Never mind that it hasn’t come out yet.
asserted
it → mind → ?
On the intrigue of its trailer alone, “Yaga” already has fans dissecting screenshots, piecing together clues and concocting theories.
asserted
fans → have → theories
And Kat Sandler, writer and showrunner of the forthcoming Crave series, is watching it happen on these message boards with glee.
asserted
it → watch → glee
“I’ve already seen people trying to figure out what the necklace that one character is wearing in the trailer is,” she said.
asserted
she → see → trailer
It’s really amazing.”
asserted
It → ’ → ?
It’s just a cross necklace — and while that’s important, in a way, it’s not some “Da Vinci Code” clue that breaks open the mystery of why a rich kid living in a college town by the sea has suddenly disappeared without a trace.
asserted
kid → ’ → trace
Other theories she’s seen, though?
asserted
she → see → ?
There is one other reason people might be furiously zooming in on the trailer: it’s Hudson Williams’ neck this necklace adorns.
uncertain
necklace → be → trailer
Williams, who shot to global stardom with last year’s Crave smash “Heated Rivalry,” plays two characters: Henry, the missing college student, and Logan, his roommate and doppelganger.
asserted
who → shoot → characters
“Hudson has brought an incredible amount of eyes to the show, and that makes me so excited because I know that the show can hold those eyes,” said Sandler, who is full of praise for the Kelowna-born actor.
asserted
who → bring → actor
“He’s a true artist, and an incredible collaborator who really lets everyone shine.
asserted
everyone → ’ → ?
Sandler likes to compare the cast — which includes Carrie-Anne Moss as a mysterious, magnetic professor, Noah Reid as a questionable private detective and Clark Backo as his skeptical local police foil — to a “Canadian Avengers” of acting.
asserted
which → like → acting
“The show really kicked into high gear when Carrie-Anne signed on, and then it became, ‘Can we collect the Pokémon cards of Canadian icons?’,” Sandler said.
asserted
Sandler → kick → icons
“We have an intergenerational team of epic Canadian talent.
asserted
We → have → talent
Hudson is the perfect soupçon of sparkle to add to it.”
asserted
Hudson → add → it
The show grew out of an award-winning play that Sandler wrote in 2017, itself inspired by a love of fairy tales she developed as a kid with asthma whose mom spent a lot of time reading to her when she had her inhaler mask on.
asserted
mask → grow → her
“As I got older, I started to feel that maybe the witches and the monsters and the villains were having a little bit more fun than the princesses and the heroes, whose only job is to get together and have babies,” she says.
asserted
she → get → babies
“I started to drill down into this idea of, What makes a monster? And can you have a really entertaining female villain that doesn’t necessarily have to be likeable?
asserted
that → start → villain
Around that time, she was talking to an actress friend who remarked, “There’s a time in a woman’s life when she becomes invisible.
asserted
she → talk → life
Men and society just stop seeing you.”
asserted
Men → stop → you
Sandler wondered what it might look like if that invisibility was weaponized.
uncertain
invisibility → wonder → what
Throw in the Baba Yaga myth from Slavic folklore, about a morally unpredictable old woman who lives in a house built on chicken feet in the woods, and she found a vehicle for examining what it might look like for a woman to live entirely on her own terms — good, evil or both.
uncertain
woman → throw → terms
“It’s genre-bending,” says Backo.
asserted
Backo → ’ → ?
“It’s thriller, mythology, folklore, detective whodunnit that kind of has a bit of an ‘80s feel to it.”
asserted
that → ’ → it
Tonally, Reid likens it to “Widow’s Bay,” Apple’s recent hit horror-comedy.
asserted
Reid → liken → Bay
“One of Kat’s strengths as a writer is that she’s a great comedic writer, and she was interested in pushing this kind of thriller, mystical, dark, witchy vibe.
asserted
she → ’ → thriller
Our show depends on the moment.”
asserted
show → depend → moment
The cast spent a lot of time discussing tone on set on Vancouver Island, where they filmed in the Greater Victoria Area.
asserted
they → spend → Area
“Moment to moment, beat to beat, what’s our tone within this scene?,” says Reid.
asserted
Reid → ’ → scene
“And then how can we fold that into the next thing, so we are keeping an audience engaged and a little off balance.
asserted
we → fold → balance
We’re mixing our pitches a little bit.”
asserted
We → mix → pitches
Between takes, on the other hand, it seems to have been pure warmth.
asserted
it → seem → hand
“We’re very chatty.
asserted
We → ’re → ?
That’s how we get to know each other, between action and cut
asserted
we → ’ → action
,” says Moss, before Reid adds that he and Backo mostly tried to make her laugh as much as possible.
asserted
her → say → ?
“They made me cry many times with laughter.
asserted
me → make → laughter
They’re so sweet.
asserted
They → ’re → ?
But don’t be fooled by the cast camaraderie and Canadian bona fides: this is a show that goes there — thematically, spookily, and in its depictions of onscreen intimacy — which is exactly what Sandler intended.
asserted
Sandler → fool → what
“We’re standing on the shoulders of ‘Heated Rivalry,’ and I’ll be eternally grateful to those folks,” she says.
asserted
she → stand → folks
“At every step of the way, everyone on the show was asking, ‘How can we push it further?
asserted
we → ask → it
…and 4 more, not listed.
The Aporia
