HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- Just how big is the "Three Rivers" hospital set? So big they cut holes in the wall between Paramount stages 19 and 20 so production designer Philip Toolin could create long, winding, river-like corridors for the doctors to stride down during those all-important hospital show walk-and-talk shots.
The interior of Three Rivers Regional Medical Center is a far cry from the old-school Brownsville hospital where the show's pilot was filmed earlier this year. And it doesn't have the white gleam of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, which was also used as a hospital stand-in for some scenes.
Instead, the new hospital has deep colors: A maroon floor, warm green and yellow walls and huge TV monitors everywhere, including one featuring a map of Pittsburgh that resembles a weather radar. Hospital rooms are designed to resemble a luxury hotel in an effort to calm patients' nerves.
Because the new interior doesn't match the pilot -- and because of several roles being re-cast (Julia Ormond is out as Dr. Sophia Jordan; "St. Elsewhere" veteran Alfre Woodard is in) -- the pilot that was shot in Pittsburgh will not air as the first episode of the series. A new premiere episode is in production now. Some scenes and stories from the Pittsburgh pilot will air as a later episode, according to series creator/executive producer Carol Barbee.
Series stars Alex O'Loughlin ("Moonlight") and Katherine Moennig ("The L Word") will return to Pittsburgh Aug. 17 to film two scenes to insert in two upcoming episodes. A scene for the new first episode features O'Loughlin's Dr. Andy Yablonski playing rugby with some old neighborhood buddies in a park (rugby doesn't seem all that Pittsburgh-y, does it?); another scene for the show's fourth episode features Moennig's Dr. Miranda Foster and Yablonski having a conversation with Downtown Pittsburgh in the background. A flyover scene for the premiere -- shot from a helicopter -- will follow an ambulance as it enters the Ft. Pitt Tunnel from the Parkway West and then fly over Mt. Washington to see the ambulance emerge on the other side with the beauty shot of Pittsburgh's Downtown. (Information on filming locations is not available.)
Producers hope to make a second trip to shoot local scenes during the first 13 episodes; if a back nine episodes are ordered, cast members would ideally return for one additional filming trip in the show's first season.
Odd, clingy scrubs that resembled "Star Trek" uniforms in the Pittsburgh pilot have been discarded in favor of more normal-looking scrubs. "Thank God," Moennig said.
I'll have more on "Three Rivers" next week in the Post-Gazette.
Posted
Jul 31 2009, 11:15 PM
by
Rob Owen