Everything about Saving Hope, eh?

Dragons' Den, Saving Hope, X Company, Young Drunk Punk

Tonight: X Company, Saving Hope, Young Drunk Punk, Dragons’ Den

X Company, CBC – Series premiere
X Company explores the origins of spycraft through the character-driven stories of five young recruits, plucked from their ordinary lives, trained in covert operations and sent beyond enemy lines to fight for the Allied cause. Evelyne Brochu, Jack Laskey, Warren Brown, Dustin Milligan, Connor Price, Hugh Dillon and Lara Jean Chorostecki. As a new team of Allied agents face a terrifying first mission, Camp X’s spymaster Duncan Sinclair must convince a fragile young man with a perfect memory to join the fight.

Saving Hope, CTV – “All the Pretty Horses”
A devastating accident requires the help of Hope Zion Hospital’s doctors at an offsite army base, and Dr. Charlie Harris (Michael Shanks) and Dr. Joel Goran (Daniel Gillies) flip a coin to decide who will take the call. When Joel wins the toss, he and Dr. Zach Miller (Ben Ayres) depart for a heart‐pounding day as they attempt to save the life of a soldier in dire circumstances. Meanwhile, Charlie and Dr. Dawn Bell (Michelle Nolden) work to save a victim of hypothermia, and it’s do or die time for Hope Zion Hospital’s surgeons-in-training when Dr. Alex Reid (Erica Durance), Dr. Maggie Lin (Julia Taylor Ross), and Dr. Rian Larouche (Danso Gordon) finally face the future and their Surgical Boards. But for Alex, the biggest day in her career is also about to become the biggest day of her life.

Young Drunk Punk, City – “The Clash is Coming”
Ian (Tim Carlson) and Shinky (Atticus Mitchell) find out that The Clash is coming to Calgary and make it their mission in life to get tickets – no matter what they have to do. Meanwhile, Helen (Tracy Ryan) and Belinda (Allie Macdonald) find a clash of their own when constructive criticism becomes a destructive battle of wits.

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Saving Hope

Link: Saving Hope’s season finale is ‘emotional’ and ‘shocking’

From Melissa Hank of Canada.com:

Saving Hope’s season finale is ‘emotional’ and ‘shocking,’ says star
The Season 3 finale of Saving Hope is so breathtaking that fans of the Canadian medical series might just need a respirator themselves after they watch it. The episode airing Wednesday is a game-changer for the staff at Hope Zion Hospital, so much so that actor Benjamin Ayres (Dr. Zach Miller) couldn’t believe that the show was actually going through with the pivotal story point. Continue reading.

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Featured, Saving Hope

Comments and queries for the week of Feb. 13

There was a lot of interesting discussion regarding Rebecca Tucker’s piece in The National Post “At the Canadian Screen Awards it really is an honour just to be nominated.” Readers also weighed in on Diane and my discussion in our new column, He Said/She Said where we tackled Standalone or Serialized television shows and the latest episode of Saving Hope, which is headed for a two-part season finale.

I liked Strange Empire but I didn’t love it and part of the problem was because I found I cared more about certain storylines and characters than others and sometimes I found it didn’t flow well–relationships and characters weren’t developed enough to support a particular plot. For instance, I didn’t buy very many of the relationships on the show (i.e., Kat/Caleb, Briggs/Chase and the relationships between Kat and her adopted children) as they seemed too rushed or contrived and manipulated to suit the story.

There weren’t enough little moments, especially with Kat’s character, to make me a real fan of certain characters. There are benefits to sticking standalone episodes into a serialized series, numero uno being that standalone episodes often help to promote character growth by showing the little moments between characters. Just look at another Western drama, set in the same era, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, which had plenty of standalone episodes but plenty of character growth at the same time which really helped viewers invest more in the season-long arcs that occurred.—Ally

No idea what I would have done in Zach’s position [on Saving Hope]. Doctors are supposed to keep their personal feelings at back while they’re at work but I think a person has every right to know if their spouse has such little time left. Travis’ story was interesting but can’t agree more that he needed a huge chill pill. Shouting like that isn’t going to get you discharged any sooner.

Nice twist on the taxi driver ghost. Not that I expect Alex would say yes to Joel (I’d be beyond shocked) but it will be interesting to see if Charlie or Joel gets to talk with Alex first next week.—Hallie

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

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Featured, Saving Hope

Review: A mother’s touch on Saving Hope

Mother’s Day seems to have come early for the Saving Hope crew.

Wednesday’s all-new episode, “Fearless,” put matriarchs front and centre in the action (as moms rightfully deserve to be), as some end-of-pregnancy thoughts made Alex ponder the type of mother she’ll be and the poor relationship with her own mother, one she hadn’t even shared the pregnancy news with.

Of course, whenever Alex has something going on in her life, there always seems to be a medical storyline that coincides with it. Cue the world’s most rude mother. Theresa (if I caught her name right) was a real piece-of-work, bitter about the way her life and two daughters (who seemed perfectly normal on all fronts) turned out. It only took Theresa’s comment about throwing Alex down a flight of stairs to terminate her pregnancy for me to quickly realize no one would be able to reason with her all night, which was quickly proven the case. Yet, somehow, her two daughters were able to put their mother’s baggage aside and stay by her side throughout her hospital stay, which included trying to command nurses to take her to the operating room and nearly dying after surgery.

If Theresa’s daughters were able to put aside the angst with their own mother, Alex could try with hers, right? Wrong, although I wish we could’ve actually heard the conversation the two had rather than just see Alex crying over it. Despite being shut out from the actual conversation, at least we were given some context to the rocky relationship the duo share through Alex’s conversations with Joel and Dana, which only reiterated the support system Alex has with her hospital friends.

Speaking of Joel, let’s be thankful he didn’t go through with his seriously dumb plan to pop the question to Alex. However, it seems everyone in the hospital now knows his intentions (not the smartest idea carrying the ring in your scrubs, buddy), which means sooner rather than later that news will probably travel to Charlie. Other than nearly making the biggest mistake of his life, Joel helped save the life of a young hockey player named Hayden involved in a car accident. Joel did a great thing for the boy, but I really didn’t agree with his decision to listen to Hayden’s girlfriend and lie to his face that his best friend, Shawn, had also died in the accident.

Naturally the sprit of the best friend was what Charlie was dealing with predominantly, although Shawn seemed like a really cool dude–minus the texting and driving offense. And Shawn was able to appeal to Charlie’s good nature and help convince Joel and Shahir they could repair Hayden’s back so he wouldn’t be paralyzed. (Has Charlie ever really said no to a ghost’s request before? Can Charlie say no to anyone?)

The most intriguing storyline of the night, however, came when Sydney’s fiancé, Herschel, checked himself in to the hospital, believing he was dying. First of all, I forgot Sydney even had a fiancé, what with her fling with Maggie. The two had zero chemistry together, which was another obvious sign that Sydney shouldn’t have been marrying him. Luckily, Sydney came to her senses and came clean to Herschel that she was gay, and although I don’t blame him for being upset with her, there was no better thing for her to do for herself. And hey, maybe Hershel was just upset that he just had a tapeworm pulled out of his nose.

Will Sydney and Maggie become a thing? Will Alex make a final choice between Joel and Charlie? Will the gang pass their medical boards? The season finale is almost upon us, so expect these questions and more to be addressed as Alex gets set to head into labour.

Notes:

  • That tapeworm might have been the worst thing I’ve ever seen on this show.
  • Alex: “These are the most beautiful flower cupcakes.” Maggie: “Actually these are vaginas.”
  • If Herschel didn’t realize his fiancée had the hots for another lady from the amount of personal information Sydney shared with him about Maggie, he needs to open his eyes a little bit.
  • Congrats to star Erica Durance for giving birth on Tuesday!

Saving Hope airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on CTV.

Thoughts? Hit is up below or via @tv_eh.

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