PaleyFest 2010

PaleyFest2010 is an extraordinary interactive pop culture event, connecting fans with the casts and creators of their favorite series as well as the icons who have changed or are changing the face of media. Named for William S. Paley, founder of both the Paley Center and CBS, PaleyFest continues its twenty-seventh year tradition of celebrating the collaborative creativity behind making great entertainment content-from the genesis of an idea to that vital connection with audiences the world over. During each PaleyFest evening, the audience views episodes or highlights of the featured work followed by a panel discussion with the cast and creative team and then has the opportunity to ask questions of those involved in its production.

Breaking Bad
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
7:00 pm PT
Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills

In Person
Vince Gilligan, Creator/Executive Producer
Bryan Cranston, “Walter H. White”
Anna Gunn, “Skyler White”
Aaron Paul, “Jesse Pinkman”
Dean Norris, “Hank”
Betsy Brandt, “Marie”
And additional members of the cast and creative team.

A meditation on the desperate resourcefulness of middle-aged anxiety in recession America, AMC’s Breaking Bad challenged the moral assumptions of its audience over its first two seasons. The antihero of the series Walter White (played superbly by Emmy Award–winner Bryan Cranston) has done many questionable things in trying to secure his family’s future. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, Walt has descended into the drug underworld, producing and selling crystal meth. Series creator Vince Gilligan underlines the often exhilarating wretchedness of Walt’s choices by making New Mexico’s desolate landscape a main character. The series looks and feels like no other; as Heather Havrilesky of Salon.com notes Breaking Bad is “a ruthless, rambling art film that stumbled out of your local indie theater.”

Flash Forward
Thursday, March 11, 2010
7:00 pm PT
Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills

In Person
David S. Goyer, Executive Producer
Joseph Fiennes, “Mark Benford”
Sonya Walger, “Dr. Olivia Benford”
John Cho, “Demetri Noh”
Jack Davenport, “Lloyd Simcoe”
Zachary Knighton, “Dr. Bryce Varley”
Peyton List, “Nicole Kirby”
Brian F. O’Byrne, “Aaron Stark”
Courtney B. Vance, “Stanford Wedeck”
And additional members of the cast and creative team.

Free will or fate? FlashForward pivots on a conflict philosophers have grappled with for centuries, but, hey, in a fun way! ABC’s first-year, sci-fi drama opens with a global “flash forward”—a simultaneous loss of human consciousness in which billions of people inexplicably black out for 137 seconds, experiencing visions of their lives six months into the future. The New York Times’s Ginia Bellafante dug the “bracing suspense” so much that she wrote, “I am challenged to recall another pilot that has lured me so quickly into addiction.” Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) and his team of G-men are tasked with unraveling the mystery. David S. Goyer and Brannon Braga created the show for television, based on Robert J. Sawyer’s novel.

Men of a Certain Age
Friday, March 12, 2010
7:00 pm PT
Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills
In Person

Ray Romano, "Joe Tranelli"
Scott Bakula, "Terry Elliott"
Andre Braugher, "Owen Thoreau Jr.
And additional members of the cast and creative team.

A Peter Pan who has absolutely nothing but his freedom. A play-by-the-rules guy with a great wife and kids who is under his father’s thumb. A newly separated nerd who can’t shake a nasty gambling habit. Three men who grew up with the American Dream have reached midlife; the promise is broken yet their friendship remains intact (stoked by diner breakfasts where they argue and soothe each other’s wounds). Each episode opens with home movies out of The Wonder Years, yet the seriocomic plots are more like Up in the Air. “As you get to know the characters better, the credit sequence becomes increasingly touching, underscoring…the true pains of adulthood,” writes Nancy Franklin in The New Yorker.

Glee
Saturday, March 13, 2010
7:00 pm PT
Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills

In Person
Ryan Murphy, Cocreator/Executive Producer
Dante Di Loreto, Executive Producer
Brad Falchuk, Cocreator/Executive Producer
Ian Brennan, Cocreator/Executive Producer
Dianna Agron, "Quinn Fabray"
Chris Colfer, "Kurt Hummel"
Jessalyn Gilsig, "Terri Schuester"
Jane Lynch, "Sue Sylvester"
Jayma Mays, "Emma Pillsbury"
Kevin McHale, "Artie Abrams"
Lea Michele, "Rachel Berry"
Cory Monteith, "Finn Hudson"
Matthew Morrison, "Will Schuester"
Amber Riley, "Mercedes Jones"
Mark Salling, "Noah 'Puck' Puckerman"
Jenna Ushkowitz, "Tina Cohen-Chang"

A rousing paean to the transformative powers of performance, Fox’s Glee looks and acts like nothing else on television. A critical and ratings success in its first season, the ensemble comedy/drama/musical follows the efforts of the William McKinley High School show choir—a crew of talented misfits—to win respect from their peers, or at the very least, to avoid the customary scorn and humiliation. Glee is distinguished by its layered, tonally fluid writing, dazzling musical numbers (which have burned up the charts on iTunes), and winning performances from Matthew Morrison as the club’s dedicated leader, Leah Michele as the precociously talented and utterly irritating star of the group, and Jane Lynch as a psychotic cheerleading coach bent on the club’s destruction.

Curb Your Enthusiasm
Sunday, March 14, 2010
7:00 pm PT
Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills

In Person
Larry David, "Larry David"
Cheryl Hines, "Cheryl David"
Jeff Garlin, "Jeff Greene"
Susie Essman, "Susie Greene"
And additional guests to be announced.

For seven seasons, HBO’s improvisatory and always awkward Curb Your Enthusiasm has made viewers squirm on Sunday nights waiting in secret anticipation for the next repulsive “Larry David Moment.” With a slightly altered version of himself and his celebrity universe, creator David has demolished the unwritten rules of society; as Gillian Flynn of Entertainment Weekly notes he has mastered “taking little annoyances, indignities, and offenses, and worrying at them until they bubble into fantastically overblown debacles.” This past season David took his series to new curmudgeonly extremes, while bringing back his Seinfeld buddies for a meta-reunion. Even Larry’s obnoxious outbursts, such as railing against wood disrespecters, could not mar the sweet finale that Seinfeld mavens have desperately desired.