Lifetime has just gone live with a whole mess o' content for Blood Ties. They've done a great job on the website. Lots of nice goodies for fans and the curious alike to stoke their vampire-loving hearts and whet their bloody appetites.If you live in the United States it looks like later this week you'll be able to download the first hour of the premiere from the Itunes Store -- for free. (They did that for Dresden Files too-- in fact, it's a growing promotional trend that probably deserves a column all its own soon. hmm.)
Right now if you go to Lifetime's site you can get all sorts of exclusive content including cast pictures and info and interesting behind-the-scenes featurettes with the stars of the show.
There's also a new blog, Blood Tales, by Tanya Huff, author of the original Blood Ties books & stories, where she says some very complimentary things about the show.
Here in B.C. We're all looking forward to what I guess is our world premiere here, this Sunday on Lifetime. I get to call my Dad in Florida and tell him that yes, there is a show I worked on on the TeeVee that he can see all the way down there in the Sunshine State.
As much as the site does a great job of stoking the fire for the premiere, as a latecomer to this train, I'm nonetheless impatient for everybody to see what we're doing now. Because I don't think it's revealing too much to say that the episodes we're currently working on (which are actually the end of the first season) are kicking everything into a way-high gear. The performances keep getting better. Our stories are filled with twisty goodness. The Directors are turning in wonderful stuff, and as much as you might like to view pics of Vicki, Mike, and Henry, I can't believe some of the great characters you haven't even met yet, whether it be Coreen or Kate, or Dave, or Dr. Mohadevan (whose name I seem to always spell wrong in my scripts, even though I was taught a perfectly good mnemonic device to remember it...Moe-had-a-van. Then again, today I misspelled Celluci, so I might just be getting punchy.)
And then there's this: today I met Danny Trejo. Well, I didn't meet him. I stood three feet away from him as Angelina the wonderful wardrobe woman showed his costume to showrunner Peter Mohan. But I was there, man. The guy's in Grindhouse. And I was right there. Me and the other Dennis squealed like eight year old girls.
Once he left the room, I mean.
And -- production process permitting, today we even figured out a way to get in a great in-joke that will resonate extra-specially for fans of the books. And it's going in my second Ep, ep 21.
I can't begin to tell you how great everyone is here. Everyone works so hard. This show doesn't have the highest budget in the world...but it has the best crew and creative people I've ever worked with. It's got performers who go the extra mile and writers who really try to get deep down into these stories to make 'em work...and it's got heart. Lots of it.
And teeth. The better to bite you with.That metaphor? See this is probably why I write teleplays and not prose. Ah well.
As for you long suffering Canadian fans, yes I know it's filmed here. Yes, I know it seems unfair. But at least there's this ray of hope: the content on the website is not geo-locked -- so you can go and view it all you want.
The two-hour Blood Ties premiere plays on Lifetime this coming Sunday at 9pm ET. The show comes to Living in the UK later this summer and CHUM stations across Canada sometime this fall.
9 comments:
You are such a mean man. Hyping the show with one hand and reminding us with the other that we have to wait for it.
It's a bit of a no-win situation for me. If I try to promote the U.S. preem and don't mention the Canadian, the Canadians get all, "what about us?" an if you try to slip it in you get, "why are you taunting us?"
Ah well.
The one thing that I would love Canadians to know: I don't know why CHUM is aiming for a fall start. It might have to do with their salespeople saying they can sell it better then. It may have to do with promotional budgets, it may have to do with not wanting to run it for 22 weeks into the summer when ratings will be low. Like I said, I don't know.
If they did start now and ran it straight through, they'd pay a price for going into summer. If they took a break, they'd get criticized for that. Basically, any move they made would be criticized.
The internet age has made it very difficult because the most engaged and rabid fans are right on top of everything, and nothing but instant is good enough for them.
When the reality is that if you look at books and CD's, publishers and record co's have always tinkered and exercised differing release schedules -- to maximize the prospects in their own territories.
Now, Canadians have always felt a little privileged on this score, expecting (demanding?) that anything available in the USA should be available to them at the same time. There's no good answer for that.
But there is an alt consideration, and it's this:
Without CHUM, the series would not exist. Not at all. Even Lifetime now has only bought 13 eps. CHUM got it rolling, CHUM got it made.
If you're disappointed that you can't see it in Canada, I understand that. But the company has its reasons, whatever they are, and your disappointment needs to be leavened with the knowledge that this is the company that stuck their neck out -- so if they have reasons for wanting to start the series in the fall, that's just the way it's got to be.
It may not be good enough for the internet fans, but the internet fans, large as they are, are a drop in the bucket (still!) to the number of casual fans who will find out about and tune in this show because of ads, and promo in other media.
It's annoying, believe me. But it's so.
That all makes sense, but it also seems like a missed opportunity to not be able to directly tag onto the US promotional bucks, like with the US shows that get simulcast here and therefore don't need much help from their Canadian networks. The US media mentions now will help raise some anticipation for the Canadian premiere, as long as there's a big enough push to let us know exactly when that premiere will be. But I guess I'm a little skeptical Canadian networks are up to that task when they don't do it well for other homegrown shows that haven't had that advance publicity.
Too bad they can't simulcast with Lifetime. Irrelevant detail that we don't get Lifetime. Simulcast wouldn't be evil when it's a Canadian show, would it?
Hey Denis, if there'd been smilies available here I'd have put a couple of winks in that post to assure you I wasn't at all mad at you! It is the way it is. Thanks though for the comments on the struggle Canadian networks have about when to premiere product.
I'll enjoy it just as much in the fall as I would have now.
Not to start a debate, but who has first window on the show? You write as if its first and foremost a CHUM/Canadian series, Denis, but then how can Lifetime (and the UK net) have first window? Isn't it a Lifetime series first?
Then there's the Cancon quota factor. I've worked on two shows in the past where the premiere of the season I worked on didn't occur for over a year because, in the words of the network..."we've already fulfilled our Cancon requirements for this fiscal year so we're pushing it until next year." This was for a series in later seasons (i.e. not their first) but there was nary an eyelash batted at my concern that 'fans' of the show would have to wait almost a year and a half before seeing any new episodes.
So it goes...
"...in the words of the network..."we've already fulfilled our Cancon requirements for this fiscal year so we're pushing it until next year." "
OOOHH that's an interesting statement.
In my experience, them that pays most gets the premiere. I'm guessing that would be Lifetime in this case.
The website shows some fabulous stuff. I can hardly wait to see it here. Thank you!
Caryn in Port Moody
loved the books, love the show. I don't have cable but thankfully iTunes is my friend.
the stories are great, the characters wonderful. the whole love triangle/reality triangle is fab. and oh the zippy comments. some of them just kill me ("My father killed the Scottish King, Yes I golf" LOL)
but could you pretty please pass a note to the production people. maybe it's just that I'm American and our shows are zippier and such (I was a huge Buffy fan, that tells you were I'm coming from). I can deal with some mildly cheesy FXs but what really bugs me is that the show is literally too dark. these folks are too dang hot to be lost in shadows. double for Henry.
please turn some lights on. let us really drool over these guys. LOL
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