To Give the Show Fiber, ‘Going to Extremes’ Goes to Jamaica

For the upcoming ABC drama “Going to Extremes,” another fish-out-of-water story in the spirit of “Northern Exposure,” creators Joshua Brand and John Falsey have decided to go offshore. To get their medical degrees, a group of kids who were turned down stateside take their studies to the fictional Caribbean island of Jantique, inspired by a real medical school located on Grenada.

“The core of the show is clash of culture,” Falsey said. “A First World sensibility living in a Third World culture.

The 13-episode order for “Going to Extremes,” which ABC may launch as early as summer, is part of a feature film and TV deal that Brand and Falsey have with Lorimar Television. It includes an NBC sitcom pilot, “Rise and Shine,” starring Judge Reinhold as the producer of a scurrilous children’s TV show, with Kevin Conway playing the host.

The one-hour “Going to Extremes” is filming on location in Jamaica, raising the same challenges Brand and Falsey have grown used to in shooting “Northern Exposure” in Washington state and “I’ll Fly Away” in Georgia.

“Basically in every episode you’re really making three episodes,” explained Brand, who worked closest with “Northern Exposure” this season while Falsey concentrated on “I’ll Fly Away,” which has its two-hour season finale on Friday.

In each case, the initial blueprint, or script, is first written in Los Angeles, then followed up by a lengthy telephone conference with the director and producers on location. Once the show is filmed, the final phase of assembling the elements takes place back in Los Angeles.

Whether it’s Jamaica’s aqua-blue water and lush foliage in “Going to Extremes,” Atlanta’s Old South buildings in “I’ll Fly Away” or Washington’s Cascade Mountains in “Northern Exposure,” Brand and Falsey say, the locations of TV series become the fiber of a show.