Tag Archives: CBC

Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Firsthand delves into doctor-assisted death with “Road to Mercy”

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Firsthand‘s first documentary of the 2016-17 broadcast season couldn’t be more timely. Weeks after the doctor-assisted death of Shoeless Joe author W.P. Kinsella, “Road to Mercy” treads the controversial topic of doctors taking the lives of patients and the circumstances where they are allowed to do it.

Airing Thursday at 9 p.m. on CBC, Toronto-based filmmaker Nadine Pequeneza’s project focuses on the window between February 2015 and June 2016, after the Supreme Court ruling and before Canada’s first law on medical assistance in dying (MAID). But just because the law was passed doesn’t mean it’s clear cut and that’s what’s discussed in “Road to Mercy.” Which patients should be allowed to die (Just those who are terminally ill? What about car accident victims?) and when (Four months before they’re expected to die? Six?) are just two bullet points up for discussion. While those guidelines are worked out, the patients waiting to die agree on one thing: they want control over how they die and want to do it with dignity.

Among those who provide context in “Road to Mercy” are Maureen Taylor, an advocate for the right to die with dignity and the provincially appointed co-chair of the Ontario Advisory Panel On Physician-Assisted Dying; John Tuckwell, diagnosed with ALS in 2012 and planning his death with the help of his sister and doctor; Amy De Schutter, a 29-year-old fighting mental illness; and Quebec’s Dr. Louis Roy, who advises his ill patient Danielle Lacroix in her final days. (In Quebec, the province pre-empted the Supreme Court, passing end-of-life-care legislation in 2014, which came into effect December 2015. Unlike the Supreme Court decision, the Quebec legislation limits MAID to terminal patients.)

After watching a few minutes of John Tuckwell’s deterioration—he’s still mobile, but needs help standing and can no longer talk—it seems a no-brainer he is allowed to pull the plug. But his physician, Dr. Wendy Johnston, loathes to do it because she doesn’t want that to be an option for her patients. Maureen Taylor acknowledges it’s not all cut-and-dried either; will some segments of society, as a result of the guidelines, be deemed “expendable”?

“Road to Mercy” certainly isn’t a feel-good documentary, but it will cause viewers to pause—if they haven’t already—and consider not only where they stand on the subject of doctor-assisted death but if they’d consider it an option.

Firsthand airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, The Nature of Things

The Nature of Things explores the lives of “Pompeii’s People”

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I’ve been fascinated with the story of Pompeii from a young age. A town full of people and animals who were overrun by the ash from an erupting volcano? It set my imaginative mind reeling. It still does, so I was jazzed to learn it was the focus of The Nature of Things‘ season return on Thursday.

“Pompeii’s People” follows host David Suzuki—who first visited the site 43 years ago on his honeymoon—as he is given unprecedented access to the Roman town, exploring the importance of the location to the Empire and the lives of its people buried under volcanic ash in 79 AD after Mount Vesuvius erupted.

Technology plays a huge part in the project, as aerial photography,  dramatic recreations, CGI and other scientific applications peel back the layers of volcanic matter to reveal a stunning, and surprisingly relatable way of life. Handel Productions and Twofour Group do an incredible job not just recreating the story behind the demise of the 12,000 residents located in the coastal town near Naples, but focusing on the well-off and working class folks walking the cobbles. No stone is unexplored, as footage includes an analysis of roadways and a warren of one-way streets and homes are digitally reconstructed to show warmly painted walls, frescoes and skylights in ceilings. Suzuki is welcomed into the former home of a fish sauce merchant, who adorned his property with mosaics of his product, showing a knack for advertising more than 1,500 years before Mad Men.

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Next up on Suzuki’s walk is the forum, where public areas offered citizens a place to converse, play games, buy goods from the open-air market or worship at the Temple of Jupiter.

The most interesting part of Thursday’s return for me was the recreation of Pompeii’s people. I think everyone has seen pictures of the plaster casts of the dog, woman and child, and man, all frozen in time and contorted after being buried in ash. Now computers are digitally removing the plaster and x-rays reveal the bones to understand what Pompeians looked like, what they ate and how they lived. It’s particularly stunning to see how the vaguely human form of a dead soldier is transformed by technology into a young man.

Also analyzed: the rearing of animals and livestock, what garbage says about what Pompeians ate and the role of sex in their society. Informative, educational and entertaining, “Pompeii’s People” is well worth checking out.

The Nature of Things airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, The Romeo Section

Chris Haddock finds the heart of The Romeo Section for Season 2

CBC’s spy drama The Romeo Section returns for its second season tonight, and creator Chris Haddock sounds as relieved as his fans. “It wasn’t a sure thing. I’m grateful to be back.”

The public broadcaster’s last fall season didn’t get off to a great start, but both Romeo and This Life were given a second chance and subtly retooled to allow new viewers to come aboard. Haddock feels Romeo found its feet about halfway through the first season. “I feel like I’ve figured out where the real guts and strength of the show is and I’m going to try to prove it. It’s a little more focused. I found last year I probably had one too many storylines.”

Asking audiences to pay attention to multiple threads weaving into an elaborate pattern has been his style since the heydey of Da Vinci’s Inquest, when he recalls people asking, “are you ever going to wrap up these storylines?”

“It took time for the audience to get used to it and love that style. Some of the actors used to complain, ‘are we ever going to solve this case?’ But I find the stories take ahold of me and I keep digging and asking questions and finding that good vein.”

A chat with Haddock feels less like an interview and more like paying attention to multiple threads weaving into an elaborate conversation, with the PR person signalling the end just as a network might cancel a show on a cliffhanger.

Speaking of Intelligence, Haddock confirms The Romeo Section grew out of elements of that short-lived CBC series that had never completely left his system. Nearly 10 years after the cancellation he still fields questions about whether it might come back, but his James Dean response is: “Live fast, die young, leave a good-looking corpse.”

He’s been around the industry for a long time and has the creative freedom and come-what-may attitude to prove it. He knows it’s harder to find an audience in this time of “peak TV” than when Da Vinci was on the air, added to the ever-present competition from U.S. shows and lack of a U.S.-style promotional infrastructure, such as the late-night talk show circuit and glut of entertainment magazines. “I enjoy all the challenges,” he says. “I don’t panic over things that may have panicked me in my first years.”

“I was in a state when I began Da Vinci where I’d been writing pilots and movies in L.A. but my domestic life was a disaster, I was trying to get my kids,” he says. “I had this great attitude that I didn’t set out to have which is yes, this show is important, but my kids are the most important thing. So I had a good balance from the beginning.”

That calm extends to production challenges such as shooting Vancouver for Hong Kong in the pilot of The Romeo Section and creating gritty drama out of a city with a lot of shine.

“It’s not easy to get a tense, dark, psychologically disturbing atmosphere when it’s Vancouver and it’s beautiful. For a noir show like this I’d love to be shooting in the winter—because I’d get a lot of rain, I’d get earlier nights—but I’m not. You have to figure out a way. So it’s not classic noir, it’s more of a California noir. You can be just as miserable in the hot sun.”

The Romeo Section airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, The Romeo Section

The Romeo Section ups the intrigue in Season 2

Full disclosure: I wasn’t a die-hard fan of The Romeo Section in Season 1. I am a fan of the show’s creator, Chris Haddock, and his other series, especially Da Vinci’s Inquest and Da Vinci’s City Hall. In both, rat-a-tat, conversational dialogue came as fast and furious as the dead bodies (the former) and political plotting (the latter). And then came the spy-themed The Romeo Section. It was slow and methodical, many scenes were filmed in low light and therefore difficult to see, and I had a hard time warming to the characters.

But as Season 2 approached—it returns Wednesday at 9 p.m. on CBC—I realized I was judging The Romeo Section against two series I loved. That wasn’t fair. As Haddock told press prior to the Season 1 debut, the world has changed (Inquest and City Hall went off the air in 2006) and Romeo Section was a reflection of that. It deserved another shot.

So, how do I feel about The Romeo Section now? I enjoyed parts of the season premiere and was a little annoyed by others.

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Brian Markinson as Norman

“The Official Narrative” begins with Wolfgang (Andrew Airlie) driving the dark (yup), rain-soaked streets to the Vancouver waterfront. We quickly learn Wolfgang, no longer handing assets, is still teaching at the university and is asked to not just look over notes suggesting the government plans to put all of Canada’s security forces under one umbrella but read up and report on something else: a quashed terrorist plot involving a backpack bomb. Of course, Wolfgang signs on—he needs the money and there wouldn’t be much of a show if he didn’t—and heads to a club where he meets with Norman (Brian Markinson) a blackballed former spy. I love Markinson’s work and was jazzed to read he’d be part of Season 2. Norman is the type of character you can’t help but cheer for, despite the fact he oozes sleaze. He’s the smarmy ying to Wolfgang’s uptight yang, and the pairing works as they recreate the events surrounding the planned bombing and perceived bungles in the investigation.

Meanwhile, Rufus (Juan Riedlinger) has become a player in the city’s heroin market, with the proceeds financing a movie. It doesn’t take long for Rufus to start making key connections in the industry, but it rings a little hollow for me. Rufus utters almost every tough-guy cliché one does when trying to gain trust with violent bad guys while throwing in new ones, joking he found a kilo of heroin under his Christmas tree and that Santa’s elves sit around for most of the year with nothing to do, so they’ve gotten into the heroin trade. OK, bud.

As for Lily (Leeah Wong), she’s a recruit for the Intelligence Service and is caught in a power struggle between Al (Eugene Lipinski) and another agent while keeping her double agent status intact.

Thanks to the back-and-forth between Norman and Wolfgang and their investigation, I’ll tune in to The Romeo Section next week, with fingers crossed the Rufus storyline sheds some frustrating details.

The Romeo Section airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

Images courtesy of CBC.

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Featured, This Hour Has 22 Minutes

Susan Kent sings the praises of This Hour Has 22 Minutes

For This Hour Has 22 Minutes, entering its 24th season tonight is astounding longevity. For Susan Kent, entering her fifth season as a full-time cast member is equally astounding.

Some of her favourite recent sketches are one of Mark Critch’s from last season inspired by the fact that a Breaking Bad writer is rebooting Anne of Green Gables for CBC, and the Heritage Minute spoofs by writer/comedian Adam Christie, including one where Kent’s little boy character got to name Winnie The Feces Bear.

“What a job,” she said. “It’s your dream as a performer to get a gig that’ll last a couple of months because that’ll give you time to hustle to get the next gig, so to have four solid years of work is a dream.” She breaks into song: “I cannot believe this is true.”

Kent breaks into song and voices sporadically, a funny and relaxed  performer even in an interview. The gig isn’t all fun and games, though. She describes the rapid-fire schedule of putting together the show, which starts on Tuesday morning with the first pitch meeting and ends on Monday night with a live taping in front of an audience.

By Wednesday evening they know what sketches they will shoot starting Thursday, and the art department and props get busy. “Oh dude, it’s crazy, and the only thing open is Walmart. You call in favours, make things yourself—we’re like MacGyvers on Wednesday night.”

Her boyfriend also works for the show, otherwise she says she would never see him. “It’s important to understand why your spouse is happily stressed out and won’t look you in the eye because they’re figuring out how they’re going to write that sketch or make that robot.”

This Hour Has 22 Minutes airs Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m. on CBC.

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