TV, eh?

From a media release:

The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television is pleased to announce the nominations for the 25th Annual Gemini Awards, recognizing the year’s best in Canadian English-language television. This year’s celebrations will be held in Toronto over three nights in November. The Industry Gala Presentations will take place on Tuesday November 2nd and Wednesday November 3rd at the Kool Haus Entertainment Complex; the Broadcast Gala will take place on Saturday November 13th at the historic Winter Garden Theatre and will be broadcast live-to-tape on Global and Showcase.

The drama Flashpoint leads the 2010 Gemini Awards nominations with 15 nominations including Best Dramatic Series. Coverage of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games garnered 13 nominations including Best Live Sporting Event. Bloodletting And Miraculous Cures, Guns, Stargate Universe, and The Summit are up for awards in 9 categories each; Less Than Kind and Love, Hate and Propaganda each received 8 nominations.

For the complete list of nominations, please visit www.geminiawards.ca.

From the Los Angeles Times:

From John Mackie of the Vancouver Sun:

• Visual effects Emmy nominations show B.C. is a ‘sci-ficapital’
  “The Vancouver film industry has become a hotbed for visual effects. Thursday, four of the five Emmy nominees for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Series were for programs produced here.” Read more

From Darren Sumner of Gateworld:

• Cooper talks Stargate departure
  “Following this weekend’s news that long-time Stargate writer, producer, and director Robert C. Cooper will leave the franchise after his appearance at Comic-Con next month (story), we contacted him to find out just why he’s made the decision, what Stargate has meant to him — and what he plans to do next.” Read more.

INNERSPACE LIVE: STARGATE UNIVERSE – Friday, June 11 at 11 p.m. ET

Teddy, Ajay and Natasha mark the finale of one of SPACE’s exclusive signature series with a special, live-to-air edition of INNERSPACE featuring special guests!

From Bill Harris of QMI Agency:

• CTV comedy shows back for more laughs
  “The new lineup of standup comedians on Comedy Now! includes Ian Bagg, Simon King, Darcy Michael, Kelly Taylor, Dana Alexander, Trent McClellan, Allyson Smith, Dylan Rhymer, J.P. Mass, Ivan Decker, Dave Hemstad, Debra Di Giovanni (pictured) and Tyler Hawkins.” Read more.

From Craig Takeuchi of the Georgia Straight:

• Leo Awards 2010 final winners: Alice, Sanctuary, Excited on top
  “As the second evening of Leo Awards concluded tonight at the Westin Bayshore, the TV miniseries Alice , a new take on the Alice in Wonderland story, led the winners of the Leo Awards, picking up a total of eight awards in a range of technical categories.” Read more.

STARGATE UNIVERSE LIVE EVENT – Friday, June 11, 11 p.m. ET

Ajay, Teddy and Natasha mark the finale of one of SPACE’s exclusive signature series with a special, live-to-air edition of INNERSPACE. Fans will be over the moon about the surprise guest panelists, a live web chat, and behind-the-scene interviews with Robert Carlyle (Nicholas Rush), Louis Ferreira (Everett Young), David Blue (Eli Wallace), and more!

From Craig Takeuchi of the Georgia Straight:

• Stargate, Sanctuary lead 2010 Leo Awards nominees
  “Sci-fi series Sanctuary and Stargate Universe dominated the dramatic series categories with an amazing 17 nominations each and outpaced their contenders. Smallville followed with six, and Heartland and V each received two.” Read more.

From a media release:

Canada’s top screenwriters honoured at the 2010 WGC Screenwriting Awards

The Writers Guild of Canada celebrated the winning words of Canadian screenwriters tonight at the 14th annual WGC Screenwriting Awards. 148 scripts were nominated in the Awards’ 11 categories, and 43 finalist scripts vied for the winners’ circle.

Screenwriters Robert C. Cooper (Stargate Universe), Jacob Tierney (The Trotsky), Garry Campbell (Less Than Kind) and Kate Barris (Max and Ruby) were just of few of those recognized for outstanding scripts. A complete list of winners follows.

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From a media release:

SPACE Recruits More Sci-fi Devotees as Nearly Half a Million Viewers Get on Board for STARGATE UNIVERSE

• STARGATE UNIVERSE Season 1.5 premiere wins its timeslot
• Record breaking audience stay tuned for SPACE’s flagship genre entertainment news show, InnerSPACE

The explosive mid-season premiere of STARGATE UNIVERSE (SGU) Season 1.5 rocketed onto SPACE last Friday, pulling in an audience of 422,000 total viewers on April 2. SGU was the #1 non-sports specialty program in the country from 10 -11p.m. More than 700,000 viewers tuned into some or all of the premiere, proving that SPACE is the destination for the most anticipated sci-fi programming. The premiere is available now on demand at www.spacecast.com.

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From the WGC:

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

From a media release:

SPACE Acquires Season 2 of STARGATE UNIVERSE

• Catch Season 1 from the beginning in the STARGATE UNIVERSE Marathon January 3 exclusively on SPACE
• STARGATE UNIVERSE returns with Season 1b in April 2010

SPACE, Canada’s national science fiction, speculation, and fantasy channel, announced today the exclusive Canadian acquisition of the second season of STARGATE UNIVERSE (SGU). Twenty, all-new, hour-long episodes of SGU are scheduled to premiere in Fall 2010. Following its television broadcast, each 60-minute episode of SGU is available on demand at www.spacecast.com.

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From Kat Angus of Dose:

• Interview: Louis Ferreira of Stargate Universe
  “After a brief guest appearance on Star Trek Voyager in 1998, Louis Ferreira swore he would never do another science fiction series ever again. Two days of work playing a holographic tree was enough to convince the actor that sci-fi was not his genre.” Read more.

From Bill Brioux at TV Feeds My Family:

• CBC Battles on Without Blades
  “FRIDAY saw 1,575,000 show for the season finale of Flashpoint (with Hugh Dillon and Michael Cram, left), which tried to steal a little Blade glory by training its sights on Maple Leaf Gardens.” Read more.

Lt. Scott and Camille return to Earth via the communication stones to spend time with those they left behind. On the Destiny, the crew explores new sections of the ship, which yields the discovery of a promising Ancient device.

10:00 PM

An away team finds a kino beside a Stargate on a jungle world, which contains video footage of the team that was shot prior to their arrival. Then, an illness cripples the team, forcing them to quarantine themselves on the planet.

From Bill Brioux of TV Feeds My Family:

• Hull of a Weekend for Canadian TV
  “Friday’s Flashpoint picked off 1,816,000 commercial on CTV (all figures BBM Canada overnight estimates). CBC’s Battle of the Blades was right behind Sunday night with 1,810,000 tuning in to see the final three skate off. Then, lookit this–CBC’s pony drama Heartland quietly rode off with 1,282,000 Sunday evening.” Read more.

From Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune:

• A ‘Stargate Universe’ producer takes issue with criticism of the show. Here’s my response
  “If I seem passionate in my disappointment in “Stargate Universe,” that’s only because, in my experience, people are more intensely disappointed by things they had high hopes for. I’m not demanding that “SGU” to be a clone of past “Stargate” shows nor am I secretly expecting it to be another “Battlestar.” I just wanted “SGU’s” characters and stories to emotionally or intellectually engage me. That’s all I ask of any show. That hasn’t happened. You are of course entitled to your opinion of my Stargate Universe review and my comments about the show in the V piece. But people who have seen the show are also entitled to their opinions. I wish I got the sense that those who who have problems with the show were being truly heard by the Stargate writer/producers.” Read more.

The original review:

• Desperate survivors get lost in ‘Stargate Universe’
  “In the print ads for “Stargate Universe” (8 p.m. Central Friday, Syfy; two stars), a clean-cut young man in a military uniform runs toward the camera, away from danger. I’ve now seen five hours of the show and still don’t feel all that invested in the the fate of 1st Lt. Matthew Scott (Brian J. Smith). Theoretically, I should — he’s one of the show’s lead characters. ” Read more.

10 p.m. ET/PT
A few members of the crew are able to mentally travel back to Earth using an Ancient communications terminal.