Last summer, OMFGtv had the opportunity to sit down and chat with the brilliant minds behind The CW’s addictive new series, The 100.
Here, Creator/Executive Producer Jason Rothenberg along with EP Matt Miller gushed about their futuristic sci-fi drama including how it all got started and why you will love the show.
“Last season I was looking for a pilot to write and I had a meeting with Alloy and they told me about this idea which blew my mind instantly,” Rothenberg says. The idea presented was a television adaptation of a book of the same name written by Kass Morgan which Alloy had published last fall. It was a project he says he “knew instantly” that he wanted to take on.
Rothenberg likens the show to Lord of the Flies in addition to two of some of his favorite shows, Battlestar Galactica and ABC’s LOST, saying The 100 is “BSG in space” and “LOST on the ground.”
“It touched all this sort of hot button creative issues that I was trying to play with,” he continues. “I feel like I can really say what an amazing idea it is because it wasn’t my idea. It was an easy decision for me to do this project. That’s how it happened.”
The mid-season series about a group of 100 juvenile delinquents being secretly exiled to a post-apocalyptic Earth is unlike anything seen on The CW, and both Jason Rothenberg and Matt Miller feel the show will resonate well with viewers with one reason being the show’s “fantastic” cast.
“They have really, really good chemistry with each other,” Miller says. “Ideally there will be storylines and an intriguing way to present both of these worlds [that will hopefully be] riveting and groundbreaking and things like that. But at the end of the day, in television, you tune in because you love these people. You want to see not just the journey but you want to see them go through the journey. So for us hopefully people will connect with the characters and want to see how it all plays out.”
“We’re trying to do something relatively hard sci-fi at The CW which is amazing,” Rothenberg adds. “And they’re totally supportive, encouraging us to be as dark as we want to be, which is trust me is going to be the case. So I think people will connect to it on that level. There is going to be some really intense stories that we get to play with. These kids are turned loose on the ground without parents, without teachers, without authority. It’s like ‘What the hell would they do?’ and we get to see that happen. It’s almost wish fulfillment until they realize it’s actually more of a nightmare than a dream.”
Unlike on NBC’s Revolution where the characters always look clean-shaven with their hair and makeup all perfect with no explanation as to how, expect the characters of The 100 to get dirty. Miller reveals that their instinct is to go a lot grittier with the actors with their hair and wardrobe, but this change won’t be limited to the characters on Earth. “The spaceship is dying and we built quite a bit of that on the pilot. In series you’re going to see an extra layer of grime on top of it. It is a good observation and one that will be adjusted in the series going forward.”
“On the ground as they begin to become more dirty and sweaty and wild, that will follow with their appearance as well,” Rothenberg explains. “It’ll be sexy the sort of more messed up they get, the more their hair gets crazy, the more sun kisses their face, that’ll be the evolution.
The 100 premieres Wednesday, March 19, at 9pm on The CW.