TCA: Legends of Tomorrow’s “Disparate Band of Knuckleheads” Saves The World

Today brought us the DC’s Legends of Tomorrow panel at the Television Critics Association Press Tour in Pasadena, California, and in attendance were ten actors, five Executive Producers, and one DC Entertainment Chief Creative Officer.

Representing the actors were Brandon Routh, Victor Garber, Arthur Darvill, Wentworth Miller, Dominic Purcell, Franz Drameh, Caity Lotz, Ciara Renee, Casper Crump, and Falk Hentschel; Executive Producers and on hand were Greg Berlanti, Marc Guggenheim, Andrew Kreisberg, Phil Klemmer, Sarah Schechter, and Geoff Johns.

During the panel, the Executive Producers discussed a bit about the band of misfits that makes up the team in the title.

“It’s fun, because Rip Hunter, as a Time Master, spent all these years moving through time, correcting the timeline,” Phil Klemmer explained. “This is the first time since he is on his own personal crusade to save the future and save his family that he recruits this motley crew of people. To me, there is a sort of domestic dramedy aspect of the show, because he is having to share his time‑traveling spaceship with this disparate band of knuckleheads.”

“It’s like herding cats,” Klemmer continued. “He was trained to be Time Master, which is the most sort of sacred and noble charge in the universe, where you’re supposed to make these little surgical changes that don’t disrupt [things]. And our guys, — Mick Rory, for instance, not to single anyone out, is just like a bull in a china shop. He couldn’t care about the future. The fun comes from these people, not just trying to pull together to  save the world, but having to like exist on a spaceship together. It’s like the most dysfunctional family you can imagine. I can relate to that,” he said.

Marc Guggenheim added that the show lives in the interactions between all of the different characters. “One of the things that we’re discovering in the series, and one of the things that we’re enjoying writing and I think the actors are enjoying performing and hopefully the viewers will enjoy watching is each week, [is] we’re combining this group into different little subgroups and different combinations and playing with different character dynamics. When you start developing stories along those lines, it actually becomes relatively easy to get everyone on screen and get everyone in stories together. It would be a very different approach if just each week we were just trying to do just a Rip Hunter story or just a Sara Lance story. It’s really about the team and it’s about the group and the various sub‑dynamics that go along with that group,” he said.

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow premieres Thursday, January 21 on The CW. Stay tuned here and at our Legends portal DCLegendsTV for more on the show!