oliversava:

In entertainment, an awful lot of stuff happens behind closed doors, from canceling TV shows to organizing music festival lineups. While the public sees the end product on TVs, movie screens, paper, or radio dials, they don’t see what it took to get there. In Expert Witness, The A.V. Club talks to industry insiders about the actual business of entertainment in hopes of shedding some light on how the pop-culture sausage gets made.

One of this year’s biggest TV success stories is The CW’s Jane The Virgin, a series that has taken an absurd concept and used it to build an incredibly emotional and engaging story. Loosely based on the Venezuelan telenovela Juana La Virgen, the new dramedy follows a 23-year-old virgin who is accidentally artificially inseminated during a routine check-up at the gynecologist, an event that sends shockwaves through the lives of Jane and everyone connected to her. The series successfully juggles a lot of tones as it explores Jane’s romantic drama and the comedy of being caught in such a crazy situation, and offers a surprisingly nuanced take on sexuality, class, and religion while providing the big plot twists associated with the telenovela genre. To learn how the show balances all these different elements, The A.V. Club spoke with showrunner Jennie Urman about the development process of adapting a telenovela for U.S. network television.

Check out my theavc interview with Jane The Virgin showrunner Jennie Urman, who details the process of creating the American version of the series. She dives deep into the writing philosophy, casting decisions, and aesthetic choices of the show, and really enlightens the viewing experience. Everything about this series is so confident, I love it! 

And reminder: new episode on tonight!