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Continuum, Featured

Continuum blasts into its final season

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If Friday’s first episode of Continuum is any indication, this final season is going to blow fans away. The Future Soldiers have Kiera Cameron (Rachel Nichols) in their sights and, intent on restoring order to the timeline, are willing to blow our heroine to smithereens. And they’ve got the tech to do it; Kiera’s suit just doesn’t seem to stand a chance.

The first of these last six episodes, “Lost Hours,”—returning Friday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Showcase—is packed with the stress, action and armaments of a feature film, which is exactly how Continuum‘s creator tackled the farewell storyline.

“The six episodes really freed me up creatively because I didn’t have to service episodic storytelling,” Simon Barry says during a Vancouver set visit. “I said, ‘Let’s just do a six-hour movie and break it up into six chapters.'” Some fans vented their frustration on social media when Showcase announced the sci-fi project would conclude with Season 4, but Barry says he’d rather have a half-dozen hours to tie up loose ends than have three more seasons and be cancelled suddenly.

Continuum

The result? A storyline that sticks to the present timeline of 2015 Vancouver. To be honest, that’s quite enough. Along with the Future Soldiers (played by Lisa Berry, Ty Olsson, Aleks Paunovic, Kyra Zagorsky, Michael Eklund and Garfield Wilson), Kiera has to contend with Kellog (Stephen Lobo), who is on a course to become a powerful warlord in a war-torn future; a budding romance with Brad (Ryan Robbins); and a shaky alliance with Liber8 that puts her relationships with Carlos (Victor Webster) and Alec (Erik Knudsen) in jeopardy. Barry explains Kiera evolved in Season 3, realizing Liber8 was smaller fish and that she needed to think bigger if she wanted to have an effect on the future and did so by aligning with the terrorist group to take down Sonmanto. The partnership carries over to Season 4, but it doesn’t mean they’re sharing a beer anytime soon.

As for the series finale episode, Barry is—as you’d expect—mum on the details, though he advises “There will be discussion,” among fans once the credits roll for the last time.

“In a weird way, Episode 6 has been a series of endings masked as a story,” he says. “We have a last shot and a last scene that I think is very important, but I don’t think the scene carries the weight of the rest of the episode on it.”

Continuum airs Fridays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Showcase.

This is just the first in a series of Continuum stories TV, Eh? will be posting as the series comes to an end. Look for interviews with stars Rachel Nichols, Victor Webster, Erik Knudsen, Stephen Lobo and Roger Cross, and creator Simon Barry, in the coming weeks.

Canadians can get a preview of the first episode on Showcase.ca before Friday’s broadcast.

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Lost Girl

Link: Lost Girl’s Zoie Palmer talks Doccubus and final episodes

From Bridget Liszewski of The TV Junkies:

Lost Girl’s Zoie Palmer talks Doccubus and final episodes
“One of my favourite movies growing up was The Princess Bride, and when you can watch a relationship on screen and it feels really true, and it feels like true love, like it was meant to be–audiences connect to the fact that Lauren and Bo feel destined. It’s like when you meet somebody in your life and it feels like you’re home.” Continue reading.

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Amazing Race Canada, Featured

Review: Amazing Race Canada grapples in Delhi

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Never give up, because you don’t know what will happen. It’s a mantra that’s repeated during The Amazing Race and it continues to be true. Look no further than Simi and Ope and Brent and Sean; the former team managed an impressive fourth place finish while the latter were saved from exiting the Race because it was a non-elimination Leg.

Fans knew there was one more non-elimination in the cards and I’d hoped it was this week in Delhi, especially after the east coast brothers fell into last place and stayed there all episode long. “Take Your Clue and Gooooo!” saw the remaining five pairs jet to Delhi and immediately traumatized as they transported live catfish from one end of the fish market to the other. (Can you imagine how everyone smelled by the end of that challenge? Woo.) Nick and Matt, determined to place first this week, got off to a “hot start” and whizzed through the fish and on to Turban Twist. Matt struggled a bit turning out three different turban styles on a trio of very patient men, followed in succession by Gino, Ope, Dujean and, eventually, Sean.

As for the Detour? It was a no-brainer, as Nick and Matt selected Slam It’s wrestling moves as the test for them. The editing made it look like the pro wrestlers got done a bare few minutes before Gino and Jesse, but that may not have been the case. What I do know is that Gino and Jesse’s tenaciousness went a long way to pushing Matt and Nick to a level that has eluded them to this point. They became so frustrated with having the Hamilton, Ont., siblings constantly within reach they shifted into another gear and finished the Leg in first place. Ope’s bad back, meanwhile, meant he and Simi had to drop out of Slam It and opt for Spice It, competing with Sean and Brent to grind 100 grams of hot peppers in the least amount of time.

We know what happened next.

Here’s how the teams placed at the end of this Leg:

  1. Nick and Matt
  2. Gino and Jesse
  3. Simi and Ope
  4. Dujean and Leilani
  5. Brent and Sean (non-elimination)

Notes and quotes

  • Eighteen million people call Delhi home. That’s just staggering.
  • I’m not sure who I felt more badly for, the competitors of those catfish.
  • I’m not sure who I felt more badly for, Sean for throwing up down the side of the tuck-tuk or the driver who had to clean the barf off the side of his tuk-tuk.
  • CTV needs to put together a photo gallery of Matt’s “bar shirts” STAT.
  • I’m always appreciative of the cultural information The Amazing Race provides. Learning Humayun’s Tomb was the inspiration for the design of the Taj Mahal was fascinating.

The Amazing Race Canada airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

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Shoot the Messenger

Shoot The Messenger in production for CBC

From a media release:

SHOOT THE MESSENGER

  • Created by award-winning Hungry Eyes creative team Jennifer Holness and Sudz Sutherland
  • Principal photography now underway in Toronto

As production gets underway in Toronto on the new hour-long drama SHOOT THE MESSENGER, Hungry Eyes Film and Television in association with CBC Television and ITV are thrilled to announce the show’s topline cast – Elyse Levesque (“CEDAR COVE”, “SGU: STARGATE UNIVERSE”), Lucas Bryant (THE GIRL KING, “HAVEN”), Lyriq Bent (“BOOK OF NEGROES”, “ROOKIE BLUE”, PAY THE GHOST), and Alex Kingston (BUKOWSKI, “DOCTOR WHO”, “ER”).

The eight-episode, hour-long dramatic series from the multi-award winning creative team of Jennifer Holness and Sudz Sutherland (HOME AGAIN, “GUNS”) will shoot in and around the Toronto area through the end of November.

A gritty political thriller that centres on the complex relationships between crime reporters and the police, SHOOT THE MESSENGER follows Daisy Channing (Levesque), a sharp and ambitious j-school grad trying to balance a messy personal life while working at a big city newspaper. Things begin to go sideways for Daisy when she witnesses a murder she thinks is gang related, only to find herself slowly drawn into an interconnected web of criminal activity that reaches into the corridors of corporate and political power.

As Daisy, her editor Mary Fowler (Kingston), co-worker Simon Olendski (Bryant), and lead homicide detective Frank Lutz (Bent) pull at the threads of a cover up that gets more complicated the more they unravel, SHOOT THE MESSENGER also explores the ambiguous line between the private and the personal in the digital age.

The dynamic cast also includes Hannah Anderson (LIZZIE BORDEN TOOK AN AXE) Ari Cohen (Ricky Gervais’ SPECIAL CORRSPONDENTS), Edie Inksetter (“HEMLOCK GROVE”, “REIGN”), Al Sapienza (“PERSON OF INTEREST”, “HOUSE OF CARDS”), Nicholas Campbell (“HAVEN”, “DAVINCI’S INQUEST”), and features special appearances by The Barenaked Ladies’ Ed Robertson, The Raptor’s Jamaal Magloire, and ex-NBA television star Rick Fox (“SIN CITY SAINTS”, “OZ”).

The series is scheduled to air in the summer of 2016 on CBC Television.

“We’re extremely excited to be working with the CBC and ITV on SHOOT THE MESSENGER and deeply appreciate the support the CBC has shown us over the years,” said Hungry Eyes principal Jennifer Holness who also co-created, produces, and writes on the show. “SHOOT THE MESSENGER is an ambitious show that deals with challenging issues and we couldn’t do it without the staunch support of our partners. It is going to be a fast paced, atmospheric drama that is driven by contemporary urban issues in media, policing, and politics.”

Sutherland added, “We’re thrilled with the young, exciting cast that have boarded the show. Elyse Levesque has demonstrated incredible charisma in her past projects – she’s like a magnet on camera. SHOOT THE MESSENGER audiences are going to be introduced to her impressive dramatic range and vulnerability that really connects to the viewer – she also brings a sharp intelligence which was absolutely required for this material.”

Previously for the CBC, Holness and Sutherland created, wrote, produced and directed GUNS, a two-part mini-series which won Best Direction, Best Writing, Best Performance by an actor in a featured supporting role, Best Performance by an actress in a featured supporting role, and Best Editing at the Canadian screen awards. Their most recent feature film HOME AGAIN won a British Academy of Film and Television Arts Festival Choice Award at the Pan African Film & Arts Festival, as well as garnering multiple nominations at the Canadian Screen and Director’s Guild Awards.

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Auction, Featured

Thank you! Kids Help Phone auction raised more than $8400

KHPThe auction has ended, the winners have paid, items are being shipped out, and the donation has been made. With the help of our prize donors, bidders, and those who helped spread the word, we raised more than $8400 for Kids Help Phone — a free, anonymous and confidential phone and on-line professional counselling service for youth. If you’d still like to contribute, please go directly to their website to make a donation.

All bidders, winning or not, helped raise that money. Everyone who shared our posts on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere helped. And of course our prize donors helped. Special thank yous for the wonderful items and experiences up for bid to:

Thanks again to the Canadian television community for supporting such a great cause.

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