Mutant X Interviews: Peter Mohan (6/07 Sci-Fi Talk)
Excerpt from Sci-Fi Talk 6/11/07 Peter Mohan | listen
Peter Mohan on Sci-Fi Talk
Christina Cox: Hi, this is Christina Cox. I play Vicky Nelson on Blood Ties, and you're listening to Sci-Fi Talk.
Tony Tellado: Today, a conversation with Peter Mohan, who is the executive producer of the hit series Blood Ties. This award-winning television veteran has worked on series like Mutant X and Eerie Indiana, in addition to writing episodes for Highlander, Relic Hunter and Sci Factor. He's won a Gemini Award for his work on the series I.E. Here's Peter Mohan and I discussing the series Blood Ties.
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Tony: Developing this series, you know, it's based on a series of novels by Tanya Huff. Did you associate with her, or talk to her, or go back to the novels when you were trying to develop into this series?
Peter Mohan: Yeah, I talked to Tanya very early. You know, I'll tell you the story of how I first became involved in it.
Tony: Yeah.
Peter: I had read the novels, probably 20 years ago and had really liked them, you know, one because I'm from Toronto and they were set in Toronto. I'd got into a bookstore and seen these novels. It's a vampire story and a cop story and a story set in my hometown, and I said, "Geez, those are all the things I like." And so I bought the first novel, and read the rest and got my daughter to read them because, you know, such a great strong female protagonist, I thought she'd enjoy it as she was growing up. And when Kaleidoscope Entertainment called me and started to talk about the project, they didn't get five words out before I said, "Oh, you've got the Vicky Nelson novels! I have to be involved with this." So I was doing a series called Mutant X at that point.
Tony: Sure.
Peter: And once that finished up, I was able to jump over and get involved in this.
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Tony: But the series that I know you from is Mutant X. You came in season two, is that right? Is that when you came in on the show?
Peter: I did. It was great fun, Mutant X. Once again, I loved the cast. It was a lot of fun to do. Season two was very, very good. We had a lot of things change up in season three, with the network and so on.
Tony: Yeah.
Peter: It was a much more, a complicated season. I had actually written, after season three, a whole block of six or seven episodes, that we were going to bring the show more to a conclusion.
Tony: Oh, wow.
Peter: And was really hoping that that would happen too. But it didn't.
Tony: Yeah, that's a shame. I still have people to this day that have, because I was lucky enough to have interviewed the cast, and I've actually put some of the podcasts up, you know, as podcasts, some of the interviews I've done in the past when the show was from the beginning, the first and second season. I still have Mutant X fans who email me and thank me and still have a very big passion for the show. It's amazing.
Peter: It was great, great fun, you know. They were very likeable characters, and I think it was a great situation. These people twisted by science and hadn't asked for it, and were kind of stuck trying to figure out what their lives were all about because of it. And trying to figure out what it was to be human, and where humanity started and stopped and came to task with some really interesting questions as they worked out their lives.
Tony: Well, I thought it was cool, and I liked, the cast was fantastic. I mean, John Shea has such a rich background as an actor, director. And the young cast that surrounded him, Victoria Pratt, of course, you know, came from Xena and Cleopatra. And then Victor, you know, he had a martial arts background. And Forbes with the solid daytime, and even Lauren was great too. I mean, she has something. I just saw her on a Dead Zone episode, and she just hit it out of the park in that episode.
Peter: Yeah, she was good. I loved Karen Cliche, who came in as Lexa in the last season.
Tony: Yes.
Peter: Lauren, though, with the arc that she was on, and I'm so sorry we lost her in the third season, because the arc that she was on was so interesting. It was a..she was, as you remember, an empath.
Tony: Yes.
Peter: And as their powers were amping up, she was losing all of the walls she'd built to keep out other people's emotions. And she was literally going insane. That's where that would have taken her in the next season.
Tony: Yeah, if we could have only, you know...if that's something for the fans to speculate on at this point, unfortunately.
Peter: Yeah.
Tony: But those are on DVD and people can revisit the episodes, so that's pretty cool. It's out there, you know.
Peter: Yeah.
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