CTV announced today live from Prime Time in Ottawa that it has ordered a second season of its new, original comedy CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING for the 2022/23 broadcast season. Production is set to begin this Spring in Toronto and Hamilton, Ont., with an increased episode order for Season 2 consisting of 16 half-hour episodes – double from its eight-episode first season. From award-winning New Metric Media, CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING is created by Emmy® and Golden Globe® Award-winner Kurt Smeaton (SCHITT’S CREEK, KIM’s CONVENIENCE).
CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING Season 1 joins the Roku Originals programming slate on the Roku Channel in the U.S. this year.
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 – one conceded battle at a time. Season 1 of the CTV Original comedy, currently airing Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app, ranks as the biggest debut for a Canadian comedy among A25-54, since 2019 (CTV’s JANN). The series also currently ranks as CTV’s #1 new comedy of the 2021-22 broadcast season.
In addition to Rath and Abrams, the series also stars Ennis Esmer (BLINDSPOT, SCHITT’S CREEK); Nazneen Contractor (RANSOM, HEROES REBORN); Logan Nicholson (BLUES CLUES AND YOU) and Mikayla SwamiNathan; Dmitry Chepovetsky (KILLJOYS, DEPARTURE); Veena Sood (CORNER GAS ANIMATED, THE INDIAN DETECTIVE); Lisa Codrington (LETTERKENNY, ANNE WITH AN E); and Darius Rota.
CHILDREN RUIN EVERYTHING 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.
Director Jill Carter has had a wide and varied career. She’s been behind the camera on Beauty and the Beast, Private Eyes, Spiral, Heartland, Murdoch Mysteries and The Murders. But her latest gig, on Astrid & Lilly Save the World, might be the most interesting and well-received so far.
Airing Wednesdays on CTV Sci-Fi Channel, media on both sides of the border have been universal in its praise for Astrid & Lilly Save the World, celebrating its cast—led by Jana Morrison (Astrid) and Samantha Aucoin (Lilly)—co-creators Noelle Stehman and Betsy Van Stone, and plot. Combining the horrors of high school with monsters, a portal to another dimension, humour and regular-looking characters has drawn comparisons to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but Astrid & Lilly is definitely a unique beast.
We spoke to Jill Carter about joining the show, her cast and what goes into creating the world Astrid and Lilly are in.
The last Newfoundland-shot supernatural series I loved was Surreal Estate, which was, sadly, cancelled. I’m thinking that Astrid & Lilly Save the World is going to fill that hole. I really enjoyed the first episode. Jill Carter: Thanks! We definitely had fun making it. I had been to Newfoundland but hadn’t worked there. It was a really wonderful experience and obviously a very beautiful province.
Actors audition for a project. How does it work for a director on something like this? JC: I have an agent in the U.S. and an agent in Canada, and they have a pulse on everything that’s happening, either that’s already in production or things that are coming into production or in development. They will either pitch their directors or writers or whoever before there’s a call. There are variables that can go into how you are pitched a project or how they pitch directors on a project.
And then they just go through the rounds of meeting who they think might be the type of person that could deliver the type of show that they are looking to deliver, and also might bring some new ideas to the table. They were meeting with people and my agent pitched me and they liked the idea and, I think, the fact that I had just done the opening two episodes of The Bold Type.
I was sent the first two scripts, the ones that I ended up directing, and the show bible. Immediately, on the first three pages in, I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is so fun.’ Their writing was so clear, there was a clear POV and you really immediately understood who these people were, the dynamics of the characters and what was happening.
Jana Morrison (left) and Samantha Aucoin. Image courtesy of Jill Carter.
It was so nice to read something that was so strong and had a clear perspective and was also highlighting things that all of us as human beings have been in high school. It doesn’t even happen to happen in high school these days, where we haven’t felt like we’ve been able to be our full selves. We’re judged unfairly or we aren’t able to fully be the unique people that we are for a multitude of reasons. I think it’s a throwback or a fun trip down memory lane.
The show is built on that friendship and they’re very unique girls. Their friendship is so important to what makes the show relatable. I was very charmed by what I was reading and the ideas that were being put forth and then getting to play in a dimension that I actually hadn’t had.
Other than Beauty and the Beast, I hadn’t really done a lot of work in that area. It was fun to have the opportunity to play with prosthetics and visual effects in that way and create a fun language around it.
Being the director of the pilot episode, there’s that added responsibility of helping to build this world using colour. I’m imagining it must be a collaborative process between yourself, your cinematographer and the two co-creators as well. JC: That idea was something I pitched when I was interviewing. It was a thought that came to me as I was reading the material and trying to figure out what would I want to see. Being a teenager is such an emotional time in your life, navigating feelings, and the colour wheel kind of popped into my head. I started thinking, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to have each monster, because of the nature of how the monsters were being presented, and how they were capturing their prey?’
They were going after people that they wanted to ultimately kill. Our first monster preys on people’s sadness, so what does that look like in a colour and how can you subtly infuse the story and make it stronger without hitting people over the head? Working with Betsy Van Stone, [producers] Danishka Esterhazy and Samantha Levine and Anne Tipper, our cinematographer, our production designer, Helen Kotsonis … working with the key creatives to say, ‘OK, this is the idea, this is what we want to do.’
Jill Carter (left) and cinematographer Ann Tipper. Image courtesy of Jill Carter.
Is this a first for you, working with key creatives who are all female? JC: It’s definitely up there. I think this is the first show where we’ve had non-binary and women in every key position.
Both the leads are relative newcomers to the industry. What was it like working with Jana and Samantha? JC: I cannot say enough good things about both of the girls. Day in and day out they blew me away. On Day 1 we had a big steady cam scene that was covering two, three pages through the hallways of the school. I was literally saying, especially to Sam, because she’d never done this before. I’d be asking her to do these things and talking to her, and she was unbelievably natural. I actually don’t know that I’ve ever worked with an actor who was that natural.
They were lovely, lovely human beings, very open, very curious, unbelievably prepared.
Astrid & Lilly has been positively reviewed by Canadian and U.S. media. That must be gratifying. JC: It’s really exciting. I love the fact that despite the fact that the girls are struggling in high school and trying to figure out how to fit in, one of the things that are so amazing is that they really do like themselves. Everybody has moments of insecurity, but they really are genuinely who they are and you don’t meet characters like that very often. I don’t feel like their struggles are presented in a stereotypical way. It’s very positive messaging that the show puts forward.
Astrid & Lilly Save the World airs Wednesdays at 10 p.m. Eastern on CTV Sci-Fi.
Link: Astrid & Lilly Save the World embraces the weirdness of high school supernatural slayers With big Buffy-sized shoes to fill in the high school students slay monsters genre, the creators of Syfy’s new series opted to take the template and make it weird. Very weird. Astrid and Lilly Save the World centers on two high school outcasts, who turn into unlikely heroes when they have to save their town from flesh-eating monsters. Continue reading.
It’s funny how a simple TV show title can elicit an immediate response. I recently received an email from a reader who was outraged at CTV’s newest comedy, Children Ruin Everything, because of its name.
Debuting Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CTV, Children Ruin Everything uses that sly—and, for some, a hot-button topic—name as a jumping-off point for laughs. Created and executive produced by Kurt Smeaton (Schitt’s Creek, What Would Sal Do?) the show posits not so much whether a young couple’s lives are ruined by having kids as it is how their lives are changed because of them.
“I’ve got three kids,” Smeaton says. “I was reading these studies on happiness and how people without kids were way happier than people with kids. I felt offended, but also kind of seen, and the inspiration for this was a counterargument. Yeah, these articles make a lot of great points, but there is another part of it they’re not getting at. It’s not necessarily about happiness. Raising a family and kids is so funny and unpredictable and really fulfilling.”
The couple at the heart of Children Ruin Everything are Astrid (Meaghan Rath) and James (Aaron Abrams), who are juggling work, going back to work, in-laws and friends when you have kids in your life. The debut episode “Meals” caused me not only to cackle but nod my head in understanding. After four years of being a stay-at-home mom, Astrid is ready to return to work, so she and James decide to mark the occasion with a celebratory dinner with their kids, Felix (Logan Nicholson) and Viv (Mikayla SwamiNathan). What happens next—dismissed food, short attention spans, frustration and broken glass—is totally relatable. I’ve experienced this before, and seeing another couple deal with it made me feel better about my own step-parenting decisions.
Outside of the home is more hilarity, thanks to supporting cast in Ennis Esmer (Private Eyes), Lisa Codrington (Letterkenny), Nazneen Contractor (Ransom) and Veena Sood (The Indian Detective).
Upcoming storylines delve into road trips, death and space (or lack thereof), bodies and how they change, with a story arc that wonders if Astrid and James should have another child.
“We try to keep the themes and stories fairly simple because it doesn’t take a lot to initiate a story and have these characters go,” Smeaton says.
Children Ruin Everything airs Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.
To say Season 1 of Transplant was a success would be an understatement. Critics and viewers lauded the CTV medical drama with high ratings and Canadian Screen Award nominations and wins. The love extended to the U.S., where Transplant aired on NBC and around the world in the UK, Spain, Australia and the Netherlands.
Now Transplant is back and, judging by the season premiere—kicking off Monday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CTV—that success will grow even more.
We spoke to Joseph Kay, Transplant‘s creator—showrunner, executive producer and writer—about what’s next for Bash (Hamza Haq), Jed (John Hannah), Mags (Laurence Leboeuf), June (Ayisha Issa), Theo (Jim Watson) and recurring characters Dr. Mark Novak (Gord Rand) and Rania (Nora Guerch).
What was it like to see the love that the show was getting as the first season rolled out across North America? Joseph Kay: I was and am really, really proud that people responded to the work. Really thrilled by that. There’s a team of people who work unbelievably hard to make the show on every level, and we care a lot about what we do and put all of ourselves into it. You work hard and sometimes audiences respond and sometimes they don’t, but you work hard either way. So to see people like it, to see audiences respond to it is just very humbling and exciting and thrilling. I always did feel that there was something at the core of the show that would connect with audiences. It tells someone’s individual experience that people are interested in, but it also has some resonance and accessible themes.
We always did our best to deliver them in a warm, engaging, fast-paced, page-turney sort of way. We are excited for people to see the work we’ve been doing the last year as well.
I immediately fell in love with the characters and cared about what happened to them. And that continues in Season 2 with the first episode, “Guardrail.” What is it that makes a show succeed in this connection with an audience like Transplant does? JK: I wish I could articulate the answer to that well. I totally hear where you’re coming from, and as an avid viewer of things, sometimes you just connect and sometimes you don’t. I think on the level of Transplant, I’d say two things. One, I would first say that, man, we do have such a great ensemble, starting with Hamza, to Laurence, John, Jim, and then even expanding from there, our actors are very, very good. And I think that they deal with the emotion in a really real accessible, funny way. They’re just warm people that you want to spend time with and they convey that. So I think that’s a very huge part of it.
And in terms of the storytelling, one thing I’m proud of about the show is that we’re telling a very specific story for Bash that I think audiences are interested in, but I feel like we’re also trying to tell this kind of thematic story for everyone. Our stories are always about moving forward or starting over or reconciling old versions of ourselves with new versions of ourselves. We locate a theme and variations on the theme that allow audiences to connect with the show. And that that’s why audiences are interested in following those characters on their journeys. And finally, Transplant is a medical procedural, yes, but it’s very much about the main characters. Some of these shows have a balance that skews towards the guest stars, the patients, whereas our show is really, really firmly grounded in the doctors and the main characters. So we try really hard to get you engaged on that level as well.
Was there anything that you changed between seasons? Anything you felt needed tweaking? JK: We did some tweaking. From a narrative perspective, we feel like we’re going through stages of Bash’s journey, so we’re digging into a different side of it now. He’s kind of grasping onto job security and we get to open up deeper and wider emotional stories to tell, and that changes things, I’d say, just in terms of how we address the storytelling overall. From my perspective as a writer and producer and of all people who make the show, the directors, the editors, the people on set, we’ve gotten better at all sides of it, so it allows us some more freedom.
When we last left the group, Jed had collapsed from a stroke. Did you always know that would be the Season 1 cliffhanger? JK: In the first season I actually had intended to kill John’s character in the finale. I had always been really fascinated by the death of the mentor part of a hero’s journey. And that’s what we started off kind of thinking that Bash would’ve saved him in the pilot and there’d be lingering effects from what had happened that just kind of come out of nowhere and kill him and then Bash would’ve had to move forward without him. By around Episode 4 of production in Season 1 we realized, ‘We can’t do that.’ He’s too good. He makes everything around him better, as an actor, as a human being, as a person to collaborate with. He’s just a wonderful presence and performer.
In Monday’s episode, we are introduced to Dr. Mark Novak, who shakes up the department. I love Gord Rand and was thrilled to see him play this character. JK: I like to think of [Mark] as a little bit puckish, because he’s an agent of chaos and that’s a really fun thing to write, too, and Gord really delivered.
A question about your writer’s room. Adam Barken, Stephanie Morgenstern, Mark Ellis, Rachel Langer, Julie Puckrin … what a who’s who of a writer’s room. What was it like working with these folks in the writer’s room for Season 2? JK: We’ve been blessed on that level across the board. Everybody was really excited to come onto the show when the writing started for Season 2. And yeah, you absolutely nailed it, it’s kind of an all-star list of writers that you just rattled off. They’re all incredible. One thing that I think is great with Transplant is because there’s freedom in the narrative when it comes to the kinds of stories we tell it encourages great writers like that to come with stories they are really passionate about, they would love to tell that maybe it would be harder to tell in other kinds of places. And I always am like, ‘Yeah, let’s find a way to tell that story.’ I feel like it excites the writers, so we have this season all throughout, all of those people brought selflessly pieces of themselves to share and pour into the show. And I’m really proud of the results that are great. We’re lucky to have them.
“Guardrail” really kicks off Season 2 with incredible visuals. JK: I want to shout out to Stefan Pleszczynski, our lead director and one of the EPs this year who is a huge part of just maintaining the aesthetic consistency of the show. Beyond Stef, the whole production team is really committed to that. Our director of photography, Pierre Gill, is an unbelievably talented guy, and we sort of across the board take that really, really seriously. Directors who come to the show all want to knock it out of the park on a visual level. There’s a way that the show’s written that encourages long takes or exciting movement, and the directors all really like to play and make the production value really sing.
What types of stories are on the way in Season 2? There are stories coming up where we deal with different issues, medical issues, cultural issues. And in all of those cases, we just take the research and authenticity and truthfulness component extremely hard, because I think that something that’s inherent to the tone of the show across the board is it tries to be grounded. It tries to be human. It tries to be emotionally honest. So we always like to do that work and we challenge ourselves to do that work and be challenged all the way from idea to beyond editing, and editing is still doing that work.
You ended the first season with a cliffhanger. Is that the same with Season 2? Have you set that bar? Is there a cliffhanger at the end? JK: There is a cliffhanger at the end of Season 2. There are multiple cliffhangers.
