Bernie Zuckerman and Canadian TV Drama

My taxi is speeding through southern Etobicoke and the driver poses this question.
"They make TV series down here?" he asks with a more than a tinge of skepticism.
Indeed they do --specifically the terrific police show King currently running on both Showcase and Global TV.
I'm on my way to interview executive producer Bernard Zuckerman for what must be the umpteenth time. For those of us who cover Canadian TV he is a symbol of survivability in a precarious business --making Canadian television.
Comfortably ensconced in an office that seems like a set right out of Mad Men --everything is so Fifties --Zuckerman ponders and says "We must have first met when I made And Then You Die in 1987."
"You see I always wanted to do Canadian TV movies and when they disappeared I had to switch to series. And here I am."
Brilliantly directed by Francis Mankiewicz, And Then You Die established Zuckerman as an incisive producer of reality drama --he'd come out of CBC-TV's current affairs department.
In 1990 he hit a home run with Love And Hate which was a rare CBC-CBS co-production that shone in the ratings on both side of the border and starred Kate Nelligan and Kenneth Welsh in the story of Colin and Joanne Thatcher.
Another big one was Dieppe (1993) starring Victor Gerber as Lord Louis Mountbatten, a Canadian saga if ever there was one --Prince Charles is said to have shuddered when he watched Garber's immaculate acting performance.
With Million Dollar Babies (1994) Zuckerman hired Beau Bridges as Dr. Allan Dafoe in the saga of the Dionne Quintuplets and once again CBS stepped for the American market.
"These days I wouldn't know who to reach at CBS," Zuckerman chuckles. "It's the same as at the Canadian networks where TV movies are out of style."
I remind Zuckerman of the time I was on the set of Savage Messiah (2002) and met the real victim whose arm was amputated by maniac //////////.
"That was a British co-production. We had to use Polly Ward in the lead and edit the film in London, England, which was quite pleasant."
With the two TV movies Chasing Cain and Chasing Cain: Face (2002) (starring Alberta Watson and Peter Outerbridge) Zuckerman used the plot of an older female partnered with a younger male detective.
Isn't this the basic plot of King, I innocently enquire?
"No! We should have sold that one to CBC as a series. But they had too many hour dramas right then."
Over at CTV Zuckerman did some of his best work: The Death And Life Of Nancy Eaton (2003), Murder In The Hamptons (2005) with David Sutcliffe and The Many Trials Of One Jane Doe (2005) with Wendy Crewson.
In 2004 he switched to series with CBC's This Is Wonderland starring Michael Riley. "It was often a complicated shoot," he says delicately of his often tumultuous relationship with creator George F. Walker.
After three seasons CBC cancelled the show calling it a 10 o'clock show "but they didn't have drama at 10 but news. We were on at 9 and that was simply too early in the evening for such fare."
CBC has yet to put out a boxed DVD of the third season --an example of the Corp's often lackadaisical approach to promoting Canadian content.
With King Zuckerman finds himself at Shaw Media which is revving up its Canadian production.
But why did the series go to air without an American co-producer (like Firewall or ()()()()()()).
"We did no pilot. I felt we didn't need one," Zuckerman says. "But that's what the U.S. networks want. They want to see a pilot and then make changes so they'll feel in charge. I'm still convinced we'll get an American pick up sooner than later."
Zuckerman says he had five strong choices for the lead of veteran detective Jessica King. "Amy Price-Francis was always the first choice for looks, acting ability and above all experience --she'd been in the first season of Californication."
Gabriel Hogan stars as her younger husband and Allen Van Sprang is her partner on the beat --I first interviewed hjm on the set of Earth: Final Conflict.
Co-executive producer Greg Spottiswood is the show runner and Zuckerman says "He's a real details man. He likes that kind of thing and it shows on camera. The show can only get better in the second year."
Joining the cast this year are Rossif Sutherland (ER) as joking hot shot detective Pen Martin and Karen Robinson as Ingrid Evans, one of Organized Crime Unit's most experienced members.
"We found ourselves very quickly in Year One," Zuckerman boasts. "In Year Two it's time to really shine."
And just to keep in the TV movie business Zuckerman produced the two hour TV movie John A. starring Peter Outerbridge as George Brown and Shawn Doyle as Sir John A. Macdonald.
"I was hoping for a string of movies like PBS's The Adams Chronicle. But ratings were low. So we'll see. In the Canadian TV business one must be an optimist."
THE SECOND SEASON OF KING DEBUTS ON SHOWCASE ON WED. FEB. 29 AT 9 P.M.
MY RATING: ***1/2.

The Oscars are Coming Up

Here's my chance to tout my own horn. If you want to learn more about the upcoming Oscars then google thecolumnists.com where editor Ron Miller has a right-on column about his ace predictions.
And yours truly contributes something I've been working on for a long time: Oscar's 10 Biggest Mistakes.
It all started in 1932-33 when Oscar voters picked Cavalcade as Best Picture o ver King Kong! And all these year's later which picture has slipped into obscurity and which picture continues to entrance audiences to this day?
It winds up with last year's blooper: the very nice, undemanding The King's Speech winning as best picture over The Social Network, a huge mistake if ever there was one.
And editor Miller has a dandy second column on a new category he wants to instigate: Noirscars --the best thriller or murder mystery of years past and present.

Neverbloomers Is Sheer Delight!

I've always approached the experience of reviewing a first film by a fledgling director with some trepidation.
If I go lightly with my criticism then I'm not serving the reader.
If I'm too heavy I could scare off the film maker and unwillingly abort a promising career.
So I approached the first feature by Montreal director Sharon Hyman with my usual anguish and palpitations.
A few minutes into it and I was feeling just fine, I need not have worried at all.
Called Neverbloomers: The Search For GrownUphood, it's all about a generation who feel stuck in perpetual adolescence.
Approaching 40 and they get all hot and bothered because of the perception they haven't really done anything with their lives.
Hymans ays at one point that at 40 she wanted to re-assess her situation and try calling forth the adult within her.
She's not a late bloomer as yet because she feels she's never quite bloomed at all.
And so she takes viewers on a journey that's both serious and comically wonderful.
She goes around filming the philosophies of those close to her: there's her mother who is a serene beauty, her next door neighbor who could be termed a real character, her Hassidic rabbi, doctors, a mentor, taxi idrivers , even strangers--over 30 of them and each has a nugget of philosophy to impart.
At one point she's chatting away to the camera and her friend seated across at the table is saying interesting things so Sharon simply pivots her camera and concentrates on her.
She's finding out that all of us never quite feel grown up and those of us searching for life's purpose are never satisfied with what we've achieved.
As Hyman finds out "My inner child is my outer child". Her Orthodox upbringing has certainly shaped her --she seems like a nice person to be friends with.
But does being an adult mean she has to be less nice, open and friendly? We all have our anxieties, she's told. But does she really want to go back to being a kid.
Tightly edited, the hour passes quickly because the content is both comical and deep. To get to this point in film making Hyman first got a Master's Degree in Educational Technology from Concordia University and was mentored by the NFB's documentary master Wolf Koening.
On Neverbloomers she wrote, edited, directed, produced and for all that I know also provided the catering services. Hyman jokes on the phone that she got partial funding from Quebec --being an English speaking director in Montreal almost constitutes an endangered species.
But like other young directors she is finding there are few spots left on Canadian TV for individualistic films like hers.
When CBC Newsworld morphed into CBC News network it abandoned quirky POV documentaries altogether.
TV Ontario buys fewer documentaries each year it seems and network series from W5 to Nature Of Things only commission films that suit their specialized needs.
Let's hope Hyman continues to grow as a director and gets her films aired. Neverbloomers is a strong beginning and highly recommended. It looks like it was made by a veteran with a dozen features to her credit.
NEVERBLOOMERS OREMIERS ON CBC's DOCUMENTARY CHANNEL ON MOND. FEB. 27 AT 8 P.M.
MY RATING: ***.

Well Why Not Here?

Talking to friends about town and we're all unanimous: the best program on TV in the past few weeks?
The Clinton Presidency on PBS's American Experience.
And once again I'm being asked why Canadian TV can't come up with such excellence?
Remember the two best specials on Canadian history this season have both come from PBS: The War Of 1812 and The Underground Railroad.
Why can't a channel like History --our Canadian version--occasionally match with something brilliant about home grown history.
Don't get me wrong I dig shows like History's Canadian PIckers although I'm not quite certain it should be on History. It really belongs on OLN I'm thinking.
And once upon a time we did have history programming that great. And it was on CBC.
Just as I began my long career as TV critic --I was at the Hamilton Spectator then --along came CBC-TV's mesmerizing The Tenth Decade produced by Cameron Graham.It examined the exciting decade from 1957 to 1967 when John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson battled it out daily in the House of Commons.
Cameron found a mighty treasure trove of archival material in CBC dungeons. And he had full cooperation of Pearson and Diefenbaker themselves who sat down for extensive interviews.
At eight one hours this was one of CBC's biggest ever triumphs. I'd drive into Toronto every week just to preview the next episode --there were no VHS copies in those days.
And Graham got so much material left over he fashioned two additional series --one on Pearson (First Person Singular) and one on Diefenbaker (One Canadian) that proved if anything anti-climactic.
So one would expect CBC would order a sequel to be titled The Eleventh Decade? Right?
Well, not quite, Prime Minister Trudeau refused to cooperate and without Trudeau it was impossible.
So CBC dithered until Trudeau left office and then CBC fashioned a series about his years as PM that was highly non-critical.
(First Person Singular). It bombed critically because he had control over content.
CBC has had a series on the Mulroney years that's been running on low for years and apparently can't be completed until Mulroney's legal problems are resolved.
I've heard nothing about a series on Jean Chretien's three terms as a majority prime ministership.
I also klnow Peter Desbarrats had a series ready to shoot on Robert Stanfield, leader of the Opposition when Trudeau was PM. After much dithering Global TV cancelled the project on the issue of money. The netwotk had none at that time.
In the meantime we'll all continue receiving our history lessons from PBS until future notice.

Hollywood Suite: Four New Canadian Movie Channels

You can celebrate 50 years of James Bond this weekend starting with the original Bond Sean Connery in Dr. No, from Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball.
The action revs up Friday Feb. 24 at 8 p.m.
On Saturday Feb. 25 there's Roger Moore in For your Eyes Only at 8 followed by The Spy Who Loved Me, Octopussy and A View To Kill.
On Sunday it's Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights and License To Kill.
There's just one catch. All you have to do is subscribe to Canadian TV's latest movie package called Hollywood Suite.
The fledgling service launched in December and is slowly building and available to subscribers of Bell, EastLink, TELUS Optik, SaskTel MAX, MTS Ultimate and Westman.
Missing so far are cable giants Rogers and Shaw which are famously hard bargainers.
A Toronto-based company Hollywood Suite was launched by cagey industry veterans Jay Switzer (as Chairman), Jeff Sackman, Michael McLaughlin, Catherine Tait and David Kines (as President)and is slowly but surely growing its subscriber base.
"I had to switch to Bell to get it at home," jokes programming vice president Ellen Baine who along with Switzer was once formed Citytv's powerhouse team.
Is there room for yet another movie package on Canadian TV?
"We obviously think so. There are four channels: the MGM Channel, WarnerFilms, Hollywood Storm and Hollywood Festival.
"There are no commercial interruptions although there could be commercials between the films. And all are going to be shown in HD. We're making a play for film buffs who want to watch beautiful copies of favorite films on their giant screens."
Every month upwards of 450 films will be unspooled, uncut and unedited.
The competition, of course, includes Turner Classic Movies and American Film Classics. Turner tends to go with older films and AMC which does have commercials has lately been switching to such series as Mad Men and The Walking Dead.
Getting the packages together has so far been the main preoccupation of Baine and her team.
Under license regulations 15 per cent of content must be Canadian.
"It's really been hard to get Canadian movies in HD. We have to order them specially. You'd think Atom Egoyan, his films must all be available in HD. Because that's the way to truly appreciate them. But, no, so we're creating a market for them but it will take time. At first not every Canadian title will be in HD."
Baine has extensive knowledge of Canadian movies from the days she toiled at Citytv which made showing Canadian features a priority.
To get the James Bond flicks Baine had to go back to the original contracts with the estate of Cubby Broccoli. "Of course they said yes. It's just that they just like to be in control of things."
"Watching them one after the other I realized how terrific Connery was but also how Roger Moore was a hit because he was very different in the part. You can be a fan of both their styles."I
She's now planning other similarly themed evenings. "Like a salute to Robin Hood --we'd start with Kevin Costner." Other contenders would include Russell Crowe, Errol Flynn, Cornel Wilde, Sean Connery, Cary Elwes and even Canadian Robin Dunne. and then have the others."
In between the movies she'd like to run movie related interviews --getting some of the best interviews done by the late, great Brian Linehan from city would certainly be a coup. How about running a Jane Fonda flick and then showing the original interview she made with Linehan to promote the feature?
Maybe one day there'll be a weekly movie review show?
"We've been working on getting an HD of A Hard Day's Night --that's coming soon."
For example on Tuesday I noticed WarnerFilms had High Sierra (1940) and The Maltese Falcon (1941) running in freshly struck HD.
The MGM Channel had a pristine print of The Pink Panther
On Hollywood Storm it was Varian's War and The Karate Kid. And Hollywood Festival had Driving Miss Daisy and Bird.
Hollywood Suite has a free preview running until Feb. 19 for those who can already receive the four channels.
The rest of us can only wait --and hope.

David Suzuki Journeys To The Disaster Zone

"This is one of those Nature Of Things programs I felt compelled to do, no question about that," says David Suzuki.
On the line from Calgary where he's making another NOT program, Suzuki is energetically pushing Journey To The Disaster Zone" Japan 3/11 which examines the after effects of the tsunami which wiped away thousands of coastal homes and thousands of lives and triggered a potential nuclear disaster that still haunts the nation.
Disaster is the first film made by Michael Allder since leaving NOT after 14 seasons as executive producer and one of the finest I've seen in recent years.
It hits all the buttons as it examines the strange Japanese reaction to these twin disasters.
"That's what floored me," Suzuki says. Although born in Canada he has deep roots in Japan --his grandparents returned to the country after World War II.
"What I witnessed was a degree of acceptance not seen in western countries. If this had happened in Canada there'd be demonstrations, outrage. In Japan there's resignation and acceptance. I think it comes from the postwar period of occupation and the reverence for all things American."
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9 earthquake slammed into the northeastern shore of Japan followed a half hour later by a monster tsunami with waves as high as 30 meters that washed away everything and everybody in its wake. And it also triggered a nuclear meltdown that still affects crops and fishing in this area --and will for decades to come.
Allder has come away with real finds in terms of footage unseen outside Japan. In one scene we're at a gigantic bridge that joined two mountainous regions --on that day school children were encouraged to congregate there and watch the tides which swept right over them killing all the children and teachers.
"If those kids had gone up the hill they could have been saved. The teachers thought it was too steep. We show the school which is no vacant, a chilling sight."
The consequences of the nuclear meltdown are just as chilling. "The local fish --inedible, it's a huge area and the Japanese are reliant on fish.The irony isn't lost on those who remember Hiroshima. Why would a country with that history ever believe in nuclear energy?"
We see Suzuki visiting with old friends and surveying the new technologies which can record up to 300 tiny earthquakes a day in the country. "And yet six nuclear plants (out of 56) are still going strong, the long term consequences we just don't know."
"The quake should be a lesson for us all. It shows the limitations of science when dealing with natural disasters. I was glad we came and think this one is very important. as you know for some seasons CBC only wanted us as a series to start in January. Now with the cuts coming up we'll have to see, nobody knows what is coming."
JOURNEY TO THE DISASTER ZONE:JAPAN 3/11 PREMIERES ON THE NATURE OF THINGS THURSD. FEB. 23 AT 8 P.M.
MY RATING: ****.

Descending: Must-Watch TV!

One of Canadian TV's biggest hits in recent years was Departures which ran three seasons on OLN garnering big audiences as well as international awards.
Building on that stature Hamilton-based filmmakers Scott Wilson and Andre Dupuis have now turned to another facet of world exploration: the ocean depths. Catch the first episode Sunday night at 9 on OLN.
In the new travel series Descending the twosome have made a hauntingly beautiful series of hours about their dives around the world.
The first episode is a must-see experience as it carefully builds up audience anticipation of what to expect.
First we're introduced to cast and crew: boyish adventurer Wilson we already know about but this time as he explains he is confronted with a whole lot of new challenges.
Underwater photography is a challenge in itself --we see the guys trying out their equipment in a deep community pool. The lights have to be tested and there's some getting used to the glare which in real situations (like murky waters) probably won't seem as intense.
State-of-art technology allows new microphones set right in the helmet so the team can readily communicate with each other.
In the first episode the crew travels to New Zealand to join up with veteran Kiwi co-host Ellis Emmett (from OLN's Don't Forget Your Passport) who takes them to some familiar and some totally new locations for dives off the NZ islands.
We learn only one per cent of the ocean has ever been explored this way and all the dangers that threaten the oceans in this era of mass pollution. The hour was designed to carefully introduce us to this New World, satisfy our curiosity but not completely over whelm us with facts.
We get to know prankster Emmett and see the fantastic house he lives in in the middle of nowhere. The coasts of NZ seem like magical places and once the cameras get down there the amazing images speak for themselves:there are sightless eels, dozens of species of fish most people have never seen, black coral which is actually white, in short the last unexplored world left on planet earth.
By humanizing the journey and showing off the quirks of crew members and letting us see what makes them tick Descending gradually becomes compulsively viewable.
Technical aspects are spectacular with cinematographer Dupuis surely up for many awards for his dazzling scenes of wonderment.
My only regret is the length --I could have watched another hour of this and still not been satisfied.
Wilson and Emmett do not talk down to their audience but rather bring us along as they tease each other and in one case save each other from possible tragedy --it happens when Emmett begins experiencing the bend in fairly deep water.
It was made by Echo Bay Media co-founded by Andre Dupuis asnd Wilson and is produced by Jennifer Howe and Jeff Wilson.
This 13-parter will have you anxious to catch each episode. It builds on the skills developed during the making of Departures and is one of the very few must-see Canadian TV experiences of the season.
DESCENDING PREMIERES ON OLN ON SUND. FEB. 19 AT 9 P.M.
MY RATING: ****.