Gracepoint-By-the-Sea

How strange to see Victoria dressed up and masquerading as “America’s Last Hometown”. 

The “television series event” called Gracepoint started its run last week and I’m pretty sure that every TV in town was tuned to channel 8 for that hour. Gracepoint, y’see, was filmed in Victoria and area earlier this year. Based on the UK miniseries Broadchurch, the US version also stars David Tennant, this time sans British accent, and anyone who remembers Twin Peaks will experience a similar sense of déjà vu regarding the story. A smalltown murder victim is discovered on the beach—but who did it? I haven’t seen Broadchurch and I don’t know David Tennant except as my tea fairy Treena’s time-travelling crush from Dr Who, but hey, I saw the film crews setting up across the road from my house. How could I not watch the series?

What an odd feeling. Truly, I was so distracted by Oak Bay Avenue pretending to be Gracepoint’s main street that I missed all the dialogue in the opening scene. Then there’s the beach where the body was found—right below the cliffs where I indulge in the occasional Sunday morning flânerie. Ter and I guessed at Island View Road and maybe Beaver Lake Park, and the waterfront in Sidney figured more prominently than anywhere else as the cop shop was set up in a vacant retail space at the marina.

The GP police crest is still stenciled on the glass doors. I dunno if the series is a one-off or aiming to be picked up (Twin Peaks made the mistake of going fulltime in the 1990s), and I’m not usually so giddy about six degree brushes with fame, but while on Ter’s birthday trip to Sidney, I just had to take this picture. Thank God I don’t have an i-Phone, as a selfie might have been in order.

Gushing notwithstanding, by the end of the first episode, aside from wondering if the interior shots were also filmed locally—the former Blethering Place tearoom, for instance, plays a hotel lobby/lounge—I was absorbed enough by the plot to forget for a moment that while living in the Canadian city of Victoria, British Columbia, I also live in Gracepoint, in Oak County, California, in the good old continental USA.

Does this qualify me for dual citzenship?