A Look Back at Paley Fest 2025

The final night of Paley Fest 2025 was held this past Saturday at the Dolby Theatre in the heart of Hollywood, featuring two panels for Poker Face and the Special Salute to Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creative mind behind such shows as Gilmore Girls and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

The 42nd Annual William S. Paley Television Festival, otherwise known as Paley Fest, was held from March 21 through March 29 and also included panels for the TV shows Severance, Cobra Kai, Agatha All Along, Matlock, The Handmaid’s Tale and Hacks.

This once was an annual TV event that I never missed (much like the San Diego Comic Con and its sister convention Wonder Con). The first time I attended Paley Fest was back in 2004, but sadly my attendance came to a halt after the 2017 Paley Fest.

Since then, I have been relying on the major news outlets for details about the event, and what follows is information on the panels for the above referenced shows that I culled together from outlets such as Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and others.

SEVERANCE (Held on March 21)

The panel featured a live marching band, recreating a moment from the season two finale, led by cast member Tramell Tillman, who plays Mr. Milchick.

The rest of the panel included creator Dan Erickson and executive producer and director Ben Stiller, as well as cast members Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, Britt Lower, Dichen Lachman, Sarah Bock, Zach Cherry, Jen Tullock, Michael Chernus, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson and Gwendoline Christie.

Stiller shared that they didn’t have a premiere for either of the show’s existing two seasons, so this panel was their first time to be out together in public sharing an episode with a live audience.

Erickson shared that he was formerly employed at a “small, windowless basement office in a door factory” when he came up with the idea for the series.

And, cast member Adam Scott talked about the process of filming the scene of his character Mark’s innie and outtie while new cast member Gwendoline Christie (best known for her role in Game of Thrones) shared how she was so “angry (that she) wasn’t in the show” for its first season, but that joining the show for its second season meant “a huge amount to (her) because a show as original and fresh as this, with this amount of tangible passion and intelligence and real depth of heart behind it is so rare.”

COBRA KAI (Held on March 22)

After six seasons the streaming series came to an end and was celebrated by cast members Ralph Macchio, Xolo Mariduena, Tanner Buchanan, Mary Mouser and Gianni Decenzo as well as showrunners Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg and fight coordinator Don Lee. Series lead William Zabka was not able to attend, but he did send in a video message.

Each cast member shared insights into their time on the long-running series based on the movie franchise The Karate Kid with the main thought being that they all loved that the show brought families together to watch the show together.

It should also be noted that cast members Tanner Buchanan and Mary Mouser are engaged with both of them sharing they got each other an engagement ring and were each planning to propose to the other within about a week of each other.

AGATHA ALL ALONG (Held March 22)

The Disney+ series centered around powerful witch Agatha Harkness (one of the original Salem witches, by the way) who wreaked havoc in the Disney+ series WandaVision. The series is led by Kathryn Hahn, who was in attendance at the event along with other cast members Sasheer Zamata, Ali Ahn and Debra Jo Rupp as well as series creator Jac Schaeffer.

During the panel, Hahn shared that much like her character Agatha who wore a locket in remembrance of her son Nicky, she was gifted a locket from her own family that she wore underneath her character’s locket, and it “felt like I had double amulets on.”

When talking about the pivotal scenes where they all sang together, Ali Ahn shared that she was struck by her and her character Alice’s love of music, and she also shared that performing in front of Broadway icon Patti LuPone was a “surreal experience.”

It should be noted that Disney+ has yet to renew Agatha All Along for a second season.

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MATLOCK (Held on March 23)

The audience got a sneak peek of the upcoming episode that will air on April 3 alongside cast members Kathy Bates, Skye P. Marshall, Jason Ritter, Leah Lewis and David Del Rio as well as series creator Jennie Snyder Urman, director Kat Coiro and executive producer (and former NCIS: Los Angeles cast member) Eric Christian Olsen, who also served as the panel’s moderator.

Bates shared that she would love for the one and only Dolly Parton to guest star in the show’s second season as the oft-mentioned, but yet-to-be-seen friend Cindy Shapiro. That suggestion was met with thunderous applause, but no confirmation was provided if the country legend was offered the role or not. It should also be noted that other wishful names that were tossed around for season two included Yellowjackets star Melanie Lynskey (who is also the real-life wife of cast member Ritter), the show’s own EP Eric Christain Olsen and Latin music star Marc Anthony as Billy’s (Del Rio) father.

Series creator Urman shared that she is really “excited for the last three episodes,” of the freshman series which are “the strongest that we’ve done.” She continued saying that “we’re going to give you the answers you were promised at the beginning of the season.”

Bates also shared that she based her character Matty on her own mother, stating that “she was one of the invisible ones; she was so smart; she wanted to be a lawyer, (but) didn’t have the opportunity (because) she was born in 1907.”

THE HANDMAID’S TALE (Held on March 26)

The Hulu series will come to an end after a six-season run, and the team behind the Emmy-winner wanted to “bring more light to the story” before it ends. Yahlin Chang, co-showrunner and Executive Producer, shared that they “wanted the final season to be a love letter to (the) fans.” She stated further that she “only (wanted) to end with victory and feelings of hope and triumph.”

The panel featured a retrospective clip highlighting crucial character moments and a look back at the show’s evolution as well as a clip from the upcoming sixth and final season. And, the panel included cast members Elizabeth Moss, Yvonne Strahovski, Ann Dowd, Samira Wiley, Madeline Brewer, Amanda Brugel, Ever Carradine, Bradley Whitford, Sam Jaeger and O-T Fagbenle.

Moss shared that the strength of the show’s writing allowed her to approach (harder scenes) without rehearsal, stating that “when you have material like that…it doesn’t take a whole lot to go to the place that I need to go” in order to play out that scene.

HACKS (Held on March 28)

Cast members Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Mark Indelicato, Megan Stalter and Rose Abdoo were joined by co-creators Paul W. Downs, Lucia Aniello and Jen Statsky where they talked about their Emmy win and how season three ended. Statsky shared that, “you leave season three on such a tense moment that it felt like to skip ahead (for season four) any more than (immediately where the show left off) you’d be leaving so much juice left unsqueezed.”

Einbinder then teased that she came into the new season “really looking forward to channeling…all of the great mob bosses. I was trying to go Ava Corleone on Vance (Smart’s character).”

While the creative team has previously talked about a planned five seasons, co-creator Downs said they “pitched the (very) last scene of the show when they (originally) pitched the show, so (they) know where (they’re) going.” But both Smart and Einbinder claimed they don’t know how the show will end, but Einbinder promised “episode 10 (the last of the upcoming 4th season), you don’t even know; you’re not ready.”

POKER FACE (Held on March 29)

Series star Natasha Lyonne and show creator Rian Johnson were joined by season one guest stars Judith Light and Clea DuVall as well as upcoming guest stars John Cho, Haley Joel Osment, Kumail Nanjiani, Davionte “GaTa” Ganter and Melanie Lynsky.

Johnson shared that rather than trying to outdo himself, the goal for season two is to “do what we did and just do more of it.” He continued with “the idea was not to build out some bigger mythology or to see where Charlie (Lyonne’s character) goes bigger with her arc” but to rather “make some really kickass episodes and…try something different with each episode.”

Season two will find Charlie on the run from Beatrix Hasp (Rhea Perlman) and will also feature Wicked star Cynthia Erivo, who will play a set of sextuplets, as well as guest stars John Mulaney and Giancarlo Esposito [among others]. Johnson explained that the show’s casting “inevitably brought a mix of people they’ve worked with before and others that they’ve always respected and hadn’t gotten the chance to work with (before).”

Lyonne is not only the primary cast member but also serves as executive producer, director and writer and since the show is known for new guest stars in every episode, she shared that the “people everybody gets closest to are the crew because those are the people you’re seeing every day.”

THE AMY SHERMAN-PALLADINO MULTIVERSE SPECIAL SALUTE (Held on March 29)

In addition to welcoming Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband/writing partner Daniel Palladino, the panel included Gilmore Girls cast members Lauren Graham and Kelly Bishop; The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel alums Rachel Brosnahan, Alex Borstein and Luke Kirby as well as cast members Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou de Laage of the new series Etoile that will debut in April for which Kirby is also stars.

The salute focused on Sherman-Palladino’s past as a dancer, the start of her writing career on the comedy Roseanne and the origin of her personal and professional relationship with Daniel. Sherman-Palladino then shared how her pitch for Gilmore Girls came about. She was pitching a different show that the powers that be weren’t interested in so they asked if she had other ideas and she told them “There’s a thing about a mother and daughter (who are) more like friends than mother and daughter.” They said they would buy it even though she hadn’t developed anything else beyond that basic premise, but, of course, at the time the powers that be did not know that.

The budget for Gilmore Girls, however, was little to nothing but as Amy’s star rose and the popularity of Gilmore Girls took off and other new projects came along, the budgets eventually improved.

Graham later shared that “people (would) say to me that (they) watched (Gilmore Girls) with (their) mom, sister, daughter and it helped (them) get through a rough time. Amy added, “It’s like a safe place to go to enjoy something with someone who they love. We get a lot of people talking about healing from surgeries, from cancer, a lot of that kind of stuff. They watched it with family members while they were healing so that’s always amazing to me, because that’s something we cannot ever plan on as we write these things.”

Later in the panel, Broadway star Sutton Foster, who appeared in Sherman-Palladino’s short-lived 2012 TV series Bunheads, appeared in a video message and then the discussion shifted to the new, upcoming drama Etoile that will debut on Prime Video next month.

The following pictures are from the red carpet for each of the Paley Fest panels, in order of the night each panel happened, and are from Wire Image, Getty Images and the Paley Center for Media unless otherwise noted: