LOST GIRL - GLOVE AND MAIL: How Canada is becoming the sci-fi nation
by Marsha Lederman
Apr. 13 2013
Call it wall-cracking chemistry: At his audition for the part of Dyson on Lost Girl, Kris Holden-Ried read with Anna Silk, who had been cast as Bo, a supernatural sexual omnivore with a tendency to literally suck the life out of her partners, but who can also be healed by sex. The scene called for a big kiss. Holden-Ried had Silk up against the wall. When they were done, executive producer Jay Firestone pointed behind them: They had cracked the plaster.
“They were so involved in the scene, they didn’t realize they did it,” recalls Firestone. Holden-Ried got the part.
Three seasons later, the chemistry continues to steam up the Faedom on Lost Girl, one of a current crop of shows that is taking sci-fi out of your parents’ basement and into the genre-defying almost-mainstream. No Dungeons & Dragons T-shirt required; this is not your geeked-out old-school science fiction. You could call these shows sci-fi mash-ups: complex in terms of categorization, they’re also compelling, cosmopolitan – and Canadian. Not just made in Canada.
There’s a distinction, of course.
Canada has a rich history of American shows coming up north to shoot. That’s particularly so in Vancouver, where The X-Files was a game-changer way back, and continues today with series like Supernatural. Along the way, Canadians went from staffing the American productions to creating their own. Now, shows such as Continuum, Lost Girl and Orphan Black are generating some out-of-this-world (or at least out-of-this-country) buzz and deals; even the cancelled Canadian series Sanctuary has recently struck a syndication deal. Fuelled by all that experience, by the rise of the specialty channel, and by Canadian-content requirements, Canadian science fiction is undeniably having a moment.
“There’s been great science fiction that’s come out of Canada,” says Thomas Vitale, executive vice-president of programming and original movies for Syfy, whose schedule includes both Canadian productions and such shot-in-Canada U.S. series as the big-budget Defiance, which was shot in Toronto last year and premieres on Monday (in Canada, on Showcase)...
Defiance premieres Monday, April 15, at 9/8C on Syfy. CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FIRST 14 MINUTES OF THE TWO-HOUR PILOT EPISODE.
The Lost Girl season three finale airs Monday, April 22, 2013 at 10/9C on Syfy (US). CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE EPISODE TRAILER.
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