[fm]: Tuned in: Discovery revs up ‘Harley’ miniseries

Discovery Channel debuts its second scripted miniseries, “Harley and the Davidsons” (9 p.m. Monday through Wednesday next week), the story of two immigrant families who founded the famed Harley-Davidson motorcycle company in 1903 in a Milwaukee shed.

Monday’s premiere introduces the primary characters, Walter (Michiel Huisman) and Arthur Davidson (Robert Aramayo), and engineer Bill Harley (Bug Hall, “The Little Rascals”), and their struggles developing and breaking into the motorcycle business.

“Davidson-Harley has a ring to it,” Arthur says in one of those lines in a period drama that’s meant to wink at the audience.

Discovery Channel group president Rich Ross said a trailer for the miniseries received more views than any “Shark Week” trailer, and the goal of the miniseries is to “widen the scope of the network and venture into a select number of scripted series, but these projects must align with our core brand built in the pillars of exploration, science, technology and history.”

Mr. Huisman, who’s appeared on “Nashville,” “Game of Thrones” and “Orphan Black,” said the three founders stand out as individuals who complemented one another.

“I don't think the company could have become what it became without any one of them,” he said at an August Discovery Channel press conference during the TV critics’ summer press tour. “They really needed each other.”

Mr. Hall, best known for playing Alfala in the 1994 “Little Rascals” movie, agreed.

“It's a really great example of how three very different minds can come together on something,” Mr. Hall said. “Their love for each other was more unifying, I think, even more than the machine that they made. But just their differences [are] what really molded and sculpted this amazing thing.”

Executive producer Dimitri Doganis said the Harley-Davidson company opened its archives while the miniseries was written and descendants of the founders agreed to be interviewed.

“We then were very independent in terms of how the scripts were put together and how the stories were put together,” Mr. Doganis said. “We were then entirely editorially independent of the company. There was no financial arrangement or editorial control or anything of that nature, but we were, as much as is humanly possible, [trying] to be respectful of the historical facts and everything we had learned about the bikes, the characters and the company.”

One key aspect of making “Harley and the Davidsons” was building working motorcycles resembling those created by the company’s founders at the start of the 20th century.

“When we started, we had to make the decision whether we were going to make the engines from scratch or try and use something that exists,” said bike fabricator Alex Wheeler. “And there's just nothing out there that looks remotely like a 1903 Harley Davidson motor. So we took a very big, brave decision to actually manufacture the motors from scratch, and they were built in South Africa from billet aluminum. And we worked from pictures, and we brought it to the best guy we could until we came up with the bikes that we saw on screen.”

Actor Gabriel Luna, who plays motorcycle racer Eddie Hasha, praised the work of the South African engineers who used reference photographs and guidelines provided by the Harley-Davidson company to build the film’s period motorcycles.

“They're steel bikes, steel frames, not shocks, leather belt drives,” he said. “The whole shoot was setting out to do impossible things and then the movie gods [were] shining on us and [we were] actually accomplishing those things. But it wasn't without hard work and great engineering by Alex and all of our engineers.”

Kept/canceled

Netflix officially renewed summer buzz magnet “Stranger Things” for a nine-episode second season to debut in 2017.

Freeform serial “Pretty Little Liars” will wrap up with its 10-episode seventh season, due to premiere in April 2017.

NBC’s “Grimm” will return for its sixth and final season Jan. 6.

Local 9/11 programs

For the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, WQED-TV will air Somerset native Laura Beachy’s “We Were Quiet Once” (8 p.m. Thursday), which looks at three residents preparing for the 10th anniversary of the crash of United Flight 93 in the Somerset countryside.

The next edition of WTAE’s “Chronicle” looks at “15 Years after Flight 93” (8 p.m. Wednesday).

New ‘Daniel Tiger’

New episodes of PBS’s “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood” debut each day next week at 9 a.m. on WQED-TV and new digital content, including a “Classroom Helpers” game, will be available next week at pbskids.org and on the free PBS Kids Games app.

New DVDs of episodes from “Daniel” from the South Side-based Fred Rogers Company will be released on Sept. 13 (“You Are Special, Daniel Tiger!”) and Oct. 11 (“Daniel’s Winter Wonderland”); “Odd Squad: Creature Encounters” arrives on DVD Sept. 13.

And FRC’s “Peg + Cat” will debut a new episode, “The Eid al-Adha Adventure” (10:30 a.m. Sept. 12, WQED-TV), about the Muslim holiday devoted to giving.

Channel surfing

“CBS Sunday Morning” host Charles Osgood will retire after the Sept. 25 edition, ending a 22-year run. … Showtime will debut the documentary “Weiner,” about disgraced former New York congressman Anthony Weiner, at 9 p.m. Oct. 22. … Next week’s episode of Investigation Discovery’s “Betrayed” (9 p.m. Wednesday), “Dancing with Death,” explores the 1979 murder of a Monaca secretary — and the years it took to bring her killer to justice using DNA evidence — which was chronicled by local author Steve Hallock in his 2015 book “Justice Delayed: The Catherine Janet Walsh Story” ($14.95, The Artists’ Orchard).

Tuned In online
Today's TV Q&A column responds to questions about local news anchor salaries, 9/11 coverage plans and fall TV. This week's Tuned In Journal includes posts on “Stinky & Dirty,” “Cleveland Hustles” and “You’re the Worst.”




By: Rob Owen (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).

Photo: Notey.

Review: Emerging Market Formulations & Research Unit, FLAGSHIP RECORDS.

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