The cast of the new ABC television series "Extreme" is busy shooting episodes in Park City, but if they have any spare time, the Utah Travel Council may want to sign them up as local tourism spokespeople.
"I love it!" said Cameron Bancroft, who stars as a young member of a search and rescue team in "Extreme." "The people have truly treated us wonderfully. There's a great, diverse quality to Park City."Bancroft spoke enthusiastically about the history of Park City, the restaurants, the fact that he and other cast members are working out at the U.S. Ski Team's gym, even Salt Lake International Airport.
"I couldn't feel luckier about a location," he said.
James Brolin, the best-known member of the cast, agreed.
"I can walk a block, ski down and buy my ticket and ski all day," said Brolin, who plays the leader of the team. "The first week I got up there it was terrific. But by the end of the week I'm going, `I don't know if I could take a steady diet of this.'
"And then I went home for Christmas . . . and got back up there and felt like I was coming home."
Julie Bowen, who was born and raised in Baltimore, plays the only Utah native who's a member of the team in "Extreme."
"Park City is a very interesting town becuase it's in the middle of Utah and yet it isn't as heavily Mormon as the rest of it," Bowen said. "And it is this mecca of different people coming in to participate in extreme sports."
She did admit that she was somewhat surprised when she arrived on location, however.
"I guess there are certain stereotypes," Bowen said. "You think people living in small towns have small attitudes. . . . But in actuality, the people are amazingly educated, open-minded, exciting. . . . So there's no lack of incredibly fascinating conversation or exciting people. There's no small-town mentality."
And, while she had never visited Utah before beginning work on the series late last year, she quickly learned the lay of the land.
"Once I found out how to get them to pour a drink a little bit stronger I felt absolutely fine with the whole thing," Bowen said.
"Extreme," which premieres after the Super Bowl on Sunday on ABC (Ch. 4 locally), is an action series that follows the adventures of members of the local search-and-rescue teams - as well as their personal lives.
"If you were to describe this show it's `Cliffhanger" meets Generation X," said executive producer Alan Barnette. "We want to deal with these characters in a mature way, and we're combining this action with a serialized plot.
"It's almost like that `Hill Street' format."
In other words, there are the primary plot lines that deal with the action and rescues and the secondary plot lines about the characters' lives and loves that continue from week to week.
"There's not a rescue in every show," Barnette said. "There's a lot of extremist activity, which we want to really infuse because that what this Generation X is to us."
Sunday's pilot includes several harrowing rescues, including one from a downed airplane and another on a sheer rock face. And behind it all is some gorgeous Utah scenery.
"We really push the level of action and the quality of action," Barnette said. "And I haven't seen this type of action on television. We won't have the quantity of that in each episode, but hopefully we'll have the quality."
"Extreme" isn't the first network television series to be shot here in Utah. But it may well be the first to actually be set in the Beehive State.
(While the state is real, Park City does acquire a pseudonym in the series - it's called Steep.)
Like "Extreme," the CBS series "Boys of Twilight" was shot in Park City - but "Boys" claimed to be set in Colorado. The CBS series "Touched by an Angel," which is currently on hiatus, is also filmed exclusively in Utah without ever setting any of its episodes here.
And the vast majority of made-for-TV movies shot locally substitute Utah sites for everywhere from Colorado to California to Washington.
So, is there some sort of resistence to actually having Utah as the setting of a TV show? Not according to Barnette.
"Everyone just said, `Have at it!' " he said. Barnette and his staff scouted northern California, Colorado, even New Zealand before settling on Park City as the site for "Extreme."
"We were supported by the network and the studio on that, as we were with just about everything else on this show," Barnette said.
He said it actually makes it easier to call it Utah when he's filming in Utah, and not only because the crew doesn't have to spend time worrying about everything from road signs to license plates.
"I've generally found that if you shoot in one city and you call it another, it really limits the scope and the size and you find yourself second-guessing every once in a while," Barnette said. "If you just go to a location and call it what it is it allows you more production value."
While the six stars of the show were brought in from out of town, about 90 percent of the crew is from Utah, and Barnette has been hiring supporting actors and extras locally.
"We haven't had a problem at all working with the people up there. It's a great place to film," Barnette said.
Of course, it also helps his budget that he can work with Utah's nonunion crews.
"Try and find a union crew in Utah. It ain't easy," Barnette said.
For the moment, ABC has ordered only six episodes of "Extreme." And after its Super Sunday premiere, the show won't return until March. (ABC wants to avoid putting a new show up against tough competition during the February sweeps.)
But Barnette said that, snow or no snow, he's ready to go back into production whenever ABC orders more episodes. He's already planning episodes that involve everything from kayaking to rock climbing to mountain biking.
"It just goes on and on," Barnette said. "This will be a year-round show."
"If anything, the snow limits people from doing as much as they'd like to do in the mountains," Bowen said. "In the summer, it gets even crazier."