Orphan Black, Space – season premiere
Sarah (Tatiana Maslany, Picture Day), a streetwise hustler on the run from a lifetime of bad decisions, witnesses the suicide of a stranger who looks just like her. She assumes her identity hoping that cleaning out the woman’s bank account will solve all of her problems. Instead, after taking on the new identity, Sarah quickly finds herself caught in the middle of a deadly conspiracy and must race to find answers.
From Tim Goodman of the Hollywood Reporter:
Orphan Black: TV Review
It’s addictive and compelling — you want the next episode mere seconds after the previous one has ended, which is always a fantastic sign. But even beyond that, there’s little doubt that Orphan Black is more than just a thrill ride or some guilty pleasure. It is, flat out, one of the most intriguingly entertaining new series of the year, and it’s so much more than pure entertainment. For a sci-fi series, there’s some real heft to it. Read more.
From Bill Harris of QMI Agency:
‘Orphan Black’ compelling
Orphan Black has one of the best opening scenes I’ve witnessed in a long while. A young woman played by Tatiana Maslany sees a couple of things that would shake anyone when she gets off a train. The first three minutes are spooky and mesmerizing and artistically shot. Read more.
From Brad Oswald of the Winnipeg Free Press:
Familiar feeling
Poor Sarah just isn’t herself today. In fact, she’s someone else altogether. Or perhaps several someone elses, all rolled into one. Sarah, as sci-fi fans are about to learn, is the perplexed sort-of heroine in the new Space network series Orphan Black, which premières Saturday, March 30, at 8 p.m. She’s a troubled soul, a disenchanted loner and a directionless orphan, right up until the moment she watches a woman commit suicide by stepping off a railway platform into the path of a moving train. Read more.
From Kate Taylor of the Globe and Mail:
Meet Tatiana Maslany: a small-town Canadian ‘salivating, starving for’ her latest TV role
Tatiana Maslany is a nice girl from Saskatchewan. In person, the rising actress is cheerful, friendly, free of attitude and blessed with a sweet face that makes her look younger than her 27 years. On-screen, she is a chameleon who has played roles as lofty as the Virgin Mary, but who more often gets down and dirty, cast as the anarchic street tough with a leather jacket and plenty of eyeliner. Read more.
From Bill Brioux of the Canadian Press:
‘Orphan Black’ a compelling thriller starring Tatiana Maslany in many identities
Talk about a dead ringer. Late one night, standing on an otherwise empty subway platform, a street-smart orphan named Sarah (Tatiana Maslany) watches in horror as somebody jumps in front of a train. She looks down the platform and notices the dead woman left behind her purse. She grabs it and finds cash, keys to an apartment and a startling ID photograph: the woman’s name was Beth, and she looked exactly like Sarah. Read more.
From Mark Leiren-Young of the Vancouver Sun:
Hollywood North: Former soap star Dylan Bruce takes on sci-fi
Orphan Black, the new sci-fi series on Space, features a mind-bending premise with Canadian It Girl Tatiana Maslany (Picture Day) playing multiple clones of the same character — but while some actors might find this concept complicated, improbable plot twists and twins are nothing new to Vancouver-born actor Dylan Bruce, who kicked off his career on the soap opera As the World Turns. Read more.
From Rick Mele of Huffington Post Canada:
‘Orphan Black’: 10 Things You Need To Know
And while good science-fiction always grounds its more out-there elements in something familiar, like a shared personal experience or universal theme, “Orphan Black” takes the idea of identity crisis and multiplies it. That’s because the series star Tatiana Maslany doesn’t just play one leading role in the new show, she plays enough to necessitate the use of a cheat sheet. Read more.
From a media release:
As the World Welcomes a New Pope, A Sinful Pope Returns to Bravo in THE BORGIAS, April 14
As a new pope acknowledged for his humility and compassion for the poor begins his papacy, Bravo presents the exclusive return of one of history’s most notoriously corrupt and decadent papal families, THE BORGIAS. Ranking as the #1 program on Bravo during its second season, the Canadian co-production and multiple Canadian Screen Award winner returns for a third season on Sunday, April 14 at 10 p.m. ET. Academy Award-winner Jeremy Irons returns to THE BORGIAS in his Golden Globe®-nominated role of Pope Alexander as he clings to power to preserve the family legacy and establish the papacy as a hereditary monarchy across Italy. However, his children are poised to wield their own power as military prince and daring guerrilla fighter Cesare (Montreal’s François Arnaud) fights to secure his own ascension at any cost, and Lucrezia (Holliday Grainger) enters the dangerous fray of Neapolitan politics and learns the art of poisoning (visit bravo.ca for local broadcast times). THE BORGIAS is produced by Toronto’s Take 5 Productions.
This season, after surviving a near fatal assassination attempt, Pope Alexander responds with an iron will by ruthlessly purging the Vatican of anyone who might be disloyal to him. His true master plan is for father and son to rule the world. But he must come to accept that his children are independently ready to wield their own power. As the children’s passions grow, and as mistrust of all others becomes more ingrained, the siblings finally give in to their desires and embark on a passionate incestuous relationship. With both that scandalous secret and the unspoken agonies of Juan’s death lingering between them, the family is riven by paranoia and suspicion.
In the Season 3 premiere of THE BORGIAS (Sunday, April 14 at 10 p.m. ET), while Pope Alexander fights for his life after being poisoned, the Cardinals jockey for position to take over the Papacy. Cesare and Micheletto (Sean Harris) trace the assassination plot back to its source, but Della Rovere (Colm Feore) is ready to make his move. Meanwhile, Catherina Sforza (Gina McKee, MISSING) has dispatched her own personal assassin Rufio (Thure Lindhardt, Into The Wild) to dethrone the Borgia family. However, due to Lucrezia’s quick thinking, the family’s grip on power may not be lost.
Then, in the second episode (Sunday, April 21 at 10 p.m. ET), Alexander tasks Cardinal Sforza (Peter Sullivan) with instigating an “inquisition†among the Cardinals who were politicking against him. With the “evidence†he needs, Pope Alexander dismisses and banishes all the Cardinals he does not trust. Meanwhile, Catherina Sforza orders Rufio to seek support from the mercenary warlords of the Romagna families.
THE BORGIAS also stars Joanne Whalley as Vanozza, Lotte Verbeek as Giulia Farnese and Julian Bleach (Les Misérables) as Machiavelli.
THE BORGIAS is a Canadian-Irish-Hungarian Treaty co-production. Academy Award®-winning director and Emmy® nominee Neil Jordan serves as creator, executive producer, writer and director of select episodes. Take 5 Productions’ John Weber and Sheila Hockin, along with Jack Rapke, Darryl Frank, and James Flynn, also serve as executive producers.
Tassie Cameron (Rookie Blue, Flashpoint)Â is one of the speakers at the upcoming Toronto Screenwriting Conference on April 6 and 7. She shared her thoughts on the conference, cross-border diplomacy, and keeping the rookie in Rookie Blue.
What do you want to convey at the Toronto Screenwriting Conference?
I don’t really have anything to convey, beyond the fact that one can actually have a career as a Canadian screenwriter: I’m just happy and proud to be there, in such great company, representing for Canadian content, series and writers.
I’d rather answer questions any day then try and tell people what I think they should hear. But I guess I’m hoping I can help demystify the process — encourage great new writers that it’s possible to get a series on the air that you’re proud of and part of — and help share any shortcuts or helpful hints that might make life as a screenwriter in this country a little easier.
What do you hope to get out of it?
While I’d love to meet the other guest speakers — many of whom are heroes of mine — my only real agenda is to be as honest, open, informative, and helpful as I can be: to give back to the city I love, to the amazing new writers that are out there, and to the community that nurtured me.
Have conferences like this played a role in your career development?
I was lucky enough to go to the Canadian Film Centre — so conferences and speakers like this were part of the daily fare. But yes, every time I got to meet or listen to an honest, interesting human being who was doing this for a living, it both relaxed and inspired me. It’s not brain surgery, right? It’s just cool people, telling stories, fighting the good fight, working insanely hard for what they believe in, and trying not to be jerks along the way.
You’ve had a diverse career in various genres and formats – is that what it means to be a working writer in Canada?
Yes, definitely. Unlike the US, you’ve got to be a jack of all trades up here, if you want to work on a regular basis. And I’m starting to think that’s our national secret super-power. Because you can’t be too specific up here if you want to work consistently, it means you have to be — get to be — pretty solid, fast and informed about a bunch of different genres. Which teaches you new skills, keeps you flexible and open, and gives you tons of different kinds of experiences to draw on. Nothing’s ever wasted — it all just becomes part of your tool-box. Which means you end up with a pretty damn cool tool-box.
You’ve also spearheaded a couple of the major cross-border successes — what do you think it takes to work successfully with an American broadcaster in the mix?
Big, open, diplomatic ears. You need to listen really carefully to what your US partner is looking for — figure out how it aligns with your primary Canadian broadcaster — and then forge whatever creative peace needs to be brokered in between, making sure both networks feel heard and answered to. It’s a delicate dance, but when it works, it’s magic. Ideally both networks are on the same creative page from the beginning, which makes life a lot easier.
What would you say is the legacy of Flashpoint’s success?
Flashpoint opened the doors for all of us working in this country. It was smart, emotional, polished, prime-time storytelling that not only grabbed Canadian viewers, but crossed a bunch of borders and raised a bunch of bars. And it looked and sounded gorgeous. It was huge for Canadian television.
What’s new for Rookie Blue this upcoming season? How do you keep it fresh as the core cast loses some of their rookiness? Has the balance shifted at all in the serialized vs episodic elements?
There’s lots of new stuff in store for this season: new characters, new dynamics, new revelations. We’re trying to keep it fresh by not being afraid to change a little bit as we go along — and we’re trying to keep it honest by changing in the way that our rookies do. They’re growing and learning and shifting, and we’re trying to reflect that growth within the series. We also seem to be adding a new “rookie” every season, which helps refresh our premise.
And I think we’ve maintained a pretty steady balance between episodic and serial storytelling. All our episodes try to tell at least one good crime story, beginning to end; but at the end of it all, we’re a character-driven show, and we let our main characters drive the narratives, as we always have.
Anything else you want to add?
Nope …  just excited to see you all at the TSC!
Motive, CTV – “Undertow”
When a young man is found beaten and suffocated, Detectives Flynn (Kristin Lehman) and Vega (Louis Ferreira) follow a maze of clues back to a clandestine relationship between the victim and a young woman promised to another man in a pre-arranged marriage. The young woman’s father seems to be the perfect suspect, until Angie’s investigation uncovers a tale of tragedy and desperation.
The Nature of Things, CBC – “The Beaver Whisperers”
The Beaver Whisperers reveals a new role for our national symbol as ecological superhero.
Museum Secrets, History – “Palacio Real, Madrid”
Both a museum and the official palace of the Spanish royal family, the Palacio Real features armour, artworks and treasures that were once the private possessions of Spain’s kings and queens. In this episode, we discover that Spain reached its height of glory not through the acquisition of silver and gold, but because of the unique properties of a third element. We investigate how a famous swordsman bested 17 challengers, then examine the inner workings of a clock that was said to have been powered by witchcraft. We probe why a shield of leather can be better than steel, then meet a Gypsy who reveals how to separate Flamenco that is strictly for tourists from Flamenco that is real. And finally, we meet a modern king of Spain who outfoxed a Fascist dictator.
