Thursday, July 24, 2014

Simon Davidson/ Women in the TV industry



This is on my www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Jul. 9 Simon Davidson: I cut out this National Post article “I wondered if this was all about money” by Katherine Monk on Mar. 2, 2012.  I copy and pasted the whole article and bolded the parts I really liked: 

Simon Davidson isn’t really a betting man, but he made his biggest wager ever on The Odds — a dramatic Canadian feature set against the backdrop of teenage gambling. The Odds is Davidson’s first feature, and while the Vancouver-based director had turned out several successful shorts, he wasn’t sure if he was ready for the full-length gambit.

“It took me over a year to write the script, and when I finished, I wasn’t sure if it was all that good,” he says.

To hone his voice, Davidson says he made another short film. “For the feature, I knew I wanted to make something crime-y,” he says. “Then I read this story of a guy who bet on NBA games with his friends. He became a sort of bookie, and, at first, it was all for fun. But when his friends started to lose, he still wanted to get paid.”

Eventually, the bookie takes it to the bloody end: He kills his friends when they default on their debts.

“I was fascinated by this story, because it was true,” says Davidson, a University of Calgary English literature grad who went on to study at the Vancouver Film School (VFS). “I actually wrote the treatment for The Odds right after VFS, but left it. It wasn’t until three or four years later, when I was in Costa Rica, that I thought I should go back to it again and write a new draft.”

Davidson says he’s finally become comfortable with the creative process, no matter how frustrating or repetitive it can get, because some projects ripen at different times. And you can’t force it if you want good results. “Each story has to come out of you. And the ‘why’ of it is important to me,” he says. “That’s why I love making movies in Canada, because it’s such a different approach. We have a small and very passionate community of filmmakers in this country, and because it’s so hard to make movies here, the people who do it are committed.”

Davidson, who used to cut Flash Gordon episodes, says he has friends editing big movies in the U.S., but they’re not reaping the same life rewards as he is in Canada. “They may be working on an $80-million movie, but they have no real role in how it turns out. They’re just a very small part of a very big machine,” he says. “In Canada, the machine is that much smaller, and the financing is that much harder, but you can make the movie that’s in your heart — as long as it doesn’t require dolly tracks or a crane shot.”

Davidson says teen gambling yanked him by the aorta, because it touches on the ambiguous thread of teen morality and next-generation entitlement.
“I think this is a new trend in North America, not just Canada, so it resonates beyond our borders,” he says. “I met teens who were involved in this world. They were honest. And I realized a lot of this reminded me of my own story and my own teen hero. I fictionalized some of it to make it about gambling, but I think the central themes stand.”

Davidson says the coming-of-age theme is dominant, but really, the monolithic topic boils down to making decisions, moment by moment.

“I wondered if this was all about money, when I started writing the script,” he says. “And obviously, money has something to do with gambling. But the addiction and the compulsion come from someplace else. It’s about a feeling of control.”

He says it all makes for a good metaphor on the art of growing up and assuming responsibility for your actions, but he hopes his movie reflects some of the particulars of our current reality.
“If you’re really engaged in the game, you may not be engaging in your own life. … So even if you’re winning at the table, chances are, you’re losing somewhere else far more important.”


Women in the TV industry: I cut out this Globe and Mail article “You’ve come a long way- maybe” by Kate Taylor on Oct. 8, 2011.  Here are some excerpts:

The most recent employment numbers from the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) found that women made up only 28 per cent of TV writers between 2005 and 2009. And the numbers appear to be getting worse: A survey by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University estimates that the number of women writers dropped to 15 per cent in 2010-11 from 29 per cent the previous year.

Currently only 32 per cent of the active members of the Writers Guild of Canada are women.

“You have an industry that is incredibly intense in terms of pressure to produce,” says Darnell Hunt, the UCLA sociology professor who crunches the WGAW numbers. “You make a TV show, you don’t have many opportunities to get it right. Show runners [head writers, who oversee the rooms] hire teams they feel extremely comfortable with, people who look like them. Nine times out of 10 that means white men are hiring white men. You may have a token woman or a token minority, but women and people of colour are having a hard time being welcomed into the club.”

Alexandra Zarowny, like Hunt, argues that it’s all about comfort: “There is a big cone of silence that drops over a story room. People can say anything to each other. Guys have said to me they feel constricted if there is a woman in the room: How honest can they be about their thought process?”

The trick women learn – especially in the notoriously competitive field of comedy, where women are stereotyped as being less funny than men – is to go straight for the dirty jokes and erotic content. “There is a tendency to go blue right away,” says Rebecca Addelman, a Canadian comedy writer working in Los Angeles, “to prove right away that you are not some wallflower who can’t handle a joke about a hand job, to prove you are there to be funny, to do what they are all doing.”

But aside from telling dirty jokes, do women behind the scenes deliver less-stereotypical female characters on the screen?

“There seems to be a demand for female characters, and strongly written female characters are doing well on television,” notes Adrienne Mitchell, the executive producer and director of Bomb Girls.

Tassie Cameron, who has created the Global hit cop series Rookie Blue with two other women, Ellen Vanstone and Morwyn Brebner. The show about neophyte police officers in Toronto follows as many female as male characters.

“The cop shows, the lawyer shows, they want to make sure they have a woman in the room for character development, for story development,” Cameron says, adding about her own show, “Whether we are addressing big issues of discrimination or not, a traditional male world like policing is interesting to explore from a female perspective, the rookie female cop. There is even more tension.”

On programs with no female writers, women made up 39 per cent of the characters; that number rose to 43 per cent when there was at least one woman in the room.

Still, female TV writers know there is no rule of good writing that says you have to have the same gender as your characters. “It’s up to the individual. I know women who create women who are only appendages and victims,” says Hollywood writer Nancy Miller, the creator of the title character on Saving Grace.

Conversely, women can create very powerful fictional men. It was three women, Mitchell, Janis Lundman and writer Laurie Finstad Knizhnik, who created the violent Canadian series Durham County, starring Hugh Dillon as deeply flawed cop Mike Sweeney. The fact that women had created such a dark show caused much comment when Durham County first appeared in 2007.

“For centuries male writers have been able to show women themselves. Now when you have women create strong male characters, it is a bit of a shock,” observes Lundman, producer on that series and on Bomb Girls.

The reality is that most TV shows, written by groups of writers rather than single authors, are formulaic: TV writers are often working with characters they did not create themselves, and have to be ready to write whatever they are handed.

Still, those who want to see more balance in the writer’s room believe it will affect how women and minorities are depicted on TV, adding not only a diversity of characters but different storylines and new points of view. “This is not just entertainment. This is about how a nation presents itself,” Hunt says.

“Broadcast regulators need to step in and demand progress.”

Hunt also says the networks tend to say the diversity problem can be solved only by the autonomous show runners, who pick their own writers. The show runners, meanwhile, say the networks, whose money is on the line, breathe down their necks, vetting what writers they choose.

NBC’s prime-time entertainment president Angela Bromstad – who has since been shown the door at NBC – to make his writing room half female. “I think we have to stop thinking of it as a quota thing and think of it as a common-sense thing,” he told the website A.V. Club, explaining that, while he had to hunt harder to find women writers, they brought a new energy to his writing staff that he really appreciated.


My opinion: It was a good and informative article.  It discusses how there have been lots of progress with women TV writers, but still a lot of struggle.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

MacEwan University programs review (P to W)/ NAIT



This is on my www.badcb.blogspot.ca.  The NAIT part is about TV production programs so it fits into this blog.

Jun. 20 MacEwan University:

Post Basic Nursing Practice Hospice Palliative Care and Gerontological Nursing: This sounds kind of depressing to me where nurses work at a hospice where they have to take care of terminally ill people.


Preparation for University and College: These are high school classes.


Professional Golf Management: I have no interest in golf.


Jun. 21 Psychiatric Nursing: You have to take human anatomy and physiology.  I thought it was just going to be psychology class, but psychiatry does have medicine with the mental health.


Special needs educational assistants: I don’t have patience to teach kids, and not with special needs.


Physical/Occupational Therapist Assistant: Human anatomy and physiology classes.


Therapist Assistant-Speech Language Pathologist Assistant: Classes like Normal Development of Speech, Language, and Literacy.


Travel: I don’t know about the job security of this position.  You can become a travel agent, but there are a lot of people who book their own trips on the internet.

Graduates work at travel agencies, but also hotels and tour guides.  You can be a branch and sales manager.


University Studies International:  “helps international students attain admission to a MacEwan University program.”


Wound management Post-basic Certificate: You have to be a registered nurse or other health care professional to get in.


Review: I looked up all the MacEwan University programs from Jun. 18-21.  I have looked up some of their programs like Public Relations before this.  Now that I went through each program, I see that MacEwan has a lot of medical majors.

Analysis paralysis: This is what people do when they over- analyze everything, and not make a decision.  Here it is on Wikipedia:

“Analysis paralysis or paralysis of analysis is an anti-pattern, the state of over-analyzing (or over-thinking) a situation so that a decision or action is never taken, in effect paralyzing the outcome.

A decision can be treated as over-complicated, with too many detailed options, so that a choice is never made, rather than try something and change if a major problem arises. A person might be seeking the optimal or "perfect" solution upfront, and fear making any decision which could lead to erroneous results, when on the way to a better solution.”


My opinion: I want to say I’m not in analysis paralysis.  I’m stuck and I don’t know which direction I want to go to.  So I looked up all these MacEwan programs to see what interests me.

Do you remember last year I went to NAIT’s buddy system by going into the Baking program for a day?  After I was there for the morning, I learned that it’s not really the program for me.

Jun. 22 NAIT: After I took the Graphic Communications program at NAIT, I started applying to other programs there.

Radio and TV-TV program: I tried to get in for Fall 2004 intake.  I got rejected.  I then tried again with Fall 2005 intake with my sister’s help on my Career Investigation report.  I got rejected.  I told the registrar to put it in for Winter 2006 intake, and also got rejected. 

Yeah, well at least I tried.  There isn’t really a guarantee I will pass the program.   Also there isn’t a guarantee I will get to become a TV producer after this program.


Radio and TV-Radio program: I applied this in Fall 2005 intake with my sister’s help.  I got rejected.  I put my application for Winter 2006 intake, and also got rejected.

That’s fine.  I feel like it still wasn’t totally my passion.  I applied because if I can’t get into TV, I will get to somewhere close to it like Radio.


Radio and TV courses- non- credit: I don’t remember seeing this before.


RATTV100: Radio audio production and fundamentals.


RAT- TV200:

Launch yourself into a television workshop setting. Students will learn the basics of television production and be introduced to the operations of simple and advanced broadcast equipment. Basic lighting and shooting techniques are covered, along with direction and production techniques. Students will be introduced to television cameras, video-tape, broadcast systems and the use of audio and video control rooms. There will be several hands-on exercises using professional broadcast equipment. In addition, students will learn the basic principles of on-camera presentation.

This course will be given consideration as a media course when applying for admission to the full-time Radio & Television Program.


My opinion: This looks kind of interesting.


Final Cut Pro –X: How to use this editing program.

Thursday, July 17, 2014

Scenic Charms/ Theatre Production/ Story Hive



This is on my blog www.badcb.blogspot.ca

Jun. 12 Scenic Charms: I cut out this Edmonton Journal article “Making the journey from props to property" by Irene Seiberling on Jul. 9, 2011.  It profiled Charmaine Husum who worked in the film industry as a scenic artist and prop painter.  Here’s an excerpt of the article:

She worked alongside directors and cinematographers on such films as Brokeback Mountain, War Bride, The Claim, Night at the Museum, Twilight, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Passchendaele, Snow Dogs and Snow Days. She's worked with Johnny Depp, the late Heath Ledger, Colin Farrell, Jude Law, Brad Pitt, Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway.

Husum said she's thoroughly enjoyed working in the fast-paced, demanding film industry -dashing onto a set, colour-matching on the spot, then quickly touching up and repairing scenic art and props. But she noted it's extremely stressful work because "there's really no room to mess up."


Here’s her personal website Scenic Charms:


My opinion: This is related to the film industry, though not exactly in the writing way.  You guys may not know this, but after NAIT didn’t work out, I did look into MacEwan’s Theatre Production program.  It was creative and practical like Graphic Design. 

I didn’t apply to Theatre Production, and went and took a few classes at the Arts and Cultural Management program instead.  Well, theatre production isn’t totally for me.

Theatre Production: Here’s what it says at the MacEwan website:
A booming arts and entertainment industry in Canada is creating enormous opportunities for skilled technicians. If you are creative and passionate about sets, costumes, props, and the latest sound and lighting equipment, then MacEwan University is the perfect place to start your challenging and rewarding backstage career. You are someone who is invisible to audiences, but without you the magic of theatre, television and film would not exist. A career in theatre production requires creativity, accuracy and determination. Following two intense years of study in MacEwan University’s Theatre Production program, you’ll have the skill set and experience you need to market yourself in a thriving industry.

In the first year of the two-year Theatre Production program you will learn about all aspects of theatre production. In the second year you can specialize in the area of your choice. Learn about:
  • Props and set construction
  • Lighting and sound effects
  • Costumes
  • Stage management
  • Collaboration with actors and directors
Jun. 13 Story Hive: I got this email “Edmonton Filmmaker granted $10,000 for passion project.”  I had to read it:
Hi Tracy,

Hope you’re well! I thought you might be interested in the story of a local Edmonton filmmaker that has just received a $10,000 community grant to bring his dream series to life.

Ryan Northcott will be creating Against the Ropes, a series that profiles ex-pro Boxer Benny ‘The Jet’ Swanson and other pro-boxing hopefuls including an 11 year old boy that frequent Panther Gym in downtown Edmonton. His series will show how the sport and boxing community can provide a sense of family and belonging, often for those that need it the most – take a look at his pitch video here.

Ryan is one of 10 Albertans that received this grant. More info about the grant is below my signature, but let me know if you have any questions, or if you’d like to speak with Ryan!
Thanks,
Rosie

Over the past few weeks, Edmonton filmmakers have been campaigning for votes from the community in hopes of winning a $10,000 grant from STORYHIVE, a community-powered grant program from TELUS that is set up for local filmmakers and content creators. These are dollars the winners can put towards the production of their next big project, short film or documentary.

The community voted and 10 Alberta winners (5 from Edmonton) were revealed last week. With their STORYHIVE grants these young filmmakers are now able to create their short films in the next ten weeks and see their visions come to life. Once complete, their projects will be featured on TELUS Optik TV On Demand in the fall, ensuring they get the exposure they deserve.

Jun. 17 Liberty Entertainment Group: I was reading in the Globe and Mail on Jun. 14, 2014.  It profiled Nick Di Donato’s wine cellar as a home décor article.  It says he owns the Liberty Entertainment Group.  It’s more hotels and night clubs than TV production.  However, the website is really good.  Look at the hotels and night clubs.  They look so good.


Jun. 23 Much Music: I was reading the Globe and Mail article: “Much Music’s growing pains” by Simon Houpt on Jun. 14, 2014.
In 2007, the channel had more than 140 people working there.  Last year, there are now 75 people working there.  CRTC said the channel lost $1.5 million last year.  It’s because of the internet.  You can go on Youtube and watch whatever music videos you want, anytime you want.

Lacey Chabert: I was on Yahoo news and I found this.  Here it is:

In "Watch What Happens: Live" Thursday, actress Lacey Chabert talked about why she quit as the original voice of Meg Griffin on "Family Guy" after just one season. Turns out her parents thought that between her school work and her gig on "Party of Five," it was just too much for the 15-year-old to handle. Little did they know that "Family Guy" would be running 15 seasons strong with Mila Kunis now voicing the part.

Here are some comments:

Chris: They always say Money isn't everything when they lose out on over 15 million in wages for doing a bit of work over the years she's missed.

Ira:You also have to remember that FG was CANCELLED real early. Not sure if it was after the first, second or third season--but it was viewer anger that forced FOX to bring it back.   chances are she and her family thought the show was a red herring anyway, with no future.  Kind of surprised that this fact wasn't mentioned in this article.

Matthewp: That's not at the whole story.  Her parents are Christian Conservative and objected to the show.  Being the sixth lead on a half hour weekly animation series, does not take that much time st all.

https://ca.celebrity.yahoo.com/video/playlist/tv-in-no-time-playlist/why-original-meg-quit-family-090411501.html
 
My opinion: I do have to say that being on a 1hr drama show and school is a lot of work.  An animated TV show seems like an extra that is not totally necessary.  That’s the thing with TV, it’s unpredictable with the successes. 

For example, when Dark Angel came out in 2000, I thought it was going to last a long time like years.  Then it got cancelled after the second season.  FOX told the show to be more like their other hits like The X-Files and X-Men, and it was put on a Friday night instead of staying with Tues. nights.  So I was angry about it.

There are also poor shows like Secret Life of the American Teenager and that lasted 5 seasons.

Tyra Banks: She’s coming back with her new talk show.  I remember back in 2010 she was ending her talk show after 5 yrs.  I was kind of sad and thought: “Now where am I going to get my teen pregnancy and prostitution episodes from?”

I’m sure some of you guys are laughing at me, but I seriously thought that.  I can go watch Dr. Phil and Teen Mom for the teen pregnancy.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Ray Bradbury/ Fall from Grace

This is on my blog www.badcb.blogspot.ca:



Jun. 12 Ray Bradbury: I learned about this sci-fi author back in Jun. 7, 2012 when he passed away.  It’s inspiring to read about him.  Here’s the Edmonton Journal article “Sci-fi master anticipated iPods in Fahrenheit 451” by John Rogers:

Ray Bradbury, the science fiction/fantasy master who transformed his childhood dreams and Cold War fears into telepathic Martians, lovesick sea monsters, and - in uncanny detail - the high-tech, book-burning future of Fahrenheit 451, has died. He was 91.

He died Tuesday night, his daughter said Wednesday. Alexandra Bradbury did not have additional details.
Although slowed in recent years by a stroke that meant he had to use a wheelchair, Bradbury remained active into his 90s, turning out new novels, plays, screenplays and a volume of poetry. He wrote every day in the basement office of his Cheviot Hills home and appeared from time to time at bookstores, public library fundraisers and other literary events around Los Angeles.

His writings ranged from horror and mystery to humour and sympathetic stories about the Irish, African Americans and Mexican Americans. Bradbury also scripted John Huston's 1956 film version of Moby Dick and wrote for The Twilight Zone and other television programs, including The Ray Bradbury Theater, for which he adapted dozens of his works.

Bradbury broke through in 1950 with The Martian Chronicles, a series of intertwined stories that satirized capitalism, racism and superpower tensions as it portrayed Earth colonizers destroying an idyllic Martian civilization. It has been published in more than 30 languages, was made into a TV miniseries and inspired a computer game.

The Martian Chronicles prophesied the banning of books, especially works of fantasy, a theme Bradbury would take on fully in the 1953 release, Fahrenheit 451. Inspired by the Cold War, the rise of television and the author's passion for libraries, it was an apocalyptic narrative of nuclear war abroad and empty pleasure at home, with firefighters assigned to burn books instead of putting out blazes (451 degrees F, Bradbury had been told, was the temperature at which texts went up in flames).

It was Bradbury's only true science fiction work, according to the author, who said all his other works should have been classified as fantasy. "It was a book based on real facts and also on my hatred for people who burn books," he told The Associated Press in 2002.

A futuristic classic often taught alongside George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Bradbury's novel anticipated iPods, interactive television, electronic surveillance and live, sensational media events, including televised police pursuits. Francois Truffaut directed a 1966 movie version.

Although involved in many futuristic projects, including the New York World's Fair of 1964 and the Spaceship Earth display at Walt Disney World in Florida, Bradbury was deeply attached to the past. He refused to drive a car or fly, telling the AP that witnessing a fatal traffic accident as a child left behind a permanent fear of automobiles. In his younger years, he got around by bicycle or roller-skates.

Bradbury became the rare science fiction writer treated seriously by the literary world. In 2007, he received a special Pulitzer Prize citation "for his distinguished, prolific and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy." Seven years earlier, he received an honorary National Book Award medal for lifetime achievement, an honour given to Philip Roth and Arthur Miller among others.
Other honours included an Academy Award nomination for an animated film, Icarus Montgolfier Wright, and an Emmy for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. His fame even extended to the moon, where Apollo astronauts named a crater Dandelion Crater, in honour of Dandelion Wine, his beloved coming-of-age novel.

Until near the end of his life, Bradbury resisted one of the innovations he helped anticipate: electronic books, urging readers to stick to the old-fashioned pleasures of ink and paper. But in late 2011, as the rights to Fahrenheit 451 were up for renewal, he gave in and allowed his most famous novel to come out in digital form. The publisher agreed to make the ebook available to libraries, the only Simon & Schuster ebook library patrons were allowed to download.

Bradbury is survived by his four daughters.


Fall from Grace: I cut out this Edmonton Journal article "Seeking redemption and a serial killer" by Kathy Kerr on Mar. 28, 2011.  Here are some excerpts:

The crime will be eerily familiar to Edmonton readers who followed the news of the past decade when speculation about serial killers and the 2008 conviction of Thomas Svekla for two such murders filled the media for months on end.

(Details of Arthurson's newspaper's history of labour unrest better parallel the Calgary Herald than The Journal).

Leo is an intriguing protagonist with more than the average number of quirks. He squandered early promise in his career because of a gambling addiction, losing family, home and eventually winding up on the streets and in jail. His chance for redemption comes from a forgiving editor at a paper desperate to hire some experienced hands.

Leo thinks he has beaten the odds of his addiction, but he has replaced it with a riskier lifestyle -robbing banks. Between reporting assignments, Leo slips into and out of suburban bank branches, never using a weapon and with only a minimal pulled-low baseball cap disguise. Weirdly, the scenario works. (There actually was a former Calgary Herald reporter convicted of robbing banks in 1990, just to add to the verisimilitude of Leo's career trajectory.)

Given his sketchy past and lifestyle, Leo is uniquely qualified to take the murdered prostitute story and run with it. He focuses on the victim, a young aboriginal girl named Grace, and widens his investigation to discover a pattern of murdered prostitutes, all dumped in farm fields around the city.

His scoops catch the attention of his editors, irritate city police officials, and lead to a chance for him to reconnect with his estranged wife and children. He also makes a new connection with his own heritage, which is half Cree.

Edmonton hasn't had many chances to shine in the fictional spotlight. Arthurson's light is pretty harsh and his prose illuminated with lots of grittily authentic detail.

There are lots of these rabbit holes of local interest scattered through the book -the rise of gambling casinos in the province, a mayor who used to be a professional football player like former mayor Bill Smith, and precise geographical details of the area north of downtown.

Arthurson, a freelance journalist as well as fiction writer, also has a good grip on how news stories come together and takes a run at how the rise of the Internet is affecting that process and the industry in general.
The star turn in Fall from Grace is its intriguing and well-drawn protagonist. Leo's story of struggle, search for identity and redemption holds the book together even though the mystery of the murder occasionally falters. This is the first of a two-book deal. Apparently the next one will be called A Killing Winter. Edmontonians will no doubt relate to the title.

My opinion: I have read some scripts at Screenwriter’s Meet Up, and there have been a few scripts that are really based in Edmonton like they mention all these real places in the city.  When I write for my script, I don’t really write about the city.  I write about the characters, my experiences and real conversations I had and work it in.

Jul. 5 Professional Writing: This was a few weeks ago.  I emailed one of my Legal Issues for Writers teacher to ask if I can put up his lecture notes from 2007 onto my blog.  I wanted to put it up on my blog because it’s related to writing. 

A week later he replied saying that he is still teaching the class, but he doesn’t want me to put it up on my blog.  It’s because students may find it and get ahead, and he doesn’t want them to get ahead.

You can buy their book here:

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Helix TV show review



This is on my www.badcb.blogspot.ca:

Jun. 9 Helix: I watched the pilot to this Syfy original series back on Jan. 11, 2014.  They aired the second ep “Vector” right after so I saw that too.  On imdb.com:

“A team of scientists are thrust into a potentially life-or-death situation in this thriller, which begins with the group being deployed to the Arctic to secretly investigate what could be a disease outbreak.”

It starts off with “2 Days Ago.”  Dr. Hiroshi Hatake (Hiroyuki Sanada) and his security guard are in bio hazard suits.  They enter a hallway and there is this happy music playing in the lab.  Interesting contrast.  A man is dying as they look at his throat vibrating.

Guard: What is that?
Hatake: Progress.

Cut to CDC office in Atlanta.  Dr. Alan Farragut (Billy Campbell) talks at a meeting.

Alan: There was an outbreak.  You will make sacrifices.

Artic Bio Systems said there is a retrovirus and 2 people are dead.  Julia Walker (Kyra Zagorksy) is Alan’s ex-wife and she tells Alan the news.

Julia: The 3rd patient is Peter.
Alan: My brother.

Day 1.  They fly there.  Dr. Sarah Jordan (Jordan Hayes) and Dr. Doreen Boyle (Catherine Lemieux) are there.

Doreen tells Sarah that Julia slept with Alan’s brother Peter.

They meet Hatake and get injected a chip in their hand so they can enter all the bases.  106 scientists work there.  Julia and Alan go to see Peter and they wear biohazard suits.  The guard Daniel (Meegwun Fairbrother) said that Hatake adopted him.

Julia draws Peter’s blood and it’s black.  Peter attacks them with a needle and Julia injects Peter with a sedative.

Doreen and Sarah look at a skeleton with black sludge as blood.  Doreen takes off gas mask.

Doreen: It’s not airborne.
The solider Sergio (Mark Ghanime) is also an engineer.
Doreen sees hair that belongs to a monkey.

Julia talks to Hatake.
Hatake: You get more done without outside distractions.

My opinion: That’s true.
Peter was working on 20 boxes of things when he got infected.  Julia and Alan look at Peter’s vlog (video log).

Sirens rings and Peter escapes.  He is up the ceiling and in the air ducts. 

Hatake: We’re going to put gas in ducts and knock him out.

Doreen and Sergio look for monkeys, even though the guard Daniel says there aren’t any.  They find a lock and Sergio uses liquid nitrogen to freeze the lock to enter.

Alan crawls through vents.

Doreen and Sergio sees cages that smells like monkeys.  A monkey runs away.

Alan sees blood and sees his brother.

The monkey grabs Doreen’s face and Sergio hits it.  They look at the monkey’s body.

Alan also sees a man and he’s chained up in the vent.  He’s dead.

Sarah and Julia research.

Sergio creates this technology and puts it outside.  All these little dead monkeys are in the snow.

The cells in Peter are changing. 

The happy song that was playing at the beginning of the episode is playing again as Peter is walking.  Peter uses the hand that he cut off from the dead man in the air ducts as blood splatters.

Day 2.

3 scientists tell Sarah about how Peter bit them.  They’re in a blue LV room/ isolation unit.

The second episode called “Vector.”

Doreen cuts open a monkey and hears something.  It turns out there are 3 other scientists that have been affected and are running around in the facility.  Alan, Sergio, and Daniel look for Dr. Tracy and her room is empty.  Tracy approaches Doreen.  Tracy looks sick with red eyes and is paranoid.
Julia hears something in vents.  The shelf falls over.

Daniel manages to tie one sick scientist up.

Scientist: How come you can’t evacuate us?
Alan: We’ll take you to the hospital and the doctors and nurses will get infected.  They kiss their kids and they go to school.  The disease will spread.  We can’t evacuate, but we won’t abandon you.

Peter (Neil Napier) attacks Sergio.

Hatake and Julia look at the rats.  The rats break through glass and kills another rat.

The 3 scientists in the isolation unit are getting antsy.  Sarah is grabbed by Bryce with a needle.  Alan enters with a bio hazard suit and takes off his suit and says: “We’re in this together.”

Alan (to Sarah): It’s not airborne anyway.

One scientist is trying to leave by getting on a snowmobile.  Daniel stops him.

Scientist: Unregulated research sounds great and all, but until you actually do it.  We have to tell everybody.
Daniel stabs him.

Doreen brings Dr. Tracy in.
2 scientists run and traps Sarah and Doreen with a sick doctor.

Alan confronts Hatake.
Alan: This is the worst virus I’ve ever seen.

Daniel buries body in the snow.

Sarah’s hand is shaking.

Hatake takes off his eye contacts and his eyes are glowing.

Julia is taking a shower and that happy song is playing.  Peter enters and he throws up blood in her mouth.

My opinion: This is a good show.  The promos advertised it was the producers of Battle star Galatica and The X-Files.  I’m not a fan of those shows.  I didn’t connect with the characters or story, so I didn’t watch it after the second episode.  If you like sci-fi shows, you may like this.

Comparisons:

Sci-fi story set in the north: It reminded me of the Borealis TV movie that was also from Syfy.


A scary story about disease being spread.  The side effects are people become aggressive and kill: That’s like the movie 28 Days Later and I love that movie.