TV, eh? | What's up in Canadian television | Page 132
TV,eh? What's up in Canadian television
Children Ruin Everything

Aaron Abrams joins CTV original comedy Children Ruin Everything in lead role, with Ennis Esmer and Nazneen Contractor joining cast

From a media release:

CTV, Canada’s most-watched network, together with award-winning independent production company New Metric Media, announced today that Aaron Abrams (BLINDSPOT, HANNIBAL) has been tapped for one of the leading roles in the new half-hour CTV Original comedy CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING, joining previously announced lead Meaghan Rath (BEING HUMAN, HAWAII 5-0). In addition, Ennis Esmer (BLINDSPOT, SCHITT’S CREEK) and Nazneen Contractor (RANSOM, HEROES REBORN) have also signed on to join the cast.

Abrams stars as “James”, a supportive and loving husband to Astrid (Rath) and father of two. Positive but anxious, James loves parenting with Astrid but misses the freedom of his pre-kid life. Esmer joins the cast as “Ennis”, James’s co-worker and best friend who wants as few responsibilities as possible, and Contractor plays “Dawn”, Astrid’s successful, blunt, and mildly pretentious sister.

Created by Golden Globe® and Emmy® Award-winner Kurt Smeaton (SCHITT’S CREEK, KIM’S CONVENIENCE), CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING is about living with the worst roommates of all: young children. Astrid (Rath) and James struggle to find a balance between being ‘Mom and Dad’ to two kids, and being who they were before offspring. CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING explores the hilarious and varied ways kids can tear down your life and, if you’re lucky, replace it with something you have to admit is pretty okay, too.

Aaron Abrams has appeared in several regular and reoccurring roles for television including MASTERS OF SEX, THE L.A. COMPLEX, LONGMIRE, THE OATH, ROOKIE BLUE, SLINGS & ARROWS, BLINDSPOT, and HANNIBAL. Winner of a FilmOut award for Best Supporting Actor in the critically acclaimed film Closet Monster, Abrams has also starred in the hit sci-fi film Code 8 and in his award-winning drama Nose To Tail. He has written and produced several films, including The Lovebirds, starring Kumail Nanjiani and Issa Rae. Abrams is repped by Buchwald, Luber Roklin Entertainment, and The Characters Talent Agency.

An ACTRA Award and Canadian Comedy Award nominee, Ennis Esmer’s television credits include SCHITT’S CREEK, YOU ME HER, RED OAKS, THE LISTENER, PRIVATE EYES, DARK MATTER, MAN SEEKING WOMAN, LOST GIRL, and most recently he portrayed the billionaire criminal mastermind turned FBI consultant “Rich Dotcom” on the hit series BLINDSPOT. On the silver screen, Esmer can be seen in the indie Clara, which screened at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival. Other independent film credits include How To Plan An Orgy In A Small Town, Big News From Grand Rock, Dirty Singles, Sex After Kids, and the breakout hit Young People Fucking. Esmer is repped by The Characters Talent Agency and Berwick & Kovacik.

Nazneen Contractor has appeared in many popular television series such as THE BORDER, 24, RULES OF ENGAGEMENT, COVERT AFFAIRS, HEROES REBORN, CHICAGO JUSTICE, and the Frank Spotnitz drama RANSOM, as well as voicing the character “Synara San” in STAR WARS RESISTANCE. Nominated for a Golden Nymph Award at the Monte Carlo Television Festival, Contractor also starred as Rima Harewood in the record-breaking Paramount feature film Star Trek Into The Darkness as well as the upcoming film Spiral. Contractor is repped by The Characters Talent Agency, Gersh, and BMK-ENT.

Meaghan Rath is repped by Hess Entertainment, The Kohner Agency, and attorney Jerry Longarzo.

Alongside Smeaton, one of television’s premier comedy writers, Chuck Tatham (MODERN FAMILY, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT) joins multiple Canadian Screen Award-winner Mark Montefiore (LETTERKENNY, WHAT WOULD SAL DO?) and Rath as executive producers, with Beth Iley (KILLJOYS) serving as producer.

Bell Media Distribution is the international rights holder for CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING, and New Metric Media is the series’ exclusive Sales Agent. The series is produced by New Metric Media in association with CTV, with the participation of the Canada Media Fund.

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Featured, Second Jen

Second Jen ends after three seasons on Omni

Jen and Mo have said goodbye. After three seasons on Omni, Second Jen will not be back for a fourth.

“It is bittersweet for us to announce that this has been the last season of Second Jen,” co-creators, co-executive producers and stars Amanda Joy and Samantha Wan, and showrunner Carly Heffernan posted on social media following the show’s Sunday season finale. “Thank you to everyone who has supported us. Thank you for the love and laughter over the years.”

“We leave Jen and Mo in a place that feels good; where they’ve grown, and learned, and come into their own,” the post continued. “We are so happy to have shared their journey with all of you. In many ways, their story has echoed our own.”

Read the rest of the post.

Over the course of three seasons, Second Jen centred on best friends Jen (Wan) and Mo (Joy) who banded together to tackle life’s ups-and-downs in Toronto.

Nominated for Best Comedy at the 2019 Canadian Screen Awards, the Season 3 cast included Nile Séguin, Janet Lo, Timothy Lai, Richard Tse, Tina Jung, Isabel Kanaan and Andrew Bushell. Guest stars included Andrew Phung, Ken Hall, Deb McGrath, Kathryn Greenwood, Ann Pornel, Rodrigo Fernandez-Stoll and Kathleen Phillips.

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Awards, Transplant

Transplant receives Media Award from MPAC’s Hollywood Bureau

From a media release:

Sphere Media, a leader in the field of creation, adaptation, production and distribution of television and cinematographic content, is proud to announce that Transplant has been named an Honoree at the 29th edition of the Media Awards that took place on March 20.

MPAC’s annual Media Awards celebrates members of the entertainment industry, artists, and activists who promote inclusion and social justice through their craft. Honorees have done so by advancing authentic portrayals of Islam and Muslims, increasing understanding by reflecting the realities of our world today, and by inspiring action and movements for social change.

Transplant is the story of Dr. Bashir “Bash” Hamed (Hamza Haq), a talented doctor and Syrian refugee who fled to Canada with his younger sister and earned a second chance to practice Emergency Medicine at York Memorial Hospital in Toronto. The series features realistic and nuanced portrayals of the challenges faced by refugees, and the trauma of those struggling to survive in war zones.

Developed at CTV, Transplant is produced by Sphere Media in association with CTV and NBCUniversal International Studios, a division of Universal Studio Group. All distribution rights are handled by NBCUniversal Global Distribution, with the series airing on NBC in the U.S.

The first season of the critically acclaimed series saw Transplant become the most- watched Canadian series among total viewers, with an average audience of 1.4 million on CTV.

The second season of Transplant is currently in production and will consist of 13, one- hour episodes. The series is also set to air on Noovo in a translated French version.

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Kim's Convenience

Link: ‘It died from within’: Two actors lament the untimely demise of Kim’s Convenience

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From Eric Volmers of the Calgary Herald:

Link: ‘It died from within’: Two actors lament the untimely demise of Kim’s Convenience
“No matter how good it can be, if you don’t deal with issues from within and try to gloss it over because everything on the surface looks fantastic and idealistic, then you are just asking for trouble. I think that’s the unfortunate lesson from this whole thing.” Continue reading.

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Featured, Web series

CBC Gem’s The Communist’s Daughter a funny peek at the 80s in all its excess

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My formative years were spent in the 1980s. Though I didn’t know it at the time, the 80s celebrated consumerism and excess. I was, however, aware of the media’s portrayal of Communism—and the Soviet Union, specifically—during that decade through movies like Rocky IV, Red Dawn and then-WWF wrestlers Nikolai Volkoff and Boris Zhukov. And I was aware of how it all came to a head in 1989 when the Berlin Wall tumbled, signifying the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe.

That time, and the tumult that came with it, is explored in the new web series The Communist’s Daughter. Available now on CBC Gem, the eight first-season episodes are the creation of head writer and director Leah Cameron (Coroner), who has first-hand knowledge of the subject matter.

The Communist’s Daughter is loosely based on Cameron’s childhood: her father was a Communist during the 1980s. As a result, the family car was a Lada, Soviet Life magazine was delivered to the door, and family vacations were to Cuba to support the economy. In the first episode, viewers are introduced to Dunyasha McDougald (Sofia Banzhaf), a 15-year-old living in Toronto in 1989. Happily upholding the beliefs of her father Ian (Aaron Poole) and mother Carol (Jessica Holmes), Dunyasha finds her support of Communism challenged by her first day at high school when she meets Jasmine (Nadine Bhabha) and Marc (Kolton Stewart). (Look for Chris Locke, George Stroumboulopoulos and Neema Nazeri in funny supporting roles.)

It’s been a long road for The Communist’s Daughter. I first spoke to Cameron back in 2018, when she applied to the Independent Production Fund to produce the series. Now, with the debut close at hand, how did she tackle writing the web series?

“By the time I got to shooting the [IPF] teaser, I had a sense of, tonally, what I wanted the show to feel like in terms of comedy and casting,” Cameron says. “I had originally conceived of it as a half-hour comedy, so it was more a process of refining some of the characters and paring things down.” The first TV episode was broken down and served as Episodes 1 and 2 of the web series and a rough season outline followed. Cameron knew she wanted The Communist’s Daughter to be serialized and take place over time, using the frame of Ian running for a local election and Dunyasha beginning her school year in September and the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989.

“It’s a time when the family’s values couldn’t be more out of sync with what’s going on,” she says. “The Reagan 80s are a super-consumerist time, a super-conservative time and a time when I, growing up, said that my dad was a Communist and everybody thought that meant he was an evil person.”

Executive producer Lauren Corber—her LoCo Motion Pictures are behind Detention Adventure and How to Buy a Baby—is always looking for stories that speak to her, an audience for a project and if a creator is bringing something new to the table. She found all three in The Communist’s Daughter.

“Leah and [producer] Natalie Novak did an excellent job with their proof of concept video,” Corber says. “I had worked with Natalie before and was excited to work with her again. Leah came to the project with such a passion for the story. It was just undeniable that she would bring something special to the production.”

The Communist’s Daughter is available now on CBC Gem.

Images courtesy of Conor Fisher for Pinko Productions Inc.

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