Black Harbour spices up the plot - Show adds sex, drugs and hurricane for third-season push
October 6, 1998
by Sid Adilman The Toronto Star
HUBBARDS, N.S. – The creators of Black Harbour have injected drugs. sexual spice and a hurricane into their domestic drama series that begins its third season on Friday at 9p.m.
But creators and co-producers Wayne Grigsby and Barbara Samuels insist that neither low ratings the past two seasons nor some downbeat reviews are the reasons they juiced up the show.
In the first episode, the pair send Katherine, the now-divorced restaurateur heroine played by Rebecca Jenkins, on a wild, dark weekend in Halifax. She gambles at the Sheraton Hotel's casino and gets drunk with two women she meets there.
In her van, the three make their way to an isolated drug den in the countryside. On the way, the two women rob a gas station and injure its attendant while Katherine watches in horror from the back seat, too drunk to stop them.
At their destination, while others are shown taking drugs and sexually coupling, Katherine cuts her hand on a windowpane trying to escape before passing out. The place is abandoned when she awakes the next morning and her purse and car are gone.
In episode four, Paul, the shipbuilder (played by Alex Carter), whom Katherine has agreed to marry, abruptly leaves the village to seek the adventures he never had.
A hurricane hits Black Harbour at the same time he leaves.
“We don’t have the budget of a Poltergeist or for SGI (computer digital technology), but we manage to create one,” says Grigsby.
Black Harbour’s first two seasons drew about 600,000 viewers a week at the top end (around 500,000 average) and Grigsby concedes that CBC executives would like to see bigger ratings, but they’d like to see bigger ratings on most of their shows.
“They had a rough year last year and our show was no worse than many of the others. They were disappointed by Traders’ ratings (about 400,000 a week) and by the fifth estate ratings (a middling 600,000 on average).”
"And, notes Samuels, “Wind At My Back took a crash (about 750,000 from a previous high of 1.2 million in Sunday prime time).”
She is categorical: “No one at the network told us to change anything.”
But Grigsby admits that “there's more pop in the first three or four shows — not something that we decided to do arbitrarily.
“It’s the organic outgrowth of, and entirely rooted in, all the stuff that happened in season two.”
During the past 13 episodes, Katherine divorced Nick (played by Geraint Wyn Davies) and childhood sweetheart Paul, also divorced, moved in with her and her two daughters.
The series, says Samuels, “is not about emotional happiness, but about people trying to decide what they want (Paul, Catherine [sic] and Nick) are in mid-life crisis.”
Despite emotional and other turbulence, Black Harbour flashes humour.
Episode two, notes Grigsby, “is a flat-out comedy” as Nick copes with his first clients — quarrelling employees of a small, stylish New York magazine.
Grigsby and Samuels like the move to Fridays.
Airing on Wednesdays the past two seasons, Black Harbour lost out chiefly to Party of Five at 9 pm.
“The female demographic, age 25 plus, didn’t check out for us,” notes Grigsby. “Friday night might help.”
The series has been sold to South Africa, Ireland, Indonesia, the Middle East, Finland, Norway and Estonia — revenue that still doesn’t put it in profit territory.
So, if its CBC ratings don’t improve this season, Black Harbour will face real storm clouds.
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October 6, 1998
by Sid Adilman The Toronto Star
HUBBARDS, N.S. – The creators of Black Harbour have injected drugs. sexual spice and a hurricane into their domestic drama series that begins its third season on Friday at 9p.m.
But creators and co-producers Wayne Grigsby and Barbara Samuels insist that neither low ratings the past two seasons nor some downbeat reviews are the reasons they juiced up the show.
In the first episode, the pair send Katherine, the now-divorced restaurateur heroine played by Rebecca Jenkins, on a wild, dark weekend in Halifax. She gambles at the Sheraton Hotel's casino and gets drunk with two women she meets there.
In her van, the three make their way to an isolated drug den in the countryside. On the way, the two women rob a gas station and injure its attendant while Katherine watches in horror from the back seat, too drunk to stop them.
At their destination, while others are shown taking drugs and sexually coupling, Katherine cuts her hand on a windowpane trying to escape before passing out. The place is abandoned when she awakes the next morning and her purse and car are gone.
In episode four, Paul, the shipbuilder (played by Alex Carter), whom Katherine has agreed to marry, abruptly leaves the village to seek the adventures he never had.
A hurricane hits Black Harbour at the same time he leaves.
“We don’t have the budget of a Poltergeist or for SGI (computer digital technology), but we manage to create one,” says Grigsby.
Black Harbour’s first two seasons drew about 600,000 viewers a week at the top end (around 500,000 average) and Grigsby concedes that CBC executives would like to see bigger ratings, but they’d like to see bigger ratings on most of their shows.
“They had a rough year last year and our show was no worse than many of the others. They were disappointed by Traders’ ratings (about 400,000 a week) and by the fifth estate ratings (a middling 600,000 on average).”
"And, notes Samuels, “Wind At My Back took a crash (about 750,000 from a previous high of 1.2 million in Sunday prime time).”
She is categorical: “No one at the network told us to change anything.”
But Grigsby admits that “there's more pop in the first three or four shows — not something that we decided to do arbitrarily.
“It’s the organic outgrowth of, and entirely rooted in, all the stuff that happened in season two.”
During the past 13 episodes, Katherine divorced Nick (played by Geraint Wyn Davies) and childhood sweetheart Paul, also divorced, moved in with her and her two daughters.
The series, says Samuels, “is not about emotional happiness, but about people trying to decide what they want (Paul, Catherine [sic] and Nick) are in mid-life crisis.”
Despite emotional and other turbulence, Black Harbour flashes humour.
Episode two, notes Grigsby, “is a flat-out comedy” as Nick copes with his first clients — quarrelling employees of a small, stylish New York magazine.
Grigsby and Samuels like the move to Fridays.
Airing on Wednesdays the past two seasons, Black Harbour lost out chiefly to Party of Five at 9 pm.
“The female demographic, age 25 plus, didn’t check out for us,” notes Grigsby. “Friday night might help.”
The series has been sold to South Africa, Ireland, Indonesia, the Middle East, Finland, Norway and Estonia — revenue that still doesn’t put it in profit territory.
So, if its CBC ratings don’t improve this season, Black Harbour will face real storm clouds.
Back to articles