By Luciana Chavez

McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When the TLC hit reality show "Jon & Kate Plus 8" returned May 25, viewers noticed that Jon and Kate Gosselin sat separate for interviews.

The solo interviews, addressing their marriage and eight children, don't signal a happy, united front in Gosselin land.

The couple's woes on their Pennsylvania homestead — as reported in supermarket tabloids — aren't an idle distraction in Raleigh, N.C. Employees of Serious Robots and Blazing Music + Sound, divisions of Trailblazer Studios in Raleigh, do the post-production work for the show.

The editing experts at Serious Robots and the sound experts at Blazing Music + Sound toiled nonstop last month, not knowing what was going on with the Gosselin marriage or what those troubles might mean for the show.

And no one at TLC or Figure 8 Films, the show's Carrboro, N.C.-based production company, is talking.

Before all the drama, the show's producers sought to give it a different sort of update. Serious Robots and Blazing Music + Sound have been reshaping the look and sound of the show since the Season 4 finale aired March 24.

The show "had 54 episodes last season, so it can get long in the tooth pretty fast," says Leah Welsh , executive producer at Serious Robots. "How do we continue to have people tune in? There are so many options on TV, if something becomes boring, it's gone."

GOSSELIN LOOK

Some last-minute scrambling is normal for Figure 8 and the show's post-production crew in Raleigh.

For the premiere, seven editors, five in-house and two freelancers worked four days, with visits from TLC and Figure 8 personnel and many coffee runs and pizza deliveries, to put the show together.

"What has become challenging on 'Jon & Kate' is, the network and the audience are so hungry for new episodes, every episode we make gets (broadcast) instantly," she says. "Getting behind is not an option."

The visual folks at Serious Robots were expecting Season 5 to be more complicated; the show's producers want the content to mature as the Gosselin children do. Welsh says the interviews should feel different, too: less rehashing, more analysis.

The show will also have more destination and theme episodes. Welsh says the update won't strip the show of the raw quality fans love.

"There are no setups," she says. When Kate snaps at Jon and he rolls his eyes or the sextuplets erupt into giggles, it's real.