Raising kids and lowering expectations: CTV welcomes the arrival of its new original comedy CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING, airing Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app, beginning Jan. 12. Created by Emmy® and Golden Globe® Award-winner Kurt Smeaton (SCHITT’S CREEK, KIM’S CONVENIENCE), CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING follows parents, Astrid (Meaghan Rath, BEING HUMAN) and James (Aaron Abrams, BLINDSPOT), as they raise their two young children in the city and struggle to hold on to their pre-kid life. Filmed in Toronto and Hamilton, Ont., the first season consists of eight half-hour episodes.
In CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING, Astrid and James struggle to maintain their sanity in the face of their young children. The series chronicles their war of identity – one conceded battle at a time – it illustrates the hilarious and varied ways kids can wreck happiness, annihilate goals and dreams, and re-invent lives. However, it also explores how sometimes, if parents are very lucky, their re-invented life is sort of okay, too. Nowhere near as good as that old, really great life. But still kinda nice.
CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING stars Meaghan Rath as Astrid, a busy mom who does not care about being perfect or following so-called parenting trends by mommy bloggers; Aaron Abrams as James, a dad who is a mild perfectionist and pressures himself to be a great father – but still misses the freedom, spontaneity, and fun from his life before kids; and introducing Logan Nicholson (BLUES CLUES AND YOU) and Mikayla SwamiNathan as Felix and Viv – James and Astrid’s adorable seven-year-old son and four-year-old daughter, who are sucking the life out of their parents, one tantrum at a time.
Joining the cast in supporting roles are Ennis Esmer (BLINDSPOT, SCHITT’S CREEK) as James’ best friend and colleague, Ennis; Nazneen Contractor (RANSOM, HEROES REBORN) as Astrid’s successful and mildly pretentious older sister Dawn; Dmitry Chepovetsky (KILLJOYS, DEPARTURE) as Bo – Dawn’s husband and a maternal, earthy, loving dork; Darius Rota as Dawn and Bo’s brazen 10-year-old son Corey; Veena Sood (CORNER GAS ANIMATED, THE INDIAN DETECTIVE) as Astrid and Dawn’s recently retired mother Nisha; and Lisa Codrington (LETTERKENNY, ANNE WITH AN E) as James and Ennis’ cunning, fiercely competitive, and ruthless boss who believes children are career killers. This season also features guest appearances by Seán Cullen (WORKIN’ MOMS) and Anna Hopkins (THE EXPANSE).
On the series premiere of CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING, “Meals” (Wednesday, Jan. 12 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app), after four years of being a stay-at-home mom, Astrid (Rath) is ready to return to work. She and James (Abrams) decide to mark the occasion with a celebratory dinner with the kids. However, getting Felix (Nicholson) and Viv (SwamiNathan) to cooperate at the dinner table is a struggle, leading to a disastrous (and dangerous) dinner. Meanwhile, as James and Astrid prepare for more money, more date nights, and less diapers, Astrid comes to terms with the truth: she wants another baby.
Exclusive videos are available throughout the season on CTV.ca and the CTV app, providing viewers with an extension of the series with bonus digital content that includes behind-the-scenes videos and more.
As previously announced, CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING joins the Roku Originals programming slate on The Roku Channel in the U.S. in 2022.
The series is from award-winning New Metric Media and is created and executive produced by Golden Globe® and Emmy® Award-winner Kurt Smeaton (SCHITT’S CREEK), and executive produced by one of television’s premier comedy writers Chuck Tatham (MODERN FAMILY, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT), multiple Canadian Screen Award-winner Mark Montefiore (LETTERKENNY, WHAT WOULD SAL DO?), and Meaghan Rath, with Beth Iley (KILLJOYS) serving as producer. Renuka Jeyapalan (KIM’S CONVENIENCE, GINNY & GEORGIA) and Melanie Orr (THE PARKER ANDERSONS, THE HARDY BOYS) direct the series.
Bell Media Distribution is the international rights holder for CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING, and New Metric Media is the series’ exclusive Sales Agent. The series is produced by New Metric Media in association with CTV, with the participation of the Canada Media Fund and Bell Fund.
Now that the world has returned to some sort of order—at least, as much as it can—many of us will face that all too familiar dread surrounding the holidays: the Christmas meal.
A too-dry turkey, gluey mashed potatoes (of which I have been guilty) and watery pumpkin pie are just three of many mishaps that can occur when folks congregate during the holidays.
But Mary Berg has got your (and my) back this year.
Debuting Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern on CTV Life Channel with a special episode of Mary Makes it Easy called “Mary Makes it Merry,” the MasterChef Canada winner, cookbook author, celebrity chef and culinary coach aptly guides you through an easy as pie (see what I did there) bunch of recipes designed to keep you organized when family descends.
“It breaks my heart to hear that the worst part of the holidays for a lot of people is making the holiday meal. By the time you shop for the food and make the standard feast you’ve spent so long prepping, it’s no wonder you’re overwhelmed,” Mary says in a media release promoting the instalment. “With my shortcuts and time-saving strategies, I’m going to make the holidays so easy.”
It all kicks off with perhaps the easiest bread dish I’ve ever seen. I’ve struggled with making cinnamon buns in the past, eventually giving up and buying them from bakers. No more, thanks to Mary’s Cinnamon Roll Bread, which looks so simple even I could master it. The same goes for the Stuffed Turkey Roulade she tackles as the main dish. Once Mary completes a couple of sides, including dead easy cranberry sauce, I was convinced. I can, and will, do all of that for my family and more, over the holidays.
Mary Makes it Easy, “Mary Makes it Merry,” airs Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern on CTV Life Channel.
Crave confirmed today that it has ordered a third season of its hit original series, which continues to be the top-performing Canadian title on Crave*. CANADA’S DRAG RACE is available to audiences in Canada in both English and French, and is produced by Blue Ant Studios in association with Crave and World of Wonder.
Canadian drag artists looking to show off their distinct brand of Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent, can now submit their applications at www.crave.ca/canadasdragrace. Applicants must be 19 years of age by November 8, 2021, to apply, and a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada.
Additional details about the new season will be announced at a later date.
In association with Crave, Season 3 of CANADA’S DRAG RACE will be produced by Blue Ant Studios. Executive Producers for World of Wonder are Fenton Bailey, Randy Barbato, and Tom Campbell. RuPaul serves as Executive Producer. Executive Producers for Blue Ant Studios are Michael Kot, Betty Orr, Michelle Mama (SHINE TRUE for VICE, Fuse, and OUTtv; and IN THE MAKING for CBC) and Laura Michalchyshyn. Trevor Boris (BIG BROTHER CANADA for Global TV; and PARADISE HOTEL for FOX) is Executive Producer/Showrunner.
All tea, no shade! CANADA’S DRAG RACE judge and the Queen of the North, Brooke Lynn Hytes, leads open, honest, and no-holds-barred conversations about all things queer in the new Crave Original series, 1 QUEEN 5 QUEERS. The eight-part series, which is also available to French audiences with subtitles, premieres with two episodes on Thursday, Dec. 9, with subsequent new episodes dropping Thursdays on Crave.
An update to the MTV Canada hit 1 GIRL 5 GAYS, which ran from 2009 to 2014, the new series presents fierce, fiery, and uncensored discussions about sex, relationships, pop culture, challenges facing the LGBTQ2S+ community, and more. Led by Hytes who moderates a panel that represents a variety of sexualities and identities, each half-hour episode of 1 QUEEN 5 QUEERS is focused on a single topic, and reflects the awareness and values of a new generation of viewers.
Segments featured on the series include: “Let’s Have a Kiki,” which invites queer people from around the world to share their opinions about the topics covered on the show; “Secret’s Out,” where a secret about one of the cast members is revealed and the others must guess who it’s about; “Come Again,” where the panelists are invited to discuss pivotal moments in their lives; and “Quick Shooter,” where one cast member must answer as many questions as they can, in one minute.
Some of the panelists joining Hytes on 1 QUEEN 5 QUEERS include: CANADA’S DRAG RACE guest judge and choreographer Hollywood Jade; Award-winning queer comedian Tricia Black; actor and retired professional hockey player Harrison Browne; model, activist, and multidisciplinary performer Ivory Conover; and lifestyle blogger Myles Sexton. Celebrity guests include: fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi; the first transgender woman to be cast in a transgender role on a daytime soap opera (GENERAL HOSPITAL) Cassandra James; and Peabody and American Film Institute Award-winner Our Lady J; a transgender woman whose credits include producer/writer on series such as TRANSPARENT and POSE.
In association with Crave, 1 QUEEN 5 QUEERS is produced by Bell Media Studios and distributed by Bell Media Distribution. Brooke Lynn Hytes serves as Executive Producer and Host.
If not for the pandemic, Tenaj Williams wouldn’t be playing Trey on the third season of Jann. In fact, he likely wouldn’t be acting on television at all.
Until 2020, the Calgary-based actor and singer was happily ensconced in the theatre world, performing in various musicals and plays around the country. But when COVID-19 shut down theatres, he decided to make the jump to film and television, landing small parts in Wynonna Earp, Big Sky and the Hallmark movie Meet Me at Christmas.
When Williams nabbed a role in Jann, airing Mondays at 7 p.m. ET on CTV, he assumed it would be small as well. But he soon found out that Trey, Jann’s (Jann Arden) new personal assistant, is no bit part. On the contrary, the calm, nurturing former nanny will be a major, season-long presence as he works to bring order to Jann’s chaotic universe and develops a strong bond with her mom Nora (Deborah Grover).
“The part was much larger than I thought it was going to be,†Williams says.
During a phone interview from Calgary, Williams told us how he approached playing Trey and explained why he loved joining Jann’s Season 3 cast.
What was your audition process for Jann like? Tenaj Williams: Typically now with COVID, it’s all self-tapes, and I actually really like that. I like that I can control the environment I’m in and my level of anxiety and stress. The way I’ve devised to tell if my self-tapes are good or not is, I always watch back my self-tape before I submit it, and if I find myself distracted by things like ‘Why do you look like that?’ or ‘What are you doing with your teeth?’ or ‘What are you doing with your mouth?’ then it’s not a good take. But if at the end of the take I find that I’m just smiling the whole time, that means I was [in the moment] as a viewer and then I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah, that must be a good take.’
With Jann, I sent off the tape, and I knew who Jann was, and I had seen commercials of the show, but I had never actually watched the show before. And then I got shortlisted for it, but I’d been shortlisted for things before, and I know not to get my hopes up for anything. So I continued on with my life, no big deal. I didn’t tell anybody anything, because I didn’t want to be like, ‘Hey, I’m shortlisted, and then I didn’t get the part. So I just pretended like life as usual, and then I got an email from my agent saying, ‘We’re just waiting for network approval,’ and I didn’t really know what that was. I assumed that it could still fall through, so I didn’t want to get my hopes up for that either. And then I got the job, and I was super excited, but I for sure didn’t understand the magnitude of what I was doing. I was like, ‘Maybe I’ll be in one or two episodes, which will be cool,’ you know what I mean? And it wasn’t until I got my script maybe like a week later and I did a fitting that was two and a half hours, and I was like, ‘How many costumes do I have?’ and I looked through the script and I’m like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m in all the scenes, I’m in every episode.’ And then I was invited to a table read, which that’s never happened to me before, and I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is actually a big part,’ and that’s when I got excited.
Trey is a very calm, collected guy who loves astrology. How did you approach playing him? TW: Honestly, first I watched all the episodes of this show, all of them. And it didn’t take me long to do it, either. I really enjoyed the show. When the first season ended, I thought I was like two episodes in, but I’d finished the whole season. And the same thing happened with the second season. And I kind of pieced together Trey from Jann, who has very chaotic energy, and that’s an understatement. I thought, if she’s looking for a personal assistant, I’m imagining she needs the opposite of what she is. You could play it really crazy and really high energy and matching that kind of energy, but I thought it might be more interesting if he comes in and juxtaposes that kind of energy. So I tried to bring him into a more Zen-like place. So that was my main focus, I thought that’s what she would benefit from, someone to balance her off.
And I’m not much into astrology personally, but I did look into a little bit and I talked to a few friends who are into it, and I looked into my own sign—I’m an Aquarius—and I thought, ‘Oh, these are actually quite accurate.’
As you mentioned, Jann’s world is pretty chaotic. How is poor Trey going to handle that as the season goes on? TW: Well, what I will say without giving any spoilers away is, he says in the first episode that he really likes a challenge, and I think that he finds it. I think he finds not only a challenge in Jann but in the people that live in Jann’s house that he’s now surrounded by. So he has a very ridiculously destroyed version of Cale [Elena Juatco], and I think he finds that very fascinating in a terrifying way, and you also have the energy of Nora. I think he’s attracted to the different situations there and the different energies and what that means. I think the challenge of bringing that all together is really exciting.
When we recently spoke with Jann Arden, she told us that Trey develops a strong relationship with Nora. What can you tell us about that? TW: Something about Nora triggers something in his past that he’s dealt with himself. He sees something in Nora that he wants to nurture. He wants to take care of this person, and I think he finds a really good friend in Nora, and I really, really love their relationship. I think that Nora is looking for a friend just as much as Trey is looking to take care of this type of person. Because she’s around Jann’s chaotic energy a lot, and she’s also been, not kicked out by Max, but kind of seeing that we need a change, and I think she’s looking for some stability. I think that Trey provides that for her in a way.
I imagine it’s not always easy to join an established TV show. What was your first day on set like? TW: It was crazy, honestly. It was crazy that I had binged these two seasons and then I did this Zoom reading where I got to see all the faces that I got to see on screen, where we went over the whole season. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I can’t believe it.’ And they were all such professionals. I cannot rave highly enough about the group of actors that they have brought together, beautiful human souls who genuinely want to make the work so good. There are no egos or anything like that, everybody was so welcoming and warm.
The first day, I was wildly nervous, I didn’t really know what to expect, and my first scene was a two-hander with Jann, and I was like, ‘Of course it is. Of course, my very first day is with the star of the show in a scene that’s just the two of us.’ And so I freaked out and thought, ‘OK, don’t mess up any of your lines because if you mess up even one line, they’re going to kick you to the curb.’
And I was standing there and Jann was with me—and our first time really meeting was on set, the first scene we were doing—and we were just having a very casual conversation, and we just stood there for a second and it was quiet, and Jann just turns to me and is like, ‘So, are you nervous?’ And I thought, ‘How do I answer this question?’ and I was like, ‘You know what? Yeah, I am. I’m very nervous.’ And she just looks at me and said, ‘Oh, thank God, me, too.’ And that actually really helped things.
Did you ever find yourself cracking up at some of Jann’s one-liners and antics while shooting? TW: I would like to tell you that I got to the point where I was like, ‘Oh, I’m a professional, I don’t laugh anymore, I don’t break,’ but that never was the case. I was always breaking, I was always ruining scenes. It’s [Jann’s] show, and if she wants to try something completely different…she’ll just go on the most hilarious tangents, and I’m like, ‘Please don’t zoom the camera into my face, please don’t zoom the camera into my face.’ I just couldn’t keep it together.
What was the best thing about joining the cast this season? TW: The biggest thing was, honestly, it felt like I was part of something so great. I was just so proud of the work. I was laughing out loud constantly while we were doing the work. The script was so funny, everybody was so funny, we had such good chemistry as a cast, they welcomed me in so much, that it just felt like I was playing around. I mean, it’s crazy to me that I’m in a sitcom with Jann Arden and a bunch of other really talented people. I got paid to just literally play with the funnest, wonderfullest people. I tried not to take that for granted.
Jann airs Mondays at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CTV, CTV.ca and CTV app.
