Aaron Douglas | Official Fansite
The Official Fansite for actor Aaron Douglas. Aaron is best known for his role as Chief Galen Tyrol on the SyFy television series Battlestar Galactica.
According to The Globe and Mail (in their interview with Inga Cadranel), The Bridge will start airing on CTV and CBS in January 2010.
The award-winning actress will soon hit the American airwaves, starring in the series The Bridge. Originally shot by CTV, the series was scooped up by CBS and premieres on both networks in January.
Source: The Globe and Mail
Fingers crossed this true. The Globe and Mail is owned by the same company as CTV so you’d hope they know what they are talking about.
The Bridge in the paper
By: John McFetridge
Date: August 25, 2009
Source: John McFetridge’s Blog
This morning I woke up to see my boss on the front page of the Toronto Star. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. In this case it was very good.
Craig Bromell is the Executive Producer and Creative Consultant on the TV show, The Bridge. It’s really his show, based on his experiences as a Toronto cop and then as head of the police union.
The article is straitforward enough, but then the comments start. Right away you can see how polarizing a guy Craig was in Toronto. Great fodder for a TV show.
In the pilot episode the character based on Craig, Frank Leo, says, “All I ever wanted to be was a cop.” When he sees the way cops are treated by the brass and the politicians, the way cops are always guilty until proven innocent and the way their own bosses will sell out the cop on the street – the ones in the line of fire – for cheap political gain, it becomes too much for him and he gets elected president of the union.
At that point the brass go after him hard, one deputy chief telling him, “Whenever the public sees a corrupt, out of control cop, they’ll see your face.”
So now the guy who only ever wanted to be a good cop becomes the poster boy for bad cops.
Quite the internal conflict for a main character. Lots of emotional stuff to deal with. It’s the kind of show that may take a few episodes to really find its footing so it’s great that CTV and CBS are fully committed.
The Toronto Star article is here.
Sigh. Still no news on when The Bridge will premiere. The below is a snippet from an article in the Toronto Sun.
CBS announces new game show
By: Bill Harris
Date: August 3, 2009In other CBS news, network president of entertainment Nina Tassler said CBS has “no plans right now” to be involved in the production of more new episodes of CTV’s Flashpoint, but added, “we certainly can if we want to.”
CBS has tentative plans to air nine episodes of Flashpoint that already are in the can at mid-season, but Flashpoint was taken off the CBS fall schedule when the network stole Medium from NBC.
As for another upcoming CTV-CBS series, The Bridge, Tassler said “we don’t know when yet,” referring to a possible air date on the U.S. network.
Source: Toronto Sun
Today (July 22, 2009) Aaron was interviewed by Canada AM. The interview will air on the same day that THE BRIDGE premieres.
The reason the interview was filmed early is because they wanted to have the interview with him on the set. Aaron finishes filming on August 13th and after that date the sets will be taken down and stored away.
So that’s another unaired interview with Aaron that we need to keep an eye out on.
The list so far is … E Talk, ET Canada and Canada AM.
Tomorrow (Friday, July 17, 2009), Aaron will be filming television promos and doing a photo shoot for THE BRIDGE.
Aaron did an interview with ET Canada earlier today (July 14, 2009). I’m not sure how quick the turn around time is from filming to broadcasting. So keep an eye out for it. ET Canada airs at 7pm et/pt on weeknights.
By: John McFetridge
Date: June 17, 2009
Source: John McFetridge’s Blog
Half the writing team of The Bridge – Dannis Koromilas, me and Peter Mohan.
Clearly craft services is doing a top notch job on this show.
(1) The cast of THE BRIDGE (Michael Murphy, Ona Grauer, Aaron Douglas, Frank Cassini, Paul Popowich)
(2) The TV Addict with Aaron Douglas, the star of the THE BRIDGE, who incidentally has yet to watch CAPRICA, even though he hears it’s awesome.
(3) The party, in the old CityTV (Current CTV) parking lot
(4) Spotted: Everybody’s favorite Cylon: Aaron Douglas
Photos 1, 2, 3: The TV Addict
Photo 4: The TV Addict (Twitter)
There is now an official CBS website for THE BRIDGE.
http://www.cbs.com/primetime/the_bridge
At the moment the website only has a show synopsis and a cast list. So check back for updates.
UPDATE: When you click on SHOWS in the header on the CBS website it lists THE BRIDGE with an * after it.
The * (highlighted in yellow in the below screen cap) reads * Denotes NEW Fall show.
‘New Fall show’ not a ‘mideseason show’?!?!? Fingers crossed this isn’t just a typo.
More from The Bridge
By: John McFetridge
Date: May 14, 2009
Source: John McFetridge’s Blog
Publicity is starting to heat up for The Bridge. Here’s an interview with the star, Aaron Douglas:
http://watch.ctv.ca/etalk/tv/extended—the-bridge/#clip169797
I particularly like the part around 2:08 when he talks about how good the scripts are ;)
Of course, the credit for that really has to go to showrunner Alan Difiore and co-exec producer/writer Peter Mohan (as well as the other writers Tracey Forbes, Graeme Manson and Dannis Koromilas). I’m learning an awful lot from all of them.
Also, exec producer Craig Brommell keeps us honest and never lets us take the easy way out. We’ve only started to scratch the surface of his experiences as both a cop and the president of the union, but maybe more important is the attitude he brings.
It’s very exciting as the show comes together. The cast really is good, Aaron Douglas is terrific as the beat cop-turned union president and the rest of the cast is excellent as well.
Aaron is right, I think, there’s a lot of stuff here that hasn’t been in previous cop shows. There are a lot of conscessions to the limitations of the real world – people can’t do everything they want. Budgets are tight, manpower is limited, priorities have to be set – which all means some very tough decisions have to be made – usually on the fly.
Below is a video from CBC Newsworld about Canadian tv shows being picked up by USA channels.
At time stamp 06:46 – 06:58 there is a scene with Aaron from THE BRIDGE.
If you click on this link. It should take you straight to that part in the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpv4cimrYFw#t=6m46s
Today (Sunday, April 19, 2009) is Aaron’s first day of filming in Toronto on his new television series THE BRIDGE. The Bridge tv movie that he filmed last summer will become episodes 1 and 2. The show films Sunday – Thursday and is scheduled to finish shooting on August 20th.
THE BRIDGE premieres on July 9th, 2009 @ 10pm on CBS in the USA and on CTV in Canada.
Writing episodic TV is like writing Haiku
By: John McFetridge
Date: March 8, 2009
Source: John McFetridge’s Blog
Two weeks into my new job as the most junior story editor on the TV show The Bridge (premiering July 9th on CTV and CBS at 10:00 pm), one of the more experienced writers said, “Writing TV is like writing Haiku, you have to fit everything into the structure,” and I thought, yeah, that’s right, people don’t complain that Haiku is too formulaic.
Then he said you could also use dirty limericks as the example, but that’s not as classy.
The writers’ room is a very funny place and a fun place to be.
It’s quite different than writing novels. When I write a novel I start with a couple of characters I think would be interesting to follow and I follow them. I have a vague idea where they might take me, but most of the story emerges from the writing. I’m never sure exactly how the novel will end or even who will emerge as the main character. In Dirty Sweet there’s an unnamed, low-level biker in one scene and he doesn’t say anything, he’s background. In Everybody Knows This is Nowhere he gets named J.T. and has some lines and some scenes. He’s pretty much a main character in Swap. This was certainly no clever plan I had worked out in advance.
But the whole season of The Bridge (11 episodes actually, the pilot has already been filmed and is going to run as the first two episodes) is getting worked out in note form on a big whiteboard across an entire wall of the writers’ room. All six story editors contribute to the outlines of every episode and the head writer (the Showrunner, in TV-speak) is the final word. Then each writer is assigned one or two of these detailed outlines and writes them up as scripts.
The speed at which all this happens is also making my head spin. I’d fallen into a schedule that worked around my kids’ school schedule. They start school in September and I start writing a book. For the past couple of years I’ve been able to finish by June when they finished school.
We started outlining this TV show two weeks ago and the first episode we’re working on will air July 23rd. When the producer told us this, I said, “July 23rd, 2010, right?” I was only half kidding. Filming starts in April.
So, everything has to fit. It has to be like Haiku.
Looks good so far.
Mark your calendars everyone. I’ve just received some very exciting news from Aaron.
Aaron has been told that THE BRIDGE will begin airing on July 9th on Thursday nights at 10pm after CSI Vegas. THE BRIDGE will air in the USA on CBS and in Canada on CTV.
The above date/time may change but right now that is the plan.
THE BRIDGE (in which he stars as the lead character ‘Frank Leo’) has been officially picked up by CBS to air in the USA.
Read the Press Releases (and leave your comments for Aaron) over on THE CHIEF’S DECK.
The Bridge picked up by CBS
By: John McFetridge
Date: February 19, 2009
Source: John McFetridge’s Blog
The TV show I’m going to start working on next week, The Bridge, has been picked up by CBS for broadcast in the USA, probably in the fall of ’09.
A website called TV, eh has all the info.
I like this description of the show:
Written by five-time Gemini Award winner and six-time nominee Alan Di Fiore (DA VINCI’S INQUEST, THE LIFE, THE HANDLER), THE BRIDGE peels away the veneer of a big-city police force to reveal the political machinations underneath. After the rank and file unanimously vote street cop Frank Leo (BATTLESTAR GALLACTICA’S Aaron Douglas) into office as union head, he begins his quest to put street cops first and clean up the force from the ground up. But the old boys’ network running the police force and the city’s self-serving politicians are not about to sit idly by while a former street cop makes up his own rules. Frank walks a thin blue line as he battles wiretaps and a concerted campaign to bring him down, letting nothing stop him from fulfilling his unwavering vow that when cops are in trouble, he will be there.
Gemini Awards are the Canadian version of the Emmy Awards. Five-time winner, Alan Di Fiore. I’m looking forward to learning from him.
The Bridge
By: John McFetridge
Date: February 4, 2009
Source: John McFetridge’s Blog
Recently at a discussion panel of true crime writers, one of the questions asked was, “Have you ever been threatened by any of the people you’ve written about?”
Most of the writers on the panel had written books about some really dangerous people; serial killers, hitmen, bikers and high ranking organized crime figures.
But the guy who answered the question said, “The only time I’ve ever been scared or threatened was by cops.” The others all agreed. These experienced, award-winning journalists-turned-authors had all at some point been scared by police.
Which brings me to my new job. I’ve been hired as one of the writers on a new CTV cop show, The Bridge. The show is based on a cop who was head of the police union in Toronto, the self-professed, “most powerful cop in the country.” The show was apparently pitched as, “What if Tony Soprano was a cop?” In this case he’s a cop who helps other cops, gets them out of trouble and stands up for them to the brass.
Which could make for some very cool and controversial storylines.
Especially if cops are the scariest people those journalists have ever dealt with.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Comments on this blog entry by John: We start in the writers’ room on February 18th and will write 11 episodes by May. The pilot was filmed last fall and will run as the first two episodes.
As mentioned previously, THE BRIDGE has been picked up and will be made into a tv series. Below is the official press release from CTV …..
CTV Crosses THE BRIDGE: New Drama Series Joins CTV’s Original Production Slate
– Compelling and provocative cop drama executive-produced by Toronto Police veteran Craig Bromell –
Toronto, Ontario (November 3, 2008) – CTV announced today the order of a new one-hour original Canadian drama series, THE BRIDGE. Based on the insights of veteran insider and outspoken former Toronto police union head Craig Bromell, CTV has ordered 11, one-hour episodes, following the production of a two-hour pilot shot in Toronto last summer. THE BRIDGE provides an unflinching look at the struggle street cops face as they not only battle criminals – but also their own bosses – in order to protect society and, ultimately, themselves.
Produced by Barna-Alper Productions, an Entertainment One company, 990 Multi Media Entertainment Company and Jonsworth Productions, in association with CTV, production of THE BRIDGE is scheduled to begin in 2009. THE BRIDGE becomes the third, new original drama series to be ordered by CTV in the last year, joining last summer’s breakout hit FLASHPOINT and THE LISTENER, currently in production.
“Craig Bromell is one of the most galvanizing figures in the history of policing in Canada,” said Susanne Boyce, President, Creative, Content and Channels, CTV Inc. “We look forward to working with him on THE BRIDGE, and bringing to Canadian audiences a distinct and authentic view of life behind the scenes of a modern police force.”
“We set out to make the most realistic two-hour movie drama about cops ever seen on TV, and it has paid off,” said Craig Bromell, Executive Producer, 990 Multi Media Entertainment Company. “We expose the inner workings of a big city police force – the police, power and politics behind the blue line. It’s something that hasn’t been seen before on TV, and we’re grateful to CTV for this opportunity. We’re looking forward to collaborating with Alan Di Fiore to create even more compelling, hard-hitting storylines for the series.”
“We are very excited to be able to bring to our new company this gritty, realistic series that is brought to life by Alan Di Fiore and produced by CTV,” said Laszlo Barna, Executive Producer, Barna-Alper Productions, an Entertainment One company.
Written by five-time Gemini Award winner and six-time nominee Alan Di Fiore (DA VINCI’S INQUEST, THE LIFE, THE HANDLER), THE BRIDGE peels away the veneer of a big-city Canadian police force to reveal the political machinations underneath. After the rank and file unanimously vote street cop Frank Leo (Aaron Douglas) into office as union head, he begins his quest to put street cops first and clean up the force from the ground up.
But the old boys’ network running the police force and the city’s self-serving politicians are not about to sit idly by while a former street cop makes up his own rules. Frank walks a thin blue line as he battles wiretaps and a concerted campaign to bring him down, letting nothing stop him from fulfilling his unwavering vow that when cops are in trouble, the union will be there.
THE BRIDGE stars Aaron Douglas (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, SMALLVILLE) as outspoken union head Frank Leo; Paul Popowich (ANGELA’S EYES, I ME WED) as Frank’s partner and confidante Tommy Dunn; Gemini-Award nominee Inga Cadranel (RENT-A-GOALIE, MVP) as Jill, the free-spirited cop on the force; Frank Cassini (Vice, INTELLIGENCE) as Staff Sergeant Bernie Kantor; Theresa Joy (ALL THE GOOD ONES ARE MARRIED, Sixty Days) as feisty tomboy Police Constable Billy; Ona Grauer (STARGATE SG-1 and STARGATE ATLANTIS) as beautiful, passionate prosecutor Abby St. James; Michael Murphy (Away from Her, X-Men: The Last Stand) as Chief of Police, and political animal, Ed Wycoff; and two-time Emmy Award winner Stuart Margolin (THE ROCKFORD FILES, TOM STONE) as Frank’s father, Vic Leo.
THE BRIDGE is produced by Barna-Alper Productions, 990 Multi Media Entertainment Company and Jonsworth Productions, in association with CTV. Executive Producers are Craig Bromell, Laszlo Barna, Adam J. Shully, Alan Di Fiore and Robert Wertheimer. Wendy Grean is producer. CTV’s Production Executive is Brett Burlock. Susanne Boyce is President, Creative, Content and Channels, CTV Inc.
I have some really great news to share …… I heard from Aaron earlier today that THE BRIDGE (in which he stars as the lead character ‘Frank Leo’) has been officially picked up to be a tv series. Aaron will head back to Toronto in May 2009 to start filming.
There’s still no word on when the tv movie / pilot will air. So keep an eye out for that.
Comment on this exciting news over on THE CHIEF’S DECK.