For three seasons now, “This Hour Has 22 Minutes” comedian Critch has been writing, executive producing and starring in the show about growing up and finding his career path in St. John’s — it’s CBC’s top scripted comedy. Continue reading.
As Sudbury’s Colton Gobbo quips, he’s the “other Son of a Critch.”
Since 2022, Gobbo has appeared in the CBC television series “Son of a Critch,” the semi-autobiographical series created by Canadian comedian Mark Critch (who you may know from “This Hour has 22 Minutes”). Continue reading.
“This was my first job when I was 11, so I think it was a lot of learning on the go. And then not really knowing what to expect and just trying to take it day by day, and figure it out and kind of find my footing with it… This show has given me so many opportunities to just grow, as an actor and as a person.” Continue reading.
“I remember when I first read it, and I talked to Mark and I said, ‘You better concentrate on finding this boy, because we live or die by his performance.’ You have to get the best you can find and they did.” Continue reading.
“For Mike Jr., he’s spent the last few years trying to get out of his dad’s shadow. The struggle for Mike has been that he has the same passion but doesn’t want to be handed things. This season it’s really exciting because he really goes off on his own.” Continue reading.
From Rudy Blair of Rudy Blair Entertainment Media:
The comedy series based on the award-winning, best-selling memoir from Mark Critch (This Hour Has 22 Minutes) on his hilarious and very real coming of age story growing up in St. John’s, Newfoundland returns Tuesday, January 7th at 8:30 p.m. (9 NT) on CBC/CBC Gem. Rudy Blair Entertainment Media speaks with Actor Colton Gobbo (Mike Jr) on “Son of a Critch Season 4. Continue reading.
Mercer, best known for his work on “This Hour Has 22 Minutes” and “The Rick Mercer Report,” says he’s been a fan of “Son of a Critch” since the first episode.
It’s also been about that long since Critch has wanted him to be a part of it. Continue reading.
For six seasons, Allan Hawco’s Republic of Doyle entertained viewers on CBC. The fast-paced detective drama was set in and around St. John’s and spotlit the unique island community through the eyes of Jake Doyle and his co-workers, friends, lovers and enemies.
Now Hawco is back and spotlighting another island community.
Debuting Monday at 9 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem, Saint-Pierre—co-created by Hawco, Robina Lord-Stafford and Perry Chafe—boasts the humour, heart and unique environs that are Hawco’s bread and butter.
At the centre of the series is its two lead characters. Royal Newfoundland Constabulary Inspector Donny “Fitz” Fitzpatrick (Hawco) finds himself banished to Saint-Pierre et Miquelon—the French territory of 6,000 nestled in the Atlantic Ocean—after digging too deeply into illegal activity surrounding a local politician (played by Eric Johnson), who happens to be married to Fitz’s ex-wife (Vanessa Matsui).
Once on the island, Fitz is partnered with Deputy Chief Genevieve “Arch” Archambault (Joséphine Jobert). There are some fish-out-of-water moments for Fitz in the first episode—he not only suffers from sea sickness (bad news when you’re working on a small island) and a fear of heights—not to mention struggling with the language barrier (luckily, Fitz understands French better than he speaks it). Rounding out the main cast are Benz Antoine, Erika Prevost, Jean-Michel Le Gal and James Purefoy as the big bad in Season 1.
Much of Monday’s debut sets up the people and their world. And what a world it is! Quaint, brightly painted wood homes dot the coast of Saint-Pierre while older stone buildings stand sentry inland. French flags wave everywhere, and croissants and seafood are plentiful. Hawco revealed during a recent interview that he was on a location scout for fellow CBC/Hawco Productions project Son of a Critch when he visited the island, and knew it should be the setting for his next series. He had written two pilot projects and Saint-Pierre was the perfect fit for one.
“One [idea] was very close to what this show is, the very notion of these two partners who were thrust together by fate, and unwilling partners who didn’t know they needed each other until now,” he says.
Eagle-eyed fans of Death in Paradise will quickly identify Jobert, who portrayed Detective Sergeant Florence Cassell from 2015 to 2024 on the veteran British series. The chemistry Jobert has with Hawco is instantaneous and undeniable and is a huge part of why Saint-Pierre works so well.
“She’s my favourite type of person and actor,” Hawco says. “She’s prepared. She’s also totally flexible to go with anything in the moment. She’s practical about what the technical requirements of the job are while keeping a fluidity and an absolute freshness and spontaneity to her work. No ego, no status, no judgment. She’s generous with the crew. She understands people’s jobs, she respects them. She’s a true angel. She’s an absolute unicorn.”
Saint-Pierre airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem.
The last time I spoke to Supinder Wraich, it was about The 410, the excellent CBC Gem series she created, wrote, and starred in.
After gigs on Sort Of, Surreal Estate, Hudson & Rex, Private Eyes and Crawford, Wraich is back, toplining the excellent new Allegiance.
Debuting Wednesday at 9 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem, created by Anar Ali (Transplant) and showrun by Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern (Flashpoint, X Company), Allegiance follows the journey of new cop Sabrina Sohal (Wraich), who is of Punjabi heritage.
Sabrina is a smart, confident newbie cop. She’s been paired with a veteran training officer named Vince (Enrico Colantoni) and looks to make a difference in her home city of Surrey, B.C. But her personal (and to an extent, professional life) is thrown into disarray when her father, Ajeet Sohal (Stephen Lobo), the revered Minister of Public Safety, in charge of the police, is accused of treason.
With a debut episode packed with action, humour and emotion, we spoke to Wraich about her journey to Allegiance, what Sabrina will face in Season 1, and if there will be more The 410.
How did you end up getting involved in the show? Did you have to audition, or did they have you in mind? How did the journey all begin for you?Supinder Wraich: Well, it was a little bit of both, but I didn’t know at the time that they had me in mind. And so, originally I was under contract for Sort Of, so I wasn’t looking for work because contractually it wasn’t something that was open.
When we found out that Sort Of was coming to an end, it opened an unexpected door. At the same time, I think that the Allegiance folks had been casting for a while in looking for Sabrina. But when I went in to audition, I really didn’t think that they were looking for me. There was a naiveté to this character that where I was in my life at the time I had just played Aqsa. Tonally, in terms of energy-wise, they’re very different characters. And also, I’d just had a son.
And so, when I went into audition, I really just thought my friend Anar Ali had written the show, Anar and I had known each other for years and wanted to work on something, so she was doing me a favour by bringing me in just because I was Sikh Punjabi and we knew each other. I was like, ‘Oh, it’s nice of Anar to bring me in.’ When I got the call that they wanted to offer me the part, it really was a bit of a surprise for me, and I had to figure out, okay, how do I build Sabrina? How do I find this woman and where she’s at in her life?
Enrico Colantoni and Supinder Wraich
Was it easy to identify with this character? Could you understand where this character was coming from and being caught and having to deal with racism every day, unfortunately? SW: Yeah. Some of the things that I had built for Sabrina and was just wondering about her life, I can definitely draw a couple parallels. One major one was that this is my first big leading role and in a way a new position for me that I’ve had to learn as I stepped into those shoes. For Sabrina, similarly, it’s also a new job and something that she’s learning as she goes along, so that I could lean on.
But then, there was also something very different where one of the things that Anar wanted to explore was what does racism look like for a family who’s been in Canada for generations?
And that’s very different from my experience because I was born in India. I was born in Punjab, and I moved here when I was four. And so, finding that balance of what it would feel like to belong to a family that had existed in Canada for generations and the type of confidence that gives you in a way that I didn’t have growing up in terms of real feeling of belonging somewhere and what it means to have that taken away from you is something that I had to define and then allow that fall to happen for Sabrina when her father gets charged and all of a sudden in a very significant way she is confronted by the color of her skin and this particular experience.
What I like about Sabrina and what I connected with right away is how smart she is and how instinctive she is at being a cop. Even though she is a rookie, you’re already getting that feedback that she knows what she’s doing and her gut reaction is good. That’s refreshing to see a rookie cop on television these days. SW: I think that where that comes from is this confidence that has been instilled in her because of her father.
I remember we had a couple of conversations about who Ajeet Sohal was and how he carries himself in the world. I think for somebody like him, a Sikh Punjabi man who has a beard, who wears a turban, and has confronted so much about his culture, about his religion, and had the confidence to stand up for himself, Sabrina’s watched that happen her entire life. He really is a mentor to her. And so, amid everything else that’s happening, when she embarks on this career, one of the things that she’s really learned to do, and I do believe that it comes from her father, is to trust her instincts.
Speaking of mentors, I love Enrico Colantoni. I’ve spoken to him many times, and I feel as though the character Vince fits him like a glove. I love that there was that connection with Sabrina right away. The dad jokes are all there. What’s it been like working with him? SW: Oh my god, Enrico’s a dream. We had this genuine chemistry the moment we met, and I can’t explain it. We’d never worked together. I obviously knew who he was and had seen his work, and so I was really excited to work together.
I remember when we were first auditioning together. Enrico wasn’t auditioning. He was there during the test, and there were a couple of different Sabrinas that he tested with. I remember just being enamored in terms of watching him work and thinking like, ‘Oh my god, he’s really in it, he’s really in this scene. He’s very present, and if I got the chance to work with him, I think I could really learn a lot from this person.’
It’s funny how life works. In Sabrina’s situation, Vince is definitely not the training officer that she wants, but he’s very much the training officer that she needs.
Obviously, I wanted to work with Rico as soon as I knew that he might be taking the project. But there is a beautiful thing. I learned a lot from working with Rico. Likewise, I think Sabrina also learns so much from Vince’s relaxed mindset because she’s so driven and so focused, and she begins to figure out what the important things are.
Lachlan Quarmby and Supinder Wraich
Not to mention everybody else in the cast. Brian Markinson, Stephen Lobo, you already mentioned David Cubitt, from top to bottom, this is a stellar cast. This is a who’s who of Canadian television all on one screen. It is just amazing. SW: Yeah, and you know what? It makes your job a lot easier when you go to work every day and get to work with people who are so talented. You show up in the scenes, and they’re there with you, and you can play and bounce off of each other.
One of the things that also intrigued me about the show was the script and the dialogue. The dialogue sounds very natural. Everything just felt very natural and conversational to a point. SW: I would say definitely credit the scripts. I think what’s really cool is that Stephanie Morgenstern and Mark Ellis had worked with Rico for years. And so, when it came to developing Vince, and I’ve heard Rico say this, they got him in terms of just his humor. There’s a lot of humor in the show too. He did a really good job of inserting those jokes. And also, just we have a great team of writers.
And the other thing is as showrunners, Mark and Stephanie are not precious about dialogue, that it has to be word-perfect. And so, between them and the directors, there was a fair bit of ad-libbing that was allowed and encouraged.
And Rico and I, sometimes we would just riff, and the directors would let us keep going until we ran out.
Did you do any police training in advance of this role? If so, what was that experience like? SW: Yeah, we did a little bit of police training just right before we started, and then we would always have someone on set to ensure that what we were doing was accurate in terms of gun control or making arrests or just general walking into a room and where the dangers are, how do you clear a room? And so, we did that.
And then, I also spoke with a couple Sikh Punjabi female RCMP officers just to understand their world and what they dealt with on a day-to-day basis and also just their familial relationships. Because as much as it is a cop show, there’s also so much family stuff. For me, I really wanted to understand Sabrina’s experience, what the reality of it looks like.
And then, also just things that you pick up along the way, like once you’re done training in depot, it’s the little things, even running. You’re trained to run with your hands up so you can protect yourself when you’re fast. And so, Sabrina had a lot of running scenes. I remember it was one of our first days, and it was something that one of my references had told me. She was like, ‘Your body gets used to doing things a certain way, because for six months while you’re in depot, it’s ingrained into you.’ And so, if I was a cop who had been doing this for a while, those things would need to be less specific. But especially when you join the force in those first couple of episodes, I can remember just thinking about whenever Sabrina enters a scene, she’s always referencing the training that she’s had. Because it’s not like it was years ago. It was she just got out of it.
What can you tell me about Sabrina’s professional journey this season? SW: Without giving too much away about the show, I think that there is a removing of the rose-coloured glasses, because one of the things I think that the show and the writers have done beautifully is to not shy away from the things that we experience, we as in society, and have experienced over the last couple of years with the policing system, right?
Our legal systems are troubled. Depending on who you ask, a lot of people would say that they’re broken, they need to be rebuilt. One of the things that we wanted to look at was what’s legal is not necessarily always what’s fair and what happens to the human hearts that are involved in those negotiations. And so, for Sabrina, I think that the show is really aptly named in terms of allegiance because this thing happens to her father, and then all of a sudden this organization that she’s taken an oath to serve and to protect is no longer serving and protecting her and her family. In fact, they’re a threat.
And so, that journey, I think, it’s a fascinating one to watch as she negotiates being… When she comes in, she believes in the system normally. And then, she really does have to at some point choose sides in terms of who is she going to serve. Truly, what does it mean to be caught within those two worlds?
And then, I think there’s also a strength. I think for a long time in Sabrina’s life, she’s benefited from being her father’s daughter. And then, without him around to protect her, to show her the way, she really has to go on this journey where she has to become her own woman and be in this police force in her own right.
Okay, last question. In your bio, it mentions future seasons of The 410. So, what can you tell me? SW: I’ve been working on the hour-long version for The 410 for, I think, since we’ve released The 410. And so, I’m working with a showrunner in India.
His name is Vikram Motwane. He did Sacred Games on Netflix. It’s this big crime series. And so, right now for the last little bit, we’ve been developing the hour-long version, and now that the strike is over, we’re going to take it back out to mostly American networks and start pitching the show.
Allegiance airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem.
Images courtesy of CBC/Lark Productions/Darko Sikman.
Can nature have rights? That’s the question at the heart of Thursday’s new episode of The Nature of Things.
In “I am the Magpie River,” airing Thursday at 9 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem, filmmaker Susan Fleming answers the question with a resounding yes. The 200-kilometre river, in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, flows from the Labrador Plateau into the north shore of the St. Lawrence River near Sept-Îles, Quebec.
The waterway is sacred to the Innu First Nation, who call it Mutuhekau Shipu, and they’ve depended on it as a major highway and food source for centuries. And that’s why, as of 2021, the Innu Council of Ekuanitshit and the Minganie Regional County Municipality had the river declared a legal person. The result? The river has nine rights, including the right to flow, to be free from pollution, and to sue.
Gorgeously filmed, with aerial drone shots capturing the rugged river in its savage glory through the seasons and up-close footage of the area’s unique flora and fauna (including herds of caribou), Fleming shows the awesome strength of the waterway during the spring melt. And it’s the power of the Magpie that Hydro Quebec—which is the fourth largest producer of hydropower on the planet—would love to have a piece of. And that’s the point of personhood: to protect the river from being changed, being taken advantage of, and being tamed.
The Magpie River may be the first in Canada to be granted personhood, but it is just the latest in many around the world. Indigenous-led campaigns like that done by the Innu in Canada have saved the Klamath River in the U.S., the Whanganui River in New Zealand, and the Amazon in Columbia.
The Nature of Things, “I am the Magpie River,” airs Thursday at 9 p.m. on CBC and CBC Gem.
