TV, eh? | What's up in Canadian television | Page 1233
TV,eh? What's up in Canadian television
Children's Programming, Featured

Groundbreaking Stanley Dynamic bounds onto YTV

Acceptance of others is a common theme in family programming, but The Stanley Dynamic certainly breaks new ground in the way it’s done. Debuting Thursday at 7:30 p.m. ET/PT on YTV, the live action series boasts a two-dimensional star: Luke Stanley, an animated 14-year-old who interacts with his three-dimensional family and world.

“This is a gentle nod to inclusion, diversity and acceptance,” says Michael Souther, co-founder of Amaze Film + Television, the show’s production company. “No one bats an eye at Luke. He is one of the family, he’s at school, he has crushes, but he’s different. And no one focuses on his difference.” At least, not in a negative way. There are plenty of positives to having an animated kid around: his twin brother, Larry (Charles Vandervaart, Murdoch Mysteries), appreciates the fact his sibling can stretch out his arms to reach the cookie jar on a faraway shelf.

Amaze is most recently known for producing four seasons of the ribald, adult comedy Call Me Fitz. Souther says he was interested in creating a family show that was different from everything already in the genre. They quickly settled on a new approach, combining animation with live action in a multi-camera series. With co-creator Ken Cuperus (Mr. Young) on board, Souther says the 26-episode first season is consistently entertaining.

It hasn’t been easy from a production standpoint. Taylor Abrahamse (Beyblade: Metal Fusion), who voices Luke, rehearsed and did initial takes with his TV family—cartoonist dad, Lane, (Michael Barbuto, Banner 4th of July), who chronicles the family’s adventures in his online comic strip, “The Stanley Dynamic”; mom Lisa (Kate Hewlett (Remedy); Larry; and bug-obsessed, genius sister Lori (Madison Ferguson)—before stepping off-stage during real takes. The next process involved inserting Luke’s action into scenes—in Thursday’s debut he squishes himself into a high school locker and is squeezed in a group hug—a time-consuming gig that is keeping Cuperus busy long after cameras stopped rolling.

The result is astounding: Luke has shadows behind him, makes eye contact with his co-stars and fits seamlessly into the world around him. Just like he’s supposed to.

The Stanley Dynamic airs Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. ET/PT on YTV.

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Industry News

Link: Beware of the Scare Tactics: CRTC To Announce Pick-And-Pay TV Today

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From Michael Geist:

Beware of the Scare Tactics: CRTC To Announce Pick-And-Pay TV Today
The specifics are yet to come, but the CRTC will likely require distributors to offer a basic service of Canadian and mandatory channels at a relatively low price (a 2014 working document suggested a cap of between $20 – $30/month), offer consumers a pick-and-pay option, and adjust the Canadian content requirement for bundles.

Consumers will emerge as the clear winners, benefiting from increased choice and the potential to lower their monthly bills. Yet the CRTC decision will undoubtedly be greeted by doomsayers who will argue that pick-and-pay will increase prices and decrease choice (because some channels will fold). Continue reading.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Preview: SongbirdSOS examines declining numbers of feathered friends

My Toronto backyard is a playground for songbirds. We have a resident cardinal and his mate that have claimed our property as theirs. Robins, sparrows, chickadees and crows land on the lawn in droves. We’ve had woodpeckers on our dying tree in the back, and goldfinches in the flowers out front.

But we’re on the verge of losing our birds forever. That’s what SongbirdSOS—part of Thursday’s episode of The Nature of Things—posits. As York University’s Dr. Bridget Stutchbury says, species of birds still exist, but their numbers are way down. The wood thrush population in the Americas is down 62 per cent since 1966; the Baltimore Oriole is down over 45 per cent; the Bobolink has seen a 64 per cent decline. The question is, why?

Beautifully shot, SongbirdSOS suggests a few sobering answers. Mankind’s creation of artificial light has messed with the birds’ ability to migrate during the night, disorienting them and causing midair collisions. And, of course, we’ve constructed huge skyscrapers that songbirds fly into, a point driven home by FLAP  (Fatal Light Awareness Program) Canada when they lay out the bodies of hundreds of dead birds on a plain white sheet for all to see. Lost breeding and wintering habitats in rain forests, wetlands and boreal forests, oil pipelines and farm pesticides are contributing to declining song bird numbers, as well as house cats.

On the positive side, there are steps being taken to halt the dropping populations, including allowing birds to feast on hurtful insects in Costa Rican coffee fields and mandating building owners to switch off the lights at night. Hopefully enough changes will come in time to save the songbirds before their tunes cease.

The Nature of Things airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, X Company

Review: Trains and strain on X Company

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I love Juliet Stevenson. I first saw her in Truly Madly Deeply, then Bend it Like Beckham, Nicholas Nickleby, The Hour and Atlantis. So I was thrilled to see her take on the role of Marie Bellaire, the fiery French mayor of Saint-Antoine.

X Company‘s latest, “Walk with the Devil,” carried on the exploration into the complex relationship between the French and the Nazis during the occupation of France. Though some citizens saw Marie rubbing shoulders with the SS officers in town as blasphemy, she saw it as a guarantee of keeping her citizens safe. I could certainly understand her feelings; she was voted into office and had a responsibility to uphold. Things got complicated, however, when several of the town’s girls, including her niece Claire, were taken to a private school.

Instead, the girls were impregnated by German soldiers as part of the Ledensborn Program, Adolf Hitler’s plan to breed the perfect Aryan race. Give birth to a healthy, blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby and it was adopted by a German family. Have anything else and it would be disposed of.

The lengths Marie would go for the town was driven home when Harry and Neil’s plot to blow up the German train—packed with torpedoes—hit a snag and the train was halted while still in the station and with the fuse lit. Putting a gun in the back of the SS officer was signing her death warrant, but it ensured the train left town before it blew sky-high. I knew it was coming, but I was still shocked when Marie took a bullet in the forehead.

But at least the townspeople were safe.

Notes and quotes

  • I love old trains and that one in Wednesday’s episode was beautiful.
  • I’m relieved that Sinclair knew all along that Krystina was reporting back to British high command and that the two have become a united front.
  • The Oberfuhrer better watch himself. I’m betting his underling will be all to willing to report his son has Down’s syndrome if it means an advancement.

X Company airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, Industry News

Discover this, CRTC

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I’ve been gorging on a lot of UK crime dramas lately, though crime shows have rarely been my preferred series of choice (there’s a The Wire exception to every rule though).  Luther might have been the first I devoured, but it’s been followed by The Fall, Happy Valley, Scott & Bailey, and Broadchurch. I tried others and found they weren’t to my taste: Inspector Morse and Midsommer Murders are two I remember. Some UK not-crime dramas slipped into my heart, too: Call The Midwife, The Bletchley Circle.

US series have the advantage of all the marketing money in the world and being widely covered in Canadian media, and Sherlock Holmes and Downton Abbey have become mainstream North American water cooler shows, but how did I discover all these UK series? Netflix. One after another, Netflix told me I’d probably like them, and Netflix is often right.

One of the interesting aspects of last week’s TalkTV announcements was the CRTC’s intention to host a “Discoverability Summit” this fall to “bring together innovators and thought-leaders from the public and private sectors to explore how technology can be used to help viewers find programs made by Canadians.”

Great things happen when thought leaders get together, naturally. I sure hope those innovators consist of the people who thought up the Eye on Canada brand.  That was super successful.

Sarcasm aside, very few Canadian series are on Netflix Canada, and that’s by design. Shaw, Rogers and Bell don’t want their programs on the evil empire, choosing instead to create their own walled garden streaming services where they can place their original series, unfettered by Netflix’s established, incredible recommendation engine.

I’m unlikely to be invited to this Discoverability Summit, but I have some ideas for the CRTC and the industry at large, free for the taking:

  • Sell your damn shows to Netflix.
  • Fund TV critic positions at all major newspapers in the country. Accept that these critics will not always cover or like your shows, and fund the positions anyway. Newspapers sure aren’t doing much of that lately.
  • Hell, fund TV, eh? (I may have a slight bias here.)
  • Run far, far away from attempts to brand all Canadian content as though it’s the brand and not the show that matters (hi, Eye on Canada).  In fact run from anything that smacks of “build it and they will come”.
  • Did I mention Netflix? I hear they buy shows.
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