Skip to content

ABC Series

UPFRONT: ONCE UPON A TIME IN WONDERLAND To Air Thursday Nights on ABC This Fall

Title Card @2013 American Broadcasting Corp.

Are you ready for a trip down the rabbit hole?

In a surprise move, ABC has scheduled the filmed-in-Vancouver Once Upon a Time in Wonderland on Thursday nights at 8 p.m. not as a bridge between batches of the mother show Once Upon a Time on Sunday nights.

So what’s the spinoff about? Apart from the giant mushrooms pictured above. Well, a “kickass Alice” for one thing.

[sz-youtube url=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7v8hwx2xHnM&feature=player_embedded” /]

The trailer is quite a feat considering it’s based on just five scenes filmed in Vancouver.

SHOOT: Goran Visnjic & Erin Moriarty Film RED WIDOW Finale at Guiness Tower

Update May 10, 2013 – ABC cancelled this limited series so last Sunday’s season finale is the series ender.

So it wasn’t Nicholae Schiller (Goran Visnjic) who made Marta Walraven (Radha Mitchell) a Red Widow by killing her husband. It was her cold, cruel, ruthless father who couldn’t stand the idea of losing his grandkids. But the grandkids don’t know that yet. And so young Natalie (Erin Moriarity) pulls a gun on Schiller as he’s leaving his office, filmed at the Guiness Tower in Vancouver’s Business District, in what turns out to be the final scene of the season finale.

What happens next? That depends on whether this limited series is renewed or not.

Read More »SHOOT: Goran Visnjic & Erin Moriarty Film RED WIDOW Finale at Guiness Tower

Russian Mob Drama RED WIDOW’s Two-Hour Debut on ABC Tonight

Are we ready for a female version of Tony Soprano (The Sopranos) or Walter White (Breaking Bad) on American broadcast TV? Red Widow is about San Francisco widow Marta Walraven (Radha Mitchell) forced to replace her husband in the Russian mob after his murder in order to repay his debt and protect her family — son Gabriel (Sterling Beaumon),daughter Natalie (Erin Moriarty) and son Boris (Jakob Salvati).

Her husband was killed by the mafia. In order to erase a [$1.5  million] debt and protect her family, she is willing to work with his killers. How far would you go? For one mother, the only way out is deeper in. No time to mourn.

That debt is owed to crime lord Nicholae Schiller (Goran Visnjic). “I don’t play games Mrs. Walraven. Ever.”  – Schiller

ABC/BOB D’AMICO

By the end of the first set of eight episodes, Marta Walraven won’t be as bad as Tony Soprano or Walter White but she will have gone from packing lunches to packing guns — with room to go darker.

Read More »Russian Mob Drama RED WIDOW’s Two-Hour Debut on ABC Tonight

Goran Visnjic as RED WIDOW’s Russian Mob Boss in Downtown Vancouver

Red Widow added Goran Visnjic to the cast after the pilot was filmed, much to the delight of his Vancouver fans who know him as noble Dr. Luka Kovac on ER.

But this time Goran Visnjic is not the good guy. He’s the Big Bad.  His Russian mafia is blamed for the shooting of Marta Walraven (Radha Mitchell)’s husband in the season premiere. She should be mourning but must work with her husband’s killers to repay the [$1.5 million ] debt owed to mob boss Nicholae Schiller (Goran Visnjic) and to protect her family.

I looked for Goran Visnjic early on at the Russian mob restaurant Cafe Rossiya played by Lana Lou’s restaurant in the Downtown Eastside but never caught him in an exterior scene until Red Widow’s season finale filmed at the Exchange Tower downtown. 

[Update: In the two-hour premiere, Goran Visnijic demonstrated his black belt in kung-fu in a sparring scene. Impressive.]

 

Read More »Goran Visnjic as RED WIDOW’s Russian Mob Boss in Downtown Vancouver