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SERIE TV, French bimonthly TV Magazine (August/September 2001) A FAR CRY FROM THE USUALLY EDULCORATED IMAGE OF ADOLESCENCE HIGHER GROUND PRESENTS TEENAGERS WHO SUFFER. QUITE A CHANGE FROM THE SILLY INSIGHT OF TELEVISION INTO THIS FAMOUS TENDER AGE. A former highly successful business man on Wall Street Peter Scarbrow takes up a new life when he becomes the Director of Mount Horizon School located in the North West of the United States. It is an experimental school which educates troubled teenagers who have been expelled from other schools and are considered dangerous. The students have a heavy past, they come from crisesridden families, have been victims of incest, rape or are drug addicts. At Mount Horizon they are submitted to very strict rules: no drugs, no sex, no violence. In a structured framework the academic classes alternate with sports activities, they learn to live together and to control their violence. Life, emotions, torment as well as problems of all sorts including problems of conscience that face the educators are consequently at the centre of the show. CHARACTERS Each one of the seven teenagers of the show faces a special problem so that the viewer can identify himself with one of them. Goodlooking and 
perfect Juliette, who comes from a rich family and who seems to be a winner, is victim of an abusive and excessively demanding mother and has taken refuge in bulimia.Often competing with her Shelby, on the contrary, is a sexy and provocative teenager who lacks selfconfidence having been an incest victim and having succumbed to drugs and prostitution. She has fallen for Scott, who has arrived recently at Mount Horizon. Scott is a former football player who has been abused by his stepmother and has gone into drugs in order to forget his feeling of guilt. On her part behind her taste for goth Daisy hides long years of abuse by her alcoholic parents. Katherine, an afroamerican adopted by white parents, is at a loss finding her place in this culture mix. Finally Auggie was caught taggering and is detained at Horizon where he tries to conceal his talents and intelligence. Peter Scarbrow and Sophie Becker are their educators. Peter was a brilliant businessman, whose life became a nightmare when his neurotic lifestyle led him to drugs and alcohol. After desintoxication he decided to dedicate his life to the education of troubled teens at Horizon. He has an affair with his colleague Sophie Becker, an audacious, intrepid and energetic young woman who is one of the main councelors in the school. On top of all of them the wise Frank Markasian, owner and founder of Horizon. THE ACTORS There is not really a star in Higher Ground, rather a group of actors among whom we recognise JOE LANDO, who after six loyal seasons in Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman cut his mane to become Peter Scarbrow. After DQ was cancelled he went into independent film production and into the production of Higher Ground, making some guest appearances in different shows. Most of the actors who play the students’ parts had formerly participated in movies and television shows. Better known are A.J. Cook (Shelby) and Hayden Christensen (Scott) who both played in Coppola’s “The Virgin Suicides”. Higher Groiund is a first for two young scriptwriters: Michael Braverman and Mathew Hastings. The show was first broadcast in January2000 on the American cable Fox Family Channel ( a Fox subsidiary). Inspite of the favourable ratings and good reviews the show was not renewed and ended inconclusively with the graduation ball after 22 episodes. Fox Family considered some of the topics too tough for a family channel. The show started being broadcast on TF1 in January 2001 and has been highly rated. REVIEW Nothing in common with the teenagers in “Dawson”. This show is about healing youngsters who have been through traumatising experiences and through their stories the show deals with family violence, incest, alcohol, drugs and sex. The story of each episode helps the youngsters to know themselves better and to find a place in the group in order to learn again how to live with others and face life outside. The school pedagogy is based on two ideas: to go back to nature and to practice sports in order to outdo oneself and to talk the problems out. When there is a conflict the educators resort to sports as a way of getting the tension out before counceling a discussion. Precisely the title means a physically higher ground (the mountains) and spiritual appeasement. The show’s intention is a little moralistic but full of good will, there are very few series which dare deal with topics so tough. We would have liked a slightly more violent visual approach to the storyline which would have been more in line with the show’s purpose, the teens looking a little too clean. Juliette Souchon Translated by M.C. SERIE MAG French Bimonthly Magazine (August/September 2001)
A short excerpt from an interview of Hayden Christensen who mentions Doctor's Dilemma The Heart Within brings fans a made-in-Canada dose of Dr. Quinn Even though hundreds of American productions are shot in Canada each year, it somehow seemed impossible that Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman would ever join the pack. After all, the western series, which ran on CBS from 1992 to '98, always seemed so quintessentially American. Set in Colorado Springs, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman followed the adventures of a female doctor on the American frontier in the 1870s. Dr. Michaela Quinn hailed from Boston, but went west to start her career in Colorado where doctors were scarce and where a female doctor would be more easily accepted. The Heart Within is the second Dr. Quinn movie to surface since the series ended. Set in Boston in 1876, the production finds Michaela, played once again by Jane Seymour, going back east with husband Sully (Joe Lando), son Brian (Shawn Toovey) and daughter Katie (played by Ottawa native Sara McRae). They have come back to Boston to visit Michaela's mother, Elizabeth (Georgann Johnson), and to witness eldest daughter Colleen (Jessica Bowman) graduate from medical school. However, Michaela soon finds Colleen undergoing the same prejudice she had faced years earlier when her daughter is prevented from practising medicine alongside her husband, Andrew (Brandon Douglas). Meanwhile, Sully has a run-in with a corrupt senator. And Brian, who for years has been writing articles for his hometown weekly, The Colorado Springs Gazette, is thrilled when he lands a job as a junior reporter with The Boston Globe. In addition to starring in the production, Seymour served as an executive producer on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman: The Heart Within. Although she acknowledges that filming in Canada is "cost effective," Seymour says that wasn't the only reason she chose Canada as the production location. "Old Montreal was a perfect place to re-create Boston during that time period," Seymour explains. "I absolutely love Canada. My kids wear jackets with Canada written across the back. We've made a lot of movies in Canada… We actually spend more time in Canada than anywhere else." Lando has also had a lot of experience filming in Canada. Last year, he starred in and co-produced Higher Ground, a weekly drama series shot in Vancouver. "There are so many skilled technicians and crew people here in Canada," says Lando. "It's the same thing with the actors. I was amazed at how good they are." Seymour echoes Lando's sentiments. "The reality is that you can get every bit as good quality from Canadian crews and you can find new locations that haven't been seen quite so often." The fact that the Montreal crew conversed almost entirely in French didn't bother the American actors. In fact, Seymour speaks French (almost fluently), while Lando, known for his pranks during Dr. Quinn's six-year run, managed to have his share of fun during the filming of The Heart Within, in spite of any language barrier. "Every once in awhile, I liked to push the envelope [while filming the series]," Lando says. "You get bored sometimes, so you have to do something for fun." He didn't lose the ability to have fun during production of The Heart Within, munching on cookies that weren't meant to be eaten, seemingly oblivious to a prop woman's indignant objections ("Joe mange les props!"). Lando also teased Seymour mercilessly about one of her lines (she took it in good stride). Since the TV-movie is set entirely in Boston, a large percentage of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman's regular cast doesn't show up in The Heart Within. It's one element of the TV-movie that Lando regrets. "I just wish that we could've brought some more of the cast members with us," he says. "That's the sad thing about being on location. It's expensive to bring all the actors up here." Undoubtedly, fans of the old weekly series will miss the regular cast as well. It remains to be seen whether they'll be happy with only a small portion of that cast -- or with the movie's prim-and-proper eastern setting, which stands in sharp contrast to the rough-and-tumble western locales that were such a part of the series. In spite of these changes, Seymour remains confident that fans will enjoy the new film. She has high hopes, too, for even more Dr. Quinn movies to come. "If this movie is successful," says Seymour, "[and] if enough people watch it, I was told by the network that they would even do maybe two a year." by Alexandra Heilbron Talk with TV Guide's Matt Roush Re: Dr. Quinn/Joe Lando
Posted By: Matt Roush Deb: Dr. Quinn had a good, long life as TV series go. 1993-1998, five years, which represents five or six seasons, I guess. (It premiered in January at mid-season of 93, if memory serves.) It was a surprise to CBS and to the industry that a show this old-fashioned (though it often dealt, sometimes incongruously, with modern issues of feminism and the like) caught on as it did. But as the networks -- CBS the most reluctant among them -- continue to have to answer to advertisers seeking a younger audience, CBS's older demographics among the "Dr. Quinn" viewership eventually made it counterproductive to stay on the air. Plus the ratings truly had begun to fade in its last season. But then, the show aired on Saturday for virtually all of its first-run life, and expectations on that night are very low anyway. (This season, only CBS bothered to program entertainment series on the night, while ABC and NBC went to reruns of theatrical movies and the ill-fated XFL broadcasts.) In short, the year CBS let "Dr. Quinn" go, the network had decided to aim for a more male audience, pairing ongoing shows "Early Edition" and "Walker Texas Ranger" with the martial-arts action comedy "Martial Law." Turned out to not work so well, and this season CBS targeted the female viewers again with "That's Life" (a favorite among many loyal CBS viewers) and "Kate Brasher," both on the fence -- but what isn't these days. "Dr. Quinn" has returned, I think, in a handful of TV movies and will probably continue in that format whenever the stars, producers and network feel it's worth doing. (Sort of like this week's return of "Murder She Wrote" as a TV movie.) The show will also live on in syndicated form, especially on cable networks that do well with family-oriented or Western-period fare. These kinds of shows, however, are hard sells in today's unforgiving TV marketplace. While I wasn't the biggest fan of "Dr. Quinn" -- found it kind of preachy at times, and formulaic and predictable -- I also understand the desire among viewers for shows that carry with them a comfort level and entertainment value that an entire family can share together. I think in my initial review in USA TODAY on the show I wrote that while this wasn't a show I intended to watch myself, I was going to root for it to succeed, because there ought to be room on TV for these sorts of shows as well as the tougher, grittier, edgier series that perhaps are more to my taste. As for Joe Lando: The last I heard he was starring in a series that aired on the Fox Family Channel (I think) titled "Higher Ground," about troubled teens at a boot camp or some such thing. Also sounds highly wholesome to me, but I don't know whether it's still in production or even still on the air. He developed quite a following, though, during his years on "Dr. Quinn," so I wouldn't be surprised to see him in TV movies in the future (especially on CBS, which likes to recycle its talent) -- and he'd also make a good action-romantic leading man in a drama series, though I haven't heard that he's in any of the shows in contention for next season. Stay tuned. And thanks for the question.
Matt * Top of the page *
Hollywood vs. Hollywood North Some American actors are getting grief for following the work to Canada. American Joe Lando moved home and family north two years ago to produce and star in the TV series Higher Ground. He doesn't believe the issue should be put on the backs of performers. He's tired of getting grief at home for doing projects outside America. "Im an actor. I go where the work is. That's why I went up to Canada,'" Lando said. "People say if actors don't go there, the work won't go there. Like it's on our shoulders. Yet I've been to union meetings to support my fellow union members and none of them cried when Mel Gibson from Australia got a part. Or, you know, Michael J. Fox, when he came down and got a part that I could have had. Nobody felt sorry for me." Lando is passionate in his position and willing to say on the record what many only whisper privately: That talent will triumph on whatever side of the border. by Bruce Kirland and Claire Bickley
Joe Lando fills new prescription to take away pain of 'Dr. Quinn' Actor takes on a different role in the new 'Higher Ground,' a Fox Family Channel series. (Published February 17, 2000) Joe Lando did the unthinkable -- at least in acting circles. He captured the hearts of viewers with his sensitive portrayal of Byron Sully on "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman" until CBS decided unceremoniously to end the series. The six-year run of the series came on the heels of stints on two soap operas: "One Life To Live" and "Guiding Light." Lando decided not to continue the momentum of all that work and took himself off the acting market. Part of his decision was based on the fact he had just become a father. There were also some wounds to be licked as he tried to deal with the cancellation of "Dr. Quinn" after six years of success. "There were different projects that I tried to develop, all funny enough, having to do with hope," Lando says. "I just didn't want to do an action show. I felt a little responsible for what I put out there after 'Dr. Quinn.' " Then he saw the script for "Higher Ground." Lando agreed to return to work as the star and co-executive producer of the new Fox Family Channel series. He portrays the headmaster and administrator of a school that provides a sanctuary for troubled teens. The series, which airs at 9 p.m. Fridays, will touch on a variety of teen-oriented topics from drug abuse to suicide. Lando explains that he was convinced this was the series to do because of the potential impact on viewers. "If one person watches this show, if one kid or parent feels differently later on, I think we've achieved our goal," Lando says. -- The Fresno Bee From "Star" February 13, 2001
from TELE POCHE (France, January 2001) Joe Lando
It was quite unexpected to see you in a new part as an educator As soon as I learned that I would no longer play Sully, the hero of "Dr Quinn," I cut my hair that I had been wearing long for quite a few years. Furthermore short hair was perfect to play the part of an educator. "Higher Ground" has nothing in common with "Dr Quinn": the show has been filmed in Vancouver, Canada, and not in Los Angeles. The story tells us how teenagers, from wealthy families, fell victim of drugs. With the help of educators, they learn to give a new sense to their life in a school situated in the Rockies. Thanks to sports, education… they learn to respect others. My sole regret: we only filmed twenty two episodes. Did you leave California to film the show? I had been living in California for quite a few years and I needed to lead a different life with my wife and my son. We have found an isolated house close to Vancouver where we feel very comfortable. Who does your son look like, your wife or you? Physically Jack looks like my wife Kirsten. He is sporty. He climbs everywhere. He walked at nine months. As far as character goes he is more like me. He is a sensitive little boy who can go from laughter to tears in no time. As a teen you were quite a fighter… I grew up in Chicago in a neighbourhood where teenagers used to fight. I had to defend myself. I took more hits than I could give until I said enough… So I started to hit back. I learned how to channel my energy playing football. At 18 when I went to New York I did all kind of small jobs before becoming an actor. You stated that your wife should look like Lauren Bacall. True? I was 9 when I saw "Key Largo". I thought that the woman I would love should look like her. But all my girlfriends were different. What did you do between "Dr Quinn" and "Higher Ground"? With Jack who was three weeks old, my wife and my two dogs I drove across the United States from Los Angeles to Chicago… What a trip! Americans are not aware how much their country deserves being discovered. I also played in two episodes of "JAG" and the movie "Dr Quinn". I will play Sully again in a second movie next spring. Thanks to the audience the show continues… Interviewed by Franck Ragaine, Los Angeles
TeleStar: (France) January 2001 In "Higher Ground," he is an educator of young drug addicts JOE LANDO " MY NEW LIFE IN CANADA" Joe Lando, Jane Seymour's husband in Dr Quinn Medicine Woman, is back in a modern show that adds action to psychodrama: "Higher Ground" . An adventure that has made him discover the charms of Vancouver. TeleStar: Did you cut your hair for Higher Ground? JOE LANDO: Yes I did. "Doctor Quinn" took place in the 19th century but with this show I go deep into the reality of this new century! We deal with problems of young drug addicts who have become confused. My character is that of an educator who, through sports, tries to give these youngsters new confidence in themselves. The action takes place in the heart of the Rockies, in Colorado. In reality though for budgetary reasons the show was filmed in Vancouver. TeleStar: Was it easy to leave for Canada? JOE LANDO: Yes it was. I even decided to stay there after the filming of the show's 22 episodes was over. My wife, my son and I have been there for almost 2 years now. TeleStar: Has being a dad changed your life? JOE LANDO: Before my life was only about my career and my part in "Dr Quinn". For the first time I have the feeling of being important to someone. TeleStar: What is Kirsten doing? JOE LANDO: She takes care of our son. A few years ago she worked as a teacher and later in a bakery. Since my son was born we have traveled quite a lot and enjoyed being together the three of us. TeleStar: It is clear that you are not like Sully of "Dr Quinn". How would you describe yourself? JOE LANDO: I am of Italian, Russian and Polish origin, even though my parents grew up in Chicago. I feel myself more latin than slavic. I like to eat, drink, enjoy life, but sometimes my Russian origin makes me work very hard . I feel comfortable with this contradictory mix. And my wife says that I am sweet as a lamb... Interviewed by Franck Ragaine
TELELOISIRS (FRance) January 2001 JOE LANDO, SHORT SHARP CHOC EDUCATOR Walking, climbing or swimming. This is not the program of an outdoors fitness centre, but Mount Horizon's, an education centre for young delinquents. A refuge in the heart of the Canadian mountains. A former drug addict himself, Peter Scarbrow is a short sharp choc educator. His recipe: a pinch of dialogue enhanced by a full spoon of sports challenges! The handsome dark-haired and athletic educator has to deal with at-risk teens such as Scott. An angel's face but a wolf in sheep's clothing. Drugs have destroyed him and he has to give a new sense to his life. Strong action for teenagers, this show deserves mainly to be watched because of the actors. It is an opportunity to see Joe Lando again, "Sully" in the series "Dr Quinn," who plays Peter and to discover Hayden Christensen as Scott. He is the rising star in Hollywood whom you will soon see as Anakin Skywalker in Star WarsII. Ann-Patricia Pitois
from TeleStar (France), January 2001 Wide spaces, action, at-risk teens. With Higher Ground, TF1 focuses on teenagers. A band of rebels with a tender heart. Higher Ground takes us to Canada. A new show in which through challenge, juvenile delinquents give a new sense to their lives, led by Joe Lando. Up in the Canadian mountains a man gives refuge and a new chance to young delinquents. The contact with nature and challenging sports help them find a new taste for life. The leading man is of course Joe Lando, aka Peter Scarbrow, who for six years played the part of Byron Sully next to Jane Seymour in Dr Quinn Medicine Woman. The former Indian with long hair (he cut his mane for Higher Ground) not only plays the leading role but also produces the show. Hayden Christensen’s recognition. Focused on a mainly teenagers’ audience Higher Ground is more in line with 7th Heaven than with Dawson's Creek. A classic show (with action and grand feelings) which does not resort to psychological drama as in My Socalled Life. Joe Lando wanted a show for a wide audience and he has succeeded. But the man to track is not Joe Lando. It is Hayden Christensen. He plays the part of Scott Barringer, a young drug addict. The young Canadian could have remained one of the goodlooking teens Hollywood is flooded with if a fairy godfather had not noticed him: the filmdirector George Lucas has chosen him to play Anakin Skywalker in StarWars II that we will see in the fall 2002.
from TeleK7 (French TV Guide), January 2001 Translation of the interview on TELEK7: TOWARDS HIGHER GROUNDS These last two years Joe Lando has changed Byron Sully's fringed jacket for a climber's look : he is an educator of at-risk teens in Higher Ground *, a series that will make the audience ratings climb. Having been revealed to the public at large thanks to his role as Byron Sully in the series Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman on M6, Joe Lando has become the executive producer and the star of another show, Higher Ground, on TF1. Another challenge won by the handsome Joe Lando who could also play in a second DQ movie if he is available. TKZ: IS THE SERIES DQMW OVER? Not yet. After the success of the last DQ movie last May (13 million viewers), CBS contacted Jane Seymour in view of a second movie. Since I was under contract with Paramount for Higher Ground this project was potponed. TK7: TELL US SOMETHING ABOUT YOUR PART IN HIGHER GROUND I play Peter's part, a counselor who educates resorting mainly to sports. Peter is himself a climber and has a troubled past. Former drug addict, he works hard to help a group of teenagers free themselves from the infernal spiral of violence taking them outdoors. Finally Peter is not so different from Byron! TK7: YOU SEEM TO REGRET BYRON SULLY ? Yes and no. How could I forget ? Do you know that the necklace I used to wear in the series was sold at an auction for one million francs ** and Sully's buckskins for 114.000 francs ***? For a former modest pizza chef becoming the object of such an adulation is unimaginable. When I left Chicago to try my luck in Hollywood my parents believed it was a joke. DQMW is above all a love story between the fans and myself. TK7: DO YOUR FANS ADMIRE YOU? Some were even angry at me when I cut my long hair to play Peter's part. For my 40 th birthday, next December 9, I know I will receive many presents from them. This makes me happy, so does my job because I am not - as some do- waiting for a check. But above all my roles as an actor my highest inspiration is my son Jack who is almost three years old. Interviewed by Jean-Jacques Jelot-Blanc Translator's notes:
from Vee Seven -- a North Shore News publication, November 2000
from the Canadian TV Times, September 30 - October 6, 2000 HIGHER GROUND Rating "Thumbs Up" Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman's Joe Lando and Highlander's Jim Byrnes team up as guys who run a high school for troubled teens. Toronto actor Hayden Christensen co-stars as one of the teens in the crowd. Although the subject matter - drugs, depression, bulimia, self-mutilation, teen suicide - is often quite depressing, the series strives to deliver a ray of hope. from Soap Opera Update, October 10, 2000
Couples you Loved OLTL’s Jake and Megan OLTL struck solid gold when they paired new talent Joe Lando with Jessica Tuck in the roles of Jake and Megan. Their love story energized the soap and infused it with a romance and passion it hadn’t seen in years. Their on air courtship was long, but eventually they married. They were truly happy, but when Tuck decided to leave the show after nearly four years, the powers-that-be decided to kill off her character and end the coupling which had been so popular. Megan was diagnosed with Lupus in 1990 and tragically died on air in 1991. She returned as a ghost in 1999, which proves how dead her character Megan really is. But in the land of soaps, there’s always a way back from the dead, there are many soap devices that can be conjured up. There’s always the never-known twin sister or cousin who suddenly comes back for money or revenge. But in this case, the actress says that she has no intentions of returning to the soap grind full-time. She has since become a staple in Hollywood and has starred in dozens of projects and films.
As for Lando, after leaving OLTL in 1991, he landed the role of backwoodsman/love interest of Jane Seymour on Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, where he instantly became a national primetime heartthrob. Looking back on their careers, Lando and Truck recently admitted to the press that their off-screen relationship was strained, to put it mildly, while they were starring as lovers on the soap. “We couldn’t stand each other,” he told People magazine. Tuck adds, “It was so absurd.”
Fortunately, after a castmate arranged for them to have drinks after work one day, their relationship mellowed out. “We got so close, it was great,” Lando says. The two still keep in touch while keeping busy in La La Land.
from the Vancouver Sun, September 6, 2000
The premise behind Fox Family Channel's made-in-BC hinterland drama Higher Ground is that there's nothing like a few weeks of back-country schooling to give a wayward inner-city kid proper perspective on life. Higher Ground's "back to basics" life lesson is cool to look at, thanks to some eye-filling mountain scenery and Outward Bound-style hijinks in the sticks, but where actor/producer Joe Lando and writer/producer Michael Braverman really lucked out was with an attractive cast that includes A. J. Cook, Jewel Staite and most fortuitous of all, Entertainment Weekly's "It Boy" Hayden Christensen, winner of the Year 2000 Anakin Skywalker Instant Stardom Sweepstakes. Christensen, in Australia to play the future Darth Vader in the next two episodes of George Lucas's Star Wars trilogy, scored the role that virtually every young actor wanted and was chosen over more than 350 hopefuls, including Ryan Phillipe, Chris Klein and Roswell's Colin Hanks, son of Tom Hanks. Higher Ground is familiar in feel - the troubled kids are really decent and misunderstood and are merely acting out various traumas caused by family abuse - and a little formulaic in execution. Saturday's premiere, predictably, revolves around Christensen's character trying to run away from the wilderness camp. But there are enough quirky touches - an opening quote from Oscar Wilde, for example(We are all in the gutter, but some of us look at stars?) - and enough glimpses of mountain glaciers to make a city-bred viewer pine for the great outdoors.
Stars born, reborn Christensen and Lando in Higher Ground debut
One TV star is born, another reborn when Higher Ground makes its Canadian TV debut tonight. The drama about troubled teens at a wilderness high school stars Thornhill 19-year-old Hayden Christensen. He's now known around the world as the actor who is playing Anakin Skywalker in the next Star Wars movie. But he's been seen very little so far here at home on either the large or small screen. Another surprise for viewers will be Higher Ground's other lead, an actor who is very familiar yet strikingly changed. 'A little fat and lazy' Joe Lando is virtually unrecognizable to those who remember his six years and 172 episodes of playing Byron Sully on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. In Higher Ground, which premieres at 7 p.m. on ONtv, extreme sportswear has replaced his buckskins, his lion's mane of hair is close-cropped and his body is noticeably bulked up. "This gave me a chance to just completely reinvent myself. I had to cut my hair. I had to get in shape because I'd gotten a little fat and lazy," says the 39-year-old actor, who is also one of the series' producers. The Vancouver-made drama is also surprisingly muscular, considering it was made to air first on the soft, sunny Fox Family cable channel in the U.S. Christensen's character, Scott, has been sexually exploited by his stepmother and has a drug problem. Lando's teacher/counsellor character, Peter, is a former stock broker recovering from a cocaine-and-heroin addiction. At a real-life version of the show's Mt. Horizon school, Lando sat in on group therapy sessions as research. "I felt like crying about a dozen different times. You see these tough kids, these gangbanger kids, a couple of guys a lot bigger than me even though they were just 15 or 16 years old, and all these kids really were looking for was love," he says. "It sounds corny but (they needed) hugs and love and to be told that even though they screwed up over here, they're allowed to make mistakes and come back from them and persevere." Lando speaks from there-but-for-the-Grace-of-God experience, easily picturing himself having ended up in just such a school. As a teen, he rebelled against his upbringing in a strict, conservative, blue-collar Catholic family living just outside Chicago. "I was a wild child," Lando recalls. "We just had to make our own entertainment a lot and it had to do with a lot of violence. We used to fight, just beating on each other and going out and just being rowdy kids in general. School was something that we tried to blow off." At 18, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue his acting dream but supported himself mostly as a cook until breaking through with roles on the soaps One Life To Live and then The Guiding Light before Medicine Woman came along. Cast turnover If Higher Ground doesn't continue to a second season, he has an idea for a series set in hi-tech Silicon Valley. If Higher Ground does go on, the now-famous Christensen wants to appear in at least some of its episodes. If he doesn't, that will just fit the producers' plan for cast turnover to realistically reflect the teens' passage through and beyond the school. "That was always the intention," says Lando. "Like Menudo."
from StarWeek (the Toronto Star insert) - September 2 - 9, 2000 Rocky Mountain High
The hunk craves respect. That’s all Joe Lando wanted after his success as a pinup star on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. He started seeking recognition as a serious actor and he’s going to get it with his new series, Higher Ground, Saturdays at 7 p.m. on ONtv.
"Yeah, it is a totally different part,” Lando says on the phone from Los Angeles where he’s relocating after a year in Vancouver.
“I was looking for something challenging. I’m pretty proud of what we accomplished.”
In Higher Ground, which resembles the early ‘90's Canadian series Neon Rider, Lando stars as an energetic camp counselor, Peter Scarbrow, who offers a helping hand to troubled teens. They are given second chances to “find themselves” at one of the most picturesque schools in the world, Mt. Horizon.
The fictional school is located high in the B.C. Rockies and offers a haven to kids who have drug problems or psychological troubles.
The rugged terrain and emphasis on physical skills challenge the teens to turn their lives around with the aid of the school’s talented adult staff.
No doubt about it. Dr. Quinn made Lando a household name. People magazine named him one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world.
First let’s get the hair questions right out of the way. Lando grew his locks extra long as the handsome mountain man on Dr. Quinn. As soon as the series got the boot from CBS, Lando went to the barbershop and emerged cropped. It takes a moment to realize it’s the same actor but Lando’s future will rest on more than the length of his hair.
Lando went after more than hair change. He wanted a whole new image. He was offered other pilots, he acknowledges, but there was nothing as strong as Higher Ground.
The concept is the brainchild of executive producer Matthew Hastings who says “I went to school in the Berkshires and there was always a lot of climbing available. I liked that idea and started to work on this. Not all the kid who come to Mt. Horizon are troubled. Some are trying to escape their parents. Others need real help. I saw a lot of possibilities in dramatic terms.”
The production company Lions Gate in conjunction with Paramount Television and WIC saw the series as a Canadian content series almost from the beginning although Hastings says he initially scouted Colorado locations as well. Outside of Lando, the cast is Canadian including a dozen or so talented teenagers including Hayden Christensen, Jewel Staite, A. J. Cook.
An entire campus was built in the Rockies about an hour’s drive from Vancouver. Lando as Scarbrow is a recovering addict, a former Wall Street high flier, now in rehab, who uses mountain climbing as a way to release pent up frustrations. It’s an obvious metaphor but it works for him and for many of the kids.
The first episode is fast paced and well acted as we are introduced to the camp through the experiences of new student Scott Baringer (Christensen) who turned from a high school athlete into a teen with a drug habit. The back story of the boy’s seduction by his father’s young “trophy” wife is handled with sensitivity and restraint.
Christensen has since gone on to nab the starring role in the next Star Wars epic but Hastings says the teen will be back from some episodes next season to flesh out his character.
Maybe Christensen is returning, but Lando says he’s not sure about his own status. For one thing he’s mighty ticked off episodes were edited on the U.S. network, Fox Family (not available in Canada). The series has already started in the U.S. and Fox Family pulled an episode about a teen suicide.
“A TV critic asked a question at the recent press tour here. The show was then yanked although they are supposed to run in sequence. I think we were responsible - we showed how it affected the doctors, the other kids. We showed how it had a ripple effect and what a waste of a young life it was.
Fox Family finally aired the third revised version. What Can I say? We never tried to be The Brady Bunch. It’s more like we should have been on the Fox regular channel. Maybe we’re on the wrong network.
Lando, 38, says he’s since made a two part episode on JAG and auditioned for the new series Titans. “The part was Perry King’s younger brother - am I supposed to say Perry gets killed off? They finally decided to go with an older actor, Jack Wagner.”
On Dr. Quinn, Lando admits, “It was a 60-40 kind of thing.” Star Jane Seymour got 60 per cent of the attention while Lando got 40 per cent. CBS sources maintained Lando kept the show going simply because so many women tuned in to see him.
The only people who liked Dr. Quinn were the viewers.
“Yeah, it wasn’t cool,” Lando agrees. The series was a family show and tended to get overlooked at Emmy time. Lando says his buckskin frontiersman was a bit unrealistic. “Real mountain men only took baths twice a year. Stank like hell. They died young of dysentery.” The series was finally canceled in 1998 after five seasons, still strong in the ratings but CBS had undergone a change of chief programmers.
“I never thought I’d be asked to do a spinoff. But it did make some sense.”
Lando had come off 370 episodes on the afternoon soap opera One Life to Live - after he made the Dr. Quinn pilot he spent the summer on Guiding Light. The Chicago-born Lando always wanted to be an actor and moved to Lose Angeles in 1980. He banged around for years as a pizza chef and started catering movie sets so he could be near job opportunities.
Lando spent all his spare time in acting classes, eventually landing bits in movies like Star Trek IV. His long quest for stardom gave him a streak of responsibility. On Higher Ground he does show off the muscles while rock climbing. But he has several standout scenes with Christensen.
“On the set with all those high energy kids sometimes I’d be the one to goof off. Then the tension was broken and we could go on to do the next scene.”
It would be strange if Lando exited Higher Ground after just on season. But the series may not get a pickup after all.
“I auditioned for producer Chris Carter for the replacement on X-Files” Lando says. “It went to the guy from Terminator 2 (Robert Patrick). I’m still out there trying as hard as I can.”
from the TV Times (Canada) September 2 - September 8, 2000
Teen Troubles
Before he landed his role in George Lucas' next Star Wars saga (now filming in Australia), Christensen was just another face in the Higher Ground crowd. But he is proud of the series. "I think one of the things that's special about the show is that these kids are sort of represetations of these different cliques, and these kids would otherwise not really interact and develop relationships," says Christensen. "We're put in an environment where we have to relate and develop relationships."
Although Higher Ground's characters cope with depressing problems - suicide, bulimia, dyslexia, self-mutilation and so on - Lando stresses that the drama goes beyond that.
"It's not just all about kids that are troubled and their problems," he says. "It's kids being kids."
from the TV Guide (Canada) ) September 2, 2000
Out on a Limb Joe Lando seeks creative freedom as the star and co-executive producer of Higher Ground.
There's something almost symbolic about watching Joe Lando fight his way up the side of a steep rock face, hanging precariously by a series of ropes, pulleys and clamps. The handsome actor, who gained fame and financial security as the long-haired Harlequin-Romance-like hero of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, has chosen to wear the executive producer's hat in his return to series television in the teen drama Higher Ground. He admits that it has been a bit of an, ahem, uphill climb. And it certainly hasn't been about making money.
"It's really about being given the opportunity to be creative and be a part of the process" explains Lando, who says he was involved in all the details, from location scouting in British Columbia to casting and wardrobe, and made a big financial sacrifice to create the series. "It's doing the work and at the end of the day being able to say, 'I had something to do with it.' Whether it's bad or good, whatever you think about it, part of me is in that."
It's not as if the series, about at-risk teens attending an alternative high school in the mountain wilderness, didn't have an impressive pedigree when Lando came on board, however. Other executive producers on the show include Michael Braverman, the Emmy-nominated creator of Life Goes On and a former executive producer of Beverly Hills 90210, and Baywatch executive producer, Douglas Schwartz.
In the 22-episode series, shot over eight months in B.C., Lando stars as the school's director, Peter Scarbrow, a former high-flying stockbroker and onetime addict who acts as a supportive guide for the troubled teens. When he's not chasing down young delinquents or discussing the school's rocky future with founder Frank Markasian (Wiseguy's Jim Byrnes), Peter can be found riding through the spectacular Pacific Northwest on his motorcycle or attempting another mountain climb.
"I'm not as good a climber as my character," Lando chuckles, "But I had to get myself in really good shape. After all, I'm 38 and I'm working with all these young people."
Among those young people is Canadian Hayden Christensen, the dishy blond chosen by George Lucas to portray Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars" Episode II and Episode III. If Higher Ground gets renewed for a second season by its American carrier (it was Fox Family Channel's first original one-hour drama), Christensen has promised to return for a few episodes.
"He feels grateful to the show," says Lando. "It basically got him an agent and a manager."
Other members of the young, good-looking cast include Christensen's Virgin Suicides co-star A. J. Cook as the promiscuous tease, Kandyse McClure (The Spiral Staircase) as a racially conflicted student, Meghan Ory (The Darklings) as a bulimic and Jorge Vargas (Excess Baggage) as a dyslexic tagger. But all these attractive faces have created some skepticism for the show, with critics describing the series as nothing more than a Dawson's Creek or Beverly Hills 90210 set in the mountains.
"I think Dawson's Creek has more to do with people jumping into bed together," Lando argues. "That's just not allowed at our school." And, while Lando admits the reality is that one reason to have an attractive cast is to entertain, he stresses that, when he was conducting research at various real-life schools, he discovered that "good-looking people have problems, too."
There's no denying either, that the producers seem to have gone to great lengths, including working with a psychologist, to tackle teen troubles head-on through some pretty intense storylines. In one episode "Hope Falls," new student commits suicide, causing a reaction of anger to ripple throughout the school and leading Frank to take the students on a difficult trek to the sight where his own son overdosed years earlier.
"What I found to be the greatest strength of that episode is that it takes a no-nonsense approach in addressing the impact of suicide on peers," Dr. Jay Nagdimon, the director of a suicide prevention centre, told AOL News.
Whether Higher Ground receives praise or criticism, Lando seems definitely committed to the series. After years as an actor and being what he describes as "at the mercy of whatever someone else decides," the Chicago native moved with his wife and toddler son to a home in West Vancouver. Gone are the long locks that made him famous as sultry Byron Sully, shedding perhaps any possibility for typecasting and making room for the businessman in Lando.
"Actually," Lando laughs, giving a more practical explanation for the slick new hairdo. "I cut my hair two days before Dr. Quinn was officially cancelled. I had a son coming, and I didn't want to have longer hair than his mommy." from Frau Actuell (Germany) August 16, 2000
Jane Seymour: What she taught her TV husband Joe Lando He has got his fathers dark eyes and the delicate nose of his mother. Little Jack Neville is a happy baby. Most of the time he looks at his surrounding in a happy and curious way. If he ever cries - on rare occasions - his dad Joe Lando (38) picks him up, carries him around, rocks and caresses him gently and talks to him in a soft voice until Jack stops crying. "I think I'm quite a good dad" the TV star laughs. "And that's something I owe to Jane".
Jane Seymour (49), his long-time partner on "Dr. Quinn" is mother of four children. From her first marriage Katie (17) and Sean (13) and together with James Keach (52) she's got the four-year-old twins Kristofer and John Stacey. James also has two children Kalen (22) and Jennifer (18) from a former marriage.
On screen Jane and Joe play a married couple. Off screen they are very good friends. Jane taught her colleague a lot those things he needs to know about babies. In the breaks between shooting, she prepared her TV - husband for his new "job" in a perfect way. She told him about how she felt, when she had her babies, showed him what to do and explained to him how to cope under stress (which is inevitable for young parents) and how to support his wife during her motherhood. Joe's wife Kirsten (29) is very grateful for that: "My husband is absolutely perfect. Whenever he is around, he changes diapers, gives Jack a bath, prepares his dinner or puts Jack to sleep. That really helps me a lot."
The couple, who married three years ago, would like to have some more children. Joe says: "Jane is the best example, how wonderful a big family with a lot of children can be." from Telepiù (Italy) 04/29/2000 - 05/05/2000
Il NUOVO JOE LANDO
I have changed my look but I remain a hero Jane Seymour's co-star in Dr. Quinn - Medicine Woman is a protagonist in Higher Ground, a new action series that is set in a school for "at risk" teenagers. From the vast lands of the West to the shining mountains of the North. After his role as Byron Sully, the handsome, gloomy follower of the Cheyenne wisdom in Dr. Quinn - Medicine Woman, Joe Lando becomes a teacher, all his heart and muscles, in Higher Ground, the new television series that is set in a school. Mt. Horizon is not a common school but a special institution for "at risk" teenagers; it is not situated in a city or town but in a savage and fascinating landscape full of mountains, rivers and a magnificent vegetation. The protagonist, Peter Scarbrow (Lando) teaches there. He tries to give hope and a future to the teenagers who have only found despair and abandonment in their lives: abused childhood, bad families, drugs, and violence. Therefore, Mt. Horizon is their raft, which can take them to a safer place, the last "beach" where it is possible to start again.
Peter is the first person to believe in that. He did not have the misfortune of growing up in the wrong environment; he simply chose the way that took him to failure. A young and brilliant stockbroker in Wall Street, he had been sucked in a whirlwind of money, competitiveness and stress that had led him to a wild life. The loss of his job, the cancellation of his bank account, a false life that almost led him to death. Peter had arrived at that school looking for help some years before and found it.
In a safe place in contact with nature and teachers who believed him, Peter decided to change his life and devoted himself to help young people who, like him in the past, are now on the edge of the abyss. The young colleagues, Hannah (Deborah O'Dell) and Sophie (Anne Marie Loder), help him in the several young's activities such as canoeing, climbing, mountain biking, rafting. But the most important lesson that is given in Mt. Horizon is to regain self-confidence and to rebuild one's life.
Created by the union of two successful producers as Michael Braverman (the creator of Chicago Hope, great success in the USA, and Beverly Hills 90210) and Doug Swartz (Baywatch), Higher Ground, that was filmed in Vancouver, bet in Joe Lando's charm (who is also an executive producer), and was considered one of the 50 most handsome men in America.
Born in Chicago, Joe dreamt of being an actor when he was younger and was working in a restaurant. His first role in a soap opera, One Life to Live, (where he worked from 1990 to 1992) gave him the passport to be a co-star in Dr. Quinn -Medicine Woman, which he was in for 6 seasons and last year Dr. Quinn - Medicine Woman: The Movie.
Don't worry Italian fans. RAI and Paramount are talking about Higher Ground purchase.
TV Networks Looking To Catch A Fall Star The Media blitz is in full gear for the 2000-2001 season Don’t look now, but the fall TV season just started. Last week’s Canadian Press Tour marked the opening salvo in an intense publicity campaign that won’t let up until the official start of the new TV series in September.
Talent from series nobody has yet seen were strutting before Canadian TV critics and, in a few weeks, will repeat the exercise in Los Angeles in front of the American media.
The publicity barrage is in overdrive. Bigger name stars have already visited Entertainment Tonight and The Tonight Show. And the networks have released taped interviews to their affiliates for use on suppertime newscasts. Network Web sites are stuffed with photography and gossip.
Three potential TV stars the networks say are among the hottest contenders are Mykelti Williamson from the new series of an TV show, The Fugitive (on CBS and CTV), Joe Lando from Higher Ground (on Ontv and the US Fox Family Channel) and Shauna MacDonald from the romantic drama These Arms of Mine (CBC-TV).
As for Lando, it seems odd he’s promoted as a “new” face of 2000. But the personable, 38-year-old actor, who co-starred for six years on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman swears it’s true.
“It really is a new me,” he said. The day Dr. Quinn got canned, he shaved off his curly shoulder-length locks and started acting like a modern man and not a brooding frontiersman.
In his Dr. Quinn days, Lando was hailed by People magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world. But he is ambivalent about the kind of fame that’s built on good looks and not acting skills.
“I’ve been studying acting since I was 18. I wanted to do a variety of roles and not be typecast as this hunk. When I was offered similar roles in other pilots, I turned them down. This one, I feel, had real substance.”
He sees his new series, Higher Ground, as a huge challenge. Lando plays a counselor who helps emotionally scarred teenagers at a school in British Columbia’s mountains. One of the boys is played by 17-year old Hayden Christensen, since tapped to star in the newest Star Wars epic.
Having proved he’s not a one-series wonder, Lando, who was born in Chicago, said he’s better able to cope with the publicity this time out. “Because it’s all about me as an actor. It’s not as intense as before, but I feel more comfortable with it.” ... Anakin might return to Ground After Hayden Christensen has finished exploring the galaxy, he might return to Canadian TV.
The Thornhill-raised actor, named Star Wars' newest Anakin Skywalker last month, has agreed to do more episodes of his B.C.-based drama Higher Ground if the show is renewed, series star Joe Lando said yesterday.
"Hayden has agreed to come back because he's very grateful to the show," Lando said. "Higher Ground landed him a manager, which landed him an agency, and from that his tape went in to (George) Lucas' people."
On the series about troubled teens at a wilderness high school, 19-year-old Christensen plays Scott, a former football star recovering from both a drug habit and being sexually exploited by his stepmother. Lando plays the school's founder.
The show makes its Canadian debut this fall on ONtv. Its first season of 22 episodes already has aired in the U.S. on cable network Fox Family Channel, and the show has been sold to broadcasters in France, Spain, Italy and Germany.
Whether it will have a second season remains to be seen.
Lando said Fox Family executives seem indifferent to the heat Christensen's Star Wars casting could draw to the series and have not committed to a continuation.
If Fox Family does opt out, NBC has expressed an interest in running the show, then passing it on to PAX, the cable network it partly owns, said Lando, one of the show's executive producers.
He praised Christensen as "a fine actor" but has also been impressed by the potential of other young cast members, particularly A.J. Cook and Meghan Ory.
"You know, all these kids in the show like acting. It's not like they like it because they can go buy a Prada handbag, and go get a video game or something like that. These kids love to act, and Hayden is one of the true actors," he said.
When Christensen got the call to go audition for Anakin, he asked Lando if he'd mind switching shooting schedules with him so he could leave for California.
"I'm like, 'Do I mind?' You know, I'd be just a real ass---- if I said no," Lando said.
When Christensen phoned him to say he'd landed the huge part, Lando got goosebumps.
"I ran upstairs and told my wife and I called my parents. It was like I got the part," he said.
Lando has a lot of reasons for hoping Higher Ground continues. Since he started work on it, he has sold his U.S. home, bought a 1930s cottage in West Vancouver and moved up his wife and two-year-old son.
"I'm Canadian now," he said jokingly. "My name is Joe. Like the Molson's thing."
from TeleK7 (France) March 25 - 31, 2000
Lando, Always Higher Up As the series "Dr. Quinn" has ended, Joe Lando, aka Byron Sully, stars and is the producer of his new series "Higher Ground" where he is a climber counselor who helps young delinquents.
Joe Lando maintains himself more than ever as a sex-symbol of the year 2000. At the last TV festival of MonteCarlo, where he was one of the guests of honor (with his DQMW co-partner Jane Seymour), the actor presented his new series "Higher Ground".
TK7 : Is DQMW definitively finished?
JOE: We shot a TV movie which was aired last may in the US. Paramount would like to shoot another "Special" TV movie. We'll see ...
TK7 : But you have short hair!
JOE: That's right, Byron does have long hair... but there are very good wigs you know. And let me tell you a scoop, I already used one and nobody noticed. I am ready to do a second TV movie, if we can fix our schedule, because I am very busy with "Higher Ground". We did 22 episodes within 8 months in British Columbia. My family moved to Canada.
TK7: You are also the producer of "Higher Ground"...
JOE: I made a huge financial sacrifice to make this series. I participated in the concept, I approached people to make this project materialize. Being a producer means that I have control over where I go. I'm just a director, not a writer... which means the one who gives the directions to follow.
TK7: Director and ?
JOE:I will direct some episodes of the second season of Higher Ground (aired on Paramount TV). I went to a directing training period in UCLA... I started by cooking and dishwashing during the shooting of Silkwood, with Meryl Streep. But I looked at the actors and the director working. And I was waiting for my time to come ... I dreamed of being an actor since the age of six, since I saw John Garfield and Humphrey Bogart films. My friends and I shot movies in "super8" or "16mm". I was kind of shy. Cinema helps me free myself.
TK7: How did you have the idea for this series?
JOE: I watch young people around me. Even if they play tough, they ask for love. In the US, we have gangs and kids living by themselves. School is their last chance. For the show Higher Ground, we worked with a psychologist, to stick to reality.
TK7: How did you train for this part of a counselor who helps young delinquents by teaching them climbing?
JOE: I trained at the gymnasium, I studied climbing. I also went on a diet, I developed my muscles and lost 7kg. I feel much better in my body and even like myself!!!
Gilles GRESSARD
Translated from French to English by Sebastien Lac
OLTL's Joe Lando: Joe Lando's (Ex-Jake Harrison, One life to Live; ex Macauley West, Guiding Light) new character, Peter Scarbrow on Higher Ground, the Fox Family Channel's first original one-hour drama, struggles to find some common ground with today's troubled youth.
Peter is the rugged headmaster and chief administrator of Mount Horizon High, an "emotional growth" school for defiant teens in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest. "Peter had everything going for him, and then blew it because he didn't have any self-control," Lando explains. Peter lived the urban dream of wealth and power but lost it all to addiction and eventually found his way to Mount Horizon High, where "he's trying to fix the bad things he did in the past by helping kids who are in the future."
While Lando didn't spend "time up the river" as a teen-ager, he admits he was no stranger to mischief. "I was a good kid, but I was bored, along with my other friends. We just got into little scraps and things like that with the neighborhood kids, and cops would chase us around."
Higher Ground really hits home for Lando, who has a son, Jack Neville, with wife Kirsten Barlow. "It won't be very long before my kid is at this stage … 10, 12 years go by very quickly, and then you're into that preteen-age stage. And boys," his trepidation is audible, "once the testosterone kicks in, can be a handful."
Lando also is Higher Ground's ex-executive producer. He participates in the show's plot and character development, so he has a firm grip on his character's progress. "Peter hasn't evolved as much as Sully (Lando's role on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) spiritually, but he's working on it. It's a constant struggle; the kids help him stray straight, and vice versa.
"It's about how sensitive children are," Lando continues, "even as teen-agers, and how important it is just to get the point across that you love them, that you're there and supportive."
Higher Ground airs Fridays. Check local Listings.
Julie Bresnick From Midi Libre (France) - March 2, 2000 NEW LOOK FOR JOE LANDO
Those of you who have never seen Joe Lando, Jane Seymour’s partner in “Doctor Quinn Medicine Woman” on M6, must know that the actor’s hair was long, blond and curled in this series. Since the cancellation of “Dr Quinn” the actor has changed his look. In “Higher Ground”, his new series in which he is executive producer and topline actor (soon to be seen on M6) Joe Lando’s hair is short and dark brown. A more practical hairstyle for his part as an educator in a special school and with a passion for motorcycles and mountain climbing. From TéléCableHebdo (France) - March 4 - 10, 2000 GOOD SAMARITAN
Joe Lando, the husband of Jane Seymour in the series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman is present at the festival of Monte-Carlo for Higher Ground, a series belonging to Paramount and broadcast in the USA on Fox Family Channel where he is the co-producer.
He plays a teacher of a group of youg delinquents, who he attempts to put on the straight and narrow thanks to mountaineering.
Soon to be seen on a French channel?
article by Sophie Patois From TéléStar (France) - March 9, 2000
It was time to reprise his popular character in a t.v. movie, but he had cut his hair ... Joe Lando - "to return to Dr. Quinn I had to wear a wig!"
He put away his famous jacket to play a counsellor of young deliquents, his new role in a series not yet available in France. A change that is nothing compared to the event that changed his life for the better almost two years ago - the birth of his son Jack.
TéléStar: What pushed you, two years after Dr. Quinn ended to play your character Sully for a tv movie?
Joe: Simply the fans! The day after the last episode, they literally inundated the producers with letters and e mails to express their unhappiness. Finally, they were heard because last spring the producers decided to spinoff a tv movie revisiting all the protagonists from the series.
TéléStar: Did the reunion go smoothly?
Joe: Extremely well! I felt as though I'd never left Jane Seymour. As soon as we were together everything was just as it used to be. The only difference after leaving Dr. Quinn for my new series, Higher Ground where I play a counsellor is that I had cut my hair. In order for Sully to have his magnificent hair, the producers of Dr. Quinn had to have a wig made for me which cost a mere 25,000F!
TéléStar: Since the end of the series another big event has changed your life ...
Joe: Of course! The birth of my little Jack! To celebrate this event with my wife Kirsten, we took a car trip across the United States, from Los Angeles to Chicago with our two dogs and the baby. Our child, who was only three weeks old, was not bulky! Just a little more baggage!
TéléStar: Jack will be two soon. What kind of a boy is he?
Joe: He is really a little athlete. He is a lot like his mother. He has so much energy. By nine months he was already walking and climbing everything. Personality wise he is more like me. He is really sensitive, he goes from bursts of laughter to tears in three minutes. He also has a well developed artistic sense.
TéléStar: A few months before his birth you married Kirsten in Arizona. Was it last minute or something well thought out?
Joe: Kirsten was nothing more than my girlfriend until a personal tragedy sped things up. One of my best friends died in a mountain hiking accident. I then realized that life was too short to pass by essential people. That day I realized that I wanted to live the rest of my life near Kirsten. She knows that accident really impacted my existence.
TéléStar:Can you tell us about that other adventure which is your new series?
Joe: it takes place in Vancouver and is about how teenage delinquents who have sunk into drugs and are learning to live in a center in the mountains. In the program there is sports, work and they learn respect for others. This role is very different from Sully in Dr. Quinn and a new challenge for me.
Franck Ragaine
translated from French to English by Lauren Moorhouse From AOL News, January 31, 2000
Fox Family Channel Takes on Teen Suicide in Special Episode of 'Higher Ground'
Network to Air Special PSA and Help Hotline for Teens
LOS ANGELES, Jan. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Fox Family Channel will air a powerful new episode of the new one-hour drama series "Higher Ground," centered around the growing problem of teen suicide this Friday, February 4 at 9-10 PM ET/PT. The network will end the episode with a specially produced PSA featuring a toll free suicide prevention hotline.
In this thought-provoking hour entitled "Hope Falls," a new student commits suicide, which shakes Hannah's (Deborah Odell) faith in her ability to effectively counsel her teen charges, eventually motivating her to resign. The student's death evokes an unexpected reaction of anger throughout the school, compelling school founder Frank (Jim Byrnes) to take the students on a difficult trek to beautiful Hope Falls, the sight where his own son overdosed 22 years ago. This episode was written by John Mandel, with input from a professionally trained counseling team, who ensured that this difficult subject was treated in a way that will help any troubled teens or families facing this issue.
After this special episode, Fox Family Channel will present a Public Service Announcement with Joe Lando urging teens who need someone to talk to or those who know of someone in trouble to call 1-800-SUICIDE. This phone number will connect callers to the NATIONAL HOPE LINE NETWORK, where 20 local crisis centers nationwide are ready to take the calls.
"This is the type of television that most programmers are too skittish to deal with. What I found to be the greatest strength of the film is that it takes a no-nonsense approach in addressing the impact of suicide on peers," explains Dr. Jay Nagdimon, who is the director of the Suicide Prevention Center of the Didi Hirsch Community Mental Health Center. "It was very honest and realistic that the other youngsters felt angry at Isaac. This reaction is common and the show allowed an opportunity for that anger to be dealt with."
"The situation depicted in 'Hope Falls' is very realistic," explains Dr. Elaine Leader, the Executive Director of Teen Line, a teen-to-teen telephone helpline affiliated with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. "It is not uncommon for teens to experience moodiness, depression or the feeling of chaos in their lives. These problems are treatable, when recognized early. However, a serious depression may lead to suicide, so adults need to be aware of the warning signs. Also, since young people readily identify with each other, when a young person commits suicide it can trigger other teens. It's important, therefore, that feelings be dealt with and processed as soon as possible to avoid further tragedies."
Two of television's most successful producers, Emmy-Award winning Michael Braverman ("Chicago Hope" and "Life Goes On") and Doug Schwartz (the international smash "Baywatch"), together with Canadian producer Harold Tichenor ("Night Man") and a star of one of the decade's most enduring series, Joe Lando (Sully of "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman"), bring their considerable creative forces to "Higher Ground," a simmering mix of compelling drama, intense relationships and spectacular action as at-risk teens try to put their lives back together.
Set at a wilderness school in the Pacific Northwest, the series tracks the progress of at-risk teens as their teachers and counselors guide their quest to put their lives back on the right course. All the while, they still cope with crushes, parents, heartbreaks and each other. Showcasing picturesque surroundings and intense, involving storylines, "Higher Ground" boasts an array of fresh new faces, including Hayden Christensen (The Virgin Suicides), A.J. Cook, Meghan Ory (The Darklings), Kyle Downes ("Are You Afraid of the Dark?"), Kandyse McClure (The Spiral Staircase) and Jorge Vargas (Excess Baggage). Higher Ground also stars Jim Byrnes ("Wiseguy," "The Highlander") and Anne Marie Loder ("Due South").
Fox Family Channel, which premiered on August 15, 1998 as a revitalized version of The Family Channel, is a division of International Family Entertainment, Inc. The family-targeted basic cable network available in 75.3 million homes nationwide delivers a dynamic mix of original and acquired series, specials and movies for the entire family. From "Primestar Guide," February, 2000
by Stephen Vincent D'Emidio
A New Fox Family Channel Series Transports Troubled Teens to Higher Grounds. Scott Barringer is a handsome, athletic 16-year old acting out the miserable consequences of his parents' divorce. Shelby Merrick has come away from years of sexual abuse with a profound lack of self-worth. Juliette Waybourne has never been abused, not really. But a family life characterized by instability and perfectionism has made her dangerously self-destructive.
Three "at-risk" kids in desperate need of help – help that will come in a wilderness school in the Pacific Northwest. Though these young people are actually just characters in the new dramatic series Higher Ground, they represent far too many real casualties of modern life.
Higher Ground is the product of two television creator/producers, Michael Braverman (Chicago Hope; Life Goes On) and Douglas Schwartz (Baywatch). The show stars Joe Lando (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) as Peter Scarbrow, a former Wall Street success story who knows what it's like to choose the wrong path.
After a life-changing stay at Mt. Horizon High, a wilderness school for troubled teens run by Louis Markasian (Jim Byrnes), Peter decides to stay on and work with kids. He is joined in the work by counselor Sophie Becker (Anne Marie Loder), who also shares his passion for "extreme" adventure.
Braverman reports that the series was conceived as a way to tackle real-life issues truthfully. "If I could characterize this series as anything at all," he says, "I would call it the ultimate family drama, as we deal with issues such as teen suicide, drug abuse and sexual abuse by following a core group of six kids at the school where about 150 students try to put their lives back together."
Parents should note that the series explores themes that may not be appropriate for children. "It is an extraordinarily intensive, issue-oriented teen and adult drama," Braverman says. "Most of the characters are based on actual people."
Airs Fridays on Fox Family Channel from the "Newark Star Ledger," January 22, 2000
Q & A
with Steve Hedgepeth
Lando has a new role and a new look
Joe Lando is back, and he's taken a tomawhawk to this hair. Lando - best known for his six years (1993-98) as hippie-haired mountain man Sully on the defunct western series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman - has undergone tress reduction for his new Fox Family series, Higher Ground, Fridays at 9 p.m. Lando remains a bit of a mountain man - his Higher Ground character, Peter Scarbrow, is the rugged headmaster of an Outward Bound-like program for troubled kids in the Great Northwest. Recently, Lando, 38, has moved to British Columbia, where the series is shot, with his wife, Kristen, and toddler son, Jack.
Q: So where have you been since Dr. Quinn ended?
A: Well, it wasn't like people were beating down my door. After a series, after being attached to a character for a long time, there's a cool-down period, at least a year. So I tried to develop three different projects, trying to plant seeds in the independent film business, in major motion pictures and in TV films. I also had a son during that period, so I became preoccupied with my son and my wife, learning how to be a father and a family man, something I put off for years because I wanted to create a solid career. In our jobs as actors, you have too much work one day and not enough the other. So I tried to feast on work as long as I could, so I wouldn't have to worry about security. Finally, Paramount came to me with Higher Ground, from the creator and producer of Baywatch, and they told me what they wanted the show to be, and I told them what I wanted - to be executive producer and to have some control. On Quinn I was just a gun-for-hire, but I wanted a show with the writing and drama that I was looking for.
Q: You play these rugged outdoors types, but you're from Chicago. How does this gibe?
A: I always was a lover of the outdoors. Every weekend my father took me fishing or camping At one point we moved way outside the city and I took up hiking. I love to go off with a backpack and be in the woods and just get my head together. In fact, when the role in Quinn came up, I was off in the mountains. I got sent the script, read it and loved the part. Then I spent the next six years with the great outdoors as my office. I used to watch the sun come up and thank God I had such a wonderful job.
Q: In Higher Ground, you teach troubled kids. Were you a troublemaker growing up?
A: I came from a very good home, with three generations living there, which is great for a child. But there was a 10-year gap between my older sister and me, and she was a perfect child. Then here comes Joe. I had too much energy and too much spirit for my parents to handle. I came to the world like a little Tasmanian devil. I got kicked out of high school. I was just in trouble and trouble and trouble. I needed a creative outlet, but I didn't know what to do. My firlfriend in high school, Alison LaPlaca (The John Larroquette Show) was an actress, and I lived vicariously through her. It wasn't until I moved out on my own to Los Angeles, out into the cold cruel world with $400 in my pocket, that I took up acting. I struggled for a long, long time, living in my car. My parents taught me one thing - to have a backbone, to fight and keep looking forward.
Q: Was it hard handling fame when Dr. Quinn became a cult hit?
A: I had a harder time going from living in total obscurity to getting the role in (the ABC soap opera) One Life to Live. I had been working in a restaurant, making $20,000 a year and all of a sudden I'm making 20 grand a month. And soap opera fans are different from nighttime fans. You're in their living rooms every day. There were 10, 20 fans waiting outside the studio all day long. Or you go to soap opera conventions and have people scream like it's the Beatles. That blew me away. At the same time I thought about John Lennon living at the Dakota. I got a little paranoid. I'm a private person, and that was a huge thing for me. It messed with my mind for a while. But I learned an important lesson. Don't let this job make you who you are. I see people who make the job who they are, and the job goes away, they're nothing and that's why you have so much messed-up actors.
Q: How was your working relationship with Jane Seymour during Quinn?
A: We had chemistry that you cannot manufacture. Hollywood takes stars and throws them together, but sometimes you feel that these people have nothing going on together. Jane and I had chemistry, and that's golden. I learned a ton from Jane. from the "Sarasota Herald-Tribune," January 14, 2000
'Higher Ground' elevates Fox Family Channel Since Fox took over the Family Channel a few years ago, it hasn't made much of a splash in the channel's original programming, other than some forgettable TV movies appropriately designed for a family audience.
Tonight, the network strives for something better, or should I say, Higher Ground, a new hour-long dramatic series about troubled high school students who have a chance to regroup.
Joe Lando, once the long-haired hunky co-star on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, looks like a different person as the short-haired Peter Scarbrow, the director of Mt. Horizon, a progressive school for kids in danger of ruining their lives through violence, drugs and other problems.
The series, which makes its debut at 9 p.m. today on the Fox Family Channel, focuses on Peter's efforts to help his charges, who live in cabins amid beautiful mountain scenery. It's an Outward Bound- type environment, where nature hikes and other outdoor activities are supposed to help the kids focus on achieving goals and working together, while allowing them to deal with whatever emotional problems led them into trouble in the first place.
The viewers enter this unusual, financially struggling school, along with the newest student, Scott Barringer, a high-school football star who got thrown off the team for abusing drugs. We get hints, in shadowy flashbacks, of some of the problems at home with a stern father who was probably more interested in his young and flirtatious second wife than his son.
Scott is practically kidnapped for the trip to Mt. Horizon, where he is searched for drugs and weapons. The program's rules are no drugs, no sex, no violence.
While Scott's processing continues, we also watch a mini- adventure among some of the other students, who are canoeing and hiking along a river.
The series is produced by Michael Braverman (Chicago Hope and Life Goes On) and Doug Schwartz (Baywatch), and you can see elements of their past series. There's an earnest quality to the show, akin to Life Goes On, mixed with the outdoor adventure (minus the skin) of Baywatch.
Lando is kind and compassionate in the premiere, which takes time to introduce most of the main characters, including a rainbow of children and several equally caring teachers.
The drama is somewhat lacking tonight, but that's too often the case in pilots when so many characters need to be introduced to the viewers. But Higher Ground does try for something socially responsible. Who knows, if people turn off "Who Wants to be a Millionaire," it might even make a difference in some kid's life.
TUNE IN from "The Tuscaloosa News," January 14, 2000
NEW DRAMA HAS A VIEW BUT LITTLE SUBSTANCE Which TV drama inspired FAM's newest drama series, Higher Ground (premiering at 8), about troubled teens at a remote boarding school in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest? Do I hear Dawson's Creek"
Set in a rural section of the Pacific Northwest, Higher Ground -- a.k.a "Dawson's Mountain" -- has gorgeous teens working out their problems with the help of a brutually handsome headmaster (Joe Lando). Everyone looks fabulous -- sculpted and bronze.
The teens deliver histrionics while the teachers state the obvious. This all occurs against the background of wilderness hikes. The acting never matches up to the mountain scenery.
In the premiere, audiences meet the regulars in all their stereotypical beauty. There's a bulimic beauty queen, a gang member, a wisecracking street kid, a brooding rich kid, and a former high school football star with a dark secret.
Each week the staff tries to help the students overcome their psychological problems while the teachers contend with demons of their own. Just what the small screen needed -- more teenage angst. from the Los Angeles Times, Friday, January 14, 2000 Television Review - Can It Take Teen Fare to Higher Ground First things first: Joe Lando, star and co-executive producer of the new Friday night Fox teen series Higher Ground, has cropped to a fare-thee-well the flowing locks he sported as 19th century hunk Sully on Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. He isn't wearing those buckskins, either.
Lando's new ear-baring 'do and revealing sleeveless T's give him a buff and edgy look as Peter, a post-rehab former Wall Street high-flier climbing back from the substance-abuse skids as headmaster at a tough-love, wilderness high school for "at-risk" teenagers.
This one-hour original prime-time dramatic series from the Fox Family Channel, its first, is also helmed by, among others, executive producers Michael Braverman (creator of ABC's Life Goes On) and Baywatch co-creator Douglas Schwartz. If anything of those shows' sensibilities can be said to be reflected here it's an earnest approach to teens' disturbing real-life problems mixed with Lando's macho appeal, hyper-aware teen sexuality and glossy, eye- catching young stars. It also has the requisite hip cynicism and brooding angst of so many teen shows on TV.
In the first episode, directed by David Straiton and written by Braverman, Peter learns that the progressive school, Mt. Horizon, a labor of love for its founder Frank (Jim Byrnes), is facing foreclosure. Meanwhile, a group of its students, with varying psychological and substance abuse problems, are on a challenging mountain trek, and a deeply troubled new student, Scott (Hayden Christensen), arrives. He's forcibly brought by his father, a school counselor, and his father's sexy young "trophy wife."
Scott's father hopes that the school will stop his ex-football star son's seemingly inexplicable slide into failing grades, drug use and disrespect.
This continuing story line, with its intimations of Scott's secret seduction as a young teenager by his father's wife, is fraught with exploitative potential. Unlike the leering approach similar shows have taken, Higher Ground handles it with promising sensitivity. The consequences of the seduction for Scott--anger, confusion, grief and guilt--seem to be real-world consequences.
If the series can maintain that integrity, and if the other characters' problems are explored with the same spark of truth, it may transcend its predictability--and turn out to be aptly named.
Higher Ground - Fox Family Channel, Fridays at 9 p.m. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children). from "Variety" - January 14, 2000
Higher Ground
Filmed in Vancouver, B.C., by Lions Gate Television, Crescent Entertainment and Paramount TV. Executive producers, Frank Giustra, Harold Tichenor, Matt Hastings, Michael Braverman, Doug Schwartz; co-executive producer, Joe Lando; producer, George Horie; director, David Straiton; writer, Michael Braverman.
Peter Scarbrow ........Joe Lando Who knew that the life of at-risk teens at an “emotional growth” school could be so photogenic? The creators of Fox Family’s new original drama “Higher Ground” have come up with a new spin on the old yarns about troubled youth and their concerned counselors. It’s like putting the attractive cast of “Dawson’s Creek” in a pristine woodsy setting and giving them all a lot of baggage and traumas. They may be hooked on speed, but all they need is love. Really.
Exec produced by Michael Braverman (“Chicago Hope”) and Douglas Schwartz (“Baywatch”), series pilot introduces auds to Mount Horizon’s headmaster Peter Scarbrow, a recovering addict, who loves climbing treacherous mountains — a painfully obvious metaphor for his approach to helping his students.
The wilderness school is also seen through the eyes of new student Scott Barringer (Hayden Christensen), an athletic, pouting fellow whose life has turned into hell because of a family secret and a bad drug habit. Needless to say, the caring headmaster feels his pain and will go out of his way to exorcise the golden boy’s demons in the show’s first outing.
The other members of the multicultural student body suffer from one-note personalities. By the time we get to know the blonde bad girl, the sensitive ex-gangbanger, the bulimic beauty and the lovestruck nerd, older viewers may find themselves flashing back to “The Breakfast Club.” Maybe Molly Ringwald can do a guest spot in a future episode as a visiting counselor or somebody’s abusive mother.
The role of headmaster, however, fits actor Joe Lando like a glove. Newly shorn of the locks he used to sport on “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” thesp is pretty comfortable in his scenes with the younger cast members. It’s a given that the producers will hook him up sooner or later with one of his comely female colleagues, Sophie (Anne Marie Loder) or Hannah (Deborah Odell).
Despite opener’s well-meaning, predictable storyline, show may prove to be popular with its target audience. The high-energy music and smoothly edited sequences are reminiscent of MTV’s signature shows “The Real World” and “Road Rules,” and the towering pines and rippling rivers of the show’s Vancouver-area locations are definitely a feast for the eyes.
One question, however, remains after screening the first episode: What’s up with the kids’ immaculately arranged, super clean sleeping quarters? Who’s the maid — Martha Stewart?
Casting, Corrine Clark, Wendy O’Brien; production designer, Jillian Scott; director of photography, Tony Westman; editor, Daria Ellerman; music, Ferocious Fish; art director, Liz Goldwyn; costume designer, Crystine Booth; music supervisor, Matthew B. Safran. 60 MIN.
By RAMIN ZAHED from the "Boston Herald," Thursday, January 13, 2000 TELEVISION; Lando hopes 'Higher Ground' is new career peak Higher Ground is a particularly apt name for Joe Lando's new series. After all, the pointed peak to which the hour long drama aspires is a higher ratings niche for the still-struggling Fox Family network.
For Lando, 38, it's throwing his Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman clout into another upbeat, uplifting, family-friendly show. For Fox Family, Higher Ground has prime importance as the first series the fledgling network has fielded.
"It's been about two years since Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman went off," said Lando, who had smoothly segued from daytime soap hunk to nighttime series discovery as sensitive, pony-tailed Byron Sully opposite Jane Seymour's Dr. Quinn.
With Lando's return to prime-time television as star and executive producer of Higher Ground tomorrow at 9 p.m., the ponytail is gone but the hunky sympathetic shoulders-to-cry-on remain steadfast.
"I got fat and rich doing Dr. Quinn and I had to train really hard for this. I was a slob who had to go back in the gym and work my butt off to get into shape," he said, laughing, from the Vancouver house he bought and renovated with his wife and 19-month-old son. "I do most of my stunts. I can't do the climbing on 3,000-foot cliffs for insurance reasons but I do a few hundred feet - which is plenty enough to kill you."
Lando stars as Peter Scarbrow, youth counselor and director of Mt. Horizon, a special school for troubled teens located high in California's picturesque Rockies - which, as it happens, lets Peter indulge in his passion for mountain climbing. "It was my idea to have him climb. It's a metaphor for what he climbs every day, sobriety. He's a junkie who's replaced alcohol with better things."
Here - along with the school's grizzled founder (Jim Byrnes) and a potential romantic interest (Anne Marie Loder) - Lando's Peter struggles to give his charges a "safe" haven where they can assess what's gone wrong in their lives.
"I was developing projects on my own and Paramount International came with Cliff Hangers, which becameHigher Ground. I took a big chance," the actor said. "I didn't want it to be gratuitous with the outdoor action stuff."
In the nine months that followed that first meeting, as Cliff Hangers evolved into Higher Ground the show became more like the WB network's family-values shows with Gregory Harrison and Stephen Collins. Instead of focusing on Peter's mountain-climbing, cougars in the woods or rickety bridges, Higher Ground will emphasize the emotional travails of Mt. Horizon's troubled teens, with Lando their sometimes wise, always caring mentor. Essential was casting Hayden Christensen, a Ryan Phillippe-lookalike, as Scott, Horizon's photogenic but troubled newest resident.
Important, too, was the behind-the-scenes clout brought by two series veterans: Michael Braverman, who created the award-winning family series Life Goes On, and Baywatch Executive Producer Douglas Schwartz. And Fox Family ponied up an expensive 22-episode commitment instead of the usual, more cautious, 13.
"It's not that the show doesn't have action but when we went to visit these schools for dysfunctional teens in the research process, we came up with these incredible stories," Lando said. "Yes, you're in a beautiful place and the backdrop is incredible, but it's the writing Braverman's brought to the show that has been so good."
For Lando, the decision to reprise an "essence" of Sully from Dr. Quinn is just common sense. "I kept that in mind when I chose this. Although I do different things when I make a movie-of-the-week, that's different than a series where I want to carry some of that 'Dr. Quinn' audience with me.
"That's what makes you an asset and I didn't want to disappoint the fans who will tune in. I don't want to play Sully or do a western again, but the messages Sully put out were positive and he'd seen different aspects of life and came out a wiser person." from the "LA Daily News" - January 13, 2000 An uphill climb - Higher Ground' scaling a mountain of teen angst
Higher Ground, the Fox Family Channel's first venture into dramatic series television, has a title with vague religious overtones and is all about redemption yet strives for a tough-minded edge. The cast is cluttered with pretty yet moody, telegenic faces just waiting to break out on the next cover of Teen People.
The show itself reflects such schizophrenic ambitions. It's a more dour Welcome Back Cotter for the extreme-sports generation. Joe Lando, late of Dr.Quinn, Medicine Woman, stars as Peter Scarbrow, the head of Mount Horizon, a wilderness camp nestled in a gorgeous pocket of the Pacific Northwest that caters to troubled kids (good kids should rate a camp so nice). He has a past himself, as they say, so is able to relate to his passel of rebellious kids.
The pilot episode introduces us to the camp's latest troubled kid - Scott Baringer (Hayden Christensen), a former high-school football hero who descended into drug use, emotionally wrecked by his lithesome stepmother's furtive enforced dalliances. While being transported to the camp, he's accompanied by a security guard who apparently has never been hipped to the "climb out the bathroom window at the gas station" trick, which kills some time before we get to the clump of exposition introducing those at the camp. Mount Horizon boasts a demographically diverse group of kids - it's interesting how shows aimed at teens and kids, like this and the bulk of programming on Nickelodeon, can manage to have racially diverse casts when adult network fare can't manage the same thing. Shelby (A.J. Cook) is the promiscuous tease. Juliette (Meghan Ory) is bulimic. Ezra (Kyle Downs) is a shy guy who almost overdosed when his parents went through a nasty divorce. Katherine (Kandyse McClure) is conflicted by her racial identity. (Jorge Vargas) is a dyslexic tagger). Naturally they're all a lot more sensitive than the tough exteriors they try to show the world.
At Mount Horizon, the kids enjoy lots of adventurous outings - one falls into the rapids and has to be fished out by the others in an action sequence accompanied by the requisite pulsating music - yet Scott is resistant to the place. Why? Why, given any teen-ager's alternative - regular high school and hanging out with their parents - would any kid have a problem with this scenic camp?
Maybe it's mount Horizon's ground rules - no drugs, sex or violence. And this is a TV series?
Really, there's only so far this series can take us, unless it gets truly daring and tackles headlong abuse and other issues, which lead kids like these to their assorted problems, without whitewashing them. Certainly, younger viewers aren't going to care much about Peter's romantic complications. Unfortunately, the pilot seems to suggest that the show will be content merely to show Peter as a cool older guy who's into rock-climbing and communicating with TV-pretty kids about vague disaffection and shooting the rapids. Which seems more high concept than Higher Ground.
David Kronke from TV Guide for Ultimate Cable for MediaOne Customers, January, 2000 Joe Lando's Happy Landing
Dr. Quinn's Mountain Man Moves to Higher Ground, his edgy new series about teens in trouble
For a guy so conscientious he'd mapped out fallback career plans before graduating from high school (he figured he'd open a restaurant if acting didn't map out): Joe Lando has gone through some whirlwind changes lately. In the past 18 months, the 38 year old actor's seen the abrupt cancellation of his five-year old hit series Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, the birth of his first child, Jack, and a move from Los Angeles to Vancouver to star in Higher Ground, Fox Family Channel's new family adventure drama. He also cut off the sexy, shoulder-length locks he wore for five seasons as Sully, the stoic mountainman husband of Dr. Mike (Jane Seymour) on the CBS show.
So, on an emotionally demanding day on the Higher Ground set, it's understandable when he balks at yet another change in plans. "Did we have to do this today?" he asks, sinking into a chair between takes, clearly irritated at a last-minute interview. "I mean, couldn't we have waited, instead of doing this half assed?"
Sully may have been a man of few words, but Lando is surpsingly outspoken. On Dr. Quinn, the onetime soap star, (One Life to Live and Guiding Light) tangled with producers so much during the drama's final seasons that he was almost written out of the show. Now, on Higher Ground, in which he plays a recovering drug addict and the head counsellor for a group of troubled teens at a wilderness school, Lando has exhibited a similarly headstrong streak.
"When they pitched this series to me, I said, ‘One, we don't use stock action footage and, two, don't make into a Brady Bunch dad,'" he says, bounding up the stairs to his trailer, his mood buoyed by the yelped greetings of his two black Border collies, Emma and Billie. "I told them I want to be hip and in control," he says, wrestling with the dogs for a minute and flashing a snapshot of his wife of two and half years, Kirsten and his baby son before settling into one of the trailer's velour swivel chairs. "And," he adds, "I also told them I don't want to stand around in the background for another five years."
That's not likely, given that Lando has top billing and the title of executive producer on the show.
With its evocative Pacific Northwest setting, teenage ensemble cast and gritty stories confronting such issues as drug use, bulimia and sexual abuse, Higher Ground aims to go where few family series have gone. "This isn't like other teen series that look like a Victoria's Secret catalog, with kids jumping into bed with each other," Lando says. In the show, he plays Peter Scarbrow, a former high-flying New York stockbroker who has lost it all and become the director of Mt. Horizon, a wilderness school that's modelled on a growing number of special schools for abused and troubled teenagers. "We're trying to do a show about making something of yourself, not about sex."
"This is not Dick Van Dyke, but a very edgy family show," agrees executive producer Michael Braverman, the Emmy-nominated creator of Life Goes On and a former executive producer of Beverly Hills, 90210. "Several of our producers have had personal experience with these schools, and we've tried to make the series as realistic as possible," he says, adding that he and Lando visited several wilderness schools prior to filming. "And Joe is no Sully, but a recovering addict and ersatz father to a lot of damaged kids."
It was the chance to play a character who was more complex and assertive than the strong, silent cowboy on Dr. Quinn that drew Lando to the series. "Sully was really a romance-novel character, and Peter is much more realistic and much closer to who I am," he notes. Ditto to the role of executive producer. "This is a whole new creative outlet for me wheer we can change things in day," Lando says. That's a far cry from his experience on Dr. Quinn where he butted heads with producers. Relations were so prickly by the fifth season that Lando was all but replaced by John Schneider. "They told me they were going to play "Where's Waldo? with my character, because I was not happy with what was going down on the show," Lando recalls. "But we were losing our audience, and I thought we should be edgier. Also, I thought that Sully should be strong as well as sensitive and stand up for himself."
Despite tensions on the set, Dr. Quinn's last minute cancellation came as a shock. Lando says "I had just started construction on a new house in Arizona, so I had to make the most embarrassing phone call of my life and say, "wait a minute."
Not that Lando hadn't seen plenty of downtime in his career. A Chicago native, the only son of Joseph Lando Sr., the owner of a fishing-tackle company, and Virginia, a homemaker, the young Lando moved to L.A. after high school intent on becoming an actor. But he spent almost ten years working as a restaurant chef and bit player - he served as a pizza-making consultant on the Kevin Kline movie, I Love You To Death - before becoming a series regular on ABC's One Life to Live in 1990. "Joe always had a plan for his life," recalls his former high-school girlfriend, actress Alison LaPlaca (The John Larroquette Show), "But he wound up being a later bloomer."
Lando says he appreciates his long wait for stardom. "I wouldn't have been able to handle the succcess if I was younger," he says. The cancellation of Dr. Quinn turned out to be blessing in disguise as well, he says, "Sure, I questioned their judgement, but the network is doing great. Besides I would never have gotten to spend the first year of my son's life at home if we hadn't gotten cancellled."
Now, with his new series, as well as new dream house that Lando and his wife renovated in Vancouver (including a "kick-ass kitchen"), Lando seems to have moved to higher ground himself. "I know the fans were upset about the cancellation of Dr. Quinn, but those fans can come this show and find something new in me," he says.
But he's not resting on his laurels, "I'm already workin on the next plan," he says with a laugh. If all else fails, Lando says, he'll go back to his old dream of owning an upscale restaurant in L.A. "I'd like a place where I'm the owner and know I can always get a seat."
by Hilary de Vries
from the Chicago Tribune, January 9, 2000 The Fox Family Channel Series "Higher Ground" debuts at 8 p.m. Starring Joe Lando ("Dr. Quinn") it follows a group of at-risk kids enrolled at Mount Horizon, an emotional growth school set in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest.
8 pm, FAM Premiere: Higher Ground. Joe Lando returns to series television, playing Peter Scarbrow, the headmaster and chief administrator of Mt. Horizon High, a rustic Pacific Northwest school for at-risk teens founded by Frank Markasian. A recovering addict, Peter lost his marriage and Wall Street career and now dedicates his life to helping teens in trouble. from the Washington Post, January 9, 2000
Friday on Fox Family Channel at 9 p.m., the debut of the series "Higher Ground" with Joe Lando in an action drama about a school for troubled teens in the Pacific Northwest. The second hour of the premiere episode airs Wednesday, Jan. 19, at 10 p.m. from the New York Times, January 9, 2000
Joe Lando (with Anne Marie Loder) plays a former Wall Street whiz who runs a school for troubled teenagers in the new series Higher Ground
FAM 9:00 p.m. 9 -10 PM Rating is a B. |
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman's Joe Lando (minus his tresses) and Highlander's Jim Byrnes play guys who run a high school for troubled teens. The bigger attraction, though, is that the show also stars the artist soon to be known as Anakin Skywalker - Toronto's Hayden Christensen.
from Entertainment Weekly, January 14, 2000