TCA 2009 Summer Press Tour Coverage Begins

July 28, 2009 By 1 Comment

Alex_O'Loughlin-3Rpromo-34The TCA summer press tour commences today at the Langham Huntington Hotel in Pasadena, California and Rob Owen, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s TV editor, will be blogging multiple times a day until August 8th, the last day of the get-together.

If you have any burning Three Rivers questions, please submit them via the PPG’s Q&A form. Rob may be able to get you an answer while he is in Pasadena. There are a couple of rules you’ll need to take into consideration, and they include that you should not ask questions about TV show cancellations or about spoilers.

Excerpt from Rob Owen’s Tuned In Journal:

The tour actually starts this morning and I should arrive by noon West Coast time, meaning the first posts won’t appear here until early evening Pittsburgh time. As always, I’ll be updating the blog multiple times a day, so check back for the latest TV news.

This is the first press tour that I’ve also had public Twitter and Facebook accounts, which I mostly use to chirp out headlines that direct you to the Post-Gazette Web site or this blog for more details (I’m listed as RobOwenTV at both sites; feel free to follow/friend me). Not sure how I will juggle all of that from press tour but my gut instinct is that the blog has to take priority.

If you have any specific prime-time TV questions, submit them to the TV Q&A column now and I’ll do my best to get them answered over the course of the next 10 days when I’ll have access to the actors, producers and network executives responsible for what you see on TV.

Read the full article:

*** ‘More to Love;’ Wendy Bell up for national gig; press tour coverage begins today ***

[tags]alex o’loughlin, alex o’lachlan, tca 2009 press tour, three rivers, cbs[/tags]

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Creating ‘Three Rivers’, Part 3

July 7, 2009 By 1 Comment

ppg070709Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s TV editor Rob Owen wraps up his blog series Creating ‘Three Rivers’ this week.

Writer/executive producer Carol Barbee talks about revamping the show (a.k.a. “retooling the hierarchy of the hospital”), whether her involvement in Beautiful Life will get in the way of the Three Rivers production and how Heartland fits into all this.

The only items Rob expects to post between now and July 31st (the Three Rivers press tour panel) are possible re-casting notices.

Read the article:

*** Creating ‘Three Rivers’ (Part Three) ***

[tags]alex o’loughlin, alex o’lachlan, three rivers, andy yablonski, cbs[/tags]

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Creating ‘Three Rivers’, Part Two

July 2, 2009 By 2 Comments

ppg020709In his Tuned In Blog, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV editor Rob Owen continues his conversation with writer/executive producer Carol Barbee in part two of Creating ‘Three Rivers’.

If you missed part one, you can read it about it here.

Barbee did her initial research for the show at the Cleveland Clinic, where Dr. Gonzo Gonzalez-Stawinski is a surgeon in the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.

As you may remember, Alex O’Loughlin’s character, Dr. Andy Yablonski, is based on the real life transplant surgeon and Alex sat in on several of his surgeries in preparation for the pilot.

In this second instalment of the interview with Carol Barbee, adding local flavor to the series is discussed, including sandwiches from Primanti Bros. and a scene involving Pittsburghese that, unfortunately, had to be cut from the pilot.

Although the show will be shot in the hospital set being built on the Paramount backlot in Hollywood, Barbee is hopeful that they will be able to shoot some scenes in Pittsburgh once or twice a year.

On her wish list is a scene involving one of the two remaining incline railways in the city. “I really want to get those rivers and bridges in there. I really want to do a big funicular scene. We have to use that,” she tells Rob Owen.

We can expect part three of Creating ‘Three Rivers’ to be posted next week.

[tags]alex o’loughlin, alex o’lachlan, three rivers, andy yablonski, cbs, carol barbee[/tags]

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Creating ‘Three Rivers’, Part One

June 15, 2009 By 1 Comment

ppg15062009Rob Owen (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) has just published part one of an interview that he had with Three Rivers writer-executive producer Carol Barbee. The topic is how Three Rivers came into being and why Pittsburgh was selected as locale.

As with many things in life, a series of factors that some would call coincidences led to the making of Alex O’Loughlin’s new television series.

Carol Barbee was already developing a medical show for CBS, one of executive producer’s Curtis Hanson’s film company execs was giving a seminar at the University of Southern California and former University of Chicago Medical Center transplant coordinator, Steve Boman, sold the concept for a show about the competitive organ transplantation business to CBS. One thing led to another and culminated in the new series.

Especially the transplant aspect appealed to Barbee. “I said I’d do it from three points of view: Donor, recipient, doctor. Each one was so compelling.”

The choice for Pittsburgh as setting for the medical drama was sealed when the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center came up as # 1 on the list of top transplant cities in the world. That three rivers converge in the city fits in perfectly with the stories being told from three different perspectives.

Read the full article:

*** “Creating ‘Three Rivers’” ***

[tags]alex o’loughlin, alex o’lachlan, cbs, three rivers, carol barbee, andy yablonski[/tags]

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‘Three Rivers’ Hospital to be Built on Paramount Lot

June 11, 2009 By 1 Comment

latimes110609

The Los Angeles Times reports that CBS will have a hospital built on the lot at Paramount Studios in Hollywood for Alex O’Loughlin’s new medical drama Three Rivers. The network expects that this development will broaden the show’s scope. Whereas the hospital scenes shot for the pilot were limited to specific areas of the Brownsville Tri-County Hospital near Pittsburgh, the new set will offer the production many more possibilities.

Recurring characters are also expected to join the cast, with a possible love interest for Alex O’Loughlin’s character, transplant surgeon Dr. Andy Yablonski.

The role that initially went to Julia Ormond will be recast.

While other media have previously reported that Joaquim de Almeida would not be returning in the series, the LA Times are including him in the lineup.

According to Rob Owen at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, however, the LA Times is “making a mountain out of a molehill”.  Additionally, Joaquim de Almeida is definitely out of the picture, he blogs.

Read both articles:

*** CBS to Revamp New Drama ‘Three Rivers’ ***

*** CBS Re-Shooting Large Portions of ‘Three Rivers’ Pilot ***

[tags]alex o’loughlin, alex o’lachlan, cbs, three rivers, andy yablonski[/tags]

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