PASADENA, Calif. — A few things will be somewhat different when the forthcoming WB series "Everwood" begins production on Wednesday in the Ogden area.
A difference of about a 900 miles and 150 degrees.
The pilot episode, which sold the WB on the series (to air locally on Ch. 30 beginning in the fall), was filmed early this year in Calgary and Canmore, Alberta, Canada, in the midst of a record-breaking stretch of cold weather.
Treat Williams stars as a world-famous doctor who, upon the death of his wife, gives up his practice and moves with his two children to a small town in Colorado. Williams said that while filming the pilot, he was "freezing to death the whole time. . . . I never want to be that cold again for the rest of my life."
And, of course, when production on the series' second episode begins on Wednesday, the forecast calls for Utah to remain in the grip of record-breaking heat.
"It's 150 degrees hotter than it was when we shot the pilot," said creator/writer/executive producer Greg Berlanti. "It was negative-40 degrees (in Canada), and now it's like 110 the other day or something (in Utah)."
Not that he's complaining. At least not too loudly.
"Having come from Calgary, Utah is heaven," Berlanti said.
And just about everybody — from the cast to the producers to the network to the production company — has nothing but wonderful things to say about Utah as their new location. The closest anybody came to dissing the Beehive State was a joke by cast member Tom Amandes when he heard that "Everwood" would relocate; his first reaction was, "Where is Utah?"
Not that the average viewer will know where the show is shot. The show's fictional town is in Colorado, but everyone involved insists that setting it in one state and shooting in another had nothing to do with trying to avoid the obvious Mormon images that arise when Utah is mentioned. (And, to be fair, when the pilot was shot in Canada no one knew the show would end up filming in Ogden and Salt Lake City.) "No, not at all," Berlanti said. "It really was just already Colorado."
Several of the buildings in Canmore have been re-created in Ogden, including a train depot-turned-doctor's office built on Main Street. "I think people will be driving to Ogden and saying, 'Look! That's Everwood!' " said executive producer Mickey Liddell. "Ogden's been great. They've been wonderful."
While switching the town of Everwood from Colorado to Utah was never considered, the production company formed to produce the show (in association with Warner Bros.) is named Everwood, Utah.
Cast members and some of the production team will relocate to Utah (and others, like Berlanti, will commute from Los Angeles), but they knew from the start that this would not be an L.A.-based show. And the Utah Travel Council ought to sign these people up to do testimonials.
"I don't know if you guys have been there to Park City and Salt Lake and Ogden. It's just absolutely beautiful," Liddell said. "We walked in and we're, like — wow, this is it."
"It is a remarkably beautiful place," Williams said.
It wasn't just beauty that brought "Everwood" to Utah. The fact that there are experienced crews and actors also factored into the decision.
"We had amazing crews there. I was so shocked," Liddell said. "When the resumes came in, I was, like, wow!"
And he's also been pleasantly surprised while auditioning local actors.
"I've seen a lot of the people there and they're amazing. . . . We have a couple of people we've cast out of Utah who could be regulars," Liddell said.
And it doesn't hurt that Utah is a non-union state. "Whenever you go to a right-to-work state . . . there is not simply an acting pool of talent but, just as importantly, a crew pool of talent," said Peter Roth, president of Warner Bros. television studio.
Not that taking a weekly series on location is a decision that's made lightly. "It is economically challenging, it is physically challenging, it is emotionally challenging for us to be a distant locations, be it Canmore, Alberta, or Ogden, Utah," said Roth. "But this is a uniquely American kind of experience. We wanted to be in the United States to be able to replicate those values. It's a perfect combination of all of our needs. We're very happy to have it in Utah."
Plus, it doesn't hurt that it's an "easy flight" between Salt Lake City and L.A. "It's so difficult to produce a show outside of L.A. where the writers are based and we're here and they're there, so there's a lot of travel that goes back and forth," Berlanti said.
And, at least in this case, the 2002 Winter Games really did help bring some business to the state. "The Olympics were going on at the time that we were doing the pilot," said Berlanti. "We hadn't even considered shooting the pilot there, so it was sort of fresh in our brain. And the location people came back and they dumped a lot of pictures on our desk, and you sort of look and say, 'Oh, gosh. That sort of seems like Everwood.' And we found ourselves drawn there."
"Yeah, it's beautiful," Amandes said. "It's also extremely hot right now. Oh my (gosh). So it's going to be a lot of fun being in the winter clothes the next few weeks in the 110-degree heat."
Episode 2 will feature a spring thaw in Everwood, "but then, next week, we're going to be back in winter clothes." Amandes said. "I'm not looking forward to that."
"Oh, I think the audience will forgive us if we're wearing light jackets," Williams said.
And, except for viewers in Utah (and Calgary), perhaps no one will notice that the mountains will change from one episode to the next.
E-MAIL: pierce@desnews.com