Life Unexpected Creator Liz Tigelaar: "Cate and Baze Aren't Over"

Are Cate and Baze over for good? Last viewers saw, Cate and Ryan tied the knot, but executive producer Liz Tigelaar says not to count Baze out yet. Tigelaar tells TVGuide.com about the upcoming second season of Life Unexpected, which she says will focus on how each character redefines themselves now that their family dynamics have changed.

TVGuide.com: If Season 1 was about Lux (Britt Robertson) finding her family, what would you say Season 2 is about?
Liz Tigelaar: Season 2 is about: Who am I now? Who am I now that I've been adopted? Who am I now that I'm married? Who am I now that I'm a step-father or a father? Who am I now that I lost the girl? Who am I now that my daughter didn't choose me? Who am I now that I got what I wanted? Who do my parents expect me to be? What if I'm not what they really wanted? What if they got a lemon or a dud? What if they think I'm someone I'm not? It's redefining who they are now in light of what happened in the finale. It's all those questions.

TVGuide.com: Why did you have Cate (Shiri Appleby) and Ryan (Kerr Smith) actually get married in the finale?
Tigelaar: People's weddings usually don't get stopped. They went through with it and we wanted to end the season with a bang and not necessarily with a cliffhanger, because we didn't know if we would come back. I think we wanted to show an end to the story that we told. The season began with a proposal and ended with a wedding, and now we're launching in a new direction. The idea is that whether Baze [Kristopher Polaha] successfully stopped the wedding or not, he still stepped up and was ready to do something, and that was the evolution of his character.

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TVGuide.com: Lux goes from having no parents, to having two fathers in Ryan and Baze. Will they be fighting over her?
Tigelaar: Yeah, Baze and Ryan are not going to be fighting like they were in Season 1. The gauntlet has been thrown down, and Ryan has sensibly won. There's going to be a struggle in terms of how Ryan fits into Lux's life and what does it mean now that he's a step-dad? Baze has been such a point of contention in Cate and Ryan's relationship, and what they don't know yet is that there are so many other things that can be points of contention broader than Baze. Lux, in a way, can be one of them. We're going to see Ryan not wanting to be on the outside looking in and [figuring out] if he wants his own kids.

TVGuide.com: Cate and Baze's relationship can't be over, right?
Tigelaar: Of course not. Cate and Baze aren't over. We're in it for the long haul. Their relationship will shift in a way that will make you love them together, but it's more of them against the world instead of them against each other.

TVGuide.com: We hear that Baze will have to work with his father this season. Will their relationship continued to be strained?
Tigelaar: I think his relationship with his father has evolved. You can't just say 'I love you' and a switch is flipped, but I think that we're telling a story of two people trying to change their dynamic. What we do in this season will be working towards that.

Shaun Sipos headed to Life Unexpected

TVGuide.com: What new characters will you be introducing this season?
Tigelaar: The family of the show is broadening out in that there are characters who are going to affect our core family. Also, we're going to have the family of our show back: Bug, Tasha, Jones, Laverne, Abby, Jack. We're introducing a new foil at the radio station for Cate: Kelly, the fake virgin. Amy Price Francis plays her and we're really excited about that.

TVGuide.com: With the introduction of a hot new teacher, played by Shaun Sipos, everyone will wonder: Will he have an inappropriate student-teacher relationship with Lux?
Tigelaar: He's going to be a very pivotal male figure in Lux's life. Lux has a desire to be normal that is pulled by her inability to feel normal or challenged by that. He plays into that. She's struggling in many areas in her life and he's somebody that will support her. He'll be paired up with someone besides Lux.