Whatever else is going on in Storybrooke in the nineteenth episode of season two, newly-acquainted father-and-son Baelfire and Henry, and the actors who play them, continue to bond.
Michael Raymond-James and Jared Gilmore had an incredible amount of fun rehearsing and filming their play sword fight in Fisherman’s Park in Steveston yesterday morning and early afternoon in front of passersby, local fans and two fans visiting from France.
Michael Raymond-James jumped on a picnic table at one point in their rambling play sword fight down the grassy hill of the park. And during one take, Raymond-James jokingly held his wooden sword to the throat of the boom operator once he’d moved out of frame.
Once Upon a Time put up a new prop Historical Storybrooke map in Steveston today. I photographed it but haven’t had a chance to look at it closely, except to notice the absence of Storybrooke Town Hall (usually played by Fort Langley Community Hall).
Motive Cast — Brendan Penny, Lauren Holly, Louis Ferreira, Kristin Lehman and Roger Cross — CTV promo image
The murder is just the beginning. There’s always a motive and Vancouver homicide detective Angie Flynn (Kristin Lehman) will find it. Filming wrapped last Friday on Motive’s thirteen-episode first season.
Motive debuted in a prime but delayed post-Super Bowl slot on CTV to 1.23 million Canadians, the culmination of an unprecedented publicity campaign by CTV for a Canadian show. Normally, only CTV’s American simulcast shows get this scale of rollout. And in a sweet twist, American network ABC has picked up the Vancouver crime drama for broadcast this summer.
Ratings held steady after Motive’s move to its regular 9 p.m. on Sundays slot, dipping for the second episode but rising back over one million for the third episode, to give Canada’s #1 new drama a series-to-date average of 1.06 million viewers.
Instead of a regular whodunit that focuses on who did the crime, Motive is a whydunit that focuses on why the crime was committed in the first place. The Killer and The Victim are revealed to the audience at the top of the show and we follow detectives Angie Flynn (Kristin Lehman) and Oscar Vega (Louis Ferreria) as they uncover the reasons behind the murder.
Once Upon a Time makes TV looks like the movies every week. Revolutionary Z.E.U.S. visual effects technology allows the modern fairy tale series to be as epic as a movie on a TV budget. If you looked through a camera lense or a monitor in studio in Vancouver you would see scenes rendered in real time while the cast performs on mostly empty green screen stages. And beautiful British Columbia has a hand in creating stunning backdrops too with on-location filming in our forests, deserts and oceans for Fairy Tale Land and in the village of Steveston for present-day Storybrooke.
But Once Upon a Time would be just pretty pictures if the creators and cast didn’t bring emotion to the stories they tell. Here are some promo photos of the actors who make us care about fairy tale characters week after week.
Charming (Josh Dallas) and his daughter Emma (Jennifer Morrison) on location in Steveston south of Vancouver.
Does any show spoil itself as much as Once Upon a Time does? This is not a judgement. More is more is a valid promotional strategy.
No one is safe on this Sunday’s The Queen is Dead with two deaths. One in present-day. And one in the Fairy Tale Land past. As you can see from the promo, sneak peek clips and promo images, the Rumple family — grandfather Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold (Robert Carlyle), father Baelfire/Neal (Michael Raymond-James), mother Emma (Jennifer Morrison) and son Henry (Jared Gilmore) –bond a little in Manhattan. At least father and son do. And then Captain Hook (Colin O’Donoghue) shows up to exact his revenge on a Rumple with no magic. But he attacks him with his hook not The Dark One’s dagger, so there’s hope.
And new alliances may help Rumple too. Snow/Mary Margaret (Ginnifer Goodwin), Charming/David (Josh Dallas) and the Blue Fairy/Mother Superior (Keegan Conner Tracy) team up to find The Dark One’s dagger before Cora (Barbara Hershey) and Regina (Lana Parilla) do in order to protect Henry’s other Grandfather.
That’s the Dark One’s dagger in Snow’s hand. But whose heart is Regina/Evil Queen holding?
All Hell Breaks Zeus this Wednesday night. An amnesiac man (John Reardon of Arctic Air/Continuum) turns out to be Greek God Prometheus not a zombie. And he’s under attack from Greek Goddess Artemis (Anna Von Hooft). Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) Winchester investigate.