‘Quiet on Set’ Bonus Episode Keeps Spotlight on Dan Schneider and Brian Peck: “A #MeToo Movement for Kids”

The Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV directors plan to continue to investigate kids entertainment in Hollywood, even after dropping their latest bonus episode on Sunday with Quiet on Set: Breaking The Silence.

“We’re hearing calls for federal legislation,” series co-director Mary Robertson tells The Hollywood Reporter when talking about next steps. “At the moment there is no federal legislation that governs children who work in entertainment, or that regulates children working in entertainment.”

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The bonus episode, hosted by Soledad O’Brien, delves deeper into the claims surrounding Dan Schneider and the Nickelodeon series he created and ran. The formerly prolific kids TV producer has faced allegations of abuse, sexism, racism and inappropriate behavior involving underage stars and crewmembers on his shows since the release of the two-part docuseries on March 17 and 18. (He responded with a 19-minute apology video.)

The added installment also featured Drake Bell returning after first sharing his story of sexual abuse at the hands of his Nickelodeon dialogue coach Brian Peck in the original four-parter on ID and Max.

“I just felt, maybe this was time to tell my story,” Bell explained in the bonus hour, while also commenting on former network stars like Rider Strong, Will Friedle, Ron Melendez, Alan Thicke, Taran Killam and James Marsden all writing letters in support of Peck, which were used to influence the judge during sentencing.

The bonus Quiet on Set episode touched on Friedle in a recent podcast expressing regret that he wrote a court-directed letter of support for a convicted child molester. But Bell didn’t let Friedle off the hook.

“I worked with Will on Spiderman, and there was a lot of opportunity to apologize or talk about it and [he] never did,” he told O’Brien. Bell added that none of the 41 people who wrote letters of support for Peck ahead of his sentencing have reached out to apologize or just communicate. [On Friday, Bell took to X to say that he and Strong have now had a conversation: “I have nothing but love and forgiveness for him.”)

And he cited a lack of media coverage around the 2003 arrests, first of Jason Michael Handy — another child predator who worked as a PA on a Nickelodeon series — and then of Peck, for allowing Peck to continue work in Hollywood after serving time in prison for child molestation and being a registered sex offender.

“For those two cases to happen so closely together, and at the same network, on the same show, it allowed him (Peck) to go to work on other shows, on other kids shows, other kids networks… as a registered sex offender,” a still surprised Bell recounted.

He also reiterated that Schneider was alone in reaching out from Nickelodeon during the Peck trial, and afterwards to offer comfort and support. And Bell defended Josh Peck, his co-star on Drake & Josh, who came under attack on social media platforms for his apparent reaction to Bell’s story when first told publicly.

“I know what it’s like to have the Internet attack you for, really, nothing. He had reached out to me and we’d been talking,” Bell said in full praise for Josh Peck, who has no relation to Brian Peck, and who has since spoken out about Bell and the Quiet on Set doc.

Another revelation in the Breaking the Silence episode was All That alum Shane Lyons, for the first time, coming forward to reveal that he, too, was propositioned by Brian Peck while on set.

“There were certainly some passes, you know,” Lyons recalled, as he pointed to one green room conversation with Peck where he claimed the sexually suggestive topic of “blue balls” was raised by the dialogue coach. “I’m a kid — 13, 14 — and, as I think back now, as an adult, a 36-year-old, would I have ever had a conversation with a 13-year-old boy like he had with me? No!” Lyons said.

The Breaking the Silence episode also included All That cast member Giovonnie Samuels recalling a recent phone call she received from Schneider where he asked for a “quote of support” following her performances on his TV shows.

Schneider was rebuffed. “I told him I was terrified of him… I told him ‘you had the power to make people stars, and I was intimidated by you,’” Samuels recalled telling the prolific Nickelodeon series creator.

And fellow All That alum Bryan Christopher Hearne, who also appeared on the bonus episode, didn’t buy Schneider’s 19-minute apology video he released after the premiere of the original Quiet on Set four-parter. “Dan was an actor before all this, and so I think he brushed off some chops and gave us a nice performance,” Hearne said.

Breaking the Silence struck an emotional note when Hearne was reunited with his mother, Tracey Brown, and recalled the Quiet on Set docuseries bringing them back together after his departure from All That at age 13 led to a long rupture in their relationship. “I can talk to 14-year-old Bryan and say, ‘this wasn’t your fault. This wasn’t her fault. These people had it out for you,’” Hearne said while looking at his tearful mother.

Ahead of the premiere of Breaking the Silence on ID and Max, The Hollywood Reporter spoke with Quiet on Set co-directors and executive producers Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz, as well as Turner Networks, ID & HLN, linear and streaming president Jason Sarlanis, about what will come next, as their cameras continue to roll: “We really are sort of seeing a movement form about what should happen next in this industry.”

***

Predicting how audiences react to new TV series is always difficult. When did you know you had a ratings sensation on your hands with Quiet on Set?

JASON SARLANIS You can never anticipate [the audience response]. However, on the release of the trailer and it going instantly viral, we had a feeling that the audience would feel about this project the same way we did.

MARY ROBERTSON I remember watching on [the night of the premiere] March 17, in a room where we had gathered with the crew and colleagues that had made the series. And as Jason said, the response to the trailer was incredibly large and passionate. So there was a sense others might tune in, too. But you never really know until it streams. We were watching, as one does, the real time response on social media. And certainly chills went down my spine. I couldn’t believe the number of people who were engaging with the premiere in real time and who were sort of mimicking reactions we had had in the editing rooms. There was a sense that people are watching and, holy cow, they get it. They really get it.

EMMA SCHWARTZ I think it was right as the press started coming out just a couple of days before the premiere. There had been a piece on GMA and then I think Nightline had done something, and there was an additional part where all of a sudden, there were people talking like this is a #MeToo movement for kids. And it’s not even out yet, and you’re already going much broader than the story that we even told. To me, that’s a moment where I said, “Oh wait, they got that there is a whole system that’s even bigger than our story.” And, bit by bit, you began to see more and more people sort of elevate the conversation beyond just the specifics. That’s when I began to feel, “okay, this isn’t just a story. We really are sort of seeing a movement form about what should happen next in this industry.”

When did the greenlight come to do a fifth episode so soon after the original docuseries premiered?

SARLANIS The desire to do more was probably always apart of this, frankly. In terms of specifically extending Quiet on Set in its first series to an episode that captured some of the aftermath, I think we first started talking to Mary and Emma right after the trailer dropped. And we worked together with them mostly to be able to produce this additional episode after the show itself had been seen, so that we could create this platform for our incredibly brave contributors to join in the very conversation that we were alluding to. There have been hundreds of media outlets and content creators who have evolved this story. We wanted to give that platform back the a very people whose story it really is.

Once Quiet on Set launched, did you hear from other former stars of Dan Schneider’s series at Nickelodeon about coming forward to share more stories?

SCHWARTZ There’s a lot of people who had been reluctant to speak publicly. You’re starting to see even just on social media people reacting and coming forward. And certainly one of the contributors to this fifth episode, Shane [Lyons], after he saw the project, these are questions and concerns that he had been holding for many, many years. He felt this had opened the door to creating a level of comfort about speaking publicly in a way he had not been open to before. He’s certainly not alone. We continue to hear from people with more stories and experiences who are trying to figure out how to share and how to bring to light.

The fifth episode sees Drake Bell returning for another interview. Why did he feel ready to share more about his story?

SCHWARTZ He had a lot of trepidation about how the story would be received before it was public. He wasn’t sure how much he was going to want to continue to share afterwards. But he’s received a lot of support, and has also heard from people who’ve been survivors of different, but traumatic, experiences. I think that’s given him a certain sort of strength and feeling that there is a power in telling your truth, and in shedding light and helping other people not feel so alone in that experience. Because I think for many years that was how he felt, very, very alone.

Quiet on Set was spawned in part by the proliferation of viral videos that were compilations of clips from Schneider’s Nickelodeon shows. A lot of that is unverified, user-generated, social media-driven content. How did this help to open the door for people to come forward?

ROBERTSON A number of the individuals who shared their stories in the film were nervous before participating, as one often is and would be when going public with any personal account. They were concerned with whether or not they would be mocked or taken seriously, whether or not their experiences, some of which had felt so terrible to them at the time, would be read or understood as legitimately uncomfortable, inappropriate and arguably wrong by the public that received the film. And overwhelmingly, those contributors have been gratified by the response.

SCHWARTZ I feel like part of it is that the internet is a wild place. And there are a lot of things out there, and there are a lot of conspiracy theories; a lot of things that aren’t necessarily based in fact. But underneath some of those questions were real facts and a real story. And so part of it was sorting through facts and fiction, and when people can see that you are sticking with the truths that people know to be real, there’s a lot of power in that. And not overstepping the boundary into wild conspiracy theories.

Are your cameras still rolling today for more Quiet on Set episodes?

ROBERTSON We’re devoted to telling this story. We’re passionate about telling this story. We don’t think we’re done telling this story.

SARLANIS The themes that Mary and Emma are tackling with Quiet on Set are something that we are committed to continuing to shine a light on, whether or not it’s more of Quiet on Set, or other projects we could do together. What was so incredible about Quiet on Set is that it was expertly crafted to give a platform for this specific story and example of systemic abuse. Unfortunately, there are other versions of that. And so whatever shape that might take in the future, we at ID are committed to empowering filmmakers like Mary and Emma to tell those stories.

The Quiet on Set fifth episode is in part a discussion of where kids TV should go in the aftermath of the Dan Schneider years at Nickelodeon. What should that future look like?  

ROBERTSON What we’re hearing from the public right now is that there’s a desire to understand what to do with their frustration, in some cases their anger, in some cases their befuddlement at previous industry conditions, perhaps current industry conditions. We’re hearing calls for federal legislation. At the moment, there is no federal legislation that governs children who work in entertainment, or that regulates children working in entertainment. There’s a patchwork of state laws that are in place.

SCHWARTZ For a lot of the participants, part of their motivation in speaking was in the hope that things would change. And now that they’ve seen such a reaction, I know one of the major concerns is that there’s not a requirement that people who work on sets have background checks. It’s on a case-by-case basis. And there’s certainly concern that that is not protective enough of children. People have called for having social workers or mental health specialists working with kids, just to make sure they feel like they have agency in an environment that has complicated layers of power dynamics at play. And I’m sure that that’s just the beginning.

SARLANIS When we look at Quiet on Set, it is the story of a very specific period of time 25 years ago. I hope that the series can serve as a cautionary tale to future emerging platforms that work closely with kids and kids entertainment, and currently have zero oversight or regulation or structure around them, like social media and digital forms of entertainment that unfortunately could be vulnerable to becoming the next breeding ground for this kind of systemic abuse.

Dan Schneider put out a response video immediately after the Quiet on Set four-parter premiered. Assuming you watched it, what was your reaction?

ROBERTSON We’ve all watched the 20-minute video that Dan shared and is now widely available. We offered Dan an opportunity to participate in the series and he declined. His statement was included in Quiet on Set. In the fifth episode, you will hear from contributors  about their response to the video that Dan posted online, and there are strongly held beliefs.

SCHWARTZ And there’s new insights into some of the current state of their relationships.

And your own responses to the video?

SARLANIS I think our job is to create the platform for the people who have that direct relationship to tell their story in response. And episode five does just that pretty well.

Among the contributors to Quiet on Set, we have yet to hear directly from other Nickelodeon stars like Amanda Bynes or Jennette McCurdy. Who would you still like to hear from or speak with most?

ROBERTSON We don’t want to exert pressure on anyone who’s not ready to participate or to share their private experiences with the world. I think there are certainly other accounts. There are many people who worked on these sets who we haven’t heard from yet. When they’re ready to share their stories, if they would like to share them with us, we would be so honored and we would take incredibly good care of them.

Breaking the Silence and Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV are now streaming on Max.

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