Tag Archives: CTV

Dramas and Comedies, Featured

Blindspot’s Canadian creator on The Goonies and fighting to make good TV

Thank goodness for The Goonies and National Treasure. If those two movies hadn’t existed, we never would have gotten Blindspot. Turns out the show’s creator, Martin Gero, is a fan of the two flicks and in puzzles in general. The Swiss-born, Ottawa-raised writer and producer came up with the mind-bending Monday night drama while living in New York City and vividly pictured that dramatic first scene in his head.

We spoke to Gero—who cut his teeth on The Holmes Show and the Stargate franchise before moving on to write and produce Bored to Death and create The L.A. Complex—about how Blindspot came about, the challenges of making TV in Canada and the U.S.

How did the whole idea for Blindspot come about?
Martin Gero: I had been developing various things for Warner Bros. for a couple of years. I actually wish I had a better story for this, but basically I love puzzles. I’m a huge fan of riddles and The Goonies is one of my favourite movies of all time and it’s very sad that I’m to living a Goonies existence every day of my life. I love all the Dan Brown books and I love National Treasure more than an adult male should. Like, I love National Treasure 2.

It was definitely something I had been trying to figure out how to do in a TV show every week. People have tried it and it’s just really hard to make treasure map shows. I lived in Times Square—which is another one of my failings as a human being—during the attempted Viacom bombing. One morning I woke up and was just like, ‘Man, what if they went to disarm a bomb in Times Square and there was a woman in there instead of a bomb, and she had an FBI guy’s name tattooed on her back?’ I thought, ‘Well, that’s something. Wait, what if she has a whole map tattooed on her back? This is going to be great.’ And I sat down and figured out how to make that a show.

How much research did you do into how the FBI works as you were writing the show?
We have some amazing FBI consultants on the show, so they really vet everything we do to make sure the language is right and make sure we’re not so totally off-base. In last week’s episode there was a CIA/FBI Mexican standoff and I thought, ‘No, that would never happen.’ And they said, ‘Well, no, it could.’ [Laughs.] Things get complicated out in the field. I’ve been continually surprised, thinking, ‘Well no, this is stupid,’ and they tell me it could actually happen.

You’ve worked both in Canada and the U.S. on TV shows. Is it harder to get a series on the air in the U.S. than Canada?
I think it’s hard to get a show on TV, period. Canada has its own gauntlet that you have to run that is unique to Canada and America has its own gauntlet to run. Volume-wise, the U.S. just makes a lot more TV than Canada does, but there is also way more people trying to make TV here. I think it balances out. I think it’s equally difficult.

One morning I woke up and was just like, ‘Man, what if they went to disarm a bomb in Times Square and there was a woman in there instead of a bomb, and she had an FBI guy’s name tattooed on her back?’

You know how tough it is to make TV when it’s based on ratings. In the U.S., if a show doesn’t perform, it gets yanked off the air after mere episodes. Are you pinching yourself because not only do you have a show on the air, but it’s performing well and has a full-season order?
It’s not something that feels real to me. The good news it, the job is the same no matter what. When I did The L.A. Complex, we had the lowest-rated show in the history of television and the job is exactly the same. You just have to put your head down and do the work because whether people watch or not is, weirdly, not up me. I feel extraordinarily grateful to be having the fun that we are on a show like this. To have people watch on top of that is gravy.

How many people have you got in the writers room over there?
We have nine writers, four of whom are Canadians [Brendan Gall, Katherine Collins, Chris Pozzebon and Gero]. It’s a big Canada room. It’s a little on the bigger side for a show like this but a lot of the writers are staff writers. It’s a young room.

Every episode of Blindspot gives answers while uncovering more questions. How do you balance those reveals and queries without upsetting the audience? You can piss them off if you string them along.
That’s a great question. It sounds crazy, but we’re making a show for us. We’re the first audience, so when we’re in the room we’re saying things like, ‘We’re dragging our feet on this,’ or ‘We’re doing this too fast.’ Sometimes the story is taking up too much space and we need more room for the characters, or the characters are taking up too much space. You really have to rely on your internal compass. What’s also great is that we’re working with Berlanti Productions, so Greg and his team are involved. It’s a fantastic set of eyes to have when you get lost and can’t see the forest for the trees. To have another producer there that isn’t another ring to jump through but is actually helping make the show better is great.

When you pitch a show, whether it’s in Canada or the States, when you leave the room everyone has a different idea of what the show is. It’s a flaw in the system. One of the lucky breaks in this is that everybody is trying to make the same show, so you’re not having crazy conversations with the network and the studio about, like, ‘What if Weller owns a cotton candy stand?’ ‘Wait, what?! I don’t even know what that’s about!’

Blindspot airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

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Featured, Saving Hope

Tara Spencer-Nairn shakes off Corner Gas with Saving Hope

For six seasons and one major motion picture, Tara Spencer-Nairn played beleaguered small-town cop Karen Pelly on the wildly successful Corner Gas. And while she’s forever grateful for the experience of starring in a beloved Canadian television series and will cherish it forever, she’s been champing at the bit to play something different.

Janice Fenn is that character. Unlike the perky, sarcastic Karen, Janice is a drug addict who comes to the aid of Taylor, a 12-year-old who checks into Hope Zion on Thursday night following a motocross accident. What follows in “Heart of Stone” is harrowing and heartbreaking … exactly what Spencer-Nairn has been looking for.

Janice Fenn is definitely not Constable Karen.
Tara Spencer-Nairn: Right?! I was pretty excited about this.

Janice is the type of person Karen would try to arrest.
As soon as I got the breakdown I knew it was something I wanted to do and that I needed to do. I love Corner Gas and everything it has done for my and I’ll be forever grateful, but I feel like I’m constantly having to remind people that I’m not just a comedian and that I’m not a comedian. This was a real departure and something that I could really sink my teeth into. It was dirty and gritty. And I’m at this point in my life, with two kids, where it fits. It’s funny, I was telling my agent, ‘There’s no way I can’t get this role because I haven’t slept in days and I look like shit. I’m perfect! They don’t have to do anything, they don’t even have to put makeup on me.’

After Corner Gas and taking a break to have kids, I really wanted to come back and do something I’ve never done before. I think that’s what’s great about these Canadian shows; there are these great little characters that come along that we all get to drop in and play.

Although you appreciate it, do you feel as though Corner Gas caused you to be pigeon-holed?
Absolutely. It’s weird, because if you look back at how my career started, it’s not very funny. New Waterford Girl was funny, but in a very different way. And again, I love Corner Gas and everyone involved and if I could do a Corner Gas movie every two years, I’d be there. But I do kind of feel like I’m constantly fighting to get into rooms and show people I’m more than just Karen Pelly. And because of the success of Corner Gas, it’s been really hard for all of us to break out of those roles.

“We’re fighting pretty hard to not have strong characters, but good characters, interesting characters and characters reflective of who we are that don’t just support another male character.”

OK, let’s talk about Saving Hope and this role of Janice. She’s a tough character to play because she’s a drug addict, and therefore a little hard to viewers to like. Is it hard to portray a somewhat unlikeable character?

Well, I never thought of her as unlikeable. It was interesting working with David Wellington—the director for this episode—I trusted in him 100 percent. We really wanted to make sure we didn’t play into any stereotypes and the way the character was originally written was more of a stereotype. He really went back and fought hard to make sure she wasn’t dressed in a miniskirt. In a way, I felt sorry for her and I wanted to help her and make her better. Her choices, from the outside, look truly horrible but when you walk a mile in those shoes it’s horribly sad and heartbreaking.

Having two kids of your own, was it easy to tap into the emotions the role calls for?
Yeah, you have to go there. Having kids has become, truly, a blessing for my career because I now have a depth that I couldn’t have imagined before I had kids.

The storyline is open-ended; will you be back?
I don’t know, but let’s make that happen! I watch Saving Hope and I’ve never seen a character like her on the show. I applaud them for creating a character like this and for allowing the character to be a woman. As women, we’re fighting pretty hard to not have strong characters, but good characters, interesting characters and characters reflective of who we are that don’t just support another male character.

Are female characters getting more interesting and reflective? 
I think we’re talking about it, but I don’t think it’s getting better. I hope that talking about it is the first step. I’m in my mid- to late-30s and as an actor I do feel like I should be busier than I am. I feel like there should be more roles for me out there and it kind of breaks my heart every morning when I get up and it’s, ‘Nope, not today.’ It’s nice that it’s a big topic in Hollywood and I hope the ripple effect will happen.

Is writing, directing and producing your own projects the next step in that journey for you?
It’s something that I’m working on, yeah. At first I was like, ‘I’m just going to do this, no problem!’ And now that I’m in it, it’s ‘Wow, this is really hard!’ The stuff that I want to write isn’t necessarily network TV and as you know this industry is in flux with pick and pay. There aren’t a lot of cable shows being made in Canada. But, at the same time, I appreciate conventional network and a show like Saving Hope who create characters like Janice, but that isn’t the type of show that I want to create.

What kind of show do you want to make?
I want to make the kind of show everyone wants to make. You look at a Nurse Jackie or an Orphan Black … gritty and dirty and real. I’m not interested in being earnest.

Saving Hope airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

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Featured, Saving Hope

Interview: Kim Shaw, Saving Hope’s newest doctor in the house

It doesn’t take long for Hope Zion’s newest junior resident, Dr. Cassie Williams—played by Kim Shaw—to make an impression on Dr. Alex Reid in Thursday’s new episode. Cassie’s bubbly enthusiasm and confidence attracts the attention of all. But this being Saving Hope, nothing on the surface is truly what it seems, and key facets to Cassie’s life are uncovered by the end of “Start Me Up.”

Shaw’s gig on Saving Hope is the latest in an impressive body of television work. The Windsor, Ont., born actress has appeared in sitcoms like Two and a Half Men, Anger Management and How I Met Your Mother, and high-profile dramas like NCIS and The Good Wife. We spoke to Shaw about her career, playing Cassie and winter weather.

You’ve had a really varied career. You’ve been on comedies like Two and a Half Men, Anger Management and How I Met Your Mother, and dramas like The Good Wife and NCIS. That’s a lot of high-profile stuff.
Kim Shaw: It’s been a roller coaster. You never feel like you work enough. I moved to New York when I graduated from high school and went to theatre school and kind of started working right out of the gate. I was very lucky to find people who wanted to work with me and put in the time, management-wise. Then I got sick of the cold and moved to L.A. about five years ago and, happily, haven’t had to waitress since I made that move. When you’re a comedy actress, which I kind of consider myself, you never really feel like you ever get a chance to show that darker side. And then when you’re doing a dark show, you just want to be light! [Laughs.] It’s been fun to explore all of that.

How did you get the role of Dr. Cassie Williams?
I’m a Canadian citizen but have been living in the States and I applied to have a Social Insurance Number. Saving Hope was the first audition I had after getting the card. It was a self-tape, so my boyfriend—God bless him—put me on tape about 20 times, just trying to get the takes right for the scenes they had given me. You send that away and kind of forget about it after it’s gone. I got that wonderful phone call that every actor dreams of—that they were interested—and they tested me out of Los Angeles and I booked it and flew to Toronto.

My best friend is a nurse, my mom is a nurse and my brother is a doctor, so I’ve had that repertoire in my system but have never gotten the chance to do it myself. I’ve played heroin addicts and things on the other side of it, but this is so challenging. Everyone on set has been so lovely … it’s lovely to join a well-oiled machine and feel like you fit in immediately.

Saving_Hope

How does your family feel about you playing a doctor?
I called my brother and told him, ‘I’m a doctor now! In your face! Mine happened a lot quicker than yours!’

Has anyone on-set, like Michael Shanks or Benjamin Ayres played practical jokes on you?
Wendy Crewson is the most trouble on-set. She is just the most fun; she is an amazing person and cracks everybody up. I have a couple of story arcs with her and I’ve learned so much from her, from who I want to be as a person and who I want to be on-set. Erica has just had a baby, so she has this glow and joy about her all of the time which is fun to be around. I don’t have a lot of scenes with Michael, but during the table reads he likes to throw in zingers and make everyone laugh.

Cassie certainly makes an impression when she appears on Thursday night. She’s spunky and ready to go.
She’s over-eager, but I think anyone—on the first day of the rest of your life—is excited to get started. I’m sure that’s how I came across on our first table read.

That excitement is tempered by an incident that occurs a little later on.
As medical students, I think you think you’re ready but you’ve only been cutting open dead bodies for the past four years and you crave that real OR. It’s overwhelming as an actor to be in the OR for the first time because you’re covered in plastic, the gloves are so hard to put on, you’re sweaty and your mask is on. I’m glad I got to show how I felt on the inside.

At the end of the episode, there is another incident, this time involving Dr. Curtis. How long will it take for that storyline to shake out?
It’s a little bit of a slow burn, but it’s a juicy storyline once we get into it.

What can you tell me about Cassie’s evolution this season?
The thing I enjoy about her the most is that she is extremely empathetic, which I can relate to, and she is going through this thing. She thinks she wants to be a doctor and realizes how hard it is to see a patient as a patient and not a person. She struggles with that, and how blunt she has to be. Doctors have to be really cold sometimes and she has a hard time with that. She is one of the smartest doctors—she knows her stuff—but she struggles with the emotion of the new job.

Saving Hope airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

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Amazing Race Canada, Featured

Interview: Amazing Race Canada winners give tips to wannabe Racers

Gino and Jesse Montani won this season of The Amazing Race Canada, and the next step in their journey has begun. A day after they captured $250,000, two Chevy trucks, flights from Air Canada, gas from Petro Canada and the title, the brothers from Hamilton, Ont., were still in awe of what they’d accomplished.

They took some time out from a busy day of interviews to look back on the season and give some valuable tips to anyone plotting to audition for Season 4.

What’s it been like to sit and watch the show back and relive all of those moments?
Gino Montani: It’s been a cool experience. You remember back to running the Race and you hope they don’t put something in, because there is so much footage to edit. Sometimes you don’t even realize you said something.

Jesse: Yeah, like, ‘Wait, my laugh sounds like that?!’ Oh, I need to change up my laugh.

Has it been hard to keep the secret from your family every week?
Gino: It was so tough. You don’t want to keep anything from the most important people to you, especially something like this. But, at the same time, to see their faces at the end of the Race and seeing their reaction, was priceless.

What was your game plan going in? Sure, you has some squabbles, but overall you were a very strong team.
Gino: Everyone is labelled with a first impression, and we knew we would be labelled as the jocks. We’re physical, and it’s the way we look. That’s fine. But there is much more to us and the other teams didn’t know that. We were strategizing the whole time. One thing we wanted to make sure we did was to take that extra second during challenges. You can’t just come into this and be reckless. You have to think about what you’re doing. So we took an extra second, or minute, to figure out a game plan at each challenge rather than waste time doing it three, four or five times. And it worked … but in the finale, it worked against us. We were taking too much time in the map challenge with the measuring string.

Jesse: We wanted to do it just once and Nick and Matt did it so fast. I wonder how fast we would have done it if we had just done it they way they did?

“We ran the Race to finish first. But other teams were racing just not to finish last, and that’s a huge difference.”

Let’s talk about Nick and Matt. You guys were back and forth all season, battling it out. They pushed you, and you pushed them. In the long run, it made for a compelling season.

Jesse: They are great competitors and they pushed us. I think the outcome would have been the same but I’m still not sure because they pushed us to exceed even our capabilities.

Gino: We ran the Race to finish first. We figured that if we won some Legs and some trips then at least we’d had the experience. But other teams were racing just not to finish last, and that’s a huge difference.

Was there a time or a Leg where you guys said to one another, ‘I think we might actually win this?’
Jesse: We knew each other’s strengths and that we could physically do it. There was that Leg in Chile where we came in second-last that was a wake-up call. We realized that we really needed to push from them on.

What are some tips you’d give people who are auditioning for Season 4?
Jesse: For the audition tape, just be yourself. Don’t go jumping out of planes and doing crazy things. Sit in front of the camera and talk about yourself and who you are.

Gino: They don’t want to know if you can jump out of a plane. Don’t put your dog in there, that’s not who you are.

Jesse: And for the Race, build a relationship with your taxi driver in case you run into a situation where somebody might steal your taxi. We finished that challenge and ran out to Nick and Matt’s taxi and the driver didn’t really care for them, so he had no problem taking us. He offered to take us and we weren’t going to turn that down. A relationship with a taxi driver can really help you because they want you to win.

Gino: I think you need to figure out who you are as a team. Are you in it for the experience or are you in it to win? If you’re in it to win, you have to simplify things and break it down. It’s overwhelming if you look at the whole Race. You have to split it up into Legs and each task. You can’t let outside factors get in.

Will you try out for Season 4 of The Amazing Race? If so, let us know what sets you apart from other potential Racers in the comments below.

 

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Featured, Saving Hope

Saving Hope returns to its roots for Season 4

If this is the final season for Saving Hope, fans will be happy on one front. Erica Durance and Michael Shanks were mum when asked directly if the current season will be its last, but they did acknowledge CTV’s homegrown medical drama is returning to its roots.

“Charlie and Alex become mature adults,” Shanks says of Hope Zion’s central doctors. “One of the reasons the love triangle [with Daniel Gillies’ Dr. Joel Goran] ended is because that story only has legs for so long. To be playing CW love triangle stuff with the level of angst that they write … why is Charlie getting into another fist-fight with Joel?! It became time for these characters to move forward.”

Things have moved forward significantly in Thursday’s return, “Sympathy for the Devil.” Eleven months have passed since Joel was blown to smithereens. Alex (Durance) leaves baby Luke for her first day back at Hope Zion and it doesn’t take long for her to become embroiled in drama both in and outside of the operating room. The headstrong, brilliant doc finds herself competing with one of the hospital’s newest hires, Dr. Patrick Curtis (Max Bennett), over how to treat a car crash victim. Then Alex tackles her next case: a man named Tom Crenshaw (Rookie Blue‘s Travis Milne) who was convicted of murdering his wife. And while Alex and Tom connect on the operating table, the accused killer turns to Charlie for help. Shanks explains almost every ghost who has interacted with Charlie has been well-intentioned and a resulted positively.

“With this one, we don’t know,” he teases. “There is a bit of a raised eyebrow.”

Meanwhile, Zach (Benjamin Ayres) is struggling to deal with Goran’s death, going so far as to put his life on the line by entering a quarantined area to help a sick patient rather than take the time to don a hazmat suit.

“For all of the fans of Zach, this is going to be a really big year for him,” Durance says. “He really gets to unpack some emotional stuff and deal with the guilt that he feels.”

Saving Hope airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV.

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