Posted in: Apple, Preview, streaming, TV | Tagged: apple, apple tv, better call saul, Rhea Seehorn, vince gilligan

Vince Gilligan Updates Rhea Seehorn-Starring Apple TV+ Sci-Fi Series

Vince Gilligan offered an update and some new details on his upcoming Rhea Seehorn-starring "mild science fiction" series for Apple TV+.

Published Thu, 05 Oct 2023 13:15:09 -0500

by Ray Flook

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If you follow Bleeding Cool and enjoy checking out our television coverage on a regular basis, then you know that we have a special place in our hearts for Vince Gilligan's & Peter Gould's Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul universe. So – with this year marking the tenth anniversary of the Breaking Bad series finale "Felina" (originally aired on September 29, 2013) – it seemed like the perfect time for Gilligan to discuss the past & the future in an in-depth interview with Variety that was released earlier today. But for this go-around, our focus is on the future – specifically, Gilligan's upcoming sci-fi series for Apple TV+ starring Rhea Seehorn (Better Call Saul). Having received an initial two-season order, the most we've gotten from Gilligan up until this point is that it will be set far, far outside of the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul universe. But while "there's no crime, and no methamphetamine," the upcoming streaming series is set in Albuquerque, New Mexico – "except it's a whole different world." With the writers' room having returned this week and filming start set to hit during the winter months, here's what Gilligan had to share about the upcoming project:

Vince Gilligan Offers Post-WGA Strike/Ongoing SAG-AFTRA Strike Update: "We're back to work. We're officially back in the writers' room on Monday. I'm spending most of my time in New Mexico because I live here now. But when I go back [to Los Angeles], we're going to reopen the writers' room for the first couple of weeks in person. When the strike hit, we were very close to the end of breaking the first season. So we're going to go back and finish the second-to-last episode and then get to work on the last episode. We lost a lot of momentum, certainly. I can't even remember where we were exactly. So I'm going to be spending this week reading through previous episodes and old notes to figure out where we stand. We're looking forward to getting back to work. We would have been shooting already if it weren't for the strike. The strike was a sad necessity, and we're all glad that it's behind us. I'm a little sorry that we'll be in the teeth of winter here in Albuquerque when we finally do shoot. So that's not going to be fun — it'll be way below freezing, and it's supposed to be a rainy winter here, too."

Gilligan Consider the Apple TV+ Series More "Mild Science Fiction": "Yeah! I wouldn't call this heavy science fiction, I would call it mild science fiction. But it does have a sci-fi element to it at its core. And there's no crime and no methamphetamine. It's going to be fun and different. I have no prediction as to how folks to react to it — whether they'll love it or hate it or somewhere in the vast in-between. But I know it's a story that interests me, and Rhea will be playing a very different character than she played on 'Saul.' The weird thing is that it takes place in Albuquerque, except it's a whole different world. There's no overlap that I can see. She's playing a character who is not Kim Wexler, but hopefully, people will roll with that. I'm nervous. It'll be interesting to see how folks react to it.

So What Can Gilligan Tease About the Plot? "The world changes very abruptly in the first episode, and then it is quite different. It's the modern world — the world we live in — but it changes very abruptly. And the consequences that that reaps hopefully provide drama for many, many episodes after that."

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