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TV,eh? What's up in Canadian television
Featured, This Life

This Life writer Maxim Morin dissects Natalie’s “Scanxiety”

Spoiler warning: Do not read this article until you have seen This Life Episode 205, “Scanxiety.”

For a season and a half, This Life‘s Natalie Lawson has been living under the assumption she is dying. However, in Sunday’s “Scanxiety,” co-written by showrunner Joseph Kay and Maxim Morin, Natalie received encouraging test results from her drug trial–and discovered her fate may not be as certain as she believed.

“We wanted to allow [Natalie] to realize what this new normal is, and what that is is a new chance at life, at a longer life than she thought she was going to have,” explains Morin. “So that’s really exciting, but with that comes the kind of Spiderman responsibility of being true to what the story is about and what the show is about, which is, ‘How do you live your life in the face of uncertainty and mortality?'”

“Scanxiety” is the first writing credit for Morin, who was This Life‘s script coordinator in Season 1 and got bumped up to junior story editor in Season 2.

“It was scary, it was fun, and I would do it again,” he says of writing the script.

Morin joins us by phone from Toronto to tell us more about his debut episode and what Natalie’s surprising test results could mean for the rest of the season.

You co-wrote this episode with Joseph Kay. What was that like for you?
Maxim Morin: There were a lot of things we were trying to get across, and I felt–and we all felt collectively in the room–the pressure to showcase it. It was scary in that way in one respect, but it was also super freeing, because [Joseph] will never admit this, but he’ll teach you things you don’t even know you’re being taught in the moment, but then you’ll reflect on it, and you’ll be like, “Wow.” Those are what I like to call his John Keating moments. They’re so not intentional or conscious. He’ll just be very, very open to new ideas and the whole room is that way. As a collective, we hear each other out, and we respect each other’s ideas. We’re able to express ourselves in the places where we’re designated to write.

Natalie doesn’t find out her test results until the very end of the episode. Was there a conscious effort to build the audience’s tension and anxiety by making us wait the entire episode alongside Natalie?
When you have this kind of illness, a lot of the time it’s hurrying up and waiting, you’re going to go on this treatment and then we just kind of have to wait and see. And we wondered, how do people wait? How do you wait for that piece of news in that envelope or in that file folder sitting in a hospital or in a clinic in a doctor’s office? How do you wait for that? And so we wondered how Natalie would wait for that, and what we discovered is that there’s no good way to go about this. This was her way, just to do what she had planned, because obviously the news of whether this treatment was going well or not well was going to exacerbate all the tension that’s been building up this season. That idea of waiting that you touched on was something we were really cognizant of and we were really curious about.

The scene where Tia admits to Natalie that she isn’t ready to die is pretty raw and real. What were discussions like in the writers’ room regarding that moment?
The development of that scene, the room had to look at how they themselves would deal with or would act like or say in the face of imminent death. And so it got really personal, and it got really emotional. And I think what we collectively agreed upon, or definitely could relate to was this idea that, no matter how prepared you are, no matter what steps you have taken–and Natalie and Tia have both taken a lot of steps, as we’ve seen–there’s no way for you to be completely at ease at the end. Discovering that collectively as a room was really intense but also really, really rewarding. And that scene took a lot of work by committee to try to get it to a place where it felt authentic and true.

Natalie gets very good news regarding her clinical trial, learning she’s in partial remission and could possibly even survive. What should viewers expect from her health going forward?
Natalie and her entire family have been living in this one mode for such a long time now, for a season and a half basically. They’ve been living in this bunker of, ‘The pillar of our family is facing life’s biggest challenge’, and once that air is lifted off this idea, once that certainty is lifted, how are they going to react, knowing full well that they’ve spent so much time planning and organizing around this idea that Natalie will no longer be a part of this family? How are they going to react to that? I think it’s not as black and white as, ‘Okay, this is good news, so we should all be happy about this and make life go back to normal, as it was before the diagnosis.’ I don’t think there is a normal anymore for the Lawsons.

Matthew and Nicole are moving forward with their separation, and Matthew moved into his new apartment. Where is his head now that it appears his attempts to save his marriage have failed?
Matthew has always been a fixer, he’s always wanted to repair the damage that’s been done, no matter how much more damage it will create. Internally, he believes he’s doing the right thing, and I think Nicole gets an air of that when she goes to Beatrice’s house. The plan is misguided–completely misguided–he’s just trying to yield the result that he’s just trying to do the human thing here and be a father to his son. And now that Matthew’s thrown the Hail Mary pass with terrible results, he’s ready to move on with his life a little bit.

There are flashback scenes of teenage Maggie witnessing her parents fighting. Why was that important to portray now?
I think Maggie has always had this trouble with intimacy. In Season 1, we explored that a lot with her polyamorous relationship. In the end, she kind of diverted away from that potential intimacy. And this season, she’s created this false relationship with this guy, that is basically the opposite of intimacy. And we really want to narrow in on this point of, ‘Well, how’d she get that way?’ Because Maggie is super singular in that way, almost to the point where it was difficult to see where these things came from, and I think we really took a step back, really went into her past, dug through that, and we started to ask, ‘Well, what must of it been like to live in this household?’

What we kind of fell upon and discovered and talked about was this idea that she grew up in a place that was an intimacy vacuum, so to speak. And I think in that scene, we get just a little snippet of that experience. We realize that Janine and Gerald’s marriage was not perfect. It’s at a different place now, but back then it was not perfect. And I think it informed the way she related with this idea of intimacy moving forward. We just wanted to give the audience a glimpse of why she is the way she is.

Maggie and Raza end up sleeping together. What’s going on with them?
What happened at the end of the episode is they connect physically, they have sex, and these are two people who have shown each other one of their cards in the hole, so to speak. Raza admitted that his parents don’t know about the marriage. He’s sharing a slice of himself. And Maggie has been an open book since the start of their fake marriage. So these are two people who have kind of shared a lot with each other, aren’t afraid to tell each other what they think, but still have that respect for one another that Maggie feels she isn’t getting from the rest of her family . . . But what will happen–and is more a marker of their relationship, their fake marriage building into something–is this idea of how much more vulnerable they’ll be with one another, and that takes us to surprising places.

Oliver used an unconventional approach to get his art in front of Alexis. Is this a step forward for him?
He got what he wanted from that situation, which was just to be seen, and so that was a small victory for Oliver. I think for us, the viewer, looking down at this we’re like, ‘What are you thinking? You’re like putting all your stuff in there, setting up your installation.’ For a lot of people, that would be grounds to call the cops, and a lot of people would have. But to Oliver’s credit and to his art’s credit, she took a moment and she looked at it and I think there was a glimpse there where we’re with her and we’re like, ‘What is this exactly? I don’t know, but it’s kind of cool.’ So I would argue that it’s almost a little bit of a victory for him even though the means he took to get there were very misguided.

What was your favourite part of the episode to write?
Can I say the entire fourth act? I just love it. The whole back quarter of this episode for me, it evokes the best things about this show for me. I mean–especially when [Natalie] is sitting with Dr. Lyle and getting this news–everything from the direction to the sound to the dialogue to everything, it really just sings in that scene. It’s just so simple. We stay on her, we see her reacting to this news, and we’re just still. Everything is just still. And from there, we kind of launch into this wonderful sequence of letting go. And when she returns Jude the cat, and you have “Downtown” by Majical Cloudz playing overtop, it’s hard to retain any sense of straightfaceness, you know? Bye, bye composure. It was a pleasure having to work on every part of this episode, and it’s a credit to the writers on the team, the crew, obviously the cast, the director. I’m really proud of it.

This Life airs Sundays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

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Featured, Travelers

Teamwork threatens to tear the Travelers apart

Last week on Travelers, Philip put the team in jeopardy when he attempted to save the life of a young boy named Aleksander. In Phil’s eyes, they’d been sent back to save the world, so why not save some extra folks along the way? Trouble is, that’s contrary to the mission, something The Director sternly warned them about. For the second time. By episode end, Trevor realized one of the names Philip wrote down on the hideout’s wall was one he knew. So, was it one of his parents? Girlfriend Rene? Best bud Kyle?

Here’s the official episode synopsis for Monday’s new episode, “Hall,” written by Pat Smith:

MacLaren’s leadership is challenged when he’s directed to assist a more experienced team of travellers that wants to join forces.

And here are a few more non-spoilery tidbits we can tell you:

Louis Ferreira alert!
Fans of Stargate Universe, Motive and This Life rejoice! Mr. Ferreira appears as a shady individual named Hall that Grant and Forbes (Arnold Pinnock) are keeping tabs on when a deal of some kind goes bad. One of the men on the scene—a traveler—gives Grant a message that sends them off-mission.

Our team works with another group
Remember how we were told there were thousands of travellers on earth all working separate missions? That’s the case tonight, as Grant et al. aid another. Also? It turns out that, like Philip, not every traveller is interested in the mission they’ve been given; some go rogue. That makes things very complicated for everyone and Marcy’s past, er, future comes back to haunt her.

Trevor has more fun in his new body
He’s enjoyed fresh air, hamburgers and morning erections; no Trev hits the track to give his muscles a workout. And his family meeting with Ms. Day about his marks? Classic.

Jeff tries to work himself back into Carly’s life
It’s a one-sided conversation, but Carly really shouldn’t ignore just how dangerous her baby daddy is. After all, he did see the security footage of Marcy and he’s a cop.

Travelers airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Showcase.

Image courtesy of Corus.

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Featured, Frontier

Frontier runs amok in Season 1

Canada is a brutal, wild place and the folks that inhabit it are pretty much that way too. That’s what we’ve learned after Sunday’s debut episode of Frontier.

“A Kingdom Unto Itself,” written by co-creators and executive producers Peter and Rob Blackie and Perry Chafe, served not only to introduce viewers to the key players in Season 1 but to get the storylines going at a frenetic clip.

There’s Michael Smyth (Landon Liboiron) an Irish lad who stowed away on a ship when he was caught stealing from it and woke up at sea, on the way to Canada. There’s Lord Benton (Alun Armstrong) the stern former military man who’s in charge of the Hudson’s Bay Company and aims to take out a man named Declan Harp. There is Harp (Jason Momoa) himself, a hulking man whose violent nature and Métis lineage makes him a successful fur trader. Add in supporting characters like Cobbs Pond (Greg Bryk), Samuel Grant (Shawn Doyle) and Grace Emberly (Zoe Boyle) and Frontier is jam-packed with action.

By the end of Episode 1, Michael has been successful in locating Harp for Benton, but the young lad was on the verge of becoming another pelt in Harp’s collection. We spoke to the Blackie brothers about Frontier and where the show will go in Season 1.

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Peter, congratulations on Season 1 of Frontier and on Season 2 being ordered already. Was it always in the back of your minds to have Frontier last multiple seasons?
Peter Blackie: For sure. That was always our hope. You always go into a scripted series wanting to do a number of seasons if you can. But the real telltale is if they don’t like the first the season you’re probably not going to get another.

Rob Blackie: We’re actually in production on the second season right now, so this is a huge sign of confidence from Discovery Canada and Netflix.

Frontier is incredible visually, character and story-wise and wardrobe-wise. You’ve successfully introduced all of these characters and yet it doesn’t feel bloated or cluttered. It must have been difficult to have so much contained in six episodes and not feel bogged down.
RB: Pilots are interesting because they are burdened down with all of these required introductions. We spent the vast majority of our time working with our writing team and producing partners and director for the pilot, Brad Peyton, and making sure the ‘introductory elements’ have their own story engine so that when you watch them as a viewer they feel like a forward-moving story. It’s much more difficult to do it that way but we had a lot of people working hard on it for a very long time.

PB: Another thing that helped make it work, in particular for the pilot, was having actors in the show of a Shawn Doyle calibre who are able to really elevate everything because of their abilities.

There are several storylines going on in the first episode, but it feels very much like we’re seeing this world through Michael’s eyes and that he is our guide. Is that true?
PB: We refer to him as our protagonist. The show is set up to do multiple perspectives and kingdoms, but he functionally is the way into the show.

RB: And Declan Harp is our antihero. He’s the major star of the show and is introduced in the pilot in a very dark way. We are experiencing Declan Harp’s dark view of the world from Michael’s perspective.

Jason Momoa is listed as an executive producer. What did that title entail? Was he involved in day-to-day decisions?
RB: He didn’t have any day-to-day line producing or anything like that, but someone like him plays such an integral function in the profile and promoting of the show. He’s very, very interested in the arc of the show and the arc of his character and participates heavily in that part of the process. It’s a common practice for a someone like him who shows a tremendous amount of interest. He’s a filmmaker at heart and has directed his own material and has his own production company. We produced a small feature film with his production company last winter in addition to doing Frontier and he is an absolute film artist at heart and that makes his a really good fit for our team.

Photo credit: Duncan de Young on set of Frontier
(l-r) Peter and Rob Blackie (Photo credit: Duncan de Young on the set of Frontier)

Why did you decide to start Frontier with the Hudson’s Bay Company crumbling rather than show how it began?
PB: That’s a great question. Rob and I spent a lot of time at the very beginning wrestling through where we wanted to be, specifically, and why. The reason we picked the general era that we picked it is about a century after the monopoly was granted to the Hudson’s Bay Company and their dominion started to falter. The only company in history that ever properly did rival the HBC in the New World was the North West Company and it, essentially, was an amalgamation of a bunch of separate companies with smaller interests, predominantly run out of Montreal. They ultimately realized they were not able to complete as separate entities and were forced to combine their energies and formed a company that was, scale-wise, able to compete with the HBC. We picked this era because it’s sort of the David and Goliath scenario.

Are any of Frontier’s characters named after any real-life people from history, or are they all a mix of real folks made into fictional ones?
PB: Everybody who is in the show is, at most, amalgamations of different characters from different times or characters we completely created from scratch.

RB: Earlier in the process we had taken a run at including ‘real characters’ from history and we found that, with the amount of historical fiction, it started to feel more limiting, and putting words into the actual mouths of people from history didn’t feel right to us. So we went with fictional characters and drew from as much research as we could from history and real people from history. The real people from history have the craziest stories.

Can you talk a little bit about the research you did into the canoes, wardrobe and discussions you had with First Nations people to get this right?
PB: We did, and we relied quite extensively on help from experts and people from within the communities. It’s been an interesting learning process for us. The deeper we went the more we realized how easy it is to make basic mistakes and we learned just how complex the socio-political landscape this country was like pre-contact. Once you introduce the idea of Europeans coming in, the complexity rolls over onto itself. We found ourselves in a spot where we didn’t have the tools to do the basic things and we reached out in a bunch of different directions to get help, including and not limited to wardrobe, language and representation.

We had very patient, thoughtful, smart people who have committed to us not making mistakes and inspiring us to dive in and tell these stories.

Frontier airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT on Discovery Canada.

Images courtesy of Bell Media.

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Featured, Heartland

Jealousy rears its head on Heartland

It’s not often that an episode of Heartland goes by without some closure. A problem or issue arises and by the end of the hour things are almost always settled and Sunday concludes with some great song as the credits roll.

Alas, though we got a fantastic closing tune by Reuben and the Dark called “Heart in Two,” there were strings left hanging. “The Green-Eyed Monster,” written by Bonnie Fairweather, was—as expected given the episode title—dealt with jealousy between horse and human and human and human.

For Amy, it meant realizing she’s spent so much time focusing on keeping busy while Ty has been away that Spartan went neglected. The result was an irritated horse that stumped Jack and Amy. It wasn’t until Amy began working with mounted archer Norah and her horse, Doc, that she understood: Doc was jealous of Norah’s infant son and Spartan was upset with Amy because she was neglecting him. Her solution was to take Spartan into the woods and work on liberty training; paired with “Heart in Two” it made for a stunning and emotional final scene as they reconnected.

Sadly for Georgie and Adam, there was no happiness for them. Adam, who has evolved from standoffish genius to an emotional boyfriend, assumed Georgie was seeing Clay and jealously spurned her. As much as I want to be angry at Adam for his actions, I totally get it. Being in a relationship at that age is an all-consuming thing and you want to be with them 24/7. But smothering the person you love isn’t the answer and these two are going to have to figure out the right mix or things will be over.

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Speaking of over, Mitch and Lou certainly seem to be. One of the frustrating things about some of the Heartland characters is their stubbornness and unwillingness to let the other person speak. That was certainly the case with Lou, who assumed Mitch’s coldness while fly fishing meant he doesn’t like her. Of course, that’s not the case—the dog tags mean Mitch was remembering fishing with a friend who’s no longer alive—but she wouldn’t let him explain and, honestly, he didn’t try hard enough.

The only person who had anything go right was Jack. After Lisa accidentally chucked his stew jar it was recovered. Well, at least there was that.

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

Images courtesy of CBC.

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Murdoch Mysteries

Link: 5×5 With The Hook: Bea Santos and Daniel Maslany

From You’ve Been Hooked:

Link: 5×5 With The Hook: Bea Santos
“I have a lot of respect for Louise’s career focus. I love how driven, and maybe a little bit pushy, she is. In terms of being passionate about what we do we are the same. It will also be revealed in later episodes that we have some surprising cultural similarities. Can’t really elaborate, you’ll just have to watch!” Continue reading.

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Link: 5×5 With the Hook: Daniel Maslany
“It was a very collaborative effort and evolution from start to finish. Simon’s writing of Watts was fantastic, and very rewarding to be able to bring to life. He created this character with many quirks and peculiar opinions but they all felt grounded in a believable and playable reality.” Continue reading. 

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