Murder in a Small Town will be a high-calibre presence at this year’s Leo awards after the locally shot TV series earned nine nominations for the annual honours.
The Leo Awards recognize achievements of the B.C. film and television industry. The nominations, announced this month, are for productions originating in the province. Among the 27 contenders in the Dramatic Series category, Murder in a Small Town tied the Surrey-based police drama Allegiance as most-decorated contenders, with nine nominations apiece.
B.C.-based actress Kristin Kreuk, who plays Gibsons librarian Cassandra Lee (love interest to police inspector Karl Alberg, portrayed by Rossif Sutherland) scored a nomination for Best Lead Performance in the episode titled A Touch of Panic. The same episode snagged Amanda Tapping the nomination for Best Direction in a Dramatic Series; stunt coordinator Rhys Williams was named in the category of Best Stunt Coordination.
“We were very pleasantly surprised,” said series producer Nick Orchard. “There are an awful lot of productions that happen in B.C., so there’s a lot of competition. To get this many nominations is very gratifying.” Orchard was one of the four producers identified in the series’s nomination for best overall program.
The nominations consider the show’s blood-spattered first season, whose eight installments concluded on the Fox and Global TV networks last November (reruns continue on Sunday nights). Its second season concluded shooting in Gibsons on June 13.
“We ended on time and on budget,” said Orchard. “Fox is very pleased with what they have seen so far, the rough cuts. There’s a general feeling that this new season will be even better than our first. Of course we’ll have to wait and see if the audience agrees with us.”
It was Orchard who recruited head writer Ian Weir to the series. Three decades ago, Orchard obtained the TV rights for L. R. Wright’s mystery novel The Suspect and turned to Weir to write the screenplay. Weir’s work on the pilot was recognized in his nomination for Best Screenwriting in a Dramatic Series.
“In my opinion, [Weir] is the most talented writer in Canada,” said Orchard.
Cinematographer Mark Berlet and two editors — Jon Anctil and Christopher A. Smith — were also nominated for their work on the series debut.
Filming for the second season was concentrated primarily in Gibsons, involving a crew of more than 100 people. “As someone who has filmed up on the Coast and in Gibsons for so many years on different productions, it was always top of my mind to treat the community well because we are intruding on their lives,” added Orchard. He acknowledged the work of background action coordinator Rachel Balanko and extras wrangler Jason “Rowdy” Rody.
The 10-episode second season will launch this fall with a program ominously titled “Blood Wedding.” The off-and-on-again relationship between Alberg and Lee will continue its tenuous trajectory, while plots will also depict the effect of recurrent homicides on secondary characters.
Both the production design and storylines have been engineered to include the influence of Indigenous culture (even though the precise location of the fictitious Gibsons is left intentionally ambiguous).
“That’s very important to us,” acknowledged Orchard. “We are living and working on their land, and we want to respect it not just in terms of the work we do but also including what we can in our stories.”
A commitment to a third season will depend on audience numbers, although Orchard observed that in the mercurial television industry, “the big trick is getting a season two. If you do well and you get a season two, it’s more possible that a season three might follow.”
Other Leo nods for the series went to guest performer Dakota Guppy and supporting performer Mya Lowe. The Leo awards will be announced during two evening receptions on July 12 and 13 at Vancouver’s Hyatt Regency Hotel, where movie industry insiders will dine on za’atar-anointed Arctic char and grilled eggplant.
