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.
Wynonna Earp

Links: Wynonna Earp

From Ciara Pitts of MoviePilot:

Link: Wynonna Earp: How the cast and crew get LGBT visibility so right when so many TV shows still get it wrong
June, which is also Pride Month, has just kicked off. Many of us in the LGBTQ community are celebrating our freedom and who we are, along with the TV shows that make us more visible. One of those shows being Syfy’s Wynonna Earp, which returns for its second season on June 9. The series follows the titular character on a journey to take down demons and other supernatural forces that invade her mysterious hometown. Continue reading.

From Bridget Liszewski of The TV Junkies:

Link: Wynonna Earp: Emily Andras talks “Steel Bars and Stone Walls”
“I really thought of the premiere as almost the second half of Episode 113. It felt like a two-parter with all those cliffhangers and because we had given ourselves, or cursed ourselves, with all those cliffhangers, we had no choice but to answer those questions. I didn’t want it to be a bunch of talk and exposition. I wanted it to feel really fun and really blistering.” Continue reading.

Link: Wynonna Earp’s Melanie Scrofano on working for Black Badge and that surprise guest star
“There’s a certain amount of not wanting to see things that are right in front of you when they threaten your sense of security. Waverly gives Wynonna such a sense of security and family and belonging and she just thinks that partly it can’t be true.” Continue reading. 

From Nivea Serrao of Entertainment Weekly:

Link: Wynonna Earp boss on that big Season 2 premiere twist
“We are going to see a slightly different Wynonna for the first few episodes. Not only has she killed Willa, but the other thing that has happened is, essentially, she has lost Dolls. So she’s going to feel a lot of pressure to kind of move into a leadership role. And that’s not Wynonna’s strong suit. She hates authority. She rebels against authority.” Continue reading.

From Carly Lane of Nerdist:

Link: Wynonna Earp’s Dominique Provost-Chalkley talks “bloody good” Season 2 
“She comes into her own. It’s kind of perfect timing because I feel like she’s going in that direction but just touching the goo accelerates that, and so I wanted to make sure that right from the get-go there was almost a power that ran through her, an adrenaline underneath that maybe she didn’t have before.” Continue reading. 

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Dark Matter

Links: Dark Matter

From TD Rideout of The Mind Reels:

Link: Dark Matter set visit
It’s a cold December morning, the holidays are on the horizon, a storm cloud of twinkling lights, gift giving and family.  Clambering aboard the tarnished grey subway cars that burrow their way through the city, Sue and I prepared for a day in the far-flung future… Continue reading. 

From Andrew Liptak of The Verge:

Link: Syfy’s pulpy space opera Dark Matter is back—here’s why you should watch
The show is largely about identities and who people truly are. Most of the characters have their own agendas, but once their memories were wiped, they found a unique opportunity to reinvent themselves. They come together into a crew because they’re comfortable with one another, or at least more comfortable than they are with the wider world. Continue reading.

From Kelly Townsend of The TV Junkies:

Link: Dark Matter: Joseph Mallozzi on the two-hour Season 3 premiere
“I mean, the war is happening, there’s not much they can do about that. It’s debatable if they want to get involved at all. On one hand, you’ve got Six who’s always been leading the charge and trying to get them to be better people, and Two points out to him that being better is so much harder, and maybe it’s not worth the risk. They tried to be better, and that was the whole point of Season 2, a search for redemption that ends up blowing up in their faces.” Continue reading. 

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Industry News

Link: Banff World Media Festival: Canadian producers say CRTC decision threatens homegrown programs

From Eric Volmers of the Calgary Herald:

Link: Banff World Media Festival: Canadian producers say CRTC decision threatens homegrown programs
Just as the top movers and shakers in the TV industry arrive at the Banff World Media Festival, independent Canadian producers are sounding the alarm about Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) regulation changes they say will have a devastating effect on both the quantity and quality of Canadian TV shows. Continue reading.

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Featured

Comments and queries for the week of June 9

I’m not happy [Chopped Canada] got cancelled. I watched it all the time and I’m ashamed, as a Canadian, that they cancelled something that was important to others! I loved the show and Food Network Canada is a huge disappointment now!! —Terri

I love [Anne]. I just get entranced while watching. The gentleman that plays the father figure is so sweet and genuine it just makes me cry. So much is so true that I see in my students. Kids will be kids no matter what ages. Please let there be a Season 2; I would love for it to continue. It is so hard to find a good show anymore that doesn’t deal with crime and sex. Please post when Season 2 will start. —Grace

Congratulations Trevor. Truly deserved to win. I think the [MasterChef Canada] final should have been between Trevor and Barrie. When Thea brought out the tears in order to stay in the competition I thought that was a ploy. It had worked for Miranda one week, so I think she decided to give it a shot as well and it worked for her too! Even Mai tried using the tears but it didn’t save her. I was thoroughly disgusted with Miranda and the other guy (can’t remember his name) who saved themselves when they both knew they were responsible for their team’s failure. They were in charge and the captain goes down with the ship regardless. And then Michael offers him a job in his new restaurant? What about Barrie or Thea? They were more worthy of a job offering! —Debra

Wow, I actually agreed with the judges’ decision this year! You mean it’s not fixed?!? Trevor was the stronger home cook between the two finalists. Cool technique on his crème fraiche in his dessert; it looked like an artist setting up an abstract painting. Loved his honest but polite comments (digs) about Barrie in last week’s show about who supported who when on the same team. Barrie is such a gentle (the bear) man, but it is a competition. Anyone else think that Thea and Britney Spears could be sisters? Loved how her confidence came out after being called out by the judges to start acting like she deserved to be standing in the Top 10. Great job by both finalists! —Tunie

I am so very glad that Trevor won the MasterChef title. I think he deserved the title more than anyone else. He has good cooking and plating skills and he listened to the advice given by the judges. More importantly, he was humble and warm throughout the whole process. Congratulations, Trevor! Frankly, I really like watching MasterChef Canada. The judges are simply awesome. They not only advise the contestants but also give them the moral support they needed especially when some of these contestants encounter a problem or two during the culinary battle. I would say that the three judges Chef Michael, Chef Alvin and Chef Claudio are great mentors apart from being great chefs themselves. They truly exude warmth and humility. Three cheers to the three awesome MasterChef judges and three cheers to the contestants too. —Siew

 

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

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Featured, Wynonna Earp

Wynonna Earp showrunner Emily Andras talks Season 2, laundry and Sheriff Nedley

There’s a reason I love chatting with Emily Andras. It’s not just because she’s been a writer and producer on stellar programs like Killjoys and Lost Girl and has created the scintillating sci-fi series Wynonna Earp from Beau Smith’s kick-ass comic. Those are great reasons on their own. No, I love speaking to Andras because she’s witty, self-deprecating and strictly no-bullshit.

With Wynonna Earp roaring back to our TVs this Friday at 10 p.m. ET on Space, I was looking forward to her take on where Wynonna, Waverly, Doc, Dolls and Haught were headed in their sophomore season as well as a peek back at what she learned from Season 1.

Where are you at in the process of Season 2 now?
Emily Andras: The big bulk of my work is done. It was five days a week and now it’s three days a week. Of course, now everyone is talking about Season 3 development and I’m like, ‘Uh, can I just do one load of laundry?’

And, of course, you’ll be live tweeting too.
Yes, I’m increasing my wine intake in preparation for Friday nights. The thing about live tweeting is it’s such a gas. Can I just say, publicly, that if you’re sort of a normal person who I know in the Canadian television industry, mute me now because of the live tweeting. No hard feelings, actual people, if you want to mute my Twitter while I live tweet. We’ve been public about the fact that fan interaction is what made our show and got us a second season. The cast isn’t contractually obligated to live tweet; we do it because we love the show.

At the end of the day, the Earp sisters are the heart of the show. And just winding up Melanie Scrofano and letting her go. Her performance in Season 2 makes her performance in Season 1 look like garbage.

How important were the fans when it came to second season storylines?
I’ve been pretty honest about this. It’s the new conundrum for every showrunner, which is that fan engagement is incredibly important, but at the same time you need to tell a story and not everybody can be involved. It often give the analogy of driving a bus. I’m going to be driving the Wynonna Earp bus and you can get on the bus if you want. You can yell at me while we’re on the bus, you can hoot and holler out the window and you can get off the bus if you don’t like where it’s going. We can’t all grab the wheel of the bus because then we’ll go off a cliff.

As much as I appreciate the fan engagement, my job is to tell a good story and make you feel things. I want to surprise you. I love the fan engagement but I don’t necessarily take fan instruction if that makes any sense. I just can’t. I just try to put that aside when I’m putting together a season with my amazing writers. We just try to think of what we can do to take these people on a ride and make them feel things and, hopefully, feel satisfied at the end of the day.

What was your post-mortem on Season 1? Were there things you wished you’d done differently?
There definitely was. I am not being falsely modest when I say I was genuinely amazed when people got the show. We were running around in the woods in Alberta going, ‘I don’t know if anyone is going to watch this thing.’ I think there was a lot of soul-searching from Syfy, to be honest, and to their credit and some of the things they thought they would tweak—when it came to focus testing some of the things we did in Season 1—were really popular. They said, ‘Throw that out, we want to stick with what is working.’ I think the thing that was personally the most important to me was just keeping the tone of the first season. At the end of the day, the Earp sisters are the heart of the show. And just winding up Melanie Scrofano and letting her go. Her performance in Season 2 makes her performance in Season 1 look like garbage.

There was something in every single episode of Season 1 that I would have done differently. A joke that didn’t work or a special effect that didn’t work, but pace and tone and making more of what worked was what I was most concerned about.

You introduce new characters in Season 2 and as I watched the first episode, “Steel Bars and Stone Walls,” I recalled your reference to Buffy the Vampire, and this being a version of the Scooby Gang. We’re getting that.
One thing that I noticed that Buffy did really well and we didn’t get a chance to do a lot of in Season 1 was, part of the best parts of Buffy was when the team is working together. I wanted to get more of that in Season 2. The more of my amazing cast I can cram into one scene—bickering or yelling or figuring things out—the better the energy was. That’s definitely something you’ll see more of this season.

Were there any milestones you wanted to hit in Season 2?
One of the things we wanted to do, and the network encouraged us to do, was to take on a little bit more of the comic book tradition by Beau Smith—who we all adore—and expand the world from just demon revenants into more supernatural creatures. We wanted to have Wynonna and the team fighting more of those. We had a lot of fun with that. We also wanted to have some more long form storytelling and arcing. It’s still, ultimately, about the curse and Wynonna trying to do this thing that she’s destined to do. There are so many surprises this year and I think something happens at midseason that turns everything on its head that I’m really excited about. All in all, it was about the spirit and fun of the comic book and seeing if we could lean into that, even more, this year.

We are definitely going to find out more about Dolls and what he is. In the grand Lost tradition, as we get answers it sometimes raises more questions. I hope it’s interesting and compelling and satisfying.

When we pick up on Friday, the team is trying to save Dolls. We keep getting peeks that he’s something. Will we find out what he is—or isn’t—by the end of this season?
We are definitely going to find out more about Dolls and what he is. In the grand Lost tradition, as we get answers it sometimes raises more questions. I hope it’s interesting and compelling and satisfying.

What can you say about the Black Badge?
I like the mystery of the Black Badge. The idea of them being a paranormal government agency … how the hell does that happen!? I like the idea that, at the end of the day, they don’t seem as legit. I always like the idea that there’s another big bad.

Will Sheriff Nedley join the team as well?
He’s in and out. I freaking love Greg Lawson. He is so good this year. He is like, #hero. My favourite thing about him, as a character, is he refuses to be impressed by these idiot young people. He just doesn’t care because he’s seen it all. He’s just counting down the days until retirement. He’s nobody’s fool and sees more than you think he does. We just kept going back to the well on Nedley this year because he’s so funny and useful to bring down the rest of the characters and their drama. Greg Lawson is a delight. I think he’s one of the most underrated actors in Canada.

Was he planned to be a short-term character and then you expanded the role?
It was more that I thought he was going to be a dipshit. He was going to be Boss Hogg, a slightly racist, slightly homophobic small-town sheriff, kind of what we saw in the pilot was what we were going to get. But, it wasn’t necessarily the best fit for Greg and I believe it’s good to lean into people’s strengths if you can. So much of the show is about not making assumptions about people—what they look like and what have you—similarly I thought it was much more interesting to have Sheriff Nedley be a little bit more diverse and a smarter guy. He can be a small-town dude that loves hunting and fishing and still be an open-minded, literate gentleman.

Wynonna Earp airs Fridays at 10 p.m. ET on Space.

Images courtesy of Bell Media.

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