Yearly Archives: 2015

Canada's Smartest Person, Featured

Heartland star lands Canada’s Smartest Person return

I competed in Canada’s Smartest Person, and I won. OK, I didn’t compete in a full instalment of the intelligence test, but I did come in first in a head-to-head special journalist edition matchup against my buddy Denette Wilford in The Gauntlet. (For proof, check out the video below.)

Meanwhile, contestants from across the country once again descended on Toronto to compete in Season 2 of CBC’s mind-bender, returning Sunday at 8 p.m. with 16-year-old wunderkind Maya Burhanpurkar of Barrie, Ont., rapper Anthony Craparotta (a.k.a. iLLvibe) of Toronto, diversity executive Richard Pinnock from Montreal, and new mom Jessica Joy of Golden, B.C., facing off.

Smartest_Person2

With the title of Canada’s Smartest Person up for grabs, the four competitors test the theory of multiple intelligence in six categories: linguistic, logical, physical, musical, visual and social before the top two scorers race through The Gauntlet to determine a winner.

“In Season 2, you really want to go bigger and better and we have,” says host Jessi Cruickshank. “The challenges in every episode are unreal, the new challenges are so spectacular and we have fantastic guest stars appearing.” Among them is Heartland lead Amber Marshall, who pops by for Human Lie Detector, telling a mixture of truth and fiction to test social skills. (One unforgettable story recounts a memorable Christmas involving a puppy and an ex-girlfriend; tune in to see if it’s true or not.) Upcoming celebrity guests include Mary Walsh, Steve Patterson, Perez Hilton and Alan Thicke.

“All of Alan Thicke’s stories were so over-the-top for Human Lie Detector,” Cruickshank says with a laugh, noting just one person read Thicke perfectly.

Canadians will once again have the chance to compete at home via the show’s app and—new this season—compete with friends and family in Head2Head. Jeff Douglas, who explained the app and noted test result trends across the country, is not back for Season 2, meaning Cruickshank is doing all of the heavy lifting, juggling hosting with challenge explanations and playing cheerleader to the weekly players.

“As much as I’m running the challenges, it’s my job to bring out the personalities of the competitors,” she says. “We have smart and incredibly charismatic people this season with a wide range of abilities and it’s my job to make them shine.”

Canada’s Smartest Person airs Sundays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Murdoch Mysteries

Link: Hamilton is heritage answer for TV show Murdoch Mysteries

1 Comment

From Daniel Nolan of the Hamilton Spectator:

Hamilton is heritage answer for TV show Murdoch Mysteries
It is a mystery show set in the turn of 20th century Toronto and featuring a detective who solves dastardly murders with his wits and homemade gadgets that herald the coming of the technological age.

But, the makers of Murdoch Mysteries faced a real-life mystery when they first launched the show — how to recreate that period in a city that now has skyscrapers poking up to the clouds.

The solution: Hamilton. Continue reading.

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This Life

Link: This Life: 7 Reasons to Tune In

From Bridget Liszewski of The TV Junkies:

This Life: 7 Reasons to Tune In
One of the most anticipated Canadian shows on the fall television schedule is CBC’s This Life. From the moment the show was announced, along with its very familiar Canadian cast–headed up by Torri Higginson (Stargate: Atlantis)–we were looking forward to checking out this adaptation of the Radio-Canada drama Nouvelle adresse. Now that we’ve gotten our hands on some advanced screeners we find that we’re unable to get enough of the family drama, and are eagerly anticipating what’s in store for the Lawson family during the first season, which premieres Monday, October 5 at 9 p.m. on CBC. Continue reading.

 

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Amazing Race Canada, Featured, Podcast, Sunnyside

Comments and queries for the week of October 2

TV Eh B Cs Podcast: The Many Realities of Mike Bickerton

A good listen! I knew Kristen’s leg cramps on TAR Canada and all the penalties must have freaked out the producers!

Also knew it was too cold for a Survivor Canada, it’d be hard to tell whose who under all the winter clothes, see teams from a distance in the snow and they could find the Hidden Immunity Idols by just following the crew member’s footprints. —DanAmazing

Smart and silly Sunnyside returns to City

So happy this got a continuation. I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s new episode! —Iris

Up in Arms a gem of a documentary

This is such a divisive issue. I grew up in rural Saskatchewan where guns are everywhere. My father probably at one time had a dozen guns around the farm and he used them often for shooting various pests, particularly skunks which often carried rabies or coyotes which went after livestock. My husband has guns, is an avid hunter (like most men around here) and also shoots a lot of skunks which wander into the village. Guns are just a way of life around here, it always has been. And people in Northwest Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta absolutely hated the gun registry because it costed law-abiding gun owners a lot of time and money and inconvenience. There are also of people in Saskatchewan who would support the NDP because Saskatchewan is more socialist in culture (this is where the NDP has their roots, recall) but because people here are afraid the NDP will bring back gun registries or something related, they won’t vote for them. —Ally Oop

Got a question or comment about Canadian TV? Greg@tv-eh.com or @tv_eh.

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Industry News, Mohawk Girls, Strange Empire, Sunnyside, X Company, Young Drunk Punk

WCG podcasts: Writers Talking TV

From the Writers Guild of Canada:

Writers Talking TV
Our screenwriting-focussed podcasts are recorded at WGC events in front of live audiences and are moderated by WGC members. The podcasts offer an opportunity to learn about the art and craft of screenwriting, as WGC screenwriters discuss their work.

To listen, click on the link and your player should automatically launch. To download the file to your Windows computer, right click on the link and click on the “save target as” option. Then browse to the location where you want to save the file and click save. Each file is between 20 MB and 40 MB in size. Continue to the podcasts.

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