North Shore backdrop for new Fox TV series

By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer

O'ahu's North Shore will be the scenic backdrop for a new Fox Television series that will begin airing this summer.

Filming for the hourlong drama about life at a luxury hotel will start in May, with 12 episodes scheduled so far, said the show's producer, Harry Bring. The pilot completed filming last week.

For now the show is called "O'ahu," but that may be changed to "The North Shore," Bring said yesterday.

It's the first of several dramas being filmed in Hawai'i to commit beyond a pilot show. NBC is filming a police drama called "Hawai'i" — crews filmed a chase through Waikiki on Monday — and WB plans to start filming "Rocky Point" on the North Shore in June.

And an ABC pilot called "Lost" begins filming at remote locations on O'ahu next month.

The last high-profile series to film in the Islands was "Baywatch Hawai'i," which was canceled in February 2001 after two years and lackluster reviews.

The new Fox Television drama will air on Mondays starting with the pilot on June 14, Bring said. The summer schedule is unusual. Most series typically begin in late September or early October.

Much of the filming will take place at the Turtle Bay Resort.

"It is about the young people who work here and the guests that arrive and the interaction and who's in love with whom and who's backstabbing who," Bring said. "It's all that stuff rolled into a workplace."

A dozen episodes would take the show to early October and if it's successful, Fox Television could schedule nine more episodes to complete the season in May 2005.

The show will star Kristoffer Polaha and Rachel Shelley, Bring said. He expects to use several local actors; a dozen local actors were used in the pilot.

So far, the look has been fantastic.

"It's beautiful," he said. "The people are great. The weather is great. We wanted to create a show where people would look at it and say 'I want to be there and I want to be talking to that person.' "