Remedy starring Sara Canning, Dillon Casey, Enrico Colantoni, Sarah Allen and Genelle Williams, Global TV, Mondays at 9 p.m.
The new medical drama Remedy is like the Downton Abbey of hospital shows, a look at the upstairs-downstairs parallel worlds of a busy metro hospital, all anchored by a strong family narrative.
I love Downton Abbey!" says Sara Canning, who plays Dr. Melissa Conner in the edgy new drama. (Plus, she gets to wear medical scrubs rather than a corset.) Melissa is one of several Conners in residence at Bethune Hospital, including dad, Dr. Allen Conner (Enrico Colantoni) the hospital's chief of staff. Her sister Sandy (Sarah Allen) is a busy ICU nurse; brother Griffin (Dillon Casey), after a self-inflicted exile, joins the staff as an orderly so the family can keep an eye on him.
It's a world where your spot in the hospital hierarchy is evident by the colour of your scrubs. The first look viewers get of Bethune is via the "downstairs," home to laundry, food services etc, and where Chief Conner quickly gets lost.
"It's definitely one of the most unique things about the show, that look at both the white coats upstairs and the people keeping things running below," says Canning. "There's lots of interaction between the two, both are necessary for a hospital to function."
What sets the show apart, the actor says, is the family-dynasty element. Each day brings drama and plasma in equal measure.
Gelling as a family was easy for the cast. "It felt very natural from the getgo," says Canning. "Rico is the perfect dad figure, we adore him. We have this light-hearted relationship but we want to make him proud. ... it's a lot of fun."
But the sibling rivalry was something new: "I have zero siblings, so this has been a cool, kind of foreign thing, the sense of competition." Her character Melissa is a standard type-A overachiever. "I'm kind of tough on myself sometimes, but I'm looser than she is, I'm a goof," she says. "I'm excited to go on her crazy little journey."
Film sets are chaotic enough without having to manufacture the bedlam of a busy emergency room, and choreography can be tricky. "A lot of those scenes ended up becoming a choreographed dance," Canning agrees, pointing to the rapid-fire dialogue and the small amount of ground available for the actors to cover. "At the end of those scenes, everyone lets out a whoop!" she says. "It's like a six-person marathon."
Canning is no stranger to blood and guts, having played series regular Jenna Sommers on The Vampire Diaries. But "I was kind of afraid of hospitals," she admits. The actors attended "medical boot camp" for a few days and Canning interviewed several surgeons before she started work on the show. The TV surgeries are slowly becoming second nature: "It's weird, sticking my hand in a stomach. The effects guys are amazing: I have to remind myself that it's OK."
Does she sometimes think she could hold her own in a real operating room? "I trick myself into thinking that sometimes I could say 'I got this one'!" she laughs.
Producers screened the show for employees at a Toronto hospital the week before Remedy aired. "I was kind of nervous, it was daunting." But Canning reports that there was some gasping and laughter - in the right places - and feedback from viewers has been nothing but positive.
There were no doctors in the Canning family; no actors either. Canning was born in Newfoundland and started doing theatre when she was 12. "I was a really shy kid, I don't know what made me audition," she says. But "it was amazing: it gave me permission to be bolder, louder, braver than I was." She attended the University of Alberta before landing in the Lower Mainland and attending Vancouver Film School.
Roles in Smallville, Supernatural and Primeval: New World followed, among others, including an award-winning turn in the feature Black Field. In addition to Remedy, Canning has a starring role in the upcoming indie feature I Put A Hit On You and plays the young wife of famed stop-motion photography pioneer Eadweard Muybridge in a fall-release project.
In real life Muybridge shot and killed his wife Flora's lover. For now Canning is more than happy to play yet another character with blood on her hands.
Remedy airs on Global at 9 p.m. Mondays.
