Jane Espenson and Brad Bell, executive producers of Husbands, speak with Hypable about season 3 of their web series, the comic book adaptation, new guest stars, and more.

After attending the Husbands panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Hypable had the chance to sit down with executive producers Jane Espenson and Brad Bell. With season 3 around the corner, we were dying to ask them about what we can expect from this season of one of our favourite web series.

Season 3 of Husbands will be available on CW Seed. The move has lead fans to question whether or not the new episodes will be available worldwide, or only to American audiences. To clear up any confusion, we asked Espenson and Bell just how the new arrangement would work.

With ‘Husbands’ moving to CW Seed, will the episodes be geo-locked?

Brad Bell: Yes, it will be. Through the CW, it is only viewable in the United States. That was one of the first questions I asked when we agreed to this deal. I said, “Okay now let’s talk about our international audience.”

25% of our audience is international, and we love those fans. We make sure that we have subtitles before the show is ready to go out, we’re going to London, and Germany, and we’ve been to Italy. So that audience, we really care about.

I am working on how we are going to get it to them. There are a lot of people who want a say in that decision, and if it comes down to it and I have to say “Look, here’s how we’re doing it,” then let it be. But people outside of the United States will get to see Husbands, the new season.

With a delay?

Jane Espenson: There may be a delay.

Bell: My goal is for there not to be a delay.

Coming up: ‘Husbands’ season 3

You spoke about season 3 at your Comic-Con panel, and about Cheeks’ and Brady’s formal wedding reception. Will the entire season be centred on their wedding day?

Bell: Half the season. It’s two stories, so it is six episodes total. Three episodes are the wedding story, and three episodes are a different story.

And you announced the guest stars – Beth Grant, Michael Hogan, and Seth Green. Could we possibly be seeing a father of the groom in there?

Espenson: There might be a father of the groom. But who knows who Michael Hogan is playing. He’s the one who most obviously of these guest stars could be the father of the groom, but he could be the head valet that parks the cars outside. It’s hard to say. But we did say that we are meeting some family members, so it’s a good guess. But which groom?

Bell: And I think if you look at the photos you can get an impression of who’s what. I would love to see fans guess.

You have had all these fabulous guest stars. Who is your dream guest star, if you could have anyone?

Espenson: Oh, we’d have to have Amy Sedaris for something.

Bell: The list is endless, I feel like there are so many people that it would be so fun to put them in different roles, that have them play against type. It’s our favourite thing.

Espenson: Eve Myles, who I worked with on Torchwood, is an actress I admire enormously. I would love to see her. I could just list so many people I’ve worked with and love.

Funding ‘Husbands’: Kickstarting a film?

Do you have an overall plan for what you would like to do with the series, or do you approach it on a season-by-season basis?

Espenson: It’s interesting. We are a traditional comedy, in that we haven’t really built in a grand, big arc. We have different separate stories we want to tell, but we know what a whole bunch of those stories are.

Bell: We definitely would like to be able to make a traditional season of anywhere between 12 and 22 half hour episodes, because we have a lot of great stories.

So with funding, ‘Husbands’ could go on indefinitely?

Bell: Absolutely, this could run for years, and years, and years. It’s a marriage, you know?

Espenson: People keep asking us, “What would you do if you had more money?” And we wouldn’t go film an episode at the Taj Mahal, we would film 12 episodes here.

You did a Kickstarter for season 2, and while is must be liberating not to have to worry about that for season 3, would you go back to the Kickstarter model for something like a ‘Husbands’ film?

Bell: That would be interesting for a film. Possibly, it’s definitely not out of the question for future projects. To us, it’s not ideal, because we like to be able to give our audience what they want without having to ask them to go into their pockets, even though they are so willing and so generous.

We love what we do, and the ideal goal is to get more money than we could raise on Kickstarter from people who have the money to do it, like corporations, instead of fans.

PAGE 2

On page 2, Espenson and Bell share their plans for future ‘Husbands’ comics, if they would ever move the show to television, and more.

Adapting ‘Husbands’: Comics and television

Jane, you come from a more traditional TV background. Do you approach ‘Husbands’ differently due to the different format?

Espenson: Oh, it’s exactly the same. I’ve worked on sitcoms, they are traditionally made up of three eight minute acts, which is how we write. Ours is exactly the traditional sitcom writing format, there is nothing different.

Bell: Right. From the beginning, even the two minutes episode are just the eight minute acts broken into smaller chunks. We did that as a statement that it’s all television. The format can change, it doesn’t have to, and even if it looks different, it might not be. So what we call an episode is really just the first part of the show that you’d see before the commercial break.

Would you ever move ‘Husbands’ off the web to television?

Bell: Sure. I think everything is on the web now no matter what. Even if you’re broadcast first, you’re on the web the next day or simultaneously, so I don’t think we would ever move off the web. But would we include broadcast as part of our distribution? Sure.

Espenson: I think that if we could go to a place where we had the money to make a whole rack of episodes, whether it’s broadcast or digital almost doesn’t matter anymore. We want to go where we can get the biggest audience for the biggest amount of material.

Will we see the comics diverting more and becoming their own universe, or could you see them running parallel to the series?

Do you ever come up with an idea for the show and think actually, this would be better for the comic book?

Espenson: You know what’s interesting, if we had an idea like that we would probably just set it aside, because we are really thinking about the show. We may have some of those in our notes, but we haven’t been thinking in that way.

Bell: Yeah. I think we have come up with some stories that would translate to a comic book. I don’t know if necessarily it would be better for the comic, but stories that have characters who would create great opportunities for arch-villains, and epic battles, and things like that.

Espenson: And also, like when we made the Buffy animated show that never actually got made, we thought of those stories where like, Buffy gets shrunk down in size gradually – and would be impossible to shoot. So if we wanted to do, Cheeks and Brady go on a hot air balloon ride, and we discover Cheeks is afraid of heights, that would be a perfect one for the comic book, because how are you going to shoot that?

Bell: On a green screen!

Espenson: Yeah, that’s true.

‘Husbands’ season 3 promo:

Credit: Photos by Jonathan Reilly