My PaleyFest 2013: Revolution and Once Upon A Time

I'm not in Los Angeles for PaleyFest - an annual television festival with nightly panel discussions featuring the cast and creators of popular shows - this year. So I'm just imagining what I'd do if I was there.

Night 2: Revolution

The most impressive thing about NBC's Revolution is that it might be the first post-Lost thriller series* to actually live up to its hype and get really good ratings. Also, it was created by Eric Kripke, who made a fun, genre-busting, classic rock hit out of Supernatural and used all of that to make a completely different series, which turned out to be the biggest hit of this season.

I wore my Supernatural T-shirt to this panel, because it's a great shirt. 

I don't watch Revolution regularly, so I was a bit off-put by the die-hard fans who treat Revolution almost exactly like some people treated Lost. (Then again, that happened to me during Modern Family's rookie season, when some fans at Paley seemed to think it was Arrested Development.)

I listened to every word that fell from Eric Kripke's mouth, cheered for Canadian girl Tracy Spiridakos, and maybe shrunk down into my chair every time I looked at Giancarlo Esposito, because he scares me just a little bit. In fact, he was the reason why I didn't do any loserish autograph-seeking in the parking lot and instead just enjoyed a good Saturday night in L.A.

*that's a polite way of saying that it's a Lost ripoff

Night 3: Once Upon A Time

I love this show. I do. But I can't hold a candle to the show's most hardcore fans. Oncers are a whole other breed of superfan. I lost count of how many girls I saw dressed up as Emma Swan. (I didn't, obviously, because I'm only slowly coming around on Emma, as well as Jennifer Morrison's performance.)

I sprang for tickets on the ground floor so that I could join the maniacs who rush the stage for autographs as soon as the panel ends. I swear it has nothing to do with my mad respect for Robert Carlyle or the fact that Josh Dallas is so cute. It especially has nothing to do with my writer-crush on co-creator Eddy Kitsis, going back to my last time at PaleyFest.

But I was polite and sat there and laughed and listened and totally did not plot ways to steal Josh Dallas from Ginnifer Goodwin, because that would be wrong. And because I don't stand a chance. Heck, I probably don't even stand a chance with Captain Hook, regardless of the fact that removing his eyeliner is like putting kryptonite in Superman's hand. (He was wearing khaki pants. Khaki pants! The only reason why those get a free pass is because writer-crush is wearing coral pants. Coral pants.)

Most importantly, I did not bring up creators Eddy Kitsis and Adam Horowitz's past as writers for high school shows. Because I did that last time, and they didn't appreciate it.