TV, eh? | What's up in Canadian television | Page 1070
TV,eh? What's up in Canadian television
Featured, Murdoch Mysteries

Interview: Murdoch Mysteries’ Hélène Joy lets her hair down

6 Comments

It’s not often that Hélène Joy is able to really let her hair down. On Murdoch Mysteries it’s always drawn up in a no-nonsense tousle, part of the restrictive look of the times sported by Dr. Julia Ogden and the women of the 1900s. The hair and the wardrobe are so extreme, Joy says, she’s rarely recognized out on the street.

And while Dr. Ogden may be constrained by her wardrobe and the time’s social mores, Joy certainly isn’t. In this wide-ranging chat from the set, the Perth, Australia, native talked about her arm injury—suffered while biking in Toronto—the upcoming season, meeting fans (and how far some will go to meet the cast) and her interests outside of Murdoch Mysteries.

How is your arm?
Hélène Joy: I have a plate and 10 screws in it. It’s so nasty and it’s still a bit stiff. It’s at maybe 85 per cent of what it was. I’ve got a really good swing in softball now, I’m stronger than I used to be.

A young fan was on the set today and excited to meet everyone. What is it like meeting people who love this show and these characters so much?
Being here on the set working you sometimes forget the impact that you have on people when they watch you on the television. We were in Ayr, Ont., filming and somebody tried to get access. They pretended to be somebody’s brother to get into the makeup truck. It got a little rowdy.

The running joke is that I never get recognized in public because I look so different. With my hair down, it’s more of a transformation than it is with the guys. But when people do recognize me, it’s like, ‘Whaaaattt??’ I’ve met fans as me and they stare at me, like, ‘Where do I know her from?’ It happens to me all the time. I’ve met people who have told me I look 20 years older as Julia. I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not!

I’ve met people who have told me I look 20 years older as Julia. I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not!

Showrunner Peter Mitchell told me at the end of Season 8 that this upcoming season will feature more of William and Julia.
We did give the fans some of that last season, but they wanted more. What they did get, they loved. We’re allowed to play and flirt and be completely open and there is way more of that this year because we know how much the fans love it.

The next step for Julia and William is a baby…
I think that would be amazing. I think it would be hilarious because I think they’d be terrible parents. They’re a couple of nerds who don’t really have any idea what they’re doing. Neither of them would stop working, so how would they balance that?

You’re a member of Women In Film & Television. Do you feel as though women are being given more opportunities in TV and film than they were?
It’s always changing. If I think back 10 years ago, when I first came to Canada, my agent told me, ‘You haven’t made it, but you’ll work. There will be less roles for you as you get older, but you’ll work.’ That was the attitude that I came into. Like, if you’re not 22, it won’t be that easy. And I wasn’t 22. It’s no longer that way at all. The best roles for women are in their 30s and up. I’m glad to see that no one is buying into that and that directors aren’t buying into that.

People want to see lead women and women’s stories. I think the future is really bright.

What about producing and directing. Is that something you’re interested in doing?
Not producing, I’m not really interested in that. Directing is something I’d be interested in, but I’m not one to step onto a set and direct. If anything, I’d be directing my own short. I have a short that I’d like to make that I wrote some time ago and I have a support system to do it but it requires time. I’ve been doing this long enough that I know what I’d want.

What is the short about?
It’s set in Australia on Valentine’s Day in the heat, but because the seasons are different [between North America and Australia] maybe I’d set it in L.A. It’s a weird love story with a dark twist and not a lot of dialogue. Only one scene of dialogue, actually, and it’s very intense. I can see all of the camera work; it’s all done in my head. Now I just need a bunch of money!

Season 9 of Murdoch Mysteries returns Monday, Oct. 5, at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail
Amazing Race Canada, Dark Matter, Featured

Comments and queries for the week of July 31

The key to Amazing Race Canada‘s Express Pass

You can really do one of three things with the Express Pass you have to give away:

A) Give it to another team you like out of friendship and maybe you can help each other on some random task down the line.

B) Give it to a weak team you feel sorry for. Perhaps hoping on the small chance they use it at a time when a stronger team is having a bad day so the Express Pass contributes to the stronger team’s elimination.

C) Give it to a strong team that probably won’t really need it but knowing it will probably make them a bigger possibility for getting U-Turned. And maybe the stronger team will help you on a task down the line. —Dan

Love/hate for Dark Matter

I think that Dark Matter S01E07 is one of this season’s best episodes, with an interesting, fast paced story and new interesting characters. I think it was a nice jump in quality, compared to the previous episode, that I found slow and not too interesting. —Juan

Not impressed with the addition of Ruby Rose to the great cast already in place. She is freaking annoying and not sci-fi material in my opinion. I’ll give her props in OITNB but this was not a positive for the show Dark Matter. It adds a sleazy feel. Last week we enjoyed wonderful character development. This week made me feel like I was watching The CW’s teeny B.S. —Not Happy

 

Got a comment or query about Canadian TV? greg@tv-eh.com or @tv_eh.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail
Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Food Network sets Chef in Your Ear debut date

From a media release:

Listen up! This Fall on Food Network Canada, culinary masters are pairing with clueless cooks to see who can create the best restaurant quality dishes in the new original Canadian series Chef in Your Ear, premiering August 31 at 10pm ET/PT.

In this thrilling culinary competition, two of the country’s hottest chefs face off to see who can get a completely clueless cook to create the best restaurant quality dish in only one hour. The catch? The chefs never step foot in the kitchen. Isolated in a remote booth, each chef watches their cook on a monitor, guiding them step-by-step through an earpiece. The final plates are judged and the winning chef determines the losing chef’s punishment. It’s ego against ego and dish against dish in Chef In Your Ear!

The series is hosted by Second City funnyman Greg Komorowski and features Canadian chefs Jordan Andino (Harlow Sag Harbor, Kourtney & Khloé Take The Hamptons), Devin Connell (Delica Kitchen), Craig Harding (Campagnolo), Rob Rossi (Bestellen, Top Chef Canada Season 1), and Cory Vitiello (The Harbord Room, THR & Co. and Flock).

Chef in Your Ear is a 13-episode, 60-minute competition series. Chef In Your Ear is an original format conceived by Justin Scroggie, developed by Ricardo Larrivee, Justin Scroggie, Daniel Gelfant, Henry Less, Lee Herberman, and Food Network Canada. The series is produced by HLP+Partners in association with Food Network Canada. Series Producers are Daniel Gelfant and LeAnne Armano. Supervising Producer is Angela Donald. Executive Producers are Henry Less, Lee Herberman and Daniel Gelfant. International Distributor is The Format People.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail
Featured

Digging for more Canadian history on Backroad Bounty

1 Comment

You never know what will be uncovered during an episode of Backroad Bounty. Will hosts Marty Gebel and Peter “Bam Bam” Bamford procure a cool neon sign hidden in a disused storage room, a box full of collectible Matchbox cars aching to see the light of day, or an old stand used to hold cans for a long-forgotten brand of car oil?

What these guys find, what they pay for them with plans to re-sell—and the stories behind those items—are at the heart of the Cottage Life series as it heads into its sophomore season. I hopped in the car and drove two hours outside of Toronto to Ingersoll, Ont., where Gebel and Bamford were busy searching for buried treasure. I found the pair climbing around the cluttered, humid third floor of E. W. McKim Quality Home Hardware in Ingersoll’s downtown, calling out to one another—and to store owner Bob Mott—when they discovered something cool. There was plenty to chat about. Among the items the fellows were interested in? Old ice skates, wooden boxes, vintage hardware store displays and a sign that once hung in front of the store. And while the items the boys found had interesting stories attached to them, the future episode’s setting did too: Mott recalls how the hardware store was a buggy shop during the 1800s.

“Searching for items is in their blood,” Joe Houlihan, president of Our House Media, Backroad Bounty‘s production company, tells me during a break in shooting. “They’d be doing this whether there was a TV show or not.” Season 1 of Backroad Bounty saw Gebel and Bamford tooling around cottage country, poking around decrepit hotels, barns, overflowing basements and garages in search of finds they could fix up and re-sell; this go-round has expanded its boundaries.

Backroad_Bounty

“This season feels more like a buddy road trip,” series producer and director Marshall Kaplan says. “It’s about the characters they meet along the way. It’s always about the amazing stuff that they find, but there’s humour and more of a story, more meat to the bone this year.”

Houlihan points out Backroad Bounty “sneaks history” into each episode through the tales told and items purchased; he himself has learned an incredible amount of Ontario history from his program. Among the areas the duo visit in Season 2 are Grand Bend, Quinte West, Harcourt, Port Dover, Walkerton, Wiarton and Owen Sound where the pair entertain each other as much as they do viewers.

“Marty is Bam’s best audience,” Kaplan says with a laugh. “Bam is a really good entertainer and Marty laughs at every one of his jokes. They may be interested in different things, but at the end of the day they both love the hunt.”

Season 2 of Backroad Bounty will air on Cottage Life.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail
Children's Programming, Industry News

YTV Brings Gordon Korman’s Macdonald Hall to the Small Screen with Bruno & Boots: Go Jump in the Pool!

From a media release:

The most infamous troublemakers at Macdonald Hall Boys’ School are bringing their pranks to YTV in Bruno & Boots: Go Jump in the Pool!, based on the much-loved Macdonald Hall book series by best-selling young adult author Gordon Korman. Aircraft Pictures and YTV have started production on the TV movie, which stars Jonny Gray (Max & Shred, Annedroids) and Callan Potter (Stratford Festival), Peter Keleghan (18 To Life, Murdoch Mysteries) and Caroline Rhea (Sabrina The Teenage Witch, Phineas and Ferb). The movie will shoot in Hamilton, Ontario through to the middle of August and is slated to premiere on YTV in 2016

Bruno (Jonny Gray), the enthusiastic instigator of plots, plans to enrage Macdonald Hall’s rivals at York Academy, to intrigue the students at Miss Scrimmage’s Academy for Education & Awakening and to just make high school more fun. His very best friend, his comrade-in-arms, his we-do-everything-together pal is Boots (Callan Potter) who, as it happens, is a very good swimmer. The duo’s shenanigans try the patience of Headmaster William Sturgeon (Peter Keleghan) and Headmistress Eugenia Scrimmage (Caroline Rhea).

For the boys at Macdonald Hall, losing swim meets to the snobs at York Academy is a constant humiliation. But, until the Hall gets its own pool and Boots can train, York is going to win every swim meet. Unhappy with their son’s athletic performance, Boots’ parents decide to transfer him to York and enrol him in its excellent sports program. What is worse than losing your best friend? Nothing. So Bruno concocts a plan to raise $150,000 to build his school a pool. How hard can it be? A few rummage sales. A couple of bake-offs. Maybe a slightly, possibly against-the-rules toll booth. Bruno will try anything to keep Boots at Macdonald Hall.

Bruno & Boots: Go Jump in the Pool! is produced by Anthony Leo and Andrew Rosen of Aircraft Pictures (Todd and the Book of Pure Evil, Cybergeddon), written by Adam Barken (Killjoys, Flashpoint) and directed by Vivieno Caldinelli (This Hour has 22 Minutes, Odd Squad). Breakthrough Entertainment will handle international sales.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail