Amblin, My So Called Company, CBS Television Distribution, Warner Bros.
Carina Adly MacKenzie hails from the Julie Plec school of writing and showrunning, an esteemed, much coveted institution that resides in the minds of many aspiring writers.
She started out reviewing episodes of The Vampire Diaries for the LA Times’, Zap2It. She also wrote recaps for House, Grey’s Anatomy and more. During the process of writing recaps for The Vampire Diaries, she met the producers, including Julie Plec who took Carina under their wing telling her, ‘You’re a storyteller – you’re going to be a writer.’ Soon after, she became a writer’s assistant for The Originals, and later racked up writing credits for The Originals, The Flash, and The Vampire Diaries.
Many seasons and writing credits later, she pitched her take on the buzzy Roswell reboot to the CW executives: the original series idea was that everybody feels like an alien in high school, this time around, she aimed for the 2016 zeitgeist, raising the stakes and casting a shadow long past high school: What happens when you feel alienated in your own home, your own country, and government? With a fresh take on the characters in their near thirties, RNM explores the toll that alienation that takes on a person–including their sexuality, citizenship, purpose, and regrets. Ten years down the line, people who once felt safe, no longer do, and that’s where Carina picked up the story.
The CW team was sold on her idea on the spot. For two seasons she served as the creator, executive producer, and co-showrunner for Roswell, New Mexico (2019-present). However, today, mere months before going into production on the third season, she announced her departure from the show. Rumor is that she was so put off by the approved, recut censorship of the show in other markets, particularly the UK’s ITV, that she stood her ground and walked away. Her words on Twitter: ‘Really, really, REALLY upset to hear that @itv cut out a (pretty tame) love scene between two men and kept a (much more raunchy) heterosexual sex scene in their airing of an episode of #RoswellNM tonight. There are a lot of angry tears happening at my house tonight. It’s just blatant homophobia/biphobia/bigotry and I’m so, so sorry and so, so angry.”
Before wrapping her time with the RNM writers, she worked on the highly anticipated Season 3 premier and ongoing story arc, much to the comfort of dismayed fans at home.
What lies ahead for Carina is most exciting. With one showrunning experience under her belt, she’s mentioned several new pilot scripts and irons on the fire. With how much she’s accomplished already, and how much I loved her fresh, updated spin on RNM, I’m looking forward to seeing what she takes on next.
Her Advice to Writers:
The advice I would give is don’t study for the career that you want, study for things that you’d love to learn about. If you want to be a writer but are fascinated by marine biology, study marine biology and be a writer later. Read a lot and study the things that make you want to learn.