Eternally Yours Creators and Cast Tease a High-Stakes Vampire Comedy

Ghosts arrived on CBS as a fully formed entity of sitcom tropes and supernatural lore. It proved paranormal creatures could thrive in weeknight network comedies.

So when showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman got the green light for their vampire comedy Eternally Yours, our dreams of a universe dedicated to spooky sitcoms became a reality.

Flash forward to this year’s Comic Con, where fans were treated to a “fang-tastic” screening, followed by a panel where Port, Wiseman, and cast members Ed Weeks (Charles), Allegra Edwards (Liz), Helen J Shen (Emma), Jaren Lewison (Max), and Parker Young (Jesse) pulled back the curtains on this new show.

For the Joes (Port and Wiseman), Eternally Yours was never intended to be a sequel series of a supernatural TV dynasty.

“We wrote this pilot 11 years ago, and it did not get a shot at the time,” Port explained.

“And then because of that, they called us a few years later to develop Ghosts. After, they decided to revisit this, which we’re so happy they did. And you know, Helen and Jaren would have been like 14 years old if it did get picked up then. So, we have this amazing cast because of the moment that this happened, and it all worked out.”

However, fans of the flagship show should prepare for a comedy that is written from a far more personal place this time around.

“It sounds weird to say about this vampire show, but the relationships are very autobiographical,” Port added. “When we were developing it, we were like trying to think of ideas from our lives. Even when something is fantasy or sci-fi, it still comes from real life. We started talking about our long-running writing partnership, and we were like, ‘What about two people who are stuck together forever?'”

Charles and Liz

In the pilot, we see Charles and Liz fulfilling this prophecy as they embrace in a castle turret to confess their undying love.

In the throes of this love, Liz is barely thrown by Charles ‘ throat clear mid-speech, and they seal the deal with an eternal bite. Fast forward several hundred years, and Charles’ constant throat clearing is no longer endearing to Liz.

As it turns out, the irritating quirk was plucked straight from Wiseman and Port’s partnership. “The throat clear is from Wiseman,” Weeks revealed, to which Wiseman reluctantly agreed, “Apparently, I clear my throat a lot.”

Weeks joked that Wiseman dubbed his throat-clearing noises because he couldn’t get the “annoyingness of the throat” just right.

“He just did it wild, which means you do as many takes in a row while a boom operator is kind of standing over you. So Joe Wiseman is standing in front of me, I’m in my garb — my 1600s ball gown — and he’s just clearly his throat over and over,” Edwards recalled.

Jesse and Phyllis

Eternally Yours will focus on relationships and how hundreds of years living with the same people can chip away at what made these partnerships worth pursuing in the first place.

“This show is all about the three different relationships,” Port confirmed.

Liz and Charles lead the coven as the titular couple on the verge of imploding. But their relationship woes are just one element of the vampiric curse explored through this domestic lens.

Young’s Jesse, a fledgling with a love for fitness and spray tans, hasn’t let eternal life stop him from pursuing love. We learn Jesse had a whirlwind relationship with a young Phyllis (played by Rose Abdoo). They eventually had two children together, and despite the complications of Phyllis aging, Jesse wants to make their relationship work.

“Where have you seen a relationship like this where you’ve got a younger guy — who’s actually a couple hundred years older — in love with a woman who could be his mother? It’s a really fun dynamic to get to sink our teeth into,” Young joked.

He acknowledged that Jesse will probably have to tell Phyllis he’s a vampire sooner rather than later. “I think he has to stop wiping her mind,” Weeks added. Young agreed the long-term effects of constantly mind-wiping the love of his life “can’t be good” 

Emma and Max

The third relationship is the one that stands to change everything when Shen’s Emma falls for a human boy named Max.

“The similarity and uniqueness of this match — they’re both willing to try something different and jump into a new love with no net. They’re both taking leaps of faith, and I feel like there’s an ally-ship within their love. That is a really great offset to Charles and Liz’s relationship,” Shen said.

“Their upbringings — and for Emma, her many, many upbringings — have been a little bit different. But I do think that they enjoy having conversations about their similar earnestness. There’s a purity to their hearts that I find endearing.”

Emma and Max are very much the antithesis to Charles and Liz throughout the season, much to the veteran couple’s annoyance.

According to Port, Emma’s past loves also aren’t a fan of her new man: “Iwin, her sort of bad boy, vampire ex-boyfriend. He’s definitely going to rear his head, and I feel like Emma has never dated guys like Max. She’s giving a good guy a shot,” Port teased.

“The differences are also pretty evident,” Lewison mentioned. “Like the lived amount of years, and Max having to deal with, ‘ Oh, we have blood for dinner’ is an adjustment.” The actor pointed out that Max learning to accept Emma’s vampirism is no different than any family learning each other’s “culture and traditions.”

Vampire Non-Negotiables

Of course, certain things are non-negotiable when you’re in the business of spooky sitcoms.

“We’re doing a Halloween episode,” Wiseman assured. “It only seems appropriate for a vampire show to do a Halloween episode. And Charles and Liz are going to butt heads. They end up having to host Liz’s boss at the house, and Charles is not a fan of them.”

“Yeah, it’s a difficult holiday for the vampires because they take offense to some of the stereotypes and portrayals,” Port said, calling back to a moment on the pilot where Liz becomes quite offended by an assumption she can’t touch garlic.

Eternally Yours will also take great care in crafting mysteries around each vampire’s origin, starting with Jesse: “We’re going to learn about how Jesse became a vampire. And how what Jesse thinks is the story of how he became a vampire is not the actual truth,” Wiseman teased.

Finally, Woodstone may be a ghost-only zone, but the coven won’t have such an exclusive guest list: “You can’t have vampires without werewolves,” Port revealed.

“And there are a couple others. I guess we can say… witches will also be involved.”

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Eternally Yours premieres Thursday, October 8 at 9/8c on CBS.

Check out our full coverage of San Diego Comic-Con, including panel recaps, news, and interviews, here!

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