• Thank you to everyone who has purchased items from our Cafe Press store and donated since we posted the interview! We are now at 30% of our goal!
• Don’t forget to visit Dana at our table during Creation’s convention in Chicago this weekend.
• As always, comments are encouraged and appreciated. Enjoy!

[Dana] So, fans have been keeping a close eye on the potential Writer’s Guild Strike which we talked about a little bit earlier. Some of the articles are highlighting the effect that strike would have on shows that film in Canada. Are you able to talk at all about the impact that this could have on Supernatural‘s production if a strike occurred?

[Sera] I don’t know the specifics or the difference between what happens to filming in Canada versus what happens to filming here. I can tell you that we’re one day away from the contract running out, the writers’ contract running out. And, all of the news that I am getting is that the strike remains likely. It kind of comes down to this – while the writers are on strike, we can’t write anything else, we can’t rewrite something to make it in budget, we can’t change something to a different location. We really have to just put mittens on and not type until the strike is over. So, it becomes an issue of ‘How much do you kind of have in the bank?’ Because as soon as the scripts that are ready to produce run out, then there’s nothing for them to shoot in Canada.

I’ve been hearing, just today I’ve been hearing that there are other guilds that have started to talk about striking along with us. Potentially the Teamsters, I’ve been hearing maybe the costume people, and the casting people? I mean, this changes day to day, I mean, by the time this podcast is on, everything could be totally different. But it’s possible that people won’t want to cross a picket line at all. I don’t know, this is the first time I’ve lived through a strike. *laughs* So, I don’t know what it’s going to be. I know we have scripts up to episode eleven, possibly twelve, and then after that they won’t have anything to produce. So.

[Dana] But, like you say, if you are not even allowed to touch a script up they have eleven and twelve, but whose to say – how often do you do last minute changes to your scripts?

[Sera] You know, scripts go through so many drafts, and my experience on this show is that we are really pushing to the limit of what is possible to produce for our budget. I am continually astonished by what our producers are able to do with our budget. And so, for me, after I get past the studio notes and the network notes, and make sure everything makes good story sense, and that our characters are good, and up to speed, and things are going the way they are supposed to be going for the story, most of my rewrites are about making it producible. So, I don’t really know what’s going to happen.

But, I will tell you as a way of looking at the strike. Because I know fans are like ‘But, we want you to make the show!’ and we wanna make the show. We wanna make the show, we wanna get paid to make the show, we our jobs to be safe, and you know, we want all that stuff as well. But, a strike becomes effective when it affects the people you are striking against.

So, for as long as all of the studios have lots of stuff in the bank, they, you know, lots of more stuff to produce, and they are pretty much cool and have stuff to put on the air. They really have to start worrying when that content runs out. I’m not an expert on this stuff, but my limited logic tells me that the sooner they run out of stuff, the sooner everyone will get really, really serious about figuring out how to make a contract work.

That’s kind of how it looks to me today, and I gotta to tell you I get an email every couple hours about this. It’s kind of foremost – there’s a lot of tension in the office right now. *laughs* I don’t know. We’ll see how it plays out. I’ll blog about it. That’s what I’ll do. *laughs*

[Dana] I imagine, I can imagine it’s tense. We’ve got unions involved in the work that I do, and I was digging around for information on the strike today, and I saw that the last strike was actually in 1988, so it’s been that long, but it lasted for 22 weeks.

[Sera] Yeah. I know a lot of people who lived through that strike and who were really, really active. I mean, a really good friend of mine in the business was telling me that he had just started and he ended up having to take a big loan and it was freaky, and now people look back and go you know ‘If the strike had just been a bit longer, things would’ve been better.’ It’s a difficult, difficult situation for everybody. I mean, every studio executive that I talk to on the phone, their job is threatened, every casting director.

It’s a serious situation, and – I guess the only thing I would say is, like, I get pissed off at the writers when I read the newspapers about it, and then I remember that the newspapers are owned by the people we are gearing up to strike against.You know, there are serious issues on the table. Also, I don’t really have any control over any of this. I kind of just have to put my pen down when they say to put my pen down. So, I’m doing my best to just roll with it and see this as an interesting experience that I’ll get to kind of like regale my staff with when I’m an old curmudgeonly show runner, and they’re facing it again 14 years from now.

[Dana] Well, we’ll keep our fingers crossed and keep an eye on the news, and hopefully a resolution will come soon.

[Sera] Yeah, I hope so, I hope so.

[Dana] A good resolution, too.

[Sera] Yeah.

[Dana] So, you’ve confessed you’ve checked online reactions in the past …

[Sera] Uh-huh. *laughs*

[Dana] Which is always a risky business. But now that you’ve had two years under your belt in this particular fandom, you know, how are you fairing these days? Do you still come online to gauge fan reaction?

[Sera] *laughs* That’s funny. Yeah, I do sometimes. I try not to look very often. It’s not healthy to look very often. *laughs* And I’m always telling Eric to stop. But all of us – I mean, how can you not? It’s instant feedback, and writers are incredibly insecure people anyway.

I think on the whole I’m fairing well, I guess. You have to keep a kind of philosophical distance. I think there are a lot of people – I’ll say this, as time has gone on and my name has been on more and more episodes, people have come to recognize it – which in and of itself is amazing – and I don’t think happens on every kind of TV show, but genre shows, the fans are very detailed-oriented, and they notice, which is awesome, they actually acknowledge that there’s a writer who wrote the show, *laughs* which is cool.

But they also become increasingly more personal in their assessment of my ability *laughs* from episode to episode, so the snark have gotten snarkier, but the compliments have also gotten more and more, sort of like, laden with marriage proposals. Which is great, you know, so if you love my work and you are into me, thank you, thanks for writing about me, and if you hate it – um – thanks for writing about me.

I don’t know. You know, I don’t really know what to do with it. It all seems a little like – I am not equipped – you know, actors maybe are better equipped to know what to do when you read your name on the internet. You know, on the whole, I think it’s really – here’s the bottom line for me, like, I’m a writer, I put myself out there. The fact that I am writing on a staff of a show that I didn’t even create, where i am fulfilling someone else’s vision, that people notice things about my writing that are consistent and it makes them want to seek out my fiction, and read my blog, and find out what other projects I’m doing. That’s really amazing, and I couldn’t ask for anything more. It’s exactly what you dream of when you become a writer. That there are people who will seek out your work and look for it the way that you are like first in line to buy a book from your favorite writer, you know? It just makes me feel lucky and like my head is going to explode. So yeah.

[Dana] Yeah the fans have suddenly become aware, I don’t know how they became aware, but they’ve gotten the idea that Eric and other writers and people involved in Supernatural do go online and check out a lot of fan sites and fan writings …

[Sera] So they’re like ‘Dear Eric Kripke, stop it!’ *laughs* or whatever.

[Dana] No, now they’re kind of paranoid that ‘Well, now that they read our speculation, and they’re going to lay these false, you know, red herrings in the episodes just to play around with our minds.’

[Sera] If it was me, if it was me, I would. Eric cares a lot less about spoilers than I do. He’s just like ‘Whatever, they’re going to enjoy the episode anyway.’ If it were up to me I would be sending out sides that had nothing to do with the episode every single week. Because, I mean, I’m the kind of person who, I try not to read reviews of movies before I see them. I try not to read the back of the book before I read the book. I just like the experience to be as pure as possible. But that’s a matter of personal taste, and I understand that there are people who – that’s their way of kind of keeping the show alive for them for the rest of the week.

So, yeah, I think pretty much – I bet Ben doesn’t jump online, he seems like he could care less. But the other writers, I know they occasionally check in. It’s a double-edged sword. You know, the show is a living breathing thing that continues to evolve.

[Dana] And we have a very limited picture of what you guys are doing, and so at some point we can voice that we didn’t like something, but there is obviously a reason behind why you guys went with that particular …

[Serra] And honestly, sometimes we do something, and it just sucks. I am not here to – I am the last person to say my writing is alway awesome. *laughs* You know, I mean, sometimes fans have a big outcry because something didn’t work. And, there are times when we think something is great, and we’re surprised that it isn’t met with universal applaud and acclaim, but there are other times when we are scrambling to fix something because it doesn’t work for us, and we do our best to patch it up.

That’s kind of like where the moving train thing comes in, where we are producing so much content so quickly, that, you know, your hope is that the majority of it is really good. But you have so many balls in the air, sometimes things just don’t end up meeting your expectations, and when the fans say ‘That moment sucked,’ I’m like ‘Yeah, it did, I’m sorry.’ *laughs*

[Dana] The thing you mentioned earlier that I was gonna ask you about was the way CW sometimes gives away way too much information in the promotional materials.

[Sera] I know, I hate that.

[Dana] And what is the difference this year that, at least that you are aware of, in the promotional department because a lot of fans are really frustrated that Supernatural is not getting the same amount of support from the network, it seems like at least, as it did last year?

[Sera] I don’t really know anything about the promo department, to be honest with you. I am not involved with it, and it’s so completely separate from the creative staff of the show. I think the bridge between them and us is probably Eric and Bob. I know that when the new season began, they, understandably, they spent a lot of their resources in trying to promote the new shows, and they spent a lot less trying to keep the shows going that had managed to get back on the air, so they were okay, so they doing were okay.

You know, I don’t know. I feel like the cool thing about Supernatural kind of shows, genre shows, is that they do brilliantly by word of mouth because the kind of person who likes this type of entertainment is online and read blogs and goes – the most rabid fans go to conventions for this stuff. So we are able to tap into the best kind of advertising which is just people who like the show telling other people about it.

[Dana] So, speaking of the fans, I’m sure you’ve noticed how Supernatural fans examine pretty much every single aspect of the show.

[Sera] Yeah. *laughs*

[Dana] You know, with a fan base this size, which is – it’s a benefit to all of us – I come across someone who knows about music and scoring, and blocking and camera work, and all the writing and directing – all the stuff I don’t know. It allows us to have these discussions that I would never have with my local friends. The fact that Supernatural holds up to this scrutiny is a testament to the fabulous team that has been created.

[Sera] Well, thanks.

[Dana] To tap into Dean’s least favorite debate – is this fate or carefully crafted choices?

[Sera] It’s both.

[Dana] Okay.

[Sera] It’s both. There are a lot of meetings that happen every single day with the heads of the different departments to make sure that things are all holding together, you know, and we have executives at the studio from the network to keep an eye on every single episode. And Eric has these little 3×5 index cards with tiny little writing like in the movie “Seven.” *laughs*

That, like, I was in the writers room the other day, and I noticed for the first time that there was this tiny little cork board that was full of these index cards, and I was like ‘Should I be reading those?’ and he was like ‘No! Don’t read them, they’re just for me.’ *laughs* But, he seems to be keeping track of things that way, you know.

The key to keeping things going, and keeping things – keeping everything together and every aspect kind of uniform with itself, and consistent with everything else is about assembling a really good team, and keeping them happy, and keeping them together. So, you know, when it works, I think it works really well.

[Dana] Right, and fans I think have said that over and over that Eric has had this plan in his head. He knows where he’s going. Which, it’s much easier to hang in with a show when you know the creator actually has an end point or has a plot in their mind …

[Sera] Yeah, I agree.

[Dana] Versus the show runners who are just layering questions upon questions because they don’t know when or what the answers might be. So, yeah, it’s nice, and we keep saying ‘Yes, Eric has a plan. We know he has a plan.’ So, we’re not too worried yet.

[Sera] I promise he has a plan. We have so many white boards full of crazy writing all over the writers room and so many packets of information here. It changes and it evolves, and we make different decisions as the season progresses, but we have a kind of exoskeleton for this thing, and we’re filling it in as creatively as we can. That’s pretty much how it goes every year.

[Dana] And Eric’s secret note cards, so we’ll have to remember that …

[Sera] Eric’s crazy secret note cards, yeah.

[Dana] So, Fandom Rocks was created as a way to show the larger society that online communities are meaningful and can affect change. Fans have chosen to work with charities that have some kind of a connection to Supernatural or the cast and crew. When did you happen to learn about Fandom Rocks?

[Sera] I learned about you guys when you emailed me, actually, I didn’t realize you were doing that, but it’s cool. It’s really cool. And like I said, anyone who doesn’t give an interview charity is just an ass. *laughs* What a great way to sort of channel the energy of being into a show. I think that’s cool.

[Dana] What are your thoughts on online communities?

[Sera] It’s kind of funny that you ask me that. I’ve been having so many – it just so happens that I’ve been discussing this with friends lately. I think that on the one hand, it makes the world really small, and that’s a good thing. It makes you able to talk to people all over the world, and it makes people able to disseminate information that isn’t filtered through big conglomerates or governments. I think communities of like-minded people getting together and talking about shows is exciting, and I wish that it had been around when I was a geeky kid. *laughs* And then on the other hand I am also like, ‘And then put down the mouse and go out and play.’ *laughs* You know?

So, I feel like – that’s why I actually think conventions are really a good thing. I think it’s good for all of those people who talk in the online communities to get on a plane or get in their car and go and actually meet each other in person and take the relationship to the next level and form real friendships. Maybe that makes me sound really, really old. Does that make me sound really old? *laughs*

[Dana] No, no it doesn’t at all. It makes complete sense, too, I mean, I work at a University and so one of the big things for us is getting students out of their rooms and being involved in their hall, because this is their new community. They’ve finally left home, and they’re without mom and dad for the first time, so, establishing themselves away from all of their gadgets is a really big step for them.

[Sera] Wow, that’s interesting. I think it’s changed. It’s been a couple years. I’ve been out of college for a few years. We were out, and we were doing terrible, terrible things. *laughs* So, maybe in a certain way it’s better. But, yeah, and the reason I have such a strong opinion about it is because I can get really, really sucked in. I mean, I sit in front of my computer all day long at work. And then it’s easy to find yourself sucked into surfing the internet and doing all kinds of stuff all the time, so I’m constantly reprimanding myself and trying to get out and away from it more. And then you’ve got your Blackberry and all your stuff. If we go on strike, I gonna turn everything off for a week. That’s my goal. I’m gonna be Amish for one week.

[Dana] So, it’s interesting to hear that you didn’t learn about us until we emailed you. We’ve tried to keep people in the loop in terms of Eric, and we had sent letters to the cast and to Kim Manners and tried to contact the network and Warner Bros. a couple of times to let them know ‘Hey, we’re out here doing this, we hope you don’t mind.’ And at the same time we’ve tried to ask are there any charities that you guys would want us to support because we are just picking out of a hat anybody that we think could use it. So, are there any charities that are near and dear to you?

[Sera] There are! Actually, there’s a local charity here in Los Angeles, that, it’s a non-for-profit organization called WriteGirl.

[Dana] Okay.

[Sera] And, they’re pretty awesome with teenage girls who want to write, and create one on one mentorship relationships, and then also have several workshops throughout the year. And then at the end of the season they put out an anthology of everyone’s writing. And when I was less busy, I actually was a mentor and have not been able to participate for the last couple seasons. But, I try to always, I give to them every year. That, I mean, you can see why that would be near and dear to my heart. I was totally that teenage girl.

[Dana] Well, what we do is we grab some non-for-profit organizations that we think fans are interested in or fans nominate the ones that they’re interested in, and we out them in a poll, and then they vote.

[Sera] That’s cool.

[Dana] So fans really are truly nominating and choosing the charities that this group supports. So, we’ll have to add that to the list and let them know it is your charity of choice.

[Sera] Yeah, good.

[Dana] Okay, so we’re down to the quickie questions.

[Sera] Does that mean I have to give quickie answers? I’m bad at that. *laughs*

[Dana] No, you don’t have to do. So, first one, what question are you just waiting to be asked?

[Sera] What question am I just waiting to be asked? You know what I can’t – I can’t believe no one has asked me if I would be into Sam or Dean. *laughs* I mean, that’s crazy because isn’t that what you guys ask each other all the time? You know, are you into Sam or into Dean? So, yeah, no one has ever asked me that.

[Dana] What question do you never want to be asked again?

[Sera] I guess … the question that’s the most baffling to me is always – it seems like sometimes I get asked questions about one or the other of the brothers sort of being left behind in the story as if we’re lavishing more time and attention on one than the other, and that just makes no sense to me. Obviously, you know, their page count from episode to episode might vary, but we break their story so as a unit. And then they’re like ‘But what about Sam? Sam is just really being neglected’ or ‘But what about Dean. This seems to be too much about Sam.’ And I’m like, ‘Really?’ I just don’t even understand that one.

[Dana] Right, and that would be the Sam fan and the Dean fan asking you.

[Sera] Yeah, yeah, I see how these things are connected, and it’s good to be protective of your favorite character. But, yeah, let’s retire that question. Can we retire that question if I absolutely promise you I will never, ever let anyone neglect one or the other?

[Dana] Yeah, I will never ask you that question.

[Sera] Okay, good.

[Dana] Okay, so the episode “Tall Tales” was, again, very hilarious, but whose impression do you think was more accurate, Sam’s impression of Dean or Dean’s impression of Sam?

[Sera] That’s a funny question. My favorite moment in that whole episode was Dean with his mouth full, so I’ll go with Dean with his mouth full. You kind of just know that when – he lets it all hang out when he’s around his brother, but when he’s alone you know he probably does shove that much food in his mouth all at once, yeah.

[Dana] You would rather write an episode with a vengeful spirit, a reaper, or a succubus?

[Sera] Are you asking me that question because I said I hate succubi?

[Dana] Oh, yeah, it was totally the third choice because of that.

[Sera] I don’t want to write an episode about a succubus ever again because I pretty much wrote one that didn’t make the air because it was that bad. That said, I suppose if I end up writing the show for long enough, it’ll probably come around again, and if it comes around again, fate dictates that I must be stuck with it. So, the more I talk about it, the more likely it becomes that I’m going have to write one. So, that’s enough of that.

I’m into – I think I prefer reapers actually to the vengeful spirit. Probably because we’ve done more vengeful spirits. We’ve only done reapers twice. You know reapers, they are, first of all, they can really talk to you, like Tessa did in that episode, and they have their own agenda. I like bad guys or supernatural creatures you can have a conversation with, and I get the sense that reapers actually have a of information and a lot of knowledge about stuff that we haven’t yet gotten into on the show just in terms of what the bigger world looks like and what the world looks like from their strange, interesting, very different point of view. So, I think there’s a lot of meaty stuff to explore there, that we haven’t even gotten into yet.

[Dana] Especially considering the first time reapers showed up, they were being controlled by somebody else, so we didn’t really see or learn anything about them as themselves.

[Sera] Exactly.

[Dana] Was there a little shout-out to you in the most recent episode, “Sin City,” where Richie and Dean talk about taking out the succubus together?

[Sera] That’s funny. Actually, at the same time they were writing that episode, I was writing an episode, and I wrote a succubus line sort of implying that they had killed a succubus in Florida or something, and the reason I did that was because I was trying to make sure it was kind of on the list of things they had already done *laughs* so they couldn’t do it again *laughs* but then Jeremy at the same time in the next office wrote his line about the succubi, and his line was funnier so he got to keep his, and I had to rewrite mine, which was fair.

[Dana] So, would you rather, if you got a chance to star in one of Supernatural‘s episodes, would you rather play a vengeful spirit, a hunter, or one of the special kids?

[Sera] Oh, totally vengeful spirit, so they could special effect me out, and I could kill a bunch of people. Yeah, that’s not even a question.

[Dana] And, last one, three choices: the Metallicar, Truckzilla, or Bobby’s new car – which would you rather have?

[Sera] Obviously Sam and Dean’s car. Yeah, for sure, Metallicar all the way, yeah. Just this morning I was talking to one of the other writers about how can we make an episode where the Metallicar is the main character. So, I love that car. It has so much personality at this point. It’s been killed so many times. It’s my fav. It’s just so special. Dean lavishes – Dean puts so much attention in that car that could be going elsewhere. *laughs* So, it’s infused with all kinds of special energy, that car. People worry a lot about what would happen if we got serious girlfriends for Sam and Dean, and I’m just like ‘Dean has a serious girlfriend.’

[Dana] That’s true.

[Sera] Yeah.

[Dana] So, that was it for all of my questions. So, thank you so much.

[Sera] No problem.

[Dana] You have a great day. Bye!

[Sera] Thanks, you too, bye.

——–
[Sera] Hey, this is Sera Gamble, and you are listening to Fandom Rocks.
——–

[Dana] I hope you enjoyed our interview with Sera Gamble. It was a lot of fun for me, and we hope to do some things like this again. Please do not redistribute the interview anywhere. It is exclusive to Fandom Rocks.

Don’t forget to tune in to the CW for Season 3 of Supernatural, already in progress.

We hope you’ll come back for our next podcast which will be on “Bedtime Stories.” Keep rockin’ fandom.

While you are here, we hope you are also taking the time to learn about Fandom Rocks, our current charities, and consider donating to the second campaign. We are now in the third month of six, and we have raised 28% of our goal. If you could help us to get to 50% before the holidays, that would be fantastic!

We also have ideas for an auction in the works. Do you have writing, artistic, or crafty skills you could donate? Do you have some Supernatural memorabilia you would be willing to part with? We would love to hear from you!

After the jump, you will find the transcription for the first half of the interview. In this half, we cover plots, writing staff, fan speculation, things that have changed, and more. Still to come in the second half is our discussion on the writers strike, fandom, Fandom Rocks, and our quickie questions.

Any discussion of episodes six and on is “hidden” by changing the font color, so spoiler wary folks can enjoy the interview, too. Just highlight/select the spoiler territory if you don’t mind reading what Sera had to say. Enjoy!

Fandom Rocks Exclusive Interview with Sera Gamble
10/30/2007

[Sera] Hey this is Sera Gamble, and you’re listening to Fandom Rocks.

[Dana] Hey everybody this is Dana, and welcome to the eleventh podcast at Fandom Rocks. This time we’ve got a really special podcast for you. It’s an exclusive interview with Sera Gamble, who you may know as one of the wrters on SPN. Sera was kind enough to agree to a little sit down the other morning to answer some of the questions that we had.

We tried not to be very spoilery, but there are a few spoilers – hints at spoilers – in our discussion. I will say that the things we talked about were very surface spoiler-related. They involved the main subject matter that might happen in some upcoming episodes, episode 7, I think 10 and 12.

We talked just a little bit about a certain episode would be happening around, say, Christmas time, or a certain episode was going to cover X monster of the week. So, if you wanna stay away from spoilers completely, I would say .. don’t listen? I’m sorry. But, you know I stay away from spoilers, and I wouldn’t have been too bothered if I had listened to this and found out a few things.

So, having said that, if you do decide to listen, please don’t hate me if my definition of mild spoilers is different from yours. It’s not casting spoilers. Well, let me think about that. One of our questions was about faces from the past that we might see again soon. So, there is one about a name or face from the past coming back. It’s probably something that you’ll be happy to hear.

But, we’re so excited that Sera agreed to do this for us, and I’m so happy to get this out there for the fandom. We asked some questions we hope you were wanting to get the answers to.

So take a listen, enjoy, and please please please leave us feedback or comments about the interview and questions we asked – if you thought they were really silly, or if you thought we should have asked something completely different, and just in general because if you guys dig this, we’re gonna try and keep getting these special podcasts going for you guys.

So, enjoy!

[Sera] Hey, it’s Sera Gamble.

[Dana] Hi Sera, thanks so much for calling me. So, you all set to answer some questions and things?

[Sera] Yeah, I’m ready.

[Dana] Okay, great. Thanks so much for doing this, by the way.

[Sera] Oh, no problem.

[Dana] From the beginning, Supernatural has been about two brothers, traveling in their car, trying to uncover the secrets of their family, and hunting evil along the way. One of the aspects of Supernatural that fans appreciate most is its loyalty to this original premise and continuity. How does the cast and crew make this happen week after week?

[Sera] Mostly … magic. No, um, you know, it’s a well-oiled machine up there in Vancouver. They, uh, it’s mostly the same people that have been working on it from the beginning, as far as I know. So, you know, there’s a, it’s like a big, I think of it as a big giant train that’s moving really, really fast all the time. So, there’s a lot of eyeballs on it making sure it stays kind of on the track.

[Dana] Speaking of the writers and that – we kind of always lump that together with the crew, is the writing staff -

[Sera] Sure.

[Dana] Supernatural has had some changes in the writing staff that happened this summer. Has this changed your writing style or your dynamic? Or, how has it impacted the writing on the show?

[Sera] Well, it seems like we, uh, we have some staff changes every year. We’ve taken on writers, and we’ve lost writers every year. We have a really good group. I think I’m actually the only person that’s been here since day one. Me and Eric. *laughs* Oh, and Shiban. Shiban, who is now, he’s a consulting producer. He has so many projects he’s juggling. There are four full-time writers this season, in addition to Eric. It’s a really good group. The new guy is Jeremy Carver. His first episode just aired, “Sin City.” Um, he’s hilarious. We all love him. He fits right in. He’s a little strange. But he fits right in. You know, Ben Edlund. He has a lot of experience in this genre. He’s, you know, he’s kind of like a mad scientist. But also remarkably organized and well put together and really, really good at his job. And then Cathryn Humphris actually started as an assistant on the show and was promoted to staff writer because she’s just really, really good. So, we get along, and I think the dynamic is really good this year. It’s, you know, we’re becoming sort of a close knit little group of freaks.

[Dana] Yeah, we noticed, Brande and I were recording the podcast for “Sin City” last night, and we noticed Jeremy’s name, and we looked him up to see if we could figure out what else he had done. And we’re like ‘Oh! He’s the new guy!’ because IMDB only had three things for him. So it was clear that he was one of the new people.

[Sera] Yes.

[Dana] We’re excited to see where he goes and …

[Sera] I just saw a cut of the next episode he wrote, < spoilers >it’s the Christmas episode< /spoilers >. It is so fantastic. I was in the writers room watching it with him yesterday, and it’s so disgusting. *laughs*

[Dana] Oh no.

[Sera] And it will destroy < spoilers >Christmas< /spoilers > for anyone who watches it. So we’re very happy with Jeremy. *laughs*

[Dana] And Ben Edlund is another person that you mentioned that when fans saw the episode he did this season so far, which was I believe “Bad Day at Black Rock” was the one he wrote,

[Sera] Yeah.

[Dana] And after that episode a number of people were like ‘That was a very Ben Edlund episode.’ You know, all the humor flying around in that episode.

[Sera] Yeah, you know, he’s been, I think he’s been like a famous writer since he was about 17. Because he did that comic book The Tick when he was just a teenager. And so, you know, he’s sort of like, he’s not an old guy, he’s a young guy, but he’s like the elder statesman. You know. *laughs* But he’s hilarious, and he always brings something to the table that I never would’ve thought of. And, I think of all the writers on the staff, I think I probably work with him the most often and the most closely. I fell really fortunate actually to be working with him. Because I feel like it expands my brain in new directions.

[Dana] Cool.

[Sera] Yeah.

[Dana] It’s good to hear the writing team still feels like a cohesive little group there.

[Sera] We have to drink lots of coffee together. *laughs*

[Dana] Oh yeah?

[Sera] A lot. Yeah. *laughs* And then whiskey. *laughs*

[Dana] So to jump in to the title sequence and fans and what fans are talking about. That’s one thing that has also changed, every year in fact, they change up the graphics and things that they use for the title sequence, and some people speculate that the way they’ve change that look kind of ties in to the mood or the themes of that season. Can you give us any insight about that or are we just spinning our wheels?

[Sera] I actually don’t think you are spinning your wheels on that one. I’m not involved in figuring that out, but I think they’re always really cool. They’re brief and they’re cool and they’re jarring. I was happy to see the little title cards for this year because they seem to be pretty demon related and this is a pretty demon heavy season for us, so I think it’s not a coincidence.

[Dana] Okay. So, while we’re on the topic of fan speculation, let’s talk John Winchester. Episode 3 was “Bad Day at Black Rock,” and it showed us that John still has secrets to be revealed, even to Sam and Dean. The storage unit that they discovered has many fans talking about how early on John knew about Sam’s abilities, and what kind of insight it could provide to how he raised Sam and Dean differently. Not to mention, we’ve talked about this in our podcast, the fact that he used Edgar Cayce for his alias. So, how much can fans expect to learn about John this season?

[Sera] Um, let’s see. Well, the actor is a very busy man, so we haven’t had him back so far this season, and I don’t know I guess people should keep throwing pennies in in the wishing well about that and maybe we’ll have him back sometime. But John Winchester the character is still very present. < spoilers >We flash back to the boys’ childhood in the Christmas episode, and so that reveals a lot about, you know, the dynamic with John and what Christmas was like.< /spoilers >

And I also was just working on < spoilers >episode 10 with Kathryn. Kathryn ended up writing the episode. It’s fantastic. I think it’s the trippiest, weirdest episode we’ve tried this season because it takes place in large part inside people’s nightmares.< /spoilers >

[Dana] Okay.

[Sera] And so we took the opportunity to < spoilers >kind of get inside Dean’s unconscious mind, and I think it will come as no surprise to people who watch the show that Dad is very, very present for him. And his sort of issues and his past with his father, and the stuff that his father told him all the time when he was growing up is, kind of like, all in there.< /spoilers >

So, we kind of look for little places to go back, and John Winchester is a major touchstone because he explains so much about why these brothers act the way they do and why they have the relationships that they do.

[Dana] It’s interesting to hear that you are going to get < spoilers >the nightmare episode. I remember seeing an interview either with you or maybe Eric about wanting to do that alternate universe kind of theme, and you guys got “What is and What Should Never Be” in Season Two, but you’re also going to get to do a nightmare episode, so that’s exciting.< /spoilers >

[Sera] Yeah, I’m into it. “What is and What Should Never Be” was a fantastic episode, I thought. Raelle did a really, really amazing job. And by the way she is not with the show anymore, but she moved on to a really exciting genre show. I don’t know if fans … I bet the fans are keeping track. She moved over to do a vampire show on HBO with Alan Ball. So, you know, the Supernatural writers are like moving on to spread their sick fantasies to like on every network, I think. *laughs*

But, you know, I thought she did such a great job like maybe that would cover it < spoilers >for the idea of nightmares. Cause it was me, I think I gave an interview where I was like ‘Yeah, I love Freddy Kruger.’< /spoilers > and then you know every couple months, every month or two, every time I turn in scripts then I have to go into Eric’s office and bring like a whole batch of new ideas, and we’re like 55 episodes into the show, so *laughs* so like I couldn’t afford not to put it on the list, you know, cause my list was kind of short that day. *laughs*

And he’s like ‘Alright, okay, I know you’ve wanted to do this for a long time, let’s give it a shot, but make sure it’s not exactly like < spoilers >Nightmare on Elm Street< /spoilers >. Find another reason to do the episode.’ And then I ended up not writing the episode. But I was really, really happy with what Kathryn, Kathryn took the ball and ran with it, and kind of brought it in a really interesting direction. It’s different, but it’s awesome.

[Dana] Cool. Well it gives us something to look forward to. I’ll definitely have to put some spoiler warnings on our podcast.

[Sera] Oh yeah, yeah, and I’m so anti-spoiler. Especially today because I just saw the CW released some kind of little blurb about episode seven. I’m like, ugh, I won’t repeat it, but they give away a lot about the episode that I really wish they didn’t. So, you know, a special thank you to the people who are not going to be listening to this podcast until after all these episodes air.

[Dana] Maybe we’ll even piece it out and say ‘Okay, this is the section where if you’re waiting for Christmas, don’t listen to it.’

[Sera] Right, oh, and I forgot to ask you if you try to refrain from cursing in your podcast, do you?

[Dana] We try, but.

[Sera] Okay.

[Dana] You know, one of the things that we like to is put little clips of the show if fans have favorite lines, and this is something else that changed, is that opening tagline that they play at the beginning of every episode, it used to be Dean say ‘saving people, hunting things, the family business.’

[Sera] Oh right, yeah.

[Dana] And they changed it this year to his line about ‘Dad’s gone now, we’ve gotta follow up on his legacy, and that means killing as many evil sons of bitches as we possibly can,’ and I’m thinking, I’m just really shocked that they chose that for the tagline.

[Sera] *laughs* Yeah, yeah, to me that’s not even cursing, so but I will try to watch it. I was cursing so much – we did the DVD commentary for episode what was it, like 21 last year, Eric and Bob and I did it, and it was such a struggle. Especially when I’m in a room with the two of them. I don’t know, for some reason it makes me talk like a sailor, but I will try to watch myself. *laughs*

[Dana] Okay. You mentioned something that made me want to say something that has changed, but it flew out of my head. You mentioned in another interview ( http://www.winchesterbros.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=460&Itemid=2) that the Roadhouse, you felt like that was cheating because it made the brothers less isolated. Then you destroyed it in your half of the Season 2 finale. How did the the demise of the Roadhouse come around?

[Sera] Eric popped his head in my office and said ‘We’re blowing up the roadhouse in your episode.’ That was pretty much it.

[Dana] So it wasn’t something you had originally planned on writing, but he told you to write it in.

[Sera] No, that was all Eric. Happy to do it, happy to blow stuff up.

[Dana] And to follow that up, did you know when you were going to write that episode that you were also going to have to find a way to kill off everyone’s favorite mullet-head, Ash, or was that another Eric-popped-his-head-in the door and said ‘Oh yeah and Ash, too.’?

[Sera] Once we started figuring out what that meant, we realized that we were going to have to kill Ash, which was sad because he was a cool character, and I’m just a huge fan of the mullet, in general, and like specifically his mullet is pretty epic. But you can’t do something like that and then also not have consequences, you can’t do that but then save all of your favorite characters. It’s just not fair to the audience and kind of stupid storytelling. So, in order to make it really stick that the place was gone, we had to kill our favorite guy in the place.

[Dana] One character that fans might’ve been glad to never to see again – Gordon Walker – is now back with us as of “Bad Day at Black Rock.” Were you excited to see his character return as a nemesis for the guys?

[Sera] Oh, I’m so into Gordon. He’s really one of my favorites. I was really happy he was coming back. I think, I think a lot of what’s great about that character actually is – I think most of it can be attributed to Sterling K. Brown the actor who plays him. Who to me, he’s a star. He’s fantastic. I’ve been his fan since a little seen sitcom on FX called Starved years ago. So I was excited the day I saw that he had been cast, and I knew he was going to do something really special with the role. So yeah, he’s back, and < spoilers >he’s gonna be able to bust out of prison pretty soon, and his number one priority is to go after Sam, so yeah, you’ll see him again in episode seven.< /spoilers >

[Dana] Yeah, seeing him paired with Kubrick, that character, was very interesting because a lot of fans feel like Gordon’s almost crossing the line of sanity, but then you show Kubrick …

[Sera] *laughs*

[Dana] And you go ‘Well, okay, no, Gordon’s still pretty sane compared to this guy.’

[Sera] Kubrick is hilarious.

[Dana] Oh yeah, he was great, and I loved Creedy, too. They were three very different hunters, and just to see that whole range in one episode was a lot of fun.

[Sera] Well, I’ll tell you this about Gordon being on the edge of sanity. When I talk about him, I often, with Eric, we often talk about how he might be the only person on the whole show who’s actually right. Cause you know, he’s got an intense personality, he takes things really far, but in a certain way he’s just conservative, and he’s killing things for the most part that really do need to be killed, and his argument in “Blood Lust” about not being able to trust the vampires was a really sound argument. A lot more sound, I think, than Sam and Dean’s. And his argument that Sam is not right, and there’s something off about him and that he could potentially be really dangerous – there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence to support that when you look at all of the special kids like Sam. I’m like ‘Poor Gordon, he’s right and no one is listening to him.’

[Dana] Is there any chance we’ll see other faces from the past in the near future, besides Gordon?

[Sera] < spoilers >Kubrick is returning, as well, in episode seven, and – yeah, actually I am in the middle of rewriting episode eleven. Hopefully it will get done before we go on strike. *laughs* It’s the episode where we bring back Agent Henrickson.< /spoilers >

[Dana] Oh, that’s exciting because < spoilers >lots of fans are saying, you know, ‘We haven’t seen that for half a season now, what’s going on there?’< /spoilers >

[Sera] < spoilers >I’m pretty in to what we’ve done with him. We really took a long time to figure out – we knew, okay, episode eleven is the episode where Henrickson returns. We played with a lot of different stories, and we took a lot longer than usual in the writer’s room to try and find the right story to tell because he is really cool, and we wanted to give him like a really juicy, meaty, unexpected turn in the story. So, I guess the best way to classify the episode is to say that it’s kind of like SPN/Assault on Precinct 13.< /spoilers >

[Dana] Your first episode as the writer this season was “The Kids are Alright,” and you mentioned previously ( http://www.sequentialtart.com/article.php?id=439) that if you ever tend to brag about your writing, it is usually when you have successfully freaked people out or grossed them out.

[Sera] True.

[Dana] So, how about that power saw scene?

[Sera] That was pretty cool, huh? *laughs* You know it’s especially great is when I write something disgusting and then Phil Sgriccia directs it because he really takes it to the next level. He did that, the knife through the eye ball in “Nightmare.” Yeah so he was telling me about that in the elevator the other day *laughs* in an elevator full of like random executive and sales people for Warner Bros. He was like ‘Yeah, we had this special piece made so that his shirt would vibrate like the saw was still going even though he was completely impaled on it.’ But, he took a lot of time to make it as disgusting as possible.

By the way I think that there’s gorier stuff coming up in my next episode, like even bloodier and gorier. So, you know, I can’t work on a show like this and rest until I’ve deep-fried a head. *laughs* That’s my goal. We’re trying to find a story where I can get ‘em in a restaurant so I can just deep-fry someone’s head.

[Dana] Yeah, that’s up there. Because we had the fork, the pronged-fork-skewer thing go through, was it Wayne? Wayne’s throat, up through his mouth in the next episode. There’s been multiple times where I’ve had to cover my eyes. But the power saw was great because it had such texture to the noise they added to it. It was like chunky, grinding. That was great.

[Sera] Do you really have to shut your eyes for the gross parts?

[Dana] Not usually. I usually don’t, but you saw that coming from a mile away, so you were kind like of anticipating, so.

[Sera] The fork was pretty sweet. You know, I had never really thought this much about writing violence before because I hadn’t written very much that was this – certainly I had never written anything that had this degree of violence before and it kind of made me think – Is it bad to do this people? Does it do something weird to the audience? What does it say about me?

And, I kind of have come, right now, to the comfortable conclusion that the way to handle violence to make it enjoyable is really kind of take it to that cartoon-ish level. Like I never like those movies that are classified as torture porn, you know? The ones that just sort of like ‘Come watch an hour and a half of people chained in the basement who have to hack saw off their own leg.’

That’s not really my thing, but super cartoon-y, vampire-y kind of violence, that to me kind of goes into that comic book realm that is comfortable to watch. It’s not so – it kind of goes beyond realism – I don’t know that a fork would really ever do that. *laughs* So, I don’t have to really worry about it. I just think that it’s fun for everyone. I don’t know.

[Dana] I think the gross level has been upped, but fans can still handle it because like I said you see it coming from a mile away. The beer bottle rolled to that exact point, and he angles the fork out of the dish drainer. You see it happening, and so you still kind of want to cover your eyes because you’re not sure how much they’re going to show. The censors have been pretty lenient, it sure seems like, because there was a lot of blood and guts in those two episodes.

[Sera] We’ve got some really good directors who know exactly how to cut a scene to get maximum violence past standards and practices. Yeah, that scene is especially great because you think that what is really scary and horrible and gives you that delicious bad feeling in your stomach would be a like jump scare, something that came out of nowhere, but you really did see that coming from the moment the bottle started rolling. *laughs* They did great. That was a Bob Singer episode. I think that’s the funniest episode he’s ever done, so.

[Dana] According to IMDB, you’re listed as an executive story editor on a number of episodes on all the seasons and as a producer now in season 3. What’s the difference in your role versus the episodes where you’re the writer and how does it feel to be in the producer’s chair?

[Sera] You know, all those different titles, it’s kind of like in any other corporate type job, you get promoted, and each promotion has a different title. So, all of those different titles that you see – staff writer, story editors, and then all the different kinds of producer titles – they just represent different rungs of the ladder that we’re all climbing up, and it’s pretty customary to be promoted to the next level each year. So, it varies a lot from show to show what exactly is entailed at each level.

So, when I came to Supernatural a couple years ago with Raelle, who was my writing partner then, Raelle Tucker, we were story editors which was kind of like second rung from the bottom. *laughs* And, you know, we came on as writers, and I continue to, you know, the great majority of my job every day is writing, and breaking story, and working with other writers on their stories, but this year I kind of crossed over into producer territory, and there actually has been a lot new responsibilities just in terms of talking more with the directors, and the post-production, and sitting in on casting, and I actually really love all of that stuff.

If your question was how do I feel about it? It feels awesome! You know what? I am not cynical about it at all. I think it’s cool that my name comes up with that title by it. I think it’s awesome, like – it’s been my dream for so many years to be a writer and producer, and I’ve been talking about it since I was a kid. I just didn’t know it was going to be in TV. You know, I guess I’ve been writing in television for, I think this is like my fourth season, writing on staff, and there’s part of me that wants to go ‘Eh, it’s no big deal.’ But that would be disingenuous of me. Because, I’m really stoked, I feel very lucky, and I’m proud because I haven’t had very much of a break *laughs* the past few years, I’ve been working my ass off. *laughs* So, it’s cool. It’s good. I like to feel invested in the show that I’m working on because you know I come in here every single day and try to do something interesting. So yeah, it’s awesome, it’s cool.