I like my horror/scary projects to be atmospheric. A jump scare is OK, but I prefer a general feeling of unease coupled with a tinge of a slow burn. It’s why I love Something Undone.
Debuting Friday on CBC Gem, Something Undone—created by and starring Madison Walsh and Michael Musi—manages what I thought was unthinkable: a genuinely spooky piece of work encapsulated in a six-episode web series.
And, it was written, produced and filmed during the pandemic. Created through funding from CBC’s Creative Relief Fund, which provided $2 million in development and production funding to a diverse range of original Canadian projects in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the CBC’s hook was projects had to be produced under strict COVID-19 guidelines.
“Mike and I started brainstorming,” says Walsh during a recent call. “We thought, ‘What can you maintain the quality and enjoyment of with restrictions on visuals? If we can’t have that many actors, what can we do? If we could only have one location, what could we do?’ That’s when we started to think about sound.” The result is Something Undone.
In the first episode we meet Jo (Walsh), a foley artist and her partner, Farid (Musi), who are the successful hosts of a Canadian true crime podcast. After her mother passes away Jo returns to her small Ontario town to sort through her mother’s things while continuing her foley work on the podcast. With Farid in Newfoundland and only available over the phone, a sense of desolation, loneliness, and unease begins to permeate Jo’s life. A disturbing sound Farid hears in one of Jo’s tracks leads her on a creepy, spooky path. Did the house, or something in it, cause her mother’s death?
“I was doing research about sound and learned that we, as human beings, perceive sound so realistically that we can make them up and hear them almost as if they were actually there,” Musi says. “I think that’s why watching a horror movie in our home is such an amazing experience. It doesn’t end when the movie ends. It stays with us.”
With strict safety guidelines in place early in 2020, Walsh and Musi headed off to write Something Undone in a spot many would consider a scary setting: a cottage in the middle of nowhere with no heat. There, they wrote for 10 days, fleshing out what they had established in the pilot into one big chunk and then found ways to break it up into six episodes with a cliffhanger for each.
And while you can certainly watch Something Undone on your TV via the CBC Gem app—the colour palette, visuals and set decoration are wonderful—watching it with headphones on my laptop revealed a whole other level to the horror. Every little creak and clatter can be heard.
“We spoke to our sound designer and he spent extra time really juicing the sound for direction and to make that audio experience with your headset,” Walsh says. “Because it is sound-based, yeah, go for your headphones.”
Jen and Mo have said goodbye. After three seasons on Omni, Second Jen will not be back for a fourth.
“It is bittersweet for us to announce that this has been the last season of Second Jen,” co-creators, co-executive producers and stars Amanda Joy and Samantha Wan, and showrunner Carly Heffernan posted on social media following the show’s Sunday season finale. “Thank you to everyone who has supported us. Thank you for the love and laughter over the years.”
“We leave Jen and Mo in a place that feels good; where they’ve grown, and learned, and come into their own,” the post continued. “We are so happy to have shared their journey with all of you. In many ways, their story has echoed our own.”
Over the course of three seasons, Second Jen centred on best friends Jen (Wan) and Mo (Joy) who banded together to tackle life’s ups-and-downs in Toronto.
My formative years were spent in the 1980s. Though I didn’t know it at the time, the 80s celebrated consumerism and excess. I was, however, aware of the media’s portrayal of Communism—and the Soviet Union, specifically—during that decade through movies like Rocky IV, Red Dawn and then-WWF wrestlers Nikolai Volkoff and Boris Zhukov. And I was aware of how it all came to a head in 1989 when the Berlin Wall tumbled, signifying the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe.
That time, and the tumult that came with it, is explored in the new web series The Communist’s Daughter. Available now on CBC Gem, the eight first-season episodes are the creation of head writer and director Leah Cameron (Coroner), who has first-hand knowledge of the subject matter.
The Communist’s Daughter is loosely based on Cameron’s childhood: her father was a Communist during the 1980s. As a result, the family car was a Lada, Soviet Life magazine was delivered to the door, and family vacations were to Cuba to support the economy. In the first episode, viewers are introduced to Dunyasha McDougald (Sofia Banzhaf), a 15-year-old living in Toronto in 1989. Happily upholding the beliefs of her father Ian (Aaron Poole) and mother Carol (Jessica Holmes), Dunyasha finds her support of Communism challenged by her first day at high school when she meets Jasmine (Nadine Bhabha) and Marc (Kolton Stewart). (Look for Chris Locke, George Stroumboulopoulos and Neema Nazeri in funny supporting roles.)
It’s been a long road for The Communist’s Daughter. I first spoke to Cameron back in 2018, when she applied to the Independent Production Fund to produce the series. Now, with the debut close at hand, how did she tackle writing the web series?
“By the time I got to shooting the [IPF] teaser, I had a sense of, tonally, what I wanted the show to feel like in terms of comedy and casting,” Cameron says. “I had originally conceived of it as a half-hour comedy, so it was more a process of refining some of the characters and paring things down.” The first TV episode was broken down and served as Episodes 1 and 2 of the web series and a rough season outline followed. Cameron knew she wanted The Communist’s Daughter to be serialized and take place over time, using the frame of Ian running for a local election and Dunyasha beginning her school year in September and the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989.
“It’s a time when the family’s values couldn’t be more out of sync with what’s going on,” she says. “The Reagan 80s are a super-consumerist time, a super-conservative time and a time when I, growing up, said that my dad was a Communist and everybody thought that meant he was an evil person.”
Executive producer Lauren Corber—her LoCo Motion Pictures are behind Detention Adventure and How to Buy a Baby—is always looking for stories that speak to her, an audience for a project and if a creator is bringing something new to the table. She found all three in The Communist’s Daughter.
“Leah and [producer] Natalie Novak did an excellent job with their proof of concept video,” Corber says. “I had worked with Natalie before and was excited to work with her again. Leah came to the project with such a passion for the story. It was just undeniable that she would bring something special to the production.”
In what is becoming a sad several weeks for Canadian TV, it has been announced that Season 4 of CBC’s legal drama Burden of Truth will be its last.
“After four incredible seasons, we’re bringing our Burden of Truth story to its conclusion in tonight’s series finale,” a statement read on the show’s official Facebook page. “We are so proud of the stories we’ve been able to tell each season, especially those related to social justice. We’re also tremendously appreciative of the support we’ve received from our fans worldwide, and are particularly grateful to the communities in Winnipeg and Selkirk, Manitoba, for being so welcoming to our crew.”
“We’re incredibly proud of Burden of Truth and are honoured that the show resonated with so many viewers worldwide,” executive producers Ilana Frank, ICF Films, Linda Pope, and Kyle Irving, Eagle Vision said in a statement. “When we began this season, we knew our story was coming to its natural end with a meaningful conclusion for Joanna, Billy, and the entire cast of characters. We’re thankful to the communities in Winnipeg and Selkirk, Manitoba, where we filmed our show, and our tremendous cast, helmed by Kristin Kreuk and Peter Mooney, for bringing ground-breaking stories to life. We also appreciate the steadfast support of our production partners at eOne, as well as our broadcasters CBC and The CW, on four tremendous seasons of Burden of Truth.â€
Created by Brad Simpson, Burden of Truth stars Kristin Kreuk as Joanna Chang, Peter Mooney (Rookie Blue, Saving Hope) as Billy Crawford, Star Slade (Frontier, Emerald Code) as law student Luna Spence, Meegwun Fairbrother (Mohawk Girls, Hemlock Grove) as Police Chief Owen Beckbie, and Anwen O’Driscoll (Emerald Code, Flint) as new Millwood police recruit, Officer Taylor Matheson.
The legal drama follows Joanna Chang, a ruthless, big-city lawyer who returns to her small hometown in Millwood for a case that will change her life forever.
In the fourth season, a mining company reopened a dormant mine outside Millwood. Joanna and Billy, lawyers and new parents, stepped in to protect a local woman’s home from certain destruction. When the mine swiftly retaliates, Joanna is forced to confront a long-buried secret from her past and scramble to protect the future of her career and her family. As both sides prepare for war with the fate of Millwood at stake, Joanna and Billy must juggle their life with a newborn with waging a legal battle against a corporate titan. When they come across evidence the mine isn’t what it claims to be, Joanna seizes an opportunity to launch an unexpected legal battle that will bring the company to its knees.
Burden of Truth follows Frankie Drake Mysteries and Kim’s Convenience as CBC series ending this broadcast season.
[Spoiler alert! Do not continue reading until you have watched the Season 14 finale, “Everything is Broken, Part 2.”]
Things are mended for others, but the overriding theme of Monday’s Season 14 finale of Murdoch Mysteries lived up to its name. Or perhaps the episode’s alternate title could have been, “Everything is Up in the Air.” Not as catchy, but certainly apt. By the episode’s end, there was closure for some (Henry and Ruth welcomed a daughter, with a little help from Margaret), but that was it. If Season 15 is greenlit, there will be much to wrap up, from Watts and Jack’s relationship to Violet’s actions against Arthur, Bobby’s Brackenreid’s prison escape, and Effie’s kidnapping at the hands of Dorothy AND Amelia.
And, of course, we can’t forget William and Julia, the former who has left for Montreal—Harry in tow—to find Anna, leaving the latter shattered in an empty house.
In our final interview of Season 14, we spoke to showrunner Peter Mitchell about what has happened and what’s to come.
Congratulations! Season 14, despite the pandemic, has been a great mix of comedy and tragedy. Peter Mitchell: Thanks. Sometimes as the expense of the fans. [Laughs.]
Since you brought it up… when you are writing, do you write with the fans in mind or are you writing to entertain yourselves? PM: We are aware of certain episodes that are going to get an extra fan reaction, but we certainly don’t censor ourselves because the people who aren’t fans of humour are going to hate this one. We may actually ladle the humour on a little harder! [Laughs.] There is an awareness of what the fans are thinking and if some fan is actually thinking exactly what we were going to do, we change it if we have time. We still write for that four-quadrant group of fans who want the mystery, the ones who want the romance, the ones who want science and the ones who want Victoriana … or Edwardiana now.
You have been very active on Facebook lately leading conversation and playfully prodding the fans. You must love that. PM: It’s fun and it’s very rewarding for all of the writers to get their work noticed. I have fun with the fans and I think the appreciate knowing we know they’re out there.
You added two new writers to the room this year in Caleigh Bacchus and Christina Ray. They have been great additions. Was it always your intention to add new writers? PM: Yes, just to mix it up a bit. Caleigh is quite new to the game and brought a lot of energy and enthusiasm and was the story coordinator, so had to handle all of that stuff. She gained confidence and became a voice in the room. Paul [Aitken] and I had a brief experience with Christina Ray a long time ago. We were working on a proposal for an Alien Nation-type show with vampires. We had gotten to know her during that process and I had always wanted the chance to work with her because she is quite good at plot, and plot is something we need in Murdoch. It was difficult because we weren’t in a room, really. For a very short period of time, we were in a physical space and I’m not even sure Caleigh was part of that.
What’s the secret to your writing room success? How are you all able to continue writing compelling storylines? PM: For the last few years, we’ve ended the season with a bunch of questions. And when you come out of the gate [on a new season] I already have an advantage in that I don’t have to think of anything new, I just have to figure out how to answer these questions that I raised last year. That kind of gets your story brain going. With Murdoch, the stories just come.
At what point did you know Anna Fulford would be part of the season finale? PM: It was probably late-ish in the season. In the early part of the season, we were really concentrating on the reality of working in the COVID world and trying to tell stories that could be told within it. We really didn’t know how it would look [with social distancing] and then I saw the first few cuts and realized it really didn’t look any different. The closest we came to feeling uneasy was during [“Murdoch Checks In”] because there were more [COVID-19] cases going on and there was the reality of filming in August with a cloth mask on. But once we got through that and knew we were going to be fine, we started to figure out [the season finale].
I always knew, from the minute I saw Sarah Swire appear on the show [as Amelia Ernst] that she was going to be in the finale. She was on Frankie, and she was just f—ing great. I knew that we would have to circle back around on Bobby, and the twisted little relationship between Violet and Arthur we were pretty sure on very early. The Murdoch storyline may have come last. Once we realized we were going to do that, there was no way the physical Anna [Lisa Faulkner] would be in Canada, so we went with the memory of Anna. And, as you can tell, that story is far from resolved.
There are many storylines left to be wrapped up. PM: And, moving forward, the resolutions will be unexpected.
You joked on Facebook that if George finds a wife and gets married, that will be the end of the show. Do you really feel that way? I want him to be happy. PM: And, I think at some point he will be. But, you have to keep a certain amount of juice. Brackenreid and Margaret are married and we’re never going to split them up. Murdoch and Ogden are married … what do you do with a married George? What do you do with happy characters? They’re basically the death of a show. Nobody in the most feelgood show, Ted Lasso, was happy. Ted moved to England because he was getting a divorce and he still loved his wife. The woman who hired Ted was still smarting from an affair. No one was happy, but it was still a happy show. We need dilemma. The audience needs dilemma.
Having Effie trapped in a tree was genuinely scary. PM: Somehow, I got it in my head that I wanted a fairytale ending. Here we have the evil twin sisters and we don’t know or understand either of them. I had this image of Effie stuck in a hollowed-out tree, which felt like a very fairytale type of thing. It wasn’t until very late in the game that I decided there would be two [sisters]. I didn’t want to throw to someone with multiple personalities. And, you could argue that Dorothy is just trying to do right by her sister. I think that Dorothy is the truly evil one. Amelia just wants to marry George because she loves him and Dorothy is trying to facilitate that.
If you are renewed for a 15th season, do you address all of the storylines within the first few episodes? PM: We address a few of the continuing stories in Episodes 1 and 2, but not all of them. When we do get back to those stories, we will learn that things have progressed. We’ll learn that Jack is married but that Jack and Watts are still seeing each other. I want to have an ongoing murder case in the first episode, which will be Watts’ case because Murdoch is still trying to find answers. Brackenreid will be trying to figure out what happened to Bobby. Crabtree’s line is … well, I’m not even going to tell you. [Laughs.] For mystery fans, there will be a legitimate mystery. And Violet is left in an interesting situation as well.
What did you think of the Season 14 finale? Let me know in the comments below.
