Tag Archives: CBC

Workin' Moms

Links: Workin’ Moms, Season 2

From Natalie Stechyson of the Huffington Post:

Link: New Season Of ‘Workin’ Moms’ Shatters Myth Of Having It All
A toddler screams as his mother (also screaming), tries to clip his fingernails.

With a shriek and a giggle, the toddler sends his tablet crashing through a shower stall, where the naked, harried mother is rinsing her armpits and crotch. The mother, now out of the shower and wearing only a housecoat, eyes the clock and a bottle of wine as The Wiggles’ classic “Romp Bomp A Stomp” blares in the background. Continue reading. 

From Melissa Girimonte of The Televixen:

Link: Catherine Reitman on Kate’s Identity Crisis in Workin’ Moms Season 2
“In Season 1, we really ventured into the identity crisis of returning to work. In Season 2, it’s now you’re back at work, let’s go deeper into that relationship. Let’s see what happens when push comes to shove. In the prequel episode [that aired on December 19th], we tried to set up some kernels that our main characters are going to be dealing with throughout the season. So I think there’s a lot of fun to be had for the audience.” Continue reading.

 

 

 

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Schitt's Creek

Links: Schitt’s Creek, Season 4

From Bridget Liszewski of The TV Junkies:

Link: Schitt’s Creek’s Dan Levy on exploring David’s first functional relationship
“Season 4 felt like an appropriate time to pull back that layer on David’s past, and what his relationships looked like in the past, and how they’d affect how he’d handle himself in a relationship that seems to be quite functional.” Continue reading.

From Victoria Ahearn of the Canadian Press:

Link: Daniel Levy on playing a pansexual character on ‘Schitt’s Creek’
“In many cases, I’ve had people emailing me saying they had never had a point of entry to understanding homosexuality or pansexuality before, and they have been able to understand their cousins or their brothers or their sons or daughters in ways they never had before, until they met David.” Continue reading.

 

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Burden of Truth, Featured

Kristin Kreuk and Peter Mooney battle big pharma in CBC’s Burden of Truth

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Kristin Kreuk has swapped Superman and a Beast of a man to battle big pharmaceutical. The Vancouver native headlines and executive-produces Burden of Truth, CBC’s new legal drama, debuting Wednesday at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Created by Brad Simpson (Rookie Blue), Burden of Truth is a 10-part serialized drama about a big-time lawyer named Joanna Hanley (Kreuk) who returns to her small town as the representative of a pharmaceutical company whose drugs are thought to be making young women sick. Once in Millwood, however, Joanna finds herself—after crushing the case made by the girls and led by her former high school classmate Billy Crawford (Peter Mooney)—questioning whether she’s on the right side of the lawsuit and discovering some bad feelings were left behind when she exited Millwood at 14 years old. Burden of Truth‘s first episode has the feeling of a John Grisham novel—slick lawyer slam-dunks on the locals—and that’s a good thing for viewers.

“He was definitely on the inspiration list,” Kreuk says during CBC’s press day for its winter lineup. “It was, tonally, what we were looking for.”

Often, first episodes can feel cluttered. Introducing a raft of characters, as well as major and minor storylines, in 22 or 44 minutes can be a confused mess. That doesn’t happen in Wednesday’s debut, a credit to executive producer Ilana Frank (Saving Hope, Rookie Blue), who admits Truth‘s storytelling style—one case contained in one season—was a challenge.

“I’ve never done a serialized show before,” Frank says. “All of my shows have been episodic. So the idea that you have time was new to me. There were certain things that we knew we had to hit in the first episode and that was it. We made a short list. We knew we needed a reason for her to go to Millwood, we had to have a reason for her to stay in Millwood. There were certain things that were a must and if they didn’t work there it was going to work somewhere else.”

One of the musts was to pit Joanna against Billy. After eviscerating him in court she reflects on what she’s done and has second thoughts on who she’s fighting for. A lot of that reflection is because of her past with Billy, who is beloved by Millwood’s citizens.

“It’s such an interesting dynamic to take two people who knew each other more than half their lives and through circumstance have them come smashing back together,” Mooney says. “Their freshest memory of each other is them as teenagers. They’re trying to reconcile who they are now, how they’ve changed, who they were then and what their relationship was then.” They start out on opposite sides of the legal case, Mooney explains, and the relationship develops through Season 1 with Joanna and Billy realizing what makes them different as lawyers is a benefit in the courtroom.

Every small town, on TV at least, has a secret and Millwood is no different. Kreuk teases the reason Joanna and her father—played by Alex Carter—left the area when she was a teen will be revealed; that has a huge impact on Joanna and who she is. It also runs parallel to the court case.

“There may be a moment when her and her father are at odds,” she says with a laugh. “She followed her father, she became her father, she did everything centred around him. Everything she learns in town is really new and shocking and jarring for her.”

Burden of Truth airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

 

 

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Featured, The Detectives

Preview: CBC’s The Detectives recalls real Canadian crimes from the past

Update: After this preview was posted, CBC switched its broadcast schedule. Wednesday’s debut is “The Wells Gray Gunman”; “Project Hitchhiker” will air next week. 

I’m a true crime junkie. Podcasts like My Favorite Murder and Someone Knows Something are playing in my ears and documentary series like Making a Murderer and Manhunt: Unabomber are on my Netflix list. It was thanks to Netflix that I came across Real Detective, a two-season wonder documenting and reenacting real murders from the past and the detectives who tried to solve them. Produced by Petro Duszara, Scott Bailey and Debbie Travis—yes, that Debbie Travis—Real Detective is well-told, dramatic television that I binge-watched in a couple of days.

Why am I telling you about Real Detective? Because Duszara, Bailey and Travis have brought a Canadian version to the CBC. The Detectives, debuting Wednesday at 9 p.m., is equally as enthralling as its predecessor, even more so because its eight episodes cover exclusively Canadian crimes and boast a whos-who of Canadian acting talent.

“Project Hitchhiker,” airing next Wednesday, stars Eric Johnson—who co-stars alongside Allan Hawco in Caught next month on CBC—as Detective Herb Curwain (above), recently promoted to the Homicide Unit and given the unsolved case of a young woman named Julie Stanton who’d gone missing in Pickering, Ont. in 1990. First assumed to just be a missing person case, the file was finally passed to major crimes. Julie was popular, well-liked and had a great relationship with her parents, not the M.O. of a runaway. There was a suspect in Julie’s disappearance, a man named Peter Stark, and police were sure he was responsible but had no evidence. It was up to Curwain to find that evidence and did so recalling a decades-old case from Stark’s past.

I won’t ruin the outcome of the case here—and you shouldn’t Google Julie’s name until after you watch the episode—because what Curwain did during his investigation not only changed the way police work is done in Canada today but dovetailed with a high-profile investigation during the same time period.

What sets The Detectives apart from other true crime series is the inclusion of the actual detectives telling their stories to the producers. This awful stuff really happened and affected the investigators for the rest of their lives.

And while the stories themselves are gripping enough, the production values are top-notch as well. No expense has been spared to make the re-enactments as realistic as possible—down to wardrobe, hair and cars—and makes The Detectives truly engaging television.

The Detectives airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

 

 

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Featured, Workin' Moms

Workin’ Moms: Catherine Reitman previews drama-filled Season 2

What I hope for Catherine Reitman in 2018 is that she have continued success. And a much-deserved nap.

Reitman has plenty on her plate as creator, executive producer, writer, star and showrunner of Workin’ Moms, returning Tuesday at 9:30 p.m. on CBC. Throw in the fact she’s really a workin’ mom of two kids, wife to fellow Moms executive producer/actor Philip Sternberg, and directing three episodes this season? She’s got a lot going on. And yet she makes it seem effortless, taking 30 minutes out of production on an episode of the show to sit down at talk shop with me.

What’s in store for Kate (Reitman) and Nathan Foster (Sternberg) now that she’s back at Gaze? Where are Anne (Dani Kind) and Lionel Carlson (Ryan Belleville) headed now that they’ve decided not to have any more kids? How is Frankie Coyne (Juno Rinaldi) doing in rehab? And does Jenny Matthews (Jessalyn Wanlim) have regrets about blowing up her marriage to Ian (Dennis Andres)?

Reitman gave us the scoop on what’s to come in Season 2.

Was it easier to work on Season 2 because there was a shorthand developed by everyone in Season 1 and the actors now know their characters?
Catherine Reitman: In some ways, it’s easier and in others, it’s harder. The easier is that, yeah, we’ve established these characters, where they live and where they work and what the core of their character is. I’ve hired such talented actors that they all understand that, and we’ve established a tone that the show is a comedy and that it’s really, really subtle and that there is a lot of drama. Lucky for me, people have watched it and people get it and have responded in, largely, a positive way. In that way, everyone understands the essence of it. That job is done.

A lot of people who really get wine will say, ‘As soon as you actually start understanding wine you realize you know nothing about wine.’ I feel that way about showrunning. In Season 1 I came in, hot on it and super-confident. Now that I actually understand the dynamic and the responsibilities of the title I feel much more comfortable in it but I also realize that I have so much to learn. My eyes are open and I’m hoping to grow more and I feel myself growing with the show.

What have you learned about yourself as a showrunner?
I’m learning that it’s a marathon and not a sprint. I like to do things fast and trust my gut and not overthink things and make decisions. Luckily, I’m married to a man who is really methodical and understands the details. Just from being with him I’ve learned a ton about just slowing down and taking more things into consideration. It is a marathon. Right when you think the writer’s room is done and your job is done, production begins. And halfway through production, you think you pretty much have everything but the second half of production has an entirely different energy. And then when you wrap that and the crew goes away you think that’s it. No, it’s time to do post-production. And post-production carries through until the writer’s room begins again. And that’s not even taking into account that I’m a mother of two and a wife to a man who I work with. I’m also the child of two complicated, artistic, powerful people. I’m constantly checking in and saying, ‘OK, where do I put my energy now?’

It’s been very interesting to see some of the comic actors in your cast in more serious scenes. I know Ryan Belleville as being a goofball in past projects he’s been in. Seeing him play Lionel so sensitively has been great. I’ve really connected with him.
We’ve got both sides of that line. We’ve got someone like Ryan who is so talented comedically—and I’ve had the complete and utter joy of improvising with him a few times—but the other side of it, and he talks about it in his stand-up, is that he’s a working father with a working mother-wife. He actually relates to this content quite deeply and the idea that no one has asked him to play on that side of the fence astounds me because he’s so good and so relatable. The other side is that I’ve got a bunch of dramatic actors who really have pretty tremendous comedic timing. Dani Kind hasn’t done a ton of comedy prior to this and she is never going for the joke in an obnoxious, broad way. She always plays the character real and in any scene, in any take, I look at her and say, ‘Yeah, she gets it.’ And it’s always funny to me.

Where do we find Anne and Lionel when Season 2 begins?
In Season 1 we just watched, particularly her, struggle and struggle. She was sick, she was confused about her connection with her daughter, she was confused about her own pregnancy and the pressures that come with being this perfect wife and perfect mother. Society encourages us to do it all and have it all. The idea of a mother of two having an abortion … is that woman allowed to have joy? Is that woman allowed to laugh and have a fulfilling life? That’s really interesting to me. The dynamic of where Anne and Lionel are now was so fascinating to me because I wanted to see them have some fun.

We had to, in Season 1, set up the work and home life of all of these characters, which is a lot to do in 22 minutes every week. So, to now get deeper into those relationships and to show that they’re not always so perfect … and can our ambitions grow? Can we want more? Exploring the Kate and Anne friendship is something that we do a lot this season and what we demand of our friendship when we’re wives and mothers is very different from when we’re in our twenties.

What else can you say about Season 2?
The point of view of one of the core characters has shifted. There are some big surprises early in the season to which I think the audience will need a second to adjust to.

I’m not sure what you’re alluding to, but I was shocked last season by Jenny’s decision to blow up her marriage. 
The truth is, 50 per cent of marriages don’t work out, especially once you factor in the responsibilities of a working mother. To watch one woman have an incredible identity crisis like Jenny does. We’re with her, we’re with her. Are we with her? Are we with her? Why are we with her?! And then, to all of a sudden shift and root for him was something really fun to do.

Workin’ Moms airs Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

 

 

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