Rogers couldn’t have picked a worse day to announce Jennifer Valentyne has left Breakfast Television Toronto. While many fans assumed it was an April Fool’s Day prank done in poor taste, the reality is Valentyne is gone. TV, Eh? received the following statement on Friday:
“I can confirm that Jennifer Valentyne is no longer with Breakfast Television. This move is a result of a larger BT strategy in which the Live Eyes in each market have been eliminated and replaced to give viewers more of what they want with local news and information. As a result of the position being eliminated, we explored other on-air TV opportunities for Jennifer within the organization, but were unable to find a position which she considered comparable. We truly value the contribution Jennifer made to BT over the years and we wish her all the best as she moves on to her next venture.”
Earlier in the day, BT Toronto co-hosts Kevin Frankish and Dina Pugliese took to Twitter to share the sad news.
Early Friday evening, Valentyne took to Facebook to leave a message for fans:
“I am sorry to say that the news is true. I’m sad that Breakfast Television’s decision to go in a different direction has meant that I will no longer be on the show. I want to thank you so much for your outpouring of love and support. I have read the comments on the BT Facebook page and I’m overwhelmed with emotion. You never really know how people feel about you. I know now and it’s giving me comfort and strength. I am very fortunate to have been part of your lives for 23 years. I don’t know what the future holds but I will keep you posted. I love you all.
Jenn xo”
Valentyne began her career in 1987 when she began working at Citytv as an intern. Upon graduating from Centennial College’s Broadcasting program she worked as a graphics operator at MuchMusic, then as an on-air promotions creator for MuchMusic and Citytv before joining Breakfast Television.
Do you know if there is a Season 2 for The Pinkertons? —Tony
The official word from CHCH—the Canadian network that airs The Pinkertons—is they have not signed on for a sophomore season yet. I’ve spoken to folks who worked on Season 1 who told me The Pinkertons will not be back.
This TV show is truly underrated. I’d never even heard of it until an advertising banner showed up on my Facebook page last week. The characters aren’t the normal one-dimensional caricatures you see in most sitcoms, especially David who I find to be a truly unique and compelling depiction of a pansexual person. Not a lot of shows explore this part of sexuality and I find that their nonchalant attitude about David’s sexual identity refreshing. My only complaint is Roland. His character is meant for another dumbed-down comedy. His brand of comedy is slapstick and I find that I can only take him in small doses. In comparison, his wife is a great counterpart for Moira and I enjoy seeing the two of them on screen together. —Lindsay
Agreed about the final episode! It was a great moment at the anniversary dinner when Johnny finally stood up for the town he and his family now call home, and I LOVED the final scene with everyone dancing. Very touching and I had a grin on my face the whole time. :D —Jeff
I look at the Lou and Peter drama a little differently, I guess. The world is full of divorced parents, so why not show an audience in a “family†show how two adults can work things out? Is this pie in the sky thinking? Maybe, but this is supposed to be a feel-good family show, in my opinion. —Pat
My family has enjoyed every season and were really impressed by the last episode. My girls have been living with Type 1 diabetes for seven years and were really grateful that the writers took the time to introduce this medical issue that is potentially life threatening. Georgie and Adam did a great job of portraying what it is like and how most people don’t know how to treat a diabetic low. Great job! We are looking forward to Season 10. —Sally
Got a question or comment about Canadian TV? Email greg@tv-eh.com or via Twitter @tv_eh.
“Up unto the overturned keel, clamber with a heart of steel. Cold is the ocean spray, and your death is on its way.”—Rollo
“This is how you repay me? Everyone wanted you dead. I kept you alive. And this is how you repay my love!?!”—Ragnar
We’re so not used to seeing Ragnar this way. Addicted to drugs, making quick decisions, doubting himself. And worse, having everyone around him wondering if the great king is off his darned gourd. We’re also not used to seeing the vikings defeated so handily. Yes, Paris’ soldiers repelled Ragnar last season, but he got the last laugh with that Trojan horse move. This time around he was soundly, horribly beaten by Rollo and Count Odo, mainly because the former knows exactly what his brother has planned and can counter those moves. There’s no way Ragnar could have expected a chain would be hoisted between the forts to stop the longboat advance, but that didn’t make the situation any better. Throw in a well-placed bog to slow down Lagertha’s rear attack and a throng of French soldiers riding into he viking camp and the whole invasion was a disaster.
Floki, meanwhile, is at a crossroads. Helga was gravely injured in the camp attack but he was saved from drowning by Ragnar. Will he once again align himself with his old friend, or continue to support the rival King Harold?
As a matter of fact, the only bright spot in “The Profit and the Loss†was Ecbert being handed Mercia—and its crown—by the Prince, who was tired of battles and wanted only to present himself to the Pope as a peasant. Unwilling to hand over power to Kwenthrith, he’s just made Ecbert the most powerful man in England.
And let’s just pretend that weird scene between Floki, Aslaug and Harbard didn’t happen, OK?
Slasher‘s filming may have completed just a few months ago, but the series has been in the works for several years. The idea? It came even further back than that for creator Aaron Martin.
“When I was a teenager, we’d go to each other’s houses for sleepovers and watch those movies,” he says. “I always liked them and thought they were fun.” That fun has evolved into Super Channel’s newest series—debuting Friday—an eight-part, blood-soaked horror tale about Sarah Bennett (Katie McGrath), a young woman who returns to Waterbury, the small town where she was born under horrific circumstances. Part mystery, part thriller, Slasher features a who’s-who of cast, including Brandon Jay McLaren as Sarah’s husband, Dylan; Steve Byers as local cop Cam Henry; Patrick Garrow as Tom Winston; Dean McDermott as Police Chief Iain Vaughn; and Erin Karpluk as Heather Peterson.
With Slasher‘s debut nigh, we spoke to Martin about the series, the cast and what sets his series apart from others in the genre.
The long, long road to Slasher “I had spoken to both of my agents, here and in the U.S., about doing a Scream, slasher-type series but also an Agatha Christie-type series. This is really a mix of a slasher film and an Agatha Christie novel. Everyone told me it would be a really tough sell, ‘That’s not in your background.’ And all of that made sense. I worked on Saving Hope and learning all of that medical stuff was great because I learned how the human body works. When I finished Saving Hope, I decided to just write Slasher because I had some time on my hands. I decided that if I wrote it, then I could pitch it. I wrote it on spec and it was floating around and everyone liked it, but this was before American Horror Story, so horror hadn’t really hit and there wasn’t really a home for it.”
“Then Shaftesbury optioned it and we took it around and Super Channel jumped on board and said, ‘Let’s do eight episodes.’ Chiller came on board after that, followed by international sales and all of a sudden we were able to go up north and film.”
Steve Byers
A fascination with frights
“I find serial killers fascinating and creepy because they’re actually real. They actually exist out there. There are serial killers out there, right now, actively killing people. For me, the fear—and I think that’s why it attracts me—is that it’s something that could actually happen to you.”
That super channel
“SuperChannel supported us from Day 1—and by that I mean, they supported our unconventional way of shooting this series.  Everything from the fact we only have one writer and one director, to the look that we’re going for, the fact we’re shooting entirely on location, and that the season is self-contained and highly, highly serialized. We’re approaching Slasher like it’s one long movie broken up into eight parts—which is a very different way of making a TV show.  Super Channel have been not only great cheerleaders, but they’ve provided thoughtful, intelligent, and supportive feedback every step of the process. It’s really been a dream, working with them.â€
Killer Katie (McGrath)
“Katie has a great, gothic look that really fits with the genre. We sent her the script and she really responded to it. She liked the pilot and by that point, when we approached her, we had another three or four scripts written, so we kept sending them and she kept liking them. It was sort of perfect for her, because she had a break in shooting and didn’t have to come back for Season 2 because it’s a new storyline every season.”
“Our whole cast is incredible and we were able to get them because we’re block shooting and they can come in and really concentrate without this interfering with their other projects.”
Caring for the characters
“All of the characters, including Sarah, have dark sides and good sides. A lot of the people who die in the show aren’t just evil, bad people. I’m hoping they are three-dimensional people who have done bad things and good things. In that way, you care more when they die. We were watching one of our actresses be killed and she was so great I thought, ‘Don’t kill her! Wait I minute, I wrote that, she has to die, that’s ridiculous.'”
All about the atmosphere
“When [director] Craig [David Wallace] came in for his interview he said, ‘For me, this show lives between the day and the night.’ What is beautiful during the day can, when the right lighting is put on it, can be terrifying at night.”
Slasher airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET on Super Channel.
Like many Canadians, Callan Potter grew up reading Gordon Korman’s adventures about two buddies, Bruno and Boots, their friends and the prep school they attended. Little did he know he’d end up portraying one of them.
“When I heard about the audition, I was excited because it was going to be a Bruno & Boots TV-movie,” Potter says. “That was before I even auditioned for the role.” But audition he did, landing the two-season Stratford Festival performer his first-ever television gig as Melvin “Boots” O’Neal in YTV’s Bruno & Boots: Go Jump in the Pool project airing Friday, April 1, on YTV. Based on Korman’s novel of the same name, Max & Shred‘s Jonny Gray plays Boots’ best bud, Bruno Walton; the pair hatch a plan to score money to build a swimming pool for their prestigious Macdonald Hall after some parents consider moving their sons to rival institution York Academy where there is a pool. The challenge? Coming up with creative fundraising projects to get the cash under the watchful eye of Headmaster William “The Fish†Sturgeon (Peter Keleghan).
What makes Bruno and Boots so appealing in the books is their chemistry. Yes, they constantly tease each other, their friends and prank everyone in sight, but they’re fiercely loyal to each other and their school. That bond is also evident on-screen between Potter and Gray, and began during their first screen test.
“We hit it off right away,” Gray says. “We have so many similar interests.” Admittedly, it is a bit jarring to see fictional characters brought to life in a television series or movie. After creating an image of them in my head while reading the books, it took a few minutes to adjust, especially The Fish, who I pictured as a thin, bald man. Peter Keleghan couldn’t be further from that, but brings an energy—and physical comedy—to Go Jump in the Pool that not only will cause viewers to laugh, but his co-stars during filming as well.
“I was in a scene with Peter and Scott [Thompson, who plays York Academy’s Headmaster Hartley], and I was just watching them, thinking, ‘This guy is a genius,’ and I missed my cue,” Gray admits. The physical laughs don’t just come from Keleghan, however. Gray and Potter, along with co-stars Hannah Vandenbygaart, Kiana Madeira, Joshua Kilimnik, Drew Haytaoglu and Isiah Lea, all participated in a cooking competition fundraiser that turned into a massive food fight.
“It was a free-for-all, it was ridiculous,” recalls Gray. “You’d have cupcakes and frosting mashed into a ball and smashed into someone’s face. We had flour and chocolate chips dumped on us.”
“We had to shower and shoot two scenes after that,” Potter says. “I had cake in my ears.”
Bruno & Boots: Go Jump in the Pool airs Friday, April 1, at 7:30 p.m. ET/PT on YTV.
