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"It is a family, so working with everyone again is like a reunion," says Dakota House, who returns to the role of Teevee Tenia in Dream Storm, the fourth and latest TV movie based on the series. It airs tonight at 8 p.m.
Writer Andrew Wreggitt, who's currently working on the new CBC detective series Tom Stone being shot in Calgary, says Dream Storm is a lot more spiritual than previous outings. For his part, House says it's his favourite of the four movies they've made so far.
Wreggitt says he got the idea after having a conversation about how Natives view the land. "It's part of who they are. They're tied to the land. When they lose touch with it, they lose touch with their community." As well, he says, in the Native culture, "The dreaming and waking worlds carry equal weight."
If that sounds cryptic, so does the movie, which was shot in the Bragg Creek area last summer. In it, the body of a trapper from the nearby community of Swan Landing washes up on the banks of Lynx River while the two towns are fighting bitterly over a new gas pipeline.
At the same time, Lynx River's children are succumbing to a mysterious illness.
Add to this, the home of the town's "prince of darkness" Albert Golo -- which burned down four years ago -- mysteriously bursts into flames again, causing mass hysteria and panic.
Wreggitt says they were deliberately seeking to do something different from what fans might expect. "We wanted something different to offer our audience. And we wanted to stretch ourselves."
When House first landed the role of Teevee, he was 18 years old and had barely been acting for six months. His much-publicized run-ins with the law, he says now, "were blown out of proportion."
Now 27, he teaches acting in Edmonton and has his own production company. House remembers being so overwhelmed by the sudden success of the series that he nearly quit during its second year. "(Series star Tom Jackson) took me under his wing ... Working with these actors, them showing me the ropes, I settled into it."
"The interest in the show seems virtually insatiable," says Wreggitt. "Part of that continuing interest is due to CBC airing the show in the afternoon."
That means the series, which ran for 90 episodes, will spawn more movies in the future, he adds.
"There is a script for another movie that CBC has ordered and we'll probably shoot it in the coming year."