From James Bawden:
Thank goodness few Canadian rely on TV for any knowledge about their country’s past. Canadian TV dramas these days are carefully crafted to seem as American as possible when exported to the U.S.
So it’s with a cheer that I herald CBC-TV’s new Canadian spy series X Company which dramatically details the exploits of our spies during World War II. The new hourlong drama which debuts Wednesday February 18 at 9 p.m., is exciting stuff. And it’s all true, too. Continue reading.
From John Doyle of The Globe and Mail:
So farewell then, Sun News. Gone on Friday the 13th with a wee whimper.
How to classify the closing? It is tempting to mock. Shortly after Sun News went dark came a release from Fox announcing that 10 more episodes of World’s Funniest Fails had been ordered. Tempting to throw Sun News into World’s Funniest Fails. Tempting, but wrong. Continue reading.
The Canadian Screen Awards are set for the end of this month, celebrating the best among this country’s feature films and television shows.
Several past and present Gemini and Canadian Screen Award nominees and winners are currently available for streaming on Netflix Canada, and we wanted to celebrate that fact by teaming with Netflix for a poll leading up to the CSA festivities.
What’s at stake? The chance to win a one-year subscription to Netflix Canada. What do you have to do? Simply choose your Top 3 Favourite Canadian Series on Netflix and comment at the bottom of the page. We’ll select one random comment and award the poster a one-year subscription. So spread the word and vote for your faves! The poll closes on Monday, Feb. 23, at noon PT/3 p.m. ET.
What are your favourite Canadian TV shows currently airing on Netflix?
Total Voters: 457
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Netflix is the world’s leading Internet television network with over 53 million members in nearly 50 countries enjoying more than two billion hours of TV shows and movies per month, including original series, documentaries, and feature films. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on nearly any Internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause, and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments.
Jonathan and Drew Scott have built themselves a nice little empire. They’ve got their TV series in Property Brothers and Buying & Selling with the Property Brothers, both of which air on W Network. They’ve got a production company that includes third sibling, J.D., on the docket. Heck, they’ve even got a Caribbean design cruise that fans can go on later this year.
Now Jonathan and Drew embark on their newest—and perhaps most important—project this week with Property Brothers at Home. Debuting Tuesday on W Network, the series follows the duo (with some help with J.D.) as they transform the spacious home they co-own in Las Vegas into something special in time for a family reunion.
“We wanted this show to be something different,” Jonathan says. “The most important parts of our shows are those brotherly moments when we give each other a hard time. Who can’t relate to that with a sibling or a friend?”
“When Property Brothers was first pitched to us, they wanted a male-female host combo. They thought Jonathan was very feminine, so it was perfect,” Drew teases, proving the point. There are plenty of friendly jabs in Tuesday’s bow, from Jonathan mocking Drew’s frustration at the cluttered garage, to Drew teasing Jonathan for his lack of a love life, and J.D. and Drew messing around with swords while Jonathan is being fitted for a suit of armour. (Yes, you read that right. The reason why is revealed by episode end.) Jonathan marvels that any work gets done because they’re constantly laughing and having a good time.
Tuesday’s first instalment in the four-parter quickly sets the scene: Jonathan and Drew bought a huge home in Las Vegas years ago, but because of their busy lives had never gotten around to renovating it. The two decided that 2014 would be the year they’d finally get the job done. And, after a year and a half of getting all of the necessary permits approved, they broke ground on the project. It was anything but smooth sailing. Sure, some overhead bulkheads were easily dismantled because there were no support beams hidden that needed to be saved, but a cut wire deep in the home’s foundation threatened to derail the whole thing.
“We both said that, no matter what happened, we had to keep the cameras rolling,” Jonathan explains. “No matter if it was during a fight or a problem with the build, we weren’t going to cut the cameras. There were a few moments when we were caught off-guard.”
“Jonathan has some diva moments,” Drew offers with a laugh.
Property Brothers at Home airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on W Network. If you want to give to the brothers’ charity, check out their website.
Join Greg and Diane on Mondays as we debate a TV-related issue that’s on our minds. This week: to cut the television cable cord or not?
Diane said:Â
I cut the cord nearly four years ago, and it’s only recently I starting thinking about exploring the possibility of subscribing again to a very basic cable service if I could find  one. (Hi Talk TV — when are you going to make a decision on skinny basic?) Instead I bought an over-the-air antenna — something I’ve been meaning to do for nearly four years. Now I can channel surf and watch the Oscars, all in free high definition, and my life is complete.
Given I barely missed over-the-air TV in that time, it’s safe to say I haven’t missed cable. I cobble together what I do watch from network websites and apps, network-supplied screeners, Netflix, iTunes, friends’ houses, and … other means.
I’ve written about the cord-cutting experience at length a couple of times already, but in short: it wasn’t a financial decision, exactly — it was a cost/benefit decision.
This will sound odd from someone who started a website about television, but I don’t watch a ton of television. So I resented paying an exorbitant amount for a slew of cable channels I mostly didn’t watch that  didn’t even include all the shows I want to watch.
It’s not fully rational, but I would rather pay more through individual subscription and season pass fees to get exactly what I want than pay one giant corporation to sell me what I don’t want.
I’m lucky in that I’ve never cared for live sports or television news. In my cable TV days I had a PVR (at one point the open-source MythTV) and recorded my shows for later commercial-fast-forwarded-through viewing. I never did much channel surfing.
I wasn’t trained to channel surf. We didn’t always have cable when I was a kid, got a VCR in the early days of that magical technology, and I’ve had periods as an adult where I haven’t had a TV, never mind cable. (That’s not a hoity toity “I don’t watch [sniff] television” mentality, that’s an “I was a starving university student/arts administrator/non-profit employee/Mexico ex-pat” mentality.) I love many television shows, but I can easily live without television.
Not that I want to. I just want to live without a cable bill.
Greg said:
Diane fascinates me, simply because she’s able to live her life without cable television. Me? I can’t imagine my life without it. Yes, I have Netflix, so perhaps I’ve taken that all-important step towards a cable-free life, but I don’t think so.
I grew up in a household that had all of the cable channels available. As a result, I’ve done the same as an adult. Even before I became a television critic I was watching as many different things on the small screen as I could and I’d miss it if all that went away. I know I’m paying a lofty price for my addiction—a fact that pains me every time I get an email from the cable company telling me the latest bill has arrived—but I simply can’t live without the choice it offers me.
Feel like watching John Catucci visit the latest restaurant? I tune in to Food Network. Got a hankering to check out the Jays on a lazy Sunday afternoon in the summer? Sportsnet. What big-screen movie or documentary might catch my eye as I’m rolling through the channels? The Movie Network has me covered. Pair all those options with my PVR and I can keep myself entertained for awhile.
Cutting the cord would be like cutting off my right arm, the one that runs the remote. I just can’t do it.
