'Charlie Jade' - SciFi Weekly: Robert Wertheimer Interview

From the SciFi Channel's SciFi Weekly:

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/interviews/sfw18980.html

(Please follow the link for the complete interview.)

INTERVIEWS

June 05, 2008

Executive producer Robert Wertheimer takes on three parallel universes, a challenging two-country production and one complex series in SCI FI's Charlie Jade

By Kathie Huddleston




Executive producer Robert Wertheimer isn't apologetic about the complex nature of his parallel universe series Charlie Jade. He readily admits that viewers will be challenged by the show, which lasted only one season. Wertheimer promises that the clues that are sprinkled throughout that one season will make watching the series worth the effort.

What he does fuss over is that it took so long for American viewers to finally see the joint Canadian/South African production, which was filmed in 2004, premiered in Canada, South Africa and Europe in 2005 and will now finally make it to the States in 2008, courtesy of SCI FI Channel, on June 6 at 8 p.m. ET, as part of the channel's Friday-night lineup.

The series is about a detective named Charlie Jade who lives in a cold, corporate world called Alphaverse. Charlie finds missing people. However, his life is turned upside down when he tries to help a lost young woman with no identity, only to be thrown into a parallel universe. Suddenly Charlie is the lost one as he attempts to get home, along the way discovering an intricate mystery involving three separate parallel universes, Alphaverse, Betaverse and Gammaverse.

Wertheimer, who has worked on television shows including Friday the 13th, Due South and RoboCop, just finished a six-hour miniseries called Across the River to Motor City. He chatted with SCI FI Weekly about being involved with a two-country production, about working harder than he ever has in his life and about doing things no television producer has had the opportunity to do before.

**snippage**

Tell us what this story is about.

Wertheimer: It's about a calculating, cold, hard man from a parallel universe who finds himself trapped in our universe. ... He becomes completely cut off from his entire existence and desperately tries to find his way home.

So Charlie's from Alphaverse, but he's stuck in Betaverse, which is basically our universe.

Wertheimer: Yes. If Alphaverse is the metropolis, it is New York City, and Betaverse is in the middle. All the raw resources are in Gammaverse.

**snippage**