We lift the medical confidentiality of the new STAT

Only Suzanne Clément, alias emergency doctor Emmanuelle St-Cyr, knew what was going on in the busy corridors of Saint-Vincent hospital, whose daily schedule will become weekly at the start of the television season in September.

The other actors in the - medical soap opera learned, shortly before 11 a.m. Thursday, a few minutes before the journalists, that STAT will be installed on Tuesdays at 8 p.m. this fall in a formula of 24 one-hour episodes per year, instead of the 120 half-hours that have electrified our screens for three years.

It was producer Michel Trudeau from Aetios who visited the set of STATin Saint-Hubert, to communicate to the team this important change desired by screenwriter Marie-Andrée Labbé, who does not suffer from professional burnout, but who considers having completed a three-year cycle for her popular daily. I will come back to this below.

During the same busy press conference, - dropped a second cathode bomb: Luc Dionne, known as Monsieur District 31and Nadine Bismuth, the lead writer of the first season ofIndefensible at TVA, are currently making the new daily television series, still produced by Fabienne Larouche, which will replace STAT Monday to Thursday at 7 p.m.

Questioned repeatedly on Thursday, Luc Dionne and Nadine Bismuth refused to reveal the environment in which the characters of their brand new show will evolve. Luc Dionne, who will continue writing Dumas at the same time, be wary of the theft of ideas. He was recently a victim of it and he was furious when a competing series – which he did not identify, despite all my attempts – stole a good flash from him that he had confided to people close to him.

Nadine Bismuth will write the 120 episodes of this daily alone, while Luc Dionne, who found the main subject, will supervise the writing. - has already received the texts for eight 30-minute episodes of this ultra-secret project. The most surprising thing is that after six seasons of District 31Luc Dionne had sworn that he would never again flirt with the draining world of daily newspapers, which had siphoned off all his juice. Here he is back at the keyboard, but in a less energy-intensive role, let’s say.

To return to STATauthor Marie-Andrée Labbé, not at all burned, insists: the future STAT weekly will keep the DNA, the twists, the rhythm and the characters of the STAT daily. “It will be the same STAT that you know. It’s an evolution of the format, with more time to shoot and more money. I do three-year writing cycles. I wrote Too much for three years and Without appointment for three years too. With STATI didn’t feel like I had finished the adventure after three seasons, we hadn’t gotten to the end of this thing,” explains the prolific screenwriter.

Producer Fabienne Larouche, who cements her status as the most influential woman on Quebec television, adds: “it’s a way of bringing STAT otherwise,” she slips. According to Fabienne Larouche, the modification of the format of STAT will not affect the number of filming days allocated to actors.

Suzanne Clément, the heroine of STAT original, obviously crosses into the STAT in the weekly version, like the majority of his colleagues from Saint-Vincent. At least, those who did not perish. “I loved doing everyday work. I tripped. It was a sick wrinkle. Three years, it was perfect,” says the interpreter of Emmanuelle St-Cyr.

Regarding the deaths of social worker Delphine Martin (Virginie Ranger-Beauregard) and psychiatrist Philippe Dupéré (Patrick Labbé), we agree that these “departures” are difficult to avoid in a high-volume television production like STAT. “I wanted to start the year strong. The goal is to surprise people. Yes, it’s heartbreaking and it shakes up the emotions. I knew it was going to hurt, but my goal is to tell a good story,” recalls author Marie-Andrée Labbé.

The arrival of STAT Tuesdays at 8 p.m. postpones to an indefinite date the launch of Danielle Trottier’s next soap opera (With a beating heart, All life), the subject of which remains confidential. And STAT is not the first series to undergo a mid-flight structural overhaul. At -, this notably happened to 4 and a half and to Bad karma.

Luc Dionne knew Nadine Bismuth through his friend Pierre Houle, the director ofOmerta and Bunker, the circus which today supervises the writing of the plots ofIndefensible to VAT. “I like what Nadine does. She writes well, she is a very pleasant person and, like me, she has a little abrasive side,” says Luc Dionne.

Nadine Bismuth was the lead writer for the first chapter ofIndefensiblebut was left out of the second season “for budgetary reasons”. Her daily project with Luc Dionne forces her to abandon the second season ofA family bond that she concocted for -.

It’s also dead and buried for the crime series Innocence Project by Nadine Bismuth, which was not renewed by Noovo.

Last little scoop on STATin closing. After Jean-Philippe Perras, who will don the psychiatrist’s coat at Saint-Vincent hospital in two weeks, it is Emmanuel Bilodeau’s turn to join the cast of the most watched series on Quebec television. The actor will play the character who will temporarily succeed Pascal St-Cyr (Normand D’Amour) as director of professional services at the health establishment.

Will he have backs – and fists? – strong enough to take on the imposing workload of Emmanuelle’s big brother? Only Claude Coupal (Caroline Néron) knows it.