Deception - ABC TV's New Crime Drama

I love spring premiere season. You get to see tons of new shows, and hopefully, some of them are good enough to keep you asking for more and can stand the test of time.

My favorite types of shows fall into a few categories. I usually go for the science fiction or crime drama shows, but I will also watch a good comedy once in a while.

The latest show I got to preview for ABC TV is a mix of a crime drama with a bit of magical fun thrown in. Deception is about just that, the art of deceiving others (just like magic). Only this time, law enforcement gets the help of a magician to figure out how they are being deceived.

There were lots of twists and turns that kept you guessing, and I love that there were comedic bits tossed it at just the right moment. By the end of the first episode you can see a storyline emerging that keeps you wanting more and pulls you into the character’s lives.

Deception premieres March 11th 9:00 pm CST

Deception Pilot

When his career is ruined by scandal, superstar magician Cameron Black has only one place to turn to practice his art of deception, influence and illusion — the FBI. Using every trick in the book and inventing new ones, he will help the government catch the world’s most elusive criminals while staging the biggest illusions of his career, on “Deception,”

Photo Credit: ABC/Giovanni Rufino

~The Deception pilot was written by Chris Fedak and directed by Michael Lehmann.

Interview – Chris Fedak and David Kwong

After watching the pilot episode of Deception, I had the chance to interview creator and executive producer, Chris Fedak, and magician and co-producer, David Kwong.

Question: Did Cameron (Jack Cutmore-Scott) have the skills already, or did you have to teach him [magic]? Because you have to maneuver your hands in a way that tricks the human eye.

David Kwong: Well we got very lucky that Jack Cutmore-Scott is very dexterous and loves magic. And he didn’t have the skills already but he worked very-very hard and continues to work with me and our New York magician Francis Menotti, and he’s always got a deck of cards on him, he’s always got a pocketful of coins and it becomes an obsession. It’s like a practicing any hobby, you just keep at it and keep at it.

Photo Credit: ABC/Craig Sjodin

Chris Fedak: When we cast the show we always assumed we’d have David’s hands doing all the magic. But then as we got closer and we cast Jack, and we were lucky to get him, it’s like we had charming we had handsome. And the thing is is that he’s also an obsessive.

So as we were walking around the production offices in New York getting ready for the shoot, I’d see Jack working on a trick, and I just thought, ‘I’ll just tell him we’ll just do the visual effects’. And it’s like that’s not okay for him, he is a perfectionist.

Question: What comes first, the magic trick or the script? Do you build the story around the illusion or do you try to create an illusion that will go into the story?

Chris Fedak: It was cool, at the beginning of the year David essentially set down with all the writers in the writer’s room. And our writer’s room is a little bit different because there’s this one whole board where it’s like he did a class where he essentially went through different theories of magic, put them up on the board, then we talked about them.

And then on all the other boards, we’d talk about the story and what we want to do and how we’re going to break down the season and all the mystery stuff.

Then we merged the two together, said which thing goes with this. Because the better the deception or the illusion matches up with the emotions that we’re doing in that episode, that’s when we’re really kind of hitting that sweet spot.

Photo Credit: ABC/David Giesbrecht

I think what we’ve learned over the course of the season is that we can do a lot and we can go big. We have cases, we have those elements of the story, we have like great guest stars coming in this season, but we can also go big. There are lots of crazy things that we do and that was fun to see.

Photo Credi: ABC/Giovanni Rufino

Question: You mention the guest stars and I was wondering, like Criss Angel, are we going to see magicians coming throughout the season?

David Kwong: We have Penn and Teller in this one. We want this to be something that magicians love and respect and they’re going to pop up in it. So yeah we hope so.

Chris Fedak: That was an important point too. They had to read the script before they’d say yes to doing the cameo, so there was a night where it’s like they have the script, they might give you a call, and you do not want Penn and Teller mad at you.

But they were so awesome when they did it and we sent a crew to Las Vegas. So I’d love to have more magicians on the show, that’d be great.

Magic Tricks

After the interview, we were lucky enough to have David Kwong perform a few magic tricks for us. It’s always fun to see magic in action, especially if you have no idea how the tricks work or how the illusion is carried out.

He did a few card tricks and had us all rolling in laughter the whole time. It was really fun to see in person, and both David and Chris were really great to talk to.