From Bill Brioux of Brioux.tv:
Link: Tonight: Hudson & Rex return for a second season on Citytv
One of the more fascinating things I observed last week on location with Hudson & Rex was just how much Diesel was into his job.
That would be Diesel vom Burgimwald, a magnificent, three-year-old german shepherd. He plays Rex on the series, which returns for its second season this Tuesday night at 8/7c on Citytv. Continue reading.Â
After a break of only a few months, Hudson & Rex returns for its second season on Citytv. We couldn’t be happier. The crime drama, based out of St. John’s and starring John Reardon, Mayko Nguyen, Kevin Hanchard, Justin Kelly and German Shepherd Diesel vom Burgimwald is a must-see for anyone that enjoys their mysteries lighter in tone and with a great ensemble cast.
In Tuesday’s debut—at 8 p.m. ET on Citytv—Charlie (Reardon) and Rex (Diesel vom Burgimwald) discover a wanted criminal has been living in St. John’s under a false identity for 20 years and end up in the crosshairs when the man’s past catches up with him. Along for the ride are the capable Doctor Sarah Truong (Nguyen), Superintendent Joe Donovan (Hanchard) and Tech Analyst Jesse Mills (Kelly). And, with David Hewlett, Shiva Negar, Janet Kidder and Noam Jenkins in guest roles, it makes for a fast-paced and highly enjoyable first instalment.
We spoke to showrunner Derek Schreyer—who took over for Season 1 showrunner Ken Cuperus—about what’s to come, including a visit to France.
How’s filming been going?
Derek Schreyer: It’s been going great. It’s been really fun. For Season 2, we really pushed to get some scripts done in time for the summer, which relies on some of the amazing, amazing summer scenarios of St. John’s. So that’s been really a lot of fun.
I sort of jumped on board this as a showrunner about two-thirds of the way through Season 1. I’d never been there before, so it was like I just got thrown into the fire. It was two months of absolute pain because we were way behind and I had to do a lot of stuff. But I knew it’s the first year of the show, and every time there’s the first year of a show, there’s a lot of cooks and a lot of people really care about it, and want to make sure that it’s right. And this show’s been developed for 10 years. I mean, there’s a lot of different voices and whatnot.
I just started to really connect with the environment. I just loved St. John’s, and I love the area, and I love Diesel and the crew.
You were filming in Saint Pierre and Miquelon. What can you say about that storyline?
DS: My first episode, the one I co-wrote with my friend Alex Pugsley, is going to be set there. It’s kind of a Bon Cop, Bad Cop thing where the climax takes place in Saint Pierre and Miquelon.
One of the things about Hudson & Rex that I like is that everybody’s on an even keel, human and canine, and I love this team that you guys have established with this group of police officers that are solving these crimes.
DS: Yeah, I think it’s definitely interesting because this is obviously based on Inspector Rex. That had a certain model, and that was basically a man and his dog, which meant that there was always one of those two POVs. We’ve gone more with an ensemble feel with the dog at the mix. I just love being on a show where the No. 1 on the call sheet is a dog. It really lessens egos. They all really love just to interact with a dog. It really changes the chemistry of the set, I think.
One thing I wanted to do before we started season two is just to bring in Sherri [Davis, Diesel vom Burgimwald’s trainer] just to have her talk about the kind of things that Diesel can do. She’ll mention that she has a dog that can play as a wolf. And all of a sudden, there comes an episode right there. It could be an episode where we’re in the forest with a wolf, and plots appear, and then maybe Rex can do this, he can balance on a rope as he crosses. All of a sudden, plots ignite from that.
You already mentioned Saint Pierre and Miquelon; what are some themes and a couple of storylines that you follow in Season 2?
DS: We’ve got one that’s delved into the Insta celebrity culture. It’s kind of a comedy from Bridesmaids meets the Instagram culture. We have one called ‘The Woods Have Eyes,’ where this woman goes missing after she sees something, and the mother comes in and believes that she … we actually track her to the forest somewhere, and Rex and the team ended up discovering a sort of a shady, almost a Stranger Things-type organization, and try to figure out what they’re doing. That’s kind of neat.
Then we have one set which is super fun, it’s called ‘Game of Bones.’ It’s going to be set in the world of LARPing. It’s a completely eccentric cast of characters of LARPers who portray these characters on this battlefield. There’s a character that dies and has sort of a death rune carved in his body, and that’s symbolic of something in the sort of medieval Viking lore, and we have to explore that. So that’s kind of a really fun world.
We have one called ‘Rex in the City,’ which explores the dating culture. It’s a real bunch of mixed, fun stuff. Some of it’s a little heavier handed, and some of it’s lighter. But I think we’ve sort of figured out our tone, so we’re a fairly grounded show. We have a little bit of heart, a little bit of humour, and hopefully some really cool stories.
Hudson & Rex airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Citytv.
Images courtesy of Rogers Media.
Jessie Gabe took a bit of a circuitous route to writing for television. Initially interested in acting, she moved from Montreal to Toronto where she performed and wrote sketch comedy. But it was on a train where her professional writing career took off.
“I met a guy on a train and I very luckily wound up, through him, meeting his cousin, who is now my agent and who got me my first job as a writer on Being Erica,” Gabe says. A stint on Being Erica was followed by co-creating Agnes & Harold (which she also starred in), penning the film Cas & Dylan, and a writing and executive producer gig on Mr. D and Frankie Drake Mysteries.
She also was part of the writing staff and co-executive producer on Season 1 of Hudson & Rex. In this week’s episode, the team moves quickly when Donovan’s ex wakes up with blood on her hands and a dead roommate. We caught up with Gabe, who is freelance writing scripts for Season 2 of Hudson & Rex and co-writing a feature film on the life of Canadian Phil Hartman.
Had you ever considered writing before?
JG: I had written, but I actually had never considered being a professional screenwriter. I don’t think it had occurred to me. I was in my 20s, and I had written sketch and by a total fluke, I had written a couple of spec scripts quite a bit before that, just because a friend of mine was considering being a writer and it was an activity that I did with him. I had them on file, but it was like a game at the time. And I was working on a feature, that again, with really no knowledge of anything, no outline, just Page 1, fade in, because my roommate was a filmmaker and thought, ‘We don’t anything, and you’ll write it, and you’ll star in it, and I’ll film it.’ We were both struggling artists. Luckily, it didn’t get made, thank god. It turned into Cas & Dylan, and it got made with, thank god, not myself in the lead role.
You were on Mr. D, then you were on Frankie Drake Mysteries. And once you were in the Shaftesbury door, I’m assuming that’s part of the reason you ended up on Hudson & Rex, is that true?
JG: Yeah, they just moved me over. I was winding down on Frankie, and they were like, ‘Hey, we need writers on Rex.’ Initially, I was hired to just do one script and four weeks on the show, and I really thought it was just a short little stint, because they initially had, what was it, 8, or 10 episodes?
And then I suddenly got a call saying, ‘They’ve just expanded it, can you do another script?’ And I was like, ‘Great!’ And then a few weeks later, they’re like, ‘We just found out now that the order is 16. Would you do another script?’ And it kept expanding, so I kept getting a few more weeks, and then another script, and a few more. And now, I’m freelancing on Season 2, writing another script.
What were your first thoughts when it came to writing Hudson & Rex?
JG: I think the initial challenge was what is the tone of the show? Probably everybody assumed going in that it was going to be extremely lighthearted and comedic. And that’s my wheelhouse anyway, so I figured that’s what I’m going to bring also. Comedy is more my thing really. And then I get into the room, and the storylines are pretty heavy and dark. And I thought, ‘What is happening here?’ But it’s interesting, it’s just not what I initially expected, and I think maybe I wasn’t alone to think that, so we started to adapt. Making the dog the star of the show and trying to tell a mystery that would be impossible to solve without the dog—the dog is supposedly Charlie’s superpower—that is the goal that we always strive for anyway. It can be challenging, but it’s interesting that the show itself is more like just a cop procedural. So it doesn’t have that childlike, or younger, tone that maybe we initially expected going on.
Even though the writers’ room is so collaborative, when it comes to writing, do you go off on your own, do you have a soundtrack that you listen to while you write, do you need to be in a Starbucks or something with some background noise, how does it work for you?
JG: I don’t like listening to music, because I’ll start singing along, or even humming to a tune. I’m not hearing the words and the dialogue, so I like being quiet. But at the same time, I’m happy to work in a coffee shop, so background noise doesn’t bother me. But I tend to work at home. I’m flexible. I don’t have only one way that I can do it. I have a four-year-old and sometimes it’s wherever.
Is there anything that you’re working on that you talk about at this point, or is it all just about focusing on Hudson & Rex?
JG: A feature that I’ve been working on, it’s a biopic about Phil Hartman. I have a co-writing credit with Jonas Chernick. He wrote the initial script that I was brought on to rewrite, but we’re co-writers on it. So yes, story biopic about Phil Hartman, and we’ll see where it goes. It’s being produced by Tyler Levine at Carousel Pictures. Phil Hartman’s daughter has been very supportive and got the creators of The Simpsons on board with us.
Hudson & Rex airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Citytv.
Images courtesy of Rogers Media.
After a few weeks away, Hudson & Rex returned to Citytv last week on a new night. Now airing on Thursdays, Charlie, Rex, Sarah, Joe and Jesse are back at it, taking a bite out of crime (I know, I’m sorry) in and around St. John’s, Newfoundland.
This week’s new episode is “Fast Eddies,” and Rogers Media has this to say about the storyline:
After a reviled restaurateur’s food truck explodes, killing one of his employees, Charlie and Rex find themselves with a few too many suspects. Plus, a flirtation has Charlie torn between a possible new love interest and Rex, who makes no secret of his feelings on the matter.
The return of Hudson & Rex also marks the return of our behind-the-scenes interviews with the cast and crew. This week we caught up with locations manager Tony Butt.
How did you get into the industry in the first place?
Tony Butt: I had spent my 20s in the oil industry and I quit because I didn’t like what I was doing and didn’t know what I was doing. I went on a motorcycle trip and was sitting in a theatre in New Orleans, watching a film festival and said, ‘That’s what I’ll do.’ So, I came back to St. John’s and started dabbling in the incredible co-operative called the Newfoundland Independent Film Co-operative. I walked in one day and they were training for films and the only job left was locations, so I took it. I’ve spent a bunch of years doing that.
I’ve worked in other departments and have been out of the industry for six or seven years and then I [joined Hudson & Rex].
Where does the location manager fit into the production schedule? You’re somewhere between the initial script and the filming.
TB: The script comes down and the art director vets it. We sit down together and bring in the director as soon as possible and we look at everyone’s vision. I then go out and scout locations, keeping in mind practicality, aesthetics and the needs of both the director and the production. And then I present as many options as I can get. And you try and cluster locations as much as you can. There were some challenges on Hudson & Rex because they wanted a cosmopolitan feel with a lot of modern buildings. We don’t have a lot of that, per se, so we had to work with those restrictions. And we shot in winter but they didn’t want to see snow. That didn’t have much to do with me, but it did have some. Everyone pulled together and I was really impressed.
Have you got locations in your back pocket for reference so you have an idea of a place as soon as you see it in a script?
TB: Absolutely. And, also, St. John’s is a small city that has developed in segments. You know the neighbourhoods. This one was developed in the 80s, this one was developed in the 60s, so you can really narrow down your search. And then, you try to build a day around one location without having to move the unit, ideally. And you have people to help you, like real estate agents and people who manage properties. So, yeah, you have properties that you go to first and then go further if you have to.
Hudson & Rex airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Citytv.
Images courtesy of Rogers Media.
From a media release:
Shaftesbury and Pope Productions are thrilled to announce freshman hit series HUDSON & REX has been renewed for season two by Citytv (16 x 60), just six episodes into its 16-episode first season. HUDSON & REX is Citytv’s highest-rated original scripted series since 2015, reaching more than 2.5M viewers during its first six debut episodes*. Season 1 of the series returns from a mid-season hiatus on June 13, with episodes moving to Thursdays at 8 ET/PT on Citytv.
Inspired by Inspector Rex, one of the most successful international television franchises airing for a total of 18 seasons in 125 countries, HUDSON & REX has been acquired by Italy’s TV powerhouse RAI for primetime. Additional territory deals to be announced in the coming weeks.
HUDSON & REX is an action-packed police-procedural drama set in St. John’s, Nfld. The series follows the partnership between cunning Major Crimes detective, Charlie Hudson (John Reardon; Van Helsing, Continuum), and his partner, Rex (canine Diesel vom Burgimwald), a German Shepherd with heightened senses and formerly with the K-9 police unit. Based on the Austrian drama Inspector Rex, HUDSON & REX also stars Mayko Nguyen (Killjoys) as Doctor Sarah Truong, Kevin Hanchard (Orphan Black) as Superintendent Joe Donovan and Justin Kelly (Wynonna Earp) as Tech Analyst Jesse Mills.
HUDSON & REX is produced by Shaftesbury and Pope Productions Ltd., in association with Citytv, a division of Rogers Media, and Beta Film GmbH. HUDSON & REX is executive produced by Christina Jennings, Scott Garvie, and Ken Cuperus; co-executive producers are Derek Schreyer, John Callaghan, and Jessie Gabe. Paul Pope and Julie Lacey are producers. Friedemann Goez and Oliver Bachert are executive producers for Beta Film GmbH. Produced with the participation of the Newfoundland and Labrador Film Development Corporation, the Ontario Film and Television Tax Credit, and the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit. Beta Film GmbH holds worldwide distribution rights.
