TV Talk: ‘Loki’ returns, Upper St. Clair grad stars in ‘Monsters’

It’s been more than two years since the first season of Marvel’s “Loki” streamed on Disney+, but producer and Marvel creative executive Kevin Wright said fans with fading memories can rewatch just the last 10 minutes of the first-season finale to get reacquainted with where the new season picks up.

As season two begins, Loki is stuck time skipping, turning up in multiverses where Time Variance Authority workers have no idea who he is.

When Loki lands in the season one timeline, Mobius (Owen Wilson) tries to assist by introducing Loki to TVA tech genius Ouroboros (Ke Huy Quan), AKA O.B.

Wright said Marvel impresario Kevin Feige wanted to see more of the TVA in season two, now streaming, which planted the seed for the creation of O.B.

“It just helped us build a deeper lore and story to this place (by introducing) the guy who’s in the basement thanklessly toiling away, keeping this place running,” Wright said.

The show’s casting director recommended Quan, who would go on to win an Oscar for “Everything Everywhere All At Once,” which was only in limited release as producers planned “Loki” season two.

“I think we all just felt very lucky that he wanted to join us,” Wright said.

As for the inclusion of actor Jonathan Majors, a problematic presence after he was charged with misdemeanor assault in March (Majors pleaded not guilty; a court date is set for Oct. 25), Wright said producers did not adjust “Loki” to reduce Majors’ presence as Victor Timely/He Who Remains.

“This is one of the first projects Marvel’s ever done that we had zero additional photography (after production wrapped on the season),” he said. “The story that’s on screen is the story we wanted to tell.”

Another story producers were keen to tell was that of Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino), the female Loki variant who in the new season takes comfort working at an Oklahoma McDonald’s in 1982. While the exterior doesn’t match McDonald’s circa the early 1980s (it was filmed at a shuttered Indian restaurant outside London), the interior, from the menu board to the soda machine, looks period accurate.

“We had a brilliant archivist who came on from McDonald’s to help us find all this stuff,” Wright said. “We thought what would help tell Sylvie’s story was putting it through the lens of nostalgia.”

Wright said the backstory in his head is that Sylvie saw employees coming back with fast food on their lunch breaks and maybe dreamed of what a fast food restaurant would be like.

“If you’ve never lived a life, the small things could really appear warm and inviting. … You could walk into a McDonald’s and the people there would know your name because its a small town,” Wright said. “It’s a metaphor of the life that she didn’t get to have. … She had been on the run growing up in apocalypses for maybe centuries.”

Whether season two is the last season of “Loki” has not been revealed, but Wright said the goal was to, as star Owen Wilson said to Wright, “have the courage to close the book on this story.”

“There are certainly more stories to tell with all of these characters,” Wright said. “But for how many seasons can we continue to make Loki and the TVA be in existential peril? Probably a lot but it starts to lose its teeth. We wanted this to feel like a closing of this book (while) planting seeds for further storytelling going forward.”

‘Monsters of California’

Actor Jared Scott, a 2014 Upper St. Clair High School grad whose mother, Lori Houy, is a longtime on-air reporter for WPXI, stars in the new film “Monsters of California,” available for on demand rental Oct. 6 (via Amazon Prime and Apple TV+) and in select theaters the same day (though it won’t play in any Pittsburgh theaters). The film will be out on DVD Dec. 5.

“Monsters of California” marks the film directorial debut of Blink-182 co-founder Tom DeLonge, who co-wrote the film’s script. Scott plays a skater who investigates paranormal events with two friends. The movie starts as a 1980s Amblin-esque, Spielbergian supernatural romp and then devolves into a convoluted paranoid conspiracy thriller.

Scott was previously a series regular on Amazon Prime Video’s first original scripted Canadian series “The Lake” in 2022.

Pitt on The CW

The CW announced its 2023-24 schedule for ACC men’s and women’s basketball, and it includes multiple University of Pittsburgh men’s basketball games (but no women’s Pitt games).

The Pitt Panthers will play nationally on The CW — available locally on WPNT-TV, Channel 22 — Dec. 30 at Syracuse (12 p.m.), Jan. 6 at Louisville (12 p.m.), Jan. 27 at Miami (time TBD), Feb. 24 against Virginia Tech (5:30 p.m.) and March 9 against NC State (7:45 p.m.).

Channel surfing

Pittsburgh’s annual musical satire fundraiser “Off the Record” will pay tribute to the late Western Pennsylvania broadcaster Stan Savran in its 23rd edition at 8 p.m. Oct. 12. KDKA-TV’s Ken Rice emcees the show. Details and tickets ($30-$80) can be purchased via the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust website. … Hulu renewed “Only Murders in the Building” for a fourth season. … Summer box office smash “Barbie” comes to 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD on Oct. 17. … AMC+ added a $5 per month ad-supported tier (including access to Shudder, Sundance Now and IFC Films Unlimited and linear channels AMC, IFC, BBC America and Sundance TV) alongside its ad-free tier, which costs $9 per month. … The cost of ad-free discovery+ rose from $7 to $9 per month but the ad tier remains $5 per month.

Chavez exits WPXI-TV

Michelle Chavez, a reporter at Channel 11, announced on her social media feeds that she’s leaving WPXI-TV to become a 5 and 6 p.m. anchor at WTRF-TV in Wheeling, W.Va.

Chavez joined Channel 11 in 2019 after stints at Fox News Channel and C-SPAN following her 2016 graduation from the University of Maryland.

‘SNL’ sets return

NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” will premiere its 49th season Oct. 14 with Pete Davidson as guest host and Ice Spice as musical guest. Bad Bunny will be host and musical guest on Oct. 21.

“SNL” will add Chloe Troast as a featured player.

Performers, hosts and guests on “SNL” do so under the “network code” contract, a different contract than the one impacted by the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike.