ATX Television Festival Announces Panels

ATX Television Festival announced a round of panelists, mostly people who are not actually being announced, because they are surprises. I find the best kind of secrets are the kind you announce, or else how will people know you have a secret?

To mark somehow both the fifth anniversary of its finale and tenth anniversary of its premiere, Friday Night Lights is having a reunion on Panther Field with your old friends Texas Monthly and other unnamed cast and crew. The fun includes: 1) a traditional pep rally, full of panthers and pep and explosions in the sky, 2) a screening of a fan-fave ep and photographs with unnamed show-related presences, 3) other tailgating activities, like fighting with your boyfriend, and 4) Texas "eats," a well-known and popular food that almost certainly means barbecue.

Also coming your way are awesome events for groundbreaking Fox drama The O.C., such as a writers' reunion including Josh Schwartz and Stephanie Savage, the team behind The O.C., Chuck, and Gossip Girl, plus a pilot reading featuring castmates, presumably related to the pilot, although it would be both weird and kind of worth it if just like, Chris Brown and Mischa Barton showed up.

Three of the best shows on TV, all on networks that might surprise you, all have panels (with whom?) and screenings (but of what?): Hulu’s Casual, Lifetime’s UnREAL, and TV Land’s Younger. Beau “House of Cards” Willimon will talk to David “The Wire” Simon and Tom “Oz” Fontana, about how they worked together on Homicide: Life on the Street, and probably a slew of other things your uncle can easily talk to other men about. There’s also a writers’ reunion for The Shield, so really all ages will be represented, within the broader spectrum of age we call “middle.”

The showrunners of Sons of Anarchy and Jane the Virgin will be there. Not to talk about anything in particular, although I think we can agree their shows bear striking similarities, but they’re mentioned together because it’s the first time for both Sons' Kurt Sutter and Jane's Jennie Snyder Urman. She’s great, he’s exactly how you think he is, and that’s how this works. All these folks, very few of whom do we technically know who they are still, join the 20-year Everybody Loves Raymond reunion it’s hard to believe anyone really asked for.

---

The fifth season of the ATX Television Festival runs June 9-12. For more information, visit www.atxfestival.com.