TV, eh?

From Bill Brioux at TV Feeds My Family:

• Canada Not Feeling Triple Sensation
  “CBC’s talent search series Triple Sensation drew just 174,000 Monday night, with only 51,000 in the 25-54-year-old demo. It premiered a week earlier to just 220,000.” Read more.

From Jeff Swindoll of Monsters and Critics:

• Intelligence: Season 2 – DVD Review
  “There are a couple of things I hate. The first is being given a title to review of a show in its second season. The second, and more frustrating, is finding the show excellent and discovering that it’s cancelled and a third season isn’t coming.” Read more.

From Bill Sherman at Blogcritics:

• DVD Review: Intelligence – Season 2
  “As with its first season, Intelligence devotes a lot of time to parsing the shifting allegiances within its two shadowy realms. Jimmy and Mary both align with men who were actively working against them in season one: in Jimmy’s case, the threat of the Americans has him allying with brutal biker dealer Dante Ribiso (Fulvio Cecere); for Mary, it involves promoting snaky alcoholic copper Ted Altman (the ever-watchable Matt Frewer) into her old position, even after Altman’s repeated efforts to undermine her chance at a promotion. The strategy seems to bring both former enemies in line, though we certainly don’t trust either of them to not betray their “friends” when given the opportunity.” Read more.

From Margy Rochlin of the New York Times:

• Crime Gang in a Strip Club … A Canadian Strip Club
  “THOUGH the Canadian crime series Intelligence has been shown internationally, it wasn’t until this time last year, when Season 1 was released on DVD, that anyone in the United States was able to see it. This moodily lit, character-heavy television drama tells the twin stories of the conflicted Vancouver drug lord Jimmy Reardon (Ian Tracey), a reluctant informant, and Mary Spalding (Klea Scott), the head of Canada’s primary intelligence service, who in return for information ignores Jimmy’s illegal dealings.” Read more.

From Amazon.ca:

• Intelligence: Season 2

From TV Shows on DVD:

• Intelligence Season Two

From CBC:

• Canadian film, TV, digital producers honoured at Indie Awards
  “Quebec family drama C’est pas moi, je le jure!, TV satire This Hour Has 22 Minutes and the television movie Mayerthorpe were among the Canadian programs honoured in Ottawa Wednesday evening at the second annual Indie Awards.” Read more.

From John Doyle of the Globe and Mail:

• Intelligence star is riding the rails
  “The last time most of us saw Ian Tracey was on CBC’s Intelligence, playing central character Jimmy Reardon. In the final scene of the now-cancelled and much-missed series – which won the Gemini Award for best dramatic series of the year last Friday – Reardon collapsed in a hail of bullets outside the Chickadee strip club.” Read more.

From Bill Harris of Sun Media:

• Axed CBC drama wins top Gemini
  “The choice showed Intelligence, but the timing was kind of awkward. The critically acclaimed but ratings-challenged series Intelligence, which officially was cancelled by the CBC last winter, took home the award for best drama series at the 2008 Gemini Awards, which were held last night in Toronto.” Read more.

From Alex Strachan of Canwest News Service:

• Gemini night belongs to Englishman’s Boy and Durham County
  “The tried-and-true ruled the night Friday at the 23rd Annual Gemini Awards at Toronto’s Metro Convention Centre. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, CBC’s veteran faux-news comedy program from Halifax, and Intelligence, CBC’s respected – but cancelled – street drama about drug dealers and rogue government operatives on B.C.’s West Coast, won Geminis for best comedy and drama respectively.” Read more.

From the Canadian Press:

• ‘Eastern Promises’ the big winner at the Directors Guild of Canada Awards
  “Among TV shows, Intelligence was named best drama, Degrassi: The Next Generation won best family show and Corner Gas was named best comedy. The gritty series Durham County, took two trophies, for best direction and best picture editing.” Read more.

From Glen Schaefer of The Province:

• Geminis come calling for local actors
  “Two of the three winning Vancouver actresses weren’t in Toronto last week when their names were called at the Gemini awards for Canadian TV. And that’s not a bad thing — singer-actress Alexz Johnson (best actress in a children’s series for Instant Star) was criss-crossing North America as her recording career heats up, and Katharine Isabelle (best supporting actress in a miniseries, The Englishman’s Boy) was getting shot in a horror movie.” Read more.

From Glen Schaefer of The Province:

• Television awards tuned into the city
  “Actors Ben Ratner and Gabrielle Miller hosted a reception at the Sutton Place Hotel last night for their B.C. show-business peers nominated at this year’s Gemini Canadian television awards.” Read more.

From the Vancouver International Film Festival’s Film & Television Forum:

TV DAY – Friday, September 26

10:45 – 12:15 PM
Showrunning: The Fusion of Business and Creative (FTV13)

As the key creative executive overseeing production, showrunners need to juggle the conflicting realms of creativity and management. They need to be creative on demand while overseeing hundreds of staff. And time is of the essence. In this session, a showrunner will give expert insights into how to be the most efficient and productive in: protecting creative concerns but respecting the bottom line in budgeting meetings; working with your casting directors to find the perfect actors in weekly casting sessions; keeping writers’ rooms productive and inspired; dealing with censors; and the art of responding to network notes. Sponsored by Global Television, a division of Canwest Media Inc.

Moderator:
tba

Guest Speakers:
Chris Haddock, Creator, Intelligence

Click here for more information.

From Alex Strachan of Canwest News Service:

• Chef finds unwanted ‘guests’ in kitchen
  “Flashpoint continues to be one of the summer’s more pleasant TV surprises: a cop show unafraid to throw the occasional changeup into the standard cop show formula. … Or you can watch Intelligence, one of the homegrown dramas that made Flashpoint possible.” Read more.

From Bill Brioux of TV Feeds My Family:

• Wells: Fox Out Of Intelligence
  “Executive producer John Wells confirms that Fox has passed on Intelligence, the CBC drama he was re-developing as an American series with creator Chris Haddock (Da Vinci’s Inquest). ‘We developed it at Fox, they have passed on it and we’re taking it to other places because it’s a great script,’ said Wells.” Read more.

From Bill Harris of the Toronto Sun:

• Da Vinci movie good to go
  “Dominic Da Vinci is back, not for a long time, but hopefully for a good time, and occasionally even for a scary time.” Read more.

From Blogcritics, based on the TV, eh? Blogtalkradio interview with creator Chris Haddock:

• Intelligence Comes To DVD While Awaiting FOX Fate
  ” ‘The cumulative effect of watching this show is powerful. So I’m hoping everyone will run out and buy it. I just want people to watch it, so I don’t care if people steal it, quite frankly. I’m not encouraging it, but I just want people to watch this thing because it’s so much fun.’ ” Read more.

From Ralph Lucas at Northern Stars:

• Get Some Intelligence
  “Missing your weekly fix of Intelligence? We do. There are still days when we wander around the office trying to figure out what blue-suited Ceeb built the case against this critically acclaimed drama series that cut its life short. If international distribution is any measure of success, the gritty series was running in several dozen countries, and the US Fox Network was looking at a remake by moving the action south of the border. So when we heard that the first season was soon going to be available on DVD, we circled the release date on our calendar.” Read more.