Tag Archives: CBC

Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

CBC’s Hello Goodbye makes an emotional return

Anyone who has said goodbye to a loved one before they embark on a trip knows the emotions involved. It happened earlier this year to me when my youngest stepson left on a four-month backpacking adventure in Europe. There was a lump in my throat as I watched him go through security at Toronto Pearson International Airport, knowing he was going away and it wouldn’t be summer until he returned home.

Back for Season 2 on Friday at 8:30 p.m. on CBC, emotions as folks leave and arrive at Pearson are captured by cameras on Hello Goodbye. Host Dale Curd is back too, weaving his way up to people in the Arrivals and Departure areas and getting the personal stories surrounding why they’re there. I don’t recall Season 1 of Hello Goodbye theming its episodes, so apologies to the producers if they did. Friday’s instalment, “Lost & Found,” as Curd says, focuses on empty holes in lives being filled by those they hold dear to them.

The half hour begins with Curd stopping to chat with a man and woman named Linda. He’s her dad and she’s returning to the UK. The catch? Linda is concluding a visit to Canada where she’d met her father for the first time. At 15, the man who’d brought her up as his daughter revealed the truth. After keeping quiet about it for decades, Linda finally asked who her real father was, and sought him out. At Curd’s prompting, viewers learn dad was in the British army in Glasgow and returned to Canada, not knowing he was leaving a future daughter behind. The story gets even more interesting from there, but I’ll let viewers find that out for themselves.

I remain amazed that total strangers are willing to open up to Curd. But, as he told me in January when Season 1 launched, “I just let the conversation unfold. If I opened up the space just to allow them to share and let the conversation build naturally and ask natural questions, they wanted to tell me more.”

That’s certainly the case of the next person Curd speaks to, a young woman waiting for her fiancé to arrive from France. During their chat, she reveals how long she’s been in a wheelchair, the circumstances surrounding the incident and how the home she grew up feeling comfortable become a foreign space after her accident.

It’s an emotional episode, but then saying hello or goodbye to someone you care about it like that, isn’t it?

Hello Goodbye airs Fridays at 8:30 p.m. on CBC.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail
Schitt's Creek

Link: The Canadian Trifecta: Eugene Levy, Daniel Levy, Catherine O’Hara

From Michael Martin of Out:

Link: The Canadian Trifecta: Eugene Levy, Daniel Levy, Catherine O’Hara
It started with a silly little pun, but the Pop network comedy Schitt’s Creek has quickly become one of the biggest, oddest pleasures on television. Co-created by father-and-son team Eugene (of American Pie fame) and Daniel Levy, the series concerns a formerly rich family cleaned out by tax authorities and forced to live in their only remaining asset: the small town of the show’s title, which they’d bought as a joke years ago. Continue reading. 

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail
The Romeo Section

Link: Juan Riedinger Talks The Romeo Section + A Preview of “A Rigged Game”

From Heather M. of The Televixen:

Link: Juan Riedinger Talks The Romeo Section + A Preview of “A Rigged Game”
“Rufus is a pretty shrewd guy and he’s got really good instincts; he’s really good at reading people. I feel like he’s smart enough to know what happened based on the way Red is acting.” Continue reading.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail
Kim's Convenience

Link: Kim’s Convenience and Canadian television’s diversity problem

1 Comment

From Lucas Costello:

Link: Kim’s Convenience and Canadian television’s diversity problem
What makes Kim’s Convenience unprecedented is largely who is telling these stories. The show centres on a convenience store run by a Korean-Canadian family in Toronto’s Regent Park — a neighbourhood that, due to its many intersections of race, class and faith, gives Kim’s Convenience opportunities to engage in broad conversations about identity, place and belonging. Continue reading.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail
Featured, Shoot the Messenger

Shoot the Messenger weaves a web of danger in Episode 2

Who was driving the black car shadowing Daisy all episode long? That was just one of many questions asked during Episode 2 of Shoot the Messenger on Monday night. By the time the hour had come to a close, the driver stepped out of the vehicle, but only his shoe and leg were shown. I’m guessing hoping we get an answer next week.

Written by Jennifer Holness and Sudz Sutherland, the second instalment furthered the drama introduced last week, as an injured Hassan attempted to lay low and heal, but that wasn’t happening. Meanwhile, violence on the street escalated, as Khaalif sought to avenge Khalid’s murder by targeting a member of a rival gang for the killing. Instead, a young girl was killed in a hail of gunfire and Kevin collared Khaalif for the crime. Pair that with Hassan wanting to meet up with Daisy, and there was a lot going on with that storyline.

I’m quickly realizing that Shoot the Messenger is definitely not the type of series you can just air in the background while reading emails. Not only do the storylines command attention with their intricacies, but the visuals are stunning. Sweeping views of the city at night, a dead girl’s head being slowly pulled out of a congealing pool of blood … you have to watch.

shoottm1

The characters are becoming more fleshed out and complex too. Kevin is a by-the-book cop in some ways, but his relationship with Daisy causes him to push boundaries, perhaps to the point of putting his gig or life in jeopardy if he’s not careful. Daisy, meanwhile, seems to be using her feminine wiles to get her way; she slept with Simon because—as she said—she was “curious.” Now Simon is conflicted—he is engaged to be married, after all—about his feelings for the rookie reporter.

Squeaky-clean Simon seems headed for some dirt too. In a bid to chat with basketball star Orlandio Spence (Jamaal Magloire) about his relationship with Khalid, Simon made a deal with his cousin, sports agent Greggor (Barenaked Ladies’ Ed Robertson) to leak a document to The Gazette‘s sports reporter pressuring the team to sign Orlandio to a new contract. (As an aside, Robertson may not be an actor, but he’s very good in Shoot the Messenger so far.)

Shoot the Messenger has a lot of balls in the air right now and things threaten to get a little confusing. But I’m enjoying the ride I’m being taken on and am excited to see where it goes.

Shoot the Messenger airs Mondays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

Facebooktwitterredditlinkedinmail