John Doyle of the Globe and Mail has a suggestion to improve the Geminis — kill them and combine with the Genies:
- An awards show in need of a therapist
“The idea occurred to me while watching the Geminis on Sunday. It appears that CBC, which took the Gemini broadcast back from Global this year, called in George Stroumboulopoulos and his team from The Hour to shape and produce the shindig. Stroumboulopoulos acted as both host and executive producer. Watching, it seemed to me that calling in George wasn’t the solution. Somebody needed to call in a shrink. The thing was drenched in self-loathing and hesitation and had a distinct lack of generosity.” Read more.
Wonderful review John. I didn’t actually watch the show. Why would I? As Mr. Doyle has said repeatedly, the Geminis are a joke. Each year, while the quality of Canadian domestic programming diminishes, the Academy continues to increase the number of award categories and nights of celebration. The sheer number of winners has lessened the prestige of the prize and the event. Mr. Doyle is right. Reduce the number of nominees and merge the two award shows together. Then, I might watch.
I disagree with the above comment that ‘every year the quality of domestic programming diminishes’. In my view, every year domestic programming is hit or miss, just like TV in every country and in the past year there were definitely some shows worth celebrating. There are Canadian shows this fall worth watching and ones that are not.
The most awarded shows of the night were Slings and Arrows and Corner Gas. In my opinion, those are both very good shows.
I think John Doyle was right about one thing. It was embarassing that the most hyped award of the night was for a Canadian working on an American show. The Geminis are supposed to be about promoting Canadian TV and they got sucked into the same old problem of nothing being considered worthy unless it has validation by the U.S. As a member of the Academy I just threw my hands up in the air astonished that it had come to this. I’ve worked in the U.S. and I have nothing against any Canadian that goes there to work, but our home grown Canadian industry needs all the help it can get and we certainly don’t need to talk more about the one or two Canadians that are on whatever American show. Rumours also abound about who was brought by private jet to Regina from LA to lend ‘star power’ to the show while nominated Canadians passed on the event because there was no offer of travel. Is this is true? I don’t know.
I think the Academy has to answer to this, because if they want to promote Canadians working in the American industry, I for one won’t be renewing my dues.