Filming in Vancouver: Riverdale spinoff Sabrina the Teenage Witch, UFO series Blue Book, Life Sentence

Kiernan Shipka has been cast as Sabrina the Teenage Witch in a Riverdale spinoff.

Hollywood North fluttered back to life last week, with numerous TV productions getting back on set after holiday hiatuses.

A few more are back to work this week, and a new TV series is wrapping up its inaugural season already.

Here’s a rundown of what’s happening in Vancouver’s screen scene this week. 

Riverdale

Everybody’s favourite dark take on a classic teen comic, Riverdale, is back today (January 8) after taking a holiday break that started on December 22.

Archie (KJ Apa) and the gang continue shooting Season 2 until March 21.

Kiernan Shipka

In other Riverdale news, Kiernan Shipka (Mad Men) has been cast in the forthcoming Archie spinoff Netflix series that’ll be a spooky adaptation of Sabrina the Teenage Witch.

It’s described as a far cry from the comedic version that aired from 1996 to 2003 starring Melissa Joan Hart. Instead it will be based on the horror comic Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, involving witchcraft and the occult.   

According to initial reports, the series will shoot in Vancouver this spring, though dates haven’t been announced yet. It also remains to be seen if Shipka makes any crossover appearances on Riverdale—or vice-versa.

Stay tuned, true Riverdalers.

Will we see Kiernan Shipka appearing on Riverdale? Or will Riverdale cast members appear on the Sabrina spinoff?

Moving on to more paranormal subjects, UFO believers had quite the day in December when former Pentagon official Luis Elizondo, who formerly headed a U.S. government program to research UFOs, implied that there was evidence that alien spacecrafts had visited Earth.

Former U.S. Navy pilot Cmdr. David Fravor followed that revelation up by speaking out about a UFO he witnessed during a routine training mission.

U.S. government officials did confirm that the program, called the Advanced Aviation Threat Identification Program, ran from 2007 to 2012. 

But did you know that there was another secret U.S. government program to study UFOs called Project Blue Book that started in 1952 and was discontinued in 1969?

Aiden Gillen

Well, you’ll get to know more about it in the near future as the new sci-fi drama TV series Blue Book being shot in Vancouver is based on that earlier program.

It started filming on December 6, gets back into production on Wednesday (January 10) after a holiday season break, and continues until April 24.

Aiden Gillen (Game of Thrones) stars as astrophysicist Josef Allen Hynek who is recruited by the government to become the chief scientific advisor of a top-secret UFO investigation program. 

Lucy Hale

Meanwhile, another new TV series is finishing up its first season this week.

Life Sentence, which just resumed production after a holiday hiatus, wraps up shooting Season 1 on Friday (January 12). The TV series began filming on August 9.

Most people might think that finding out that you’ve been cured of terminal cancer would be the most positive news in the world. But this dramedy series puts a spin on that by exploring what happens when a young woman (Lucy Hale) has to face the longterm consequences of what happened when she lived as if she were dying and she discovers what her family hid from her as they helped her through what they thought were her final days.

The cast includes Elliot Knight (Once Upon A Time), Dylan Walsh (Nip/Tuck), Gillian Vigman (The Hangover), Jayson Blair (Whiplash), Brooke Lyons (The Affair), Carlos PenaVega (Big Time Rush), and Riley Smith (Nashville).

The series will premiere on the CW on March 7.

Riley Smith

That’s it for this week’s roundup but there’s plenty more looming on the horizon to chat about in the weeks to come so be sure to check back in with us.

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