And you thought it was hard work, right? Silly humans!
by Etan Vlessing
House‘s David Shore has gone from a medical to a crime drama with his upcoming Fox supernatural series Houdini & Doyle.
That keeps the Emmy Award-winning showrunner on familiar ground with House, about the curmudgeonly Dr. Gregory House, a brilliant doctor solving medical mysteries. Houdini & Doyle, to debut on Fox in the U.S. and ITV Encore in the U.K. in spring 2016, features crusty Brit Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, played by Episodes star Stephen Mangan, grudgingly partnering with American and master escape artist Harry Houdini (Michael Weston) and New Scotland Yard to solve crimes with an unexplained supernatural slant.
After U.S. network success with one British actor, Hugh Laurie as Dr. House, Shore told The Hollywood Reporter he likes working with theater-trained Brit talent because they have a way of not letting fame get in the way of being professional on set.
“I love them (British actors) because they don’t react to themselves like they’re stars. They react to themselves like their professionals — successful professionals, but they’re doing a job,” he said. American actors, by contrast, prefer to “think they’re successful” to generate box office and ratings for investors, Shore added.
America and Britain are also two halves of a new world vs. old world narrative in Houdini & Doyle, where crusty Doyle is the paranormal aficionado and Houdini the paranormal debunker. “Great minds don’t always think alike,” says series writer and executive producer David Hoselton (House), who first met Shore while both were attending the University of Toronto law school before becoming long-time collaborators.
Hoselton created Houdini & Doyle with Canadian screenwriter David Titcher (The Librarians). The real-life bromance between Doyle and Houdini underlying the drama sprang in part from the Sherlock Holmes creator’s belief that Houdini’s magic skills had a supernatural origin, while the iconic American artist insisted he had simply created and perfected illusions.
That illusion appeals to Shore, who sees TV writing as its own “magic trick” to distract and hold audiences….