Everything about Featured, eh?

Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Made by Destruction recycles trash into usable treasures

I’m a big fan of shows like How It’s Made and Food Factory, two programs that go behind-the-scenes to show how all manner of things are created, from everyday items we use to the food we put on our plate.

But while those programs spotlight the creation of things from base materials, Made by Destruction comes at it from a different angle. Created by Toronto’s Yap Films, the folks behind Close Up Kings, Dig WW2 and Battle Factory, Made by Destruction—airing back-to-back episodes beginning Monday on Discovery—takes cast-off items and turns them into something else via recycling.

Mondays debut begins with the lowly photocopier. As technology surges forth in that industry, old models are being broken down to create the most unlikely of objects: trumpets. Sims Recycling Solutions in California goes through the painstaking process of breaking down office-size copies into its component parts.

Using cool CGI and engaging narration, Destruction outlines how defunct machines are shredded to extract the copper hidden in the power supply and motor casings, netting about five pounds of the metal. It’s fascinating to watch how a heavy-duty conveyor belt, series of shredders, magnets and vibrating meshes extracts the minute coils of copper collected, loaded into shipping containers and transported to Olin Brass in Illinois, where the instruments are created. Once there, 70 percent recycled copper is mixed with zinc to make brass cast bars. The bars are transformed into thin sheets, wrapped and sent to S.E. Shires in Massachusetts, where the final product is made.

Other stories featured in the first half-hour show how companies in Denmark and the Netherlands team to transform potatoes into biodegradable egg cartons, and a U.S. company turns empty plastic milk jugs into park benches.

All three stories—and the series overall—show the truly interesting journey old items go through to create new things. I’ll be tuning in.

Made by Destruction airs back-to-back episodes on Mondays at 7 p.m. ET on Discovery.

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Featured

Celebrate Canada Day with Canada Vignettes

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A big thanks to loyal TV, Eh? reader and supporter Robert Carnell for bringing back a flood of memories on this Canada Day. With folks like The TV Junkies providing a fantastic celebration of what they love about Canadian TV, Carnell’s tweet to me regarding Canada Vignettes prompted me to share them this July 1.

I distinctly remember watching these psychedelic looking shorts from the National Film Board of Canada amid episodes of The Polka Dot Door on TVOntario. After referencing the NFB’s website, I learned Canada Vignettes came to fruition after the CBC children’s programming department requested short films to compliment their own programming. A $13 million grant given by the federal government to promote national unity led to the NFB earmarking $2 million for shorts celebrating famous Canadians, our history and a celebration of the country.

Over 80 filmmakers got involved and the films were broadcast not only on CBC and TVO, but CTV, Global and TVA as well.

Anyone who grew up in the 80s will remember at least one of these vignettes—The Log Driver’s Waltz has over 1 million YouTube views—which one is your favourite? Let me know in the comments section below … and Happy Canada Day!

The Log Driver’s Waltz

Faces

Delta Plane

Emergency Numbers

Flin Flon

Newfoundland

Crossing Guard

Land of the Maple Leaf

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Featured, X Company

Comments and queries for the week of July 1

X Company‘s creators discuss the heartbreaking finale and look towards Season 3

As an American former combat photojournalist, I usually avoid various combat series. But this one is just riveting. It’s so well acted and emotionally layered that I find myself comparing it to Anthony Doerr’s brilliant WW2 bestseller All the Light We Cannot See. Both that book and this series capture a certain time beautifully and reminds us of the terrible consequences of war, on boh sides. Thank you for making great television. P.S.: Please don’t kill off Alfred, Aurora or Neil. For various reasons, they all need a break! —Karen

Bad moves and bad weather on The Amazing Race Canada

Best thing on Canadian TV and look forward to it every year. Canadian TV does not have the benefit of the the big networks but does a brilliant job with this show, keep it up. —Jean

Jennifer Valentyne exits Breakfast Television Toronto

I said I wouldn’t, and haven’t watched BT since Jennifer was let go and I now watch CP24. I can’t believe they let go the one person who went beyond and above. She tried everything and always pretended that she was extremely interested. Kevin is so annoying as he constantly cuts people off; I seriously don’t know how his co-workers don’t tell him to shut up and let me finish a sentence. Dina calls in sick more often than not. Bring Jennifer back and I will come back, as will I am sure a lot of other viewers. —Jacq

 

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

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Between, Featured

Between stars dish on distrust in Season 2

Don’t expect Season 2 of Between to be full of sunshine and optimism. Pretty Lake is anything but, as winter is closing in, food is becoming scarce and folks on both sides of the fence have developed a pretty healthy distrust of one another.

It’s with that as the setting that City and Netflix’s dour, dystopian drama returns Thursday, with neither side any wiser about the disease killing anyone over the age of 21. And while townsfolk like Adam (Jesse Carere) and Wiley (Jennette McCurdy) want answers, the government is more than happy to let the town’s citizens die, sealing the disease off from the rest of the world. Episode 1, “Get Out of Town,” features two distinct groups doing just that—in very different ways—sending Between off in a tantalizing new direction.

We spoke to Carere and McCurdy during a press day in Toronto.

It was interesting, in Episode 1, how Adam and Wiley both had differing views on attempting to leave Pretty Lake and the situation in the farmhouse.
Jennette McCurdy: I think Wiley was just saying, ethically, ‘No, this isn’t right. We can’t just set up shop here and take advantage of the situation.’

There has been so much distrust on both sides in Between. The government isn’t be truthful with the people of Pretty Lake, or to everyone on the outside.
Jesse Carere: Yeah.

Episode 1 introduces viewers to a new character in Liam Cullen. What can you tell me about him? He claims to have a cure, but we’ve heard that before.
Jennette McCurdy: Liam comes at the end of the episode, and is played by Steven Grayhm—who we love and are great friends with—and he brings hope of a cure in a way that’s more stable and mature than we’ve seen before. And, I guess, it just seems more trustworthy, which makes some characters, Adam being one of them, doubt even more.

Jesse Carere: Like you said, people have talked about a cure before and it makes Adam even less trusting.

Of course, the instinct for everyone in Pretty Lake is to get out, but there are repercussions to that action. What can you say about Chuck’s decision regarding whether to escape from town or not?
Jesse Carere: I don’t want to get into exactly what happens, but there are repercussions.

Do things brighten up for these characters? It’s winter in Pretty Lake, food is running out … hope seems to be at its lowest. There isn’t a lot of smiling going on in Between. Do things brighten up by Episode 6?
Jesse Carere: I was going to say yes initially, but…

Jennette McCurdy: It’s pretty sombre. With messages like trust no one, every man for himself and finding your own solution, these themes don’t lend themselves to bright and sunny. Even some lines I have in the first scene are more lighthearted don’t come across that way because of the overall tone.

What can viewers expect from the Wiley-Adam relationship this season?
Jesse Carere: Tension. Miscommunication. Domestic discord.

Between airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on City.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Recap: Working It Out Together: Traditional Food in a Modern World

Episode five of Working It Out Together tackles the the barrier that many Canadians face every day: access to healthy fresh food. Host Waneek Horn-Miller believes that by limiting the  availability of nutritious foods, those from  lower socio-economic sectors are dependent on high sugar and high starch foods. She sees this practice as an act of aggression on Indigenous people, as a low-nutrient diet does not ensure the health and well-being of children in Canada. However, when communities work to restore traditional foods by means of cultivation or hunting, people not only improve their health but they decolonize their ways of thinking.

This edition examines corn, a food that historically accounted for 80% of the diet for Indigenous people. We learn about both mass produced corn and the traditional farming techniques associated with corn crops. Bonnie Skye, Mohawk from Six Nations of Grand River,  is a corn knowledge keeper, and is restoring traditional corn to her community’s daily diet. Teri Morrow, a dietician from Cayuga Nation discusses how the Residential School System acted to remove the people from their traditional foods. “When you remove that connection from the family and the land and food is just given to you, you’ve just broken any sort of relationship that you can have to either the earth, the land, the food, the water, anything. It doesn’t mean as much as it should.”

Donnie Martin, discusses the benefits he  has seen whilst hunting traditional local game to feed his family. The exposure of his young family to hunting and fishing normalizes the process for his children; educating them in the traditional ways.

Dr. Karl Hele  of Concordia University described the traditional farming village, with its systems of irrigation and crop rotation. The general stewardship of the land provided healthier food than that in a comparably sized village in Europe.  When settlers began to colonize the land these traditional ways were lost; settlers would destroy the food source using scorched earth tactics and effectively starved the people. Soon after the loss of farms and homes the people were moved to reserves, and prohibited by law from selling their produce to non-Indians. This in turn legally freed up land for lease for to settlers to  make “proper use” of. In short, food was used as a weapon to ensure the people remain poor in this new and evolving economy.

This episode, whilst an extremely important topic to cover, and perhaps the most accessible strategy for the average person to take up as an act of decolonization — and thus very important to learn from–was, in my opinion, not as engaging as it could have been. I would have liked to know more about the laws that aggressively criminalized food production that subversively introduced the structural racism we see so prevalently today.

 

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