‘La Brea' Showrunner Breaks Down NBC Series Finale & Contemplates Possible Spinoffs

‘La Brea’ Showrunner Breaks Down NBC Series Finale & Contemplates Possible Spinoffs

SPOILER ALERT! This post contains details from the series finale of NBC’s La Brea.

La Brea has officially come to an end.

After three seasons, the NBC sci-fi series has wrapped its finale six-episode run with an adventurous finale that gives closure to all its main characters but definitely leaves the door open for more.

The Harris family and most of those they met in 10,000 BC after falling into the sinkhole that opened in Los Angeles officially made it back to 2021 – as if no time had passed at all in the lives they left behind. However, some decided to stay behind in the name of continuing the new lives they began in the prehistoric era.

Deadline spoke with showrunner David Appelbaum about the final episode and bringing the series to a close with a shortened final stretch due to the strike. He also teased the idea of potential spinoffs and other ways he’d be excited to expand the story.

DEADLINE: Six episodes isn’t a very long runway to land this plane. When you knew that was the episode order, how did you start to formulate a plan for the end?

DAVID APPELBAUM: Well, it was always the plan from the very beginning to end the series with the Harris family being reunited. The show begins with them being separated. They’re separated emotionally, because the mother and father of the family are separated in their marriage, but they’re also separated by a sinkhole. So the journey of the show, I always had it in my mind that it would be leading towards this moment when they’re reunited. So that was always a landmark that we wanted to reach. But with everything else, we were told at the very beginning of the season before we started writing, that it would be six episodes, and that it would be the last season. We didn’t know that before the season began. So the first task was like, where do we want to end all the characters? And then backfilling them all from there. It’s really a case by case thing with each of the character stories and with the larger mythological stories as well. So it was a great to be able to know that. This way, while we’re certainly upset that it was the end of the show, it’s useful to know you’re writing towards an ending. And that way we can craft the finale with the biggest impact both emotionally and have the plot coalesce in the most exciting way.

DEADLINE: Besides the Harris family, which you said you knew their ending from the beginning, did any of the other characters have alternate endings that what we see in the finale?

APPELBAUM: The other ones were more of an evolution as we went along. For Ty’s character, we had talked about the idea that he might die, because he starts the show with cancer…but then moved away from that, and especially once he found love with Parra. We wanted to give him a happy ending with her. We didn’t know all of them from the very beginning. A lot of them, we kind of found, but it was definitely the Harris family that’s always been the emotional anchor of the show. So having that guiding light was really important. These shows go through a lot of iterations. We’re not doing it in a vacuum. We’ve lots of feedback from network executives and senior executives and producers and actors. You take it all into account as you’re crafting the story. So things shift and change a lot as you go.

DEADLINE: Did the actors have any strong opinions on where their characters ended up?

APPELBAUM: Not really. I mean, the actors were great. They read the scripts, and we’ll have conversations before the season begins about our ideas about where they’d like to go. And they’ll definitely give ideas, like, ‘I’d like to do this this season.’ Or, ‘I feel like my character wants to be a little bit more humorous in certain moments.’ We’ll take that into account. But they’re not in the writers room. So they’re not involved in the story breaking process.

DEADLINE: I enjoyed the addition of the dinosaurs this season, and the scene of the crew flying up into the light and narrowly missing the T-Rex is really cool. How did you add in the dinos without making them too much of a distraction?

APPELBAUM: I think part of it is that one of the conceits of the show is that the sinkholes can open in any time period, and everything leads to 10,000 BC. So we always had in our mind that like, well, anything could come down here at any point. But it’s the balancing act of, when do you bring certain things in? one of the inspirations for the show was definitely Jurassic Park and Steven Spielberg. I always thought that I would like to bring dinosaurs into the world at some point. Particularly once we knew this was going to be the end of the show, it seemed like, well, it was kind of now or never, and to go big while we had the chance. But I think part of the fun of the show is there is a bombastic quality to some of these set pieces. We’ve got giant ground sloths and sabertooth tigers and woolly mammoths and things like that. And so, dinosaurs fit into the that world of crazy animals that you might encounter.

DEADLINE: Tell me what it looks like in the writers room when you’re plotting out the show. Do you have timelines laid out to track where everyone is?

APPELBAUM: Lots of whiteboards. We had whiteboards for all the characters and mapping out what they were doing in each episode. And also another whiteboard mapping out all the serialized plot moves in each episode. And then another whiteboard for the whatever episode we’re working on at the time and the beats of that. So you’re definitely balancing a lot. It’s a lot to keep track of. We have 13 series regulars, all of whom have their own stories that you want to keep going and have their own arcs that you want the audience to be invested in.

DEADLINE: There were many foiled plans to get home throughout the series. When you sit down to figure out how to actually get them home, and what that quest will look like, how do you ensure it’s not repetitive?

APPELBAUM: That’s a tricky one, because one of the things that’s at the heart of the show is that it’s a journey to get home. And characters are never losing sight of that, but you want to have different iterations of that and not feel like they’re the same – and also not feel like, ‘Oh, here goes another thing that they’re going to fail at.’ In Season 2 we had the building, and then we had Moore’s portal at the end. So we wanted to do something very different in Season 3 and not have the show be as focused on finding a time travel portal. So a lot of the ideas were based around, how do we make that difference? So it’s very much in our minds, trying to give it some variation, but at the same time, it is in the DNA of the show about people trying to get home. You want to try to be creative, but also try to hold true to what the show is. It’s a much different type of show, but Succession, for instance, like every season has the same [basic plot]. Someone’s trying to take over the business, and they’re trying to hold on to it in a different way. So that’s what the audience is coming for. It’s just trying to find different spins on that. So it’s just being aware that’s the nature of these types of serialized television shows, in really any genre.

DEADLINE: What is one of the things about the series you’re most proud of?

APPELBAUM: The last 10 minutes of the finale is one of the things that I’m most proud of. I feel like it packs a real emotional punch. I watched it many times and got emotional almost every time I watched it. I think it is a really satisfying conclusion to these characters stories and will give the audience a chance to reflect on how far they’ve all come over the course of these three seasons. So I think that our goal…it’s a thrill ride. We want it to be fun, but we also want to make the audience feel and care. And I think that’s really most encapsulated in the final 10 minutes of the show.

DEADLINE: Have you thought about any ideas to expand the story, if given the opportunity?

APPELBAUM: I do have ideas. It’s something that I have thought about as the show was going along. So it’s always been something in my mind. But particularly as we got to the end of Season 3, I definitely put thought into where it could go if I had the opportunity. I would take some of the core cast members and a brand new cast, and put them into a new adventure in 10,000 BC. I think [with] any version of it, I’d want the show to be an adventure in 10,000 BC and have a family story at the center of it. But I would like to explore new characters and new dynamics.

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