In a rare instance of mutual forethought and cooperation between producers and a network, ABC's Life on Mars will wrap up its abbreviated freshman run this Wednesday at 10 pm/ET with a proper series finale, bringing to a close Detective Sam Tyler's time-tripping odyssey. Here, executive producers Scott Rosenberg and Josh Appelbaum reflect on their Mars journey, reveal the one song that done them wrong, preview the "straight-out scary" follow-up they have planned, and promise closure for fans of their previous project, October Road.
TVGuide.com: The episode airing this Wednesday, is it more or less what you had envisioned the series finale as being? Or is it slightly different, if only because you had less time to build up to it?
Josh Appelbaum: We always knew that the season finale was going to be this episode, and we always knew what our series finale would be. Basically we went to [ABC] and said, "Our ratings are grim. We want to ...
read more
When October Road reached its end last spring, fans weren't the only ones who had a hard time letting go. Co-creator Scott Rosenberg was determined to conclude the series the right way. "We had a small audience, but they genuinely fell in love with these characters, and I feel we owe it not only to them, but also to the cast [to tie up loose ends]," Rosenberg tells TV Guide. So he and co-creators Josh Appelbaum and André Nemec wrote a 15-minute finale called "Don't Look Back: An Epilogue for an Epic Love." The story will start at the wedding of Hannah (Laura Prepon) and Big Cat (Warren Christie), and then flash forward seven years, where fans will receive answers to most of their remaining questions. The plan is to include the epilogue on the second-season DVD and possibly online. After two seasons on the Road, even the cast wants closure. "I don't know who Sam's father is, so I am just as excited to find out as the fans are," says Bryan Greenberg (Nick). And although the shoot...
read more
You can check out new episodes of Scott Rosenberg's October Road on Mondays at 10 pm/ET on ABC.
It was one of the worst winters in New England and I had retreated to the house I grew up in, some 20 miles outside of Boston, to lick my wounds over the dissolution of a seven-year relationship with my girlfriend, Trish. I had decided to write a script. I would call it Beautiful Girls, and I would base it entirely on my friends from home. These guys, my high school crew, had largely remained in our hometown, and most of them were landscapers, snowplow drivers and construction workers. I went so far as to use their actual nicknames. I was hoping my chums would see the movie as a valentine to them; to their myriad struggles; to their noble work ethic; to their histories, with all of their Springsteenian flourishes. And they di
read more
Bryan Greenberg has nothing to complain about. First, he snuggled up to Hilarie Burton on One Tree Hill, then he was all over Uma Thurman in Prime, and now he's smooching That '70s gal Laura Prepon in the new ABC drama October Road, debuting tonight at 10 pm/ET. Returning to his hometown after 10 years, Greenberg's author Nick Garrett is welcomed back with hesitation by those who feel betrayed by his first novel, and that's where the story really begins: The on-screen romances are just a
read more