Paul Simms: Very, very early on, from when we started the whole thing. We’re not trying to trick people. We want surprises, but they have to be logical surprises. And that’s why in episode 2, there’s the funny moment where Colin’s talking to the camera, and in the background, Laszlo tears a page out of the book. You think it’s just a joke because he’s talking about how he’s going to whack off to it later or something.

We wanted to get to the end, and it was very satisfying to see people online, about halfway through the season go: “Why is Laszlo being so nice to Colin? That doesn’t make sense. Colin is so annoying.” And “Laszlo is a very perturb-able person. They must have run out of ideas because this doesn’t make sense.” It was our special little secret that, no, it does make sense and we’ve laid all the breadcrumbs. And when you get to the end, you’ll understand everything. It’s fun to surprise people, but surprise people in a way that’s logical. And it’s not just out of the blue.

Then I also have to ask about Colin’s feeding choices, they seemed counterproductive. Things that he was doing were more annoying to him than the people around him. Was this consciously part of what was growing inside him?

Paul Simms: I never thought of that. Mark?

Mark Proksch: I didn’t either. That’s interesting. After the first couple seasons, the writers did a great job of moving Colin away from just being an annoying vampire that always has to feed and creating a better relationship between him and his roommates I think, in that I started looking at the character a little differently as well, and possibly what you’re talking to, is coming out of that. Feeling like I have a little more freedom to go into some areas with the character that we didn’t really touch on in season one and two.

Paul Simms: Yeah, I mean, it started in the pilot as a sort of a one-joke character: “What if there is a thing as an energy vampire and he’s boring?” But we consciously were like: we can’t keep doing that over and over again. And there’s so much more fun ways to go with it. We’re always trying to be conscious of not being repetitive with what works. And that’s why everyone’s like “when’s the next Jackie Daytona episode?” And we say, well, no, there isn’t going to be one because we did it and it was good. You might think you want more of that, but as soon as you see a second Jackie Daytona episode, you’re like: Oh boy, they really are out of ideas.

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