White Collar — one of the hottest new shows on television (not just on cable, people, but in all TV-dom) — is about to sign off with an amazing twist to its season finale. 
While those of us who love White Collar (and I never miss an episode!) can watch repeats via DVR or USA Networks White Collar website, this is one episode you don't want to miss live because you will want to see it again (and again) — not only because of Neal's (Matt Bomer) blue eyes, but because you will miss stuff in the first viewing. At a recent round-table interview with White Collar creator and writer Jeff Eastin, we all got to ask questions — for a full hour! There's a lot of info here. The podcast has the full interview. The transcript featured here is an excerpt. You can find the entire interview transcript on my blog. Moderator: First question come from Kenn Gold. Please go ahead.Kenn: Hi, Jeff. Thanks a lot for the time today to talk to us here.Jeff: Oh, no problem. Happy to do it.Kenn: I just wanted to say this has become one of my favorite shows on TV, and something I very much looking forward to. So my first question here was about season two. And we heard the good news, I guess in December, that season two got picked up. But I just wondered if you could maybe talk a little bit about planning for that, what you might do different, and are we going to get a major cliffhanger leading into that?Jeff: Yes. We have a pretty major cliffhanger coming up here in two weeks. And what we've done in season two is really... we are right into it now. The writers' group has been going about two weeks now and most of that time we've been just working on the mythology moving forward into season two. What I did, really, was look and say what we thought we really did right in season one and just try to duplicate that. Luckily, I was sort of surprised, but most new shows, there's usually a few shows you're sort of not happy with and I've got to say, I mean, just amazing cast, amazing crew. We had some really good directors this year and we got really lucky. I can't really think of any show in season one that I wasn't happy with. I mean, I have got my favorites. But even the ones that are my least favorite I still think came out pretty good. So I'm pretty happy about that. We have been dealing pretty specifically with Tiffani's pregnancy. That's something we are really trying to deal with in season two. We have decided not to bring it up on the show. So working around that has been a real challenge and very interesting, but kind of fun to find out technologically what you can do in terms of green screen and things like that to be able to work around that. So those are the challenges we've got going into season two. But for the most part, the way I am looking at the show right now is it ain't broke and we are not going to try to change anything majorly in season two in terms of dynamic. For me, the show is really about Peter and Neal and that's where the focus is going to stay, supported by Elizabeth and Mozzie, and that's really where we want to keep it going into season two.Kenn: Okay, great. Thanks. And as a follow-up, one of the things that I think was probably the most amazing things I've read was how when you're coming up with this concept, you had never been to New York and you did your research with Google Streets. I was kind of wondering how in hindsight did that work out, and is New York different than you thought it would be?Jeff: That is true. Yes, I had not been to New York. New York was a very obvious choice if you're going to do a world of white collar crime. And Manhattan, you really can't beat it. I mean, it is the perfect city for the show. And the one problem that I had was that I had not been there. So I am a computer geek anyway, and I think Google Maps' Street View when it had first came out, I thought it was pretty amazing, and once I started poking around on it, in Manhattan, it was really nice. I mean, you could stroll down the street. I could plan out Neal and Peter's movements and actually walk through them. That was really helpful just in terms of sort of orienting myself geographically. What really shocked me about New York, I have to say, are the people. Being from Colorado originally and then from L.A., there was sort of a perception that people from New York can be very cold and sort of distant. I was really surprised that that was the exact opposite of what I found. I found that people there were incredibly nice, incredibly warm. I have to say that Central Park was probably the biggest surprise I had. I spent some of the most peaceful moments in my life I have spent just sort of strolling through Central Park. And that is from a guy who grew up in a very small town in Colorado. So that was probably the biggest shock is that there were these places of solitude in New York that you could find. It wasn't the big hustle bustle capital that I was expecting. It does have those elements, but there are also these wonderfully tranquil moments that really surprised me.
"A sinister cabal of superior writers."
.jpg?t=20120209092158)
Article comments