All posts by Greg David

Prior to becoming a television critic and owner of TV, Eh?, Greg David was a critic for TV Guide Canada, the country's most trusted source for TV news. He has interviewed television actors, actresses and behind-the-scenes folks from hundreds of television series from Canada, the U.S. and internationally. He is a podcaster, public speaker, weekly radio guest and educator, and past member of the Television Critics Association.
Featured, Open Heart

Buckle up for Open Heart’s wild ride

Creating a flawed television character isn’t easy. Make them too likeable and a drastic change can alienate viewers. Too much of a jerk and nobody cares what strife you put in their way. Playing that character is a whole other thing, especially for a relative newcomer to the business. And yet Karis Cameron does it as Dylan Blake in YTV’s newest scripted drama, Open Heart.

Debuting Tuesday night with two back-to-back episodes, Epitome Picture’s Open Heart doesn’t just spotlight Dylan, but puts her at the centre of a show that’s equal parts focused on medicine, the angst of teenage life and a family mystery.

“We really wanted a new approach to telling a teen story that wasn’t really focussing on high school or college elements,” says creator, executive producer and scribe Ramona Barckert, who has written for Epitome’s landmark Degrassi. “We thought, ‘What stories can we talk about in a different way?'” Different meaning, not just tales of fights with Mom and the tropes, twists and turns the viewership has already seen in countless projects.

The answer? Open Heart, which places Dylan Blake, a strong-willed 16-year-old who is arrested and placed in court-ordered community service at Open Heart Memorial, the very hospital where her mother Jane (Jenny Cooper, 24) and sister London (Tori Anderson, The L.A. Complex) are working. Dylan quickly bonds with fellow teens placed there, including Mikayla (Cristine Propseri, Degrassi) and Wes (Justin Kelly, Degrassi). Dylan is the black sheep of the family, the girl who only really related to her father, Richard (Jeff Douglas, Canada’s Smartest Person), but he’s recently gone missing, adding the mystery layer to Open Heart.

It takes some deft acting to pull off a rebellious teen that you want to cheer for, and Cameron really is a revelation. With just two professional acting gigs under her belt—Signed, Sealed, Delivered and R.L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour—the Vancouver Island native jetted to Toronto for weeks of prep work with, among others, Degrassi alum Stefan Brogren before cameras rolled on Season 1.

“We spent the first three of four weeks just breaking down Dylan,” Cameron says. “We had the first four scripts and just broke them down. Why is she doing what she’s doing? What are her motives? Why does this mean so much to her? Why is she saying this?” The result is a series that—despite being broadcast on YTV—can entertain any genre of viewer.

Tuesday’s debut of two 30-minute episodes—Open Heart shifts back to the one-instalment setup next week—introduces viewers to the main characters, including fellow hospital staffers in Dr. K (Demore Barnes, Hemlock Grove), Teddy Ralston (Dylan Everett, Degrassi), Dr. Scarlet McWhinnie (Elena Juatco, Canadian Idol), Seth Park (Patrick Kwok-Choon, The Best Laid Plans), Jared Malik (Mena Massoud, The 99) and Dr. Hud (Kevin McGarry, Being Erica). The briskly-paced stories jump from hospital to family mansion back to the hospital where Dylan uses her street skills to get some much-needed information into her dad’s disappearance. By the time the hour is up you’re left wanting more.

“My style of writing is very fast and I want people to buckle up at the beginning of the episode and know you are on a ride,” Barckert says with a laugh. “There isn’t a lot of filler. There are no musical montages about feelings and no longing looks. The characters make decisions quickly and move quickly. There is not a lot of pausing.”

Buckle up everyone, it’s going to be one hell of a ride.

Open Heart airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on YTV.

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Open Heart

Link: Degrassi writer launches new teen mystery series Open Heart

From Melissa Hank of O.Canada.com:

Slight, smiling and sandy haired, Ramona Barckert is almost indistinguishable from the actors who star on her new teen series for YTV, Open Heart. Her words flow as freely as soda pop, and her laugh is just as bubby.

The creator and executive producer says it’s simple to understand today’s tech-savvy teens if you can just remember your own youth, and it’s easy to believe her. After all, she earned an Emmy nomination and Canadian Screen Award for her writing on teen TV staple Degrassi. Continue reading.

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Featured, Murdoch Mysteries

Review: Murdoch Mysteries mines silver and Group of Seven

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If only Canadian history classes were as entertaining as an episode of Murdoch Mysteries. My favourite instalments are the ones that delve into real-life history or introduce actual historical characters into them, so I was positively giddy with “All That Glitters,” which managed to combine Ontario’s silver rush with Aboriginal rights and the Group of Seven.

Inspector Brackenreid’s paintings—done while he was convalescing following the harbourside beating—were given the spotlight when Julia entered one in a Toronto art contest.

“I see a creative vision taking hold. You seem to be capturing the essence of the north woods,” Julia told Brackenreid of his work, which featured abstract trees painted in oranges and yellows. The reason? He’d run out of green. Lori Spring’s energetic script called for the painting to be stolen not because of the canvas but the high-priced frame it was in. That didn’t deter a fresh-faced young man from paying $15 for the work, telling Brackenreid the work inspired him to walk a similar journey with his own art. The budding painter? A lad named Tom Thomson.

Murdoch_art

When Monday’s story wasn’t teasing with the fictional inspiration that led to the Group of Seven, it was grounded in many references to Ontario’s rail history, from the Don Station (which was located on Queen St. at the Don River), to the Northern Ontario Railway (which became Ontario Northland). The railway adventure for Crabtree and Murdoch began with “Eagle Flight … murder,” muttered from the mouth of a dying man on the steps of the Constabulary. Graham, the victim, had been a surveyor for the Northern Ontario Railway; a hidden compartment in his suitcase revealed a map and sent the coppers to Haileybury, Ont., where a burgeoning silver strike was about to consume the area.

There were plenty of suspects in Graham’s murder, from a railroad magnate upset Graham was planning to have the train trail moved to Mack, a strong-willed prospector who had the hots for Crabtree. The real killer led the story in a dark direction: Migize Pimise (Eagle Flight in English), an Ojibwe man who wanted the silver vein kept secret. His worry was that once the government discovered there was silver on their land, they would be forced to move off the reservation. Unfortunately, it proved to be true both in Spring’s script and the panel that was the final frame of the episode: “In 1903, silver was found near Cobalt, Ontario. The provincial government extinguished the Indian land title.” A sobering fact indeed.

Notes and quotes

  • Continuity error! The flask Graham was carrying was much smaller than the one Murdoch and Dr. Grace examined in the morgue
  • I wasn’t even a little surprised that Crabtree takes his own pillow when he travels
  • “Nature. I’m not sure I care for it.”—George
  • Question: Murdoch revealed he’d once been a lumberjack. Has that been talked about before?

Murdoch Mysteries airs Mondays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Industry News

Treehouse Sparkles with Launch of Little Charmers

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From a media release:

Corus Entertainment’s preschool channel Treehouse is delighted to announce the premiere of Little Charmers, a fantastical new preschool series that celebrates the magic of friendship, on Saturdays at 6:30 p.m. ET, beginning January 31. The 80 x 11-minute CGI animated series is also rolling out worldwide on Nickelodeon starting this month.

Little Charmers takes place in the whimsical land of Charmville and stars Hazel, a fearless and spirited go-getter, who is on her way to becoming a full-fledged Charmer. Hazel can often be seen with her two best friends, Lavender, a sweet and musical “Spellerina” who can come up with spells for any occasion and Posie, a bright and feisty “Potionista” who knows how to stir up potions and put together hip fashions. These “Charmers-In-Training” embark on spellbinding adventures that always stir up funny situations, like turning the entire town into mushrooms or accidentally setting loose a herd of unicorns. Together, this inseparable trio use their imaginations and teamwork to fix magical mishaps and, along the way, learn the value of friendship.

Kids will be able to visit LittleCharmers.com to see clips from upcoming episodes as well as access themed printables, downloadables and information about Hazel, Lavendar, Posie and their pets. The site will also roll out the first of four games and a Little Charmers app in weeks to come.

Little Charmers is a series co-created by Nelvana and Spin Master, two of the companies that drove the global phenomenon Bakugan. Nelvana Enterprises is distributing the series worldwide and Spin Master is developing and manufacturing a multi-faceted toy line including dolls, playsets, apparel and accessories, to roll out at mass retail in Fall 2015.

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19-2, Featured

19-2’s shocking, stunning Season 2 return

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The second season return 19-2 on Monday night features a continuous tracking shot that sets the tone for a series that already set a high bar for drama in Season 1. “School,” directed by Podz, who helmed the episode for the original Radio Canada series, captured over 10 minutes of stunning, shocking television in a continual shot, following officers Ben Chartier (Jared Keeso), Nick Barron (Adrian Holmes) and the members of their squad as they track down a shooter loose in a Montreal high school.

Ben and Nick go from the front office area through the cafeteria as bullets fly and students flee around them. The camera continues to a wall of windows to show a squadron of police cars arriving while frightened students weep against walls and pillars, praying they survive. It’s the most dramatic episode of 19-2 so far, a big deal considering cop Audrey Pouliot (Laurence Leboeuf) was beaten to the brink of death by a group of thugs in Season 1.

Monday’s return also marks a new direction for the Canadian Screen Award-nominated Bravo series. There is the overarching theme of Ben being asked to spy on his partner, Nick, who is suspected of being a mole by the Sécurité du Québec (SQ)—a theme explored in the French series too—but it won’t follow the same trail to get there.

“We get to the same place, but we get there in a very different way,” says executive producer, showrunner and writer Bruce M. Smith (Cracked, Durham County) during an on-location press junket in Montreal last August. “We did that not because we didn’t like what the French did, but because of who our cast was and how they had developed over Season 1. They had become quite different people from their French counterparts.”

Smith is a huge fan of the original 19-2, and likens Bravo’s take to NBC’s version of the British smash comedy The Office; they were given a lot of liberty to make it different organic being based on the same DNA. Benz Antoine (Blue Murder), Smith explains, plays Officer Tyler Joseph in both versions of 19-2, but they’re very different characters. Speaking of writing, the room has expanded for Season 2 as well. First season scribes Smith and Jesse McKeown (Republic of Doyle) have been joined by Damon Vignale (Blackstone) and Nikolijne Troubetzkoy (Call Me Fitz), a four-person luxury Smith says is alien in Quebec where writers pen their scripts at home alone and then bring them to set for filming. Lynne Kamm has kept things realistic on 19-2, serving as a liaison between real police and the show, which has entailed dozens of ride-alongs.

Smith says he expects there to be a lot of talk among viewers following Monday’s return broadcast—there are many, many casualties in “School” and the overall story mirrors recent events around the world—but Bravo has stuck by the producers since Day 1.

“We see this as a cable show, and they have encouraged us to go there with the content,” Smith says. “We are, at times, much more realistic and darker, and we show these characters warts and all.”

19-2 airs Mondays at 10 p.m. ET on Bravo. The season premiere will air commercial-free on Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

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