I live in a community, just north of Ottawa in Quebec, where chickens are allowed. If I want to, I can build/construct a chicken coop—to community regulations, of course—purchase a handful of chickens and reap the benefits. I’ve jokingly thought about doing it, but I know that it would be a lot of work—I’m a lazy sort—though this new documentary has piqued my interest again.
Airing Thursday at 9 p.m. as part of The Nature of Things, “Cluck! Chickens Exposed” heads to the barnyard to uncover some facts and fictions about the feathered beasts.
Living where I do, I’ve visited quite a few farms and, therefore, learned about the variance in breeds and personalities. I knew chickens were descendants of dinosaurs (does that mean when we say, “It tastes like chicken,” we really should be saying, “It tastes like dinosaur?”), but had no clue about their intelligence, sensory powers and social pecking order (pun intended).
There are more chickens on the planet than people, says host Sarika Cullis-Suzuki off the top of “Cluck!” A visit to the Hillpoint Estate Farm flock in B.C., with 50 egg-laying hens and a handful of roosters, reveals some interesting facts about chickens. The pecking order is indeed a hierarchy, defined by males and females, that shifts based on age, health, strength, comb size, and companions. At Hillpoint Estate, top dog, er, chicken is Maximus, a rooster whose size and spurs keep everyone in line. Will Maximus’ reign be usurped by Hercules? You’ll have to tune in to find out.
The episode, produced by Invert Films, illustrates how chickens spot and defend themselves against predators both on the ground and in the air, how each eye has a specialized use, and if these flock animals have the ability to recognize themselves as individuals.
You’ll never look at chickens the same. Through either eye.
“Cluck! Chickens Exposed” airs as part of The Nature of Things on Thursday at 9 p.m. on CBC.
With the Winter Games in Italy just weeks away, Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton is sliding onto CBC Gem and CBC with the exciting, engaging three-part documentary series Redemption Run.
The first episode brings viewers to Whistler, B.C., 16 months before the Games, as members of Canada’s National Bobsleigh program walk along the ice track, observing angles and the ice surface itself. Then, we’re given the facts: Canada dominated bobsleigh for years, capturing medals on both the men’s and women’s sides.
Then, it all fell apart.
In 2022, 60 athletes signed a letter alleging a culture of fear and safety concerns, superstar Kallie Humphries left Team Canada to join the U.S. team, and Christine de Bruin was suspended for three years for an anti-doping violation. Add to that the dismantling of the track in Calgary, poor podium results, and things didn’t look good for the team.
But this series is called Redemption Run for a reason, providing interviews with pilots, team members and coaches, as well as stunning visuals both inside and outside the sleigh, to tell how the team is bouncing back to be contenders, and perhaps medal winners, in Italy.
It’s not an easy task, and the producers do an excellent job telling the team’s story through intimate, honest and raw interviews, sport explainers and truly emotional moments. You can’t help but pull for Canada on their road to redemption.
Redemption Run premieres January 23 on CBC Gem and airs February 1 at 7 p.m., with back-to-back episodes on CBC.
To say that Max’s (Vanessa Morgan) life has become difficult would be an understatement. In the Season 2 finale of Wild Cards, she and her Dad, George (Jason Priestley) cashed in millions of dollars. And, though she missed the boat (literally) to join Ellis (Giacomo Gianniotti), they were in a good place in their working and personal relationship.
That all goes out the window in Season 3. Returning Wednesday at 8 p.m. on CBC, viewers learn the person who appeared at the door in the closing moments of Season 2 was Vivienne, Max’s mother. Turns out Vivienne faked her own death and is back with some disturbing news for Max and George. Meanwhile, Ellis has returned from his boat trip, and he isn’t alone.
We spoke to Vanessa Morgan and Giacomo Gianniotti about Season 3.
Was there an obvious chemistry between the two of you, either during the chemistry read or within those first few hours and days of shooting the show? Because I think that is a huge reason why people love to tune in. Vanessa Morgan: It just felt really natural and comfortable from the moment we met. We did a rehearsal day, and then we went straight into shooting, but it kind of always just felt very comfortable. And it’s one of those things that, as an actor, you’re just really blessed that you get along as friends, personality-wise. And then I feel like that just shows on camera that we just complement each other.
Giacomo Gianniotti: Yeah, we didn’t have much time really to build any chemistry or really get to know each other. We just hit the ground running, and we’re just very lucky that we are fond of each other and work well together and have similar senses of humour. We laugh on set all the time, all the time, and find the same things funny, which is great when you’re trying to make people laugh on television that what I think is funny, she thinks is funny if I give her an idea to play something in a certain way, she’s like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s really funny.’ Or she said something to me, or that we’re collaborative, and we both have that same sense of humour. I think that’s a great asset.
So how much of that interplay is allowed? Are you doing takes where you’re sticking to the script, and then you’re allowed to play a little bit in subsequent takes? How does that work? GG: Yeah, I think for a comedy, you like to hope that you work on a set where funny wins no matter what, there’s no ego involved, whether that’s an assistant or a director or a script supervisor or actors pitching something, but essentially everyone just has this common goal to make people laugh and whatever’s the funniest should win. So yeah, of course, we try to get it word perfect, but there are certain scenes and certainly certain characters—Amy Goodmurphy, who plays Detective Yates—that just lend themselves a little bit more to improvisation and being a little bit sillier and bringing more of her personality, her comedic personality out into the character. So yeah, there are moments where it’s very real, and we just have to say the words the way they are. And there are other moments where there’s more opportunity to play, and everyone is really game.
The elephant in the room on Wild Cards is whether Max and Ellis will get together as a couple. There have been so many TV shows throughout history where the creators will keep that going from season to season. Aside from what’s going to happen in the script, Vanessa, do you feel as though Max and Ellis should, ultimately, be together? VM: I think they should. I think they work very well together. I think they complement each other; what one is lacking, the other has, and I just think it really meshes and works. Obviously, though, we’re kind of in a love triangle situation. He’s found a new romance. He thought that Max had abandoned him on the boat. So of course, he was like, ‘Well, I’m just going to go out, and if I meet somebody, I meet somebody.’ We don’t blame him for that.
GG: Yeah, we’re introducing a girlfriend for Ellis, so that’s a new thing that we haven’t really explored or played with in the show, either one of us having to take a sort of second or backseat to the love story and having to work together every day, stare at this person that you have strong feelings for and not being able to act on them out of respect because you know they’re in a romantic relationship. So that’s a new dynamic that we’re playing with.
(L-R) Max Mitchell (Vanessa Morgan), Vivienne (Tamara Taylor), George Graham (Jason Priestley), Tomo Hayashi (guest star Kevan Ohtsji)
Vanessa, when this new season kicks off, she’s officially a consultant. She’s got the bejewelled badge to show for it. Can you talk a little bit how the dynamic within the office is going to change, if at all, now that she’s a little bit more legit, like a more legitimate member of the team? VM: I don’t think it changes much because I feel like everyone’s already accepted Max, but I will say maybe Max has a bit more confidence with her strutting in and with her authority with things. I feel like she’s just like, ‘I’m a detective.’ More so. She’s fully arrived.
Joining the cast this season is Tamara Taylor in the role of Vivienne, Max’s mother, who Max and George thought was dead. VM: Max is obviously ecstatic that her mom is back. It’s like, ‘Oh wow, what a blessing, she’s returned from the dead.’ But then she’s also torn with the fact that, ‘Well, you also abandoned me for 15 years. If you’re alive, you couldn’t have sent a card, any type of hint, a phone call from a payphone, anything to just let me know that I’m in hiding, I’m alive.’ Even me not being Max, as Vanessa, I’m like, she should have really reached out in some way. I could see why Max is torn. So I feel like there’s this love-hate relationship where she’s so happy, but she’s also so mad because she’s dealt with this internal pain for 15 years.
Let’s talk a little bit about The Big Bad, certainly that was unveiled in that first episode. Gedeon Varga. Looking at some of the episode synopses going forward, I assume that this job is going to last more than one episode and affect relationships. GG: I think it’s a big setup for our entire season. Gedeon Varga is going to be this looming, dark shadow throughout our whole season. And in fact, with Vivienne coming back, she can’t just sort of land and be a mother and work on repairing her relationship with her daughter because there’s this much bigger problem at play, which is taking precedent, which is that she owes him a bunch of money and he’s threatening to kill everybody if he doesn’t get it. So the whole season is about Max and her parents doing this job for this bad guy to sort of repay the debt and save their lives. So there’s not a lot of time to work on feelings and repairing relationships because there’s this big, glaring high-stakes heist to be planned.
Wild Cards airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem.
When we last left Saint-Pierre‘s Arch (Josephine Jobert) and Fitz (Allan Hawco), things were dire straits. The duo—he a Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Inspector and she a Parisian Deputy Chief—faced off against smuggler-all-around-bad guy Gallagher (James Purefoy) in a graveyard. The final scene, set up beautifully using Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight,” was capped off by several gunshots, leaving viewers to wonder who lived and who didn’t.
Thankfully, we’ll learn all that right off the bat in the Season 2 debut. Airing Monday at 9 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem, we spoke with Saint-Pierre co-creator and co-showrunner Robina Lord-Stafford (Macy Murdoch) about all that and more.
How was it filming this second season? Was there a lot more comfort because you and Allan, and everybody worked together and got a full season under your belt on location filming? Did it feel like you got the characters going into the second season, and was maybe a little easier? Robina Lord-Stafford: 100 per cent. And I would say that even working with the actors and the first season, I was there every single day on set with the actors and just even listening to their cadence, the way they speak, the way they delivered the line.
When we were writing for them in Season 2, it was like I had Josephine in my head when I was writing it. And I had obviously Allan and all the others, especially our core cast, I just feel like I know them all so well. And it was definitely easier, smoother. And then when they were delivering them on the floor this time, it was like they would look at me. It was really sweet. They’d read the scripts, and they’d say, ‘Thank you. You see us!’ They all too understand who their characters are. So we all grew after a season, like getting to know who they are and what the special flavours they each bring and how distinct their voices are.
It underscores how difficult it is when you’re creating a show from scratch and you don’t have a cast yet because you are literally trying to figure out what the voices of these people are with no human being attached to them yet. RLS: It is. And it’s like we’re creating out of nothing, and then you get surprises along the way. For instance, when we first crafted the character Renuf [played by Jean-Michel Le Gal], we imagined him being this kind of gruff guy who clocked in, clocked out, was just kind of going through the motions and we gave a taste of that in Season 1, but then as we got to know the actor playing him and as he brought this different kind of nuance to the character, it’s like his character really evolved through Season 1. In Episode 107, he took initiative, and then Arch and Fitz kind of went, ‘Way to go, you did a great job.’ And it almost seemed like this was the first time Renuf had ever been given kudos for his work as a cop. And then it was almost like a dopamine hit for him. And it’s like, ‘You know what? I want to be a better cop. I can learn from these two. I’m not going to be that guy who’s going to be questioning Arch’s authority anymore. I can learn from her.’ And so we really saw an evolution of his character.
And in Season 2, it goes even further. You can see that he is eager to be a good police officer, and he also reflects on things he may have done in his past because we kind of weave in that he was a customs officer in the past, and he let things slide, or he looked the other way, and it’s a bit of a redemptive arc from his past.
Robina Lord-Stafford
Any other characters that kind of made an evolution that way as we go into the second season? RLS: Definitely Patty [played by Erika Prevost], we get to see a little bit of edge to Patty. We kind of established that she and Arch are kind of really good friends, and so there’s going to be a little sand put into that oyster. We’re going to convey this analogy, and then you’re going to see the pearl that will emerge by the end of the season. Erika’s such a great actress, and she plays Patty so delightfully. So it’s really nice to see her have a little grit and a little edge and a little friction between her and Arch. And you’ll see why, but you also see a beautiful resolution to that in their friendship. So that’s cool. And of course, Arch and Fitz, we get to know a little bit more about Fitz’s backstory, including why Fitz sleepwalks.
I wanted to ask about Maxim Roy because she was posting on Instagram a lot while she was in the middle of filming. What can you tell me about her character and how she impacts the team? RLS: Well, Maxim’s character is the prefect, and the prefect in Saint-Pierre is basically the person who is the President’s eyes, arms, ears, their head of law enforcement.
In Season 1, we kind of referenced the prefect in one of the episodes, and then as we were reflecting, we were like, ‘Well, that could be a really cool person to bring a little bit of friction because we’re used to Marcus being the boss.’ What happens if we meet Marcus’ boss? And who is that person going to be? So the writers and our writers room came up with Prefect Charlotte Diard and that she’s originally from Saint-Pierre, but because she solved this huge crime back in the day, she kind of got a boost to become chief and it was quite a thing because it was a woman in the role and she was the first woman to have be the chief of police in our lore of Saint-Pierre Police. And then from there she got promoted to go to Paris, and now she’s back as the prefect of the island. And she steps in because we ended our finale with a bit of a shootout in the graveyard.
She is there to say, ‘I need to know what exactly went down. This is a big thing, this is making news.’ She’s a bit of a pebble in an artistic shoe this season.
Speaking of the season finale, I loved how you used Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” as Arch and Fitz were driving to the graveyard, in a nod to Miami Vice. RLS: I had my sister and my nephew-in-law reaching out, going, ‘Did you guys do this on purpose?’ I’m like, ‘Of course we did this on purpose.’ We’re kids of the ’80s who grew up watching Miami Vice, and we were like, ‘How cool. And if we can get that song…’ And actually, because I wrote that sequence, and as I was writing it, I was playing in my ear to just to make sure the beats were tied out down to the gunshots and everything. And our music supervisor, who’s also our post producer, Wayne Warren, we said, ‘What are the chances?’ And so initially we were thinking we’d have to get a cover or something, but we’re not going to get Phil Collins. And he said, ‘Well, can you write me up a little something about why you want this song?’ I wrote what scene would be that we were going to be playing as much of the song as we possibly could. It was going to go over a number of sequences, and it’s culminating and all that exciting stuff. And then his people said yes. And we were like, ‘What?’ So yeah, we were thrilled to get that song.
We’ve got some incredible needle drops this season, too. Allan and I love music, and it’s really a part of the soul of Saint-Pierre that we can have some really cool, recognizable songs.
Saint-Pierre airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem.
Show image courtesy of CBC. Robina Lord-Stafford image courtesy of Derm Carberry.
Producers Bruce Hills Entertainment, Counterfeit Pictures, and Hemmings Films are pleased to announce that they will go into production on Stand Up For Canada Starring Rick Mercer, a new one-hour comedy special set to premiere on CBC and CBC Gem. Timing for the premiere will be confirmed at a later date.
Set to film in front of a live audience in Saint John, New Brunswick on October 17, the special will capture a night on Rick Mercer’s wildly successful coast-to-coast comedy tour, which continues through October 2025, and is presented by MRG Live and Bruce Hills Entertainment. Mercer is joined by Canadian comedians Sophie Buddle, Mayce Galoni and Julie Kim, and performed 28 shows across 20 cities, with 24 sold-out venues and more than 40,000 tickets sold.
The Stand Up For Canada Starring Rick Mercer special promises to deliver a funny, insightful and heartfelt celebration of Canada through the comedy of one of the country’s most beloved voices, as well as a new generation of rising stand-up stars. Together, Mercer, Buddle, Galoni and Kim will shine a light on the diverse perspectives, stories and humour that make Canada’s comedy scene one of the richest in the world.
Stand Up For Canada Starring Rick Mercer is produced by Bruce Hills Entertainment, Counterfeit Pictures, and Hemmings Films, in association with CBC.
