The first season of Dead Boy Detectives drops on Netflix on April 25 and KSiteTV was able to interview the showrunners of the series prior to launch. This pairing includes two people who are no strangers to genre television and storytelling – Steve Yockey (Doom Patrol, Supernatural, The Flight Attendant) and Beth Schwartz (Arrow, Sweet Tooth). In their new show, based on the Sandman Universe characters from DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint, Dead Boy Detectives teams two long-dead friends with some new allies as they try to elude characters such as the Night Nurse and Death herself. It’s a stylish adventure full of interesting characters and fantastic set pieces.
If you’re not a comic book reader and the Dead Boy Detectives seem a little bit familiar, there’s a reason for that — the characters of Charles Rowland, Edwin Payne, and Crystal Palace appeared in an episode of the HBO Max series Doom Patrol in Season 3, albeit played by different actors. The episode was co-written by Steve Yockey and Jeremy Carver, and you’ll read in a moment how that was a longtime dream for him to bring the characters to life. You can read our interview below.
KSITETV: Edwin and Charles are a lot older than they were in the original Dead Boy Detectives comic book series, as well as the episode of Doom Patrol. Can you talk about that choice?
STEVE YOCKEY: They’re the same age that they were in the episode of Doom Patrol, and the decision was made to age them up because I wanted to tell true horror stories, and I wanted to deal with things that we would not have been able to deal with [with] younger characters. So I made that decision to age them up to 16 and make Crystal 17, and we’re really happy with the results.
KSITETV: At what point was the decision made to pitch this as a series?
YOCKEY: I’ve wanted to do this forever. I started working on it at Warner Brothers at the same time that I was developing Flight Attendant, so that’s how long it took, after two seasons on Flight Attendant. But I just said “hey, you’ve got this piece of IP that’s probably on a shelf somewhere that no one’s asked you about called Dead Boy Detectives. This is a really important thing for my teen years, and I think it could be a really beautiful TV show. At first, DC said no,and then and then there was a change of regime over there and while the dust was still settling, I kind of snuck in and grabbed it, and the rest is history.
KSITETV: Beth, how did you become involved?
BETH SCHWARTZ: I came in after the pilot after Steve did all the hard work, and I got to see a version of the pilot, and so on. Executive Danna Shinder [from Berlanti Productions], I worked with her on some things, and she was like “uou got to come on this show! You’ll love Steve, you’ll love the show. And so, I saw the pilot, and met Steve, and I fell in love with everything.
KSITETV: Did the permission to use a character like Death come with the move to Netflix and in success, will we see more of the Endless in the future?
YOCKEY: Yes, to both questions.
Initially when we were at Max, Warner Brothers sort of firmly told us on a phone call that we were not to touch anything in the Sandman IP, because it belonged over on Netflix, and so Beth and I made the decision that rather than run away from the IP, that we would just work around it. We created a show that took place, as far as we were concerned, in the Sandman universe without mentioning Sandman. And then when we moved to Netflix, they were like, “hey, we love what you’re doing, but wouldn’t it be fun to add some Easter eggs and maybe a cameo or two?”
We got very excited about that and said yes, and then we talked to Neil [Gaiman] and Allan [Heinberg] about what we wanted to do, and made sure that they were okay with it, which is the most important thing. And then, we were off to the races.
KSITETV: Both of you have worked in genre TV that was filmed in Vancouver in the past. Was it difficult to find unique locations for the series that hadn’t been seen before in other shows?
SCHWARTZ: It wasn’t, and actually now that I think about it, that feels strange, because obviously on Arrow, I had been literally everywhere.
YOCKEY: We had a really good locations manager. We also had a really amazing production designer. Not only would he transform things like the butcher shop, which was a real location, but the art department, and the set dec team, and just everybody would build these wild sets. We had so many amazingly realized sets. It was one of those things where you would ask for something and then they would give it to you 10 times over. Everyone’s enthusiasm and work ethic on the show was sort of through the wall. It as a pleasure coming to work every day, which is not how it always is in television.
KSITETV: Can you talk about the actors that we’ll be seeing in the series?
SCHWARTZ: The actors are all pretty new, which is exciting for us and for them. The three main cast – George [Rexstrew], Kassius [Nelson], and Jayden [Revri] are all from London, which is crazy, since Kassius does an American accent on the show, but stays in the American accent in between, so you forget, and then all of a sudden, you’ll see her off set, and she’ll speak to you and you’re like “oh!”
They play our three leads, and they have an amazing chemistry. The boys are like inseparable both on and off screen. And [also] Yuyu [Kitamura], who is amazing. The four core, we call them.
YOCKEY: Yuyu is so different, like, just as a as a human, she’s just a fully realized human, and very, very different than Niko. She’s the one that actually transforms the most when they call “action.”
SCHWARTZ: Her comedic timing was shocking, in a good way. She can make a regular line that you didn’t think was funny, and make it hilarious. She’s really, really talented, and [Niko was] such a fun character to write for.
KSITETV: Did Ruth Connell have to audition again for the “Night Nurse” character?
YOCKEY: No. She didn’t have to audition the first time! I am a Rowena stan. If anyone out there has watched Supernatural, especially the later seasons, you know that I love that character, and love Ruth. Because I did a lot of work with that character, it was a no brainer to me that she was going to continue to move through the process. So even though we had to recast, just because so much time had had gone by since we had done the Doom Patrol episode, and as you know, those young actors have blown up now and are one of the leads of Heartstopper and on Game of Thrones: House of the Dragon. But Ruth,I had to carry through, and she’s so good as the Night Nurse.
KSITETV: On a Supernatural note, that show, of course, had a huge fan base, who wanted probably more LGBTQ content than they were able to have on that show. Do you think those fans will be very pleased with how things go in that department for this show?
YOCKEY: I think they will be pleased with the representation on the show across the board. I think they’ll be pleased with the number of female characters. But I also think that they’ll be pleased with the way that we handle the representation, and how direct we are.
KSITETV: Are there any episodes that are direct adaptations from the comics?
YOCKEY: There are pieces of episodes, but we didn’t do any straight adaptation.
SCHWARTZ: Specifically in [Episode] 7, how they had the boys meet, that’s taken from the comic book, but not the whole episode.
YOCKEY: I would say the most comic book accurate thing we do is Crystal’s parents.
SCHWARTZ: Her parents are awful!
YOCKEY: We thought it was important to hang on to Charles, Edwin, and Crystal’s backstories from the comics, because we’re fans of the comics, and we want people who are fans of the comic book to be able to recognize the show, and still be surprised, whereas new fans can come in and just kind of get on the ride.
KSITETV: How self contained are the individual episodes, and how much of it is serialized?
SCHWARTZ: Each episode is designed so there’s a case of the week; a case that will be solved by the end of the episode. But our relationships and our each main characters’ emotional journeys are more serialized through the season. I still feel like you could come in and watch an episode and enjoy it not in order,but I would suggest watching it in order. We have a little combination of both, I guess.
YOCKEY: It’s like a hybrid.
KSITETV: How different is it to plot a season for eight episodes versus 20-23 that you did in the past?
SCHWARTZ: We talk about this in the room all the time, because we are the only ones who have ever done a 22+ episode season. Everyone else is like 8-10 or whatever.
YOCKEY: Although it was fun watching Beth, because I already did two seasons of Flight Attendant [which] was just eight episodes a season.
SCHWARTZ: It’s just a totally different animal animal. It’s fun, because you can really spend the time on each episode. Whereas when you’re on a 23 episode season, you’re on a marathon and you’re on a production train. You’re just going so fast. It’s a different way of storytelling.
YOCKEY: Beth has to like put the reins on me sometimes. But I love dense, fast paced storytelling. I want to cram as much into the eight episodes as we possibly can. And Beth will then slam the brakes on and be like, “but also, character!”
SCHWARTZ: It’s funny, because Sweet Tooth was my first eight episode show, and I was like you on that show where at the end of each episode, they went through an entire journey, and then my co-showrunner on that, Jim [Mickle] was “we don’t have to get all the way there!”
KSITETV: How good are you feeling about the potential for a second season?
SCHWARTZ: I mean, we hope there’s a second season! We have a lot of ideas for it.
YOCKEY: Please tell Netflix there should be a second season.
SCHWARTZ: We’re super excited. Obviously, the end of Season 1 is set up for a Season 2, so just tell everyone you know to watch the show!
YOCKEY: The way that the show is built in the sort of case of the week model and the types of stories that we’re telling, it could go on and on and on. So in success, hopefully we’ll get to make more.
KSITETV: For my last question, why should people be tuning in on April 25?
SCHWARTZ: I think if people like fun, they should watch. Because the show, if anything, is so much fun.
We had so much fun doing the show, and I think even at its darkest moments, I think there’s still light. Ther are still jokes, and it’s still fun. It’s a roller coaster, and you never know what to expect.
YOCKEY: Hopefully, it’ll genuinely surprise people, and I think that’s a reason to tune in. A bunch of people worked very, very hard to make the show happen, and I don’t think it’s like a lot of things that are on TV right now.
Dead Boy Detectives releases on Netflix April 25.
