Wildfire (TV series)

Wildfire
Format	Teen drama
Created by	Michael Piller Christopher Teague
Starring	Genevieve Cortese Nicole Tubiola Nana Visitor Greg Serano Micah Alberti James Read Ryan Sypek Andrew Hoeft Charlotte Salt
Composer(s)	Shawn Pierce
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	52 (List of episodes)
Production
Location(s)	New Mexico, United States
Running time	60 minutes
Production company(s)	Piller2 The Segan Company Piller/Segan
Distributor	Lions Gate Television
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC Family
Original run	June 20, 2005 (2005-06-20) – May 26, 2008 (2008-05-26)

Wildfire is a US television series that aired on ABC Family, which was produced by Lions Gate Television, Piller2 and The Segan Company (Michael Piller would later merge Piller2 and The Segan Company to Piller/Segan to produce Greek). The show premiered June 20, 2005; its fourth and final season ended May 16, 2008 due to low ratings. Season one averaged just over a million weekly viewers and season two increased to 1.56 million, an increase of over 50%. Season three dropped back to the first year's numbers. The theme song is "Morning Light" sung by Truman.

Plot

The show centers on the world of horse racing and a young girl named Kristine "Kris" Furillo who, after serving time in a juvenile detention facility, works as a stablehand, exercise rider, and eventually a jockey at Raintree Farm. While at Raintree, Kris finds romance and competition with Raintree's rivals, the prestigious Davis Farms, all while rising to stardom in the racing world. Kris quickly becomes the center of a complicated love triangle involving herself, the son of the family she works for, and Junior Davis of Davis Farms.

Main cast and characters

Kristine "Kris" Furillo (Genevieve Cortese) 

A jockey who formerly served time at Camp LaGrange, a correctional facility, for grand theft auto. She shares a special bond with Wildfire, a horse she saved from going to slaughter and helped turn into a champion racehorse.

Matthew "Matt" Ritter (Micah Alberti) 

The son of Jean and Pete Ritter and the older brother of Todd Ritter. In season three he becomes the co-owner of Raintree Farm along with his mother, inheriting his half of the farm's ownership when his grandfather (Jean's father), Henry Ritter, died. Early on, Matt wanted nothing to do with the "family business" of horses and racing, but came to discover he had a talent for training and conditioning Thoroughbreds and eventually took over as Raintree's head trainer.

Kenneth Walter Davis "Junior" (Ryan Sypek) 

The son of Ken Davis and Isabelle Matiya Ferris and older half-brother to Dani. A very indecisive young man, he has gotten into gambling, owned a night club (which he lost in a bet with his former bookie, Bobby), dabbled in the sport of professional bull riding, and been involved on and off in the running of Davis Farms throughout the series. At one point he sold most of his shares of the farm and regretted it. Even though Junior tries his hardest to break away from the "rich kid" stereotype, he loves his Porsche convertible.

Danielle "Dani" Davis (Nicole Tubiola) 

Daughter of Ken Davis, Sr., an unseen woman named Marisol deEsquvala, and younger half-sister of Junior. Dani started off being openly snobby, promiscuous, and catty but later became more likeable. She took over the running of Davis Farm after her father was indicted on fraud charges but signed her shares of the farm over to Junior after losing her racing license at the end of season three. She also ran her own veterinary clinic for a while.

Kenneth "Ken" Walter Davis, Sr. (James Read) 

Father of Dani and Junior. He ran Davis Farms until being indicted on six counts of fraud, which forced him to leave Davis Farm and his assets to his children and, in a series of events, lost his role as majority shareholder to Dani. After being acquitted of all the charges, Ken bought back 46% of Davis Farms. Out of all the romantic relationships that Junior and Dani ever had, the only one that Ken didn't hate was Junior's relationship with Laura Nichols, the daughter of a a congressman.

Jean Ritter (Nana Visitor) 

Matt and Todd's mother and the co-owner of Raintree Farm. Jean is reluctant to let Kris work at Raintree at first, but eventually grows to think of her as a daughter; in season three she often bumped heads with Kris and her son, Matt, over Wildfire's training and how Raintree should be run.

Pablo Betart (Greg Serano) 

An ex-convict and respected horseman. Pablo discovered Kris's talent for horses and riding while working as a volunteer trainer at Camp LaGrange and brought her to work for the Ritters. He is co-owner of Wildfire with Jean Ritter and her son, Matt and Raintree's head trainer for most of the series.

Tina Sharp (Amy Jo Johnson)

A hotshot jockey brought in by Jean and Pablo to ride Wildfire in The Sandpiper Classic, a major race. A very sweet, flirty girl, no one but Pablo suspected that she was bad news until she accepted an offer from Ken to ride Avatar, one of his best horses against Wildfire. She also had a fling with Matt at the end of season one and indicated that she had a fling with Pablo in the past.

Gillian Parsons (Charlotte Salt) 

A wealthy heiress who came to Dani's rescue when she needed money to save Davis Farms while Ken was in jail. She also came in as the ex-girlfriend of Kerry Conelly and slept with him while she was dating Matt. She gave up control of Davis Farms in order to keep her affair secret. However, Gillian comes clean after Matt has an affair with Kris and breaks up with Gillian. She then has a brief almost-fling with Junior before she goes back to England

Kerry Connelly (Kieren Hutchison) 

A sports agent who signed on to represent Kris as her career started to take off. He didn't mention his long-distance relationship with Gillian until after she walked in on him making out with Kris at the Davis charity ball and then proceeded to sleep with Gillian in order to get Kris a spot in the breeders invitational.

Todd Ritter (Andrew Hoeft) 

The quirky, wise-beyond-his-years son of Jean, and Matt's younger brother. He is in junior high and lives at Raintree Farm for the first three seasons and then goes away to boarding school.

Shiek Omar O'Hattan (Maurizo Farhead)

A very powerful man in the racing world. He purchases the best horses to race; He originally came to RainTree to see if WildFire qualified to race in the Gold Cup, then returned wanting to purchase WildFire as his own. Later on, he came back to town to host the Bristol Stakes and had a brief flirtation with Dani, however she didnt recipicate the feelings because she was still hung up on RJ. He then proceeded on oraganizing an illegal matchrace between RainTree and Davis farms with a purse of two million dollars, with some of his investors. He is not heard from again after the season 3 finale; it is unknown why he leaves and what becomes of him.

Guest cast and characters

Name	Character name	# of Appearances
		Season 1	Season 2	Season 3	Season 4
Joe Lando	Pete Ritter	2	4
Josh Berry	Bart Blitzer	2	1	2
Shanna Collins	Amber	5
Debrah Farentino	Isabelle Matia-Faris	1	3
Maurizo Farhad	Sheik Omar			4
Arye Gross	Charlie Hewitt	6	5
Judy Herrera	Leanne Diaz		1
Jason London	Bobby	6	2	2
Scarlett McAlister	Wendy Levy	2	2
Jonathan Murphy	Calvin Handley				6
David Ramsey	Dr. Noah Gleason				5
Ignacio Serricchio	Jace Furillo			1
Amanda Seyfried	Rebecca		5
John Terry	Uncle Jesse			2	3
Kristy Vaughan	Molly Blitzer	1	1
Robbie Washington	Evan Garvey	3
Dennis Weaver	Henry	5
Eric Winter	R.J. Blake			5
Alicia Ziegler	Laura Nichols				5

Episodes

Main article: List of Wildfire episodes

DVD releases

Lionsgate Home Entertainment has released the first three seasons on DVD in Region 1.

DVD Title	Release date	Number of discs	Number of episodes
Wildfire: Season One	February 7, 2006	4	13
Wildfire: Season Two	November 6, 2007	3	13
Wildfire: Season Three	March 3, 2008	3	13