Filming in Vancouver: New TV series The Murders and Magic Hour, fantasy-romance feature Undying

In this week’s roundup of what’s happening the local screen scene, there are two new TV series underway and they’re both about homicide investigations.

But that’s where the similarities end.

One revolves around a detective who is seeking to redeem herself while the other is about a young girl and aspiring journalist who takes matters into her own hands and finds herself taking on a murder case.

Intrigued? Well, here’s a quick look at what’s going on around town—as well as elsewhere in B.C.

The new Canadian crime-drama TV series The Murders started shooting eight one-hour episodes of its first season on October 9 and continues until December 20.

Details weren’t available when the series first started production but they’ve since been revealed.

In this police procedural, Vancouver actor Jessica Lucas (Gotham) stars as rookie homicide detective Kate Jameson who seeks redemption after her negligence resulted in the death of a fellow officer.

The series will feature a case of the week. In the pilot episode, Detective Jameson partners with Detective Mike Huntley (Lochlyn Munro) to investigate the case of a serial killer who uses music in a destructive way.

The cast includes Dylan Bruce (Orphan Black), Terry Chen (Jessica Jones), Luiva Petersen (Ghost Wars), and Venus Terzo (Arrow).

The series will be broadcast on Citytv in 2019.

Meanwhile, there’s another TV series shooting that involves homicide investigations—but this time, it’s from a journalist’s perspective. And an exceptionally young one at that.

A new series by Apple that starts today (November 12) is Magic Hour. Filming of the 10-episode first season, to be directed by Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians) is scheduled to continue production until April 15, 2019.

Inspired by the real-life story of Hilde Lysiak, who began her career as a reporter at age 9 when she was the first to cover a murder in her Pennsylvania town and published it in the Orange Street News, her own newspaper.

In this series, when a young girl, portrayed by Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project) moves to Brooklyn to a small lakeside town that her father left behind. Once there, she doggedly chases after a cold case that the residents have tried to conceal—including her own father.

Meanwhile elsewhere in the province, the feature film Undying starts shooting today (November 13) and continues until December 8, with production based in Kelowna.

In this fantasy-romance set in northern California, directed by Scott Speer (Step Up Revolution) and starring Australian actor Nicholas Hamilton (It), a teenager finds himself trapped in purgatory while searching for a way to contact his true love.

And that’s it for this week’s roundup.

With some new projects coming and going in the weeks to come, there’ll be more to discuss so check back in with us again for another instalment of what’s filming in Vancouver.