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Susan Gittins

Longtime mainstream media (MSM) journalist and author Susan Gittins began writing about and photographing Vancouver’s many film and TV location shoots in the summer of 2010 after the Winter Olympics put the city and its beauty on the world stage. Movies and TV series often showcase the Vancouver area in similar fashion. Vancouver is Awesome commissioned her YVRShoots series in the fall of 2010 and it ran regularly for three years. She launched her own daily YVRShoots blog in the spring of 2012.

BATES MOTEL Opens for Business on March 18th on A&E

Contemporary Psycho prequel series Bates Motel is back filming on its spooky Psycho replica motel and house set in Aldergrove today, a motel that officially opens for business on March 18th.
A&E announced the premiere date last Friday ahead of a Bates Motel-themed luncheon and panel at the Winter Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour in Pasadena. The 10-episode serialized season, which wraps filming in Vancouver late this month, is a present-day reimagining of the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock horror classic Psycho not a homage, showrunner Carleton Cuse told critics. This psychological thriller focuses on Freddie Highmore’s teenage version of future serial killer Norman Bates. living in present-day White Pine Bay, Oregon, and explores the dark backstory of  his relationship with his unhinged mother, Vera Farmiga’s Norma Bates, as he approaches his evil destiny.  Or “How I Stuffed My Mother”, as Daniel Fienberg from HitFix.com reportedly joked in the session.

PREMIERE: MURDOCH MYSTERIES Detective Enters 20th Century Tonight on CBC

Published January 7, 2013 on Vancouver is Awesome

Historical Toronto detective series Murdoch Mysteries begins its sixth season at 9 p.m. tonight on CBC with Yannick Bisson’s Detective William Murdoch investigating  the death of a man killed by the crash of a flying machine at the turn-of-the-20th-century. I had the chance to interview Bisson, who directed the premiere, at CBC Vancouver’s Open House and Food Bank Day late last year.
When the CBC re-ran season five of Murdoch Mysteries in the fall to better ratings than its first run on Citytv in the summer, it proved that the public broadcaster really is a “better fit”, as Bisson put it, for this period drama about a Toronto police detective using ahead-of-his-time forensic methods to solve crimes. Read More »PREMIERE: MURDOCH MYSTERIES Detective Enters 20th Century Tonight on CBC

PROMOS: ONCE UPON A TIME 2×11 The Outsider – Updated

Whatever else happens next Sunday on Once Upon a Time, it’s a Rumple vs Hook showdown on Hook’s pirate ship in the Storybrooke harbour with Belle watching as Rumple adminsters a beat-down with his cane. But later, when Rumple finds a way to cross the town line without losing his memory of Bae — “Now you can find your son, ” says Belle  — a bloodied Hook, holding a gun, is having none of it — “I wouldn’t count on it,” he tells Rumple. This is what I’ve been waiting for since The Crocodile episode showed us their backstory.

RELATED – Hook & Smee spying from a Steveston roof

Read More »PROMOS: ONCE UPON A TIME 2×11 The Outsider – Updated

PROMOS: ARROW 1×10 Burned Promo Images – Updated

So how did Stephen Amell end up on so many Best-of-2012 lists? Yes, Arrow is a huge hit for The CW but it wasn’t the Vancouver-filmed show that got so many mentions. It was Amell’s abs, especially as displayed in the famous salmon ladder scene of the pilot. Entertainment Weekly paid tribute to Amell’s six-pack when they named him a Breakout Star of 2012. Amell confessed to the magazine that he wasn’t “ripped” before landing his star-making role but used Brad Pitt’s physical transformation for Troy as his inspiration to become the hooded vigilante.

Perhaps Amell’s abs will be on screen again on Wednesday, January 16th, in Arrow’s tenth episode called Burned. [Update: May be no abs in this episode since Amell’s Oliver Queen is thinking of hanging up his hood for good after being beaten by the Dark Archer. That is, until Laurel asks for his help investigating  the suspicious death of a firefighter.]

Here’s the logline:

Oliver goes up against an injured firefighter who, psychologically traumatized, has decided to take revenge on Starling City by commiting acts of arson while calling himself Firefly.

And the promo images featuring Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen, Katie Cassidy’s Laurel Lance and guest star Andrew Dunbar’s Firefly.

© 2012 The CW Television Network

Read More »PROMOS: ARROW 1×10 Burned Promo Images – Updated

PROMO: FRINGE 5×11 The Boy Must Live Promo Images at West Coast Express Station

Instant sci-fi classic Fringe’s third-to-last episode called “The Boy Must Live” airs next Friday, January 11th, with more of Peter, Olivia and Walter’s desperate attempts in 2036 to figure out pre-ambered Walter’s plan to save their world from the Observer overlords. A plan that seems to involve both the child Observer Michael and the series’ pivotal Observer September, who was revealed to be the mysterious Donald in 5×10 but with greyish hair on his not-bald head? Walter uses his Harvard lab’s infamous deprivation tank (I’m betting buck naked unlike Olivia in the first season) to try to connect with September/Donald, while Captain Windmark, the final season’s Big Bad, pursues his own agenda. Or as the FOX network logline says:

Walter enters the deprivation tank in hope of uncovering information about Donald; Capt. Windmark embarks on a revealing mission.

Is pre-ambered Walter’s plan to reset time, as Olivia says in a promo? That’s the most popular fan theory but if successful to what time? In one of the promo scenes, Loyalist soldiers are all over a monorail station platform. Fringe filmed this in early November at the Waterfront Station for the West Coast Express in downtown Vancouver. FOX promo photos below show Joshua Jackson’s Peter and John Noble’s Walter Bishop tracking Loyalist soldiers on the platform while Anna Torv’s Olivia Dunham does the same inside one of the train cars.

©2012 FOX BROADCASTING CO. CR: LIANE HENTSCHER/FOX

©2012 FOX BROADCASTING CO. CR: LIANE HENTSCHER/FOX

Fans who got close to the West Coast Express platform, when cast and crew moved east along it, witnessed an interesting scene involving Read More »PROMO: FRINGE 5×11 The Boy Must Live Promo Images at West Coast Express Station

BEST of 2012 Lists

  • Friday, December 21st – Entertainment Weekly names Arrow‘s Stephen Amell a Breakout Star of 2012
  • Friday, Decmeber 21st – TV.com’s Top 100 Best of Everything ranks Fringe‘s animated homage to Monty Python as 75th
  • Wednesday, December 19th – TV.com’s Top 100 Best of Everything ranks the harness factory on Falling Skies as 98th.
  • Wednesday, December 19th – TV.com’s Top 100 Best of Everything ranks a guy exploding on The Secret Circle as 99th.

Read More »BEST of 2012 Lists