TV, eh?

From the WGC:

• Finalists Announced: The Writers Guild of Canada congratulates the 2010 Finalists

From a media release:

Whizbang Films Announces Partnership with BBC Worldwide for Distribution of Original Canadian Drama Series, Cra$h & Burn

Whizbang Films announced today that BBC Worldwide will be distributing 13 one-hour episodes of the new original Canadian drama series, Cra$h & Burn. Originally commissioned by Canwest for Showcase Television in Canada, BBC Worldwide will introduce the show to over 500 TV buyers from around the world at its annual BBC Showcase event in Brighton, UK, from February 21 to 25th, 2010. The show’s Executive Producer Malcolm MacRury and Lead Actor Luke Kirby will be in attendance.

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From A Journal of Cosmic Proportions:

• Please Enjoy episode 102 of the “Carlos and The Other Guy” podcast
  “This week Carlos and Paulino interview television and film director Ken Girotti and Malcolm MacRury executive producer, writer and creator of “Crash & Burn” — season finale tonight at 10pm on Showcase— Catch it!” Listen here.

From John Doyle of the Globe and Mail:

• What’s hotter than a woman yelling “harder?”
  “Crash & Burn (Showcase 10 p.m.) ends its season tonight. The most underrated Canadian series in recent years, it’s been a triumph – a hybrid of wit and grit, a crazy journey into the insurance racket. Anyone who has watched has seen the life of messed-up Jimmy (Luke Kirby) unravel as he tried and failed to tie his criminality together with his job in the insurance game. Tonight, big decisions are necessary. Hope the series returns and gets the admiration it deserves.” Read more.

Cra$h & Burn season finale tomorrow on Showcase:

From Myles McNutt of Cultural Learnings:

• Darkness on the Edge of Dramatic Satire: Showcase’s Cra$h & Burn
  “If you had told me going in that the show would present itself as part Better Off Ted (Workplace Satire!), part The Wire (Corruption, and Clark Johnson!), and part Six Feet Under (People Die in the Cold Open!), I probably would have raised my eyebrow faster than ever before, but Crash & Burn is an interesting little dramatic experiment which plays with elements from all these shows. It is not as successful as any of them, struggling early on with the weight of having its hand in so many cookie jars, but it gets a lot of points for going for it, and achieves a sense of dramatic weight and purpose around the midpoint of its first season which makes me anxious, at some point in the future, to finish it.” Read more.

Episode 10, Thursday at 10pm on Showcase

Cra$h & Burn – “CSI Hamilton”

Promo for Episode 8 of Showcase’s Original Series Cras$h & Burn which reunites Enrico Colantoni (Flashpoint) and Michelle Nolden (Numb3rs) who we first saw together on ZOS: Zone of Separation. Catch it Thursday, January 14th at 10pm on Showcase.

From Bruce DeMara of the Toronto Star:

• Aaron Poole: A role worth an eyetooth
  “Throughout the year, Poole has had recurring roles in two TV series being shot in Hamilton, Crash & Burn and Living in Your Car, which is set to premiere in 2010 on TMN.The chance to work in Beirut required having his character written out of the final two episodes of Crash & Burn, a decision he admitted ruefully was a tough one. ‘I’m not dead (in the series). I may be dead to them. We’ll see, we’ll see,’ Poole said, adding he hopes to rejoin in Season 2.” Read more.

From the Canadian Television Fund:

• Interactivity9 – Ron James, Cra$h & Burn

From John Doyle of the Globe and Mail:

• What’s next, Conrad Black’s Christmas?
  “Cra$h & Burn (Showcase, 9 p.m.) is now into its fourth episode. Far be it from me to disagree with anyone about anything but I disagree with Andrew Ryan on this one. I like it.” Read more.

From Martin Patriquin of Maclean’s magazine:

• In this show, the hero really sweats: Gangsters, insurance money, and two Canuck alums of HBO’s Deadwood and The Wire
  “The show was born out of horror stories MacRury heard from a friend of a friend in the industry. HBO commissioned a pilot in 2001 but ultimately passed, though the script caught the eye of Deadwood creator David Milch, who brought MacRury on to write for the first season of the acclaimed series. MacRury was privy to Milch’s foibles as well as his approach to writing dialogue: he does it out loud as assistants type his words. When MacRury first went down to L.A. to meet Milch, he found the director in his office lying on the ground, reading Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men out loud. Milch offered MacRury some ‘walking around money’ from a wad in his pocket. MacRury demurred—until Milch looked him in the eye and said, ‘I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t take money.’ MacRury took to ‘drinking in the morning just to go to work.’” Read more.

From Sammy Younan of the National Post:

• Q&A: Luke Kirby from Cra$h and Burn
  “Fresh from the HBO series Tell Me You Love Me and Slings and Arrows actor Luke Kirby now finds himself immersed in the dynamic world of insurance and fraud. Kirby plays the lead Jimmy Burn in Showcase’s new comedy drama Cra$h and Burn which debuted on Showcase earlier this month. The Ampersand’s Sammy Younan sat down with Kirby on the set of the new show.” Read more.

From Canwest:

• Painting insurance biz a comic black; Adjusters duke it out in a legal world far-removed from ICBC
  “The private insurance companies lobbying for work, these big advertising billboards up all over southern Ontario — when I first moved here I thought it was totally bizarre, how commercial it is,” says Cave, who nonetheless got some input from her dad on the legal world. “There’s stuff I don’t understand that he’s been able to answer. I grew up meeting female lawyers, watching them. I’ve seen how they had to operate — it’s a male-dominated world, they have to be tough.” Read more.

From Ian Johnston of Metro:

• New series shines spotlight on Steeltown
  “t doesn’t happen too often, but Hamilton actually gets to play itself in the new Showcase series Cra$h & Burn. ‘It’s rather unapologetically Hamilton,’ says actress Caroline Cave, who plays company lawyer Catherine Scott in the ensemble show about the ruthless insurance game. ‘It really gives Hamilton a personality, which it always had, but maybe it doesn’t get a chance to show all the time.’” Read more.

From Cameron Archer of URBMN:

• Cra$h & Burn 1.1 – “God Protect Us”
  “I appreciate that Cra$h & Burn is set in the Hammer, but its high concept shouldn’t work. Insurance isn’t normally seen as a sexy profession. This is Showcase’s first hour-long drama, so Showcase’s reputation in this genre will be defined by how well C&B does. It’s not a good start so far.” Read more.

From Ted Shaw of the Vancouver Sun:

• Steve Bacic lets down his guard
  “I like playing bad guys,” Bacic said of his Cra$h & Burn character. “My character is this pathetic, former Russian mobster who is trying to get back in the good graces of the mob.” Read more.

From Canwest:

• Gritty show takes on dark underbelly of insurance industry; Cra$h and Burn exposes the criminal connection to fraud
  “I learned from this show that there’s this huge world of organized crime around insurance fraud,” says Vancouverite star Caroline Cave, who plays Catherine, the in-house lawyer for Cra$h and Burn’s insurance company. “It totally didn’t occur to me. It’s a huge criminal world.” Read more.

From Andrew Ryan of the Globe & Mail:

• Just arrived, but Cra$h & Burn looks grimy and dated: On the other hand, Ice Pilots NWT could be an inspiration to our young people
  “As credible Canadian drama, Cra$h & Burn is the equivalent of a bogus insurance claim. Kirby is a workmanlike actor, but the Jimmy Burn character is two-dimensional, at best, and, frankly, not very interesting; there’s some hint in the pilot that Jimmy came from a dark and dodgy background, but is that a revelation for someone working in his niche in the insurance business?” Read more.

Wednesdays at 9pm ET/PT beginning November 18
Encore presentations: Fridays at 11pm ET/PT and 5pm ET/PT, Sundays at 7pm ET/PT and Wednesdays at 5pm ET/PT

Described as a cross between The Office and The Sopranos by the show’s creator, Cra$h & Burn follows Jimmy Burn, a cocky yet charming claims adjuster for a cut-throat, bottom-line insurance corporation. Jimmy maneuvers his way around insurance scams and the criminal underworld as he tries to escape his past and make a better life on the gritty post-industrial streets of Hamilton. Executive produced by Paul Gross, Frank Siracusa, and Malcolm MacRury (ZOS: Zone of Separation, Deadwood), Cra$h & Burn stars Luke Kirby (Tell Me You Love Me, Slings and Arrows) as Jimmy Burn. Casting also features Leela Savasta (Battlestar Galactica, Intelligence) as Lucia Silva, Jimmy’s live-in girlfriend; Caroline Cave (The L Word, This Beautiful City) as Catherine Scott, a shrewd yet practical in-house insurance lawyer; Clark Johnson (The Wire, Homicide: Life on the Street, also an Emmy-nominated director on The Shield) as Walker Hearn, a veteran insurance investigator and Steve Bacic (The Guard, Andromeda) as Korkov, a conman and Mafioso hustling to scam the system.