So I’m officially more than 24 hours behind at this point. So sue me. (Note to readers: this is, in fact, should not be considered to be a legitimate suggestion that you incur legal action towards either myself or PremiumHollywood.com.)

Anyway, I enjoyed four consecutive Showtime panels – “Dexter,” “Weeds,” “Brotherhood,” and “Californication” – and, frankly, what I got out of it was that I really ought to be subscribing to Showtime rather than HBO. I know, them’s bold words, but it’s true. “The Sopranos” and “Deadwood” are both gone ’til their respective creators get off their respective arses and put together movies, “John in Cincinnati” hasn’t done anything for me as of yet, “Tell Me You Love Me” is officially the running joke of the press tour (although, to be fair, I haven’t actually seen it yet, personally), and God bless ’em, but “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “Flight of the Conchords” are both funny shows that will inevitably come out of on DVD, at which point I watch them at my discretion. Meanwhile, Showtime is offering new series like “Californication,” returning series like “Dexter,” “Weeds,”” and “Brotherhood,” and, in the future, will be bringing back “The Tudors” and “This American Life.”‘

Seriously, what’s not to like about Showtime?

Anyway, here are some highlights:

Dexter:

* Michael J. Hall describes the world of his character, the serial-killing Dexter, as “pretty rocked.” Expect him to encounter an unexpected visitor, says Hall, “someone who sees him for who he is, accepts him as such, and he really has no choice but to do him in. And so, yeah, I think — I think when we meet Dexter at the top of season two, he’s still reeling from that, and — and any footing he’s able to establish for himself is pretty much immediately pulled out from under him.”

Executive producer Clyde Phillips explains, “We’re sort of playing the beginning of the season, picking up obviously where the first season left off. And then, it’s maybe four or five weeks later in the world in which these characters inhabit. So all of the emotional resonance of what each of them went through, particularly with what Dexter went through, will continue as if that were the actual passage of time, so they’re still dented and rocked by what has happened.” (Adds fellow associate producer Daniel Cerone, “The nice thing with Dexter is it’s actually the lack of emotional resonance. So in episode one of the second season, he discovers his sort of emotional vacancy and his reaction to the death of his brother.”)

* Here’s a question that fans of the series – and, for that matter, non-fans of the series – have probably begun to wonder: how long can you drag out a show where the title character is a serial killer and he’s got several people who either know about him or are on his trail? Says Cerone, “You know, an interesting choice was made at the end of the book (that the series was based on) where, you know, Dexter’s sister actually discovered — Debra discovered that her brother was a serial killer. And in subsequent books, that was never explored, and I think there’s a reason for it. I think Dexter has to have that — you know, that barrier, and that might be something for future seasons. We feel there’s a lot to mine at this point in this character and this inner world and what he has to keep from people. Some of our favorite scenes last season were the scenes where Dexter could actually verbalize who he is, what he is to others in a, you know, shaded way that we knew what he was talking about, but they didn’t. And the season was largely engineered to give him as many of those opportunities as possible.”

* Added to the cast this year to keep things hopping: the character of FBI Special Agent Lundy, played by the dependable Keith Carradine.

Weeds:

* Clearly, the big pull of the “Weeds” panel this time around wasn’t the show itself but, rather, the gossip-tabloid fodder of Mary-Kate Olsen being added to the show’s cast as a guest star. It’s technically not the first time Mary-Kate has made it in front of the camera without her sister, but it’s the first time it didn’t end up on the cutting-room floor. (She apparently filmed a scene for “Factory Girl” that didn’t make the final cut of the movie.) She claims it’s not all that weird to become a solo act, however, shrugging it off by saying, “I’m doing what I love. And, you know, I go on auditions by myself, so I guess I’m used to doing the parts by myself.” (Producer Jenji Kohan said, straight-faced, “We didn’t know she had a sister. It was a surprise.”) Mary-Kate hadn’t really been a fan of the show before her agents told her about it, but she claims, “It’s actually one of my favorite shows now; when I get the scripts every week, I’m excited to see what happens.”

* Stay tuned for plenty of new interpretations of the show’s theme songs, “Little Boxes.” Kohan has called in several new artists to provide renditions of the track, including Randy Newman, Donovan, Joan Baez, The Decemberists, The Shins, Keke (in Spanish), Angelique Kidjo (who provides an African version), and even a Russian take on the track. Kohan’s dream artist to cover the song? “I would love a Tom Waits cover. I think it would be great.”

* Justin Kirk’s masturbation lecture has become a staple of YouTube – in fact, it’s reportedly one of the most YouTubed clips of all time – so it’s no wonder he’s proud. “I’m hoping it’s being put to use for adolescents all over the country…or the world even, maybe.” He did not, however, have any hand in contributing to it. “It’s all word for word as is the majority of our program. It took me — luckily, it was the first scene up on a Monday morning. So I had the weekend to sort of sit with it. I didn’t — I was sort of fitfully sleeping that night because I wanted to sort of do it justice. And then, you know, we just came in bright and early. And Alexander sat there and stared at me with his crazy eyes, and we did it.” By the way, if you’re wondering, his favorite moment in the speech is the advice to, um, shoot it into the toilet (“I’ve started to do that at home”), and, frankly, he hates bananas. “They are actually my least favorite smell, and the texture I can’t handle. So I’m certainly not going to put my dick anywhere near one.”

Good to know.

By the way, if you don’t have any earthly idea what we’re talking about, you’ll want to watch this:

* Kohan’s position on Mary Louise Parker’s character’s development is that we’re seeing “the evolution of a gangster. She’s sort of owning what she does and getting comfortable in her skin in that role. I mean, I think there are constant shifts in power and different opportunities that present themselves, and I think she’s learning a business, you know. And it’s almost the apprenticeship of Nancy Botwin at some points during this season. I think, by nature, you know, Nancy will always dig herself into holes. She’s somewhat something of a danger junkie, but I think she’s learning the ropes a little better and learning more about what to do and how to handle situations.”

* Parker seemed bemused when asked her thoughts on the recent re-defining of women over 40 as being still sexy. “Well, to me, I kind of still hold to that European sensibility that I think older women are really sexy. I don’t think they are sexier than younger women, but I think older women are beautiful. And, actually, for me, it hasn’t been the case of roles getting more difficult to find in my career. It actually got better about the age of 35. Things started to happen more smoothly for me. I got better parts. So I’m happy being older. ”

These statements, however, led to much rumblings amongst the men of the cast, with Matthew Modine coughing and smirking, “I have no comment,” and Justin Kirk offering the caveat, “But not too old.” Parker waved Kirk off, assuring the audience that “he’s always trying to get into my pants,” but Kirk got the last laugh by responding, “I didn’t know you were over 40!”

Brotherhood:

First things first: Mike got better.

“We made a real conscious choice,” says producer Blake Masters, “that, A, he’s not dead; and, B, we didn’t want to do hospital scenes and men in commas on breathing machines and the false drama of, you think he’s going to die when he’s a series regular and you know there’s no way in the world he’s going to die. So we decided to do what a lot of good series do, is — our audience has been away from our show for eight, nine months, so we went six months into the future. There’s a long rehab period from a traumatic brain injury and they’re necessarily causes — I’m sorry, there are necessarily long-term symptoms that come from that kind of injury. We’ve done a lot of research, and Jason, particularly, has done a ton of research. It all becomes integrated into Michael Caffee’s personality.”

That having been said, then, what was the point in making us actually think Mike was dead? Masters just shrugs and says, “It seemed a fitting end to the first season. To be perfectly honest, we had no idea where we were going to go in season 2. We don’t preplan that way. We decided that it felt like the right place to end the first season, and we decided to go from there.”

Fans of the show are no doubt a bit pissed that it’s taken this long for the show’s second season to finally make it to air, but Masters has apparently been practicing putting a good spiin on the situation. “I think in terms of the air date time, the lag between air date time is strictly that Showtime made a very strong decision,” he says. “They thought that we would — that the Fall was a great time to put this show on. What they’ve done is they’ve jiggered their schedule to put us on when they think it’s most advantageous for our show, and we’re excited as all punch that we’re on September 30th. There are a lot more eyeballs on television. The Fall is the right time for this series to be on. We’re really excited by it. As for logistically, it actually gave Henry and I a huge opportunity, in that the two of us have written every episode. We are the writing staff.”

The show brings in a new character for Season 2: Colin Carr, played by Brian F. O’Byrne. Colin is one of the Caffees’ cousins, and he’ll be living in Tommy and Eileen’s house. “Brían is a pleasure to work with,” gushes Masters. “He is, as anybody who seems to work on Broadway is, he’s an incredibly gifted actor, and we’re doing a show about the senses of family and family not just in the sense of nuclear family but extended family and then larger, a neighborhood family deck in our way, is part of the family. We made the choice that would be most interesting is if, in fact, Tommy’s — the way Tommy approaches Colin, the new character, is almost the antithesis of the way he approached Michael’s return, the idea that Tommy likes him which is — and is unafraid of his presence and which is the exact antithesis the way he was about Michael’s return. We thought that would lead to some interesting potential. As the season goes on, we find that despite the differences in the way they behave and the way they approach Colin and eventually they’re sort of on career paths, there are certain bonds that will become clear as to why these two men are quite close to each other.”

The one question no-one on the panel could answer, however, was why no-one really watched “Brotherhood” during its first season. Frankly, they’re just glad that Showtime is happy with what they’re doing. “I think one of the things at Showtime that they really made an effort to do this year is to say, ‘Okay. We know the show is good. You all gave us love letters, for which we thank you, and hope you like the new season as much.’ What they’ve decided is, this is a good show, and like a lot of great shows in the history of television that stumbled up in the ratings right out of the gate like ‘Hill Street Blues,’ ‘Seinfeld,’ ‘Cheers,’ and you can go on and name some a lot of the best shows in the history of television and they didn’t rate well right off the bat. They decided to do everything possible to make it capable for us to reach a larger audience in our second season because they know that when people find the show, they become addicted to the show, which is why they’re putting us on in September, which is a much better time of year for us. They’re putting us on directly after ‘Dexter’ to give us the advantage of ‘Dexter”s pull and my bet is come September when it turns to be 10 o’clock when “Dexter” is over, people will stick around and say, “What is this ‘Brotherhood’ show?” And they’re going to watch an episode, and they’re going to be hooked, and they’re going to watch them all. So I think the answer to your question is, it takes a while sometimes for a complicated show to find its audience, but Showtime has done easily everything possible to get us to the place where we will find the audience that we hope we ultimately get, and truthfully, I think we deserve. I hope that all of you will continue to give us the good word of mouth you have because it helps.”

Absolutely.

Californication:

Ultimately, what everyone wanted to know about “Californication” was this: what was so good about it that it actually brought David Duchovny back to TV?

“It was really the script that Tom Kapinos wrote, and I was interested in the character and the idea,” says Duchovny. “Stupidly, I never think that until — when you do a television pilot means you might have to do a television show. So I never think that way. I just thought this was a real interesting character, and I liked Tom, and I believed in him. You know, here I find myself doing it over and over, which is a good thing. But I never thought — I just thought let’s tackle this one thing. Let’s tackle this now. Let’s make a great half hour of this guy in this world.”

Duchovny says he wasn’t actively looking for comedy when the script for “Californication” landed in his lap, but he was, to be certain, open to it. “What I loved about Tom’s script and what I found out later was that Tom had originally written this as a film, but at his heart it was a drama that was going to play as a comedy. I thought that’s exactly what I want to try to do. I didn’t want to try to do an out-and-out, you know, kind of balls out, physical crazy kind of comedy that might be in your multiplex today, but a kind of a comedy from — an adult comedy from the ’70s, almost like ‘Blume Love’ that we’ve talked about or ‘Shampoo.’ So that’s exactly what attracted me to the project and to Tom’s vision of it. But in terms of my functioning as executive producer, I’m on the set all the time because I am in most every scene, so I just kind of feel like my job as a producer is to make sure all the actors are being taken care of and are functioning in a nice creative environment and we’re all on the same page. Even though I attacked and hurt Madeline Zima the other day, I try to keep everybody safe and happy and creatively working. So that’s where I am. So as an executive producer, that’s where I try to function.”

Duchovny had a good laugh about the suggestion that his character is going through a mid-life crisis. “I had a lovely interview where the woman said I was too young to have a midlife crisis. So I think it’s a crisis for sure. It’s a life crisis. I don’t know if it’s the stereotypical midlife crisis, but this is a guy who has lost his job and his family. I think my character has no fear of intimacy. I just think he’s intimate with probably just about everybody.” Adds producer Tom Kapinos, “His only problem is he’s committed to telling the truth at all costs, and that’s what he’s ultimately gotten into his way. It’s a very noble thing, but I think it gets exhausting for the people around him. And I think that’s maybe contributed to his crisis.”