I have never had a tour of a TV show’s set before. I had been to see a taping of a show when I was eighteen. It was The Golden Palace, a Golden Girls spin-off. I remember laughing like crazy. Last week I got to tour the set of the ABC Family TV show, Mystery Girls starring Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth. Getting a look behind the scenes was quite a different experience than the one I had at eighteen. There were still a lot of laughs but also an understanding of the amount of hard work that goes into making a TV show.

This past week I was on an all expense paid blogger trip sponsored by ABC Family (#ABCFamilyEvent, #MysteryGirls, #YoungandHungry, #ChasingLife), Disney (#GuardiansOfTheGalaxyEvent, #BigHero6) and DreamWorks (#100FootJourneyEvent). The opinions expressed in this post are 100% mine unless of course they are a direct quote of someone else.

I had become familiar with the show, Mystery Girls, because of this trip. I watched all the episodes and the night before our tour we watched the pilot episode at the ABC Studios. The Pilot episode was actually released as episode number four. I asked why that was the case, because the pilot episode sets up the whole premise of the show. The reason it was released later was that it was retooled a bit and included Nancy O’Dell interviewing the Mystery Girls for Access Hollywood.

We arrived at the set and were ushered up into the seats where we could watch the rehearsals. Tori Spelling and Jennie Garth were filming a commercial within the context of the show. They were dressed up like sushi chefs and working on getting the shot just right. There was dialog and a fish being thrown and caught. What stood out to me most was the sheer number of people who are involved in producing a TV show. There were camera operators, interns, production assistants and producers. There were even actors who blocked out the scenes so that the director and the camera operators could get things just right before the show’s stars came in to do their work.

So, we watched the crew and actors work for a while and we had lunch, catered. People took pictures of what was being done down on the set. I got my digital recorder ready for when we interviewed Tori and Jennie. They came up when there was a break between filming.

The interview with Tori and Jennie was nice. They were gracious and answered our questions. Lights were set up and and chairs as well. No photos were allowed by anyone other than the professional photographer with us. I gave my recorder to people in the front seats and sat back in the back to listen. I didn’t have any particular questions but there were 25 of us and so many people had tons of questions. It was nice to sit and listen to what Tori and Jennie had to say about the show.

The idea for Mystery Girls came from Tori’s love of mystery shows in the 80s and her desire to pair that with comedy. The premise of the overall show is that two former cast members of a television show called Mystery Girls reconnect after many years and decide to open a business together called Mystery Girls. Tori’s character, Holly, is more of a free spirit and a bit of a ditz but occasionally her hunches help solve the mysteries. Jennie’s character, Charlie, left the limelight, got married and had children. She wants very little to do with Holly until a turn of events brings them back together. Charlie realizes that there was something missing in her life and so she decides to give the real life Mystery Girls thing a try.

The girls are also joined by another regular cast member and he is the reason that they get back together in the first place. Miguel Pinzon plays Nick, a kid who arrives in Hollywood looking for stars. He is the biggest fan of the show, Mystery Girls. He witnesses a murder and will only give his statement to the Mystery Girls. This turn of events pulls the girls back together and inspires Holly to start the agency. Charlie begins working there a bit against her better judgement. Nick then jumps into the mix as the assistant to the girls on their new venture.

When asked if they (Tori and Jennie) would want their children to pursue acting they responded that they would not like the kids to go in that direction. Jennie expressed that it is important to protect her kids and keep them kids as long as she can. She likes structure and strives to provide the kids with structure including meals together and curfews for the older kids. Tori expressed that in her family they talk a lot about feelings and that she “over loves” and that she could be more strict.

When talking about working with Miguel and if it was difficult for him to enter the dynamic of two friends that had known each other for 20 years, they replied that he gelled with them almost immediately. He did not let the fact that the girls knew each other for so long become an issue. He just got right in there and became the third Mystery Girl. Which, was very much the dynamic of the cast within the context of the show.

Miguel was an absolute pleasure to interview. He was warm and funny. He described what happened when he learned that he had gotten the role and how it paralleled moments from the show. In the show Nick is on a tour bus and he gets off the bus to take a picture of Katy Perry’s mailbox. When he got the call that he got the show a tour bus was going by and he was in front of a building where Katy Perry had lived. There was a lot of laughter during Miguel’s interview. We also learned that Miguel was nominated for a Choice TV: Male Breakout Star at the FOX Teen Choice Awards! Everyone was so excited for him.

After our interviews we went down to the floor of the set. We were able to explore the set a little and take some photos. We had a group photo with the Mystery Girls and then Tori and Jennie left to do some other scenes. Miguel stayed with us and took a bunch of selfies with each of us. He was also super responsive on Social Media and he replied to tweets and retweeted photos, too.

Some of the bloggers also explored the wardrobe department and got to see the bright colorful fashions from the show. I think I was already back up in the audience section when that occurred but my friend Chris went down to the wardrobe department and even tried on a few things. You can check out his post about the trip over at Dad of Divas.

It was interesting to see how an episode of TV gets made. What we saw was a very small part of the overall product but it made me realize how much work goes into the process. We even got to see a very special moment from the season finale. But I would be spoiling things if I told you about that.

Mystery Girls airs on Wednesdays on ABC Family. It is a half hour situation comedy about two friends reuniting after 20 years and opening a detective agency. Tune in at 8:30pm ET/PT on ABC Family. Joe E. Tata (“Nat of “Beverly Hills, 90210”) will guest star on Wednesday’s (7/23) episode.

This episode will be called High School Mystery. It is a humorous take on Donna Martin Graduates and reunites Tori and Jennie with Joe E. Tata, Nat from the Peach Pit on Beverly Hills, 90210. Here is synopsis of the episode.

In “High School Mystery,” Holly’s high-school principal Mr. Frost (Joe E. Tata) hires the Mystery Girls to make sure he does not become the target of the senior prank before he retires. When the detectives go undercover at West Beverly in order to stop the culprit, Holly realizes this job is her chance to have the normal high school experience she never had but always wanted. Desperate to fit in, Holly becomes obsessed with being popular and momentarily forgets about their case, while Charlie takes her role as gym teacher a little too seriously. Once the mystery is solved, Holly asks Mr. Frost for her long-awaited diploma, prompting the student body to start chanting “Holly Hamilton Graduates.”

Here are some Social Media links for the show.

MYSTERY GIRLS
Mystery Girls on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/MysteryGirlsonABCFamily
Mystery Girls on Twitter – https://twitter.com/MysteryGirls
Mystery Girls on ABC Family – http://abcfamily.go.com/shows/mystery-girls
Mystery Girls on Instagram – instagram.com/MysteryGirls

TORI SPELLING
https://twitter.com/Tori_Spelling

JENNIE GARTH
https://twitter.com/jenniegarth

MIGUEL PINZON
https://twitter.com/MiguelAPinzon