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.
Degrassi

Family Channel celebrates Canada Day with Season 4 of Degrassi: Next Class

From a media release:

This Canada Day long weekend, Family Channel is heading back to the classroom, bringing fans across the country a brand new season of Degrassi: Next Class. Premiering  Monday, July 3 at 10 p.m. ET/PT, season four of the critically acclaimed teen drama takes a look at some of the most relevant issues affecting today’s youth, exploring important topics such as mental illness, gender identity and cultural adjustment. Following the premiere, new episodes of Degrassi: Next Class will air weeknights at 10 p.m. ET/PT. For fans who’d prefer to spend their long weekend binge-watching, all 10 episodes will be available on The Family Channel App beginning Friday, June 30.

Season four of Degrassi: Next Class picks up with the students returning to school from their winter break, many for their final semester. Still reeling from the reality of Maya’s accident, Degrassi Community School is carefully monitoring everyone’s mental health and ensuring that all students have someone to talk to. While exploring situations teens commonly struggle with today, such as break ups and make ups, peer pressure and balancing academia with personal life, season four also continues to focus on the lives of the Syrian refugees as they try to find their place at Degrassi. The new season also marks the graduation of some of the series’ most beloved characters, but not before a beautiful yet dramatic prom.

A special treat for fans in honour of the Canada Day long weekend, on Friday, June 30, the entire fourth season will be available on The Family Channel App, along with exclusive behind-the-scenes extra content. For those who are new to the series, missed a few episodes or simply want to re-watch all the Next Class drama, seasons one through three are currently available on The Family Channel App and on Family OnDemand.

Reprising their roles for season four of Degrassi: Next Class are Amanda Arcuri as Lola Pacini; Amir Bageria as Baaz Nahir; Soma Bhatia as Goldi Nahir; Jamie Bloch as Yael Baron; Chelsea Clark as Esme Song; Reiya Downs as Shay Powers; Ana Golja as Zoe Rivas; Nikki Gould as Grace Cardinal; Ricardo Hoyos as Zig Novak; Ehren Kassam as Jonah Haak; Andre Kim as Winston Chu; Lyle Lettau as Tristan Milligan; Spencer Macpherson as Hunter Hollingsworth; Eric Osborne as Miles Hollingsworth III; Parham Rownaghi as Saad Al’Maliki; Dante Scott as Vijay Miraj; Olivia Scriven as Maya Matlin; Sara Waisglass as Frankie Hollingsworth; Richard Walters as Deon “Tiny” Bell; Dalia Yegavian as Rasha Zuabi and Stefan Brogren as Principal Simpson.

Degrassi: Next Class is produced by DHX Media, in association with Family Channel and Netflix. The series was co-created by Linda Schuyler who is also Executive Producer with Stephen Stohn, Sarah Glinski and Matt Huether.

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Industry News

Link: Minister brings Joly news at Banff World Media Festival

From Bill Brioux of Brioux.tv:

Link: Minister brings Joly news at Banff World Media Festival
She also gave a date for her long awaited vision and policy statement: September. Between trade missions to China, Los Angeles and other places, Joly has been criss-crossing Canada gathering opinions on how to proceed with a new Broadcast Act, among other things such as updating some of the older production treaty deals Canada has with around 55 other countries. Continue reading. 

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Awards

2017 ACTRA Awards in Montreal winners announced

From a media release:

ACTRA Montreal is pleased to announce the winners of the 2017 ACTRA Awards in Montreal.

Outstanding Performance – Voice
Jennifer Seguin (2 Nuts and a Richard)

Outstanding Performance – Video Game
Victoria Sanchez (Deus Ex: Mankind Divided)

Outstanding Performance – Stunt
Mich Todorovic (X-Men: Apocalypse)

Outstanding Performance – Female
Charlotte Rogers (LARPs)

Outstanding Performance – Male
Jesse Camacho (We’re Still Together)

Best Short Film
Grip of Death (Fred Nguyen)

Actor-politician Tyrone Benskin, past President Lynne Adams, and dubbing innovator Hubert Fielden were also honoured at the ceremony with Life Membership in ACTRA.

“Be it in film, television or videogames, there are so many fantastic performances coming out of Montreal,” says Cary Lawrence, President of ACTRA Montreal. “The ACTRA Awards recognize and celebrate the creative work we do in this city.”

The ACTRA Awards in Montreal, recognizing outstanding performances by ACTRA Montreal members and celebrating accomplishments and excellence in our industry, were presented at Le Gesù on June 11, 2017 – hosted by comedians Jess Salomon and Eman El-Husseini.

ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists) is the national organization of professional performers working in the English-language recorded media in Canada. ACTRA represents the interests of 23,000 members across Canada – the foundation of Canada’s highly acclaimed professional performing community.

Image courtesy of Jon Woods.

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Industry News

New CBC series Becoming Canadian tells the stories of Canada’s newest citizens

From a media release:

Narrated by Canadian rapper and producer Kardinal Offishall, new six-part factual series BECOMING CANADIAN will premiere on CBC with back-to-back episodes on Monday, June 26 at 8 p.m. (8:30 NT), with additional episodes airing throughout the week in the lead up to Canada 150 on July 1. Produced by Antica Productions Ltd. in association with global independent studio Entertainment One (eOne), the series captures citizenship ceremonies from across Canada and reveals the amazing, inspiring and heart-warming stories of some of the approximately 250,000 people who will become Canadians in 2016/2017. All of these new Canadians have stories that are as diverse as the number of countries they are emigrating from, ranging from heartbreaking and tragic, to inspirational and uplifting. With four stories in each half-hour episode, the series captures, firsthand, how life-changing becoming Canadian can be for new citizens and those closest to them.

First launched online in January 2017 with short-form digital content, BECOMING CANADIAN has amassed hundreds of participants and thousands of followers on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and cbc.ca/2017/becoming-canadian. The digital extension of the series will feature additional new content and stories throughout the rest of 2017.

Episodic Descriptions:

Episode 1 (Monday, June 26 at 8 p.m. (8:30 p.m. NT)): Rachel was assigned male at birth, but always knew she was a woman. Ellaha came from an educated family in Afghanistan, but was told by the Taliban that girls could no longer attend school.  Kerstin grew up trapped inside East Berlin until the Berlin Wall came down. Syed’s mother was six months pregnant with him when an accident killed his father leaving his mother to raise her two sons.

Episode 2 (Monday, June 26 at 8:30 p.m. (9 p.m. NT)): Mohamad left war-torn Lebanon to become a medical doctor in Canada. Mo has a career she never would have imagined possible back in China. After leaving Trinidad, Jerome rediscovered his love of soccer in his new home country. After hearing about the ‘politeness’ of Canada, Annabelle and Aidan decided to raise their children here.

Episode 3 (Wednesday, June 28 at 8 p.m. (8:30 p.m. NT)): With tribal warfare raging, Jemal fled to the world’s largest refugee camp, leaving his pregnant wife behind.  Janice came to Canada and found a job and the love of her life at a Tim Hortons. Abimbola realized his dream of bodybuilding in Canada, something he would never have done back in Nigeria. Rita and her family fled from Iraq to Syria – a relatively safer place at the time. She ended up being on the last plane out of Damascus before the airport was closed.

Episode 4 (Thursday, June 29 at 8 p.m. (8:30 p.m. NT)): Hsa’s family was given a simple choice by his homeland’s oppressive government: flee or die. From a region known for rugby, Rhys moved to Canada for his love of hockey. Juliette wants to break the cycle of systemic racism and teach her kids to appreciate the diversity of Canada. Esther went from a Mexican living a secret life in the US to being a married Maritimer.

Episode 5 (Friday, June 30 at 8 p.m. (8:30 p.m. NT)): Gannon came to Canada for love. Tony brought his experience to a small prairie town and reopened the local Legion to support veterans. Kallie lost everything when she arrived in Canada, but she built a successful and fulfilling business with hard work. Following a chance encounter on a cruise ship, Romulo moved to Canada and changed his family’s lives for the better.

Episode 6 (Friday, June 30 at 8:30 p.m. (9 p.m. NT)): With three young daughters and financial struggles, John and Claudia took the biggest risks of their lives – moving to Canada to start a business without knowing how to speak English. An 88-year old is proud of all her accomplishments, including her four-person marriage and now adds her long-awaited, hard-earned Canadian citizenship to the list. Sharmila was expecting to become a Canadian alongside her mother but an unfortunate illness had her sharing her citizenship ceremony with her young daughter instead.  Saliu and Adeola moved from a big city in Nigeria to a small town in Regina with reservations but found an unexpected new way of life.

BECOMING CANADIAN is produced in by Antica Productions and eOne in association with CBC, with the participation of the Canada Media Fund, the Canadian Film or Video Production Tax Credit and with the participation of the Bell Fund. The series is executive produced by eOne’s Jocelyn Hamilton and Antica’s Stuart Coxe and produced by Brad Brough and Jeanette Trigiani Diehl for Antica.

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Featured, Mary Kills People

Mary Kills People: Amy Cameron on the last-minute renewal and what’s coming in Season 2

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In a perfect world, the creators and producers of a television show find out their show’s been renewed with plenty of time to develop scripts, scout locations for filming and nail down schedules for cast and crew.

That didn’t happen with Mary Kills People. On June 5, Corus announced via press release that a second season of the drama, starring Caroline Dhavernas, had been ordered. The producers were informed of the renewal just days before the press release dropped.

“People kept asking me if we’d been renewed and they thought I was being coy,” executive producer Amy Cameron says. “I really didn’t know. We got a surprise phone call from Rachel Nelson [Corus’ director of original content] who said, ‘We want to release the news, so don’t tell anybody.’ It was that specific and that quick.” Days later Dhavernas was in Toronto promoting a second season that is, well, still be developed. It’s suddenly a very busy year for the trio at Cameron Pictures. The production company, consisting of Amy and Tassie Cameron (Rookie Blue) and Caledonia Brown, has got Ten Days in the Valley set for broadcast this fall on ABC—and CTV in Canada—and Little Dog in production in Newfoundland to air this winter on CBC.

But back to Mary Kills People. When we last left Mary (Dhavernas), she was no longer being investigated for her role in the deaths of terminally ill patients, Des (Richard Short) seemed to have gotten his life back on track and Ben (Jay Ryan) and Mary appeared to be a couple. Meanwhile, Grady (Greg Bryk) was dead and Mary’s sister, Nicole (Charlotte Sullivan), announced she wanted to be part of Mary’s team. Will the duo angels of death become a trio in Season 2’s six new instalments?

“We are moving quickly,” Cameron says. “We’re at outline stage on about half of the episodes and hoping to be pitched the back half in the next week or two.” She’s particularly excited to have—in addition to series creator Tara Armstrong, writer Marsha Greene, script coordinator Justin Giallonardo and showrunner and executive producer Tassie Cameron—newcomers Lara Azzopardi (Backstage) and Rookie Blue and Saving Hope co-creator Morwyn Brebner in the writing room. Cameron acknowledges Mary Kills People deals with dark subject matter, but credits the writing team and cast for keeping the tone from being too heavy and a downer to watch. Cameron is mum on sophomore season storyline details—those are still being worked out—but did give us a hint.

“The writers have come up with an organic direction to go in that is still going to surprise the audience,” Cameron says. “We’ve always talked about exploring the edges of the line, that grey area, and we’ll continue to do that.”

Images courtesy of Corus.

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