TVSquad

There are plenty of sci-fi TV shows made up in Canada. The Stargate series comes out of Vancouver -- as does Fringe. There's a proud ongoing fantasy tradition deeply rooted up there.

But, the city's local newspaper insists the best show in production in Canada's Pacific Southwest isn't on broadcast TV. It's a web series called Riese. The Steampunk-themed action series is set in another time in the kingdom of Eleysia. The title character (Christine Chatelain) battles through the countryside with a wolf avenging the death of her family.

She's fighting off a crazed, fundamentalist religious group -- the Sect. So, you can set your watch by how long the tunnel-vision crew over at Big Hollywood jumps on Riese as some sort of attack on traditional religion. (It's not.)

While on my set visit for Stargate Universe at Bridge Studios in Vancouver, I stayed with the main press tour. It took us from the main stage holding the massive set of the starship Destiny across the expansive lot to a series off small office buildings housing the show's costume shop and editing bays.

The route took us past the sound stage that once housed the production for ABC's Defying Gravity. Of course, the ambitious prime time sci-fi drama was canceled early this fall season. So, the cast and crew were long gone.

The sounds coming out of that distant sound stage were strangely tragic. There was the grinding of band saws, the pounding of sledgehammers and the growling of large cranes -- all working together to tear the show's elaborate sets to pieces.

If you ask J.J. Abrams about his master plan for Fringe, he'll tell you the plan went out the window a while ago.

The creators and cast of Fox's top new series from last year's fall season gathered with press in Vancouver Monday to celebrate the release of the show's first season on DVD and to look ahead at the upcoming second season.

When Fringe left the airwaves last spring, J.J. Abrams, Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman introduced fans to a parallel universe -- setting up a war between our world and that new Earth on the edge of the fringe.

According to Abrams, a long-range plan for the show had him, Orci, Kurtzman and their writing staff revealing the other Earth as the source of Fringe's anomalies maybe three or four seasons into the show's run.

You should be reading Classic Television Showbiz, a really fun blog that often showcases video of old and/or obscure TV shows. This week he has a video of the short-lived game show Pitfall, which Alex Trebek hosted.

Not only did the company that produced the show run out of money, they ran out of money while the show was still on the air. So they couldn't pay some of the later contestants and Trebek didn't get paid either! He still has the check framed in his office. Video below (quality isn't great, but it's interesting).

I didn't even realize that Fringe was filmed in New York City. Maybe because the show is set around but not filmed in the Boston area and is a little X-Files-ish, I always assumed that it was either filmed in California or in Vancouver, the way The X-Files did for most of their run. Now it looks like the show really is going there.

Entertainment Weekly is reporting that for the show's second season (if it has one, which is a good bet), the show will move to Vancouver and film there, because of the production costs. Seems the program for getting shows to film in New York proved to be more popular than they thought it would be and they've run out of money.

Psych is coming back! Starting on July 18th, the comedy starring James Roday and Dule Hill will be returning to USA Network with all new episodes. The third season of this series looks to be a very interesting one, as viewers will finally get to meet Shawn Spencer's long-lost mother as well as get to see a more dramatic side of the character ... something we got a taste of during the last few episodes of last season.

The two stars of Psych got together with the press last week to touch on a number of subjects. Topics included a preview of the upcoming season, a discussion about the duo's "Ebony & Ivory" commercial, Roday's appearance on the NBC anthology Fear Itself, and the never-ending 1980s references that the two spout during each episode.

Something I really enjoyed about Sci Fi putting this event on for us was getting to put faces to people involved with other online outlets. SyFy Portal, Gateworld, The TV Addict, DVD Verdict, Monsters and Critics, UGO, and TVaholic, among others (sorry if I missed mentioning you and you're reading this – I'm still recovering.) These were real fans of television, and they were as excited as anyone to be there. What pissed me off, though, was overhearing a few people in attendance say "I never watch TV," yet here they were, covering TV shows. What were they doing there? Lame. That should piss off any fan of these shows, because this was more than an event to be reported on my the media, it was put on for the fans. OK, I'm done my rant.

Remember when Brett mentioned Tin Man a few months ago? The miniseries, debuting on Sci Fi in December, is a re-imagining of The Wizard of Oz, this time set in the Outer Zone (note the acronym) and starring Zooey Deschanel (a total celeb-crush of mine) Alan Cumming and Richard Dreyfuss (who I don't have crushes on).

The miniseries is filming in Vancouver, and so is the new Flash Gordon series. Since both series use some of the same retro-futuristic sets, the folks involved with Flash Gordon will be making a few tweaks to certain Tin Man sets and incorporating them into the design for the planet Mongo, home of Ming the Merciless.

That's not a bad way to save production money, and it's not like it hasn't been done before. Once, while Leonard Nimoy was sick for a month with pneumonia, a horse from Bonanza was given fake Vulcan ears and played Spock for four episodes. That's why Kirk rode around on Spock's back for all subsequent episodes, so the series didn't lose its continuity.

Make sure you don't miss the first part of the Supernatural set visit.

Smoke effects lazily float across a packed soundstage. Someone calls for quiet. The camera and sound get up to speed, and Kim Manners belts out a loud, "KICK IT IN THE ASS!" Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki power through a page of dialogue ... and a scene for Supernatural is shot. Wahoo!

Kim Manners is one cool dude. When you first meet him, his diminutive frame and long hair make you think "Wow, this guy must be laid back and mellow." Believe you me, he can turn on his drill sergeant voice and snap you in half if you aren't careful. That includes wasting anyone's time or not taking your work seriously. He's a pro and except the same out of the people he works with. But, he's also incredibly nice. He left me remarkably intact.

He's definitely no stranger to the television world, having directed everything from Charlie's Angels, to Mission: Impossible, to Baywatch, to The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. before he landed on the X-Files team and stayed onboard for the long haul. His brother Kelly has also directed episodes of Buffy and Angel, so it looks like their love for the supernatural (get it?) runs in the blood.

Daryl Duke was probably best known for directing the miniseries The Thorn Birds, which starred Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward. But he had a long career as a director and writer, going all the way back to the early 50s.

Besides that classic 80s miniseries, Duke also directed episodes of Night Gallery, Harry O, Banacek, Ghost Story, and The Bold Ones, as well as two of the later Columbo TV movies in the 90s, Murder Can Be Hazardous To Your Health and Columbo Cries Wolf. He also directed a TV movie with a great title, The President's Plane Is Missing, in the early 70s, and actually acted in a few TV shows, including Ben Casey in the early 60s.

Duke died last week in Vancouver of pulmonary fibrosis.