Any time someone pontificates about Canada, they're going to get it in the neck - from regionalists who get red faced when any region but their own gets a moment in the spotlight, from people who simply feel <em>their</em> agenda isn't being represented. But those decrying the series' omissions are missing its intent.
04/19/2017 03:57 EDT
Two Canadian dramas are aiming to bring a bit of cable edge to mainstream networks. "Pure" is a crime-drama whose premise might sound like a joke: The Mennonite Mob! While "Mary Kills People" is about a doctor who has an illegal side-line helping people commit suicide.
01/23/2017 05:42 EST
How will Donald Trump's America affect Canadian film and TV shows? OK -- that probably sounds like the weirdest angle on
11/21/2016 05:06 EST
Kim's Convenience may be breaking ground with its Korean-Canadian focus. But arguably it can still fall into the trap of putting people into "us" and "them" boxes. And, sadly, that too shows how truly universal it is.
11/14/2016 05:40 EST
I'm going to bang on some more about the recent controversy about the CRTC (the Canadian TV/Radio regulatory body) and its proposal to loosen rules regarding importing talent to work on Canadian productions. I'm re-visiting it because folks in Canadian film/TV are angry and it's worth drawing more of the audience's attention to the matter.
09/06/2016 01:52 EDT
The rules weren't put in place to keep out imported talent -- they were put in place because no one trusted producers to give domestic talent a fair shake. (And history has shown this isn't just paranoia). So why does the CRTC want to change this?
08/29/2016 03:28 EDT
Storytellers often draw upon what they know. You could program an entire cable network with nothing but movies and TV shows self-reflectively set within the world of Hollywood. Yet the Canadian film and TV industry has rarely been explored in Canadian films or TV.
08/22/2016 02:09 EDT
Is the problem deeper than faceless executives supposedly redacting Canadiansms from scripts? Maybe too many of the writers and actors and directors themselves don't know any better. And they don't care.
08/12/2016 04:55 EDT
There are different ways we define our society: One: the way we genuinely perceive it. Two: the way we want to perceive it (and how we want others to perceive it). Three: the society we want it to become. The Canada I perceive, the values I think it represents -- might not be yours.
08/08/2016 08:18 EDT
Premiering May 26th on Global is a new light-hearted Canadian detective series starring Jason Priestley and Cindy Sampson and called, bluntly enough, Private Eyes. It's a fairly generic light-hearted PI series. And I actually mean that as a compliment!
05/26/2016 02:38 EDT
The point is: when people resist more open casting, in a lot of cases they don't really think they have any particular prejudice. They are acting upon a vague feeling. It feels "right" to them to have a white man as the hero because those are the heroes they grew up with, that inspired them to then create their own stories. It feels "normal." Until someone comes along, challenges that norm -- and they realize, 'Hey, this works, too!'
03/21/2016 11:24 EDT
One of the first pieces I had posted on Huffington Post Canada was commenting on a proposal for an ill-fated TV specialty
08/02/2015 07:27 EDT
Science fiction fans might want to note two series that recently premiered: Dark Matter and Killjoys. Killjoys is created by Michelle Lovretta, who created the popular fantasy series, The Lost Girl. While Dark Matter comes from creators who oversaw the Canadian-made StarGate TV series.
06/22/2015 05:35 EDT
Recently the various major Canadian TV networks and media conglomerates have announced their up-coming Canadian fall programming. Um -- so what do you call a press release announcing something that doesn't exist?
06/14/2015 10:58 EDT
But that's an interesting aspect of these Canadian series: not only are there still male-led series (like <em>Murdoch Mysteries</em>) but there are plenty of good male roles in these female-led series. There's far more gender <em>balance</em> in casting than a lot of the traditional male-led series.
06/03/2015 05:18 EDT
I was mulling over writing again about the TV medical drama, Remedy -- when it was announced that Remedy has been cancelled
05/25/2015 04:23 EDT
Personally I think sites like TV, Eh?, First Weekend Club and Eye on Canada that focus on Canadian productions are good, at least for people specifically looking for that topic. So maybe a preferred venue is a more mainstream newspaper or website that include Canadian coverage next to the more obvious Hollywood stuff.
05/17/2015 11:43 EDT
If we want people to take Canadian film and TV seriously -- then we need critics to take them seriously. I think it was Socrates who said: "The unexamined sitcom isn't worth laughing at." (I might be paraphrasing).
05/11/2015 12:24 EDT
People maybe should be talking about Canadian TV drama more. I know that's a strange opening statement given blogs are a-buzz over the CRTC's new rules and regulations overhauling television broadcasting. But quotas and points systems and funding is all well and good, but the main goal is getting shows on the air and eyeballs glued to those shows. And there are recent occurrences that warrant a bit of analysis.
03/18/2015 01:00 EDT
Let's look at two Canadian medical dramas: the aforementioned Remedy and CTV's Saving Hope. Both are slick, set at a big city hospital, featuring some Canadian stars with an international profile, mixing soap opera-y threads with medical crises of the week.
03/02/2015 12:06 EST
