Tag Archives: Featured

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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Continuum, Featured

Continuum renewed for fourth – and final – season

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It’s the end of the road for time travelling cop Kiera Cameron. Showcase announced Monday night that Continuum has been renewed for a final six-episode season.

“All great stories deserve an end,” Nichols said in a press release. “I am excited and grateful to finish Continuum with the riveting conclusion it deserves. This series finale is dedicated to the devoted fans who have loyally supported us since Day 1.”

Production on Season 4 is set to begin in Vancouver in early 2015 with broadcast of the episodes later in the year. The renewal comes amid months of speculation regarding whether the sci-fi series would return or not. Now we have the answer.

Created by Simon Barry, Continuum stars Rachel Nichols as Kiera Cameron, a cop from 2077 Vancouver who is sent back to present-day stop a group the terrorist group Liber8 from affecting the future. Aiding Kiera in her mission is Vancouver cop Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster) and computer whiz Alec Sadler (Erik Knudsen). Opposing her were Liber8 members Matthew Kellog (Stephen Lobo), Sonya Valentine (Lexa Doig), Lucas Ingram (Omari Newton), Travis Verta (Roger Cross), Jasmine Garza (Luvia Petersen) and Julien Randol (Richard Harmon).

Season 3 of Continuum ended in a cliffhanger, with an special ops army troupe from 2077 arriving in Vancouver to lay waste after Kiera and Brad activated the beacon and the death of evil Alec at the hands of good Alec. The episode was the No. 1 program of the night in key demos for all of Canadian specialty programming.

Continuum has been lauded with numerous award wins, including a Canadian Screen Award for Best Visual Effects for a Program or Series and Leo Awards for Best Dramatic Series, Best Supporting Performance by a Female in a Dramatic Series, Best Stunt Coordination in a Dramatic Series and Best Screenwriting for a Dramatic Series.

It airs in over 132 countries.

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Featured, Murdoch Mysteries, Podcast

TV eh B Cs podcast – Peter Mitchell, International Man of Murdoch Mysteries

Peter Mitchell is currently in his fourth year as the Executive Producer on the long-running Murdoch Mysteries. But his extensive career in Canadian television includes writing for such shows as Street Legal, The Campbells, Bordertown, Madison, Traders, Cold Squad, The Guard, Flashpoint, She’s the Mayor and The Listener.

His Producer credits include being an Executive Producer for Traders and Cold Squad, Creative Producer for The Guard and Co-Executive Producer for The Listener.

In addition to talking about drawing contemporary stories from 1902 for Murdoch, we find out some behind-the-scenes strategies on balancing mystery, gadgetry, and character fidelity on an epic Canadian television franchise in the middle of its 8th year. All of this with a touch of anarchy for taste.

Listen or download below, or subscribe via iTunes or any other podcast catcher with the TV, eh? podcast feed.

Want to become a Patron of the Podcast? We’ve got a Patreon page where you can donate a small amount per podcast and get a sneak peek of each release.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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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, Lost Girl

Review: Lost Girl visits Valhalla

While I’m all for movies wrapping up a series that came to an unexpected end, I’m happy to see Lost Girl joining the ranks of Canadian series that have known the end was nigh and been able to plan accordingly. And maybe especially for a show like Lost Girl, that has such a deep, complicated mythology that—at times—felt like it was getting murkier as the story went on. Knowing that the answers are (hopefully) all going to come out in the next 16 episodes is, in its own way, a relief.

Or at least, that’s the upshot I’m going with now that I have to say goodbye to yet another Canadian series this year.

Lost Girl didn’t waste any time getting to some of those answers—even if it technically has the extra time to play with—and Bo managed to find the missing Hell Shoe in the first minutes of the opening episode (and take out a trio of creepers along the way). Although, I don’t know that just letting herself drop from an eagle’s nest was the best idea unless she was already counting on sucking the life energy out of some hikers. And I would have liked an idea of how she found the mythical other shoe after such a big deal had been made about reuniting the pair to at least explain why this only happened now.

Though perhaps in the long run managing to locate the shoe (and re-find the other one) were minor details in an episode that had to explain the inner-workings of Valhalla to us, and with minimal help from Tamsin. Or rather, and far more to the point of any fan that’s been waiting in agony for Lost Girl to return ever since Season 4’s harrowing finale, the story of the shoe was really about getting Bo and Kenzi back together again—and once that happened I don’t think anyone cared if the devil (or mistress) wore Prada or hemp because the girls were eating Chunky Monkey.

I had a sinking feeling in my stomach as Bo approached Kenzi’s room thanks to the ominous and not to hopeful comments the showrunner and producers have been making all summer that she was going to find something terrible there instead. But then it started to look like last season’s double death was going to end up being a fake out—or at least looked like a partial fake out when Kenzi was returned unceremoniously to her body, which happened to be inconveniently located in a coffin, underground. I was torn between wanting Kenzi and Hale to head off into the Bifröst together—as heartbreaking as that would be for the friends—if only to give the girl the happy ending Bo was right in saying she deserved, and having the friends live out this last season together on Earth. Since the series has been given its chance to say goodbye, it was good that Bo and Kenzi got that chance too, even if it looked like that might not have been necessary.

But with Ksenia Solo listed as a special guest in the end credits, I don’t know that the goodbyes were entirely pre-emptive. Now that Kenzi knows Hale is there and their marriage something Freyja (Michelle Nolden, Saving Hope) was more than happy to arrange, I can see her opting—now that she’s gotten out of her deal with Bo’s father—to return to Valhalla and the wedding (and, I assume, put the kibosh on Freyja’s plan to take another soul from someone close to Bo). I just can’t help but wonder if Bo is going to get out of wherever that elevator shaft is taking her before Kenzi makes that decision, or what would happen if Kenzi leaves for a second time without telling Bo.

And while it didn’t seem like Dyson and Lauren had too much going on in comparison to Bo heading off to meet her father, I feel like the episode did a great job raising the stakes for everyone. Whether it’s potential fallout from Dyson and Lauren trespassing in Valhalla as Freyja ordered Stacy to take another soul, or Tamsin’s bout of Valkyrie resting face leading to Bo doubting her again, or even Lauren turning to Tamsin and Trick to help Bo, there’s a sense they’re all ready to start making sacrifices to settle things once and for all. Which should mean plenty of answers and fun for us.

Lost items:

  • I’m not one to judge how someone snacks, but why did Tamsin have the world’s sharpest knife next to her while chowing on a sandwich?
  • Did anyone else get confused by all that white light and think for a second that Hale might be an angel?
  • “Please tell me that’s your resting Valhalla face.” This is why we need Kenzi for the final season.
  • And I’m calling it now: the answer to the Bo/Lauren/Dyson love triangle is her being with both of them. Digging Kenzi up is bonding time.

Lost Girl airs Sundays at 9 p.m. ET on Showcase.

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