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Syfy’s The Magicians starts flming its second season in metro Vancouver today. Based on a trilogy of books by Lev Grossman, The Magicians follows Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph) as he leaves Brooklyn for a secret college of magic in upstate New York, where he and his friends learn how to practice magic and travel to the magic land of Fillory. Other Physcial Kids include Quentin’s friend Eliot (Hale Appleman), Alice (Oliva Taylor Dudley), Julia (Stella Maeve), Margo/known as Janet in books (Summer Bishil) and Penny (Arjun Gupta). Among their teachers are Dean Fogg (Rick Worthy) and Professor Sunderland (Anne Dudek). Other characters: Eliza the paramedic (Esme Bianco) and Penny’s love interest Kady (Jade Tailor).
One of the pleasures of watching this Harry-Potter-crossed-with-Narnia series is seeing different parts of the University of British Columbia campus transformed into the Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy. The Magicians filmed its pilot in New Orleans, but featured UBC as Brakebills University in its second episode.
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Rehearsal.
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At Buchanan.
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@yvrshoots Filming at UBC todayy pic.twitter.com/GZGMKZO93a
— Sabrina Choi (@sabbiechoi) August 12, 2015
Season one of The Magicians filmed in metro Vancouver from August to mid-December last year.
Related: The Magicians Films Oliva Taylor Dudley in Gastown’s Trounce Alley.
The Magicians debuted to 1.8 million viewers on Syfy in January, and has kept its audience, averaging 1.7 million viewers for the first three episodes. Both Syfy and Showcase in Canada made the premiere available online ahead of its debut, where it was sampled almost 7 million times on Syfy.
Former Supernatural showrunner Sera Gamble writer John McNamara and producer Michael London optioned the rights to The Magicians trilogy with their own money because they believed so strongly in the potential of the series. The investment paid off.
The Magicians airs Mondays on Syfy in the U.S. and Showcase in Canada.