adams (“Mike Ross”), Sarah Rafferty (“Donna Paulsen”), Amanda Schull (“Katrina Bennett”), Dulé Hill (“Alex Williams”) & Abigail Spencer (“Dana Scott”), and executive Jeff Wachtel. It was a really fun and entertaining conversation. They talked about auditions and casting the series, shooting the pilot, and more. The casting director was also in the audience, and stepped up later during the audience Q&A to tell a story of her own. The cast shared fun stories about working together, and working on the series. They were very gracious to this resurgence of interest in the series, and said they would definitely be open to coming back for a Peacock movie, like the streamer had previously done for shows like Psych and Monk. Series creator Aaron Korsh also briefly joined in via the phone. This is a show that I definitely need to find some time to revisit.
After the panel, I rushed off to the airport, another fun ATX Television Festival weekend in the bag. I look forward to seeing what season 14 has in store next year!
You can find our other daily recaps of Season 13 here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 3.
