Pretty Hard Cases: Meredith MacNeill and Adrienne C. Moore talk Season 3 and being ‘naughty children’ on set

January 3, 2023 A.R. Wilson

The relationship between Pretty Hard Cases’ Sam Wazowski (Meredith MacNeill) and Kelly Duff (Adrienne C. Moore) has faced some major challenges over the past two seasons. During Season 1, the detective duo had to learn how to work together despite their odd couple dynamic. In Season 2, they overcame a series of personal misunderstandings to forge a true friendship—even though it resulted in them being separated on the job.

At the start of Season 3—kicking off Wednesday at 9 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem—Sam, demoted to street cop, and Kelly, working undercover, have been apart for eight months. But worry not. Just a few minutes into the premiere episode, “Always A Bridesmaid,” written by series creators Tassie Cameron and Sherry White, the pair enjoys a glorious reunion that showcases the fabulous chemistry between series leads MacNeill and Moore. There is screaming and jumping. There are secret handshakes and goofy butt pats. And, of course, there is banter.

But while Sam and Kelly are back together and stronger than ever, they still have to prove themselves to new Unit Commander Gloria Ballard (Wendy Crewson) before they’ll regain access to the OCE’s top cases—such as discovering the source of a deadly new drug that’s hit the streets of Toronto, or tracking down last season’s still at large villain Adeline French (Charlotte Sullivan). They also have to navigate their new romantic relationships, with Sam making another go of things with ex-husband Steve (Trevor Hayes) and Kelly testing the waters with fellow detective Nathan (Daren A. Herbert).

During a recent chat with MacNeill and Moore, we found out more about Sam and Kelly’s upcoming adventures and why the actors sometimes feel like “naughty children” on set.

Sam and Kelly’s friendship has grown a lot over the past two seasons. How will it evolve in Season 3?
Adrienne C. Moore: I think like any friendship, in Season 2, we had that tension that I think long-standing and long-term relationships must have in order to kind of jump that hurdle that they can get to a point where they know each other’s thoughts, they know what each other is thinking before they even say. And I think that was one of the balances that we tried to strike and establish this theory that they had a hard time getting to know each other, they went through the thick of it, and now they’re just like, they can read each other’s thoughts. They know how to support each other as friends, and they know what they need from each other in friendship.

Meredith MacNeill: Yeah, and then because of that, because that friendship has taken the next layer, they tend to add other things into their life. You see them involve each other in the other aspects of their life, which was interesting. So like, when we got the scripts, I was like, ‘Oh, this is your family.’

Both of your characters are in very different places with their personal lives than they were in previous seasons. Kelly is making a go of it with Nathan, and Sam is back with her ex-husband Steve, which may or may not be a good thing.
MM: I feel that for Sam—and for Meredith MacNeill—there’s something about being in your 40s and admitting what it’s truly like to start over and all the mess and glory that comes with that. So I love the way Tassie and Sherry write. Yes, I’m back with my ex-husband, but it takes it to this level that I think will be extremely relatable, that just because you’ve made a decision and you’re like, ‘I’m gonna go for this,’ it doesn’t automatically mean that once you make the decision, everything’s fine. When the scripts would come in, and we work on scenes. I was like, ‘Oh gosh, I really know this relationship. I know these people. These are people I have in my life.’

ACM: I think for Kelly, she’s shown a lot with being vulnerable and open in relationships. And not to give any spoilers, but there’s already some physical tension in the beginning between her and Nathan, and so through the course of the season, you discover how Kelly is really embracing being vulnerable. She knows she has a good thing with Nathan, but she’s still scared. And I think a lot of people when they get in relationships, become afraid of losing their own identity and their own individuality. And so she learned how to balance that, how to be in a relationship with a partner but yet still have her own identity. And I’ve loved that Nathan supports that for her.

You’ve got a new unit commander this season, played by Wendy Crewson.
MM and ACM: Woo!

How was it working with her?
MM: She’s it. That’s it. She comes on set, you know you’re lucky, and you just stand there and hope you can keep up. That’s what you do.

ACM: Wendy was working on another show also at the same time. She came in every day, on point, knew these chunky, chunky dialogue lines and was killing it. I was like, ‘OK, I can learn from her.’

Pretty Hard Cases effortlessly blends comedy and drama, and many scenes can be played either way. How do you decide which way you’re going to take a scene? Are you given a lot of freedom to improvise, or is it all on the page?
MM: I think because we’re both theatre-based, we’re pretty comfortable with both. I respect the work completely and the author of scripts, that’s just standard. And then also with theatre, you’ll learn really quickly to play in the moment, be in the moment, throw all your work away, and what’s happening isn’t to me, it’s what’s happening between the two characters. So I find what happens in the show is—because we get along and we want to have so much fun—sometimes I feel like we’re naughty children, but professional naughty children. We adore the writing by Sherry and Tassie, we’re respectful to that. But as soon as we can, we’re like, ‘Can we play? Can we go, can we go?’ And then they’ll give us some goes, and so it kind of balances out and then, in the end, it’s really great.

As you said, you get along well and love working together. What have you learned from each other as actors over the last three seasons?
MM: I know that we get [each other] pumped. Like, if it’s a 16-hour day, we kind of look at each other, kind of give each other a soft high-five, and go in and kill it. We know we got it.

ACM: I know that if she has a lot of dialogue to carry, or I have a lot of dialogue, what I love is that we can just kind of look at each other and I know where she’s at, she knows where I’m at, and I know what she needs, she knows what I need.

MM: And we get there really quick.

ACM: Yeah, we provide that for each other, and it’s like when you have those days, when you work every day and you’re doing 12-16 hour days like that, it’s good to look over and see your partner in crime. You’re going through it with someone that you trust.

Pretty Hard Cases airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CBC and CBC Gem.

Images courtesy of CBC.

Industry News

Ring in the new year with Rick Mercer, host of CBC’s coast-to-coast New Year’s Eve celebration

December 16, 2022 Greg David

From a media release:

This New Year’s Eve, join CBC and Rick Mercer to ring in 2023 with a national celebration featuring fireworks and performances from across the country. CANADA’S NEW YEAR’S EVE: COUNTDOWN TO 2023 will be broadcast on CBC TV and CBC Gem on Saturday, December 31 at 11 p.m. (11:20 p.m. AT, 11:50 p.m. NT).

Hosted by Rick Mercer from The Blue Mountains in beautiful Grey County, the all-Canadian lineup includes performances by Devon Cole, JJ Wilde and OKAY TK from Halifax, NS; Vincent Vallières from Quebec City, QC; Chad Price, Kardinal Offishall, and Savannah Ré from The Blue Mountains, ON; James Barker Band from Saskatoon, SK and Leela Gilday from Aurora Village, NWT. There will be fireworks from cities across the country, including Kelowna, BC and St. John’s NL.

Sort Of

CBC and HBO Max renew Sort Of for a third season

December 16, 2022 Greg David

From a media release:

CBC and HBO Max have renewed the Peabody Award-winning comedy series SORT OF for a third season. The CBC original series is a co-production with HBO Max and Sphere Media (formerly Sienna Films).

Created by Bilal Baig and Fab Filippo, the second season of the critically acclaimed comedy about a gender-fluid millennial in transition in every aspect of their life debuted November 15 on CBC and CBC Gem, and made its HBO Max premiere on December 1. A coming-of-age story, SORT OF exposes the labels we once poured ourselves into as no longer applicable… to anyone.

Bilal Baig, co-creator, co-showrunner, executive producer and lead actor quote: “It’s been such a creative and rewarding pleasure to sink deeply into the mess of the lives of these characters in season two. And I look so forward to continuing and expanding the mess, alongside Fab, our gifted writers, the generous teams at Sphere Media, CBC and HBO Max, and our gorgeous cast and crew!”

Sally Catto, General Manager, Entertainment, Factual & Sports, CBC quote: “Sort Of has made its way into the hearts of viewers and critics in Canada, the U.S. and around the world by embracing universal themes that we can all relate to, no matter who we love or how we self-identify. We are excited to continue our work with Bilal, Fab, HBO Max and Sphere Media, and to keep sharing Sabi’s story with audiences everywhere.”

Sarah Aubrey, Head of Original Content, HBO Max quote: “Baig and Filippo, alongside our partners at CBC and Sienna Films, continue to deliver a heartfelt, empathetic and engaging story and we’re thrilled we get to continue following Sabi, their family, 7ven and the Kaneko-Bauers on their journeys in the new season.”

Jennifer Kawaja, executive producer, Sphere Media quote: “We love these characters and are thrilled to have the opportunity to continue working with CBC and HBO Max to explore their lives.”

Called “easy to love” by Rolling Stone, season two of SORT OF made the publication’s list of the 20 Best TV Shows of 2022 and debuted in the US to another round of strong acclaim, including “still great” by NPR and “as big-hearted and introspective as its wonderful predecessor” by TIME. With a Gotham Award nomination for the first season, Baig has also been recognized as one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business and TIME’s Next Generation Leaders.

The CBC and HBO Max Original series is created by Bilal Baig and Fab Filippo, who also serve as showrunners and executive producers, and produced with the participation of the Canada Media Fund. Sphere Media’s Jennifer Kawaja is also an executive producer on the series. SORT OF is distributed worldwide by Sphere Media. Abacus Media Rights handles sales outside of the United States and Latin America.

Hudson & Rex

Citytv announces winter prime-time schedule, beginning January 1

December 15, 2022 Greg David

From a media release:

Citytv is the gift that keeps on giving long after Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest on Saturday, Dec. 31, with a roster of new and returning hit series on its winter schedule, plus star-studded live events on Citytv, Citytv.com, and Citytv+.

Beginning Tuesday, Jan. 17 is Citytv’s newest addition to its strong original programming slate Wong & Winchester, produced in partnership with Pixcom. Wong & Winchester is a female-driven buddy detective procedural which follows Marissa Wong (played by Grace Lynn Kung), a bitter ex-cop turned private investigator, and Sarah Winchester (played by Sofia Banzhaf), a former career student with ambitious naivety, who form an unlikely partnership. Earlier in the evening, Hudson & Rex’s paw-fect cop-and-canine duo return with new episodes in its new timeslot, Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT. Plus, Canada’s Got Talent, Citytv’s most-viewed original series in over a decade, returns with an all-new season this March.

2022 WINTER PREMIERE DATES

All dates are subject to change. All times ET. (s) = simulcast

Tuesday, Jan. 17
8 p.m. Hudson & Rex New Episodes – Citytv Original
9 p.m. Wong & Winchester NEW – Citytv Original

Featured, Jann

Jann Arden on Jann: Alone For The Holidays, Christmas Traditions, and the Future of the Series

December 8, 2022 A.R. Wilson

While the holidays are tied to traditions, the way we celebrate is malleable. Relocating, work, friendships, romances, children, breakups and the loss of loved ones can all change what we do—and how we feel—each December.

That sense of flux is at the heart of Jann: Alone For The Holidays, a Yuletide special that proves there’s more than one way to enjoy Christmas. It’s a theme series star Jann Arden has experienced in her own life.

“My parents are both gone,” says Arden. “So I think a lot of the traditions that were kind of wrapped around their legs, unfortunately, aren’t here anymore. I mean, I loved having dinner with my family.”

But this Christmas, the singer-songwriter-actor-author-animal rights advocate is packing her favourite vegan turkey cutlets—“Frozen in my suitcase; I’m not kidding you!”—and heading to England to spend time with friends. “I’ll be in Dorset, very close to Swanage, in a 250-year-old stone cottage, near castles,” she says.

The series Jann is also doing things a bit differently this year. It’s been more than a year since the show’s third season ended, and while CTV hasn’t officially pulled the plug on the project, it also hasn’t greenlit another season.

Arden says CTV has “been behind the show the whole way through,” but the broadcaster is “really trying to contemplate a cost-effective way to move forward” with the series in a TV era dominated by streaming networks and binge-watching, so “they gave us this opportunity to do the Christmas show.”

In the special, airing as back-to-back episodes on Saturday, December 9 at 9 p.m. on CTV, CTV.ca and the CTV app, Jann comes home for Christmas to discover her entire family is celebrating out of town. The only one still around is her assistant Trey (Tenaj Williams), who is trying to recharge his batteries with some alone time.

Feeling abandoned, Jann declares it “the worst Christmas ever” until Trey starts pulling out boxes full of old decorations—and memories. This prompts a series of vignettes where Jann reminisces about good, bad and humiliating moments from holidays past featuring her niece Charley (Alexa Rose Steele), on-again, off-again girlfriend Cynthia (Sharon Taylor), former manager Todd (Jason Blicker), and mom Nora (Deborah Grover). Her manager Cale (Elena Juatco) also appears in the special’s opening Christmas concert sequence, which showcases both Arden’s cozy-sweater vocals and her laugh-out-loud physical comedy talents.

“I think flashbacks allowed me these fantastic opportunities to shine a light on one cast member at a time and to kind of unveil a little more depth into their relationship,” says Arden. “Like, I think the scene that I have with Cale starts off a little bit acerbic and tongue-in-cheek; Cale is just being Cale and running the business. But then when we have the opportunity to kind of say our goodbyes in the hallway, it’s like, ‘Wow, they’re being nice to each other. Where could that go, and what does that mean?’ So I think it was nice to be able to look at these relationships in a little different light.”

Jann’s flashback with Nora, which plays like a blooper reel from The Great Canadian Baking Show, was another highlight for Arden. “I had the best time,” she says. “Deborah is the heart of our show, and I think we hang so much of the heartfelt emotional payoff of Nora with [her], and she never fails to just really show people what her acting chops are. We all look up to her.”

Fans can also look forward to celebrity guest appearances by Bryan Adams and Michael Bublé, who is still as lovesick for Jann as he was in the Thanksgiving-themed Season 3 finale.

“May I say that this was his story idea?” Arden says of Bublé’s storyline. “We’re like, ‘What do you want to do on the show?’ And this was last season, and he says, ‘I want to be the unrequited love. I want to love Jann, and she doesn’t love me.’ This was all his doing. So when we were doing the Christmas special, he literally phoned Leah [Gauthier], one of our co-creators, and he said, ‘Can I be in this thing? Like, I know I’m on tour right now, but I could do something online.’”

Meanwhile, Adams carved time out of his Canadian tour schedule to drop by the set. “He’s got a new Christmas song out this year called ‘Let’s Get Christmas Going,’” Arden explains. “I’ve heard it on the radio already, and he wrote it for his daughters. He showed up and said, ‘I don’t know the words, so you guys have to write these out for me, so we were scrambling writing them out on the back of wrapping paper, and there’s a lot of f—ing words in that song … but he was absolutely such a pro. He was kind to everybody, and he did the song, and we couldn’t believe it.”

The special isn’t just about music and memories. Modelled after UK Christmas specials that offer holiday cheer while moving plotlines forward between seasons, there are some major storyline resolutions—such as revealing whether Jann chose to stay with Nate or to get back together with Cynthia and help raise her baby. There’s also a life-changing surprise at the end that lifts Jann’s holiday spirits. In short, it’s the sort of show that could serve as a bookend for the series or provide the impetus for a fourth season.

“We were very purposeful about that,” Arden says. “We’re kind of in a holding pattern, and we’re all kind of holding our breaths and crossing our fingers and we’ll see what happens. But, for now, we were able to do some problem-solving and put out a few fires that we left hanging after Season 3.”

Arden is also chuffed CTV will be rebroadcasting the episodes on Christmas Eve at 10 p.m. “That’s pretty damn great to be in people’s homes, whether they’re with their families and sitting down having meals, the excitement of kids running around the house, and Santa’s coming,” she says. “We’re hoping it has legs. Like, year after year, for people to go, ‘Oh, god, that crazy special again.’”

Jann: Alone For The Holidays airs Friday, Dec. 9 at 9 p.m. ET on CTV, CTV.ca and the CTV app. Encore presentation Saturday, Dec. 24 at 10 p.m. ET on CTV.

Images courtesy of Bell Media.