Cherry Hill Q+A Session!

[Kurai]

Ask questions about Cherry Hill here. Writers Johno and Tafka will be sure to answer them!:highlighted:

[Kurai]

Cherry Hill is such a staple of The RUN, but at the same time, there's a lot of people who haven't read it, but I'm sure they'd love to because it's so significant! With season 5 on its way, would you say new readers would be required to know a lot backstory, or is it easily accessible to new readers with no prior knowledge of the show?


Season 5 is advertised as the penultimate season... Does this mean you already have the remainder of the show planned and know how its going to end? At what point did you decide when and how the show will end?


How would you summarise, in a short paragraph, a "Previously on Cherry Hill" for readers interested in joining in on the fun from Season 5?

[Kurai]

Is there a particular episode you feel the show could have done without, or one that you particular hate or wish you'd done differently (think "Stranger In A Strange Land" lol)?

[Johno]

Cherry Hill is such a staple of The RUN, but at the same time, there's a lot of people who haven't read it, but I'm sure they'd love to because it's so significant! With season 5 on its way, would you say new readers would be required to know a lot backstory, or is it easily accessible to new readers with no prior knowledge of the show?[/i]

With Season 4 we tried a new strategy - to throw in some new character dynamics and sort of start over, but while keeping the same cast - adding in a six-year time jump.  There's a lot of stuff that references old events and former characters, so there's very much an invest in continuity, but I think that with our little "reboot" it's easy to jump in since everything is so new.  Season 5 will pick up right where Season 4 left off, but we always try to do our best with every premiere to make it easily accessible for new readers.

Season 5 is advertised as the penultimate season... Does this mean you already have the remainder of the show planned and know how its going to end? At what point did you decide when and how the show will end?[/i]

Season 5's major plot points are almost completely patted down, it's only a matter of mapping it out and finding a good pace for each arc.  We juggle a lot of characters and in recent seasons we've been experimenting with character dynamics and trying to introduce new interactions for every character, trying to tie in arcs with each other.  So we've only got a bit left for Season 5, it's pretty much in a really good place at the moment.  At this point, there's an ending for Season 6.  That was decided in the beginning of Season 3, around the time TAFKA and I decided to do a timejump and to take the characters new places, so at that time we decided to sit down and think about the series finale.  We know how the last episode will play out, we know the final scene.  There's quite a few plots and character arcs we've decided on already but otherwise, we agreed to set aside Season 6 and wait til about mid-Season 5 to do major planning on like, the big seasonal arc and how everyone's stories tie in together.  It's the final season and we know we're gonna have a lot of expectations on closure for the characters and storylines so we want to devote as much attention to that as possible. 

How would you summarise, in a short paragraph, a "Previously on Cherry Hill" for readers interested in joining in on the fun from Season 5?[/i]

Oh gosh... Ummm... Let's see:

A teenage girl named Miranda King lives with her father Jeremy in the town of Cherry Hill. In the opening scene of the pilot episode, Miranda gets in a car accident that kills her boyfriend after claiming to see a mysterious figure cross the road.  As her guilt builds along with the stresses of her life, Miranda's mental health starts to deteriorate until she finds treatment for her schizophrenia.  Jeremy starts a relationship and later marries Monica Jones, the mother of Miranda's BFF Naomi while his ex-wife Elena moves in, in an attempt to have a relationship with her daughter Miranda.  Jeremy later learns that while he was in rocky times with Elena, he had a love child with a woman he cheated on, and the child, Ryan, returns to his life after the death of his mother to live with Jeremy.  These events cause rifts in the King household, as Monica wonders if she can trust Jeremy, but the couple remains strong. Elena gets into the dating game and ends up with a fiance named Paul Rosen.  She attempts building a firm relationship with his moody teenage son Sid, and slowly but surely, they bond.  Elena finds herself deep in a local political conspiracy involving a mayoral hopeful Conner Nelson, and later Sid ends up getting caught up in it all as well. Meanwhile, The Meyer family unit has suffered love, loss, and the separation of family - the parents Jennifer and Peter split after the death of their rebellious adopted son Zach and Peter's turn to alcoholism for support, but there's obvious feelings still there, while their oldest child Lauren abandons her family for fame and fortune after becoming a model, the middle child Claire suffers from a series of carried-down hereditary "powers" from her mother's side, like prophetic dreams and telepathy, and the discovery of her advanced mental abilities leads to the slow deterioration of her physical body, and John jumps from the loner at school, to the tagalong pal of popular twins Nicholas and Austin Elyis, and finally to a teenage father-turned-family man, getting his girlfriend DJ Keegan pregnant, and later marrying her and having another child. These two families are the centerpiece, at least in my eyes, of Cherry Hill's stories. All the major storylines come back, in some form, to these two families (that's not to say the other characters and storylines aren't important - quite the opposite, really - there's so much left to say, but this is the shortest a paragraph I could give haha).

Is there a particular episode you feel the show could have done without, or one that you particular hate or wish you'd done differently (think "Stranger In A Strange Land" lol)?[/i]

Not really.  I wish that I could extend Season 1 and 2's episode's page counts (they were so short back in the day!) to give more detail and properly develop storylines that were just way too rushed, but it is what it is.  No episode is really HATED, and there are always things I wish we could have done differently, I always end up looking at alternatives like "Hmm what if we did this instead of this?" but I try to look forward and be positive, because every character, storyline, and episode of Cherry Hill really, truly, holds a special place in my heart.  (-cue the awwww's)-

[Lie]

How did you come up with the show from the beginning, and how/when did Tafka get involved?

[Necktie]

As Kurai said - Cherry Hill is really the show that moved Righters Untie away from just being a LOST-hub and into a screenwriting place. How does that make you feel as a unofficial father of RU? How does it feel when you realize how long the show has been going?

Music has always been a big part of Cherry Hill. What kind of thought process goes into selecting the music for the closing montages?

If you could bring back one character from the dead, who would it be and why?

[Blake (HDLYR)]

If memory serves correctly, I remember you once talked about doing seven seasons. Maybe I'm totally wrong here, I dunno. But if I'm right, why did you decide to shorten it to only six seasons instead of seven? Any particular reason?

Also, what do YOU think the fans are expecting for the final two seasons? If you were in our shoes, what would you want to see happen?

[Necktie]

Why did you pick the name Cherry Hill for your city?


*snickers*

But no... seriously. Why that name? Any fond memories in NJ?

[Johno]

How did you come up with the show from the beginning, and how/when did Tafka get involved?

I was inspired by two of my favorite shows; Lost and Desperate Housewives. I wanted that sort of large, complex, diverse cast from Lost with such rich character backgrounds and interactions, but in a relatable (if over-dramatized) suburban setting like Desperate Housewives. I sketched out character ideas and story arcs and then realized I needed some help.  TAFKA was pretty much there from the start, the first person who volunteered to help with season 1 that actually did something.  He sketched character ideas and arcs, and we worked as a team to gel our ideas together. After the first few episodes of season 1, TAFKA's involvement kind of devolved to him just volunteering here and there to help me write scenes. Planning season 2 is where he really stepped in. In fact, a lot of season 2 was his baby (the introduction of Nikki and Harry and their storyline, Bobbi's character) baby. Ever since then, it's been a dual project where we've really worked together as a team. Sure, there's been some arguments and disagreements here and there, but it only helps make our bond as co-writers stronger. Couldn't have asked for a better friend or writer as my 'executive producer'.

As Kurai said - Cherry Hill is really the show that moved Righters Untie away from just being a LOST-hub and into a screenwriting place. How does that make you feel as a unofficial father of RU? How does it feel when you realize how long the show has been going?[/i]

It makes me feel... weird to be honest.  Cherry Hill's first season is no where near the quality of the other shows that have come after it, it's kind of embarrassing to say "Well, this is where  it all began." And I like to think that if it wasn't Cherry Hill, another show would've sprung up eventually and became the first.  The fact that the show's been going on for nearly five seasons actually shocks the hell out of me.  I remember being this giddy 12-year-old nerd writing season 1... Where did the time go?  It's just amazing, a truly remarkable feeling. I'm so proud of Cherry Hill and our progress... I don't think it's a stretch to say that TAFKA and I have definitely matured and improved in our writing with all 54 episodes we've written so far. And we only hope to keep improving as we continue churning out more episodes.

Music has always been a big part of Cherry Hill. What kind of thought process goes into selecting the music for the closing montages?[/i]

For the first 3 and a half seasons, can I just say the choice had been... kind of random?  There'd only be a few instances between that timeframe where I actually thought about how much the music has an effect.  I was just kind of throwing out songs I'd recently heard or liked at the time, or something I felt had a good beat, or a good voice or even (shamefully) whatever's played often. More recently (very recently in fact), I've been very choosy with the music. From our 50th episode onward, I've really thought about like "Okay. The music needs to mean something. It needs to match the theme and tone of the scene it's in." I've been expanding my musical horizons and will continue to do so, so I can bring the best possible soundtrack to Cherry Hill as I can.  And yes, I do pick most of the songs.  There's only been a few episodes poor TAFKA's been able to choose, but I don't think he minds. 

If you could bring back one character from the dead, who would it be and why?[/i]

Character deaths are never spur-of-the-moment and we always think of the pros and the cons for killing off characters.  When we feel we've run out of steam for a character and their storylines, we sit back and say "Okay... Now what?" So to be honest, realistically speaking, none of them.  I love all the characters to ever grace the pages of Cherry Hill, and every death has been tossed around and given plenty of alternatives, and every death we went with, we did because we felt the character served their purpose and had a good run, and we didn't want to run them into the ground.  I think we succeeded on making each character leave some sort of mark before they left the show, and bringing any of them back would really ruin the impact of the death.

Though, hypothetically speaking, I'd choose

SPOILER: Click to show

Elena.   Just because I loved writing for her SO much.  Ironically enough, her death was probably the most neccesary out of all the deaths we'd had so far in terms of servicing the story itself and assisting in building on other characters' arcs. A close second would be Claire, because I also loved writing for her, but our ideas for her storylines started getting ridiculous and we felt we had the perfect opportunity to give her a great exit that would be remembered forever so we took that opportunity. It was a risk, but I think it worked out.

If memory serves correctly, I remember you once talked about doing seven seasons. Maybe I'm totally wrong here, I dunno. But if I'm right, why did you decide to shorten it to only six seasons instead of seven? Any particular reason?[/i]

There are two reasons.  While thinking about how we'd end it, we didn't want the last season to drag on and we didn't want to run dry on storylines for the characters.  TAFKA and I wanted to end on the highest note possible and go through a whole season on a high instead of just drooping and then giving the show a big bang for its ending... We doubted our potential to carry on for three more seasons, and we felt that the way season 5 ends, and how a lot of stories come together, it builds up for the final season perfectly.  And honestly, we just feel the demand for Cherry Hill isn't really there.  We don't want to stretch it out for so long and have people grow tired of the show to the point where it just fades away.  Overall, it all comes to down to us not wanting the series to go out with a whimper and our desire to leave RU with a bang. We're devoting everything we can to planning out an epic final season to bring closure to all the characters of the Hill.

Also, what do YOU think the fans are expecting for the final two seasons? If you were in our shoes, what would you want to see happen?

I love this question.  I think the fans should be expecting things to come full circle, for things to start slowly wrapping up and building toward the finale.  I'd be expecting closure for all the characters by the time the big finale rolls around if I was in the fan's shoes.  I'd also like to see different character dynamics thrown into the mix, new interactions that haven't really been done before starting to occur.  But that might just be me.

Why did you pick the name Cherry Hill for your city?

*snickers*

But no... seriously. Why that name? Any fond memories in NJ?[/i]

This question is amazing hahaha.  Because, to be honest... I don't even remember.  I think it just sounded catchy and felt like it'd work for the name of a suburban town.  And I didn't even know Cherry Hill, NJ existed at the time lol.  I don't remmeber if I pitched the name, or if TAFKA did.  But I believe it was one of the last things about the pilot we settled on, that's one thing I really can remember...

Oh, and despite all the jokes about the name, I still love it for whatever reason we chose it haha.

[Necktie]

Uh. Johno. That wasn't a video.

[Rouge Capot]

I know Johno answered them, but I wanted to get involved in this somehow (lord knows I've waited long enough!) So holla back at me bitches...

Cherry Hill is such a staple of The RUN, but at the same time, there's a lot of people who haven't read it, but I'm sure they'd love to because it's so significant! With season 5 on its way, would you say new readers would be required to know a lot backstory, or is it easily accessible to new readers with no prior knowledge of the show?


Like Johno said, with the Season Four time-shift, there's a lot of references to the prior three seasons within the further episodes, I think for some who have read them, there have been comments about some of the stuff being too explicit and trying to force the fact that we skipped such a significant amount of time. On the flip side, it does mean that most of the important stories from the first three seasons are mentioned in one way or another, but then with the Hill Killer storyline and the wedding, Lydia's arc, there's so much stuff wrapped up in itself that you would probably have to read to understand the character when they say it. I mean the Hill Killer has been referenced many a time, but if you hadn't really read Season 3 then you may underestimate the importance it was to a character or just the season as a whole. Hooooowever, the CH Wiki does allow readers to catch-up as well as for myself and Johno to store history and look back at what we've done etc. So there's plenty of sources around.


Season 5 is advertised as the penultimate season... Does this mean you already have the remainder of the show planned and know how its going to end? At what point did you decide when and how the show will end?

Johno and I usually go into CH two seasons ahead, in Season One, we already had ideas for Season Two, then somehwere around three and four, we decided to plan what would happen in four and five and five and six (got that?) It feels as if we've had season five planned for a while now, but I always panic that there's a lack of material, then get reminded of all the storylines we have going on and I think Season Five is really something! Every season we try and change the dynamic, I think Season Five is more 'back to it's roots' after what you could deem a political season and the 'whodunnit' of season three, Season Five is similiar in a way to the first two series. However as Season Four has proven, there's a lot of things we change around last minute, so it's not all set in stone just yet! We have a rough outline of story-arcs, then we just fill in the blanks, or find ways to expand an arc across a number of episodes without it becoming repetitive or too heavy.

We've talked a lot about the ending and I think we both have come to an agreement about the final scene, again it needs fleshing and building up to, but it's very Cherry Hill, quite dark, but nothing too OTT either. I think the thing with the final season, we have to try and find a balance, sure, our road is coming to an end and we hope to go full-circle, but at the same time it has to reflect some sort of optimism for the future, it'd seem to cliché for everyone to drive off into the sun-set, life doesn't just stop when the cameras stop rolling afterall.


Is there a particular episode you feel the show could have done without, or one that you particular hate or wish you'd done differently (think "Stranger In A Strange Land" lol)?

I dont think we really do 'filler' episodes as a general rule, like Johno said, some of Season One seems a bit cringey looking back on. The first episode I wrote, Regrets and What the Neighbors Say, sticks out just because the plot was so two-dimensional and compared to a modern episode, not a lot actually happens, but I think as the show's grown, we've grown in confidence in writing and with that our word count! There is talk of extended the episodes in Season One to make Zach a more convincing villain, we had a lot of good ideas, just some poor execution and at the time we were still kind of in our own Lost Universe, trying to create parallells, whereas now CH is a brand in it's own right.

As Kurai said - Cherry Hill is really the show that moved Righters Untie away from just being a LOST-hub and into a screenwriting place. How does that make you feel as a unofficial father of RU? How does it feel when you realize how long the show has been going?

Having celebrated the big 5-0 recently, it really opens your eyes to how long we've lasted and I think our hard work has paid off. We realize, our genre might be 'fluffy' in comparison to some shows that are full of space-aliens or enigma codes, but I appreciate the support people give and the respect CH has been given, I think that's what drives us forward, we don't need to be the most reviewed show on the RUN, but as long as someone's reading, we'll keep doing it and we got to that point where it'd be too wasteful to end it, or let it go inactive, so that definately contributed in our decision to end the show in the next seasons.

Music has always been a big part of Cherry Hill. What kind of thought process goes into selecting the music for the closing montages?

I have no idea, in the few times I've been allowed to do it It's usually a song that reflects the mood or the overall theme of the storylines in the episodes. I try and get stuff that you Americans might not have heard of, as well as just general favourites of mine - like 'Falling Down' by Oasis or 'New in Town' by Little Boots. It has to reflect the mood, but also be good enough to end the episode without it all feeling so sudden. That's my two cents anyway

If you could bring back one character from the dead, who would it be and why?

SPOILER: Click to show

Geeze, I would probably say Tyrell or Zach. I love Elena and Claire etc, but at the same time what kind of plot could I do with them? Elena was a character that ended on a high and her whole plot revolved around her downfall and her death, that's when she was at her best, so to have kept her alive would've just been an anti-climax, although I suppose we could've ran the discovery of hers and Jeremy's kiss? Claire, I suppose, could have done some things with Sid, but I think she ended on a high too. Tyrell, I just loved and I would love to have sent him to jail, to possibly create some future Fernando/Tyrell 'Meet the Parents' thing with Naomi, the union of two of the Hill's biggest psyopaths and Zach I just felt needed more flesh to him, I dont always feel the way he came across is the way I see him, also the Meyer family is so established now, I feel that he feels like a kind of add-on, rather than an actual part of their history.

On a smaller-scale, Etta Elyis, I love her as a character and I do miss her, it'd be interesting to see how she would have reacted to Austin's storyline but at the same time, she really triggers some crucial events in his current arc and I feel that she's a character that if brought back too often, people would get weary of pretty quickly.

If memory serves correctly, I remember you once talked about doing seven seasons. Maybe I'm totally wrong here, I dunno. But if I'm right, why did you decide to shorten it to only six seasons instead of seven? Any particular reason?

I remember feeling one day that we should end on Season Six, just because it felt like it was enough, I had got to a point where I felt we had the awards and the success, but still not the following, so I felt that six was enough to be considered a success, but also, it'd give readers a chance to just read from beginning to end, because although I said we don't need every-single review, it does get frustrating from time to time, to see it overlooked. It's we're recognized, but still there's something missing. I know Johno wanted seven, but I dug my heels in and told him (I roughly remember) that he could do seven without my aid if he wanted, I just wanted to call it a day and to be honest, I think seven would have been grasping at straws for storylines, so far I feel we've pushed boundaries and been inventive, I don't think the ideas would've flowed enough had we decided to go on. Like Johno said, why go out with a whimper when you can end things with a roar?


Also, what do YOU think the fans are expecting for the final two seasons? If you were in our shoes, what would you want to see happen?

Definately not another plane crash, that lesson's definately been learned! Like I said earlier, I'd just want realism, I don't want it to feel like life just stops, because the show has ended and I dont think people want that either, we'll wrap most things up in terms of storylines, but life has to continue like it does for everyone. I think the last scene is VERY clever in the way it really does link back to the early days of the show, paying homage to it's roots.

How did you come up with the show from the beginning, and how/when did Tafka get involved?

Very early on, it's actually surprising to see how things have changed, I remembered saying that I'd take a look at Johno's stuff and at this point he had most of the Season planned, I just helped fill in some blanks at the time. I remember I wanted to do a show that reflected on a neighborhood with someone watching over them, an entity-like blonde woman and when I read Johno's plans, it kinda seemed like we could merge our ideas and thus Verity was born, paving the way for one of our longest running CH arcs (Miranda's schizophrenia) I wrote the second (?) episode by myself and from then on we've pretty much planned every episode and shared the scenes, although more recently I've taken a back-seat in writing, just because of all this Uni malarchy going on! Season Two was my baby, mainly because I had all these ideas bubbling away and I couldn't use them on the first series, because Johno had it all worked out. I wrote the majority of Here Comes the Rain Again, which I think epitomizes the fact that it was the season where I could get a bit more involved, rather than writing pre-planned scenes. I loved the feedback HCTRA got, I think it really topped things off for me.