The place beyond the pines

More info bites from the last town standing…

Like a Surgeon

“We came up with this idea that our protagonist is a surgeon,” says author Blake Crouch of Jason Patric’s hero, “swept out of his world, out of our world, as all the [ people] of Wayward Pines are. What’s interesting about having him be a surgeon in Wayward Pines is that when we encounter this town again at the beginning of season two, it’s missing a doctor in a very real way. Because things are not working, things are going wrong. He comes and he gets very much involved in the future of where Wayward Pines is heading.”

Big Screen, Little Screen

“None of us had done a TV show before,” says M Night Shyamalan. “Almost all of us – from Blake to Matt [ Dillon] to Melissa [ Leo] to everybody… We bring a lot of film value systems to the table, and we really give a lot of control to the directors as well, to bring cinema to the table and customise that approach. The hope is that you’ll be switching channels and suddenly the frames you’ll be seeing will be slightly different. It’s coming from a slightly different aesthetic that will hopefully remind you of cinematic experiences that you’ve had.”

Playing the Game

“Yes, there was a sci- fi genre element to it,” says Donald De Line of Wayward Pines’ first season. “But my opinion is that all the best science fiction really works when it comes from a place of character. Where the world is grounded in the science fiction of it all. The rules of the world have been firmly established, and so my job was to build on that. I have these pieces I can move around the board in an interesting way, but it’s all still inside a world with a fence.”

Mad science

“One of the things that attracted me to the show was it was in a lot of genres at different times,” says De Line, who joins

Wayward Pines in its second season. “I consider this the next chapter in the story. Where it continues from the first chapter but there are new elements. So it’s kind of a hybrid. It will appeal to people who are interested in the romance, the action and the ethical dilemmas. There are people who thought Pilcher was a madman, and there are people who thought Pilcher did exactly what he needed to do. That’s something we want to sustain for the second season.”