After filling up my Twitter feed during its Friday debut on Syfy, Wynonna Earp debuted Monday in Canada on CHCH. One of the interesting things I read during the social media barrage was the comparison folks have made between Wynonna Earp and the dearly-departed Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I certainly get the comparison, and showrunner Emily Andras has mentioned Wynonna and the beloved Buffy in the same sentence. I didn’t watch Buffy at all, so I didn’t have that as a reference during Monday’s debut. Instead, I went in with clear eyes and ready to judge Wynonna on her own merits.
I was very, very impressed. It takes less than a minute to learn Wynonna is headed back to her hometown via bus for her uncle Curtis’ funeral. Moments later, the bus has broken down, a silly girl has ventured into the woods for a pee and Wynona’s unique abilities—and family history—are called upon. She’s the great-great-granddaughter of legendary gunslinger Wyatt Earp and she is fully capable of kicking demon derriere. Good thing, because there are a lot of them; those who Wyatt killed during his time have returned from the dead and Wynonna—with help from sister Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley)—must return the red-eyed beasties from whence they came.
Based on the IDW graphic novels by Beau Smith, the only holdover is Wynonna. Andras and her team concocted the supporting players in Waverly, Agent Dolls (Shamier Anderson), a head demon named Bobo Del Rey (Michael Eklund) and Wyatt’s one-time best bud, Doc Holliday (Tim Rozon). Those players, set in the backwater burg of Purgatory, gives Andras plenty to play with. I watch a lot of television. So much that, as my family can attest, I can often guess what the next line of dialogue or action will be. I couldn’t do that with Wynonna Earp because I never knew what the hell was going to come out of their mouths or what they were going to do next. Wynonna asking if her aunt if her uncle’s body was “intact,” using the promise of coitus as a way to question a ranch hand about Curtis’ death, and a demon literally holding another’s tongue are just three of many snicker-worthy moments.
The pilot episode of a series is usually the weakest because so much needs to be crammed in with regard to the characters and main story, but I didn’t find that here. By the episode’s closing moments viewers picked up Wyatt’s gun, now in Wynonna’s possession, is the only thing that can send them back to hell and they want it. Wynonna can deliver roundhouse kicks with a little extra on them, and Agent Dolls has enlisted Wynonna as a member of his black badge division of the U.S. Marshals to investigate the unexplained. Also? Waverly and Wynonna are quickly becoming a one-two punch in demon-bashing badassery. I’m looking forward to more.
The Toronto Screenwriting Conference (TSC) has announced the WGC Writing Room Intensive program with Emily Andras, Showrunner/Executive Producer of Wynonna Earp. Six participants will work with Andras to create a ‘spec-script’ episode of Joss Whedon’s cult-classic, Buffy The Vampire Slayer. They will join Andras on stage during the TSC to present a session that explores the writing room process, and will share with the group their episode live on stage. The seventh annual Toronto Screenwriting Conference takes place on April 30 and May 1, at its new location, the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
“We strive to provide writers the opportunity to not only learn from the most-successful working showrunners and executive producers today, but to also how to apply these advanced tools in a practical manner. Andras’ intensive program does just that,†said Kent Robinson, Toronto Screenwriting Conference Producer. Adding, “In addition the Writer’s Room Intensive, we’ve developed other new conference sessions that will fully engage screenwriters including the creating a successful series engine, writing a pitch perfect script, writing a pilot (that sells), and breaking a season.â€
The Boston-born, Calgary-bred Andras has a diverse list of television credits to her name. Currently, she is the Showrunner/ Executive Producer for the supernatural, modern-day western Wynonna Earp on SyFy.
Previously, she spent three seasons as the Showrunner and Executive Producer of Lost Girl, and recently worked as the Supervising Producer on Killjoys. Andras’ other credits include writer and Co-producer of the police drama King, and Showrunner and Executive Producer of Instant Star. She has written for numerous other series such as Degrassi: The Next Generation, Sophie, Total Drama Island, and 11 Cameras. She was also hand-picked by Nora Roberts to shepherd her New York Times’ #1 best-selling Blood Magick trilogy to series.
An avid athlete, Andras grew up figure skating and playing rugby. These days, she lives in Toronto with her husband and two small children…but what Emily really wants to be remembered for is being pulled onstage to dance with Bruce Springsteen. Which totally happened.
Joining Andras on the speaker roster are Master Class speaker, Glen Mazzara (Damien); Stephen Falk (You’re the Worst); Kenya Barris (Black-ish); Senior VP of Series Development for FX, Nicole Clemens (responsible for developing FX dramas including Man Seeking Woman, The Strain, You’re The Worst, Baskets); award-winning playwright and screenwriter, Corey Mandell; and former NBC & CBS studio exec. Jen Grisanti (author of Story line: Finding Gold In Your Life Story).
The WGC Writing Room Intensive is for registered TSC delegates who are WGC members in good standing. The selection process will be juried. Deadline to apply is Monday April 11, 5pm ET. For complete details, please visit torontoscreenwritingconference.com.
‘Wynonna Earp’ Offers Supernatural Action With A Heart Of Gold
Small town beset by supernatural menaces? Check. Kick-ass young woman with a demon-fighting legacy (and a few demons of her own) driven by destiny to become the reluctant savior? Check. Colorful supporting cast of likable outcasts that have her back? Check. Strong writing and witty dialogue that keeps the action coming but never loses its sense of humor? Check and double check.
If this sounds like the kind of TV entertainment you’ve been missing since a certain Vampire Slayer hung up her stake in the mid-‘00s, you may want to check out Wynonna Earp, a new series debuting this Friday on SyFy. Continue reading.Â
Melanie Scrofano attended a convention once before, but nothing was like her experience this past weekend at WonderCon. The Canadian actress, who has appeared in The Listener, Being Erica, Degrassi: TNG and Pure Pwnage, was blown away by Wynonna Earp‘s passionate fans, especially because the series—based on the comic books created by Beau Smith—hasn’t debuted yet.
“A lot of them are fans of Beau, who is like a god, a lot are fans of [showrunner] Emily [Andras] because of Lost Girl and a lot of them have seen the trailers and are into what they’re seeing,” Scrofano says. Bowing Monday, April 4, on CHCH (Earp debuts Friday, April 1, on Syfy) the project revolves around the great-granddaughter of Wyatt Earp, Wynonna (Scrofano), a smart-talking young woman who returns to the burg of Purgatory, Alberta, on her 27th birthday. There she not only runs into typical small-town attitudes, but learns the family curse she thought was a myth is real: the folks Wyatt has killed are returning to Earth as demons. Armed with great-great-grandad’s gun and impressive fighting skills, Wynonna does battle against those who would prefer to see her dead. But where Wynonna is fast on her feet and great with a gun, Scrofano is, well, not.
“Apparently, I have heavy hands,” she explains. “I’m not very good at not punching people. There is a way to fight on TV so that you stop short. I go right through. The only thing about me doing my own stunts is that someone else is going to get hurt. I did punch my stunt coordinator right in the face. He didn’t love that.” (Stunt performer Holly Raczynski tackled the more physical demands.)
When she’s not returning demons to their rightful place, Wynonna is rebuilding her relationship with sister Waverly (Dominique Provost-Chalkley), and establishing one with Agent Xavier Dolls (Shamier Anderson), who has come to Purgatory to recruit Wynonna for a secret government task force that takes down supernatural baddies. Scrofano says Wynonna and Dolls bond over what they get into over the next 13 episodes, and viewers learn Dolls has a vested interest in making the bad guys go away. Will there be love between Wynonna and Dolls? No comment, says Scrofano.
There certainly appears to be no love lost between Wynonna and her great-great-grandfather’s best friend. Doc Holliday (Tim Rozon) appears in Season 1, but seems to have aligned himself with head demon Bobo Del Rey (Michael Eklund) rather than acquaint himself—and side with—Wynonna.
“I can say that, just like all of us, Doc is neither 100 per cent good nor 100 per cent evil,” Scrofano says carefully. “We’re all just shades of grey and trying to find our way. Doc’s past is really, really complicated. He’s 133 years old and has had some issues. No matter what way he goes, you can’t help but love him.”
Wynonna Earp debuts Monday, April 4, at 9 p.m. ET on CHCH.
Emily Andras found the perfect project to be her first to create from the ground up in Wynonna Earp. She also found the ideal actress in Melanie Scrofano to play the lead. That’s what Andras, who ran Lost Girl during its later stages, discussed a few weeks ago. Now that we’ve seen the first two episodes of Wynonna Earp, we have to agree.
Debuting Monday, April 4, at 9 p.m. ET on CHCH—and Friday, April 1 on Syfy—Wynonna Earp is packed with the action, swagger and attitude associated with Andras’ work while setting itself apart from other shows in the genre. Beautifully shot and boasting one of the most memorable TV bad guys we’ve seen in years in Michael Eklund, Wynonna Earp is a bona fide thrill ride. Based on the IDW Publishing comic created by Beau Smith, the 13-episode first season features Melanie Scrofano as Wynonna Earp, Tim Rozon as legendary con-artist Doc Holiday, Shamier Anderson as Wynonna’s ally Agent Dolls and Dominique Provost-Chalkley as Wynonna’s sister, Waverly.
We spoke to Andras about running her first series, filming in Calgary, landing Scrofano and what viewers can expect from Season 1.
What was it like filming Wynonna Earp in Calgary? Emily Andras: It was crazy. I actually grew up in Calgary. I left there in the mid-90s so it was very surreal to be back. It was both completely familiar, as it is when you return to your hometown, but so much had changed. Calgary is such an interesting place right now. It’s a place of contradictions. There is big oil, but at the same time they have such a vibrant arts community and a progressive mayor. And, on top of that, it’s truly one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever filmed. I feel like Alberta is untapped as far as television is concerned. They’ve had an incredible year with Fargo and The Revenant, but it seemed like a such a delicious place to set this show and have some fun.
I know people always say this, but I really feel like this is the best crew that I’ve ever worked with. It’s such a small community and they’re so supportive of each other. They are extremely humble and extremely good at their jobs. They’re not jaded and they were legitimately pumped, I think, to work on a genre show. My daughter got to ride horses, my little guy got a trampoline, it was great.
Wynonna Earp is the first series you’ve been the showrunner on from the ground up, correct?
Yeah, this is the first show that I’ve had the pleasure of creating.
Showrunner Emily Andras
What did you learn about yourself as a showrunner, working on something you created?
This is not Doctors Without Borders and it’s probably very hard to work in a mine, but without a doubt this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Between the actual writing and meetings and negotiating with producers and networks, editing and making every single decision from wardrobe, to casting, to props, what we can do in the amount of time with the money we’ve got … there were many, many occasions when I thought, “I literally don’t have enough hours in the day to get all this done.” One thing that was really gratifying about being a showrunner on my own show is that you really do learn from other people their talents and their mistakes. I always say it’s like being handed the wheel of the Titanic: the buck stops with you, but if you kind of lean into it, it can be pretty amazing. You’re making the decisions and, hopefully, you’ve got everyone’s back.
It was a small writing room because it’s Canadian, and we had a much smaller staff. I saw a picture the other day of the writers’ room on How to Get Away with Murder, and I think I counted 21 writers. We had three writers. But that’s Canada and I think what we do is pretty incredible. We push ourselves and do the job of three people a lot of the time.
Did weather wreak havoc at all during filming?
We were really lucky in that we had a pretty mild fall and mild winter. There was one day we shot at night and had some animals on set, and it was so cold in the middle of the woods that the camera stopped working. Peter Stebbings was the director on that and you could see the moment he shut down and said, “Leave me behind, go on without me.” We had a couple of days like that.
How did the writers’ room work on Wynonna Earp? How many episodes did everyone write?
We had Alex Zarowny, James Hurst and Caitlin Fryers, Ramona Barckert did an episode, Shelley Scarrow did an episode, and Brendon Yorke. This is true of any writing room, but it’s critical in how you put it together. It’s one thing to put together a football team, but when you only have three or four bodies in a room and you’re in sweatpants and just ran out of M&M’s you better all get along. It’s like prison. So the dynamics of the group become critical and there are less people to pick up the slack so there has to be trust. Not everyone is going to nail it out of the gate, especially in the first season. In the first season of you show, you’re still trying to figure out what the show is. Is it Buffy? Is it Justified? Is it campy? What’s the sex level? There is so much to figure out during the first season, as well of the panic of just getting it done, the dynamic of the group is critical. We were really lucky. I had worked with most of the writers before, but they had to move to Calgary, so I had to make sure they were invested and wanted to make this work.
I run a pretty supportive room. My writers have seen me break down. Anything that’s good needs to be celebrated because you’re saving my butt. We became very close and bonded and I’m pretty sure the same thing happened to the writers of X Company because they were all in Budapest. Trust is critical.
Everybody wrote a couple of episodes and then the secret of television is that we pass all of the scripts around. I run a democratic room and I’m very up front that we’re all going to look at each other’s stuff.
This is true of any writing room, but it’s critical in how you put it together. When you only have three or four bodies in a room and you’re in sweatpants and just ran out of M&M’s you better all get along.
Wynonna Earp is based on the comic book. What stayed and what didn’t from the comics? It was helpful because, honestly when IDW brought it to me I thought, “If I could cook up the perfect project in a lab it would be Wynonna Earp.” It has this sexy, vulnerable, completely messed up female protagonist, monster fighting and really dark, genre stuff. I cannot speak highly enough of the graphic novel’s author, Beau Smith; he is literally the classiest gentleman I have met in my life. He could not have been more open-minded about it and supportive. And I think he’s genuinely excited about what we’ve done with it. When he came to the set he cried … that said the comic is the product of a certain time, the early 90s. There is so much T&A, I’m not sure how Wynonna doesn’t fall over. She fighting mummies with band-aids over her breasts, as you do.
I came in and really liked the root of the property. What is it like if you’re the descendant of someone who is considered to be the greatest hero of all time? What kind of burden does that bring to your life? What does that legacy do? And I loved the idea that she worked for this clandestine monster-fighting squad that was with the government and established by Teddy Roosevelt. That was about all I took from he comic books. We created a ton of new characters and gave Wynonna sisters and both of the male leads were completely new.
How does each episode roll out? Is there a monster-of-the-week and an overarching theme?
A little bit of both. It starts, like any genre show, with a pretty deep mythology that we keep turning on its head. The hope would be that, if we got picked up for another season, it would become more serialized as it tends to do near the end of the first season. At the beginning, she’s trying to figure out how to take down these demons and then about midway through we meet some of the bigger villains and see some of the alliances.
Wynonna Earp debuts Monday, April 4, at 9 p.m. ET on CHCH.
