Tag Archives: Featured

19-2, Awards, Blackstone, Blood and Water, Featured, Motive

Leo award winners include Motive, 19-2, Blackstone, This Life

Last night the Leo Awards presented their gala awards ceremony — the final of three nights celebrating British Columbia’s film and television industry — and the television winners  were dispersed among several shows.

CTV’s whydunnit Motive won best dramatic series, beating out 19-2, Blackstone, Continuum and The Romeo Section.

In performances, Jared Keeso was named best lead performance by a male for 19-2, and Carmen Moore of Blackstone won best lead performance by a female. Lauren Lee Smith of This Life was named best supporting performance by a female, with Osric Chau  best supporting male for Blood and Water.

Jesse McKeown picked up a screenwriting award for 19-2’s “Orphans” episode, while David Frazee won best direction in a dramatic series for The Romeo Section’s “Elephant Faces East.”

For a complete list of winners, see the Leo Awards website.

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Caught, Featured, Private Eyes, Sensitive Skin, The Council

Comments and queries for the week of June 3

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From our mailbag:

Cardinal

All these media releases keep saying Cardinal is CTV’s first ever serialized drama – huh?

References to that six-part murder mystery as “CTV’s first-ever original serialized drama” popped up in CTV’s announcement this week about The Disappearance, which they were billing as their second-ever serialized drama. People with long memories cited 1973’s Starlost as likely the first serialized original drama on the network, with later contenders including Would Be Kings, Associates, Whistler, The City (aka Flesh and Blood) and Power Play. After my inquiry, CTV adjusted the media release on their website to say that Cardinal and The Disappearance are the  first- and second-ever limited run original serialized dramas.  Would Be Kings was a two-part miniseries they’re not including in the definition of “limited run”, but I’ve simply deleted the reference in the media release as published on this site.

Caught/The Council 

Just realized CBC didn’t mention “Caught” in their latest press release about the new season. I wonder what’s up? 

As our questioner saw immediately after tweeting us, Allan Hawco, the star and producer, tweeted that the show will be delayed from the winter 2017 time period originally announced. The Council is another show missing from CBC’s recent season media release, and was originally announced as a fall 2016 newcomer. CBC’s Sally Catto explained that Caught was caught in a financing issue, while The Council has been delayed because of climate and location issues — it was being filmed in Iqaluit and Manitoba.

I think the climate excuse is a crock. The north is the north and the show needs to adapt to what they are given.

Sure, but a few points to consider …

  • Sally Catto was candid about financial issues on Caught, though she could have made a generic comment about production delays for both shows.
  • The originally announced time from greenlight to air was fast in Canadian TV terms.
  • The logistics of shipping everything up to a place that doesn’t have a TV industry infrastructure and that has a very short filming window are not exactly easy (for example Arctic Air had its own short-window issues filming in Yellowknife which isn’t as remote as Iqaluit). It’s not hard for me to believe they ran into location scouting, crewing, shipping, etc. issues and didn’t want to rush the show to air to meet a self-imposed deadline.

We may never know if there were other issues involved as well, but I don’t have any problem believing climate and location was a big one. I also think it’s admirable they want to shoot in the place the series is set rather than faking the Arctic around Vancouver.

Sensitive Skin

Who plays David (silver-haired man) in tonight’s episode of Sensitive Skin (season 2 episode 2, May 29, 2016)? Thanks.

Guest starring in that Kim Cattrall series is Hamilton-born, Edmonton-raised Rick Roberts (pictured above), who also has a starring role in CBC’s This Life (which returns for a second season Sundays this fall). He’s had a long and varied career in Canada and the US so he might look familiar from Republic of Doyle, Traders, Jack (the Jack Layton TV movie), Pontypool or a number of other roles — not always with that distinctive silver hair, of course.

Private Eyes

This seems good, but it just reminds me a bit too much of Republic of Doyle, don’t you think? I didn’t know it was inspired by a book though, so it might be just a coincidence, but I don’t know …

I think if you watch the show you’ll see it has a similar tone to Republic of Doyle but it’s far from a carbon copy.  Given the CBC series isn’t coming back, its fans might find this one scratching a similar itch, though. It’s worth noting that wisecracking detective/cop shows are not rare, especially in Canada — no reason to think there’s a copycat situation going on here.

Wipeout Canada

Just curious how to become an applicant for the show Wipeout Canada.

The show had its first and only season in 2011 on the now-defunct TVropolis channel, so the short answer is you can’t. Actually that’s the long answer too, since even the longer-running U.S. version is now off the air.

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Caught, Featured, The Council

The mystery of CBC’s disappearing The Council and Caught

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Absent from CBC’s recently announced 2016/17 season were two previously announced series, The Council and Caught.

Playback quoted Sally Catto, general manager of programming at CBC, as saying The Council has been pushed back to fall of 2017 for “location and climate-related reasons” (the series was to be shot in Iqaluit and Manitoba), while Caught is delayed because of a financing issue. While it is still going ahead, she can’t provide a new air date yet.

The Council was originally announced for fall 2016. From showrunner René Balcer (Law & Order: Criminal Intent), the series “is set against the unfolding drama of our changing planet and draws inspiration from the true-to-life fight over the vast and valuable resources of the Arctic. The series traces the journey of two cops who uncover a small-town murder that is at the heart of a global conspiracy.”

Caught is the adaptation of a Lisa Moore novel originally announced for winter 2017, to be co-produced by Republic of Doyle’s Allan Hawco, who will also star. Caught “is set in 1978 and follows a young man who was caught smuggling drugs to Newfoundland. After spending five years in prison, he breaks out in order to do one last drug run in a futile attempt to shake off his past and set himself up for life. Slaney embarks on a cross-country adventure filled with fascinating characters and close calls. ”

In response to fan reaction on Twitter, Hawco responded:

 

 

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Featured

Recap: Working it Out Together – Taking Control of Health

Gallery

Season three’s premiere episode of Working it Out Together on APTN features co-creator/host Waneek Horn-Miller and Kahnawa:ke’s Heath Promotion Consultant Alex McComber as they tackle the effects of colonization and structural racism on the eating habits of First Nations people in Canada today. Currently it is estimated that 25% of people living on reserve have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, which is more than double the rate of the general population of Canada. However Kanawa:ke has statistically remained constant at 12%.

We learn in this installment that obesity and diabetes can be directly linked to colonization. After the Canadian government limited the availability of traditional foods,  food was used as an instrument of control that coerced Indigenous people across Canada onto reserves. This act instantly meant that traditional, active self-sufficient ways were lost and life became sedentary and dependent. The foods that had been the norm were no longer. The government supplied communities with alternatives that were significantly higher in saturated fat, salt, sugar, and alcohol. This drastic dietary change further hampered the health and well-being of Indigenous populations across Canada.

The effects of the Indian Residential School compounded this problem by creating generations of young people with unhealthy relationships with food. Chronic hunger was the norm at residential schools, and the food that was supplied to students was consistently substandard in quality and nutritional value. Coupled with this unhealthy relationship with food that persists today is the lack of healthy food choices available to lower income families across Canada. Fresh and healthy foods with short shelf lives are always the more expensive choice; a price point often out of reach for lower income families struggling to feed their families. All of these factors have created a recipe for endemic health crises across Canadian communities.

Alex McComber believes the trauma of losing land, losing culture, and the horrors of the residential school system are to blame for the health crises that today’s Indigenous people experience.  To reverse this health crisis, healing from generations of traumas must first occur. Additionally, there is a strong focus on educating the youth of Kahnawa:ke about healthy lifestyles and choices, with the hope that it encourages family and community involvement as a whole.

To add a personal face to this crisis, we follow the story of Konwenni Jacobs, an active mother of two from Kahnawa:ke who has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. We experience her journey with her partner Brian Williams — recently diagnosed as pre-diabetic — as they struggle to improve their well-being, making healthy food choices and adhering to a stricter fitness regime.

This premiere episode drives home the fact that the ability to choose healthy foods in Canada has become a political issue, not just for Indigenous communities but for any community experiencing economic hardships.  However, McComber expands on this to remind us that the foods that we place in our bodies are not just fuel but medicine; everything we ingest is medicine for our bodies.

Season three’s premiere episode also coincides with today’s launch of the show’s companion online magazine Working It Out Together.

 

 

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

The Messenger paints a bleak picture for future of songbirds

Spring is here, and that means songbirds waking you up from your morning slumber or flitting overhead when you’re outside. Unfortunately, the number of songbirds is dropping, and folks are scrambling to figure out why.

After airing on The Nature of Things as “SongbirdSOS,” The Messenger flies to Documentary Channel on Tuesday with expanded footage and more stunning visuals. Throughout history, man has viewed birds both as mythical beings and as harbingers of changing weather and seasons. Now, their diminishing song is hinting at something catastrophic.

Beautifully shot, with cameras capturing clouds of birds swirling in unison with thunderclouds in the background, Bill Evans’ hearing aid microphone contraption proves smaller songbirds migrate at night when predators can’t see them (something radar proves with blooming imagery spreading across the United States as the sun sets), chirping to avoid mid-air collisions.

As York University’s Dr. Bridget Stutchbury notes, species of birds still exist, but their numbers are way down. The question is, why?

The Messenger suggests sobering answers. Mankind’s creation of artificial light has messed with the birds’ ability to migrate during the night, disorienting them and causing midair collisions. And, of course, we’ve constructed huge skyscrapers that songbirds fly into, a point driven home by FLAP (Fatal Light Awareness Program) Canada when they lay out the bodies of hundreds of dead birds on a plain white sheet for all to see.

Lost breeding and wintering habitats in rain forests, wetlands and boreal forests, oil pipelines and farm pesticides are contributing to declining song bird numbers, as well as house cats.

On the positive side, there are steps being taken to halt the dropping populations, including allowing birds to feast on hurtful insects in Costa Rican coffee fields and mandating building owners to switch off the lights at night. Hopefully enough changes will come in time to save the songbirds before their tunes cease.

The Messenger airs Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on Documentary Channel.

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