Whistler (TV series)

Premise

The show begins when Beck McKaye (David Paetkau of Final Destination 2 and Flashpoint) returns home from the 2006 Winter Olympics with a gold medal. Upon his death, the show explores the lives of his friends and family—all of whom have stories to tell and secrets to keep.

The secret-keeping locals are the only ones who can answer the terrifying truth of the show's tagline, "What secrets lie beneath the snow?" McKaye's friends and family each have their own stories, as well as secrets they attempt to hide as the show progresses. In particular, Beck's brother Quinn (Moss) must try to solve the mystery of Beck's death.

Following the solution of Beck's death at the end of the first season, the series' second season shifts the focus to the lives and adventures of both returning and new characters. The McKayes, Varlands and Millers have put the pieces of their lives together and are ready to make a new start. Quinn steps out from his brother’s shadow to carve out a name for himself on the mountain, while his mother comes to terms with her past and earns a future for herself. The Varlands fight to overcome their dark history and regain control of Whistler, while the Millers make new discoveries that may upset the balance of power. The show's second season tagline is "What new secrets lie hidden beneath the snow? The truth is hard to find. In Whistler it’s just about impossible."

Production

For season one, some of the outdoor shots used in the series were filmed in and around Whistler, but most of the outdoor (and all of the indoor) scenes were filmed at Uphill Studios in Langley, B.C., about 45 km (27 mi) southeast of Vancouver. For season two, significantly more of the outdoor filming was done in Whistler. All of the post-production was done in Vancouver by Rainmaker Post, formerly a division of Rainmaker Entertainment and now a division of Deluxe Entertainment Services.

On August 1, 2006, a lawsuit was filed against CTV by Olympic snowboarder Ross Rebagliati, accusing the network of "misappropriating" his identity with Whistler's main character Beck McKaye. The suit was settled out-of-court on April 24, 2008.

Television air dates

Whistler premiered on CTV on June 25, 2006, and on The N in the United States on June 30, 2006.

The show aired in Canada on Sunday nights at 10 pm local time until August 14 when CTV announced it was moving the series to Monday nights at 9 pm local time. However, after just one airing in that time slot, CTV returned the series to Sunday nights at 10 pm, effective with the August 20th telecast. CTV aired the final two episodes of season one back to back on Friday, August 25.

From November 25, 2006 to February 3, 2007, CTV rebroadcast the series on Saturdays at 10 pm local time and Sunday afternoons at 4 pm local time. The CTV rebroadcast of the series pilot "Fallen" was an alternate version that included a slightly different opening scene, a different main title segment and some minor editing of a few other scenes.

The N continued to air only one episode a week in the United States, eventually shifting the final five episodes to Saturday mornings at 1 am before completing the series on September 23. The station began re-airing the series on Monday, January 22, 2007 at 5 am but for unexplained reasons omitted airing the first episode "Fallen" and began with the second episode "Out Of The Shadows".

The series also aired on the British youth channel Trouble beginning October 16, 2006 on Monday nights at 9pm and on the Polish catholic channel Puls on Saturday and Sunday evenings at 6:20pm. French-language broadcasts of Whistler aired from January 30 to April 29, 2007 on a Canadian cable channel, Séries Plus Tuesday nights at 8pm.

Season 2 began filming on January 8, 2007 and was completed on May 23, 2007. As with the first season, there were 13 second season episodes. These were aired in Canada by CTV beginning on September 29, 2007 on Saturday nights at 9 pm and concluded on December 15, 2007. Repeats began on Saturday, December 28, 2007.

The-N was confirmed as a co-producer and American rights holder for the second season, but opted not to air it on its network for unknown reasons.

Séries Plus in Canada began airing Season 2 in French on Wednesday nights at 8pm beginning January 9, 2008.

Trouble began airing Season 2 on Sunday July 13, 2008 in a 6pm and midnight timeslot with repeats the following Saturday.

Bulgaria's TV7 aired a dubbed version of season 2 beginning on November 29, 2007 weekdays until December 13, 2007 (actually airing episodes 212 and 213 before they were broadcast in Canada).

Ireland's national broadcaster RTÉ air whistler on their second channel RTÉ 2 in the early hours of Saturday morning (around 3am)

MTV2 in Canada began airing season 1 on Friday, August 8 as part of its inaugural program schedule (the cable channel began broadcasting August 1). First airings of episodes are on Fridays with numerous repeats during the week. The channel continued into Season 2 immediately following the last airing of the Season 1 finale. Another CTV network, "A", began airing Season 1 on February 20, 2009 on Fridays at 10 pm local time. Season 2 began airing on "A" on Saturday, September 12, 2009 also at 10 pm local time.

Episode list

101. "Fallen"
102. "Out Of The Shadows"
103. "Coming Together, Coming Apart"
104. "Lies And Whispers"
105. "The Burden Of Truth"
106. "Will The Real Beck...?"
107. "In The Air"
108. "After The Fall"
109. "The Looks Of Love"
110. "Gathering Clouds"
111. "Scratching The Surface"
112. "Meltdown"
113. "Unearthed"

201. "Homecoming"
202. "Blindside"
203. "Hazed And Confused"
204. "End Game"
205. "Passion Plays"
206. "Always A Bridesmaid"
207. "Out Of Bounds"
208. "Crossroads"
209. "Family Ties"
210. "Road Trip"
211. "The Rules Of Attachment, Part 1"
212. "The Rules Of Attachment, Part 2"
213. "Last Run"

In addition to the 13 first season broadcast episodes, 13 "webisodes" were also produced for viewing in Canada on the CTV Broadband Network. The same webisodes were also available in the United States on The N's "The Click" website and the Britain's Trouble on-demand website. The webisodes were short scenes that depicted an event that took place either between broadcast episodes or during an episode (but not seen during the episode). Because the webisodes were not given official titles by the producers, CTV and The N used different titles to refer to them on their respective websites.

In addition to the 13 second season broadcast episodes, 10 "Carrie's web diary webisodes" and 10 "deleted scenes" were prepared for the CTV Broadband Network, although some of these were eventually not posted.

The full episodes and webisodes/deleted scenes can be viewed online (in Canada only) at the official website.

Cast

Several characters from season one were let go, only David Paetkau's character "Beck McKaye" returned as a special guest star in season two and Brandy Ledford's character "Shelby Varland" returned to season two episode one as a special guest star.

Regular

Recurring Season 1

Recurring Season 2

Music

The musical supervision for Whistler is handled by S.L. Feldman and Associates, the same company that supervised the music for Queer as Folk. Season 1 featured music by such Canadian artists as the Dirtmitts (whose song "Ordinary Day" is featured as the series opening track), The Waking Eyes, The Organ, The Stills, Hawksley Workman, Love and Mathematics, Sam Roberts, Pilot Speed, The High Dials, Death from Above 1979, The Dears, The Meligrove Band, You Say Party, Immaculate Machine, and Autumn Eve. The Canadian punk bank D.O.A. was featured in episode 9, "The Looks of Love," with the songs "I Hate You" and "Liar For Hire." The N Soundtrack, containing some of the music used on the show, was released in August 2006.

Season 2 artists include The Yoko Casionos, Ten Second Epic, Sproll, TV Heart Attack, Kill The Lights, The February March, Jets Overhead and Tim Hanauer. Several of the artists perform "live" on stage in the episodes at the series' Last Run Tavern (previously known as the McKaye Tavern in Season 1).