Night life inspires Falls writer’s new CBC show
This year there will be an estimated 430 to 450 scripted shows on TV, according to research by the FX network.
Former Niagara Falls resident Ira Parker’s new CBC show Four In the Morning, which premiered Friday night, is one of them.
The problem? Even a TV guy like Parker can’t keep up any more.
“I don’t even finish my favourite shows,” he says from his home in Los Angeles, where he works as a writer on yet another show, TNT’s The Last Ship. “I just finished watching the second season of Better Call Saul last night. It’s my favourite show on television and I’m like, ‘Well, there’s so much other things to watch’.”
The key is to stand out, which Four In the Morning should have no problem with. Not quite a comedy, not quite a drama, it follows a group of 20-something friends dealing with their haphazard lives and relationships at the awkward hour of 4 a.m., when lines get blurred and emotions heightened.
“Unfortunately, when you’re having an experience at four o’clock in the morning, you rarely remember it the next day, let alone a year later in order to write about it,” he says. “But I drew on feelings, I drew on the emotion of an evening which you remember.”
Filmed in and around Toronto during the spring, the show stars Daniel Maslany (Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany’s brother), Michelle Mylett of the Comedy Network’s Letterkenney, Mazin Elsadig of the web series We Are Disorderly, and Lola Tash of Rookie Blue.
They’re joined in some scenes by a…talking pig.
“It’s not the CBC I remember growing up,” says Parker with a laugh.
“I got very lucky that Four In the Morning happened the way it did, that it happened with CBC who gave me so much creative freedom to experiment a little bit here. I felt a bit like a guinea pig, I suppose, in their new slate of projects.”
Born in Niagara Falls, Parker moved to St. Catharines when he was five, attending Sir Winston Churchill high school before heading to the University of Toronto to study business in 2009.
But his heart was in film. He headed to Los Angeles and started writing and producing for the action dramas Rogue and The Last Ship.
Even he’s taken aback by how quick it happened.
“I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate in my career thus far.”
As creator and writer for most of Four In the Morning ’s first season (eight episodes), Parker was inspired by a few hazy Niagara nights.
“Oh my God, a little bit too much,” he says. “There were some lovely nights down there that will make appearances. Hopefully hidden enough that I won’t be called out on anything!”
Four In the Morning airs Friday nights at 9 p.m. on CBC.