April 2010 Archives

Today's cuppa: Barry's Gold Blend tea

In the last week or so, I've been busy writing stories for the From Inside the Box blog over at Zap2it.com ...

Click here for designer Mark Brunetz of "Clean House" talking about Niecy Nash on "Dancing With the Stars" ...

Click here for "Dancing With the Stars" pro Tony Dovolani talking about the elimination of his partner, Kate Gosselin (at left) ...

And click here for, on an entirely "DWTS"-unrelated topic, an interview with host Thu Tran of IFC's cooking/puppet show, "Food Party."

I've also just written a profile of "DWTS" pro dancer Derek Hough, to coincide with the season finale on Tuesday, May 25 (no, that doesn't mean I know whether or not he and partner Nicole Scherzinger will be in the finals).

Both Dovolani and Hough are fun to talk to and had a few more things to say than fit in the stories. Here's a sampling:

Hough on working with Scherzinger: "She's so fun to work with. Her dancing ability is awesome, and it's fantastic, but the first and foremost thing you look at when you are waiting to see who you're going to have as a partner, is the kind of person they're going to be. You want to enjoy yourself during your time on the show. You can go all the way and win if you want, but if you don't have a very fun experience. there's no real point. For me, it's all about the experience and having a good time, whoever I'm with."

Dovolani agrees: "People focus on winning, they miss the journey. To me, it's not really about winning. I won the world championships when it really mattered. This is 'Dancing With the Stars.' It's more about personality and so on and so forth. It's all about getting the best out of the person, and I know I've given it my all.

"For me, whether you last two weeks or go all the way on 'Dancing With the Stars,' it's a win. It's such an incredible experience that if you're bothered by a loss, then you missed the whole point."

Hough (at right, with Scherzinger) on his biggest challenge this season: "The hardest thing has been trying to live up to everyone's expectations. Everybody expects a lot of Nicole. That puts a lot of pressure on me, because I feel if we don't do well one night, it might be my responsibility."

Dovolani on the pros: "My hat's off to all the professionals. Season in and season out, we all get paired with different people, different personalities, and we really have to search to make sure we bring out the best of every single celebrity. We work our tails off. When the celebrity does well, cheers for the celebrity. when they don't do well, it's always due to the teacher."

Hough on the celebrity he'd most like to dance with: "I'd say Jessica Alba."

Dovolani responds: "Of course, he did (pick her). That is awesome. Whose list wouldn't she be on? I have a whole list, but I'm not allowed to share because my wife would get upset at me."

Hough on breaking the rules with Nicole in a nautical quickstep danced to "Anything Goes": "The song was so theatrical and so good that I felt like I had to go with it, or I'd be doing the song an injustice. I went with that direction for that number. The judges did complain. They did, indeed. We dropped scores big time. But it was a lot of fun. It's OK. As long as the performances are good, the scores and everything else are just bonuses."

Dovolani on Hough and Scherzinger, and whether her strong start will work against her: "Nicole did come out of the gate strong, and she does have a dance background. The one thing about our show, it's not designed around fairness. It's designed around personalities and entertainment. I also look at our show as more of a variety show than anything else.

"Nicole definitely provides entertainment. She is a very good dancer, and Derek is doing a great job with her. I think she's going to be entertaining week in and week out."

(UPDATE: After tonight's results show, looks like Dovolani was right about Nicole and Derek sticking around, at least for one more week.)

Today's cuppa: English breakfast tea

It's early on a late-March Thursday morning in Van Nuys, Calif., and Thom Filicia is fueling with coffee inside a trailer situated in a Salvation Army parking lot, not far from a doughnut shop.

Such is the glamorous life of a reality-TV designer.

He's working through a two-episode week for his new Style Network series "Tacky House," premiering Wednesday, April 21, at 11 p.m. (ET). "Clean House" designer Mark Brunetz was the host for the pilot special, but Filicia ("Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," "Dress My Nest") takes over for the series, in which he answers a cry for design help.

"When you think of tacky," he says, "a lot of people think of the proverbial plastic on furniture. That's what everyone thinks. There are so many different types of tacky that it's funny. When I tell people they're on 'Tacky House," they're like, 'What?' But it could be worse. Tacky's much better than boring or lame. At least tacky's fun, and you're taking a risk and having fun with it.

"We had someone who lived in a 1970s castle -- talk about tacky. Then we had a woman who loved leopard. Her whole house, her car, are leopard. There's a woman believes in leprechauns and thinks she is part leprechaun."

(BTW, the "leopard lady" is in the premiere episode.)

In order to be on the show, the person has to be annoying, worrying or otherwise unsettling a friend, family member or loved one with his or her, shall we say, unique design sense.

"I'm not saying (the room is tacky)," says Filicia, "the husband or wife or best friend is. The person who turns them in is saying it's tacky. I'm just saying, 'Hey, look, I think it's a little wacky, but I think tacky is better than boring or dull.'

"The way I approach the guidance, I always say to the people, 'Look, your house should tell your story.' To me, it really should. It's not really about judging them. It's assessing them to find out what it is that makes them tick, while they're in this situation."

In the case of this particular homeowner, a schoolteacher, she can't bear to put her many accessories -- purses, shoes, jewelry, etc. -- behind closed doors, feeling it may somehow hurt their, er, feelings.

"It's a little fantasy for her," says Filicia. "She also has a fiance who understands. He plays with it a little but, but also, he says, 'This is silly.' Her fiance can't take the room anymore. It's a problem. For him, it's a relief, because he's just like, 'I can't take it any longer.'

"It's always been a best friend or a husband or a wife who's just like, 'You know what, it's overshadowing the person that I really care about.' In the beginning, it's fun and tacky and kitschy, and then it just starts to build into something more."

That's where Filicia comes in -- with the help of design coordinator Kelly Edwards ("Design on a Dime") and project manager Jared Dostie ("Rate My Space") -- not to squash the person's individuality or imagination, but to wrestle it into a more workable form.

"My goal," he says, "is to make it so that outsiders and insiders alike will look at it and go, 'This is awesome. I like it. I get it. It makes sense. This is fun. This is appropriate and cool and interesting, and it totally tells your story.' That's really what it is.

"I'm not so much about taking away their tackiness, but maybe more about refining it."

Here is an expanded version of a syndicated profile from earlier this month of "CSI: Miami" star Emily Procter, marking the Calleigh-centric episode airing Monday night.

Usually prim and pretty, Emily Procter of CBS' Monday-night hit "CSI Miami" is sitting in the show's makeup trailer covered in dirt, grime and ashes - and that suits her fine.

 

"Fire in the hole!" she says. "This is my favorite kind of stuff to do. I ask all year long for this, and then they give me one or two. That's all I get."

 

For the episode, "Backfire," currently set for Monday, April 19, Procter's character, CSI Calleigh Duquesne, is caught in a fire, aggravating a lung condition from an earlier severe case of smoke inhalation. She has an out-of-body experience while unconscious, which helps her solve the previous crime.

There's also a tender scene between Calleigh and her current love, once and future CSI Eric Delko.

 

On this day, she is shooting a scene in a burning house, fighting through wreckage, dodging jets of flame. Her stunt double does all the dangerous stuff, but Procter also does her share.

 

"I feel like the show should have more action," she says. "I'm the only one in the cast who runs and guns. I'm not going to let the boys do it all the time."

 

But lest you think she's just a tomboy, Procter rehabs houses and collects antiques. She also enjoys a spot of tea.

 

"The only milk-and-sugar tea I do is English breakfast," she says. "I wish that you would go to London and have a proper tea at Brown's. That's where you want to go, but you have to make your reservation way in advance, because they have the best tea sandwiches, the best tea.

 

"My best spots here have been the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel (in Beverly Hills) and the London (in West Hollywood). I think I prefer the Beverly Wilshire. But nothing beats high tea at Brown's in London. It's incredible.

 

"That may be a glitch in Los Angeles, that it's so male-heavy. We don't have enough girly stuff. It's all about the boys."

Asked what her wish list would be for Calleigh in the future, Procter says, "Stunts, stunts and more stunts. And of course, my eternal wish, that I ask for constantly, is to wear a skirt or a dress. I'm not a pants girl. I don't even own pants. I came in today in a skirt. I don't wear anything but pants (on the show).

"I'm always in pants -- very masculine. I had cleavage for a couple of years, and then I think too many people wrote in. Now I don't even have cleavage.

"Also, I would like to have a show where we saw a despicable crime in a puppy mill, and Calleigh is just playing with puppies for the entire episode, sort of like '101 Dalmatians.' There are puppy mills all over Florida. We could have a Cruella de Ville character.

"We could bust the ring wide open, and I could be responsible for rounding up the puppies."

 

Birthplace: Raleigh, N.C., on Oct. 8, making her a Libra.

 

School cred: Graduated from the Ravenscroft School in Raleigh; earned degrees in journalism and dance at East Carolina University.

 

TV cred: Stint as a TV weather anchor at WNCT-TV in Greenville, N.C.; "Friends," "Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman" (as Lana Lang), "Just Shoot Me!" "Early Edition," "The West Wing," "HGTV Summer Showdown."

 

Movie cred: "Leaving Las Vegas" (1995), "Crosscut" (1996), "Family Plan" (1997), "Breast Men" (1997), "Guinevere" (1999), "Body Shots" (1999), "Forever Fabulous" (1999), "The Big Tease" (1999), "Big Momma's House 2" (2006), "Turnover" 2008), "Barry Munday" (2010).

 

Favorite book: "I really love 'My Dark Places,' by James Ellroy. It's just my favorite, maybe because it's his story. But I have it on tape and the book. It's just human behavior, and he's a real behaviorist. 'Lord of the Flies' is the same thing - why we do what we do."

 

Favorite music: "I like all music, but if I had to pick, I would pick really heavy guitar rock 'n' roll. I want Led Zeppelin; I want Rush; I want Van Halen. That's what I listen to. I'm a huge fan of the Allman Brothers, Bob Dylan, the Pretenders, Heart."

 

Favorite movie: "It's a toss-up between 'Gone With the Wind' and 'The Big Lebowski.' Those are my two favorites. I do (love the first half of 'Gone With the Wind' more). It's so pretty in the beginning. The costumes are beautiful. The only thing good about the second half is the blue outfit Scarlett O'Hara wears in the lumber yard."

Today's cuppa: PG Tips tea

Now that the firehouse episode of "Ultimate Cake-Off" has aired -- click here for my syndicated story --  I can now reveal some behind-the-scenes secrets.

(Click here to watch the episode online.)

I totally didn't pick the winner of the cake-taste contest. The banana cake was not so banana to me, but I did love the apple-pie cake. However, I did pick the winning cake. Of the other two, I thought the one with the firefighter lounging next to a burning building did sorta look like a dead guy, and the helicopter atop the fire station cake looked to me either like a weird bug or a multicolored spermatozoa.

I attended the party at the firehouse, which included the irony of a smoking cake right in the middle of a fire station. Here are some pix ...

Cutting the cake that everybody actually ate ...

Pah-tay in the firehouse ...

Smoke in the firehouse...

Details of the winning cake...

Today's cuppa: Irish breakfast tea

Here's the full text of my syndicated feature story on the return of one of my favorite shows ...

If you're an ardent fan of Discovery Channel's crab-fishing reality series "Deadliest Catch," then you know the fleet has lost a captain, not to the merciless waters of the Bering Sea but to the ravages of ill health.

 

On Jan. 29, 53-year-old Capt. Phil Harris (center, above) of the F/V Cornelia Marie suffered a stroke while offloading crab and had to be helicoptered to a hospital in Anchorage, Alaska.

 

His twentysomething sons, Josh (right) and Jake (left), were at his side, and while he appeared to rally briefly, he died on Feb. 9. Fans had been worried about Harris' health for a while, after a blood clot sent him to the hospital during the fishing season in 2008.

 

In the world of Alaskan crab fishing, king crab are harvested in the late fall, and opilio crab, right after the beginning of the year. So Harris had already participated in the bulk of the 2009-2010 season.

 

Therefore, when the sixth season of "Deadliest Catch" launches on Tuesday, April 13, Harris will be there, and he will continue to be there until sometime around or after episode 13, when the show deals with his health crisis and death (exact details of that are pending).

 

According to a March 12 post at the Cornelia Marie website, the boat - co-owned by Harris and its namesake, Cornelia Marie Devlin - has been undergoing repairs, and the entire crew has been out of work since Harris' memorial on Feb. 21.

 

But the crew is heading back to Alaska to fish the remainder of the boat's quota, but without the Harris sons, who have left the deck to deal with grief and family business.

 

On hand to help them is Capt. Sig Hansen (below) of the F/V Northwestern (bottom photo). Harris' longtime friend and fellow crab fisherman.

 

Over breakfast in Los Angeles in February, Hansen discusses how he felt when Harris returned to fishing after the first health scare.

 

"I was amazed that he made it back, number one," he says. "I was relieved. It was a roller-coaster ride for everybody that knew him, so the fact that he made it back was impressive. But he's a tough old bird.

 

"He's one of those old codgers that you'd figure would never die. Then, all of a sudden, you hear that he had this stroke, and you figured, well, here we go again."

 

Hansen says he heard the news over the radio, the chief way that fishing captains keep each other updated.

 

"The next thing you hear," he says, "is that he's doing better. So you feel relieved about that, and the roller-coaster ride goes up and down, and the next thing you know, he's gone."

 

Harris was known as a man who liked cigarettes, alcohol and a nice piece of beef. While the blood clot slowed him down, he didn't exactly become a health nut.

 

"When Phil started as a kid in the '70s," Hansen says, "that was the environment. You smoked; you drank; you worked hard; you played hard.

 

"His ex-wife said the most touching thing at the ceremony. She said he swept her off her feet. She's talking about how this guy comes in, he's gone for a long time, made some money then the sky's the limit. 'Where do you want to go?'

 

"I thought that was nice and neat the way she did it, because it's true for all the guys. You go to work, do your thing, come home, and you go nuts. They're not a bunch of angels up there."

But Harris was also known for his generous spirit and big heart, and Hansen has taken an interest in the future of his sons, especially the youngest, Jake.

 

"Now that Phil's gone," he says, "it's not my responsibility, but I certainly would like to help him in whatever direction he chooses.

 

"That's how close this thing has become. So it's far beyond this whole TV land. It's the real deal."

Hansen doesn't know if either son wants to go back to sea, but he thinks Jake has the makings of a fisherman.

 

"Oh, yeah," he says. "You don't have to be a big guy; you've just got to have a drive. Now that their dad is gone, they certainly have something to prove. They have a father to live up to. Forget the public and what they think of Phil, in our Dutch Harbor community, among the other captains, Phil was still respected that way. That's what they've got to live up to."

 

And if the producers and the Harris boys choose to show footage of Harris' last days, Hansen says, "Number one, it's a tribute to Phil. It shows how he lived and how he ended, and that's what people want to know.

 

"It's a good thing. It's his legacy, and it will live on through that. It's fine."

On April 27, the new season of IFC's "Food Party" -- a colorful combination of puppet theater, mad creativity, hallucinatory storylines and even some cooking -- premieres with 20 new 15-minute episodes. Two episodes will run back to back Tuesdays on IFC, paired with "Dinner With the Band."

Last week, I did a visit to the show's Brooklyn, N.Y., sets, as host Thu Tran and her coterie of fellow young artists were building sets and props to prepare to shoot a new episode. There'll be more goodies coming closer to the premiere date, but in honor of the six-episode "Food Party" marathon airing Sunday, April 11, on IFC, here are some sneak preview photos.

Watch this space for more.

Thu Tran strikes a pose...

This pig had a very bad day ...

The ingredients to love ...

The kitchen ...
After spending this much time around fake food, I just had to get a taste of the real thing, sampled in Manhattan's Bryant Park (the missing one had an cookie Easter bunny on top, and sadly, the bunny went first) ...

Today's cuppa: Newhall Coffee Patriot Blend (of course)

Capt. Dale Dye is a Marine. Yes, he's now retired from the Corps, but as there is no such thing as an ex-Marine, his heart still lies with his comrades in arms.

The way he expresses that love these days is working to ensure that Hollywood comes to understand and accurately portray the members of the U.S. military.

(BTW, Dye's career is long, and he's played with some heavyweight actors and played at least one heavyweight historical figure. Highly recommend clicking on the links throughout for background and extra info.)

And, sometimes Dye's an actor. He played Army Col. Robert F. Sink (a promotion!) in the HBO World War II miniseries "Band of Brothers." Fans of NBC's "Chuck" saw him as General Stanfield (another promotion!), a k a "that NATO guy," in the pilot.

When he's not upping his rank on-camera, Dye works as a military adviser and has a California-based company called Warriors, Inc.. where he also has a blog.

His current project is HBO's new World War II miniseries "The Pacific," from the same production team -- including Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg (the picture above has Hanks on the left, Dye in the middle and Spielberg on the right) -- that produced "Band of Brothers." (Click here for my "Pacific" feature story.)

I recently sat down for lunch with Capt. Dye and we discussed many topics. Before the end of "The Pacific" -- which airs episode five of its 10 episodes on Sunday -- I hope to have another Dye post digging more into preparing the actors during his boot camp (the three lead actors discuss it a bit in my feature story) and his plans for the future, but for now, we'll start with Dye's first principles when it comes to portraying the military ...

Get it right. Tell it straight.

And that starts with the big-name producers, like Hanks and Spielberg.

Asked if he thinks working on "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific" has affected their political outlook, Dye says, "I know it has, but it's less political. I can say, is it going to change what political candidate they back or what political party they belong to? No, because the veterans they meet have the same sort of political divisions that they do.

"What it changes -- and this is the cool thing -- is their view of who these people were and who these people are. One of the primary reasons I got into this is because I think Hollywood, for years and years, with a few notable exceptions, had a real crappy, substandard opinion of people in the military.

"There is such an elite -- or was, it's changing today -- there was such an elite snob mentality in Hollywood. 'Well, I would never go into the service with those stupid ...' It carried over into the depictions from the writing to the direction to the performance.

"My thought was, 'I'm just not going to have this.' I knew nothing about how show business works, but I'm a Marine. I don't take kindly to, 'You can't.' So I came out here -- broke, clueless -- and said, 'I've got to fix this. Somehow I'm going to find a way to fix it.'"

Dye was lucky enough to get involved in Oliver Stone's 1986 Vietnam War movie "Platoon" (Dye served there, BTW), playing Capt. Harris and also serving as technical adviser.

"Nothing succeeds like success in Hollywood," says Dye. "It was, 'I don't know who that guy is, but let's start listening to him.. I parlayed that into bigger and better things.

"In each case, my agenda was, 'I know we got warts. I know we screw up. I know we have some people who are a--holes, but that would be society at large. All I want is a fair shot, an even break. Where there are heroes, let there be heroes.'

"When I approached it that way, I was less threatening. I wasn't viewed as a propagandist."

Even though modern Hollywood does a lot of movies that cast a bad light on the military (not all, as evidenced by the most recent Best Picture winner, Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq War drama "The Hurt Locker"), many of those movies also happen to depict soldiers in combat.

Whatever the political slant of the film, Dye believes the war genre itself remains attractive to Hollywood.

"Let me tell you a secret," says Dye, "every actor in Hollywood, especially comedians, but including females, wants to do a war movie. I think that's great, and it reflects what I've always believed ... look, Hemingway was right, war is man's greatest adventure.

"It is the only story genre that I know of in which every conceivable human emotion, every conceivable human aspect, every conceivable human liability, is on display or will be shortly. That's why Hollywood keeps coming back to that well."

Of course, war movies aren't done like they used to be in the days of classic Hollywood, but Dye is fine with that.

"It shouldn't be done like it used to be done," he says. "That's not the way to do it. If you do it that way, you only get one aspect -- that's the heroic aspect. What about the other stuff? There's much more of that in war than there is heroism.

"If there wasn't, everybody in the world would be walking around wearing a Medal of Honor. In order to demonstrate the character, the commitment, the courage, you've got to see the other side of the coin. If you don't see the other side of the coin, there's no basis for comparison, and there's no reality, no truth.

"That's what I try to insert into the agenda.

"In other words, if I tell you a story like 'Tora! Tora! Tora!' or 'Midway,' I do all the sweeping brushstrokes and historical notes and get them all right. The documentary ends, and the historians love it. And then they nitpick it to death and so on and so forth.

"But the people I'm trying to reach, the people who need to understand this sort of thing, that's above their paygrade. They don't get it. However, if I take that battle, for instance, the Battle of Midway, and I focus on one, say, SPD torpedo-bomber crew -- two enlisted guys and one offcer -- folks can pick that up, and I have found the medium that's the right size and the right background. I can assimilate that. You can imagine yourself being one of those kids.

"If I can get there, if I can find that, we got it."

Today's cuppa: Irish breakfast tea

Well, this is the day -- the day that my new clothes are supposed to arrive. They're the result of an interesting intersection of reality TV and real life.

But first, some background.

In January, at the biannual Television Critics Association Press Tour, I ran into Stacy London, host of "What Not to Wear" (airing new Season 7 episodes Fridays on TLC).

We'd done interviews before and conversed on Facebook, so we knew each other a bit. As it was well into press tour, and I was starting to run out of laundry, I had on a screen-printed black-and-white hoodie featuring scenes of Italy.

I liked it. Stacy did not, declaring, "We don't need landscapes. We don't need architecture."

As the Discovery Networks party was that night, I had a pang of insecurity about the outfit I'd brought with me (no, it didn't also have a hood) and immediately went shopping (BTW, hit a great sale and got some awesome sweaters cheap, so it worked out).

Later that night, at the party, while the new sweater (a red zip-front Shaker knit with bell sleeves and a faux black mouton-lamb collar) passed muster, Stacy decided I still needed some help and offered to take me shopping next time I was in New York.

And when I say "shopping," I don't mean on the famous "WNTW" credit card -- I mean on MY credit card.

Although fearing debt beyond my wildest dreams, I agreed, and last Saturday was the day.

As this experience wasn't for public consumption, I'll keep most of the details to myself, except to say that Stacy is as advertised and did wind up talking me into some beautiful stuff, including clothes I certainly never would have bought on my own. The financial damage was also not as bad as I'd feared. It certainly wasn't the bargain outlet, but it wasn't Saks Fifth Avenue either.

I also walked away with a head full of new rules, and the small satisfaction that a few (only a few) of the ones I already had were right.

But the part I really wanted to share is this -- the revelation that some folks are just what you see on TV. After a visit for a relevatory lingerie fitting in Manhattan (an experience I heartily recommend), we went to a Brooklyn boutique, Stacy helped me and my traveling companion, but we weren't the only ones.

A totally random lady, who just thought she'd come to this little store and maybe buy a new frock, had no idea that she was about to walk into her own personal episode of "What Not to Wear."

With her significant other recording the whole event on his cellphone, she got the full Stacy treatment as well, fielding compliments (including that she had "a great rack"), criticisms and coaching on her way to trying on a dress and cardigan combination that was truly stunning.

I didn't see whether she wound up buying the outfit, but I sure hope she did.

So when you watch "What Not to Wear," you can rest assured that Stacy is as warm and funny as she appears, knows what she's talking about and can help pretty much anyone, whether it's a TV journalist with an inordinate fondness for hoods or a woman off the street who may have gone home with possibly the prettiest outfit in her closet.

As I said, my clothes arrive today. I was on a trip back East, so rather than buying a second suitcase, the store shipped them to get to L.A. after I got home.

I will say that a black DKNY trench coat was included in the mix, so I will be rushing to get it altered and hoping very hard that the rains continue in L.A. just a bit longer, so I can show it off.

Oh, look, showers on Monday! Where is the nearest tailor?

On Sunday, April 4, "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom" returns to Animal Planet with a new spate of episodes, including "Bearwalker of the Northwoods," an intriguing look at the black bear. Although a common sight in many parts of North America, the bear is far more than common to Dr. Lynn Rogers, who has spent the last four decades getting to know these denizens of Minnesota's north woods.

With the help of cameraman David Wright, he's chronicled his work to protect the bears, which increasingly live in close proximity to humans.

Dr. Rogers was kind enough to answer a few questions about the bears and his affection for them (questions in blue, answers in black) ...

Black bears are one of the most often seen of American wildlife, but also often misunderstood. What are the chief things you wish people knew about the black bears they see in their neighborhoods and wilderness areas?

 

Black bears are not the ferocious animals we once thought they were or that they are often portrayed to be. Often black bears are demonized, but in reality there is a very low chance of attack from black bears.  Black bears have killed 64 people across the continent since 1900. To help put it in perspective, one black bear out of about a million kills someone compared to one grizzly bear out of about 50,000 killing someone.

 

Much of the bluster and behaviors they exhibit that make them look dangerous are really out of fear, not because they plan to do harm. When people first see bears in their area, a common reaction is to kill them.  Once people learn about them and understand their behaviors, they become more willing to coexist with them.

 

If black bears were as bad as many people think, we would not be able to study them the way we do.  "Bearwalker of the Northwoods" is one of the most honest TV programs about black bears ever produced and I think by viewing it many of the misconceptions people have about them will be cleared up.

 

What fascinates you the most about black bears?

 

I really enjoy trying to understand their minds and how they live. By understanding bears at this level it allows me to help dispel many common misconceptions about them. Even though I've been studying these amazing creatures for more than 40 years, I continue to learn even more about them, which is very fulfilling and continues to keep me engaged.

 

Other than sheer bulk, what sets them apart from brown bears or grizzlies?

 

Compared to grizzlies or brown bears, black bears are more timid, much less defensive of cubs and food, less carnivorous, much better tree climbers, more adaptive to coexisting with people, and better adapted to forest living.

 

With human habitation moving ever further into traditional black-bear territory, what can people do to coexist with them?

 

I encourage people to learn about black bears through information on sites like bear.org and by watching the behavior of one of our study bears on our live den cam. I've found that when people take the time to learn about them, they develop more tolerant attitudes which makes it easier for humans and bears to coexist. I also encourage people to reduce food attractants where they are unwelcome.

 

Since black bears aren't on the endangered-species list, do you feel they're sometimes taken for granted, like whitetail deer or raccoons?

 

I've found that people who fear them want to get rid of them, but people who learn to appreciate them look forward to seeing them and don't take them for granted.

This story has been posted on the Internet for a while, but not in its complete form. Enjoy!

It's late January on the Warner Bros. studio lot in the San Fernando Valley near Los Angeles, and Jeremy Northam is seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

He's close to wrapping filming for the first season of his first American TV series, the CBS drama "Miami Medical," premiering Friday, April 2. Like his character, trauma surgeon Dr. Matthew Proctor, he's a transplanted Brit coping with a high-pressure job in a palm-tree-lined corner of the United States.

Although he's wearing scrubs and sitting on a gurney in what looks to be a high-tech hospital, Northam doesn't have to save any lives, but that doesn't mean he's not feeling the stress.

"It's very frightening," he says, "coming into something like this. I've never done anything like this. If it's in at the deep end, it feels like a very slow dive into it."

Northam still keeps his home base in the U.K., but Proctor has made a commitment to his new job heading up the Alpha Team at one of the premier dedicated Level I trauma facilities in the world (based on the real-life Ryder Trauma Center in Miami).

Proctor spent some time working in a military medical unit during the Gulf War, and now he's returning to the front lines of trauma after several years in a lucrative private practice.

His arrival derails the plans of Dr. Eva Zambrano (Lana Parrilla), who had expectations of being promoted to Proctor's job. Also adjusting to the new boss are cocky surgeon Dr. Chris "C" Deleo (Mike Vogel) and recent med-school graduate Dr. Serena Warren (Elisabeth Harnois).

Unfazed by it all is head nurse Tuck Brody (Omar Gooding), who manages to keep the team running smoothly.

"Miami Medical" is the creation of Jeffrey Lieber, who was inspired by an experience his wife had before he met her, a sudden medical crisis in which her life hung in the balance. He became intrigued with the idea of the "golden hour," the brief window of opportunity to save a patient, provided that patient can get to the right kind of help in time.

According to Lieber, Ryder Medical came about because drug-fueled violence in the 1980s was overwhelming Miami emergency rooms and operating theaters.

Founded in 1992, Ryder reports on its Web site that about 30 percent of its patients (who are treated regardless of their ability to pay) are injured by gunshot wounds, stabbings and falls, and another 70 percent from blunt trauma, vehicular accidents and other causes. It treats both adults and children.

Parrilla got a firsthand look when she visited the hospital.

Taking a break to talk before suiting up for work, she says the visit was "traumatic. Very. I did three shifts, two on my first trip and one on my second trip. Mind-blowing experience. I was afraid to get behind a wheel after that, and everybody has to wear seat belts.

"This show, we deal with a lot of automobile accidents, but what I saw there was a lot of drug-related crimes, a lot of knives and guns, and people getting hit by cars.

"I feel like I saw more than I needed to see, but it was very good for my research in playing this part."

But the show isn't all blood and guts (despite the fact that, as Parrilla talks, Northam, as Proctor, is operating on somebody across the set, and it isn't going well).

Perched on a gurney outside of earshot of the filming, Lieber says, "I was really interested in, 'What's it like, when all your decisions are life-and-death decisions? How do you just go out and live your life then?'

"You see car accidents all day; how do you go get in your car?"

"One of the things we're trying to explore here," Northam says, "is the juxtaposition of the pressure and professionalism at work and how people return to a sort of normality out of this life."

Northam also emphasizes that he's not playing a superman.

"I'm not interested particularly," he says, "in playing a character in this situation who always has all the answers, although he is very skilled, very good at what he does."

Of course, the inside of a hospital in Miami looks pretty much like the inside of a hospital anywhere, except possibly with more victims in flip-flops and fewer in parkas (like in the chilly Chicago of NBC's "ER").

Lieber hopes to find ways to incorporate local color (like beach shots in the opening credits), but he doesn't plan to follow the lead of CBS' "CSI: Miami," which has its fair share of dead girls wearing bikinis and other skimpy attire.

"We will not have dead bodies in bikinis," Lieber says. "I promise you that we will not veer too much into the world of bikinis - but we will have some."