House of Anubis

''House of Anubis'' is a mystery television series developed for Nickelodeon based on the Dutch–Belgian television series '' Het Huis Anubis''. The series was created by Hans Bourlon and Gert Verhulst and premiered on Nickelodeon on 1 January 2011 in the United States and on 25 February 2011 in the United Kingdom. The series is the first series from the network to be filmed outside the United States and the first telenovela-format series for the network. The show aired from 1 January 2011 to 17 June 2013.

Plot

Season 1

Anubis House is a residence at an English boarding school, built in the 1890s as part of an estate by Egyptologist Robert Frobisher-Smythe. The house is now the boarding house for nine secondary school children under the watch of the boarding school's strict caretaker, Victor Rodenmaar Jr ( Francis Magee) and house-mother Trudy ( Mina Anwar). A popular girl called Joy Mercer ( Klariza Clayton), is withdrawn from the school without warning, along with all evidence of her existence. Joy's best friend, Patricia Williamson (Jade Ramsey), is saddened by Joy's disappearance. On the same day, a new girl from America named Nina Martin ( Nathalia Ramos) joins the school under a scholarship and replaces Joy as Patricia’s new roommate. Patricia is sure it is no coincidence and accuses Nina of being part of Joy’s disappearance.

Nina meets an elderly woman after moving in, who gifts her with a locket shaped like the Eye of Horus. The woman identifies herself as Sarah Frobisher-Smythe, the daughter of Robert. However, when Nina walks Sarah back to the retirement home she lives in the Head Carer calls her Emily. Afterwards, Nina's locket proves to function as a key to open a secret panel in the attic, in which she finds a collection of antique phonograph cylinders and a portrait of Sarah as a girl. The cylinders are diary recordings made by Sarah during and after her parents' trip to Egypt to uncover Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922. Alongside Egyptian hieroglyphs on the back of the portrait, the recordings offer clues to the location of a number of Egyptian relics. Nina becomes friends with nerdy Fabian Rutter (Brad Kavanagh) and tells him about everything. After popular Amber Millington (Ana Mulvoy Ten) falls out with her best friend Mara Jaffray (Tasie Lawrence) over Amber’s boyfriend Mick Campbell (Bobby Lockwood) Amber swaps dorms with Patricia so Amber can be roommates with Nina. Nina, Fabian and Amber form a secret group, 'Sibuna' (Anubis backwards), and later initiate Alfie Lewis ( Alex Sawyer) and Patricia, who is eager to learn how the relics are connected to Joy's disappearance.

After finding seven relics, the Sibunas intuit that they must be put together to make the Cup of Ankh, a mythic cup capable of producing an elixir of life. However, the cup can only be assembled by one born on seven o'clock of the seventh day of the seventh month. As Joy's birthday is the seventh of July, it is revealed that Victor and his secret society, consisting of staff from the school, a police officer, a nurse, and Joy's father, conspired to force Joy to assemble the Cup of Ankh. They removed Joy from school, and destroyed evidence of her existence, to protect her from a former society member Rufus Zeno ( Roger Barclay), who will stop at nothing to get the cup. However, on the 'chosen hour' of the cup's assembly, Joy realises that, as she was born at seven ''PM'', she is not able to assemble the cup; Nina, however, shares Joy's birthday and was born at seven o'clock in the morning. Nina assembles the cup and, with the rest of Sibuna, fool Rufus into believing himself immortal.

Season 2

While hiding the Cup of Ankh, Nina unknowingly sets free an Egyptian spirit, Senkhara. Senkhara curses Nina with the Mark of Anubis, bending her to her will, and instructs her to find the Mask of Anubis, an artifact able to "weep tears of gold" in addition to an elixir of life. The Sibunas discover a chamber of tunnels underneath the house that contain a series of puzzles and tasks in order to progress, including swinging scythe-like pendulums over a chasm and a game of Senet using players as pieces. Senkhara is displeased with Nina's slow pace and gives the Mark of Anubis to the rest of Sibuna, and to Nina's grandmother, as a threat. Alongside the group, Victor is also searching for the mask as he believes that it holds the missing ingredient for the elixir of life – tears of gold. To obtain the Book of Isis that contains the recipe for the elixir, Victor instructs Mr Sweet to gain an Egyptian Exhibition. Jerome locates his father in prison, who tells him that in order to reverse his bad luck, Jerome must find the Frobisher Gem and put it into the Frobisher shield after he stole it as a child. New American pupil Eddie ( Burkely Duffield) becomes rivals with Patricia, even though they are just hiding the fact that they are attracted to each other. Victor teams up with Anubis House's new housemother, Vera, who 'helps' him with locating the mask. Unbeknown to Victor, Vera is in fact working with Rufus Zeno. It is a race against each other as Sibuna and Victor try to outwit one another on the quest for the Mask of Anubis that will lead to eternal life. In the end, Nina leaves for good to live with her grandmother.

Season 3

A new teacher, Miss Denby ( Susy Kane), arrives at the school. New American student K.T. Rush (Alexandra Shipp) comes to the school. Eddie has a vision of K.T.'s dying grandfather giving her a key and telling her to go to Anubis House. Eddie and K.T. do some snooping around the house while Fabian tries to decipher a series of codes mistakenly given to Amber. Eddie and K.T. become new members of Sibuna. When Amber leaves for fashion school, Sibuna is revived with Eddie as a leader and Fabian, K.T., Patricia and Alfie as members. They find out that the adults are trying to reawaken a sleeping Robert Frobisher-Smythe, with Denby being the "Keeper" he keeps Frobisher in the tank room in the gatehouse (her home on the school property) Victor being the "Enabler", and Mr. Sweet being the "Seeker". The Sibunas discover that Miss Harriet Denby's name is actually Caroline. Her sister is actually Harriet – and the original Keeper. However, she is locked in a mental hospital because of her sister. It turns out that K.T. is the great-granddaughter of Frobisher. Jerome, Joy, Alfie, and Patricia are the descendants of Frobisher's friends and are needed for the ceremony, but because of Caroline Denby lying about her identity, Frobisher is reawakened evil.

Everybody thinks that the ceremony didn't work out since Sibuna intervened just in time, but when Caroline goes to the gatehouse to pack her bags, she meets Frobisher, who is reawakened and evil. Caroline does not tell Eric Sweet or Victor about this. Robert explains to Caroline that he needs to capture five sinning people for Ammut at midnight or noon, so that they could become evil. The sinners captured are Victor, Patricia, Mr. Sweet, Fabian and Alfie. Ammut rises, but needs more souls. She gives Frobisher a book that easily captures people's souls. A fake assembly is organized as an attempt to capture more souls. Willow (Louisa Connolly-Burnham) is the only person who didn't become a sinner. Willow, Eddie and K.T. are chased by Frobisher and the soul-less students but Harriet comes to the rescue with a stolen ambulance. She explains that Willow didn't become a sinner because she had K.T.'s moon key, and that Ammut can be sent back with Caroline's sun key and K.T.'s moon key. Willow becomes a sinner when she and K.T. try to steal the sun key because Harriet slipped the moon key into K.T.'s pocket. In the end, Ammut is sent back, devouring Caroline. Frobisher is not evil again and old. All the sinners are back to normal and don't remember what happened during the time they were sinners. Willow doesn't even remember the short time that she was good, so she forgot about the whole mystery. The Sibunas, of course, are told by Eddie and K.T. about what happened. Frobisher and Harriet set off for Egypt, and Jerome and Joy finally get together after a lot of drama, involving Jerome cheating on Mara and Willow. The group enjoys a fireworks display.

In the finale special ''Touchstone of Ra'', the Anubis House residents are preparing for their graduation; however, their joyous celebration plans are cut short with the arrival of four reshmenfourth years who move in early – Cassie, Erin, Dexter and Sophia. Patricia instantly antagonizes Sophia because she spotted her flirting with Eddie. On their trip to an Egyptian museum, Eddie, Dexter and Sophia discover a special artifact known as the Touchstone of Ra. Back at the house, Victor announces that an artifact from the museum was stolen, and the Touchstone suddenly appears to be in Eddie's possession. Victor confiscates the Touchstone but has no intentions of returning it. Later, the Sibunas (along with Sophia and Mara) overhear Victor speaking to Mr. Sweet about what happens when the Pyramid of Ra is built. They plan to prevent him from building the Pyramid, retrieving the Touchstone for good measure. Eventually, Eddie discovers that Sophia has betrayed them when she plans to complete the Pyramid of Ra herself. At the graduation ceremony, Mara is manipulated by an unknown force when she wears the valedictorian medal (which is actually an artifact discovered by Alfie). At the house, the Sibunas team up with Victor to find the remaining pillars of the Pyramid to stop Sophia from accomplishing her goal. In the final showdown, the Pyramid is incomplete and the students are saved. Since Sophia fails, she is transformed into stone as a punishment from Ra. Eddie loses his Osirian powers in the process. Since Victor's "destiny" was to prevent the pyramid from ever being built, he decides to leave the house for good that evening as the students celebrate their graduation party.

Cast and characters

Main cast

Supporting cast

Production and development

Production on the pilot episode began in August 2009, though with a different cast and a different title than the eventual series.Anubis House
, Screen Terrier. In March 2010, Studio 100 announced that the series was sold to Nickelodeon in the United States, and Nickelodeon confirmed that ''House of Anubis'' was in development for a planned fall 2010 debut. The series was filmed in the summer of 2010 in Liverpool, and was first broadcast in the United States on 1 January 2011. Nickelodeon included ''House of Anubis'' in its 10 March 2011 press release for its annual Upfront presentation to advertisers and media.

The series is the first original series produced for the flagship U.S. Nickelodeon channel to be produced outside of North America. The series is structured in a different manner from other live-action television series in that each episode consists of two eleven-minute segments, a format commonly used in half-hour animated series (although the events of each subsequent segment pick up from the events of the previous segment); and the series' episodes are formatted to be broadcast in the five-day-a-week format that is typically common with soap operas or telenovelas.

On 29 June 2011, ''Entertainment Weekly'' confirmed that Nickelodeon had ordered a second season of House of Anubis and that production would begin on 21 July 2011 in Liverpool. A total of forty-five half-hour episodes (ninety 15-minute episodes) were aired, premiering on 9 January 2012.

On 16 April 2012, a third season was confirmed by Nickelodeon and Lime Pictures. Nathalia Ramos, who played lead character Nina Martin, did not return for the series' third season so that she could focus on finishing college.It's Time to Chat HOA Season 3!
Nick.com (16 April 2012). Retrieved on 24 March 2013. Eugene Simon confirmed that filming of the third season would begin in the summer of 2012. On 16 July 2012, Nickelodeon (UK & Ireland) announced on their Twitter page and the website's blog that filming of season 3 would begin that month. Bobby Lockwood announced on his Twitter page that he would not be returning for the series' third season, but instead that he had a new show called '' Wolfblood'' coming out on CBBC later in 2012. It was announced on the House of Anubis Facebook page that there would be new characters named KT Rush, played by Alexandra Shipp, and Willow, played by Louisa Connolly-Burnham.

The series was filmed in Liverpool with Ye Priory Court standing in for Anubis House, the gardens are filmed in Croxteth Park and Peckforton Castle Lodge, located in Chester, standing in for the gatehouse.

Episodes

''Anubis Unlocked''

''Anubis Unlocked'' is a behind the scenes show which aired in and produced by Nickelodeon UK. Ten episodes were commissioned for the first series of ''House of Anubis'', which featured cast interviews, behind the scenes clips, tours of the set, and exclusive previews. These ten episodes were presented by Anna Williamson and Jamie Rickers. ''Anubis Unlocked'' was not commissioned for the second series of ''House of Anubis'', though a short behind-the-scenes segment aired at the end of series two. ''Anubis Unlocked'' was re-commissioned for the third series of ''House of Anubis''.

Reception

Critical reception

Youth Television News praised the series, commending Nickelodeon's attempt at a drama series, saying "a good story always outdoes a repetitive sitcom."

Audience reception

The hour-long series premiere on 1 January 2011 was watched by an average of 2.9 million viewers for the first two episodes. The series scored a 4.0 share (846,000 viewers) among teens 11–17, a 4.4 share (952,000 viewers) among kids 11–15 and a 3.5 share (1.2 million) among kids 11–18, ranking #1 amongst all broadcast and basic cable programs in its timeslot in all pre-teen and teen demographics.Nickelodeon's 'House Of Anubis' Series Premiere Scores Top Spot With Kids And Tweens
''TVbytheNumbers.com'', 4 January 2011,

Awards and nominations

References

External links

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{{TeenNick

2011 American television series debuts
2013 American television series endings
2010s American comedy-drama television series
2010s American school television series
2010s American mystery television series
2011 British television series debuts
2013 British television series endings
2010s British comedy-drama television series
2010s British mystery television series
2010s Nickelodeon original programming
British fantasy television series
English-language television shows
Television series by All3Media
Television shows set in England
Television series based on Egyptian mythology