It's going to take a little while for us to fit the video from yesterday’s splendid Mad Science panel through the tubes back to the Hive Overmind Nerve Center (i.e., onto the DISCOVER site), but in the meantime, suffice to say that it was pretty great. The panel featured Jaime Paglia (co-Executive Producer of Eureka), Kevin Grazier (Battlestar Galactica and Eureka science adviser), Jane Espenson (Dollhouse, Battlestar, Caprica, and anything else in sci-fi TV that's been good lately), Ricardo Gil da Costa (science adviser for Fringe), and Rob Chiappetta and Glenn Whitman (writers for Fringe). I took notes along the way, so here are a couple of one-liners and insights to whet your appetite (I was writing fast, so apologies if the video later shows I have the wording slightly off):
“We'll have hot robot action.” —Jane Espensen, on Caprica
“We don't want people saying, 'Gee, if only we’d tortured him harder.'” —Jane Espensen
“The plant episode. Yeah, that was so bad—and it was so good we didn’t do it.” —Jamie Paglia in response to Kevin Grazier's idea for a Killer Tomatoes episode of Eureka
"We don't want to cross over into magic." —Jaime Paglia, explaining Eureka's rule for limiting the technology on the show
"You usually want to start with something very grounded, so that the viewers think they recognize it, and then you want to push past it," Rob Chiappetta, on the role of science in Fringe
“It’s easier to get creepy and gross with biology then with astronomy.” —Rob Chiappetta
“You’ve never been to any astronomer parties.” —Phil Plait in response
“Kara just lay down in the grass.” —Jane Espensen, on the ending of Battlestar
io9 has more recappage of our panel over here (and their panel was good, too).
