Tag Archives: CBC

Featured, Murdoch Mysteries

Interview: Murdoch Mysteries’ sealed with a kiss

Well, Murdoch Mysteries fans, what did you think of that kiss? Were  you upset that George and Edna have officially become and item? I have mixed feelings about the situation myself–I’d love nothing more than to have George and Emily reunite–but as writer Jordan Christianson pointed out, it could still happen. Eventually. Maybe.

We chatted with the Canadian Film Centre graduate about the importance of the institutions’ TV-writing course, and Monday’s vaudeville-inspired murder mystery that featured a gut-busting scene with Higgins and Crabtree impersonating Murdoch and Brackenreid.

Was W.C. Fields really in Toronto at this time, or was that just some fun on the part of you and the other writers?
Jordan Christianson: That’s a liberty we decided to take. There wasn’t anything to suggest that he had been in Toronto. We know he was working primarily in the New York area. We portrayed him as a struggling juggler in the episode which sort of helps set him up as a murder suspect although, of course, it wasn’t going to be W.C. Fields. In reality, W.C. Fields is considered to be the best juggler in the vaudeville circuit throughout the United States when he was only 21 or 22. He was fairly famous as a juggler before he made that shift and adopted the personality that we now know.

Let’s talk about Bert Grady and his stand-up act. Where did his jokes come from?
I wrote Bert Grady’s monologue. Some of them are mother-in-law jokes that go back decades and I re-wrote them so we could tailor his monologue to serve the plot of the story. The other monologues that we hear throughout the course of the episode I found doing some research at the Toronto Reference Library. Those are actual monologues of the period. They weren’t attributed to any particular performer but those are real monologues.

You mentioned the Toronto Reference Library. Had you been there before for work on Murdoch?
This is my second season on the show and I did spend some time there last season when I wrote the episode about the bicycle races that ended up dealing with human blood types. The Reference Library is great when you’re trying to get a sense of what people knew at the time. For this particular episode, I was able to find a book with the monologues that we hear and it also gave me a sense of vaudeville. To be honest, going into this episode I didn’t know much about vaudeville and had a certain amount of indifference towards it. [Laughs.] It was kind of like my grandparents’ thing. So I really needed to sort of dig in and the library was helpful in showing just how popular it was at the time. It was the entertainment for everyone.

Crabtree’s line about ‘too early’ rather than ‘too soon,’ was great.
All credit has to go to Jonny Harris on that one. It’s always amazing what Jonny in particular is able to come up with on the spot and it certainly makes us writers look good. I hope it was a fun episode not just for Jonny but for the whole cast. Yannick had a lot of fun with it, especially in that scene where he first talks to Ed Ward. They do a bit of a ‘Who’s on first?’ schtick. If there is one thing I don’t think Yannick gets enough credit for is that he plays humour really well. Really subtly. I was tickled with what he did.

Who came up with ‘flatulence sack’?
I would like to take credit for it, but when I decided the Whoopie Cushion would be part of the episode I did my due diligence and looked into the advent of the Whoopie Cushion to see if it could be used and if it existed. It did, and at one time was known as a flatulence sack.

Let’s get to the controversial part of last night’s episode, the kiss between George and Edna. Are you prepared for the backlash?
It’s so interesting. I think Edna is a very likeable character and she draws something out of George that is an inherent goodness. I think it’s a really sweet and appealing relationship and although we appreciate that George and Emily made a great couple and a lot of people want to see them together, we see them as being at a point in their lives where maybe they’re looking around at other options. I know there were some people on Twitter last week who seemed to perceive a moment between Emily and Lillian Moss. We hope that people like George and Edna as a couple because that’s the direction they’re heading in slowly and cautiously.

Higgins and Crabtree impersonating Murdoch and Brackenreid was hilarious. Lachlan Murdoch did a great job as William.
Lachlan did a great job and hair and makeup did a great job with the exaggerated eyebrows and sideburns. I was on set that day and it was surreal to see Lachlan as Murdoch beside Jonny as Brackenreid across from the real Murdoch and the real Brackenreid as they are trying to carry out a scene in all seriousness.

Your resumé includes time on Mr. D. How did you get from there to here?
About four years ago I had done the Canadian Film Centre TV writing program and myself, Simon McNabb and Michelle Ricci who are all on Murdoch were all in the program together and Peter Mitchell was our mentor in residence. Pete took the job on Murdoch shortly after the program and took Michelle with him. At that point in time Simon and I were both aspiring comedy writers. That class was sponsored by CBC and they had taken a liking to a script I had written and told me about this show they had called Mr. D. I knew who Gerry Dee was and thought he was hilarious and he was actually who I envisioned as the Bert Grady character. I wrote Bert Grady with Gerry Dee in mind.

CBC got me an interview and I was lucky enough to be hired on Mr. D as a script coordinator in the first year. It was a great, great experience and after my two years on Mr. D, Pete called Simon and I up and said he had a couple of openings at Murdoch. I can’t speak for Simon but for me it was a no-brainer. Murdoch allows for humour, so I didn’t feel like I was giving up comedy altogether and it meant I was working with Pete, who is widely regarded as one of the best showrunners in the country. It’s been a fantastic journey.

I can’t recommend the CFC enough for people who are interested in getting into TV writing, particularly in this country. I owe the very fact that I’ve had jobs over the last few years to the CFC. Not only do they take care of you while you’re there, but they really care about you afterwards and they keep tabs on you. They really helped me find an agent and get that first job on Mr. D. I highly recommend it to everybody and I do think that more people need to know about it.

Murdoch Mysteries returns Monday, January 12, at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, This Hour Has 22 Minutes

Interview: Susan Kent talks 22 Minutes and metal music

Who knew Susan Kent was a metal head? I certainly didn’t when she and I started to chat about the 22nd anniversary of This Hour Has 22 Minutes. That was just part of our conversation about the behind-the-scenes preparation that goes on during a whirlwind week on the set of the veteran CBC parody program.

The Corner Brook, Newfoundland, native describes a collaborative writing squad that churns out a shocking amount of content that never sees the light of day and the breakneck speed needed to create a skit like last week’s parody of Meghan Trainor’s “All About that Bass,” repurposed as a PC attack ad about Justin Trudeau called “Just a Pretty Face.”

Congratulations on the show’s milestone.
Susan Kent: Thanks, it’s great to be involved in something that I had nothing to do with! I totally lucked out.

Do you still feel like you’re the newbie on the cast?
Not so much anymore. I feel pretty integrated now. Every now and again I’ll get one of those twinges that I used to get. ‘Oh my God, what am I doing? Why do I think I can do this?! This is the big leagues!’ And then I’m like, ‘It’s just me and these people having a good time.’

How does the writing process work for 22 Minutes? Do you all come up with ideas and then bring it to the table? Walk me through a typical production week.
Monday is the live show, so we do all of our prep stuff throughout the day. Sometimes Mark will do a satellite interview with a politician during the day. Monday nights we do the desk stuff and show everything we’ve shot the previous week and that morning to the audience.

We come in Tuesday morning for the next week’s pitch meeting. It’s all of us together and we just go around the table and pitch ideas and riff on each others’ ideas. And then [executive producer] Peter McBain either says, ‘Yeah, go ahead,’ or ‘No, don’t waste your time,’ and we all go away and write as much as we can. I write for myself and for other people as well. We all do that. We all like to write for each other. We do all that until early-ish on Wednesday and then Peter makes the choices for what sketches will be read out of the book and that’s usually about 40. And then everyone who works on the show gathers together in the studio and we read all of those sketches. Out of that read and based on the response and hearing things aloud he decides what will be shot. We get the rundown for Thursday and Friday and everybody starts sewing costumes and hitting Walmarts to make things.

22-minutes

We shoot all day Thursday and all day Friday. Oftentimes Mark Critch will go on road trips to do interviews on the Wednesday or sometimes on the weekends. He doesn’t stop. He is insane. Our director and our editors start work on Friday, editing stuff. And then Monday is the live show all over again.

Do you work the weekend too, or do you just sit and worry for two days?
Yeah, I sit and drink wine and worry about what’s going to happen!

How many writers are in the room besides the core four?
There are about eight writers right now and out of that crew there are a few who work from home because they have new babies and stuff like that. They call in during the pitch meeting and write from home.

You guys are creating a ton of content every week.
Oh God, it’s insane. It’s insane the amount of stuff that gets written. Let’s say each writer writes six sketches and each sketch has three or four jokes. Once those jokes don’t make it to the read, those jokes are burned and can’t be used again. The jokes that make it into the read but don’t make it to what gets taped are burned too. And the jokes that are shown in front of the audience but don’t make it to air are burned too. You can only imagine the amount of really quality stuff that never sees the light of day. For all of the desk jokes that you see on TV, we’re written double that for the show. Those guys are pumping out an insane amount of stuff, yeah.

On top of all that you have to be timely.
When all the bananas stuff was happening with Rob Ford last year, oftentimes we’d arrive on Monday and something we were going to do for the live show was trumped by something that had to do with him. That happens quite a bit.

This past week’s episode featured the PC attack song. Whose idea was that?
Well, Meghan Trainor gets the all the props for that. I think that idea was an idea between Peter and Mike Allison, the guy who wrote it. Mike has a really extensive history with music and he’s really good at it and he’s very good at parody songs.

Were you really singing it?
Yeah, that was me singing. I did all the back-ups and everything. It was cool. We have this music genius named Mike Farrington that comes in and does all of the music for the show. I didn’t know that song–I listed to more metal and punk rock–so I listened to it a bunch of times before the read. It was the first time I had listened to the song all the way through and we learned we’d be shooting it the next day. That meant recording it that night. I listened to it a whack of times and then Mike and I worked on my phrasing. Mike Farrington found out at 5 o’clock that we were doing it and was in the studio by 6. By 6:05 we were laying it down. It goes fast and luckily the two Mikes are so talented.

 

As a fellow metalhead, I have to ask: who do you listen to?
Right now I’m into this band named Midnight. They’re like an awesome cross between Venom and Motorhead.

Oh jeez, when you say metal, you mean thrash metal.
Oh yeah, thrash metal is probably my fave. I love metal hybrids. Zeke is one for my favourite bands.

When you said metal I was thinking of Van Halen and Poison. Now I sound like a wimp because I was thinking of hair metal.
I love hair metal! I love party metal. It’s just so fun. Some if it is garbage and but then again some thrash is garbage.

This Hour Has 22 Minutes’ retrospective special This Hour Has 22 Years airs Tuesday at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, Heartland

Review: Heartland ends with double cliffhanger

The mark of a good cliffhanger episode leaves a viewer stunned, shocked–and in the best of cases–yelling “No!” at the television screen. Sunday’s episode of Heartland was certainly that in a couple of cases, especially when it came to Ty and Amy being arrested. I was a little surprised by the kiss they shared moments after liberating the wild horses from the corral Matt constructed, but I didn’t expect them to be collared by the local RCMP.

I think part of the reason for my surprise was that they were nabbed so quickly. It seemed like they’d only just minutes before stopped riding and suddenly the local police were there. I was glad to see the show’s fave couple reunited–there has been a great slow burn between Amy and Ty over the last several weeks–in the spot that meant so much to the couple: Pike River.

“The Pike River Cull,” written by Heather Conkie, brought back the show’s second-best curmudgeon–after Jack– in Will (Nicholas Campbell) and his daughter, Joanna (Hélène Joy). With business on the wane and wanting to move closer to her son, Joanna put the restaurant and hotel up for sale and was hoping Will would move closer to Calgary with her. No dice; he was staying put and close to the wild horses last seen in “A Heartland Christmas.” The fact that a local farmer named Matt was plotting to cull some of those wonderful beasts only cemented Will’s resolve.

Jack, Tim, Ty and Amy all headed to Pike River to try to talk some sense into Will, and it didn’t take long for the former lovebirds to recall their time in front of the hotel fireplace, snuggled under a blanket (and Ty’s shocking long mane of hair). Ty may have started out that first night sleeping in Tim’s truck to avoid Amy, but once he saw her in that tank top, his emotions had come rushing back. Good thing too, because they certainly made for a great team by calling out Matt on his evil plans to kill off some of the horses and then loosing the proud animals from his trap.

The cliffhanger, of course, is whether or not Amy and Ty are actually going to be arrested or whether they’re able to talk themselves out of it. I can see this going either way within the first few minutes of the first episode back in January. Will the RCMP officer stuff the two into the back seat of his truck? Will the two explain that Will is hurt and needs attention back at the corral? We’ll have to see.

The other cliffhanger on Sunday was the state of Lou and Peter’s marriage. He’d spent so much time away from the family on business that Lou finally blew her top when she found out he’d delayed his return to Heartland because he wanted one night to relax. (Raise your hand if you thought perhaps he’d had a dalliance.) Their bitter back and forth certainly put a damper on their staycation at the dude ranch, though there was a nice moment when Georgie caught that fish. But that wasn’t enough to solve the couple’s deep problems, and it appeared Peter was about to ask for a trial separation on the road to divorce when a lawyer showed up to present them with papers: Georgie’s aunt Crystal had made a complaint that her niece wasn’t growing up in a safe environment. I knew Crystal was up to no good when she left Heartland!

Heartland returns Sunday, Jan. 11, at 7 p.m. on CBC.

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Featured, Republic of Doyle

Review: Republic of Doyle’s great frame-up

Last week Murdoch Mysteries offered up a bottle episode–a mystery contained within the station house–that was stellar in its drama and storytelling. This week Republic of Doyle kept things locked up tight in the constabulary as the Doyles, Des and Leslie were all called to the carpet by Inspector Picard (guest star John Kapelos at his dickish best) who suspected them all in the death of Barbara Warrick, who’d hired the Doyles to test her mansion’s security system.

Picard’s rapid-fire questions rattled off the darkened walls of offices and interrogation rooms between midnight and 8 a.m., making for sparse surroundings and a focus on everyone’s answers. Stripped down like that–there was no GTO and even Des’ usual manic state was more muted than usual–you couldn’t help but focus on the characters, their faces and their words. Marcus Robinson’s script of “Body of Evidence” painted a picture of folks in disarray. A cop who may bend the rules for the man she loves. A guy desperate to get his hands on money and escape town before his bumped-up court date arrives. A couple eager to get their hands on cash to pay off mounting debts. Even Tinny and Des looked like they were good for at least part of the crime.

Of course, we knew it was all going to work out in the end–Barbara Warrick accidentally killed herself while hiding her late husband’s money in a wall and herself in the attic–but none of that came out until very late in the episode when Jake, Leslie, Rose and Malachy met up and put the pieces together. With Doyle’s series finale coming up next week, this week’s penultimate tale was the perfect lead-in to what promises to be one heck of a ride.

Notes and quotes

  • “Are you trying to say I’m ugly? I was born like this.”–Des
  • “I don’t know how to help him and it’s killing me. He’s my best friend. My son.”–Malachy
  • “I love you, that’s all. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”–Leslie
  • “Jake, I can’t do any hard time. Not even any easy time.”–Des
  • Tinny needing time away from Des hit me out of nowhere. Did anyone else see that coming? And can they turn things around by next week?
  • And just what evidence does Picard have that proves Leslie is a dirty cop?

The two-hour Republic of Doyle series finale airs next Wednesday at 8 p.m. on CBC.

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Murdoch Mysteries

Video: Making Murdoch – “High Voltage”

From CBC:

In this edition of Making Murdoch, go behind the scenes with the cast and crew on location at the historic WalperHotel in Kitchener, Ontario. Also, learn more about Thomas Edison’s conflicted relationship with his son, and explore how props master Craig Grant masterminded the Medical Emporium inventions featured in this episode. The cast and producers of Murdoch Mysteries’ talk about how passionate and devoted the show’s fans are and how they inspired this episode. And fans from around the world share what they love most about the series at the annual Murdoch Mysteries studio open house. Watch Murdoch Mysteries Mondays at 8pm on CBC Television!

 

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