Cast well-adjusted to playing life on ‘Lustiny Ridge’ in Canadian series
By Jim Bawden
The Ottawa Citizen. Jan 31, 1995
UNINHIBITED: Quirky TV dramas with healthy dose of sexiness mark show’s current season
TORONTO — Just look what they’ve done this season to Destiny Ridge. Global TV’s contender in the Great Canadian drama series sweepstakes. Gone are the shots of furry little critters. Gone are the gorgeous mountain backdrops and raging river currents.
In their place there’s a group of lusty townspeople who take off their clothes with abandon. There still are animals on the show, but they’re indoors these days. Many fans want to know what happened to the deer and the antelope.
Even the cast seem startled by the abrupt change in storyline. “When I read the first script for our second season I was well shocked!” laughs series star Nancy Sakovich, who was born in Ottawa. “Shocked and delighted because the other way just wasn’t working. But this was so totally different and bizarre.”
“This is the show I wanted to do from the beginning” says series co-creator, producer Larry Raskin.“But we got seriously sidetracked the first time out”
According to Raskin, compromise began when West German TV got involved in co-producing the first year with Global TV through Atlantis Films and Great Northern Productions. “We had different ideas about the way the story should be developed and the Germans wanted to emphasize the big open spaces. That’s their vision of Canada, which is unavailable in congested Europe. And gradually our concept got whittled down. And we had to import some German names, including Elke Sommer.” Everybody kept wondering what Sommer was doing in the Canadian wilds — her separate storyline slowed everybody else down to a dull crawl.
When the Germans withdrew for the second season, “We suddenly felt free,” says Raskin. “I wanted us to go for it and become the series we had always wanted to be. That meant some radical changes.”
The German co-stars were dispensed with, as well as Canadian co-star Scott Hylands. The location shifted from Jasper National Park to the fictional town of Argent, Alta.”Outdoor filming was indeed expensive,” Raskin reports. “We learned that our park wardens had to be very upright, what with Parks Canada staring over our shoulders all the time. We solved that by making Richard Comar Argent’s chief park warden, an entirely fictitious job.
And we got out of the park which is pretty but how many rescues can one film?”
With Picket Fences and Twin Peaks as new artistic guide posts, the decision was made to open out the story by emphasizing the twists and foibles of the local townspeople.The cast got to let their hair down in more ways than one. Suddenly sex seemed on everybody’s minds.
Sam Whitehorse (series hunk Raoul Trujillo), former park warden, became a wilderness guide with an eye for the ladies. Warden/biologist Julie Fryman (Sakovich) started having explicit dreams about him. But Julie had competition from local sex kitten Darlene Kubolek (Laurie Holden), whose husband Frank (Philip Granger) is Argent’s biggest entrepreneur. In one early scene Darlene handcuffed Sam to the bedposts and had her way with him. And don’t forget husky farmhand Clay Roberts(Kavan Smith), who’s more than a tad interested in the new ranch owner, Linda Hazelton (Rebecca Jenkins).
Some characters got more to do, including Rich Dearden (Shaun Johnston), who has an abusive relationship with his wife Molly (Cheryl Wilson) and Const. Jerry McNeal (Peter Yunker), who remains as impressionable as ever. And don’t forget feisty bureaucrat Cory Maxwell (Patricia Phillips) and town maven Merle Owen (Esther Purves-Smith).
“We’re certainly not a family oriented show this time out.” chuckles Raskin. “We’ve just dropped the conventions and gone for quirky drama. We needed jeopardy in the drama and we got it. In conception we’ve moved from the mountain wilderness to the lowlands.”
In the first shows the stars seemed to strip in every other scene. Says Sakovich: “This was a whole new character. The second season takes place some time after the first one. The audience had to piece together what happened, which was tough for them. Relationships became more complex and daring. As an actor, everything suddenly seemed so much more fun.”
Sakovich got her degree in environmental science at Trent University, the perfect degree for a park warden/biologist. She had recurring roles on the series Material World and Katts And Dog before signing up for Destiny. “l liked the idea of a man — Sam — being the sex object, which is often true in life.”
“I’m sure we shocked some people those first new episodes. But the show isn’t all about sex.”
Trujillo, who Is part Apache. Ute, Mexican and French-Canadian, says: “I honestly don’t know which country I belong to. I feel at home anywhere from Mexico to Canada.” Born in northern New Mexico, he spent three years in a U.S. Army alpine unit in the Bavarian Alps. Later he studied ballet at the Toronto Dance Theatre; after a lengthy ballet career he switched to acting.“I think it’s wonderful that a native can be considered a sex symbol,” he says.
“Race is never an issue. Sam has all sorts of demons inside him. His sister shows up and she’s HIV positive. He has to confront his Indian past and the knowledge he has the power over spirits in a remarkable episode I helped choreograph. If you want to call the series Lustiny Ridge, OK. But sex isn’t played up at the expense of other dramatic devices”
Trujillo describes Sam as “completely amoral. But very loving, too. Sort of screwed up, but who isn’t?”
What has all the sexiness meant for the Ridge? The last program of the year airs Feb. 23 (it’s on Thursday at 10 p.m., opposite red-hot E.R., although this Thursday it’s pre-empted for hockey). Last year the series’ ratings on Global averaged 163,000; so far this year the average is 135,000 viewers for the hour.