PROVIDENTIALLY SPEAKING

Julianna Margulies held a teleconference last week in order to promote her new series on FOX, 'Canterbury Tales'. The series is supposed to take place in Providence, Rhode Island, but you'd only knkow that from the establishing shots, the type of thing used for to con you into thinking 'Boston Legal' was being filmed in Boston, and that 'The Mary Tyler Moore Show' actually was filmed in Minneapolis.

The ruse might have worked if somebody, at least the secondary characters, spoke with Providence accents.

"No, I do not speak with a Rhode Island accent, which was a very conscious decision," Julianna Margulies said. "I think it would have taken away a little bit; people would have been like, huh?"

Margulies believes that "this woman [Elizabeth Canterbury] ended up there; she's not necessarily from there."

So if they weren't going to try to simulate Providence with the accents, why was it chosen? Margulies explained: "Boston has been done, New York has been done – they've all been done. Let's try Rhode Island. And you can double New York as Rhode Island anytime. Rhode Island is just sort of the backdrop of where this takes place and where someone could feasibly have a law firm, as opposed to New York City and Boston. And we didn't want to make it New Jersey."

I can understand that! They probably didn't want people expecting to see the Soprano mob family as clients. And it keeps down the possibility that she might run into her character from 'The Sopranos'.

Well, if they wanted to avoid the problem of accents, and yet stay in the expanded area of NY filming stages, I would have set the series in Hartford, Ct. I'm from Connecticut, so I don't feel as if they have accents up there.

And besides, it'd be a great way to do a crossover with the old 'Judging Amy' series! Oh well, maybe there might be a suggestion that the show is crossing paths with the show 'Providence'......

BCnU!
Toby OB