jae: (theamericansgecko)
[personal profile] jae
A little later than usual, so you get an extra-large dose!

Deadline and Hollywood Reporter both have interviews with Matthew Rhys (Philip). Deadline also has an interview with Keri Russell (Elizabeth).

Goldderby continues its series of Skype interviews with an interview with the show's composer, Nathan Barr. TVgoodness.com also reports on an evening with Barr and fellow television composer Jeff Russo.

Indiawest features a short interview with Annet Mahendru (Nina).

The two-punch hit of the The Americans season opener and the season finale made Indiewire's list of the most shocking TV moments of 2014 so far. Three of the show's episodes also made the list of Goldderby's top thirty drama episodes of the Emmy season.

The Critics' Choice Awards have been and gone. The show may not have won any of the things it was nominated for, but Matthew Rhys (Philip) was a presenter. The Hollywood Reporter also talks about what the show's nominations for those awards could mean for potential Emmy nominations.

Speaking of the Emmys, Alan Sepinwall from Hitfix has been putting out "if I had an Emmy ballot" columns, and representatives of the show have made his lists for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. Hitfix's Daniel Fienberg also picked the show itself for Outstanding Drama Series.

TV Guide is also choosing folks from The Americans for Emmy nominations for Supporting Actress in a Drama and Lead Actor in a Drama.

TV.com also has the show represented in its picks for the Supporting Actress in a Drama category, and Brian Tallerico from RogerEbert.com has it represented in the Lead Actress in a Drama and Supporting Actress in a Drama categories, as well as Outstanding Dramatic Series.

Finally, Vulture is also putting out its own TV "awards," and the show has representatives in those with Philip and Elizabeth as Television's best couple and Matthew Rhys as Best Drama Performer.
jae: (theamericansgecko)
[personal profile] jae
First up, it's the beginning of awards season, and the future looks bright:

• The Television Critics Association (TCA) has nominated Matthew Rhys (Philip) for Individual Achievement in Drama and the show for Outstanding Achievement in Drama.

• The show has also received several Critics' Choice Awards nominations: for Best Drama Series, Matthew Rhys for Best Actor in a Drama Series, Keri Russell (Elizabeth) for Best Actress in a Drama Series, and Annet Mahendru (Nina) for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.

• GoldDerby, which is in the business of predicting who's going to win various show business awards, warns that The Americans could ambush the Emmys as well, while Boston Globe columnist Matthew Gilbert includes the show on a list of shows that Emmy voters should make sure to "show some love" to.

• The UK's TV Choice Magazine is also holding its own web-based awards, with The Americans nominated as "Best International Series" (feel free to vote yourself, if you want).

And in other show-related news:

As predicted, The Americans was at the top of the Hollywood Reporter's "power rankings" in its last week of contention.

Rolling Stone featured the show on its list of eight TV shows you should be watching right now.

Flavorwire talked about the show in its summary of the week's top five TV moments.

Elizabeth and Philip made it to #11 on tvline's list of favourite television pairings.

Starpulse made a list of their top five favourite wigs that Keri Russell wore in season two.

IGN's "Channel Surfing" podcast featured the finales of The Americans and Hannibal.

Speaking of those two shows, here's a Salon piece that argues that The Americans and Hannibal are the two best love stories on television.

The blogger behind "Based on Nothing" wrote that the second season of The Americans made it FX's best show.

...and if you're after an oddly refreshing change from all of this praise from critics, here's your outlier--the guy who liked season one but disliked season two.
jae: (theamericansgecko)
[personal profile] jae
First, a veritable cornucopia of post-season interviews with showrunners Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields: from Hitfix, from the AV Club, from Vulture, from TV Line, from Yahoo, from TV Guide, from tv.com, from Slate (audio, ~30 minutes, available only to subscribers, though a partial transcript is available here), and from Grantland (audio, ~57 minutes). [Editorial comment: take some time to read/listen to these if you can--they're all so different and so good!]

Next up, some reviews of season two: from Vulture, from the AV Club, from Screen Invasion, from Bustle, and from Talking TV With Ryan and Ryan (audio, ~48 minutes).

From Hitfix, an interview with Matthew Rhys (Philip).

From the New York Post, an interview with Noah Emmerich (Stan).

Keri Russell (Elizabeth) took part in a joint interview of many of the potential Emmy nominees for Best Actress with the Hollywood Reporter. This link has both a transcript of parts of the interview and video of a riff on the "what would you do if you weren't an actor" question" (~ 4:40). [Edited to add: the full video interview is now up (~1 hour).]

Two interviews with Annet Mahendru (Nina): one from Yahoo and one from U.S. News.

An interview with Costa Ronin (Oleg) from OK Magazine.

From The Wire, an interview with Margo Martindale (Claudia).

Two interviews with the composer for the show, Nathan Barr: from the Hollywood Reporter, and an excerpt from a piece from Film Score Monthly Online.

From Vanity Fair, a piece on the realism behind many of the show's spy storylines, and The Atlantic has a column on the show's refreshingly real take on Russians. And from Think Progress, a piece that challenges the realism in the season finale's plot twist.

From The Wire, the last season two "wig of the week", on the finale. And further in the disguises vein, TV Ate My Wardrobe has a piece on the best disguises of season two.

A column in Entertainment Weekly debates whether or not Elizabeth is a bad mom.

The Hollywood Reporter has The Americans at #2 in last week's "power rankings".

Paste Magazine has a piece on the 10 most shocking moments on the show.

"Behind The Red Door" has been pre-nominated in the AV Club's Tournament of Episodes.

From Indiewire, a summary of the pre-finale (but post-screener) tweets from some of the critics.

FX released a little mini-feature on The Art of the Edit (only viewable from within the U.S.).

According to Headline Planet, the ratings were up slightly for the season finale.

The LA Times has a piece on the recent trend in spy-related television series, including comments from The Americans co-showrunner Joel Fields.

An astrology blogger has written an mythological/astrological interpretation of the finale.

And finally, a glimpse into a writers' room joke: the supposed original pitch for the Stealth arc. :)
jae: (theamericansgecko)
[personal profile] jae
breitbart.com has an interview with showrunners Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg.

Photographer Rob Howard spent a day with Joel Fields to photograph him in various parts of his life with some accompanying introductory audio. The results of the project are here (including some great shots of what looks like the recording of the finale).

Costa Ronin (Oleg) has been doing lots of interviews lately: one in The Examiner, and one from yahoo.com.

The Atlantic has some great insight into the technical aspects of this past week's episode.

Columns galore on the show this week: from the National Review, from acculturated.com, and from the Modesto Bee. A columnist for Cox Newspapers has also nominated The Americans as one of the five shows worth bingeing on.

The Wire's "wig of the week" is Elizabeth's social worker disguise.

NBC has ordered a new Russian spy show for fall, and the critics are comparing the concept with The Americans: at Vulture and at the AV Club both.

Talk show host Rachael Ray did an interview with "Dr. Phil," and he mentioned The Americans (third video, the The Americans reference starts at 3:59).

FX has released a little featurette on Clark and Martha (only viewable from within the U.S.).
jae: (theamericansgecko)
[personal profile] jae
Elizabeth Jennings got a mention in this New York Times piece about "mean girls" with power.

The show also is one of the main subjects of this AV Club piece about shifting concerns when deciding whether or not to renew shows.

In Channel Guide, an interview with Noah Emmerich (Stan).

Matthew Rhys (Philip) did an interview on ABC's Today Show. You can watch an adorable clip on this Vulture piece or on the Today site (video, ~52 seconds).

Rhys also won TV Line's Performer of the Week last week for "Martial Eagle."

A radio interview with Costa Ronin (Oleg) (audio, ~10 minutes)

In Billboard, an interview with The Americans music composer Nathan Barr.

Speaking of music, here are a couple of things about the Pete Townshend song written for the show: an article in Vulture, and the promo that aired on FX (video, ~30 seconds).

And finally, an interesting Twitter thread started by the AV Club's Todd van der Werff about the reasons why the show provokes wildly different reactions.
jae: (theamericansgecko)
[personal profile] jae
A Forbes interview with the David Madden, president of Fox Television Studios, about an executive's look at producing The Americans.

A Vulture interview with Alison Wright (Martha) on Martha's chances of survival and other matters.

An Esquire interview with South African actor Cliff Simon, who played Yossi-the-Mossad-agent in "The Deal" (episode 205).

A Shape interview with Avital Zeisler, the self-defense expert who trained Keri Russell (Elizabeth) how to fight using something that could pass as systema.

TV Guide's piece "Underneath the Wigs," based on an interview with hair and makeup artist Peg Schierholz.

A Greencastle Echo-Pilot interview with makeup artist Lori Hicks.

An FX-produced mini-documentary takes a look at the KGB Rezidentura and what it took to build the set.

The official description has been released for episode 210.

Columnist Blake Rutherford from Arkansas Business makes a comparison between the show's political stories and the real-life politics of today.

There are some new spoilers from TV Guide's Ask Ausiello column.

The fashion blog Into the Gloss has a piece on how to replicate Elizabeth's early 80s look.

The Americans is now airing in Israel, with each episode airing the Sunday after it aired in the U.S. and Canada.

And there are two new 8tracks.com fanmixes for the show: Sorry I Didn't Kill You and Party At Ground Zero.
maidenjedi: (fanfic writer)
[personal profile] maidenjedi
TITLE: Words of Good Cheer
AUTHOR: Maidenjedi
RATING: PG-13 (my default rating; no warnings apply)
SUMMARY: American traditions, American children, an American family. Christmas for the Jennings.

NOTES: Written for [personal profile] blueteak for Yuletide 2013.

Read on AO3 or click the cut.

Read more... )
jae: (theamericansgecko)
[personal profile] jae
The most important thing is the first trailer for season two that actually contains new footage. :D :D :D Is it February yet???

Next, our show continues to clean up on the year-end lists! The Americans made it to:
Huffington Post's list of the best new shows of 2013
Indiewire's list of the top 10 shows of 2013
The New York Times list of the top 12 shows of 2013
The Chicago Sun Times top ten list
Think Progress's Year in Culture list
Screen Invasion's best shows of 2013 list
yahoo.com's best shows of 2013 slideshow
• and TV.com's 9 shows to catch up on over the holiday break

Episodes of the show also made it to Matt Zoller Seitz' list of the top drama episodes of 2013 ("Gregory" and "Only You"), and Laurel Brown's list of the best TV episodes of 2013 (the pilot).

The character of Elizabeth Jennings was also featured on Grantland's year-end TV power rankings.

And last but not least, the show is also #7 on Hitflix's TV Critics Poll this year for Top TV Shows and #3 for Best New Shows of 2013 (this annual poll takes a panel of several high-profile critics' top-ten rankings and combines them).

Finally, in non-year-end-list news, there's a great Salon interview with Margo Martindale that's mostly about August Osage County but not just, and I've got a few yet-unmentioned semi-spoilery bits from the writers and producers on Twitter:
• the titles for episode 6 and episode 7
• a couple of shots of props and sets from future episodes: 1, 2
• another cryptic shot of the writers' board
• and a shot of The Americans in its very first Jeopardy question :)
jae: Elizabeth in the basement, listening to the letter from her mother. (fivepointsdown)
[personal profile] jae
"Five Points Down" by Jae Gecko (link goes to my journal, where there are more detailed headers and a link to the actual story)

Spoilers: For the pilot (1x01) and "Gregory" (1x03).
Summary: Elizabeth, both in the early years of that name and before it.
Size: 23900 words
[personal profile] treonb
The three main characters on our show are all living discontinuous lives: Philip and Elizabeth first as their original selves and now as Americans; Stan first as himself, then as a white supremacist involved in the movement, and now as himself again. Throughout those lives, though, things have happened to them that shape the way they think and feel about things, and those psychological responses can carry over into the next incarnation. 

This week's question: How do you think that works for each of those three characters

You can expect spoilers for the entire first season in the comments.

(There's no expiration date on these questions, so if you're reading this post months later and feel like jumping in, please do.)


[personal profile] treonb
In the pilot, Philip proposes that he and Elizabeth defect to the United States with their family. Nina, too, toys with the idea of defecting to escape persecution for her crimes. We never see inside their heads, though, so it's hard to know what exactly they're thinking over the course of the season.

This week's question:
 What do you think is going on with that--how do you think the Russian characters' (those two or any others') thoughts on defection change over time?

You can expect spoilers for the entire first season in the comments.

(There's no expiration date on these questions, so if you're reading this post months later and feel like jumping in, please do.)
[personal profile] treonb
The marriage at the centre of the show is the one between Philip and Elizabeth, but there's another marriage that looms large as well: the one between Stan and Sandra. Both marriages have problems.

So here's this week's question: To what extent are those problems similar, or are they entirely different?  You can expect spoilers for the entire first season in the comments.

(There's no expiration date on these questions, so if you're reading this post months later and feel like jumping in, please do.)
[personal profile] treonb
The two central elements of the show are the relationship between Philip and Elizabeth and their work. They are also parents, however. 

So here's this week's question: How do you feel about the way the show treats these elements of their lives? Which elements of it work for you, and which don't?  You can expect spoilers for the entire first season in the comments.

(There's no expiration date on these questions, so if you're reading this post months later and feel like jumping in, please do.)

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