Upcoming series: Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures

From a media release:

Shaftesbury Films’ Drama Series Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures Gets Greenlit by The Movie Network and Movie Central

  • Eight part series based on Vincent Lam’s award-winning novel

Shaftesbury Films announced today that Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures, a one-hour drama series based on the Scotiabank Giller Award-winning novel by Vincent Lam, has been ordered by Astral Media’s The Movie Network and Corus Entertainment’s Movie Central. The eight-part series will begin production later this year.

“It is quite amazing, and wonderfully surreal, to watch as the characters and drama of my first book find their way onto the screen,” said Vincent Lam, author of Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures. “I wrote Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures because I felt the stories were human, and I wanted to communicate a particular truth about doctors, patients, and the act of caring, to readers. Now, I’m happy that this can be shared with an even broader audience. I am thrilled with the level of enthusiasm and energy that all of the artistic and broadcast partners have brought to this project. It will be a unique pleasure for me to see this book brought to viewers.”

“We are delighted to bring this internationally acclaimed novel to television with our partners at The Movie Network and Movie Central. Vincent Lam is a phenomenal writer and Jason Sherman has done an extraordinary job with the adaptation for pay TV. This is like no other medical drama brought to television,” said Christina Jennings, Chairman and CEO, Shaftesbury Films.

“The Movie Network has been thrilled to be on board with Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures from the beginning. We’re very excited to now greenlight the production of this innovative eight-part series which has the potential to represent what pay-TV does best: intelligent, engaging and unexpected; ideally, all the best qualities of Vincent Lam’s book,” said Michelle Marion, Director, Canadian Independent Production, The Movie Network. “We are thrilled to be working with Movie Central and the Shaftesbury team again – our partners on four seasons of the award-winning original series ReGenesis.”

“It is gratifying to work again with the gifted creative team that brought us ReGenesis,” said Erica Benson, Vice President, Programming, Movie Central. “Vincent Lam’s book is going to translate to riveting dramatic television and we look forward to bringing our audiences another stellar Canadian pay television series.”

Based on the lauded short story collection, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures follows a group of conflicted young doctors – at war with each other and, at times, their patients. The series centres on four main characters, from medical school through their internships and on to their years as emergency room doctors. Their stories reveal that there are no miracles in hospitals; just plenty of hard work, second guessing, fear, hope, pain, mistakes – and the occasional triumph.

Award-winning writer Jason Sherman (ReGenesis, Murdoch Mysteries) is developing and writing the series. Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures is produced in association with Astral Media’s The Movie Network and Movie Central, a Corus Entertainment Company. The series is developed with the participation of Astral Media’s The Movie Network.

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12 thoughts on “Upcoming series: Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures”

  1. You know what? For the purposes of a clear press release? Really there isn’t.
    If I was writing that press release I would have written it the same way. Because it’s not as cut and dried as you suggest, either. The stories are all episodic, very much like a TV show, very unlike a novel. Do you say that? Nah, probably not in a 250 word press release. But — the stories all connect, and use many of the same characters. The overall effect is very novelistic. Can you say that in 250 words? Probably not. So is more like Short stories — where people are going to assume it’s more like an anthology series with different characters and storylines, or more like a novel?

    It’s definitely more like a novel.

    “There is a difference.”

    Not an important one. And not for the purposes of the release, or to clearly communicate the intent to someone who hasn’t read the book or isn’t familiar with the form of an interconnected series of short stories.

    If you’ve read the book, you can make the leap.

    I just don’t know why you’d feel the need to be so arch about it.

  2. Oh, and by the way, Iden, the person running the site is repurposing that press release. She didn’t write it.

    There is a difference.

  3. I don’t know why you’re beating up on the dude. He is right it is not a novel than those collections of Kinsella short stories “Moccassin Telegraph” etc. It is great work but it is distinctly different than a novel. Why are you being so pissy about it?

  4. Because the original comment was pissy. And like a lot of internet snark, it’s founded on a false sense of intellectual superiority. Who gives a shit if it’s a novel or a linked series of short stories? Showing you’re smarter than the press release is one thing. Being wrong is another. You snark, be tough enough to take the contrary opinion.

  5. Also, the sentence “There is a difference” should have a period at the end of it. Even a moron knows that. Jeez. Who doesn’t know the period rule?

  6. And like a lot of internet snark, it’s founded on a false sense of intellectual superiority.

    Do you think McGrath gets the irony?

  7. No. I don’t. Whatever could you possibly mean?

    That’s socratic irony, by the way.

    snark, snark.

  8. Hey Folks:

    I’ve run into Mr McGrath’s (ready?) folksy intellectual anti-intellectualism before on his site. He is ultra-eh… . I just love the tonal quality of ‘experience being the best gauge of truth.’ Any aesthetic response (or, as a corollary, intellectual movement) towards respect for a certain form gets diminished into a high-brow proclamation of knowing the ins & outs of the TV industry: as if thought of that calibre, and its associated trajectories, implies an (unnecessary) engagement, only suitable to another arena. Indeed, the act of hoser defense (i.e. “Dudes, it is what it is, simply a press release. Chillax”) conveniently marginalizes thought (yes, and interpretation) as an extraneous gesture and, most importantly, as unproductive– the latter being the death knell of successful television negotiation from pre- to post-. There is a very strong strain of working-class ethos to our television industry and this should come as no surprise to any visitors of this site: we do live in a very working-class nation that cares not a smidge for those loftier thoughts (even as a trivial exercise) that speak to nothing other than a waste of (productive) time. You should have seen the charming responses when I waxed critical on his site, folks– “You snark, be tough enough to take the contrary opinion.” Indeed, Mr. McGrath, indeed…

  9. “An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I’ve dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half… I never write metropolis for seven cents, because I can get the same money for city. I never write policeman, because I can get the same price for cop…. I never write valetudinarian at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn’t do it for fifteen.”

    Mark Twain.

    Given the choice, I’ll gladly stand with him. And you can call it anti-intellectual if you want. I call it wise.

  10. Woa, this is a smokin commentary about a point of clarification.
    My understanding is that the author sees his book as a novel. I read a few of the stories and was not that enamoured with the book as were many, including the folks living in Gillerland.
    But what can I say, I read mostly “trashy beach fiction” in the eyes of lit-land.
    Yawn, I gave up on Margaret Atwood after I got fed up with her dissing 50% of the human race in “every” book she writes.
    Missing period?? I guess ain’t isn’t a word either eh?

  11. Wow. The nuances of Canadiana extant here belong to their own philosophical discipline of Platonic hoser-isms. This ain’t a commentary on word usage (see above), lovelies. This is about approach, about how we think and wonder and, ultimately, how these cultural understandings infuse, in turn, our cultural expression (or, more appropriately to some [read: McGrath et al.]– our cultural “output”…go Marx! I am well aware of production value, TV writers and viewers, and bully for you for efficiency. It reminds me, all those years ago, of a third year prof. commenting to a ‘productive’ student, who complained about his ‘line of thought’, barking out– “I don’t buy it!” to which he replied, “I’m not asking you to buy anything. I’m just asking you to think about it.” But that’s when one was ‘into’ that type of thinking, you know, in university or wherever…back in the day, you know, when you got a degree so you could get all productive and shit. You are all wonderfully productive– adopting the tools of production– but that does not, by any cultural means, point toward wisdom. (In this corner, weighing in at well over fifty books–and a fine economical read at that–…Mr. Samuel Clemens! And in this murky corner, with one long-winded tirade about a blasted French cake, the consumptive Marcel Proust! Gentlemen, box!) Indeed, our TVs could use some wisdom and less of the savvy titillation of rock ‘n’ roll productivity. The latter points to (Platonic hoser-ism ahead)–Mediocrity . Our valuable discussion here, no matter right and wrong, points toward engagement, thought, (maybe humility someday), and even richness. Love to see its fruits brought to our collective expression/ (outputs). Now, I must return to my favourite ‘cop’ show “The Wire”; then view Fritz Lang’s ‘”Metropolis”‘; followed by an unbridled bitching at my doctor about this blasted ‘valetudinarian’ stomach of mine… . Regards all. Be wise.

    p.s. I also have trouble with Margaret Atwood.
    Keep writing!

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