At this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, there was a big presence for the new series Medinah. The series has already completed production on its first 7-episode season, and came to SDCC in hopes of finding a network or streaming service interested in distributing the show.
Medinah, the first ever international sci-fi/fantasy television series from the Middle East, is a new original series created by Qatari filmmaker Ahmed Al Baker developed and realized by the creative team whose credits include JigSaw, Piranha 3D, Caprica, 12 Monkeys, Ghoulies, Battlestar Galactica, Fallen, Drone, Smallville and A Good Day To Die Hard.
The mind-bending series of Medinah, partly set in a near-future Qatar, begins after a rocket, designed to disperse thousands of metric tons of sulfur dioxide into Earth’s stratosphere to offset the greenhouse effect that has caused the global warming crisis, inexplicably fails and crashes. In the subsequent aftermath, we are introduced to an international cast of survivors – both human, and “human-like”. As they face monsters, nightmares, parallel realities and their own personal demons, these heroes must decide what is most important: Survival? Legacy? Love?
The press room for the series very atypical. When we walked in they had set out plates of sandwiches, chips and pretzels at each of the roundtables, and also had pizza and soda available—we don’t usually get fed at these things, so this was a nice surprise! Instead of the usual roundtable format, the interviews were more on-on-one at the tables. Jason Griffin (TheTVAholic, TVTimesThree) and I decided to pair up for the interviews. First up were actors Hemwant Tiwari (“Ravendra”), Rick Ravanello (“Bannon”), Mohammed Alhamadi (“Isaac”) & Aziz Al-Dorani (“Taif”). Then, when we were joined by another journalist when speaking with Eric Roberts (“Randall”). At the end of the interview the reporter asked for a selfie, and so when Jason asked for a regular photograph, Eric was insistent on selfies all around. As I prepared to take my selfie with Mr Roberts, I suddenly found a pair of hands over my eyes. Once Eric removed his hands I took the photo again…but he was very proud of the first photo. Jason and I closed out the room with an interview with Natasha Henstridge (“Salma”).
