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.
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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Orphan Black

Link: Orphan Black creator answers season premiere burning questions

From Dalton Ross of Entertainment Weekly:

Link: Orphan Black creator answers season premiere burning questions
“Without giving too much away, we have arrived at the top of the pyramid, so to speak. We have arrived at the seat of power at Neolution. This is where P.T. Westmoreland, a man who’s apparently well over 100 years old, lives and marshals the global forces of Neolution — those setting out to change the course of human evolution.” Continue reading. 

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Wynonna Earp

Links: Wynonna Earp

From Ciara Pitts of MoviePilot:

Link: Wynonna Earp: How the cast and crew get LGBT visibility so right when so many TV shows still get it wrong
June, which is also Pride Month, has just kicked off. Many of us in the LGBTQ community are celebrating our freedom and who we are, along with the TV shows that make us more visible. One of those shows being Syfy’s Wynonna Earp, which returns for its second season on June 9. The series follows the titular character on a journey to take down demons and other supernatural forces that invade her mysterious hometown. Continue reading.

From Bridget Liszewski of The TV Junkies:

Link: Wynonna Earp: Emily Andras talks “Steel Bars and Stone Walls”
“I really thought of the premiere as almost the second half of Episode 113. It felt like a two-parter with all those cliffhangers and because we had given ourselves, or cursed ourselves, with all those cliffhangers, we had no choice but to answer those questions. I didn’t want it to be a bunch of talk and exposition. I wanted it to feel really fun and really blistering.” Continue reading.

Link: Wynonna Earp’s Melanie Scrofano on working for Black Badge and that surprise guest star
“There’s a certain amount of not wanting to see things that are right in front of you when they threaten your sense of security. Waverly gives Wynonna such a sense of security and family and belonging and she just thinks that partly it can’t be true.” Continue reading. 

From Nivea Serrao of Entertainment Weekly:

Link: Wynonna Earp boss on that big Season 2 premiere twist
“We are going to see a slightly different Wynonna for the first few episodes. Not only has she killed Willa, but the other thing that has happened is, essentially, she has lost Dolls. So she’s going to feel a lot of pressure to kind of move into a leadership role. And that’s not Wynonna’s strong suit. She hates authority. She rebels against authority.” Continue reading.

From Carly Lane of Nerdist:

Link: Wynonna Earp’s Dominique Provost-Chalkley talks “bloody good” Season 2 
“She comes into her own. It’s kind of perfect timing because I feel like she’s going in that direction but just touching the goo accelerates that, and so I wanted to make sure that right from the get-go there was almost a power that ran through her, an adrenaline underneath that maybe she didn’t have before.” Continue reading. 

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Dark Matter

Links: Dark Matter

From TD Rideout of The Mind Reels:

Link: Dark Matter set visit
It’s a cold December morning, the holidays are on the horizon, a storm cloud of twinkling lights, gift giving and family.  Clambering aboard the tarnished grey subway cars that burrow their way through the city, Sue and I prepared for a day in the far-flung future… Continue reading. 

From Andrew Liptak of The Verge:

Link: Syfy’s pulpy space opera Dark Matter is back—here’s why you should watch
The show is largely about identities and who people truly are. Most of the characters have their own agendas, but once their memories were wiped, they found a unique opportunity to reinvent themselves. They come together into a crew because they’re comfortable with one another, or at least more comfortable than they are with the wider world. Continue reading.

From Kelly Townsend of The TV Junkies:

Link: Dark Matter: Joseph Mallozzi on the two-hour Season 3 premiere
“I mean, the war is happening, there’s not much they can do about that. It’s debatable if they want to get involved at all. On one hand, you’ve got Six who’s always been leading the charge and trying to get them to be better people, and Two points out to him that being better is so much harder, and maybe it’s not worth the risk. They tried to be better, and that was the whole point of Season 2, a search for redemption that ends up blowing up in their faces.” Continue reading. 

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