Strictly between us, I’m still getting used to attending popular culture events in Austin. My partner and I have lived here for a little over a year now. I love the city. I love its live music, theatre scene, and film culture. I am at my happiest in creative spaces like this, especially to escape the Texas summer heat.
I thought about this last point as I was waiting for the first panel event at ATX TV Fest on a particularly pleasant 86 degree day – hot for the Punished Backlog hoodie that I chose to wear, cool for late May in Central Texas. I was excited to attend my first “TV Camp for Adults.”
ATX TV Fest is in its 14th season. The crew members, volunteers, and co-founders put on an amazing celebration of all things television, ranging from panel discussions, sneak peaks, and premieres. The festival partly takes place in one of my favorite places in the city: the historic Austin Paramount Theatre.
With glee, I attended the four days of ATX TV Fest Season 14! I have compiled some of the highlights of this wonderful showcase of talent and celebration of television.
Andor at ATX TV Fest 2025
Star Wars: Andor is the show that everyone couldn’t stop talking about last spring. This day one panel at the festival was several years in the making; it was initially planned after the first season, but delayed to support the 2023 writers’ strike.
Tony Gilroy (Andor showrunner and executive producer) lights up every room that he walks into. Not in the joyful, heart fluttering kind of way (though I’d be lying if I told you that I didn’t fanboy out a little bit), but with a rare skill that encourages the room to match his energy. He is careful and calculated, notably scanning and reading the room between the four clips of Andor Season 2 and questions from Vulture’s Kathryn VanArendonk. When Gilroy speaks, the room — and it feels like all of Austin — stops to listen.
He was joined by the brilliant Beau Willimon (Andor, writer). Willimon described the writing room under Gilroy as “musicians on a maestro’s album.” The two shared stories from their experiences to writing about death, sex, and fascism in Star Wars under a Disney administration that, throughout the $650 million two seasons, only provided one note: “We said ‘Fuck the Empire’ in the first season,” Gilroy remarked, “and they said, ‘Can you please not do that?’”
The conversation was hopeful and timely with a focus on writing against exposition and how to use negative space while writing to show more than you tell.
Both seasons of Andor are available on Disney+; the show’s final episode aired on May 13, 2025.
The Premiere of Netflix’s The Waterfront
ATX TV Fest premiered the first episode of Netflix’s upcoming drama series The Waterfront. Kevin Williamson (Scream and Dawson’s Creek) returned to film in North Carolina, joined by a cast that includes Melissa Benoist (Supergirl), Holt McCallany (Fight Club, Mindhunter), and Jacob Weary (It Follows, Animal Kingdom).
The eight episode season promises to follow the Buckley family as their North Carolina fishing empire begins unravelling on multiple fronts. The premiere episode was well-written, though a little trope heavy. Each character carries their own mistakes and burdens. The show is somewhat torn between focuses — at times, I felt like I was watching two different shows.
I like Williamson’s other work quite a bit, and after hearing him and the cast preview the show’s remaining seven episodes, I look forward to watching how the rest of the Buckley family story unfolds.
The Waterfront premieres on Netflix on June 19, 2025.
Downloading With Upload
I love Amazon Prime’s Upload and have been looking forward to Season 4 after the devastating cliffhanger of Season 3. The panel “Downloading with Upload” gave us a chance to listen to creator and writer Greg Daniels as well as actors Kevin Bigley and Zainab Johnson.
On pitching the show, Daniels noted that, “This is a romantic, satiric, mystery, sci-fi show…if mankind could make its own heaven, it would be as shitty as everything else we’ve made.” He discussed how he came up with the initial concept while on SNL in the 80s digitizing music. When discussing why he chose an afterlife like Lakeview, Daniels posited that he could imagine “nothing more unfair than a heaven that is for-profit.”
The conversation expanded to discuss what auditions were like and the lack of a chemistry read between Bigley and Johnson. This led Johnson to slightly spoil an upcoming season 4 plot point for her character (“Who would have ever thought that Aleesha would be a corporate spy?”). They also shared that, this season, our characters will go to Applecove’s Upload. Johnson referred to it as “our White Lotus episode.”
Of course, a show that encompasses AI must consider how AI currently impacts our lives. When discussing an interaction with an Amazon advisor about AI technology, Daniels said, “Starting in [Season 4], [we hired] a woman on retainer at Amazon to imagine the future for them…she was basically saying in her opinion AI was going to dominate everything.” When asked about her son, she told Daniels that, “best case scenario, he’ll be a pet for AI.”
Turning back to the show, Johnson ended on a pleasant and optimistic note, hoping that the central question of the show for viewers becomes: “Is love still available and what are we willing to do [for it]?”
Seasons 1-3 of Upload are available to stream on Amazon Prime; the fourth and final season is expected in late 2025.
King of Hill Revival
King of the Hill is back! The show returns for its fourteenth season on Hulu on August 4th. ATX TV Fest gave us a sneak preview of what to expect along with a panel discussion with Mike Judge and Greg Daniels (co-creators and executive producers), Saladin K. Patterson (executive producer and showrunner), and Pamela Adlon, Lauren Tom, and Toby Huss (voice cast members).
Protagonist Hank Hill returns to Arlen, TX after working in Saudi Arabia to build a retirement nest egg (yes, he was still working in propane). Hank’s son Bobby is now 21, working a chef in *gasp* Dallas, TX.
Outside of a preview of the opening scene (continuing a series long joke about Hank’s narrow urethra while holding up the restroom line on a plane), the true highlight was the amount of heart in the panel discussion and finding out little secrets about where our favorite characters are. For instance, everyone’s favorite exterminator and conspiracy theorist Dale Gribble will find himself left of rightwing politics – dealing with a political world that is more conspiracy driven than he is. Military barber Bill has apparently watched “all of Netflix” while Hank was away.
On the legacy of characters voiced by Brittany Murphy and Tom Petty, both of whom have passed since the show’s original run, Patterson assured the room, saying, “We talked about the best way to honor them, the show and the fans as well. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but we found opportunities to let them be referenced, in a very respectful way that people are going to appreciate.”
The conversation focused on the familial feel of working on the show. The conversation was quite emotional as the panel discussed favorite moments, fan tattoos, and characters. Judge gave a little background on the show, remarking, “We lived in Richardson, Texas right outside of Dallas in the late 80s/early 90s. I remember seeing ‘Do the Right Thing’ and thinking, even though I’d never been to Brooklyn, this feels real. Why can’t someone do that for our little neighborhood? You hadn’t seen anything like that — where it was just observational, regular people.”
King of the Hill ran for thirteen seasons from 1997 – 2008; it will renew for a fourteenth season, premiering on Hulu on August 4, 2025.
For a note about Jonathan Joss at ATX and in the days after, please see the end of this post. Content warning for violence and loss.
The Leftovers Panel
The seminal HBO supernatural series The Leftovers recently celebrated its tenth anniversary (and is about to celebrate its eleventh on 29 June 2025), telling the story of what happened when 2% of the world’s population suddenly disappears. The three-season series adapted and expanded on Tom Perrotta’s 2011 novel of the same name. ATX Fest hosted a panel discussion with Damon Lindelof (Co-Creator, Writer, Executive Producer), Tom Perrotta (Co-Creator, Writer, Executive Producer), and Mimi Leder (Director, Executive Producer), as well as cast members Carrie Coon, Amy Brenneman, and Ann Dowd.
The panel served as a celebration of the show: full of tears, laughter, and reminiscing. Lindelof meditated on creating a show that wouldn’t necessarily be everyone’s cup of tea; at one point, he summarized season one as asking the viewer to “stop fucking watching.”
The creators and cast also discussed the changes made with seasons two (filmed in Texas!) and three. On the shift in location for season two, Lindelof noted that, “Tom [Perrotta] had the initial idea for a town where no one departed in Season 1 … And when he pitched the idea, all the writers were like, that idea is so good, we can’t burn out the story.”
All-in-all, The Leftovers panel gave the fans, the creators, and the cast the opportunity to celebrate a beloved show — one that feels ever more relevant after Covid and grief.
All three seasons of The Leftovers can be viewed on HBO Max.
Bookstore Pop-Up Presented by Vintage Bookstore & Wine Bar
I’d be remiss if I didn’t give some time to the lovely bookstore pop-up that was hosted by Vintage Bookstore and Wine Bar. The bookshop itself is a lovely place that I highly recommend going to. The pop-up selection was heavily TV-themed — not surprising since we were at TV camp for adults, after all.
The Bookstore pop-up was also accompanied by a book signing with E. Lockhart. She was signing copies of We Were Liars — the 2014 horror novel turned June 2025 Amazon Prime TV series. The show also received a sneak peak and panel conversation! The eight-episode season premieres later this month.
ATX Fest Season 14 Was Incredible!
ATX Fest Season14 was an incredible long weekend of all things television! Fellow TV lovers, creators, volunteers, and press all gathered for a weekend of celebration, premieres, and joy.
I look forward for ATX Fest Season 15 next summer! I truly can’t wait to rewatch the first thirteen seasons of King of the Hill (a show that I grew up watching) ahead of the premiere of season 14 this August. My partner and I are currently rewatching Andor with a new appreciation, and I hope to introduce her to The Leftovers in July.
I left “TV Camp for Grown Ups” excited about the past and future of television.
Disclaimer: A press pass was issued by ATX.
POSTSCRIPT: A Note About Jonathan Joss
CONTENT WARNING FOR VIOLENCE AND LOSS
I’d be remiss after the weekend not to discuss the brief interruption during the King of the Hill panel by Jonathan Joss (the voice of John Redcorn) just days before he was murdered in San Antonio. Joss briefly crashed the conversation while Huss was discussing taking over as Dale Gribble from the beloved and deceased Johnny Hardwick.
Joss commented that a volunteer told him he couldn’t stand by the mic, “I guess he didn’t know that my land’s already gone. He said the mic wasn’t going to be used. And I’m an actor. I see a mic, I use it. I see a wrong, I make it right. I want to breathe.” He commented on how he had recently lost his house in a fire before singing a few lines of “I have a hole in my pocket where my money should go.”
Joss spoke and took his leave from the Paramount Theatre just days before his tragic death. Joss’ husband, Tristan Kern de Gonzales, has posted on social media and to the press.
I feel entirely unequipped to further comment about Joss… except to say that I mourn his loss and send my deepest condolences to Kern de Gonzales and to the rest of Joss’ friends and families.
If you or someone you know needs mental health support, text call 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline — available in English and Spanish, 24/7, or visit their online chat at https://chat.988lifeline.org/
Clint is a writer and educator based out of Columbus, OH. You can often find him writing about Middle English poetry, medieval games, or video games. He just finished a PhD in English at the Ohio State University. You can find his academic and public work at clintmorrisonjr.com.
