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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Preview: Mankind’s origins mined in Great Human Odyssey

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Why have homo sapiens emerged as the only hominid left standing, capable of settling the world? That’s the goal of Gemini Award-winning anthropologist Niobe Thompson’s ambitious, gorgeous three-part The Great Human Odyssey.

Debuting Thursday with “Rise of a Species” as part of The Nature of Things, Thompson’s energetic narration can’t help but keep you interested as he traces mankind’s origins back to Africa and the cradle of life, where our ancestors battled for survival among other beasts in sometimes inhospitable conditions. Why did homo sapiens survive? Thompson—who has no qualms about putting his own life on the line for his studies—joins the bushmen of Africa’s Kalahari Desert where he witnesses how water is gained by watching where elephants quench their thirst and how harvesting grubs that live among the roots of a deadly tree gains poison for their spears and arrows.

Filmed over the course of 18 months, Thompson’s adventures are stunning to witness, a riot of colour, action and education. He and his crew of 22 cinematographers braved some of the most hostile sections of the planet, including Siberian winter, African deserts, remote islands in the Pacific and the ice of the Bering Strait.

Excavations that occurred during filming uncovered a treasure trove of new research. Among the new information gathered is proof that South Africa’s Cape Coast is the source of man’s earliest use of language, art, jewelry and projectile weapon making, and samples of human remains from the Russian Arctic show humans settled far earlier in that area than previously believed.

The Great Human Odyssey airs for three weeks under The Nature of Things banner on Thursdays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, Saving Hope

Review: A mother’s touch on Saving Hope

Mother’s Day seems to have come early for the Saving Hope crew.

Wednesday’s all-new episode, “Fearless,” put matriarchs front and centre in the action (as moms rightfully deserve to be), as some end-of-pregnancy thoughts made Alex ponder the type of mother she’ll be and the poor relationship with her own mother, one she hadn’t even shared the pregnancy news with.

Of course, whenever Alex has something going on in her life, there always seems to be a medical storyline that coincides with it. Cue the world’s most rude mother. Theresa (if I caught her name right) was a real piece-of-work, bitter about the way her life and two daughters (who seemed perfectly normal on all fronts) turned out. It only took Theresa’s comment about throwing Alex down a flight of stairs to terminate her pregnancy for me to quickly realize no one would be able to reason with her all night, which was quickly proven the case. Yet, somehow, her two daughters were able to put their mother’s baggage aside and stay by her side throughout her hospital stay, which included trying to command nurses to take her to the operating room and nearly dying after surgery.

If Theresa’s daughters were able to put aside the angst with their own mother, Alex could try with hers, right? Wrong, although I wish we could’ve actually heard the conversation the two had rather than just see Alex crying over it. Despite being shut out from the actual conversation, at least we were given some context to the rocky relationship the duo share through Alex’s conversations with Joel and Dana, which only reiterated the support system Alex has with her hospital friends.

Speaking of Joel, let’s be thankful he didn’t go through with his seriously dumb plan to pop the question to Alex. However, it seems everyone in the hospital now knows his intentions (not the smartest idea carrying the ring in your scrubs, buddy), which means sooner rather than later that news will probably travel to Charlie. Other than nearly making the biggest mistake of his life, Joel helped save the life of a young hockey player named Hayden involved in a car accident. Joel did a great thing for the boy, but I really didn’t agree with his decision to listen to Hayden’s girlfriend and lie to his face that his best friend, Shawn, had also died in the accident.

Naturally the sprit of the best friend was what Charlie was dealing with predominantly, although Shawn seemed like a really cool dude–minus the texting and driving offense. And Shawn was able to appeal to Charlie’s good nature and help convince Joel and Shahir they could repair Hayden’s back so he wouldn’t be paralyzed. (Has Charlie ever really said no to a ghost’s request before? Can Charlie say no to anyone?)

The most intriguing storyline of the night, however, came when Sydney’s fiancé, Herschel, checked himself in to the hospital, believing he was dying. First of all, I forgot Sydney even had a fiancé, what with her fling with Maggie. The two had zero chemistry together, which was another obvious sign that Sydney shouldn’t have been marrying him. Luckily, Sydney came to her senses and came clean to Herschel that she was gay, and although I don’t blame him for being upset with her, there was no better thing for her to do for herself. And hey, maybe Hershel was just upset that he just had a tapeworm pulled out of his nose.

Will Sydney and Maggie become a thing? Will Alex make a final choice between Joel and Charlie? Will the gang pass their medical boards? The season finale is almost upon us, so expect these questions and more to be addressed as Alex gets set to head into labour.

Notes:

  • That tapeworm might have been the worst thing I’ve ever seen on this show.
  • Alex: “These are the most beautiful flower cupcakes.” Maggie: “Actually these are vaginas.”
  • If Herschel didn’t realize his fiancée had the hots for another lady from the amount of personal information Sydney shared with him about Maggie, he needs to open his eyes a little bit.
  • Congrats to star Erica Durance for giving birth on Tuesday!

Saving Hope airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. ET on CTV.

Thoughts? Hit is up below or via @tv_eh.

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Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Link: The Great Human Odyssey: TV To Shout About

From James Bawden:

The latest Nature Of Things miniseries The Great Human Odyssey is about as good as TV gets. It’s the kind of broad spectrum show that TV networks once used as prestige items before ratings erosion began eating away at the very existence.

So watch this one as an example of how demanding as well as entertaining TV can be when all caution is thrown to the winds. Because this three-episode “mini” was photographed all over the place from the Kalahari desert to Papua, New Guinea to the frozen Siberian wilds. Continue reading.

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Book of Negroes, Featured

Review: Book of Negroes takes a bow

It’s a shame for CBC that one of their biggest ratings successes lately is six episodes and done, but it’s a sign of hope that an expansive co-production based on Canadian literature could make such a splash.

Clement Virgo’s adaptation of Lawrence Hill’s novel comes to a close with an episode that sees Aminata reclaim her story once again.

It begins the Nova Scotia contingent still not so free in Freetown, the town they built from scratch, guarded by British soldiers who want them to stay in their little piece of Sierra Leone.

Their past flashes before their eyes as new captives stream past their town on the way to a life of slavery. Moses is killed trying to free a child, a grim reminder of the danger still around them.

Aminata remains determined to return to her village — the village Chekura helped steal her from, and he’s not terribly enthusiastic. “Why do you always make me chase you? We can love each other right here.”

He relents, as do the British slave traders who can help them with passage to the interior, and who sip tea from silver pots as their slaves scrabble for food among their sick and dying.

“Why do you trade in men?” she asks. “Everybody’s doing it” is the less than impressive answer, both for its moral emptiness and its slightly clunky dialogue. “Was it really that bad for you?”

Captain Clarkson is one who knows how bad it is, and who encourages her to return with him to London to convince the government to abolish the slave trade. “We need your story and we need your voice.”

Though Aminata is determined to return to her birthplace, she learns it no longer exists just before she and Chekura are confronted with a group of captives they have the power to free, just as they had hoped someone would help free them as children. Chekura sacrifices his life for their freedom, and a prostrate Aminata is rescued by nearby villagers. “I seem to have trouble dying” she tells them in something of an understatement.

She and Clarkson bond over classic English literature like Gulliver’s Travels and Robinson Crusoe, and Aminata’s story is at least as epic a stranger in a strange land story as either of those, even when she returns to her birthplace.

With no ties to Sierra Leone anymore, she goes to England to meet William Wilberforce and his abolitionists, eager to hear the gory details of her life — and shape the narrative to best suit their purposes. Instead she pens her own story — The Book of Negroes — and helps them abolish the slave trade (though not slavery itself). In another last act of atonement, Solomon Lindo reappears with her long-lost daughter May, reunited with her now-elderly mother, as Aunjanue Ellis has played her convincingly over an expansive age span.

A weakness of the mini-series has been the compression of an eventful lifetime into 4.5-ish hours. But it’s been a captivating journey despite its flaws.

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Schitt's Creek

Link: Schitt’s Creek: Why You Need to Watch Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara’s New Comedy

From Gillian Telling of People magazine:

Do you enjoy things that are gut-wrenchingly funny? Laughing out loud? Spit-takes? Then tune in to new comedy Schitt’s Creek, premiering Wednesday on cable’s Pop network (formerly TVGN) at 10 p.m.

This new single-cam comedy from Canada stars longtime comedic duo and friends Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy, as well as Levy’s son Daniel (co-creator of the show), hilarious newcomer Annie Murphy, and Chris Elliott. It’s a comedy-gold cast – and the first time O’Hara and Levy have ever starred on the small screen together. (Though of course, you’ve seen them act together in Waiting for Guffman and Best in Show.) Continue reading.

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