TV, eh? | What's up in Canadian television | Page 1175
TV,eh? What's up in Canadian television

Tonight: MasterChef Canada, Motive, Big Brother Canada

MasterChef Canada, CTV – “Fine Dining Under Fire”
The Top 6 home cooks confront their most difficult team challenge: the Restaurant Takeover. The pressure is raised considerably when the teams learn that the professional kitchen they’re taking over is one of the finest in the country, and belongs to MASTERCHEF CANADA judge Michael Bonacini – Oliver & Bonacini’s Canoe. The losing team then faces a Pressure Test featuring a familiar comfort food that is deceptively difficult to master.

Motive, CTV – “Best Enemies”
Detectives Angie Flynn (Kristin Lehman), Oscar Vega (Louis Ferreira), and Brian Lucas (Brendan Penny) investigate a murder case in which a photographer, known for his sleazy treatment of women, is the prime suspect. Their efforts to solve the case are impeded by Internal Investigations Sergeant Gavin Saunders (David Lewis, Man of Steel), who interviews Sergeant Cross (Warren Christie), Lucas, and Vega about Angie and her methods.

Big Brother Canada, Global
The houseguests face nomination in tonight’s episode of Big Brother Canada.

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Over-the-air antenna, you complete me

Almost four years after becoming a cord cutter, I finally bought an over the air antenna. Until then I’d been subsisting on a diet of Netflix, screeners, network websites, streaming videos from my computer, the kindness of friends, iTunes and Xbox video purchases. My TV habits had quickly turned to binge watching series once they were finally available to me, or catching up next day, and I found to my surprise that it wasn’t a great hardship to give up on shows that aren’t easily accessible to me.

But finally, earlier this year, I decided to replace the antenna I’d had to return back when I first cut the cord, after it started smoking when plugged in — a feature I felt unnecessary.

A friend’s recommendation and then reviews led me to select the Winegard FL5500A FlatWave Amplified Razor Thin HDTV Indoor Antenna. Easily assembled and nearly paper-thin, it sticks on a window, wall, or other flat surface, with either the white or the black side exposed. Plugged in, it offers me seven high definition channels with clear and consistent reception. I get CBC, CTV, CTV 2, Global, City, Radio-Canada and, I think, OMNI. This means I can get various seasons of Murdoch Mysteries nearly 24 hours a day in 2 official languages as well as a wide selection of commercials punctuated by some shows. 

If I lived elsewhere I could get US network signals as well, but since Canadian networks love nothing better than to simulcast US programming, I don’t feel the loss. I still sometimes forget I have live TV now, but I’ve been able to watch the Oscars, The Voice, and The Good Wife live and so all is well in my world.

MicronAbout a month after I purchased my own OTA antenna, Antennas Direct offered to send us a couple of ClearStream antennas to test. Their Micron XG is just as easy to assemble, compact and can sit relatively unobtrusively on a shelf — and gets me the same number of channels as my Winegard. The decision between them, then, was purely a matter of aesthetic preference.

2VThe ClearStream 2V can be used as an indoor antenna as well, but it’s primarily designed for outdoor use and promises the greatest number of channels. Outdoor mounting is impractical for me so when I opened the box and saw the bulk of the antenna, and couldn’t get past the first step of assembly without tearing my hair out, I abandoned the effort. (ClearStream has a toll free number for help but I didn’t think they could do much about “how in the world can I make that contraption fit with my decor?”)

Chromecast_dongleI also have added another tool to my cord cutting arsenal: Chromecast. A thumb-sized media streaming device attaches to an HDMI port on the TV and plugs in, then with a quick setup it can stream from apps, the Chrome browser or from iOS or Android devices. I haven’t played with this as much as I expected, since most of the apps and online streaming are available to me in via my Xbox (which came with my Internet contract), either through the apps or by the video player networked to my laptop. Still, I love how portable the Chromecast dongle is for travel, perhaps, and look forward to experimenting further.

I still intend to see what’s available once cable companies begin offering skinny basic and pick and pay, but with all these gizmos available to me, I feel less and less tempted to uncut the cord.

Do you want one of my test antennas? Comment with your own TV-watching solutions and indicate which of the ClearStream antennas you’d like: the Micron XG or the ClearStream 2V. I’ll draw a winner for each one randomly on May 15 at 5 pm PT. 

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Review: Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? on Orphan Black

SPOILER ALERT: Please do not read on unless you’ve seen the Season 3, Episode 3 of Orphan Black, titled “Formalized, Complex, and Costly.”

Oh my god, the clones are actually sisters and brothers! OK, so maybe it’s not that exciting as far as revelations go (in fact, it’s kind of obvious that they would be related), but it does add another dynamic to Orphan Black, and even offers the possibility that they can team up and take on Dyad … and maybe even the Prolethians, who are back in fine flower-dress form this week.

It’s hard to tell who the real enemy is in Episode 3. Is it Rudy, who had to kill his own brother because he was defective and it was “protocol”? He goes to extreme measures all the time, but we can’t forget that he’s had a military life, is a messed-up clone, and is on an assigned mission to bring back the genetic material.

Is it Mark? The poor guy genuinely wants to separate himself from the clones and just go off with Gracie. Sure, he tortures Willard Finch (Nicholas Campbell looking his grizzliest) for information on Henrik’s scientific work and inadvertently kills him, but Mark’s motivations are as pure as Sarah’s.

Sarah is looking for Helena, and will stop at nothing to get it. If it means killing someone, she will. So does that make her any less of a villain than Mark? Nope. We sympathize with Sarah because we know her struggles. We don’t know the male clones’ stories—at least not in full. And hey, we’ve gotten to know Mommy a bit better now, and she seems to be a few shades of crazy. Having her raise a bunch of boys (which is what I’m assuming at this point) under a military structure probably provided some serious scars, both internal and external.

To put it simply, I’m having trouble figuring out who to root for. Obviously I love Helena and ultimately want Sarah to succeed in her quest to bring her home, but I feel badly for the Castor clones. I’m a tad concerned that these guys were just introduced to be killed off one by one, with Rudy and Mommy eating bullets in the Season 3 finale.

I’m assuming Mark is dead at this point. If Bonnie (Kristin Booth, represent!) missed from that distance with that rifle, then she’s a terrible shot. So that’s two Castor clones in as many episodes. It’s going to be impossible to form any real attachment to them, and makes me really fear that one-by-one concern, above.

This main-storyline tedium is what makes the Cosima-Scott-Felix brain extraction so fun, and so necessary. As disgusting as it was—I had to stop eating for the duration of the scene—it was a nice break from the cryptic conversations and runarounds of the plot. There was humour, amazing special effects, and hey, it’s interesting! We want that science nerd stuff, it’s engaging; it also brings the story forward when we learn that the Castor clones are suffering from irreversible brain disintegration. And who doesn’t love the occasional Felix rejoinder?

The other other subplot is ticking along according to plan: Alison and Donnie are successfully winning over the local housewife population with their drug dealing, and getting support for her school trustee campaign. I still stand by this subplot as being totally ridiculous and pretty unrealistic, but this is a show about clones who’ve found another group of clones, so who am I to judge? The scene in the garage was entertaining, mostly because watching Alison one-up anyone is a joy. We’ll see if this matures into anything of substance, or if it’s just another distraction from the density of the main plot.

One thing I will ask for is: more Helena. I can’t tear my eyes away when she’s on-screen. She’s either going to beat the Castor clones, or join them, and honestly I don’t know which one I prefer.

Clone of the Week: Helena. Her sassy comebacks make my night.

Random Thoughts:

  • Holy Canadian TV actor cameos! Nicholas Campbell as Willard Finch and Kristin Booth reprising her Bonnie role, all in one night! Such a pleasure.
  • The scene with Rachel undergoing rehabilitative therapy was spellbinding. Couldn’t get enough. Her dialogue reiterated to me that she will eventually go after/try to kill Delphine. So she can’t say “key” right now, but in a matter of weeks she’ll be back to the same ol’ Rachel, except with a badass eyepatch.
  • Did anyone else hear Cosima still coughing? That scared me.
  • Alison: “Go sell a house, Marcie!” and then “I need to cut something.”
  • Why was Sarah still talking/whispering into her phone when she’s trying to sneak into the barn? Who does that? Stealth 101: No phone talking.
  • Shout-out to Jilly’s, the now-gone strip joint in downtown Toronto, which makes an appearance in the background when Sarah and Art question the midwife.

Orphan Black airs Saturdays at 9 p.m. ET on Space.

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Tonight: Orphan Black, Innerspace, W5

Orphan Black, Space – “Formalized, Complex, and Costly”
Leda and Castor are both on the hunt for original clone DNA. Mark and Gracie pursue new leads to find the samples that might set them free, while Art and Sarah reunite to track them down. Meanwhile, Cosima and Scott try to learn more about Castor’s biology, and Alison’s new money-making venture is going gangbusters. A shocking revelation about the Castor-Leda connection leaves the sisters reeling, just before Sarah witnesses a deadly Prolethean-Castor face-off. For a sneak peek at next week’s episode, click here.

Innerspace: After the Black, Space
INNERSPACE hosts Ajay Fry and Morgan Hoffman sit down with ORPHAN BLACK co-creators, writer Graeme Manson and director John Fawcett, to dissect the events that transpired in the third episode of Season 3, and to chat about what viewers can expect from the remainder of the season. In the following week’s episode, Ajay and Morgan get an insider look at how multiple clone scenes are made as they chat with clone doubles Kathryn Alexandre and Nick Abraham.

W5, CTV – “Suicide Watch / King of the Dinosaurs”
W5 investigation into hospitals failing suicidal patients who take their own lives while under care. And Phil Currie’s passion to learn about long extinct species also lets us learn about ourselves today

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Link: Discovery’s Mankind From Space: Smart TV Is Back

From Jim Bawden:

Discovery’s Mankind From Space: Smart TV Is Back
Smart TV is back. It used to exist in such dazzling TV creations as Civilisation and any number of David Attenborough nature series.

But lately “Smart TV” has been in decline as increasingly dumb reality shows take over. And then there’s the strange new Discovery special Mankind From Space, TV that will challenge you as well as enthrall you with its dazzling images. Continue reading.

 

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