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.
In what is becoming a sad several weeks for Canadian TV, it has been announced that Season 4 of CBC’s legal drama Burden of Truth will be its last.
“After four incredible seasons, we’re bringing our Burden of Truth story to its conclusion in tonight’s series finale,” a statement read on the show’s official Facebook page. “We are so proud of the stories we’ve been able to tell each season, especially those related to social justice. We’re also tremendously appreciative of the support we’ve received from our fans worldwide, and are particularly grateful to the communities in Winnipeg and Selkirk, Manitoba, for being so welcoming to our crew.”
“We’re incredibly proud of Burden of Truth and are honoured that the show resonated with so many viewers worldwide,” executive producers Ilana Frank, ICF Films, Linda Pope, and Kyle Irving, Eagle Vision said in a statement. “When we began this season, we knew our story was coming to its natural end with a meaningful conclusion for Joanna, Billy, and the entire cast of characters. We’re thankful to the communities in Winnipeg and Selkirk, Manitoba, where we filmed our show, and our tremendous cast, helmed by Kristin Kreuk and Peter Mooney, for bringing ground-breaking stories to life. We also appreciate the steadfast support of our production partners at eOne, as well as our broadcasters CBC and The CW, on four tremendous seasons of Burden of Truth.â€
Created by Brad Simpson, Burden of Truth stars Kristin Kreuk as Joanna Chang, Peter Mooney (Rookie Blue, Saving Hope) as Billy Crawford, Star Slade (Frontier, Emerald Code) as law student Luna Spence, Meegwun Fairbrother (Mohawk Girls, Hemlock Grove) as Police Chief Owen Beckbie, and Anwen O’Driscoll (Emerald Code, Flint) as new Millwood police recruit, Officer Taylor Matheson.
The legal drama follows Joanna Chang, a ruthless, big-city lawyer who returns to her small hometown in Millwood for a case that will change her life forever.
In the fourth season, a mining company reopened a dormant mine outside Millwood. Joanna and Billy, lawyers and new parents, stepped in to protect a local woman’s home from certain destruction. When the mine swiftly retaliates, Joanna is forced to confront a long-buried secret from her past and scramble to protect the future of her career and her family. As both sides prepare for war with the fate of Millwood at stake, Joanna and Billy must juggle their life with a newborn with waging a legal battle against a corporate titan. When they come across evidence the mine isn’t what it claims to be, Joanna seizes an opportunity to launch an unexpected legal battle that will bring the company to its knees.
Burden of Truth follows Frankie Drake Mysteries and Kim’s Convenience as CBC series ending this broadcast season.
CTV Life Channel, in association with Boat Rocker Studios, Unscripted through Proper Television, announced today that production has begun on new culinary series MARY MAKES IT EASY. Hosted by Canada’s culinary sweetheart Mary Berg, Canadian Screen Award-winner for Best Host, Lifestyle for CTV Original series MARY’S KITCHEN CRUSH, the new series for CTV Life Channel consists of 25 half-hour episodes, including a holiday special.
For Berg, cooking is life. Making and serving delicious food for friends and family is how Berg expresses her love for them. It’s also how she connects with fans and followers around the world who might need some help with their own cooking adventures.
Filming in Toronto at Berg’s home kitchen, MARY MAKES IT EASY follows Berg as she provides tips, tricks, and recipes to solve every day cooking woes. From ideas on what to make with a fridge full of leftovers, to lackluster chicken emergencies, Berg takes viewers through simple solutions, and leaves them with a newfound confidence to overcome any challenges they encounter on their culinary journey.
As part of the new series, Berg wants to know what cooking questions Canadians need answered. With submissions now open at AskMary.ca, people have the opportunity to send their inquiries to Berg, with some questions to be featured on MARY MAKES IT EASY.
Berg has spent most of her life cooking and baking for those she loves, and building a strong appreciation for the connective powers of beautiful, home-cooked food. Berg is the Canadian Screen Award-winner for Best Host, Lifestyle for MARY’S KITCHEN CRUSH, a CTV Original series. MARY’S KITCHEN CRUSH is a Canadian Screen Award-winner for Best Lifestyle Program or Series, and is currently sold in more than 100 countries. Berg is also the Season 3 winner of CTV’s MASTERCHEF CANADA, as well as a cooking expert on YOUR MORNING, THE SOCIAL, and THE MARILYN DENIS SHOW on CTV. Best-selling author of Kitchen Party: Effortless Recipes for Every Occasion, Berg is currently working on her second cookbook, which is set to be released in fall 2021.
MARY MAKES IT EASY is produced by Boat Rocker Studios, Unscripted through Proper Television, in association with CTV. Cathie James, Allison Grace, and Lesia Capone serve as Executive Producers and David Donohue as Series Producer.
Award-winning production company, marblemedia, in association with Cloudco Entertainment, a world-class entertainment studio, received a series order for Overlord and the Underwoods™ (20×30) from CBC, Canada’s public broadcaster, Nickelodeon International, ITV, in association with BYUtv.
The original half-hour, live-action, single camera family comedy follows the Underwoods, a North American family, whose life is turned upside down when their distant cousin, Overlord, the second most-wanted villain in the universe, seeks refuge in their home after being forced into intergalactic witness protection. After snitching out his boss, the evil Mega-Lord Supreme, Overlord is sent to live with his incredibly nice, distant cousins on Planet Earth. Over the course of the series, the evil Overlord and the very sweet Underwoods discover a thing or two about each other as they learn to treasure the value of family and the importance of true friendship, diversity, and compassion.
Created by BAFTA-winning showrunner, Anthony Q. Farrell (NBC’s The Office, CBBC’s Secret Life of Boys, CBC’s Little Mosque on the Prairie, upcoming marble and BYUtv series The Parker Andersons/ Amelia Parker) and Ryan Wiesbrock, creator of the Netflix Original Series Buddy Thunderstruck and the live-action adaptation of the Hulu Original series Holly Hobbie for Hulu and Canada’s Family Channel. The series features top talent and pre-production has begun in Toronto.
Farrell is compiling an exceptional creative writing team for the show including Kate Hewlett, Ryan Belleville, Jay Vaidya, Amanda Joy, Angelica Mendizabal, Caleigh Bacchus, Simon Owens, Sadiya Durrani and Richard Young.
Academy-Award winning FX expert, Roger Christian (Alien, Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace and Episode IV A New Hope) boards the series as Character Designer. Christian was responsible for creating the props and sets for Star Wars, including the infamous lightsaber. His designs for this show will be brought to life by MastersFX and include Overlord’s helmet and costume and his animatronic, robot sidekick. The team at MastersFX is the character effects company behind hit shows The Handmaid’s Tale and The Umbrella Academy, and they will bring Christian’s designs to life in Overlord and the Underwoods.
Production credits for the series include: Executive Producers Mark J.W. Bishop, Matt Hornburg, Carrie Paupst Shaughnessy, Ryan Wiesbrock, Sean Gorman and Ian Lambur; Supervising Producer Donna Luke; Series Producer Jim Corston; SVP Rights and Executive Producer, Diane Rankin; and Showrunner Anthony Q. Farrell. For CBC, Sally Catto is General Manager, Entertainment, Factual & Sports, Trish Williams is Executive Director, Scripted Content, Sandra Picheca is Director of Current Production, Comedy, and Greig Dymond is Executive In Charge of Production. Michael A. Dunn and Andra Johnson Duke are Executive Producers and Jim Bell is Supervising Producer for BYUtv.
The series is produced in association with CBC, BYUtv, Nickelodeon International with ITV/Citv, and with the financial participation of the Shaw Rocket Fund. The series was developed through funding from the Bell Fund Slate Development Program. Cloudco Entertainment and Distribution 360, a marblemedia company, hold worldwide distribution rights for the series.
[Spoiler alert! Do not continue reading until you have watched the Season 14 finale, “Everything is Broken, Part 2.”]
Things are mended for others, but the overriding theme of Monday’s Season 14 finale of Murdoch Mysteries lived up to its name. Or perhaps the episode’s alternate title could have been, “Everything is Up in the Air.” Not as catchy, but certainly apt. By the episode’s end, there was closure for some (Henry and Ruth welcomed a daughter, with a little help from Margaret), but that was it. If Season 15 is greenlit, there will be much to wrap up, from Watts and Jack’s relationship to Violet’s actions against Arthur, Bobby’s Brackenreid’s prison escape, and Effie’s kidnapping at the hands of Dorothy AND Amelia.
And, of course, we can’t forget William and Julia, the former who has left for Montreal—Harry in tow—to find Anna, leaving the latter shattered in an empty house.
In our final interview of Season 14, we spoke to showrunner Peter Mitchell about what has happened and what’s to come.
Congratulations! Season 14, despite the pandemic, has been a great mix of comedy and tragedy. Peter Mitchell: Thanks. Sometimes as the expense of the fans. [Laughs.]
Since you brought it up… when you are writing, do you write with the fans in mind or are you writing to entertain yourselves? PM: We are aware of certain episodes that are going to get an extra fan reaction, but we certainly don’t censor ourselves because the people who aren’t fans of humour are going to hate this one. We may actually ladle the humour on a little harder! [Laughs.] There is an awareness of what the fans are thinking and if some fan is actually thinking exactly what we were going to do, we change it if we have time. We still write for that four-quadrant group of fans who want the mystery, the ones who want the romance, the ones who want science and the ones who want Victoriana … or Edwardiana now.
You have been very active on Facebook lately leading conversation and playfully prodding the fans. You must love that. PM: It’s fun and it’s very rewarding for all of the writers to get their work noticed. I have fun with the fans and I think the appreciate knowing we know they’re out there.
You added two new writers to the room this year in Caleigh Bacchus and Christina Ray. They have been great additions. Was it always your intention to add new writers? PM: Yes, just to mix it up a bit. Caleigh is quite new to the game and brought a lot of energy and enthusiasm and was the story coordinator, so had to handle all of that stuff. She gained confidence and became a voice in the room. Paul [Aitken] and I had a brief experience with Christina Ray a long time ago. We were working on a proposal for an Alien Nation-type show with vampires. We had gotten to know her during that process and I had always wanted the chance to work with her because she is quite good at plot, and plot is something we need in Murdoch. It was difficult because we weren’t in a room, really. For a very short period of time, we were in a physical space and I’m not even sure Caleigh was part of that.
What’s the secret to your writing room success? How are you all able to continue writing compelling storylines? PM: For the last few years, we’ve ended the season with a bunch of questions. And when you come out of the gate [on a new season] I already have an advantage in that I don’t have to think of anything new, I just have to figure out how to answer these questions that I raised last year. That kind of gets your story brain going. With Murdoch, the stories just come.
At what point did you know Anna Fulford would be part of the season finale? PM: It was probably late-ish in the season. In the early part of the season, we were really concentrating on the reality of working in the COVID world and trying to tell stories that could be told within it. We really didn’t know how it would look [with social distancing] and then I saw the first few cuts and realized it really didn’t look any different. The closest we came to feeling uneasy was during [“Murdoch Checks In”] because there were more [COVID-19] cases going on and there was the reality of filming in August with a cloth mask on. But once we got through that and knew we were going to be fine, we started to figure out [the season finale].
I always knew, from the minute I saw Sarah Swire appear on the show [as Amelia Ernst] that she was going to be in the finale. She was on Frankie, and she was just f—ing great. I knew that we would have to circle back around on Bobby, and the twisted little relationship between Violet and Arthur we were pretty sure on very early. The Murdoch storyline may have come last. Once we realized we were going to do that, there was no way the physical Anna [Lisa Faulkner] would be in Canada, so we went with the memory of Anna. And, as you can tell, that story is far from resolved.
There are many storylines left to be wrapped up. PM: And, moving forward, the resolutions will be unexpected.
You joked on Facebook that if George finds a wife and gets married, that will be the end of the show. Do you really feel that way? I want him to be happy. PM: And, I think at some point he will be. But, you have to keep a certain amount of juice. Brackenreid and Margaret are married and we’re never going to split them up. Murdoch and Ogden are married … what do you do with a married George? What do you do with happy characters? They’re basically the death of a show. Nobody in the most feelgood show, Ted Lasso, was happy. Ted moved to England because he was getting a divorce and he still loved his wife. The woman who hired Ted was still smarting from an affair. No one was happy, but it was still a happy show. We need dilemma. The audience needs dilemma.
Having Effie trapped in a tree was genuinely scary. PM: Somehow, I got it in my head that I wanted a fairytale ending. Here we have the evil twin sisters and we don’t know or understand either of them. I had this image of Effie stuck in a hollowed-out tree, which felt like a very fairytale type of thing. It wasn’t until very late in the game that I decided there would be two [sisters]. I didn’t want to throw to someone with multiple personalities. And, you could argue that Dorothy is just trying to do right by her sister. I think that Dorothy is the truly evil one. Amelia just wants to marry George because she loves him and Dorothy is trying to facilitate that.
If you are renewed for a 15th season, do you address all of the storylines within the first few episodes? PM: We address a few of the continuing stories in Episodes 1 and 2, but not all of them. When we do get back to those stories, we will learn that things have progressed. We’ll learn that Jack is married but that Jack and Watts are still seeing each other. I want to have an ongoing murder case in the first episode, which will be Watts’ case because Murdoch is still trying to find answers. Brackenreid will be trying to figure out what happened to Bobby. Crabtree’s line is … well, I’m not even going to tell you. [Laughs.] For mystery fans, there will be a legitimate mystery. And Violet is left in an interesting situation as well.
What did you think of the Season 14 finale? Let me know in the comments below.
This season of MasterChef Canada has been like no other. By now, the teams will have gone outside for some kind of challenge. I’m assuming that to ensure everyone stayed safe, this didn’t happen. But, rather than missing that part of the show, I’ve relished staying in the studio and focusing on tough tests on-set.
The toughest so far took place on Sunday, as the remaining contestants were faced with Italian-themed challenges in a Pressure Test to eliminate at least one.
Following the Red team’s win last week, Blue team members Andrew, Jen, Mai, Andre and Barrie were welcomed by Chefs Claudio, Alvin and Michael, who informed everyone that one member from Jeremy’s winning squad would participate in the Pressure Test too … and he had to pick who. Whoa. I think if I was Team Captain and as confident in my skills as Jeremy is, I would put myself forward rather than someone else. Jeremy, instead, put Andy into the line of fire.
The two-part Pressure Test began with Chef Michael calling his son, Chef Oscar Bonacini, into the MasterChef Canada kitchen. And, whereas Oscar spent four months learning how to make hand-made pasta in Italy, the competitors had mere minutes to observe Oscar’s masterclass in creating three shapes of pasta (dimpled, braided, and curled), each more intricate than the one before it. Head-to-head battles ensued, with teams facing off to make one pasta and a traditional sauce to go with it. Red team’s Andy doled out the pairings this way:
Capunti with tomato sauce: himself and Barrie
Lorighittas in butter herb sauce: Mai and Andre
Trofie and pesto sauce: Jen and Andrew
The 25-minute deadline was definitely a challenge, though fresh pasta takes less time to cook. Everyone started in a frenzy, mixing the semolina flour with water to get just the right hydration and consistency. The sudden curveball that Barrie had experience making pasta threatened to derail Andy’s plan; Mai was confident she would beat Andre, but her Lorighitta looked less delicate than Oscars; and Jen opted to use her hands to shape the Trofie rather than use a fiddly bench scraper. With just minutes before the deadline, Andre’s water wasn’t boiling, Andy’s sauce seemed to have too much garlic and cheese added too soon, Andrew was bruising his basil in the blender, and Jen was taking too long prepping her basil with a mortar and pestle.
Andrew and Jen were up for judging first and Chef Alvin pulled no punches. Andrew’s pasta was inconsistent and his sauce was brown, but it had a nice flavour; Jen’s pasta was more consistent but small, but her sauce was delicious. Andrew got the win and moved to the gallery. Andre and Mai were next, judged by Chef Claudio. Though Andre’s pasta looked the most authentic, it wasn’t cooked all the way through; Mai’s pasta was pillowy and cooked to perfection but the sauce’s flavours weren’t as bright. Mai triumphed and moved to safety. Finally, Barrie and Andy presented to Chef Michael. Barrie’s pasta looked good and his sauce was vibrant, inviting, and on point; Andy’s pasta was within the size variance allowed and his sauce was darker and richer, and Chef Michael hinted there was an issue with it. The winner in the final round was Barrie’s better sauce.
Because of the teasers before the episodes rolled out, I knew an extra twist in the 60-minute test was coming. It arrived in the form of an added dish. Now the trio had to make a Contorno—a side dish—to accompany the Secondo. With just 30 minutes to go, I would have started crying, put down my apron, and walked out the door. Instead, Jen opted for a simple vegetable side dish, Andre a buttermilk-dressed salad, and Andy an orange and fennel salad.
In the final judging, the chefs gave a nod to Andy, sending him to safety in the gallery. That left Jen and Andre in the bottom and, ultimately, it was Jen who left the competition.
MasterChef Canada: Back to Win airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.
