The Extras - "Lucifer" with Showrunners Joe Henderson and Ildy Modrovich

Episode Date: September 12, 2022

LUCIFER showrunners Joe Henderson and Ildy Modrovich take a fun-filled look back at the TV series to commemorate the release of the sixth and final season on DVD and Blu-ray.   We discuss the move from Vancouver, Canada to LA between seasons 2 & 3 and the impact on the cast and crew.  And we review the extras we worked on together, including the hilarious gag reel and the featurette on the building of the new sets on the Warner Bros lot.  We also dive into the heart-wrenching cancelation after the third season and the amazing outpouring on social media from the fans which led to a Netflix pickup and an additional three seasons.  And we reveal some of the challenges of the sixth season and the ultimately satisfying conclusion. You don’t want to miss this nostalgic and fun-filled discussion on one of the highest-rated shows on Netflix in the last few years.Purchase on Amazon, releasing September 13th:Lucifer: The Complete Series on DVDLucifer: The 6th and Final Season on Blu-rayLucifer: The 6th and Final Season on DVDOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers.  Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals.  www.otakumedia.tvThe Sitcom StudyWelcome to the Sitcom Study, where we contemplate the TV shows we grew up with and...Listen on: Apple Podcasts   Spotify The Extras Facebook pageThe Extras Twitter Warner Archive & Warner Bros Catalog GroupOtaku Media produces podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connect creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals. www.otakumedia.tv

Hi, I'm film historian and author John Fricke. I've written books about Judy Garland and the Wizard of Oz movie, and you're listening to The Extras. Hello and welcome to The Extras, where we take you behind the scenes of your favorite TV shows, movies, and animation, and their release on digital, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K, or your favorite streaming site. I'm Tim Millard, your host. Today we have two very special guests who are well-known to all fans of the hit TV show Lucifer.

Joe Henderson and Ildi Modrovich are the co-showrunners of all six seasons. And we have the good fortune of hearing about their incredible journey of cancellation after three seasons and then having an amazing fan-fueled social media outpouring save the show. That led to a pickup by Netflix for an additional three terrific seasons. The sixth and final season is being released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 13th, along with the complete series box set on DVD. So we'll also talk about some of the extras fans can expect on those releases. Hi, LD. Hi, Joe. Thanks for coming on the podcast fans can expect on those releases. Hi, LD.

Hi, Joe. Thanks for coming on the podcast today. Thanks for having us. Thank you for having us. Well, it's been nearly a year since the sixth season of Lucifer premiered on Netflix. And it always throws me a little bit because I'm used to the broadcasting. And so I was actually looking for a premiere date and a finale date and it's one in the same, but it's been about a year and now, you know, you're back talking about the release for

the DVD and Blu-ray of season six. Does it seem like a long time ago or has the year kind of gone fairly fast? It's funny. We were talking about this earlier because I feel like I had, we had so many cobwebs. And then the minute we started talking to people about the season in anticipation of the DVD release, it was just like, we were right back for one, just Ildi and I, we have done a lot of press together over the years.

And it's just like being right back into the saddle to the point where it feels, it felt so long ago. And then now it feels like yesterday. And all of a sudden, like all these memories are coming back. And this is just been a great excuse to like go back into that feeling of being in the middle of Lucifer. Yeah, it's been like an emotional and mental retrospective.

Because not only is the season six DVD coming out, but the whole series is coming out. And so, you know, just thinking about, well, season three being the last season and then, you know, just thinking about, well, season three being the last season and then nope. And just all the, my favorite moments and episodes throughout the series have been kind of just in my head. Yeah. That's what I was kind of expecting that you might say, because this podcast, I talk about the DVD, Blu-ray, 4K, whatever. And there's always this kind of like period of time, right?

The show's done or the series is done or the movie's been out in theaters. And so everybody has a little perspective. They're not under the heat lamps of the pressure and there's a little perspective, you know, what the fans thought and you can come on and you can talk about it. It's kind of actually really nice to do that versus the publicity side of ones. You know, when you get on a podcast, you're just, well, the premiere is next week. You know what I mean? So it's a little unique and it's kind of fun. And I find that talking to people, it's a little more perspective. And I think we'll be able to get into that here in our discussion today. But before we dive into that sixth and final season discussion, you just mentioned the Complete Series DVD box set. So I did want to kind of revisit,

go back a little bit to the beginning, take us back to that first season. Actually, you know, the pilot U2 came on, I believe that first episode, maybe you could fill in for the fans and some people who aren't as familiar with that story, how you got involved with Lucifer. Well, we were slightly staggered. I came on about two weeks before the pilot shot and did some rewrites and things and then was there. I got to be on set for the for the whole pilot and the late nights and the editing afterwards. And then Joe came on and we were somewhat of an arranged marriage, actually. And it's just strange how much we saw eye to eye, not just creatively, but personally. I mean, we just like it just worked almost from the very beginning.

Yeah, the greatest part of a partnership and the thing that we were lucky enough to discover very early on is one mutual respect but two a sense that like there are things that ildi can do that i can't do and i like to think vice versa though we have to prove it uh and it was nice as early on we were like okay joe's more of a mythology guy okay that's interesting uh and ildi was more of a really bad joke that I had to rewrite. I'd say I gravitated very much towards the romance. I'm just going to say that. I guess we can say character work.

But we balanced really well and also like challenge each other in those things. Because, you know like early on we'd have these conversations where like she would be leaning more towards character i'd be leaning towards mythology and then you know within a couple months she's pitching mythology i'm pitching more character and we're sort of like always ebbing and flowing in different directions and also like very much pushing each other out of our comfort zones while also sort of complimenting each other and that's a thing that can be very hard to do when you're suddenly thrust together

and then you have eight weeks of prep before a season has to start shooting. But that was also the fun of it because we just had very candid conversations very early on on what we wanted the show to be and what we wanted to accomplish together. And season, oh, I was just going to say season one. It's funny just thinking about,

there were two moments where just what Joe is saying about kind of our strengths or where the show went a direction. It was all Joe. And I was like, oh, that's so crazy and so mythology based and so sort of like, I couldn't quite comprehend it. And then it moved us in that direction. And then sort of like my moment, I think, is when Chloe sees Lucifer's scars on his back and kind of deepening the romance and really starting the romance on a deeper level. And I think those moments, it kind of directed the show into a really fun kind of meaty place that we hadn't gone before. Yeah. And I was just going to explain for the listeners a little bit, when you said arranged marriage, just to kind of go back,

you both were put together as the co-showrunners. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They basically, and this happens a lot in TV is they're sort of trying to figure out the alchemy of a room,

the alchemy of a show, the mixtures of experience and stuff like that. And so we were brought on together in season one and it was like, OK, now go be work married and good luck. And honestly, like a lot of times it can it can go great. And a lot of times it goes terribly wrong. And especially in network TV, you just don't have time like you don't have time to do all this stuff, because literally, if you start your room, room chances are in eight weeks you're going to be shooting something

right and so what a lot of times that happens is um there's a power uh fight there's a battle for who's in control and to any potential co-showrunners listening to this the advice i give is have a very blunt conversation of what you want out of something and what you expect out of something. And then have constant conversations as things ebb and flow in the passage of time. Because Ildi gave me permission and I gave her permission to be honest with each other. And to me, that's the hardest thing to do whenever you're sharing a level of power and a level of creative control. Because Ildi would write dialogue that I wouldn't have Lucifer say, but it wasn't stuff Lucifer wouldn't say. And those are two different things. One is,

would I write that line? The other thing is, would Lucifer say it? And one of the more freeing things I discovered is that, yes, Lucifer would say the things Ildi is writing, in which case, how can I learn about Lucifer via Ildi's perspective and the rest of the writers on the staff? And it becomes a very freeing experience where it's no longer your show, it's our show. And I think our show benefited from that, both from the two of us, but also our amazing writer's room. Yeah, you widen your perspective and the possibilities just grow exponentially, you know. And I was going to maybe wait on this discussion of the writer's room, but you just brought it up.

And I know that you guys were active in social media and the writer's room, but it felt like you had a very tight knit group there in the writer's room. Was that from the beginning and it just developed over the years? Yeah, we also stuck with our group. The only reason we lost, well, I like to think that the only reason we lost a bunch of our writers was when we were canceled. Several got other jobs and went other directions because we were canceled. But several of our writers stayed from the very beginning. I mean, Chris Rafferty, Mike Costa. Yeah. Jen Graham was our script coordinator for the first season. And then she was a writer after that for the whole time. And Sherry was there all three years until we got. And anyway, when we got canceled,

everyone poached our staff. What happened is all of a sudden we had like a month and a half. Maybe we come back. Maybe we don't. And like the people who came back were the people just hadn't gotten a new job yet because they were getting calls. Like we had a great staff that was able to do something very tricky, which is a supernatural procedure with comedy. And that's character driven. And so like it's a full tooled staff of writers. And so even like over season one and two, we had writers every now and then who we had to lose because of pilots going or, you know, really shiny shows. Like David McMillan got this amazing offer for a different show and we let him out of his contract.

We didn't want to. But we were like, you're blowing up. Go, go with God and we'll miss you. And then and he's still been part of our family ever since. Like that's the fun of, of these rooms is hiring the best people and holding onto them as long as you can, knowing though that other people will want them. They're good. Yeah. I mean, that's the, that's the price of success, right? Like you're, you're on a successful show and of course their agents and managers are all doing their job by trying to get them immediately on another project. We'll get to that cancellation discussion a little bit, but

that's the way it is. If you canceled, at least back then, that was it, you know, and you just needed to find another job because it's so hard to get a writer job. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta, you gotta make that money. So we, listen,

we were sending emails recommending them as much as we regretted it. Yeah. Well, I wanted to go back to early on, Eldie, you mentioned the fact of the romance. And I always thought that the early seasons, one of the best parts was that tension that you were building. Obviously, the show started off with the whole police procedural element. But I think right off, there was that sexual tension. You know, obviously, Lucifer is crackling with it throughout. but between Chloe and Lucifer, when did you start kind of building that storyline? And when into the series did it become

like just much more important or was it always the same? I mean, I think that was, I don't know, I want to say half of the appeal is the romantic spark that was between Lucifer and Chloe. And I think from the very beginning, you know, it's kind of the, I don't know, moonlighting castle. You know, there's lots of, you know, procedurals that follow the same will they, won't they, you know, model. But it all begins and ends really with those two. And the actors had it from the beginning. We just, you know, poured gasoline on them. That's all. And once we get to season six, of course, we'll talk about how that really culminates in Dove's Tales right in the finale.

But was that pretty much always in the back of your mind that, you know, when the series ends that they're together? Stay with us. We'll be right back. Hi, this is Tim Millard, host of The Extras Podcast. And I wanted to let you know that we have a new private Facebook group for fans of the Warner Archive and Warner Brothers catalog physical media releases. So if that interests you, you can find the link on our Facebook page or look for the link in the podcast show notes. I think we always saw it as the story of Lucifer and Chloe. And as much as it was the story of Lucifer, it was a story of him meeting someone who changed him and also him changing her and the two of them growing together and learning

from each other. And so when we broke season one, all we taught so much of the spine is what are they learning from each other? How are they growing? How are they challenging each other? And how do we balance them out? How do they learn about each other as much as possible? They were always the spine. They were always the end game. Really, the question just was, what are the different obstacles we can put in the way of that that don't exhaust us or frustrate us too much before we eventually get them together? And then how do we dodge the sort of the moonlighting curse and keep them interesting, which was a great challenge that we just we

accepted and we enjoyed the hell out of. It's fun to write a couple that is happily together, but still challenged. Now, we were lucky also in that we did have the mythological element and that could constantly throw wrenches in the romantic works. Yeah, I mean, you're trying to date Lucifer. Come on, right? Like there's, he's going to screw up or whatever. Yeah, stuff's going to go wrong with the devil. Seems easy to me, but whatever.

Boyfriend. Well, this podcast is called The Extras. And since I worked on the DVD and Blu-ray extras for this show, when I was at Warner Brothers, I did want to briefly talk about two of them. The big one that we did in season three was called Reinventing Lucifer in the City of Angels. And that was about a 13 minute piece, I think.

But it was about the move from Vancouver, Canada to Burbank. And I remember in the discussions with you guys that it was really unique that you shot like four episodes up there that didn't air that season at the end. And they were going to air the next season because it was going to take so much time to build the sets talk about the impact of that move i wish that was the reason that uh that happened what was it well what happened was uh we basically we were breaking an 18 episode season and then that's what and fox realized too late that they were contractually obliged to 22 episodes

oh and we had a season we really loved. And they're like, it's fine. Just do four standalones. But just make sure that they can either air season two or season three. So we have flexibility. Gotcha. OK, that's it. And we were like, you know, it'd be great to do four standalones, but know where they're

going to go. And they're like, that's cute. No, no, your puzzle is way harder than that. Yeah. Because we're largely serialized, even though we are, we were procedural. So that was, that was a tall order, but. Okay. Well, I have that wrong, but the fact is that you did the four and they were on the next season. Is that right? Then the standalones to start the next season? Yes. Yeah. Which is a tough way to start a season, right? Because usually you dive right into the mythology of that next year. couple episodes and then i think we got two of them in there and then the last one we put sort of towards the midpoint so we tried to sort of lace them in because to your point you want the momentum you want to be picking up the story uh and so a big part of it was us wanting to make

sure that we did sort of get on firm ground i think we were fairly successful but i it's not an ideal way to tell a story right it's a little clunky in moments for sure. Yeah. It did not help the rhythm of the show, but the irony is there's some of my favorite episodes. Yeah. Like I love the episodes. I almost wish we could have like, well,

known where they were going one or just like almost found a way to just highlight them as the special event episodes they are, as opposed to trying to fit them in. And that's a mixture of retrospective looking back and also an encouragement to all the network execs listening to this, which is don't do that, please. Yeah, I mean, it happened to us again a little bit later when we went from how many episodes was it to 16? It was 10 to 16? Oh yeah, 10 to 16 in season five.

10 to 16. And we had mapped out an arc for 10 episodes. And so we ended up adding the noir episode and the musical episode. And again, those were somewhat standalone, but this time we got to weave them in a little bit better or more. But season three, we had the two standalones. We had the Ella-centric episode and Once Upon a Time.

And we were presented with a very interesting challenge, which is when they canceled us, Fox burned off those two episodes after and just aired them. So when we went over to Netflix, they're like, where do you want to put these? Do you want to put them in season four? Because Boo Normal, the Ella Sendrick episode, we figured we would just work mythologically around and put it like an episode four of it all. But when we got to over Netflix, we're like, you know what? We had a hard time working them into season three. Let's just let it be it aired people have seen it let's just let it be what it is and let's just tell whatever season four we tell without

those limitations and i think it was a i think it did a great service to season four i think people are probably watching on netflix getting those two episodes going like wait what the just happened why episodes yeah right yeah wait uh lucifer just showed his wings to chloe she knows he's the devil she saw his devil face and uh and ellis's ghosts wait what's well i mean that's part of television right you sometimes you just get asked hey we need more episodes and you're like oh okay let's sit down and you get you know you take the creative team and you just come up with them you know you can and like you said oftentimes I know on other shows too they end up being in retrospect really fun yeah I love I mean honestly the bonuses are some of my favorites like I love them because they do force you to to approach your own story

from a slightly different perspective right um. And yeah. Well, going back to the actual move from Vancouver to LA, I mean, how was that impact on the writers? You can now walk over to the stages and, and the cast, they could live here instead of having to have temporary housing up North, you know, how did that help with the show? It's glorious. It really was glorious. Well, first of all, our actors were so much happier. They were just they were able to be with their families. They weren't so far away. It didn't have to be so creative with production level. And then, yeah, we got to, like you said, just walk over to set. There was a freedom there. There wasn't a like, oh, you saw, you know, seal the envelope and then it goes away and you can't, you feel like this prevents you from just thinking on the fly a little bit. So all around great.

The only thing I miss, and actually I think the way it worked out was great is when everyone's away together, when everyone's in Vancouver together, there's this sense of like summer camp almost. There's this sense of like, you're all together. And the, the writers, the crew, the cast, when you're up in Vancouver, you all hang out all weekend. You all have, you all get to know each other. And we got to know each other so well for the first couple of seasons. And in the, in the later seasons, it's more like, Oh, I'm going to go be with my family and, you know, see my friends. And you have this more sense of, I have a normal life here and yes, I'll see you every now and then. And yes, we're friends. But so what we got is two years of like

this intense bonding of like being in the foxhole together. And then we got to all have normal lives and they in particular got to have normal lives, but'd had that like sort of built-in bond and also just our vancouver crew was awesome they were great right they did a really good job making uh a very cloudy vancouver look like sunny la but i don't know how much longer we could have done it because of sunny vancouver yeah well in that extra we had line producer hilton smith and perry and duke over there the guys were working in the construction and we detailed that whole build out because basically you had to rebuild everything you couldn't break down the sets and ship oh they just wasn't gonna gonna be possible to do that and it was quite a story i mean stage 16 is well

it's the tallest stage in north america i think it probably is the biggest stage on the lot. It's got a ton of history. The nineties Batman movies were shot there. Goonies, My Fair Lady, and of course now Lucifer. It's got so much rich history, but the actual seeing of sets being built in season three, when it's something that usually happens right after the pilot, it allowed us to like film and get some behind the scenes and talk to people. It made for a really interesting extra you wouldn't normally get to do. And those sets were amazing. Yeah. Alex, Alex Hajju, our production designer. I mean, he got to reinvent. I mean, we got the chance to Monday morning quarterback on some of the sets. And for one thing, the precinct was completely new.

Right. But Lucifer's penthouse got this whole library area. And Lux had a third story that we didn't use. There was just all kinds of new things. Yeah. It's amazing sets. Yeah. And stage 16, like literally, it's one of the few stages where you actually dig down.

Right. It's built to have a uh tank of water underneath it so with lux we actually it was all ground level and you actually stepped down into it which is just such a small thing but not for like crew and for reality because you're just like walking onto set and it's just there and existing stage 16 well just shooting on the warner brothers lot in general was a dream come true like is so rare that you get to have an office a writer's office on the lot and a stage on the lot and i pinched myself that we were able to shoot there for as long as we did yeah i remember walking past for because it was right near the cafeteria and so you could you'd walk past the doors would be open you just hear and you'd see like an army of people working and the saws buzzing. It was going on for quite a long time.

It was fun to just walk by and kind of peek in. And of course we went over there with cameras to film too, but it just seemed like it was, it was like an art, like I said, an army of construction people working. Yeah. You're like, Oh look, there's hell. Yeah. And of course, uh, Chloe's house, it was, everything was in there. Well, I guess the, uh, his penthouse was at another stage, but, uh, a lot of it was right in, in 16. Well, the other extra I wanted to talk to you about was the world famous gag reel, which was a part of every season. And, you know, we always had to cut it down from the ones you guys might have at your rap party and bleep. And, and, you know, the guys in post would be like, really?

But, uh, you know, we're like, yeah, we have to, we have to do that for our own standards here. Our actors are very G rated. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, exactly. Well, the fact is though that I think what the fans saw that they just got a sense of the fun that the actors brought to the, to the set every day and just the fun onset. Um, was the, to the set every day. And just the fun onset, um, was it really that much fun? No, no misery. We got a reputation for being a fun set that actors could come visit and play on. And that is entirely a testament to Tom and the entire cast,

because they made actors feel welcome. They kept it goofy. The crew worked their butt off, but also kept it light. And Hilton and then later Joan Cunningham, our line producers, like kept things on schedule. They kept the hours decent. And we tried to write towards it. So much of it is like entertainment's hard enough. We don't need to make it harder.

And everyone was trying to make it easier. So I'm very proud of the set we kept, even though we were a small part of it, it was mostly the crew and cast and, and their hard work. Yeah. And I think, I'm sorry,

go ahead, LD. Oh no, I was just, just watching. I just watched the season six gag reel and it's funny, but as funny as it is, what I did notice watching it

kind of a year later is how at ease everybody is with each other. And yeah, that's, that's not, you can see it. It's not fake. It's there. It's there it is. You know, they're dance, they're just doing stupid things together. It's just goofing around. And that was constant. It's constant. Yeah. And I worked on a lot of gag reels foring around. And that was constant. It's constant. Yeah. And I worked on a lot of gag reels for the releases and sometimes we would get a gag reel and this is not, I'm not going to talk about any specific show, but we would be like, wow, there was not much here, maybe a minute. And it's kind of like flubs, right? And flubs are fun, but I noticed with the Lucifer gag reel, there's a lot of like dancing and just repartee and, you know, things that were like not just a flub or, you know, a gag where somebody falls or a crew member walks through. But it was just the chemistry, you know, the interaction between the cast.

So that made it really fun. The tone of a set comes from the top and Tom and Lauren both did not take themselves too seriously. Lauren, as you I'm sure saw, is the bluest of blue when it comes to the jokes she tells. And I think a lot of people see her character and think that that's who she is. And what's so helpful, I think, to the crew is she gave them permission to laugh because she was sillier and weirder than they were. And Tom is just this consummate professional who can make a joke out of anything and be playing the most serious moment possible. And then like make you laugh a second later and make the crew laugh and relax and be happy.

So yeah, and our whole cast was so professional. I mean, there was not one of them who didn't come lines ready, like ready to go. But, you know, I think Tom would come often with just extra things like he he'd have been thinking about the scene overnight. He's like, you know, I'm wondering if we can add this one thing or try this other thing, you know, and always playing, always sort of adding things and it gave that sense of almost like kid childlike playtime to the whole cast and crew i have a great story uh one time i got a call from one of the writers on set because you know we were it was season four we're on lucifer and we're starting to show a little bit more uh skin and uh as you might know tom has a rather fine backside which we uh

highlight and at one point i got a call from one of the writers and he's like is it okay And as you might know, Tom has a rather fine backside, which we highlight. And at one point I got a call from one of the writers and he's like, is it OK if we, you know, it's not written in here, but it's OK if we, you know, see Tom's derriere in this scene. And I was like, well, I mean, like, make sure he's comfortable with it. See how he feels. And he's like, no, to be clear, Tom's just been doing it and everyone loves it. His ass is off. I just want to clear, Tom's just been doing it. And everyone loves it. And their asses off. I just want to know if you want to take without it. And I was like, that's perfect. Cause like, and it's in the cut, you see it.

And it's great because it's just like this nice extra moment. It's, it's all also like, he's just, he was doing it for the moment. I think he was doing it to keep the crew laughing and happy. And it's just stuff like that, that like are the intangibles that a good cast will bring to a show. The special sauce. Yeah. And I think people who have worked or been on a set, you know, know that it's a grind to get through a day or a week of, or an episode of a TV show. I mean, it is, it's early hours, it's late hours, it's, it's long hours, it's in the heat, it's, you know, whatever it is. And so to keep it light on set really helps keep everybody happier. And I noticed that your cast stuck around, you had all your main cast throughout all the episodes. with a bunch of people, it can be stressful. I mean, you know, there's everybody wants to do their best and, you know, there's pressure. And the fact that most of the, like 99% of the

times on set were happy is miraculous. The Extras is a production of Otaku Media, producers of podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connects creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals at www.otakumedia.tv or look for the link in the show notes. or look for the link in the show notes. Well, now I wanted to talk a little bit about that transition that you mentioned earlier, which was the cancellation of the show. And the cast talked about it on a piece that's on Netflix called The Lucifer Reunion Show. And that's available for fans who want to see that.

But what was it like for you two when you found out that Fox didn't renew the show after season three? We locked ourselves in a well of tears of our own tears. No, I mean, we've on purpose had the biggest cliffhanger of our series. And actually, if you look at that cliffhanger, it is by far the cliffhanger of the entire series. Like we, I don't think we ever beat it. Lucifer, you know, Chloe seeing Lucifer's devil face, like, Oh my God, finally. And we're like, they'll never cancel us after that. So when they did, yeah, we were devastated. And I don't think we were totally prepared, you know? Yeah. And when the outpouring of support came, even then it felt like a, it felt like a good goodbye.

It felt a bit like, you know, okay, let's have a little bit of a Irish wake. Let's celebrate. And also like, let's have fun. Let's get drunk. And let's all talk about how much we loved the show we worked on. And that felt like it because, I mean, you know, also Brooklyn Nine-Nine got brought back that year. And it was like, oh, that's that's the one show. One show maximum every three years gets brought back from the dead.

And also Brooklyn Nine-Nine was canceled and like the next day brought back. So we're like, that's the show. It's not going to be us. But then, like, I think there was a million tweets in 24 hours and we were like that's amazing but i think that's still a goodbye and what a great goodbye how thoughtful how amazing we're gonna go cry for another month um but yeah it was it was blindsiding because also we pitched season four which is very similar to the season that ended up airing. And we were told it was one of the best season pitches that they'd ever heard.

You know, it's like the death knell, right? No, but it's one of the best ever. They said, well told. I don't understand.

The old well told. Well, I remember just being there at the lot and working for Warner brothers and we had, you know, we just talked about it. They built these amazing sets and I'm like, this is going for at least three more years. I mean, you know, that was just my thought.

I mean, the investment from the Warner Brothers, from television. And I just thought, wow. So it blindsided. I think people just who worked there too in a weird way. Right. And worked in television or home entertainment. And speaking of, man man everyone wanted our sets like because what happens is the minute your show gets canceled they're like give me everything

and peter ross in particular and the whole team but peter was like i'm holding on to the stuff we're gonna shop this thing and i think part of it was they knew how well it was doing internationally but also like this is the show that should never have existed. The pilot should never have even been made like this show, like has it has been an impossible show many times, so many times that it sort of felt like maybe there was one more sort of chance. I mean, it's the devil solving crimes in Los Angeles. This should not be a show. The little devil that could. And it's funny, though, I think also television was really changing at that time. And, you know, we were only really priv looked at those domestic numbers and went, Oh, God, oh, no, that's not what they used to be. But really, that was actually the new homeostasis

of television. And streaming was like a whole other thing that was just taking off. And once we found out that internationally, we had quite the viewership, We went, what? They're watching us in Brazil? We had no idea. No one told us. Hi Brazil, thanks for saving us. The fact is you got picked up and you had a fourth season and then a fifth season. And then was it kind of like the fifth season was going to be the finale? You were going to wrap it up and you had built built all that out. Is that right? That's correct.

We we were writing the finale. We had written the finale. End of series, period. And we got a call that said, hey, what do you all think of another season? And at first we went, no, no, we have an ending. No. And then they said, you know, think on it. Just think on it. So Joe and I went into the room and we went, uh, is there another story to tell? is there another story to tell? And we just started talking. And when we found it, we realized, oh, yeah, that's the necessary chapter. That is the bookend, is Lucifer becoming his own father.

That which he hated, that which sent him on this journey. What's it like if he looks back at that and goes, wow, I get it a little bit. You know, it's like when we become parents, you know, it all makes sense, you know, and they left it up to us. That's what was pretty great. Both Warner Brothers and Netflix said, if you guys have a story that you think that you want to tell, we'd love to do a season six. And so we did. If we had known we had a season five and six, I don't know if we would have told the story because I think we might have maybe stretched out the God stuff, saved that for the end. It wasn't until we had the perspective of having finished season five and going, is there more story to tell that we found this? And it's one of my favorite things about storytelling is the characters take you on a journey. Beginning of season five, we tried to make a list of every single thing we wanted to see. And as we neared the end of season five, we felt like we checked all the boxes. And then when

we sat down and talked about it, we found so much that we wanted to tell and felt like we needed to tell. And it's one of my favorite things about, about writing is sort of putting yourself in a corner and going, okay, well, what if, what if? So let's talk a little bit about the actual, like some of the production challenges of the final season. I mean, COVID was going on. And also it's like, weren't the cast kind of thinking this is it? And so they had to kind of readjust as well. And how did that impact people like, oh, we're coming back.

And then going into that final season, what's the mood? I'll add to it because not only was it all of that, but we hadn't finished our season five finale yet. And our season five finale was our big climactic battle, which was supposed to be an incredible number of people all together fighting, which we were going to shoot the week that the entire industry shut down. So not only do we have all of that, but we had an entire eight days of shooting, which was all supposed to be a bunch of sweaty people breathing on each other in a very enclosed space, which was the Mount Wilson Observatory. There was both that and then

folding into season six and figuring out what to do. We were we were among the first shows that came back in covid. And we were also very determined to make sure that we were among the first shows that came back in covid. And we were also very determined to make sure that we were safe. But, you know, problems like this create opportunities because we lost Mount Wilson Observatory because of forest fires happening at the same time. Because, you know, the only thing you want more than covid is forest fires. And by the way, luckily, the observatory is fine because this is a beautiful location. But we got the Coliseum, which was only available because of COVID and it was open and had a bunch of air. So there were things like that that became opportunities within it. Like the Disney concert hall in episode seven for the wedding is something we would never be able to get otherwise.

But I mean, I'm not going to lie, it was hard. It was really hard. be able to get otherwise. But I mean, I'm not going to lie. It was hard. It was really hard. For the writers, were you all individually sitting at home doing Zoom calls or were you able to get together? Yeah, it was, it was hard for a number of reasons. I mean, we, that was our Zoom season. We lost our offices and just did everything on Zoom and you can see it a little bit, you know, when we're in the Magic Castle, there's the tables are really far away from each other. You know, we could have less people in Lux. We could have less, you know, sort of people everywhere and, and contact had to be kind of minimal and testing was every week, three times a week, our cast would test. And gosh, a lot of people got COVID and we'd have to, you know, a whole, everybody was color coded your departments. And if one person in the department, the whole department would be like quarantined. It was quite a thing. And emotionally, you know know it was our final season and we weren't we were we were a

loving crew and cast and we couldn't touch each other we couldn't goof around we couldn't uh you could barely hear each other you had this shield and masks and you'd be like what you know so it was it was kind of hard we didn't get to have our party our goodbye party those poor actors coming to rehearse scenes with masks on and like not really being able to see what the scene even looks like until you're shooting and to their credit they did such a great job with it but it was it was it was hard and uh man i and my heart went out to the crew because that was that was a lot to deal with and continues to be. I mean, to work 12 hours or 10, you know, with a mask on, it's like, ooh-wee.

People have mask rashes, like, ooh. And by the way, it's hot in LA. So mask wearing, I know, it's like, it's just, it's a real challenge. In the LA Coliseum with no shade whatsoever. Right. So not intense. Yeah. I was watching that episode again and I, and I just was loving the fact that it actually,

you did go there though, because the Coliseum means just so much to the city of angels. And I just thought it was a great place to have a, you know, the, the fight, the big, the big one. It was amazing being there when it was empty. So cool. I'm not going to go into too many spoilers for, uh, for season six, though. I expect everybody's, you know, most people have probably seen it, but how did you feel about the way it just all wrapped up? I mean, I love these last 10 episodes, you know, after the one ending to get a very different, satisfying ending that's a bit more metaphysical, you know, and it's really about the fate versus free will discussion, which is, you know, ran through the series, but you really wrap

it up. And I mean, I just love the fact that he makes the choice instead of being cast into hell, he chooses to go. Yeah. We talked about a lot of different endings. You know, we had some that were sort of more tied up in a bow and in terms of like happy endings. And what we realized is that it had to be around, I guess, the message of the show or the theme of the show, which was, we all have a dark side, we all have a light side. And Lucifer was, he sort of hated himself for his broken parts.

And as he grew to accept that, we kind of realized like, at one point we thought maybe Lucifer will actually be God. We thought, no. And then it really made sense that his special skill set, the thing he brought to the table was he knew how it felt to be the villain. He knew how it felt to fall and then to rise again. And so the only one who could help damned souls maybe redeem themselves. And it just made some poetic sense, I guess. And speaking to the fight sequences, one of the things that was interesting is, so end of season five is this big battle, all the found family together.

And as we play with season six and we realized we play with more biological family, we really leaned into the idea of, okay, we can't beat the size and scope of the end of season five. So let's lean into intimacy. Let's strip away the found family and just have it Lucifer and Chloe trying to save their daughter. Go very intimate because we just, it's always a challenge of what is a worthy finale. And part of the fun of it was just being able to see this partnership, this duo working together, fighting side by side, complimenting each other. And for just this very personal, simple reason. And so that was a big part of what we tried to build to. And then we got that beautiful sequence

that Sherwin Shalati shot of that one or across where the two of them are fighting their way through all those bad guys. And it is just. Yeah. Well, I noticed that the title of the finale is Partners Till the End, which could be an apt title maybe for your partnership through this series. Damn right. Yeah. Part of our title choice. It was.

Was it? Well, just for, just for our wrap up here, kind of the last question, just, you know, looking back, what do you kind of miss the most about the show being over and what are you kind of most proud of? Oh, my gosh. It's kind of two questions. I miss the room. And I still, we still see quite a few people. But I just, I miss coming in and getting to make up stories about the Delvile Solving Crimes in Los Angeles. And with those people, you know, some people left, some people stayed, uh, over the,

over the years, some new people came, but like, it was just in every iteration, it was just this great group of people that, you know, becomes its own family. And as much as you try to stay in touch, there's nothing like that. Five days a week meeting up and just, you know, making each other laugh, make each other cry, pushing each other creatively. Like it's just, it, it was awesome. That's, that's what I miss. I mean, not to repeat, but the camaraderie for sure. And I don't know that I will ever, that we will, you know, get to work on a show where I felt so creatively safe and we felt like we could really just try anything. It was a real freedom on that show and a real acceptance, I think of ideas. And, you know, I hope I, you

know, I get to do that everywhere I go, but that show was an, it was a particular alchemy. And I think, I think the special part of the fans being such a part of it was another thing that I don't know that I'm, I'm hoping that's not lightning in a bottle, but it just might be, you know, it was a very special sort of conglomeration of things that it's beautiful. Yeah, we we went to a convention after after we were brought back, but before season four it aired and it was one of the few times where you really got to see a collection of people who represented and were the fans, but also just represented that sense of like the people that brought us back. And it was just a very humbling experience because they literally brought us back from the dead. And that is a

pretty amazing thing. Well, Joe, it's been a real pleasure having you on the podcast to talk Lucifer. I think I told you earlier before we started, it was one of my favorite TV series to have the pleasure to work with while I was at Warner Brothers, but it was the show I would have watched anyway. I wish we could have done more extras together, but we got to do this podcast. So thank you for coming on. Thank you. Well, thank you for having us. That was really fun. It's just a nice trip down memory lane. I appreciate it. It's just a nice trip down memory lane. I appreciate it.

For those of you interested in purchasing the home entertainment releases of Lucifer, the sixth and final season on DVD or Blu-ray or the complete series DVD, the release date is September 13th and these will be available at all the major retailers and online. You can also look for purchase links in the podcast show notes and on our website at www.theextras.tv. And for those of you who don't necessarily buy physical media, I ran a test on my 4K monitor between Netflix and the Blu-ray, and hands down, the Blu-ray was much superior. I enjoy the ease of streaming the shows, and I am a subscriber to Netflix as well.

But for those shows that I love, I want to see them with the highest sound and picture quality. So if that's important to you, I highly recommend buying the DVD or Blu-ray. And of course, the DVDs and Blu-rays contain all of the extras we discussed, including deleted scenes and gag reels. If this is the first episode of The Extras you've listened to and you enjoyed it, please think about following the show at your favorite podcast provider. Some upcoming episodes that you might enjoy are our look back at Harry Potter 20 years later, the Blu-ray release of the classic horror film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,

The Usual Suspects releasing on 4K, and Casablanca releasing on 4K. Those are all coming soon. If you're a fan of the long-running TV show Supernatural, be sure and check out episodes 25 and 26 with showrunner Bob Singer. Also follow the show on Facebook or Twitter at TheExtrasTV or Instagram at TheExtras.TV to stay up to date on our upcoming guests. And for our long-term fans, don't forget to subscribe

and leave us a review at iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast provider. Until next time, you've been listening to Tim Millard. Stay slightly obsessed. The Extras is a production of Otaku Media, producers of podcasts, behind-the-scenes extras, and media that connects creatives with their fans and businesses with their consumers. Contact us today to see how we can work together to achieve your goals at www.otakumedia.tv or look for the link in the show notes.