All posts by Greg David

Prior to becoming a television critic and owner of TV, Eh?, Greg David was a critic for TV Guide Canada, the country's most trusted source for TV news. He has interviewed television actors, actresses and behind-the-scenes folks from hundreds of television series from Canada, the U.S. and internationally. He is a podcaster, public speaker, weekly radio guest and educator, and past member of the Television Critics Association.
Letterkenny

Crave gifts viewers with a whole mess of Letterkenny including a Christmas special and all-new six-pack of episodes

From a media release:

No holiday humbugs here. With the festive season on the approach, Crave delivers tidings of all-new LETTERKENNY quicker than you can say golds, frankincenses, and myrrhs. This Crave seasonal delivery includes the brand new special, A LETTERKENNY CHRISTMAS: THE THREE WISE MEN, streaming Friday, Nov. 23, followed by a fresh six-pack of episodes launching Christmas Day. Created by and starring Jared Keeso, the hit small town comedy is produced by New Metric Media in partnership with DHX Media and Play Fun Games.

“Pitter patter, let’s get Advent’er!” In the brand new special, A LETTERKENNY CHRISTMAS: THE THREE WISE MEN, the Hicks get in the festive spirit and throw a holiday get-together with enough gifts and jingle juice to go around. There is talk around town that it might just be the best Christmas party ever.

In keeping with what has become an annual holiday tradition, viewers wake up to more LETTERKENNY under the tree again this year with another all-new six-pack available to stream on Christmas Day. While the LETTERKENNY locals continue to seek out love in all sorts of places – from bush parties all the way to the big city – new and familiar faces make appearances around town, including guest stars Sarah Wayne Callies (THE WALKING DEAD) and Jonathan Torrens (TRAILER PARK BOYS) as Mennonite parents, Noah and Anita Dyck; and the return of Sarah Gadon as mysterious lady-skid, Gae.

In addition, production is currently underway on the next set of LETTERKENNY episodes, which sees The Hicks launch their own public access call-in show. Set to debut on Crave in 2019, Jacob Tierney returns to direct all episodes and reprise his role as the fan-favourite Christian leader, Glen. The episodes also feature a stacked slate of returning guest stars, including Tiio Horn as The Natives’ badass leader, Tanis; CSA-nominated Dan Petronijevic as Hick McMurray; Magalie Lépine Blondeau as Wayne’s lady love, Marie Fred; and Kelly McCormack (Killjoys) and Jess Salguiero (Saving Hope) as Shamrockette stars Mary-Anne and Betty-Anne.

Based on overwhelming demand, additional shows and markets have been added to the 2018 LETTERKENNY LIVE tour – a 90-minute comedy experience, starring Jared Keeso, Nathan Dales, K Trevor Wilson, and Mark Forward. Kicking off in Orillia on Dec.1, LETTERKENNY LIVE, THE ENCORE! tour, presented by Puppers Premium Lager and Crave, and produced by New Metric Media, features additional sketches and video not seen on the original tour, as well as original stand-up sets from Wilson and Forward. Tickets for LETTERKENNY LIVE, THE ENCORE! are available here.

LETTERKENNY LIVE, THE ENCORE! Tour Dates:

December 1 – Orillia, ON – Casino Rama

December 3 – Brantford, ON – Sanderson Centre

December 5 – St. Catharines, ON – Meridian Centre

December 6 – Mississauga, ON – Living Arts Centre

December 11 – Regina, SK – Conexus Arts Centre

December 13 – Saskatoon, SK – TCU Place

December 14 – Lethbridge, AB – ENMAX Centre

December 15 – Red Deer, AB – ENMAX Centrium

December 17 – Kelowna, BC – Prospera Place

December 18 – Vancouver, BC – Orpheum Theatre

The first five seasons of LETTERKENNY, along with special episodes “Ferda Edition”, “The Haunting of MoDean’s II”, “St. Perfect’s Day,” “Super Hard Easter,” and the original web series Letterkenny Problems, are currently streaming on Crave. The first two seasons of LETTERKENNY are now streaming exclusively on Hulu in the U.S. LETTERKENNY is also available on iTunes and Google Play. Seasons 1-4 of LETTERKENNY are currently available on DVD wherever DVDs are sold.

Created by and starring Jared Keeso, the award-winning half-hour comedy revolves around the dustups Wayne (Keeso) and his buds – Daryl (Nathan Dales), Wayne’s free-spirited younger sister, Katy (Michelle Mylett), and Wayne’s buddy, Dan (K Trevor Wilson) – get into with their small-town rivals. Dylan Playfair and Andrew Herr reprise their roles as hotshot Hockey Players “Jonesy” and “Reilly”. Tyler Johnston and Evan Stern return as Skids Stewart and Roald. Mark Forward returns as the temperamental Coach.

LETTERKENNY is produced by New Metric Media, in partnership with DHX Media and Playfun Games in association with Bell Media, with the participation of Canadian Media Fund, OMDC Tax Credits and the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund and distributed by DHX Media. Jared Keeso is executive producer, co-writer, star, and creator, Jacob Tierney is executive producer, director, and co-writer and Mark Montefiore is executive producer for New Metric Media.

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Featured

Comments and queries for the week of November 16

1 Comment

Wow, people need to relax a little, so [Murdoch Mysteries] had a little fun and did a one-off episode that was a standalone and not part of the Murdoch Mysteries continuity/canon. The horror. I mean seriously, if you didn’t like it, then that’s fine (though I feel a little bad for you as it was clever, fun, and exciting). But to accuse the writers of being lazy because they didn’t tie it up to the storyline … I suggest you get over yourselves a little and let the writers who have delivered a consistently fun and entertaining show have a little fun of their own with this. Lots of shows have done Halloween themed episodes that don’t have any bearing on the main story. And those of you who can’t get past that miss the fact that they did it damn well. Solid nods to classic horror/sci-fi and still utilizing the charisma and solid acting chops of all the main cast. If you can’t get over yourselves long enough to have a little fun and indulge in a Halloween episode, then just skip it and move right on to the next episode. But don’t take it out on the writers. It’s not them, it’s you. —Alex

I loved this one. It was very funny and spoofed so many vintage horror/sci-fi movies. I especially loved when alien-Murdoch tried to laugh. It reminded me of the time Wednesday Addams tried to smile. I know I sound sadistic, but I also enjoyed Julia’s horror when she realized that she had killed her husband because she had listened to George Crabtree!! And Murdoch’s repeated demands for “romance”! I too was expecting someone to wake up at the end. But I don’t understand why so many fans are angry because the show did the unexpected instead. Those who claim the episode had no ending are wrong. As in the original ending to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the ending is that the aliens succeed in taking over the Earth. Once I realized that WAS the ending, I realized it was a standalone Halloween episode. I LOVE Halloween episodes. I was pretty sure there would be no references to the incidents in this episode the following week. Though I did need to check that things really did go back to normal the next week. —Clare

 

Got a question or comment about Canadian TV? Email greg.david@tv-eh.com or via Twitter @tv_eh.

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Travelers

Travelers Season 3 premieres on December 14th only on Netflix

From a media release:

The third season of Travelers finds Grant MacLaren and his team of highly-trained operatives from the future pushed to the limit and dealing with themes of loyalty, trust, death, and the ever-growing power of Artificial Intelligence. With their existence now leaked to the world, the team must find a way to keep knowledge of the Travelers program from the general public, while continuing to perform missions under the watchful eye of the FBI.   Each team member will face their own personal breaking point, all while trying to stop the Faction, hunt down elusive Traveler 001, and to save the world from a terrible future.

Season 3 stars Eric McCormack, MacKenzie Porter, Nesta Cooper, Jared Abrahamson, Reilly Dolman and Patrick Gilmore.

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Departure, Industry News

Archie Panjabi and Christopher Plummer lead Global’s new original event series Departure now in production

From a media release:

Global announced today that it has commissioned a new Canadian original six-part event series, Departure. Produced by Shaftesbury and Greenpoint Productions Ltd., the thrilling drama is directed by Canadian Screen Award Winner T.J. Scott (Orphan Black, Star Trek: Discovery), with Malcolm MacRury (Saving Hope) joining as showrunner, and created by Vincent Shiao (Ransom, Aftermath). With principal photography now underway in Toronto, the Canada/UK co-production will also shoot in London, England. The project was developed by Shaftesbury in association with Corus Entertainment and Red Arrow Studios International.

Slated to join Global’s 2019 primetime schedule, the high-octane conspiracy series follows the mystery of a passenger plane that vanishes over the Atlantic Ocean. Featuring an all-star cast, the series stars Emmy® winner Archie Panjabi (The Good Wife) and Oscar® winner Christopher Plummer (All the Money In the World). The adrenaline-fueled serialized thrill ride also includes an impressive supporting cast with Kris Holden-Ried (Vikings), Claire Forlani (Hawaii Five-O), Rebecca Liddiard (Frankie Drake Mysteries), Shazad Latif (Star Trek: Discovery), Tamara Duarte (Longmire), Peter Mensah (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Kristian Bruun (Orphan Black), Allan Hawco (Caught), Dougray Scott (Snatch), Sasha Roiz (Grimm), Mark Rendall (30 Days of Night), Dmitry Chepovetsky(Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol), Paris Jefferson (Sunset Contract), and more.

Departure is a six-part event series that follows the shocking disappearance of Flight 716, a passenger plane that vanishes over the Atlantic Ocean. Kendra Malley (Panjabi), the recently widowed, brilliant aviation investigator, is called in by her former boss and mentor Howard Lawson (Plummer) to investigate the mysterious crash. With the whole world watching, Kendra and her team race to pinpoint the missing aircraft and locate possible survivors. They must battle through a host of suspects and motives – pilot suicide, terrorism, politically motivated murder, systems failure – to determine what really happened to Flight 716… and to stop it from happening again.

This newly greenlit series is the final original series commissioned by Global for the 2019 broadcast year joining Nurses, Ransom, Mary Kills People, Private Eyes, and Big Brother Canada.

Departure is a Canada/UK treaty co-production produced by Shaftesbury (Canada) and Greenpoint Productions Ltd. (UK) in association with Corus Entertainment.

Departure is executive produced by Christina Jennings, Scott Garvie, Malcolm MacRury, and T.J. Scott. Creator Vincent Shiao is co-executive producer; Patrick Cassavetti, Tina Grewal are producers, with Julie Laceyserving as Shaftesbury’s producer.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

CBC digs deep for a monumental history of music in From the Vaults

As Canada’s public broadcaster, the CBC has—literally—a treasure trove of an archive from which to pull footage and information. With over 90,000 reels to draw from, it was a monumental task. But it paid off with the network’s latest project.

From the Vaults—bowing Thursday at 9 p.m. on CBC—isn’t an update of the wonderful 1982 miniseries Heart of Gold. Where that three-hour special, narrated by Donald Sutherland, only explored Canadian singer-songwriters, From the Vaults uses music to tell the stories of Canada and the world through not just homegrown talent but international ones who visited CBC’s studios.

“I think the CBC has been trying to find a way to share their archive with Canadians,” says executive producer Sam Dunn. “It’s this massive, titanic, vault of material that not only exists in the basement of Toronto’s [CBC headquarters] but major cities across the country.”

Dunn’s Banger Films serves as producers of From the Vaults and CBC couldn’t have picked a better partner. Banger Films has produced a plethora of top-notch documentary films and TV series in Super Duper Alice Cooper, Metal Evolution, Long Time Running and Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage. Teaming with the CBC was a no-brainer, Dunn says. He and co-executive producer and Banger Films partner Scot McFadyen love working with archival material and being storytellers and embraced the opportunity to cross decades and musical styles. They and their staff know music and how to tell a story but were nonetheless overwhelmed by the sheer amount of source material.

“We were completely daunted,” Dunn says with a laugh. “We couldn’t just go down there and pull a tape off a shelf because it was like throwing a pebble into an ocean.” The solution? They reached out to people they knew in Canada: music writers, musicians, folks who had a great knowledge of the archive and had worked at the CBC for years. The team slowly began piecing together performances that stood out for people. A key appearance by The Who in a student union building. A special hosted by Harry Belafonte documenting his travels across Canada.

Sammy Davis Jr. on the set of his CBC special, Parade.

The next step was to structure each of the six one-hour episodes. The CBC, Dunn explains, didn’t want them divided by genre, decade or regions of Canada. The solution? Use a theme that says something about Canada and our culture.

Narrated by Amanda Parris and Tom Power, Episode 1—labelled “Land of Opportunities”—recalls musical acts that used this country as a stepping stone or key component in their career. Though he was a world-renown entertainer and member of Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack, Sammy Davis Jr. would never be able to headline his own television show in the U.S. because of his skin colour. He came to Canada to do it, hosting a special called Parade. Singer-songwriter Joan Baez, meanwhile, performed and was interviewed at the CBC during the Vietnam War; and reggae legend Jackie Mittoo and blues singer Muddy Waters sought the freedom to explore their talents on Canadian soil.

From the Vaults not only spotlights music and musicians but the network as well. Footage is culled from several past projects like Adrienne Clarkson Presents, Let’s Go, Nightcap, Pilot One, Take 30, Talent Caravan, The Tommy Hunter Show and The Wayne & Shuster Hour, providing a history of the CBC and its ongoing relationship with the arts.

“Up until The New Music and the emergence of MuchMusic the CBC was the only place in town that would show music on television,” Dunn says. “I think the other factor is that we’re talking about a CBC at a time when it a little more like the Wild West out there. It’s a credit to independent-minded producers who were really determined to create the kind of shows they wanted to see on the network.”

From the Vaults airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

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