While browsing HuluPlus a couple months ago I ran across the Trophy Wife TV show and I had to click to find out more. I think the name of the catchy title of the show is what first caught my attention. Once I started watching the first episode, I was hooked.

For me, the show Trophy Wife first reminded me just a little of Julia Robert’s character on Stepmom which I LOVED and I wanted to watch more. I am a stepmom myself, so it is interesting watching shows that portray the role of a stepmom. After watching episode after episode, I really began to LOVE her character.

My favorite episode was episode #2 when Kate is trying to get Bert to go to bed by reading him a book and Bert didn’t want to fall asleep. I will have to tell you though, I seen the newest episode that airs tonight “Wedding Part #2” and it is really good. I think I might have even shed a tear in happiness at the ending.  While I won’t share with you any of the details, I am going to highly suggest watching it.

Last week I had the opportunity to visit ABC studios and meet the Executive Producers of the show, Sarah Haskins and Emily Halpern. Not only did we get to meet these wonderful ladies, we got to sit down and ask them some questions about the show that I know you might want to know if you are a Trophy Wife fan like me.

If you haven’t seen the show, take a peek at the trailer:

For me getting to interview the producers was a great experience. But what was even more exciting was I got to meet Malin Akerman that plays the role of Kate, the trophy wife prior to meeting the producers. For me this was SUPER cool! I have been watching the show and to meet this TV mom in person was EXCITING.  I am not going to share the details yet of that experience because I have a whole post coming soon dedicated to it, but I do want to show you the picture of Malin Akerman and I that I was able to have taken with my iPhone right before I left the studios.

Malin Akerman “Trophy Wife” and I at ABC. 03/12/14

Now back to the show because I know you want to know what I got to find out. For those of you fellow Trophy Wife fans, here are some of the questions that our #ABCTVEvent group was able to ask the Executive Producers Sarah Haskins and Emily Halpern during our Q&A last week:

How did you come up with the idea for Trophy Wife?

Sarah Haskins: We’re the creators, so we came up with the idea together. It’s very loosely based on my life. I married an older man who’d been married a few times before and has children from those different marriages. Kind of like Malin Akerman’s character, without rocking the short shorts.

It’s a situation that while unique and highly specific, is also very universal. People have dealt with divorce and co-parenting. It’s very common and we thought has a place on TV.

The characters have very good chemistry. How hard was it to get who you wanted?

Sarah: We filmed the pilot off cycle and we didn’t appreciate it at the time. That wound up being a huge advantage because we weren’t competing for all the exact same actors as all of the other pilots at the same time. And a lot of that had to do with Malin. She was really the first piece. ABC had actually passed on Trophy Wife the first year we developed it and ultimately it was given a second life when Malin read the script and ABC really wanted to work with her. And so did we.

Why do a wedding episode now?

Emily: We were kind of trying to think of a big episode idea. Honestly, we knew this was gonna air in March. It was a 2-parter. In a comedy, we can’t shoot the president [Laughs] so how big can we go? A wedding felt good to us.

What’s next for Trophy Wife?

Sarah: Hopefully season 2!

Emily: We just finished editing our season finale and our fate is in ABC’s hands. But we hope we get to come back to do some more.

Sarah: Yeah, and appropriately, our season finale is a Mother’s Day episode. It helps wrap up Kate’s arc all season of “Am I a mom in this family’s eyes or am I just a trophy wife?”

How did you come up with the specific characters? Who were the influences?

Sarah: We talked about my emotional reactions to meeting my husband’s exes. His first wife is super intimidating. She’s French and she’s a lawyer and she went to Brown and blah blah blah. So she was so intimidating that we took that intimidating factor and made that Diane. I think everyone probably has an experience with an intimidating ex who you don’t want to hear about.

And then the Jackie character came out of dealing with the boundaries of a blended family. No one in particular. It’s just hard to say where your nuclear family ends and your everybody family begins. And Jackie is someone who is strongly on the everybody is family portion of the spectrum. That’s just a fun character to have.

Do the ex wives know it’s about them?

Sarah: I wouldn’t say it’s about them. One of them watches it and one of them doesn’t. The intimidating one does watch it.

Emily: And she has notes every week! [Laughs]

I do think we consciously try to write all three women as strong characters. And once we sort of had whatever the stereotype was, we really worked hard to try to make sure that they felt like complete characters and strong women and had their own independence.

What’s the writing process like?

Sarah: There’s a lot of diverse life experiences in our writer’s room, so people would pitch stories. The Lice Story came from a writer who just had a super embarrassing lice breakdown with her kids at school. They had to take home all the pillows in school and wash them. It sounded horrible.

And just issues like The Punisher, was actually from one of our male co-Executive Producers who was just like, “How does she learn to do that? How do you do that?” And I think that’s just his anxiety about being a parent some days. So that’s where The Punisher episode came from.

Emily: We also try to think of what’s the funniest one line story we can think of. And then just build a bigger story on top of it. If the premise is funny, the story is funny. We can make that work. We have an episode coming up where Warren joins the girl’s field hockey team and that idea made us laugh and we built a story around it.

Disclosure – I was invited to the #MuppetsMostWantedEvent. Costs and expenses for my trip were covered by Disney but all opinions expressed are my own.

Tina Fey, Ricky Gervais and Ty Burrell

Last week I had the opportunity to experience something pretty amazing. I was able to walk down the Red Carpet for the Muppets Most Wanted World Premiere at the El Capitan in Hollywood with the rest of the celebrities that were in attendance that night. For those that have never been on Hollywood Blvd during a Red Carpet Premiere, it is awesome. Especially if you are the one of the lucky ones walking into the theater.

We were staying at the Hilton Garden Inn in Hollywood which is in walking distance to the El Capitan and the Dolby Theater that happens to be right across the street that has hosted the Academy Awards ceremonies (the Oscars). Here is a picture of me and the #MuppetsMostWantedEvent group on the stairs at the Dolby Theatre.

The #MuppetsMostWantedEvent group at the Dolby Theatre.

Once it was time to cross the street and walk the Muppets Most Wanted Red Carpet Premiere, actress Tina Fey was getting attention of all the fans and press. I happened to be doing what I do best and was messing around with my iPhone. See me in the background?

Photo Credit: Gregg DeGuire/Contributor for Getty Images

When you are in front of the El Capitan, you have a thousand cameras and eyes watching your every move. Here is a picture I got to show you just how many people are there to get their shots.

Tina Fey taking press photos

Even though Tina Fey might have been the one catching all the attention at the moment, know that I had to have a good picture of myself standing on the Red Carpet of The Muppets Most Wanted World Premiere as well.

Me on the Red Carpet of course!

Now of course the Muppets Red Carpet Premiere had to include an appearance by the one and only Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy too!

Miss Piggy was looking her best in her new pretty blue dress.

Kermit and Miss Piggy on the Red Carpet.

Oh and don’t think that Kermit and Miss Piggy were the only ones there. Check out the other Muppets that were hanging out the window to check out their fans.

Gonzo, Animal, Walter and Scooter on the Red Carpet.

Once everyone was in the theater and in their seats, we were surprised with a special appearance by some of your FAVORITE Muppets, Statler and Waldorf.

Since I had previously watched a screening of The Muppets Most Wanted, watching it in the El Capitan on the balcony with the two old men Muppets on the stage watching along made the experience even more magical. For me, it brought back memories of watching The Muppet Show when I was young.

Stay tuned for Part #2 of my experience where I am going to share which celebrities I got to meet at the Muppets Most Wanted After Party.

Photo Credit: ©(ABC/Bob D’Amico)

I heard about the show Resurrection a few weeks ago and the story line of the show had me a little intrigued and curious to watch. For a show on ABC, this was something that was “different” to me. I know what resurrection is but it isn’t something I think about too often, if at all. When I see it happen in movies, I get that eerie kind of feeling. How about you?

Photo Credit: ©(ABC/Bob D’Amico)

 For those that haven’t heard of this new show being aired on ABC, here the synopsis:

The people of Arcadia, Missouri are forever changed when their deceased loved ones suddenly start to reappear. An 8-year-old American boy (Landon Gimenez) wakes up alone in a rice paddy in a rural Chinese province with no idea how he got there. Details start to emerge when the boy, who calls himself Jacob, recalls that his hometown is Arcadia, and an Immigration agent, J. Martin Bellamy (Omar Epps), takes him there. The home he claims as his own is occupied by a 60-year-old couple, Henry (Kurtwood Smith) and Lucille Langston (Frances Fisher), who lost their son, Jacob, more than 30 years ago.

Prior to me leaving to Los Angeles last week I received a copy of Resurrection episode 1 to watch prior to it being aired on TV. I watched the first episode and it definitely had me waiting to see the next. I then arrived in Los Angeles last week and seen these billboards everywhere.

Every time I seen one of these billboards, it made me think of that first episode I seen and was even more curious about what was to happen next. It again gave me that eerie feeling and had me question in my mind what would I do if I had a loved one that came back to life.

This week on Wednesday I was able to visit ABC, watch episode #2 and get to ask the Executive Producers Tara Butters and Michelle Fazekas some questions about the show and what directions it is taking. Here is some of the questions that were asked that you might to hear the answers to.

Q: Are we gonna get some idea of how they’re coming back?

Tara: There are some answers but we don’t answer everything. We still want to have an investigative drive. Do we know yet? The way we pitched this is… there are several questions. Why here? Why Arcadia? Why is it happening? How is it happening?

When we pitched the season to ABC, we pitched them the last scene of the last episode of the series. So we know where we want to go.

Q: Are more people coming back?

Michele: I think it’s safe to say yes.

Q: Just in that town?

Michele: We focus on just Arcadia for those 8 episodes. It’s 8 episodes including the pilot. We have certainly planned more and there’s a cliffhanger at the end of the season that hopefully makes people want to come back for the second season.

Jacob’s like a stone that’s thrown into a pond and the kind of ripple effects he has upon his return and how it affects Fred and Maggie’s relationship upon his return. These characters are all affected by his return in different ways, some good and some bad.

As more return, we kind of multiply it.

Q: LOST an influence?

Tara: Absolutely. I don’t think you can do a show like this without having some influence. I feel very strongly that this show shouldn’t be more than 13 episodes a season, because my favorite seasons of LOST were the shorter seasons because they could be so much more.

Michele: When you’re building these continuous storyline episodes, you can’t jump around, you have to sort of build them in order. And if you change something back here, it sort of affects this. So that’s why we really liked having a smaller number of episodes, so you can really craft it and be smart about it. Versus just kind of filling space.

My Resurrection Review – As I previously mentioned, I have already seen episode #2 that airs TONIGHT and it was really GOOD as I kind of thought it would be.  I love the story line and I love the actors that they have found for all of the roles. I like to watch shows that leave me in suspense without all the blood and gore. It is one of those shows that has me hooked and I will be patiently awaiting next weekend to find out what happens next.

For those that want to watch it as well, Resurrection airs on ABC on Sundays at 9|8c.

Will you be watching to see who comes back alive next?

For those of you Captain America fans, I wanted to share with you a new video clip that just came out a couple days ago. I will be getting to see this new and exciting upcoming Marvel film in just a couple days, so be on the lookout for my Captain America: The Winter Soldier review this month.

In Marvel’s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” Steve Rogers teams up with Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow, to battle a powerful yet shadowy enemy in present-day Washington, D.C.  

Captain America fans, be sure to:

• Like Captain America on Facebook: facebook.com/captainamericamovie
• Follow Captain America on Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaptainAmerica

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER releases in theaters everywhere on April 4th!

I will also be attending the Captain America Press Junket next week. Be sure to follow our group’s journey on Twitter by following the #CaptainAmericaEvent hashtag on Twitter for fun news on this film.