Tag Archives: Featured

Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Preview: Highway Thru Hell hauls into Season 4

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There’s something horrifying about watching a tractor trailer, weighed down with supplies, sliding slowly off an icy highway and into a ditch. It’s a bit of a mind-blower to witness the effect millimetres of frozen water has on such a big beast. But it’s something Jamie Davis and his staff see almost every day during winter travel on the Coquihalla Highway and he’s made a career out of it.

This Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET on Discovery, Highway Thru Hell rolls on with 13 new episodes, documenting the successes, drama and disappointment that involves Davis, his staff and competitors. It takes a special type of person to go into the freezing cold and pull rigs off chunks of highway with nicknames like “The Smasher,” but it’s just another day for Big Al, who’s at the helm of Quiring Towing; within minutes of the Season 4 return he’s helping the occupants away from their smashed car, worried they’ll be injured by a sliding rig.

Meanwhile in Lac La Biche, Davis is busier than ever, and has expanded his fleet to cover not just the oil fields but Edmonton itself.

And while you can rest assured the Coq gets slippery in winter, there are changes afoot in Season 4. Davis’ right-hand man, Howie, left to work for a city-based towing company to be closer to his family, and Adam cut ties to work for a rival outfit in B.C., meaning Colin has to step into the role. Colin’s first job? To pull a tractor trailer upright using the rotator, a tougher machine to operate than a tow truck, and newbie John has two decades of towing on his resumé, but must prove he belongs on the B.C. team.

What I like about Highway Thru Hell is the lack of extra fluff. Sure, we learn the personal stories of the folks working these snowy strips of asphalt, but the focus is almost always on the men and women putting their lives on the line to help others out of a tight spot. (And kudos to the producers, who often include a quick science lesson as to how these trucks ended up in their precarious positions.) I may not have the skill-set to drive a tow truck and haul rigs around, but I can certainly appreciate and salute those who do.

And man, does it look stunning in HD.

Highway Thru Hell airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/7 p.m. PT on Discovery.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Preview: Discovery’s Fool’s Gold takes time striking it rich

I enjoy watching shows about guys who are more manly than me. Dudes who go into the woods and put life and limb on the line trying to eke a living out of the earth. Real men like the fellows on Discovery’s Fool’s Gold, returning Tuesday with two back-to-back episodes at 8 and 8:30 p.m. ET.

I only wish the guys would spend more time working to find gold than talking about it. Back for the sophomore season is boss Todd Ryznar, head of Shotgun Exploration, and his crew of men—foreman Roj, builder extraordinaire Jimmy and workers Grizz, Matt and Mike—who meet up nine months after the last mining season in Atikokan, Ont., northwest of Thunder Bay.

The bills have piled up and Todd is desperate to find gold to pay them. His solution? Spend $16,000 on a hammer mill that will extract gold flecks from rocks more quickly and efficiently on Straw Lake. But to reach the 100 ounces of gold Todd aims to mine by the end of the season—enough to pay everyone and those pesky bills—he needs all of the equipment to work flawlessly. That, of course, doesn’t happen … leading to plenty of frustration for both team members and viewers. There’s a lot of bleeped expletives, befuddled expressions and thrown shovels as the hand-made trommel and newly-purchased hammer mill both crap out.

By the end of Episode 2, everything is back up and running smoothly, but a lot of time was wasted on a needless competition pitting Roj and Jimmy against Matt and Mike to see which pair pulled the most gold out of the earth.

The boys of Shotgun Exploration manage to score gold, but I wish they’d stop fooling around so much.

Fool’s Gold airs Tuesdays at 8 and 8:30 p.m. ET on Discovery.

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Featured, Murdoch Mysteries, Rick Mercer Report, This Hour Has 22 Minutes

Comments and queries for the week of September 4

Which returning Canadian TV shows are you excited about this fall?

Rick Mercer Report, 22 Minutes (should be required viewing) and Murdoch. I never miss them. I also feel that The X Factor was extremely good. The Book of Negroes was exceptional. I get a kick out of Schitt’s Creek and Jonny Harris’ Still Standing. Unfortuantely, I missed several years of Heartland so am watching online. And on a more serious note, The Fifth Estate and Marketplace should not be missed. —Fossegal

Love Heartland, saw the cast at CBC in March. —Norlam147

Murdoch Mysteries, X Company and Heartland. —Kim

Rookie Blue is my very favourite. I have the first four seasons on DVD and when Seasons 5 & 6 are available I will buy them also. —Palma

Murdoch Mysteries, Saving Hope, Continuum, Heartland, Rick Mercer and Lost Girl. I couldn’t pick JUST THREE! —Rosanna

Continuum, Sunnyside and Saving Hope for me. I am looking forward to the first two the most and am trying to catch up on Continuum. —Iris

Murdoch Mysteries’ Hélène Joy lets her hair down

I enjoyed your interview with her, but it was a bit short?! I was at a small event where we actually had an opportunity to chat with her for a few minutes. Just my luck she spent most of her time at the other end of the venue. However, she is so fascinating! In a matter of a few minutes I found a ton of info on how she ended up here in Canada, that type of thing. Also calls her hairdos, and Shirley [Bond] her hair designer agrees, very dating. She says they are works of art, but she is “well over it” and they DO make her look much older, but back then young girls were trying to be women and were married off to have families. Sign of the times. I would love it if you would do a bit on her colleague Arwen Humphreys, who plays Brackenreid’s wife. She is Canadian and truly talented, and the fans have been begging for, and getting more screen time by contacting Shaftesbury and communicating through fan groups. Roll on October! —Kimber

Hey Kimber, here’s the link to my interview with Arwen; I spoke to her back in March.

 

Got a comment or question about Canadian TV? greg@tv-eh.com or @tv_eh.

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Continuum, Featured

Continuum blasts into its final season

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If Friday’s first episode of Continuum is any indication, this final season is going to blow fans away. The Future Soldiers have Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) in their sights and, intent on restoring order to the timeline, are willing to blow our heroine to smithereens. And they’ve got the tech to do it; Kiera’s suit just doesn’t seem to stand a chance.

The first of these last six episodes, “Lost Hours,”—returning Friday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Showcase—is packed with the stress, action and armaments of a feature film, which is exactly how Continuum‘s creator tackled the farewell storyline.

“The six episodes really freed me up creatively because I didn’t have to service episodic storytelling,” Simon Barry says during a Vancouver set visit. “I said, ‘Let’s just do a six-hour movie and break it up into six chapters.'” Some fans vented their frustration on social media when Showcase announced the sci-fi project would conclude with Season 4, but Barry says he’d rather have a half-dozen hours to tie up loose ends than have three more seasons and be cancelled suddenly.

Continuum

The result? A storyline that sticks to the present timeline of 2015 Vancouver. To be honest, that’s quite enough. Along with the Future Soldiers (played by Lisa Berry, Ty Olsson, Aleks Paunovic, Kyra Zagorsky, Michael Eklund and Garfield Wilson), Kiera has to contend with Kellog (Stephen Lobo), who is on a course to become a powerful warlord in a war-torn future; a budding romance with Brad (Ryan Robbins); and a shaky alliance with Liber8 that puts her relationships with Carlos (Victor Webster) and Alec (Erik Knudsen) in jeopardy. Barry explains Kiera evolved in Season 3, realizing Liber8 was smaller fish and that she needed to think bigger if she wanted to have an effect on the future and did so by aligning with the terrorist group to take down Sonmanto. The partnership carries over to Season 4, but it doesn’t mean they’re sharing a beer anytime soon.

As for the series finale episode, Barry is—as you’d expect—mum on the details, though he advises “There will be discussion,” among fans once the credits roll for the last time.

“In a weird way, Episode 6 has been a series of endings masked as a story,” he says. “We have a last shot and a last scene that I think is very important, but I don’t think the scene carries the weight of the rest of the episode on it.”

Continuum airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Showcase.

This is just the first in a series of Continuum stories TV, Eh? will be posting as the series comes to an end. Look for interviews with stars Rachel Nichols, Victor Webster, Erik Knudsen, Stephen Lobo and Roger Cross, and creator Simon Barry, in the coming weeks.

Canadians can get a preview of the first episode on Showcase.ca before Friday’s broadcast.

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Amazing Race Canada, Featured

Review: Amazing Race Canada grapples in Delhi

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Never give up, because you don’t know what will happen. It’s a mantra that’s repeated during The Amazing Race and it continues to be true. Look no further than Simi and Ope and Brent and Sean; the former team managed an impressive fourth place finish while the latter were saved from exiting the Race because it was a non-elimination Leg.

Fans knew there was one more non-elimination in the cards and I’d hoped it was this week in Delhi, especially after the east coast brothers fell into last place and stayed there all episode long. “Take Your Clue and Gooooo!” saw the remaining five pairs jet to Delhi and immediately traumatized as they transported live catfish from one end of the fish market to the other. (Can you imagine how everyone smelled by the end of that challenge? Woo.) Nick and Matt, determined to place first this week, got off to a “hot start” and whizzed through the fish and on to Turban Twist. Matt struggled a bit turning out three different turban styles on a trio of very patient men, followed in succession by Gino, Ope, Dujean and, eventually, Sean.

As for the Detour? It was a no-brainer, as Nick and Matt selected Slam It’s wrestling moves as the test for them. The editing made it look like the pro wrestlers got done a bare few minutes before Gino and Jesse, but that may not have been the case. What I do know is that Gino and Jesse’s tenaciousness went a long way to pushing Matt and Nick to a level that has eluded them to this point. They became so frustrated with having the Hamilton, Ont., siblings constantly within reach they shifted into another gear and finished the Leg in first place. Ope’s bad back, meanwhile, meant he and Simi had to drop out of Slam It and opt for Spice It, competing with Sean and Brent to grind 100 grams of hot peppers in the least amount of time.

We know what happened next.

Here’s how the teams placed at the end of this Leg:

  1. Nick and Matt
  2. Gino and Jesse
  3. Simi and Ope
  4. Dujean and Leilani
  5. Brent and Sean (non-elimination)

Notes and quotes

  • Eighteen million people call Delhi home. That’s just staggering.
  • I’m not sure who I felt more badly for, the competitors of those catfish.
  • I’m not sure who I felt more badly for, Sean for throwing up down the side of the tuck-tuk or the driver who had to clean the barf off the side of his tuk-tuk.
  • CTV needs to put together a photo gallery of Matt’s “bar shirts” STAT.
  • I’m always appreciative of the cultural information The Amazing Race provides. Learning Humayun’s Tomb was the inspiration for the design of the Taj Mahal was fascinating.

The Amazing Race Canada airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

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