Today’s TV Addict Top 5: Burning Questions with the Mastermind Behind THE EVENT

We promised ourselves we wouldn’t let this happen again. Yet one week after NBC premiered THE EVENT here we are, against our better judgment, HOOKED, on yet another serialized drama! And a big part of that reason why is show creator — and more than likely one of the only men on the planet who actually knows what on earth is going on — Nick Wauters. We caught up with the talented showrunner last week, when he was kind enough to take some time to submit to a few nosy questions from us reporter-types via conference call.

One of the criticisms pertaining to last week’s series premiere was that it seemed very heavy on the plot side and somewhat lacking in character development department. Are there any plans in the future to sort of pull a “LOST” and focus more on characters or are you just going to keep pushing forward with plot for the foreseeable future?
Nick Wauters: Our show needs a certain amount of energy and mystery to keep the audience captivated, but I also think characters are everything. And even though there wasn’t a lot of room for character development in the pilot, I have spent a lot of time creating these characters, developing them and imaging who they are. So in the future, fans can expect more exploration of each character, probably in a similar fashion that LOST did where an episode will focus on specific character.

Certainly one of the most interesting characters we’ve met thus far is Sophia (Laura Innes), who spent a lot of time last week saying what she can’t tell us! When is she going to start spilling the beans?
Odds are you’re going to get a little bit frustrated — which is part of the fun — but give it a couple more episodes and you’re going to start finding things out very soon. That’s why people watch these shows because you want to have a question that you really want to know the answer to and come back the following week. But yeah, Sophia’s going to have a big episode also and we’re finally going to find out exactly what she’s hiding and what she’s up to over the course of the next few episodes.

What’s your reaction to viewers who found last weeks incessant jumps back in time too confusing to follow?
You know for me, it was part of the fun of trying to challenge people and challenge the audience to try and piece the different pieces of the puzzle together. They’re a great tool to explore the past of our characters, so we’re definitely going to continue using them for that purpose. That said, we’re hearing the feedback and we’re going to try and make things as easy to follow as possible and still as interesting as possible but they’ll still be around.

Have you been paying attention to fan theories circulating the net, and if so, what are your thoughts?
I probably shouldn’t because you can get sucked into it, but I try to keep in touch with the fans online and read as much of the feedback as I can. As far as theories go, I still haven’t read anything from anyone who’s actually guessed what the event is going to be. But there are some really interesting theories floating out there. Particularly around the question of who the detainees are, which is actually something that will be answered in the second episode. As for the event, it really is something much bigger, something that will happen, something big that will take place.

What, if anything, is the significance of the backwards “E” in the show logo? Does it represent something specific in the series, is it symbolic of something, or is simply an artistic flourish?
It’s something that you can — well actually I can’t really tell you! It’s one of those mysteries so maybe it actually does mean something. But definitely our graphic designers do an amazing job and you know there may be something to that.

THE EVENT airs on Mondays at 9PM on NBC (CityTV in Canada)