Yearly Archives: 2016

Blood and Water

New episodes of Blood and Water premiere Nov. 13 on OMNI Television

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From a media release:

OMNI Television’s gritty, original crime drama series Blood and Water returns with eight new half-hour episodes of Season One, premiering Sunday, Nov. 13 at 10:30 p.m. ET (check local listings). Produced in English, Mandarin and Cantonese, this next block of episodes follows Detective Jo Bradley (Steph Song) on an all-new murder case, entrenched in a mysterious web of lies leading back to the Xie family.

In the next eight episodes, Detective Evan Ong (Byron Mann, The Big Short), a decorated police hero formerly of the Guns and Gangs Unit, joins Detective Jo (Song) as they’re thrust back into the Xie family orbit. Following the death of his two sons, Ron Xie (Oscar Hsu) faces a power struggle when his company is held under siege by his former partner and his partner’s son, played by new cast member, Telly Liu (The Man with the Iron Fists). On a personal level, Jo finds herself on a quest to discover her biological family, one that stuns her and sets her on a dangerous, unpredictable journey of self-discovery.

Also, returning for the second block are Elfina Luk (Helix), Oscar Hsu (The Girlfriend Experience), Fiona Fu (The Man in the High Castle), and Loretta Yu (Between), with new cast member Aidan Devine (The Girlfriend Experience).

Written by Diane Boehme, Al Kratina, Dan Trotta and Simu Liu, Blood and Water is directed by Gail Harvey (Murdoch Mysteries, Lost Girl, Heartland) and Carl Bessai (Rehearsal, Sisters & Brothers, Fathers & Sons). Executive Producers are Ira Levy, Diane Boehme, Michael McGuigan, Malcolm Levy, Nat Abraham, Peter Williamson, Al Kratina and Dan Trotta. Ben Lu and Paula J. Smith are Producers.

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Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Link: Road To Mercy: Must-See TV

From Jim Bawden:

Link: Road To Mercy: Must-See TV
I have to admit I kept postponing watching my screener of the new CBC-TV documentary Road To Mercy. The subject is mercy killing and I’d lost a dear friend last year (journalist Eric McGuinness) who fought two bouts of colon cancer and then was told it had spread to his pancreas.

After enduring great pain for months he arranged a termination in Switzerland because under Canadian law any sort of assisted death was illegal. Continue reading.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Firsthand delves into doctor-assisted death with “Road to Mercy”

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Firsthand‘s first documentary of the 2016-17 broadcast season couldn’t be more timely. Weeks after the doctor-assisted death of Shoeless Joe author W.P. Kinsella, “Road to Mercy” treads the controversial topic of doctors taking the lives of patients and the circumstances where they are allowed to do it.

Airing Thursday at 9 p.m. on CBC, Toronto-based filmmaker Nadine Pequeneza’s project focuses on the window between February 2015 and June 2016, after the Supreme Court ruling and before Canada’s first law on medical assistance in dying (MAID). But just because the law was passed doesn’t mean it’s clear cut and that’s what’s discussed in “Road to Mercy.” Which patients should be allowed to die (Just those who are terminally ill? What about car accident victims?) and when (Four months before they’re expected to die? Six?) are just two bullet points up for discussion. While those guidelines are worked out, the patients waiting to die agree on one thing: they want control over how they die and want to do it with dignity.

Among those who provide context in “Road to Mercy” are Maureen Taylor, an advocate for the right to die with dignity and the provincially appointed co-chair of the Ontario Advisory Panel On Physician-Assisted Dying; John Tuckwell, diagnosed with ALS in 2012 and planning his death with the help of his sister and doctor; Amy De Schutter, a 29-year-old fighting mental illness; and Quebec’s Dr. Louis Roy, who advises his ill patient Danielle Lacroix in her final days. (In Quebec, the province pre-empted the Supreme Court, passing end-of-life-care legislation in 2014, which came into effect December 2015. Unlike the Supreme Court decision, the Quebec legislation limits MAID to terminal patients.)

After watching a few minutes of John Tuckwell’s deterioration—he’s still mobile, but needs help standing and can no longer talk—it seems a no-brainer he is allowed to pull the plug. But his physician, Dr. Wendy Johnston, loathes to do it because she doesn’t want that to be an option for her patients. Maureen Taylor acknowledges it’s not all cut-and-dried either; will some segments of society, as a result of the guidelines, be deemed “expendable”?

“Road to Mercy” certainly isn’t a feel-good documentary, but it will cause viewers to pause—if they haven’t already—and consider not only where they stand on the subject of doctor-assisted death but if they’d consider it an option.

Firsthand airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, The Nature of Things

The Nature of Things explores the lives of “Pompeii’s People”

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I’ve been fascinated with the story of Pompeii from a young age. A town full of people and animals who were overrun by the ash from an erupting volcano? It set my imaginative mind reeling. It still does, so I was jazzed to learn it was the focus of The Nature of Things‘ season return on Thursday.

“Pompeii’s People” follows host David Suzuki—who first visited the site 43 years ago on his honeymoon—as he is given unprecedented access to the Roman town, exploring the importance of the location to the Empire and the lives of its people buried under volcanic ash in 79 AD after Mount Vesuvius erupted.

Technology plays a huge part in the project, as aerial photography,  dramatic recreations, CGI and other scientific applications peel back the layers of volcanic matter to reveal a stunning, and surprisingly relatable way of life. Handel Productions and Twofour Group do an incredible job not just recreating the story behind the demise of the 12,000 residents located in the coastal town near Naples, but focusing on the well-off and working class folks walking the cobbles. No stone is unexplored, as footage includes an analysis of roadways and a warren of one-way streets and homes are digitally reconstructed to show warmly painted walls, frescoes and skylights in ceilings. Suzuki is welcomed into the former home of a fish sauce merchant, who adorned his property with mosaics of his product, showing a knack for advertising more than 1,500 years before Mad Men.

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Next up on Suzuki’s walk is the forum, where public areas offered citizens a place to converse, play games, buy goods from the open-air market or worship at the Temple of Jupiter.

The most interesting part of Thursday’s return for me was the recreation of Pompeii’s people. I think everyone has seen pictures of the plaster casts of the dog, woman and child, and man, all frozen in time and contorted after being buried in ash. Now computers are digitally removing the plaster and x-rays reveal the bones to understand what Pompeians looked like, what they ate and how they lived. It’s particularly stunning to see how the vaguely human form of a dead soldier is transformed by technology into a young man.

Also analyzed: the rearing of animals and livestock, what garbage says about what Pompeians ate and the role of sex in their society. Informative, educational and entertaining, “Pompeii’s People” is well worth checking out.

The Nature of Things airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, The Romeo Section

Chris Haddock finds the heart of The Romeo Section for Season 2

CBC’s spy drama The Romeo Section returns for its second season tonight, and creator Chris Haddock sounds as relieved as his fans. “It wasn’t a sure thing. I’m grateful to be back.”

The public broadcaster’s last fall season didn’t get off to a great start, but both Romeo and This Life were given a second chance and subtly retooled to allow new viewers to come aboard. Haddock feels Romeo found its feet about halfway through the first season. “I feel like I’ve figured out where the real guts and strength of the show is and I’m going to try to prove it. It’s a little more focused. I found last year I probably had one too many storylines.”

Asking audiences to pay attention to multiple threads weaving into an elaborate pattern has been his style since the heydey of Da Vinci’s Inquest, when he recalls people asking, “are you ever going to wrap up these storylines?”

“It took time for the audience to get used to it and love that style. Some of the actors used to complain, ‘are we ever going to solve this case?’ But I find the stories take ahold of me and I keep digging and asking questions and finding that good vein.”

A chat with Haddock feels less like an interview and more like paying attention to multiple threads weaving into an elaborate conversation, with the PR person signalling the end just as a network might cancel a show on a cliffhanger.

Speaking of Intelligence, Haddock confirms The Romeo Section grew out of elements of that short-lived CBC series that had never completely left his system. Nearly 10 years after the cancellation he still fields questions about whether it might come back, but his James Dean response is: “Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse.”

He’s been around the industry for a long time and has the creative freedom and come-what-may attitude to prove it. He knows it’s harder to find an audience in this time of “peak TV” than when Da Vinci was on the air, added to the ever-present competition from U.S. shows and lack of a U.S.-style promotional infrastructure, such as the late-night talk show circuit and glut of entertainment magazines. “I enjoy all the challenges,” he says. “I don’t panic over things that may have panicked me in my first years.”

“I was in a state when I began Da Vinci where I’d been writing pilots and movies in L.A. but my domestic life was a disaster, I was trying to get my kids,” he says. “I had this great attitude that I didn’t set out to have which is yes, this show is important, but my kids are the most important thing. So I had a good balance from the beginning.”

That calm extends to production challenges such as shooting Vancouver for Hong Kong in the pilot of The Romeo Section and creating gritty drama out of a city with a lot of shine.

“It’s not easy to get a tense, dark, psychologically disturbing atmosphere when it’s Vancouver and it’s beautiful. For a noir show like this I’d love to be shooting in the winter—because I’d get a lot of rain, I’d get earlier nights—but I’m not. You have to figure out a way. So it’s not classic noir, it’s more of a California noir. You can be just as miserable in the hot sun.”

The Romeo Section airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

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