Private Eyes West Coast Filming Locations: Victoria and Mill Bay

Private Eyes West Coast was made on Vancouver Island, with Victoria as its production base and a documented water shoot off Mill Bay. The spinoff brings Jason Priestley and Cindy Sampson back as Matt Shade and Angie Everett. Its first season reaches American viewers on The CW on October 5, 2026, at 8 p.m. ET/PT.

The new title matters when looking up the scenery. Global described it as a ten-episode spinoff of Private Eyes, the earlier series that ran from 2016 to 2021. The Vancouver Island production belongs to this new chapter, rather than another season of the original Toronto series.

Victoria takes over from Toronto

The move was part of the production plan well before the cameras started. In an April 2025 statement in British Columbia’s legislature, Nina Krieger welcomed regional film commissioner Tara-Lee Novak and discussed the coming shoot. She described the project as an opportunity for Victoria to appear as itself after five seasons set and filmed in Toronto.

The old series has its own documented location history. The Lakeshore Grounds Interpretive Centre records Private Eyes filming around its college campus and public park, including a production notice covering scenes with replica weapons. That archive concerns the 2016-2021 show. It should be kept separate from the British Columbia records when identifying which places belong to West Coast.

The Fairmont Empress puts Victoria on screen

One of the most recognizable locations in Private Eyes West Coast is the Fairmont Empress, the landmark hotel overlooking Victoria’s Inner Harbour. The premiere uses the property for Shade and Angie’s date night, making the city immediately identifiable rather than asking Victoria to stand in for somewhere else. Local reporting highlighted the Empress as one of several familiar places given a prominent role in the new series.

The investigation also reaches Orca Spirit Adventures, the Victoria Harbour whale-watching operator identified by name in the premiere. Together, the hotel and harbour setting make the production’s approach clearer: Private Eyes West Coast is not merely based around Victoria while hiding its identity. The city’s businesses, waterfront and landmarks are deliberately becoming part of Shade and Angie’s new world.

That section would significantly improve the article because right now your most concrete location is Mill Bay, while the series’ biggest selling point is actually that Victoria plays itself. UVic’s profile of showrunner Sarah Dodd explicitly says the production was filmed in Victoria and that the city would be presented as itself.

Why the showrunners chose Victoria

Showrunner Sarah Dodd explained the choice in Greg David’s September 2026 interview for TV, eh? Victoria is the city where she was born and raised, and it was the setting she proposed for the continuation. Fellow showrunner Jennifer Kassabian brought the idea of Shade and Angie as a married couple with a child. The two pitches became the new show together.

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Dodd also explained that moving the investigators west made them newcomers who needed to establish different connections. That gives the location change a job within the story: familiar leads now have to find their way through an unfamiliar working environment. They cannot simply pick up every case with the same circle they had before.

A water shoot off Mill Bay

Film Cowichan documented the excursion. Its July 14, 2025 report says the Victoria-based team spent a day filming on the water off Mill Bay in early July. The production rented the Malahat First Nation boat launch and the parking lot at Frances Kelsey Secondary School. Rental and permit spending was approximately $3,000.

Those details identify both a shooting area and the support sites used for that day. The report places filming offshore; renting the school parking lot does not establish that its classrooms appear in an episode. It also says the crew stayed in Victoria, showing how a shoot outside the home city could still operate from the same base.

What the UVic address establishes

ACFC West’s first-season crew listing gives the Ian Stewart Complex at the University of Victoria as the production’s address. The listed team includes producer Brent Crowell and production designer Greg Venturi. This is useful evidence of where the company operated, but the address alone does not identify an on-screen university or a scene shot inside a particular building.

The same record lists preparation beginning April 21, 2025 and shooting beginning June 5. It connects the administrative work before filming with the summer production. Its purpose is a crew and production listing, so it should not be read as a frame-by-frame guide to the finished season.

When the first season was filmed

Global’s May 29, 2025 production announcement said cameras would start on June 5 on Vancouver Island and continue through the summer. The announcement named Shawn Piller as the pilot director and included Priestley in the directing team. The production timetable therefore predates the spinoff’s arrival on American television by more than a year.

Story destinations and confirmed shooting sites

The CW’s description sends the investigators into the British Columbia wilderness for a missing student and to Tofino for a case involving a surfer. Those are story destinations. A synopsis naming a town does not establish that the camera crew worked there, or identify which landscape represents it. The confirmed production records give a narrower, firmer starting point for tracing the scenery.

The same network describes the couple leaving their Toronto firm, settling on the coast and opening a new investigation business after a murder interrupts their quieter life. That is the premise for their changed surroundings. For other shows and films with documented production settings, browse FilmiFeed’s filming-location guides.