From Barb Brouwer of the Kelowna Capital News:
Link: Writer unveils some mysteries about Murdoch
“We don’t have the resources to hire a lot of staff so we do our own research; it’s a fantastic way to waste time if you are disinclined to write. You learn a lot of stuff you didn’t know and it’s a pleasurable activity in and of itself. Getting into embedded links is a great way to spend a chunk of your day.†Continue reading.
From Tim Arsenault of LocalExpress:
Link: Renovation series built on determination
The market for home improvement shows might seem as cramped as a big-city studio apartment, but a Dartmouth production company looks like it has assembled something unique.
Shooting has recently been completed on Eyes for the Job, a series for Accessible Media Inc. in Toronto. The 13 half-hour episodes will be shown this summer on AMI-tv, a dedicated channel on Canada’s cable and satellite systems that offers programming for people who are blind, partially sighted, deaf or hard of hearing. Continue reading.Â
From a media release:
Showcase announced today that Enrico Colantoni (Remedy, Person of Interest) will join Season 2 of the time-travelling sci-fi drama series Travelers. Colantoni will play the character Vincent, a mysterious individual who may or may not be a friend of the travelers. Production now underway in Vancouver, Colantoni broke the news from the Travelers set with series star Eric McCormack. Stephen Lobo (Continuum) will appear as a recurring character and Amanda Tapping (Sanctuary) will return to direct multiple episodes and guest star.
Travelers follows a group of people from the future who have discovered how to send consciousness back through time, directly into people in the 21st century. These “travelers” assumed the lives of seemingly random people, while secretly working as teams to perform high-stakes missions in order to save the world from a terrible future. Season 2 picks up on the group’s haunting realization that their missions may have altered the future in ways they did not predict, and will air exclusively on Showcase in Canada in Fall 2017.
As previously announced, series writer and creator Brad Wright returns, along with leads Eric McCormack as FBI Special Agent Grant MacLaren, Jared Abrahamson as Trevor, Nesta Cooper as Carly, Reilly Dolman as Philip, Patrick Gilmore as David, and MacKenzie Porter as Marcy.
We may not have another season of This Life to enjoy, but Lauren Lee Smith is staying with the CBC. Smith, who played Maggie Lawson for two rounds of This Life, has nabbed the lead role in Frankie Drake, a drama about Toronto’s only female detective in the 1920s.
The 11-episode first season of Frankie Drake will begin production this summer in Toronto and will debut this fall on CBC.
Frankie Drake takes on the cases no one else wants to handle and her gender puts her at odds with the social mores of the day. Undeterred, Frankie and her partner, Trudy, open Drake Detective Agency and tackle mysteries.
Related: Carol Hay and Michelle Ricci discuss Frankie Drake
“Frankie Drake is a real labour of love for us. It is a story about a spirited woman, breaking barriers and calling the shots, in a world that might not be ready for her. This is a one-hour detective series, set in the 20s, but this is not the roaring 20s we have seen onscreen before,†Christina Jennings, chairman and CEO, Shaftesbury said in a press release. “We are so pleased to bring this show to life, in partnership with our friends at the CBC, and with a creative team who have been part of our Shaftesbury family for many of our hit series. And of course—what a treat to work with the wonderful Lauren Lee Smith again. I can’t wait for the world to meet Frankie Drake.”
Now, some sad news for Murdoch Mysteries fans: Frankie Drake is created by Carol Hay and Michelle Ricci, which means they won’t return for Season 11 of Murdoch. Hay and Ricci also serve as executive producers on Frankie Drake; the series is executive produced by Jennings, Scott Garvie and Cal Coons, who also serves as showrunner. The series is produced by Jonathan Hackett and Julie Lacey.
We can’t wait to see the sass Smith brings to Frankie. What are your thoughts on this announcement? Will you tune in? Let us know in the comments below!
From Kate Taylor of The Globe and Mail:
Link: Updating Cancon rules for Internet age comes with political baggage
Ever since the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission first decided to exempt “new media†from regulation back in 1999, federal jurisdiction over content delivered via the Internet has proved mainly theoretical. If Ottawa wanted to intervene to make Canadian programming more discoverable online, it would certainly help if the government asserted its role by updating the Broadcasting Act, last revised in 1991. And if the government wanted Internet service providers, who don’t compensate the content creators who help build their profits, to contribute to the system, it would definitely need a whole new law – because in 2012 the Supreme Court ruled that ISPs are not broadcasters. Continue reading.Â
