All posts by Diane Wild

Diane is the founder of TV, eh? She loves books, movies, TV, science, space, traveling, theatre, art, cats, and drinking multiple beverages at the same time.

CraveTV to go direct to consumers January 1

From a media release:

Bell Media’s CraveTV to Go Direct to Consumers on January 1

  • All Canadians with access to the Internet can soon enjoy CraveTV’s premium TV programming, including HBO and SHOWTIME content

Bell Media announced today that its premium TV streaming service CraveTVTM will become available direct to consumers on January 1, 2016. Today’s announcement means that the breadth and depth of premium, quality television programming available exclusively on CraveTV will soon also be offered to all Canadians with access to the Internet. More details will follow in the months ahead.

CraveTV is currently available to subscribers of a long list of participating television providers, including Bell, Eastlink, and Telus, via set-top box, mobile apps, the web, Apple TV, Chromecast, and Microsoft Windows 8, and will soon be available via game consoles and Smart TVs.

From TV’s most-acclaimed dramas and beloved comedies to documentaries, music, and factual programming, CraveTV features thousands of hours of premium TV programming, representing hundreds of unique titles.

CraveTV provides viewers with the largest collection of premium content in one place, with programming in three categories – exclusive past-season content, featuring back seasons of television’s biggest programs currently on air; an extensive and exclusive library, featuring complete catalogues of some of the best TV series that have ever aired; and original series never before seen in Canada. CraveTV features more than 20 curated collections across multiple genres, boasting more than 25,000 episodes from nearly 1,300 titles, including:

  • the entire off-air library of HBO’s iconic programming catalogue, including THE SOPRANOS, THE WIRE, and SEX AND THE CITY, as well as the HBO Films catalogue and HBO stand-up comedy specials;
  • hundreds of hours of acclaimed SHOWTIME series and specials, such as THE AFFAIR, RAY DONOVAN, PENNY DREADFUL, HOMELAND, UNITED STATES OF TARA, WEEDS, and NURSE JACKIE;
  • an unmatchable comedy slate headlined by CraveTV exclusives SEINFELD and SOUTH PARK, and also including THE BIG BANG THEORY, CHEERS, FRASIER, and CORNER GAS;
  • an exclusive Monty Python catalogue featuring every single episode of MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS;
  • first-run CraveTV exclusives, including MANHATTAN, BOSCH, and DEADBEAT and SHOWTIME’s HAPPYISH;
  • the most-watched and most-acclaimed original Canadian primetime scripted programming, featuring SAVING HOPE, MOTIVE, 19-2, FLASHPOINT, and DEGRASSI;
  • a Superhero collection headlined by some of the most-watched television programs currently on air, including MARVEL’s AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D., ARROW and, later in 2015, THE FLASH;
  • a Sci-Fi & Fantasy collection led by genre blockbusters ORPHAN BLACK and DOCTOR WHO, and featuring all six series comprising the complete STAR TREK TV collection;
  • an iconic Music Collection featuring TV programming expressly dedicated to music and its legends, including the upcoming FOO FIGHTERS: SONIC HIGHWAYS and CLASSIC ALBUMS; and
  • CraveTV Original Series like the upcoming comedy LETTERKENNY
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Daily Planet’s Dan Riskin preps for our first encounter with Pluto

RiskinNASA may have other reasons for launching a spacecraft to gather high-resolution images of Pluto, but Daily Planet‘s Dan Riskin has one of the better reasons I’ve heard:  “Now we’ll know what crayon to use.”

He’s talking about the generations of kids who learned about the solar system in colouring books, who could use any colour they wanted for that last orb because the only pictures we had of the planet three billion miles away showed it as a small dot.

Pluto is the last of the original nine planets to be explored, nearly a decade after the New Horizons spacecraft was launched to gather the clearest images we’ll have of the now-demoted dwarf planet.

Discovery will air their Pluto: First Encounter special on July 15, the day after New Horizon’s closest approach to Pluto, when high resolution images will be available. Dr. Riskin will be at mission control in Maryland for that one shot fly-by — New Horizons will get closer to Pluto than its moons, but it can’t slow down.

Riskin himself is an evolutionary biologist who studied vampire bats running, leading to one of the kookiest bat videos you might run across. He stumbled into one of the coolest jobs, playing co-host to Daily Planet’s jumble of scientific stories so outside of his bat-focused research.

“In science, it’s such a full time job to watch your corner of the rug, you can’t explore the rest of the building. Discovery allows me to explore my scientific curiosity. It’s fun to be an amateur at it. I don’t have the same stakes I do in my field. That’s the journey we’re taking our viewers on, and I’m on the same journey.”

He calls space exploration “the coolest thing you can do with your time,” something he’s since shared with his young son after buying a telescope of his own. “Robots are exploring our solar system. That’s one of the biggest things you can do as a society.”

An unexpected, temporary shutdown of the New Horizons probe last week has added to the dramatic tension of this one chance to have a successful mission, our first glimpse of a new planet — yes, I’m calling it a planet  dammit — since Voyager 2 showed us Neptune in 1989.  We’ve already started seeing images from New Horizons, and on July 14 we hope to see it up close and personal.

Despite its demotion, only eight months after New Horizons was launched, Riskin calls it a special planet.  “Pluto is an outlier in every sense of the word,” said Riskin. “It has a tilted orbit, a giant moon locked into a static spot in the sky, and four more exotic moons spinning around in chaos. Everything we know about Pluto is already super-weird, and we haven’t even seen it up close yet. This is going to be amazing.”

It’s also a very American planet, says Riskin. New Horizons carries the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh who discovered “Planet X” in 1930 — the first American to discover a planet.  “People got fired up by that.”

Riskin met his son and daughter, calling them the “most charming people you’ve ever met in your life”, who showed him Tombaugh’s telescope made of grain silo parts and Coke cans. They, along with many Americans and Pluto supporters, are deeply disappointed at the demotion, but it hasn’t tempered the excitement of New Horizons for those of us who always wondered what crayon to use, and always wonder what’s out there to explore.

You can catch Discovery’s Pluto: First Encounter on July 15. 

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He Said/She Said: Is Spun Out being hung out to dry?

Join Greg and Diane every Monday as we debate what’s on our minds. This week, we ponder the treatment and fate of CTV’s Spun Out. Did CTV do the right thing by pulling the show from its schedule and website after the arrest of one of the actors? Is it fair to burn it off in the summer with little notice of its new premiere date? Read what we have to say and look for our podcast with co-creator Jeff Biederman tomorrow, recorded just before the premiere announcement.

She Said:

The second season of Spun Out has had quite the roller coaster ride. Given the prestigious post-Super Bowl slot, the show was shelved  before that day  when actor J.P. Manoux was arrested on voyeurism charges when hidden cameras were found in a condo he rented out to two women.

I had mixed feelings about that decision, but CTV was in a very difficult spot with no right answer, only a least worst answer. The second season had already been filmed in its entirety. If they erred, it was on the side of sensitivity for whatever might come out of the then-new investigation and in trying to protect their reputation after the show was tainted by association — a show that had already weathered a controversy when one of the co-creators was accused of making racist comments on Twitter.

It seemed overkill to scrub the show from their public and media sites. But to pull the show? I feel like I can’t second-guess that decision. The charges are creepy. The potential was for further creepiness to be uncovered. Manoux has not been found guilty, but reputations and advertisers rarely wait for guilt to be declared.  Innocent until proven guilty is a legal distinction, not an indication of how our brains and hearts work.

I  haven’t heard that anything new has come out of the Manoux arrest, but it’s possible CTV is aware of something that makes the coast clearer now, or it’s possible that the fact it hasn’t become a big media story yet means they feel they can burn it off safely in the summer.

And a burn off it is. Cast and crew started talking about a July 14 premiere date on social media Friday — a mere four days in advance. CTV confirmed that date after my inquiry, saying promos would start right away and an official announcement would occur Monday — the day before the premiere. Again, I find it hard to second-guess that decision given the uncertainty, though I wish they didn’t feel it necessary. Because of the way TV funding works I suspect they had to air it sometime — but there are no requirements for publicity.

Fans will be able to watch the second — and I have to assume final — season. CTV will fulfill its obligations get the CanCon points while minimizing controversy that might hurt their business interests. The heartbreak in this situation is everyone who worked so hard on the show who had their hopes dashed and their series tainted by association. For their sake, I hope Spun Out season two makes the good kind of splash now that it can finally air.

He Said:

I echo Diane’s thoughts in just feeling badly for everyone involved, in front or and behind the cameras.

I had the chance to visit Spun Out‘s Toronto set during both seasons and everyone was happy to be there and proud of their work. The energy of the live audience during a first season taping with guest star Jason Priestley was palpable and exciting, and that was somehow lost when it went from stage to the small screen.

The sophomore season — returning tomorrow — marks a change in format as the live audience angle has been shelved. I spoke to co-stars Paul Campbell, Dave Foley, Becky Dalton and upcoming guest star Jennifer Tilly during production (those stories will be up on the site in the coming weeks) and they liked the new direction the show was going.

Now viewers will get a chance to see that and decide for themselves, but likely too late for ratings to matter at all. This is a burn-off of a project that is, sadly, dead in the water. Spun Out feels more like a summer show than a winter one — if there is such a thing — and it’s sandwiched between The Big Bang Theory and Hot in Cleveland, so at least Foley et al. are in good comic company.

(As an aside, Campbell and Darcy Michael both landed production deals with Bell Media, so there’s that.)

As Diane pointed out, Bell Media will get the CanCon requirement filled by broadcasting Spun Out as will Project 10, the show’s production company.

 

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Spun Out season two premieres July 14

After Spun Out‘s second season lost its plum post-Super Bowl spot due to the arrest of actor J.P. Manoux on voyeurism charges, the fate of the show seemed to be in limbo, to the point that CTV removed it from their website.

Today, however, a CTV spokesperson confirms the show will return starting Tuesday, July 14 at 8 p.m., due to a “last-minute scheduling opportunity.” It appears to replace the previously scheduled Hot in Cleveland in that timeslot.

Starring Dave Foley, Paul Cambell, Al Mukadam and Darcy Michael, Spun Out focuses on a PR firm “staffed with people who can spin everyone’s problems but their own.”

As previously announced by Bell Media:

“Season 2 of SPUN OUT brings a whole new set of adventures for the DLPR gang. Beckett (Paul Campbell, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA) tries to execute the perfect casual relationship with a documentary filmmaker, Nelson (Al Mukadam, RADIO FREE ROSCOE) questions his ability to keep up on trends, and Dave goes head to head with his ex-wife from a rival PR firm. Also in store this season, Gordon (Darcy Michael) gets trapped in an elevator, Bryce (J.P. Manoux, COMMUNITY) develops an internet addiction, Stephanie (Rebecca Dalton, THE L.A. COMPLEX) realizes Abby (Holly Deveaux, LESS THAN KIND) is a conversation ninja and exploits it by making her a brand influencer, and the team tries to piece together the details after a night of debauchery.”

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Tonight: Reelside finale

Reelside, TMN – Episode 6 of 6
Emerging filmmaker Matthew Lochner is on a journey to create his own superhero concept, complete with a trailer. He enlists the help of Stephen Amell (ARROW), David Hayter (X-Men), and Lloyd Kaufman (The Troma Empire) to understand what it means to be a superhero and what drives their careers.

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