Network: Independent Television
Broadcast Run: 2013
Broadcast Medium: Television
On December 9th 2011, TVOntario announced the production of a new half-hour drama series, originally intended to be broadcast on TVO in 2012, and also on the Aboriginal People’s Television Network. Extracting buckshot from the back of a hunter’s head in a mosquito-infested tent by a peat bog may not sound like medical school. Nor does a four-hour snowmobile ride to a remote cabin in the bush. But that was to be the day-to-day reality at Hard Rock U, a fictional medical school at the heart of an upcoming television series.
Hard Rock Medical would be a new, offbeat half-hour drama that followed a diverse group of medical students navigating their way through the school’s four-year program. Multiple plotlines would gravitate towards one ultimate question: Did these students have what it takes to succeed? And if they did, would they stay in the north?
The TVO-commissioned series was a Canadian-Australian co-production from Hard Rock Medical Productions Inc. and Moody Street Productions. Hard Rock Medical Productions was a joint venture of Ottawa’s Title Entertainment Inc., Distinct Features Inc., and Carte Blanche Films Inc. Ontario Minister of Northern Development and Mines, Rick Bartolucci announced funding from the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation to support the regional production of the series.
Loosely inspired by the world-renowned Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Hard Rock Medical would provide fresh and engaging insight into some of the unique features and challenges of delivering healthcare in Northern Ontario.
Production on the series began in and around Sudbury in 2012, and the series premiered on TVO on Sunday June 9th 2013 at 8:00 pm. It was reported that the broadcasts on APTN would begin in 2014.
HARD ROCK MEDICAL CAST :
Angela Asher
(as Nancy Siebolski)
Danielle Bourgon
(as Dr. Louise Helvi)
Rachelle Casseus
(as Farida Farhisal)
Tamara Duarte
(as Gina Russo)
Kyra Harper
(as Dr. Julie Cardinal)
Christian Laurin
(as Dr. Raymond Dallaire)
Patrick McKenna
(as Dr. Fraser Healy)
Andrea Menard
(as Eva Malone)
Stéphane Paquette
(as Charlie Riviere)
Melissa Jane Shaw
(as Melanie Truscott)
Mark Coles Smith
(as Gary Frazier)
Jamie Spilchuk
(as Cameron Cahill)
Written by Pip Wedge – June, 2013