The A&E drama series Bates Motel is currently wrapping up its first season and has already been picked up for Season 2.  To celebrate the show’s success, the Paley Center held a panel called Bates Motel: Reimagining a Cinema Icon, and Collider was there to cover and attend the event.  From executive producers Carlton Cuse (Lost) and Kerry Ehrin (Friday Night Lights), the show is a contemporary prequel that gives an intimate portrayal of how Norman Bates’ (unsettlingly portrayed by Freddie Highmore) psyche unravels through his teenage years and just how deeply intricate his relationship with his mother, Norma (in an awards worthy performance by Vera Farmiga), truly is.

During the panel, Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin, along with Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga, talked about the challenges of pulling this show off, what makes the relationship between Norman and Norma Bates so compelling to watch, what the actors bring to their characters, learning more about Norma’s backstory and what made her the way she is, how exhausting it is to write for crazy people, what they look for in directors, and the ideal plan for how long the show will run.  Check out what they had to say after the jump, and be aware that there are some spoilers.

The A&E drama series Bates Motel (which was recently renewed for a second season) gives viewers an intimate portrayal of how Norman Bates’ (Freddie Highmore) psyche unravels through his teenage years.  This contemporary prequel to the genre-defining film Psycho reveals the dark, twisted backstory and shows first-hand just how deep the relationship with his mother, Norma (Vera Farmiga), truly goes, as she helps forge the most famous serial killer of them all.  The show also stars Max Thieriot, Nicola Peltz, Olivia Cooke, Nestor Carbonell and Mike Vogel.

During this exclusive interview with Collider, executive producers/writers Carlton Cuse and Kerry Ehrin talked about how they each came to be involved with Bates Motel, how much they use Psycho as an inspiration, just how crucial the casting of Norman and Norma Bates was, the overall story they’re looking to tell this season, how far ahead they plan out the story, what it will add to the show when guests start checking in to the Bates Motel, and the importance of transmedia to make viewers more directly active with the show.  Cuse also talked about how he’ll divide his time, if the adaptation of The Strain goes into production at FX.  Check out what they had to say after the jump, and be aware that there are some spoilers.

A&E’s Psycho prequel series will be continuing for at least another year.  The network announced today that it has ordered a second season of Bates Motel, which premiered a couple of weeks ago to solid ratings and positive reviews.  The drama series comes from Lost co-showrunner Carlton Cuse and Friday Night Lights alum Kerry Ehrin and centers on the relationship between a teenage Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) and his mother (Vera Farmiga).  The show is similar to Lost in that it has set up a number of mysteries in its first few episodes, some of which may or may not be resolved by season’s end.  Hit the jump for more, including the full press release.

This week, Bates Motel was a lot more low-key than last, but it was no less strange.  I gave most of the kudos to Vera Farmiga for her wacky, totally creepy performance as Norma, but already Freddie Highmore is really starting to find his own inner creep, from his nascent violent tendencies to his obsession with snuff manga.  In fact, there are very few things about White Pine Bay that aren’t creepy, and this is where the Twin Peaks comparisons start to gain traction (ever so slightly, or did I confuse that with Top of the Lake? So many creeper shows on right now).  The town is described by Deputy Shelby as being fake (how could people without real jobs have such fancy homes and drive such fancy cars?) with a vigilante underground.  Will the Bates fit in, or will they be targeted?  Hit the jump for why “I’m your mother, it’s not like it’s weird or anything.”

A&E has gathered together some formidable talent to creates its Psycho prequel series Bates Motel, with Carlton Cuse (Lost) and Kerry Ehrin (Friday Night Lights) producing, and Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air) and Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland) as Norma and Norman Bates.  The series is billed as a “contemporary” prequel to Hitchcock’s 1960 classic, and while the show does take place in that familiar setting with a few winking call-backs to the original film, it’s clear that it wants to be its own thing.  The show is seeking to straddle that difficult line of basing itself off of very familiar material (which guarantees an audience, if just from the curiosity) — though which also burdens it with the fact that things have to end up at a certain place at a certain point — and doing something new with the story.  Things have started off slowly and strangely in the first hour, with the show seeming to not quite find its tone, but there are also some legitimately promising elements.  Hit the jump for why “we belong to each other.”

Legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock is having a banner year popularity-wise between two feature films and a fantastic Blu-ray set, and it looks as if the sudden Hitch boom is likely to extend well into 2013.  The first image from the A&E TV series Bates Motel has landed online, giving us a first look at Freddie Highmore (Finding Neverland) as young Norman Bates and Vera Farmiga as his loving (?) mother.  Developed by former Lost showrunner Carlton Cuse and Friday Night Lights’ Kerry Ehrin, the series will explore the relationship between future psycho Norman Bates and his mother Norma.

Hit the jump to check out the first image.  Bates Motel will debut on A&E in Spring 2013.

Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air) may be better known for her film work in the last few years, but she’s no stranger to TV (having starred in the short-lived NBC series Undercover as Alex Cross, as well asDetective Susan Branca in USA’s Touch Evil) or the horror genre (she’s appeared in the Omen where she showed she has one hell of a scream), the marriage of which will result in the upcoming A&E series Bates Motel.

The 10-episode series, which was sent straight to order without a pilot, will serve as a prequel to the Hitchcock horror classic Psycho.  Though it was originally slated as a miniseries, former Lost-showrunner Carlton Cuse and Parenthood‘s Kerry Ehrin, who will serve as executive producers and writers, decided to rework it into a full series.  For more on Farmiga’s role, hit the jump.

While many fans directed their love/hate mail to J.J. Abrams during Lost’s six-season run, the truth is that Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse were the actual brains behind the day-to-day running of the series. The two were the showrunners for the duration of the show’s life while Abrams simply served as an executive producer (though he was crucial to developing the pilot and the overall idea for the groundbreaking series). Lindelof took a fairly prolific route following the series finale with writing gigs on Cowboys & Aliens, Star Trek 2, and Prometheus, but many fans have been waiting to see what Cuse would tackle post-Lost. It appears we have our answer, as Cuse has just joined the A&E series The Bates Motel as an executive producer. Hit the jump for more.