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Between, Featured

Between stars dish on distrust in Season 2

Don’t expect Season 2 of Between to be full of sunshine and optimism. Pretty Lake is anything but, as winter is closing in, food is becoming scarce and folks on both sides of the fence have developed a pretty healthy distrust of one another.

It’s with that as the setting that City and Netflix’s dour, dystopian drama returns Thursday, with neither side any wiser about the disease killing anyone over the age of 21. And while townsfolk like Adam (Jesse Carere) and Wiley (Jennette McCurdy) want answers, the government is more than happy to let the town’s citizens die, sealing the disease off from the rest of the world. Episode 1, “Get Out of Town,” features two distinct groups doing just that—in very different ways—sending Between off in a tantalizing new direction.

We spoke to Carere and McCurdy during a press day in Toronto.

It was interesting, in Episode 1, how Adam and Wiley both had differing views on attempting to leave Pretty Lake and the situation in the farmhouse.
Jennette McCurdy: I think Wiley was just saying, ethically, ‘No, this isn’t right. We can’t just set up shop here and take advantage of the situation.’

There has been so much distrust on both sides in Between. The government isn’t be truthful with the people of Pretty Lake, or to everyone on the outside.
Jesse Carere: Yeah.

Episode 1 introduces viewers to a new character in Liam Cullen. What can you tell me about him? He claims to have a cure, but we’ve heard that before.
Jennette McCurdy: Liam comes at the end of the episode, and is played by Steven Grayhm—who we love and are great friends with—and he brings hope of a cure in a way that’s more stable and mature than we’ve seen before. And, I guess, it just seems more trustworthy, which makes some characters, Adam being one of them, doubt even more.

Jesse Carere: Like you said, people have talked about a cure before and it makes Adam even less trusting.

Of course, the instinct for everyone in Pretty Lake is to get out, but there are repercussions to that action. What can you say about Chuck’s decision regarding whether to escape from town or not?
Jesse Carere: I don’t want to get into exactly what happens, but there are repercussions.

Do things brighten up for these characters? It’s winter in Pretty Lake, food is running out … hope seems to be at its lowest. There isn’t a lot of smiling going on in Between. Do things brighten up by Episode 6?
Jesse Carere: I was going to say yes initially, but…

Jennette McCurdy: It’s pretty sombre. With messages like trust no one, every man for himself and finding your own solution, these themes don’t lend themselves to bright and sunny. Even some lines I have in the first scene are more lighthearted don’t come across that way because of the overall tone.

What can viewers expect from the Wiley-Adam relationship this season?
Jesse Carere: Tension. Miscommunication. Domestic discord.

Between airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on City.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Recap: Working It Out Together: Traditional Food in a Modern World

Episode five of Working It Out Together tackles the the barrier that many Canadians face every day: access to healthy fresh food. Host Waneek Horn-Miller believes that by limiting the  availability of nutritious foods, those from  lower socio-economic sectors are dependent on high sugar and high starch foods. She sees this practice as an act of aggression on Indigenous people, as a low-nutrient diet does not ensure the health and well-being of children in Canada. However, when communities work to restore traditional foods by means of cultivation or hunting, people not only improve their health but they decolonize their ways of thinking.

This edition examines corn, a food that historically accounted for 80% of the diet for Indigenous people. We learn about both mass produced corn and the traditional farming techniques associated with corn crops. Bonnie Skye, Mohawk from Six Nations of Grand River,  is a corn knowledge keeper, and is restoring traditional corn to her community’s daily diet. Teri Morrow, a dietician from Cayuga Nation discusses how the Residential School System acted to remove the people from their traditional foods. “When you remove that connection from the family and the land and food is just given to you, you’ve just broken any sort of relationship that you can have to either the earth, the land, the food, the water, anything. It doesn’t mean as much as it should.”

Donnie Martin, discusses the benefits he  has seen whilst hunting traditional local game to feed his family. The exposure of his young family to hunting and fishing normalizes the process for his children; educating them in the traditional ways.

Dr. Karl Hele  of Concordia University described the traditional farming village, with its systems of irrigation and crop rotation. The general stewardship of the land provided healthier food than that in a comparably sized village in Europe.  When settlers began to colonize the land these traditional ways were lost; settlers would destroy the food source using scorched earth tactics and effectively starved the people. Soon after the loss of farms and homes the people were moved to reserves, and prohibited by law from selling their produce to non-Indians. This in turn legally freed up land for lease for to settlers to  make “proper use” of. In short, food was used as a weapon to ensure the people remain poor in this new and evolving economy.

This episode, whilst an extremely important topic to cover, and perhaps the most accessible strategy for the average person to take up as an act of decolonization — and thus very important to learn from–was, in my opinion, not as engaging as it could have been. I would have liked to know more about the laws that aggressively criminalized food production that subversively introduced the structural racism we see so prevalently today.

 

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Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Link: Newfoundland First World War doc is vital Canadian education

From John Doyle of The Globe and Mail:

Link: Newfoundland First World War doc is vital Canadian education
“It’s very easy to be patriotic when you can afford it.”

How true that is. It’s spoken by a historian in the remarkable and must-see Newfoundland at Armageddon (Thursday, CBC, 8 p.m.). It’s a two-hour documentary made to mark the 100th anniversary of a First World War battle. In that July 1 battle at Beaumont-Hamel, about 800 soldiers of the Newfoundland Regiment were sent into action and most were immediately killed by German machine-gun fire. It was a massacre. Continue reading.

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Featured, Podcast

TV, eh? podcast episode 207 – A Supple Entry

With Diane away this week, Greg and Anthony win the Beverage Update and then talk about a jam-packed upcoming week of Canadian television returns, followed by a shakeup at Global News that left The Morning Show without co-host Liza Fromer and the cancellation of investigative series 16 x 9. We finish off by discussing production on Season 6 of Mr. D rolling in Halifax and Strombo being ousted from Hockey Night in Canada.

Listen or download below, or subscribe via iTunes or any other podcast catcher with the TV, eh? podcast feed.

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Amazing Race Canada, Featured

Bad moves and bad weather on The Amazing Race Canada

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The first episode of a new season of The Amazing Race Canada is always tough, because you’re just getting to know the teams, figure out who seems to work well together and decide who to cheer for. That first hour shows the competitors adjusting to the team dynamic as well, sussing out their strong and weak points.

But the producers offered the Season 4 contestants no mercy, throwing them into a terrifying Road Block—crawling under a cable car hundreds of feet in the air—that cued tears for more than one competitor and a bunch of penalties for the rest. Not every team took a penalty for deciding not to participate, but inclement weather on Jasper’s SkyTram meant those that didn’t complete the test or leave with a penalty hanging over them were forced to wait for a determined amount of time before moving to the next stage. It had all started so swimmingly: the 10 teams bolted into the trees around Yellowknife’s legislature at the top of the hour, seeking the translation to a First Nations greeting.

Former Big Brother Canada players Jillian and Emmett broke the code first and departed for the airport, where they quickly devolved into a bickering twosome. Jillian’s yelling and crying from the back seat clearly frustrated Emmett, though they still managed to land spots in the first airplane to Jasper. And though she groused at him the entire Leg, the pair still landed in first place at Pyramid Lake, scoring a trip for two to London, England. Jillian and Emmett are certainly strong players who boast strength for physical challenges (Emmett aced crawling under the SkyTram car in his first shot), but a lack of patience getting to locations could derail them.

Dating couple Steph and Kristen scored second place thanks to physical prowess (Kristen turned a hand slip on the tram into a success thanks to well-placed feet), confidence and support that should serve them well down the stretch.

Husband and wife Julie and Lowell are an inspiration already. Lowell has just a pinhole of sight remaining, and it’s going too, and Julie is determined he sees as much of Canada and the world as he can before he loses his sight completely. How can you not cheer for them?

As for the rest of the teams, it’s really too soon to tell which ones will be in the hunt for the $250,000 prize, cars and title, but it won’t be Anthony and Brandon, the two friends from Windsor, Ont., who opted to skip the SkyTram challenge just before the rest of the teams were halted due to weather. If the weather had held, the move would likely have paid off. Instead, they could only watch helplessly as slower teams completed the leg, leaving them up for elimination.

Would you have gambled like Brandon and Anthony did, hoping other teams would finish behind them? Comment below.

Here’s how the teams finished:

  1. Jillian and Emmett
  2. Steph and Kristen
  3. Stéphane and Antoine
  4. Joel and Ashley
  5. Julie and Lowell
  6. Frankie and Amy
  7. Rita and Yvette
  8. Anne and Tanya
  9. Kelly and Kate (four-hour penalty)
  10. Anthony and Brandon (four-hour penalty, eliminated)

The Amazing Race Canada airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

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