Just days before the series finale of the CW's "90210" airs on Monday, Matt Lanter found out that the pilot he shot, "Star-Crossed," had been picked up by the same network.
"It was crazy, because it all happened within a couple of weeks," Lanter told TheWrap about hearing about "90210's" cancellation and landing the new pilot.
"I was basically meeting and flying out to go shoot this pilot like a week and a half, two weeks later," he continued, "which is a crazy whirlwind for me, but we shot the pilot in New Orleans and it’s cool."
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"Star-Crossed" comes from "The Good Wife" producer Meredith Averill. The sci-fi drama follows the romance between a human girl ("Friday Night Lights" actress Aimee Teagarden) and an alien boy, part of a small group of aliens integrated into her high school after spending 10 years in an internment camp. Lanter plays Roman, one of the alien boys.
"It’s definitely different, which I’m really excited about," Lanter, 30, said. "It’s kind of Brown vs. the Board of Education with aliens. It’s got all these issues we dealt with as a community 50 years ago; these people are dealing with that now except with aliens. It touches on a lot of real human issues and it’s got the 'Romeo and Juliet' romance laced in there, really interesting."
Lanter's excitement is 180 degrees from the way he felt in March after hearing "90210" had been shuttered. The production had already written the final episodes of the season and had to quickly rewrite an appropriate series end.
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"It felt abrupt, because of the cancellation of the show and the way that we had to be rewritten so quickly," Lanter, whose character, Liam Court, was introduced in the latter half of Season 1, remembered.
"So, I don’t know, maybe it felt premature," he continued. "But at the same time, I think they did the best job to not only wrap up specific storylines but wrap up those bigger, general, more broad storylines like the romances."
On the penultimate episode, it would seem that Liam's romances had hit a crossroads. Will he end up with longtime flame, Annie (Shenae Grimes), after all?
Lanter isn't telling.
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"I’m happy with the way things turned out," he did say. "In all honesty, I just want the character of Liam to be happy in the future because, man, he was so unhappy for like five years. He was always getting taking advantage of and nothing ever worked out for him. So if anything works out for him, if a romance works out, I am happy for him."
The two-hour "90210" series finale airs Monday at 8 p.m./7c on The CW.