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

Preview: Food Truck Face Off latest twist in double-parked genre

The food truck genre is one that’s quickly becoming as packed as a mall parking lot on a Saturday. Travel + Escape has Rebel Without a Kitchen, and Food Network is jam-packed with Eat St. and The Great Food Truck Race, and every cooking competition on the channel devotes at least one week to a food truck challenge. Is there really room for another one? Well, yeah.

Debuting Sunday on Food Network, Food Truck Face Off combines aspects of Dragons’ Den with the home chefs featured on Masterchef. Hosted by former Recipe to Riches host Jesse Palmer, this project from Peace Point Entertainment Group (Fresh with Anna Olson, Colin & Justin’s Cabin Pressure) awards one winning team their own food truck to operate for an entire year, a pretty unique twist.

Sunday’s first episode takes place in Miami Beach (future stops in the 13-episode run include Toronto, Austin, Los Angeles and Niagara Falls) as four teams of rookie chefs pitch their food truck ideas and business plan à la Dragons’ Den–along with samples–to a trio of judges (in this case TV and radio personality Steak Shapiro, Chicago restaurateur Alpano Singh and food truck owner Robyn Almodovar) before the quartet are trimmed to a duo. Those two final teams move on to the next test: manning a food truck for two services with the most amount of money raised by them winning the vehicle for a year.

These being home chefs or people who cook for fun, they’re quickly overwhelmed by A) shopping in bulk, and B) learning to make food on the fly while collecting money and keeping up a patter with customers. What entertained me the most about Food Truck Face Off was wondering whether I could do what these contestants were trying to. In short? Probably not. I like eating stuff from food trucks too much to be hemmed in by making my own. Palmer is an affable enough host, but he’s largely relegated to just announcing what wrinkle the producers are throwing at them and hitting the button on a bullhorn.

Of course, the show isn’t about who’s hosting; the real stars are the yummy-looking dishes being served up for hungry customers.

Food Truck Face Off airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Food Network.

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Featured

Preview: Undercover High returns to freak out more high schoolers

Normally, I don’t like watching television shows where people get pranked. I physically cringe when someone is put into an uncomfortable situation that lasts for what feels like forever, squirming, while a joke plays out. Turns out I have no problem with watching high schoolers be the targets in YTV’s Undercover High.

Perhaps it’s because host–and head prankster–Lisa Gilroy makes it a ton of fun. The petite blonde, who bears a more than passing resemblance to Kristen Bell, wins viewers over with her spunk, charm and unique ideas for pranking two groups of high school kids in each of the five new episodes. I’m pretty sure, despite what she claims on-air, she didn’t come up with the situations on her own, but that’s not important. What is important is pulling off the prank with style, and Undercover High does that.

It helps that Gilroy is aided by a handful of actors and actresses to fill a variety of fake roles and elicits the students’ actual teachers to aid in making it all seem real. Saturday’s first episode visits Cobourg District Collegiate Institute East and St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School for the Arts, where mayhem ensues at both locations.

At CDCIE, teacher Miss Norohna suggests pranking her Grade 9 business class and the Undercover High folks come up with a doozy. After claiming her friend needs their help with a world record, the group enters the school gym to construct a tower of items created by a 3-D printer. Suffice it to say the printer isn’t real, the world record attempt is fake and the people organizing the whole thing are in on the joke. What isn’t fake are the reactions of the students when things begin to go south. I’m pretty sure I saw some actual tears and trembling chins as the minutes rolled by and the situation deteriorated.

Things don’t improve at St. Thomas Aquinas Secondary School for the Arts, where drama teacher Mr. Thomas pranks his kids by plunging them into a fake informercial where they find out–with seconds to go–that some will be reading Korean off cue cards while showing how an unknown kitchen item works. You can’t make up the red on the face of one lad who looks like he is going to pass out or throw up (or both) just before the cameras roll.

Kids are pretty savvy, and the secret to Undercover High‘s success is that the teachers–the people the students trust–are in on the joke. If they weren’t, the jig would be up within seconds. Luckily for us, they don’t catch on.

Undercover High airs Saturdays at 6:30 p.m. ET/PT on YTV.

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Featured, Heartland

Heartland’s Amber Marshall riding high in Season 8

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Life is complicated for Amy Fleming. The beloved Heartland character has a lot on her plate so far in Season 8, including a rich Prince who keeps sending her presents, a fiancé who’s struggling to make ends meet in his first business venture and a girl whose vision of Amy has been shattered.

For actress Amber Marshall, having her character go through these struggles represents the natural evolution of Amy, a gifted horse trainer who isn’t without her flaws. Georgie (Alisha Newton) was crushed after viewing an online video of Prince Ahmed (Jade Hasounné) kissing Amy during a farewell party for his European Equestrian team. Now Amy is feeling the effects of tumbling off the pedestal Georgie put her on.

“The fans may not agree with it right now, but there has to be a moment when the characters that you’ve seen as heroic people need to fall,” Marshall says. “They need somewhere to climb back up to. If you just have your characters going on this nice, mellow journey where they’re the hero of the show … what is interesting in that? There is no real life. There are no lessons to be learned. I was so happy when the writers took Amy and threw her down to basically starting from scratch.”

Marshall has literally grown up on the set of CBC’s Sunday night stalwart and she’s gained an immense amount of knowledge since filming the pilot episode when she was 19. And, unlike shows such as Degrassi, where the setting is high school and the characters have to be kept in a certain age group, Heartland‘s young folks have gotten older, matured and moved on to new stages in their lives.

Marshall has evolved too, adding the title of consulting producer to her list of responsibilities on the family drama. The London, Ont., born actress explains she was already on the set and involved outside of her acting role anyway. An experienced horse person, she was there to help the show’s writers tweak scenes that dealt with those four-legged co-stars; a discussion with Heartland‘s producers led to the additional credit. When she’s not on-set filming, Marshall educates herself on all aspects of production, an easy thing to do when you’re surrounded by folks you’ve been working with for years. Can executive producing or showrunning her own project be in Marshall’s future? Not until she learns more.

In the meantime, Amy is getting an education in the dangers of the Internet and her naiveté when it comes to Prince Ahmed. His peck on her lips not only has driven a wedge between Amy and Georgie, but Amy and Lou (Michelle Morgan) too. It all comes to a head this Sunday when Amy is forced to make a tough decision that affects her relationship with not only the Prince but Ty (Graham Wardle) as well.

“There is some very interesting conflict coming up,” she teases. “It’s going to have a huge impact on the whole Heartland family, not just Amy and Ty.”

Heartland airs Sundays at 7 p.m. on CBC.

Do you think Amy should tell Ty about her kiss with Prince Ahmed?

  • Yes, it's better to get it out in the open now. (93%, 154 Votes)
  • No way, he'll get upset and possibly break up with her. (7%, 12 Votes)

Total Voters: 166

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Featured, Murdoch Mysteries, Strange Empire

Comments and queries for the week of Oct. 10

2 Comments

Strange Empire is my new favourite. I had such high hopes for this and I wasn’t disappointed. I tend to go for good serial dramas with strong female leads and as this is set in the Canadian West, a place very dear to my heart, the show attracted me from the start. Overall, this was a great pilot and I look forward to more. I think the writers did a good job of making the show dark and adult while at the same time keeping out the swearing–I know many people, like my mother, for instance, wouldn’t watch it if there was. I also like the camera work and use of scenery. Can’t wait to see next week’s episode.–Ally

I teach a Western genre class at the college level and my students will be learning about this Canadian-focused (and Canadian-produced) series. I thought the first episode was strong, with a good set-up of narrative arcs for development. The lead characters/actors gave strong (and believable) performances. The show’s approach and characters are quite singular, given the current TV (and mainstream Western genre) landscape.–Chad

 

I was so pleased to see Jo Joyner on Murdoch Mysteries. I hope you  can write her into more episodes. Glad to see our Tanya [from EastEnders] came across the pond! Good luck to her!–Jacqueline

Hang tight Jacqueline, Jo appears in Monday’s episode of Murdoch too!

We love Murdoch Mysteries. [Monday’s] episode was an unbelievable pairing of the dark side of the waterfront and the thugs that control it and the dealing with the feminine movement to gain the vote. It was very violent and we were shocked that the treatment of the women in their “peaceful protest.” We see that Canada (Upper Canada and its Orangemen hold on democracy for men only) was quite violent which is not how I think of Canada. I hope Crabtree gets back with Dr. Grace and that William and Julia get married so they can have their “dream” child.–Lynn

Hold tight, Lynn. Next week’s episode is even better and I can say that things get pretty tough for Dr. Grace and Crabtree…

Got a question or comment about Canadian TV? Fire off an email to greg@tv-eh.com.

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Bachelor Canada, Featured

Review: Bachelor Canada culls more, moves to Tuesdays

The latest news out of The Bachelor Canada is, of course, that Tim Warmels sent more tearful ladies home after deciding they weren’t in the running to be his lady love. But the second thing to note is that, because Fox decided to drop its Tuesday night episode of Utopia–which City simulcasts–The Bachelor Canada moves to Tuesdays starting next week.

As for key storylines for Thursday’s episode, there were a couple. The most notable one–at least for me because I had her in the pool to win–was the tearful exit made by elementary schoolteacher Natalie. Despite the idyllic setting, things were less than ideal on her one-on-one slushy drink date with Tim. Her nervousness at being with him (and it must be noted, desperation) meant she made awkward small talk with The Bachelor. To his credit, Tim announced he wanted Natalie to stick around for the week but admitted he wasn’t going to give her a rose. I understood his reasoning–he wanted to see if he had more of a connection with someone else or not–but I understood her wanting to leave too. Her feelings were hurt and she wanted to exit on her terms alone rather than during a rose ceremony.

Clearly the time away from Nassau and Tim weighed heavily on Natalie’s mind because next week’s Toronto teaser clearly shows (unless the producers pieced together B-roll) Natalie driving her muscle car down the 401 from Cambridge, Ont., to The Big Smoke in a bid to win Tim’s heart. This has happened several times in the Bachelor franchise and I can’t think of one instance where the bachelor or bachelorette welcomed them back into the fold. Natalie’s only chance is that Tim continues to throw curve balls and agrees she can return or that producers tag her to be the lead on the first-ever Bachelorette Canada.

The other major storyline gal-wise was Lisa. The flame-haired single lady has been portrayed as the villain of the season, complaining that Natalie was “cray” and basically making everyone feel less confident about themselves. This may be Lisa’s way of playing the game, but it’s being edited like she’s a holy terror and the other girls are petrified of her.

Rose-wise, the six girls to get them were Sachelle, Lisa (there was a great eye roll from Kaylynn when that happened), Trish (via the shared date rose that sent party girl Rileigh off the island) and April. Tim threw everyone for a loop when he was down to one rose and Kaylynn and Dominque–the two girls he smooched with–before he scampered off and got a second rose so they could both stay. I figure it was allowed because Natalie left unexpectedly; I wonder what Tim’s reaction will be when she arrives in Toronto in the next episode?

The Bachelor Canada moves to Tuesdays starting Oct. 14 at 8 p.m. ET on City.

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