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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

The Real Housewives of Toronto oozes wealth and drama on Slice

You know what you’re going to get from The Real Housewives franchise. Cameras follow a gaggle of ladies as they go about their highfalutin lives, juggling cocktail parties and galas, strutting red carpets and posing for pictures, hanging out and complaining about how simply awful their lives are.

So, is The Real Housewives of Toronto—bowing Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Slice—like all the others? Yup, and that’s just fine if you enjoy it. If that’s not your cup of expensive, shipped directly from the source, organically-grown tea, then you should skip the program altogether.

“When you have money and a fabulous life, lots of people want to be your ‘friend,'” fashionista Kara Alloway warns during the opening tease. (Thankfully, I have never had that problem.)

Set against a poppy, bass-driven soundtrack we meet Roxy Earle, who is equally unapologetic about her body as she is her personality. And why shouldn’t she be? Confident and opinionated, she’s the type of woman who isn’t afraid to speak her mind, and I love her for it. (If only she wouldn’t refer to herself in the third person.) Roxy’s husband is older than her, her dog has a private chef and is groomed every other week, and she spends weekends in Turks and Caicos.

Then it’s on to Ann Kaplan Mulholland, who lives in tony Forest Hill and started a finance company when she was a single mother. Now it’s one of the biggest in Canada. Ann is a sharp contrast to Roxy; older, married to plastic surgeon Stephen Mulholland, and an avid collector of diamonds.

I won’t introduce the other ladies in the cast—I’ll let viewers enjoy the entrances and backstories of Kara Alloway, Grego Minot, Joan Kelley Walker and Jana Webb themselves—but suffice it to say slow-motion walking, clothes shopping (in Kara’s case, with Jesus as her wingman), smoothies, workouts and lunches are the most stressful events faced by the six in Episode 1.

The Real Housewives of Toronto certainly isn’t Cardinal or Bellevue and it’s not supposed to be. A series like this is meant to be ogled, analyzed and enjoyed like the entertaining confection it is. So go ahead and do it.

The Real Housewives of Toronto airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Slice.

Image courtesy of Corus.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Jade Fever searches for the million-dollar boulder in Season 3

What keeps viewers coming back to Jade Fever? Last year’s Season 2 debut reached a total of six million viewers who tuned in to see whether or not Claudia and Robin Bunce and their team would find the ever-elusive jade in Canada’s north. Why? I know why I check it out: not only to see if they’re successful but the challenges they face along the way.

Returning for Season 3 with back-to-back episodes on Tuesday at 10 and 10:30 p.m. ET/7 and 7:30 p.m. PT on Discovery, the Bunces are in it up to their hips in challenges. The episode title, “Hard Climb,” is self-explanatory, as Claudia practices driving a 65-ton rock truck in preparation for the annual 100-plus kilometre drive east from Jade City, B.C., to Wolverine, their jade mine. Also, new this season? A partner in Peter Niu, a miner who wants the Bunces to seek out jade on Bullion Creek—his gold claim—and share the profits.

No drive into camp is without issues and this season is no different. New equipment, overheating and a super-steep hill plague the mission. By the end of Episode 1, they’ve only made it halfway. Thankfully, by the end of the second episode, “Breakdowns and Meltdowns,” everyone arrives at Wolverine. (As trying as the trail was, I’m sure hearing Claudia’s complaints was worse.)

Now the real, money-making work begins.

Jade Fever airs Tuesdays and 10 and 10:30 p.m. ET on Discovery.

Images courtesy of Bell Media.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Timber Kings returns for heavenly Season 4 on HGTV Canada

If money was no object, I’d get the men and women of Pioneer Log Homes to build me a house. There’s something about the warm, inviting and rustic homes they create that gets me jazzed. They’re also stunning works of art. I’m betting I’m not the only folks who have this dream, judging from the popularity of Timber Kings.

Returning for Season 4 on HGTV, Sunday’s premiere is a two-parter beginning at 9 p.m. ET/PT—Timber Kings moves to its regular timeslot next week—that begins with an instalment entitled “Heaven’s Gate.” Of course, building heavenly projects involves a lot of hellish conditions and this is no exception. This season of the show features international build locations in Germany and Scotland, but things kick off not too far from Pioneer’s headquarters in Williams Lake, B.C.

Rossland is the site of Bryan Reid Jr.’s construction of the Hadley home, a four bedroom, three bathroom project with a special connection: it’s replacing the home the family lost to fire. Homeowners Jenn and Rob tearfully recall how they were watching television, unaware the roof was ablaze until neighbours came running. Scary stuff. Now the family wants what they had recreated.

Meanwhile, in Anaham, B.C., Peter is doing God’s work, creating an overhang for stairs at the front of a church he helped construct almost 10 years ago. The problem? He has three days to do it and has been asked to keep the foul language to a minimum. And a time crunch is also facing Beat, whose son guilts him into creating bunk beds for him even though Dad has other stuff on the go.

My favourite part of Timber Kings has always been the construction, that intricate ballet of swinging logs into place, edging them into position and hammering them home. Witnessing a pile of curved wood transform into a stunning shelter. My least favourite part of the show? The producers’ need to inject false drama into situations by having deadlines stack up. We know the jobs are going to get done, so let them get to work and just do it.

Coming up in future episodes, the crew builds big projects like luxury log homes, a fishing lodge and stunning post and beam boathouse, and smaller items like a deluxe smoker, wooden outdoor kitchen, log greenhouse, log pool table and a miniature man-cave.

Timber Kings airs Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV Canada.

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Chuck & Danny’s Road Trip goes on a cross-country cookout

I always suspected Chuck Hughes and Danny Smiles would be fun dudes to hang out with. Sure, they’re serious chefs (at Garde Manger and Le Bremner), but when it was time to leave the kitchen behind I figured they’d be the first to grab a bottle of bière and sit around a campfire.

That’s exactly what you get from Chuck & Danny’s Road Trip—debuting Friday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Food Network Canada—a rip-roaring road six-episode vacation that sees the duo climb into an RV and travel the country connecting with the people who visit local farmers, chefs and entrepreneurs and create a meal for them. The debut instalment tracks the boys east of Toronto to Prince Edward and Hastings Counties, where they meet with Justin Cournoyer, owner/chef of Actinolite who shows them how to forage for natural ingredients like sumac, juniper and … crickets.

We got Hughes and Smiles on the phone to talk about the show, their experiences and who snores the loudest.

Danny, you and Chuck have been friends and co-workers for a long time, but how did the TV show come about?
Danny Smiles: I’ve had the opportunity to do previous road trips with Chuck in Newfoundland and Italy and we’ve had a lot of time to talk in the car. We developed this idea to do a show on the road, developed it, chose some places to go and then went with it.

Chuck Hughes: It’s something we wanted to do for a long time, and it was an opportunity to see the country and cook. The camping aspect of it and being outdoors in a setting completely different from where we cook in our restaurants was really interesting; to connect with nature and have a more primitive cooking experience. It’s not as controlled and is a little more authentic. It combines a lot of things we love and wanted to do.

In the debut, you cook a 43-pound chunk of beef on coals. If your timing is off, people are showing up for dinner and the meat isn’t done.
Chuck Hughes: Exactly. There is a TV aspect to a show and a real aspect to the show and that, for us, was a way to keep us honest because, yeah, you’re cooking a 43-pound roast for people coming over. We’ve never cooked a roast in that situation, so you trust you instincts and try to make it happen. We are outdoors and the sun will set eventually, so there is a whole bunch of pressure because of that. And, you’re cooking for the people who grow the food, harvest it, raise it and you want to really respect the product and make them happy with what you did with their food.

How did production work for filming last summer?
Chuck Hughes: We lived the RV lifestyle off and on. We would drive the RV from one location to the next, set up camp and cook. We got to live the real lifestyle and then go back to our real lives quickly and then come back. It was a great way to spend the summer and discover the country.

Could either one of you adopt that RV lifestyle?
Chuck Hughes: Yes, yes, yes. I’m trying to figure out a way to leave it all behind and do that.

You visited three national parks during Season 1. Which park was the most beautiful: Rouge National Urban Park, Fundy National or PEI National?
Danny Smiles: I have to say Fundy National. It was about 50 feet above sea level and you could see the whole Bay of Fundy when you woke up. It was pretty epic.

Chuck Hughes: Fundy was great but I have to say PEI National. We were cooking right there on the beach. PEI is a completely different world for sunsets. You’re on the beach, you just cooked a really big lobster boil and the sun is setting. It’s something you can’t describe; you just have to go to PEI and live it. I hope this show will inspire people to do exactly that. Go camping for a few days or just go to a park for the day.

Last question: who snored the loudest in the RV?
Chuck: Danny.

Chuck & Danny’s Road Trip airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Food Network Canada.

Images courtesy of Corus.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

APTN’s Tribal Police Files debuts

Anyone familiar with the show Cops will recognize the concept for  this program, but that is where the similarities end. Steve Sxwithul’txw, creator and producer of APTN’s Tribal Police Files states:

“There was a lot of stuff we left on the cutting room floor because it was too intense or it was too graphic and I am fine with that. Cops in the U.S. might be saying ‘that is gold, that is money we are going to use it.’  I chose not to, simply because the dignity of the people was more important to me than great TV ratings. When they say, ‘Hey shut that camera off,’ we are shutting it off and we are not following that story because of the sensitivity of the situation.”

Instead of sensationalist footage, Tribal Police Files depicts both the mundanity of police work and the risks inherent to the lives of police officers. Viewers follow along with officers as they receive a call, but we also get to know the families of officers. You will, over the course of this series, grow to relate with the characters who are themselves the officers. We gain access to their lives.

The mandate of the officers of Stl’atl’imx Nation is to remember where the people have been. If alcohol is involved, the officers understand the person who is intoxicated is intoxicated for a reason. A lot of the journey many of Stl’atl’imx Nation have had has been negative. You need to understand that there is a great deal of pain and hurt with the people these officers come into contact with on a daily basis. This group of officers from Stl’atl’imx Nation take pride that this is not a police force but rather a police service.

Tribal Police Files puts a human face to policing on “the rez” and drives home the point that not only are the constables doing a job but that they too have a family and loved ones.

“I want to bring across a show that is respectful, that respect the people of the Stl’atl’imx Nation, and the officers especially,” Sxwithul’txw says. Most of the officers are from the area and know the people they deal with on a first-name basis. They understand the  history.

Promotional behind the scenes clips can be seen at the Tribal Police Files Website

Tribal Police Files airs Fridays at 7:30 p.m. ET on APTN.

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