Tag Archives: Featured

Featured, Mohawk Girls

Mohawk Girls: Traitor

In this, the penultimate episode of Season 4 of Mohawk Girls, the theme of the week was betrayal.  If you are keeping up with things, you know that all four of our ladies were about to betray or be betrayed! So let’s get started.

Traitor No. 1 was Caitlin (Heather White). Butterhead (Meegwun Fairbrother) turned the heat up another notch in his attempt to win back Caitlin with a candle-lit bubble bath and a bouquet of flowers; 50 per cent off flowers, but flowers nonetheless. Just in time too because, due to her drop in clientele, Caitlin was fired from the beauty salon. She was beginning to question whether dating Leon was really worth all of the trouble that relationship is creating in her life. To top things off, Leon insisted she meet his mother the very day she was fired. Can you say culture shock? Not only did Caitlin meet Leon’s mother, Nadash (Yardly Cavanaugh), but she felt ambushed; his entire family was also there. Someone’s resolve is faltering! But really? How could anyone hurt Luscious Leon? I call this a weak traitor, since at this point, Caitlin is only contemplating returning to Butterhead.

Traitor No. 2 would be Zoe, who finally began to accept she might actually have an addiction to sex … but the fun still outweighs the harm this addiction is causing in her life. Despite developing real feelings for Ohserase (Shawn Youngchief), she made alternate plans with her new dom Henry (Marc Trottier). This time her dalliance required that she bind herself but in her haste Zoe fell.  Afraid for her well-being, Henry called for the paramedics, who arrived to find her in that compromising position. Word quickly spread and Ohserase, initially, came to Zoe’s defence. But, as things became uncovered, he revealed “uptight” Zoe has a side no one dared to imagine! Can Zohserase survive this kind of betrayal?

Traitors No. 3 and 4 were Anna (Maika Harper) and Butterhead. After running into Thunder (Kyle Nobess), Anna misread his courtesy as interest, until she realized he had moved on with new girlfriend Claire (Brooke Debassige). In her grief, Anna turned to Butterhead. Both drunk at a party—you guessed it—they fell into bed together. The next morning, Anna immediately ran to Caitlin to apologize but instead was greeted with Zoe’s debacle. Before she could tell Caitlin, Iostha (Allyson Pratt) spilled the beans. Caitlin lost it, and Iostha piped up, “Why do you give a shit? You are always saying how awesome your new boyfriend is!” That IS a valid question! But still, BFF’s don’t mess with an ex! AND WHY is Butterhead hooking up with Anna when he wants Caitlin back? Seems Blockheaded Butterhead has not learned a THING!

And that left us with Traitor No. 5: Bailey (Jenny Pudavick) who came to the sudden realization that when she marries Watio (Jimmy Blais), he will be the  only man, potentially, for the rest of her life. That realization came as a complete surprise. Suddenly, all of Watio’s habits were annoying and, on a whim, she ran to hang out with James (Jeffrey Wetsch). The sparks that have been trying to ignite blasted off and WHOA! Yep, these two hooked up; on the floor of the studio no less.

Alright everyone, next week is the final episode. We know Bailey has invited James to the PowWow. Team Cailon, Team Zohserase and Team Batio are all being threatened. How do you think creators Tracey Deer and Cynthia Knight plan to end the season? Let me know in the comments below!

Mohawk Girls can be seen Tuesdays at 9:30 p.m. ET on APTN.

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Featured, Shoot the Messenger

Shoot the Messenger closes out Season 1 in thrilling fashion

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How was Sam going to clean up this mess?! That’s the question, among others, I had after last Monday’s episode of Shoot the Messenger. It was certainly going to take more than a couple of wet wipes to tidy up the situation after Sam beat Marco DaSilva to death and grabbed the cell phone. And, with Phil Hardcastle arrested, there was no one to help Sam distance himself from the crime.

The “Full Circle” teleplay, written by Jennifer Holness and directed by Sudz Sutherland, did just that, tying up the loose ends that have been dangling since Episode 1.

Things certainly didn’t look good for Daisy and Simon when things started to roll. Sam Charles’ lawyer, Lewis, had slapped The Gazette with an injunction, delaying story they’d been working so hard on. I can’t help but feel co-creators Sutherland and Holness were not only showing how much legwork it takes to uncover a big story like the one created for Shoot the Messenger, but took a swipe at websites that post articles without doing due diligence, all in the name of clicks. (The fact Shoot the Messenger is airing amid fake news reporting is timely as heck.)

It was, as a writer myself, really interesting to observe the way Mary, Daisy, Simon and Marty sussed out how The Gazette could still write a story about Sam Charles without expressly tying him directly to anything they wrote, including Lawson’s parties and the super jail.

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Meanwhile, Lutz was putting small pieces of his own puzzle together, slowly tying Sam Charles to DaSilva’s death and Lawson’s blackmail plans via careful questioning. With the forensic reports in, DaSilva was identified as the one who’d killed Avril, Hassan and Khaalid, clearing Sam of the deeds. But who, Lutz wanted to know, killed DaSilva?

It wasn’t until halfway through the episode—when Nazeem sat down with Lutz and Daisy—that the circumstances surrounding Khaalid were fully realized. Drugs supplied to Lawson’s sex parties led to Avril and her retinue of ladies. Khaalid became involved with Harry and Sam, and Nazeem and Hassan were determined to pull their friend out by using the video to blackmail Sam into letting Khaalid leave. Hassan turned to Daisy for help, believing her story could protect him from harm. With a copy of the film in hand, Lutz had the evidence he needed. Pair that with Sam’s confession to a tearful Chloe, and his career was over. It also meant The Gazette could print the story, making Simon and Daisy’s careers.

But at what cost? Daisy’s sister has disowned her and she’s turned back to cocaine for solace.

Like I said in an earlier review, Shoot the Messenger is not the type of show you watch while checking emails. It deserves your full attention because of all the machinations and subtleties going on. But what a payoff. Stellar performances by Elyse Levesque, Lucas Bryant and Lyriq Bent carried the ball, while Sutherland and Holness’ intricate storytelling took Season 1 over the goal line.

What did you think of Season 1 of Shoot the Messenger? Comment below!

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Featured, Industry News

The Wonk Report: Group Licence Renewal

Over the past two weeks the CRTC held hearings on first the French and then the English licence renewals for the big broadcast groups.  For the English (my focus) that means Corus (which now owns Shaw), Rogers and Bell.

A lot of the hearing went as expected.  The broadcast groups have argued that because of competition from Netflix they need more flexibility and that has as always been code for lowering their CanCon obligations.  They want lower CPEs (Canadian Programming Expenditures) for all Canadian programming and in particular, PNI (Programs of National Interest—drama, documentary and award shows).   The biggest issue for the content side of the industry is what will be the group CPE (set by policy at 30% of revenues but was it intended to be a goal or floor?) and the PNI CPE (set by policy for Bell, Rogers and Shaw at 5% but for Corus at 9% and now proposed by the CRTC as 5% for all).   The CRTC had said in the notice of hearing that spending levels would be maintained, the broadcasters all asked for breaks and the content side of the industry argued that historical levels should be maintained.

Traditionally, licence renewal hearings are about implementation of policy and are not intended to make policy.  Off the top, the Chair suggested that the TalkTV policy decision needed to be tweaked to reflect the changing circumstances so there were few challenges from the Commission about whether a discussion was really about policy and not licence.  Stakeholders brought up the question when it suited them (i.e. Corus complaining that the CMPA proposed definition of independent production was policy but still requesting a change to the policy to lower the PNI expenditure requirement). Some stakeholders reiterated policy proposals that they had taken during the TalkTV hearing.  CAFDE asked for a sub-quota of PNI for feature films, DOC for a sub-quota for documentaries and WGC for a sub-quota for development.  They were not challenged by the CRTC on the basis that these proposals were still policy proposals.

CMPA did refer to Terms of Trade in their questioning but their real goal was to block Corus’ use of Producer of Record (producer is pretty much independent in name only to get tax credits and other financing but Corus owns distribution rights and profits) agreements through a tighter definition of independent production.  There is no love lost between CMPA and Corus right now, which led to a rather surprising allegation that the CMPA had snuck in the independent production definition proposal in their presentation, which the Chair had to correct (it was in their submission as well as presentation – Corus admitted to never having read it).

Corus had asked to have all its conditions of licence specific to its children’s services removed as that would be consistent with the removal of the genre exclusivity policy under TalkTV.  That would mean that there would be no obligation to maintain YTV, Teletoon and Treehouse as children’s services but also that there would no longer be ad restrictions or a higher than average obligation to spend on Canadian programming.  Surprisingly, the CMPA appeared to be the only stakeholder concerned about this and had proposed keeping the restrictions or treating the Corus kids services as a mini-group.   As no one else expressed any concerns about the potential loss of significant players in Canadian children’s television, there is a serious risk that the CRTC will agree to Corus’ requests.

Two recurring themes in the questions in the hearing come from the TalkTV decision.  In that decision the CRTC proposed two pilot projects which would lower the required Canadian key crew point count (only screenwriter and one lead performer need to be Canadian) for certain circumstances:  literary adaptations and dramas with budgets over $2 million per hour.  The CRTC has the power to change the eligibility for CRTC certification to allow for these two exceptions but not to change all the other financing components.  In the recent new CIPF framework, it lowered the point count to 6 points in part to allow for these pilot projects.  The CRTC has not been able to convince Heritage that CAVCO and the CMF should also be amended to allow for these pilot projects.  Heritage is apparently still studying it.

It is not that surprising that Heritage might be reluctant to lower the point count for these two circumstances, particularly as there does not seem to be a need.  There are plenty of literary adaptations being produced under the current system and average budgets for one-hour dramas are over $2 million and are being financed.  What is surprising, a little, is the Chair complaining publicly about the lack of support from Heritage.

The other theme that came from TalkTV was the idea that there are too many thinly capitalized production companies.  The decision quoted the approximately 900 production companies tracked by the CMF, failing to understand that many of them were single-purpose production companies incorporated for a production but owned by the main production company.  The Chair revisited this theme several times during the hearing, asserting that there was not enough consolidation in the independent production sector and this was likely the reason that producers were not able to fully exploit their programs.  Stakeholders responded with different strategies.  On the one hand, the CMPA tried to explain the need for a diversity of production company sizes to ensure the existence of the next generation of successes while DOC took the position that its 700 members needed support so that they could stay “mom and pop” shops.

There were other themes of more interest to other participants in the broadcasting system, such as news, the application for OMNI to reduce its third language programming and have s.(9)(1)(h) status and whether there was any undue preference taking place among the vertically integrated media groups.

What happens now?  Based on past decisions there is no way to predict what the final decision will be, but the production industry is right to be worried that requirements to spend money on Canadian programming may be reduced for the next licence term.

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Featured, Murdoch Mysteries

Murdoch Mysteries’ Simon McNabb breaks down “Excitable Chap”

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Monday’s new episode of Murdoch Mysteries, “Excitable Chap,” marked the return of two favourites. Thomas Brackenreid was back from St. Louis, sporting a gold medal for soccer that he’d won coaching Galt to victory. Monday also saw James Pendrick back in Station House No. 4, first to hang out with Brackenreid because they’d bonded at the World’s Fair and then because, no surprise, he was suspected of murder in a very Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde storyline.

But rather than fall back into his routine, Brackenreid has been grabbed by wanderlust and excited by the world. No longer content, for the moment at least, being a copper, he’s gone off on an adventure with Pendrick—he was once again exonerated of killing—in pursuit of Ashmi, who’s stolen the inventor’s formula for the fountain of youth.

We spoke to Simon McNabb—who co-wrote the episode with showrunner Peter Mitchell—about Brackenreid’s departure, Nina and Crabtree’s breakup, and a peek at next week’s holiday special.

It was interesting to see Brackenreid return to Toronto with his world view opened up and wanderlust triggered. Could this be the final season for Brackenreid?
Simon McNabb: Well, anything is possible. I can’t speak one way or another about what happens to the character in Season 10 or any possible future seasons but he’s certainly developed a taste for wanderlust as a character. We, as writers, wanted to explore what it would give to him as a character and open some interesting avenues for him in the future.

We thought this was sort of an interesting way to explore with Tom Brackenreid. Maybe this is the 1904 equivalent of buying a sports car; getting back out there and having that sense of adventure.

It was interesting that you referenced Ota Benga in the episode, who was really part of the St. Louis World’s Fair.
That emerged organically from our desire to put in as much as possible from the history of the period and that was one of the headlines of the St. Louis World’s Fair. At the time, they had these pygmies who were essentially on display which is sort of shocking by today’s standards. We were sort of at the end of this tradition by the end of 1904, but it had been going on for years that people had been brought and put on display at world fairs. We saw a little touch of it last year in the Arctic episode when Crabtree meets the Inuit man and thinks, for a moment, that he’s part of the display. One of the headlines from the World’s Fair is that they had these pygmies on display and did keep them locked up. The young man that Brackenreid is obliquely referring to did go on an adventure for awhile and left the fair and wandered about as a free man and then was either recaptured or returned to the group and travelled around parts of the United States as sort of a cause célèbre.

You and Peter Mitchell shared writing credits on this episode. How did that work?
The story itself took awhile to develop in that the very basic notion of a Jekyll and Hyde story was one that has sort of wandered in and out of the writers’ room over and over again. At some point, the notion of doing it with James Pendrick as the Jekyll and Hyde figure stuck around and we were all tickled by it. And then, Pete Mitchell early in the development process for this season had a few ideas about it and broke out most of the story you see there quite quickly on his own and then brought me along to help him write it. We split it up as front half-back half.

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You picked a great character to be Jekyll and Hyde. Peter Stebbings has such an emotive face.
He was such a natural fit. Peter is such a great actor when it comes to emotion and can play all sorts of different angles and elements and if you give him the opportunity he’ll play it right up to the max. I think this was the episode of Murdoch Mysteries that gave him the most room to go a little over the top. We knew he would have fun doing it, and we would have fun watching it.

I enjoyed the tongue-in-cheek reference in the script about Pendrick showing up just in time to be accused of murder.
It’s one of those things where, as a murder mystery, it’s very hard to bring back anyone without them being involved, in some way, with the murder of the episode. Sometimes we come up with a way to just have them around for the week and not accused of murder but sometimes it’s just to much fun to have them as the prime suspect. You have to wink at yourself because, at this point, the audience is pretty convinced Pendrick won’t be the killer by the end of the day.

Nina and George have broken up. What can you say about the demise of their relationship?
George’s relationships have been a roller coaster and I, for one, am in favour of it. I’ve been a sucker, since I first started watching the show, for the troubles of George’s heart. At the start of last season, we tried to challenge Crabtree a little bit when it comes to what he wants out of a relationship and life. Through the years, we have matched him up with women and all of them offered the same sort of future he imagined for himself, getting married and having a family. By introducing Nina Bloom, we forced him to challenge that. He falls for her despite having none of those things and he starts to reconsider how much he values those things or whether this very exciting love affair might be something that he likes and appreciates and wants to explore more than the conventional lifestyle.

As soon as we did that, we realized we’d have to bring in someone who represented the more traditional choice and see if he really was ready throw away the whole notion of settling down and having kids. That’s what we’re trying to explore; where he lands I’m not sure.

I laughed out loud when Julia said, ‘I’ve had better,’ after Pendrick kissed her while he was The Lurker.
That was a line written by Peter Mitchell.

What can you tease about the next episode, the holiday special ‘Once Upon a Murdoch Christmas’?
It focuses more heavily on Crabtree than last year’s special. He is sort of at the centre of the main mystery and story this year. This year he is really in the thick of what is, I think, an exciting and delightful adventure.

Murdoch Mysteries airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, This Life

This Life’s Janet-Laine Green on her tough scenes in “Well Fought, My Love”

Spoiler warning: Do not read this article until you have seen This Life Episode 209, “Well Fought, My Love.”

On Friday, Janet-Laine Green told us about her experience playing Janine Lawson on CBC’s This Life. In the second part of our interview, Green tells us about receiving the news her character was going to pass away in Episode 209, “Well Fought, My Love,” and what it was like to portraying her final scenes of the series.

Several of your cast mates told me they were shocked by the events in Episode 209. When were you told Janine was going to pass away?
Janet-Laine Green: I think a couple of weeks before I went down to shoot, and it just tore me apart. It just broke my heart. Honestly. I think because of the reasons that I said before, that it’s such a special show. It’s rare in a series—and I’ve done a lot of series—that you actually have the sense of family and real joy to be on the set, and we just all connected so well, the young people and my kids on the cast, and shooting in Montreal was just a joy, so beautiful. So when I got the word, I went, ‘Why? Why would you do that?’ And I couldn’t take myself out of the character. And it really is, that series, like any series, it’s all about storylines, story plots, what’s going to shock the family, shock the audience. And because it is a family, when something like that unexpected happens, that’s a great storyline. But I totally took it personally. I really went, ‘Oh, it doesn’t really matter if Janine’s in the show.’ Now I know that’s not true and having some time away from it, I went, ‘I can see why they would do it.’ But it really makes me very sad not to be in the show. Really sad. Because we like each other so much. I think that, more than anything, it was a really special combination of people.

It was definitely a shock.
It is shocking. You’re not set up for it at all. And that’s I guess what I mean by living your life to the fullest is, one doesn’t know when you’re going to die. And when there’s illness, it gives you such a different perspective on life and death. When one has been ill, you’ve been dealing with life and death quite a bit. And you’re looking at, ‘Have I done everything I wanted to do?’ and ‘What do I want to do?’ But when something like that happens that quickly, there is no looking back, there is no preparing, it’s everybody else who has to deal with the fallout.

I haven’t seen the episode, but I was there with Natalie, and I was there with Gerald, but I didn’t see how anybody else reacted. And that doesn’t matter really, it’s just being on the other side. Playing dead was awful. It was awful. Because you want to say goodbye. You want to say goodbye to your kids. You want to say goodbye to your husband. You want them to say goodbye to you. But there is no goodbye. And I think that’s even more shocking than if you have some time if you’ve been ill.

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What was it like to play a body in the episode?
It’s very hard, because, for one, Peter as Gerald is trying to resuscitate me. So they had built this contraption, and they had paramedics there—real paramedics—and he had to pound on my chest to try to get me back. And they had built sort of a metal contraption to sort of protect my body from the real strong pressure that you have to give. And I went, ‘No, I’m just going to do it, and I’m not going to wear the contraption. Just, Peter, do what you need to do.’ But the hardest thing is holding your breath and not showing your breath. That’s really hard. You have to hold your breath for quite a long time. Because the camera sees it.

And then people are really sad around you. You can’t go, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK.’ And after I had finished playing dead, the director said, ‘Oh, I much prefer you being alive. You’re a much better actress when you’re alive!’ [Laughs.] But that was Louis [Choquette] again. Louis shot my last episode, so it was really nice to start with him and finish with him.

Do you have a favourite scene of the season or the series as a whole?
I loved the scene in 209 where Peter and I are just kibitzing in the kitchen and making tea and just being sort of silly, and he had to go to work and I wanted to go for a walk. It was so natural and everyday, and yet a couple who had worked through their marriage and were just having a cup of tea and were happy to have time for each other. That was actually a really beautiful scene. Even if I didn’t die, it had such a nice quality to it, and then she walks out into the sunshine.

Is there anything else you’d like to say about your time on This Life?
Thank you. Thank you to CBC for greenlighting this production, and thank you to the wonderful cast. I adored working in Montreal and all the people that made me feel so welcome and comfortable. It has just been a treasure in my career, doing this show.

And what’s next for you? 
We’re going to Mexico for a month in about a week, and then I’m coming back and doing a play called Peace River Country at the Tarragon (Feb. 7 – March 19, 2017), which is a brand new play about fracking in Alberta.

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

Images courtesy of CBC.

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