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Featured, Masterchef Canada

MasterChef Canada raises the bar in Season 2

Michael Bonacini is one of those guys who walks out of a movie sequel and shrugs his shoulders, less than impressed. That didn’t happen at the end of filming Season 2 of MasterChef Canada.

“At the end of Season 2, we all felt that this was an incredible showcase of culinary talent and creativity,” he says. The “we” he’s referring to is, of course, his fellow MasterChef Canada judging partners in crime, Claudio Aprile and Alvin Leung, who return this Sunday night after the Super Bowl wraps up on CTV. (In a late play by the network, MasterChef was called up early to replace Spun Out, which was benched after Dave Foley’s co-star, J.P. Manoux, was charged with voyeurism earlier this week.)

“The three of us would be watching in amazement at what was happening in front of us,” Aprile recalls during filming late last year. “We would say to ourselves, ‘Are the viewers going to believe this?!’ The talent is just phenomenal.”

That talent is showcased early on in Sunday’s return which begins the task of cutting the Top 50 down to a more manageable Top 16 on the way to awarding one home chef the title and $100,000. Sabrina, a 26-year-old office manager from Montreal, skipped her sister’s destination wedding to offer the judges her mushroom ravioli; former CFL Grey Cup champion John grills up a thick steak in a bid to garner a white apron; and 28-year-old Kristal jetted from Gander, Nfld., to deliver her stuffed pork tenderloin to the trio. It doesn’t take long for a few notable finalists to gain attention either. Michael could easily be the villain of Season 2 thanks to his overconfident, cocky attitude while Tammy, a 41-year-old mother of six might be the darling because of her inspiring story of loss and rebirth.

A common theme through Sunday’s instalment are competitors literally putting their lives on hold to compete on MasterChef Canada. Auditioners who quit jobs, held off on advancing their schooling and tales of dreams unfulfilled not only inspired but freaked me out. Quitting a job on the off-chance you might win? That’s bold. And it won’t be easy. Bonacini promises this go-round of episodes boasts tougher, challenges both in-studio and off-site.

“The off-site challenges are huge, outside the degree of difficulty,” he hints. “There are new, creative, big challenges. We had to continue to raise the bar and we did that.”

After all, it is a sequel and it can’t be boring.

MasterChef Canada airs Sunday night immediately following the Super Bowl on CTV. The series resumes its regular Sunday timeslot at 7 p.m. ET beginning Feb. 8.

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19-2, Featured

Comments and queries for the week of Jan. 30

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This week’s comments and opinions centred around Kelly Lynn Ashton’s informative column that explains exactly what makes a Canadian television show, W Network’s announcement of Hockey Wives and love for Bravo’s 19-2.

Although it’s less scientific than this article and, admittedly, prone to inaccuracy, one thing I’ve noticed is the end credit “This is protected under the copyright laws…” blurb. If I’m curious about whether something is actually Canadian or if it’s simply filmed in Canada, I’ll check to see if it lists Canada at all (“i.e.: This production is protected under the copyright laws of The United States, Canada, and other countries”), and if it does it’s probably Canadian or a co-production. If it doesn’t mention Canada, that doesn’t prove it isn’t Canadian, but I’m not sure I’ve ever come across a blurb that did mention Canada that wasn’t for a Canadian production. Admittedly, you have to be the sort of person who freeze-frames at the end credits, or even skips to the end credits first, which, y’know, probably is little too obsessive for most people. :) —D.K.

Though I HATE HATE HATE reality shows like The Real Housewives, The Bachelor, Honey Boo Boo, etc., the sociologist and hockey fan in me wants to check Hockey Wives out. I, admittedly, really liked the short-lived CBC series MVP which was a fictional look at the lives of hockey wives.—Ally

I have watched 19-2 from the very beginning on Bravo. You get to see how the officers on the front line face each and every day. I also can understand why most people have not heard of this great show or a number of other shows on Bravo. When you look on the schedule for Bravo all you see most of time are reruns of Criminal Minds, Blue Bloods, Person of Interest, Missing, etc. Only if you are an avid TV watcher do you know when and where to look. Maybe if they had more shows people would watch.—Barbara

Got a question or comment about Canadian TV? greg@tv-eh.com or head to @tv_eh.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Dino Hunt Canada uncovers new species for TV

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Finding dinosaur bones while television cameras are rolling is difficult enough. But discovering a whole new species? Next to impossible. And yet that’s exactly what happened when it came to production of History’s latest homegrown project, Dino Hunt Canada.

“Production had started on the series and there was the possibility that they would find something new,” says Sarah Jane Flynn, senior director of original factual content at Shaw Media. “Then they came back to us and said, ‘You’re not going to believe this, but this really is a completely new species. We pretty much lost our minds.” The result is the star of Dino Hunt Canada and the newest showpiece in the Royal Ontario Museum’s dinosaur exhibit, a new species related to triceratops. (A video of Dr. David C. Evans unveiling the animal is below.)

The project, Flynn explains, was the result of former Cream Productions (Wild Things with Dominic Monaghan) co-founder Christopher Rowley asking ROM head palaeontologist Dr. David C. Evans what he was up to and being told his team was on the verge of discovering something big. Rowley and Evans told Shaw what they had planned and the network jumped on board.

Bowing Friday night, History’s four-parter not only tells the story of how Evans and his team discovered the as-yet-unnamed beast (an interactive website urges Canadians to come up with a name for it), but spotlights the palaeontologists who scour this country for bones. One of the biggest surprises—to me at least—was learning that dinosaur bones and other fossils aren’t just found in the badlands of Alberta. Digs in B.C. and the Bay of Fundy are documented in Dino Hunt Canada in what Evans calls a Golden Age for the industry.

Narrated by Dan Aykroyd, the first episode serves to introduce several of the key players in the show, including Evans and his team in Alberta as they began to unearth their unique beast. Palaeontology butted up against television production with Evans’ group faced with the daunting task of putting the skeleton together in months rather than years in order to meet Shaw’s broadcast deadline.

“We knew we had something special because the first thing we uncovered were the pieces of the neck shield, which is the most characteristic part of the horned dinosaur,” Evans explains. The biggest challenge for Evans’ squad was to uncover remainder of bones locked under a hillside; a summer of daily jackhammering and the animal was free of its earthly bonds.

“By then we were able to tell History, ‘We’ve found something new here,'” he says with a smile. “‘If you want to be here when we uncover this new dinosaur, come on out.'”

See what they uncovered starting tonight.

Dino Hunt Canada airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on History.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Preview: You Gotta Eat Here continues cross-Canada noshfest

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Oh to be John Catucci. I dream of it sometimes. The opportunity to travel across Canada—with the occasional stop in the U.S.—sampling  things roasted, broiled, barbecued, grilled and steamed? It’s worth what it would do to my waistline.

Catucci is back for Season 4 of Food Network’s You Gotta Eat Here! on Friday night with the same formula that’s worked for the past three. In it, the affable, comedian, writer and actor drops by a trio of eateries—Pizzeria Via Mercante in Toronto’s Kensington Market neighbourhood, Moonshine Barbecue in Montreal and The Cheshire Cat in Carp, Ont., outside of Ottawa—to munch and mingle with the staff and customers.

I wiped away slobber as Catucci and Romolo Salvati worked their way through pizza and pasta at Pizzeria Via Mercante, exclaimed at the size of the smoked ribs and “totini” (tater tots smothered in pulled pork, gravy and cheese) at Moonshine Barbecue and stared in wonder at the pub fare sampled at The Cheshire Cat.

A die-hard fan of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, I at first dismissed YGEH as a cheap Canadian rip-off of what Guy Fieri’s been doing for years. How wrong I was. Yes, Catucci is travelling to restaurants, talking to people and eating plates of food, but his sense of humour, shameless mugging for the camera and open-eyed wonder at the foods placed in front of him makes this project unique. And it’s proved to be quite the triptych of dining moments for me. Thanks to YGEH, I’ve added several fantastic places to chow down to my contacts list and I’m look forward to adding a bunch more thanks to this newest season of 26 episodes.

You Gotta Eat Here! airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Food Network.

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Featured, Industry News

Talk TV – Building and Repairing Bridges

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If you’re keeping score, we now have had four decisions from the Talk TV hearing. The first one was issued November 6, 2014 and prohibited 30 day notice periods for cancelling television, telephone and internet services. Not a big decision but one that gave hints that consumer choice was going to continue to be a theme of Talk TV. Now we have three more small but significant decisions, announced January 29, 2015  by the Chair of the CRTC, Jean-Pierre Blais, in London, Ontario.

The first decision today was a warning that if broadcasters shut down their over the air (“OTA”) transmitters, they would lose the regulatory privileges that were originally granted with the licensing of their OTA services. The two big privileges that no broadcaster is going to want to lose is mandatory carriage on basic and simultaneous substitution (‘simsub’). Both of these two privileges are fundamental to the conventional broadcasters’ business model.

During TalkTV broadcasters expressed a desire to get rid of their OTA transmitters as a way to reduce costs. The CRTC has quoted stats from Numeris that 9.1% of Canadians access broadcasting over the air. That’s actually higher than I thought and is a significant portion of the population. They were a particularly vocal portion of the population during the online consultation part of TalkTV. Today’s decision goes further than just supporting that population though. At times in his speech Blais sounded like a commercial for OTA antennas, advocating it as a high quality, low cost solution to those nasty BDUs:

“The next few years could yield renewed interest for OTA broadcasting, especially in urban areas where eye-popping image quality, channel selection and, of course, the absence of cost, could convince more consumers that they need not be enslaved to cable and satellite service providers if they want to enjoy high-quality television programming.” – Jean-Pierre Blais

The second decision is the one getting the headlines – no more Superbowl simsub from 2017 on. Consumers complained bitterly about missing out on the Superbowl ads and it is year after year the biggest source of complaints to the CRTC. Bell Media has bought the rights to broadcast the Superbowl but we don’t know for how many years. Either way, it will have a significant financial impact on this one broadcast group. The decision also refers to enforcement to improve simsub performance – no more sleeping at the switch and having the feed cut off improperly.

Frankly, I’m surprised at the Superbowl decision. Sure, the CRTC is fed up with the cranky complaints and having to explain themselves every year but does it justify the lost revenue?

Finally, the third decision may seem the most esoteric but probably is the most important for the future. Bell and Vidéotron were directed to stop excluding their mobile broadcasting services from their customers’ monthly data caps. They were basically promoting their own services by giving them a fast lane. The CRTC has been a leader in the world in creating rules and practices for Net Neutrality and they continue to with this decision. Vertically integrated media businesses will not be allowed to favour their own services.

Blais has promised the rest of the decisions in the coming weeks and months. In his speech he compared the decisions to repairing old bridges while building new ones. Repeatedly. According to the infographic that was published with the decision, we’re only ¼ of the way there so lots more construction analogies to come.  Ultimately, we will have to look at these decisions as a whole, see the whole bridge, before we understand the real impact. And will we like what we see when we get to the other side? That’s a question for another day.

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