They’re Back, Saving Souls 24-7

Ellen Dubin is one of the leads in a new supernatural drama, The Collector. The series premiered Sunday, January 9th. 2004 at 8:00 PM., local time on City TV – Toronto and City TV – Vancouver

THE COLLECTOR has been soldinternationally to the following countries: Albania, Afghanistan, Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Croatia, Egypt, France, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Oman, Pakistan, People’s Republic of China, Philippines, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Syria, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, United Arab Emirates, Yemen.

THE COLLECTOR series – “The Devil has triumphantly returned, this time to Canadian television—and notwithstanding the cynical pundits who will assume this is a comment levelled at Canada’s writhing television industry—with a few new wrinkles added. Last June, Space: The Imagination Station premiered the first season of The Collector. Created by writing & producing team, Jon Cooksey and Ali Matheson (previously known for Rugrats and So Weird). The Collector is a Canadian supernatural drama — in the tradition of Rod Sterling and the original Twilight Zone — about a man, Morgan Pym, who has been collecting souls for the Devil since 1348. Morgan is one of many such collectors spread across the earth, but the only one who now seeks redemption for those from whom he’s sent to collect. By entering into their lives in an attempt to change their destinies, he hopes to perhaps one day change his own.

WARNING: **SPOILERS**

Canadian actor Chris Kramer plays Morgan Pym, a man born into poverty in Medieval Nuremberg, and raised in a monastery. In 1348, when the Great Plague swept Europe and claimed his one true love—a servant girl named Katrina who began working near the monastery when Morgan was twenty—he made a deal with the Devil: ten years of bliss with Katrina in return for his immortal soul. Morgan took the deal, for himself, for his beloved, and to spit in God’s face. As for the collecting itself, Morgan’s task is simple: to find the person and let them know they have forty-eight hours until their ten years is up, then hang around until the moment comes to suck their soul down to Hell. Why the early warning? The Devil enjoys a good laugh, and watching people squirm for the last forty-eight hours is apparently one of his great pleasures.Each week, the Devil takes a different form, and is played by a different actor, thus Morgan can only “recognize” the Devil when the Devil chooses to reveal himself. This adds to the irony and mystery of the series, for the Devil could be an expectant mother, a child…or the neighbour down the hall.

The series also features Jeri Slate (played by Ellen Dubin), a reporter for the Vancouver Star newspaper. Jeri is smart, attractive, and driven single mom to her eight-year-old son Gabriel (played by Aidan Drummond ), an autistic boy who compulsively draws cars, buses, trucks and trains, and who hasn’t said a word since he was born. (As the series progresses, we’ll discover that Gabe is also the one person who can recognize the Devil in any form.) Raising Gabe alone isn’t what made Jeri tough—she was tough before he was born—but rather what’s made her more patient, as she’s learned to wait for the hoped-for day when Gabe will finally emerge from his private world. Beyond that, the experience has put an idealistic heart under her natural cynicism, partly out of a natural desire to make the world a better place for her son, but partly also to fight back against the unfairness in a world that Gabe’s disability represents—she can’t fight autism, so she fights what battles she can.”