Everything about Featured, eh?

Majumder Manor’s rocky road to success

Shaun Majumder is, literally, stuck between a rock and a hard place. Among the hardest rock in the world, actually. The actor, writer and standup comedian had a dream for his hometown, the village of Burlington on Newfoundland’s west coast: draw tourism to the area in an effort to improve the local economy.

The plight of Majumder, wife Shelby Fenner and best friend/architect/producer Peter Blackie was well-documented in the first season of Majumder Manor, as the hometown boy made good attempted to get the locals excited about their ambitious plan to construct a five-star eco-friendly lodge that would draw people from around the world.

Back for Season 2–airing Mondays on W Network–the trio have changed things up, but their challenge is no less daunting. Majumder purchased another chunk of land right on the waterfront (the first property was right next to a busy road), affording gorgeous views of the small bay and the good chance of seeing an iceberg or two float by. The official title to Season 2 is The Rocky Road to Majumder Manor, and it’s well-suited. Majumder and Fenner were married in Los Angeles in their kitchen, but decided to re-do their vows in Burlington surrounded by friends and family on their new tract of land. The big problem? Nowhere for anyone to stay. With the celebration looming, deadlines to break ground on the new plan–several square pod living areas–were bumped up, putting pressure on everyone to get rolling.

Fenner spent much of Season 1 wondering what the heck she had gotten herself into, but is more confident in this iteration of the project.

“It started off as Shaun saying, ‘I want to make an off-the-grid house and do a show about it,'” she explains. “And then it turned into this much bigger project. My anxiety level went as far as it could go, but I’ve come out the other side realizing that things do work out. I have more trust and know exactly what we’re involved in.”

As with any building project, challenges stack up. A Come Home reunion for former Burlington townsfolk meant Shaun had to quickly construct tents on wooden bases for visitors to stay in. Those proved to be tough to make on ground wobbly as a St. John’s bar patron hopped up on Screech. Majumder’s purchase of an old store led to the discovery of a boat partially crashed through the wooden floor and half a day was spent pulling it out. Fenner wanted to cut costs on booze by making her own beer. And weather was a constant concern; Newfoundland’s placement in the Atlantic means sun can turn to rain–or snow–within minutes, something the team ran into during construction.

“We wanted to be done the foundation on the first pod last summer,” the 22 Minutes star says. “We couldn’t because the winter hit early. Now the pressure is on to get the pod built for the wedding.”

But perhaps the biggest test on Majumder’s wallet, and patience, is the very ground he so passionately wants to share with the rest of the world. Burlington sits on a section of rock that is among the hardest in the world, meaning sinking reinforcing bar into it to hold the pods in place is a long, arduous task in a such a rugged setting.

“All of Newfoundland and Labrador are rock,” Blackie says. “Burlington is on rock known as Burlington granite and it just happens to be the hardest rock on the island. And the site we’re on isn’t just rocks, it IS rock.”  That meant drilling, sinking rebar, epoxying those in place and then pouring concrete around them. Oh, and did they mention there’s no road to truck the concrete in? Instead, the heavy material is slogged in on foot in buckets.

“We have a team of locals, plus me and Pete, sweating our balls off walking through a muddy, snowy hard trail to bring buckets of it to the site,” Majumder describes. “We were lugging pails of heavy concrete through these woods.”

Majumder Manor airs Mondays at 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. ET on W Network.

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Welcome to the new TV, eh?

What’s new? Well, we’re back after a six-ish month hiatus that was meant to be a permanent cancellation, for one thing.

And we’re a “we” for another.

I’ll still do what I used to do – post the evening’s listings for new episodes, link to articles about Canadian TV from elsewhere on the web, and write the occasional interview or rant … I mean, op-ed.

But you’ll notice a big difference in the amount of original, professional content on the site. I’ve taken on a partner, Greg David, formerly of TV Guide Canada, and we recruited a team of contributors who will help us do reviews, interviews, features, and podcasts. Check out their bios.

We’ve been able to make this happen because of the incredible, unbelievable, generous support from you, our readers.

We launched a little Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to raise $1,500 so Greg and I could get the site up and running until we could find stable funding, and it exploded. In less than a week we exceeded our goal by over 1000%. We’re now stretching to $20,000 while seeking ongoing advertising and sponsorship.

The dream is to have a financially sustainable site that supports professional journalism about Canadian television. With your help we’re already on our way.

If you can contribute, or spread the word, the Indiegogo campaign is live until August 24.

If you want to talk to us about advertising or sponsorship, please get in touch.

And if you want to come to a place where Canadian television is worthy of serious discussion, welcome to the new TV, eh? We’re thrilled to be back.

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Dr. Pascal Lee or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the asteroid

Pascal & Pong on ATV
Dr. Pascal Lee and Ping Pong

Mission Asteroid airs Thursday, December 5 on CBC’s Doc Zone

Q: Why did dinosaurs become extinct?
A: Because they didn’t have a space program.

Dr. Pascal Lee shared that joke while promoting Mission Asteroid, the CBC documentary about how we’re all going to die a fiery death in a mass extinction event.

I may be misrepresenting slightly. In the words of director Jeff Thrasher: “Mission Asteroid follows asteroid hunters and scientists who know just how vulnerable we are to a strike and are working to prevent it from happening. This documentary introduces viewers to astronauts and researchers as they travel from the lab to the field, testing technologies and techniques that will help make manned missions to asteroids a reality.”

In any case, Lee tells me my plan to build a bunker won’t help in the event of a major asteroid strike so I will hope, as he does, that the documentary opens some eyes to why space exploration isn’t frivolous. Not only does it connect us to our place in the cosmos, it could literally save humanity. It’s a particularly timely message given NASA’s shrinking budget and questions about the future of government-funded space exploration.

The fireball over Chelyabinsk, Russia this year definitely opened some eyes and some YouTube channels, and that was a relatively small asteroid that burned up in the atmosphere. If one were to land in the middle of a city, it could be both small enough to avoid detection and large enough to cause massive destruction, “forget about the gigantic one that would cause the end of civilization,” Lee added. “The likelihood is small but the devastation is monumental.”

“Historically we have not witnessed an impact of devastating proportions while humans were around. But if you take the geological perspective, all of a sudden it’s common.”

Jeff with Pascal onsite
Pascal Lee with director Jeff Thrasher

In case I’m making Lee sound like a less-comforting Nostradamus, he was as humorous and charming as someone can be while predicting our possible demise, and is seen throughout the documentary with his canine sidekick Ping Pong.

If a dog’s loyalty doesn’t convince you of his trustworthiness, his credentials are more than sound: he’s a senior planetary scientist at the SETI Institute and the chairman of the Mars Institute. For almost two decades he has been serving as director of the NASA Haughton-Mars Project, an international field research project at the Haughton impact crater site on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic, where the documentary team captured some amazing footage.

Lee says Mission Asteroid is the first documentary he knows of that looks at what is being done to stop or mitigate the threat of asteroids, as well as plans to explore and even land on them, and it includes world-renowned experts, including the University of Calgary’s Alan Hildebrand.

One of Lee’s areas of expertise is the human exploration of Mars, which he proposes should begin with the exploration of Mars’ asteroid-like moons Phobos and Deimos, so his interest in asteroids is multifaceted. (He’s also multitalented – besides drawing and painting, he recently released the children’s book Mission: Mars, causing colleagues to joke he’s a “man on a mission,” though the similarity in titles is pure coincidence.)

His interest in exploring Mars comes from its connection to Earth — how it evolved in a way that’s similar to our home planet, the possibility of life, and the possibility of sending life there. He says we’re on the first credible path now, predicting humans will reach orbit by the 2030s before landing on the surface. Exploring asteroids is one milestone toward that goal … so maybe I should plan to buy a ticket to Mars Colony as my asteroid collision avoidance plan instead of that bunker. As Lee puts it, “You don’t want all your eggs in the same basket,” planetarily speaking.

“We’re too caught up in our day-to-day lives sometimes to realize we are all of us on this ball hurtling through space,” he says. “Imagine something coming at us from the other direction. The sun is travelling at mind-boggling speeds through the galaxy. Everything is in motion.”

“We can bury ourselves in our economic worries, in our social worries, but we are also passengers on this train wreck that’s about to happen. I hope this documentary makes people look out the window, and makes people who are directing the space program — who are steering the ship — to look ahead and see what’s coming.”

Dr. Pascal Lee: spreader of sunshine. Catch him in Mission Asteroid Thursday on CBC’s Doc Zone.

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Meet The Sloths (and other deadly sins)

sloths

Have you met the sloths?

If your immediate response was anything other than “OMG, I love the sloths, they are so cute, squeeeeeeeee!” you clearly haven’t met these unbelievably mellow creatures, with their Mona Lisa smiles and zen-like demeanour. They are the animal equivalent of Buddha, or possibly Cheech and Chong.

Where can you hang with the sloths? At the Sloth Sanctuary in Costa Rica, of course. This one-of-a-kind facility rescues, rehabilitates and houses countless sloths. But if Costa Rica is a bit too far, you can always tune into tonight’s season premiere of Meet The Sloths on Animal Planet.

There is a great deal to learn about these enigmatic creatures, but this quick primer should get you caught up on your sloth studies.

What you need to know:

  1. The most interesting thing about sloths is their poop
  2. You can gauge a sloth’s health by its poop
  3. Sloths only poop once a week
  4. Pooping is virtually the only time they descend to the ground
  5. Sloths don’t just descend and poop, they do a “poop dance”
  6. Seriously, the sanctuary’s staff is so obsessed with sloth poop that you’d think it was laced with 24k gold

Don’t believe me? Watch this clip:

Defecation aside, the new season also delves into the romances and clandestine affairs of the sanctuary’s furry inhabitants. In episode 2 we meet “Brad Pitt,” an unusually handsome wild sloth who is helpless to resist the siren call of the females. By siren call I mean a high pitched shriek that could possibly shatter glass. Poor Brad scales concrete walls in dogged pursuit of the ladies, and unfortunately adds lust to his other obvious deadly sin.

You know … sloth … deadly sin … just watch the movie Seven and you’ll get it.

Animal Planet’s Meet The Sloths premieres today, Saturday, November 23 at 8 p.m. ET/9 p.m. PT

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Industry Update – Adapting Bitten: From Book to Television

citf-102

Bitten was the focus of a panel discussion at the 2013 Canadian International Television Festival, at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. I had the opportunity to ask executive producers Daegan Fryklind and J.B. Sugar about the show. The Bitten panel included castmembers Greg Bryk, Joel Keller, Michael Xavier, Paulino Nunes, and Steve Lund, and was hosted by InnerSPACE‘s Ajay Fry and Morgan Hoffman.

Cameron Archer: This one would be for Daegan and J.B. Sugar. How closely did you work with Kelley Armstrong in adapting the [Women of the Otherworld] book series to this show?

J.B. Sugar: Kelley was involved in the early stages a lot more heavily, when Daegan delivered her first couple drafts of the first and second episode scripts, as well as the show bible. I think the best news for us, as creatives adapting her work, was to have her kind of give us her blessing and say “Daegan really got the world, and the voices, and the characters”…I  think that was an amazing blessing to get, and let us move forward with confidence. (whispers to Daegan Fryklind) Expand.

Daegan Fryklind: And then Kelley did come to set, also, and met the writing team, and took a tour of Stonehaven, and our standing sets, and loved it. As J.B. said, to get her stamp of approval was really an honour. She was extremely busy during our production season with her newest novel, and touring a lot, so…

Steve Lund: (attempts a menacing tone) Omens. Check it out.

Fryklind: …but would throw us a lot of good feedback on Twitter, which was great.

Sugar: Random House Canada’s about to re-release Bitten in a new edition, and there’s a nice little burst on the cover, giving some props out to the show, saying “coming to Space”.

Morgan Hoffman (InnerSPACE): Cool!…[Women of the Otherworld is] such a beloved book series, and there’s numerous books within it. What would you say were the biggest challenges in adapting [the series] to a TV show?

Sugar: I’m sure Daegan has the right answer…Bitten the first season of the show follows closely to the plotline of Bitten the novel. The Otherworld series kind of jumps in time, and goes into backstory. I think the challenge was to take this wealth of mythology, and backstory, and character that needed to be crafted into a narrative that would work for the medium of TV. That’s something that Daegan and our writing team just did so brilliantly, so I’ll let her expand on that.

Fryklind: The novel itself also stays very closely to Elena [Michaels]’ P.O.V. – that’s internal monologue. In adapting the novel to a series, I had to really blow out character arcs for (refers to male cast attending CITF panel) each of these fellows, so that they had their own storylines, and so that when we were coming away from Elena to other storylines, we had B-plots and C-plots. We sorta blow out the world, blow out their valley, and create characters there, and Toronto, and Philip [Madden]’s world, and his family, and just give everyone their own throughline, and their own want and need throughout the first season.

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