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.

Comments and queries for the week of December 29

1. Why did the director not intervene to prevent the “travelers” program from being made public?

2. If Philip was given memories of the now altered timeline, and his knowledge his knowledge is once again quiet “historically” accurate—accurate enough to know the moment Carly was going to beat her husband to death—how is he not aware of the travelers program being made public?

I hope the writers can explain this and still maintain the internal logic of the show. Can’t wait for Season 3. —Fissile

Seriously, I wouldn’t be surprised if [Travelers] gets cancelled. During the second season, it took a similar way as Person of Interest in its third and fourth season. Instead of concentrating on fixing the future, our travelers have to fight against personal problems and two major enemies, the Faction and Mr. Ingram. Which led to about eight more or less mediocre episodes in Season 2, where I seriously asked myself if the writer’s team was constantly on vacation because they did so good on Season 1. Now the last three or four episodes got some drive back, but still, the original mission was to find out what causes the worlds degradation and to fix it.

I loved Season 1, it was fast, well played, well written, with interesting characters, a surprise. Especially the concept itself elevated it from other time travel stories, since sending consciousnesses through time instead of matter, which would need a nearly infinite amount of power, simply made sense. We do that all the time by remembering. And my, was that (mostly) well done! Season 2, instead, went in the wrong direction. I fear it lost a lot of the audience. And when Simon came into the game, I was embarrassed because we had a mad, but genius time travelling engineer in Continuum, so, this character was completely copied from there. I did like Continuum though, but Kira’s constantly present “I wanna go home to my son”whining annoyed me, so I already may have had a bad feeling when MacLaren was announced to have a child.

Travelers made the same mistake as its protagonists; it got involved with too many details of our current world, losing the big picture that could bind us to the screen, waiting for every episode to reveal something terrifying and new. Which didn’t happen in the first eight episodes of Season 2, sorry!

Now with Agent MacLaren slapped in the face by his wife, that could be a proper allegorical conclusion, before the show gets a third installment that would ruin it completely. —Knotzers

I just love this show! Spoiler Alert: so, at the season finale, we see that both Simon and Vincent have taken over other bodies using the new machine that Simon has built. Assuming Simon built another machine just like the Director (since he built the first one in the future) does having a second machine now in the 20th century mean that the Director doesn’t exist? Will this machine replace the Director? Or do they both exist? Also, what will happen with Simon who has now replaced Vincent? Will he now assume some of the mad-man traits? Or is that purely 001’s traits? Can’t wait for Season 3! —Am

I have read and watched a lot of sci-fi and it’s normally quite difficult to let the plot holes and inconsistencies slide. On this show, I have been having difficulty spotting them. My only concern is that great sci-fi like this does not last more than two-three seasons (too much thinking involved for some folk). —John

 

Got a question or comment about Canadian TV? Email greg.david@tv-eh.com or via Twitter @tv_eh.

 

 

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Link: Looking back at 25 years of Air Farce on TV

From Artsculture:

Link: Looking back at 25 years of Air Farce on TV
But we all — and that includes Luba and I — get excited and nervous before stepping in front of a live audience in December when, for two nights in studio, when the CBC Broadcast Centre is packed with fans and we record the majority of the show.

The butterflies are definitely one thing that haven’t changed in 25 years. Continue reading.

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Link: Universal Channel Acquires Canadian Mystery Series ‘The Disappearance’

From Patrick Munn of TV Wise:

Link: Universal Channel Acquires Canadian Mystery Series ‘The Disappearance’
Universal Channel is adding a second Canadian import to their line-up.

The NBCU backed channel has secured the exclusive UK rights to CTV’s mystery series The Disappearance. NBCUniversal International Studios handles international distribution. Continue reading. 

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Link: Best Xmas Present: Ron James On CBC-TV

From James Bawden:

Link: Best Xmas Present: Ron James On CBC-TV
When I told a dear neighbor of mine that Ron James was soon coming back in a new New Year’s Eve CBC-TV special she clapped her hands. She’s the one who once suggested to me James was the  Canadian equivalent of Will Rogers.

And she’s right except that James is still alive and growing in stature. Just check out his new hourlong special on CBC-TV New Year’s Eve At 9 p.m. Continue reading.

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