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, Masterchef Canada

MasterChef Canada rings in the holidays

The holiday season is usually spent with family, with gifts being exchanged and a table laden with goodies at the offering in the background. For four former MasterChef Canada contestants, this holiday season featured a return to the kitchen for the franchise’s first-ever MasterChef Canada: A Holiday Special, airing tonight on CTV.

Dora Cote, Pino DiCerbo, Tammara Behl and Season 1 runner-up Marida Mohammed are all back in the kitchen in front of judges Michael Bonacini, Claudio Aprile and Alvin Leung, but this time there’s a twist. Instead of competing as individuals, the fan favourites are helped with members of their own families. And while this is still a culinary competition things aren’t as cutthroat as what viewers saw earlier this year.

“It is a holiday special,” Aprile says. “It’s not a blood sport by any stretch of the imagination. It’s really designed to bring people closer together for the holiday time. It wouldn’t be appropriate if they were going for the jugular.”

master_chef1“The competitive spirit is an amazing thing,” Bonacini counters. “Someone may not say they’re a sore loser, but the competitive edge does come out throughout the group.” Everyone wants to come out on top, and with good reason: the winning family nabs $10,000 to donate to their favourite charity. That alone gets the adrenaline running for the competitors and their squad. Fans of MasterChef Canada will get a kick out of seeing Pino, Marida, Tammara and Dora surrounded by the people who have loved, supported and inspired them to compete in Season 1.

“In some instances we were really able to see where the seeds were planted,” Aprile explains. “It was fascinating to see Pino and his mom … they are really going to embody this need for family. They are close and they work incredibly well together. They finish each other’s sentences. She has incredible skill and you see that in the way that she rolls pasta.”

As for the tests themselves, all are based on the holidays. The four teams are challenged to recreate their picks for key plates to be served during the Christmas season, with a skills competition thrown in for good measure. A cool test utilizing a MasterChef Canada version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and a choir serves as a jumping off point to the spectacle. And while the tests were tough, none of them involved making the most controversial food of the festive season.

“Fruitcake was not one of the challenges,” Bonacini admits with a laugh. “But I am going to put that in the hopper for, hopefully, next year.”

MasterChef Canada: A Holiday Special airs Monday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

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Link: MasterChef Canada cooks return for holiday special

From Jim Slotek:

Given that the show is about finding the best “home cook,” it’s surprising that the family format of MasterChef Canada: A Holiday Special has never been tried in other MasterChef franchises worldwide.

The two-hour special, which airs Dec. 15 on CTV, brings together two runners up from the debut season of MasterChef Canada, Tammara Behl from Calgary and Marida Mohammed from Toronto, plus fan favourites Pino DiCerbo from Mississauga and Dora Cote from Rocky Mountain House, Alta. Continue reading.

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Continuum, Featured

Continuum creator Simon Barry answers burning Reddit questions

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On Friday night, days after Showcase announced that it had greenlit a six-episode fourth season of Continuum, show creator Simon Barry took to Reddit to answer fans’ burning questions about the series, his feelings about a shortened run of episodes and what fans can look forward to in 2015.

As expected, most wanted to know exactly how Barry and his writing staff will take the numerous stories angles from Season 3 and wrap them all up in just six instalments.

“Six will be sufficient,” he typed. “Don’t be troubled. Take a long walk and enjoy a glass of nice Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir. I recommend RedCarWine.com.” Barry acknowledged to another poster that he had originally had seven seasons in mind when he began putting the adventures of Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) together, but is able to work with what the network has given him. Speaking of Showcase, all Barry would go on the record to say regarding the months of waiting to hear if Continuum would return at all was to state, “I’m sure there are myriad reasons all networks make the decisions they do. I prefer to focus on making the show as good as it can be and let the network figure the rest out.”

As for whether or not Continuum could make the jump to the big screen or appear on Netflix or Hulu, Barry quashed that talk by typing that a pickup isn’t in anyone’s mind at the moment because the plan is to complete storylines with the coming half-dozen instalments.

“But never say never,” he teased. “The ending for Season 4 will be the ending we originally intended regardless of how many seasons we made. I hope to someday play out the missing seasons in an amateur community theatre setting. Human size puppets are not out of the question.”

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Link: MasterChef’s holiday special has families cooking up a festive storm

From Lois Abraham:

It’s all about food, family and festive cooking in the MasterChef Canadakitchen – as well as giving back.

The hit culinary competition is celebrating the yuletide season with the two-hour MasterChef Canada: A Holiday Special, airing Monday at 8 p.m. on CTV. Four home cooks from Season 1 return to the kitchen, joined by spouses, parents and siblings as they complete a series of festive food challenges for the chance to win $10,000 for the charity of their choice. Continue reading.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Bryan Baeumler (and family) heads to the sticks in new reno series

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The No. 1 no-no when it comes to renovating a house is living in it when such a tumultuous event is taking place. And yet that’s exactly what Bryan Baeumler and his family did when they decided to move their lives from busy Oakville, Ont., to the Niagara Escarpment, an event documented in House of Bryan: In the Sticks, debuting Sunday on HGTV.

“Looking back through this journey, moving my family out to barely a farm to what it is now blows the first two House of Bryan series out of the water,” he says from a sunny clime where he’s on vacation with his wife (and TV show co-star) Sarah. “It was just such an adventure and so much fun. The chaos that ensued with having four kids … there is a lot of stuff that goes on in this show. It’s unbelievable.”

The family really had no plans to move from Oakville, where they constructed the “forever home” documented in Season 1. But  the allure of living away from the trappings of the city was just too great for Baeumler and Sarah, who purchased a large property set back from a country road and got to work. The original home, an A-frame with a soaring ceiling in the main room, would largely stay intact save for some extensive updating. A large extension built onto the original would more than double the home’s size while providing the rustic environment on 16 acres that Baeumler experienced as a kid.

Unfortunately, they had to sell their home in Oakville so that they had the funds to start work on the new, meaning moving their belongings–and themselves–up to the new place. Drama, tears, setbacks, triumph and happiness was captured for posterity with In the Sticks. Bowing on Sunday with two back-to-back episodes, viewers will see everything that occurred during the process, with no filter keeping out the bad times from the good. Baeumler and Sarah wouldn’t have it any other way.

“This is the way we live our lives,” he explains. “Sarah and I look at something and say, ‘What if we get hit by a bus tomorrow?’ and we go out and do it. Life is all about an adventure and I think too many people live by the rule book and live conservatively. We say, ‘Screw it! Get it done.'”

That’s not to say the Baeumler’s adjusted to life in the country immediately. Things they hadn’t considered when buying the property was switching over to a septic system for waste and a gas tank for fuel. They also quickly learned that a quick two-minute run for some milk in the city wasn’t the same in the country. The most important things ceased to be what was in the fridge and more about spending time together.

“What it’s changed is that we spend that extra five or 10 minutes with the kids,” he says. “It has changed our family dynamic way, way for the better. It’s been great.”

House of Bryan: In the Sticks debuts Sunday with two back-to-back episodes at 9 p.m. ET on HGTV.

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