Tag Archives: CBC

Awards, Featured

Interview: Andrea Martin previews Sunday’s Canadian Screen Awards

By Chis Jancelewicz

It’s only fitting that one of the most hilarious women to ever grace the Canadian small screen is hosting the annual gala to honour Canadian film and television. SCTV alum Andrea Martin is taking the mic this year to helm the 3rd Annual Canadian Screen Awards on March 1, and promises to bring the funny.

TV, Eh? sat down to chat with the comedic star about hosting the gig (while simultaneously being nominated for her comedy Meet the Engels).

It’s cold out there. What are you going to do if the temperature is like this on March 1?
Andrea Martin: [Laughs.] I’m going to be inside! Or … where WILL the red carpet be? It might be outside. Oh, it is outside. They probably have heaters, though. This IS Canada.

Is there a lot to be proud of this year in terms of Canadian entertainment?
I think it’s so varied! Usually, there’s a lot of French-Canadian films and talent, this year I think there’s more English-speaking films. There’s a nice balance, and a lot of new, young talent.

Have you ever been a host and been nominated at the same time?
I’ve been a host many times, and I’ve been nominated many times. [Laughs.] I’m trying to think! Not in the States, I’ve just won a lot there: two Tonys, two Emmys, a People’s Choice Award … but I’ve never hosted the shows.

Can you reveal any details or surprises about the show to us?
One thing that’s going to be very exciting is they’re putting together packages for each film and TV show, just in case people haven’t seen the productions. The Canadian public hasn’t necessarily seen the stuff up for awards, so they might not tune in if they’re not interested. This way people can be informed.

Is there anything new this year?
It’s not new since the ceremony is already three years old, but I think combining movies and television into one is an exciting, jam-packed evening. It seems there are a lot of actors from the United States included this year, some nice crossover as well.

The Canadian Screen Awards gala airs Sunday, March 1, at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Preview: Transforming Transgender an intimate look into the lives of transgendered people

“I just didn’t feel right in who I was. I always thought, ‘Am I in the right body?'” That’s how Olie, a young Quebec girl, felt while she was a boy. That stunning quote kicks off Transforming Transgender, airing Thursday as part of CBC’s Doc Zone, a program that informs and educates—as Geena  Rocero explains—the “T” in LGBT.

Executive producer Rachel Low and her team aren’t out to shock viewers with their documentary, but to spotlight, celebrate and produce some very interesting facts. History shows humankind likes to put everyone in one gender or another, when the reality is that isn’t true. Nature presents different variations of flora and fauna, including humans. As Rocero, founder of Gender Proud in New York City points out, gender has been blurred in Asian countries for centuries.

Transforming Transgender interviews a stunning array of transgendered individuals, from children like Olie and Wren to Dr. Carys Massarella (pictured above) and Stephanie Castle, who was born in 1925 and as a child dreamt he saw himself as a girl. Stephanie went into the navy and had a “normal” life with two marriages and kids. It was at the end of the second marriage Stephanie knew she couldn’t hide it anymore and had gender reassignment surgery at 66.

The documentary also presents some sobering stats: 97 per cent of transgendered people experience harassment on the job and 40 per cent will attempt suicide. Unemployment rates are high because of transphobia and depression is a common occurrence. And why not? As several interview subjects point out, they felt isolated from their family and friends because of who they felt they needed to act like versus who they really were.

Far from being a “woe is me” project, Transforming Transgender is also a celebration of becoming who one really is and being supported by those who love you. The most touching moments are those chats with parents who didn’t care whether their child was a boy or a girl, just that they were someone they loved.

“We have this little joke where we hear someone say, ‘Oh, we’re having a boy,'” Wren’s mom says with a laugh. “And I think, ‘Maybe. Maybe not.'”

Transforming Transgender airs as part of Doc Zone at 9 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, X Company

Review: Emotional fireworks highlight X Company’s second week

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Last week’s first episode of X Company was exactly the edge-of-your-seat drama that fans of co-creators Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern are used to. The duo are able to mix action with engaging characters (and a mean music montage) into tension-filled moments that leave you wanting more.

So, did Wednesday’s second episode, “Trial by Fire,” keep up the pace of last week’s debut? Yes, but in a very different way. Whereas exploding bridges and gunfights were at the centre of the debut, Wednesday’s newest storylines focused more on emotional fireworks than physical (though literal fireworks were featured during Hitler’s birthday celebrations in German-occupied Chartres, France).

Alfred went on his first mission with team and everyone—including him—realized the huge gamble they made by adding him to the team. Sure, he was the man of the hour when it came to the team’s mission off the week—to gain access to codes that would help stop the German bombings of England—but when presented with the rigours of say, parachuting into France and facing a German officer face-to-face—he was woefully unprepared. His panic attack in front of the code officer was equal parts scary and frustrating because I just wanted Alfred to snap out of it and utter the German dialogue he’d been trained to say.

Luckily, Neil was there to save their butts, but it was a harrowing few moments before the officer was dispatched and the situation rigged to look like the man had gotten drunk and taken a fatal fall out of a window while watching the fireworks.

Tom, meanwhile, used his knowledge of propaganda and gift for words to not only avoid killing the French family that saw the team land in their field but to set the record straight on the Germans, who had convinced many of the French that they meant no one harm. Dustin Milligan—who is doing double duty on CBC on X Company and Schitt’s Creek—is pitch perfect as the charming ad man with expertise in the power of words.

“Trial by Fire” was another nail-biter of an episode and, with Alfred agreeing to more missions, is taking its first steps toward one heck of a Season 1 adventure.

Notes and quotes

  • Smart move by CBC to re-air the previous week’s instalment in the hour before a new episode. Not only does it give those who missed it the first time around a chance to tune in, but it really plays up the TV-movie feel the show boasts.
  • I’m hoping the producers continue to use the spinning globe segment to show the team going overseas. It was cool.
  • One little quibble: the team should have been wearing helmets during the parachute jump.
  • Having the piano keys and Aurora both emit the colour blue—the shade that reminds Alfred of home—was a nice touch.
  • Is Harry emerging as the Q of X Company? I sure hope so.

X Company airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, Murdoch Mysteries

Interview: Murdoch Mysteries author Maureen Jennings sounds off on origins episode

It just makes sense to have Maureen Jennings write the origins episode of Murdoch Mysteries. After all, the author created him. Back in 1997, long before Yannick Bisson straddled a bike and drove into viewers’ lives eight seasons ago, Jennings published her first Murdoch mystery novel, Except the Dying.

In 2000, Shaftesbury Films optioned the novels for television, which led to three TV-movies with Peter Outerbridge in the titular role. On Monday night, the franchise came full circle as Jennings’ script for “Shipwrecked” brought Outerbridge and Bisson together on the small screen. We spoke to Jennings about the episode and her thoughts on the state of the franchise.

I know we’re eight seasons into Murdoch Mysteries with Yannick Bisson in the starring role, but is it still weird to see your creation on television?
Maureen Jennings: Oh, no. He does a fabulous job. It’s his Murdoch now, that’s for sure.

Obviously the show has evolved over the years and has changed from what has been in your seven novels. What are your thoughts on the evolution of the franchise?
I feel very lucky because it hasn’t strayed that far over the last eight years. Early on, someone had a brilliant idea—it wasn’t mine—to move us up in time. You can put out the books in for or five years and move the fictional timeline by a few months. But in terms of television, we’re advancing a year which gives a lot more scope to what was happening at the time. I think it was a really good idea.

Do you watch the show every week?
Oh yes!

How did the whole idea for Monday’s episode, William Murdoch’s origin story, come to be?
I love answering this question. We were actually in Halifax a few years ago and they have a fabulous museum there. What I didn’t know was that a lot of people from the Titanic washed up there. It’s gruesome, but they did. They have a lot of the artefacts that they found on the bodies in that museum. I was looking at that and thought, ‘Wow, isn’t that interesting what you can tell from what somebody was carrying in their pockets?’ One of the men had gold coins in his pockets, which is a morality tale because they didn’t do him any good.

I had long before established that Murdoch grew up in Nova Scotia, so this really got me going. It was actually a short story called ‘Wreckwood.’ That is the term they used in Nova Scotia to refer to a piece of the boat that they had found. It was very respectful. It was their way of honouring those ships that had foundered on their shores. I then changed the title to ‘Shipwreck’ and wrote a novella, which was intended for adults. It was a Murdoch story intended for a slightly different audience. I had framed it as Murdoch telling the story to his grandchild and that was really fun to to.

I always enjoy it when people talk about their past, so that’s really how it started.

Was it always the plan to have Peter Outerbridge cast as Father Keegan?
We absolutely wanted Peter in with Yannick. Everybody wanted Peter in, we just had to figure out the scheduling. He was happy to be there too and it was a lovely moment on many levels. Peter, the first Murdoch was there with the current Murdoch and they worked together. It was really nicely done. It was a fabulous experience.

Did you get a chance to watch any scenes filmed?
Yannick wasn’t there the day I was. We were there the day they filmed in Sutton, Ont., filming the shipwreck scenes. We went to a gravel pit to film the shipwreck. It was cold and wet and they were using rain towers to simulate the storm. It was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever experienced. There was Peter as Father Keegan, getting soaked to the skin and doing brilliantly.

I know scripts go through many edits. Were there any important plot points featured in this episode?
We had to work hard in terms of bringing together the two storylines. That was much more difficult that what I’d thought originally. One of the writers, Carol Hay, came up with the idea of rather than trying to link the two stories in terms of the plot, why don’t we just link them together in terms of theme and have this story of William’s relationship with Father Keegan be paramount. I thought that was very clever and it worked.

I enjoyed seeing young William and seeing his curiosity and Catholic faith established.
I was not raised in any way Catholic, but I went to a Catholic university—which was then called Assumption—and I was so impressed by the fathers there. That has definitely morphed into Father Keegan. And I think that, really, the young Murdoch is the young me.

Murdoch Mysteries returns with new episodes on Monday, March 16, at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, X Company

Canada’s secret Second World War role uncovered in X Company

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It’s a story that has never been told on the small—or any—screen before. The dramatic scripted tale of the role Canada played during the Second World War by training spies in Southern Ontario for missions behind German lines. That history is re-told in X Company, debuting Wednesday on CBC.

“This is an idea that we had 14 years ago, and we couldn’t believe it hadn’t been told,” co-creator Mark Ellis recalls. “And whenever we would tell the story to other people, they couldn’t believe it either.” Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern—who co-created a little drama called Flashpoint—now get their chance.

Starring Jack Laskey (Endeavour), Evelyne Brochu (Orphan Black), Dustin Milligan (90210), Connor Price (Being Human), Warren Brown (Luther) and Flashpoint alum Hugh Dillon, X Company spotlights Camp X, the secret base located east of Toronto where the British and Canadian governments trained spies on surveillance, burglary, interrogation, close combat and killing.

Inspired by real-life tales, Wednesday’s debut begins in 1942, with the Germans in control of Europe. Viewers are introduced to Alfred Graves (Laskey), a Brit with an intriguing medical condition: synesthesia, which has fused all five of his senses together. The result? A man bombarded by his senses all of the time … and the perfect spy because he has nearly perfect memory. Along for the ride are the rest of the team in Aurora Luft (Brochu), a half German/half-French Canadian woman; Harry James (Price), a munitions expert; Neil Mackay (Brown); and propaganda expert Tom Cummings (Milligan) who are under the watchful eye of Duncan Sinclair (Dillon), their commander.

“This is an angle we haven’t seen before,” Morgenstern says. “We’ve seen the epic battlegrounds, but this is about ordinary people who didn’t have a life vocation to save the world but each has a very special skill.”

Ellis describes it as a coming-of-age story about Alfred, a man discovering who he is and, ultimately, a hero. Wednesday’s bow is full of drama and gorgeous cinematography. Sinclair’s squad is dispatched to small-town France to not only assassinate German commanders but destroy a bridge, cutting off an important artery in the Nazi transport route. There is tension, violence, fear and jubilation packed into the tightly-wound, highly entertaining hour.

“We want to pay homage to the truth of what it was to be behind those enemy lines, what the ethical choices were and the shades of grey that you had to live in,” Ellis says.

The long-awaited story starts tonight.

X Company airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on CBC.

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