TV, eh? | What's up in Canadian television | Page 642
TV,eh? What's up in Canadian television
Orphan Black

It’s roll call for the final season of iconic Canadian series Orphan Black, beginning June 10

From a media release:

Space Original Series ORPHAN BLACK makes its highly anticipated return for its climactic final season on Saturday, June 10 at 10 p.m. ET. Produced by Temple Street, Season 5 of ORPHAN BLACK brings Sarah Manning and her sisters to their darkest days, in an effort to win their freedom. Throughout the season, the sisters individually delve into their past to confront personal struggles and emerge stronger through these self-explorations. Space viewers can catch-up on Season 5 of ORPHAN BLACK on Space.ca, Space GO, and via On Demand partners.

Adored by fans and critics alike in more than 170 countries, ORPHAN BLACK has transcended the landscape of Canadian television. Throughout its four-season run, this genre-bending series has introduced viewers to some of the most unconventional characters and storylines on television, championed individuality, personal evolution, and strong and complex female characters. Led by the Emmy®-award winning Tatiana Maslany, the series has amassed a fervent fan base spawning Clone Clubs around the globe. It has received a cavalcade of accolades, including a Peabody Award, as well as multiple Canadian Screen Awards for Best Drama, Writing, and Direction, along with multiple Best Acting wins for Maslany.

This season, after Sarah’s harrowing physical battle with Rachel and unsuccessful attempt to save Cosima on a remote Neoloution-operated island, she awakens to a familiar nightmare – her daughter, Kira, is in Rachel’s care at The Dyad Institute. Nearly all the clone sisters have been brought to heel and Sarah’s next in line. Yet this time, Rachel doesn’t resort to force to break Sarah’s defiant spirit. She wields her newfound power with grace, and dubiously promises an end to the violence if Sarah cooperates. Wary of these new terms, Sarah leans on Mrs. S to teach her a new strategy as they change tactics to pursue a long game. Working together, the sisters uncover the missing pieces of the insidious conspiracy, and finally learn the story behind their origin.

In the season opener, “The Few Who Dare” (Saturday, June 10 at 10 p.m. ET), a wounded Sarah, desperate to rescue Cosima get off the island and reunite with her family, journeys into the island’s interior, only to discover a mysterious village – the beating heart of the Neolution agenda. Meanwhile, a recovering Cosima reunites with Delphine and begins investigating the secrets of the Island under the watchful eye of Rachel who is now firmly in charge at the right-hand of the 170-year-old founder of Neolution, P.T. Westmorland. Back home, Neolution’s hunt for Helena, puts the screws to Alison and Donnie.

Throughout ORPHAN BLACK’s run, INNERSPACE delivers an insider’s look at the events that transpired in Saturday night’s episode in an AFTER THE BLACKsegment every Monday night at 6 p.m. ET. Hosts Teddy Wilson, Morgan Hoffman, and Ajay Fry dive deep into the rabbit hole with interviews, behind-the-scenes features, and viewer questions.

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Slasher

Slasher wrapping production on Season 2

From a media release:

Production will soon wrap on the second chapter of Aaron Martin’s award-winning anthology thriller series Slasher, produced by Shaftesbury, to be called Slasher 2: Guilty Party. Leslie Hope (24, NCIS, Suits) leads a large ensemble cast comprised of returning actors including Paula Brancati (Sadie’s Last Days on Earth, Degrassi: The Next Generation), Jim Watson (The Strain, Between), Christopher Jacot (Rogue, Eureka), Joanne Vannicola (Being Erica), Jefferson Brown (Rookie Blue, Degrassi: The Next Generation), and Dean McDermott (Ecstasy, CSI). New cast members this season include Lovell Adams-Gray (Lost & Found Music Studios, Dead of Summer), Kaitlyn Leeb (Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments, Heartland), Rebecca Liddiard (Houdini & Doyle, MsLabelled), Melinda Shankar (Degrassi: The Next Generation, How to Be Indie), Sebastian Pigott (Rogue, Revenge), Paulino Nunes (Designated Survivor, Brooklyn), Madison Cheeatow (Heartland, Sadie’s Last Days on Earth), Ty Olsson (The 100, Supernatural), and Simu Liu (Kim’s Convenience, Taken).

Aaron Martin (Saving Hope, Being Erica, Degrassi: The Next Generation), recipient of the 2017 WGC Showrunner Award, returns as showrunner. Set in the remote Canadian winter wilderness, the story revolves around a group of former summer camp counsellors who are forced to return to the isolated campground to retrieve evidence of a crime they committed in their youth. Before long the group, and the camp’s latest inhabitants, members of a spiritual retreat with their own secrets to hide, find themselves targeted by someone – or something – out for horrific revenge. Nominated for five Canadian Screen Awards for its first season, Slasher 2: Guilty Party has been filming on location in Orangeville, Ontario and surrounding area since February.

Brought together by a horrific secret they’ve long kept buried, a group of former friends must return in the dead of winter to the now-closed summer camp they worked at five years before. Deep in the snow-covered wilderness, the rundown camp has now become a private and isolated “intentional community” cut-off from civilization by weather, wilderness, and choice. The group’s secretive reason to return causes tension and tempers to flare. Before long, they find themselves gruesomely targeted by someone – or something – out for horrific revenge. The location’s isolation starts to wear on relationships and expose surprising secrets, and as the winter weather worsens, so does the killer’s grisly spree. As blood and secrets spill across the vast and snowy wild surrounding the camp, the mismatched group must try to escape not just the killer’s retribution, but also survive the deadly elements.

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Featured, Sensitive Skin

Sensitive Skin cancelled by HBO Canada

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Sensitive Skin will not return for a third season on HBO Canada. That’s the word from the show’s official Twitter account, which posted the news on Sunday morning.

Bell Media issued a statement to TV, Eh? on Monday afternoon:

“Several months ago, we informed the SENSITIVE SKIN team that we had made the decision not to renew the series for a third season. In our view, Davina’s journey came to a moving and elegant conclusion at the end of Season 2. We are very proud to have been part of this amazing show, which won over audiences and critics around the world. We remain huge fans of the creative team behind SENSITIVE SKIN and hope to work with them again in the future.”

Starring Kim Cattrall and directed by Don McKellar, Sensitive Skin garnered a 2015 International Emmy nomination in the Best Comedy Series category and Season 1 captured four Canadian Screen Awards, including the Bell Media Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Continuing Leading Comedic Role (McKellar); Best Direction in a Comedy Program or Series (McKellar); Best Photography in a Comedy Program or Series (Douglas Koch) and Best Picture Editing in a Comedy or Variety Program or Series (Matthew Hannam).

Cattrall played Davina, a fiftysomething Toronto woman who was adjusting to her life as an older woman while married to her neurotic husband, Al (McKellar). Davina was worried she hadn’t done anything of note with her life and set out to change that. In Season 2, Davina was coping with life as a widow and moved to the Toronto Islands and attempted to make new friends. Sensitive Skin co-starred Nicolas Wright, Bob Martin, Colm Feore, Joanna Gleason, Clé Bennett, Elliott Gould and Marc-André Grondin.

Season 1 of Sensitive Skin was written by Bob Martin; Susan Coyne, Rosa Labordé and Lynne Coady wrote Season 2.

Fans were not happy to hear the news and took to Twitter to vent their frustrations.

Consider us in that group too.

How do you feel about Sensitive Skin being cancelled? Let me know in the comments section below.

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Featured, Saving Hope

Saving Hope says goodbye to spring with emotional finale

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Say it ain’t so, Saving Hope! This Sunday’s episode is being touted as the medical drama’s “Spring Finale” on CTV, meaning the show goes away for a month before returning on Thursday, June 8, at 9 p.m. ET/PT to broadcast its remaining episodes.

And what a finale it is, with familiar faces returning to Hope Zion and others saying goodbye. Here’s what the network has said about Sunday’s “All Our Yesterdays,” written by Patrick Tarr and Thomas Pepper and directed by Steve DiMarco.

An unidentified man arrives at the hospital with critical injuries after being struck by a subway train, and the Hope Zion doctors rally together to try to save his life. Dr. Charlie Harris’ personal medical struggle is overshadowed by a spiritual one when he discovers the John Doe is “The Great” Randal Crane. In spirit form, Randal delivers a dire warning about Charlie’s gift and its heavy cost if he doesn’t rid himself of it. Dr. Maggie Lin attempts to leave her past behind her, but it proves impossible when Dr. Sydney Katz comes back to town, urging Maggie to put her pregnant sister in the now-defunct cancer study. Away from the hospital in the wake of her mother Martha’s diagnosis, Dr. Alex Reid takes Martha to visit their family farm.

Maggie and Sydney reunite in Sunday’s episode

And here are a few more facts to whet your appetite.

Manny has to make a decision
A message on his cell phone leads Manny to re-evaluate his career and Dana is there with words of encouragement … and an arched eyebrow.

Cassie’s struggling in her new role
Turns out going from employee to boss isn’t all it’s cracked up to be as Cassie finds it hard to get respect from her former same-level staffers. She turns to Charlie for help, but he’s got his hands full with, you know, a pesky spirit.

Peter Keleghan returns
Speaking of that spirit, he’s played by none other than Peter Keleghan who has been so great on Murdoch Mysteries and Workin’ Moms. The veteran actor is back to reprise his role of psychic Randall Crane, who has a dire dialogue with Charlie.

Maggie and Sydney have a reunion
We’ve missed Sydney in our lives, so it’s great to have Stacey Farber back. Unfortunately, she’s not at Hope Zion for happy reasons.

Kenneth Welsh guest stars
The veteran and Member of the Order of Canada causes problems for Zach and Dev when he re-stumbles into their lives as Wilfred.

Saving Hope returns with new episodes on Thursday, June 8, at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

Images courtesy of Bell Media.

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Awards

22 Minutes and Mr. D top Screen Nova Scotia award winners

From a media release:

Screen Nova Scotia hosted its third annual awards show on Thursday, May 4th,  in front of a sold-out crowd at Casino Nova Scotia. Featuring the ACTRA Awards for Outstanding Performances, the Digital Animators of Nova Scotia Award, the Film Crew Excellence Award, and the Screen Nova Scotia Awards for film, television and animation, the event was a celebration of the talent, creativity and passion that are trademarks of the screen-based community in Nova Scotia.

The evening was hosted by the legendary comedy duo, Bette MacDonald and Maynard Morrison, with accompaniment from the Bill Stevenson Trio. Presenters included producers, directors, crew members and actors, with a special appearance by Weirdos’ Andy Warhol (Rhys Bevan-John).

The night’s finale was the Screen Nova Scotia Award for Best Feature Film, which was awarded to the indie drama Werewolf, the debut feature film from acclaimed Cape Breton writer/director Ashely McKenzie and her producing partner, Nelson MacDonald.

For the third year in a row, Mike McLeod won Best Actor in a Leading Role for the role of the priest in the series Forgive Me. Director Thom Fitzgerald accepted the award on McLeod’s behalf. First-time nominee Molly Dunsworth took home the Best Actress in a Supporting Role for her work in the short film Ingrid and the Black Hole.

Bette MacDonald also picked up the ACTRA Award for Outstanding Female Actor in a Leading Role for her role as Trudy Walsh, the outspoken school secretary on Mr.D.

Fish, from filmmaker Heather Young, won the award for Best Sort Film. Fish screened at the Berlinale as part of Telefilm Canada’s Not Short on Talent program and was recently selected to screen in TIFF Canada’s Top Ten Film Festival.

Digital animation was spotlighted at the awards, with Tim Tracey winning the DANS Award for Outstanding Animation for his short film DataMine and Copernicus Studios taking home the trophy for Best Animated Series for their Disney XD show Pickle & Peanut.

Editor Sarah Bryne won the 2017 Film Crew Excellence Award. Sarah’s recent credits include Play Your Gender, Trailer Park Boys and Your Money or Your Wife. Sarah also works extensively with the Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative and on countless short films for emerging filmmakers.

The full list of award winners:

Best Feature Film: Werewolf (Grassfire Films)

Best Television Series: This Hour Has 22 Minutes (DHX Media)

Best Documentary Film: Quebec My Country Mon Pays (John Walker Productions)

Best Short Film: Fish (Heather Young)

DANS Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Animation: DataMine (Tim Tracey Animation)

Outstanding Female Actor in a Leading Role: Bette MacDonald in Mr. D

Outstanding Male Actor in a Leading Role: Mike McLeod in Forgive Me: Confessions

Outstanding Female Actor in a Supporting Role: Molly Dunsworth in Ingrid and the Black Hole

Outstanding Male Actor in a Supporting Role: Nathan D. Simmons in Hustle & Heart

Film Crew Excellence Award: Sarah Byrne, Editor

Community Recognition Award: Dave Myatt & the Atlantic School of Theology

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