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Colin Donnell

WEEK: February 25 – March 3, 2013

PROMOS: ARROW 1×16 Dead to Rights

The Holy Shitballs episode, as Arrow star Stephen Amell calls it on Twitter, filmed on location inside the Westin Bayshore Hotel with assassins Deadshot (Michael Rowe) and China White (Kelly Hu) trying to kill Malcolm Merlyn (John Barrowman) at a benefit honouring Merlyn for his work with Starling City. This is where I saw the Dancin’ Merlyn Boys ahead of their scene.

 Related: The Dancin’ Merlyn Boys (John Barrowman & Colin Donnell) at Westin Bayshore Hotel

Last Wednesday, Moira Queen (Susanna Thompson) asked Frank Chen (Chin Han), an associate in The Undertaking, for help in ordering a hit on Malcolm Merlyn. Read More »PROMOS: ARROW 1×16 Dead to Rights

WEEK: February 4-10, 2013

  • Sunday, February 10th – Once Upon a Time 2×13 Tiny airs with Jorge Garcia’s Anton the Giant held captive on Hook’s pirate ship and then rampaging through Storybrooke. Plus we learn Charming’s real name.
  • Sunday, February 10th – Motive 1×2 airs on CTV with scenes of Kristin Lehman filmed in the Olympic Village.
  • Sunday, February 10th – Battlestar Galactica prequel pilot Blood and Chrome starring Ben Cotton finally airs on Syfy. #ThereWillBeCylons.
  • Saturday, February 9th – New survey says 3 out of 4 British Columbians strongly support government tax incentives to help the BC film & TV production industry. Global TV report #SaveBCFilm
  • Saturday, February 9th – Vancouver-filmed hunting-accident-gone-wrong A Single Shot with Sam Rockwell debuts at Berlin International Film Festival
  • Friday, February 8th – New York Times paid a set visit to Continuum in Squamish last week and came away impressed with Vancouver’s cop from the future series.
  • Friday, February 8th – Deadline Hollywood confirms Chin Han (The Dark Knight) cast on Arrow as Frank Chen, an old friend of the Queen family and part of the nefarious group The Undertaking. This is the mysterious Asian man spotted at the Westin Bayshore Hotel shoot.
  • Friday, February 8th – CW pilot The Hundred–100 juvenile delinquents sent back to Earth after nuclear war–appears on BC Production List. To film from March 14th to April 4th.
  • Friday, February 8th – Once Upon a Time films in Lynn Canyon Park in North Vancouver.
  • Friday, February 8th – TV Line reports Max Fowler (The Hour) cast as Twitch on season 3 of The Killing
  • Thursday, February 7th – Once Upon a Time turns Gastown into Manhattan again to film scenes for 2×18 Selfless, Brave and True.
  • Thursday, February 7th – Mayor Gregor Robertson talks #SaveBCFilm on Breakfast Television.
  • Thursday, February 7th – Once Upon a Time films in Lynn Canyon Park in North Vancouver.
  • Wednesday, February 6th – Psycho prequel Bates Motel with Freddie Highmore & Vera Farmiga wraps filming of its first season in Vancouver.
  • Wednesday, February 6th – Arctic Air 2×5 has big fight scenes filmed in Langley Airport hangar with former amateur boxer Aleks Paunovic in the ring. Read More »WEEK: February 4-10, 2013

PROMOS: ARROW 1×13 Betrayal Promo Images – Updated

David Anders (Once Upon a Time and Alias) is the next cult guest star to drop by Arrow. We’ll meet him next Wednesday night as infamous Starling City criminal Cyrus Vanch, who plans to take on Stephen Amell’s The Hood to re-establish his reputation as a leading crime lord. Something tells me it won’t work out.

But the theme of the episode is betrayal and there seems to be plenty of that to go around. In the Island flashbacks, Stephen Amell’s Oliver Queen meets Manu Bennett’s man-behind-the-Deathstroke-mask who claims there are two masks..

© 2013 The CW Television Network

Flash forward to Starling City where the major betrayals are parental. Katie Cassidy’s Laurel is betrayed by her father who uses her as bait to capture The Hood, filmed in the rain on top of the Bentall parkade in front of a gaggle of visiting American TV journalists. Afterward Laurel angrily tells Colin Donnell’s Tommy about it but he’s not thrilled she kept her meetings with The Hood secret from him.

Read More »PROMOS: ARROW 1×13 Betrayal Promo Images – Updated

WEEK: January 21-27, 2013

SHOOT: The Merlyn Boys (John Barrowman & Colin Donnell) Film ARROW 1×16 at Bayshore Hotel

Ummm, people of Starling City. Am I the only one who noticed all those Triad guys dressed up as waiters at your big gala scene last night in the Westin Bayshore Hotel?  Merlyn father-and-son (John Barrowman and Colin Donnell) seemed oblivious to it. Speaking of those Merlyn Boys, is this the best father-and-son casting since those Bishop Boys on Fringe?

Barrowman and Donnell arrived at set together and had such fun rehearsing in their tuxes that they did an impromptu song-and-dance number together up and down the escalator in the Convention Centre. I don’t have photos so you’ll have to trust me that it looked like something out of a Fred Astaire movie. Besides their obvious resemblance, the two men share a theatre background.

In the scene below, Malcolm Merlyn, accompanied by bodyguards, is the recipient of some kind of award. His son Tommy hangs back as his father takes the stage to accept. After a brief speech, Malcolm steps off the stage into the crowd  as the room goes dark, a fire alarm starts flashing orange and the be-jeweled, be-gowned rich folk of Starling City exit the building. What happened?

Read More »SHOOT: The Merlyn Boys (John Barrowman & Colin Donnell) Film ARROW 1×16 at Bayshore Hotel

WEEK: November 26 – December 2, 2012

ARROW’s Katie Cassidy & Colin Donnell Filming Downtown at Oceanic Plaza

Uh-oh Tommy. Looks like Laurel’s mad at you. Katie Cassidy’s Laurel paced up and down as the Arrow cameras rolled in downtown Vancouver’s Oceanic Plaza yesterday, before stepping right into Colin Donnell’s face in take after take. She talked and talked until he walked away. It should have been a romantic setting with that big balloon light floating above them to simulate moonlight, but apparently not. Guy Bee (@GuyNormanBee) is directing this episode, which had an earlier outside scene of Colin Donnell’s Tommy walking and talking to Laurel on his cell phone along West Hastings. [Update: So Laurel was mad at her Dad who used her as bait in a bid to capture The Hood; and Tommy walks away because Laurel hadn’t told him she’d been meeting with The Hood].

Read More »ARROW’s Katie Cassidy & Colin Donnell Filming Downtown at Oceanic Plaza

BIG READ: Hooded-Vigilante Series ARROW’s Record-Breaking Premiere

Published October 11, 2012 on Vancouver is Awesome

Being Bad Never Looked So Good. Last night’s series premiere of Vancouver (and Victoria)-shot Arrow broke records with four million viewers and bragging rights as the biggest show on the American network The CW in three years.

Loosely-based on DC Comics The Green Arrow, the TV series Arrow is less Smallville-ish and more like The Dark Knight trilogy’s re-imagined Batman. The story: missing and thought dead for five years after a shipwreck, Stephen Amell’s billionaire playboy Oliver Queen returns home a changed man. He secretly creates the persona of vigilante Arrow to fight crime and corruption in Starling City with martial arts and technology plus the special skill of archery.

By day, Oliver Queen continues to play the part of the billionaire cad he used to be, while trying to make amends with those he wronged, like his former girlfriend Dinah “Laurel” Lance, who works for a legal aid group called CNRI (Canary!). But she’s having none of it. “I didn’t grieve. I was too angry,” Katie Cassidy’s Lance tells Amell’s Queen Read More »BIG READ: Hooded-Vigilante Series ARROW’s Record-Breaking Premiere