Yearly Archives: 2015

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He Said/She Said: Top Moments for TV, Eh?

Join Greg and Diane every Monday as we debate what’s on our minds. This week, a look back at some Top Moments for TV, Eh?

She Said:

When Greg suggested we take a look back at this past year of TV, eh? 2.0 (it was one year ago this month that the site came back from the dead), I wasn’t sure what to say.  And then I remembered what an amazing year we’ve had.

Fresh blood
I can’t say enough about how grateful I am to Greg for suggesting we partner to bring the site back after I had retired it six months previously. I was burned out, wanted more of my life back, and felt the Canadian TV world was well served by TV Guide Canada among other publications and websites. And then, so much for that. When TV Guide Canada went under and Greg joined TV, eh?, I was able to take a step back and do more behind the scenes activity while popping up now and then to vent my Canadian spleen or analyse the shows I wanted to watch.

Beyond the cop show
A few years ago a running joke here was that Canada’s GDP relied on the export of cop shows. Even many of our non-cop shows used some sort of investigation as the story engine. This year we’ve had Strange Empire, Book of Negroes, the announcement of other shows with creative premises, and the average Canadian series is more likely to be science fiction or fantasy than a procedural. OK we also have our requisite cop shows and hospital dramas, but even our main networks are branching out.

Proof is in the pudding
And that pudding is our Indiegogo campaign to revive the site (to the tune of more than $20,000), and the auction of Canadian TV memorabilia and experiences (more than $8400), plus our dedicated readers, commenters, and engaged social media followers.  Canadians watch Canadian TV, they love Canadian TV, and they put their money toward Canadian TV. Dismissing an entire industry because 100% of the shows aren’t winners is the argument of an idiot.

He Said:

I admit this list may get a little schmaltzy—and less than a list of moments and more of just thoughts—but to heck with it.

Love for Canadian TV
I knew, when I was writing for TV Guide Canada, there was support out there for homegrown television, but it was tempered somewhat because of our need to cover U.S. shows as well. Now that I’m fully immersed in CanCon, I’m able to see first-hand the passion and love viewers—and those working in the industry—have for this product. From sold-out screenings of Heartland‘s wedding episode to packed theatres for Murdoch Mysteries and X Company Q&As, people are proud of these homegrown projects and aren’t afraid to show it.

Creativity Rules
I’m fiercely proud of the unique ideas that are being committed to the small screen in this country. Networks are taking gambles, and while they don’t always pay off—sorry, Strange Empire—I think there is more creativity being shown here than in that big country south of the border. Lost Girl, 19-2, Still Standing, Sunnyside and Young Drunk Punk are current examples of unique ideas getting on-air, with fall series like The Romeo Section, Letterkenny, What Would Sal Do?, Slasher and This Life representing the new guard.

Support for TV, Eh?
Diane laid the groundwork for the support of this site, and I’ve been lucky enough to witness it first-hand over the past year. It’s humbling to have showrunners, writers, crew and talent shake my hand and thank me for devoting my days to writing about and championing Canadian television, and it’s overwhelming to have fans support the industry and Kids Help Phone with our charity auction. So, thanks!

 

 

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Food’s Chef In Your Ear the ultimate in culinary improv

Simply put, Chef In Your Ear is unlike any culinary competition on television today. In it, unskilled cooks prepare a restaurant-quality dish in one hour with help from a professional Canadian chef. The hook? The chefs are ensconced in remote booths, directing competitors orally through earpieces while observing them via a bank of monitors.

“It’s like an improv performance,” says series executive producer Daniel Gelfant. Developed from an idea by Justin Scroggie and Ricardo Larrivée, Gelfant’s final product—debuting on Food Network on Monday at 10 p.m. ET/PT—Chef In Your Ear (hosted by Second City’s Greg Komorowski) is a wild mix of laughs, excitement, a little embarrassment … and a huge learning experience for chef Cory Vitiello.

“We lose three of our most important senses in taste, smell and touch,” Vitiello says on the phone from his latest Toronto restaurant, Flock. “But because we lose that, I found I paid attention to so many other little details than I would if I was actually down there. Watching through five monitors, I’m able to see a pot boiling on the back, or bones being left in meat.” Vitiello and fellow Canadian chefs Jordan Andino (Harlow Sag Harbor), Devin Connell (Delica Kitchen), Craig Harding (Campagnolo) and Rob Rossi (Bestellen), have to call on their skills as coaches, mentors and psychiatrists to guide their charges through to success with recipes for pork schnitzel, eggs Benedict, spaghetti and meat balls and eggplant Parmigiana.

Vitiello and Rossi are in tough in tonight’s first episode of 26, “The Big Bang”; the former is paired with violin superstar Rosemary while the latter teams with toymaker Nick. At first, it seems like a recipe for disaster, especially since Rosemary screams when she’s under pressure. Suffice it to say, there is a lot of screaming from her side of the kitchen and Vitiello struggled early on to keep her focused.

“I think every one of us started each episode saying, ‘There is no way this is going to work,'” he says. “But then you build some trust and some confidence and there is a point where it just clicks and you work together. You can see the transition on the floor, where they realize, ‘Oh my God, I can do this!'”

Chef In Your Ear airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Food Network.

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Link: Property Brothers mine Vine videos for fun and future profit

From Olivia Carville of the Toronto Star:

Property Brothers mine Vine videos for fun and future profit
“We put a lot of resources behind understanding social and developing it. Everything is changing in television and how people are getting their content, and we want to be that company who’s on the forefront of understanding everything from digital to TV to film. We definitely think this is the future and this is where people are going to start to spend more ad dollars.” Continue reading.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Discovery’s Daily Planet kicks off Season 21 in style

It seems like just yesterday that Daily Planet debuted. With Jay Ingram at its helm, the show—then called @discovery.ca—launched with a goal to explore the scientific angle to current events. Twenty-one seasons later, Daily Planet continues on that path when the show returns to Discovery on Monday with “Extreme Machines Week.”

“We have people on the team who have been with the show since the very beginning,” says Dan Riskin, who has been co-hosting Daily Planet with Ziya Tong since Season 17. “We’re really proud to be representing them.”

Daily Planet shows no signs of slowing down, ratings-wise. Season 20 was the most-watched yet, the third year in a row a viewership benchmark was beaten. Tong, who has been at the helm since 2008 when she joined Ingram, thinks she knows why.

“We have all of these specialty theme weeks that we didn’t have in the past when I started,” she says. “We go off to the Consumer Electronics Show every year, we’ve got Shark Week now and we have a wonderful interactive audience that’s growing with us. It’s a very different show than it was 20 years ago.” She’s right. With themed weeks devoted to toothsome fish, high-tech toys, tornados, future tech and extreme machines, and reporting done at a fast-paced, almost fever pitch, Daily Planet has evolved alongside the science it reports on.

“It’s like learning with a wow factor,” Tong says. That fast pace extends behind the scenes too. Tong describes how seasons are planned well in advance, with on location filming of future segments happening during the summer. Those doc-style bits are intercut with the stuff the team learns about, writes up and reports on every day of broadcast. Deadlines are so tight, Riskin reveals, some floor segments are still being filmed when that night’s broadcast is underway.

“Extreme Machines Week” launches Season 21 with several interesting segments, including tech correspondent Lucas Cochran mounting a pogo stick on steroids, a gyrocopter pilot who aims for a world record and a unique job in Amsterdam: bicycle fisherman. Riskin jetted to the Netherlands’ capital to catch up with Richard and Tom, two dudes who pilot a crane and barge contraption that travels Amsterdam’s canals pulling discarded bikes out of the water. If the pair don’t keep up their task, the accumulated rusting metal—up to 15,000 bikes a year—will clog up the waterways. The segment also shows the duo pulling the hulk of the car out of the murk, leading one to wonder if other, more ominous, items have been discovered.

“The question everybody asks is, ‘Do you ever find dead bodies?'” Riskin says. “Yes, they do. It often happens in winter when somebody has to take a leak and they fall in. It’s hard to find a way out of those canals when it’s dark and you’re drunk.” Ah, science.

Daily Planet airs Monday to Friday at 7 p.m. ET on Discovery.

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Links: Unusually Thicke – From Growing Pains to reno pains

From Dianne Daniel of Postmedia Network:

From Growing Pains to reno pains
You might think celebrities are immune from budgetary concerns. Not so. True to his small town Northern Ontario roots, Thicke still holds a “cheaper is better” school of thought and for the most part Callau goes along, repurposing seat cushions and ottomans where she can, and opting to save her original kitchen sink and faucet. Continue reading.

From Bill Harris of Postmedia Network:

Unusually Thicke under construction in second season
Thanks to Unusually Thicke: Under Construction, I now know what a pergola is.

“Well, I can help you with that,” said Alan Thicke. “An awning costs $1.95. A pergola costs big bucks.” Continue reading.

 

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