This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
When Aaron Allen watches "Riverdale," he identifies with a couple of the characters. Actually, when Allen WRITES "Riverdale," he sees something of himself in Jughead Jones and Archie Andrews.
"I identify with Jughead a lot, because he's the writer," Allen said with a laugh. "He's a lot of fun to write because he's just sort of a wise-ass and cynical. And it's fun to write those detective sort of characters.
"But then Archie is just so inherently good. That's a big part of me. I grew up Mormon, and when you grow up in the Mormon church, you're always being told to be good. To be nice. To always choose the right. And Archie always chooses the right."
Well, not always. The 16-year-old did, after all, have an affair with one of the teachers at Riverdale High. And in this reboot of the Archie Comics, Ms. Grundy is young and attractive.
Allen, a writer/producer on the new series on The CW (Thursdays, 8 p.m., Ch. 30), grew up and went to school in Bountiful. He got a degree in film studies at the University of Utah, where he was also the film critic at the Daily Utah Chronicle for four years.
Hoping to forge a career in television, Allen moved to Los Angeles and got an MFA at USC. Then followed "the full-scale panic of — 'Oh my gosh, I've got to get a job.' And how the hell do you get a job in this business? It's not like you can just submit a résumé."
Fortunately for Allen, USC has a mentorship program that brought him together with the producers of "Big Love," Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer. And that turned into a job writing on the fifth and final season of that HBO show about Utah polygamists.
"When they found out my background and they read some of my writing, they were, like, 'Perfect! Let's get this ex-Mormon guy on the show,' " Allen said. "They gave me my big break and I will always thank them for that."
Allen moved on to a writing/executive story editor job on the "Dallas" reboot; a co-producer/writing gig on TNT's "Legends"; and now "Riverdale." Steady work in television isn't easy to come by, but Allen admits he had no backup life plan.
"Ever since I was in high school, I always wanted to do exactly what I'm doing," he said. "I never had a Plan B. It was always just all of the eggs in one basket."
And "Riverdale" is a dream come true for the Utah native.
"I've always wanted to work on a high-school show," he said. "High school is that one sort of universal experience that we've all been through. You can have a murder-mystery show, but there's also prom and football and homecoming. And it's fun to write about that stuff."
"Riverdale" is sort of a cross between "Dawson's Creek" and "Veronica Mars," with a bit of "Everwood" thrown in. The characters are all familiar — Archie, Jughead, Betty, Veronica, even Josie and the Pussycats — but with a twist.
And, yes, with a murder mystery. The 13-episode first season revolves around the killing of 16-year-old Jason Blossom.
"You have the Archie characters as sort of like a bedrock, and then you can build whatever you want around it," Allen said. "You can have a dead body. It's like a really fun sandbox to play in."
Allen's friend Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, whom he met on "Big Love," is the showrunner who developed "Riverdale." But it was executive producer Greg Berlanti who suggested adding the dead body.
"He's not in the [writers'] room at 'Riverdale,' because he's got an empire to run," Allen said. (Berlanti currently has "Riverdale" and five other shows — "Arrow," "The Flash," "Supergirl," "DC's Legends of Tomorrow" and "Blindspot" — in production.) "But he definitely weighs in with input on our outlines and our scripts. And sometimes when we're veering this way, he'll veer us back over that way."
And, by the way, they won't leave us hanging at the end of 13 episodes. The murder mystery will be solved.
It's about more than just the murder, however. An upcoming episode (scheduled to air on Thursday, March 9) focuses on the unexpected relationship between Jughead (Cole Sprouse) and his father. Allen wrote the script, which is "a lot of fun and very tragic. It was almost like an Arthur Miller play."
Allen traveled from the writers' home base in Los Angeles to filming in Vancouver to work with the cast while the episode was in production.
"This is my fourth show, and I've never worked with a better cast or crew," he said.
There's mutual affection. While Allen was chatting with The Salt Lake Tribune in a Pasadena hotel, various members of the cast — KJ Apa (Archie), Lili Reinhart (Betty), Camila Mendes (Veronica), Madchen Amick (Betty's mother, Alice) and Luke Perry (Archie's father, Fred), stopped by and were delighted to see him.
Could we, one day soon, be watching a show Allen himself creates and develops? That's certainly the hope, if maybe not yet the plan.
"I'm at this stage in my career when my agent and my manager are pressuring me to start developing my own stuff," Allen said. "I'm at the producer level now, so I feel like I have enough experience that I may be comfortable making that transition to showrunner soon."
That's a challenge because showrunners don't just oversee the writing, they oversee all aspects of the program.
"It's like running a business," Allen said. "The Writers Guild even has a program to train you how to be a showrunner, because it's a different hat you have to put on.
"While you make tons of creative decisions, you also have to make staffing decisions and you have to hire people and manage budgets. I have a hard enough time managing my own finances," he added with laugh.
Allen definitely wants to run his own show "someday." But he's also in a great place with a "great job."
"I'm working for one of my best friends, and the other writers on the show are all wonderful, fun people. So going in to work every day is a treat," he said. "I love going in to work and I love the long hours and I love being on the set."
Twitter: @ScottDPierce —
On TV
"Riverdale" airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on The CW/Ch. 30.