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Preview: Burden of Truth digs deep into “Family Ties”

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Well, things have certainly taken a turn on Burden of Truth. After soil samples fingered the local steel mill as the likely culprit when it came to burying canisters of toxic goop under the soccer field, Joanna and Billy were run off the road. Things are getting serious and if they’re not careful, deadly.

As I said last week, I’ve been really impressed with this first season of Burden of Truth. Aside from the storytelling, the drama is slowly being ratcheted up week-to-week, infusing all with a sense of dread. Wednesday’s new episode, “Family Ties,” is the last one before a three-week hiatus during the Winter Olympics. Here’s what the CBC has revealed as an official synopsis:

Convinced that the local steel mill and its owner, Ben Matheson, are responsible for the barrels Joanna and Billy go after him but don’t have enough to make the allegation stick.

And here’s some more information after watching a preview of the episode, written by Shannon Masters and directed by Jordan Canning.

Oh the irony
It’s fascinating to me that Ben Matheson, of Matheson Steel, loathes co-operating with Joanna and Billy despite the fact his own chemicals could be making his daughter, Taylor, sick. What kind of man would put profit over the health of his own child or the children of Millwood? Of course, the growing case is dividing the town between concerned parents and those worried about losing their jobs.

Jessica Matten co-stars
I was wondering how long it would be until Jessica Matten appeared on Burden of Truth. The Blackstone and Frontier actress makes an immediate impression as Gerrilyn Spence, Luna’s mom, who isn’t too keen on her daughter’s new job. Undaunted, Luna persists, and we get an important peek into her First Nations background and learn what she and Joanna have in common.

Molly makes a big decision
A fracas outside of the Millwood courthouse leads to a discussion between Molly and Billy, and she decides what to do regarding putting her name at the top of the court filing. But will a sudden gesture by a surprising source derail those plans?

Joanna makes a BIGGER decision
A visitor to Millwood attempts to persuade Joanna to return to Toronto. What happens next turns the entire case—and Joanna’s legal future—on its head.

Burden of Truth airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

 

 

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Burden of Truth, Featured

Preview: Burden of Truth swims in “Still Waters”

I was talking to a friend the other day and he told me he was watching Burden of Truth—I had suggested he check it out—and really enjoying it. He and his wife tuned in to the first episode and found it a little slow-moving. He heeded my advice to stick with it until the end. By that time they were hooked. I love hearing stories like that, especially when it comes to shows like Burden of Truth. Let a show breathe and, quite often, you’ll be rewarded.

Last week, Joanne and Billy realized it was the school field, where the girl’s soccer team practiced almost daily, that seemed to be the culprit when it came to the girls’ neurological issues. That, of course, opens a whole new can of worms and expands the lawsuit.

What would this Wednesday’s instalment, “Still Waters,” offer? Here’s the CBC’s official synopsis:

Relying on her esteemed reputation as a partner at CTS, Joanna convinces a hydrologist to come to Millwood to test the soil. With reluctant permission from the local Mayor, Joanna and Billy narrow down their list of suspects to a handful of industrial sites in the community.

And here are more story points we picked up on after watching a screener of the episode written by Lynn Coady and directed by Jordan Canning.

Flashpoint alum guest-stars
Yes, Sergio Di Zio has been in a ton of other stuff but he’ll always be Flashpoint‘s Spike to me. He checks in to Burden of Truth as Dr. Howard Davies the hydrologist Joanna hires to drill and confirm whether the soil in the soccer field really is making people sick and more importantly where the toxin is coming from. And he sports, as you can see, a glorious moustache.

Who will be the face of the class action lawsuit?
With things ramping up and a filing imminent, Joanna and Billy must decide which girl’s name will be at the top of the documents. I wasn’t surprised by who they chose, but it wasn’t an easy decision. Will this person be able to stand up and represent the other girls successfully? We’ll see.

Girl talk
Speaking of the girls, Diane gathers them together for a meeting—a support group—so they open up and bond over the terrible sickness that’s fallen on them. It’s hard enough to fit in during high school without being stared at for twitching.

Joanna and Billy take on a new employee
This came at me out of left field and I totally love it.

Joanna gets some personal information
One of the drilling sites fails to net new information for the case but it does uncover an intriguing piece of Joanna’s past.

Burden of Truth airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

 

 

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Burden of Truth, Featured

Preview: Burden of Truth blossoms in Episode 2

The first episode of a new television series is always tough on the creators and viewers. Within just 44 minutes for a drama (and 22 for a comedy) you need to create a world, introduce the characters in it and connect all of it for a new audience.

As I wrote last week, the pilot episode of Burden of Truth did it effortlessly. I immediately cheered for small-town lawyer Billy Crawford (Peter Mooney) when big-city litigator Joanna Hanley (Kristin Kreuk) switched sides and joined him in plotting to take down the big pharmaceutical company she was representing. I felt badly for Luna Spence (Star Slade), the young woman determined to fight the company because its drugs were making her and other girls sick. I enjoyed the community feel of Millwood, rife with secrets and ill-will towards Joanna, who left there when she was 14.

I was excited to see what creator Brad Simpson had in store, especially after CBC sent out this episode synopsis:

Joanna must reckon with questions over her family’s hasty departure when she was a teenager while attempting to convince the locals that she has, in fact, switched sides. After footing the bill for medical testing of the sick girls and running commonalities tests, Joanna suspects that the cause of the illness is an environmental toxin on the High School Athletic Field.

And here are more tidbits to tell you after watching a screener of “The Ties That Bind,” written by Simpson and directed by Jeff Woolnough.

Selkirk looks super
Thanks to stunning work by director of photography David A. Makin, the directors and location folks, Selkirk, Manitoba, is stunning as the fictional Millwood. Those wind turbines, waving crops and sun-touched brick buildings bring a whole new level to the production.

Joanna breaks the news to Alan
Almost lost in the shuffle of last week’s debut was Benjamin Ayres as Alan, Joanna’s boyfriend and co-worker at the firm. “The Ties That Bind” jumps right in with she calling he to drop a bit of a bomb in his lap.

Anti-vax
The whole reason Joanna was in Millwood was to combat the claim against the company making drugs. Now that she and Billy dig a little deeper into the evidence, they discover the vaccine may not be the culprit after all.

It’s not all about the big case
Billy may be working with Joanna on the major court case but he’s got a bunch of other situations to deal with. We get a ton of background on what Billy is up to, his standing within the community and the difference between doing legal work out of an office in a skyscraper and on country roads. Meanwhile, Joanna’s phone conversations with her dad don’t go so well … and hint at what drove him to leave Millwood 17 years ago.

Burden of Truth airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

 

 

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Burden of Truth

Links: Burden of Truth, Season 1

From Tony Wong of the Toronto Star:

Link: Kristin Kreuk hopes Smallville, Beauty & the Beast fans follow her to non-supernatural show
“I love this character Joanna, who is incredibly focused on herself and hasn’t developed personal skills for a bunch of family reasons, which come out over the course of the series. I think it’s a wonderful thing to explore. She has to face the way she’s been single-minded in her focus . . . because the law can be, I think it can be difficult especially when you’re defending massive corporations who do sometimes questionable things.” Continue reading.

From Erin Lebar of the Winnipeg Free Press:

Link: Selkirk celebrates Burden of Truth boost
The city of Selkirk has a new flag flying above its waterfront, but the name on it won’t be familiar to most — yet.

The flag has been raised to honour the town of Millwood, the fictional locale in the new CBC series Burden of Truth, a legal drama filmed in Selkirk sporadically over the summer and fall of 2017. Continue reading.

From Victoria Nelli of The TV Junkies:

Link: Burden of Truth: Kristin Kreuk talks her strong and passionate character
“The show will run two main stories parallel: the case, which is what is going on with these girls, and what happened with Joanna’s past and what made her family leave so quickly when she was 14 years old. That mystery will unfold throughout the season and it will really affect Joanna on a deep personal level. It will force her to question everything she’s based her personality and her life on.” Continue reading. 

From Melissa Girimonte of The Televixen:

Link: Kristin Kreuk, Peter Mooney and Star Slade preview Burden of Truth
“Joanna’s a shut down person, but she feels very deeply. She’s very affected by everything she experiences. Whatever her past is revealed to be, there have been effects on her personally based on that. And she feels oddly connected to these people [in Millwood], especially the girls who are being affected by whatever is affecting them.” Continue reading.

From Bill Brioux of the Canadian Press:

Link: Kristin Kreuk on ‘weird experience’ of making new CBC series ‘Burden of Truth’
Viewers have watched former “Smallville” and “Beauty and the Beast” star Kristin Kreuk grow up on television.

The 35-year-old Vancouver-native has spent half her life in the spotlight. She was still a teenager when “Smallville” launched in 2001, making her an instant Comic-Con crush as Clark Kent’s girlfriend Lana Lang. After a dozen years as a CW ingenue, she finally felt like the grown-up on the set while making CBC’s “Burden of Truth,” which premieres Wednesday. Continue reading.

From Bill Brioux of Brioux.tv:

Link: Small town TV returns with Burden of Truth
“It’s not as quirky as Northern Exposure,” says Kreuk. I loved Northern Exposure, although I feel like there might be a place for that kind of show again. This is more of a small town that is grounded with people who are struggling.” Continue reading.

From Jordan Mounteer of Vancouver Weekly:

Link: Burden Of Truth is a fresh take on Canadian legal dramas
For my part, it’s extremely gratifying to see Kreuk step out of the pigeonhole of sci-fi/supernatural shows which have tended to dominate her career (Smallville, Beauty and the Beast, and for you diehard cultists Space Milkshake), and to flourish in a more ‘serious’ role. Her portrayal of Joanna teeter-totters back and forth, balancing between Machiavellian ambition and reluctant compassion, but rather than feeling hackneyed, the effect feels reactive and humanizing. Continue reading.

 

 

 

 

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Burden of Truth, Featured

Kristin Kreuk and Peter Mooney battle big pharma in CBC’s Burden of Truth

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Kristin Kreuk has swapped Superman and a Beast of a man to battle big pharmaceutical. The Vancouver native headlines and executive-produces Burden of Truth, CBC’s new legal drama, debuting Wednesday at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Created by Brad Simpson (Rookie Blue), Burden of Truth is a 10-part serialized drama about a big-time lawyer named Joanna Hanley (Kreuk) who returns to her small town as the representative of a pharmaceutical company whose drugs are thought to be making young women sick. Once in Millwood, however, Joanna finds herself—after crushing the case made by the girls and led by her former high school classmate Billy Crawford (Peter Mooney)—questioning whether she’s on the right side of the lawsuit and discovering some bad feelings were left behind when she exited Millwood at 14 years old. Burden of Truth‘s first episode has the feeling of a John Grisham novel—slick lawyer slam-dunks on the locals—and that’s a good thing for viewers.

“He was definitely on the inspiration list,” Kreuk says during CBC’s press day for its winter lineup. “It was, tonally, what we were looking for.”

Often, first episodes can feel cluttered. Introducing a raft of characters, as well as major and minor storylines, in 22 or 44 minutes can be a confused mess. That doesn’t happen in Wednesday’s debut, a credit to executive producer Ilana Frank (Saving Hope, Rookie Blue), who admits Truth‘s storytelling style—one case contained in one season—was a challenge.

“I’ve never done a serialized show before,” Frank says. “All of my shows have been episodic. So the idea that you have time was new to me. There were certain things that we knew we had to hit in the first episode and that was it. We made a short list. We knew we needed a reason for her to go to Millwood, we had to have a reason for her to stay in Millwood. There were certain things that were a must and if they didn’t work there it was going to work somewhere else.”

One of the musts was to pit Joanna against Billy. After eviscerating him in court she reflects on what she’s done and has second thoughts on who she’s fighting for. A lot of that reflection is because of her past with Billy, who is beloved by Millwood’s citizens.

“It’s such an interesting dynamic to take two people who knew each other more than half their lives and through circumstance have them come smashing back together,” Mooney says. “Their freshest memory of each other is them as teenagers. They’re trying to reconcile who they are now, how they’ve changed, who they were then and what their relationship was then.” They start out on opposite sides of the legal case, Mooney explains, and the relationship develops through Season 1 with Joanna and Billy realizing what makes them different as lawyers is a benefit in the courtroom.

Every small town, on TV at least, has a secret and Millwood is no different. Kreuk teases the reason Joanna and her father—played by Alex Carter—left the area when she was a teen will be revealed; that has a huge impact on Joanna and who she is. It also runs parallel to the court case.

“There may be a moment when her and her father are at odds,” she says with a laugh. “She followed her father, she became her father, she did everything centred around him. Everything she learns in town is really new and shocking and jarring for her.”

Burden of Truth airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

 

 

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