TV, eh? | What's up in Canadian television | Page 322
TV,eh? What's up in Canadian television

Links: Heartland, Season 12

From Eric Volmers of the Calgary Herald:

Link: Heartland’s steady work still affords actors a creative outlet
When the CBC hit family drama Heartland began airing in the U.S. 10 years ago, actor and director Chris Potter shared a theory with showrunner Heather Conkie about what might happen if it found an audience in America. Continue reading.

From Joe Belanger of the London Free Press:

Link: London-raised TV star Amber Marshall gets to ‘heart’ of her future
“It’s my dream job. I can’t imagine a better project suited for me than Heartland. And the fact it just goes on and on and on is incredible.” Continue reading.

From Charles Trapunski of Brief Take:

Link: Interview: Heartland’s Amber Marshall and Graham Wardle
“So much of television is in closed spaces–offices, etc.–where it’s focused inward and is very tight, whereas our show is very open. That allows people to open up, even subconsciously, and then take in that scenery and that beauty.” Continue reading.

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CBC’s Kim’s Convenience hits its stride in Season 3

You can feel it when a television show has found its legs. The characters are relatable and unforced, funny but not feeling strained. That’s the state Kim’s Convenience is in as it rolls into Season 3. And why not? The CBC sitcom—returning Tuesday at 8 p.m.—has a legion of Canadian fans behind it and is expanding worldwide thanks to Netflix, Amazon and a recent deal that will see the award-winning program debut in Korea. (A fourth season has already been greenlit, meaning the Kims and their friends are sticking around for awhile.)

When viewers tune in on Tuesday, they’ll see Appa (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) and Jung (Simu Liu) working together to right an Appa wrong before Umma (Jean Yoon) finds out. Spoiler alert: they don’t succeed. Meanwhile, Janet (Andrea Bang) is still fighting to be recognized as a bona fide artist and Kimchee (Andrew Phung) is the assistant manager at Handy Car Rental. The cast teased a bit of what this season has in store.

Over the last couple of seasons, Appa and Jung have come together on screen and they have been really big moments. Is it becoming more comfortable now, these two guys spending time together? The situation called for it in the first episode, and I feel as though there’s a softening towards each other. Is that the case?
Simu Liu: If you look at how Jung and Appa left off at the end of Season 2, it wasn’t necessarily a diffusing or anything. We certainly thought that there some sort of reconciliation in the works in the episode before, but then there’s a blow up that happens. It goes to illustrate that no family, no relationship like that is just going to repair itself because of one thing. The past is always going to influence how they are around each other.

I think that’s kind of the tone we’re going into the new season with. I think you will have moments where they’re together and it’ll be what it is, but it won’t be normalized.

Jean Yoon: They come together, they blow up. And they come together.

Paul Sun-Hyung Lee: You also see why they fight. When you see these interactions, you kind of go, ‘Oh!’ Because in Season 1, it’s like he ran away from home or he got kicked out. Why don’t they get along? I think that’s the by-product of seeing them sort of wanting to reach out. At the end of Season 2, you know there’s the desire’s there, but they just can’t do it…

SL: There’s so much history. It’s complicated.

JY: You see how much they are alike, and why as they come together and you get this friction.

PSHK: That’s the fun exploration of seeing that, ’cause it’s like, they’re together, you know they want to repair those things, that rift, but there’s just something fundamental about the makeup, because they are so similar to each other. They’re like magnets. Same poles.

Also, in the first episode back, Jung is faking that he’s going to the job, and then wanting to watch TV. It’s such a great storyline for a television show anyway, having the guy act like he’s been going to a job or school for months and months and months. 
SL: To be doing it so that, in part, because he doesn’t want to be embarrassed, of course. But in part also because he doesn’t want his best friend to feel bad about taking his job. I think he really starts the season in the lowest of the low moments.

What can you say about what Jung goes through this season?
SL: I mean, I can’t say too much. I think you see a little bit of it at the end of the first episode. It’s just him getting used to the fact that things aren’t going to be so easy for him. I think when we start in Season 1, it’s like by Episode 3 he’s the assistant manager. Dating seems to be not terribly difficult for him. Now it’s like, ‘No, you lost your chance with the girl that you really like. You lost your job. Your best friend’s the new assistant manager at Handy.’

Andrew Phung: You start seeing Kimchee and Jung’s relationship sort itself out, because there is a new balance between them. I think that was really fun. I think always in those early scripts, I see them, this is such an opportunity for us to see a switch in the character. To see the character evolve. We love seeing characters have highs and lows. We can see Kimchee’s high. He’s coming out, looking fresh, he’s multi-tasking. So you see that character change as well. That’s throughout the season.

It’s a real opportunity for this guy that’s been the laughing stock of the show in every scene for two seasons. I’m assuming that’s not going to totally change, but it is a great opportunity for him.
AP: Going back all the way to the first season. We were work-shopping the scenes. I was trying to figure out Kimchee, because I think [Paul and Simu] had a sense of … you knew your characters. You’d lived with your characters. Kimchee’s new. We came to this conclusion that Kimchee is a genius. He is the smartest guy in the room. He thinks he’s a genius. On the outside looking in, you’re like ‘What’s this guy doing?’ Kimchee’s like, ‘You’re an idiot for not thinking my way.’

It’s fun to see him evolve to now own this role of genius. Now he has power. He’s put it into the workplace, and just having the opportunity to play with Nicole [Power, as Shannon]. There are these wonderful scenes that we developed this relationship we never had. Now we’re peers in the workplace.

Jean, what about Umma and Appa?
JY: On the other side of the world, I think what happens in Season 3 that’s really satisfying is you see Umma and Appa, you see more facets of their relationship. These marital disputes that every couple has gone through. Power play, questions about division of labour and is equal the same as the same? No. Equal should mean I’m better. That kind of thing. Also, we see Appa and Jung and some really interesting episodes with Janet and some with Gerald and a lot of the characters that we’ve all come to love to visit the store…

PSHL: Pastor Nina, Mr. Mehta, Mr. Chin.

JY: Mr. Chin, Gerald, Chelsea, his girlfriend. Again, a lot of those themes seem to be about communication, about boundaries. The driving force is in the end, that you know no matter how bad the conflict is, that in the end, these characters really love each other. These are people who at the end of the day are going to somehow find it in the bottom of their souls to say they’re sorry. And they’ll mean it.

SL: We’re really hitting a comfort zone in our own work. Especially, I think about Andrew and I on our first day of Season 1, just coming to set and basically shaking as the camera’s rolling, because we were newcomers into the whole Kim’s Convenience world, and we just didn’t want to mess it up.

I think about how nervous we were and how anxious we were. How that followed through the entire first season and a bit into the second as well. But really I think what was different for me going into the third was I think you mentioned this confidence, this self-assuredness. But it was just, ‘OK, I have some idea of what this character is and what he does and why he thinks the way that he thinks.’ I feel like I can do the work. I feel like that really gives you room and permission to play and take risks. I think that’s when you get your best work in.

Kim’s Convenience airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

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Comments and queries for the week of January 4

[Dear Vintage Tech Hunters.] I have a 1984 Mac. The first one in Canada. The serial number indicates it was the first off the line. All original materials and software. —Faith


I tried watching [Frontier], but I found it incredibly dull. Aquaman was actually really good, I don’t know if it has to do with my low expectations but I felt it really delivered. —Jo


Why has the Frankie Drake Mysteries series been taken off the air? —David

Hi David, Season 2 of Frankie Drake has completed its run on CBC. Fingers crossed a third season of mysteries are on the way!

 

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

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Serinda Swan on her CBC series Coroner and why Canadian actors in L.A. should come home

The last time I spoke to Serinda Swan, she was co-starring in A&E’s excellent and cancelled-too-soon Breakout Kings. Filmed in Toronto, Swan played one of a handful of criminals who worked with the U.S. marshals to collar prison escapees and have time taken off their own sentences.

Now Swan is back in Toronto, on the other side of the law in CBC’s new drama Coroner. Debuting on Monday at 9 p.m., the drama—based loosely on the books by M.R. Hall—stars Swan as Dr. Jenny Cooper, a recently widowed new coroner who investigates suspicious, unnatural or sudden deaths in Toronto. Created by Morwyn Brebner (Saving Hope) and produced by Muse Entertainment, Back Alley Films and Cineflix Studios, Coroner features Roger Cross as homicide detective Donovan McAvoy; Lovell Adams-Gray as pathologist Dr. Dwayne Allen; Tamara Podemski as Alison Trent, Jenny’s assistant; Kiley May as River Baitz, Dr. Allen’s assistant; and Ehren Kassam as Ross, Jenny’s son.

I chatted with Swan and Cross during CBC’s winter media day in November.

How did you get involved in Coroner, Serinda? Were you looking to come back to Canada?
Serinda Swan: I’ve had my eye on projects, Canadian projects, for a while because I feel there’s this new face of Canadian television that’s coming up or new perception of Canadian television that I think, as Canadian actors, we need to come back. We need to come back to Canada and we need to stop this archaic idea that in order to make it, we need to go to the U.S.

I think that dilutes the Canadian talent pool because we all leave, and then our team and our managers and agents don’t want us to come back, and I think this is a time that’s really exciting for Canadian television because we’re having these shows come out, and they’re becoming more specific. We’re not making Canadian television for American markets anymore. We’re making Canadian television for Canadian markets, and in that specificity, it becomes more universal.

Roger Cross: It’s making quality television, and it translates universally.

SS: I read a script a few years ago [for] Bellevue. And I loved it, I absolutely loved it, I thought it was incredible. And we got very, very close to actually doing it, and it didn’t end up working in the end, and so I had my eyes on [the production companies]. I was like, ‘OK, this is a pretty incredible group of humans that are orbiting around some really interesting material.’ They called me when this role came up, and said, ‘Would you be interested?’

And they sent me the bible for it, and it just was such an interesting perspective, the imagery that they used in it, the way that they described the character. The fact that she was more human than she was coroner … And so when I read it, I was like, ‘Oh this is some character work. I’m gonna be able to physically, emotionally and mentally change.’ And they were all for it. I was like, ‘I want my character to cut off her hair, I want to be able to put on weight, I want to be able to change my physicality, I want to be able to have a minute and a half panic attack on television. I want to show mental health issues, I want to show a diverse cast. I want to be able to have gay, straight, trans, black, white, First Nations on our show and not exploit it, but celebrate it. Show what Canada really is.’

And they literally went, ‘Yeah, of course.’ And I was like, ‘Wow, my people.’ This is exactly where I want to be, and I want to stop being a part of the problem, and just doing what I think cool American TV is.

A show like Dark Matter, just thinking most recently Roger, it’s just good TV regardless of what country it’s from.
RC: Yeah. And that’s the thing, you want to get rid of those labels. Let’s forget about, ‘It’s good for this,’ or, ‘You’re good because you’re a woman.’ And hopefully we evolve to that point where we can do that one day, and that will be great.

Jenny has her world ripped apart, and you see her struggle at times, but evolve and grow throughout it.
SS: To show the bad and the ugly. She makes good choices, bad choices and then some lovely choices.

I love the chemistry that Jenny and Donovan have. They have a really good repartee.
SS: I think that comes from both of them not really giving a shit about the other one. To be honest, she doesn’t care if he likes her, he doesn’t care if she likes him, and so there’s this relaxed sense of just being who you are, that is really interesting when it comes to two different characters. Because, normally, it’s two people don’t like each other and they’re fighting to make each other like each other, and that’s not it. I’m after the truth here, with or without you, I’m going after the truth. And so it’s this breaking down and figuring it out.

RC: One of the things that homicide detectives have is a consultant we talk to. We had real pathologists, real detectives, we had real SWAT members come out … We had some great people to lean on, and ask them, ‘When you are cutting a body out, would you do this? How would you handle evidence? How would you do things?’ We had these great people to lean on. And one thing this homicide detective said to me was, ‘Listen, we’re the main thing, it’s our world. They all serve to assist us to find the murderers and find these other people.’ And so, Donovan’s been used to that world where, ‘OK, we need you, coroner. We need you over here, we need these other people. But we run the show and we know what’s going on.’ He’s been used to doing things his way and had a coroner that would sign off on things, saying, ‘Yes, that’s how it’s done.’ ‘Yeah? OK good.’ [Jenny] comes in and she’s like, ‘Nah, ah, ah, ah, ah. I’m not signing off until I’m absolutely sure that that’s right.’ He’s like, ‘What’s wrong with you? Just stay in line, do your thing.’

SS: He started as Jenny, and then slowly it dulled out, based on the constant rubbing of people just trying to get the quick fix. And so eventually, it’s that knife, he comes in very sharp and by the end, you’re like, ‘I’m worn out, man.’ She’s coming in strong, and so there is that friction of, ‘Don’t mess up my life,’ on both sides.

With Morwyn Brebner as the creator, it’s no surprise Coroner is a roller coaster of emotion. It just came across like it’s a cable show. Yes, it fits on CBC, but it also very much as a cable show where you can have those moments, those long moments to really let a scene breathe and let those emotions come out.
SS: That was something that was really important to me because that’s how I act. I don’t react, I act, and in order to act, you have to hear, you have to listen, truly listen and you have to process and then you have to figure out how you want to act. And it could be a reaction, but there is that moment of processing.

Coroner airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem.

Images courtesy of CBC.

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CBC’s family drama Heartland heads into shorter Season 12

For Heartland fans, the most obvious change for Season 12 is the episode count. We’re so used to 18 episodes of life on the Heartland ranch that it’s been a shock to wait until January for new stories contained in just 11 episodes.

That change affected the actors, writers and producers as well. But, as stars Amber Marshall and Graham Wardle told me, it meant a tightening up of storylines and the strongest possible tales involving Amy (Marshall), Ty (Wardle), Tim (Chris Potter), Jack (Shaun Johnston), Lou (Michelle Morgan) and Georgie (Alisha Newton). We spoke to the pair during CBC’s winter media day back in November.

What were your initial thoughts on finding out this season of Heartland was going to be 11 episodes instead of 18?
Amber Marshall: I know that it really sent our writers scrambling. Our showrunner, Heather [Conkie], is very meticulous and she likes to have everything set out far in advance. She had said, ‘I’ve always arced for 18 episodes. I don’t even know how to arc this show for 11.’ For her, she’s like, ‘How do I even tell all those stories in 11 episodes?’ I think that, in the beginning, it sent everybody, especially our writing department, into a bit of a frenzy trying to think, ‘OK, how do I keep these stories great, and start and end a season with a nice arc, but in a much shorter amount of time?’

In a way, I think it was really great for our creative team because it allowed them to think outside of the box and also pick and choose the best episodes that they would have had in 18 episodes and compress them into 11 because they had already arced for 18. They had already figured out what they wanted to do over an 18-episode season and pick and choose what they wanted to bring into 11 episodes.

Graham Wardle: It’s like there’s more refinement. I hope that it shows up on-screen that there are more improvements and there are richer and deeper stories.

I’ve seen the first episode, and, obviously, the biggest change is Tim’s hair.
AM: It was so funny when the first photos were posted of him this year on social media. A lot of people were saying, ‘Who’s the new character?’ Some people didn’t even recognize him. It’s funny how much of a difference just a small change like that can be.

In the first episode, Amy, Ty and Lyndy go on a road trip. Talk about the journey that these two are on this season. Obviously, with a baby, there are a lot of changes, logistically, just behind the scenes, but story-wise, where do these two go now that there’s a baby, and do they want to upgrade? Do they want to move out, because there was talk about that, too?
GW: That’s right.

And this husband that keeps taking off and going to Mongolia and upsetting every fan on Heartland.
GW: No worries. No Mongolia.

AM: I think we’ve sorted that out.

What can you say about these new parents this season?
AM: I think that this really resonates with people that try to raise a toddler in a small home. A lot of people do it, and just living and experiencing the stories that we have on the show, I don’t know how anyone could ever do that, but I think that it’s something that it brings a little bit of comedy into it, as well as showing the struggle and being able to just overcome all of that as parents and as a family, and we’re so lucky with those twin girls who play Lyndy because they really capture the essence of a toddler, and I love seeing the joy that they have on set and different things. There’ll be scripted things for them to do, and maybe they don’t want to do that that day, so we’ll switch it up. We’ll try something else.

The great thing about these girls is they’re at the age where they love to mimic, so a lot of times, if there’s something going on, I’ll mention just before ‘Action,’ ‘Look at the puppy,’ and then ‘Action,’ and they’re like, ‘Puppy, puppy, puppy.’ They love the horses, and they love puppies and all of those things that I think, for our audience watching, is fun. They want to see these kids having fun on screen.

GW: [Ty and Amy are] starting to work together in Season 12, and they have to take on that responsibility and what that means. They’re both involved together, and they’re raising a family. I think, in many ways, we drew from our experiences of both trying to work with this baby and make these things work, and that, too, plays together in the relationship with the characters.

It says in the press materials that this is a season of change and upheaval and that everybody faces that, even Jack, and I always think of Jack as the rock. When everything else is going wrong in everybody’s world, he’s the guy that you can rely on. 
AM: Jack, I think, goes through some emotional experiences that he hasn’t really dealt with in the past, and he’s always been … I don’t want to say the lone soldier. You said, ‘the rock,’ which is great, but he’s always this symbol that stands just off-side and watches everybody and looks over everybody, and I think that shifts a little bit this year, and he still is very much that strong rock of the family, but he goes through his own emotional journey, as well.

Heartland airs Sundays at 7 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem.

Images courtesy of CBC.

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